Heroes

Now here is a woman that can definetly be called a champion
for human rights. Check out her article and you'll agree that
we still have a very long way to go.


We are within hours of learning whether AB 1539 will be signed or vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to help relieve the crisis in our prisons where real people are perishing from overcrowded conditions caused by medical neglect. While this is far from being a perfect bill, we have often rallied at the prisons and at the Capitol, attended hearings for a decade, filed legal actions to put teeth into our insistence that these basic human rights be respected, and have inspired and written thousands of articles to get the issue on the front burner. The wait is nearly over and we should hear today, or at the latest by Monday whether or not our work to get even a baby step achieved toward compassionate release of sick and dying prisoners was in vain or not.

Today is my birthday, and as I mark another year's milestone in our UNION's daily, brutal, decade-long battle for compassionate release and all basic human rights, I would like to publicly thank Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton for taking action to try and stop the constant murder by medical neglect in California's prisons. There is no way that I can express enough gratitude to both they and Attorney Donald Specter of Prison Law Office and his staff for the great legal work that brought us to this point. The heroic work of our UNION family members who had the courage and common sense to file 28 lawsuits against 350 state employees also deserve a round of applause as all serious reform comes from lawsuits, initiative campaigns and putting the right people in office.

Most of their lawsuits are for wrongful deaths, and those UNION families who opened up their lives during their worst nightmare in order to help identify the true extent of the crisis deserve everyone's deepest respect and gratitude. After all, they are fighting battles for those who are still alive, even their own sons and daughters are dead at the hands of State employees still running amok. It is predicable that another 400 plus people are going to die in prison this year, while their family members live in denial and take no action to prevent it. Many of them will be young, healthy, men and women imprisoned for a non-violent, minor crime who did not have a death sentence, and those who are bereaved are fighting to benefit them and to try and find some sort of relief to their own excruciating pain, which will no doubt last a lifetime.

As part of my birthday reflection, I re-read this famous letter sent by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he sat alone in jail in Birmingham, Alabama. He was being criticized and abandoned by fellow members of the clergy, who were the very people who should have been helping him. People were dying over the battle for the black's right to vote and those who were trying to stand up to it were being murdered, stoned, burned out of their homes and churches during the 60's.





This Article Continues Here





Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/