Mongoose Distro

Slums To Ashes: The Tragic Truth of the “War on Drugs” – by Noah “Kado” Coffin

Friday, August 28^th 2020. Just another day that mirrors all those which came before it in the crowded confines of my stone and steel cage here in South Texas’ Eastham Unit. Just now it is blisteringly hot as the horrid Texas sun bakes this red brick oven. In a few weeks it’ll be freezing cold. My life is in phases of extremes. Extreme poverty, followed by extreme Justice, then extreme isolation and extreme hot or cold. The emotional roller coaster is certainly an extreme ride.

Covid-19 quarantine lock downs have meant no visitations, limited access to 5 minute call attempts, (only two tries of connecting before you go to the end of a long line and damn if family or friends have jobs or schedules…) and peanut butter or egg sandwiches 99% of this year. Not much to do except wait for a letter, workout as much as you dare on such a meal plan and if you’re able to – read a book.

When the cop shows up at my door telling me to “cuff up” I already see what kind of day today has become. As the noise and chatter of 51 segregated prisoners fall to a complete hush, I realize that they know too. Anyone who’s done “hard time” (as solitary confinement is coined) knows intimately what such an instance foretells…

I can vividly recall from early childhood my mothers’ trip to prison for small time dealing. A single widow with six kids on welfare in the South Texas slums. Supplementing her income of 2.15 per hour “plus tips” by hustling joints and dimes to folks needing a bit more escape than what their Busch or Keystone could offer. A good ol’ American bust on the dreaded drug war front line. I shudder to think of how many casualties my widowed mother would have just piled up had Uncle Sam not put her away and shatter her already fractured home.

Even more detailed in memory, I’m able to call up images of a sick and bedridden mother who can’t stop throwing up, using the toilet or hold down anything but iced milk because she’d run out of her “pain management medication”. Oh, but the dealer had a permit. That dealer sold for the Pharma Cartel and Uncle Sam got his cut, so nevermind that the legal heroin they spoon fed my struggling mother was beyond addictive, deadlier than black tar for its availability and addictive properties – it had the approval of Congress.

So I don my ridiculous Covid-19 mask, submit to restraints and I’m escorted to the desk of a L.T. I’ve done this a time or three during my hard time stint and even once before in General Population. Ten years of Texas Tuff Justice and I’m already running out of reasons for a trip like this.

The L.T. Dials a number I know yet have seldom called due to these restraints and my custody level. He says a few words and hits speaker phone so I could share this travesty with him. My oldest brother is hesitant and uncertain as he tells me of my mothers overdose. Many voices I’ve not heard in a decade or longer come through on the speaker. They are people I once knew, like my mother, but a decade is a long time and so I cannot say I know them now. Time changes people. Once I learn the whole situation I’m obligated to end my brother’s hopes that I could attend the service. (I’m not able to attend a shower alone, without restraints and an escort) I ask for photos and suddenly I want to be anywhere but in that office. I need to do pull ups until my rusted locker pulls down off the wall and so I cut the call short. My social skill aren’t what they once were. My brother concedes that he has to cremate Mom. We’re a poor family. Seems my mother never made it far in her life. She never left the confines of her poverty or addiction. She struggled to get SSI until she died. Well there’s a few mountain peaks far from this nightmare my mother lived and died in and I think I’ll take those ashes to the heights and let them fly when or if I leave this place. 60 months to discharge and 120 months done, but my casualties have been pretty substantial thus far.

By the time that sanctioned dope ended my mothers’ life and struggle it had eaten through her stomach. (She had feces in her stomach when they tried to pump it) As I reread an article by John Whitehead titled “Tomato Gardeners: The Latest Victim in the Government’s War on Drugs” I cannot fathom the elitists voracious appetite for wealth, nor by which means they’ll go to gather that abundance. It’s not about those peoples’ potential drug operation. It’s about money. The government will supply a dealer the product, offer them protection, bailouts if they need, tax cuts and benefits and a retirement if they’ll sling dope for ol’ Uncle Sam, but if you’re in any way trying to hold out then they’ll come at you with an organized force that no cartel or mafia in all of history could rival. Your taxes fund that capability and our collective ignorance, complacence and “look the other way, not my issue” attitude allow it to continue. Whitehead’s article exposes a turf war, not a war on drugs! Marijuana?! Come on people! Go to any place a dispensary is “legal” and that’s A-OK because that’s Uncle Sam’s block and his product.

Don’t mistake me here. I’m not for dealing rights – obviously I’m not that fond of dope. I see it for its truth – a cafe and an assault on the people. Dulling the senses and making them pliable. What better way to rule a mass of subjects than to drug them and zombify them? Inside these walls it’s done with other “less fun” drugs, but it all works in much the same way. Control and power to proceed as pleased.

People, just wake up. Don’t be fooled by slight of hand or slick explanations. Don’t listen to what people or government tell you. Look at what’s being done. They can call raids on a homestead tomato farmer, or a poverty stricken widow, a drug war policy, but if you really just tune out their rhetoric and look at the situation you’d see it for what it is. Why the muscle of military and police would be applied on potential small time dealers if that same entity sells it “legit”? That’s easy to see, but if people are stoned on legal dope or duped by the word game then it’s not so easy to make the connection. This isn’t just advice on how to spot a government turf war. It needs to be applied to every situation concerning the government (or to personal life). Look at it. Don’t take anyone’s word for it.

In Solidarity,

Noah “Kado” Coffin

Please direct all letters or support in solidarity to:

Noah Coffin #1795167

Eastham Unit

2665 Prison Road #1

Lovelady, Texas 75851

email: www.jpay.com

Instagram: @comradekado

Slow Down and Love Someone – by Jeffrey Prager

Today I want to talk to you about making the people that you love feel as loved as you say. You never know what someone is going through mentally or how long they may still be around.

My name is Jeffrey Prager, 30, and I’m currently at a psychiatric prison facility in east Texas. Suicidal thoughts get me here. What triggered them? In the next few paragraphs I’m going to give you a brief depiction of my life and explain why it is important to “slow down and love someone”.

