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Damien Echols II

Monday, May 3rd, 2004

Here is a portion of the letter I got from Damien Echols today.



“…for the past two weeks I’ve been writing non stop. I had started writing my memoirs several months ago, but haven’t worked on it since. I picked up my pen a couple of weeks ago and it began to flow. I’ve been writing up to eighteen hours a day. Even when I’ve tried to take a day off, I just can’t do it. One night I kept going until my fingers cramped up and I could no longer hold the pen. I’m absolutely amazed at how it’s coming out. If I keep up at this rate, I would be finished in two weeks. It’s having a really strong affect on me, because it forces me to remember so much. Margaret, I truly had forgotten what it felt like to be free. That scares the hell out of me, but it’s true. I’ve been in a cage for eleven years, and in that time, I had lost all memory of what it was like to be free. I could remember a time when I could do as I pleased, but it was only a mental image – I had forgotten the FEELING of what it is like to be free. And how can you want something that you really don’t remember? THAT’S why it scares me.”



“The effect my writing has had on me is to force me to feel it again. I relive everything I write, and it is like being back there again. I’ve written about the very first time Jason and I decided to sneak out at night, and I’m there, feeling that first taste of freedom. I’ve been living in the past, not seeing these piss stained walls. I can feel the pain, heartache and misery of my youth – but there’s also so much magic there. I want out, out, OUT! I only thought I did before, but now my blood is SCREAMING for freedom. This place is suffocating me.”



“I can’t wait for you to read it all… I’m putting all of myself into it. I’m going to handcopy parts of it and send it to you so you can get a feel of what it will be like. I must go for now, my wrist is killing me. That’s why my handwriting is so bad. More later. Sending love to you both, D”



Can you imagine forgetting what it would be like to be free? None of us are free until he is free, as I have said. But he is in a cell, has been for a long long time. He has to live this way day in day out. He is innocent. He has a wife and a child. And he has forgotten what it is like to be free.



Damien Echols is hoping to use new legal representation and he desperately needs the help of those fortunate enough to be able to enjoy freedom. He, along with two other boys, The West Memphis Three, have been in jail for over a decade for the murders of three little boys, a terrible crime that they did not commit. While the true killer or killers go unpunished, these three boys who have become men in jail, have been made to pay for a crime that they did not commit.



I have decided to commit. Not a crime, but a plea. For – that’s right, money. Whatever you can give is the best I could ask for. The best anyone could ask for. Go to wm3.org and Give. For their lives. For yours, whether you are for or against the death penalty.



I won’t ask again, because I won’t have another chance.
He won’t have another chance. Please give. Thanks.



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Thank You, Jeff

Tuesday, April 6th, 2004

I know that there has got to be a reason for everything, and the way we come to love one another can be a painful journey. Where it will take us, there is no way of knowing, but when it brings us to the heart, then no matter how tragic the circumstance, when we allow ourselves to be surprised by the noble actions of others, our capacity for love bursts open like a flower.



—– Original Message —–
From: “Jeff L”
To: margaret
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 9:27 PM
Subject: Your Mother and Father
Dear Margaret,



I just read your blog about your mother and father and his reaction to your mother’s illness, and it touched me. Ten years ago I graduated from college and went back to Iowa from the Colorado Institute of Art. My mother and I had always been close, and that had never changed, but my father was emotionally distant and basically did what he wanted to do. He never mistreated us or abused us, or anything of the like, but there was also no real relationship between us, because, although unspoken in my family at the time, I was gay.



I lived at home and worked for a couple more years, and things went on much as they always had. I stayed in the basement, and my dad was in bed by 7pm each night to get up for work at 3 am. Then, in 1995, something changed. My mom started to slur her words and stumble as though she had been drinking. We all thought she was drinking, because she had a stressful job, and was in debt with credit cards that my father had no idea about. But, like my sexuality and any other ‘problems,’ it wasn’t spoken of. Until it got so bad we couldn’t ignore it.



It turned out that my mom was not drinking. She had a disease called olivoponticerebellular ataxia. It’s a disease that in short, dissolves your cerebellum and steals your motor skills. Dudley Moore died of something very similar. She began a slow decline that forced her to retire from her job, become an invalid and die within 6 years. Out of all the pain and misery and yes, resentment my family felt, something wonderful happened. My father, whom I had pretty much disliked for years, became someone else. The man who would spend his evenings deer hunting and duck hunting and not coming home until maybe an hour before bedtime, the man who ignored his family quite a bit, became a loving, attentive husband. He spent the last five years of my mom’s life getting reacquainted with his oldest son and daughter, and not just my brother, with whom he had always been close.



