November 19, 2013

Dear Mr. Torres,

You may recall my parole hearing in September of 2011 when you confronted me in a particularly hostile manner because I had claimed to be a political prisoner. But chances are you won’t recall that hearing. You won’t recall that hearing from hundreds or thousands of others, any more than the executioner on a corporate cattle farm would recall one or another cow that he brained in the course of his career. So, let me refresh your memory.

I was convicted of Aggravated Murder in the self-defense killing of the nephew of the Clerk of Courts, in my own home. My false conviction was reversed, but the trial court refused to abide by the court of appeals’ decision and did not provide me the fair trial ordered. I remain confined without a legal conviction or sentence.

I have consistently maintained my innocence.

I have consistently maintained that my case is politically motivated and that I was sacrificed for the proposition that the ruling elite and their loved ones are not governed by the same laws as the rest of us, that the courts are a tool and a weapon to serve the privileged and entitled.

I have contended that I am, de facto, a political prisoner, that I remain confined not for any crime (because no one truly believed me to be guilty except possibly the jury who was manipulated with selective information), but confined instead for the political benefit that sacrificing me would fain for the officials who orchestrated this deliberate injustice.

During my parole hearing, you read to me Amnesty International’s very narrow and reformist definition of political prisoner status. I admitted to you that their definition does not apply in my case. However, their definition really only can apply in States without elected governments, and does not contemplate a situation such as mine. In fact, by Amnesty’s narrow definition, the United States holds no political prisoners–not even Leonard Peltier or Mumia Abu-Jamal, none of the Black Panthers or Black Liberation Army prisoners from the 1960s and 1970s.

It seems to me very self-serving that in all the various definitions of political prisoner status, you selected the only one that effectively cancels out the political prisoner status of every prisoner in North America. Very self-serving.

You then asked me if any “reputable” organizations have recognized me as a political prisoner. As point of fact, I had never solicited recognition of any organization, reputable or otherwise. And when I told you I was not recognized as a political prisoner by any reputable organizations, you seemed quite proud of the points you scored.

Of course, Andrew Crouch is still dead, all of your high-fives notwithstanding. And I am still held captive for a provable non-crime, despite your touchdown dances.

So, after the Adult Parole Authority gave me yet five more years for a non-crime absent a legal conviction, I sought and gained recognition as a political prisoner. Several organizations recognized me. I made great headway preparing for 2016 and my next parole hearing.

Of course, Andrew Crouch was still dead. And I was still held captive. And you had long ago hung the memory of my hearing on a meathook and shoved it towards the processing plant.

Then a few things occurred to me:

First, I came to realize that I could never gain the recognition of any “reputable” organization. Given that you are the self-appointed, sole authority of what “reputable” means, if every human rights organization in the world, including Amnesty International, recognized me as a political prisoner, their association with me, in your book, would only make them disreputable.

Second, I came to realize you can fuck off. Your opinion doesn’t count. You don’t know me, and it appears to me that you have suffered some kind of loss and become convinced that you should dishonor the loved one you lost by becoming completely inhuman and incapable of human empathy, a walking hole that could swallow the world.

So third, I had to question: Has any “reputable” organization recognized the legitimacy of the State of Ohio? I don’t think any “reputable” organization has. The Treaty of Greeneville in 1795 recognizes this territory as “Unceded Indian Territory” and, absent any subsequent treaty, this area remains the legal possession of those name tribes.

Have the Shawnee recognized the legitimacy of the State of Ohio? How about the Ottawa? The Huron? I don’t think so.

So by all reasonable accounts, Mr. Torres, you are employed by an entity as real as Santa Claus or the Tooth Faerie. At least according to your laws, not that anyone ever follows those.

But fourth–and this is the big point–I came to realize the absurdity of so-called “political prisoner” status, the silliness of such a designation. And that’s really what I would like to explain.

For there to be political prisoners, there would have to be non-political prisoners. That is, there would have to be captives who are genuinely held for the common good by a legitimate State who acted under proper and pure motives.

Right. We’re back to Santa Claus and the Tooth Faerie again. Is there such a thing as a legitimate State? Is there such a thing as a legitimate state that acts under proper and pure motives? Is there such a thing as a legitimate state that acts under proper and pure motives, holding captives for the common good?

If you believe there is, then you can recognize that there are such things as non-political prisoners, and so you can then draw some distinction between prisoners validly locked up by the State you worship and the prisoners not validly locked up by the State you worship.

But, if you’re an anarchist, as I am, and you recognize that no legitimate “right to rule” exists (as I argue in “Ohio,” Part III), then there can be no such thing as captives locked up for the common good by a legitimate state–because there’s no such thing as a “legitimate state.”

Once you recognize the State as a false idol, a construct, a mythological creation with no legal or logical basis, no underlying “right to rule” which it falsely assumes, then all prisoners are kidnap victims held by hierarchs sharing a mass delusion of authority. No prisoner is any different from any other.

If we begin with the analysis that the State possesses no legitimate authority, then no one has the right to pass laws that others must follow. No cop has the authority to arrest anyone.

In the mind of an Anarchist is there a legitimate lawmaker and an illegitimate one? A legitimate cop and an illegitimate one?

If the State possesses no legitimate authority, then no prosecutor has the right to prosecute, no court has the authority to pass sentence, and no warden has the right to confine nor to execute captives.

In the mind of an Anarchist, can there be a legitimate prosecutor? Or judge? Or warden?

If we begin from the essentially-anarchist position that the State has no right to exist, then all legislatures, cops, prosecutors, judges, and wardens get thrown out with the proverbial bath water. And absent legislatures, cops, prosecutors, judges, and wardens, how can there be legitimate offenders held captive for the common good…and held by whom?

I am not a political prisoner. I possess no special quality, no special designation not shared by every prisoner held by every illegitimate hierarch pathology manifested across the globe. For me to recognize a special designation even for myself, that recognition would necessarily imply that somewhere a State has a legitimate right to exist, and that legitimate State has some valid reason for holding someone against his or her will.

I am ready to make no such concession.

There exists no legitimate State.

There exists no valid law.

There can be no distinction between political and non-political prisoners when no imprisonment can ever be justified.

So that’s my thinking, Mr. Torres. Hopefully, these ideas will inspire other people and I won’t have to be assaulted with your inane questions in 2016. Hopefully the fences will be gone, the mythology of authority will be long dead, and we will vaguely remember a time when debates over words continued while human beings languished in bondage.

Here’s to a future without prisons, without parole boards, and without States. Here’s to a future without control-freaks like you running it.

Freedom or Death,

Sean Swain