All experience has shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed…
December 26th, 2009: US led forces raided a home in Kanur province and
pulled eight young men out of their beds, handcuffed them and gunned
them down execution style. The pentagon initially reported that the
victims had been running a bomb factory, although distraught villagers
were willing to swear that the victims, youngsters, age 11-18, were
seven normal school boys and one shepherd boy. Following courageous
reporting by Jerome Starkey (The Times UK), the US military carried
out its own investigation and of February 24th, 2010, issued an
apology, attesting the boys innocence.
…But when the long train of abuses and usurpations pursuant invariably
the same object evinces a design which reduces them under absolute
despotism…
Control Unit prisons confine people to small cells in isolation for
long periods of time. These Control Units are used for political and
social control of prisoners already locked in secure. They target
Black, Latino and First Nations People who are a disproportionate part
of the Control Unit populations (relative to their already
disproportionate representation in prisons in general). While
conditions vary from prison to prison, the goal of these units is
always to achieve the spiritual, psychological and physical breakdown
of the prisoner.
Utah State Prison Modern Day Abu-Ghraib.
Don Harley 74 years old in solitary 8 years.
Jason Dhalquist 10+ years
Ronnie Gardner 20+ years
Paul Payne 20 years
Troy Kell 20 years
Andrew Lindsey 8+ years
Brandon Green 2 years
John Chaney 5 years
Phillip Hart 2 years
Frankie Vilarino 2 years
Travis Wycherly did 4 years (in part) and now going on 1 year
*Some have paroled. Travis, Jason. But they come right back* Wonder Why?
Spencer Hooper deceased 02/19/2009 in solitary.
The United Nations has put forward clear documents outlining
acceptable treatments of prisoners. These documents reaffirm that
prisoners retain fundamental human rights. Control Units are physical
and mental torture and they very clearly violate the human rights of
prisoners.
…It is their right and their duty to throw off such government and to
provide new guard for future security.
February 12th, 2010: US forces raided a home during a party and killed
five people, including a local District Attorney, a local police
commander, two pregnant mothers and a teenage girl to be married. An
April 5th, 2010 New York Time article clarifies that the US troops
engaged in a deliberate cover-up.
Am I some monster? I got drunk and high and bounced a check. I was
twenty at the time. I’ve been in a cell for almost eight years because
of this and I got until 2021 until I even come from under the shadow
of my probation/parole schedule. I’m from a poor family. Do you think
I’d be here in this prison if I was rich? Seriously.
What about the men who supervise our soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan. Do
you think they might be a tad bit over twenty years of age? Then why
do they continue to do these atrocities? Can we blame them because
they’re just a youngester like I was and lock them away?
These people murdered pregnant women. This Control Unit murdered my
friend Mr. Spider Hooper. If an apology is good enough so that no
punishment needs to occur, I apologized for being stupid and bouncing
that check. Why am I still here?
Mr. Spencer Hooper’s family didn’t even get an apology from UTDOC
administration. Just lies and cover-up.
To blame the soldiers who killed in cold blood (accidentally) is like
blaming these “corrections” officers running Unita One. Who are used
to taking orders. Who have been schooled and boot camped into obeying.
But can’t we blame the Sgt. Or the General? I mean, it’s okay to blame
isn’t it? I’m feeling 1-15 years of blame right now for my actions.
What is the Sgt's or Generals feeling? Applause. Handshakes. Sun on
his face?
Whatever happened to the war protesters and beatniks of the 60’s? Is
General McChrystal an ex-beatnik? Because I’m pretty sure Sgt. F.and
Officer S. were/are.
America, you cannot ignore these atrocities. Can you, and be okay
inside? I myself am ashamed and sad. I want to do something about our
country’s stupidity/cruelty. But I’m in one of its torture chambers.
I’m caged like a rat and fed like a mouse. I’m sick with Hepatitis-C
and deranged from talking to myself. What can I even do? I’m sure not
going to turn on the TV (haven’t seen a TV for over two years anyway)
and shrug the old shoulders and walk away.
Let me touch on some points here. Olympus is Utah’s Mental Health
Unit. It’s over flowing so they send the extras right here to Unita
One.
