44. Excerpt from Earl Bishop’s Prison Journal

11-12-08:

 

I read Tony’s journal before they locked me up. A whole book of thought from one of the realest dudes I’ve ever had the chance to interact with.

 

I read it because I was trying to put his mind together, so I could learn a little more about him.

 

I figured for somebody to have found themselves in the positions Tony did throughout the time I knew him, he had to have been through some pretty interesting, deep shit before that; shit he would have never told anybody about.

 

And I also figured since I was in so deep with him over all this, I had the right to know.

 

I’m glad I did too. It put a lot of things in perspective. Made me figure out exactly what’s going on in this little soap opera I’ve found myself a part of.

 

Tony couldn’t help feeling oppressed. Neither could I. Hence, the connection.

 

I don’t blame him, not too much. He was the catalyst, yeah, but he didn’t put me in here—you did.

 

This system. This  country that put us all into this position in the first place. The position where we’ve got to fuck people over just to get by.

 

This country, where individuals are just part of the “population.” A product. It’s been like this for years now too, ever since Vietnam, when the U.S. turned its back on its own veterans.

 

We consider ourselves the country with the most values. I’ve been reading up on some shit though, in the library they’ve got here, reading between the lines and seeing things they didn’t tell us in high school American history, things that they give you a watered-down version of in class so you think it’s not as fucked up as it actually is.

 

You know the only country to ever use a WMD aggressively?

 

US. World War Two. 300,000, decimated. And yeah, you already knew that. But you ever actually thought about it, how screwed up that actually is?

 

Another one: who killed the most Vietnamese in a failed attempt to “free” their country from communism?

 

US. Over 3 million. 

 

What about the Korean War?

 

4.5 million. US.

 

Iraq and Afghanistan?

 

Over a million in the past twenty years.

 

Cuba, South Africa, Colombia, all over South America.

 

You hate on Hitler like he’s the worst thing to happen to the free world since slavery. And yeah, the dude was fucked up, but he killed like six million people over the course of six years. That’s a million a year.

 

We’re on par for that right now, so how different are we really?

 

You ever seen Dead Presidents? What about Set It Off?

 

The things I’ve done are nothing compared to what they did, and they were completely justified.

 

The world hates America, and people here are too stupid to even notice, which makes the world hate us even more.

 

You think 9/11 was an accident? You think it won’t happen again?

 

It happened for a reason, people. And it’ll keep happening as long as things are the way they are.

 

Only next time, instead of a couple of Boeing airliners it’ll probably be a nuke.

 

And if I’m still around afterwards, when the whole planet’s turned into a fucking atomic desert, I’m going to scream “I told you so,” even if there’s nobody there to hear me.

 

Justice, man. Real justice, true justice. It’s going to happen, and I can’t wait.

 

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