Hunger Strike in Florida continues into it's 8th day.

"The enormous power of control given to guards
can ignite the darker side of human nature...
But what's bad is the barrel….the evil of prisons"
~Philip Zimbardo, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University

STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT August 1971

Death Row inmate Ronald W. Clark is still refusing food in hopes the FDOC is willing to make some changes. "Even though Ronald may be the only one doing the strike, he says that doesn't bother him, because he will die for change for himself, and all the other inmates there.  I have Ronnie's permission to post this from his letter:" ~Jillian O'Brine

Quote from Ronald Clark 6/29/2004:

"Somebody has to be the spokesperson and martyr, and speak up for the ones who won't speak up for themselves because of the real, live and many times witnessed, daily horrific retaliation and fear. Nobody else stepped up to the plate so I had to.

The FDOC runs this place like the mafia, from the top all the way down to the bottom and back up. Nobody, these guards, co's, nobody is accountable, and the ones they are accountable to probably learned how to "correct" from places like Abu Ghraib. Cuz the sh*t these guys do is unreal.

I remember y'all telling me about the body-builder dude who won those awards for Mr. Something-Or-Other cuz of that bodybuilding competition. But that he was fixing to do it all without steroids?  Hey I really admire that guy. You know how big I am and of course it's steroid-free. I wouldn't get into that b.s. even if it was available in here.

But you know what's weird? There's some crazy sh*t going on cuz that IS available in here. It's so obvious; these rednecks are pretty damn dumb! They come in here skinny dudes, less than a month later they're big as hell, covered with zits and big-ass veins.

I remember y'all telling me about a guy who used to tell you stories like that at the gym, he'd see these huge guys just like they were fired up on testosterone, not only doing wild stuff on the weights but didn't you tell me he said some of his guys - buddies - whatever y'all call em out West :-) turned like crazy, even got violent for nothing?

These guards in here (the bad ones that get away with murder, literally) must be into that sh*t. Unless they're friggin nuts in the head because this behavior just ain't right. I remember reading somewhere where I was out on the street that stuff they make steroids out of ain't human, it's animal testosterone. So that's going to make a dude even crazier. You know the fight or flight thing in animals? Something like that. But worse. Way worse.

This place is worse than a psyco mental ward, but the guards need to be the ones admitted!" But nothing ain't ever going to change because they just keep getting away with whatever they want.

I think the only way to have this place run and treating people humane and providing at least basic constitutional standards, is for the media to be reading this stuff and breathing down the prisons', Crosby's, and the Governor's neck, demanding reasons and change. The public is paying $47.36 a day, or $17,286 a year, PER PERSON incarcerated in our good old state of Florida. If I was out on the streets, I'd be demanding my money's worth! The public out there should too.

I know many of you are committed to trying to get changes made and I love all of you for what you do for me and us. But there just ain't that many people like you around with a heart, that do care about "us inmates" and want to see us treated humanely.

If I die during this strike, or if I'm executed, or what would probably be the case is that there's a mysterious death that's mine and nobody's ever accountable, just like poor Frank Valdes, I hope there is a better place where I can watch from up there.  I'll smile down and let y'all know somehow that if it took my death to make people in this world demand prisoners be treated at least decently, then I will have served a purpose and that's good enough for me.

I just pray with all my heart that people will wake up and take notice and demand change and see it happen. I'd love to be able to meet all of you in person and thank you for all that you and those like you do for those of us behind these walls. That may never happen. You've got to face that, my friends.

If I do get executed, I'll ask for a last wish instead of a last meal. Isn't that what they used to do before a firing squad? I'd rather be shot to death and have a last WISH than some coward slipping some lethal crap in my veins.

After this hunger strike, I'm sure I'll be thinking about food and would want a last meal. Wait a minute! No, forget that sh*t. Yeah, I can't wait to eat prison food... How do y'all say it out there? "NOT!" - something silly like that :-).

But anyways, I'd want a last wish and that would be to hold my Momma in my arms and to say hello to all of you. But that would never happen. This is Florida, after all, run by the Florida Dept. of "Corruption", excuse me, "Corrections".

ROID RAGE

"Inmates and guards had both told me that Dead Serious was into steroid cycles.  I have no idea if that was true, but throughout the triangle and especially across the street at Florida State Prison, there was (and is) a big problem with uncontrolled roid rage among guards.  My neighbor in G-dorm, an 18 year veteran convict of the area, told me tales of skinny young uniforms (sons or grandsons of guards) just beginning their rites of passage as newly employed officers, fearfully walking the corridors all stick-insect insecure, then bulking up overnight on steroids, bragging about it, losing their cool a few times over tiny things (testosteronic overload), eventually becoming mountains of angry muscle with no brain to accompany all that power.  I myself have had RHOID rage a time or two, but rhoids and roids are two different things."  ~Gary Brooks Waid

STEROIDS:   QUOTING OFFICER: