Game of law blocks democracy

Game of law blocks democracy
Shirley Crite
January 1997

If life is a game, then law is the process by which each of us can master the game of life! Law is literally and in the very truest sense, the "game rules" which governs everyone of our lives. This is especially true if you happen to be one of the over 2 million persons slammed in any one of the over 15,000 jails, prisons, and hospitals which function as human warehouses in the United States today.

The problem with the law is that for centuries its benefit has been reserved for the privilege who are rich and powerful, while those of us who are poor and illiterate suffer as victims of the former. The control of legal knowledge in this country has been highly guarded in such a manner that it has been centralized in the hands of a very small group of people who "we" cannot even talk to without payment of hourly fees of $50 and hour or more, in advance. Consequently, those of us who have the greatest personal need for legal knowledge simply do without. We therefore have been excluded from the "Game of Law" and rather than being players, we have been played upon.

It has only been recently, 10 to 20 years, that the knowledge of law has even become remotely available to those of us who seem to have been destined to fill the alleged democratically-run institutions. Because the huge multi-billion dollar corrections industry must have bodies, we have become the economic base for its very existence. The process of meeting the needs of this legal industry has resulted in our becoming the labor product of those whose very life sustenance is rooted in keeping us ignorant, illiterate, and beat down. These politicians, judges, lawyers, law enforcement and corrections personnel are of course either highly educated in law or are endowed with special and unique powers including deadly force, as a result of their having legal knowledge and the benefits which come from actively playing the "game of law". They did not obtain this knowledge or the benefits of law overnight. They were born into or worked their way into the position of having legal knowledge and power. This knowledge and power has been turned against "us" and you should have little doubt by now that the "game of law" is serious and can cost you years or even your life.

There is a point at which each of us must recognize that it is beneficial to become a master in the "game of law" and that personal or group advancement can result from the knowledge of law by those of us who must accept responsibility for actively participating.

This ... is dedicated to the benefit of the malpracticing defense attorneys, unprofessional prosecutors, and incompetent judges who, consciously or otherwise, manipulate the law and violate the trust of the public by victimizing the millions of "us" ordinary people who are their meal tickets. If there was justice in the criminal justice system there would be little need for this letter or the many books and manuals that are produced in order to give lay-persons information and tools to help secure the most basic of rights that are guaranteed by the 6th and 1+1th Amendments to the United States Constitution. That being, the right to adequate assistance of counsel, and equal protection and due process of law. The day will come when lay-persons (everyday people) will smash the wall of secrecy behind which legal knowledge is hidden from us. When that day comes, democracy will reign supreme, the hundreds of thousands of lawyers who live well based on the specialized knowledge will be standing in soup lines and "we" will purge the legal system of the thousands of criminal thugs and political bastards who presently fill the seats of judges and prosecutors across our nation. Until that day comes, each of us must work diligently at developing our legal skills and stockpiling our arsenals of knowledge. "Freedom is the result of struggle, hard work and responsible action on both the individual and collective levels." Read and study, talk to others, and take action.

Remember, responsible action pays.

Shirley Crite is imprisoned at Columbia County Detention Center. By fate, she was Kayla Sosnow's cellmate when Kayla served sixteen days in jail.