Human Rights Coalition Newsletter

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Human Rights Coalition--FedUp! Chapter 5125 Penn Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15224
412-802-8575 hrcfedup@ gmail.com   www.thomasmertoncenter.org/fedup/

FedUp! is the Pittsburgh chapter of the Human Rights Coalition dedicated to upholding the rights of prisoners through providing resources and support, exposing injustices, and building relationships with people in prison and their advocates.

June 30, 2008
Dear sweet comrades!
Welcome to the 14th edition of the Newsletter of  FedUp! So it’s summer time and a lot's going on. First of all, the core membership of FedUp! has grown exponentially since last year. We have a solid group who are committed to working with people in prison and building the movement for justice of all people.  Since our last letter we have been busy. We had four film screenings of Up the Ridge.  We completed a 2007 report and statement on conditions in Pennsylvania prisons. We had an information table as part of a local highschool’s community day against violence.  We’ve had seven radio segments of 2.3 million and rising.  Due to your needs and responses, we’ve started a letter writing night solely to read, sort, and answer your abundant letters. We organized 20 people from Pittsburgh to attend the StopMax conference in Philadelphia.  It was an amazing weekend of information, strategy, cultural performances, testifying and story telling.  The main thing for us coming out of the weekend is a continued collaboration with a state wide group working to address issues of abuse, supermax facilities, solitary confinement and new prison construction.  If you would like some personal accounts of what happened at StopMax write to us with ATTN: STOPMAX REPORT BACK on the envelope and we will send you some eye witness accounts. 

A SUPER BIG ALL ENCOMPASSING UBER THANK FILLED HUG TO NAIMA BLACK AND THE STOPMAX COORIDINATING COMMITTEE FOR FUNDING PITTSBURGH’S TRIP TO THE CONFERENCE!! WE LOVE YOU.

    In the next couple of months we have a few speaking engagements – one at a church and two with different youth organizations.  We are also working with some other organizations to bring Hurricane Season to Pittsburgh. This is a bridge building event – a two womyn multi-media performance that interweaves spoken word poetry, sound collage, contact choreography, shadow art, animation and moving images to explore critical issues facing our nation and planet through the kaleidoscope of Hurricane Katrina and it’s aftermath. (www.climbingpoetree.com) We are also planning on attending Critical Resistance 10 year anniversary conference in San Francisco this September. (www.cr10.org)
Calling for your stories! We are looking for more 2.3 Million and Rising stories to keep our radio segment going.  Much thanks to those who have already submitted!  We cannot air every story as there is specific criteria we are trying to meet.  We are looking for stories that highlight the widespread abuse and injustices of the "justice" and prison system. Write ATTN: 2.3 MILLION AND RISING.    
Also – PEOPLE FROM VIRGINIA!! If you have a support person on the outside or you are a support person for someone on the inside, WE NEED YOUR HELP.  It just makes sense that people living in Virginia be the ones doing the work there. Specifically, we need help entering information from letters that we receive.  Please write  ATTN: JOHN  if you have ideas, time to participate, people you want us to meet, or for more information on the Virginia initiative.
I want to announce that there is going to be a new editor of the newsletter. T-Ruth is gonna take over from here! Please welcome her! Our goal is to publish 3 to 4 times a year. We cannot print everything that we receive.  If you see that there are topics missing from this newsletter please consider writing an article for us. Write ATTN: NEWSLETTER to send your submissions.
            Also, HRC-Fed Up! wants to know your (people on inside and outside) thoughts on human rights, politics, and the law!  What do human rights mean to you?  How does the legal system need to change to protect and expand the human rights of prisoners?  What are our major political challenges?  We want to know what you think about these problems so that we can be a stronger force. Write ATTN: Question on Human Rights- Bret 
I saw this amazing speaker recently named Bryan Stevenson- he is a brilliant death penalty lawyer. He said “Ideas in your head are nothing without conviction in your heart.” And I love that so much I started signing out the letters, “With conviction in my heart,” then one time, Bret says, with convicts in our heart. HAHA--I laughed my guts out.  Now every time I sign that I smile cuz yes, it’s true, there are convicts in our heart.                                       
  LOVE             LOVE              LOVE            LOVE
etta & FedUp! ?andrea, Bret, T-Ruth, Johann, John, Lizzie, Maureen, Say, Jessie, Alex, and Donna
Erika’s Two Cents

