A-Infos (en) "YOU'VE GOT TO STRUGGLE ON ALL LEVELS, WITH WEAPONS OR WITH LEAFLETS, AND WITH IDEAS...."

[Lara Johnson <ljanklip@concentric.net>]

________________________________________________
     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
           http://www.ainfos.ca/
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An interview with Tom Manning
April 12th and 19th, 1991.

[Tom Manning may be contacted at: Tom Manning 
# 10373016, Box 1000, Leavenworth, Kansas, 66048]

"YOU'VE GOT TO STRUGGLE ON ALL LEVELS, WITH WEAPONS 
OR WITH LEAFLETS, AND WITH IDEAS...."

COULD YOU TRACE YOUR OWN DEVELOPMENT AS A 
REVOLUTIONARY - THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOU OWN 
POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS - AND PARTICULARLY 
WHAT MOTIVATED YOUR DECISION TO MOVE FROM
ABOVE GROUND COMMUNITY ORGANIZING AND POLITICAL 
ACTIVITY TO CLANDESTINE ACTIVITY?

The need for revolution is obvious depending on where 
you're from. If you're sitting in a suburban house 
with a two car garage and a birdbath in the back, 
with your 25" TV telling you that you're OK and the 
world's OK, that's one thing. Myself I came up from 
the projects. I grew up in the housing projects in 
the city. With the lack of things we needed in the 
family and in the community it was always obvious 
that something was wrong. But with the conditioning 
you get from the system, it's hard to make an analysis 
at that time why you're inside that kinds of situation.
When I got out into the world, basically joining the 
service, just being around people from all around the 
country, it was almost like, at first, that I was 
dropped from the moon into the middle of this population 
that had no idea what or where I came from, or vice 
versa. It was because of that conditioning, of growing 
up in the inner-city in the projects, always basically 
on the edge.. it was an on-the-edge existence.
As the time passed in the service I started meeting 
other people from different cities, inner-city situations
- New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Oakland - and I 
started to make the realization that there are two 
cultures within the one, the haves and the have-nots. 
That's how we used to identify. We used to associate 
together along those lines in the service.
Once I got to Vietnam, being really aware of the 
different backgrounds in people, when I got to Vietnam 
the contrasts were so clear of america and what america expected, what it
claimed and what was actually happening 
over in Vietnam. So all of that added up.
Coming back to the States after Vietnam it wasn't long 
before I ended up in state prison. It's a place where 
a lot of Vietnam veterans ended up at that time. That's 
when I first started putting all this in some kind of perspective, and also
seeing what was going on on the 
outside. I was in prison during the late '60s, from '66 
on, when all he demonstrations were happening, basically 
around the war but there was still something of the civil rights movement
going on then.
Then came 1968, with Martin Luther King being executed 
and the uprisings in the cities, stuff got really 
militant inside. We took part in a lot of work strikes 
and hunger strikes and things like that, and all the 
beatings and ship-outs and everything that goes along 
with that kind of stuff.
That's when I started making a decision on where I was 
going to be, on what side of the struggles that were 
going on. At the same time there were a lot of racial 
problems inside, white prisoners fighting against Black prisoners, etc.,
and basically I made some choices then, 
with the reading I was doing and the people that I was 
getting locked up with in segregation, that there was a 
need for revolutionaries out there and if and when I 
got out of the joint, that's what I was going to do. 
Take it to the streets, basically.
After getting out in '71.. I started looking for people 
to hook up with to do some kind of political work, not 
knowing for sure what exactly I wanted to do. I was 
attracted to the very militant stance of the Panthers 
and the things that the Weather Uncerground were 
doing. I wasn't really clear on what the Weather 
Underground was about but I like that way, clandestine resistance. It took
me a couple of years to find 
people who had the same affinity for those kinds 
of activities, but eventually we did hook up.

