Sr. Jackie Hudson, OP Epistle 7 Winter 2004 - 2005 |
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May this New Year find you blessed in many ways! !
We all have celebrated many special days this late winter - so I send each of you Season's Greetings in many languages as received on a card this Christmas.
I send my gratitude for the messages too numerous to count, for my birthday, Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas.
This has been a very deep spiritual journey for me as well as educational. I have spoken before of the deep peace I've experienced. Recently, I spent a few anxious days before realizing that I was out of the NOW moment and into the future. A future made uncertain by the refusal of the Seattle probation office to allow me to return home to Bremerton, Washington.
Carol, Ardeth and I were sentenced to prison time, court assessments, restitution payment and three years of supervised release last April (2003). We have refused to pay money to this morally bereft government which presently spends over ONE BILLION dollars a day to slaughter or in planning the slaughter of millions of innocent persons. I am complicit enough by claiming citizenship in this nation.
We were convicted of sabotage/ "injury, interference and obstruction of national defense materials and national defense premises and property". The amount of damage claimed was never substantiated, yet we are expected to pay the amount declared by the government. In actuality we fulfilled our civic duty and responsibility by calling this U.S. government to accountability for its own lawlessness as the Nuremberg Principles and our own U.S. Constitution calls for. We are not criminals. The U.S. government officials are the ones engaging in criminal activity.
I have been subjected to several restrictions during my imprisonment because of refusing payment of these court ordered fees and now am restricted from returning home. This refusal to pay will be a violation of the terms of my supervised release which means I most likely will face a return to prison - who knows?!?!?
There will be some of you who might say - "it's not worth more prison time" - "let me help with this payment." I respond, by asking that you honor the mutual decision made by the three of us not to pay this money.
As an alternative, I would suggest that you make an offering of time, funds or items to the peace group or charity of your choice, estimate the dollar value and send this information (not the money) to Sue Ablao by e-mail or regular mail - see address below. These will be tallied and offered to the judge when taken back to court in lieu of restitution/assessment payment.
I will also submit my time sheets, recording my slave labor hours while imprisoned for which I was paid the grand sum of eight cents ($0.08) per hour. Our prison system is the "legitiment slavery of the 21st century." Enough on me...
One comment on November 2nd - What a sad commentary that the choice of the President of the United States of America was based by many on which candidate would be the BEST WARRIOR!! The one positive action that I heard in the aftermath was to organize boycotts of the sponsors of the right wing secular and religious media. This may put a dent in the apparatus and stop some of the sound bites that infiltrate our apathetic society.
A more long-term activity is to become aware of and lobby for the U.N. Millenium Development Goals (MDG), signed by 189 governments in September of 2000. This common global agenda to be achieved by 2015 is as follows:
Halve extreme poverty and hunger
Achieve universal primary education
Empower women and promote equality between women and men
Reduce under-5 mortality by two-thirds
Reduce maternal mortality by three quarters
Reverse the spread of diseases, especially HIV/AIDS and malaria
Ensure environmental sustainability
Develop a global partnership for development, with targets for aid trade and debt relief
To date, progress on this agenda has been minimal. There will be an evaluation by he U.N. General Assembly in 2005. Suggestion from the Maryknoll Office of Global oncerns: Contact the U.S. State Department and remind them of their pledges to he MDG. U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20520 or vw.state.gov
Another worldwide activity declared by the U.N. in 2000 is to honor the Decade of Nonviolence and Peace on behalf of the world's children. (2000 - 2010) Let us together demand a peace agenda, education, health care and housing for the true inocents of the world. In this will be true security.
Risks worth taking on - ARE WE UP TO IT?
Wi
th much love and gratitude,
Jackie
P.S.
My "out date" from Victorville is Friday, March 4, 2005.
My next "epistle" will be from home, giving an update on the court's next move.
For Alternative Restitution Payment - send your account to Sue Ablao at:
3495 Dyes Inlet Rd NW, Bremerton WA 98312 or sablaol@yahoo.com
IF YOU LOVE
You might quiet the whole world for a second
if you pray.
And if you love, if you
really love,
our guns will
wilt.