ETS! encourages comments, feedback, tips, corrections, and info! Please keep them as concise as possible so we can print as many different voices as possible: ETS!, P.O. Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145, or e-mail ets@scn.org.

Olympia Is Still In Session

Dear Geov and ETS! folks:

I think that Geov is wrong about SSB 5234, which he wrote about in the March 10 issue. The law does, as he says, establish "custodial sexual misconduct" as a new crime. This is defined as sexual contact between jailors and inmates. The jailor would be guilty of a misdemeanor or felony for engaging in any sexual contact with an inmate.

Washington is one of only 12 states which does not hold jail employees criminally responsible for engaging in sexual contact with inmates unless rape or assault can be proved--a standard which anyone can see is almost impossible to meet. There's an epidemic of forcing female inmates to trade sexual contact for medical services, hygiene products, food or freedom from harassment. Sexual assaults upon women by male guards are common, as is groping during pat-downs or showering. The majority of guards of female inmates are men.

Around the country, women have died in jail from the aftermath of jailors' sexual predations and from the denial of medical care because they resisted rape by guards.

Why is consent not a defense? Because the jailor holds the power and prisoners are victimized constantly by retaliation. What would "consent" even mean in this situation? Consent is not a defense to pedophilia, either.

Amnesty International, of which I'm a member, strongly supports this law. Amnesty is waging its USA Campaign this year, partly to highlight conditions in U.S. jails which are tantamount to torture. Assaults of female inmates are a big part of this problem. Media like the Seattle Times will not report this issue except in rare circumstances--like last year's settlement by the state with the inmate who was impregnated by a guard.

Geov and the ETS! community should support SSB 5234, which has passed the Senate unanimously. There may be some opposition to it in the House, where the prison guards' union managed to defeat similar legislation last year.

Sincerely yours,

--Billy Kreuter, AIUSA Group 4, Seattle, WA

2 Legit 2 Quit

Hey, Although I usually find your articles well written and insightful, I thought your coverage of local bills to be too terse. Obviously you don't want to advocate that your position is just "right" and that everyone should believe your opinions on every article (although that probably would be a good thing!). The short, and highly subjective, paragraphs on each bill leave much to be desired. But I still think you guys do great work, I just wanted to offer a suggestion.

--Rory, via e-mail

G.P. replies: We'd love to have done more on Olympia legislation, but in our print publication (perhaps you're only seeing e-mail or web) space limitations prohibit it. Of the 2,197 bills submitted this year, hundreds are probbaly worthy of comment, and that comment ought to be more than a sentence or two. As it was, the Oly article was the longest we've run this year. We do the best we can!

As for SSB 5234, I was going from a legislative summary (itself very brief) whose wording (I think it was something like "state managed facilities") led me to believe the target of the bill was foster care homes and the like. I stand corrected. The issue of power and coercion in sexual relations is obviously an important one, though, regardless of whether it's jails or state housing. But well-intentioned as the bill is, one facet still bugs me: it seems to be adding a new law to proscribe behavior (rape) that is already illegal. If there's a problem because existing laws are not being enforced, how will adding a new law improve enforcement? And if the purpose is specifically to ban allegedly consensual relationships between jailors and jailees, is it written too broadly?

Close the School, Don't Pay Taxes!

Dear ETS!,

I am glad to finally see an article saying that all is not well in Guatemala. However, the writer missed the big point that Clinton, the NYT and everyone else did: The U.S. Army School of the Americas is still open for business.

Nowadays, its primary clients are not Guatemala but the indigenously-populated Mexico, and Colombia, both cooperating with good ol' homestyle U.S. counter-insurgency terror under the guise of the drug war. "We're closing the School of Assassins" is on more activists' lips. Come to D.C. May 1-4 for rally, CD and lobbying (and Pete Seeger's 80th birthday, I might add)--we might see more than just an apology and revisionist history. We might see a liberation movement take root in this country for a change. Dare we risk envisioning that? And taking some personal risk in the matter?