It's becoming sadly clear that our prison system is turning into the largest mental health provider of treatment in this country.  Many mentally ill citizens are being locked up in our supermax prisons.  Because of their illnesses, they are unable to conform to prison rules and are harshly punished with solitary confinement.  Even more cruel, C/Os harass the mentally ill.   One example is telling a person with paranoid schizophrenia that he will kill them by poisoning their food.  This sort of cruelty is not needed.  It's cruel enough that the mentally ill are locked away and forgotten.  It is my mission to help the mentally ill and to befriend them.  As some of you know, I, too, suffer from mental illness.  I have Bipolar Disorder and MPD/DID.  My life is not easy but at least I don't have the extra burden of being in prison.  Knowing this makes me have a lot of compassion for our suffering incarcerated mentally ill.  If you need help or a friend, feel free to write me.
Your friend,
         Erika                                         Contact: Erika Zauzig  5506 Rock Creek Ln.  Virginia Beach, VA 23462


A Reflection from Stopmax by Lizzie

It’s been two weeks since returning from the StopMax conference in Philly, and I still think about it everyday.  The panels, speakers, workshops, groups and individuals attending were all so powerful and dedicated.  It was awesome and refreshing to hear new ideas, old strategies that worked, goal making, and positive but urgent thinking.  I would like to share my favorite workshop that was given. 
This workshop was on Saturday afternoon and was primarily a film entitled “Charisse Shumate:  Fighting for our lives.”  This was a short documentary created in collaboration with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners – an awesome group who, as their website says: “is a grassroots racial justice organization that challenges the institutional violence imposed on women and communities of color by prisons and the criminal justice system.”  Also to give a little history, they were formed in 1995 “to build support for a lawsuit filed by women prisoners at Central California Women's Facility and California Institution for Women who were fighting for decent medical care.”
This film focuses on an amazing woman, Charisse Shumate, and all the amazing people who were imprisoned with her and fought with her.  Charisse’s actions in defending her right to medical care expanded beyond herself into a fight for all women in prison in California and beyond to have access to good medical care and humane conditions in general.  Despite the fairly constant pain Charisse was experiencing from sickle cell anemia, cancer, and hepatitis C which later killed her, she stepped forward to be the lead plaintiff and prisoner spokesperson in the class action lawsuit challenging the medical neglect and abuse of women prisoners (aptly named Shumate v. Wilson).  Her initiative sparked State Senate hearings and really got advocates involved in this very important fight that is not yet finished.
I think most people would find this film to be really inspiring.  Besides the brave actions Charisse took, we also saw a picture of this really strong, kind woman with an amazing attitude despite the constant opposition she was facing from the institutions and her illnesses.  The exercise of her agency along with support from the inside and outside really did make a difference that was felt by many others. 
Mostly this workshop was my favorite because it gave me more hope that good people can really make change.  Reading over this, I see that there is hardly a way for me to accurately express how much this film and Charisse really touched me and how much this system of oppression continues to frustrate and harm us.  I hope everyone gets a chance to see this film and its inspiration sometime in their lives. 

Thanks for reading this and stay strong and kind,
Lizzie

Revolutionary Thought by Batu A. Shakari
submitted by Shabazz Al-Khamu’ Abdullah, #228617 Sussex One State Prison

The Importance of a Confident Attitude

   We must maintain an attitude of total confidence in our ability to succeed in whatever we may seek to accomplish in life, no matter how many failures we may suffer in the process; for failure is not a reflection of our inability to succeed at a thing, but merely a reflection of our need for more knowledge, skill or effect if we are to achieve it.   
VIRGINIA EVENTS ANNOUNCEMENT!
                                        











Ask your Family Members to Attend!
 Call:  (804) 562-2123 
Ms. “K” InMateResource@aol.com    Queen Nzinga: OneRastaQueen@hotmail.com
Resource Information Help for the Disadvantaged (RIHD)
Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church 1720 Mechanicsville Turnpike Richmond, VA 23223
Prisoner and Family for Equal Rights and Justice (PAFERJ)


Prison Abuse Effects Everyone
Sistar! Ham’diya Mu
Human Rights Coalition – Philly Chapter

