You see People I embark on these journeys of pointing out this fundamental antagonism, which is when we state that the experiences we exist as Life has a systemic basis, the Status Quo reaction is you are wrong and every situation is an isolated unto itself occurrence. But as soon as the same Status Quo goes about with actions it defines as validating and legitimizing its speech, as celebrations, commemorations and Jurisprudence, it never fails to do so on conditions and qualifications of a systemic definition. So we encounter purported "unimpeachable" articulations as TRADITIONS and rarely do we say wait a minute if what is deemed a Social Good is attributed TRADITIONAL, meaning on a systemic claim, then why aren't Social Ills attributed TRADITIONAL with the systemic edification and glorification?. Well this is what the Leveller Movement of 1600 England was developing its fundamental assertion, a simple common sense of We, [the Human Condition] are all in this, on this Planet together and the less lies, sophistry and deception we weaponize against ourselves, the better off we are at the business of human existence. Because it sure isn't news that the proverbial Center has never held, instead it's Us, We the People our acceptance, which is at once, Prosecutor, Judge and Executioner. I BEGIN: The Russian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his work "Gulag Archipelago", formulated and I paraphrase that lies goes hand in hand with state violence as critique of Soviet Socialism under the Russian Communist Party, then he emigrated to the United States and the rude awakening that lies and state violence also has it's American visage as it's more originally human conditional than the unoriginal and idealistic regurgitated Formica of J.D. Vance's, 'blood and soil' Americana. So who were the Levellers, whose Speech we inherit, anticipating ours with our work of Virginia Prison reform and holding the Virginia Prison Official accountable that I have to remind us of their speech with evoking a Solzhenitsyn and our opportunistic Vice-Prez J.D. Vance ?.The Levellers were a movement whose Speech challenged the governance of the English Monarchy exacting the ultimate accountability-function along with confronting the dictatorial presumptions and above-the-lawism of Cromwell's Army. Which is the same thing we are doing in Virginia with Prison reform. Making the simple basic and fundamental case that the Virginia prison official is accountable to the People, just as the English King Charles I of the 1640's was accountable to the People, for crimes in his Official capacity as King and this also flies in the face of what those reactionaries of the Supreme Court of the United States ruled a few years ago that Donald Trump cannot be held to account for crimes in the performance of his Official Duties. What is glaring about this Trump ruling is those reactionaries are always giving us pronouncements about Histories, Traditions of Jurisprudence that must be tethered to and found in English Common Law. Well English Common Law specifically and commonsensically had the courage to process a King, convict him and subsequently sanction him, and as much as we are hectored at by the reactionaries with their talk of textualists this and originalist that, the framers of our American Constitution knew all about the Levellers and the Charles I incident and specifically said No One, will be above the law in these United States, till John Roberts and his cabal channelled Roger Taney and tangoed into infamy.
People let this sink in, the English as back as the 1640's understood that for there to be Community, Society had to be that of law and not men, meaning establishing the supremacy of the accountability-function as evidenced, by the processing, conviction and execution of a King, King Charles I. This in no way form of fashion absolves the English motive from the chaos and dehumanization they wrought in pursuit of and on the course of the practice of a political-economy of destruction and nihilism. Still from the vortex of that maelstrom the Levellers were birthed, with their Speech, unconditional, unapologetic and in no uncertain terms, defiantly stating 'equality under law and its authority is a from and off the People, bottom up organic fact'. There is much I can say about their work, which is to mean there is much, which, to endorse Frantz Fanon's instructions, we must not only learn from others but refine their discoveries and lessons. Accordingly with the Levellers, I can firmly defend the comparison of their work, to that for a brief bright American moment, pregnant with the right side up birth of a new scientific Human Condition: The Reconstruction of the post-Civil War period, a Dialectical Historical Materialist emergence of the formerly enslaved Black Person, on objective non-idealistic terms with The American Social Contract expression of the Human Condition. So let's remind ourselves that even as the Levellers supernovaed, due to reactionary persecution not unlike the practiced terroristic opposition from the kindred of William H. Holcombe, his "Africanization of The South", to Reconstruction, the dynamism of the Levellers still bequeathed and gave us inheritance in the Opposition to Arbitrary Power and its State Organized-violence and the imprisonment application. That sovereignty notwithstanding its monarchical presumptions is still an entity of the People, the Collective or the People as a Commonwealth and not above them. We also learn from the Levellers, that Community Oversight [and not the farcical theatre of the Virginia Politician ally of the Virginia Prison Official], that Prison governance as a delegated power, must be continuously reviewed by the Communities most impacted. Black, Poor and Rural communities who are imprisoned at higher rates. That the Punishment aspect of Virginia's Justice Infrastructure i.e. sentencing schemes, parole and Virginia Department of Corrections Operating Procedures e.t.c should have direct and recurring Public input not just Technocratic speculations under the even more dubious frame of Evidence-Based. What we also mean by Accountability-Function is Virginia Department of Corrections Policies must be visible and the Department is responsive to the People, not just their allies on Budget Committees and the law and order rhetoric diversions. That the Virginia Prisoner must be accorded meaningful Due Process and Review outside of the self-serving interest of the Virginia Department of Corrections. What this also means is a return to allowing the Virginia Prisoner actual Legal Representation for disciplinary infractions as was the practice during the 1970's under LANDMAN v .ROYSTER 333 F.SUPP. 621, also Solitary Confinement Classifications. The Accountability-Function also means the end to the existence of the two-tier system of legal framing in Virginia where free Citizens have Rights and the Imprisoned has "procedure". The argument for this is prima facie and basic. Of all legal classes in Virginia Society, the Virginia Prisoner is the most lawful because the Virginia prisoner exist as a complete creation of law and if law is the supreme arbiter then to exclude its comprehensive creation as being outside of its ambit, under a less than imposition of capricious procedure mocks and negate whatever claim to existence law has. Accountability-Function, means transparency.
