Mindset (Part 1) , 8-22-2010

 With less than two weeks before sentencing, I am greeted with silence. The lawyer has not spoken with me for almost three weeks. I gave him copies of this journal and suggested it be published. No one answers my letters.

Think about this, you who want to be a risk-taker, who wants to play with the criminal law. You may find yourself doing nothing better than sitting on a bunk, reading, writing, or watching television. I was the one whom others relied upon, and now I must reconcile myself with impotence. People I knew are in trouble. I can do nothing.

If I were dead as planned, I would be ignorant of all this. I am not dead and am everything but ignorant. What I am is irrelevant to the living.

I suppose this is to be the first step toward being incorporated into prison culture. Whatever I think I no longer matters; whatever I can do loses all ability in the face of the prison's authority. The sole activity remaining to me is silent obedience.

Obey even if one sees something wrong. The machinery operates against humanity. Accept falseness if the falseness has the seal of authority's approval. Fear permeates the air – fear of offending errant authority.

Power possesses its own logic and laws. We are being taught to bow to that power and its logic until we never dare raise our eyes or use our brains. If I do leave behind the prison, I shall not leave behind the imprisonment. Impressed into every cell of mine shall be the fear of offending the power of the state.

The state existed before as a way of ordering life, of allowing the creativity of individuals by giving it a secure space in which to operate. Now, I see where I was wrong: the state allows individuality only so long as it does not endanger, and/or annoy, the state's power. I do not see why suicide should not be allowed to me. At some point, I guess the state needs living examples of its power circulating amongst the general population.

Which brings mind several people I have met here at the Volunteers of America halfway house. There have been several serious gangbangers here who see a serious prison sentence not as a badge of dishonor, but of honor. Unlike myself and other like me, they become diamond hard under the pressure of the prison system. The government exists to create these types, and these types exist to justify government power. I can think of only one term for this relation – symbiotic.

I sense a great neurotic energy running through the government. I see this in my sort of case, but I saw it first in drug cases. The fear engendered by politicians and activists (another symbiotic relationship) distracts the public. I will not be surprised if the U.S. Attorney's office (the federal prosecutor) crafts a press release that implicitly or explicitly praising themselves for protecting the public from the likes of me, and making America safer.

Never mind, no one was harmed by me. Just like the others here, similarly charged. One person her is schizophrenic and so medicated he is barely conscious – he presents a danger to America? Never mind the difference in sentencing between Indiana and the federal system should mean Indiana looks like a danger to America.  Never mind anything but that, by all appearances, federal prosecutors are fearlessly fighting to protect the country's children.

I have spent most of the past five months writing apologies and seeking atonement. Their chances of publication are nil. Certainly not in time for them being of any use to those needing to understand my failures. I can understand my lawyer failing to understand the utility of publication. I was once a lawyer, and I know how lawyers think a courtroom contains the known universe.

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