PART OF THE PATTERN OF ARMED RESISTANCE WHICH WE'VE 
SEEN OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS, SPECIFICALLY BY WHITE 
ANTI-IMPERIALISTS, ARE ACTIONS DONE IN SOLIDARITY 
WITH OR IN SUPPORT OF ANTI-COLONIAL STRUGGLES AND 
LIBERATION STRUGGLES IN THE 'THIRD WORLD' (LATIN 
AMERICA, AFRICA, SOUTHEAST ASIA, ETC) WHAT IS THE 
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARMED RESISTANCE IN NORTH AMERICA 
AND THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLES AROUND THE WORLD?

Let me speak just from my own experience. I started 
struggling from a self need, from the experiences of 
what I grew up in and what I knew and felt those needs 
were, not in solidarity with anybody else. It's not 
as though I started from some kind of intellectual 
abstraction. I knew where I came from and I knew the 
people I was working with.
When I was doing above-ground work, was going down to 
the welfare office and jumping on the desks for 
families who needed heating oil to get through the 
winter, those kinds of things. We were doing a lot 
of prison support work, fighting for risoners' rights 
inside and fighting for support for the families outside. 
Most families outside are poor people, working and 
poor people. So that's the basis of where I come from. 
It's more from an inside out kind of perspective than 
outside in - an in support or in sympathy kind of 
perspective.
It was basically a realization that my struggle and 
the struggles of where I'm coming from are similar to 
the struggles of people in places like El Salvador. 
They don't want to take over the world or anything 
like that, they just want to improve their lot to 
the point where it's livable and has some kinds of 
hope and some kinds of future to it. That's all we 
were fighting for in the communities. It's just a 
matter of realizing that your communnity is the same 
as thier community, and that makes both of these 
communities our community.

YOU AND YOUR COMRADES, THE OHIO 7, ARE AMONG THE MORE 
THAN 200 POLITICAL RPISONERS AND PRISONERS OF WAR 
CURRENTLY HELD IN U.S. PRISONS. DO YOU FEEL THAT 
THERE IS AN INCREASING AWARENESS OF THE EXISTENCE 
OF PP/POW's IN THE U.S.?

There is an increasing awareness of political 
prisoners and why there are political prisoners, 
but not as much as we would like to think. We tend 
to  have a lot of contacts with each other, and with 
people who have been involved for a long time newly 
coming together to organize around PP/POW's, so it 
gives us the feeling that we're reaching out and 
we're really getting somewhere. But then I have 
contact with other people around the country and 
they don't even know there are political prisoners. 
It amazes me when I'm in touch with someone doing 
political work somewhere, like down in Kentucky or 
somewhere. All of a sudden I find this new connection 
and here's someone who's been doing community work 
for fifteen years and they've never heard of any of 
the political prisoners except the ones who've been 
on "60 Minutes". It amazes me with all the energy I 
see going into this political prisoner support work 
and awareness work, it amazes me that it hasn't really 
gotten out into the community, into the wider community. 
You have the movement community and then you have the 
rest of the world, and it seems like we're not 
getting out there.

DURING THE PAST FEW YEARS WE'VE SEEN INCREASING 
ATTEMPTS BY THE US GOVERNMENT TO CRIMINALIZE 
RESISTANCE. THE STATE HAS BEEN USING THINGS LIKE 
ANTI-RACKETEERING (RICO) LAWS, ORIGINALLY DESIGNED 
TO FIGHT ORGANIZED CRIME, AND SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY 
LAWS TO PROSECUTE CLANDESTINE ACTIVISTS. WE CERTAINLY 
SAW THIS IN THE CASE OF YOU AND YOUR COMRADES. IT'S 
ALSO BEEN USED EXTENSIVELY AGAINST PUERTO RICAN INDEPENTENISTAS. WHAT DO
YOU SEE AS THE STATE'S AGENDA 
IN USING THESE LAWS AND DO YOU THINK THEY POSE A 
THREAT TO ABOVE-GROUND ORGANIZING AS WELL?