My mom, whose name was also Margaret, died on January 19, 2000. Since then, my father and I have forged a relationship that, while not perfect, has become something I never thought I would have. A loving, cordial relationship. We have things in common I never imagined. He is still selfish about things, he is still set in his ways, but seeing how he cared for my mother forced me to look at him with new eyes. I hope that you and your father come to the same understanding, and I wish you much future happiness with your mother as well. I feel like I know her from your routines and your blog.



I’d also like to thank you for inspiring me to start my own blog, and to be more of an activist and to stand up for what I feel are important issues. I encourage everyone I meet to vote, and hopefully we can vote Darth Bush out of office. Keep fighting the good fight!



Sincerely,
Jeff Lassiter
skyywalkerr.blogdrive.com



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Damien Echols

Monday, April 5th, 2004

Here is the first installment of what I hope will be an ongoing dialogue with Damien Echols. We have been corresponding for a time, and I deeply encourage all to learn more about this young man’s story. Until he is free, none of us are free. -



1) How do I feel right now? The answer to that question will vary from day to day, sometimes even hour to hour. I always hear about the support out there, and while I’m hearing about it it gives me hope. It gives me a sense of excitement that this nightmare may soon be over. But I’m not always in contact with that kind of support. Most of the time I sit in this cell alone, with people all around me who not only know nothing of my case, but also don’t care. They don’t look at me any differently than anyone else on death row. It’s extremely disheartening when I see that far more people are unfamiliar with the case (and do not care) than are familiar with it. When that realization sets in, I often feel fearful, and I have to fight to shake off the fear and doubt.



2) What is my most treasured memory? Every single day with my wife is my most treasured memory. Our every conversation, her every touch, and every moment of every year that we’ve been on this journey together. There is not one single second that I don’t cherish beyond words. There are few memories I hold dear from before all this, because they fill me with overwhelming nostalgia, such as sitting on the dock with Jason, looking out across the water and watching the sunset. Or going for long walks in the middle of winter when it was so cold I could see my breath in the air. It’s the little things you really miss, like being able to watch the rain.



3) Who do I love? My wife. My son. My family. And especially the friends I’ve been so fortunate to have that have stuck by me through the years and demonstrated more kindness than I could have ever expected.



4) What do I wish for? I wish to leave this place behind and go home, to let this entire situation become a distant memory. I wish to wear real clothes and eat real food. I wish to be able to go places and see things. I wish to be able to relax for the first time in many, many years.



5) What do I feel about this unfairness, this unjust situation? Sometimes I feel anger, sometimes fear, or sadness. Sometimes hope that it will soon be over. I also can’t help but wonder how many other people this has happened to. Something must be done about the corruption that makes a situation like this possible, or it will continue to happen to others, and next time it may very well be someone not fortunate enough to gain public support.



6) How do I feel towards the many people who cry for my freedom, among them important artists, writers and celebrities? I feel extreme gratitude for everyone who offers support. They’re the only reason I haven’t lost all hope long ago and collapsed beneath the weight of this hell. Just knowing there are people in the “real world” who remember, and work to rectify this situation – that’s what has kept me afloat, and I could never express the full extent of my gratitude. Unexpectedly, I’ve also been fortunate enough to make many life long friends. I’ve no doubt that I owe my life to these supporters.



7) What is my spiritual practice? My main form of spiritual practice has been zazen meditation for many years now. I highly recommend it for maintaining your calm in harsh situations. My spiritual practice is very dynamic, constantly evolving – that’s the only way it can remain functional. I look at my spiritual practice as a way to engage and learn from life, not simply a crutch to help make it through. I draw strength and inspiration from many strong, spiritual figures from Ghandi, Seung Sahn, Shodo Harada Roshi, Israel Regardie, H. P. Blavatsky, and a host of others.



8) Where am I now in terms of the court system? I’m preparing to file my appeal with the 8th circuit, which is federal court. This is my big appeal, as it’s the one not centered in Arkansas. My appeal has already been rejected by all the Arkansas court systems.



9) How do I see the world from where I am? I don’t. I mean that literally and figuratively. My window to outside life consists of news programs. I don’t see the latest fashions, nor hear the newest musical releases. I don’t see the recent movies. My world consists entirely of my relationship with my wife and supporters.



I still have a couple more questions to answer, but they’ll turn the lights off soon. I’ll have to get those in my next letter.



I hope you’re doing well, Margaret. And know that your words lift my spirit. Thank you for that. Give my best to the husband, and I hope to hear from you soon.



Yours



D



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Dear Senator Kerry

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004

Dear Senator Kerry,



I am very grateful for your victories and am praying for your swift and graceful transformation from Senator to President of the United States. I heard you speak in San Francisco last year, when you were embarking on your campaign trail. I found you to be an eloquent and sincere man. We spoke briefly at the reception about your support and dedication to the HRC. You were received with much applause and relief. I especially appreciate the valiant efforts you made to assure blue collar workers and unions that under your administration, their rights would be upheld.



