Community Alliance Newspaper
Letters to the Editor
December 2008 Letters:
I submitted a letter earlier this month and Mike Rhodes advised me that it was too lengthy for publication but that a shorter version might be printed with a link to the original. The original [see below] is so long because it makes the serious charge that American foreign policy since 1952 makes shameless murdering thieves of us all and, because it is so outrageous a charge, it includes substantiating quotes and challenges rebuttal. I hope you read it but I’m glad that it is computer accessible and I have an opportunity to write instead my wish that we central valley readers of the Community Alliance become a hot bed of fundamental change.
Last month’s issue carried a column by Robert Jensen, who also spoke at CSUF and again at the Universal Unitarian church, in which he gave tepid support to Obama but noticed that his, or your, vote is not that important because, regardless of Obama or McCain, fundamental change of a sort that is not being discussed is needed. He did not give much consideration as to what that change might be however and there is no reason why we may not begin said discussion here. Using the linked letter as credentials to establish that I am someone you probably disagree with but who has been thinking about fundamental change since I lost my San Joaquin Valley Republican mind in 1970, 1 plan to send in ideas for fundamental change monthly and I hope you do too.
I propose that the government foster, and the schools be required to teach from the earliest grades, the awareness that there is no such thing as race. I was told in college anthropology class in 1967 that race is a specious concept that can not be defined scientifically and part of the proof offered was that the Nazis had tried for years to define the term because their core philosophy of the superiority of the Aryan race depended on it but they could not do so. Imagine the feelings of the scientists who had to go to Hitler, year after year and say that they were still unable to define what an Aryan was. As of today there still is no way to distinguish people by race that is not superficial. That most people in Fresno, and the nation, still know what they mean when they say race is ignorance that cries out for fundamental change. Cheap, too, as all that is required is education.
Eric Parsons
Fresno
I first wrote to this paper in response to a columnist with Judeo-Christian ties because I hold professional believers to a different standard than most and feel that if you make your living holding the truth then you have a responsibility to respond to the charge that your truth is fallacious. I charged that America is on an evil course that can not be supported with one’s vote and asked that my charge be disproved or that a knowing vote for evil be justified. The charge applies equally as well to any humanist or American who holds that all people are created with equal rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness if I substitute wrong for evil, however, and I challenge any reader to disprove my charges or justify a vote in support of violating human rights.
I was raised in a San Joaquin valley Republican environment that valued truth, justice and the American way and had no reason to question those values through volunteer military service and college but I went to South America as a Peace Corps volunteer in January 1970 and there people were emboldened to ask me, as a representative of America, "Why had America sent troops into Santo Domingo? Into Guatemala? Into Nicaragua? Why had America stripped Panama from Colombia? Was the Peace Corps a front for the CIA? Why was America teaching torture techniques to Latin American military and police? Etc?" I had no answers and the thought that grew in my mind, that we were arming the people we had business contracts with to suppress any objection to our cozy business deals, was so incompatible with my conception of America that I resigned from the Peace Corps to avoid the questions.
I kept an open mind until I got back in the USA in January 1972 and a little research at the public library led me to this 1948 quote from George Kennan, the State Dept. planning chief when the House and Senate were being urged to establish the National Security Council: "We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of it’s population. In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights the raising of the living standards and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts."
We killed and imprisoned a few people in Iran in 1952 and any objection to this robber baron policy was squashed in 1954 by the Doolittle Commission, established to look into the outcry raised by those covert operations, which conveniently forgot that we were stealing world wealth and attributed all our crimes to fighting communism: "We are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means at whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable means of human conduct do not apply... we must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies... by more effective means than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy"
The answer to all those questions raised in Latin America was clearly that we’re shameless murderous lawless thieves but I was so na ve that when George McGovern paid for a half hour of network television time a week before the election in 1972 and pointed out specific proofs reported in the daily media that Nixon was criminally corrupt and therefore a vote for him would be an endorsement of the immoral and the unethical, I believed we the people of the declaration of independence would have a change of consciousness or at least of conscience and vote to mend our ways. I was wrong. Nixon won by the greatest margin ever recorded and celebrated by having Hanoi firebombed the Thanksgiving after the election. I wrote ‘Merry Christmas’ above a picture of a Vietnamese woman holding her blackened burnt baby and carried it through Fashion Fair on the Saturday before Christmas until I got thrown in jail but I don’t think anyone’s mind got changed. I was disheartened and withdrew from public comment for some years.