I grew up with a pedophile father who was very abusive mentally, physically and sexually. At a young age I was beaten, molested, locked in a closet, forced to eat dog food, forced to stand and kneel on rice till my feet and knees bled. I was bullied by both my brothers and sisters.

After a few suicide attempts, I felt enough was enough and ran away. I was 14 years old. This is when my life of crime and drugs started. I used alcohol, weed, pills, heroin and meth to help me cope with the long time effects of the abuse I endured. To pay for the drugs I burglarized, stole and robbed. I was 19 when I went to prison for the first time.

When I was released from a 18 month bid on a 3 year sentence I decided to get my life on track. I landed me a job, made a friend and met a beautiful woman I had a beautiful daughter with. I was mentally in heaven. That is until I came home from work one night to find my best friend in bed with my fiance. I was so crushed I went back to drugs. The drugs led me to lose my job and back to the life of crime until I went to prison again.

When I was released I decided to give the right path a chance again for my daughter. I got me a job, car, place to stay and met another beautiful woman. Life was good. I fathered a second daughter in 2016. I thought everything was perfect till I found my now ex in bed with a stranger. I was DESTROYED and back on the path of drugs and crime.

I am now serving a 15 year sentence for robbery. It’s been a very hard sentence because I lost my mom to suicide. Both sets of grandparents found out my youngest daughter wasn’t mine and 12 weeks ago I received the news that my only biological child passed away because of Covid-19.

Although I feel defeated I was strong enough to ask for help. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about suicide. Someone out there, please help me. If you have dealt with the loss of a child and gotten over it, please write me so I can get through this battle.

Also, if you love someone with your whole heart please show them so because you never know what they are going through. Not everybody is strong enough to ask for help. Slow down and love someone.

Looking forward to feedback

Jeffrey Prager 2060601

379 FM 2972 W.

Rusk, Texas 75785

FUCK YOUR SYSTEMS – by Comrade K@do

Do you take sunshine for granted? I don’t In the 6+ years of solitary confinement now coined “Restrictive Housing” due to “legal push back”, I’ve had zero sunlight. The 4+ years prior to that in General Population was much the same. “Short staffed” is often the excuse, but the staffing explanation isn’t even necessary as, much to my disdain, people simply lay down and accept this! It’s a push, a nudge, a testing of the fortifications. The elitists for time immemorial have patiently tested methods of control and subjugation. Like a slow boil to a toad in the pot these methods have reached the boiling point and the people simply take what’s crammed down their throats. Those who don’t take it laying down think they’re in the action but fail to realize they’ve swallowed whole an indoctrination of propaganda and lies thus too becoming a tool for the very machine that oppresses and manipulates us all to its agenda. Systems which are created by the minds of elitist pigs can not be “reformed”. They simply must cease to exist. Pursuit of “legal” actions is pro-system and anti-freedom. The legal action to end inhumane solitary in Texas was successful in changing the name of solitary to “Restrictive Housing”. I see no change. I’m still here.

Noah Coffin #1795167

Eastham Unit

2665 Prison Road 1

Lovelady, Texas 75851

IG: @comradekado

Fight The New Normal – by Noah Coffin

Covid-19, whether real, imagined or blown outta proportion, there lies behind this scene a very real threat to us all non-elite. Check out Senate Bill HR 6666 116 Congress. If that doesn’t give you cause for pause, then this chip patent Code 060606 should. The well-known elitist Bill Gates is funding Powerhouse behind its production. Further, this guy is the man behind the curtain for the Imperial College London, which is where all statistics aired on mainstream media outlets (all of which in the past have been far below actual numbers), are modeled. Over in China Covid-19 immediately ended all protests in Hong Kong, Wuhan and another major city close by. Convenient.

Following the “pandemic” one could easily see that people are being especially agreeable with anything governments implement, while too accepting “stimulus bills” without question or protest. Trillions of tax dollars have been now used by government without so much as question from the frightened sheep in the United States. For your thoughts, 330 million residents reside here in the USA, give or take. A mere $1,200 was given to each pending approval. The 2.2 trillion dollar bill could have allowed a million each without touching the change on that bill!! Corporate America is booming while little guys like Mom-and-Pop stores go under.

Bill Gates has recently invested in medical supplies, along with many elite entities, but did so a month or more before this “pandemic” struck. Wake up out there!!! People have died, sure. Yet each year there’s between 40-100 thousand flu deaths in America alone. Sucks, but don’t let government use fear to tighten the leash on you. “Never allow a good crisis to go to waste” – a very familiar statement. Socialism = Communism & Communism = Totalitarianism. Resist government control or be forever held prisoner by those freedoms you’ve relinquished to them. People seem to forget that governments only are as powerful as you let them be. All this Dog & Pony Show politics have created complacent and ignorant fools ready to believe any load of crap their favorite candidate puts out. Bill Gates openly speaks for population control. Do you trust guy making some vaccine for you? Check out those before mentioned bills, folks. It’s about to get real. Don’t be beaten by fear. It’s the type of weapon which time and time again elitists have used to win wars they couldn’t otherwise overcome. Don’t give up without a fight. Follow the money and you’ll see what’s really going on.

If you have family or friends locked up in prison or jail wherever – contact them. These are conditions where any kind of flu can be serious. Congested environments are breeding grounds for disease and prison is an ugly place to die. It’s oppressive, it’s lonely, hostile.

In closing, how about Gregg Abbott? Whether parole eligible or not, Mr. Abbott states, “We’re not letting anybody go”. I feel for anyone who came here with 2-years and dies of Covid-19. Parole is a joke when it’s “discretionary”.

Noah Coffin #1795167

Eastham Unit

2665 Prison Road #1

Lovelady, Texas 75851

END UNPAID LABOR: Stop Working for Free in TDC!!

