Boycott 4 Justice beginning March 9, 2011 – No Shopping on the 9th of each month throughout 2011. Do not spend a thin dime on April 9, May 9, June 9 - NO 9th! Join the people's 9/11 response to corporate greed and government indifference that is behind injustice in America. Join millions of Americans who are fed up enough to stand up in a peaceful, powerful demonstration without leaving home.
Boycotts have long been an integral component in non-violent movements for social change. The love of money is the root of ALL evil. Just resolution of every issue, including environmental protection, wars, high unemployment and the staggering incarceration rate, has opposition from corporate interests that benefit financially by continuing or escalating conditions. People petition representatives, organize protest marches, and make impassioned appeals for change. But capital punishment continues, thousands more jobs are outsourced monthly, war costs continue to mount, collective bargaining is undermined, human/civil rights are ignored, and funding for education and other social programs diminishes. These are business decisions, and each wrong decision prospers someone. It is time to address unethical business practices financially. What Big Business wants, it gets. Consumer power can be used to inspire Corporate America to have its elected officials CHANGE.
Everyone can participate in the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE simply by shopping the day before or after the 9th of each month, but buy nothing on Shopping Boycott Days – no groceries, gasoline, electronics, cars, clothes, or anything whatsoever. Plenty of people do not participate in demonstrations because of handicaps, fear, and travel restrictions. Most negative circumstances facing Americans have a common cause: corporate greed. Unite to address unethical business practices financially.
Put a statement on your web pages saying why you support the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE and invite your group members, church, civic organizations, and family to do likewise. Perhaps you wish to stem the tide of jobs being outsourced overseas or to prison labor projects so that Fortune 500 companies can avoid unions and minimum wage laws. Many people and organizations want to improve civil liberties, end the war, abolish capital punishment and prisoner abuse, or save Troy Davis or another inmate, perhaps a relative or friend. Although literally everyone can participate in the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE anonymously, it is important to realize that mainstream news will not announce the No Shopping Day, so your help is needed to notify people about this opportunity to Unite for Justice. Below are samples:
For individuals: I support the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE on the 9th of every month throughout 2011. I pledge to buy nothing on the 9th of each month to protest ___________________________. (Name the injustice(s) you want to end.)
OR
I support the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE on the 9th of every month throughout 2011. I pledge to buy absolutely nothing on the 9th of each month to support ________________________________, my son, daughter, grandson, brother, mother, father, friend. He/she is in prison and deserves human rights while incarcerated and the opportunity to live a productive life upon release.
NOTE: Organizations need only trade the pronoun “I” for the name of the organization, i.e.:
On behalf of 210,000 members of NAMI*, we support the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE to protest criminalization of mental illness and support resumption of Medicaid insurance for inpatient psychiatric care. Members should buy nothing on the 9th day of any month in 2011.
OR
Iraq Veterans Against the War* supports the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE to end war. Supporters should make no purchases whatsoever on the 9th day of any month in 2011. http://www.ivaw.org/
The same notice would suffice for Wisconsin protestors, abolitionist groups, environmental protection organizations, prisoner rights activists, teachers protesting school closings, and all other human/civil rights organizations or individuals who recognize that corporate greed is the ultimate cause of injustices. This is your peaceful protest opportunity. STATE YOUR OWN REASON for joining millions in the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE No Shopping Days: 9th of each month in 2011.
_________________
*Neither of the organizations above has pledged support for the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE to date. I was prevented from using email and my phone to contact human and civil rights organizations about the boycott. I feel they should participate and used them as examples. If you, your civic groups and social network or places of worship participate in the shopping boycott, please TRY to notify us by posting a comment at this blog. Eventually, we may publish a list of supporters. See "FREEDOM FOR EGYPT, IRAN, AND MARY NEAL!" http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-for-egypt-iran-and-mary-neal.html
Literally everyone can support the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE while working, playing, or sleeping. Just do not spend any money on the 9th of every month throughout 2011. A 24-hour shopping moratorium once each month would not really hurt the fragile economy, nor is it intended to do that. The boycott is our 9/11 response to corporate greed that is responsible for most, if not all, of the problems that plague America.
Unity is the only thing that works for oppressed people. Americans are too divided along racial and socioeconomic lines and should harness our collective strength as consumers to effect change. While blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians, middle class and poor Caucasians in America engage in infighting and about problems that beset us, around 95% of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of 5% of the people – some of whom are elitists who encourage division among the masses to divert attention from causes for economic depression that benefit Big Business, such as expensive wars and outsourcing millions of jobs overseas and to prisons labor projects.
Most justice problems are tied to privatization of jails and prisons. The prison industrial complex is Big Business, a thriving industry that flourishes during an economic downturn when crime rates increase. In many communities across the country, youths have a better chance of serving time than finishing high school or securing gainful employment. This is true in part because over a million jobs went behind bars along with 2.3 million Americans . A MILLION INMATES WORK up to seven days weekly as prison laborers. By outsourcing jobs, Fortune 500 companies avoid unions, minimum wage and worker safety laws. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for “free” people soars. Taxpayers pay over $50 billion per year in incarceration costs, and prison investors earn substantially more money by supplying cheap labor to the federal government and to companies like those that leased slaves over a century ago.
War is tied to the prison industrial complex where inmates make all military uniforms, canteens, tents and other essential products. As the economy worsens due to high unemployment and lower wages, funding for education and other social programs are slashed. Bleak employment prospects cause more young people volunteer for military service or become criminals. Both choices benefit private prison owners. The United States has the highest prison rate in world history, with 1 in every 30 people either behind bars or on standby as parolees or probationers. Compassionate release for terminally ill, elderly, or physically impaired inmates, jail diversion programs for nonviolent drug offenders, mental health courts that remand sick offenders to Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) programs, and programs to assist former inmates’ reentry into society after release to reduce recidivism are some of the methods that are increasingly being used to rein in the high cost of punishment, but prison owners and investors who are also policymakers generally oppose these methods, and prison profiteers on parole boards often reject parole for suitable candidates.
Mental illness was criminalized to proliferate the prison industrial complex. The U.S. justice system preys on indigent or sick people. Roughly 1.25 million inmates are mentally ill – vulnerable citizens who should be either hospitalized or in community treatment programs with subsistence assistance, depending on their offenses and functionality. Funds that would be appropriated for psychiatric care were sidetracked to prison investors’ portfolios decades ago when Medicaid insurance was suspended for inpatient mental health treatment. Our most vulnerable citizens and community safety suffer as a result. Minorities, poor whites, and the mentally ill are not here to enrich the elite. It is time for CHANGE.
Individual activists and advocacy groups have tried to effect needed changes in the justice system by appealing to conscience for decades. They publish petitions, hold rallies and protest marches, and publish appeals to inspire public participation in their justice quests. Meanwhile, many prisoners are abused, executed, harsh and unequal sentencing laws continue, innocent indigent people confess to crimes they did not commit to bargain for lighter sentences because public defenders are strained by low budgets and huge caseloads, harsh punishment is prioritized over rehabilitation for inmates – 90% of whom will be released some day and need the job skills and a mindset to be OUR good neighbors, acute mental patients are denied psychiatric care unless and until they PROVE through crime that their untreated mental dysfunctions are dangerous to self and others, solitary confinement torture continues for over 25,000 inmates for months or decades, accountability for crimes by the elite is often not demanded, and Americans’ civil liberties continue to erode. These and other injustices persist despite diligent effort and expenditure of advocacy group members’ and supporters’ time and financial contributions.
Still no news of 37 missing Georgia prison strikers
San Francisco Bay View http://www.//sfbayview.com/category/enemylines/prison
The 37 Georgia prisoners who were labeled the leaders and organizers of the sit-down strike that began on Dec. 9, 2010, are still missing, and other participants are still in lockdown. The struggle for prisoners' civil rights continues.
