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Vice Blog

DEAR VICE - LETTER FROM A PSYCHEDELIC REFUGEE ON THE CUSP OF THE BRAVE NEW WORLD

Our hearts go out to the drug-damaged weirdos of the 60s who burnt their lives on The Haight and now can't stay out of jail. But we might not give them a job here, even if they really could use a boost/break in life and can write a dazzling, manic letter on homeless resource guide info they printed off the internet. This guy—and we honestly can't even tell what he calls himself—not only made a sincere and honest plea to us for employment, he also is trying to expose some corrupt prison practices and their funnel, an organization that claims to help parolees but does the exact opposite. Plus he's also supposedly starting a TV show about his fellow parolee buddies who do some kind of open mic night. We're a little bit unsure what do to with all of this except for to put it on the internet.

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Dear Kindred Spirits,
At least, that's what I feel @ this point. Me, us, them. Please appreciate this scenario. I am a chronic violator, a parolee of the most corrupt prison system in the world. The state of California. They've created a prison industrial complex to lubricate the economy. Remember…the Japanese conglomerates now own Hollywood, the internet-iPod revolution is causing a lot of dilemmas in Hollywood, and the hip-hop generation keeps fanning the flames of right wing lock 'em up mentality with the shit they're feeding the kids off the mediascape gangsta rap, prison is cool, the price of doing American urban life. Well that's all fine and dandy, I would concur with that, but on a different level entirely because I grew up a psychedelic refugee on the cusp of the Brave New World.

Before I make myself seem too manically effusive, in 2001 after a slew of parole violations on my K# (prior prison commitment) San Quentin sent me to multimedia engineering program @ the College of Marin. I learned Final Cut Pro, AfterEffects, among many others. I got an "A" in video production.

I feel it behooves me to alert you to a smorgasbord of scandelous [sic] operations in N. Calif. not just the prison system that's milking 8 billion a year but the cottage industry that has sprung up around the prison industry such as Centerforce.org. Totally phony assed bullshit operations who do nothing for a parolee on the street dodging cops bent on shakedowns.

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