Houston was right to reject a contract with a state program that exploits inmate workers. American businesses often bemoan the struggle to compete with companies making products in foreign countries where weak worker rights drive down the cost of labor.

Profiting off the exploitation of workers is as unfair as it is immoral. So why do we still allow it in Texas? It’s a question getting renewed attention after the Chronicle reported last week about two Houston city council members who took a quiet stand against the practice and won! As the Chronicle’s Dylan McGuiness reported, a low bid by the Texas Dept. of Minimal Justice on a deal to replace tire treading on city vehicles raised red flags for council members, especially Abbie Kamin.

As Kamin soon learned, the state agency was able to outbid the competition because it doesn’t just underpay its workers. With few exceptions, it doesn’t pay workers at all. In Texas, it seems, taking a person’s liberty isn’t punishment enough. We force them into servitude too.

Kamin and fellow council member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz quietly sent the contract back to Mayor Sylvester Turner and asked him to put out a new request for bids with language requiring compensation for workers. At the end of October, the city selected a private vendor, whose $4.6 million bid came in at about $422,000 more than TDCJ’s. We commend the city officials who chose the right thing, but that’s not where this should end.

The move should send a message to Texas officials and to anyone who profits off the work of unpaid incarcerated workers. It’s time to end this practice that carries the shameful tinge of slavery and the remnants of our state’s ugly history of convict leasing.

Texas is one of only five states, all in the south, where workers in correctional facilities are not paid. In 45 other states, the average minimum wage for the inmates is about 85 cents a day and the average maximum is $3.45, Wander Bertram, a spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative told the editorial board.

In Texas, which has one of the nation’s largest prison populations, any TDCJ inmate who is physically able to work is required to, but all are unpaid except inmates participating in the Prison Industries Enhancement certification program. They receive between $8.42 and $10.82 per hour, with the bulk of that going to pay for room and board, crime victim compensation and taxes. Currently 66 inmates are in that program. The 122,000-odd other offenders in TDCJ custody get NO PAY for jobs that include picking crops, making soap, building furniture and working in a tire retreading factory.

Their labor helps make the TCI one of the most profitable in the country. In the 2019 fiscal year, TCI reaped $73.8 million from sales from items such as mattresses, shoes, garments, brooms, license plates, soaps, furniture, and services including the installation of furniture and metal fencing and refurbishing school buses. The money goes to providing cost savings to the TDCJ and other eligible entities while providing incarcerated offenders with post-release employment readiness to increase their reentry success, according to the TDCJ website. The state is profiting from forced, free labor, just as it did during the racist Jim Crow-era system of convict leasing, in which black people were imprisoned often for violating unjust laws, leased by the state to companies and made to work without pay in sugar cane fields and railroads. It was wrong then, and it is wrong NOW.

Loss of freedom is already punishment for crime. We should not strip human beings of the dignity that comes from being compensated for work. There is value in vocational training and certification programs for incarcerated people and in the simple task of working, which can provide those in prison with a sense of purpose and structure. But denying incarcerated workers pay does nothing to aid rehabilitation or reentry into society.

More than 260,000 people have signed a petition calling for the end of prison labor, which was also a key demand during the 2018 Nationwide Prison Strike. This week, federal lawmakers were expected to introduce a joint resolution that would begin the process of amending the Constitution to update that language in the 13^th Amendment that allows involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. “We must take an overdue step towards those principles by ending the loophole in our ban on slavery”, Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat and one of the Resolutions sponsors, tweeted on Wednesday.

“No slavery, No exceptions”. That’s what my #abolitionamendment will do. If the proposal fails in committee during the current congress, Merkley told the Associated Press he plants to revive it next year. We urge congress to pass the resolution. In Texas, state representative Alma Allen plans to file a bill that would set pay standards for prisoners. A similar bill, which would have set a minimum pay of $1 per day, never made it out of committee last session.

When lawmakers convene in January, they’ll have another chance to do the right thing, both morally and economically in a state that loudly espouses the virtues of economic competition. Exploiting workers is wrong the world over – in China, in Bangladesh, and yes, in the Great State of Texas.

So lay it down Darrington. All eyes are on you. Make history now. Lay it down. You don’t have to work any more until you get your demands met.

UNCONDITIONAL WORK STOPPAGE AND WIN!!

