An Echo of "Cactus Spines": Where I Stand -- And a Little More

This piece of mine brings to mind a column I used to write in my early and mid 20s from Tucson and Tempe and occasionally when I was back home in Flagstaff -- strongly human rights and pro-Labor and certainly civil libertarian -- called "Cactus Spines." Its primary home was the Industrial Worker, the weekly and then fortnightly IWW newspaper which sought and published lively and interesting views and doings from the grassroots and thus  had a respectable circulation -- even in those dismal 1950s. Pieces of my thinking -- my "spines" -- often got around very nicely into other appropriate print journals, and all of this launched my public writing career which continues to this moment.

Not long ago, I had occasion to write a very brief and direct and trenchant statement of Where I Stand. (It's not a "martyr's cry" and it has a specific goal.) That follows immediately -- and it's now placed, among other settings, on the front cover of our massive and well visited Lair of  Hunterbear website  www.hunterbear.org  -- and on the following pages therein:

Outlaw Trail   http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm

Witch Hunt Continues    http://www.hunterbear.org/witch_hunt_continuesthe_southern.htm

Several of the components --  certainly Bear Medicine and "things unseen" and then some very challenging experiences -- came quite early in my life, before I got out of the Army after a full hitch when I was turning 21.  The other pieces, grounded on more life experiences, began to come quickly after that -- and have continued.  Briefly, this is where I have always stood from very, very young adulthood onward:

My activist life as an independent social justice rebel is always challenging. In the course of things so far, I've survived tough beatings as a kid at school and severe ones in adulthood, a number of very serious efforts to kill me, jail for good causes, no end of smear campaigns and clumsy ridicule by ignorant and covert cowards, the lethal genetic no-cure disease Systemic Lupus, other hostile challenges.  But I remain a successful grassroots organizer, teacher, writer, and parent.  I have a very strong physique and a very strong mind and much support from Bear Medicine and other "things unseen".  And I always find encouragement in the comment given me by a grandmother when, at five years of age, I was near death from Scarlet Fever: "Only the good die young." I continue to hold, as I always have and always will, to the ideal of a full measure of libertarian, material, and spiritual well-being.  I always keep going, always keep fighting.  Hunter Bear, Summer 2012

On other fronts, we have had no rain of significance for months. It's been extremely hot since May.  Fire danger is about as high as it can get and fires are much in our region.  When thunderclouds gather and there are a few drops of rain, there is much dry lightning and more fires.  Vigilance is the word in these parts and a looming question is, "Will all of this begin to end when Fall (technically) comes?"  Other parts of the country and world, of course, have their own very heavy challenges -- some far worse than ours.

If you have reason to believe your computer is being monitored, have any sort of a warranty, and can point to a few suspicious indications, try writing to the home office involved and ask for a new  computer -- at no cost to you.  Things may improve right away -- though the bird-dogs will still be fluttering around in the shadows.  Reminds me of the telephone "problems" in many of our Movement situations over many decades.

In the Mountains of Eastern Idaho

Nialetch/Onen

Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See Witch Hunt Continues:  (Civil liberties, red-baiting, and
smear challenges faced by a successful organizer and
teacher -- with new comment, new photo:
http://www.hunterbear.org/witch_hunt_continuesthe_southern.htm

And see the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded and with more photos in June, 2012.)
 
For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me.  We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement of
1962-63.
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm