Tag: Anka Karewicz

Racism remains the greatest medical threat to Mumia’s health. The only treatment for Mumia is freedom, for all political prisoners, and for all our elders in prisons!

It is clear that even though a person may have served their time in prison, release from prison to a halfway house does not provide freedom. One might be “allowed” to work, but may not be allowed the tools, or Constitutional Rights, necessary for the work allowed. The penal system prevails in unrelenting oppressor control and punishment against captive people, our Black and Brown community members.

In the netherworld of American prisons, one must jettison any medical assumptions one brings in from the so-called “free” world. We have been conditioned to see nurses as sweet sources of solace and doctors as people dedicated to healing the sick and easing our pains. In prison, new rules govern medicine and care. Here, money is master; the ill are all but ignored. This may seem harsh but, I must assure you, reality is even harsher.

Sen. Sanders, you have spoken out against the depredations of Big Pharma, refused to take donations from any of them, and call for “Medicare for all.” You’ve also spoken to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Currently in Pennsylvania there is a case before a federal court which embodies both of these battles, Abu-Jamal vs. Kerestes. Mumia Abu-Jamal is suing to force the Department of Corrections to immediately provide him treatment with the Hep C drug.

“This conference that we are picketing ... is an obscene reflection of the reality of this country today, that the most important thing is money and profit and not human needs!” – Carole Seligman, speaking at the demonstration - It was in their fancy tailored suits and with suspicious eyes that big pharma CEOs and investors got interrupted by protestors and speeches such as the above as they came and went from the too-big-to-fail JP Morgan-sponsored conference on “health care” (read: profit care) at the elite Westin St. Francis hotel on Union Square in San Francisco on Monday, the 11th of January, 2016.