Do not pray for prosperity as long as I am a volunteer advocate for inmates, which is a thankless job that no one would do unless it was for principle and a love of liberty.

What I pray for is strength. My own personal strength, your strength and our combined strength, which is all that is needed for our many battles.

I wish you strength in 2004 so that you can honor the commitment letter which gives me the tools to be effective. The power of numbers writing to EDITORS, showing up for protests to show strength, recruiting others to learn, write and show up and to get out the vote only for those people who will represent us is our only hope.

I would like to recap some of our important campaigns this year and to recognize why they were possible and successful. While they may not have been on the scale that we needed, we must recognize that our failure to recruit enough educated (about organizing) workers will hold back every campaign until we fix this weakness which every group in California has and makes almost no effort to overcome.

March 13 protest - 150 people signed in and we had dynamic speakers, press coverage and all our bills came out successfully. We visited several offices but made an appeal to Zimmerman in Denham's office to help Beverly Dias because he carried a bill to officially (instead of unofficially) deny all inmates transplants. This appeal to release her was well witnessed and with your statement will be major evidence in a lawsuit for medical neglect that is long past due. 

Marge and Bob Driscoll, (big stars of this event) Lettie Baker, Frank Courser, Don and Dorothy Ward, Sarah Chappell and others brought several people each. There are many more to thank for this one which had effects all year long. go here 

March 13 Protest

The first reversal of a three strikes case was achieved for Jerry Wayne Morgan, who was kept in solitary and brutally beaten by five guards at the Shasta County jail, where violence is considered business as usual. The UNION volunteer who deserves to be recognized for this historic achievement is;

Janice Crumley, a legal secretary who cared

Let's all hear it for Janice who has spent thousands of hours maintaining our website and helping many of our people with problems.

To read about this long term campaign go here and click on Jerry Wayne Morgan

 http://www.1union1.com/index.htm 

----------------
When my son was almost killed at Mule Creek by Michael Knowles and the guards this year, it was to deliver a message that we were to stop organizing. They were upset at our huge network out there and went overboard, leaving Eric unconcious for two days and leaving us all wondering if he was dead or alive for two weeks.

The doctor was fired after a judge stepped in and stopped the forced drugging of my son. We had the lies flying back and forth from Ken Hurdle and Matthew Gray whom we had trusted up until that point to at least give us an accurate report.

We have a retired school teacher and administrator, an experienced organizer who is one of the most courageous people I have ever met, and without her, I could not have held together so tightly through this ordeal of the long term torture of my son.

Her name is Sandy Forbes and she has waged such a war on the food poisonings at Mule Creek and other facilities that all inmates and their families have benefitted. She spends her own money to mail into several inmates to teach them to send their families to help the UNION do our projects. What is important here is that Sandy has no family member inside, but does have a friend whom she has supported throughout his ordeal, an elderly former teacher.

Sandra Forbes is love, light and strength and I would like to applaud and thank her on behalf of everyone with an inmate in prison. To read about the ordeal which has resulted in the filing of a federal lawsuit by my son Eric Knapp, (who wrote it himself) please go here:

http://www.1union1.com/index.htm 

and click on all the references to Mule Creek

Sandy is fed up with California and is moving to Washington but thank God for email

A few short weeks later, John Bolander wrote me for help and that he expected to be killed over a bill for visits sponsored by Republican Nakanishi.

He was in fact found dead and appeals I made to everyone to check into this were ignored. His death was preventable if only one government official had responded.

Another person who backed me up with the severe intimidation, razor blades, metal, glass and human secretions in the food was Shirley Wetherwax. She stood up and relayed messages from Mule Creek families after our UNION mail was banned out there, it was impossible to stop the flow of information which CDC and their friends have tried to do many times.

Let's hear a round of applause for Shirley Wetherwax.

Robert Bastian, Esq. and Marina Dini, Esq.

You may read about this campaign here

http://www.1union1.com/dillard.htm

Their fighting spirit touched us all, inspired us all, and restored my faith that there are at least two good lawyers on the planet. Johnnie Cochran introduced me to Robert Bastian a few years ago when the inmates called me about the death of Stephanie Hardie. Little did I know what a fine, fine person I was meeting. We shot an episode of Cayenne Common Sense outside the courthouse which will air in a few weeks to record this campaign in history.

We all recognize that no campaign was possible without many UNION members helping with the work, but certain ones stood head and shoulders above others and without their time and donated funds to pay for expenses, their would be no battle and therefore no victory.

Frank Courser, the single father of three who was himself out of work for several months this year due to the grocery strike, found $2000 to cover costs of airline tickets, hotel rooms and a rescue edit, not to mention hundreds of dollars in collect calls that Beverly Dias made to him every month. We cannot help every person with their individual cases, but I will tell you right now that without Frank to finance this effort, Beverly Dias would not be free to die at home with dignity and the solid evidence we gathered of deliberate indifference by government officials would not have been possible.

