First Nations, First Resistance: Black Mesa

Note that there's a benefit Saturday at the Firehouse (1015 N. 1st Street, Phoenix). From my friend Berkley, who authored this bulletin and appears to be organizing a lot of this:
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Hi, some of you might already be getting this invite, but i figured there might be additional interest so.... this email is for anyone interested in going on the fall caravan to support Indigenous Resistance to forced relocation and coal mining on Black Mesa, And for anyone wanting to come to the benefit at the Firehouse this Sat, the 14th. Please feel free to forward this along. If you want to be included in the emails about the caravan email me (email Peggy at prisonabolitionist@gmail.com). If there's a lot of interest in Tempe we can have a meeting here, otherwise~

We're going to have a meeting to discuss caravan logistics, the benefit and current updates from the land this Wednesday at 7 at 
Conspire.

901 N. Fifth St.

Phoenix, AZ 85004

602-237-5446
If you can't make it on the upcoming Fall caravan from Nov 21-28, but are interested in going up at some other point or want to help get food and supplies for the caravan, please come.

Everyone should go the the blackmesais.org website and search for the article First Nations, First Resistance, which gives a pretty recent update about Peabody and on-land resistance and has a call for caravan support. Also for history the first article: "The Black Mesa Syndrome: Black Gold, Indian Lands." It's under the background section on the site Super important- print out the cultural sensitivity packet at the end of which is a direct, on land support registration sheet. The families request that everyone who comes on the land fills this out. It also helps to think about intentions, what you hope to give and learn. Please bring that to the meeting. I'll bring some copies as well.

Garyn will talk about the benefit and ways we can help out.

We'll talk about what to expect, what to bring, how to gather supplies, who has vehicles and so forth. I'd like to have a conversation with folks at some point about our role as activists /people who support Indigenous struggle, fight to protect the environment, dismantle systems of oppression and so forth who aren't from Black Mesa but are going up there to provide direct support to this struggle. If we don't have time at this meeting we could talk about another meet up or other ways to start the conversation.

I'll forward an email written by some other folks from the Bay who are coming on the caravan and are
trying to start a larger dialogue around these questions. It's a little on the long side so if you can I'd print it and read it that way. Also there are great suggested readings on it, and hopefully we can not only plan to go on the caravan together but build relationships and analysis that can continue beyond that week.

Concerned for Prisoners' Rights? Tell Oprah Today.

Since 1976 a handful of people in New Mexico dedicated to promoting the rights of America's prisoners has been assembling and disseminating a free monthly newsletter across the country, including over 9,000 copies to prisoners themselves. After absorbing the costs for these mailings - with decreasing resources for funding over the years - the Coalition for Prisoners' Rights is having to stop publication of its newsletter, at least until it can pay off its $25,000 debt and establish a means of staying out of debt. I learned about their crisis from an impassioned plea for support put out by Lois Ahrens in the Real Cost of Prisons Project blog, and sent what I could.

Today I received what was my first - and may be their last - issue of the newsletter, down from 8 pages to two, one side in English and the other in Spanish. The featured article was about the abuse of extended lockdown in solitary confinement, which has become increasingly commonplace in American prisons over the past 20 years. Referring to the March 30, 2009 issue of the New Yorker, in an article titled "Hellhole", the newsletter quotes Arizona Senator John McCain describing solitary confinement, which he endured for a substantial portion of his incarceration as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Straight from the New Yorker article:

"“It’s an awful thing, solitary,” John McCain wrote of his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam—more than two years of it spent in isolation in a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot cell, unable to communicate with other P.O.W.s except by tap code, secreted notes, or by speaking into an enamel cup pressed against the wall. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” And this comes from a man who was beaten regularly; denied adequate medical treatment for two broken arms, a broken leg, and chronic dysentery; and tortured to the point of having an arm broken again. A U.S. military study of almost a hundred and fifty naval aviators returned from imprisonment in Vietnam, many of whom were treated even worse than McCain, reported that they found social isolation to be as torturous and agonizing as any physical abuse they suffered."

According to the Coalition for Prisoners' Rights, at least 25,000 people are being held in isolation in what are know as "Supermax" prisons in America today. Another 50,000 to 80,000 are kept in restrictive segregation units where they have minimal human contact, even with guards.

That's mindboggling. It's routine. And it appears to be the trend of the future.

The newsletter goes on to describe the serious psychological trauma such treatment inflicts on people, about a third of whom develop psychotic symptoms with hallucinations.

But it doesn't end there. After pointing to how the British have learned to prevent violence rather than resorting to extreme punishments in the aftermath, the newsletter goes on to advise prisoners how to survive solitary - concrete suggestions for getting through it.

Now that's the kind of thing I'd want to know if I was in prison, because I'd most certainly be spending a lot of time in the hole, going out of my mind. This newsletter is definitely written with the prisoner audience in mind, and has never cost anyone but the Coalition a dime.

This newsletter can't be allowed to die just like that. Their debt is only 1/3 of my student loan debt. Their estimated total circulation is about 50,000 newsletters per month. If everyone who received one gave them just $1 a year (they've never charged for subscriptions), they could pay off their debt and operate in the black.

I don't have 50,000 readers, and I'm sure that of the handful (literally) who do visit this page, few are any more wealthy than myself. A suggestion made by one of the former prisoners in the coalition, though, was for 10,000 readers - roughly representing the number of prisoners who depend on the newsletter - to use just one stamp and send a note to Oprah about why this newsletter needs to be saved. Just one stamp.

I don't know why Oprah, and not John McCain (who owns more homes that he can count). I don't know if anyone else will do this, or if they do, if Oprah will even get the SOS. She's dropped more money on sillier things than this before, though - and she does seem to have a heart.

So, I'm printing up this blog entry and enclosing my copy of my newsletter and sending it off to Oprah with a prayer. Hopefully it will be more productive than the Progressive's campaign to get people to mail their old shoes to President Bush (since we could never get close enough to throw them at him personally, I presume). Maybe Oprah will even be moved to do a show on the kinds of issues the Coalition has covered over the years. Wouldn't that be remarkable?

Her address is: Oprah Winfrey, c/o Harpo Productions, Inc., 1058 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill 60607. If you'd rather call, the number is 312-633-1000.

I swear I never thought I'd find myself writing to Oprah about anything, much less suggesting publicly that others do the same. But if it was Amnesty asking me to write the President of Iran or the Governor of Georgia, I would without hesitation. And who knows, maybe if enough of us do from all over the country it will make a difference, and the Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletter can be saved.

(The Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletter is published monthly by the Prison Project of Santa Fe, Inc., PO Box 1911, Santa Fe NM 87504-1911 and will accept any donations of cash or stamps that people can afford, on the off chance that Oprah doesn't come through.)