But I am a valley boy and in the mid I 980s my USA competitive nature welled up in me big time and I decided to seek out professionals in polities and media and religion and make the case to them that we are wrong and demand that they disprove my claim or admit the error of our ways so we might begin to seek a better path. As an example, I became a charter member of Fresno Lay Institute of Theology and after a panel discussion in 1986, "Holy Lands, Holy Wars", in which the conclusion of all panelists was that there was no solution but only more and continued violence in which we are inextricably involved because of containing communism and oil. I wrote to the FLIT board and all members of the panel, in part, this: What would be lost if Americans in great enough numbers voted to mind their own business? Would all the oil actually be lost? Could America still buy oil on the open market? Is it possible that all that is being discussed is a fairer distribution of resources? Would needing to buy oil with something other than weapons open markets for other American business? If the lost oil could not be replaced, what would America lose? Could we adjust to the loss simply by reducing production of Styrofoam and other disposable plastics? If gas per family was rationed at 50 or 30 or 10 gallons a week at what point would you personally feel it was ok to get involved in murder to maintain that minimum? What if communism spread throughout the middle east and beyond to Africa, Europe and Asia? Would there still be trade? Where would our borders he threatened? When ‘national defense’ and ‘stopping communism’ are used interchangeably should it be questioned? If the communist bloc ringed the Americas would they attack our shores knowing we have bombs to lay waste the whole earth? Would our defense budget dramatically decrease jf we were not paying huge sums into the middle east?
What am I, alone in wondering about this?
Apparently I was alone but I continued to write periodically for about 10 more years. For example, in 1 990 when we attacked Iraq from Kuwait I sent a letter connecting all the dots from the State Department quote of 1948 above through actions of each administration to current, noting that the connection was thievery. I had no response from any religious source but I did get a personal letter from a Bee columnist, Roger Tatarian, who pointed out in an avuncular way that we Americans were the good guys and Saddam was evil and I was wrong. I wrote back that he had to be a dupe or a whore to believe that and we went back and forth a few times until the correspondence ended at his request because, he said, he could see this was a subject like abortion on which regardless of arguments and time spent there would never be agreement. I did write to Roger one last time when, in 1992, Time magazine came out with a cover story about that conflict. It was too rich and I copied the last paragraph: The central truth of Desert Storm was not the peril of freedom-loving Kuwaitis or the delusions of a tin-pot despot. The Gulf War was fought over oil and the West’s continued access to it. As reasons for waging war go, this was rather good: a national interest threatened and a military response met the immediate threat. But almost no one wan/ed to say or hear that young American lives were being put at risk for a commodity. Hence the successful myth making between the leaders and the led, and I added, "Roger, let me paraphrase: we didn’t fight for democracy and we didn’t fight against satanic evil,
we fought for dollar-a-gallon gasoline, and the people at Time think it’s a mighty fine reason and only point out that Americans probably wouldn’t go for it if it was made clear that we had napalmed 30,000 children for cheap gas so the whore and dupe journalists had to put out the party line."