Dear Anarchists – by Comrade Z

Dear Anarchists,

I come to speak about the personal stand that I am making against this slave camp. It is a known fact: Julio A. Zuniga, a.k.a. Comrade Z, is a certified member of IWW-IWOC. Said wobbly, is in fact a known activist to raise awareness about dangerous and illegal working conditions for any human being or animal. For the past months of the Coronavirus outbreak “Z” has been very effective in raising awareness and bringing in outside organizers to test, feed, clean, spray for insects, get phone calls, expose cruel and unusal treatment of offenders, reporting suicides and anything that is oppressive to the populace and reporting it to organizers and activists. We need organizers to register on TexasPrisonPhone.com and for media outlets to register to assist in organizing a strike at Dirty Darrington Farm. We need people to come and express solidarity on these grounds. We want the community to work to abolish solitary confinement, abolish disgusting work conditions and disgusting administrators who are abusing their positions and mistreating the workers at the Trustee Camp, like Lt. Wilcox and Major Penkowsky, who is the farm administrator. We need Sgt. Estrada and Sgt. Williams investigated for sanctioning the use of body-slamming offenders in hand restraints. Just this past weekend (October 15-20) it occurred. Its shakedown team officers Sandoval, Obaseki and others that are finding it real easy to assault inmates for no reason. We need these tactics that killed George Floyd to end here in this slave camp. Workers who do not have energy after slaving on the camp do not pose a threat in hand restraints. This needs to be taken directly to the regional director and the state capital. Their design has failed society and only serves their personal interests. I find myself with minimal means in combating the entire population. I need everyone to rise up and bring the heaviest, hardest campaign of love and solidarity. We need people out there to insist and encourage all members of the prison population in Texas to stop working for the state of Texas for free. They are abusing their power and using violence to keep slaves scared of them so they don’t try to say or do anything to expose them. You know what I say? Fuck Warden Armstrong, fuck Asst. Warden Chevalier and Warden Powers. Fuck Major Pharr and Major Gooden, the walking sexual harrassment himself. Fuck Captain Cooper, Lt. Brooks, Lt. Wilcox, Lt. “Dumbo”ya. Fuck classification for abusing the mentally ill. Fuck all of these motherfuckers. Let me show you all what “workers power” can do. This is a call to arms. Without you, I’m standing against all of these people alone. Register your #s. Help me organize this all out strike. We are not being treated the way a worker should be. People are being forced to work under threat of violence, under threat of solitary confinement and starvation. If this is policy, then all of their PREA posters and logos need to be removed, because administration is raping everyone. We need outside families to acknowledge that this is not justice. It’s racist, it’s slavery, it’s also a death camp. I will do everything to expose each member of TDCJ-Darrington in all their Confederate ideology. We live in 2020, not 1933. With all the suicides occurring, why nobody is asking for these warden’s resignations is beyond me. I need some serious communication with hardcore abolitionists who have time to agitate with me steadily. The more the merrier. We’ve got a lot of work to cover and without communication this is just getting worse by the minute. Last but not least, I am wondering how my ideology get’s retaliated against. For trying to do good for the workers, my tattoo magazines get denied. I noticed that while they say it is “sexually explicit” material, even though it’s not. Ms. Ford denies my 1040 forms and the guy behind me, I watched her give him books on “pimpology”, Penthouse and little naked women photos. I had just had a conversation with her about them retaliating on me for being an IWW-IWOC member. She denies it, yet the “sexually explicit” material is only being held from me. Solidarity in the form of a 1040 is sexually explicit? This is retaliation and I need it addressed by fellow workers. In the meantime, I need to begin organizing a strike for Squad 4/5 on H-Line, for abusive treatment of workers and foul working conditions with no safety equipment and a lack of medical treatment for the sick. We need help and I’m waiting for someone to help me steadily push this issue. All available hands on deck. To all fellow workers that have catapulted me this far, thank you. I appreciate y’all for the love and solidarity. These are the names of the entire operation’s slave drivers who do not advocate for better portions of food, safety equipment or medical: Lt. Sylvester, Sgt. Gilbert, Sgt. Irvan, Officer Eleoba, Officer Ellis and Officer Gipson. Field squad and Major Penkowsky need to get to know us pretty well, starting now. Please do not take this lightly and do not hesitate to attack the farm on your own terms. I can use all the help I can get.

Solidarity,

Julio A. Zuniga #1961551

Darrington Unit

59 Darrington Road

Rosharon, Texas 77583

IG: @julioazunigaart

@mongoosedistro

Darrington State Farm, est. 1933: a call for Texas prisoners and anarchists – by Julio. A. Zuniga

This is for all the suffering in TDCJ torture chambers across the state.

In this struggle, you can’t stay quiet. Speak up, reach out,

let your anarchist seeds sprout.

Welcome to Rosharon, Texas, a scar on the landscape of Texas’ nature, a place where human slavery continues and of which the thousands of acres of land were acquired by the infamous slave labor contracting of the late 1890s and early 1900s. Late in 2019 Darrington’s sister units in Sugarland, Texas unveiled its racist face when the remains of 95 contract slave labor inmates were stumbled upon behind an elementary school, a cold reminder and slap in the face to the African-American communities of the present time and human race in general. Prisons are monuments dedicated to slavery, oppression, and repression, the list is much too long, but the prie of the Texas Department of Minimal Justice marches on as it has back then. Only politicians, wardens, and administration profits from its slave labor.

If you are a simple minded man as I, you’ll know that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is anything but justifiable for slavery, torture, murder, abuse, etc. Therefore I say: “Abandon all hope all ye who enter here” is the motto I coined for this system born in Texas, in honor of the Sugarland 95 who’s voice is now the voice I will rely upon to shut this unit down. The death of 95 units in Texas wouldn’t begin a grain of salt’s worth of healing, but would be a start to repaying for their deaths. Contract slave labor accumulated roughly 70,000 acres of land for Texas Department of Corrections. It’s time to honor the slaves by changing this ancient racist regime of oppression. Starting today, in the midst of a recession and pandemic of Covid-19 ravaging the world and its inhabitants, the impact of these thoughts are my reality and my only hope, in achieving these tasks.

Anarchist Mongoose Matt, a solid and dear friend of mine, asked me a question that spawned at the most critical moment, “What would TDCJ gain from paying slaves wages for their various jobs that really belong to the corrections officers?”. I’m no inventor or academic. I’m uneducated, so please forgive me if I don’t know how to perform proper writing etiquette or composition, but I do have an idea, an idea I actually shared with Dirty Darrington population members of SWBSC, which I’m sure got laughed at. Not all were laughing though. Some came back and shared with me their personal thoughts and opinions. I was relieved and grateful for their courage to speak up on it.

Solitary Confinement, B Line, 3 Row, 8 Cell at Dirty Darrington – I was going fucking nuts, battling roaches, killer dust, crazy Cos, starvation, noise, fires, flooding, lockdowns, torture, torture, torture, day in day out. Only time I had my welcomed conversations came from some of the toughest men I’ve ever met. Respect is unlimited but mostly love is unlimited. Now, before I continue, it is possible their kindness was motivated by their faith but it was enough to drive my brain into iconoclastic individualism and anarchism, and that’s not something you see everyday, or year. It’s a shame.

If our safety was in their best interest, you’d be paid to work your asses off for the state, so you wouldn’t have to hustle for hygiene, or a soup. Contraband is a form of currency. They know this. It’s another control tool for them to keep you here. I’m for the hustle, but when it’s used as an entrapment tool and you don’t realize you’re the victim of it, who wins?

