From Newsgroup: alt.society.civil-liberty


"Bruce Reilly (a.k.a Bruha)" <bruha@yrogli.edu.ua> wrote in message news:93992ef9.3c809c53@news.yrogli.edu.ua...

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

Reducing spending on socialized education and government-sponsored
health care isn't the same as reducing education and health care.
while you militarize a police force?

Bullet-proof vests, automatic weapons, helicopters, tanks, robots ...

God help any civilian who tried to protect himself with a bullet proof vest. Private ownership of bullet proof vests and similar armor is illegal
in many states.
It's one thing for a government to disarm its subjects. It's quite
another for a government to deny its subjects the right to buy the armor
they need to protect themselves against violence. Unlike use of a gun in
self defense, use of a bullet proof vest can never result in the death of
the assailant.
the

testosterone is oozing through the streets, more prisons,

More prisons means more crime. It's just that the crime takes place
inside steel cages, out of view, in a more politically convenient place.
longer sentences,
If a criminal already expects that conviction would put him away for several years, the criminal's expected marginal cost of a couple years on
top of that is pretty low. Many if not most felons who receive prison
sentences don't survive until the end of the sentence, and a felony
conviction makes a person pretty close to unemployable even if he does get
out.
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?

Unemployment would plummet if the minimum wage, government-mandated
racial discrimination, Social Security and Medicare taxes, nitty gritty regulations and paperwork, and other anti-employment government policies
were repealed. Of course, this would come to close to actually solving the problem. If unemployment were low, politicians wouldn't be able to make hay
out of inflationary short term stimulus packages and jobs programs that take jobs from some and give them to others.
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.

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