Why is it so hard to improve the justice system? The love of money is the root of all evil. In 2008, two Pennsylvania judges confessed to accepting $2.6 million from privately-owned juvenile correctional facilities in exchange for channeling children into those institutions whether the children deserved jail or not – a “finder’s fee.” They first allegedly choked off funds to publicly-owned correctional facilities to deliver thousands of children to prison owners. Children who appeared before the court without lawyers were jailed whether or not their offenses merited incarceration. Those judges are far from being the only people in the justice system who profit substantially by imprisoning Americans and immigrants. In 2008, high U.S. Government officials were indicted as prison owners/investors in abusive jails in Wallacy County, Texas. A former U.S. Attorney General allegedly used his position to withhold investigations following inmate brutality. Perhaps someone in the federal government was paid to withhold records, investigation, and deny accountability regarding the 18 days of secret arrest and murder of my mentally, physically handicapped brother, Larry Neal – http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/ –
Capital punishment is another example of inhumanity for profit. The death penalty has lost support in America since hundreds of inmates were freed after serving decades for crimes they did not do (proved by DNA tests or other evidence of innocence), and some people were wrongfully executed. However, capital punishment continues partly because taxpayers are billed an additional $90,000 annually for each death row inmate over and above the cost for containing the same prisoner in the general inmate population (source: Death Penalty Information Center). The additional $90,000 per condemned man per annum is in impetus for prison owners/investors moonlighting as public officials to resist abolishing capital punishment. Injustice is not just a moral issue, but a financial one. SHOPPING BOYCOTTS EACH 9/11 THIS YEAR (every month of 2011 on the 9th day) may accomplish what decades of petitions, rallies, and protest marches have not.
Corporate Greed. Slave owners did not heed calls to conscience and release slaves; employers who worked children from dawn to night in sweat shops before child labor laws were enacted did not heed calls to conscience; employers with hazardous working conditions in coal mines and manufacturing plants did not heed calls to conscience and voluntarily institute fair wages, a 40-hour work week, and safe work environments. Big Business has no conscience. That is why Americans' jobs are being outsourced overseas and behind prison walls and human/civil rights violations by the government are increasing.
Slavery in America continues through the prison industrial complex. Appealing to prison profiteers’ conscience will not inspire abolition of harsh sentencing laws, end the death penalty, decriminalize mental illness, improve public defenders’ budgets and decrease their workloads to better serve indigent defendants, give post-conviction DNA testing rights to potentially innocent inmates, or stop the tide of new legislation that erodes Americans’ civil liberties.
A one-day shopping moratorium would not ravage the nation’s fragile economy, but a successful boycott would show corporate America and elected officials how serious you and I are about having a justice system that is functional but fair and respectful of the human/civil rights of all people without regard to socio-economic distinctions, race, or health status of citizens and immigrants. A successful boycott will evidence our dissatisfaction with eroding civil liberties and high unemployment.
After 9/11, America embarked on a War on Terror that sacrifices precious lives and trillions of dollars. Unite to declare war on injustice beginning March 9, and repeat the boycott every 9/11 this year until significant changes are made. Make an impact while washing your car, watching television, or sleeping on Wednesday, March 9, 2011. Take your lunch to work – make no purchases! With no protest march to attend, you need not worry about crowd control Tasers, being added to the government’s growing watch list, or any other evil device used to prevent Americans from exercising our Constitutional right to peacefully assemble and petition government for a redress of grievances. Just keep your money in your pockets for 24 hours once each month. Join us, and ask your group members, friends, and family to join the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE and use consumer power to effect positive social change.
As stated, your help publishing news about the shopping boycott would enhance wide participation and promote success with this peaceful protest. Mainstream media will censor the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE to protect prison profits and other corporate interests. For example, in January 2009, Rep. Eddie Johnson (D-TX) introduced H.R.619 in the United States Congress to resume Medicaid insurance for inpatient psychiatric care. Mental patients are being preserved untreated to become future prisoners of America. Therefore, throughout 2009 and 2010, while health care insurance was the main topic in every newscast, Johnson’s bill received absolutely no mainstream news coverage. About 1 in 5 Americans has some form of mental illness, and roughly 1.25 million inmates are mentally ill. That is why prison investors did not want Americans to know that H.R.619, an alternative to imprisoning sick people, was on the table. Elected officials who are prison profiteers preferred for their constituents not to know their mentally challenged relatives and friends were imprisoned to boost investors’ portfolios after hospitals and assisted outpatient treatment programs proved to reduce homelessness, imprisonment, and arrests by around 90%. Treating mental illness instead of withholding intervention until after crimes saves taxpayers money, improves community safety, and restores lives. H.R.619 was blacked out in the media - an important health bill to decriminalize mental illness. Eddie Johnson’s proposal to resume Medicaid for inpatient psychiatric treatment had significant impact for millions of sick people, their families, and community safety and was introduced in Congress while most news reports centered on health care, but Americans were not informed.
