WALTER EDMUND BOND (37096013)
6/4/2013 8:25:09 AM
Solidarity And Liberation

From behind fences and razor wire, from behind concrete walls and steel bars, from deep within the United States Penitentiary of Marion, from the CMU unit, from this counter-terrorism prison unit for political prisoners, I send revolutionary greetings to all Straight Edge, Vegan and Anarchist Comrades where ever you may be. From the confines of this dungeon of gray concrete I send a message of solidarity and hope to all the sisters and brothers worldwide, in hopes that all our causes for liberation will one day coalesce into the realization of Total Liberation. Just as the rivers all lead to the ocean, so too will the movements for Human, Earth and Animal Liberation pool into a far larger initiative.

Today’s world is one of apathy and lethargy; that is to say, we live in a society that breeds defeatism and wants us to feel disempowered by bureaucracy, consumerism and disinformation., while simultaneously distracting us with the bread and circus of media, entertainment, addictions and neurosis. Many are the people that sabotage their own efforts at activism with negativity, over-sensitivity and fear. The problem is not one of ‘the activist mentality’ as much as it is a problem of legislation over Liberation.

In other words, you don’t attain true freedom from tyranny and injustice on behalf of yourself or others by begging those institutions that are the cause of injustice and oppression. And we don’t advance the cause of Liberation by picking each other apart. Being ready to blackball and character assassinate those that have trivial differences in theoretics or ideology is divisive. The true bane of our existences are the state, government, prison, police and corporations that kill, enslave and corrupt.

Entirely too much time and energy is spent in our movements disagreeing with each other over minutia and tactics. The world is neither black nor white — it’s black and white and every shade in between. And just as oppression and slavery are hydra-headed and multi-formed so then are our approaches at combating them. Everyone doesn’t have to agree or follow the same path to activism.,but everyone must do something other than preaching to the choir or bickering over the internet like impish little tyrants. Because your outlets fail you when they are pointed internally instead of externally.

The worship of aesthetic over action is disgusting and petty! By action I mean real world work. By aesthetic, I mean all the pomp, posturing and fashion facade we deem important when they are absolutely not.

In Animal Rights we hear of book authors and food producers as being ‘heroes for the Animals.’ Really? How about the women all over the world that spend every penny they have taking Animals into their care, sacrificing of themselves at every turn to make one more critter’s life safe and secure? You don’t hear too much about them at the conventions, but I can assure you they are numerous and they are doing more for Animals than a thousand podium pushers!

What about the people of ‘food not bombs’ that feed the homeless vegan and vegetarian meals all over the Earth at the risk of being arrested? These are my heroes, the people that have their feet firmly on the ground and work for a positive change in this world.

Principles over personalities must take precedence over the cults of personality. If you work or fight against racism, sexism and gender inequality, if you work or fight for gay rights, animal rights, trans empowerment, prison abolition, Earth Liberation, anarchism, and equality for all that live (and I mean work or fight for it, not make a ton of money bilking the public with bullshit charities), then you should be proud to do such work!

It’s an honor to sacrifice on behalf of those who are abused, downtrodden and exploited. IT’S AN HONOR!

No one should be put on a pedestal — not me, not you, not anyone. What we are a part of is special. What we fight for is heroic. The struggle towards Total Liberation is amazing, NOT the individuals involved.

Individuals can be jailed, killed or fickle to the point of abandoning the cause when the going gets tough, but the movement for Total Liberation cannot be stopped. Even when co-opted and sold out, it enters the stream of consciousness and infects the masses that sit on their asses, little by little.

Liberation is not a game. It’s not a worldview or a school of thought.

Liberation is about life and the quality of it. It’s about lifting that invisible weight of oppression that you have been saddled with since birth off your chest, so that you can help lift the shackles off of the rest of the world.

Liberation is about courage and lion heartedness. It’s the defiance that looks at authority and doesn’t just abhor it but resists it.

Liberation is when you would rather be dead than in bondage.

Liberation is when another’s exploitation and oppression becomes as unacceptable as your own.

And Liberation is going to win!

I don’t have faith in god, and I don’t have faith in human goodness, but I have faith that the struggles for Earth, Animals and Anarchy will come to fruition. I see their progress in all spheres of life, and I feel that no matter how tyrannical state or corporate authority becomes, that truly collective freedom is simply too irresistible and dynamic to ever be smashed by their regimes!

Whether any of us living will witness these radical changes, in total, and in our lifetimes, is irrelevant to the fact that having been party to these struggles lives on after us.

For Liberation,

Walter Bond

Walter Bond is in prison until the year 2021 and cannot use Facebook or the internet. The website supportwalter.org and the Walter Bond Facebook page were set up to support him.

Walter Bond is in need of donations to enable him to buy vegan items from the prison commissary. For more info on sending funds to him in prison, please visit this page on the support site:

https://supportwalter.org/SW/index.php/donate/

Here is his mailing address (he can only reply to letters that include a full name and address):

Walter Bond
37096-013
USP Marion CMU
PO Box 1000
Marion IL 62959