Within a week of mailing, Mr. Tatarian died of a heart attack without answering and there was no further reply from any source until I got this from the FLIT steering committee dated April 8,1995: Thank you for your letter of February 20, 1995. As Jam sure you are aware, FLIT has no forum for publishing the thoughts and opinions of those on our mailing list and no way outside our scheduled classes and seminars to provide for an exchange of ideas between individuals. However we appreciate your interest and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
Soon after getting that note I chanced to read an interview by a French linguist, Mitsou Renat, with Noam Chomsky done in the mid 1970s in which Chomsky said that because there are ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’, a ‘right’ and a ‘left’, it seems like there is a debate going on over American policy in world affairs but neither faction questions the right of the USA to intervene in other countries and to make his point he cited a letter he had sent to the N.Y. Times that was not published:
Dear Sir, An editorial in the Times, 4-5 -1975, observes that a decade of polemics has failed to resolve the on-going quarrel between two contending views: that the war to preserve a non-communist independent South Viet Nam could have been waged differently and that a viable non-communist South Viet Nam was always a myth There has also been a third position: that apart from it’s prospects for success the USA has neither the authority nor competence to intervene in the internal affairs of Viet Nam-the position of those who opposed the war because it was’ wrong, not merely because it was unsuccessful. It is regrettable that this position is not even a contender in the debate.
I didn’t trouble to write again until the Community Alliance provoked me because if Noam Chomsky can’t make the point why should I bother. However, in that same interview Chomsky challenges readers to have an opinion about social and political issues and specifically to not excuse oneself by deferring to experts and intellectuals with specialized training because he says, "to have a worthy opinion it is sufficient that one face facts and be willing to follow a rational line of argument" and I think he means people who read this periodical.
Eric Parsons
559-266-1775,
parsons_eric@sbcglobal.net
Letters to the Editor
I read that there is a lawsuit against the Fresno Rescue Mission for destroying personal property of the homeless. I too confronted Larry Arce. He had a police sergeant take me out of his office into that sergeant's office there at the Rescue Mission. The sergeant told me that HE told Arce to clear away the possessions of the homeless. Later, when I called the city attorney, the city attorney called Arce, who denied having anything to do with the police. Then the city attorney called the police sergeant, who denied telling me that he'd ordered it, etc.,etc.,etc. It was three days before Christmas
I left Fresno almost three years ago and didn't know Pam Kincaid. I wish I had. I tried to do something about the problems during 2001 and 2002. If I could have done then what has been done now (the lawsuit and settlement), maybe she would still be alive. Though I don't live there anymore, I would like to help still.
I saw so much corruption within the Rescue Mission; it was awful how they treated the homeless. One night they kicked a guy out for cursing. He had had his fingers cut off on a job that day and was in severe pain. Three days later he was murdered. I often wonder if he would still be alive if the Rescue Mission had tried to help him instead of just turning him out.
While I was on the streets I passed out blankets and food; homeless people started referring to me as "The General Store" and would tell anyone wanting to give away blankets, sleeping bags, food, to give it to me as I would make sure it got to those who needed it. Arce and his group hated me, and I didn't care. I was even banned from the mission, and I wore that like a badge of honor. I talked to whomever would listen to try to change what was going on. Even after I got off the street, I kept going back to do what little I could.
I pushed Papa Mike and Holy Cross for shelter for homeless women, as there was none when I was down there. The men at the Rescue Mission told me they followed the Old Testament -- something about "never let a woman lead you or teach you" -- and didn't believe that women needed shelter, since they could just find a man to shack up with!
Dee Huff
Formerly homeless in Fresno
Hi, I’m a prisoner currently serving time at Pleasant Valley State Prison and I enjoy reading your newspaper, so could you please start sending it to me? Sincerely,
Tyrone Brown
Coalinga, Ca
I recently had the opportunity to review a copy of your newspaper and I was really impressed by the content it had! I’m a native of Fresno, more or less, although I’ve lived in towns from Pixley to Fresno over the years. I’m also one of the thousands of inmates in the dysfunctional CDCR, and I probably will be for many years to come. My wife, two stepsons and my daughter from a previous marriage all still live in Fresno. My daughter, being 18, thinks it’s cool to be homeless and hang out in the Tower District. Anyways, it was a pleasure to read your newspaper and I’d love to read it more in the future. If possible, please send me an issue whenever you can and I promise to share it with many of my brethren here. Thank you and keep up the great work! Respectfully,
Ron Chappell
Avenal, Ca
From the editor: Tyrone and Ron, you have been added to our mailing list. Subscriptions to the Community Alliance are free to all prisoners who request them.
