Tuesday, August 02, 2005

12. Why doesn't someone fight this whole big crooked system - What is keeping all of this going?

To understand American legal corruption, it's necessary to go into a deeper understanding of how the machinery of American society really works - who has power, and why they use it that way. This is a big and complex question, about which many books can be written, and which can be looked at in different ways. But here are some short summaries to help you initially understand why the American judicial system has become the mess that it is.

As for 'someone' to fight this system, there have long been many little 'someones' trying to fight this battle. Sometimes, you can find such people on the internet, even though you may not have heard about them before you yourself became a legal system victim. The first decade of the new millennium, the 00s, when there was less pro-oligarch internet censorship by the major search engines, in particular saw a very worthy 'Jail 4 Judges' movement across the country, bringing victims together, and seeking to do something about America's terrifying and catastrophic legal system, against immense odds.

There are still people trying to fight this battle. But overall, there is no big powerful 'someone', with big money and influence and lawyers and media coverage, who is willing and able to fight this system as it now stands.

In America right now, two giant institutions are breaking down at the same time. One is the legal and court system, with the moral collapse of America's lawyers, now submissive to America's judges and to the culture of legal corruption.

The second institution that is breaking down, is that of the big news media organisations and internet platforms, the news media now very timid, and not covering much of the news that people need and want to hear.

Lawyers are afraid, journalists are afraid, and so the real story about America's courts is not getting told. America is a land of great fear. This needs to be understood in more detail, so you can understand why the judges have such power and control, and why judicial corruption is so rampant.

A good question to start analysing power and corruption, is to ask the classic question from ancient Rome - Cui bono? Who benefits from this corruption?

With judicial and legal misconduct, clearly the judges and the rich lawyers benefit from it. An unfair system that involves bribery and influence peddling, makes the judges and leading lawyers richer. They get a lot more money than they would in a fair system. The more injustice in America, the more fear that clients have, the more money they will pay to lawyers. Fear and injustice equals money for lawyers and judges.

Lawyers who are able to bribe judges and influence court results, know that people with cash will pay large money for such 'legal service', when big money is a reliable way to get results that you want, overwhelming the law and the facts and justice itself. If the system was fair, the little guy or victim would win more often. On the other hand, a bribery system, will tend to give more reliable results for the rich people who are paying the big fees and bribery money.

And partly it is just the ancient human emotion of the quest for power. A dishonest judge feels more powerful than an honest one. It is one thing to decide a legal case; it is another all together, to fix and rig the system for yourself and your friends. It can make people feel almost like a god, to twist and pervert the system and the USA Constitution. Pride and the lust for power, are ancient human emotions, especially for people who are drawn to politics, like judges.

In the USA and in Anglo-heritage societies in general, people grow up thinking that judges are the ultimate power. So people who seek power, want to become judges. And then how much more powerful you can feel as a judge, to twist and rig the whole game. Especially when you know that other judges are twisting and rigging the game too. And that judges can wind up shot dead on the street if they don't play the game with the others.

But we need to look more deeply, beyond the judges and lawyers themselves, to see who is benefiting from the current crooked USA legal system, and why the system keeps going. And this of course is the oligarchy, seeking control of a nation and society, and the ability to crush any threat to the own wealth and power and dominance, in having things their own way. See the following questions for more on this.

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13. But with the judges so out of control in America, aren't there rich people and political groups that have even more power than the judges?

Why is nobody powerful trying to stop the judges and lawyers from abusing people? It seems like there should be a group from amongst the USA billionaires - or the larger group of people with 100 million dollars or more - who should be able to create a great popular movement for judicial reform.

If the judges were not serving the billionaires well as a group, it is certain that the billionaires would mount a large media-driven 'judicial reform' movement. But one or a few billionaires who are wronged by the system, are not enough - they would be crushed and destroyed by the other billionaires, who can weaponise the power of the US government, the Justice Department and above all the federal judges.

Three of the richest people in the USA - each of whom has at times been the 'richest person in the world', not just the USA - Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and my own Harvard undergraduate classmate, Bill Gates - have all been 'hit' with various damaging actions by the USA governmental and judicial apparatus. At one point, Warren Buffett was menaced with an 'investigation' of aspects of his companies, touching on him personally. Bill Gates was menaced with an anti-trust break-up of Microsoft, ironic given that it was an anti-trust action against IBM that put into Gates' hands the computer operating system for the DOS-Windows computer family. And Jeff Bezos was recently squeezed into paying tens of billions to ex-wife in a divorce, making her the richest woman in the world.

