Page 43
May 28 2012
Day 22
Subject: Memorial Day in Jail, What I Am Thankful For
“It is vital that young people, the guardians of our future, develop a strong awareness of the futility of violence and war. They can learn from the examples of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. that non-violence is the best way to ensure peace in the long term. Because the 20th century was a century of violence, let us make the 21st a century of dialogue.” -Dalai Lama
As I sit in my jail, cell, locked up in a cage built for a human, I am listening to the radio and am bombarded by voices telling me to “take time to thank a veteran for the freedom I have”. I have always been revolted by these types of messages, but there is a special tinge of disgust I taste on my tongue when hearing these messages this Memorial Day, given that I am, at this time, afforded as much freedom as a slave. I am free in my mind, but my body is owned by agents of the “American Empire”.
Anyone celebrating this holiday is a sadist, and a masochist, even, for no one is exempt from rape and pillaging by agents of the state. My body has been caged for “crimes” involving no victims. Men wearing badges and practicing a violent religion symbolized by the American war flag force my friends and neighbors at gunpoint to pay for my incarceration in this state cage. This is against the will of the people paying. I know this because if it were their desire, they would pay willingly, and the state’s guns would not be necessary.
TSA gropings, naked body scanners, perpetual wars under false pretenses, executives of arms manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and international banks writing legislation, indefinite detention, outsourced torture, urban warfare drills at home, and censorship of the internet, and I’m supposed to be thankful to the men and women who pointed the guns for my oppressors to make it all possible?!
I’m thankful to those who came before me and bravely advocated peace over violence, even in the face of ever escalating threats of force and eventual assassination. Thank you Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, and all the peace activists converging in the Shire. You’re the real heroes. Peace <3