Now Mr. John Chaney came from Olympus the same way Mr. Spider Hooper
did. The reason you haven’t heard from Mr. Chaney is because he has
made himself a covenant with god not to file grievances or drink water
from his sink (I am not joking). His other idiosyncrasies include
defacing his out-going mail with stupid remarks, so his mail never
makes its destination. Mr. Chaney believes himself the one and only
prophet of god.
Now they starve him as my accounts of abuses show. That includes
withholding milks and juices each meal. This man is in a bad way, in
several ways. He can’t stand up. When they force him out of his cell
every six or so months he is dragged out on a mattress. He has been in
prison for almost twenty years and could go home if he’d only attend
the Board of Pardons. But he refuses to do this. Something to do with
his god covenant.
Now add insult to injury. Mr. Chaney is a fundamentalist Latter Day
Saint. A Mormon who still believes in the polygamist doctrine (kind of
like Mr. Warren Jeffs) the old school Mormons. These guards guarding
us are new school Mormons. So Mr. Chaney is a sort of burr in their
dogma saddle.
Also as I just looked out my window and observed several “corrections”
officers goose-stepping while carrying rifles. Must be another run
through for the upcoming execution. Do you ever wonder what these five
men who shoot a defenseless, tied and blindfolded man will do directly
after they murder an inmate? Will they attend a Mormon service and
christen their granddaughter? Maybe go to their son’s T-ball game or
go to the local Chuck-O-Rama restaurant for hot wings.
I personally would be sick for years, for life actually. That’s one
cloud I do not want to be under, no matter the price, no matter the
command, commandment, direct order or law. No sir’ee.
Where was I?
Remember how I explained how the program works here? They take on man,
the ‘undesirable’ as our Nevada Comrades spoke, and place him in a
section. Each section has one of these usually, sometimes two but
usually one. Then they, the guards, pick and pick until it gets the
inmates to pick. Pretty soon the ‘undesirable’ tore up emotionally and
mentally.
Let me touch on this ‘undesirable’ word here. To use that tag is
dangerous, especially when you yourself are an ‘undesirable’ in many
folk’s eyes. It goes like this:
If you’re a free person, you hate prisoners. If you’re a prisoner, you
hate snitches. If you’re a snitch, you hate sex offenders. If you’re
sex offender, you hate murderers. If you are a murderer, you hate free
people (society) for not allowing you to murder. And on and on.
You should see the look on these guards faces when I stick up for
these damn near “picked-clean” individuals. Not to mention the fellow
convicts uneasiness and anger at ignoring the “code” or whatever.
Inmates get mad, too, when their favorite officer gets fired or loses
face.
I’m beyond all of that. I’m beyond giving a single care about what my
upcoming parole chances are after I’ve pretty much taken on the whole
Mormon state; thumbed my nose at them so to speak.
In comparison to our Nevada comrades, which most you are familiar
with, our situation and what’s happening is going to be their
situation if their demands don’t bear fruit. We have nothing, no phone
calls and no visitors. All we can order is stamps, pens and cards
(birthday, mother day, etc.) No books. Sporadic mail. There’s not even
electricity in our cells. The plugs are all cemented over. We do have
light, though it is on 24/7 and we cannot shut them off.
I hope this doesn’t sound weak but its past demands here and more like survival.
But back to Mr. Chaney, after I’ve sort of explained his horrid
condition, look at the abuses. Look at what they’re doing to him. Both
abuser and torture believe God is with them. It’s downright nasty and
horrible and it continues day after day, night after night. The man
withers on his mattress in dehydration fits.
This is just the one section, our section Two. There are seven more
sections at play here, eight in all. Who right now is sitting in
section three or four being abused? If you want to get right down to
it, we all are abused. Long term solitary confinement is considered
torture, at least by the world community and by the United Nations.
Then we look around our country and see Pelican Bay State Prison’s
torture chambers. We see one in Illinois and Colorado’s Florence
facility. Each American state has a solitary, where-as all other
countries have done away with the cruel practice.
This is a shot in the dark here, but I believe along with the US
ignoring torture they’ve ignored UN peace treaties and such in the
Middle East and the Geneva Convention. I remember the whole George W.
