Rhetorical despotism shields evil behind walls of self-righteousness which are proof against all arguments against evil. The bonding and binding substance is usually a compound of myth and reassuring lies blended in with rationalizations.

The "solvent" for the "glue" for constructing these walls is the phenomenon called "truth." Fear, which is inherent in human nature to varying degrees, makes people beware of the truth. Although seemingly much sought after, truth can be dangerous to the seeker. Myths and reassuring lies are much easier to find and believe--especially with an abundance proffered by constant bombardment through mass media.

If you find a truth, even a temporary one, it can demand that you make painful changes. This is what has happened in my own life while concentrated (few distractions) in time in prison.

When a person enters the prison and becomes a prisoner, the preservation of self and sanity prompts a frenzy of ‘wall-building" activity. Different individuals usually have previous walls constructed and those under construction through the trauma of the crime and criminal justice experience. I theorize that there are many phases of "wall-building" and types of walls throughout our lives.

Most times, I believe, we tear down existing walls to build higher, stronger walls as our experiences mount in intensity and occasion. Coping mechanisms was a commonly used term for such a process, as I remember. Walls may even be constructed to enclose and sometimes cage monsters we create within ourselves. Sometimes the walls crumble when the monster is provoked and all hell seems to break loose.

The prisoner finds that adjustments are necessary to compensate for the diversity between the barrier affect of walls outside of prison in relation to inside the prison. When our country put walls around their earlier prison sites, it was most appropriate in symbolism as well as for security concerns. Terms such as ". . . behind the walls" held a higher connotation than denotation. This could be likened unto the phrase,

"...on the front lines" for military depictions. In the outside community, a similar phrase affectation was "behind bars."

The art of constructing walls which still allow movement and functioning calls for architectural balance. Haphazard construction defies balance and invites collapse. When a person chooses to tear down select, identifiable walls, the person must be careful about which walls are chosen for destruction. If you change one thing you will destroy something else. Because the walls are all around us, we must maintain a balance. So the prisoner is charged with making decisions about what changes in understanding will be allowed and accepted in his internalized understanding.

A hypothetical "changing of walls" might be a circumstance of situation where the new prisoner has an existing wall built up against profane obscenities, but then finds himself amongst an element of the majority of prisoners who constantly converse through this medium of verbal exchange. This could be such as talking about fucking each other in the ass or fucking each others’ mothers, daughters, sisters and possibly baby brothers (usually young teens).

If the new prisoner shows any signs of being shocked or disgusted, and is observed in either state, the perpetrators will usually start picking on him, calling him bitch, hoe (whore), or sof-ass muhfuker. So the wall against obscenities comes down and one goes up against being personally verbally assaulted because of a displayed sensitivity against profanity and obscenities.

So with the new wall, which is an indicator that the prisoner wasn’t a powerful enough character to change the behaviors of his antagonists, the prisoner has torn down the earlier wall to be replaced with one which allows him to choose a lesser of two evils; listening to the sleazy exchanges to avoid becoming a target for focused personal abuse. Now if someone says something filthy, he can grin in a leering kind of way, or even chuckle his approval to the delight of his entertainers. He might even learn to join in with the acceptable madness.

Many times, an individual will withdraw from being noticeable and covertly enlarge his existing wall against profanity and obscenity, while adapting to the skills of avoiding contact with the sleazers. This usually means skulking around while maintaining a low profile; kinda like the nerds at school who didn’t cuss, smoke, or pick on timid people.

We used to call that type, "Goody Two-Shoes," lames, or creeps. Most of those jerks couldn’t even say "muthah fukker" and make it sound cool. There was a distinct art to blaring out profanities and obscenities convincingly. There wasn’t anything quite so disgusting as some square-ass lame trying to sound cool.

It still holds true in the adult prison setting with "white dudes" trying to sound "black." I can remember when blacks tried to sound and even look "white." Now they ridicule and mimic white people’s walk and talk. "Golly-Gee-Whillikers, Bob; you fucking fucker you; you fucking bastard, you!"

The new white prisoner usually comes in the prison setting proud of the fact that they are not prejudice or racial. They are shocked when the prison blacks don’t give a fuck one way or another. It’s a new day! The blacks are prejudiced and racial and can be so with impunity with the "cops and the robbers." Such whites are usually anxious to convince some black prisoner that some of their "best friends" on the outside were "black." And here again, the average militant, hostile black found to be in majority among prison populations especially here in Ohio, don’t give a fuck one way or another. The seeming main or primary objective in the interpersonal interactions between the white boys and the "brothers" is what has the sof-ass white boy got that I want or can use; dat’s da question, Muh fukker!

Another example, without racial or obscenity considerations would be one say the issue of privacy. When a person enters prison and finds that privacy is practically non-existent, he is faced with tearing down the "wall" built against taking showers with people of the same sex, sitting next to someone while defecating, or sleeping next to someone whose bed is so close to you that he coughs in your face while you both are sleeping.

The cacophony of raucous loudmouths screaming greeting and curses to one another from daylight to dark and beyond, chips away at your bastions guarding what little sanity you have retained to this point in time. There’s no stopping it, short of psychopathic displays of terroristic potential which is utilized to frighten the big-mouths into silence because they don’t know who you plan to victimize in your hate-filled frenzy.

So you build a replacement wall for the defunct privacy wall and have the new wall focused on negating privacy concerns through becoming brazen and rude when the circumstances call for it. You can sublimate the conditioning toward privacy with new "rules" of conduct in areas which had called for dignity-saving privacy.

Like if you are shitting next to someone, you make sure they understand the necessity of flushing the toilet just as soon as they release their shit, so you don’t have to smell any more of their shit than you have to. You extend the same courtesy if the other person is worthy of your "bathroom" respect.

Another subject! I’m enclosing a newspaper photo of a female police officer. This is a beautiful young woman, clean, and plainly gorgeous; minimum of makeup, no seductive body shot showing tits and ass. Just a decent female human being experiencing solemn grief with tears and a salute for a slain fellow officer in Cleveland. Even her police uniform is non-offensive and non-pompous with flashy brass and American flag blazing as the new swastika. Just a tiny earring, and again a lovely clear-complexioned face, with non-pretentious hair and hairdo. Jody Remington at a funeral. It makes my heart ache to see such a human being so distressed and I immediately loathe whomever was responsible for bringing her to this distress. It makes me despise criminals per se. Who could make war on anyone cared about by such a lady? Here again, she would never make it to Playboy magazine for sexist values, but she is truly the ideal "girl or lady" next door. The kind you would fight for to defend her honor without any romantic regard whatsoever. There’s just nothing mean or nasty about the woman, even though she is a policewoman.

What about the girl who has her "criminal" friend slain. Is there such a splendid bit of photography to depict such clean dignity and sorrow for the loss of a human being out of uniform? Say someone lost in a prison incident involving a slain friend, neighbor, or loved one? Nah! This is the lobby for "humanizing" the police in our country today--which isn’t a bad thing to do, but the contrast is severe when the criminal is portrayed as having no socially redeemable value. It is becoming somewhat of a common demonize the...