The
American Dream Book Tour & Protest Across America
by Mike
Palecek
SHELDON,
IOWA — Hello all.
I am home
this weekend for Easter, watching the Red Sox and Rangers on Sunday Night baseball.
I was in
Lincoln, Omaha, Wayne, Sioux Falls since writing last.
Lots of
memories in Omaha. Ruth and I lived there during much of the 1980s in a resistance community in north
Omaha called Greenfields, named after
the anti-war song The Greenfields of France.
“Oh
how do ya do young Willie McBride. Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside.”
I think I
carved that into my cell in Terre Haute Penitentiary while I was there for three weeks waiting transfer
to El Reno, Leavenworth and La Tuna.
Terre
Haute. “Dog-ass Terre Haute” somebody on the prison bus said as we pulled within sight. We had come from
Chicago and stopped at Marion earlier
in the day to pick up a couple of guys bound for Leavenworth after years in lockdown at Marion. Or maybe
Marion came after Terre Haute. Not sure
that I remember anymore. 'Scuse me.
You get out
of the prison bus and you walk up toward the big brick penitentiary, through the guard towers and
the shotguns and rifles. And you know
that none of it has to do with right and wrong. It has to do with we are bigger than you and we could
give a shit about thou shall not kill
and the poor and any of that shit and we will kill you if you get out of line and run toward home and your
son and your wife.
And 'scuse
me, but that walk up from the prison bus to the big brick walls of Terre Haute Penitentiary is where I
formed a good deal of my opinion of
America. Even days and weeks and years spent in hot and cold classrooms, wooden desks and Formica desks,
listening to Sister Anita and, Lucy,
Monique and Luellan, studying American History and religion and English and hygiene, from impressive,
hard cover textbooks made in Texas
could not compare.
The guns
were pointed at me. My son was sitting at home in Nebraska looking out the window wondering when I was
coming home.
America. It
is big and it will kill you. It is mean. It is rich. It is obnoxious. It is beautiful. It has people
capable of stopping their car in rush
hour traffic to move a baby bird to the grass, or of looking the other way for forty years while people
suffer and suffer and finally die.
America. A
big, red brick walled country.
But, shit,
the people who will stop in traffic for the little bird are far and few between, while the ones who will
take money to build big, red brick
walls are lined up from here to the hardware store.
Anyway …
Omaha.
Dog-ass
Omaha.
I went to
jail for the first time in Omaha, along with the second, third, fourth and fifth times.
I went to
seminary from Omaha, too.
Took the
bus, Greyhound, from Norfolk, to meet the bishop. Then up to Saint Paul where I met Fr. Daniel Berrigan,
a priest who said there were better
things than becoming a priest, such as working for peace and for justice and the poor, and I believed
him. I still do.
During the
summer I got my teeth cleaned back home in Norfolk, and I guess I liked clean teeth, so I ended up
marrying the dental hygienist. We moved
to Omaha and moved into Greenfields.
I wrote a
letter to Archbishop Daniel Sheehan asking him what he thought of Offutt Air Force Base, home of
the Strategic Air Command, which was
responsible for the targeting of all of America's nuclear weapons. Sheehan said the targeting was cool
with him and the Catholic Church.
Threatening all those people with murder was cool, spending all those billions of dollars on weapons and not
on the poor people of north Omaha was
cool with the bishop and the Catholic Church.
So I made
up my own little sign.
It said
“The Omaha Catholic Church Supports SAC — Why?”
I picketed
outside the bishop's offices on Dodge Street, inside his offices, outside the Masses of the jillion
Catholic churches in Omaha. I went on a
hunger strike once inside Douglas County Correctional Center to try to get the bishop to say “thou shall not
kill.” I once stood in front of
the congregation at St. Cecilia's Cathedral while the bishop gave his Easter homily, holding my sign.
I once took
sanctuary inside the Cathedral, went there instead of going to federal court for an Offutt protest,
again asking, demanding that the bishop
say “thou shall not kill.” He raised a strong chin, firmly placed his red bishop's cap on his head and
smoothed his gold-laced, ankle-length
robes and said, of course, he would not.
I decided
not to let the FBI take me — they were all around the church — one was posing as a stations-of-the-cross
sayer inside the church.
While a
friend held a diversionary press conference on the front steps I pulled a sweatshirt hood over my head and
threw a black garbage sack over my back
and walked out a side door, took out the Cathedral garbage, and hopped into the car my wife had left for me in the parking lot.
Ruth and I
and our young son were on the run from the FBI for about two nerve-wracking weeks, staying in the cabin
of a sympathetic priest, at the mother
house of a local religious order, in a friend's apartment, out at her family's farm in South Dakota.
Then I
ended up giving myself up at a press conference, again at the Chancery, the bishop's office, after which
my wife and son went home alone. I went
to Douglas County Correctional Center, where I went crazy, insane, clinically depressed, from missing my young son
… and the bishop … he went golfing.
Dog-ass
Catholic Church.
It is big
and it will kill you.
_______________________________________
Recent news
of the tour
Sioux Falls
Argus Leader: by Robert Morast
Omaha radio
station – KIOS – interview – Community Forum with host A'Jamal Byndon
Go here after program airs on Monday, 1030 am., 4/9/7 and
program should be archived.
Omaha
Reader: by Avishay Artsy
Novelist
Mike Palecek will be appearing next in Spirit Lake, Iowa [April 10], Rochester, MN [April 12], Des
Moines [Grinnell College, April 13;
Ritual Cafe, April 14], Iowa City [Public Library, April 15], Minneapolis [Magers & Quinn, April 16;
Magus Books, April 17], Duluth [College
of St. Scholastica, Duluth Catholic Worker, April 18], Winnipeg [Mondragon Bookstore, April 19].
Palecek is
a former federal prisoner for peace, small-town reporter and was the Iowa Democratic Party nominee for
the U.S. House of Representatives, 5th
District, in the 2000 election. He received 67,000 votes on a pro-immigration, anti-military, anti-prison platform.
He has
written several novels. [www.iowapeace.com]
On the tour
he is talking about his newest, “The American Dream,” and calling for the country to impeach President
George W. Bush, investigate the Bush
administration's involvement in 9-11, and the
prosecution of Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Donald Rumsfeld
for war crimes against humanity.
Contact
Mike: mpalecek@rconnect.com.
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