A Worthy Pilgrimage

A vacation side trip into our recent past

Noem Island is 17-miles from Florida

We got there midday. It was here between 2026 and 2032 that political prisoners under the Trump Vance Regime were incarcerated in a medieval looking stone prison that was built by the Spanish three centuries ago to hold pirates, rebels and assorted criminals sailing the main in search of plunder.

Our guide explained that “Once martial law was declared anyone who offended the Trump-Vance regime could be snatched off the streets and held here under a range of thin legal pretexts. Citizens such as political organizers, activists, party leaders, elected officials, journalists, TV commentators, pod-casters, and regime critics found their way to this offshore prison. Even a few Democratic Mayors and Senators ended up flown here in cuffs. Some remained here for the entire 6-years that it operated as a concentration camp for political prisoners.”

We stepped off the wharf and our sea legs readjusted to land. First thing we saw were the foreboding shoreline cliffs around the old massive prison which dominated the small Caribbean island. On the path up to the stone stockade we saw the deep quarry where the political prisoners chipped stones into bricks that were spray painted gold, autographed by the old devil himself and sold to tourists at the White House.

Our guide led us through the huge swinging doors of the 300-year old penal institution, into the yard, barren save for the gallows displaying three nooses and down into the central “pods” where the prisoners were held, interrogated, tortured, neglected and often died.

A typical cell

“Here is a typical cell,” said our guide as he swung open an iron cell door. “A total of 17, 892 prisoners were held here in small cramped cells like these, over the six-years it functioned, oftentimes at least three to a cell. Inside these stone walls the inmates experienced disease, hurricanes, miserable heat and unbearable humidity.”

We saw prison sections where Secularists, Free Thinkers, ACLU lawyers, Planned Parenthood Workers, March organizers and Anti-Fa members had been held. “Many are still unaccounted for and their bones are most likely laying beneath the Atlantic at the bottom of the cliffs.”

We watched a touring church group light votive candles in the room where the “Religious Martyrs” were held. We eavesdropped on the chanting priest. “The ones who protected immigrants. The ones who loved the homeless. The ones who spoke up on behalf of women and minorities seeking justice. And the ones who criticized their own church, temple and mosque leadership when it focused more on selling magic, and reaping gold, than serving God's children. Amen.”

Timeless graffiti

My favorite cell was cell 27. Our guide noted, “Often we have no record of who was incarcerated in many of these cells. People could just be deleted and cease to exist. But not this notorious prisoner. See his bold celebratory graffiti on the wall?”

“Down with fascism.”

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.”

“For Democracy.”

“The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed with the Blood of Tyrants.”

Before our guide could say it aloud my wife said, “-the Blood of Tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”

“Yes, that quote’s from Thomas Jefferson. These prisoners, branded as terrorists were revolutionary threats to the Trump-Vance Regime and were above all, patriots. The prisoner who left this graffiti in this cell was said to have been allowed to marry his partner, who was imprisoned in the women’s section, before he was taken into the yard and hung for treason.”

“What was his crime?” I asked.

“Attempted murder of a member of the Trump-Vance Regime. His assassination attempt had failed.”

Mystery portrait by a “deleted” anti-regime activist

In another cell there was a modern looking chalk portrait of a regal woman holding liberty’s torch. A determined female face stretched from the floor to the ceiling of the cell, opposite the wall where the bunk beds hung, sunlight shining through the small cell window directly on the image. The resplendent likeness shimmered, particularly her crudely drawn halo, sketched in gold chalk as if by a child. “Portrait of an Unknown Pro-Democracy Activist,” said the tour guide who added, ”We are restoring our nation’s history truth by truth. Where and when we can.”

The guide walked us past a stone wall display of thousands of mug shots of some of those who were held here. “When the prison closed back in 2032 the few surviving inmates were transferred to medical facilities and reunited with their families.”

The liberation aftermath

The guide paused in front of a prison guard’s uniform. “Over a period of weeks eventually every member of the staff were arrested and prosecuted for a range of crimes. The majority are serving life sentences at a number of Federal Maximum Security Prisons devoted strictly to holding thousands and thousands of criminals associated with the corrupt Trump/Vance regime.”

“After the Truth and Reconciliation hearings were held this prison was closed. Following the closure the local community on Noem Island faced economic hardship without a market for salt blocks painted gold in the Post Trump Era. A few of the island residents tried to repurpose the abandoned site as a movie set without success. Some called the place cursed.

Within a year of it closing the Democratic Constitutional Republic of the United States of America took over the management of the site and declared it a National Monument. Bodies were exhumed from the mass grave west of the prison and their remains identified.

For groups like our it stirs our hearts to meet the martyrs of our democratic revolution. The early resistance. The hunger strikers who died for freedom to inspire others to selfless sacrifice. And then it cascaded. The people filled every jail to bursting.

“And here is the last cell on our tour. It’s here at the end of the pod. The keepers of this museum keep this cell’s doors wide open and the interior beautifully spotlit so you can not miss the graffiti scratched beneath the barred broken window beyond the door to the tiny cell.

“You can’t hold us all.”