Letter to Mark Hepko On The Merits Of A Lawsuit

Dear Mark Hepko:

Sue the bastards.

I included the article by the Wenatchee World but I know there's more to the story, and obviously, you felt free to share some of the details.

Don't make the constant mistakes I've made of trying to warn people to change their ways, or else you'll sue, just sue. I give people chances to correct their errors, thinking they'll do the right thing, and 9 times out of 10, by the time they've already done the WRONG thing, they're not going to admit they were wrong and correct themselves. If it's anything where they know they could be held legally liable, or have a bad mark on their career, they will cover it up or go after you to discredit you first.

Learn from my mistakes, because I made the same one over and over and over. At least I hope I can help others to understand. Do everything discreetly, until they get slammed and served with the court papers. If you tip them off ahead of time, not only will they go after YOU and start blaming you for things and slandering you to shift the focus and blame, but they will dodge service if they think you've got a lawyer.

Everyone knows how lousy the Wenatchee system is. They should have contacted you and didn't, and I would think they'd keep track of someone who at any time had an addiction to meth. Meth is serious.

Anyone who has been run through the mill or deprived justice, and who has suffered serious damage because of office irresponsiblity should not just "take it" anymore. Sue the bastards. I wish you the best of luck. Don't take the first lawyer's word for anything either, if he or she tells you you don't have a case. Sometimes, you have to go to 10 or 20 to find someone who wants it, who feels passionately about it. It's often not that people do or don't have grounds to sue, it's whether a particular lawyer is intellectually or emotionally interested in it. They think about whether they want to work on it, invest in it, think about it, and spend time on it, and what the payoff will be. Everyone is different and is passionate about different causes. I hope you find someone who will take your case.

I'm very sorry this happened to you.

Frankly, I don't think Wenatchee is a good place for anyone to live except generational families or those who pull the strings. Everyone else, in my opinion, should abandon ship.

Finally, I know there are still huge levels of discrmination against young teen mothers there, who are coerced to give up their babies to other waiting parents who are friends with the workers and want to adopt. I also know the hispanic immigrants are discriminated against as well, and they are at a huge disadvantage because of language barriers on top of everything else.

I believe very strongly, in the power of the lawsuit. The only complaint about a "litigious" society that one should have, is that only those with money typically are able to file suit and win. Corporations do much of the suing, and without any restrictions, to protect their business interests, and yet personal injury caps are placed on the common people, who suffer harm and do not have the rest of a company to fall back on. The imbalance is gross.

One good thing about Obama is that, as a black man who has had exposure to his community, he knows how THEY have been historically railroaded. They've seen the shadow side of "justice" and their men still outnumber all others for convictions. People can be set up to fail, and if a group with greater resources wants to do it, they can manipulate what happens to someone simply by using their money to jerk the apron strings of Justice. Anytime a regular person has a chance to sue, they should. More people should be suing.

Being a pacifist and "forgiving" is harmful to society--at least to a society of "equals". People and organizations have to be held accountable.

Christianity has been used to keep people down in the past. Slaves were told the Bible justified slavery and to give to Caesar what was Caesars and serve their master's happily. Americans leaving England were told to obey their king and not to defy England for the same reason--that the King was divinely appointed and the Bible says to obey your authorities. The Americans who left England had to use counter-propoganda to gain strength for their mission. The arguments made are that England lost its privileges...Read letters of Thomas Paine and George Washington. It was a religious argument that furthered the Revolution. Without it, they could not have gained the support they needed, because most people were christian and religious and wanted to follow what they thought was "right" or biblical. So some people had to introduce them to a new way of thinking and reframe those religious arguments.

I think now that the revolution needs to be of the common people against the corporations and big money. This country is currently a plutocracy, not an actual democracy, and the only way to get it back is to fight for it, even if it's only one lawsuit at a time. For every lawsuit that is NOT filed, the corporation becomes stronger. Special interests gain ground. And regular people endanger themselves, their families, and their communities by standing by as their civil rights are trampled on.

Good luck.