Let us recognize and thank Frank Courser

The campaign to appeal for compassionate release designed to benefit all inmates can be viewed here:

http://www.1union1.com/beverly_diaz.html

Now six months later, the health department has cited Kaiser for a story that most media completely missed. This is part of the public record and a lawsuit is going forward. Astraea never forgot to mention that the same health care workers at Kaiser Vallejo also worked in the prisons and the danger was great to CMF Vacaville, the hospital prison and others. Astraea kept us focused on the dangers and we covered a story that nobody believed until the government finally admitted it and cited Kaiser.

For the public good, a still disabled Astraea Kelley fought for her life and for our inmates too. She was overjoyed that Interferon is testing out as a successful treatment yesterday. Our passions may be different, but health is a key issue to people with lifers who have no hope of freedom, but whose family members want to do everything possible to keep them as safe and comfortable as possible.

Astraea Kelley, respiratory therapist, humanitarian, deserves a huge round of applause for her selfless work which included contacting all the health care workers unions and legislators, who have no aptitude for prevention whatsoever, even when unsanitary conditions are needlessly killing thousands of inmates by spreading dangerous diseases.

Astraea Kelley, a person who never says die.

Harvey broke his rib the night before the Dillard hearing and they couldn't attend that one, but these two hard workers never missed even one call to action. Now how many can say that?

Jennifer Warren, Los Angeles Times (best all around coverage of prison issues)

Brian Skoloff, Associated Press (outstanding coverage of Dillard trial)

Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times (great coverage of Lancaster State Prison and the guard drug bust)

Jerry Bier, Fresno Bee (outstanding coverage of Dillard trial)

Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle (a human rights columnist that we all admire)

Jerry Baker, freelance writer and my great friend of 20 years, 

Jo Ann Fawcett, Ecobyte News and Nova Albion magazine. A great guest on my show and published many, many of our articles this year including two pages from our March 13 protest.

Joshua Chaffin, Washington D.C. news editor for Freedom of Speech radio network, a longtime UNION member since he was with National Public Radio in Sacramento. 

Professor William Chambliss, George Washington University, who sent us criminal justice students and especially Marotta to help with our important work.

Arianna Huffington who raised nearly a million and spent it on mostly our issues. When is the last time a person did that for you knowing that families of prisoners are too uneducated to get out the vote. And Peter Camejo, who brought our messages near and far who has always been too good for the people who are supposedly backing him. Peter Camejo borders on sainthood in my book and I am proud to know him.
 

Our television and radio show, first reversal of a three strikes case, the Dillard trial which made a huge statement against medical neglect, our campaign for more sanitary conditions and compassionate releases (still in progress), and the release of Beverly Dias, our efforts to properly organize the 6500 workers necessary to change laws through initiative campaigns, do lawsuits over visiting, packages and many forms of cruel and unusual punishment, our appearance on bills where we were often the only ones to support or oppose them, all this work was done by unpaid volunteers.

Our success upsets people who aren't doing anything to cast off the chains. So consider it an honor to be bashed by CDC agents who want you not to protest or raise funds to defend yourselves, because that would be the end of the human bondage industry.

I do not know what the new year holds for us. We certainly need many more volunteers and funds than we have right now. I am optimistic that certain things will happen under A.A.S. but it doesn't matter whose in office when a citizen's group is large and funded and capable of taking them out.

6500 people can change any law, file any lawsuit, recall any politician when each is committed to WORKING.

I am very proud that we do not have infighting and that we are focused on writing TO THE MEDIA, preparing for protests. preparing to get out the vote through our ten bring ten campaign,

AND WHO WAS OUT THERE RECALLING GRAY DAVIS?

MOST OF US.

AND TO WHOM DID THE CANDIDATES APPEAL FOR SUPPORT?

The UNION.

I would also like to thank the television crew whose volunteer work made our show happen. 

We have a lot of work to do. Don't rest on your laurels. And reach out to other, we are limited only by the number of people who respond to our calls to action.
 

Praying for an easy life is a waste of time so let us all pray for strength to finish these battles this year. I am going to be cutting back on reading and appearing on all the bills unless we see many more volunteers so keep on pushing so that I can be free to do this and not overwhelmed with so much paperwork.

Keep the tapes going. This is a good way to find more workers.

B. Cayenne Bird
UNION
P.O. Box 85
Garden Valley, Ca. 95633

January 1, 2004

There are some other recognitions that I would like to make.

Susan Randall, who works in excess of 50 hours per week AS AN UNPAID VOLUNTEER keeping track of who is and who is not writing letters to the editor or attending our calls to action and who manages our database and record keeping. People do not realize what a huge task this is, but it seems that if she is not reminding people of their commitment to do one letter per week to editors and show up when called, recruit other workers constantly, that people drift off and neglect these three most important things (other than voting when it's time to do, which is the bottom line).  Susan has been the database, record keeper since 1999.

We always struggle for funds and Debbie Shanks worked hard on the March 13 protest and bought us coffee and gave us free ads in Pennysavers throughout Northern California.  She also made posters and put out a great deal of energy.
I cannot name all of the people who made that day a success, there were many.