    “Life travels in circles. What goes around comes around eventually,” my grandmother would say. As an adult, I heard that saying over and over again, and with observation and wisdom, the saying is true, especially when it comes to abuse, and abuse of prisoners in particular. It has not been that long since the pictures of prisoners in Abu Ghraib were splattered across newspapers and the television nightly news. The pictures were horrible and barbaric--human beings nude and stacked on top of each other like dominoes, hooded faces with electrodes attached to fingers and bodies on display like raw meat in a butcher shop. Along side were the guards who seemed to enjoy the torturing like sport. I guess it was retaliation for the deaths of G.I. soldiers or maybe they were encouraged to take part in such activities because this is how you treat prisoners. This is how you strip them of their dignity; this is how you punish, and how you get control over the situation. This is how you dehumanize a human being. This is right because these are “bad people,” and bad people need to be punished--no remorse, no compassion, just punishment.
    At that same time, in that same instant, in any United States prison, in any town, there are prisoners who suffer the same abuse. They are beaten, starved, sexually brutalized and locked into long-term solitary confinement for months and years on end. The general public is not only unaware that this practice is going on, but that this abuse is a violation of international human rights laws. Whether in Abu Ghraib, SCI Greene, or any prison, abuse is abuse.
    Now many might think if a person is in prison then they deserve to be punished and no one should care about what happens to them. Well first, the punitive measure taken against the individual who is sentenced to incarceration is the loss of their freedom, not the abuse and torture that is often used to punish.
    A human is still entitled to inalienable rights. A person is more than the crime they commit even though we as a society can forget that, and unfortunately, only the crime is the focus and not the events prior. Prison abuse affects everyone on various levels. Whether directly or not, the cost of prison abuse reaches far and wide. You might question how as some of the effects are not obvious, but this can be demonstrated throughout our society. First, abuse behind the walls does not stay within the prison. When prisoners go to jail, the families that are in their lives do time with them. Communities lose whole groups of potentially useful people who find themselves on the wrong side of the law for various reasons. The lack of social programs and preventative incentives, and economic reasons can push many people to the breaking point. We have a fractured mental health system that is often unattainable to people who need it the most. Children and adults slip through the crack of mental health services. There are many who have been victims of abuse in their youth or as an adult. The human condition can create a quagmire for the criminal behaviors which often the courts do not concern themselves with, and this is exceptionally true for the poor and people of color who are filling the prison at unprecedented levels; poverty is a form of societal abuse.
    When a person becomes a prisoner and experiences additional abuse, nothing is gained. Abuse breeds abuse, short and simple. This creates an unwholesome, dangerous situation for everyone involved, including the guards and our society. If you take a person who is in jail for shoplifting, and brutalize them because they are powerless in this environment, the effects can be devastating. How is this rehabilitating the person from crime?
The prison system does not have enough programs in place for the rehabilitation of the individual, yet, it has a responsibility to protect the public. Individuals who have mental or emotional problems are often not given follow up treatment plans and are released into the community and to their families. This is ever present with those who experience long-term segregation, a form of sensory deprivation.  People who have experienced long-term isolation can be neurotic, and if life was difficult prior to incarceration, what do you think the results will be upon release? For many people this creates a desperate situation, which often leads to recidivism. And who benefits from this? The prison industrial complex, which is in the business of building prisons and creating employment. From the contractors, food services, uniforms, controlled devices, probation and parole offices, guards, and wardens, most are paid for with tax dollars. That is why most prisons are in rural areas where industry has folded and farmland is available. What brings the point home is “justice for sale.” Is justice just a commodity like all the other stocks on Wall Street? With fifty prisons built within twenty years and more on the way, it would seem so.
    On a personal level, the more a person is abused behind the walls the more concern there is about how this person assimilates into the community and how this person interacts with family, children, wives, husbands.  What are we creating?  Do we believe that a person’s will and spirit need to be broken in order to “fix” them? And if so, who will be responsible for the consequences? Or does the business of punishment outweigh the reality that people do make mistakes and, yes, they can rise above their past if given structure and guidance. Most people do have a conscience, and anyone can tell you that the mind can imprison a person with overwhelming guilt that can be crippling in and of itself.
    So, is it wise or necessary to abuse a person over and over again to achieve what we do ourselves? Could this be why we have become a society that condemns our youth to life sentences and places our children into adult facilities?  Who has not made mistakes, especially children who are often victims of what we adults do or neglect to do. We have taken away the right of parents to discipline their children for fear of child abuse, yet in the same breath will imprison a child for punishment and expose them to horrors. There is something very wrong with that logic.
    The high cost of prison abuse is that human rights are violated, and this type of abuse is recognized by the United Nations and other human rights organizations across the world. The United States seems to want to be the moral gauge of the world, yet it falls short of its own morality and ethics. Now what are we going to do about that? Sit by idly, or get involved to make the necessary change?  Don’t wait until it directly affects you or yours. 





