Tag Archives: resistance

Update on Sean’s Situation.

In an apparent effort to further isolate and silence Sean Swain, ODRC officials started confiscating JP4 players from other prisoners on his block. Based on our limited knowledge, something like this happened: the authorities realized that Sean’s friends on the inside were communicating with Sean’s friends on the outside and sent the Security Threat Group in. Led by an Officer Miller, the STG took the JP4s away from a couple of L-5 prisoners, and had a meeting with Sean.

Then, in a surprising turn around, the Jp4s were returned and the guys were lectured about improperly using them. More importantly, Sean met with the warden, who offered him a security level reduction. So, at this time, we’ve been told Sean will be going to level 3. This means he’ll be transferred out of Lucasville, and will no longer be held in solitary confinement.

At the same time, some of Sean’s closest supporters, have both received threatening letters from someone at the ODRC (the letters were curiously unsigned). These letters ban them from visiting Sean on account of “assisting in distributing security threats to ODRC staff” and also warn that their “activities have been reported to state and federal authorities.”

We’re not entirely sure what to make of these contradictory moves by the ODRC. We could speculate that while someone who chooses to remain nameless (ahem, Trainwreck Trevor? ahem) seeks to characterize every word Sean writes and move he makes as a threat, engaging in an escalating and unmatched battle of wits with Sean, others within the ODRC are less enthusiastic. Either they have less paranoid interpretations of Sean’s statements, or they are curious what might happen if Sean stopped getting constant reasons to need to defend himself, or maybe they’re just trying to transfer Sean down and pass the whole problem on to another hapless warden somewhere else. At any rate, it does seem like Sean may have divided the prison authorities into at least two camps: those who can’t stop obsessively sniffing his underwear, and those who would rather not get sued.

From the Underground…

Originally appeared on The Final Straw Radio

Imagine for just a moment that you’re a state terrorist. It’s your job every so often to torture those who expose your criminal agenda. Would you be scared if someone complained to your state terrorist boss who is giving you orders? What if they contacted a friend of yours who works on the legislative oversight committee? Would that bother you? If you were a state terrorist who tortured those who expose your crimes, would you care if one of your victims hired an attorney to challenge you in courts that already have a history of looking the other way? What about if peope maintained a website urging others to address your crimes through strict nonviolence?

Imagine you’re a state terrorist. Consider whether any of that would bother you, whether it would even give you pause. Now, walk a mile in that state terrorist’s shoes. Imagine what your worst nightmare would look like. Continue reading →

Prisoner Resistance at Toledo CI

Sean’s co-accused, James “BlackJack” Dzelajilja was moved to Toledo CI when the ODRC moved all the level 4As out of OSP. Since Sean’s access to video visits has been temporarily suspended indefinitely, we figured we’d get the story of the Army of the 12 Monkeys from BlackJack instead. Or find out what other ingenious nonsense the fuckweasels might come up with to prevent supposedly protected prisoner speech. The video visits are scheduled for this weekend, and guess what we got in an email BlackJack sent today?

“Our Jpay kiosk has been down since Fri. night. Its now Wed. Only the one in our block is down. Nobody else’s. Wouldn’t it be cute if they didn’t fix it until AFTER our vid-visit? I hope thats not the case. The day this email gets sent out is the day our kiosk gets back online.

Its Thu. morning. Last night the whole block agreed to refuse our breakfast trays today. The administration saw an organized & unified group of prisoners, working together for one purpose: to let it be known that we want our kiosk fixed, & we’re willing to unify ourselves to make that happen. Today, we simply don’t eat. (All of us.) Tomorrow…who knows what we’ll do? They forced us to lock down in our cells. The kiosk is being fixed as I type this. Theoretically, I should be able to send this to you at some point today. Its sad that shit like this has to happen just so we can keep in contact with family & friends. Peace!”

Blackjack isn’t great at replying to letters, but he does love to get mail, and is better at email. So drop him a line, or set up a JPay account and get with him that way. Looks like we will be getting the video visits to happen, and hopefully he’ll be able to share some rhymes as well as answering questions.

Here’s his contact info:

James Dzelajilja
530-144
ToCI
PO BOX 80033
Toledo, OH 43608

Freedom or Death- Call-in Today!

[UPDATE: These support actions have proven fruitless. Thomas Miller is slow walking us, dragging his feet and waiting for Sean to die. JPay has blocked anyone from scheduling video visits with Sean. Here are some better options. You can still call Miller, cuz he loves talking without saying anything. He talked to my retired elementary school, dyed in the whool bleeding heart liberal mom for twenty minutes the other day, and pissed her off. Ohio tax payers must be paying him to sit around throwing pencils at the ceiling most days. Also, you can still apply to visit Sean, and write him letters, cuz that shows support, but don’t bother with JPay.]

