On the Move:

	November Coalition Headquarters, Colville, WA
By Tom Murlowski, Associate Director, November Coalition

Hello, my friends:

It was after much thought and deliberation that I finally left my career as an optical physics technician in San Diego, California and moved to Colville, to work full time as our coalition's associate director.

As many of you already know, I have a very special friend, Suzan Penkwitz, doing time in federal prison on a so-called drug conspiracy charge. Since her incarceration almost two years ago, I have been working closely with the November Coalition. I have watched Suzan's nightmare unfold since the beginning, so I am all too painfully aware of what many of our readers experience day to day.

While we have hopes of winning relief on Suzan's appeal, I still believe the best chance to bring her and a half-million others home is ending the drug war. The prisoners must come home. This, in essence, is the primary goal of the November Coalition.

When this journey began for me, I was concerned about one woman, shocked at how a corrupt and unfeeling system had tried to destroy her life. Now, after my eyes have opened more fully, I see that a half-million human souls cry out for justice and compassion, and literally millions of their loved ones.

I see that the duty of every American is to be eternally vigilant, and dedicated to preserving the delicate dream that our founding fathers fought and died for. It is a daily struggle not to give in to rage and hatred at what I've seen, and what I now know, and yet I still believe in the American Dream. I still believe that we can restore reason and compassion to our nation. I still believe that the good guys win in the end. I still believe that love conquers all.

We have seen many changes in public attitude in 1998. The mainstream media has begun to tackle this subject with clear intent to expose it for the fraud it is. More and more we read and hear the drug war critized in newspaper, television and magazines and this is what we need.

It is time to bring our people home; our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our lovers and friends­­home to heal in the arms of their families and loved ones. We all know they have done nothing to deserve the cruelty that has been dealt to them.