I seem to be riding the non-music threads often these days! A bit of contemplation - yesterday - at a funeral! - someone challenged my job saying I supported a terrible system by working where I work. I thought about it and attempted to talk about it but this person, with others, just held their position. So .... I work in the prison system here, in a difficult job. The people I was challenged by believe that everyone in prison is not guilty or a victim of 'the system'. While this is often the case in race, sociological and economic terms, in very many cases they have also done things that can't be ignored. they've done really horrible things. These people think that those who fit into this category should just be 'done away' with and I think that is a way of making fellow human beings invisible. At the same time they are oppositional to the death penalty as am I. The people in prisons that I deal with are still people, still human. They are not the sum total of what they have done but they are the sum total of their whole lives. What I felt was that those who challenged me had the same mentality as those (the so-called right wing) they oppose - which is not so much lock them up and throw away the key but just forget them (prisoners that is). Make a stand and then do nothing in other words. Or am I being too harsh? I'm sounding a bit confused here but I am not ashamed of engaging in prison work and I don't seem myself as supporting an oppressive system. I am actually proud that I support people who have no other support and are supremely judged by society as a whole. I deal with people who are so dangerous that they have to be shackled hand and foot - a situation that most people I suppose would not engage in, and yes it is very difficult to accept treatment of human beings on these terms but I also want to live. Yet these people are human like I and entitled to good health care, good education, coourtesy and kindness, and most importantly they are entitled not to be forgotten. We can all change I suppose and that is the level I engage in my job on. There is hope for everyone. Yet I have to constantly reflect on these sort of challenges in the same way one has to reflect on the impact on the environment everytime we shop at the supermarket - or do we? Anyway there are many jobs which are seen as 'beyond the pale' I suppose and I am coming to think that these judgemental attitudes are a way of not dealing with the terrible things that they actually think they are making a stand about - yet it is an ongoing relfection. The songs about people who have suffered in the system are many but I can't think of many that actually recognise say, pedaphiles, as human. Some of these jobs that are judged, where I live at least, are working for the Department of Social Security, working for the Police Force, working for the Department of Corrective Services, working for the Department of Immigration, Working for the Department of Community Services. All these professions have on one hand a bureaucracy that has unacceptable political policies and on the other have individual human beings that need support within an inhumane system. Is that supporting 'the system'. I'm interested in 'opinion' and add apologies for sounding convoluted.