Sorry, I am so late in writing this email to all of you. I have been kind of overwhelmed with media calls, reading emails and catching up on sleep.

When I set out for Australia last May, I had thought I might have a memorable trip, maybe a little snorkling, learn to surf and maybe network with some activists and do some skillshares. And then this happened. Never in my wildest dreams.

This has been a combination of the most surreal yet inspiring week of my life. I am completely overwhelmed and blown away by all of the events and even more so by the response of all of you and lots of other people in your country and around the world.

I am humbled by the support campaign all of you pulled together. I hear new stories from different folks everyday about things that happened last week and see them on Indymedia and Aussie media. I just don't know what to say other than to say how thankful and grateful I am for all of you.

There was some time in my cell where the updates of what was going on outside kept me going and took a lot of stress off me. Knowing that a lot of people were out working to get me out as soon as possible helped a lot. I also appreciate everyone who communicated with and kept my family and friends in the US appraised.

I have put on this list the emails of most of the people I had been in contact with before my detention that I have heard were out in the streets, on the phone or connecting with someone somewhere doing something, but I realise, as Iain wrote me in jail, that there are people who worked on this that I don't know and may never know and I hope you'll forward this along to them.

I guess more will be going on for a while and I hope we can use this as a wedge to cause some difficulty for some fucked up government policies as well as create some good cross-movement (and international) solidarity.

Scott Parkin
Houston, Texas

(Reprinted from the Green Left Weekly