Do you recall Sidney Petersen selling her book there that day "Jailhouse Crock" - a perfect gift for people with a loved one in jail for the first time.  I still have a few copies of it.  She is checking out the costs of producing another book which we might be able to use as a fundraiser that has more general appeal to the public.  Sidney is quiet but she is an author who does a great deal of good for all inmates.

There are researchers in the background who are key to keeping our huge website updated.  Right now we have Caryn, Mimi, Madelene and Linda reading through past newsletter to pull the many public appeals to Matt Gray, Zimmerman and Ken Hurdle that I made this year on behalf of Beverly Dias.  This is a huge task, but we are also pulling out the lawsuit payouts so that we can update that page as well.

We need to recognize and appreciate Charles Wesley who is still studying to be a paralegal.  Yayyyyyyy!

Madelene Hunter, our foster care advocate, representing the next generation of prisoners - abused and neglected foster children.  Any group that cannot write checks to legislators has no representation.  Any advocate who represents the poor has little or no money to work with and not much assistance with their work since the uneducated will not organize.  They just don't get it.

Madelene Hunter is a tireless advocate, a former foster child herself who filmed an important documentary this year which has been in the news.  We have cooperating groups and advocates and she is one whom I dearly love and greatly admire.  Often the foster children end up in prison during her relationship with them and she is all they have.  The new visiting regulations forbids other than blood relatives to visit many categories of prisoners.  Madelene is awake, involved and painfully aware of inhumanity, legislative callousness and unbearable incompetence and the trickle down effects it has on our children.  Let us stand up and stomp the floor in appreciate for my friend Madelene Hunter who spoke out loudly in 2003 and has even more planned for 2004.  Silence is deadly.

Who cares about the wear and tear on me and reminds me constantly to kick people off the list who aren't carrying their share of the work.  I tend to be to generous with this but it certainly hurts us all when we have inactive people amongst us.

Thank you Michael for keeping me on track with what needs to be done to hone our lean, mean, voting machine.

Cayenne

I just want to wish you a happy new year and hope the UNION is going to file a lawsuit about losing these visits.

I wonder if you know how many guys didn't commit suicide because of all the people in the UNION?

I'm ready for my paralegal course if you can find a way to buy it for me. Come and see me soon as they are defying doctors orders for my single cell status. 

Your loving son,

Eric

Recruiting more workers.  Not list sitters.  Workers.  Everybody thinks someone else is doing this and then nobody does it, yet all campaigns are only limited by the NUMBER of workers who participate.

The welfare mentality that believes that a legislator, judge or lawyer is going to rescue them without the strong support and active involvement of a large, funded citizen's voting group, a lobby, is  uninformed.  Ignorance of how the system works and apathy in writing letters TO EDITORS and SHOWING CROWDS several times a year to prove there is a voting lobby capable of doing lawsuits and initiative campaigns is the only reason in the world why we are oppressed.

One person at a time is what we each must strive for and teach the inmates that nobody can do  THEIR family's share of the work for them....we are not here to rescue people....although we sometimes do.....we are here to organize the voting group necessary to change any law.  6500 or bust.

Here are the FIGHTERS who have carried everyone else on their backs.  In order to qualify for this recognition, the first requirement was that none of the nominees could miss a Call to Action.  We are only as strong as the number of people who respond to the Calls to Action.
 

Four of the first winners for the ten best UNION  subscribers of the Year
(our media awards will be completely separate) are:

Sandy Forbes, Valencia
Tireless writer and recruiter, Sandy did an EXCELLENT job this year, always there to do the work with a smile and wonderful attitude.  We all OWE her a great deal.

Linda Chiacone, Virginia 
(out of state and never misses a call to action plus she  keeps 70 inmates informed by sending in newsletters - an incredible warrior!) Linda also writes
letters to the editor frequently and sends a representative to every important hearing when a Call to Action goes out.

Deborah Jimenez, Santa Rosa, 
let us recognize that she wrote in excess of 100 letters to the editor this year, was published many times even though she is not a professional writer and fought very hard for parole.  When we had the call to action to bombard Davis to parole Rosenkrantz, Deborah recruited everyone she knew to help with this project and filled the local newspapers with letters on each article that appeared.  Writing and fighting - if we could clone Deborah, reform would already have happened.

Margie Jump, mother of James Diesso, 
through blinding pain she never misses a Call to Action and helps everyone she possibly can who comes to the UNION for help.  She is unemployed, has suffered great injustice and desperate financial times and yet she is steadfast in her work to build the UNION.  Yes, she was thrown out of the kangaroo courtroom for calling the judge and jury SOB'S - it made headline news in The Reporter - but Margie and Jimmy's struggle greatly contributed to alternative sentencing at the jail level in 22 counties for the mentally ill.  And the battle on this case is far from over.  Margie holds up and after all that she has experienced, that is worth a very big recognition.