Re: elmoer, do you have the heart?

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Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 08:09:37 GMT

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.

in the form of phone bills for their modems.
Also, a lot of sites don't have infinitely large disks, and a
particularly heavy day of posting can actually fill up entire partitions.

You still might be thinking, "Well, that's their problem." - and you're
right. However, it becomes YOUR problem because a lot of sites still
propagate news articles in serial chains:

        A <---> B <---> C <---> D <---> E

Now, say you're site A. You decide to post a few MB of pictures in one
day. Site B connects to your site, A, and grabs the articles. Site C
connects to site B and attempts to grab the articles. But site C is
rather limited. Its disks fill up a few times, perhaps the system
crashes. The sysadmin knows he will get an outrageous phone bill caused
by just ATTEMPTING to transmit all of your pictures.

So the sysadmin of site C "drops" the group (or groups) in which you posted
all of your pictures. So the people at sites D and E will now NEVER SEE
ANY OF THE PICTURES YOU POST. Conversely, because the chain is
bidirectional, if the people at sites D or E post some pictures, YOU
WILL NEVER SEE THEM. Congratulations, you've just slit not only your
own throat, but the throats of EVERYONE at sites A, B, C, D, and E as
well.

This is why everyone must post only limited amounts per day. As it is,
pictures newsgroups account for something like 50% of the entire net
traffic, and 75% of the alt.* traffic. We need to be self-policing, or
the pictures newsgroups will die out because of the phenomenon mentioned
above.

III. WHAT/WHEN TO POST

A common question that is asked is this one: what should I post to the
net? The basic answer is: anything you'd like to see here yourself!

If

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