While emptying a service revolver into Michael Brown was bad enough, there is a fear that his killer may get away with it – one more “justified” police killing of an unarmed citizen. It’s impunity that has many people upset. Police impunity is just another of the many forms of injustice that roils this country.
“Our Constitution works. Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men,” said Gerald Ford – right before pardoning Nixon for all the laws he had broken.
Nixon in turn pardoned Jimmy Hoffa and William Calley, the only soldier held accountable for the massacre of 500 people in My Lai, Viet Nam.
Reagan pardoned Nixon’s FBI burglars.
Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, a fugitive donor to Clinton’s presidential library and his wife’s Senate campaign, as well as his own brother, Roger, on federal drug charges.
George Bush (Sr.) pardoned the ringleaders of the Iran-Contra Affair, which included Reagan’s National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense.
Bush Junior commuted the meager 30 month sentence given to Irving (Scooter) Libby for leaking the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Aside from pardons, which are often a professional courtesy extended to former administrations, not even the most severe criminal acts by political leaders are ever investigated or prosecuted.
The US may have played a role in the show trials in Nuremberg, but now it refuses to be bound by the World Court. The US uses its UN Security Council veto to shield itself from charges of war crimes and human rights abuses. International law is for quiche-eating foreigners, not us.
CIA kidnapping, murder and torture have gone unpunished. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress about spying on citizens. The CIA destroyed torture tapes and spied on a Senate team investigating it. And nothing ever happens. A president lies to the nation about weapons of mass destruction. Nothing happens. A famous general takes those lies to the United Nations. Nothing happens. Whistleblowers are hounded for exposing lies. Nothing happens – except to the whistleblower. The FBI kills hundreds of people over several decades and not one agent is ever disciplined for an unjust shooting.
But if government impunity is well-understood, so is that of corporations and the very wealthy.
A July article in Forbes reported: “Six of the 60 richest families in the country include heirs who have killed, raped or sexually abused someone. The circumstances of the tragedies vary — some were accidental car crashes and others were deliberate crimes. But one thing was consistent: the perpetrators hardly received any punishment.”
Deregulation, preferential tax rates or forgiveness, special laws giving corporations “religious” rights to ignore laws that others have to follow – all these diminish our ability to hold accountable anyone other than the average citizen. The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people, but when was the last time you saw one in jail? – in a nation that incarcerates more humans than any other.
And in the rare case where corporate misbehavior is so egregious that token punishment is unavoidable – JPMorgan Chase and British Petroleum come to mind – it turns out even their fines are tax-deductible.
No, laws are only for citizens. This is why the average guy is spied upon, stopped and frisked, and incarcerated in record numbers, especially if he is Black or political or both.
When a police officer violates the law, assaults or kills a citizen, commits violations of the Constitution (locking up journalists, preventing people from legal assembly, stopping and frisking for no reason, or insisting on a suspicion-less search) – they put themselves above the law. Unfortunately, there is actually very little meaningful community oversight of police departments. Most internal police misconduct investigations are done with little transparency, and the outcomes are predictable. Rogue cops often keep on abusing citizens.
If we truly want to be a nation of laws, we need to insist that those who make and uphold the laws and claim to be protecting us – follow the same laws. If not, they should be given orange jump suits like any other criminal.
We may be a nation of laws, but impunity engenders lawlessness when some of us are above the law.
This was published in the Standard Times on August 25, 2014
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20140825/opinion/408250313
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