The two political gangs headquartered in D.C. that have captured the government of the United States from its people collude to ensure that none of their upper tier ever have to face justice for their criminal actions. By mutual consent, high level members of either gang simply won’t get prosecuted no matter how serious their crimes. Ordinary citizens like you and me on the other hand, must constantly live with the anxiety of running afoul of their expanding lists of edicts over every aspect of our lives.
I was most lately reminded of this when a friend texted me to the effect that now that we know that the Bush administration was also funneling guns to Mexican criminal gangs, the Republicans would lose their taste for prosecuting “Justice” DepartmentSecretary Eric Holder for doing the same thing (under the banner of operation “Fast and Furious”). Some of the guns funneled to the Mexican drug cartels under this program were used to murder U.S. law enforcement officials, and numerous Mexican civilians.
I replied to my friendthat Holder would not have been prosecuted even if the Bush side of the two-party system had not done the same thing, because no one that senior in either political party ever gets prosecuted regardless of what they do. We have a twotiered system of “justice” in this nation where the ruling elite who run both major parties form one group that makes the laws over us, but are for all practical purposes exempt from those laws themselves.
If you think about it, this arrangement between the members of the two political clubs, the Republicans and the Democrats, makes a lot of sense for the higher ups. If one of them ever prosecuted high-ranking members of the other party when they were in power, they might find the tables turned on them the next election. To avoid the prospect of unpleasant payback, its best for them to just pretend to make members from the other side followthe law, but not actually hold any of them accountable to the same rules they jointly impose on us peasants.
I first realized this was happening back when Bush Jr. beat Al Gore. I thought that at least some of the crimes perpetrated by high-ranking members of the Clinton administration, including perhaps one of the Clintons themselves, would be investigated and prosecuted. As soon as G.W. Bush took office, he announced that he wanted a “new tone” and that they were not going to worry about which Democrats broke what laws. Since that time, members of the political class have been more and more brazen, while even the pretense of accountability is becoming rarer and more hollow each year.
The establishment press covered for the powersthat-be, as they always do. They hailed it as an example of how America is superior to third-world countries where every time a new group comes to power they use the law for political prosecutions of the group that was just ousted.
Well, excuse me, political prosecution of the ousted group is one type of corruption, but there is also the opposite kind: political non-prosecutions of the ousted group, as a quid-pro quo for future non-prosecutions for your side’s team. Our rulers aren’t less corrupt than the third world governments the media was disdaining, just more sophisticated in the form that corruption takes.
The only way they can get away with this is if Americans continue to be fooled by the two-party hustle. That’s where you think all the problems in our government were caused by the other team, and if only your team gets in there then everything is alright. As long as they have you thinking only inside that box, they are safe.
◊◊◊
Editor’s note: Mark Moore is the lead writer for an Internet blog on matters pertaining to Arkansas culture and government, Arkansas Watch, and on Tuesday nights is the host of an Internet-based radio program, Patriots on Watch. He can be reached through The Times at [email protected].
Opinion, Pages 4 on 11/09/2011