MY LOVE AND RAGE

I received a letter from my best friend and comrade Maayke. In her letter she was responding to a previous letter of mine where I had written to her regarding the resistance in here against the “Murder Machine of the State”, both inside and outside, and what I felt is necessary from both the inside and outside to further the struggle against the death penalty.

I feel that in the 30 years since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 because they claim to have found a better, more compassionate way to murder us through Lethal Injection (As if this is a compassionate way to kill – Blasphemous!), though we have had some victories, the truth of the matter is that the Anti-Death Penalty Movement has met a brick wall in the struggle that we have yet to either crumble or jump over.

We, as a Movement, have shown that the Criminal Justice System is imperfect: over 122 people facing state-sanctioned murder have been freed (many by post-conviction DNA evidence); that many prosecutors engage in unethical tactics – stepping outside the lines of the law – to win murder convictions; that many poor defendants have been represented by incompetent lawyers; more innocent people have been executed; the police brutalizes and tortures people to cop to crimes they never committed; that some courts, including the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, are focused on process—whether appeals are filed on time, for example – rather than on justice and merits of their case. We’ve attacked the death penalty from the legal perspective, political, religious, emotional perspective and after 30 years the death penalty still exists and the state-sanctioned murder continues at an alarming rate that leaves many of us asking: What else do we do? Suffice it to say that since we’ve exhausted all other remedies in a court(s) of law, what is there left except to physically and non-violently resist the unjust establishment that continues to murder and create more victims under the pretence of justice? In my own words, this is basically what I told Maayke. And not surprisingly at all, she understood and agreed with me.

My point at the moment is not to bring up the debate of what’s wrong in the anti-death penalty movement (although there is a lot wrong that does need to be addressed). My point in bringing this up at this moment what I did was to share what I was discussing with Maayke, and to express in which state I wrote her in. In part of Maayke’s responses she told me that she can feel my determination to fight strongly, that she could practically feel my adrenaline in my letter. As always, this great and understanding woman, friend and activist reads me well – like nobody else does.

At the moment that I wrote Maayke, I was in that mode, that mode of resistance where for it is time to shut up and physically resist. I was in that mode where I felt that feeling of wishing I could just dismantle this injustice in one single act of justful rage. I often stay in that mode. The more I see this “state-induced Neo-Holocaust,” the more I resist, the more my whole being seems to become resistant against this murder madness. It seems like my whole existence is resisting this genocide.

There are many reasons why I resist state-sanctioned murder, why I resist inhumane, cruel and unusual conditions on Texas Death Row. The main reason? Self-preservation. There’s no doubt in my mind that if I ever stopped, that if I didn’t draw a line and stand up to demand my human rights, my greatest fear for myself would manifest: losing all sense of self. I never want that to happen.

I guess for me it’s like what Anna Freud said in some psychology literature Maayke sent me with her letter. Anna Freud, in “The Use of Defence Mechanisms,” said in her concept of single anxiety that, “It was not directly a conflicted instinctual tension but a signal occurring in the age of an anticipated instinctual tension.” I agree with that because it’s how I feel.

I am on E pod. B Section: 1 row; 21-cage. I’m on a section where on one row all except three of us are psyche patients. You should see this madness. Travis Greene is a man who lives two cages down from me in 19 cage. This man swears up and down that someone stole his DNA. That the FBI and CIA stole his children, and that the DNA they stole from him they are using for stem cell research and making children with his DNA to make a breed of soldiers for the Amerikan military, that would basically be called super humans who are superior due to genetic manipulation.

I don’t put it past this government to do something like that, but I know that’s not the case with Travis Greene. Travis Greene is a highly-intelligent individual. He often reminds me of German philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche who I believe attained so much knowledge that he could not emotionally consume it all. Causing him to lose his mind and slip into psychosis. It’s the same with Travis Greene. His awareness of things along with how cruelly he is warehoused on Death Row took its toll!

Travis Greene has a sensitive soul. A beautiful soul with a lot of love (I’ve heard some of the beautiful and loving visions for humanity through his conversations with me at times, and some times through his rantings and ravings by himself in his cage.) Travis Greene was not insane when he arrived on Death Row. He was physically healthy and strong, mentally sharp, very well-read in law, politics, philosophy, history, psychology and a variety of other subjects, articulates himself well, but this place has pushed him into a shell of a used-to-be man, into a shell of psychosis, deep psychosis where he rants and raves and talks to himself all day: swears they have cameras in his cage watching him 24/7; swears they are secretly spraying gas through the vent to keep him agitated and sleep-deprived; swears they are prodding his penis and anus with objects and cutting his penis and anus; swears they always knocking him unconscious with gasses; swears they have secretly knocked him unconscious and surgically embedded computer chips into his ears to control and monitor his thinking and that often the gas makes him spit profusely. He stands at the door ranting and raving about this for at least 10-12 hours a day. Sometimes he talks so fast it sounds like another language that I can’t understand because he gets carried away. He refuses to take his psyche meds and though I sympathize with him refusing to take his psyche medication for the fact that it doesn’t help. Only makes the person a passive zombie who becomes unthinking, passive and a colluder in their own oppression and state sanctioned murder. At times he’s cognizant. And at those times you would cry if you could see his brown eyes; they turn innocent and wondrous like that of a child, and his face lights up with the smile like only a 4 or 5 year old child can, and he sounds like a child at those moments when he talks. And though it hurts to see him like that, I also like to believe that those few and far between moments of cognizance in his light, his soul fighting the oppression and once in a while penetrating though darkness of his psychosis, perhaps he’ll eventually win the battle.