Contact Thomas Miller, who has been put in charge of answering all inquiries regarding Sean.

Phone: 614-644-7233.
Email: thomas.miller@ohioattorneygeneral.gov
Fax: 614-578-9963
Mail / visit: 150 East Gay Street, 16th Floor, Columbus OH 43215-6001

With fascist fuckweasels ignoring his hungerstrike, anarchist prisoner Sean Swain has vowed to refuse his blood pressure medication, beginning February 9. This medication keeps his blood pressure regulated. To stop taking this medication “cold turkey” is extremely dangerous, as it could cause a spike in blood pressure which can lead to heart attack, stroke or aneurysm.

“Freedom or death,” Sean said. “I’m not fucking around.”

Fuckweasels have engaged in a concerted, provable pattern of harassing every element of Sean’s communication, waging a war against anarchist expression.

Within 48 hours of suspending his medication, Sean will be in serious danger of medical problems and anticipates he will soon be held incommunicado in a torture cell, in a fuckweasel effort to break his will and cut him off from the outside world. But, as he pointed out, that will not stop his blood pressure from spiking.

“Clock is ticking,” Sean said. “To quote Emiliano Zapata, ‘Mejor morir en pie que vivir en rodillas’ (‘Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees’). If my choice is to surrender to tyrants or risk my health or even my life, then my choices are to live for the wrong thing or die for the right one. In that situation, dig my grave.”

There are two important ways you can show support for Sean at this time. Continue reading →

Los Zapatistas

Originally aired on The Final Straw

This past January 1st marked the 21st anniversary of the Zapatistas’ emergence. On New Year’s Day, 1994, masked guerrillas, some carrying wooden rifles, descended from the foggy mist of the Lacandon Jungle in southern Mexico. They called themselves, pardon the accent, El Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion de Nacional– the Zapatista National Liberation Army.
They took their name from Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who was betrayed and assassinated in the Revolution of 1914– his assassination marking a pivotal turning point. The ruling elite recuperated the revolution, and for 80 years continued to push the poor and indigenous off of their lands– all in the name of progress and profit.
Then, the same day that NAFTA came into effect, Zapatista rebels swept down out of the mountains, seized 12 towns, shot the corrupt officials, and chased off the predatory landlords. And then, in a masterful strategy, they held a press conference. Continue reading →

Prisoner Letters Interview

From PrisonerLetters.noblogs.org
10thSep. × ’14
By Prisoner Letters
(A): Hey Sean, it’s you buddy (A) here. Would you like to start off by giving a little bit of personal background (how old you are, what growing up was like, what your interests are)?

Sean: I grew up in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. Anchorville. It’s gone now. It was “annexed” away, split between two other townships or whatever. I lived in a trailer park surrounded by woods, and when I returned in the late 80’s, all the woods were gone.

It’s as if my childhood was annexed away and chopped down. As if the Matrix occasionally erases our histories, our pasts, everything that anchors us to a place or time.

That area of Michigan is where the idea of “Reagan Democrats” came from- working class communities filled with totally class-unconscious mall zombies. I was a boy scout. Played Baseball. I stuttered and was painfully shy until about 11th grade when I guess I just decided I was tired of living in constant fear of rejection or of others’ opinions. Until then, I worked very hard at being invisible and unnoticed. I lived totally terrified until 11th grade. Continue reading →

Reformists Part III: The Third Option

Third part in a series. Here’s part 1 and part 2
Sometimes bad news is good news. When you come to the conclusion that reformist action is impractical, unreasonable, and futile, it doesn’t foreclose on resisting completely. Every steel door that slams shut should always provoke us to contemplate how to cut the bars windows. Slamming the steel door of reformism liberates us to consider direct action, which is what anarchists WANT to do in the first place.

In the prison context, that again leads back to a discussi Monkeys. Now, before going any further, please kee that I wa the super-duper-uber-mega-ultra-hyper-tur the pretext of bei the Army of the 12 Monkeys– an accusation I have consistently denied. My counsel, Richard Kerger, has action, SWAIN VS. MOHR, now posted at seanswain.org, challenging this frame-up. Having said that, I was a witness to what occurred at Mansfield Correctional when the Army of the 12 Monkeys happened, and I think I’m fairly qualified to present an analysis of what this event implies for anarchists and for direct action in and outside of prison. Continue reading →

Another Open Letter to the Delusional Hierarch Mental Health Worker… Blah, Blah, Blah