Bush controversy. I remember when it was discovered that Iraq had no
weapons of mass destruction. I vividly remember watching the ‘shock
and awe’ bombardment of Iraq from a small house in Monterrey Bay,
California.
I was still a teenager and I was sitting with our puppy and my
girlfriend. I was free then and now I’m not because I made a mistake.
I got drunk and high and thought I was “superman-with-a-checkbook”.
Now I’m paying for that mistake, but why hasn’t America paid for its
mistake? Why is Afghanistan now paying it instead?
I beg somebody to tell me why. I plead for somebody to help me with
any misunderstanding.
According to a March 3rd, 2010 Save the Children report “The world is
ignoring the daily deaths of more than 850 Afghan children from
treatable diseases like Diarrhea and Pneumonia, focusing on fighting
the insurgency rather than providing humanitarian aid”. The report
notes that a quarter of all children born in the country die before
the age of five, while nearly 60 percent of children are malnourished
and suffer from physical or mental problems. The UN Human Development
Index in 2009 says that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in
the world, second only to Niger in sub-Sahara Africa.
Most of my fellow inmates don’t care what happens to Mr. John Chaney.
It seems most of America doesn’t care what happens in Afghanistan. I
keep telling myself, ‘but at least the world and the United Nations
notices and cares about both wrongs’.
Then I am left with the fear that something might have grown callous
in my country after years of seeing such torture and slaughters.
Frankly, it frightens the crap right out of me. I hate to say it but
somebody’s got to. Keep in mind these words from a white
“non-undesirable-classed” convict.
Why all the hate and anger toward a handful of fundamentalist Mormons,
but not a single uneasy glance at the men in charge of these third
world slaughters?
Why such a disparity between the number of non-whites and whites in
prison? Whites, in prison are outnumbered four to one in a country of
80% whites. Are we all racist? If that is a ‘negative’ the why do we
keep voting for more prison expansions?
Why do we spend all this money on Boob Jobs and Viagra when millions
of children starve to death in Africa, Asia, Afghanistan, etc. or die
of preventable diseases?
Why is the American prison system set up for profit? Wouldn’t a
not-for-profit system be more able to focus on “correcting”
individuals? Unless the whole point is to warehouse all non-white
undesirables. No? Maybe the entire nation’s poor?
Why am I the one sitting in a UN declared torture chamber and not the
person who called the Iraq “Shock and awe” disaster? General Petraeus
wasn’t it?
February 21st, 2010: A three car convoy of Afghans was traveling to
the market in Kandahar with plans to proceed from there to a hospital
in Kabul where some of the party could be taken for much needed
medical treatment. US Forces saw Afghans traveling together and
launched an air-to-ground attack on the first car. Women in the second
car immediately jumped out waving their scarves, trying desperately to
communicate that they were civilians. The US Helicopter gunships
continued firing on the now unshielded women. 21 people were killed
and 13 were wounded. General Stanley McChrystal issued a videotaped
apology….
What about General McChrystal?
Who does this guy think he is? A druggie / alcoholic / check bouncer?
What gives him the right to say these sorts of things?
I’m a felon in a Supermax Dungeon. I have no rights, but I am also a
human being with a social conscience who has to live with myself. I’m
the one who has to close my eyes at night and seek an untroubled
sleep. You can call me any name in the book. You can pin on me any
jacket. You can “Undesirable” me to hell and back, but you’ll never
say I didn’t speak up when I saw a wrong committed. You’ll never count
me as one of the living dead.
…The creation of prisons as places designed to break peoples will to
resist, to think and to live is the most compelling testament to the
role of prisons as a means to extermination…
pulled eight young men out of their beds, handcuffed them and gunned
them down execution style. The pentagon initially reported that the
victims had been running a bomb factory, although distraught villagers
were willing to swear that the victims, youngsters, age 11-18, were
seven normal school boys and one shepherd boy. Following courageous
reporting by Jerome Starkey (The Times UK), the US military carried
out its own investigation and of February 24th, 2010, issued an
apology, attesting the boys innocence.
