Author Archives: Sean Swain

Letter to U.S. Postal Service

Postmaster General
U.S. Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza, Southwest
Washington, DC 20260-0010

July 24, 2012

Dear Sir or Madam:

I write this letter to you fully aware that the U.S. Postal Service just might be the most effective system that any government ever devised. That means every other system devised by government, including the Ohio prison system, had a higher failure rate than you.

Having acknowledged that, I would like to draw your attention to what seems to be a serious anomaly. Here at Mansfield Correctional, some of my incoming mail has taken as long as 45 days from the postmark to reach me. This mail didn’t originate in Hong Kong or New Delhi. It came from St. Louis.

The mailroom staff here contend that these chronic delays are caused by the U.S. Postal Service and not caused by the mailroom staff, who are led by the big-headed, banjo-playing mutant from the movie, “Deliverance.” However, my outgoing mail reaches its destination in less than a week, as always, and my outgoing mail differs from my incoming mail only in that my incoming mail must be sorted by the big-headed, banjo-playing mutant.

Perhaps the problem is that eastward-directed mail moves slower than westward mail. Perhaps mail directed toward prison is reluctant and fights all the way here. Or, it could be that this prison mailroom is operated by unmitigated ass-clowns who aspire to such an uncanny level incompetence that no sane person would even trust these rare specimens with the simple responsibility of spraying mint-scented aerosol into returned shoes at the local bowling alley, never mind running a mail delivery system.

I suspect that in the era of the Pony Express, you guys didn’t take 45 days to get mail from St. Louis to Mansfield, and back then you had to deal with attacks from hostile tribes of Native Americans. These prison mailroom monkeys are more disruptive to mail delivery than hostile tribes of Native Americans, and you scalped the hostile tribes of Native Americans, so I can only imagine what you ought to do to these buffoons.

Something I must point out: Their level incompetence increases at a direct ratio to your unwillingness to intervene. In other words, if you pass the buck to prison authorities here, you only encourage these chimpanzees to delay mail delivery for 60 days and then 75…

If you won’t scalp them, will you at least provide hatchets? But whatever you do, don’t send them to us through the mail. We’ll be long dead and buried before the big-headed, banjo-playing mutant and his staff get the hatchets sorted and delivered.

At any rate, thank you in advance for what I am sure will be a stern response to the greatest threat to mail delivery since the surrender of Geronimo.

Sincerely,

Sean Swain
Prison Reg. A243-205
MANCI PO Box 788
Mansfield, OH 44901

c: File
seanswain.org

The Wretched of the Earth

I was born in freedom’s graveyard
‘Neath a tombstone where my name scarred
The edifice, stone-cold and bone-hard
Wrapped was I in burning flag.
An empty stomach, angry, held tight
An empty hand to clutch the long night
Another head fixed ‘twixt the gunsight
Just one more toe to tag.

Raised by ashes in dirt and dust
Cutting teeth then flesh on rust
They come to teach me what is just–
The oppressors’ fists to kiss me.
And when I taste their awful wrath
Kicked down that darkly-chosen path
I’ll see it boils down to math–
How many I take with me.

***

I Know Why the Aliens Don’t Land Here

If there really are aliens,
I know why they don’t land here
And say, “Hello,”
And develop a cultural-exchange program.
They have zoomed around in saucers
And watched us from afar,
Studying our habits,
Observing how we live.
They’ve seen us clear-cut and toxify and exterminate.
They zoom around in saucers now,
Filled with unruly alien children
And pointing at us from afar,
At how we clear-cut and toxify and exterminate.
If there really are aliens,
I know why they don’t land here:
We are their “Scared Straight Program.”

***

In My Dreams the Trees Can Run

In my dreams the trees can run:
They flee before the chainsaws come,
No more standing brave and rigid,
Holding their breath in stoic silences
While Killers of Life cut them off at the knees
And convert them to resources.
In my dreams the trees can run:
They hide like Jews in basements and cellars
while Killers of Life march the streets
With beady eyes scouring windows for
brief flashes of green
They hide a short time huddled together
until the world is safe,
And the Era of the Killers is over.
In my dreams the trees can run:
And the Killers of Life cut each other to pieces.

***

Once Upon Returning Home

Once upon returning home
I found a trailer park where forests had stood,
Cans of humans, shiny and regimented,
Built over corpses of fallen birch and oak,
Dark and vital earth landscaped into lawns
with chain-link fences and plastic sunflowers,
The stench of greasy fast-food bags in car trunks
and lawn-mower gasoline,
Re-runs with laugh tracks seeping out windows
where frogs and crickets once prophesied.
Up ahead in the street, under the glow of halogens,
Crooked fingers of wild grass wiggled
through a crack in the pavement,
Mounting a slow, relentless counter-attack,
And in one gentle caress
filled with a childhood of memory
I whispered to these struggling survivors:
“They can’t get us all.”

