When I Woke Up This Morning

I found I was still here.
Still living on Planet Earth.
Still living in the United States of America.
Still living as a woman.
Still a mom.

I have sitting on my desk to mail out today three letters that I finished yesterday. These three letters are my annual contribution to Amnesty International's political prisoner letter writing campaign; and, if you think AI is a leftie organization of anarchists, then you are probably not intelligent or open enough to read my blog, so go away now.

* * * waiting patiently as people go and click away from here * * *

The first letter I wrote was to Leonard Peltier.  My brother's name is Leonard, so you see the superficial connection I made many years ago when his story was the topic of the headline news and part of adult conversations of the time.  To understand the political climate of the time is probably easier to understand today because the hindsight of history brings a broader perspective to the agendized authority and control the United States Government was asserting on "Indian Land."

It is ok to be an American and see what our government has done that is wrong.  Things we just wouldn't imagine a government, our government, could, should or would ever do.  After all, we have our American perspective on how "those" governments act with their people and we view them as wrong, in fact, we sometimes even bomb them because of that belief.  So, we need to really ask ourselves, is it ok that our government is able to do what it has done to Mr. Peltier, indeed all of the prisoners I wrote?  The truth is, its not.  That's the truth.

And perhaps the question to ask isn't "is it ok for our government to do ...." and rather the question to ask is, "would I do that?"  And, if the answer is "no," to be brave enough to ask "what should I do now that I know our government has acted THIS way?"   No one with good conscience and sound mind can say Mr. Peltier, at a minimum, does not deserve a new trial.

It is NOT ok for our government agents, police and authorities to lie.  I do not care what our "Supreme Court" says is acceptable now.  When you are trying to decide what is right and what is wrong in a society, to empower a system that allows falsehoods to present the story, there can be no truth.  There is no line defining truth anymore when both sides use the tools of deceit, deception and falsehood to perpetuate a reality that is criminal in nature.  Perhaps why the criminal elements in our society have infiltrated EVERY aspect of our society and everyone is playing a Character Actor in a criminal suspense reality -- creating that very reality we claim as wrong and undesireable.

That we allow a Supreme Court ruling that approves of the use of such deceit in our society and have given government authorities the ability to lie to achieve their stated goas, is unacceptable.  How can you have the "whole truth" if everyone is playing a game built on false realities?

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Next, I wrote to a letter to my friend Sister Megan Rice.  I had the honor of working with Sister Megan for about four years while living in Las Vegas, Nevada.  It was her mentoring and friendship that really comforted and focused me while I was waiting for my trial.  She gave me perspective and things to think about while I was being prosecuted in the Court, and severely persecuted in public.  She connected me to the spiritual teachings I received in my childhood from my parents; simple ones that had lost the context of their relevance because their complete lack of context to me in the world I found myself in during that time.  I sent her a Christmas note and thanked her for her inspiration and dedication to helping us understand how dangerous nuclear development has been since the beginning and how our #GlobalNuclearProgram damages, in waste and weapons, our human soul as much as it harms our natural environment.

What I love about my relationship with Sister Rice is the ever-expanding space she allowed for common ground.  Coming from my Evangelical Republican background, she was often generous in her patience and always teaching me to dig deeper into the intentions of what appeared to be "good" to find the root of the programs where greed supplanted curiosity and natural development to cause an industry to abandon its human interests in favor of profits.  Even me, a nuclear power enthusiast since I was a child, could no longer support an industry so reckless with the power potential of nuclear energy.  The wrong comes not from the experimentation or the desire to create something, it comes from choices made along the management of that experiment and program that supplants "safety first" with "bottom line dividends."

The use of nuclear weapons, sigh, seriously?!  That nuclear weapons are still being designed, developed and built is the true testament to our insanity as a species.

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Finally, I wrote to Veronza Bowers, Jr.  Mr. Bowers is a Black Panther.   I was completely unaware of his story until I embarked on this project.  Searching for a third person led me to many different political prisoners with stories that were shocking displays of our commitment to usurp the generic notion of human justice in favor of stated political agendas that could never be reached because of our abdication of the fabric upon which our society claims to honor.   But his story stood out because we had a connection.

I was sentenced to 120 days "flat" in jail.  I served 121 days.  A "clerical error" proved to me that not only can they railroad anyone for any reason at any time in our society, but they an also keep you if they so choose.

The truth is, just like Mr. Bowers unofficially extended sentence of imprisonment, it doesn't matter.

It does not matter what the law is.  It does not matter what our understanding of the law is.  It does not matter that there are rules and regulations.  If those who hold the keys and continue to hold the power choose to do so, they can and will do whatever they want despite anything to the contrary in law or common decency.  Once in jail, it doesn't matter.  What is right doesn't matter.  What is wrong doesn't matter.  Its just a choice by those who can exercise those choices to do so at their discretion.  We left the rule of law somewhere in Germany during the Second World War, if we ever really had it; The spirit of the law left our nation so long ago, it may never find its way back into our institutions and society.

His story, like Mr. Peltier's, epitomize for me the fundamental root problem in our nation and how we operate and function on every single level.  The truth is, there is no common law.  The underlying principle upon which our founding fathers based and constructed every single principle we hold to be self-evident and fundamental, has been released from our system and thoughts so completely, Stalin would have been proud.