Too many good men are missing out on real incentives Texas government is stripping you of every year. While you slave their farms, their pockets grow huge, while you starve and wither, your broken heart’s swallowing pride, when you can be receiving what is rightfully yours. Freedom. I’m calling on organizers today to spread the good word across Texas prisons, to stop slaving for TDCJ. Anarchism will lay it down. Anarchism will defy your slave driver, stop and demand your good time/work time credits, demand better food, demand fairness in UCC committees, demand better health care, demand wages for slave labor to increase the livelihood of indigent offenders, demand better clothing, radios, shoes. Demand it for the future of Texas Department of Minimal Justice. The state has bled you of all humanity.

How much longer will you love your slave masters for denying you your family? It’s cruel and unusual punishment. Your faith allows you certain foods that comply with religion. Demand it. Do it now. Lay it down and demand the capital give back and don’t slack. We are so far behind in the criminal justice system. All 49 states behind us are laughing while they freely buy chips and dip with cash from their commissaries. You must see the vision and end Texas criminal justice. Now!

No matter how, or when, strike. Strike now. No mercy. Do not let these political pigs keep us down. Your good time/work time is a control tool that criminologists created to keep you docile, mind fucking us all while you suffer. They create new ways to break your spirit, beginning with the TDCJ director on down: wardens, majors, captains, lieutenants. Doesn’t matter the title, all are here to make you lash out, fuck up, so they can smile at you and send you to an endless downward spiral of solitary confinement to break you, keep your mind off of the most important things in life: family, solidarity, equality, rehabilitation. Nothing is sacred in their eyes. All you are is an algorithm, a statistic, a number, a slave. How much longer?

These “cease to speak or cease to breath” tactics are no longer something I fear. I’m moving forward as a single voice against the peace and dignity of the state, to take back what was taken from us all. Freedom.

Rise to the top. Hunger strike, work stoppage, you have more to gain than you have to lose, and in my eyes we’ve lost way too much for far too long. Lay it down, Texas. Regain privileges. Regain peace of mind. Regain freedom.

Julio A. Zuniga #1961551

Darrington Unit

59 Darrington Road

Rosharon, Texas 77583

Conquering Without War: World Rulers’ Tactics of Control – by Noah “Comrade K@do” Coffin

One of the oldest writings on how to apply force, oppression, and dominance over others would be Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Though written many thousands of years ago the rulers of today’s world continue to utilize the cold, cruel and efficient logic to their approach in subduing an opposing force or an unruly mass of citizens under their “governance”.

To win a conflict without going to battle was considered by Sun Tzu to be the greatest victory. Some examples of this logic applied in grizzly detail would be the intentional spread of disease. One of the oldest recorded instances of a disease being weaponized was 1343 AD when East Central Asian tartars invading Crimea catapulted their own infected and dying of “The Black Death” or Bubonic Plague into strongholds of besieged Crimeans. The result was simply a waiting game. Skip a hundred years or so into the future and see smallpox do its dirty work throughout the Americas.

While biological warfare certainly still exist today, there are more stable, efficient means of winning without war and as little collateral damage possible. After all, governments are made rich and powerful on the backs of their citizens and by the spilt blood of their military men, women, etc. Make no mistake, every government rules its own people, be it by force or coercion. Whether or not the government is powerful enough to rule others through its politics, coercion, or tariffs, embargos, etc. it rules its own. The purpose of this article is to get you to question whether or not you yourself or others around you are in fact for “Freedom and Autonomy”, or are you promoting totalitarianism and the control of the masses?

Often I receive material that baffles me from folks claiming to be a voice for freedom from oppression or governmental rule. Why the confusion? In the same blurb I see cries for liberation and then support of Communism or Marxist (which is but red fascism) policies or rule. Please feel free to search history or find any modern Marxist, Communist ruled country in which you would like to be. China? Russia? Cuba or Venezuela? (Make the point that the latter is a collapsing “socialist” nation and I will educate you on Karl Marx’s own admittance in his and Friedrich Engels’ manifesto that socialism is the transition state between capitalism and communism, which is why following Venezuela’s collapse; Russia, Cuba and China have military boots on the ground there supporting Nicolas Maduro) Better yet, find any instance in history long past where governments with such absolute power over every aspect of peoples lives have not tyrannical. Don’t worry – I’ll wait.

I cannot fully blame those who’ve swallowed that pill whole because the new, improved method (although not brand new) of winning a fight without war is manipulation. There are a few fool-proof avenues for manipulation. That would be pulling heart strings and of course through an age old method of using organized religion. (While people have their beliefs, I’m in no way trampling on that, as I have my own, however I vehemently stand against organized religion, which has subjugated peoples, misled and coerced an infinite number of people into countless wars and oppression, as well as caused more turmoil than any standing government today, for organized religion is the ultimate example of rulership) Then of course there’s fear, which caps off my point here.

This Coronavirus nonsense has stricken fear into the hearts of the public around the world. Hong Kong’s protests against communist China were crushed without a thrown punch. Hysteria has people not only buying up masks (which openly stated upon the packaging does not stop Covid-19), sanitizer, and other nonsensical items, which people like Bill Gates and his elitist ilk have recently invested billions of stocks of, but also violently doing “police work” for the government, forcefully removing non-mask wearers or violators of this police state policy from public places. Sadly enough there are “snitch lines” ringing off the hook city-by-city across the USA of “friendly neighbors” reporting violators of the police state policy. All of this is conditioning people!

Yes, people have died having Covid-19. People die while having seasonal flu every single season! On average 100,000 for the past 10 years in the USA alone have died having flu viruses. However, Covid-19 is just that – a flu. The fact that the governments are utilizing that fear so effectively as to weaponize and even deputize people has sent me at a loss. A simple fact is this – there are millions of viruses in every breath of air you breathe, somewhere between 1.6 million and 40 million viruses in every cubic meter of air you walk through. Unless you live in an air locked, sanitized environment that would rival the space station, I am here to tell you – you’re breathing in and your body is beating millions of flu viruses constantly. You know how many dust particles are in the air of your car? Know how far some of them have traveled to get there? Guess how many viruses reside on one single particle? We’re being played and playing along. I’ve read “anarchist” papers calling for lock downs. I’ve read papers of “people’s liberation” subject matter promoting and calling for their own control. Wake up people – you’re losing a fight while fighting for the system.