“The more completely the place of confinement eliminates sensory stimuli, the more deeply will the [subject] be affected. Results produced after weeks or months of imprisonment in an ordinary cell may be duplicated in hours or days… An early effect of such an environment is anxiety… [Captors] can benefit from the subject’s anxiety… The deprivation of stimuli induces regression by depriving the subject’s mind of contact with an outer world and thus forcing it in on itself… in /the simple torture situation/ the contest is one between the individual and /his tormentor/…”
–/The KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual/, from the Central Intelligence Agency

Dear Mental Health Therapist(?),
In early October, I sent you a kite communication with a lengthy “Open Letter” that was also posted at seanswain.org. I looked forward to your response but still haven’t received it. Also, since the open letter’s publication, you have stopped calling me out of the cell block to speak with me, and during rounds you say, “Mental health rounds, how are you doing?,” but by the time I respond, you are already down the range, out of earshot.
If I didn’t know better, I would almost think you are trying to avoid me. Continue reading →

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE

Dear Ukrainian People,

I want to thank you for your inspirational resistance to tyranny. Here in the United States, we made a show of resistance a while back, but in the face of police violence we surrendered and went back to our assigned seats; we lacked the courage, drive and determination of Ukrainians. Where you met state violence with rocks and gas bombs and ski masks, we met state violence with delusions of nonviolence and beatitudic dreams that permitted state violence to prevail and continue.

I saw news clips of your occupation of the Presidential Palace and our media’s scorn at the oppulence found there. Of course, our Presidential Palace – called the Whitehouse in our country – still stands, much larger and far more luxurious, complete with helicopter pads and movie theaters and bowling alleys and a basement bunker complex commonly called “Cheneyville.” The corruption and decadence of your tyrants cannot compete with the corruption and decadence of ours. Yet we do nothing.

We can’t do anything because our cops have guns while your cops only have…guns.

So, it is my hope that you will recognize that deferring now to your parliament to resolve the problem is the same mistake that the people made in Cairo, and what you have to do is oust your parliament also.

Rid yourself of the whole troublesome hierarchy.

Then, if possible, I would ask you to help us. We in the United States need you to send us some Ukrainians to topple _our_ tyranny. We’re paralyzed and incapable where you have proven to be mobilized and effective. We need you to sweat and fight and bleed for our liberation. We’ll do _our_ part of course. We’ll hold signs and sing songs and come up with snappy rhymes, things like, “1-2-3-4…,” and “Hell no, we won’t go…,” and so on. We have 200 million firearms we can put at your disposal.

Just don’t expect us to _use_ them. We exercise the right to bear arms, not _fire_ them. We’re like the world’s largest drill-and-ceremony color-guard. We don’t want to get dirt on our clothes or blood on our hands or soot on our faces.

We need _you_ to accomplish a noble and necessary struggle that we cannot undertake for ourselves.

Please respond quickly. This sprawling police state is really intolerable.

Freedom or Death,

Sean Swain

What Is An Anarchist Engagement?

What is an anarchist engagement? I ask because I’m running for Ohio Governor in 2014 as a write in candidate from Ohio’s super-duper-uber-mega ultramax facility.
Yeah, I know.Your thinking, ‘Running for office is not anarchist-it’s reformist at best’ and thinking ‘A prisoner getting elected?’ And you likely conclude, this is all just further evidence-as if we need more-that Sean Swain is a wing nut. I would say that this is further proof that I’m brilliant and completely misunderstood- thats my story and I’m sticking to it.
I’ve been told that by running for Governor, I’m promoting the idea that reformist ballots are the answer-registering to vote, voting and all the hierarchical implications that that entails. I’ve been told that we need revolution, not diversions into electoral wheel-spinning,and that I’m doing a disservice promoting the idea that elections can be a solution.
Okay, now consider:
It’s not my goal to become Ohio Governor so that I can maintain the state. I’m openly and admittedly an anarchist and I’M running as an anarchist. I’m promising that, if elected I would tear down the state and establish the Ohio Autonomous Zone.
In fact, I have a program already planned out. It’s on my website. My first day in office, I would empty Ohio’s prisons. I would de-commission the National Guard and I would give the weapons to the Native American tribes I would be inviting back.
According to the Treaty of Greenville, they still own this territory. So it’s not exactly reparations for the genocide they experienced, but I’D give them the land back and a bunch of rifles and tanks and Apache attack helicopters in order to defend it.
With no budget signed-ever- no cops would get paid so there woulds be nobody standing between us chasing the banksters and crapitalists out of here with torches and pitchforks-like they have deserved for centuries.We could then export revolution from the Ohio Autonomous Zone. Continue reading →