Tag: Police

Maura Ewing – Philadelphia’s New Top Prosecutor Is Rolling Out Wild, Unprecedented Criminal Justice Reforms

Link to an article by Maura Ewing:

“Philadelphia’s New Top Prosecutor Is Rolling Out Wild, Unprecedented Criminal Justice Reforms”

 

Bonus links: “Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner Promised a Criminal Justice Revolution. He’s Exceeding Expectations.” and “Meet Larry Krasner” and “Ending Civil Forfeiture In Philadelphia” and …And the Poor Get Prison

 

No doubt about it, Krasner is one of the most heroic public servants in office in the U.S. today.  Nothing about Krasner’s policies is “wild” though, and it is quite sad that in this day and age they are “unprecedented” — his policies should probably be the norm not the exception.  It is, however, important to note that a key factor in Krasner winning office was substantial funding from out-of-towner George Soros.

William S. Burroughs Quote

“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”

William S. Burroughs, Painting & Guns

 

Bonus links: “The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights (Reprise)” (“The political principle at stake is simple: to deny the state the monopoly of armed force, and, obversely, to empower the citizenry, to distribute the power of armed force among the people.”) and Links to books about black armed resistance in freedom movements

Jonathan Cook – The UK’s Hidden Role in Assange’s Detention

Link to an article by Jonathan Cook:

“The UK’s Hidden Role in Assange’s Detention”

 

Bonus links: “The Scourging of Julian Assange” and “British Judge Refuses to Overturn Julian Assange’s Arrest Warrant” and “Inside WikiLeaks: Working with the Publisher that Changed the World” and “U.K. and Ecuador Conspire to Deliver Julian Assange to U.S. Authorities” and “Guardian Ups Its Vilification of Julian Assange”

The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives

Link to a “video” from a symposium by The Modern Money Network about the book The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives (2017) by Jesse Eisinger:

“The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives”

 

Admittedly, this “video” is really just audio.  But Bill Black‘s introductory comments make very clear how U.S. Department of Justice (non)prosecution of financial sector crimes is a matter of shifting ideology, or, more precisely, the activities of federal prosecutors really represent the outcome of an ideological war and class war over which class and which ideology will control the state and its judicial apparatus.

 

Bonus links: …And the Poor Get Prison and Why Not Jail? and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology and The Fragile Absolute and The State and Revolution

Bonus quotes:

“Does the masses’ struggle for emancipation pose a threat to civilization as such, since civilization can thrive only in a hierarchical social order?  Or is it that the ruling class is a parasite threatening to drag society into self-destruction, so that the only alternative to socialism is barbarism?”  Slavoj Žižek, Afterword to Revolution at the Gates: Selected Writings of Lenin From 1917 (pp. 209-10).

“Little thieves are put in the stocks, great thieves go flaunting in gold and silk….”  Martin Luther