Fear is a cancer that must be cut from one’s life completely if they are to truly live free. All consuming, it eats away at the soul and drives away
Engraved at Mahatma M.K. Gandhi’s Ashram in Gujurat, India
life-force itself, imprisoning its victims within the everlasting flames of evil in the only hell I believe in; one’s own self-created hell on earth. Fear in any area of one’s life spreads, just like a cancer, and inevitably seeps into the rest; eventually eliminating all traces of peace and truth. The opposite of life is death, and the opposite of love is fear. According to the axiom of life itself we can assume that because we are here on earth, our purpose on it is to live free, to thrive, and above all, to create. Fear robs us of purpose. Fear is what prevents each of us from fulfilling our highest potential. Fear, quite literally, kills.
As most of you are probably already aware, I was arrested this past Monday along with fellow Free Keene bloggers and members of my voluntary family, Ian Freeman and Derrick J. Freeman, at the Cheshire County Superior Courthouse. Ironically enough (but perhaps not that much so), Derrick J., Ian, and I have been Keene’s inseparable activist trio for most of this current year. I moved here to Keene to make a difference in the world and am so grateful that the two of them are always up for participating in various projects with me. I simply couldn’t ask for better activists to work with. Like myself, they are also willing to give everything they have to give to the cause of liberty and the dynamic between us has been fantastic. Therefore, when Ian told me that he needed to take care of some business at Cheshire County Superior Court and that he had been unable to get ahold of Sheriff Dick Foote, I was ready to stand with him. Seven of us received no trespass orders for that court at the beginning of this year, due to our actions of singing outside of the courthouse and attempting to keep the peace by holding the bureaucrats accountable. I truly believed the orders we received were invalid on a couple of different levels; morally, for one and legally, for two. I even spoke with a trusted legal expert who assured me those orders were invalid according to the state constitution.
Since we were repeatedly unable to get ahold of the sheriff to discuss this issue, we were left with no other options that would allow Ian to conduct his business at the court but to go to the court despite the totally arbitrary and ridiculous “orders” we had been issued. I felt this was a reasonable act of peace. That morning, Carlos Miller of Photography Is Not A Crime just so happened to be visiting Keene after participating in the Free State Project’s annual Liberty Forum, so it was the perfect opportunity to take a stand against the unfair and biased treatment which we had received.
The morning began with a visit to Keene District Court to meet “Judge” Ed Burke in an attempt to hold him accountable for his unconscionable actions taken over the past several years. We met him on his way into work and Carlos had the opportunity to ask him some questions (video coming soon). Afterwards, it was off to Superior Court to try and resolve Ian’s business.
First, Cop Block‘s Ademo Freeman entered the courthouse, and then Carlos, Ian, and I headed the line of activists walking into the courthouse, with Carlos filming and leading a camera chain that went out the door and ended with Derrick J. (who never entered the building nor even stepped on the property, to the best of my knowledge). Despite the fact that Ademo wasn’t being harassed over his camera, when Carlos asked the bailiffs if cameras were allowed in the court, this exchange ended with the bailiffs calling the sheriffs deputies, who threatened to kidnap Carlos if he didn’t stop recording and physically backed him out of the courthouse. In the meantime, Caleb Dodson and other deputies invited me to walk further into the courthouse through the security checkpoint, where they proceeded to place me under arrest and kidnapped me, taking me downstairs to their holding cage in the basement.
They didn’t bother to cuff me as we walked downstairs, questioning me the entire way concerning the business I was attempting to conduct at the court. I grabbed a lollipop off one of their desks and popped it into my mouth as I deflected their questions and brought up the pressing subject of the immorality inherent in the work they do (earning a living off of human suffering), then sat in a chair in front of their booking desk as I spoke with the government sanctioned thugs. Soon enough two more thugs walked in with Ian in tow. I had been praying they wouldn’t take him, as he is under a suspended sentence after serving two months over the summer for sitting in front of a police car to protest another activist’s arrest, and stands to serve out the rest of his sentence (nine months) if he’s charged with committing another “crime” before the suspended sentence is over.  Although part of me was thankful that I was no longer alone in the cage, I would have rather been alone as it broke my heart that he was in there with me.
We continued the lively discussion about the immorality and total lack of logic inherent in the injustice system which was systemically being involuntarily foisted upon us as we spoke with the deputies, all of whom I’m sure greatly wished we would just shut up. Not a chance. There’s human beings in there somewhere, under the uniforms and badges in which they hide, and under their cool outward veneer claiming they are “only doing their jobs”. As a satyagrahi, in jail it is my job to find and reach out to those human beings, and I must do that by showing them that I’m a human being as well. Eventually, the deputies got us processed and were likely quite relieved to lock us in our cages, as they could then forget about the truth and drown themselves in the comfort of the superficial lies they tell themselves in order to live with what they are doing. Our songs of choice as we sat in our cages were “Thanks, But No Tanks”, “Drug War Cops Are Raiding The School”, and “We Shall Overcome”. Finally I became so tired that I laid down on the wooden bench in my cage and went to sleep. The next thing I knew, the deputies were ordering me to wake up. They chained me at hands and feet then escorted me outside, where Ian was in chains in the back of a police car. I got into the car and the deputies told us that we would be video arraigned from the Keene Spiritual Retreat (or, as they call it, the Cheshire County House of Corrections). We looked at each other and didn’t need to say a word; we both knew the fact of having video arraignments from the jail instead of being arraigned in person at the courthouse was not a very good sign. Speaking for myself, I was at that point mentally preparing to spend a significant amount of time in the cage. I didn’t think we were getting out.
To Be Continued…
