Archive for the 'Inside Line' Category

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~ From the Irwin County Detention Center, Georgia, by Bonnie Urfer

photo by jpKERNODLE PHOTOGRAPHY

TOILET PAPER

by Bonnie Urfer

I really want to complain about every woman in this jail receiving one roll of toilet paper to last for the whole week but I can’t because the for profit jail almost killed my friend Jackie in it’s “medical” unit.

I really want to complain about the lack of toilet paper but I can’t because Doris walked around with a broken arm for a month before she was taken to the hospital to have it x-rayed and casted.

I want to complain about the toilet paper but I can’t because my friend Ardeth couldn’t eat for most of a month when she didn’t get her medication, neither did Leslie, and Misty who’s a diabetic never gets her sugar tested.

And then there’s the woman who broke her ankle and wasn’t taken to the hospital for a week, and the woman who had open heart surgery and three weeks later was dumped in here on a probation violation near the end of a 5 year term.

When really, I just want to complain because I don’t have enough toilet paper.

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~ From the Blount County Correctional Facility, TN, by Carol Gilbert, O.P.

photo by jpKERNODLE PHOTOGRAPHY

May 25, 2011

Dear Friends,

Welcome to another of America’s gulags – this one in Eastern TN – the Blount County Correctional Facility in Maryville, TN!
This is day number 15 and I want to begin the journey with a quote from Jarhead by Anthony Swofford and his experiences as a Marine in Operation Desert shield. “What follows is neither  true nor false but what I know.”…and heard, saw, tasted, smelled and touched.

DAY 1. Around 7:30 p.m. we are placed in a typical holding cell with no mattresses, 2 benches of concrete, toilet/sink combo and blanket given many hours later.
We are taken out one by one for processing which consists of answering typical intake forms, fingerprints, picture and hospital type bright orange arm bands to distinguish us from the county folks wearing blue/white armbands, the de-liceing shower and stripped uniforms (black and white if new; shades of grey if older (the color everything becomes) and flip flops for shoes. The one pair of old socks, underpants and t-shirt must last until commissary. We were supposed to get two of everything but they have run out with 2-300 extra. So no laundry bag or crate either. We make an attempt to sleep on the concrete slabs but it’s a long night. We tell stories, laugh, sing.

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~ from Tacoma, Washington, by Lynne Greenwald

photo by Leonard Eiger

FDC SeaTac

by Lynne Greenwald

Concrete walls and locked doors
cannot take away images of bright lights,
fences and towers protecting tombs
of unimaginable horrors.

We remember fertile lands, natural
forests, mollusk-rich beaches, early morning
fog clinging to water and earth until
the sun brightens the sky,
exposing Olympian mountains.

Trident IS Illegal and Immoral.
We mourn. We cannot be silent.
Resistance is a song, a dance,
an act of love.
We must resist.

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~ A letter from Bix (written several days before beginning “diesel therapy” to Tennessee)

 

 

photo by Leonard Eiger

After spending the first 2 1/2 weeks of his prison sentence for the Disarm Now Plowshares action at the SeaTac Federal Correction Facility, Jesuit priest Bill “Bix” Bichsel was taken out of his cell on April 18.  He is being transported several thousand miles across the U.S. to Tennessee, where he is scheduled to join 12 others for a May 9 trial stemming from their July 5, 2010 civil resistance action at the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge.  (More about the action here.)

Bix’s health is fragile, and being transported by the Bureau of Prisons can make for a long and difficult journey, during which it is difficult to receive needed medications.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

April 14, 2011
Day 16 at SeaTac Federal Detention

By Bill Bichsel, S.J.

I will pursue my hope to do some writing while in lock-up. I feel the
spirit present with me in lock-up and feel confirmed by the spirit
that here is where I should be.

As I slowly shuffle around the common area, I thank God for being here
and for the peace I experience. I am not anxious or overly concerned
by anything, though I do feel some tugs to answer my letters and to
get my calling and visitor lists into the computer.

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~ from Lompoc, California, by Louis Vitale

Responding to the Message of Fukashima By Louie Vitale In “From Hiroshima to Fukushima,” an article published in The Nation on March 15 in the wake of the nuclear power disaster in Japan, historian Jonathan Schell once again hit the mark. The author of the ground-breaking book The Fate of the Earth published in the […]

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~ From Fr. Louis Vitale, written at the Irwin County Detention Center, Georgia

photo by Cindy Callahan

December 8, 2010

HERE WE ARE AGAIN

by Fr. Louis Vitale

Two weeks have passed since David Omondi and I began our sojourn here at Irwin County Detention Center in southern Georgia.  Some may say, “Vitale has protested himself back into the pokey below the Mason-Dixon line” and “He has been jailed again in an effort to bring peace and social justice.”  SF Chronicle 11/28

Many ask, “Why do you keep doing this?”  We try to respond:  “Because the oppression goes on and our nation is a major participant in that oppression of the poor and of all creation.”  Specifically this manifestation of mourning focuses on the School of the Americas (WHINSEC) at Ft. Benning, Georgia, where U.S. military have taught counter-insurgency techniques, including torture and disappearance, to Latin American military.  It still goes on, as recently observed with the outrageous coup in Honduras carried out by graduates of the School of the Americas.  In fact, our involvement in oppressive militarism extends throughout the world!

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~ from Danville, Connecticut, by Nancy Gwin

Illegal Reentry by Nancy Gwin I.  In January I was found guilty in Federal Court in Columbus, Georgia of “Illegal Reentry onto a United States Military Reservation.” I have been incarcerated here at Danbury Federal Correctional Institution since March 8. The illegal reentry occurred last November when Fr. Louis Vitale, Ken Hayes, Michael Walli and […]

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~ from Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, by Leonard Peltier

(from the Nuclear Resister #158/159, September 20, 2010) February 6, 2010 Greetings to everyone, Thirty-four years. It doesn’t even sound like a real number to me. Not when one really thinks about being in a jail cell for that long. All these years and I swear, I still think sometimes I’ll wake up from this […]

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~ from Skenäs Prison, Sweden, by Martin Smedjeback

SERVING TIME FOR PEACE IN SWEDEN

17th of June, 2010

I am led into the central office of the prison Skenäs outside of Norrköping. Two guards help me to carry my stuff.  “It looks like you are moving in here!” says one guard. “That’s exactly what I am doing, temporary anyway,” says I. “Do you have your sentence papers with you?” asks another guard. “Yes,” I answer and hand them the papers which say that I was convicted to four months in prison. I am asked to step out and wait while they handle some of my paperwork. I take a seat on the stairs. The sun is shining. I start reading yesterday’s paper. Two inmates come out from their dorms.  Sitting on a bench on the other side of the yard, one of them shouts to me, ”Are you new here?” “Yes,” I shout back. “What are you in for?” he continues. ”Criminal damage,” I answer. “What have you destroyed?”  “Bazookas,” I answer.

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~ from Lompoc, California, by Fr. Louie Vitale, OFM

(From the Nuclear Resister #157, June 1, 2010)

February 25, 2010

How Can I Cope?

Many people who write me – friends and supporters – ask about harsh treatment and brutality.  I do not deny that in many prisons and jails these conditions do exist.  One can even raise the charge of torture.  In regards to myself I have not experienced such conditions.  Hardships, yes, but not brutality or violence.

The hardships begin with the loss of freedom.  I remember during my first incarceration, after having made pastoral visits in jail to prisoners, it was a shock as I realized the cell doors were closed and locked on me.

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