Dear Director Chambers-Smith,
Hi. I’m writing because I have a sense that we may have gotten off on the wrong foot. One of your administration’s first actions, coming into office, was to illegally rendition me in a black van to Virginia, based upon provable lies of your predecessors. When I returned from rendition, I was irregularly sent to the super-duper-max and, in a second botched rendition to Maryland, staff chopped my finger off and I have remained here at the super-duper-max, several months after I should have had a parole hearing that didn’t occur.
I could be wrong, but between the renditions and the dismemberment and the super-duper-max placement without a parole hearing, I’ve gotten the distinct impression that you don’t like me very much. Just a hunch. But my hope is that I can change that as you get to know me and come to appreciate my sparkling personality.
Yeah. Sparkling personality.
Usually, I introduced myself as an Anarchist. I lead with that because I can’t think of anything more honorable, more significant, more meaningful than to be someone who embraces what has been called, “The Beautiful Idea”– Anarchism. But, perhaps, here, it would be better that I didn’t lead with that. I generally find that an I’m interacting with prison administrators, the mention of “Anarchism” scrambles their brains. Once I mention that word, they can no longer see me clearly… and all they imagine is chaos, mayhem, bedlam, and madness– the sky falling, the world ending, house pets engaging in interspecies fornication.
I don’t want to scramble your brain, so perhaps we should just forget I ever brought up that word? Instead, I’ll share with you who I am and what I’ve done, and then we’ll return to that other topic later.
I graduated high school, received an Honorable Discharge from the Army, and had a writing scholarship for college. In self defense, I killed a guy who broke into my home– a guy who happened to be the nephew of an official who was both the county clerk of courts and the chair of the Democratic Party… in a county where both the judge a prosecutor were Democrats.
The polygraph I passed was inadmissible and I was found guilty of murder, years before Ohio adopted the Castle Doctrine. So, I told the truth and what I did was provably a noncrime. Not that it mattered. It still doesn’t.
While in prison, I joined the American Civil Liberties Union, International Campaign for Tibet, and CURE-Ohio. I served on CURE’s prisoner advisory board for 3 years. I was a founding member of Catholic Justice Fellowship and wrote most of their published work. We successfully lobbied the Ohio Catholic Bishops to support parole reform legislation.
I have logged thousands of hours of community service, mostly painting classroom posters and teaching aides for Ohio public schools. Former Richland Prosecutor James Mayer gave me a commendation for recording the music for puppet shows prepared for child victims of crime.
In 2002, I was personally recognized by Rosa Parks for my peace work in prison, nominated for placement on the Wall of Tolerance.
I’ve taken every rehabilitative program made available to me; I received my degree from Ashland University; I completed and tutored two vocational courses; I received my paralegal certification from Blackstone Institute.
Three of my books are in publication. I’ll send you copies, if you’re interested. For more than ten years, I’ve contributed weekly commentaries to a globally syndicated radio show.
A collection of my songs was recorded by a number of indy bands and posted as “Burning Down” at bandcamp.com. A collection of about 30 of my paintings went on display in September in Stockholm, Sweden.
All of this was accomplished as a consequence of loving and generous people in my life who were able to make all of this possible despite the ODRC’s interference and obstruction… and despite my own incompetencies.
I know this sounds pretty pretentious, but my “personal papers and effects” are collected at the University of Michigan for an archive that celebrates historically influential American Anarchists. Yes, there’s that word again. My apologies. I hope if doesn’t scramble your brain.
Over the course of 34 years of captivity, I have never so much as been accused of a single fist fight or any other violence; never got involved in drugs or alcohol; never joined any gangs. I am, all things considered, very possibly the best behaved prisoner in Ohio penal history. None of this is probably going to enhance my street cred, I imagine, but all of it is true, just the same.
The ODRC’s response to this has been to blacksite me, torture me, isolate me at supermax, purge my friends and family from my visitation list, rendition me out of state, and dismember me. I currently write you from the prison designed to house the 1% of the most dangerous Ohio prisoners, and I’m on the gang list as a gang of one, facing continuances from the parole board in 5-year increments… and, as a consequence of losing my right pinkie, I’m unable to throw a spiral, and so my chances of becoming an NFL quarterback are zero.
I would hope, if you read this, that you would, at least on the face of this, consider what I have accomplished from prison and how the ODRC has responded to me, and that, as a human being, you might feel some level of consternation, a bit of discomfort, perhaps even bewilderment.
Bewilderment is something I have become accustomed to feeling, particularly in those encounters where I bleed a lot.
You might wonder, if all of this is true, WHY is it true?