…But when the long train of abuses and usurpations pursuant invariably
the same object evinces a design which reduces them under absolute
despotism…
Control Unit prisons confine people to small cells in isolation for
long periods of time. These Control Units are used for political and
social control of prisoners already locked in secure. They target
Black, Latino and First Nations People who are a disproportionate part
of the Control Unit populations (relative to their already
disproportionate representation in prisons in general). While
conditions vary from prison to prison, the goal of these units is
always to achieve the spiritual, psychological and physical breakdown
of the prisoner.
Utah State Prison Modern Day Abu-Ghraib.
Don Harley 74 years old in solitary 8 years.
Jason Dhalquist 10+ years
Ronnie Gardner 20+ years
Paul Payne 20 years
Troy Kell 20 years
Andrew Lindsey 8+ years
Brandon Green 2 years
John Chaney 5 years
Phillip Hart 2 years
Frankie Vilarino 2 years
Travis Wycherly did 4 years (in part) and now going on 1 year
*Some have paroled. Travis, Jason. But they come right back* Wonder Why?
Spencer Hooper deceased 02/19/2009 in solitary.
The United Nations has put forward clear documents outlining
acceptable treatments of prisoners. These documents reaffirm that
prisoners retain fundamental human rights. Control Units are physical
and mental torture and they very clearly violate the human rights of
prisoners.
…It is their right and their duty to throw off such government and to
provide new guard for future security.
February 12th, 2010: US forces raided a home during a party and killed
five people, including a local District Attorney, a local police
commander, two pregnant mothers and a teenage girl to be married. An
April 5th, 2010 New York Time article clarifies that the US troops
engaged in a deliberate cover-up.
Am I some monster? I got drunk and high and bounced a check. I was
twenty at the time. I’ve been in a cell for almost eight years because
of this and I got until 2021 until I even come from under the shadow
of my probation/parole schedule. I’m from a poor family. Do you think
I’d be here in this prison if I was rich? Seriously.
What about the men who supervise our soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan. Do
you think they might be a tad bit over twenty years of age? Then why
do they continue to do these atrocities? Can we blame them because
they’re just a youngester like I was and lock them away?
These people murdered pregnant women. This Control Unit murdered my
friend Mr. Spider Hooper. If an apology is good enough so that no
punishment needs to occur, I apologized for being stupid and bouncing
that check. Why am I still here?
Mr. Spencer Hooper’s family didn’t even get an apology from UTDOC
administration. Just lies and cover-up.
To blame the soldiers who killed in cold blood (accidentally) is like
blaming these “corrections” officers running Unita One. Who are used
to taking orders. Who have been schooled and boot camped into obeying.
But can’t we blame the Sgt. Or the General? I mean, it’s okay to blame
isn’t it? I’m feeling 1-15 years of blame right now for my actions.
What is the Sgt's or Generals feeling? Applause. Handshakes. Sun on
his face?
Whatever happened to the war protesters and beatniks of the 60’s? Is
General McChrystal an ex-beatnik? Because I’m pretty sure Sgt. F.and
Officer S. were/are.
America, you cannot ignore these atrocities. Can you, and be okay
inside? I myself am ashamed and sad. I want to do something about our
country’s stupidity/cruelty. But I’m in one of its torture chambers.
I’m caged like a rat and fed like a mouse. I’m sick with Hepatitis-C
and deranged from talking to myself. What can I even do? I’m sure not
going to turn on the TV (haven’t seen a TV for over two years anyway)
and shrug the old shoulders and walk away.
Let me touch on some points here. Olympus is Utah’s Mental Health
Unit. It’s over flowing so they send the extras right here to Unita
One.
Now Mr. John Chaney came from Olympus the same way Mr. Spider Hooper
did. The reason you haven’t heard from Mr. Chaney is because he has
made himself a covenant with god not to file grievances or drink water
from his sink (I am not joking). His other idiosyncrasies include
defacing his out-going mail with stupid remarks, so his mail never
makes its destination. Mr. Chaney believes himself the one and only
prophet of god.
