HEP C: Pray For the Dead, and Fight like Hell for the Living.

Julie Acklin (holding photo), our young "prisoners",
and our comrades at the American Liver Foundation.
Annual Liver Life Walk, Indian Steele Park, Phoenix, AZ.
March 20, 2010.

Cross-posted from Prison Abolitionist:

Thanks to Mother Jones and AIDS activists for the inspiration, and thank you to those of you who joined or supported the walkers at the Liver Life Walk, Saturday. The T-shirts and banner invited a number of opportunities to raise awareness about Hepatitis C in jail and prison, and it was good to meet so many other people interested in working towards some common objectives. We also made a huge birthday card for Davon.

Friends and Families of Arizona's Prisoners. "Happy Birthday Davon!" Phoenix, March 20, 2010.

Arizona Department of Corrections:
Our Families are your Prisoners, too.

The new blog is up, now: hit it at http://hardtimehepc.blogspot.com. Let us know how it works for you, if you have other resource ideas for us to link to or upload, or if you’d like to help organize and keep posts current. I'll be anchoring it for awhile as Julie learns the mechanics, so shoot me an email if you have thoughts on content, links, layout, tone, etc. (prisonabolitionist@gmail.com). If you need to connect about family organizing stuff, start with Julie. You can track her down fastest at Julie.acklin@yahoo.com .

The audience here is mainly us: friends and families of prisoners, ex-prisoners, anarchist and Unitarian sympathizers, and hopefully the folks inside as well, since some articles would be good to put together and mail out as a newsletter for those who aren't on-line.

We expect the State to be listening in from time to time as well, and will probably automatically shoot them our posts to keep them informed. ADC employees on the line or in health services who share our concerns and have information to offer, we will respect your anonymity. We’re much more about finding out who’s going to take responsibility for helping us through this with as many survivors as possible, than we are about ferreting out who’s to blame for where we’re at to begin with.

Really, I’ve done some research and we’re in about the same place most of the states and the Feds are - only we’re lifting the veil of silence that fell over this epidemic soon after it was announced, a decade ago. They must have realized how much it would cost to treat all those infected, and decided to just watch it, for the most part, until the more important socioeconomic classes were affected. Criminals and their families – and their communities (mostly of color) – are intended to be exploited; that’s why the 13^th Amendment was written as it is. It’s i

nteresting that they designated the “duly convicted”, not the “guilty,” as slaves of the state.

Anyway, as for the HARD TIME blog, the authors and editors are us, too. We're developing some basic guidelines for guest blogs/submissions so we can maintain a constructive dialogue, but anyone interested in posting (beyond a comment after someone else's) should contact myself or Julie (hardtimehepc@gmail.com) with their interest and the email address they want to use to log on. We still have to decide editorial responsibility, etc. once we have a more developed collective of family/prisoner activists. Since this is the time frame when we work that stuff out - dividing responsibility and power, basically - it would be a good time to get involved.

Coming together…

The Liver Life walk was an amazing experience, by the way, and brought home to me again the importance of what we’re doing. I’ve lost several family members to liver cancer or disease, and am hoping not to lose my big brother that way; his Hep C has already been wreaking havoc on his liver, and he’s not eligible for treatment. He’s nearly 50 now, though, and at least he’s a free man. Not many people can say that, even in their 70’s with no criminal record. I think Billl could honestly say he’s a free man if he was in prison – on a good day, anyway. God knows he’s transcended hell enough time himself – he might as well have been getting shuffled through USP-Lewisburg and beat up each time, as they appear to be fond of doing there…

I’ll be calling on folks for help with that place soon, by the way. It’s the federal pen in PA that Leonard Peltier and my buddy Byron Chubbuck are at right now, among others. I have documentation of more than one person’s abuse at the hands of guards, now, which is on its way to the PA ACLU and the DOJ. If any of those prisoners out there are further abused or retaliated against, I want their families to notify us and the DOJ and the PA ACLU immediately. I’m asking directly for a CRIPA investigation of the place, not just blogging it (though I know they read that post). After mailing our letter to the DOJ, we (Arizona Prison Watch) will make sure it gets posted in as many places as possible to increase the intensity of the spotlight on both the BOP and the DOJ.

