Re: kirsten, you who watch as budgets are cut

Bruce Reilly (a.k.a Bruha) wrote:
> 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 succumbed 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.
>
The problem I see is that the people in a position of so called power have
far too much to lose, harvesting votes and preserving privilege is all that
matters to most (electable) politicians. The status quo exists because those
who do get to a position in which they might affect change have, by that
time, gained much and developed a lack of desire to relinquish their
privileges. Where they can maybe affect a real change from within the system
they are steered, by self preservation, towards the status quo. Those who
dare to speak out are rapidly marginalised. The only way is, as you say,
guerrilla tactics. Mass civil disobedience and subversive support which can
only be effectively achieved by convincing ever increasing sections of the
press (as is very slowly happening) that the war on drugs is what it
*really* is. Expose it properly as an utter failure by all measures, a
monumental tyrannical effort that is utterly futile at best, in reality,
counter productive and massively wasteful. This may then slowly start to
lift the psychosis which has gripped a huge section of the sleepy headed
population after decades of government propaganda, lies and demonisation.
The only people benefiting from WOsD are those directly involved in
supplying the illicit drug trade and those busily constructing the machinery
to fight against and fuel it. Everyone else is just paying the price of a
long since failed policy.