All three of these billionaires came from politically-connected families. Buffett's father was a 1940s US Congressman associated with the establishment of the USA nuclear war command centre in his home state. Bill Gates' father was a deeply-politically-involved insider lawyer. Jeff Bezos' grandfather was a key figure for years in the USA nuclear and security apparatus.

Yet, each of these billionaires, appeared to submit to the judicial-government 'system' as the price of continuing to grow and expand their wealth. The actions against Buffett and Gates were both dropped, after which both seemed to become less critical of the establishment way of doing things. Jeff Bezos paid up the tens of billions to his ex-wife, unable to 'rig' the divorce court system as people of much lesser wealth seem to have been able to do.

Although it seems that a billionaire is a 'free man or woman', any of them can be taken down by a concerted set of government investigations and legal actions, if they rub against the billionaire consensus of what rich people are supposed to do. And sometimes they simply just must pay a 'tax', to be a role model for others. Jeff Bezos paid tens of billions to his ex-wife, and now every judge in the USA can say, 'Even Jeff Bezos had to pay billions to his ex-wife, so you must pay too!' And after Jeff Bezos paid, he was allowed to become even richer, making even more extra tens of billions than he lost in the divorce case.

If a billionaire really started to go after the gangster judges by funding a judicial reform movement, you can bet he would suddenly have lots of 'problems'. Accusations. Investigations. Lawsuits. Loss of favour for his businesses in internet search results. And on and on. He could even be killed if the other oligarchs thought that was the way to solve the problem.

Billionaires - richest in the world - have been made bankrupt by trying to fight the system, as happened to the Hunt brothers in their silver acquistions and trading of the 1970s-80s. The Hunts were warned, but refused to listen to the warning, and then were destroyed by 'sudden changes in the rules' affecting their loans and investments, and were eventually convicted of various offences, much of their great wealth turning into vapour once the system went after them.

In the USA and many other nations, there are said to be three 'branches' of government: The judiciary branch of judges; the executive branch of the President and state governors; and the legislative branch under congress and the various state legislatures. Two main political parties, Democrats and Republicans, control nearly everyone in government throughout the USA, with just a handful of exceptions, a few libertarians and the odd socialist and so on. But nearly all judges, the President and governors, and nearly all legislators, are members of these two big parties.

It is not well-known but the USA Constitution actually made Congress Supreme over all judges, even the Supreme Court. The Constitution says that if such judges do not have "good behaviour", they can be removed, via impeachment by the Congress House and trial by the USA Senate ordering their removal.

However, that power is almost never used, despite how the Chairman of the US Congress House Judiciary Committee - who would initiate impeachment proceedings against judges - should be much more powerful and significant than he is. In practice in the USA, the judges are the highest or supreme branch. The President has more raw power in his hands, but he still winds up under the courts in the way government practice has been structured, and we see federal judges continually 'order' a stop to something the President was doing. Weaker still are the legislators. The Congress passes laws, but is not as powerful as the President, or the courts, since the judges can nullify or re-interpret the laws.

Yet this weakest-in-practice branch of government, the bodies of individual legislators, is the one closest to the people. The President is more distant, and the most distant of all are the judges. So the in-practice highest powers, are the most distant from the public.

Founding Americans such as Thomas Jefferson warned and feared that its 1789 Constitution was too weak about controlling the judges, and that eventually the judges would have too much power on behalf of rich oligarchs, a judicial tyranny. And it seems he was right.

Rich people prefer to have things dominated by judges, because the judges and their lawyer friends are by nature close to the rich people who are paying expensive lawyers, and can fund discreet bribery via those lawyers. In Anglo countries especially, the 'law' is like a fake religion, with the black-robed judges the 'priests'. In many religions you are not supposed to question the religious authorities, and in this fake USA religion of 'supreme law courts', you are not supposed to question the judges.

This is rather different from other advanced countries, where the parliaments or legislators are more in charge, because they directly represent the people, and the power of the people who have a 'right' to go into the streets and make a revolution, like in 1789 France. With that Napoleonic law tradition embodying the idea of revolutionary sovereignty by people, in Europe the parliament is usually more powerful than the executive, more often a prime minister rather than the president, or the judges. But in the USA, to a degree like few other places, the judges are on top of the heap, not the parliament or congress.

Even though in the USA the judges hold the highest political power, judges are yet the government group that people are supposed to be afraid to criticise. People are allowed to talk politics about the President or Congress, but are fearful and timid of saying things about the judges, who are help up as a quasi-religious icon of 'the law'.

