By Just A Guy
Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His reports run twice a week.
I wasn’t going to write anything for today, but I realized after a conversation with someone earlier in the day, and one this afternoon with Tim, that I had an apology to make.
You see, I’ve been guilty over the last month or so of the very thing I am constantly denouncing, which is wholesale condemnation of various groups and entities.
That’s not fair, and I don’t want it done to me, and I really am trying to treat people how I would like to be treated.
So, I say: Please accept my apology if you are a politician, or a California Correctional Peace Officers Association member, or a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employee, or a media person or a person in general who is fighting for change within the prison system, fighting for sentencing reform, trying to move toward sane policies around prisons, and doesn’t buy into the constant rhetoric about those of us in prison.
I apologize for lumping you together with those you don’t deserve to be compared with. And I say, thank you for your efforts at rational laws and fair inmate practices.
But, for those of you that are the cowards and liars serving from the trough of fear, that acrid ambrosia you’re serving the general public in the name of public safety, I still say, Screw You.
Well, it’s 3:30 and California still hasn’t, to my knowledge, given the federal courts a plan to reduce the prison population by 43,000 over the next two years. Imagine that. They don’t have a real plan — well, actually, the real plan all along has been to have the feds come in and take over, so the state can still look tough on crime.
A meager fight is the same as a non fight, which is basically giving up and saying, we don’t know what to do.
There’s nothing wrong with admitting when you are wrong and accepting defeat. But for many, I think it’s more cowardice at the public expense — the public that would rather the problem just go away because we have enough problems already.
“Oh well, oh hell,” as my dad would say.
I hope the feds get it right, and the powers that be use their “new slate” to make changes that may work.
Do unto others as you would have then do unto you.