Author Archives: Sean Swain

SHRINKS AND TORTURE

The social sciences suck. I was watching Democracy Now this morning and saw a news blurb that the American Psychological Association has been linked in some way to U.S. torture practices. Some leaked memos implicate the American Psychological Association in collusion with waterboarding an forms of torture. I guess if we see the social sciences– psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and so on –as benevolent paradigms of study and practice, sciences designed to help people and cure them of mental illness, then I suppose we’d all be shocked and bewildered that prestigious institutions of those sciences are dabbling in torture.

But the social sciences are NOT benevolent paradigms designed to help people. Consider: when cops and courts impose social norms on you, you’re a criminal. When priests and rabbis impose social norms on you, they call you a sinner. When SHRINKS impose social norms on you, they call you “mentally ill.” The shrinkhood is a tool of the established order, and a powerful one. When cops put a label on you, you can still get past that because you’ve done your time and people change. When priests and rabbis label you that’s just some superstitious hokum. But when the thought-police shrinkhood labels you, you’re NUTS. The social sciences have the illusion of being “scientific” and “objective” when they brand you for life. But their criteria for branding you is far from scientific. Continue reading →

Anarchist Prisoner Demands Hand Recount in Election for Ohio Governor

Even as election results were ticking across the bottom of the screen, Anarchist prisoner Sean Swain, in his cell at Ohio’s supermax facility, recognized foul play. “My name wasn’t even featured. Only the dog-swapping, wife-kicking, delusional hierarchs’ totals were being counted,” Swain said. “So I knew, they robbed me again.”
Swain ran for Ohio Governor, promising to decommission the national guard and give their weapons to the Native American tribes who still own Ohio; to empty the prisons and turn them into squats; and to declare every day a state holiday, shuttering public schools forever. His campaign slogan:
“Wanna dance naked around a bonfire where the Ohio Statehouse used to be? Elect Sean Swain as Ohio Governor in 2014.”
But, according to mainstream media, incumbent Governor John Kasich won the election with more than 60% of the vote.
“It’s inconceivable to me that the vast majority of voting Ohioans would reject the chance to write-in a prisoner at supermax promising to destroy the state government for good,” Swain said. “The corporate-owned media would have you believe that Ohio voters instead elected JWow Kasich, the bozo who shut me down for 8 crucial weeks in the middle of my campaign, demanding to gaze at my penis. Clearly, this is a monumental case of voter fraud. I refuse to concede the election.” Continue reading →

Thoughts on Ferguson.

Originally appeared on The Final Straw

Let’s go back to Ferguson. As I speak protesters in Ferguson MO await the Grand Jury decision in the case of a police officer who killed Mike Brown, and I really don’t know why. This is the same criminal justice system that has justified the genocide of Black people by White government agents for centuries, the same system that hired this pig, handed him a loaded gun and sent him goose stepping into a predominantly Black community in the first place. So now thousands are poised, insisting that the same system somehow validate the life of Mike Brown by prosecuting the very same killer who killed Mike while on the same payroll.

Why?

Why are people appealing to an obviously racist control system for validation? To me this is an extremely sad scenario. It’s like thousands of abused children, traumatized and neglected by a vicious drunken father and even after they realize what a brutal monster he is, they still seek his approval and validation. I don’t get it.

Why does anyone care what a Grand jury thinks? Or the prosecutor? Or a judge? Mike Brown is dead, and to speak of justice for Mike Brown is ridiculous if you’re talking about some stupid piece of paper with a rubber stamp on it telling us what we already know issued by the same institutions that took his life. Justice for Mike Brown would be giving him his life back, something Grand Juries, prosecutors and judges can’t do. So, in terms of justice all of them are irrelevant. Mike Mike is gone, but there’s plenty that can be done to prevent the next police shooting before it happens. Continue reading →

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

This originally aired on The Final Straw.

Recently, the Nobel Committee named the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2013. Malala Yousafzai shares the award with some guy nobody ever heard of… Which isn’t to say he doesn’t deserve it. It’s just that he now occupies a dubious place in history along with the drummer that Ringo Starr replaced in the Beatles and that guy who was the other half of Wham! who wasn’t George Michael. He’s “that dude who won the Nobel Peace Prize with Malala.”
This year it seems the Nobel Committee ran out of heads of state to honor for managing several wars simultaneously. You’ll recall, Barak Obama is a prior Nobel Peace Prize winner, back when people were still wearing his “hope” and “change” T-shirts. So, if the conduct of past Peace Prize winners is any indication of what we can expect from Malala and what’s-his-name, they’ll soon be using drones to blow up wedding parties in the Third World and approving complex, illegal spying programs.
Yea for peace… Hope… Change. Continue reading →

Please send Blackjack some mail!

blackjack-note Blackjack Dzelajlija, in photo (bigger photo here) was sent to the super-duper-uber-mega-ultra-hyper-turbo-max because a rap verse he wrote appeared in 12 Monkey materials. He’s subjected to deprivation because the 12 Monkeys have great taste in music. If only Blackjack had falsely implicated Sean Swain, he would be at medium security now. Instead, he suffered a year of starvation and torture as Sean’s cell-mate in the Special Manglement Unit at MANCI, and has been held in solitary at OSP since August 2013 with no end in sight, targeted for his anarchist “ideology.”