I know a thing or two about absolute rule, also about “social distancing” or the “effectiveness” of it against Covid-19. I reside in solitary confinement, now coined Restrictive Housing, following he outcry of the inhumane practice of the former, but everything but the terminology remains as it has been. I can touch the peeling paint on both walls without extending my arms all the way and its two short steps from rusted iron bars to sink/toilet combo. I eat, sleep, dream and “live” here alone 24/7. I have for over 6 years. Many others have contracted that Covid-19 flu here despite the mask and gloves or fogger contraption spraying “vitaloxcide”, whatever the hell that is. None of that will stop a flu virus. So plenty here on my fell block have contracted and overcome Covid-19. It’s much the same as every flu season I’ve seen for the past 10 years on the inside. Some get flu and no big deal. Some get the flu (a very low percentage) and it’s not so good. The difference between my own social distances and the way mask wearer, glove and gown sporting people of the public go about it is the contrast between a democratic nation and a communist nations’ way of rule. See – in places with “democracy” coercion is applied. Utilizing media or even religion as an organized push, or fear, the government can obtain the desired control. Communist countries use brute force and Hong Kong citizens (however heartfelt and tragically brief their resistance was) know now how stark those contrasts can be.

So in the close of this little rant, take it from someone that knows what being controlled utterly is like. Don’t welcome it from any form of government. Don’t send me anything promoting communism because I’m a freedom fighter and government to include communism, socialism or by any name is the antithesis of freedom.

In Love and Rage

Solidarity Forever,

Comrade Kado

Send all support and letters to:

Noah Coffin #01795167

Eastham Unit

2665 Prison Road #1

Lovelady, Texas 75851

Follow my Instagram: @comradekado

Text me by phone: www.flickshop.com

Jpay email me at: http://www.jpay.com

Community, Not Communism – by K@DO

Regardless of what the system may have people believe, kindness and sharing are naturally present aspects of humanity. While there is surely rogue personalities, even at young ages, a very real truth is until those traits are replaced by “society”, even children share and care naturally. (Ever seen a kid skin their knee and sit down to cry only to be joined by another out of guileless empathy?) It benefits ruling elites to make you feel that without their governance, those acts of community, sharing and kindness are unattainable. Their system of class, wages, and “society” condition us to believe it is true. Don’t fall for propaganda. Share and be kind because you want to, but never allow that to be “regulated”. That’s anti-freedom.

Instagram: @comradekado

Interview with Julio A. Zuniga aka Comrade Z, as heard on The Final Straw Radio episode “Anarchist Resistance In Prison”, April 23 2020

Would you please introduce yourself for the audience? Who you are, where you are, how you got there?

Hello Everyone, Thank you for having me on The Final Straw. It’s an honor. My name is Julio A. Zuniga. Alex is what everyone calls me, or Comrade Z for those who are standing with me 10 toes down in solidarity.

I am a survivor of B-Line solitary confinement at Dirty Darrington Unit and currently trying to reach out to activists and anarchists in the area who can help me organize a statewide work stoppage. Enemy of the State and of the Dirty Darrington administration, my whole heart and soul is hellbent on bringing the attention of the entire nation to the administration and it’s human rights violations, cruel and unusual punishment, physical assaults by staff, mailroom policy changes, inadequate law library, commissary price gouging, infestation of roaches, mice and spiders, sewage leaks in the cells, constant power outages, the list goes on and on. The torture tactics are of primary concern because it’s driving people to die by suicide. So far it’s been 1 suicide per year since I’ve been here. How I got here was because abolitionists in East Texas rose up against Telford Unit, for Housing Administrative Segregation inmates at that facility without telling the surrounding community about it. They were against it. People of New Boston, TX and Texarkana found out about TDCJ housing G4 and G5 offenders because an Officer Davison was murdered by a solitary confinement offender who was being tortured by Telford Unit by withholding his mail and refusing him basics he needed, like food. This caused the entire town to begin the takedown of wardens and the torture of all inmates by using lockdowns for 90 days or more, then by stopping all hot meals for an entire year in 2017. So, since that officer died in 2015, it was the people who brought forth change to that unit. It is now a pre-release unit, no administrative segregation offenders and no solitary confinement. I was not blessed with any kind of support, so I intentionally got into trouble just so they could ship me off. Best move I ever made, so I thought. However, that is how I ended up here.

What can you tell the listeners about Darrington Unit and your experience being held by the TDCJ?

The Dirty Darrington Unit is a hub unit. Thousands of inmates pass through here weekly, transferring to other units, coming off of UTMB Medical Branch at Galveston, or Psyche Unit Jester 4. Some of them are bleeding, soiled in feces and urine. All mentally ill persons coming off Jester 4 have had no kind of hygiene for over 3 days. All these lay over cells are so unsanitary it takes a healthy person 24 hours to get sick by sleeping in one of these cells. There is nothing humane about that. They usually house people with wrong custody levels, endangering lives at will, resulting in physical and sexual assaults. It’s Dirty Darrington’s specialty.

I encourage you to ask administration how many lives Dirty Darrington has claimed because they refused to help suicidal inmates. Also, how administration uses offenders to snitch on others with a false hope of beating a disciplinary case, then throw them back into population, leaving them to kill themselves behind the dishonor. On the 2^nd week of November 2019, a guy killed himself after spilling the beans on others. When he asked them to help him because he felt suicidal, they ignored him. This is the suicide I witnessed that really proved verbatim the words Sean Swain voices in Last Act of the Circus Animals. When Rico killed himself, the show was like Cirque de Soleil. You had every basic need availed to you – blankets, mattresses, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, cleaning materials, officers serving trays like they do in population with full portions. They even gave us light bulbs. It was disgusting to see it. You saw paint crews, utility crews, the works. For a week the unit experienced humanity, but once the coast was clear and the administration got away with murder, it was back to torture tactics, a pattern I have seen one too many times on Dirty Darrington.