Most people did not know that inpatient psychiatric treatment was omitted from the national health care plan that Congress passed in March 2009. Indeed, including psychiatric hospital coverage would have killed the health bill because many representatives have prison stock. Censorship to protect prison profits is common. Most people still believe all of our jobs were outsourced overseas while over a million disappeared behind prison walls – a third world country near you. Help publish news about the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE on your websites, radio broadcasts, in your churches, temples, mosques, and civic organizations. Be sure to announce that the shopping moratorium continues on the 9th of each month. People who do not learn about it in time to stop shopping on March 9 might join us in April or May on the 9th. But it is not necessary to announce your support for the boycott – JUST DO IT! Don’t shop on the 9th of any month in 2011.
ADDRESS UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES FINANCIALLY. BIG BUSINESS HAS NEVER BEEN MOVED BY IMPASSIONED APPEALS TO CONSCIENCE. MONEY MATTERS. KEEP YOURS ON THE 9th OF EVERY MONTH.
******
If the people responsible for my brother Larry Neal’s 2003 secret arrest, murder, and the cover-up that has continued for seven years had been mere police officers and jail guards, they might have been prosecuted like the police officers now serving time for killing Kathryn Johnson, the 92-year-old Atlanta victim of the “no knock” warrant home invasion in 2006. Law officers and jail guards are considered by the elite to be “slave class” along with the rest of working class Americans. Rogue police officers are occasionally investigated and prosecuted for brutality and corruption, which improves working conditions for honest law officers by promoting cooperation and trust from the communities they serve and protect. Abusive police officers sometimes go to prison, although for lesser sentences than other “slave class” citizens. But when the elite do crimes, the justice system often prevents disclosure and denies accountability. Mine is the first family this century to have a member secretly arrested and returned to his family weeks later as a naked corpse with all requests for records, investigation, and explanation DENIED by authorities to hide crimes by government officials.
Our “inalienable” rights prove to be more alienable every day, America. My handicapped brother, Larry, was a harmless schizophrenic heart patient who was released after 20 years commitment in a mental hospital, along with hundreds of thousands of other people with acute mental illness in the 1960’s and 70’s. He irritated police by singing loud, panhandling, and such misdemeanors related to his psychiatric disability. Like many such “deinstitutionalized” patients, Larry was arrested and released numerous times but was denied inpatient commitment. Finally, police became exasperated with their enforced role as Larry’s psychiatric caretakers. He was arrested, and police denied having Larry for weeks (denying his access to vital heart drugs) until his murder by yet undisclosed means in August 2003. My brother’s secret arrest and murder cover-up was engineered by The Cochran Firm on behalf of Memphis/Shelby County government officials and the United States Department of Justice while that COINTELPRO law firm was under contract with my family as Larry’s wrongful death attorneys. It is illegal to kill even harmless black mental patients like Larry.
It is illegal for justice officials to conspire with murderers hide their crime. It is illegal for officials to submit or knowingly accept fraudulent reports to the federal government that deliberately omit reporting a jail death they prefer to hide. Elitists in the injustice system did all of these things and presently allow or facilitate my continuous censorship and stalking to prevent disclosure. Seven years later, despite Freedom of Information Act requests to the USDOJ, subpoenas to Memphis Shelby County Jail and Shelby County Government, Larry’s murder is denied the open disclosure or investigative and prosecutorial effort that dog abuse cases get. Ours is a justice system that engages in/allows ongoing crimes to help elitists escape accountability for a “slave class” man’s murder and cover-up while potentially innocent men like Troy Davis await execution. If we do not insist on equal justice and respect for Constitutional and human rights, this country could become what Egypt was. The BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE may help Senator Webb, who proposes a top-to-bottom review of the justice system in America. He should begin with the U.S. Department of Justice. Yes, I wrote to him about Larry’s secret murder. Response is pending after nearly two years, but sometimes my communication is impeded (phone calls and emails).