***

A Handful of Leaves

A prayer for the children of the next Neolithic,
That we leave to them
A field of lilies where a WalMart once stood,
Salmon upstream from the ruins of a dam,
Kudzu vines embracing skeletons of skyscrapers,
Cracked and overgrown ribbons of nameless super-highways.
A prayer for the children of the next Neolithic,
That you may
Lay entwined in fields of lilies,
Sustain yourselves on sister salmon,
Climb the vines of kudzu to shelter,
Salt meat on the remains of the highway,
And use this poem for kindling at sundown
So you can spare a handful of leaves
Where the gods write poetry of their own.

***

On the Colorado Theater Shooting

By ____ _____1

Is anybody really surprised?

Some may think this isn’t the appropriate question ask. It may be that popular opinion would dictate that we should be asking why this happened, or how anybody is really surprised.

Now, before you think I’m saying something I’m not, I want to be clear: I’m not asking you in a veiled way if you think this guy was right or whether you think his actions make sense and therefore what he did should have been expected. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m only asking a simple question:

Is anybody really surprised?

The reason I ask is, I’m not surprised at all. And I’m quite frankly suspicious of the people on television who act like they’re surprised this happened.

I mean, when Columbine happened, everybody was shocked, right? High school students with firearms gunning down other high school students, seemingly at random. Wow. But then you had Virginia Tech, and school shootings became, well, fashionable in a sense, so much so that most school shootings like the one in Chardon, a Cleveland suburb, barely made the national media and remained a local story.

It happens with such regularity, we don’t notice it anymore.

You had the Gabby Giffords shooting, but that only made headlines because the targets were no longer high school students but politicians. So, we were shocked again for a minute. Wow. That’s terrible.

But now, what’s left to shock us? We know it’s coming. We expect it. Sure, the location may change- one might be a school and the other a mall; one at a McDonalds and the other at a movie theater. And the victims may also be from various groups, like kids at a Jewish day-care or Batman movie-goers, or people who prefer Big Macs to Whoppers. But my point is, when a medical student dons body armor and a gas mask, loads up several weapons, goes berserk during a showing of the latest Batman movie, and then keeps police occupied for hours with explosives rigged all over his home, nobody’s shocked.

I don’t think anybody can be. If you have just a handful of brain cells that haven’t been pickled in bong water and high fructose corn syrup, you understand full-well how somebody in our world, facing the hopelessness of the future and the meaninglessness of the present, could uncork all that disillusionment and just, well, go nuts. We all know. Despite our adherence to conventional morality and our obedience and loyalty to the non-violent dictates of our culture, and even while we empathize with the victims and mourn with their survivors, on a deeper level that probably makes most of us very uncomfortable, a level we would probably like to deny even exists, we know where that shooter came from. Whether we like it or not, deep down– deep, deep down — we know that each time we see another shooting, we take an inventory of uptight bosses and demeaning teachers and all the back-stabbers and suck-asses who have made our lives miserable, and we measure the distance we would to go from here in order for us to be donning the body armor.

We all know where the shooters come from. We know what drives them. It’s the same thing that drives chickens crammed like sardines in industrial feedlots to wig-out and start pecking each other to death. With us, the factory feedlots are schools and traffic jams, board meetings and check-out lines. Our unnatural, pressurized, unfulfilling way of life, reducing us as it does to worker ants with no sense of purpose, is starting to get to more and more of us.

More and more of us chickens are starting to peck each other to death.

Those Columbine kids weren’t so unusual. And every day, as the body count gets higher, they become more and more ordinary.

So what’s next? A WalMart? A Kroger? A tanning salon, perhaps? A mall?

It won’t be long before the ordinary and mundane settings of our lives will be riddled with bullet holes and splashed with blood splatter as we continue working and shopping and stepping around the blood-spill in aisle five. We may even see new industries, like fashionable body-armor for soccer moms on-the-go.

And we won’t be surprised.

We really won’t be.

***

1 This may or may not have been written by Sean Swain but since the federal courts have stripped Sean Swain of all constitutional protections, he must write underground. If Sean wrote this, and no one is saying he did, he meant every word of it. Sean Swain supports Anonymous, the Earth Liberation Front, the Anarchy Bridge! Five, the NATO Five, and the groups now emerging from the Occupy Movement.

