Kurt Jackson, the one who kidnapped me, has outdone himself. This...he's not a person, this thing...captured and interrogated several poleepkwan refugees and finally killed them after extracting the information it needed. What it found is not important--what matters is that innocents were mindlessly killed; not just that, but innocent children! Nobody should be killed out of malice or ill will, but children are our future...by killing them, MNU deprives us of a chance to move on and change. It's awful...this should never happen to any race. No parent or friend should have to watch a young life torn away from the earth.
Many of my friends want to see this pawn of MNU dead, but would it help? I can't condone violence--I can't, it's in my nature, but I'll try to reason this out. Killing him would make him a martyr at the worst, another excuse to crack down on the poleepkwa in one of the best cases. Not only that...would it be adequate punishment? A quick death to pay for the deaths of many? No. No, he has to be kept alive, if only as a maimed,scarred, withered shadow of a person, to experience the suffering he's brought on us all.

Hope, by Olo Lamna

The time has gone and passed us by;
the clock has struck the hour.
We've yet to break these cursed chains
and see our freedom flower.
Many before us have closed their eyes
and left us all behind,
and many more will do this still--
it's a quality of the times.
But while our breath still sobs from lips
and cries of protest ring,
and the bullets flow, from guns and clips
to mangle everything;
As long as we have life in us
we'll fight, at any cost
for we are not beaten, we are not broken--
and the battle has not been lost.

Freedom, by Helen Hunt Jackson

What freeman knoweth freedom? Never he
Whose father's father through long lives have reigned
O'er kingdoms which mere heritage attained.
Though from his youth to age he roam as free
As winds, he dreams not freedom's ecstacy.
But he whose birth was in a nation chained
For centuries; where every breath was drained
From breasts of slaves which knew not there could be
Such thing as freedom,--he beholds the light
Burst, dazzling; though the glory blind his sight
He knows the joy. Fools laugh because he reels
And weilds confusedly his infant will;
The wise man watching with a heart that feels
Says: "Cure for freedom's harms is freedom still."

Reading.

We need to teach our children how to read and write--not only in our own language, but in others. So much knowledge can be found in books if only one can read them...for most of my life the only sources of knowledge I had were abandoned books that I would find, and (please let me not be vain in saying this) I'm intelligent today. That's not it though. Books can be teachers, but they offer something else; other viewpoints. With a good book and a good mind you can see through other's eyes and understand the world as they do. This may be a sentimental thing to say, but I believe it to be true, and I believe that we poleepkwa have plenty of good minds. The only problem is supplying them with books and works of literature.
I can guess what some of you may be thinking...'why read works by humans?' 'Why should we see the world as they do?' 'How would they know what we have suffered through?' and many variations of this. I understand that MNU tries to suppress our minds by feeding us human ways and forbidding us from learning of our own culture. This cannot go on...we have to know who and what we are and where we came from; that's a right that everyone should, could and must have. But being proud of your people shouldn't mean you deny the knowledge of other cultures--that's the viewpoint MNU seems to have, and it's thinking like that that has gotten us here in the first place.
By reading and learning of others you can understand them; by understanding them you can make peace with them; by making peace with them you prevent war and bloodshed. Too many have died for us to not jump at the chance to make things right.
We need to read and write in as many languages as we can--human, poleepkwa, or others alike. Reading may not come easily to everyone, but it must be done. The cries of the poleepkwa for freedom can be found not only on our lips, but in the written words of the humans that suffered before us. We are not the only ones who've been through this, and we can learn from them.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/thematic_poems/freedom_poems.html
http://www.poemhunter.com/poems/freedom/
http://www.poets.org/
http://www.everypoet.net/poetry/

Memories, or lack of them.

Have you ever been so afraid that you can feel the apprehension resting inside you like a chuck of lead? There's a sinker lodged right here in between my plates--there's got to be a hook in here, even though I can't feel it--and the line stretches out to somewhere I can't see, the thin wire getting fainter and fainter as I look back into my memory until it fades away totally. I don't know who's got the other end, but something tells me I can't just ignore this one...
Please don't ask me what happened, because I can't remember. My last memories are of carving pumpkins with Jack and Jill; the thin blade sinking into the orange flesh of the fruit and the appreciative 'eww' and 'yeech' noises coming from the pair of kids...putting the two jack o'lanterns out in front of the house, telling the story behind the tradition and snapping a few photos. I think I uploaded them after, but I can't be sure. The recollections get hazy and foggy, all conversations and actions slurring together into vague ideas: I think I went to work, so that means if I did then I played this music, did those kind of things. Just generalisations and mountains of circular logic. That's it...
... and then I'm waking up by the side of a road, vomiting into wet grass and dimly realising three things: one, I'm sleepy, two, I don't know where I am, and three--I'm scared. Not dread or apprehension, but hot animal terror--the kind that makes you want to run away or strike out at the first thing that moves in your sight. I can't adequately describe it in words, because I think I was beyond words...it's a miracle I could still read and type when I noticed the laptop computer. Whoever took me left it with me; I logged onto facebook and the rest is history.
I'm so glad I'm home and this is over, but is it over? This 'Kurt' did what he did for a reason; what was it?

In learning about different human societies, I've come across some very interesting points. The similarities between the ancient 'Varna system' in India and the (supposed) structure of our civilization's society are striking. The religious aspect may have been replaced with a biological one (for more on this idea, read the "poleepkwa phenotype paradox" post from a few days ago), but overall the two may be very alike. Here's an overview of the classic Varna/"caste" system, with possible parallels in poleepkwan society:
Brahmin: top caste--priests, scholars, teachers; lived in the best environment and had the (overall) best education for the time. Smallest percentage of population. *This could be the niche the 'queen' fills, making most decisions and passing laws.*
Kshatriyas: kings and warriors; defenders of the different 'kingdoms/districts'. 2nd-smallest percentage of population. *'Engineers' could fit in here, having higher standards of intelligence then the other classes but still subject to the queen's decisions. Presumably the ones who took care of the ship.*
Vaishyas: farmers, traders, artisans; grew and maintained food supplies and bartered goods with other castes. Association with a vaishya was not viewed as such a deplorable thing, but higher castes still spoke with them only when necessary. 2nd-largest percentage of population. *
Shudras: slaves, peasant farmers; the general 'worker class'. They took up the largest percentage of the overall population and were the least educated. *'Guards' and the like, who acted as 'citizen soldiers' and acted when the higher 'classes couldn't*
Another caste, the Untouchables, lived separately from all other castes and were the lowest of the low. Their jobs usually included tanning, cleaning trash and waste from the streets, and cremating the dead. To associate with an untouchable in any way was viewed as a crime. *I have not been able to think of nor hypothesize of an equivalent class in poleepkwan society. I personally hope we're above treating our fellow brethren this way.*
Each city or settlement was divided into 'districts' which were planned and deliberately designed to keep the different classes separate. *Perhaps a single ship acted as a settlement, with the 'command module' being the places where the queen and engineers lived and worked. The area where MNU originally cut in could be where the 'worker class' lived, but as the leaders had died by that time it really can't be proved.*
*Another interesting note to make was that the original varna system was based on skin color: lighter-skinned people at the top, darker-skinned ones at the bottom. It seems to be that the majority of us (the 'worker class') are dark-colored, without the markings or coloration of the 'guard' and higher castes that I've heard about.
**For more reading, I've included reference sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system

Don't worry...about a thing...
'cuz every little thing gonna be alright.
Sure. Bob Marley was right about a lot of things, but when it comes to that, he was sadly mistaken. Things don't always turn out alright, even when you do worry. You can't just roll with the punches all the time...sooner or later you'll get slap-happy and forget why you're doing this in the first place, and that's the last thing we need: aimlessness.