[Ppnews] Leonard Peltier - birthday thanks to his supporters

[Political Prisoner News]

<http://files.mail-list.com/m/freepeltiernow/Peltier-Birthday-12_PELTIER-BIRTHDAY-12.pdf>

Greetings my relatives and supporters, and, we are all truly relatives 
in one way or another,

First of all I want to thank all of you for remembering me on this day, 
as many of you probably
suspect and some know, that when you are in prison you have a lot of 
time to reflect and think on how things are, and how they were and 
perhaps how they should be. Having said that, I was
thinking about how on your birthday the person who really should be 
celebrated is your Mother, for she carried you for 9 months and went 
through the pain of giving you life. So truly a person’s birthday should 
be another Mother’s Day. So if a woman has four children, she should 
have four Mothers days. All too often people talk about the exploits of 
men and what they said and what they did, and all too often give no 
thought to the women who gave them life, the women who supported them, 
the women who cared for the children while they did what they did, who 
kept the home fires burning and families fed. There is a certain 
adrenaline flow that takes place when you are involved in movement 
activities and trying to make a difference, a satisfaction in doing the 
right thing and sometimes being successful in righting what’s wrong.

However, the really true heroes in this are the women who do day after 
day what needs to be done, and give their children the values they need 
to stand up for what is right in this world.

Again, I want to thank you, you can’t imagine how much it means to a 
prisoner to be remembered.

When a person goes to prison their immediate family, relatives and 
friends are attentive on some level but as time goes on, it’s almost as 
if you had died and you are only remembered on certain occasions.There 
are a multitude of people in prison that they have forgotten about that 
were movement people, people who stood up for the earth, the animals, 
nature, water rights, human rights, civil rights, all of those things, 
and have been forgotten. They are only remembered by a few. I am really 
truly thankful and I have to be thankful to all of the movement people 
throughout the world who have recognized the injustice that has been 
perpetuated against Indigenous people.

And I am fortunate that there are those who have found me to be evidence 
of that injustice because of all of the legal recognition from the 
courts of the improper proceedings that took place.

My case as many of you well know probably has more recognition of 
improprieties than most, and I recognize that I am an ordinary man who 
has been cast into an extraordinary situation, and have served as legal 
evidence of their wrongdoing. Forgive me if I am getting too wordy and 
singing to the choir, but I have probably had too much time to think. I 
do want to encourage all of you to keep standing up for what is right to 
keep trying to right what is wrong, and I want you to know there are 
those who appreciate what you do, and oftentimes you may find yourself 
the only one
standing up. And more often than not, whether you realized it or not, it 
was your Mother that directly or indirectly gave you that strength, that 
woman you should celebrate on your birthday. I
encourage all of you to have fun, enjoy your freedom, enjoy your life 
and have some cake and ice cream, or pemmican, or hotdogs or dog stew 
for me. And remember when you stand up, wherever you are, I’ll be 
standing with you even though it’s some distant place.

In closing again I want you to enjoy and know that I am thinking of you 
and appreciative and may the Great Spirit Bless you with all you need 
and enough to share with others.

I’ll close for now, got some thinking to do, Ayee.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Doksha Leonard Peltier
-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org