Yet behind those judges, are the real biggest power in America, collectively worth trillions of dollars,  the big corporations, and the very wealthiest billionaires and multi-millionaires, the big investors who own those corporations. These corporations are more powerful than any individual or any branch of the government, and if they wanted, they could as a group change the way the government works.

These big corporations, with the billionaires and multi-millionaire investors, have effective ownership and funding and control of the important institutions in the United States. They own almost all of the major news media, nearly all the television and radio and newspapers, the dominant internet search and information portals and many internet sites, which Americans read as sources of news and information.

Corporations and wealthy people provide most of the money for both political parties - both the Democrats and the Republicans - yes, they are the sources of most of the money used by both of these two parties in their billion dollars of election campaigns. Both political parties get their money from a group of oligarchs who are well-acquainted with each other, and who keep each other in line with the overall oligarch agenda. Although some of these people and corporations tilt more to one party or another due to their thematic inclinations, it is often just merely friendly rivalry under the oligarch umbrella, as to which party's current themes are better for managing and advancing oligarch class interests.

The big corporations and billionaires and multi-millionaires, also supply the money for most of the big 'non-profit organisations' and think tanks, the organisations you see that have good funding, paid employees, and money to spend on fancy internet sites, fundraising and advertising. Wherever you turn in America for established information, or to observe well-funded political activity, you are usually running into something ultimately funded by America's biggest corporations and wealthiest people.

The power of the corporations and billionaires and multi-millionaires, are the real force behind the judges, and the current environment of unlimited judicial power. This is explored further below.

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14. How is the power of the big corporations in America, connected to the abuse of power by judges and lawyers?

So why don't the rich people and corporations keep the judges under control, and force them to be honest?

In talking about the power of the big corporations, and the billionaires and multi-hundred-millionaires, it isn't necessary to take sides on issues like market capitalism versus leftist social democracy, or the old-fashioned debate about what Americans call 'conservative' versus 'liberal' viewpoints.

What is involved here, is the monopoly power of rich companies and a few rich people, so concentrated that it has become huge and dangerous, and stifles free competition, personal independence, and human rights. It is what even USA Presidents, going back to Teddy Roosevelt, warned about as the dangerous power of 'trusts', cartels and monopolies. This also ties in to what US President Dwight Eisenhower warned against as the power of the 'military industrial complex', the big corporations and wealthy people receiving the trillions of 'national security' spending, whom he said might eventually control all branches and aspects of government, if people were not vigilant.

It is that kind of concentrated, monopoly power that is at issue here - not just the power of the judges and lawyers themselves as a monopoly, but the power of the corporations behind those judges and who set up the system as it now stands.

Of course it benefits judges themselves to operate a culture of almost naked and unrestrained power, where complaints about judges are only reviewed by other judges. It benefits the judges to have a system where the lawyers appearing in court must slavishly submit to the judges, and not dare expose corruption, or else instantly lose their ability to practice law, and maybe face jail under judge orders for 'contempt of court'. The system now is where USA judges can commit crimes and develop a culture of gang bribery, secure in the knowledge that they can cover up for themselves and any fellow judges who engage in bribery and misconduct.

The current game benefits the judges, and it benefits the group of wealthy lawyers who play dirty games with the judges and who buy influence with them. But all of that may not be enough to explain why the game keeps going on.

Over and over again, people cry out in private: Why doesn't 'somebody' do something about these crooked judges and lawyers? Why won't anyone help me? Why do the politicians, the police and everybody else, stay silent whilst all of this is going on?

Yes, theoretically, the legislators have the power to go after the judges. Theoretically, media could start publicising on the front page of the newspapers, and in the headlines of news broadcasts, all the terrible crimes being committed by judges and lawyers, all the stories of so many victims, with so much proof in written documents. If major media wished, they could publicise all those stories that are usually only found on obscure internet pages, written by people after they themselves have become victims. The media could talk about the giant hidden iceberg of USA court corruption, with hundreds of thousands of victims, and numbering in the millions when you count family members.

But nonetheless, all the millions of victims of the legal system are suffering, and finding that no one in power, no big political party or influential media organisation, is taking up their cause, beyond the very occasional hint of what is happening. Why not?

The answer ultimately lies in the power of the big corporations, and their billionaire and multi-millionaire investors. These powers, ultimately, like the current system as it is. It works for them, even though the average common person often gets run over by the big bus driven by the judges, known as the American legal system. These big corporations, who also own the media companies, and who also supply the money for your congress-people and legislators, like the system as it is. So all the people who get the big corporation and billionaire money - the media, the legislators, the prosecutors and state governors who run for office, as well as the lawyers - they all generally stay quiet about legal corruption, because they know that the current legal system is what is wanted by those big corporations and investors who have lots of cash to deploy, either for them or against them.