It should be a far more serious offense for an officer of the law to do violence to an institutionalized person – a captive who is completely at the mercy of them and their institution – than for a prisoner to defend himself against a rogue guard (or six of them with tasers). We expect more of people in uniform than that. The officers in question in each of the abuse cases (I’m sure Warden Bledsoe already knows who they are) should be removed from positions in which they can harm prisoners pending the outcomes of multiple investigations – internal and external alike.

More on the Liver Life Walk once I recover. Thank you to the American Liver Foundation for all the good work you do, and the lives you help save. Please, folks, if you even just drop them $10 with a note to “support Hep C treatment for prisoners,” it would be awesome. There were even some folks from the GLBTQ activist community in drag, there. The Liver Foundation was accommodating of everyone who cared about their constituents. I think this means they consider prisoners with Hep C to be “theirs”, too. That’s actually more than I might have expected, after the way I’ve seen the “duly convicted” treated in recent months – particularly Jamie Scott.

I don’t know what’s up with the Mississippi Kidney Foundation. It would help if a wealthy Mississippi citizen contacted them to let them know you think prisoners have the right to life, too. We throw a lot of victims in with a handful of hungry predators when we fill our jails and prisons with the desperately poor or addicted. In America, the innocent can’t be protected if we don’t assure that the “duly convicted” still retain the access to reasonably speedy remedies for their conviction or sentence. It’s an emergency when people are held against their will in hostile and dangerous environments – vulnerable to fire, disease, medical neglect, sexual abuse, and assault. Remember Davon, the Scott Sisters and Courtney: they could be anyone’s kids out there…

- Peg

HARD TIME HEP C

t-shirts on demand by Julie.

Hep C, Hard Time, and the Right to Life.

Sent this Email out early this am, to a whole bunch of media and activists and other people, including ADC and the governor's office. Don't think it got through to everyone - had to keep trimming the list to not be cut as spam...So, now its on the blogs just in case. This was my attempt at PR. I may have trouble with all the photos right now, but the rest is self-explanatory.

- peg

-----------------------

Well, this is pretty loaded and I'm making a unilateral decision to fire off these photos for the Governor. I think this is the only way she'll end up seeing them - if everyone else does. Hope I don't hit any friendlies, though. Duck now, if you're in prison, in case there's return fire (Prisoners are on the front lines, folks, not the garbage heaps. Front lines. This is America. Think poor, young Black/Indigenous/Latino men and canaries. Very valuable, actually, in terms of what we will pay to dispose of them in the interest of the greater good).

Don't let all that alarm you. My dad was a solider. I grew up in Army green, and just talk like that. I'm really much the pacifist. I just think it's important to know how intensely personal and emotional - and absolutely political - this matter is for so many people. We will not just go away if ignored. This Hep C Mom, Julie, has been a vessel for Divine Intervention to happen in the lives of many people. I've seen it.

Don't underestimate her. She's got the raw, engaging humanity of a righteous Susan Sarandon, the faith and fearlessness of Alice Paul, and the fire and flair of Georgia O'Keefe.

I'm the wrong person to deal with media or this would have been done a long time ago, by the way. It was done much earlier today but bounced back. I'm not a technowhiz. Spacebook is beyond me. Blogspot's as sophisticated as I get.

I should never be delegated this task. I have impulses to vandalize media outlets. I don't know why. It hasn't made for good media relations, though. So I'm stuck writing my own stories. This one isn't mine, though - it's about other people's kids and brothers and moms...so, it's fine to ignore me because my family is dying or free now - but please don't ignore them. I tried to tell them not to give this to me, but everyone's swamped. I have no good excuse, I guess, except for my anti- authoritarianism. I don't trust "media". I trust people, if they earn it. The only one out there I can say I really trust is Dennis Gilman - and he's not "mainstream" but he can be trusted to find the truth of an experience and let it tell itself. He's awesome.

Alright, so, I know it's just hours now before this event, and most of you are getting this after the fact. I believe it's all perfect timing, in the bigger picture, but I know that's a drag for others when it messes up their schedules. So, I'm sorry. I'm unconventional. It drives my friends and lovers crazy. Don't think we expect anyone but the Governor and a few curious folks from the ADC to be there in the AM, so no pressure - and the Governor hasn't exactly confirmed or anything. Just contact us if you want photos or info afterwards about our organizing activities (now in the works: "Make-a-Wish for Justice..." Who would you liberate with your last wish, and why? Enough of us are dying each day from poverty that we should be able to use our last wishes for mercy and Justice securing eachother's liberation.).