This transparency, requires a repeal of certain current Virginia laws that effectively continues the ad hoc work of the English "Star Chamber", where torture and cruelty were simply meted to those whose Speech the State and its dictatorship intent feared. By shielding the machinations of the Virginia Department of Corrections and Virginia's Justice Infrastructure from Public access. So for example the Virginia citizenry in whose name all this Star Chamberesque malevolent activities are done, viz Koncentration Kamp Red Onion State Prison, have to relatively discover what some of these Virginia Department of Corrections Policies and Procedures are i.e Use of Force from Court cases filed by Virginia Prisoners. This also reveals and exposes the spurious asserted logic by those Virginia prison official allies who legislate those shield laws obstructing Public access to the Prison Official's philosophical construct, their true intent, which is disdain for the People who vote them into those positions of legislating. Because during Court proceedings those Policies and Procedures are to a relative degree exposed and interrogated, showing that the quasi-logic of obstructing public access is just that petit-obstruction. To which we can also infer, that apart, from the disdain the Virginia Politician has for the constituency that wants to exercise its civic obligations by scrutinizing the Virginia Prison Official's professional philosophy, its other motive in obstructing Public access is a diabolical effort at concealing the tepid and timid efforts of legislative oversights, that effectively has the People of the Commonwealth complicit with the Prison Official's, savagery, barbarism and dehumanizing régime of the Virginia Prisoner. The Accountability-Function also means the Publics access to Data as a Constitutional Right, meaning access to metrics on Virginia Imprisonment Conditions. The facts are whether or not the Virginia Prison Official and allies are capable of understanding that no amount of sophistry, obfuscation, lies and distortions conceal what occurs in Virginia Prisons in the name of the People, from forced out of state transfers of certain Prisoners away from family, in violation of the Departments Mission Statement, to Class and Racialized abuse of Black, Brown and Rural White Prisoners. The People of the Commonwealth are well aware and the only thing accomplished by the Gross Negligent theater of emasculated oversight, is the People's loss of faith in the Social Contract and that cynical conspiratorial reinforcement that the human condition is inherently corrupt so why should there be any exerted Speech of Reform. To which in the 1600's the English Leveller Movement, when confronted with these same Contradictions and Antagonisms, "Spoke", that the Accountability-Function of governance isn't aspirational pablum but without its equality, what we have is nothing more than applied Corruption and Opportunity and we have Theology for that. To the People of the Commonwealth our Speech of Virginia Prison Reform and holding the Virginia Prison Official accountable is clear, to anthologize it, We State: FROM STAR CHAMBER TO SUPERMAX:HOW ARBITRARY POWER SURVIVED THE FALL OF CHARLES I AND FOUND A HOME IN VIRGINIA'S DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. THE AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE VS.THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE:WHY VIRGINIA'S PRISON BUREAUCRACY FAILS EVERY ACCOUNTABILITY-FUNCTION TEST. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY BEHIND THE WALLS:WHAT THE LEVELLERS WOULD AND WHAT THE PEOPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH DEMAND OF VIRGINIA PRISON OVERSIGHT. A COMMONWEALTH OF EQUALS? EQUAL JUSTICE AND THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF VIRGINIA IMPRISONMENT. WHAT COUNTS AS A RIGHT? LIMITS ON STATE POWER AND THE LEGAL BLACK HOLE OF VIRGINIA PRISON POLICY. So People what I've done is present lines of thought
By William Thorpe
I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982
