🚀 go-pugleaf

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

                                                   BRUHA@vuffop.edu.hk

P.S. - I am trying to conceptualize an effective guerilla media campaign to promote
       this cause.  Ideas are welcome.  Collaboration is prayed.








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 newsgroups, except for the occasional 
newbie or someone not wise enough to read this FAQ - and they'd learn 
eventually.  I suggest the following course of action, in order of 
preference:
    1) Respond via e-mail.  Gently suggest that they take discussion to
       the discussion newsgroup.  Answer the question/request if you can.
       Suggest that they read this FAQ to get more information and to
       better understand pictures newsgroup etiquette.
    2) Follow-up only if you can answer the question/request, re-directing 
       your posting to the appropriate discussion newsgroup (edit the
       Newsgroups: line).  Suggest that they read this FAQ to get more 
       information and to better understa