Pursuit Of Happiness @ MindSay

Following is an email home.

 

Dear family,
 
Again my plan to return home has been rescheduled due to angst and depression. The angst and
depression are a direct result of my decision to return.  There is more.  There is fear.  I fear that,
because of who I am and some of what I have done, all being legal and granted rights under The
Constitution of The United States part of North Americas [AUSPONA], I fear that, in the least,

I will find myself on a no-fly list or more probably on a Terrorist Watch list because of exercising

an unqualified legitimate right to my '...life, liberty and pursuit of happiness'.
 
Through the concern of and help from different friends in several different places here in China and
back home and other places, I am coping. Still, nausea will again return as will confused and non-
functional muddled thinking when the newest set time for my departure, from my sanctuary here on
the coast of China, too becomes imminent. That newest set time is the first of October.
 
Please let me hearken back to my travels in England in the mid-seventies where, while president of

UAW Local 1341 and a student of social work at Siena Heights College, I marched in a protest

parade with proud and active unionists in London demanding equal benefits and pay for women,

particularly, I believe in the area of education: primarily teachers.
 
Then, I think it was near Manchester, I stood with and lent moral support to striking coal miners
who, like me, like us were worker's union members under attack by both corporations and the
fudking, fascist, conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her attacks on
unionist would foretell what neoconservatives under their "great leader", Ronnie Reagan, had in

store for AUSPONA.
 
Is it possible, probable or impossible that I was watched and my participation in the two events
were documented and added to a folio on me in Washington, DC? I think the most probable

answer is:  probable first, possible a distant second and then, only slightly, impossible.
 
Why would there be a file or folio on me in Washington, DC for anything to be added to?
 
Well, 'First they came for the poets. I was not a poet so I said nothing. Then they came for the
unionist. I was not a unionist so I said nothing. Then they came for...'.  I am both a poet and an

active, unrelenting and unrepenting unionist educated, trained and experienced suvivior of various

community action campaigns. I am a liberal card-carrying member and former committee member

of the State-of-Michigan American Civil Liberties Union and a member of Amnesty International.

I am dangerous; yes? 
 
Remember Patrick Farnga, the 'black-ass nigger' [to use the term oft used by brother Bruce when
describing black human beings], my friend from Liberia on the west coast of the African continent?
I invited and sponsored him to and supported him during his trip to AUSPONA and our hometown

in the summer of 1976. His stay was short. Less than two weeks as I recall but that is of little matter
per the content in which it is presented here. 
 
The fact that he was a student in and arrived from The Soviet Union is what matters here. Too, it
is salient in this context that he was a 'foster son' in the Dennis family of Liberia's ruling elite. It
would be within a year, I only guess now, that photos of some of the members of the Dennis family
would appear on the cover of TIME magazine. As the image comes back to me now, there were
three of them on a beach of coastal Liberia. There were hoods on their heads. They were tied at
wrists which were behind their backs and secured around makeshift posts sunk in the sand. They
were slumped in death having been executed by firing squad after a military coup.
 
I never heard from Patrick again after that event. Nor did I ever hear from his beautiful, statuesque
foster sister, Janet Dennis, the 'black-assed nigger' and, eventually an alumnus, like me, of The
University of Michigan School of Social Work. She was a student-intern at The Community Action
Center in Adrian when I was board chairman there and still an undergraduate student of social work
at Siena Heights College.
 
Janet's request and appeal to me to sponsor her brother's visit per visa requirements of The United
States Department of State was how I came to invite and support him during his short stay in
Tecumseh. It was a visit that he enjoyed very much. The enjoyment was as much for the chance
to be out of The Soviet Union as it was for being in our hometown and the chance to meet you all.
Those were happy days for Patrick, for my friend, Mr. Farnga.
 
I do not know the machinations of or any of the convolutions and intrigues The United States of
America had, if any, in the coup 'led' by Liberian Army Sargent Samuel Doe [if my memory serves
me correctly]. However, my connection to people primely involved in the events described is in the

first degree of separation; not the sixth. You all are connected in the second degree.  
 

             There will be more of this later.  Included will be information about

                  my trip to Nicaragua during our illegal war of opression there funded by

                       drug money and illegal arms sales to Iran by Col. Oliver North working

                            covertly from the basement of Ronnie Reagan's Whitehouse.

            

             But, because of my fear, my paranoia maybe, I am sending this now to assure this

                  part is not somehow lost before I have the chance to do so.

 

Sincerely in pursuit of happiness and freedom from fudking fascist tyranny in AUSPONA,

 

Love, David

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 -- Declaration of Independence

"That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

-- Virginia Declaration of Rights


I love this idea... that all people, no matter where they come from or who they are have inherent, unalienable rights. It was a great and progressive concept. I think we've come a long way from this sentiment in modern society, however. Not only do we not seem to recognize these rights in ALL people, or even ALL people IN our country, but we don't even recognize them in ALL of our citizens. Where did these simple truths become moot points? When did we decide that only some people in the world have these inherent rights, while others are worthy of bullets and no mercy?

are a pain.  But my essays are slowly getting there.  I think they are definitely improving, with the help of Ashley.  I liked them all the way they were before, but alas, they were all too long.  I like to write, what can I say? 

 

Soon, it's back to working on them, but right now, I'm putting it off for a little while.

 

I think Ashley and I are going to watch Pursuit of Happiness tonight.  It looks like it will be a really good movie.  I like Will Smith. 

 

Peace.

One of the best movies I have seen. My husband thought it was one of Will Smith's top performances and he is a Will Smith movie buff.  It was so touching, moving, well acted. Sometimes when I know a story is based a true life event, it helps draw me in to the plot of the movie all the more, and this case was no exception!

 

The premise of the story: A struggling salesman takes custody of his son just as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional endeavor.

 

Chris, played by Will, is shown running thruout the movie, climbing one obstacle after another, and narrating to us in the midst of it all with his thoughts on the Declaration of Independence's quote " the pursuit of happiness"

 

His growing insight was that happiness is something we work for, that we have to pursue, run after, to not give up, and that we have the right to do so.

 

The Father - son relationship is what makes this movie so poignant to me...inspiring and the movie makes one surely appreciate our own lives. If not then makes us want to do better with our lives.

 

Love and laughter,

Dawn

 

 

• Three out of five Frenchmen believe the sun revolves around the earth.

• John Kerry's favorite food is croutons.

• For every student that graduates from Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College, three drop out before completing their training and two are failed by their instructors.

• Polarized sunglasses counteract the effects of one-way mirrors.

• Microsoft Word crashes cause 49 million hours of lost productivity ever year.

• There are approximately 800 people killed per year in pedestrian-on-pedestrian accidents in the US.

• Since the destruction of the World Trade Center, the Empire State Building is struck by lightning nearly twice as often.

• The first draft of the Declaration of Independence read "life, liberty, and happiness" until John Adams successfully argued that happiness is not a right and cannot be guaranteed, so they compromised with the "pursuit of happiness".

• Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of some of the world's tallest skyscrapers, was afraid of heights.

• Comparing injuries per mile, travel by horseback is over 70 times more dangerous than by car.

• 91 percent of rocket mission failures occur within five minutes of takeoff or landing.

• A recent study by Proctor & Gamble found that 62 percent of people use more shampoo than necessary to clean their hair. 18 percent use twice what they actually need.

• Eight out of nine Americans have made at least one purchase at a Wal*Mart retail store.

• For nearly a decade, acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick greeted people with the question "how you doodle doing?" Friends would often respond "yankee doodle dandy."

• On average, tomatoes picked in the dark will stay ripe for two days longer than those picked during daylight hours.