Blackjack needs reading materials and penpals. All materials must come from a publisher or distributor, softback books only. His interests include anarchist theory and Christian liberation theology (convergence of anarchism and Christianity includes Leo Tolstoy). As a rapper, he could use a rhyming dictionary. And he could also use some mail to keep his mind engaged with the world on the other side of the fence.
Take the time to steal some good books for him and send them in from a local distro, and drop him a line so he knows he’s not forgotten.

Write him at:
James Dzelajilja
OSP 530-144
878 Coitsville-Hubbard Rd
Youngstown, OH 44505

The Mumia Law

First aired on The Final Straw.

Have you heard about the new law passed in Pennsylvania? Super-fascist Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett recently signed a law that potentially eliminates prisoner public speech. This comes on the heals of Mumia Abu-Jamal giving a commencement address at a college he attended.
On the one day of the year that the U.S. didn’t start a new war, Mumia became a news story and Maureen Faulkner heard about Mumia’s commencememt address on the radio. Faulkner is the widow of the Philadelphia cop who shot Mumia in the chest and then forgot how to duck. She claims that hearing about Mumia is just TOO PAINFUL and she needs Pennsylvania to pass a law and shut up Mumia so she won’t have to hear about him.
Yeah. No kidding. And so far, no one in Pennsylvania is smart enough to realize it’s cheaper to hire someone to teach Frootloop Faulkner to change the channel on her radio. Instead they pass a law to silence Mumia and even call it “The Mumia Law.” Well, unless that’s TOO PAINFUL for Faulkner. She may have to get another law passed to prevent Pennsylvania lawmakers from calling this The Mumia Law and make them refer to him as “The M-word,” not to be confused with the “N-word,” which the judge used several times in Mumia’s trial. Continue reading →

Jwow Speaks

The Final Straw gave Governor Jwow equal time after Sean Swain’s statements about his campaign for Ohio Governor.

This is a transcription of Jwow’s seemingly unscripted speech.

Is this fuckin’ thing on? Testing, Testing. Okay…
My fellow Ohioans… My fellow Americans… Uh, my fellow humans… and I guess that includes all of you filthy, scruffy anarchists out there who don’t plan on voting for me anyway: Suck it.
I’ve got a script here (sound of crumpling paper) but you know what? I feel pretty loose. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to down those painkillers with alcohol. I sluged them down with a bottle of vodka and I feel great. Also, you should know, behind this podium, I’m totally naked.
Last week, the idiot who normally rambles through this segment talked about running for governor. He said I’m obsessed with his penis. Previously, the bomb-throwing moron claimed I have unprotected sex with dogs and fireworks behind the Masonic Lodge. I’d like to dispel all of those nasty slanders, as well as tell you about what I’ve done for the last 4 years since Ed What’s-His-Name can’t beat me.
Hey, Ed: Suck it.
First, those nasty slanders. For the record, I am NOT obsessed with Sean Swain’s penis… I’m obsessed with the penis on his anatomically-correct action figure. That doll is hung like a mule. Sean Swain in real-life has a mundane human penis. We have satellite photos to prove it.
As to the claims that I have unprotected sex with dogs while blasting fireworks behind the Masonic Lodge, what Swain’s implying is totally outrageous. One, they don’t even make condoms for dogs, and C, fireworks are perfectly legal in Ohio. So, having cleared all that up, let’s talk about my leadership in Ohio for the last 4 years. Continue reading →

November 3rd

This originally aired on the Final Straw Radio show.

I’ve gotten mail recently asking how my campaign for governor is going. In case you didn’t know, I’m running for Ohio Governor and the election is November 3rd.

Hope I can count on your support. My platform is pretty simple and can be summed up with a catch-phrase that’s as inspiriting as it is grammatically incorrect:
I MAKE TOTAL DESTROY.
Ohio calls itself The Heart of It All. That’s what you see on the signs alongside the highway when you have the misfortune of coming here. So, it’s my goal, as Governor of Ohio, to drive a wooden stake right through The Heart of It All.
Here’s my ninety-day plan:
First, by executive order, I would decommission the Ohio National Guard and give their heavy weaponry to the Native American tribes who were here first. They can use that to take back what they want.
Second, I’ll empty all the prisons. 50,000 prisoners liberated. Not one fence to remain standing. Continue reading →

REFORMISTS, PART II

This originally aired on The Final Straw radio show.

Emma Goldman once told unemployed workers in New York, “Ask for work. If they won’t give you work, ask for bread. If they won’t give you bread, TAKE BREAD.” Her next words were uttered from a jail cell.
When we look at reformists, their strategy is bankrupt because of an unwillingness to challenge power– to “take bread,” as Emma Goldman put it. So, it follows that their tactics serve a bankrupt strategy.
When talking about prison reformism specifically, you’re working with 3 main tactics that are pretty reflective of everything else reformists do, and taking a look at those tactics will give a good sense about why reformists fail even when they succeed.
The Big 3 for prison reformists are “coalition building,” “hungerstrikes,” and “work stoppages.” All 3 tactics seek to create some kin leverage against authority, or an incentive FOR authority, to exercise authority differently. All 3 tactics say, “Give us X and we’ll return to our assigned seats.” All 3 tactics leave the same authority in power to take back what’s given.
First, coalition building. Prisoners and advocates push for legislation. Problem is, prisoners don’t vote, politicians don’t care, and the money is on the other side. Coalition building is doomed. Continue reading →