Now they starve him as my accounts of abuses show. That includes
withholding milks and juices each meal. This man is in a bad way, in
several ways. He can’t stand up. When they force him out of his cell
every six or so months he is dragged out on a mattress. He has been in
prison for almost twenty years and could go home if he’d only attend
the Board of Pardons. But he refuses to do this. Something to do with
his god covenant.
Now add insult to injury. Mr. Chaney is a fundamentalist Latter Day
Saint. A Mormon who still believes in the polygamist doctrine (kind of
like Mr. Warren Jeffs) the old school Mormons. These guards guarding
us are new school Mormons. So Mr. Chaney is a sort of burr in their
dogma saddle.
Also as I just looked out my window and observed several “corrections”
officers goose-stepping while carrying rifles. Must be another run
through for the upcoming execution. Do you ever wonder what these five
men who shoot a defenseless, tied and blindfolded man will do directly
after they murder an inmate? Will they attend a Mormon service and
christen their granddaughter? Maybe go to their son’s T-ball game or
go to the local Chuck-O-Rama restaurant for hot wings.
I personally would be sick for years, for life actually. That’s one
cloud I do not want to be under, no matter the price, no matter the
command, commandment, direct order or law. No sir’ee.
Where was I?
Remember how I explained how the program works here? They take on man,
the ‘undesirable’ as our Nevada Comrades spoke, and place him in a
section. Each section has one of these usually, sometimes two but
usually one. Then they, the guards, pick and pick until it gets the
inmates to pick. Pretty soon the ‘undesirable’ tore up emotionally and
mentally.
Let me touch on this ‘undesirable’ word here. To use that tag is
dangerous, especially when you yourself are an ‘undesirable’ in many
folk’s eyes. It goes like this:
If you’re a free person, you hate prisoners. If you’re a prisoner, you
hate snitches. If you’re a snitch, you hate sex offenders. If you’re
sex offender, you hate murderers. If you are a murderer, you hate free
people (society) for not allowing you to murder. And on and on.
You should see the look on these guards faces when I stick up for
these damn near “picked-clean” individuals. Not to mention the fellow
convicts uneasiness and anger at ignoring the “code” or whatever.
Inmates get mad, too, when their favorite officer gets fired or loses
face.
I’m beyond all of that. I’m beyond giving a single care about what my
upcoming parole chances are after I’ve pretty much taken on the whole
Mormon state; thumbed my nose at them so to speak.
In comparison to our Nevada comrades, which most you are familiar
with, our situation and what’s happening is going to be their
situation if their demands don’t bear fruit. We have nothing, no phone
calls and no visitors. All we can order is stamps, pens and cards
(birthday, mother day, etc.) No books. Sporadic mail. There’s not even
electricity in our cells. The plugs are all cemented over. We do have
light, though it is on 24/7 and we cannot shut them off.
I hope this doesn’t sound weak but its past demands here and more like survival.
But back to Mr. Chaney, after I’ve sort of explained his horrid
condition, look at the abuses. Look at what they’re doing to him. Both
abuser and torture believe God is with them. It’s downright nasty and
horrible and it continues day after day, night after night. The man
withers on his mattress in dehydration fits.
This is just the one section, our section Two. There are seven more
sections at play here, eight in all. Who right now is sitting in
section three or four being abused? If you want to get right down to
it, we all are abused. Long term solitary confinement is considered
torture, at least by the world community and by the United Nations.
Then we look around our country and see Pelican Bay State Prison’s
torture chambers. We see one in Illinois and Colorado’s Florence
facility. Each American state has a solitary, where-as all other
countries have done away with the cruel practice.
This is a shot in the dark here, but I believe along with the US
ignoring torture they’ve ignored UN peace treaties and such in the
Middle East and the Geneva Convention. I remember the whole George W.
Bush controversy. I remember when it was discovered that Iraq had no
weapons of mass destruction. I vividly remember watching the ‘shock
and awe’ bombardment of Iraq from a small house in Monterrey Bay,
California.
I was still a teenager and I was sitting with our puppy and my
girlfriend. I was free then and now I’m not because I made a mistake.
I got drunk and high and thought I was “superman-with-a-checkbook”.
Now I’m paying for that mistake, but why hasn’t America paid for its
mistake? Why is Afghanistan now paying it instead?