First of all, I think the use of RICO against the 
Puerto Ricans and then against us is basically an 
attempt to deny the fact that there are political 
prisoners, and ultimately that there is a need for 
political struggle in this country or in those areas 
with this country tries to dominate. The first aspect 
of criminalization is denying the justness of the 
struggle.
The use of RICO against us, and originally against 
the Puerto Rican comrades, is a test. They used it 
successfully against the Puerto Ricans. They got 
convictions. They got big time. The next step, once 
you've used it successfully against people of colour, 
is to see if you can use it against white people. 
Basically, I think that's what their progression was.
If they can successfully use it against us, this small 
group of white people being the OHIO 7, the next step 
would be to use it against people in above-ground work. 
They can tailor it. All they've got to do is find two 
acts that have some kinds of aspect to them that they 
can classify as "criminal". If they can find those two 
acts, then they can make a conspiracy out of any kind 
of organizing that you can imagine. Anywhere where 
you're putting out a message and an agenda, if they 
can attach two acts together that they can justify 
as "criminal" they they've got a RICO conspiracy.

DO YOU THINK THAT THE LEFT AS A WHOLE IN THE US IS 
AWARE OF THIS THREAT AND ARE TAKING IT SERIOUSLY?

Not the left as a whole, but I don't think the left 
as a whole in this country has ever come to any kind 
of consensus on anything. There are people who are 
taking it seriously, and that's why we got as much 
support as we did around the trial. We didn't get 
as  wide a range of support as would have liked to 
have had. One of the things with the OHIO 7 is that 
we've always tried to reach out and be as inclusive 
as possible in everything we did or said, even while 
we were underground, in our communiques and stuff. 
But the support we did get around the trial was people 
who understood what they were struggling against. 
They weren't supporting personalities or anything 
like that. They understood the seriousness and the 
potential enormity of what was coming down there in Springfield.

It seemed like in both the OHIO 7 Seditious Conspiracy 
trial, and also the recent Resistance Conspiracy Case, 
there was, in many ways, a successful attempt by the 
government to isolate the clandestine activists 
from the above ground activists by throwing around 
accusations of "terrorism", trying to intimidate 
people and stop them from doing support work.

I think a lot of the isolation was done while were 
still underground. I think they accomplished that 
to a good degree, between their propaganda and 
their terrorizing of the community. Once we had 
been captured - we were totally isolated when we 
were first captured - any breakthroughs we made 
at all were major victories. It was a constantly 
progressing thing, and it still is, that we are 
getting out of that isolation and we are reaching 
out. What we were about when we were active in the 
field and what we are still about, even though we 
can only work in a limited fashion now. It's 
constant. Anybodywho takes the time to listen to 
it and who takes the time to make all the connections 
that we've always made understands where we're coming 
from. If they're not geared for that mode of operation, 
then at least they can support it and understand it. 
Armed struggle against the same enemy, no matter 
what your geographic or geopolitical borders are, 
has the same needs.

A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE PROBABLY NOT AWARE OF CONTROL 
UNITS OR WHAT TYPES OF PRISONERS ARE HELD WITHIN 
CONTROL UNITS. TO START OFF COULD YOU TELL US WHAT 
A CONTROL UNIT IS, WHAT THE CONDITIONS ARE, AND WHAT 
KIND OF PRISONERS ARE HELD WITHIN THEM?

This particular control unit, like most, is a 24-hour 
a day lockdown. They say 23 hours a day, but the fact
is that you're locked down 24 hours a day. When you 
do get to go out to the yard your movements are so 
controlled and it's with so few prisoners at a time 
that you can't really say it's not locked down.
The kind of people they keep in control units are 
the people who they feel will have some influence 
on the general population. It's mainly ideas  that 
they're trying to lock up here rather than individuals. 
There are few people locked up here for actually 
acting out anything that they call a "disciplinary 
problem". It's the people who have the ideas that 
they're afraid of.

DURING THE LAST YEAR OR SO IN TRENTON STATE PRISON, 
WE'VE SEEN A SERIES OF PROVOCATIONS BY THE PRISON ADMINISTRATION WHICH
THEY'RE USING NOT ONLY TO 
INCREASE THE TENSIONS WITHIN THE PRISON, BUT ALSO 
TO SERVE AS A JUSTIFICATION FOR THE EXPANSION OF 
THE MCU (MANAGEMENT CONTROL UNIT, THE CONTROL UNIT 
AT TRENTON), AND TO THEN OBVIOUSLY CONFINE MORE 
PEOPLE WITHIN IT. COULD YOU GIVE US A BRIEF HISTORY 
OF THESE PROVOCATIONS TO ESTABLISH THE CONTEXT FOR 
WHAT'S GOING ON NOW?