Overall my experience has been depressing, lonely, stressful, painful. I’ve seen this administration use psychological torture for 23 months straight, for this is how long I’ve been held in solitary confinement. Only recently was I magically released and placed in E-Line (G5) administrative segregation – the filthy administrative segregation area that is notorious for roach infestations, no lighting in showers, no restrooms on the rec yard so if you have to urinate or have a bowel movement you are going to on the same area men play basketball. Fecal matter is all over the floor and people wonder how they got sick. Easy – as soon as you come in from outside rec, they serve chow. If you have been playing basketball then munch on your baked chicken, then suck the grease off your fingers. You just sucked on chicken flavored fecal matter and urine. Dirty Darrington knows exactly what it’s doing. Environmental disaster, B-Line, E-Line, G-Line, A-Line, C-Line, D-Line are all torture areas. In the winter it’s cold showers. In the summer they heat your water for you. No coincidence. There is so much more. There are over 200 men in administrative segregation and solitary confinement on Dirty Darrington. Some men are going through it worse because they believe this is normal prison policy. It’s not. I’m here to expose this unit and it’s human rights violations. I appreciate you hearing me out.

It’s hard to imagine that the staff and administration aren’t aware of the conditions there. Are they showing any signs of working to fix the situation?

I knew something was terribly wrong with this unit when it runs through 4 wardens in less than 2 years. They are aware of every single atrocity. They personally handle all grievances and it’s rare an inmate ever wins on Step 1. They have to go all the way to Huntsville with their grievance to get fair treatment. By that time it’s been 60 days solid since the claim was made.

It’s designed this way to ensure we never win any kind of grievance claim. Another way, as it is now, that they refuse us grievances all together on Dirty Darrington because they also are aware that if they hand them out they will be reading grievances for years. They know this place is crumbling to pieces. If it rains outside it rains inside too. The guards look like underwater welders when it rains. They wear rain coats indoors to stay dry. Nothing is being done except punishment and enslavement. I am on a mission to learn from outside sources how to organize, to create a psychological warfare on this administration in the name of all the dead that could not deal with their torture chambers and for the mentally ill who cannot speak out against them who are, as we speak, living in horrible conditions on Major Pharr’s solitary confinement. It’s only a matter of time before another death by suicide. We can thank Dirty Darrington’s Administrative Segregation ringmasters for imposing torture on the already weak men by starving them, by withholding their mail, by refusing mailroom to give them pictures of loved ones or birthday cards, or by sending their shakedown team to physically abuse them and confiscate their property. It’s all designed to break you. It’s happening every day.

How do the conditions you’ve described above affect the health of prisoners? What’s the condition of physical and mental healthcare available at Darrington Unit?

Personally I don’t get sick easy, but since being on Dirty Darrington I’ve had a serious sinus infection, primarily from the mold in the showers and the dust that carries all kinds of germs. As far as psyche at Dirty Darrington goes, it’s got potential. As far as physical, you’ve got the infamous Nazi doctor Speer, extorting everyone, but not giving adequate care to anyone. If you get sick they still allow this idiot to practice. Nothing gets done about his childish outbursts. He once tried to do a rectal exam on me, He said it was my yearly check-up. This was the first time I met him. As he stood up and slapped on a latex glove my spidey-sense told me to ask a simple question, “What’s the name on the computer, sir?” He said “You’re Contreras #… blah blah blah” I was like “I’m out!” I’ve had problems with this doctor ever since, namely because retaliation is a trend on Dirty Darrington when you file a grievance. I tried to explain to everyone what this man tried to do. No one tried to help. He’s still here. All my medical treatment was taken away by this man for no reason other than I am or was chronic care hypoglycemic. If you have heat restrictions, work restrictions, anything that will make your ailment easier to handle Dr. Speer will terminate it and then send you into a Twilight Zone of sick calls, just so he can charge the co-pay. Others – he refuses to treat simply because it’s not life or death.

Can you talk about the suicides that you’ve been aware of during your time and are there any in particular you’d like to reflect on? Are there any strings that tie the circumstances together?

Well, I’ve been on Dirty Darrington for two years, going on three. I got screwed out of my legal work, got all my medical restrictions taken away, basically because I am indigent and I have no one on the outside to call here and raise a fuss, which is the only time you see inmates get what they need.

So, B-Line 3^rd row, 15^th cell, 2018 – A young man hung himself. The image of a nurse chest compressing this man never left me. It really caused me a lot of anger. It was senseless. It taught me just how they break men’s minds. It would disgust you. I remember this older man who would wake up screaming and just slowly, losing all reality, these torturers left him in that cell with a stack of trays, full of food with dead mice and roaches that he would just stack up toward the end of his sanity. Inmates could smell death. They tried to talk to him but couldn’t stand the stench of death. So, they brought Captain Lance the kitchen boss to remove the trays, stacked 20 high. But, you cannot talk to a broken man. He was a vessel, nothing more. After 2 canisters of pepper spray, still nothing until finally Captain Lance had the courage to tell administrators that he was no longer right. It was his voice that forced them to send him off that night, never to be seen again. For months they left that man in this condition. It’s happening now. This is normal? I’m not trying to hear that.

For these men, I ask to be armed with support, to feed the torturers a taste of their own medicine. I opened my eyes all the way at this past suicide in November 2019. I’m done talking. We need a bombardment of activism, protest, support. We need an uprising so this administration will be forced to take responsibility for all their fuckery.