As you know, prison administrators (here at Solano State Prison) and their subordinates have been attempting to intimidate me and are retaliating against me regarding my journalistic activities with you and the Community Alliance.
Some of the articles I’ve written regarding the actions and events behind the walls of these prisons are making them a little nervous. Whether it’s the illegal transferring of prisoners, the horrid medical conditions, or rogue prison guards committing crimes under the color of law, they do not want prisoners to educate the public on these issues. As you know, Mike, legitimate media (from the outside world) are severely restricted to "specific" prisoners and events inside the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Only the administrative prepared and watered down version of what they want the public to know is proffered via a "press release."
I have recently been punished with bogus disciplinary actions, falsified documentation to cover the asses of those violating my due-process right to appeal, stopped from writing articles in a prisoner designated area to do so, punished with a retaliatory inner-facility yard move for filing Citizen’s Complaints (as is my right according to Penal Code Section 148.6) on rogue guards practicing the illegal "Code of Silence" forbidden by law, and a litany of other retaliatory measures.
I am in the process of pursuing legal action to force prison officials to back off and allow me to continue exercising my First Amendment and due process rights unimpeded. Solano State Prison officials are also in violation of my settlement agreement stemming from Woodard v. Duncan (1999) from the Central District Court of Los Angeles.
I will not be intimidated, I will continue to define my surroundings and I mostly appreciate you (Mike) and the Community Alliance for allowing me an unfettered voice from inside this chaotic prison system.
Boston Woodard
Vacaville Ca
I just read the article by Boston Woodard in your November 2008 issue ("Don’t Pick Up The Soap!").
This is some of the most hostile and poisonous homophobia/transphobia/biphobia that has ever been spewed by a prisoner! It is obvious from his presentation that Boston is a hater, despite his front of being in some kind of solidarity with all prisoners vis-a-vis the prison department. Anyone who cannot see his hatred in the article is blind.
You may do yourself some good to include the views of other prisoners, not just your one and only male celebrity prisoner. I and other prisoners here have written articles to your newspaper, and got replies from you of rejection of the articles (critical of prisons and the government tyranny we are under). For as long as I have been reading your paper he is the only male prisoner who writes in it, for years. It has gone from just his writing of conditions to celebrating him with a full exposes of his lifestyle and opinions, full spreads. We don’t need to know all that. Just give us the reportage.
The Queer Eye department of your paper is sleeping if they let his article get by without an objection to it, or some kind of counter-opinion.
We transsexua1 women in these men’ s prisons have gone through decades of blood and tears to get the medical treatment we have coming as human beings, and this includes condoms. But you would not know this, since neither your prison section or Queer Eye section have ever ventured to expose what is the day to day situation with us transwomen in these camps. And when we write to inform you of it, you reject us.
Boston will deny he is transphobic or homophobic and biphobic, but our experienced Trans Eye sees all.
Gender Anarky is a prison-based force of transsexual women in men’s prisons fighting for our womanhood, which includes hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery, and related rights and treatment, including provision of condoms. We denounce the article by Boston as transphobic and hate propaganda, and we denounce The Alliance for printing it, and we demand space to be heard in The Community Alliance to set the record straight as to conditions and needs of our kind in these prisons. We challenge you to accept this demand.
In Sisterhood
Lofofora Chi Chi Contreraz
Corcoran Prison
Dan Waterhouse, who writes the Queer Eye column for the Community Alliance, responds: I believe the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation should be doing comprehensive HIV/AIDS education and prevention programs, as well as providing adequate medical care to those in its custody with the virus and AIDS. Providing condoms is a standard prevention method and should be done inside prisons as it is on the outside. In addition, the other means of transmission, such as dirty needles, should be addressed also.
As for Boston Woodard's piece, although I write "Queer Eye....", I see the other columns published in the Community Alliance at the same time as the readers -- when the paper hits the street.
In closing, I would like to see the transgender community represented in the pages of this newspaper, and, frankly, I'm not the one to do that. Transgender issues differ from those of the queer community in distinct ways. I truly encourage voices from the transgender community in the Central Valley to become part of the Community Alliance family.