You have to understand that this is part of a 
national move. The same shakedowns andmoves and 
other stuff that they're doing here are also  
happening at Marion right now. I hear from Ray 
(Levasseur) that they're moving people every thirty 
days confiscating property and stuff, and that's 
also what they're doing here. They are trying to 
create provocations to justify their longterm goals. 
Eventually they want to turn the whole of Trenton 
State Prison into a lockdown unit for this state, 
and with each move they're doing that deeper and 
deeper. More blocks are being turned into control 
unit blocks. What is left fo the general population 
is getting cut down to basically a service corps of 
prisoners that serve all the other prisoners that are 
locked up, doing the cleaning up in the corridors and 
stuff like that. As a matter of fact, nobody gets to 
use the corridors these days except the crews that 
clean up, and basically that's what you see in places 
like Marion where the whole prison is locked down. 
The only movement is those prisoners who are in trustee 
status out there buffing the floors and stuff, that 
that's what it's coming to here.
No programs, nothing to occupy yourself with except 
being locked up. Midnight moves, all night shakedown, 
physical frontal assaults in full combat gear every 
time they move you for a medical move or anything 
like that, they come dressed up in riot gear with 
their clubs. It's a series of moves. Nothing's 
coincidental. It's all brought about to provoke 
and intimidate.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BUREAU OF PRISON'S AGENDA 
IN TRYING TO LOCK DOWN THIS HUGE NUMBER OF PRISONERS, 
AS YOU SAY NOT ONLY WITHIN THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY BUT INCREASINGLY AROUND
THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE?

You know about the rate that they're building new 
prisons. Just since George Bush has been president, 
the feds have built forty new prisons. To control 
that number of prisoners they have to have a large 
percentage of them locked down at all times, not 
just so that they can control them but also so 
that they can use that massive control unit as a 
psychological threat to control the ones who aren't 
in control units. That's what they're doing here in 
New Jersey. At one time they used the control unit 
within Trenton to scare all the prisoners in the 
state, almost 30,000 now just in the state prisons, 
that they're using the whole idea of Trenton State 
Prison as a threat over all the other prisoners in 
prisons around the state. They're using it to say 
to the prisoners, "If you mess up here you're going 
to Trenton." To accomplish that you've got to make 
the threat of Trenton a reality and that's what 
they're doing now. This is not a fun place to be 
right now.

COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT THE STRUGGLES THAT ARE 
GOING ON RIGHT NOW WITH YOU AND THE OTHER PRISONERS 
WITHIN THE CONTROL UNIT AT TRENTON PARTICULARLY 
AROUND THIS NEW CAGE, WHICH THE PRISON ORWELLIANLY 
TERMS THE 'ACTIVITY MODULE', WHERE ALL MCU PRISONERS 
ARE NOW REQUIRED TO BE HELD WHEN ALLOWED OUTSIDE OF 
THEIR CELLS FOR THINGS LIKE MEDICAL VISITS AND 
HAIRCUTS.

Well basically what they did is built this small 
tiger cage, a 14' by 14' tiger cage out in the 
middle of the floor. You have to remember that 
they have very few programs here. One thing that 
they do to threaten people is to tell them that 
if they don't cooperate in the behaviour modification 
programs, which means basically going out and 
talking to a psychologist every 90 days, if you 
don't do that then you'll never get out of MCU. 
Getting out is very arbitrary anyway, because 
before they had this cage program they would tell 
you that if you don't talk to them you were never 
getting out of MCU, but when they need an empty 
cell they'll find somebody to move out so they 
can put someone else in here.
Because there are no other programs, they are 
basically using the cage as a very physical, 
very visual thing to demonstrate that you're 
giving in to them. When you step into that cage, 
you take all your clothes off and step into the 
cage and this fat white man sits outside the cage 
and asks you a few questions while you stand in 
this cage. That's a very visual sign to them that 
you're ready to dance to whatever tune they want 
you to dance to. So there are very few prisoners 
doing it. They're saying it's for security and 
making it look that way but all these other moves 
like the midnight moves and the all night shakedowns 
were coming anyway, they're just using this cage 
as the central point for new and deeper repression 
here.