One thing I know is we have nothing to gain for staying in good standing. “Good time credit” is not counting toward parole. “Work time credit” is another tool they have to control prisoners. Only the prisoners that still believe in the tooth fairy are too scared to accept this fact. People have tried for years to have these laws passed. Republicans are not interested in helping us. With a statewide work stoppage we will bring all these men’s dreams to fruition. We need to spread these facts to the entire state and shut it down. Stop slaving for your ringmasters. You want a real change, stop doing your slave jobs. Stop putting money in politicians pockets and ask them to put it your account to pay for the work you do. Slave days ended over 150 years ago – Why do you volunteer to work for the oppressor? Those of you who have no one, wouldn’t you like to support yourself in prison instead of risking solitary confinement for stealing food to sell in your living areas for hygiene. I can go on and on.

What are working conditions like the prisoners incarcerated by the TDCJ as you’ve experienced? What sort of privileges come along with work, what sort of pay (if any), and sort of work is it?

They work these guys to exhaustion. They do not pay. The work is back breaking. No one will receive as much as an extra portion of food. These units are still slave plantations, only the name has changed. Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Research “The Sugarland 95” – You’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s time to bring this slavery to a screeching halt.

How have you experienced support while you’ve been on the inside? What would you like from folks on the outside?

I had to go to extremes again to have the support I have today. I never conformed to prison culture. I love tattoos, motorcycles, art, hunting, fishing, boats and the only way I was ever going to see or hear about that is by reaching out. As a result of picking up a contraband cell phone I met “Mongoose Matt” by calling a random tattoo shop. Haha! It was awesome. Fineline Tattoo NYC is Matt’s workplace and it took all but 60 seconds to make one of the best friends I’ve ever had. It makes me so proud to say that. Shortly after getting pinched for contraband Matt has been there through all my solitary confinement, sending in anarchist literature, commissary bread for hygiene and art supplies, and in 7 years now on a 15 year sentence for a so called “murder” it’s his solidarity and support that saved my life and sanity.

Dirty Darrington had officers from the McConnell unit come hit us for shakedown and those creeps took all my property and left me with nothing. This was my breaking point. I just felt like giving up, but Mongoose comes flying in with letters and powerful words of encouragement and because of him I am fighting today. They tried to break me intentionally. I know this for a fact. Only problem is I survived. TDCJs “Cease to speak or cease to breathe” motto doesn’t scare me. I have nothing to lose. Now, I’m asking for you to stand with me until we punch a hole in this darkness and make it bleed light. Sean Swain is the other reason I fight. How you doin Sean?

Here’s the deal – folks out there, my only weapon at the moment is this here pen. I want surrounding activists to contact me so we can get started. This is still far from over and I believe that it’s only through the voice of the people that we can bring this down on a statewide level. I could use all the support available in my fight against the state. Things are slowly changing for me, so I will be allowed more visitors on Dirty Darrington Unit. Soon I will be allowed to call out. In the meantime, anyone can write me. There is so much to learn and prepare. No doubt that without your direct support places like Dirty Darrington and surrounding plantations will continue to thrive, rubbing it in the community’s face.

The Texecution state is also a slavery state. Shut em down. Nobody is gaining a thing. It’s a slap in the face when the officials of the state come here to lie to everyone that they are doing everything they can to change these laws so that we actually become productive. The only laws passed are laws to make it harder on us to get home to our families. For the oppressed indigent offenders who cannot afford hygiene products, organizing a hygiene run to bring forth relief, peace of mind, and a sense of compassionate care. I’ve seen exactly how good this place could be, but as long as we have ringmasters like these hypocrite wardens, coward-ass majors and captains, vindictive supervisors who love to use cowardly acts and body slam people while in restraints such as Sergeant Akinsonu, Sergeant Williams, Sergeant Estrada, Sergeant Baker, who writes her own rules when it comes to keeping people down. All these cowards and a few more on my shit list need to be burned at the stake for their inhumane treatment of human beings. We need to give them a little perspective. We need to all come at them via phone calls, media, advocacy centers, anyone that can hit them where it hurts, to show them that we are not alone. We are not going to accept this kind of abuse and pretend it’s normal. It’s policy. Policy is made up as they walk to the pisser. It’s a shame the population is in love with their ringmaster.

As a survivor of these gulags, food is still the #1 tool used to break solitary confinement offenders. Many months I went hungry and many months I eat the unwanted veggies inmates discarded just to survive. Sometimes portions were almost a smear of meat on tray. We need to end this today.

What inspires you these days? What brings you joy?

Oh that’s easy – Defiance from Detritus Books is my inspiration. I’ve gotten very close to Comrade Mongoose and against the peace and dignity of the Texecution State I’m in constant contact with Comrade King and Comrade Swain. I wish them the best in the struggle and hope to see them soon, for I am coming up for parole soon. It’s a crap shoot, but optimism is helpful in situations such as this. I get my jollies by sending Matt handcrafted portraits of all kinds of cool, weird characters. Y’all are actually owners of one of my pieces. Thank you.

Is there anything I failed to ask you about that you want to talk about?

You all can check out my Instagram @julioazunigaart or contact Matt to place an order for a handmade portrait. I only have No.2 pencils to work with because this unit will not allow my supporters to send me art supplies. Anything that makes people happy like greeting cards and pictures are slowly being taken from us as well. Go figure. This is Bible seminary college too. This is the unit that pumps out “field ministers”. Unbelievable, huh? Bass-akwards, I tell ya! I gotta let ya go for now. It’s been an amazing and liberating experience. You all are amazing. Please allow me to send hugs to Sean Swain, Eric King and to all the comrades who are in the trenches fighting their ringmaster. Thank you for setting the example. I hope to be in that position soon. Thanks y’all. Hope to hear from you soon. I would like to close with a quote from Benjamin Tucker:

“Power feeds on its spoils and dies when its victims refuse to be despoiled. They can’t persuade it to death; they can’t vote it to death; they can’t shoot it to death; but they can always starve it to death.”

If you would like to contact Alex, please send a letter to:

Julio A. Zuniga #1961551

Darrington Unit

59 Darrington Road

Rosharon, Texas 77583