Monday, March 09, 2015

American Injustice


Photo from email from Dissent News Wire.

I recently finished reading THE DIVIDE by Matt Taibbi. It is about how we have such an unequal justice system, where the rich and powerful get away with just about everything and the poor (usually people of color) get pounded for nothing. The cops across this country are doing everything they can to suck money out of the poor. What we have is "liberty and justice for SOME" but certainly not all. 

This was confirmed recently in Ferguson. The police there have been going after blacks to fill their coffers. One interesting fact: the blacks are more likely to be searched in a stop, and LESS likely to have illegal drugs found on them than the white people stopped. 

So, the idea that we can get young black men and boys to "straighten up and fly right" to stay out of jail is ludicrous. The problem does not reside with them - it resides inside the system of policing that is rampant across our country. 

Here is an article on the situation in Ferguson. 


Ferguson, Missouri police and courts regularly violated people’s constitutional rights because of a toxic combination of racial bias and focusing “on generating revenue over public safety,” the U.S. Justice Department stated in a report released today.

This inequality in our justice system was also confirmed with the wrist slap for Petraeus. What he did is far worse than what Manning or Snowden or several other whistleblowers did.


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