Boycotts worked during the civil rights movement. Labor strikes were effective during the labor movement. Merely publishing and verbally protesting injustices (business as usual) are not working, so let’s give the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE a try. Or we can keep doing what we’re doing (making heartfelt pleas) and get more of what we’ve been getting. For example, Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-FL) introduced H.R.645 in Congress in January 2009 to erect six FEMA centers in America for Americans that would be capable of holding millions more prisoners for such “crimes” as refusing to accept H1N1 vaccines, according to the Massachusetts Martial Law Bill enacted in October 2009. Filling concentration camps with Americans who refuse to submit to Big Pharm would really change the nation’s rate of incarceration - upward.
If you care about improving justice, do not wait for leaders of organizations to announce the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE. Big Business has lobbyists with deep pockets for continuing many things that Americans find objectionable. That is why prison profiteering has spread like an airborne disease. Over $50 billion per year from taxpayers plus labor profits can buy plenty of “tough on crime” support – not just from veteran Pennsylvania judges. Surprisingly, the rate of incarceration for young black males did not rise to 1 in 9 until after the Voters Rights Act was passed and many minorities went to Washington or joined corporate America in ranking positions. Minority press censored congressional bill H.R.619 and news about my brother’s secret arrest and murder right along with mainstream media. Three things are color blind: God’s love, real justice, and money. Wake up, wake up! It is KoffieTime! Follow me at Twitter, where I am KoffieTime – http://twitter.com/koffietime - if they let you. Thanks for your interest and help publishing the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE, your participation in the boycott and your prayers.
See my “Human Rights for Prisoners March” article, available at this link: http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/human-rights-for-prisoners-march-by.html. The list of concerns at the article includes reasonable requests made by thousands of black, white, and Latino Georgia inmates in six prisons who staged a nonviolent work strike from December 6 – 15, 2010, such as relief from hunger and brutality, health care, rehabilitation and education opportunities to avoid recidivism, affordable phone calls, and wages for prison labor. Georgia pays inmates nothing for working but releases prisoners with only $25 to start a new life, knowing that people convicted for certain felonies are ineligible for food stamps, student grants/loans, and have even fewer employment opportunities than others in the dwindling job market. In Georgia, 1 in 13 people are prisoners, parolees, or probationers. Striking inmates were desperate to get our attention regarding their brutal incarceration. In retaliation, some were beaten severely for organizing/supporting the strike because prison labor is so important in America. Other strikers are in solitary (which costs YOU more), and 37 of the Georgia inmate strickers are reported MISSING. Hopefully, they are not murdered like my handicapped brother who was secretly arrested and killed in 2003, and this administration refuses to investigate and prosecute his death just as the previous administration did.
Why do many Americans vigorously oppose waterboarding and other torture in War on Terror camps while ignoring inmate murders and abuses within U.S. correctional facilities, including the secret arrest and murder of a harmless mental patient like my brother and the cover-up that yet continues? Could their tolerance for abuses in the justice system at home have to do with personal gain? Have you checked your IRA accounts and stock portfolios lately to ensure that you are not benefiting by some of the very circumstances you wish change?
Essentially, Big Business and governments of the world are one. That is one reason why my advocacy against privatization of prisons and jails is censored. On December 6, 2010, over 11,000 of my Twitter tweets for justice were deleted days before the Georgia prisoner strike. I assume the Internet censorship force deleted my tweets promoting HUMAN RIGHTS FOR PRISONERS so that people who browsed the web looking for information about the strike would not see my suggestions that injustice is tied to financial profits for the elite. Fortunately, the tweets were reinstated after I complained about censorship for over two months. See the tweet below that was disallowed by stalkers who continuously place my home PCs on their illegal networks via remote access to control my browsing and Internet input:
Disallowed Tweet February 21, 2011: When I tweet abt globalization & prison slavery displacing U.S. workers, my @Twitter country code changes from 40404 to 86444 - UK. Why?
Use your own web pages and other avenues to publish the reason(s) you are not shopping on March 9 or on the 9th day of subsequent months throughout 2011 until significant change comes. Remember that the love of money is the root of all evil. Keep your money and uproot some evil. We can make a statement: Human and civil rights offenses do not pay. Imagine a day when almost no sales are made. That would be a very loud protest from Americans and immigrants while we quietly engage in working, playing, or resting. God said unity works:
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. ~ Genesis 11:6
Mary Neal
Website: http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI
