Charlie Grapski's trial is set for tomorrow in Alachua, Florida. For those who have been following Charlie's case, you know that Charlie will be representing himself in court, because he cannot come up with the $40,000 required by his defense attorney. I know the situations are different, but I am reminded of these famous lines from John Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH:
Ma Joad: "Rich fellas come up an' they die, an' their kids ain't no good an' they die out. But we keep a'comin'. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out; they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, 'cause we're the people."
Tom Joad: "I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be there in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be there in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they built, I'll be there, too."
Here is what Charlie himself wrote on HEP today, The Howard-Empowered blog:
"The one question that people ask me, whether we are talking to people locally or across the nation, is how can this trial be happening. There is a great deal of disbelief that the Courts and the State Attorney would allow this case to move forward as it has if there wasn't something else that wasn't being told. Why would they allow a case to be dragged out six months and then go to trial (and this only because I forced the trial by asserting my right to a speedy trial) if there was not some wrongdoing on my part?
And they are correct. There is something missing from the picture as it is publicly viewed. And it does have to deal with an element of wrongdoing. But wrongdoing on whose part..?
...I might be innocent of the crime alleged but the State could muster its forces sufficiently to place me into a position of vulnerability - simply because they had the power to do so. Is that the legitimate authority of their position of public trust? No...
...The message, however, that I want to convey as widely as possible is not about my personal struggle in all of this. It is about our struggle. It is about our rights. It is about our Constitution. It is about our government.
We are being denied that form of democratic government which this nation was founded upon and people have sacrificed all to defend. When we, as citizens, allow those we entrust with positions of public authority to abuse that trust, to misuse that authority, to wield that power for their own interests - they are denying us that to which we all have a fundamental right: equal justice under the law, liberty and freedom, justice and the public good...
...If we cannot expect the premises of democratic government and justice in our local government - where we, as citizens, potentially wield the greatest power; then we have no chance, regardless of which major party holds the majority, to realize the dreams of generations of Americans at the national level.
I am calling upon you, whoever you are, wherever you live, to begin standing up for your rights and your dignity. Expect to be treated as a citizen, and not a subject, by those you entrust with public authority. Do not allow their system to destroy our government.
There is more to this story than my particular struggle. This is a struggle for all of us to unite in - the struggle to re-establish the citizen as the highest office in our democracy.
Charlie Grapski
If you pray, now would be a good time to put in a word for Charlie.
http://howardempowered.blogspot.com/
http://grapskidefense.org/