Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Our System of Just Us

Glenn Greenwald in an excellent Salon.com essay (to which a link is supplied in the post immediately following this one) notes that it's long been clear that this is Obama's understanding of a "nation of laws": the most powerful political and financial elites who commit the most egregious crimes are to be shielded from the consequences of their lawbreaking -- [citing numerous examples, ending with the way in which Wall Street executives were permitted to plunder with impunity -- while the most powerless figures (such as a 23-year-old Army Private and a slew of other low-level whistleblowers) who expose the corruption and criminality of those elites are to be mercilessly punished. * * * Merciless, due-process-free punishment is for the powerless, full-scale immunity is for the powerful. "Nation of laws" indeed.

No comments: