It’s a story of retaliation, but not one of physical from. Barrett Brown’s letters, published on The Intercept, encompass a mind under scrutiny and round the clock Big Brother surveillance, simply because of who he is.
When reading Barrett Brown’s reflections of his time incarcerated inside a federal prison, you can see a lot of charm between his lines. The “perverted guardians,” as one comment states in response to his essays, hits the nail on the head: Brown is serving a sentence within a sentence, beside murderers with “interesting lives,” for offences whittled down to the few because the FBI couldn’t nab him on the ‘important charges.’
Brown’s essays are well worth the read, in them he tries to make sense of his world inside the prison walls, and sometimes in solitary confinement. He files a complaint against officers, citing retaliation, and finds himself being drug tested and breathalyzed before being placed in isolation. Granted they find a home brew in his locker, and granted he admits this, but the story is about the journey rather than the results.
The 23 hour lock down seems to be almost welcomed – if he can get his hands on a good book – and maybe for good reason. For Brown, the insanity of it all is difficult to take, and through his essays he deconstructs them in search of meaning and truth. His conclusions are somewhat clever, intelligent, and above all, insightful. The ludicrous nature of his situation is clear: it just doesn’t make sense.
In a world where “dealing meth is 15 times more serious than shooting someone with a shotgun,” or where an Anonymous supporter on minimal charges is imprisoned in a Federal Prison to share cells with murderers, is mind boggling for all who try to make sense of the picture.
He critiques a book he had the displeasure of reading and appears to parallel it:
Barrett Brown hasn’t lost the plot…he just sees the world in which he lives for what it really is.
This Article (Barrett Brown: Essays of the Incarcerated) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
I’m kinda worried about that guy. I would like to send him a book about meditation, but only if I can find one that’s really, really, really good. Does any one know of one they can suggest below? I will check back.
He has engaged in some self-destructive behavior, but I think I understand some of the reasons why. For one thing, he has a close to a million dollar fine hanging over his head and he can’t stop ruminating on that. Ruminating on depressing things is bad, and I can say that from personal experience. I read some article on depression in the Guardian that talked about how ruminating on depressing thoughts was a way of building a prison inside your own head. It must seem insurmountable and probably he feels like he has no future left, no matter what he does. Even after he gets out he will be living in his “post cyberpunk indentured servitude” for the rest of his life, or whatever he called it, and so he probably feels like he has no future left worth living. Or put another way, he has no hope left. And hope is usually the only thing to get you through tough times, unless you are really really tough.
Maybe it’s true, what he thinks and even if it’s not, he can make it true by his actions.
That poor kid. He got so shafted. But sometimes I wonder if prison could turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to him, if he could find the way to make it so. I will post this link to illustrate my point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2L1-TgfKb4
Maybe if he hadn’t been thrown in prison, something worse could have happened to him. I won’t speculate what.
But I digress. To get back on point, any suggestions regarding books on meditation would be welcomed. I’ll check back. Thanks.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you can’t envision a future that seems worth living, then why not get high, all day, every day, as much as possible? I get that. A little respite from those awful thoughts, and maybe it’s a little bit *self-medicating* as well. Not that it helps in the long run. The opposite. Also, as a paranoid person, I might wonder if whoever gave him whatever he did (obviously a fellow prisoner) didn’t do so at the behest of the prison authorities. Because what a great way to discredit a voice of dissent.
The prison authorities aren’t the ones that put him there: the judge was.
OK I checked back and no suggestions. Maybe if anyone comes up with a good idea they can do it for me.
Perhaps he lives in a multiverse as anything improbable is made possible and any possibility is probable. The likelihood of anything being impossible is improbable. On this argument, free BB. I have to remember the authorities gave themselves the title of being an authority: not the dissidents that oppose them. They’re simply called dissidents regardless of their authority.
Checking in here – does anyone know what is going on with BB? A bunch of books I ordered him were delivered on the 25th. Would he have gotten them? If yes does he get to keep them when he’s transferred? There are a few more on the way – will they be forwarded to him? Is Oklahoma temporary or permanent?
Now I feel sad. 🙁