Preliminary Reports of a Riot at Mansfield Correctional. Sean Swain in the Hole.

We have received preliminary reports that on Wednesday, September 19th, a riot occurred at Mansfield Correctional Institution where Sean Swain is being held.  According to the prison, fire hoses were used against those involved in the uprising. As of now, we have no details as to what conditions instigated the riot or what Sean is being charged with.

Sean is being held in segregation in the medical wing of the prison. According to prison administrators, he is being held there because the normal segregation cells are all full as a result of the riot. But we also know that the administration likes to use the suicide cells in the medical wing for disciplinary purposes (as have done with Sean in the past).

The prison claims that Sean is unhurt and that he is not in the infirmary for medical reasons. We have little reason to believe anything they say, but we hope that this is true.

 

We are asking everyone to put pressure on the prison administrators. The goal is to draw attention to Sean’s situation, to demonstrate that he has support and that their attacks against him will not go unnoticed.

In calling the prison, our tactic is to ask, as many times as possible, to as many different people as possible, Where is Sean Swain? Why is he being held in solitary confinement in the infirmary? When will he be released?

If they do not pick up, leave voice mails asking these questions.

 

Mansfield Correctional Institution

(419) 525-4455

Greg Morrow- Caseworker

ext. -4310

Maryland Christopher

Health Care Administrator

ext. -2100

Tom King- Unit Manager

ext. -4300

Terry Tibbals- Warden

ext. -2005

Scott Basquin- Assistant Warden

ext. -2004

You can also call Central Office at 614-752-1164

or the ODRC Legal Affairs Office directly at 614-728-1920

Also, please take a moment to write to Sean. He likely does not have access to reading materials and certainly has no access to the warmth of his comrades. Even a short note saying that you are thinking of him would have a huge effect. A photograph of something pretty or an article you enjoyed, an embossed envelope and a few sheets of writing paper would be even better.

 

Sean Swain #243-205

MANCI

P.O. Box 788

Mansfield, OH 44901

Florida Golf Buddies and Identity Pirates to Profit from ODRC Out-Sourcing Plot

by ____ _____1



The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has out-sourced fund-transfer services to a private Florida firm called JPay. As a result, persons on prisoner visiting lists can send money to prisoners only by sending the money to JPay for processing. This processing involves a “fee” which is withdrawn from the funds sent to prisoners.

This new procedure is virtually identical to the old procedure, except that now a private Florida company makes a huge profit conducting services that used to be performed by downsized Ohio employees.
Also, the procedure is completely unconstitutional and will result in many legal challenges– challenges that will cost Ohio tax-payers… although the Florida firm making huge profits will not suffer the loss of a single dime.

The first problem with the new procedure is that JPay’s “fee” for processing funds into prisoner accounts constitutes a tax. Because citizens are charged a fee to put funds on a prisoner’s account, it matters not whether that money is collected by an out-sourced company or the State directly– it is a fee collected for a public service.

That’s a tax.

And that’s illegal.

The Ohio Constitution delegates the power to tax only to the Ohio General Assembly, not to the ODRC or to Director Gary Mohr’s rich Florida golf-buddies looking to make a profit off of human bondage. Since the Ohio House and Senate never approved this tax, JPay’s service tax is illegal.

Not that legality matters. Why would you want someone charged with the duty of reforming Ohio’s offenders to abide by something called “law”? Clearly, Gary Mohr is nota role-model. And clearly, crime pays.

But an even more troubling aspect of this new procedure is that the ODRC has given Gary Mohr’s rich golf buddies access to the State’s information databases. That means approximately 750,000 citizens on Ohio prison population’s visiting lists will have their private information– addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, to convicted felons — accessed by complete strangers working for a Florida company, something these 750,000 citizens never approved, never consented to, and never signed up for.

As one prisoner’s visitor said, “I only sent required information to the Ohio prison so I could visit my husband. I didn’t know that my private information was going to be bundled iwth thousands of other people’s information and then handed over to some company where employees can steal my identity or profit off of selling that information. I feel betrayed. I don’t even know if this is legal.”

ODRC administrators have denied that JPay will have access to prisoner visitors’ private information, but this denial is directly conflicted by their own description of the process. According to the ODRC’s own postings, visitors sending funds to prisoners must send them to JPay along with a photocopy of their identification (which itself contains sensitive information that could be used for identity theft), and then JPay will compare that photocopy to the prisoner’s visiting list to confirm the visitor’s status before posting the funds.

That means JPay must have access to the visiting lists in order to make the comparison. So that means JPay does have access to 750,000 citizens’ private information without their consent. It also means the ODRC’s denials are a lie.