Of course, Al Haig's famous quote, "Let them protest all they want, as long as they pay their taxes," is the real issue behind any anti-militarist movement. Complain about the Pentagon all you like, but if all who did that also did some war tax resistance, even at a token level, we could actually start defunding the damn institutions. Dr. Dogood says "Take these two web sites and call me in the morning":

http://www.nonviolence.org/wtr (Natl. War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee}; http://www.nonviolence.org/wrl/piechart.htm (War Resisters League pie chart of military spending); http://www.soaw.org (School of Americas Watch).

That's just my opinion, but I may be right. Wanna really Eat the State!, y'all? Bite 'em where it hurts, in the Pentagon collection agency's ass! Tax Day is April 15. Take a bite outta international war crimes and send the 50% that goes toward the military to ETS! or something peaceful instead.

P.S. I owe my start doing war tax resistance in Seattle via CMTC now NACC, its staffpeople Vivien Sharples and ETS! founder Geov Parrish. Eight years later I'm still alive, IRS-hassle-free (save for two silly letters).

A. McKenna, Capitol Hell, D.C.

Testimony

Shalom,

Last night I spent the 2nd Seder at a school board hearing here in Seattle. The reason for the hearing was the sale of an old school building in my neighborhood to the social service agency, El Centro de la Raza (The Center of the People). El Centro has been a big part of my life since I moved to Seattle four years ago. The people there took over this abandoned school building in 1972 and have been running community services from the building ever since including a soup kitchen; food bank; ESL classes; job training center; art gallery; computer lab; basketball court; communal gardens and much more. About two years ago I decided to get involved with El Centro by coordinating a series of landscaping and tree-planting work parties where over 500 people have gotten a chance to dig in the soil of the old school grounds forming flower beds and sprucing up the look of the property for everyone's enjoyment.

There are a small group of people in my neighborhood who are trying to prevent this sale on various grounds: some say it has to do with siting a new library at El Centro even though a vast majority of Beacon Hill residents say they don't want to site a library there and that they prefer the current site--see http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/beaconhill/Urban/siting.htm for the vote tallies from our most recent neighborhood planning validation event on this issue); others claim that the land is public and it should remain public property. I stood up last night to testify in favor of this sale since I believe it's in the best interest of all involved and will be a great thing for El Centro and the Beacon Hill community.

There were a number of incredible speakers before me--Native American-- Harold Belmont, Black--Larry Gossett, Latino--Roberto Maestas, white-- Frederica Merrell, Bob Santos and Al Fugiyama and the crowd applauded after each one as if we were at a rally. These were county council, state senators, past school board members, neighborhood leaders, and 101-year old environmentalist, Hazel Wood and they all spoke well, were very convincing and were well received by the audience and school board.

As I started to speak, I decided to talk about how and why I had decided to spend the second night of Passover at this place instead of at a seder table getting my fill of Matzoh Ball soup and telling the story of exodus and liberation once again. After a couple sentences (I'm crying as I write this :), I talked about my family and how Passover was for us and then I looked out at the audience and realized that this group of people, people who had taken me in, who hug me and greet me warmly wherever we meet--that they are my family! I started crying and couldn't get another word out and had to stop talking for a minute. Then I tried to start again and again got all choked up. It was very moving and finally I got some more words out about the nature of my relationship with El Centro and that I approved of the sale.

The rest of the speakers spoke well and a lot of people came over to me to tell me how glad they were that I had spent the second night of passover with them. I'm still crossing my fingers that this sale goes through and hope that the few in our neighborhood who oppose the sale will finally stop with their nonsense and get behind El Centro's purchase of the property. Who knows, perhaps eventually they'll find a place within this family as I am doing and feel how rewarding it is to be welcomed in a place you never expected.

Chag Sameach (happy holidays),

Albert Kaufman, Seattle

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[Ed. note: The letter printed from Adriene Sere in the 3-24-99 issue was sent to ETS! but not intended for publication. We regret its publication.]