Stop! It’s Legal Time
from Brother Kamau

December 31, 2007  Kwanzaa Yenu Iwe Na Heri! (May all your Kwanzaa be happy!)                                                                 
RE: COUCH v. JABE, 479 F. SUPP. 2d 569
       LOVELACE v. LEE, 472 F. 3d 174- LOVELACE v. BASSETT No. 7:07CV00506

Dear Comrade Lizzie:
      Seasons greetings! I am writing to request the assistance of FedUp! in helping us to inform the public of how the office of the attorney general is using tax dollars to condone and support the negligent and often malicious actions of Department of Corrections officials and staff who infringe upon Muslim prisoner’s rights to freely exercise their religious beliefs.
      For example, William Couch and I filed the federal civic actions (cited above) as the result of Virginia Department of Corrections official’s apathy to out first amendment constitutional right. Couch’s case was settled out of court, however the assistant attorney general handling my case seems to prefer the additional cost of a jury trial, which is scheduled for January 23, 2008. Before the honorable James P. Jones in Abingdon, Virginia federal district court.
      Magistrate Judge Urbanski, who is handling pretrial matters, has directed me to submit a settlement letter to the assistant attorney general to which he is to reply by letter within five days. See enclosed letter to Mr. Mark R. Davis. Although I would prefer to settle out of court, a jury trial may better serve the interest of exposing how the office of the Attorney General is using thousands of dollars representing legal issues that abbreviate the religious freedom of inmates.

A luta continua (the struggle continues)…
Justice for all,  Brother Kamau  -- Keen Mountain Correctional Center


Legal Time Continued….

A letter to Virginia Assistant Attorney General Mark R. Davis from Brother Kamau regarding his case.

To:     Mark R. Davis Senior Assistant Attorney General
     900 East Main Street Richmond, Virginia 23219
          Re: Lovelace v. Lester /Civil Case No. 7:03-cv-00395
Dear Mr. Davis:
      Per Judge Urbanski’s instructions, enclosed please find my settlement offer as to these matters.
      Our pretrial conference of 12/11/2007, was enlightening. I better understand your position regarding possible settlement of this case. I understood you to say that were I to win at trial, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (e) limits any award to nominal damages. My research, however, indicates that under § 1997e (e), both nominal and punitive damages are permitted for my First Amendment claim (please see attached explanation). Be that as it may, I appeal to your sense of justice. And I believe that settlement is in my best interests and in the best interests of the Commonwealth.  
      First, please know that while I may not have suffered physical injury when K. Lester falsely accused me, and then barred me from the Ramada observance, I did suffer injury. My Religion is very important to me; and my constitutional right to exercise my religious beliefs is important to me. Ramadan is one of the most sacrosanct tenets of my religion. I suffered significant injury when I was barred from the 2002 Ramadan observance (and, thereby, prevented from observing any of my other religious obligations). And it is the deprivation of my First Amendment right to exercise my religious belief- not the mental and emotional suffering attendant to such deprivation- upon which my claim is based.
      And Lester and Company continued (and exacerbated) such deprivation when they refused to rectify Lester’s false identifications, though they could easily have resolved this matter in 2002, within a matter of hours. Instead, the Virginia Department of Corrections forced me to litigate for more than 5 years (thus far) and expend/pay several hundred dollars in fees and associated costs to vindicate my constitutional rights.
      And aside from whether I can prove before a jury that defendant’s bad acts abridged my constitutional and statutory rights, prison officials’ defense to my claims is that though officials deprived me of my right to worship, and otherwise humiliated and abused me, such behavior was mainly gross negligence rather than malice- hardly a position upon which one wants to hang his hat. This is reason enough for the State to provide to me the relatively minor compensation I have requested through settlement.  
      Moreover, if I am forced to trial, whether I win or lose, the taxpayer of this Commonwealth will then know that the State squandered several thousands of their tax dollars and trusted the federal courts for several years, to argue that prison officials are negligent. The fact is, the State has spent thousands in tax dollars to prevent me from eating a 60¢ Ramadan dinner meal to which I was entitled.
      And I note that the Honorable Attorney General McDonnell was elected on his promises to save tax dollars by limiting frivolous prisoner lawsuits. Here, however, taxpayers bear a significant financial burden not because of prisoners’ frivolous lawsuits, but because of prison officials’ frivolous pursuits. This year, when the Commonwealth has slashed services to its citizens by some 5%, the citizenry may be dismayed to learn of such financial and judicial waste by its state employees. Settlement of these matters will avoid any such citizen consternation.
      Too, I suggest that the cost of a jury trial requiring the attendance of multiple witnesses (and especially the cost transport to court prisoner witnesses) all counsel toward settlement. And a settlement will avoid any appeal of this case (and the cost to defend the appeal).
      Sir, I appreciate that you are a zealous advocate for your clients. But here, you are defending the admittedly negligent, and probably malicious actions of officials where such defense is more costly in dollars and reputation than is a settlement of these matters.  
      Finally, as to my earlier, reduced settlement request of %1,500, as a good-faith gesture toward settlement I further reduce my request to $1,200. I note that out of pocket costs thus far are approximately $800 ($150 filing fee, $250 appeal fee, and some postage, supplies, etc.). And of course, had an attorney prosecuted this case, his costs and fees would be far higher. Indeed, where you initially offered to me $1,500 during the appeal, you would, according to then-counsel Victor, have paid Victor an additional sum to settle. For a all these reasons I believe my settlement offer is eminently reasonable.  
      Thank you for your consideration of this matter and I look forward to your reply.

Very truly yours, Leroy A. Lovelace  
Cc: Michael F. Urbanski, Judge






Legal Time Continued….

The Prison Litigation Reform Act permits punitive damages in First amendment cases (see below).

Title 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (e): “No Federal civil action may be brought by a prisoner confined in a … prison … for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of physical injury.”
      §1997 e (e) is not applicable to Lovelace’s First Amendment claim because the statutory section applies to situation where the underlying claim involves an injury to a prisoner’s physical well-being.
      More precisely, where §1997e (e) does apply to a prisoner’s First Amendment claim, it does not bar a separate award of damages to compensate the plaintiff for the First Amendment violation in and of itself.
      Here, Lovelace’s First Amendment claim is not a claim “for mental or emotional injury,” which requires a prior showing of physical injury. Lovelace is asserting a claim for a violation of his First Amendment rights. The deprivation of First Amendments rights entitles a plaintiff to judicial relief wholly aside from any physical injury he can show, or any mental or emotional injury he may have incurred. Therefore, §1997e (e) does not apply to First Amendment Claims regardless of the form of relief sought. Ford v. McGinnis, 198 F. Supp. 2d 363 (S.D.N.Y. 2001) (Emphasis added (by court).)
      See, Canell v. Lightner, 143 F. 3d 1210, 1213 (9th Cir. 1998) (“§1997e (e) does not apply to First Amendment claims regardless of the form of relief sought.”); Allab v. Al-Hafeez, 226 F. 3d 247, 251-52 (3rd Cir. 2000) (holding that “to the extent that [plaintiff’s] punitive damages claims stem solely from the violation of his First Amendment rights and not from any emotional or mental distress suffered therefrom, those claims are not brought ‘for mental or emotional injury suffered’ and are not barred by §1997e (e).”); Blount v. Johnson, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39146 (E.D. Va. 5/30/2007) only recovery “for mental and emotional injury,” leaving available claims for nominal or punitive damages which seek to remedy a different type of injury.) Blount, id., (Lead counsel for defendants: Mark R. Davis) (Emphasis added by court).
 
