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Saturday, September 24, 2011

We Need a Guilt Project
Posted by jurassicpork | 1:25 PM

The last GOP presidential debate, the chemical lynching of Troy Davis and frequent references to Barry Schechter's Innocence Project gave me a great idea that I don't believe anyone's ever considered, certainly nobody in the Justice Department:

What we need is a Guilt Project.

Schechter's ongoing Innocence Project, which has gotten over 100 convictions overturned and literally dozens released from Death Row, is certainly a necessary counterbalance to what has to be the worst, most capricious, money-driven and corrupt criminal justice system in the history of the galaxy.

But why stop there? Why not continue that train of thought on the other side of the legal spectrum and start going after the guilty? That's a novel concept, one that I believe will catch on if enough thought is paid to it.

That way, the wealthy will no longer be insulated from comeuppance at the hands of We the People as We the People are expected to when we break the law on much smaller scales. We would need to rethink our entire concept of jurisprudence, I'm sure. We would need to actually investigate the world-devouring crimes that happen Monday-Friday on Wall Street and Capitol Hill, use people called "attorneys" to file something we can call, I don't know, "lawsuits".

Here's an even more radical concept: Making the punishment fit the crime, although, given the sheer scope and scale of the crimes that occur on Wall Street and Washington, DC, such penalties would require the sadistic imaginations of the Marquis de Sade, Tourqemada and Lucifer combined.

This Guilt Project would require at some point the reluctant but necessary participation of the Eric Holder Justice Department that has inexplicably dropped more investigations and lawsuits than bars of soap in a Greenwich Village bathhouse.

That way, when we put these Republican cocksuckers on notice, we will not see so much of:

Presidential and Senate elections getting brazenly stolen every four years through voter intimidation, vote-caging, electronic ballot-stuffing and the like.

Illegal wars being waged against countries that were no threat to us and had no complicity in 9/11.

Hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars being siphoned from the Treasury to stuff into the bottomless pockets of war profiteers such as the VPOTUS's former employer through cost plus, no-bid contracts funneled through the same VPOTUS's office.


Hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars being siphoned from the Treasury to stuff into the bottomless pockets of Wall Street sociopaths who spit in Congress's eye when asked tepid questions about why and how they cost millions of honest, hardworking Americans their jobs, pensions, 401(k) plans and homes.

Professional Republican Senate candidates who live off campaign contributions then get million dollar book deals for whiny pieces of shit they didn't even write at the expense of real writers who lead honest lives.

War crimes punishable by death, including the mass murder of hundreds of thousands, the torture of countless thousands more, detention and displacement of said indigenous people and not caring enough about the collateral damage to "do body counts."

The open bribery between lobbyists and lawmakers that's currently going unprosecuted because we've changed the word from "bribery" and "kickbacks" to "campaign contributions."

The all but official creation of the fourth branch of government or third chamber of Congress called K Street.

Think of the possibilities if we but actually start enforcing the law through this Guilt Project. Of course, once word got around that we as a nation started getting serious about enforcing the rule of law again, every scumbag that's ever committed a crime will flee to their billion dollar private ocean liners and seeking refuge on Peter Thiel's little Dr. No getaway. That would create a collapse in an economy and political infrastructure that's based completely on the rickety legs of fraud and grand larceny.

But, really, isn't knocking down the current system worth a period of anarchy in order to see some justice served to the most deserving of it? As the lady once said, "Sometimes, the best remedy is to break everything."
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6 Comments:
Blogger Phil said...
Ta tell ya the truth, Obama broke the fucking laws of this country designed specifically to deal with BushCo and their ilk.
It used to be up against the wall and here is a Camel non filtered cigarette motherfucker.
9/24/11, 8:31 PM  
Blogger Pangolin said...
In case anybody hasn't noticed about 10,000 very wealthy people are waging total war on the rest of the planet.

Calling it mere treason to hide the fact that they start wars, corrupt elections, pollute the atmosphere and fill our lives with a vast propaganda of lies is something of an understatement.

They do this for toys. Yachts they don't sail. Giant houses they don't live in Clothes they don't wear. Art they never see. Private planes to fly them around to parties where they can mingle with their frenemies.

For this hundreds of thousands of children are killed. Millions are enslaved and prostituted. Tens of millions are homeless. A billion live with endless hunger.

Simply killing them could never be enough. Wall them up in a concrete box. Give them nutritious, bland porridge and water. A hole to eliminate in. A sandbox to sleep in. Never turn off the lights, Never change the temperature. Make sure their medical needs are seen to so they live a long, long, long time. Then put a webcam on them so we can all check to see what happens to war criminals.
9/26/11, 5:13 PM  
Anonymous Aaron said...
"...isn't knocking down the current system worth a period of anarchy in order to see some justice served to the most deserving of it?"

Not even a little bit, because it flies in the face of history to assume that Judge Lynch will obligingly retire into quiet obscurity once you feel, all the right people (or at least those too slow to flee) having been swung from lampposts, that you can dispense with his further services.

Not even your own commenters are on your side in this; their thirst for necks -- or for protracted, hideous public torture, in Pangolin's rather frightening case -- appears to exceed your own, or at least to be much more forthrightly acknowledged.

A cursory study of history informs us that betrayal is the lot of every revolution, and that the minds originally behind the movement do tend to be among those administered revolutionary justice for their lack of true commitment to the people. That being the case, I suppose you'll get your comeuppance in due time, should you ever have your wrecker's way. I suspect it will come as rather chilly consolation by the time it finally happens, but any sort of consolation's better than none at all, wouldn't you agree?
9/28/11, 8:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I think you mean Barry Scheck, not "Schechter." Barry has not aged well since is soul-selling sting on the "Dream Team."
9/28/11, 6:36 PM  
Blogger Pangolin said...
The worst thing about the U.S. prison system is that most people get to pretend that it's not there and that it doesn't do exactly what I described with the single exception of the webcam and the sandbox.

Actually, the sandbox would be much more comfortable than the beds in your average jail or prison. The standard is a one inch foam pad that is kept in use long after the foam crumbles; on a steel bunk. Sand conforms to the body and doesn't wear out. In punishment cells you sleep on a concrete shelf; no pad.
10/2/11, 4:12 PM  
Anonymous Aaron said...
Pangolin, I've slept rougher; stainless steel has the virtue of being not particularly abrasive, and believe me when I say it is a virtue. And I've found that sleeping on a hard surface does wonders for the spine.

But that's beside the point; the point is that, for you, the ends justify the means. Your problem with the US prison system is not that you believe being incarcerated within it constitutes torture; your problem with it is that you don't feel our prison system tortures the right people, and that given that caveat you don't think our prison system tortures people enough.

I suppose by your standards there's nothing wrong with that. By mine, it's appalling. It's also a fine example of utterly shameless hypocrisy, which is no more than I am coming to expect from my former fellows in the progressive movement.
10/5/11, 12:21 PM  
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