Again, these people are not role models.

But even if JPay didn’t have access to the database, they still require citizens to send photocopies of their state identification with every fund transfer, which means each person could have dozens or even hundreds of copies of their sensitive information floating around in the hands of data processors who were fired from Burger King for sniffing glue.

“Who else will they sell my address and social security number to?” a visitor asked. “And what will those people do with it? What stops a JPay worker from selling three quarters of a million names to identity pirates? And what kind of a clown slow is this prison director running, anyway?”

A profitable one, it seems– if you’re Gary Mohr’s Florida golf buddies.

***

DISTRIBUTION:
Corrections Institution Inspection Committee
seanswain.org
CURE-Ohio
Cincinnati Enquirer
Columbus Dispatch
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Toledo Blade
Akron Beacon Journal

  If YOU are wondering “what kind of clown show” Gary Mohr is running, feel free to contact him at (614) 752-1164 during normal clown-show hours.

1 This may or may not have been written by Sean Swain, but the federal courts have given Ohio prison administrators free license to punish Swain for his published views beyond prison walls. Swain is exceptionally stripped of all constitutional protections, so whether he wrote this or not, and no one is saying he did, this will likely be posted at seanswain.org when it launches in the next 30 days. If Sean Swain wrote this, he meant every word.

On The Colorado Theater Shooting

Is anybody really surprised?

Some may think this isn’t the appropriate question to ask. It may be that popular opinion would dictate that we should be asking why this happened, or how we can show support for the victims of this tragedy. But I want to know if anybody is really surprised.

Now, before you think I’m saying something I’m not, I want to be clear: I’m not asking you in a veiled way if you think this guy was right or whether you think his actions make sense and therefore what he did should have been expected. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m only asking a simple question:

Is anybody really surprised?

The reason I ask is, I’m not surprised at all. And I’m quite frankly suspicious of the people on television who act like they’re surprised this happened.

I mean, when Columbine happened, everybody was shocked, right? High school students with firearms gunning down other high school students, seemingly at random. Wow. But then you had Virginia Tech, and school shootings became, well, fashionable in a sense, so much so that most school shootings, like the one in Chardon, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, barely made the national news and remained a local story.

It happens with such regularity, we don’t notice it anymore.

You had the Gabby Giffords shooting, but that only made headlines because the targets were no longer high school students but politicians. So, we were shocked again for a minute. Wow. That’s terrible.

But now, what’s left to shock us? We know it’s coming. We expect it. Sure, the location may change—one might be a school and the other a mall; one at a McDonalds and the other at a movie theater. And the victims may also be from various groups, like kids at a Jewish day-care or Batman movie-goers, or people who prefer Big Macs to Whoppers. But my point is, when a medical student dons body armor and a gas mask, loads up several weapons, goes berserk during a showing of the latest Batman movie, and then keeps police occupied for hours with explosives rigged all over his home, nobody’s shocked.

I don’t think anybody can be. If you have just a handful of brain cells that haven’t been pickled in bong water and high fructose corn syrup, you understand full-well how somebody in our world, facing the hopelessness of the future and the meaninglessness of the present, could uncork all that disillusionment and just, well, go nuts. We all know. Despite our adherence to conventional morality and our obedience and loyalty to the non-violence dictates of our culture, and even while we empathize with the victims and mourn with their survivors, on a deeper level that probably makes most of us very uncomfortable, a level we would probably like to deny even exists, we know where that shooter came from. Whether we like it or not, deep down—deep, deep down—we know that each time we see another shooting, we take an inventory of uptight bosses and demeaning teachers and all the back-stabbers and suck-asses who have made our lives miserable, and we measure the distance we would have to go from here in order for us to be donning the body armor.

We all know where the shooters came from. We know what drives them. It’s the same thing that drives chickens crammed like sardines in industrial feedlots to wig-out and start pecking each other to death. With us, the factory feedlots are schools and traffic jams, board meetings and check-out lines. Our unnatural, pressurized, unfulfilling way of life, reducing us as it does to worker ants with no sense of purpose, is starting to get to us more and more.

More and more of us chickens are starting to peck each other to death.

Those Columbine kids weren’t so unusual. And every day, as the body count gets higher, they become more and more ordinary.

So what’s next? A WalMart? A Kroger? A tanning salon, perhaps? A mall?

It won’t be long before the ordinary and mundane settings of our lives will be riddled with bullet holes and splashed with blood splatter as we continue working and shopping and stepping around the blood-spill in aisle five. We may even see new industries, like fashionable body armor for soccer moms on-the-go.

And we won’t be surprised.

We really won’t be.