Karen J. Greenberg: Accountability Is Wearing Thin in 21st-Century America
The Sophists taught, rather publicly, that the summit of happiness is to combine the appearance of justice with actual injustice: G. A. McBrayer; On the origin of the Idea of Natural Right; in Brill's Companion to Leo Strauss, 2005; p 44
Even before the Samuel Alito opinion on Roe v. Wade became public, our justice system was headed for the nearest drain. Trust in the legal system, fictional or otherwise, is rapidly fading, succumbing to the dangerous poison of this partisan moment and an ever more partisan Supreme Court. As Americans watch from the sidelines, the courts and the legal system continue to visibly fumble in the dark for legitimacy of any sort.
Yes, pundits and experts (like the rest of us) tend to focus on disastrous individual cases that interest them like the one in which those who plotted to kidnap and kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer managed to escape conviction or, say, the acquittal of the youthful Kyle Rittenhouse who used an assault rifle to kill two men at a Black Lives Matter protest. But here’s the truth of our moment: the larger picture of American (in)justice has become far more damning than any case could be. Ultimately, after all, the issue isn’t the outcome of any specific case, but trust (or increasingly, the lack of it) in the system that’s supposed to administer, adjudicate, and legitimate the law in America.
Despite the recent scandal over the Supreme Court’s coming decision to overrule Roe v. Wade, nowhere is this clearer than in the cases surrounding the January 6th Capitol riot. It’s hard to describe the Justice Department’s handling of the insurrection on January 6, 2021, as anything other than appalling. Nearly a year and a half later, despite more than 800 indictments of individuals involved in the assault on the Capitol, no charges have yet been filed against either former President Donald Trump or any of his close allies who helped plan, fund, and execute the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Instead, Attorney General Merrick Garland appears to have thrown up his hands in defeat, as if to suggest that the controversy around holding Trump and his associates accountable has simply been more than he can handle….
How With
This Rage. BY CHRIS HEDGES (2005)
Robert Reich - Beware of this deadly mix:
oligarchic economics and racist, nationalist populism
Society of the
Spectacle / 'इमेज' - 'Image': A
Poem on Deaths in the Age of Covid
Hedges:
The Age of Self-Delusion
Dupont
and the forever toxic chemicals / Tom Petty I Won't Back Down
Mohammed Hanif: The
rest of the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise
The Break-Up of Britain / The US today resembles the Soviet Union just before it fell
Chris Hedges: The Collective Suicide Machine
Chris Hedges: Heeding James
Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’
Jesus
sermon from the Rev. Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges: Imploding the myth of Israel