Boston Woodard responds to Lofofora Chi Chi Contreraz: Ms. Contreraz somehow misconstrued my informing the public of yet another bizarre act by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to spend money condoning illegal sex behind prison walls by dispensing condoms. This by the way has nothing to do with anyone’s "sexual orientation" or need for "sex-reassignment" not the medical treatment necessary to accommodate such an undertaking.
I’ve spent decades fighting this prison system and took a lot of bumps from prison administrators during many attempts to stop "government tyranny" as Ms Contreraz writes in her letter. I still, right to this time, am battling prison staff. I’ve been given and threatened with false/concocted disciplinary action, threats of going to the "hole" - again, my mail lost - stolen - or tampered with, I’ve been forced to move from bunk to bunk in retaliation, and the list goes on and on. You know nothing about what I do as a prisoner/writer.
If this is some sort of slick way of duping editor Mike Rhodes into printing your name and personal agenda, or an even slicker way to get Mr. Waterhouse of "Queer Eye" to denounce me as some sort of "homophobic," I don’t believe for a minute they will be easily persuaded into believing that load.
You have a lot of hate and anger that needs to be addressed. A suggestion would be to vent that energy to where it belongs, at them who are stomping on our rights as human beings (transexual or otherwise), who are screwing with your visits, phone calls, medical matters, piss-poor living conditions and a litany of constitutionally protected due-process rights. And when you say "we denounce the article by Boston," speak for yourself because I don’t believe for a second others are as angry and uninformed as you obviously are. Did you read my article upside down or backward?
I won’t lower myself to hurl names or baseless accusations at you Ms Contreraz because I don’t know you. You don’t know me, and you’ll have an awfully hard time convincing my younger sister and her significant (same gender) other of more than 20 years, that I am a homophobic or any other type of sexually oriented hater. Get real with yourself and turn the page the next time you see one of my articles. You and your personal agenda are wasting my time.
Boston Woodard
State Prisoner
I ain't nobody, and I'm certainly not of the stature of Alice Walker, or
Oprah Winfrey, or Toni Morrison, and hundreds of other luminaries. I know that
any letter I sent to the President-elect would be round-filed after my name and
address were added to a(nother) list of people to be sent solicitations for
campaign contributions. But here is my letter to Brother Obama. You can forward
it to him if you like.
Dear Mr. President-elect:
This letter contains no advice. I am confident that you believe yourself capable
of making the myriad important decisions that must be made as President. This is
a request. Please support and defend the Constitution of the United States. As
you once did, I teach a course in Constitutional Law. Throughout the years,
presidents have expanded the powers of the executive, without effective
resistance by Congress or the Judiciary, and the last horror-filled eight years
saw the most frightening and liberty-threatening claims of executive authority
any American president has ever attempted. Please resist the temptation to use
these wrongfully expanded powers for what you believe to be good -- nothing you
can accomplish would be worth the lasting damage to the freedom of all
Americans. If you have read Tolkien, think of the power you might believe could
accomplish great things as the One Ring -- whether Tolkien meant it as an
allegory (which he denied), it is a perfect one. Please do the good work you
intend to do within the constraints established by the founding document, and
use your admittedly great power to restore the balance among the branches of the
federal government, and ensure that liberty and justice for all will flourish.
Jeffrey G. Purvis
Fresno
Thank you for your support of my 2008 re-election campaign. We ran a positive
campaign, with tremendous bipartisan support, and I am grateful for the vote of
confidence.
Our nation faces many challenges at home and abroad. Our economy is in dire
straits and the type of fiscal discipline we must pursue is going to require
difficult choices and sacrifices. I believe in the American people and our
ability to make good decisions, when facing challenges. We will not solve our
problems in one year or even two, but if we have a comprehensive plan this
country can begin to move forward.
