SOS Friends of Marcia!

Just a little cross-posting today from the Prison Abolitionist because the Free Marcia Powell website appears to no longer exist. So, move on if you already read this today. Otherwise, here's what's on my mind:

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Hey All -

do me a favor and try to hit www.freemarciapowell.org today. I'm not able to pull it up - my screen keeps telling me it doesn 't exist, except when I sneak in the back door to my dashborad - but I still can reach the site from there.

So, wherever you are, whoever you are, it would help to know if it's the site, browser, etc. Just send me word at prisonabolitionist@gmail.com with what you come up with - and introduce yourself - my name's Peggy..

In the meantime, if can retrieve any of the more recent stuff from Free Marcia Powell, I'll just re-post them here.

You don't think planning to see the Governor at the Homecoming Parade is too provocative, is it?

I wasn't planning any kind of coordinated protest or anything - I just want to make sure the Governor's crew keeps Marcia Powell and the rest of the prisoners of this state in the forefront of their minds as they raise campaign funds at high price events, and cut away at the budgets that feed, house, clothe, school, and - in disturbingly rapidly growing numbers - incarcerate the people of this state.

Women are being sexually exploited in the prisons; that knowledge is commonplace. Men are murdered, raped by other men, and suicide on a regular basis. People sent up for a few years on a relatively minor offense find themselves diagnosed with things like colon cancer, and never get to feel the touch of a loved one again. Is that how we want to punish people who just lost their homes and are desperately trying to stay afloat?  Or self-medicating their way back from three tours of duty?

We can't trust the judges or prosecutors in this state. They appear to have very little humanity, and their egos are far too delicate for them to admit their mistakes. Go visit the prisons yourselves, if you can get in. Look who we've got locked away. Talk to their family members, check out their stories. The innocence claims are credible, but will get buried by men like Andrew Thomas if we turn our backs from those prisoners now.

As for the brutalizing, dehumanizing effects of mass incarceration in this state, I don't know how anyone in this community can honestly suggest that what happened to Marcia that day was just a case of bad guards and violations of department policy, something that the Good Old Boys at the ADC can take care of if we just leave them to their work.

In fact, Ryan and his gang are doing their work exactly as we've trained them to do: render the people we hate and those we fear powerless, invisible, and silent - no matter how high the price in economic or human potential. "Justified" or not by a person's alleged guilt or admitted crime, incarceration is how we do violence to each other the most with the least amount of responsibility - we leave it to the cops and the courts under the unbelievably naive idea that because this is America the state can be trusted to let us know what really is and isn't "justice".

That's about all the stamina I have now. I'm sure I'll be back to rant and rave more later. In the meantime, don't forget to check out what's happening with www.freemarciapowell.org, and get back with me. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just read a few of the posts about Marcia below.

Peace.