prisoners, letters, books
I'm sweaty. And drinking hot tea. It's a really good combination--hot summer weather plus hot drink.
Somewhere, somewhen, someone asked how the prisoner support thing is going. It's okay. I've been writing to a prisoner stuck in some prison here in Colorado. The group hasn't grown at all. I'm not very surprised. But I do have an idea for "Unchained Letters" (that's the prisoner support group) during the anti-DNC protests. Monday of the convention has a theme of 'end the prison industrial complex/support political prisoners' and it would be great to have a space set up where people could write quick letters to prisoners. We could supply a list of political prisoners and people could write to whomever they wanted. Letter writers could just stick their letter in an envelope with the name of the person they are writing to written on it and then "Unchained Letters" could bottom-line getting the letters mailed after the convention.
One of the reasons this idea excites me is that it is a way to create something more out of a mass mobilization like the convention protests. In other words, the end result of the protests are not just a bunch of people converging on a city, some getting arrested, and then everybody taking off. Along with all that would be a big flood of letters of support sent to prisoners (and there are other things folks are working on to help ensure that the conventions aren't just a one-time, big protest without any effect outside of that time and space).
Anyway, the idea is exciting.
I was recently in Olympia, Washington. There was a lot of really great stuff going on there--sustained projects, radical communities, real resistance to the war in the form of blockading weapon shipments sent from the port. One project that I checked out is a books to prisoners project that has been going on for about seven years in Olympia. Prisoners send written requests for books (these requests vary from specific titles to very general requests for something to read) and then folks working on the project search through a huge selection of donated books, find something appropriate, package it up, and mail it off. It is really, really awesome! Maybe the prisoner support group here can some day grow into a project like that!
Somewhere, somewhen, someone asked how the prisoner support thing is going. It's okay. I've been writing to a prisoner stuck in some prison here in Colorado. The group hasn't grown at all. I'm not very surprised. But I do have an idea for "Unchained Letters" (that's the prisoner support group) during the anti-DNC protests. Monday of the convention has a theme of 'end the prison industrial complex/support political prisoners' and it would be great to have a space set up where people could write quick letters to prisoners. We could supply a list of political prisoners and people could write to whomever they wanted. Letter writers could just stick their letter in an envelope with the name of the person they are writing to written on it and then "Unchained Letters" could bottom-line getting the letters mailed after the convention.
One of the reasons this idea excites me is that it is a way to create something more out of a mass mobilization like the convention protests. In other words, the end result of the protests are not just a bunch of people converging on a city, some getting arrested, and then everybody taking off. Along with all that would be a big flood of letters of support sent to prisoners (and there are other things folks are working on to help ensure that the conventions aren't just a one-time, big protest without any effect outside of that time and space).
Anyway, the idea is exciting.
I was recently in Olympia, Washington. There was a lot of really great stuff going on there--sustained projects, radical communities, real resistance to the war in the form of blockading weapon shipments sent from the port. One project that I checked out is a books to prisoners project that has been going on for about seven years in Olympia. Prisoners send written requests for books (these requests vary from specific titles to very general requests for something to read) and then folks working on the project search through a huge selection of donated books, find something appropriate, package it up, and mail it off. It is really, really awesome! Maybe the prisoner support group here can some day grow into a project like that!
posted by matt iv at 8:24 PM
2 Comments:
Hi M,
I just glanced through something about the "end the prison inustrial complex" and it leaves me with a lot of questions. - This is possibly a crap reference http://youngphillypolitics.com/organizing_abolish_prisonindustrial_complex
Anyway, One of my biggest questions is what would the suggestion be as consequence for someone who commits murder, rape, viiolent crime, etc.? Especially if the people are commiting multiple crimes of this nature?
To me it sounded like they were suggesting that these crimes are not as likely to happen, because you are building on community, etc.?
I really like the book idea!
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