                           Department of Corruption by Sadot Williams #DQ-3608, SCI-Greene

    With wars on terrorism being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan that are costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars a month, a sub-prime Mortgage meltdown, and high food and gas prices, why am I not the least bit surprised that the State of Pennsylvania has found the Prison Industrial Complex so lucrative and recession proof that legislators in Harrisburg have dug deep into the State’s coffer, and the P.A. General Assembly has come up with well over seven hundred million dollars to build three new maximum security prisons that will bring the number to a staggering 30 state prisons in operation.
      When S.C.I.-Forest and Fayette were built a few years back the excuse that was given to the general public was that these two new prisons are to replace S.C.I.-Pittsburgh and Waynesburg, because they were old and not economically feasible to keep open. As soon as S.C.I.-Forest and Fayette were up and running, S.C.I.-Pittsburgh and Waynesburg were closed down. However, S.C.I.-Pittsburgh opened right back up just over a year and a half later, under the cloak of so-called “overcrowding,” though that looks to have been the game plan from the very beginning.  
      It should be very clear by now that as long as Governor Ed Rendell and State legislators in Harrisburg keep giving the Pennsylvania D.O.C. (“Department of Corruption”) and Parole Board a blank check backed by the state’s tax payers to combat intentionally manufactured overcrowding, that the Prison Industrial Complex in Pennsylvania will only grow larger. Over-crowding could be eradicated all together if the PA D.O.C. would let the prisoners that are well over their parole minimum dates take their needed programs mandated by the Parole Board.
      Correction counselors are slow to add the names of prisoners to the already long waiting list for program classes! This tactic will insure denial of parole if the mandated programs are not completed when the prisoner is reviewed by the PA Parole Board!
      Also, parole officers must be given clear instructions to stop taking a zero tolerance approach towards the men and women on their case load and instructed not to violate them or bring them back to prison for being five minutes late for curfew or for having a cell phone in 2008!
      These are just a few of the ways that the Pennsylvania Department of Corruption and Pennsylvania Parole Board keep the State prisons filled to maximum capacity!

Revolutionary Thought by Batu A. Shakari
submitted by Shabazz Al-Khamu’ Abdullah, #228617 Sussex One State Prison
Awareness
Awareness without commitment and action is worthless, for awareness in and of itself is incapable of changing world conditions.
Change is a product of the combination of awareness, commitment, and action; and not simply awareness alone.
The Beast by Paul Rogers # BS6500, SCI Smithfield
This piece was read during the Stopmax conference by Paul’s daughter.

    The cliché, “In the Belly of the Beast,” is a very conformable expression as it relates to a prisoner’s incarceration.  This symbolic Beast (i.e. Prison) is a tangible creature who has fed on different classes of ‘criminals’ in order to quench it’s thirst and saturate it’s inside with human nutrients!
     In the eight years and nine months that I’ve been inside the Beast, I’ve witnessed it’s stomach acids eat at the very fabric of individuals to the point where their conscience and moral awareness has become bankrupt of any value. 
    The teeth of the beast are bars and barbwire, the chew is slow, all the while malicious and methodical as well.  It’s incisors pierce through individuality, and its molars' grind is as sharp and painful as gout!
    As time passes, the less fortunate reach its digestive system and become reduced to sub-humans in a most abject state, and eventually succumb to the pain resulting in either death, or the virtual zombie syndrome, lost in a world too different than our own.
    The more fortunate ones who’ve been patient and have persevered through the tumultuous times, the Beast not understands this sub-population.  Their taste is foreign, thus the Beast regurgitates these back into the society from which they came.  This, however, doesn’t mean they’ve exited unscathed!  A lot leave with permanent scars, perishing in the winds of despair.
    This Beast is on a political leash that tightens at random.  The master of the Beast (i.e. Government) walks it in the name of reform, while the claws of recidivism barely scratch the surface!
    Far from pessimistic, I acknowledge those soldiers and soldierettes who’ve survived the psychological wars and overcame, retaining their freedom and keeping it despite tremendous odds.
    I must conclude this narrative with the reminder that I still feel the incisors.  I still feel and am being effected by the chew of the Beast!  Beware!!  I can hear it’s stomach growl!  He’s hungry, and on the prowl!
       
Social Security Administration Rip-off
 by James "Jungle Jim" M. Scott #63471, Los Lunas, New Mexico

