Jericho: On to the UN

BY DAVID GILBERT

So many things have changed since I was thrown in prison in 1981. Back then, there was no internet or Ipods; AIDS hadn’t been identified as a virus-borne epidemic; global warming was riot a topic of public discussion. The inequality of wealth, already obscene, was only 1/2 of what it is now; the number of people in prison, already inexcusably high, was only about 1/3 of the 2.3 million people behind bars today. The U.S. national debt was only 1/9 of today’s more than 9 $ trillion.

So much has changed, but so many of the fundamentals of the system are the same. The corporations and banks still get rich through plundering the poorest countries of the global South, and the U.S. still wages periodic, vicious wars to control those areas of the world. This society is still based, regardless of the latest euphemisms and attractive tokens, on white supremacy, class rule, the subordination of women and homophobia. The global clock races ever closer to a catastrophic midnight of irreversible environmental damage.

POW/PPs remain relevant because of the continuity of resistance, with a vision of a more humane and cooperative way to live together, to this oppression … a continuity that goes back to the first slave rebellions and the first battles by Native Americans to save their cultures and the land. The reason to raise the issue of POW/PPs is to highlight that continuity, and, most importantly, to honor it by continuing to work for social change today.

A better, more humane world is certainly necessary … and, with all of us making our most full-hearted effort, it just may be possible.

David Gilbert
#83-A-6158
Clinton Corr. Facility
P.O. Box 2001
Dannemora, NY 12929 USA