Friday 14 September 2012

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse Doksha Leonard Peltier

http://files.mail-list.com/m/freepeltiernow/Peltier-Birthday-12_PELTIER-BIRTHDAY-12.pdf

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Greetings my relatives and supporters,

and, we are all truly relatives

in one way or another,

First of all I want to thank all of

you for remembering me on this

day, as many of you probably

suspect and some know, that

when you are in prison you have

a lot of time to reflect and think on

how things are, and how they

were and perhaps how they

should be. Having said that, I was

thinking about how on your birthday

the person who really should

be celebrated is your Mother, for

she carried you for 9 months and went through the pain of giving

you life. So truly a person’s birthday should be another

Mother’s Day. So if a woman has four children, she should

have four Mothers days. All too often people talk about the exploits

of men and what they said and what they did, and all too

often give no thought to the women who gave them life, the

women who supported them, the women who cared for the children

while they did what they did, who kept the home fires

burning and families fed. There is a certain adrenaline flow that

takes place when you are involved in movement activities and

trying to make a difference, a satisfaction in doing the right

thing and sometimes being successful in righting what’s wrong.

However, the really true heroes in this are the women who do

day after day what needs to be done, and give their children

the values they need to stand up for what is right in this world.

Again, I want to thank you, you can’t imagine how much it

means to a prisoner to be remembered. When a person goes

to prison their immediate family, relatives and friends are attentive

on some level but as time goes on, it’s almost as if you had

died and you are only remembered on certain occasions. There

are a multitude of people in prison that they have forgotten

about that were movement people, people who stood up for the

earth, the animals, nature, water rights, human rights, civil

rights, all of those things, and have been forgotten. They are

only remembered by a few. I am really truly thankful and I have

to be thankful to all of the movement people throughout the

world who have recognized the injustice that has been perpetuated

against Indigenous people. And I am fortunate that there

are those who have found me to be evidence of that injustice

because of all of the legal recognition from the courts of the improper

proceedings that took place. My case as many of you

well know probably has more recognition of improprieties than

most, and I recognize that I am an ordinary man who has been

cast into an extraordinary situation, and have served as legal

evidence of their wrongdoing. Forgive me if I am getting too

wordy and singing to the choir, but I have probably had too

much time to think. I do want to encourage all of you to keep

standing up for what is right to keep trying to right what is

wrong, and I want you to know there are those who appreciate

what you do, and oftentimes you may find yourself the only one

standing up. And more often than not, whether you realized it or

not, it was your Mother that directly or indirectly gave you that

strength, that woman you should celebrate on your birthday. I

encourage all of you to have fun, enjoy your freedom, enjoy

your life and have some cake and ice cream, or pemmican, or

hotdogs or dog stew for me. And remember when you stand

up, wherever you are, I’ll be standing with you even though it’s

some distant place.

In closing again I want you to enjoy and know that I am thinking

of you and appreciative and may the Great Spirit Bless you with

all you need and enough to share with others.

I’ll close for now, got some thinking to do, Ayee.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

Doksha Leonard Peltier

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