      The current policy of the Social Security Administration (SSA) is to stop earned income retirement pensions of qualified retirees, 62 or older, in prison. SSA Dallas region manager, Linda J. Mannie, stated their policy in a letter to U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, “persons who committed a felony and are confined do not receive retirement money.”
      Another broken social contract, lapsed social responsibility.  
      The United States has 2,320,359 people in prisons according to a 2005 statistic. About 2% of prison inmates are retirees entitled to receive earned income retirement money. Average payment is $800.00 per month.
2% of 2,320,359 = 40,000+
$800 x $40,000 = $32,000,000 per month
      There are twelve months in a year.
      SSA has removed a large sum of money from we the people.  SSA stops SSI & DI (disability benefits) to prevent “double dipping” by inmates. However, earned income is not welfare derived--earned income retirement pensions are NOT welfare.  SSA does not accept appeal or reconsideration.  SSA policy is unreasonable, wrong, and unjust. The even greater wrong is SSA’s refusal to consider oversight or exceptions. All policy is addressable, if not through administrative procedure, then through legal action or legislation (and prayer).  
      SSA funds are “general funds” that pay for corporate agri-business subsidies ($100 billion), such as tobacco, and buy military-industrial activity, such as police actions, peacekeeping, desert shields, desert storms and surges in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Vietnam, Korea, Haiti, Lebanon, Sudan, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Coming up… Pakistan!  

Can a Wrongfully Convicted Person’s Mind Ever Be the Same Again?
 by Lorenzo Johnson #DF1036, SCI-Fayette

      After so much mental pain and anguish from suffering from this ordeal, is it possible to trust again and place your faith in the Judicial System that promised you FREEDOM, JUSTICE, and EQUALITY!?! When you see any person who is a part of the judicial system, whether they be police, lawyers, district attorneys, judges, etc… will you ever be able to look at them in the same light as your did before you were kidnapped and held hostage!?! Would you be cautious of the people who are supposed to protect you from the nightmare that raped you of your INNOCENCE? Your family was divided, meaning the ones who didn’t believe you were stuck in the mindset that you’re “in prison, so you had to commit a crime.” You might have even lost your female/male companion due to this situation. This isn’t including family members and friends passing away while you were incarcerated. Okay, here’s one, you go from watching your kids send you stick-figure pictures in Elementary School to your kids typing and printing you a letter from High School.  The Judicial System says, “once in a while, the system makes an error.” But every time you watch the news, read a paper, etc., this is constantly happening. Until the ones who responsible start being HELD ACCOUNTABLE, situations like this will keep getting swept under the BIG RUG.  
      Most states don’t even offer “back to society” programs to help people coming out of these ordeals. Most times, people have no family in society. Let me not leave out the people who on appeal plead guilty in hopes of a release date, fearing his/her destiny would be the same if they went back to trial. One shouldn’t have to suffer from a FLAWED JUDICIAL SYSTEM, which completely damages the state of mind of an innocent person. You cannot put a price tag on these situations and act like it never occurred.  

Excerpts from EndGame Volume II: Resistance  by Derrick Jenson

"When I think of resilience, I remember the determination I once saw in the eyes and in the set jaw of a child who'd vowed when he grew up he wouldn't strike his son or daughter as his father had struck him.  I think of the open tears of fright from a grown woman taken back by an innocent gesture to a time in her childhood when her father could and would have killed her had she not slipped from his grasp, and I think of how she has successfully fashioned a creative life from the wreckage of her childhood.  I think of the pride with which another woman--this one beaten and raped by her father as a child--states that she has never struck nor even shouted at her sons."
"When I think of resilience I wonder where all of this strength comes from and I wonder how people so violated--stabbed in the arms and chest with a steak knife, or beaten with ropes, or starved, or forced by fist to finish plate after plate after plate of unwanted food (and these are just people I know personally)--can sometimes grow up to live lives marked by grace and compassion."
"There are those who pass on to others the abuse they received--I know many people like this, as I'm sure you do--but there are those also who do not.  Despite the seeming impossibility of survival, there are children--and adults--who do not accept, wear, and pass on this mantle given to them by those who would initiate them into this lineage of abuse.  In fact it happens all the time.  I've come to know many people who've survived the unsurvivable, and whose lives are now full of joy.  Indeed, because many of them have had to struggle so hard to find, allow, and realize love in their lives, their appreciation of this is far more profound, layered, and textured than it might be for many who have never been forced to feel the dreadful and grinding ache of terror deep in the marrow of their bones.  When and if those formed in such a crucible do achieve some form of hard-won emotional connectedness--with other humans, nonhumans, the natural world, music art, writing, or even with every breath they take--they often find themselves then able to feel passion more acutely, and to savor those connections with a strength as unfathomable to those for whom these connections are first nature--that is, transparent--as are the original traumas themselves."
"Given the near-ubiquity of abuse within our culture--and I'm talking not only about the deformations of child abuse, but of coercive schooling, the wage economy requiring people to waste lives working jobs they'd rather not do, the trauma of living in a world being destroyed before our eyes--the question becomes, what helps some people to open out after having been subject to abuse, and what causes others to shut down?  In other words, what causes or allows resilience?"
"All things need places where they are allowed to be who they are, places where they can--like roots of the chestnut trees--derive sustenance and strength from their surroundings.  Terror and exploitation do not engender growth, and it is especially true that those normally subject to these need refuges where they can regenerate in peace."
"...Those places provided me with the understanding that the pain I suffered was neither natural nor inevitable, that there are other ways to be.  This understanding is crucial to resilience, and in fact to the continuation of life, because if all of life consisted of abuse and exploitation, what would be the use in going on?"
"The future resides in these places of refuge, these places of freedom, small as the inside of our hearts and minds and bodies, and big as the deepest bottom of the oceans where trawlers' nets cannot reach.  Without freedom, without these places that are free of terror and exploitation where we can develop comfortable and nurturing relationships--to streams, to ponds, to pieces of ground, to stars, to human beings, to art, to pets, to music, to ourselves--there can be no resilience. 
For resilience is relationship, to other and to self, and grows naturally where relationships are allowed to flourish.  Salmon in cold streams free of sediment grow to re-inhabit other streams.  Port Orford Cedars free of the disease grow as well to re-inhabit their former territories.  And even parts within us that we can by any means keep free of the taint of terror can provide reservoirs of resilience and help us remember what it means to be human."

Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women
a forward from cyberspace

Six years have gone by since we first heard the allegations that R. Kelly had filmed himself having sex with an underage girl. During that time we have seen the videotape being hawked on street corners in Black communities, as if the dehumanization of one of our own was not at stake. We have seen entertainers rally around him and watched his career reach new heights despite the grave possibility that he had molested and urinated on a 13-year old girl. We saw African Americans purchase millions of his records despite the long history of such charges swirling around the singer. Worst of all, we have witnessed the sad vision of Black people cheering his acquittal with a fervor usually reserved for community heroes and shaken our heads at the stunning lack of outrage over the verdict in the broader Black community.
Over these years, justice has been delayed and it has been denied. Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly's absurd defense and find "reasonable doubt" despite the fact that the film was shot in his home and featured a man who was identical to him. Perhaps they doubted that the young woman in the courtroom was, in fact, the same person featured in the ten year old video. But there is no doubt about this: some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.
We have proudly seen the community take to the streets in defense of Black men who have been the victims of police violence or racist attacks, but that righteous outrage only highlights the silence surrounding this verdict.
We believe that our judgment has been clouded by celebrity-worship; we believe that we are a community in crisis and that our addiction to sexism has reached such an extreme that many of us cannot even recognize child molestation when we see it.
We recognize the absolute necessity for Black men to speak in a single, unified voice and state something that should be absolutely obvious: that the women of our community are full human beings, that we cannot and will not tolerate the poisonous hatred of women that has already damaged our families, relationships and culture.
We believe that our daughters are precious and they deserve our protection. We believe that Black men must take responsibility for our contributions to this terrible state of affairs and make an effort to change our lives and our communities.
This is about more than R. Kelly's claims to innocence. It is about our survival as a community. Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.
We ask that you:
o    Make a commitment in your own life to never to hit, beat, molest, rape, or exploit Black females in any way, and, if you have, to take ownership for your behavior, seek emotional and spiritual help, and, over time, become a voice against all forms of Black female exploitation.
o    Challenge other Black males, no matter their age, class or educational background, or status in life, if they engage in behavior and language that is exploitative and or disrespectful to Black females in any way. If you say nothing, you become just as guilty.
o    Learn to listen to the voices, concerns, needs, criticisms, and challenges of Black females, because they are our equals, and because in listening we will learn a new and different kind of Black manhood .
 
We support the work of scholars, activists and organizations that are helping to redefine Black manhood in healthy ways. Additional resources are listed below.
Books: Who's Gonna Take the Weight, Kevin Powell, New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage,  Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall   Films: I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America, by Byron Hurt & Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt NO! The Rape Documentary, by Aishah Simmons  Organizations The 2025 Campaign: www.2025bmb.org  Men Stopping Violence: http://www.menstoppingviolence.org

 (FedUp! note:  in addition to calling for the ceasing of abuse of Black females, we would like to say that all humans should work towards not abusing, hitting, beating, molesting, raping, or exploiting any other living being).