I beg somebody to tell me why. I plead for somebody to help me with
any misunderstanding.
According to a March 3rd, 2010 Save the Children report “The world is
ignoring the daily deaths of more than 850 Afghan children from
treatable diseases like Diarrhea and Pneumonia, focusing on fighting
the insurgency rather than providing humanitarian aid”. The report
notes that a quarter of all children born in the country die before
the age of five, while nearly 60 percent of children are malnourished
and suffer from physical or mental problems. The UN Human Development
Index in 2009 says that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in
the world, second only to Niger in sub-Sahara Africa.
Most of my fellow inmates don’t care what happens to Mr. John Chaney.
It seems most of America doesn’t care what happens in Afghanistan. I
keep telling myself, ‘but at least the world and the United Nations
notices and cares about both wrongs’.
Then I am left with the fear that something might have grown callous
in my country after years of seeing such torture and slaughters.
Frankly, it frightens the crap right out of me. I hate to say it but
somebody’s got to. Keep in mind these words from a white
“non-undesirable-classed” convict.
Why all the hate and anger toward a handful of fundamentalist Mormons,
but not a single uneasy glance at the men in charge of these third
world slaughters?
Why such a disparity between the number of non-whites and whites in
prison? Whites, in prison are outnumbered four to one in a country of
80% whites. Are we all racist? If that is a ‘negative’ the why do we
keep voting for more prison expansions?
Why do we spend all this money on Boob Jobs and Viagra when millions
of children starve to death in Africa, Asia, Afghanistan, etc. or die
of preventable diseases?
Why is the American prison system set up for profit? Wouldn’t a
not-for-profit system be more able to focus on “correcting”
individuals? Unless the whole point is to warehouse all non-white
undesirables. No? Maybe the entire nation’s poor?
Why am I the one sitting in a UN declared torture chamber and not the
person who called the Iraq “Shock and awe” disaster? General Petraeus
wasn’t it?
February 21st, 2010: A three car convoy of Afghans was traveling to
the market in Kandahar with plans to proceed from there to a hospital
in Kabul where some of the party could be taken for much needed
medical treatment. US Forces saw Afghans traveling together and
launched an air-to-ground attack on the first car. Women in the second
car immediately jumped out waving their scarves, trying desperately to
communicate that they were civilians. The US Helicopter gunships
continued firing on the now unshielded women. 21 people were killed
and 13 were wounded. General Stanley McChrystal issued a videotaped
apology….
What about General McChrystal?
Who does this guy think he is? A druggie / alcoholic / check bouncer?
What gives him the right to say these sorts of things?
I’m a felon in a Supermax Dungeon. I have no rights, but I am also a
human being with a social conscience who has to live with myself. I’m
the one who has to close my eyes at night and seek an untroubled
sleep. You can call me any name in the book. You can pin on me any
jacket. You can “Undesirable” me to hell and back, but you’ll never
say I didn’t speak up when I saw a wrong committed. You’ll never count
me as one of the living dead.
…The creation of prisons as places designed to break peoples will to
resist, to think and to live is the most compelling testament to the
role of prisons as a means to extermination…
I have every right to just lay down and forget the world’s hypocricies and our country’s social wrongs. Being that I’m ath the very bottom of the gut pile.
…The United $nakes is the world’s leading prison-state per capita. The U.$. imprisons more Black people than did Apartheid South Africa of the era before Mandela was president. The majority of offenders are non-violent offenders and the U.$. government now holds about half a million more prisoners than China; even though China is four times our population. In this so-called “free country” freedom is imprisonment…
What it all boils down to is Uinta One is a control unit that uses long term isolation to break and kill us. And long term isolation is a form of torture condemned by the United Nations. Killing pregnant mothers in Afghanistan is a war crime of the most high.
I don’t think we should be talking about reforming torture or accepting apologies from war criminals. Uinta One should be shut down, along with all Amerikkkan control units, per U.N. Declaration. And General McCrystal should be tried for his crimes per Geneva Convention.
These are the true “undesirables.” The true “criminals.”
In strength (no apologies) and struggle,
B.
Also published on: Utah Prison Watch
