Prisoners Write on the Importance of PRLF Donations
January 1, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Two recent letters from prisoners point to how crucial donations to the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund are:
"Thanks to your donations, I've been able to transform myself from a gang member to a revolutionary..."
Revolutionary greetings!
I'll like to say thanks a lot to all the "PRLF" donors. Thank you for paying for my education. In essence that's what you're doing with your donations. Thanks to your donations, I've been able to start learning about the rapacious economic system (capitalism) that dominates every aspect of our lives. I've been able to learn that under capitalism, society is divided into different classes—between those who can only live by selling their labor to the highest bidder, (and only as long as their labor is producing profits to capitalist) and those who live by exploiting the labor of others; between oppressed and oppressor. And consequently, under capitalism, there can never be democracy or justice for all. I've been also able to learn that such social relations were not created by nature, but were created and are enforced, by the capitalist class.
And most importantly, I've been able to learn that a whole different and better world is possible; that capitalism can be overthrown through revolution. Thanks to your donations, I've been able to transform myself from a gang member to a revolutionary; from a homophobic and machista, to a progressive thinker; from having a defeatist mentality: "there isn't anything I can do, things are never going to change"; to having a radical mentality: Knowing that I can make a difference; that we are all worthy of a decent life—demanding a better life for everybody, and willing to fight for it!
And thanks to your donations, I've been able to liberate other people, (by sharing the literature that your donations enable me to receive) and I'm fairly confident that it'll have a snowball effect. I would like to end this letter by encouraging people to keep making donations to "PRLF," or to start, if you haven't yet. Your donations are helping us (prisoners) break the mental shackles, that have been placed there by this capitalist/imperialist ran system.
In Solidarity, Prisoner from California
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"...not only have books opened my mind but let me see a better and more wonderful world can be born."
12/4/12
Dear Donaters,
Hello there. My name is XXX and Im a 22 year old Mexican. I've been incarcerated since the age of 15. It seems like from the begining of my life I was destined to hardship. At 1 years old my dad died, wich left my mother with 5 kids to raise. At 1 I was tooken away and placed in foster home. At 9 I came back to live with my mom. With only gangs and strife all around were else was I to flock? At 15 I got sent to prison.
Ever since my life has been not only up-lifted but great! Your probably thinking what the... but through my incarceration not only have I found my-self but I realized what my life was to consist of. Enough of this monotomy of working 8 to 5 job, being a part to the genocide of my own people, degrade my wommin, ancestry and most of all, took the deliberate act that my life is not mines, it [belongs to] the people that suffer, they people that are in such a state of distitute that they can only resist so much.
Me, I've come to this realization by reading books and more, my First experience of communist literature was with the Revolutionary Communist Party and the books [that I got] through PRLF. Like a man coming out of the cave for the first time, my eyes read every word, my mind was not only shocked but my life changed. It changed in that through the power of words, I came to know a sickness and given a blue-print on how to cure what is really a epademic.
But as a donater can contribute to what cause they choose, you by donating to cause of humanity help oppressed all over. For by educating one person, that person in turn is not limited to who can they educate back and therefore having a ripple affect. So not only have books opened my mind but let me see a better and more wonderful world can be born. From the depths of my crying heart thank you for your contribution to the cause.
—Prisoner in California
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Donate to the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund
$10 pays for a copy of BAsics.
$35 pays for a one one-year Revolution subscription for a prisoner.
$50 pays for current requests for BAsics from prisoners in New York.
$100 pays for current requests for BAsics from prisoners in Texas.
$350 pays for 10 recent unfilled Revolution subscription requests from prisoners in North Carolina!
$500 pays for 50 copies of BAsics for 50 new subscribers in California
$1,015 will renew subscriptions for 29 subscribers in Florida
$1,400 pays for 40 recent unfilled Revolution subscription requests from prisoners in California!
Regular and tax-deductible donations can be made at www.PRLF.org.
Make checks payable to "PRLF". Make tax-deductible checks payable to "Global Exchange/PRLF" and send checks and correspondence to:
PRLF, 1321 N. Milwaukee Ave, #407, Chicago, IL 60622
In the hellhole prisons of AmeriKKKa, home to over two million people, prisoners—who society calls the "worst of the worst" or "irredeemable"—are standing up and resisting the inhuman conditions in which they are enslaved. And, as they do, they are going through transformation in how they understand the world and their role in changing it.
This past summer, 30,000 prisoners in California asserted their humanity by starting a hunger strike against the torture of long-term solitary confinement. Earlier, a group of prisoners had issued an inspiring statement calling for unity and a halt to hostilities between people of different nationalities in the prisons. After 60 days, the prisoners collectively decided to suspend the hunger strike—but the struggle to end torture continues. Other hunger strikes and political struggles against the dehumanization of American prisons have occurred in other states in recent years.
Within this emerging new generation of rebellious slaves is a significant section of prisoners across the country who are looking for a deeper understanding of why this world is a horror, how we can get out of it, and what it means to be human—and are engaging with the challenging vision and strategy for a radically new, and much better, society and world presented in the weekly Revolution newspaper, in BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, and in other revolutionary literature sent to them by the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund. Bob Avakian, BA, is the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, and his BAsics is a handbook for revolutionaries in this time, speaking powerfully to the big questions of revolution and human emancipation.
From the notorious "Special Housing Unit" (SHU) at Pelican Bay in Northern California to the notorious Texas prison system to Sing Sing in New York and across the country, the PRLF sends approximately 800 English and Spanish subscriptions of Revolution and has sent over 1,200 copies of BAsics so far to prisoners in 43 states and the District of Columbia.
YOU play a vital role in the PRLF not only continuing this vital work but expanding it to many, many more prisoners (see poem).
DONATE: The existing Revolution subscriptions for prisoners cost $28,000/year. Each copy of BAsics costs $10. Imagine if the PRLF could significantly increase the number of Revolution subscriptions and copies of BAsics making their way to prisoners.
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