Sometimes all is quiet – ever Greene (surprisingly) – and abruptly, the silence is shattered by the sound of Greene’s shower slides quickly running to his cage door and you’ll hear him start, “HEY! WHY DON’T YOU MOTHERFUCKERS STOP FUCKING WITH ME? I HEAR THE MONITORS IN MY EARS GOING OFF! YALL KEEP TRYING TO WATCH ME AND MONITOR MY THOUGHTS, STICKING SHIT IN MY DICK, STICKING SHIT IN MY ASS HOLE, PUTTING CHEMICALS IN MY MOTHERFUCKING CLOTHES TO MAKE ME ITCH AND BREAK OUT, YOU KEEP TRYING TO POISON MY DNA SO I CAN’T MAKE MORE STRONG BLACK BABIES, KEEP FUCKING WITH MY FOOD PUTTING CAMERAS IN MY FOOD SO YOU CAN GET CAMERAS IN MY STOMACH AND WATCH ME! SHIT BE STUCK ALL IN MY THROAT, AND I KEEP HEARING THIS GOD DAMN BUZZING SOUND... BZZZ....BZZZ...BZZZ... NOW I HEAR THIS BITCH ASS BEEPING SOUND FROM ALL THESE SURVEILLANCE CHIPS YALL HAVE VIOLATED AND RAPED MY BODY WITH (BEEP.. BEEP..BEEP..BEEP..BEEP)! WHY DON’T YALL LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE AND JUS LET ME SLEEP?! GIVE ME SOME DECENT FOOD! STOP BEATING EVERYBODY! STOP STARVING ME! QUIT SPRAYING THAT GAS! QUIT STEALING MY BABIES AND MY DNA! QUIT ALL THIS HOE ASS SHIT YALL ARE DOING! YALL DID IT TO MY GRANDFATHER AND MY FATHER, AND NOW ME! WELL YALL WON’T KILL ME!! And he’ll go on.

Even in his insanity I see his hope, and willingness to resist. Sometimes listening to that brings tears to my eyes, tears of sadness and pain, and tears of love and rage: Love because I ache, because I wish I could take it away, his torture and pain at the hands of the state that have pushed him into psychosis. And rage because at times I feel helpless because I can’t do anything, and yet rage at the fact that as long as this oppression and murder exists and continues to perpetuate itself, I will continue to fight, because I refuse to lose my sense of self. This state-induced oppression and murder is unacceptable because oppression and murder only adds to oppression and murder. Thus why I will continue to LOVE and RAGE on! For peace, love, justice and solidarity in the world.

Some people reading this may perhaps feel that I am angry. When I speak of revolution, sometimes it’s an angry thought, but revolution is simply change. We all want change; change can come from other means besides violence. To act in violence by killing or oppressing people only means to give up hope on each other and if we are to live together, we must always keep trying. Societies are intended to maintain the greatest good for the greatest number of people. But we often forget everyone else, and if we do that we further separate ourselves from each other and only stunt our growth as human beings.

By sharing my experiences and realities here, I hope to give some understanding. Just as I’ve read of others experiences it has helped me to understand my own as a human being and as a Latino in this country that much more.

Some of my writings express anger that is common amongst prisoners, amongst all oppressed peoples both in the free world, prison and death row, but anger is never a bad thing if it comes from somewhere, but even when we feel anger it is all generated from a caring feeling. It is difficult to get upset over anything unless you first appreciate that “something” to begin with. If you simply get angry because of a person’s skin color, class or gender and want to oppress and murder them – that is hate.

I can only hope that as you read my section of writings, as well as my other comrades, that you keep an open mind. Think of what you know about the struggles of the oppressed of the world and try to relate them to your own struggles. If you do that, hopefully you can feel what I felt when I wrote my writings, as well as my comrades’ writings.

Love and Rage!!!

Gabriel Gonzalez

D.R.I.V.E.

DEATH Row INNER-COMMUNALIST VANGUARD ENGAGEMENT