This Liver Walk thing is not an "event" announcement, by the way, so I'm really not late. It's not "our" event at all, anyway. It's the Liver Foundation's!

"please save my brother"

This is really just an FYI so folks know we're out there and make a point of backing up the Liver Foundation if they get any hassles for letting us walk (with what could be seen as pretty provocative signs about hep c - they didn't get this close a preview, so don't hold them responsible - but give them credit). Put a word in with the Governor about compassionate releases, too - Julie's kid needs one so she knows he's got access to the full range of treatment options before too much damage is done...attached is the note we dropped off for her office this week about the walk. They're the ones who encouraged us to get it to them, so, we'll see. (Hopefully no one thinks I'd ambush them...).

Hope all of you are well and up for this.

Don't expect much Anarchy at this, by the way. I'd recommend that ADC follows Julie's lead, frankly - learn to dance more gracefully, or her people will take you out kicking and screaming. They're Unitarians and senior citizens (the banner was sewn by an octogenarian), moms and dads and sisters of prisoners, survivors of the war on the poor - most of them ex-prisoners who evidence some degree of PTSD. They do things like hide their legal documentation outside of their homes in case the state comes and ransacks their place to destroy their defense capabilities. It's apparently quite common...

Thanks for whatever help you can send, by the way. We can use a little amplification out here. It's a desert. No one notices living or dying bodies in the desert in Arizona except litterbugs and good samaritans/potential terrorists. You can be prosecuted for even knowing that your student's father might not be documented and not reporting your suspicion (the police will follow it up - all you need to do is report suspicions).
How are migrant communities supposed to stay safe if they can't report rapes and murders to the police without fear of entire families being imprisoned?

COPWATCH! That's how. It's cross-movement organizing at it's finest. And Anarchy seems to be the organizing principle.

Give me till after the walk to open up that blogspot - it'll just say it's not accessible until I do. I'm spent for the night.

Women's Health Week begins with Mother's day this year - begin planning now. And we'll be having a memorial for those who have died in the custody of the state on May 20; location TBA. I believe the 19th is World Hepatitis Day, too, right?

Thanks for your time. It's never too late to check in.

Don't be surprised to see this note go up as my next blog post on all sites, by the way - especially if I can't get these emails through to everyone. Both voices (here and below) are mine.

- peg

------------------------

ANNOUNCEMENT:

At the Liver Life Walk SAT AM (March 20), Arizona prisoners' friends and families and former prisoners will be walking together and asking the state to respond to the Hep C epidemic in prisons and jails. 40% of women and 30% of men prisoners across the country are confirmed to be infected with hep c - the rates are likely much higher, and it disproportionately affects minorities and people in poverty. Undiagnosed and untreated in prison, HEP C becomes a threat to the community when people are released - which 95% of state prisoners eventually are. Approximately 20% of people with Hepatitis C eventually die of cirrhosis or liver cancer; most of the rest develop some degree of liver disease.

Julie Acklin is your contact. Her son has HEP C, is in an AZ prison, and has just been ruled out as a candidate for treatment.

We think he got Hep C in prison.

Julie's number is 623-594-4433. She is the principal organizer of prisoners' families and ex-prisoners with this new initiative. Children in will be in ADC Orange; Adults in Blood Red. Team is "A Mother's Cry" - Look for "Hard Time: Hepatitis C in Arizona State Prisons." New blog by that name up tomorrow.

Ryan and Brewer have already had a heads-up. No word back from Governor's office - not holding our breaths.

AZ Liver Foundation says advocate for hep c testing, treatment, research, prevention, and save lives.

That takes guts.

Those are Good people.

Support them with a note "for Hep C in Prison", if you can.

Catch up with us next week if you miss us tomorrow. Donate to the Liver Foundation. Hit the HARD TIME blog. Tell AZ HEP C prisoners and their families to send us their stories. We'll be organizing support and action groups soon.

- Peggy Plews
prisonabolitionist@gmail.com
480-580-6807

--
The "Hard Time: Hep C in Arizona's State Prisons" blogspot is a free virtual info-type space for Arizona prisoners with Hepatitis C, their families, their friends, and their communities. We aspire to facilitate access to research and gather other resources about Hep C, as well as share stories, in order to collectively build foundations from which to strategize comprehensive, humane responses to the challenges of this epidemic among America's prisoners.


http://hardtimehepc.blogspot.com

(Coming March 20, 2010...)