 Ed Garren, traveler, thinker, writer. By Ryan Gierach. |
I always perk up when I hear "Florida" or "Miami", so I immediately responded to see if it was anyone I know. I worked in "Liberty City" in the early 1980s, and lived in the Haitian section for over a year (see "The Magic City") so it is all very familiar turf for me.
The faces and names revealed Haitian American and Latino American folks. People who don't know the "Islands" forget that they are all inhabited by folks of African descent, often connected to their west African heritage more than in the United States where we have vilified anything African for hundreds of years. The Haitians led the only successful slave revolt in the "New World" (why we blockaded Haiti for almost 100 years, making it the poorest nation on earth). Almost a third of the Haitians I knew could trace an African surname in their family.
The story oozed of the usual, "Watch out for the Boogie Man" elements that so permeate American history. We've always got to have an enemy, someone is out to get us, and in our collective ethos, it has usually been "dark" men from other countries. If the Africans had any sort of technology, we'd be at war with them, but we have the Arab/Muslims to distract us these days, so the Africans are sort of off the hook. This administration seems content to turn a blind eye as parts of sub Saharan Africa turns into a dust bowl (thanks to global warming) and hundreds of thousands of people starve to death or die of HIV. We're such a "Christian Nation" and George Bush is such a "man of faith."
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The story continued until it hit the concrete wall of entrapment. Turns out these young men, who couldn't even collectively hold up a 7/11, were organized, equipped and bankrolled by the U.S. Government by way of the planted FBI informant. It was the informant's idea and resources that moved their otherwise hopeless lives into the international spotlight.
 By Ed Garren |
And now, the story has vanished off the news. Whatever happens will be mentioned on back pages, like the well documented election fraud in 2000. It's "history", and we all know how much Americans learn from history.
All of this brought back memories for me of my early days in the 1970s when I was a GLBT and women's rights activist at the University of South Florida in Tampa. USF was a bit of a radical hotbed for all of its then short history. We had the largest anti-Viet Nam war activism in the southeast during the war, prompting the media to refer to us as "The Berkley of the South." In the late 1960s we had one of the first African American Studies departments in the nation, followed by one of the first Women's Studies Departments as well. Always at the cutting edge, my Alma Mater was an amazing place to be in the 60s and 70s.
I was highly visible in leadership of the GLBT student coalition, and for three years, every time I used my telephone (a private line), there would be clicks and other noises in the background, like a phone being picked up on a party line. Tampa was the first place in the world to have dial telephones (1915) and our switching equipment at the time was still the very old mechanical switching equipment which made it impossible to "switch" into a phone call without some noise on the line. Someone was listening to my phone calls, and it wasn't my neighbors.
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A group of Woman had formed the "Every Women's Center" as part of the student activities offerings at the University Center. The space, for women only, excluded men and was a catalyst for separatist politics and radical feminist ideas. The rest of the student body didn't seem to care.
 By Ed Garren |
Very soon after a strong separatist feminist appeared at the center. Kathy Freeperson, materialized out of the humid air. Her politics were extreme, unbending and she was angry and vocal about male privilege and power. She was everywhere on campus, including the obligatory minimum classes required to be a student. At one point, a group of sympathetic men decided to hold a work shop for men who wanted to understand feminism. Without any notice or warning, Kathy and her entourage crashed the event, shouting for two hours over the speaker, destroying the event, and leaving the men who organized it in tears. One of my friend's sobbed, "I thought she was my friend. She encouraged us to do this. Why did she come and trash it?"
And so it went. Another friend of mine, a woman in her late 50s, who had been dumped by her husband and left homeless and penniless became involved with the center. She had come from a long time union organizing Brooklyn Jewish background, so activism was in her blood. I knew Ruth, and her story, and how she had gotten her disability settlement to live off of after an accident at work. Having been seriously shafted by the male power structure, beginning with her wealthy doctor husband, she had a lot to say about how it affected the lives of women.
 By Ed Garren |
One evening, in the midst of a planning meeting, Kathy Freeperson flew into a rage, shouting and pointing at Ruth, "She's an FBI plant, sent here to spy on us!!" With this insisted declaration, she got the women to vote to permanently exclude Ruth from the center.
Within a year, Kathy and her anger had completely fragmented the "movement" at USF. The Women's center fell apart, and with it all the wonderful consciousness raising that went with it. The department survived and still thrives today, but the grass roots organization was destroyed by one woman, Kathy Freeperson, who vanished as mysteriously as she had appeared, a few months after the Women's center closed.
Toward the end of that year, one of the sympathetic men, who had been left sobbing after the event mentioned above had an interesting situation to share with me. Lee was the head lifeguard at USF at the time. He was tall, beautifully lanky, as handsome as Sam Elliott (from the movie "Lifeguard") and every straight woman and gay man was in lust for Lee. Not content to be just part of the audience, we had formed a close friendship, he was a very gentle spirit and a genuinely loving man.
One day he called me over to his place to discuss a problem he was having. He unfolded a two page letter, and read from it. The author declared undying love, nightly fantasies of making passionate love with him, wanting to have his babies and live happily ever after. The problem was that the author of the letter was Kathy Freeperson. He looked at me dumbfounded, "I thought she was a Lesbian."
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So this "Terrorist Group" in Miami and the strange twisted tale of the "informant" who was also the catalyst held no surprises for me. Our government does strange things in the name of national security, including spying and wiretapping, the list is endless.
If you fit into the box of "normal", you'll never encounter any of this. If you don't, it's as constant as chlorine in tap water, an unpleasant part of daily life, that exists to "protect" us, but from what?
A friend of mine, a controversial HIV researcher, says, "Anyone who doesn't think the government is messing with us also believes in the tooth fairy."
Don't look for a quarter under your pillow anytime soon. It's more likely to be a microphone.
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There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times - Molly Ivins.
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Edward "Ed" Garren, MFT, Edward "Ed" Garren, MFT is a Family Therapist, justice activist, former West Hollywood City Council candidate, writer and sojourner. He is originally from the Tampa Bay area of central Florida. Ed has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Frontiers news magazine, and other books, including "Out of My Mind", a pictorial memoir by Kris Nelson. He is currently working on a book about Addiction in America. More information about Ed can be found at: www.edgarren.us.
Ed Garren can be reached, even in the Red America’s wilds, at