96 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
96 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
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-
|