By ____ _____1The letter that follows was written to the investigator at Mansfield Corruptional Institution, the prison official with the responsibility of maintaining what is called the “Security Threat Group” list. I wrote this letter to her because I have been included on this list, which is essentially a “gang” list, even though I have been been involved in any gang or any organization that warrants placement on such a list.
So, if I have never been in a group or organization that has been designated a security threat group, why am I on the list?
There appears to be a pattern of Ohio’s government going out of its way to bend or break its own rules, and to even ignore its own laws, in order to do weird things to me that the government doesn’t do to anyone else. That’s really my principle concern with being placed upon a Security Threat Group list; the government says the list is for one thing, but uses the list for something else entirely.
This may come as a huge shocker, but I have to be the one to say it: The government lies. It lies constantly. And it lies about lying.
So, I wrote the accompanying letter for purposes of trying to persuade the investigator with reason and logic, and sent copies of the letter to the director of the Ohio Department of Retribution and Corruption, and to Governor John Kasich. Given the governor’s recent statements about the government needing to reform its practices and conduct itself in good faith, one might think the governor would have a problem with the prison system using the gang list in order to profile people for their deeply=held beliefs. As a man espousing his own deeply -held beliefs, one might think he would feel some real trepidation about government agencies creating lists of believers.
We will see if he shares my bewilderment.
I’m fairly certain that he won’t.
To put his in a larger context, just in case you don’t care, every police state begins by creating lists of people the government doesn’t like. It usually begins with Anarchists, Jews, and maybe Communists. And as some famous dead guy who was taken to a Nazi concentration camp once said, “When they came to take the others, he didn’t care; when they came to take him, there was no one left to care.
It all starts with a list.
I’m on it.
You’re next.
***1The U.S. courts have stripped Sean Swain of all constitutional protections on the stated basis that Swain “promotes anarchy.” Sean Paul Swain vs. William Fullenkamp, et. al., U.S. District Court Case No. 3:09-CV-02659-JZ; Circuit Court Case No. 10-3755, cert. Denied, Supreme Court Case No. 11-5704. As a consequence, Swain is the only U.S. citizen without free speech rights and cannot have his name associated with published work for fear of reprisals from the fascist police state. So if he wrote this, and no one is saying he did, his name cannot appear in the by-line.
In a free country, this footnote would not be necessary.