He says he knows that because he heard the same — that they would be killed — from at least two judges in his cases regarding his torture, who would not admit certain evidence into the case. Once on an elevator one of those judges told Keith and his attorney, "I wish I could have done something."
Keith lives in the mountains near Taos. "At the base." One of his neighbors is Donald Rumsfeld.
"Isn't that wild? A year and a half ago I was homeless."
And his bicycle? It's Julia Roberts' old bike. She lives across the road from Keith.
Keith notes that Taos is in the poorest county in New Mexico and that New Mexico has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation. There are about equal number of Pueblo Indians, Hispanics and Gringos here.
Keith's local Food Not Bombs group serves meals out of the Peace House every week. Food Not Bombs, with Keith driving one of the big buses, was also at Camp Casey with Cindy Sheehan outside President Bush's Crawford ranch.
Keith says the FBI infiltrated the group, trying to disrupt activities, move the protesters away from the main entrance to the ranch. But it didn't work, not with Keith McHenry and FNB on the scene.
Four days after Camp Casey closed, Hurricane Katrina hit. Keith and his Food Not Bombs buses and reinforcements from Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles were on the scene ASAP.
"FEMA and the Red Cross did not show up," Keith says.
So Food Not Bombs was the helping hands of Americans at the Katrina debacle.
Keith McHenry is only 50 years old. He has done more with his time than twenty folks. May he have fifty more. Imagine what he would do with it. We need him.
This week he's taking a train to San Francisco to be at the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair. He has agreed to let us "Cost of Freedom" folks share his table. Keith is looking forward to the long train ride.
"I get two days to write," he says.
In two days Keith McHenry will probably write War and Peace II.
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March 18: Bisbee, Arizona