A 'fair' legal system, which made the little person equal to the big corporation, is obviously something dangerous to the corporations, causing the corporations not only to lose money, but even more important, to lose control. An unfair legal system - where only the richest can afford to play the game well - benefits the corporations greatly.

Almost no one in America can pay lawyers $500 an hour for months and months. But this is small change for big companies or billionaires, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers. For rich psychopaths, it is a pleasure to spend millions on the most disgusting crimes, such as raping children, or racist threats and murder of innocent people.

And it is not just lawsuits and legal claims, which the big corporations and rich investors are worried about. It is control of all the machinery of government, control of democracy itself, that is secured by owning the legal system.

America is the nation in the world whose political system, is most controlled and owned by big corporations and investors. An unfair legal system, with lots of influence-buying and bribery, not only lets companies win their particular legal battles, in taking away the rights of the little person. It also prevents other kinds of protests and political activity that could threaten the big companies' profits and power. The working class and middle class people, can be kept submissive and in fear, afraid of ever trying to ask for their rights either in the court or in the political or media arenas.

So America's unfair legal system is an important tool by the rich, used to keep people shut up and quiet and fearful. Similarly, the monopoly ownership of America's media by the big companies keeps many Americans ignorant of things that are going on, the media hiding what the corporations do not want them to hear. This corporate control extends to the internet portal companies, the internet search engines and social media, all of whom play their part in hiding truth.

Americans are in terror of the law and the legal system, as just enough stories of people's lives being destroyed via the courts, are allowed to circulate in the media. If the average American is arrested, he already instinctively fears that he will be railroaded and sent to jail if he is not rich, and if he does not have several hundred thousand dollars to spend. If he is sued by a big company, the average person instinctively fears to lose everything he owns, and go bankrupt.

The legal system is used to quash, silence and destroy, and even imprison, little people who try to criticise big companies, rich people, and - of course - judges and lawyers. The legal system is used to attack and harass people who try to start independent political parties or reform movements, or engage in protest activity, and to crush independent writers and critics.

One big tool of destroying people's lives, is the whole farce of American courts on divorce and family law, the custody of children and alimony and divorce property disputes. By keeping millions of Americans tied up in years of legal hell and losing money to this system, working Americans are kept poor, and drained of energy and resources they could use for other activity, such as politics on behalf of the working class.

In a general demoralisation of the working and lower classes and especially minorities, America has built a giant gulag of prisons, with more than 2 million prisoners - approximately one-fourth, twenty-five percent, of all the prisoners in the entire world. The USA is now a big jailhouse, with something like 1 out of every 150 US citizens currently in prison, many of them innocent, especially minorities.

Some people like to talk about statistics of high crime amongst minorities. Well, one thing that can be said in response, is that for decades now, US prosecutors largely do not care if the person they arrest for the crime is guilty or innocent. A crime is committed, and the detectives will often arrest some 'rando' minority, some hapless black or Latino individual, and say to themselves, 'Well he probably did some other crime even if he didn't do this one.' If minority crime statistics are high, it is in part because the actual criminals who did crimes, are often not the one arrested. With poorer minority cases knowing well that innocent young men especially are arrested, others lose the incentive to be law-abiding.

Working class and minority Americans live in fear of being sent to jail on false and bogus charges, with fake evidence from crooked jailhouse snitches, who tell lies just to get a lighter sentence for themselves. Sometimes you learn that an innocent man was strapped to a table and put to death, on the basis of such flimsy crooked evidence.

Paradoxically, middle-class whites in the USA often think the jailing of blacks and Hispanics are all 'mostly legitimate', even tho they themselves have experiences of getting mauled and abused in USA courts, although more in lawsuit and divorce cases and cases involving money. Very tragically in these times of racial and social group tension, there is too little understanding that, for example, American whites and blacks and Latinos, are all victimised by the US legal system, although in somewhat different ways for the middle class and the poor amongst minorities.

By contrast, hardly anybody is in jail in Europe, and the crime rates are much lower, despite many European countries only jailing 1 out of 1000 people, instead of 1 out of 150 like in the USA. America imprisons a much higher percentage of people than China, Cuba or other countries that USA leaders like to criticise.

The average person in the USA is already at least subconsciously aware that the legal system is a terrifying monster. It's a frightening iron fist of corruption on what should have been a better nation.

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