'Off The Hook' Relaunch

Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011
From: brightonabc@riseup.net
 
Brighton Anarchist Black Cross has for many years supported Jerome White
Bey, both as an anarchist and class struggle prisoner and as president of
the Missouri Prisoner Labour Union. Recently we have also been involved in
his on-going struggle to get even the most basic health care provision in
prison and, because of that commitment, he has asked us to help him
relaunch the MPLU's occasional newsletter 'Off The Hook', which sadly has
not appeared in recent years.
 
We have grudgingly accepted his request. Obviously this reticence is not
because we do not want to help him and the MPLU but because we are a
continent away. That said, the tentacles of the Prison Industrial Complex
have long spread across the Atlantic and the struggles in North America
are not a great deal different than here in Airstrip One.
 
So we are therefore asking other prisoner support groups for help in two
main ways. Firstly, we need contributions on the subject of organisation
and resistance in prisons across the globe, especially where these involve
prison labour issues. Past editorial collectives have tried to maintain
the ideal of making 'OTH' a useful tool in the prison abolition struggle
and we wish to continue down that path.
 
We also know that those of you that have previously taken on the Editorial
role have struggled to publish 'OTH' on a regular basis, whether that be
because of time commitments or simply find enough text to fill it on a
regular basis. So the second thing we are asking is that groups commit to
participating in a rotating editorial collective to help relaunch 'OTH',
that way the pressure does not fall upon one particular bunch of people
for any prolonged period of time and they can still get on with all their
other commitments to the struggle.

Lastly, we note that Prison Action News is currently coming out twice
yearly and we would hope we could at least do the same, acting as a
complementary sister publication to PAN.
 
Please contact us with your thoughts on relaunching 'Off The Hook'.
Thanks
Brighton ABC
 
PS. Off The Hook #12 available here
[http://zinelibrary.info/files/offthehook12.pdf] if you've not seen a copy
before.