I am the US economy – from prison to the streets

by King William Brown Jr., aka Pye-Face, Minister of United KAGE Brothers Union

“Spatial fix has a secondary meaning. Not only does capital fix its contradictions through cities, it also ‘fixes’ in place a whole set of physical infrastructure (fixed capital) and social relations to go along with it. Each phase of capitalist urbanization carries with it its own mix of technology, consumption patterns, and class politics – Harvey’s ‘sociotechnical mix.’ The Fordist city combined a highly energy-intensive spatial form, a high wage structure for privileged sectors of the working class, and a class alliance between privileged workers and local elites into an urban growth machine based on suburbanization. The flip-side to this was a disinvestment from inner cities, which were left to less privileged sectors of the class and allowed to decay.” – Mortar Revolutionary Journal “Run This Town: Building Class Power in the City

This is for the moms and pops in East Oakland or any other urban neighborhood – see “Third Street Stroll” – in honor of the African union of Marcus Books, from a prisoner political action committee to being a member of the formerly incarcerated people’s policy academy or the freedom plan of United KAGE Brothers (UKB), from the urban freedom schools focused on real life Block Reportin’ of “Unfinished Business.” This is for my brothers of the NCTT Cor SHU and all supporters of our hunger strike coalition.

US-money-flag, I am the US economy – from prison to the streets, Abolition Now! I am the U.S. economy.

We the people have been exploited enough – jobs, education, more improved health care, just sentences and adequate prison conditions vs. being corporate cattle! We are the same colorful people who protested the racist Jim Crow laws held up high in a court of law with a less reflective jury of one’s peers. Remember, I am human!

We must remain resilient even when they’re declaring war on the Black and Brown intellectuals, when they attempt to shut down relevant facilities such as Marcus Books with the evil intent to label us ignorant thugs. This issue is then resonated to the KAGE when their commandos raid our cells only to confiscate the literature that nourishes our minds.

Our history is being tainted when it’s suggestively used to enforce validation packets for the so-called gang members, revolutionaries, terrorists, abolitionists, or any other title they use to label us. When they take shots at our bookstores and even our self-help study groups, this is repression at its highest.

I say, “Pick a side, choose a side, any side’ll do-do-do. It’s a war on me and you.” Behind Enemy Lines we’re declining a deal with the devil because within his belly he runs programs like non-disciplinary status (NDS) for those who choose not to rebel against their unlawful order. All I know is “fight, agitate, resist, the Manchild, made the weapon, click-click, threw up his fist, let the Black diamonds represent.”

I am the U.S. economy.

I’m prepared to take the trip to Pelikkkan Bay. Why? ‘Cause like Marcus Garvey had an adult understanding with the KKK, I too understand that my claims of corporate malfeasance – retaliation imposed on several mass hunger strikers via transfers to PBSP, taking of property, STG 115s (Security Threat Group Rules Violation Reports) – must be dealt with through Title 42, Section 1983 (the Civil Rights Act of 1871, providing remedies for people deprived of their constitutional rights “under color of state law”), which was orchestrated by the Klan’s Knights of Liberty.

I say, “Pick a side, choose a side, any side’ll do-do-do. It’s a war on me and you.” Behind Enemy Lines we’re declining a deal with the devil because within his belly he runs programs like non-disciplinary status (NDS) for those who choose not to rebel against their unlawful order.

We need to know how to litigate common law within a plutocratic system fixed by public. But here’s the monkey wrench: lawyers, those within the White Superior Court who watch young men Black, Brown, Yellow and poor Whites all get shot to death – these are the public policy corporate lawyers, the ones we give our paperwork to but fail to gain relief from ‘cause, as they say, “Time is money and when we kill time, it buries us.”

That’s why you’ll find stamped on many if not all our briefs: “It is now proposed to make the federal government the guardian of its citizens. If that should be done, the nation soon must perish. There can only be a free nation when the people themselves are free and administer the government which they have set up to protect their rights. Where the general government must provide work and incidentally food and clothing for its citizens, freedom and individuality will be destroyed and eventually the citizens will become serfs to the general government.” – Congressional Record – Senate, Volume 75, Part 11, June 1-11, 1932, Page 12522

At the moment, we are invoking ripples of a peaceful protest in the footprints of Malcolm X, MLK and others. But one must be assured our ancestors from 1811, 1859, 1971 are watching, waiting to inflict their opinion. There’s no one who could rattle the KAGE more sufficiently than the prisoner him/herself.

But we must realize the power of unity, of the streets behind our mass movement and yes, Mary Ratcliff, Willie Ratcliff, JR Valrey – you all are the moxie to our cause and I don’t speak as a rapper. I speak as a youth spokesman when I say it LOUD and PROUD: Where is … where is the empathy now? Not just for the youth being profiled, but the Black and Brown poor-class communities not gaining enough support by our general government to stop mass blindness to these mass murders being overlooked by stand-your-guard jurors?

The only raw and uncut media attention comes from the Bay View or Democracy Now. My point is this: “Justice is indiscriminately due to all, without regard to numbers, wealth or rank.” – John Jay, 1745. Marcus Garvey once asked, “Where’s our Black business, Black Congress? Where’s our Navy”? Our union group says since there exists a correctional officers’ union, then by contrast we United KAGE Brothers are the prisoners’ political union – the same group Judge Susan L. Hubbard encouraged to continue our quest to gain “prison reform” through our self-help group here at Corcoran.

At the moment, we are invoking ripples of a peaceful protest in the footprints of Malcolm X, MLK and others. But one must be assured our ancestors from 1811, 1859, 1971 are watching, waiting to inflict their opinion. There’s no one who could rattle the KAGE more sufficiently than the prisoner him/herself.

We contend that we are the U.N. for all Black, Brown, Red, White, Yellow, male and female prisoners. When we formed Prison 2, the Street Band 2gether as Freedom Fighters both in criminal and/or civil and human rights affairs then, in all fairness, that’s power to the people 30,000 times over.

I am the U.S. economy.

“Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce,” said President James A. Garfield. In recent years neo-liberal capitalism has turned back to the inner city for fresh sources of accumulation and capital absorption while de-industrialization continues to grip the rust belt and larger cities have become centers of capitalist innovation in financial services and their spin-offs.

Sociologist Saskia Sassen maps the development of these “global cities” in the context of the broader scale of capitalist globalization as information technologies and globalization have taken hold. Sasson argues that cities have become the most dynamic and profitable sectors of the economy in advanced capitalist states, providing transnational corporations with legal, human resources and financial services to manage transnational production.

These grounds are the reason why we, the people who spend money on Black and Brown urban music, hair products and fashions that are owned by White capitalists and who fill up the overcrowded prison cells, SHU and ASU, the prisoner studying for his GED, the mothers and fathers retaining counsel for their troubled youth or child who was slain by crooked donuts – this is why we are the pitch. This is why we say, “I am the United States economy.”

“I am the United States economy.”

Damn eminent domain. Damn the high speed train. Close down more slave complexes. Let’s take back our city. Note to self: “The sight of freedom looming on the horizon should encourage us to redouble our efforts.” Long live Nelson Mandela.

Send our brother some love and light – he has been moved to Pelican Bay since this was written: King William Brown, T-58106, PBSP B5-116, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532. Through supporters, he can also be reached at Brownfamily3929@yahoo.com, freedom_UKB@yahoo.com or Tumblr@KageBrothers.