Dear Judges, Lawyers, Policemen, Guards, Counselors, Taxpayers, et. al.,
We are here. Like it or not, for good or bad, we are here. Who are we?
We are the
downtrodden and dispossesed, the self-torturing, the disenfranchised
convicts,
drug and alcohol addicts, the unemployed and unemployable. We are the
children of
poverty, financial and spiritual. We have and will have children of our
own,
grandchildren too. We are ex-cons, uninsured, homeless, of many colors
and speaking
many tongues. We are the enemy in what has become a domestic war against
ourselves.
And who are you? You who like the tough talk of Tough on Crime? You who
watch as
budgets are cut in education and health care while you militarize a police
force?
Bullet-proof vests, automatic weapons, helicopters, tanks, robots ... the
testosterone is oozing through the streets, more prisons, longer
sentences, tighten
the belt, spartan conditions, task forces, gang units, gun courts. And
what is there
to show for it? Unemployent stays low because half the population
oversees those
"out of the workforce", the dregs, the rabble, the enemy? Please tell me
there is a
deeper reason. Do you feel safer? More humane? More like a cohesive
society with a
shared sense of purpose, who can identify Us and Them? Do you live in a
gated
community or gentrified neighborhood? By the way, have you read the
Declaration of
Independence and US Constitution - or do you only know the first phrases?
It's about time we got together. Please know that I have yet to meet a
convict who
wants their child to be a thief, an addict, a dealer, a prostitute, or a
violent
individual. Most of us still have hope for ourselves even when stuck in
the darkest
dilemmas, ruts and catch-22s. Most of us believe in crafting laws and
instilling
order. Many of us have burrowed beneath the surface to find a spiritual
sense of
being, an understanding force at least as powerful as those we suc***bed
to, and many
of use wouldn't escape if you opened the front door. Did you know that
approximately
10 million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, on parole or
once were in
those categories? Each of those 10 million have families, friends,
neighbors ... and
so closer and closer does the We interface with the You. Don't you think
it's time we
talked?
Are you ready? Can you accept that the road we are travelling points
toward a grim
and painful future? Do you have the heart to face monumental failures
while bravely
struggling beyond where we are now? I know that some of you are, and that
some of us
are, and this is what gives me hope. You need our insights just as we
need your
structure. It is never over, especially when a real solution, a real
treatment for
our sickness, is yet to begin.
In Solidarity,
Bruce Reilly (a.k.a
Bruha)
P.O.Box 8274
Cranston, RI 02920 USA
P.S. - I am trying to conceptualize an effective guerilla media campaign
to promote
this cause. Ideas are welcome. Collaboration is prayed.
are just trying to pull
someone's chain - and they are usually pretty successful (I can't tell
you how many megabytes of responses I've seen to just one sentence of
crap). Another 3% of the time, someone has left themselves logged in and
is having a "joke" played on them by a "friend". The other 2% of the
time,
they actually believe what they are saying. In this case, do you really
think that they care that you find what they say offensive? Especially in
the last case, silence does more to thwart their behavior than anything
else. Refusing to even acknowledge someone usually damages them more than
you could possibly hope to do by responding to them in any way. Don't
even
waste the time, effort, and money (after all, someone *is* paying for what
you say, somewhere) to follow up.
In the case of posting a discussion to a pictures newsgroup, probably the
*worst* thing you can possibly do is follow-up to the offending posting
and yourself violate the same rule! After all, what good are you doing
by complaining about someone violating a rule you ignore yourself? If you
really *must* follow-up to this type of posting, make sure and edit the
Newsgroups: line so that your post is re-directed to the discussion
newsgroup. Another technique you might try is just ignoring the post -
if enough people did this, it's entirely likely that there would soon be
no discussion at all in the pictures newsg
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