No JUSTICE, No Peace: The Devalued Principals of Life, Liberty, & Pursuit of Happiness
Since the Michael Brown killing by Officer Darren Wilson, concerns about justice are reaching a fevered pitch. The night after the St. Louis grand jury decision came out, 170 cities took to the streets to express anger towards a system that continuously fails to hold law enforcement officers accountable for killing citizens when there are other ways to deal with suspects. This outcry for justice has become exponentially worse upon the release of two videos graphically depicting the choking death of Eric Garner by an officer of the NYPD.
The mainstream media has been adding to the public’s confusion on the Brown and Garner cases by riding the prosecution’s narratives of misinformation, only correcting the talking points when the obvious truth is highlighted by an even more infuriated public. Many of the so called leaks appear to be timed in a most inappropriate manner.
Upon the release of the Eric Garner grand jury announcement not to indict of officer Daniel Pantaleo, President Obama had this to say, “I’m absolutely committed as president of the United States to making sure that we have a country in which everyone believes in the core principle that we are equal under the law.”
At this point, the public must take pause and understand a few things. Barack Obama was the President of the Harvard Law Review and in 2006 was deeply involved in a failed attempt at political lobby reform. Now, President Obama should have a considerable understanding of the tight bonds between State Attorney General elections and Law Enforcement lobbies. Almost no Attorney General in any state gets elected without the endorsements of the dozens of police organizations.
Lady Liberty is violated at the top of the judicial food chain and the corruption appears to trickle downward throughout the system.
The people must ask themselves if they’ve ever considered donating to an attorney general’s election or know of anybody that has done so. The answer is conclusively, no. So, how does somebody like Missouri Attorney General (D) Koster receive $5,000,000 for his campaign?
The answer is: from Law Enforcement organizations such as the Fraternal Order of Police and hundreds of other cop unions and organizations. Missouri’s top prosecutor Koster picked up additional funds from the energy sector, but that might be a point for a whole other story on how fossil fuel corporations despoil Lady Liberty as the scales of justice vanish from the public view.
Awakening to this systemic breakdown of cops and courts being in bed with each other doesn’t come easy for most Americans. We have taken great pride in being a nation of some of the fairest courts throughout the world. But this isn’t the reality in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, as one after another case of a cop killing an unarmed minority goes without an indictment or ends in a mistrial, as in the Rodney King case.
It has been happening for too long in America to continue calling these incidents of injustice a mistake or an odd circumstance. Lawrence O’Donnell outlines a team of assistant attorney generals deliberately giving the Darren Wilson grand jury copies of laws ruled unconstitutional 20 years prior. All the grand jury knew was that it was legal for police to shoot a fleeing suspect. Later they were handed a new document and told the copy provided weeks prior should be ignored.
This is jury fixing, and there doesn’t appear to be any consequence to such behavior. Where Mr. O’Donnell fails is in asking what is the motive of Attorney General Koster’s underlings in all this corrupting of a jury? It appears to be that all prosecutors are held accountable to the powerful arm of law enforcement lobby influence.
Since the gunning down of Michael Brown, the White House has been on alert over this problem of unrest between cops and citizens. The Obama administration and US Attorney General Eric Holder must have a fair understanding of the cozy relationship between the cops and courts. President Obama the former president of Harvard Law Review and a former advocate of Lobby Reform back in 2006 as a senator, worked with Senator John McCain on a failed attempt at campaign finance reform. Yet, Obama and Holder choose to ignore the source of the problem which is money in elections for state attorney generals , rather they say training and studies are the solution. Teaching cops better techniques might save a few more lives, but it will not deter a rogue cop from killing without the direct threat of personal accountability.