Visitors heard guards refer to him as their “very own ecoterrorist.”
Cottrell later learned he had been used as an example in a training
video on how to deal with terrorists in prison, “so now every prison
guard in the country recognizes me as a terrorist on sight,” he wrote
in a January 10 letter to the L.A. Weekly. He has been denied common
privileges such as exercise, visitors and phone calls. Ultimately, he
was banished to solitary confinement — the Hole, in prison parlance —
like a violent thug.

LA Weekly - A Terrible Thing to Waste



while i feel terribly for this guy, i have to ask, why is his situation so much more worthy of everyone's sympathy than anyone else's? what about the hundreds of thousands of very young adults serving time for marijuana possession experiencing things like rape? this article says, "like a violent thug" as though we are supposed to feel like he's not a violent thug. he blew up hummers! how is that not violent and thug-like?



the reason we are supposed to care so much more deeply for this man than any other in prison is because he's some sort of genius. well, i know a genius in prison, too and no one gives three fucks about him.



"a terrible thing to waste". how is it NOT a terrible thing to waste to have hundreds of thousands of young people, some brilliant, some hard working, some loving, some generous, some talented, but ALL of them doing hard time in terrifying prisons for possession of a drug we've all tried? how is it all not a terrible waste... if you're gonna cry over one, cry over them all.





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