My grandfather was a labor union leader. He experienced great persecution during his life, much of which was spent in exile. Workers’ rights were not popular with the governing party at the time. Fortunately for South Koreans, the times changed dramatically, and my beloved grandfather went from the caves of the mountainous regions of my parent’s homeland to an office in the cabinet of the newly elected President of Korea, where he spent the rest of his life fighting to keep improving conditions for the working class in a country that was experiencing change too quickly. He struggled to stay alive in order to see my face when I was born. When he did, he was overjoyed, and died happily, somehow knowing that his message would be carried on, perhaps not in his country, but possibly throughout the world. My memories of him are blurry at best, but his legacy lives on, and I see him in you.



I could have sworn that you said that if elected, you were going to make same sex marriage a reality. Since then, there has been somewhat of a change in the direction of your attitude toward this incredibly important issue. Perhaps I heard you wrong. I was also trying to listen with an optimism that sometimes lends itself to a kind of selective understanding. Maybe I wanted to hear it so badly that my ears betrayed my mind in order to secure my heart. I am aware of your support of civil unions, but you also know, this is a compromise. It doesn’t give equal rights, nor is it enough to placate the GLBT community any longer. Even in your home state, the courts are challenging the ban on same sex marriage, and they were the first to do so. Although Gavin Newsom beat everyone to the punch, Massachusetts had a huge impact on the issue. They started the fight. Bostonians are rebels by nature, as evidenced by that old tea party.



I support your candidacy. I want to see you in the Oval Office. I think that Teresa Heinz Kerry would be a fantastic First Lady. She is charismatic, eloquent and fiery. I believe you would get this country out of the spider hole we have been stuck in for the last four years. However, I plead you reconsider your stance on same-sex marriage. I know that for political reasons, you will continue to smoothly change the subject, one talent that you are particularly masterful at, as evidenced by watching the democratic debates these past several weeks. You don’t wish to alienate – or rather inflame the inherent bigotry and prejudice held by the other underdogs, the workers, the voters who don’t live in the big cities, the people who distrust the current administration, but whose personal values unfortunately include homophobic tendencies. My take on it is that they would rather see a president who will ensure their financial future and create jobs than escalate wars with money earmarked for social programs and affordable health care.



Your newly won constituency, former republicans and Bush supporters, are so desperate for change, that they just might step up their tolerance. Ignorance is the only thing that stands between us and them. If we abolish stupidity, we are left as simply, we. We the people. Even the Terminator has changed his mind, or at least softened his stance on same sex marriage, saying that if the courts and the lawmakers decide that the ban should be lifted, that it would be fine with him.



Senator Kerry, you were the lone voice against the Defense of Marriage Act, which was brave. Your courage is renown, not only as a decorated war hero, but also as a war protestor. Will you be our hero? You even got Coldplay name checking you!



Best of everything,
Margaret Cho



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Dear Gov. Schwarzenegger

Tuesday, February 24th, 2004

An open letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger:



Hello there Governor,
I am responding to your comments on the recent “Meet the Press” where you said if they did not put a stop to same sex marriage in San Francisco something to the effect of – “the next thing you know there will be riots and injured and dead people in the streets.” I don’t believe these were your exact words, but that is good enough. Is this a threat? Are you going to go down there yourself and turn that red light on in your eye and use all your Terminating morphing mercury ways to stop it? Have you come back from the future to stop same sex marriage?



Why do you believe that this will have to turn violent? What is so wrong that you actually believe that there will be blood in the streets if Mayor Newsom doesn’t stop issuing marriage licenses? Are all the roles you have played on screen starting to become indistinguishable from real life? Have you played politician before? This isn’t the movies. This is real life and there is no stunt double and no script and no director and you are not acting. This is love. This is happening. And you cannot stop people from loving each other. What is going on is beautiful. Don’t you think that it will be peaceful and joyous if you just let it be? What are you protecting us from? Heterosexuality? Homosexuality? Bigotry? Prejudice? Homophobia? Heterophobia? Flying bouquets of flowers? Rice thrown about willy nilly? The song “Here Comes the Bride” changing to “Here Comes Gay Pride?” What affect does this have on you, other than that it inflames your own prejudice and beliefs that gays and lesbians should not have the same rights as all other Americans?



So far, your decisions as governor have not made a good impression. I wrote you an impassioned letter about Kevin Cooper’s imminent and wrongful execution, pleading that you not kill an innocent man, and I received a form letter telling me to read some tourist book about our great state. Cooper was given a last minute reprieve, and his case was re-opened, but that was not your doing. I understand. You were probably busy working out. How much do you bench press these days? I bet a lot. Yet the weight of the state just kind of rolls off your big shoulders, because I haven’t seen you do anything except agree with the right wing conservatives who have nothing to gain in the war for same sex marriage except the satisfaction of knowing that they can control the citizens of our nation and impede their freedom.