In the 111th Congress I hope to continue serving on the Agriculture, Foreign
Affairs and Natural Resources committees where I have the opportunity help my
district. My priorities will be the economy, investments in our state’s failing
infrastructure including water and transportation systems and a comprehensive
long-term energy policy to improve our nation’s economy and security.
My door is always open; I hope you will take the opportunity to share your
thoughts with me.
Again, thank you. I look forward to continuing to serve as your Congressional
representative in the 20th District as long as you will have me.
Jim Costa
20th Congressional District
This is my personal experience with Community Hospital.
They provide poor health care and make it difficult to get proper care and proper follow up care.
On Weds 11/19/2008 I went to the ER for a swollen finger.
The Dr and nurses were nice.
The paper pushing desk jockeys were rude.
I was denied the prescription the DR gave me.
While I was waiting some pencil pusher came in wanting to know how I was paying.
He wanted to know if I had insurance or I would need a $300 deposit.
Who goes to ER with $300 in their pocket?
I told him its MISP.
He said "Oh your Charity!"
Fill out this paper and mail it in.
His behavior is rude and uncalled for.
They should not be pressuring people that are sick and in pain lying in a bed.
Then the DR gave me a prescription that I couldn't fill.
There is no pharmacy or MISP Office at Community.
I had to take the prescription to the old UMC building.
The lady at the pharmacy insisted I need the MISP papers.
When I told her I had to work I cant sit there all day and couldn't get over there till after they close another lady said you can call on the phone but you wont get it until the next day after you call.
Today I went over there to the MISP office AT 2:30pm they close at 3:00pm.
I had to wait in line then the short old little blonde woman was rude.
First she kept asking me to repeat my social security number.
This is wrong because then everyone in the room hears it.
Then she told me it was to late that there were too many people waiting come back tomorrow.
Why waste peoples time if you want them to come back?
If they close at 3:00 pm why take their name and give them a number if your not going to see them?
She is very unprofessional.
When I told her I work she said that I can call and it would be ready next day.
When I called at 5:35 PM I had to wait on hold 30 minutes.
I told the woman about the mean blonde.
She apologized and said she heard the woman is deaf in one ear.
Being deaf is no excuse for her to yell at people.
Then the woman I spoke to said I needed a 1040 form if I filed taxes.
I told her I didn't have copy of one and didn't have a copy of a 1040 form last year and still got MISP.
She looked it up said you signed a paper in 2007 you didn't file taxes.
This means the person handling papers in the MISP office committed fraud last year because I made it clear at the time I filed taxes.
This woman on phone starts telling me without a 1040 I can't approve the MISP.
When I told her I can't get a copy she got irritated demanding I need it.
Then she cuts me off.
These people don't know what they are doing and make things up as they go.
I cant get the prescription for pain killers and antibiotics filled at any other pharmacy because UMC pharmacy has the prescription paper.
If they deny people working part time access to care they are legally entitled to how are they treating the poor that don't understand the system?
I see signs everywhere they can't legally deny treatment yet they are doing it.
Im just going to go to the ER from now on and they can eat the cost.
Let them try to collect.
There needs to-be a Class Action Law Suit against Community.
This is what it should demand
1.) They need to stop harassing patients in ER about how to pay.
a.) ER is not the place for that.
b.) they should just hand you a paper explaining it.
2.) They need an MISP office at Community.
a.) People should not have to go across Fresno.
b.) People should not be kept on hold so long on the phone.
3.) They need a pharmacy.
a.) People should not have to go to UMC to get prescriptions.
4.) They need to train people on people skills for dealing with the public.
a.) There needs to be a form available for a complaint process.
b.) There needs to be follow up on complaints.
5) They need a system to track follow up care.
a) Did the patient get the proper prescription?
1.) Yes
2.) No
3.) Why not?
b) Did the patient get the proper follow up care?
1.) Yes
2.) No
3.) Why not?
You need to report this in your paper.
Sincerely,
Sam Daggett
Thanks to the Alliance for publishing the matrix of Propositions positions vs related groups (LWV, etc.) -- it made our voting research much easier. And, go Obama!
Dale Simmons
Visalia Ca