And that takes us back to that word. The troubling word. The one that scrambles ODRC administrators’ brains.
It all comes down to that word, “Anarchist.”
I often ponder what might have been, if, when I was young and idealistic, I had the sense to not use that word. I could have called myself a “libertarian socialist,” or perhaps an “anti-state communalist,” or even a “horizontalist,” and I likely could have continued painting, playing guitar, writing, and entertaining myself with my own ideas about how the world could be without hierarchy, and I probably would have avoided all of the starvation and sleep deprivation and brain concussions. I would probably be home right now.
But, I used the word. I never had much sense, I guess. I called myself an Anarchist. So, if I can interject here for a moment, not to break up this train of thought, but a piece of advice, a word to the wise: Don’t ever do that. Don’t use that word, particularly when addressing people in power. You have to be very careful about telling the truth to people in power. They really can’t handle it. But I didn’t know. I thought “Anarchist” was just a regular word. I didn’t know it had magical powers, that its utterance could make the sky fall… and the world end… and house pets engage in abominable genital friction. I didn’t know it was a word so hated and so loathed as to drive otherwise ordinary and well intending employees of a state agency to such levels of revilement and derision that they would see me as a nonperson, as an object to be disassembled and destroyed, an enemy to be crushed and conquered.
Well, lesson learned, I guess.
I would like to tell you what the word “Anarchist” means to me– if my use of this darkly magical shibboleth won’t scramble your brain. I hope it hasn’t.
The etymology of the word is a good place to start. “An-” means against, and “-archy” refers to hierarchical structure, so “An-archy” is a rejection of hierarchical structure in human society.
That was as far as I got, by the way, in my explanation to Lt. Oberle here at the prison. He’s one of DJ Norris’ flying monkeys. He put me on the gang list. I got as far as the etymology of the word and I was a gang of one, teaching myself secret handshakes.
In a broad sense, an “An-archist” is someone who imagines our world being a better place if it were structured differently, if the few did not rule the many (and do it badly), if there wasn’t wealth at the expense of also having poverty, if the system we serve wasn’t defined by imposition and compulsion and exploitation and subjugation, benefitting the few and harming the most.
Probably, you don’t believe me. Probably, in your heart of hearts, you’re thinking, ‘I know all of this is a lie; Anarchists want chaos and madness and bedlam and mayhem, not peace and justice… They just want to burn the world down.’ I get it. That’s a pretty common, bigoted trope.
That slander originates with Vladimir Lenin when he kicked Mikhail Bakunin out of the Communist International because Bakunin was critical of Lenin’s monopoly on state power– and rightfully so, I would say. But Lenin smeared Bakunin, claiming all anti-statists were “Anarchists,” set on sabotage and malicious mischief.
Soviet propaganda is really powerful, it seems.
Here we are, 36 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and you are still influenced by Lenin’s lies against his enemies, told right after the Russian Revolution. The word he used to slander Bakunin still scrambles your brain.
Bakunin and others wore the word as a badge of honor, embracing it not unlike Black rappers embracing the “n” word to take its power away. If only Bakunin knew then how much brain trauma I would suffer for that word in Ohio custody, I like to think he would reconsider, perhaps going with something more agreeable, like “Bunny Rabbits” or “Unicorns.”
At any rate, I should think about closing this and picking up again later. In my ext letter, I would like to resume this discussion, sharing what Anarchism means to me– that it represents freedom as opposed to bondage; sanity as opposed to delusion; the aspiration to principles of autonomy, voluntary association, cooperation, and mutual aid as opposed to alienation and compliance and obedience under threat of force. It is a liberating and healing energy that permeates our lives and relationships, raising us up to be our best selves.
Well, most of us, anyway. Don’t judge Anarchism by my failures. I’m something of an underachiever.
And, perhaps once this dialogue concludes, you’ll realize you hate me less and you’ll order your flying monkeys to stop the state terror campaign they’ve been waging for decades, and I can be treated with the dignity that all humans deserve.
Just an idea.
A quick note before I sign off– I always close my letters wishing the recipient the best thing I can wish for them: Freedom. I shouldn’t make an exception here, despite the irony that I wish you freedom while you are the official withholding mine from me.
At any rate… The truth is dangerous, Director Chambers-Smith.
Stay dangerous.
Freedom, Sean.
*** Anyone can share this with Director Chambers Smith by email at annette.chambers-smith@odrc.state.oh.us, or by mail: Director Annette Chambers Smith Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction 4545 Fisher Road, Suite D Columbus, Ohio 43228
Mongoose Distro 