Not innocent nor responsible

If I am killed in an attack in Rome, publish this.

I am not innocent nor am I responsible. I did my best to act before it was too late. I smiled to as many people as I could.

I read and read, from Al Jazeera to Ha'Aretz, from CNN to BBC, from La Prensa Libre to El Mercurio.

I cared, perhaps a little too much. Courage was in my veins, blood passionately storming in and out of my heart. The heart of a peaceful warrior. The soul of a undying social optimist.

Post Mortem:
I saw a kaleidoscope of colors, so many different patterns and possibilities -- endless. I also saw violence within people around me -- in the local store owner and in the woman in the bank. I saw the desperation, the slavery to the economy, the gray-eyed over-working human beings on the street.

And I communicated with all I came into contact with. I spoke with my soul and took it personally. The injustices, the terrorist attacks, dictatorships, assassinations, wars – as if I was personally part of it – which we are – as a global economy – globalized, “civilized” people.

To change.
Courage is required to change, to open up to new ideas, and to listen. I listened to farmers in Bethel describe their fears of dam construction on their land. I listened to a Zapoteco woman in Oaxaca recount how she suffered brutal treatment and imprisonment by the Mexican police. I listened to a Santiaguino man in La Victoria describe his daily struggle to avoid an encounter with the military presence in his poor urban community.

So I went to the InterAmerican Development Bank in Washington D.C. to decipher the hydroelectic dams they are funding to be built in Bethel, Guatemala and along the Usumacinta River [as part of the Plan Puebla Panama infrastructure project].

They denied involvement.

So I wrote to Senator Diane Feinstein of California expressing my opposition to CAFTA and my reasons why. The next week, she voted Yay. I again wrote back "why?" She sent me back a response.

"We must protect US interest."

I'm sick of being discouraged by others and I'm sick of being afraid of being wrong in my thoughts & writings. The other day, in a discussion with a high-ranking Italian officer, he said "you must choose one thing and stick to it." I whole heartedly disagree, because I already did that. I spent four years in a recording studio in Hollywood as a recording engineer in a "successful" western career.

And now I'm gone. And the money I earned? Put towards exploring -- towards eight months of discovery in Latin America. It was smooth, cheap, tough, monumental. It transformed me.

My life was interesting due to my power to engage and amuse myself, and sometimes others.

Right. And now I am no longer amongst the living. Perhaps I was chosen because I was a social optimist. But I don't think so.

I would have liked to have travelled to Iraq, to have met with Al-Qaeda, to have visited Palestine, to have met the Dalai Lama and the Pope and Subcommandante Marcos, to have discussed with Pinochet the motive behind the massacres, to have returned to the InterAmerican Development Bank and demanded an answer to who's funding the dams on the River Usumacinta.

But I didn't.

I wasn't afraid. I was not afraid. I felt the need to express what I had seen, where I had been, what realities I had encountered. To share our collective experiences with each other. People that may have never known about one another. Manuel, a Mapuche from Temuco, Chile meet Xavier from Breton, France. Marc from Catalonia meet Rene, a Quiche from Santa Elena, Guatemala. Esther from Israel meet Lahoucine from Morocco.

Why was I fighting? Who was I fighting? The powers that be kept telling to me “sit back, relax, enjoy – be the youth of today – be happy, be free -- don't worry about the other people -- they'll be fine."

Fuck that.

I despised the CIA and all back-stabbing secret covert organizations. I cannot believe that the Italian police actually dressed up in black as extremist anarchists and did most of the destruction during the G8 conference in Genova, Italy 2001.

I worked alone -- very alone. Not even ties with any NGO, political party, casual group of like-minded individuals, NOTHING AND NO ONE. Alone.

So what the hell message was I trying to convey?