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Activist Times Inc. Diary 1
Dear Mr. Gejdenson,
I asked you two years ago, and I ask you again
so you don't forget. Could you please do absolutely
anything in your powers to influence your coworkers
to shut SOA, that behemoth down?
I know that Carter looked my friend Brett in the
eye last year when he asked if we could get him
and/or Amy (Brett wrote the Habitat For Humanity poem)
and Carter told him "there's just things you can't know
that make that school necessary." Sam, despite whatever
that something is, you must spend the rest of your
life slowing down the killing that my tiny little
taxes every year directly causes! Frankly Sam, if
you need some extra smoke under your tail, your
best ally I think is Wellstone. He writes me back
and tells me way more than just "you're preaching
to the choir." He has no Frank Rowe to run flack
for - so crazy little marc frucht will FEEL heard.
He HEARS me, and he does the work. I honor you
Sam, you do the work in most cases. My father
fought hard for you every time. You're one of
the only democrats he supported since President
Kennedy. My sister fought tirelessly beside you
during your SOS campaign to keep money in our
beautiful little corner of Konetiuk.
Yes, I live in Wisconsin now, Sam. I feel safer
here than among the ________s, and _______s and
_____s and _____s. But I'm sure you can relate
to my feeling, that same one John Ledyard wrote
about when he was trying to someday lead a pack
of dogs from Northern California to Groton. I
miss my hometown, Sam. I miss my sister and my
mom and my ex-wife. But more than anything in
this world I miss peace and I miss justice.
Never mind that I haven't had healthcare since
the day I left the army with a 10% medical
honorable discharge, never mind I'm about 10
credits short of a bachelors at 35 years old
and can't afford more than a semester every
year or so on my GI Bill and odd jobs, and
my credit's shot so financial aid is out of
the question this time around. None of these
things are important.
When I learned late last nite that Gerardi's
murderers were in part captured and some were
arrested, I just knew it. I felt it in my bones
that they would be linkable to SOA. Sam, my taxes
paid for Bishop Juan Gerardi to be beaten to
death the same day I sat on your marble steps
protesting that very school that trained his
murderers. An Episcopal priest came to the capitol
steps to give us the news that morning he'd been
beaten to death with a large piece of cement. Sam
I cried tears the size of your paycheck. I've been
working late nite hours for two years trying to
uncover that one. It's the hardest work I've ever
done in my life. I did it out of pocket asking for
nothing. Just justice. I emailed Carole Richardson
at http://www.soaw.org (ironically and poetically
Father Roy is in Vatican city all this week lecturing
about SOA, and Martin Sheen is filming a special
West Wing that hints as much as it can at Catholic
Worker type things.) In a matter of hours the
people with Carole there pieced it all together
and this conspiritor in that cold blooded murder
which you allowed on your watch (me too) was in
fact trained at the Fort Benning School I have
protested at every November. Sam, ____ _______
has told me how proud he thinks my dad probably
is. It's about the only thing that kept me from
suicidal tendencies last millenium.
Every single major candidate this year appears
to me to be pro-police state, Sam. I tremble
cold sweaty beads off my forehead knowing I'm half
Jewish in a country that often times feels scarier
by far than my grandfather's aunt Anna used to tell
me Germany was as a teen in the 1920's and Russia
as a toddler before that.
AM I GOING TO ONE OF THOSE NEXT PEOPLE ON CATTLE
CARS???
AND ALL I CARE TO DO IN THIS WORLD FOR THE REST OF
MY LIFE IS PLAY MY 1954 MEXICAN HAND-MADE CLASSICAL
GUITAR FOR PEOPLE ALL OVER THIS WORLD.
But until that day when I see less people taking up
arms in my name, all I can do is work odd jobs and
have myself ready to spend weeks at a time in front
of that escuela de los asesinos, every November and
your DC offices every spring.
M-