HAS THERE BEEN STRONG SOLIDARITY AMONG THE PRISONERS 
IN MCU AGAINST THE CAGE? I KNOW THAT MANY OF YOU HAVE 
BEEN REFUSING TO LEAVE YOUR CELLS AT ALL RATHER THAN 
BE FORCED TO BE PUT INTO THE TIGER CAGE..

There's probably less than 5% of the prisoners that 
are using those cages, and even then under very limited circumstances --
guys that are told that they have 
to do a psychological review before they see a parole 
board or before they are considered for a transfer 
out of MCU. Like I said, there are less than 5% of 
prisoners doing that. There's no other activities 
going on in the cage. Those guys who do break and go 
into the cage have to make a whole lot of justifications 
within themselves before they take that step. It's a 
constant everyday thing, having this thing sitting out 
in front of your cell looking at you. It's a very 
visual thing to focus on when you're focusing on your resistance.

AS YOU SAY, PRISONERS IN MCU COME UP FOR REVIEW 
EVERY 90 DAYS TO DETERMINE WHETHER THEY CAN BE MOVED 
OUT OF THE CONTROL UNIT AND BACK INTO THE GENERAL 
POPULATION. MOST OF THE PRISONERS IS THE CONTROL 
UNITS ACROSS THE UNITED STATES ARE THERE BECAUSE 
OF THEIR POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS OR BECAUSE OF 
THEIR ABILITIES TO EDUCATE OR ORGANIZE OTHER PRISONERS POLITICALLY. YOU ARE
ENGAGED IN A LAWSUIT AT THE 
MOMENT IN WHICH YOU'RE TRYING TO EXPOSE THE POLITICAL 
NATURE OF YOUR CONFINEMENT IN MCU. COULD YOU TELL 
US ABOUT THAT?

If you look at my suit, the purpose is not so much 
to have me moved out of the control unit as it is 
to challenge the concept of the control unit itself. 
I don't ask for any kind of program to be laid out 
for me to follow so I can get out of MCU. I challenge 
the whole concept of puttiing me in here in the first 
place, I don't participate in anything here any more, 
the hearings are anything like that. I'm going to 
challenge it  in the suit or try to agitate in here 
to cause enough resistance to break it.

AND THE TIMES YOU PARTICIPATED IN THE HEARINGS, THE 
PRISON HAS STATED IMPLICITLY THAT THE REASON YOU'RE 
IN MCU IS BECAUSE OF YOUR POLITICAL BELIEFS AND 
AFFILIATIONS.

Well, you've seen a copy of the suit. We're going 
to use this suit as a central point in the trial 
that's coming up here this winter that comes out 
of the uprisings here in August 1990. The suit 
demonstrates clearly the fact that I'm treated 
differently because of my politics, because I'm 
identified as political. That will be one of the 
things that I will be tesitifying to at the trial 
of those people who are being tried for the uprising. 
They have been put in the situation that they're in 
because of their politics: singled out, pressured, 
harassed. That's what brought about that uprising. 
It's the same thing that's going on now.
------------
Transcribed from a radio interview on CKLN in Toronto, 
October 18/91.
ARM THE SPIRIT,
c/o Wild Seed Press
P O Box 57584
Jackson Station
Hamilton
Ontario
L8P 4X3.
CANADA.

Info packages are available on Tom's suit, as well 
as on the Ohio 7, and other prisoners of war and 
Political prisoners in the US. Write for more 
information.


   JERICHO'98 - TRUTH, JUSTICE & DEMOCRACY FOR ALL!
           BRING DOWN THE WALLS OF SILENCE!!
+===================================================+
|JERICHO'98 -  MARCH TO WHITEHOUSE -  MARCH 27 '98  |
| DEMAND THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS & POW's |
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|"You have much more power when you are working FOR |
| the right thing than when you are working AGAINST |
|       the wrong thing."---Peace pilgrim           |
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