Is it that immoral to you that there is love between consenting adults which has nothing to do with bigamy, bestiality, incest or any of the other perversions the theocrats love to fantasize about – that will defy the status quo? Are you really afraid that this will open the floodgates of faggotry in the USA? Suddenly, the state will start to resemble Berlin in the early ’30s? It will be the Weimar Republic all over again, and we might – God forbid – experience a renaissance of art and culture and tolerance. Can I play Sally Bowles? Perhaps the idyll didn’t last for them, but it wasn’t because there was a ‘religious right’ there to stop the ‘madness’ of freedom and acceptance, it was Hitler. But I don’t have to tell you about that, do I? You know a lot about him. A little more than most people do, I would say. But I am not here to judge your role models. It just concerns me when you try to emulate them. He really hated homosexuals.



Don’t pretend like you aren’t good friends with lots of gay people. If you are an actor in Hollywood, there is no way to avoid it. All the hours you have clocked in makeup trailers in the last several years and you still think there is something wrong with homosexuality? Wow, did you have to grit your teeth every time a brush crossed your cheek? You must have TMJ.



I don’t think that you hate gays. If you did, you would have looked really bad on screen. What are you trying to appear like now? Is this image upgrade going to help the Planet Hollywood chain from dying out completely? Who came up with that horrible Captain Crunch chicken dish? In real life, are you the hero or the bad guy?



I actually think the Terminator films are cool. But are you?



Best,
Margaret “Sarah Connor” Cho



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I’m Sorry Rev. Jackson, I am for Real…

Friday, February 20th, 2004

Dear Rev. Jackson,



I have been a fan of yours for many years. We once shared the stage in San Francisco at Davies Symphony Hall. Your message of equal rights and peace has always resonated with me. Through all the different political and social upheavals over the past decades you have been a strident voice in our society. I especially appreciate all the work you did to unite the African American and Korean communities during and after the L.A. Riots. Your faith was much needed during that very difficult time. Thank you for your activism and your commitment to making our America a better place.



I have spent many years as an activist. I learned from you that people can be encouraged to create change, just by listening to someone speaking the truth with love and compassion. Since to me you have always been this kind of truth-teller, I am shocked by your comments to the Harvard Law School last Monday concerning gay marriage.



This is the first time in my life I believe I have ever disagreed with your views. I was not present, so perhaps your words were taken out of context, but the sentiments were very clear, and as loud as bombs. I don’t wish to repeat your sentiments, they frankly are too upsetting for me and coming from you makes them doubly hard to hear. Your stance against gay marriage is both troubling and startling and in sharp contrast to everything you have done to raise minority status as well as consciousness in our nation.



I ask you to look back at the many gay and lesbian politicians and activists you have known in your long career. I am sure that many of them might be your friends, or at the very least, have won your respect as men and women devoted to making this country better for all the people who live within its borders and beyond. Would you say that they were less than human? Would you consider them deserving of fewer rights than other Americans? Do you believe that gay and lesbian Americans are unworthy of love?



If gay marriage is unacceptable in the culture you were born and raised in, does that make all cultural mandates worthy of law? If so, then my marriage is invalid because the person to whom I am married is not Korean and interracial marriage is not accepted in Korean culture. Should we really receive less than other couples who have married within their race? Aren’t I obligated to take a stand against my culture in order to uphold not only justice and equality, but what my heart would ask me to do? Is it morally wrong to love one another because we do not look like the other married couples we might see on television?



Should we be corrected by society at large and punished by our government by receiving less than fair treatment because we are not white? How is this different if my spouse and I were the same gender? If being gay were a choice, would people actively choose to have less acceptance and more prejudice heaped upon them by society? If race were a choice, wouldn’t I choose to be white?



I ask you to review your position on same sex marriage. If we were a truly free nation, this would be above argument or opposition. As a civil rights leader, shouldn’t you choose equality for all Americans?



Respectfully,
Margaret Cho



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Dear Ralph Nader

Thursday, February 19th, 2004

Ralph – we love you. It is not personal. Any other election year, we would be behind your indomitable spirit and unapologetic and absolutely 100% American and patriotic views. However, this time around we face grave consequences should we lose this race to Bush, and we frankly need all the help that we can get.



This should not have to be a two party country, however, the powers that be have created a civil war that we need all our strength to fight, even if it means shifting some of our ethical beliefs in how we would normally like to vote.



I have watched you for a long time, and you are just like me. If someone tells you not to do it, you make sure to do it, and that is great, but this time, perhaps your great energy would serve the nation better were you to back the democratic candidate, rather than run against him.



We need you Ralph, in a different way this year, but then again, not really. Your political clout would help this country tremendously. We are not exactly asking that you not run, but rather run with us. Please accept this as an invitation, not a way to silence you. As if that were possible.



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