Reddit reviews With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

Ultimately that is probably what it will take. Family members or friends of the deceased taking matters into their own hands and taking out murdering cops and corrupt DAs. The bottom line is that stuff like this will never stop if cops do not fear repercussions. It's the same reason why the establishment elite continue doing what they do, they have no fear of being held accountable.

The state of the "rule of law" and American "justice" is a complete joke. "The law" is for the little guy - the powerless. For those who haven't read it, I highly recommend With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful by Glenn Greenwald.

http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality-Powerful/dp/0805092056

Here's how I understand it, also a senior econ major who spends too much time on /truereddit and no time watching tv news.

The bottom 99%: Many of the protestors are recent college graduates who have spent the last few years trying and failing to get jobs in their majors. There are many people who have graduated with decent grades and decent resumes, taken out tens of thousands of dollars of student loans and now have to take retail jobs because there just aren't enough jobs in the market. Read around at http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/ to get a better idea of people's individual situations. Large factions in government (particularly the growing far-right voice in republicanism) have been cutting unemployment insurance, anything meaningful in the healthcare bill, and money toward non-profits.

The Top 1%: Meanwhile, the top 1% are taking ever more for themselves. These graphs show the growing disparity better than I could. Meanwhile, they've heavily lobbied congress, changed regulations to give more freedom to large corporations and make entering markets more difficult, have avoided any criminal prosecutions despite numerous acknowledged accounts of theft, lying to consumers about risk, and lying to regulatory bodies about what they were doing. C-level executives breaking the law, affecting millions of dollars and lives, face no criminal penalties but 4% of Americans have been imprisoned, mostly for petty crimes and drug use. And now that corporations have personhood, as upheld by the supreme court case Citizens United Vs. FEC, corporations are donating massive amounts to influence elections and elected representatives. This has caused both parties to give more weight to corporate interests than ever before in American history while simultaneously cutting benefits and safety nets for the bottom 46%.

Issues with Obama: Obama ran on a campaign for change of corporate interest in politics and stronger enforcement of equality under the law. But under him, the banks had record profits after a misguided bailout, regulation continued to be uprooted, no criminal charges were filed, and almost all the major relief programs had their budgets cut. People felt betrayed.

The OWS campers: So back to OWS - the people camping out are the front lines. Many are unemployed, some are homeless, some are just really grumpy. They are not the voice of the movement, but the base of it. The media has mostly gotten their kicks by playing this "neutral" reporting angle, where they interview the front liners and decide that everyone is just complaining and uneducated. The people at the front lines do a have a wide range of complaints - they believe the political system is broken. Issues include corporate personhood, lobbyist influence, block party voting, lack of interest in citizen issues (online voting questions), the never ending wars, legalization of marijuana, student loans, healthcare, gun control laws, and everything in between. At the front lines, people are just disgruntled. But as a whole movement, the first few are representative of the main requests for change.

What OWS wants: To date, the movement hasn't asked for anything direct or specific action. That enables the mainstream media to simplify the movement. But no law by entrenched politicians can change a culture of listening to CEO interests over worker interests, of accepting huge donations in return for lowered regulations. Right now, OWS is trying to raise awareness of this disparity of wealth and interests - it's difficult for anyone not directly impacted to really feel.

Tl;dr Most Americans have seen their benefits and job opportunities cut while the government has allocated more and more to the top 1%. The people camping out and protesting are the base of the movement, but they aren't a very eloquent voice for it. The biggest issues that OWS is seeking to change are overturning corporate personhood and equality under the law between rich and poor.


Further viewing:
Book: Glenn Greenwald’s With Liberty and Justice for Some - How Rule of Law no longer applies – the political and financial elite aren’t criminally liable for their actions, and poor drug users are more likely to face crippling criminal penalties than ever before.
Video: Inside the Accountants Handbook – a 3 minute video of how corporations don’t pay taxes

Those of you concerned about the Sheriff's stance on this legal mattermay be interested in Glenn Greenwald's new book, With Liberty and Justice for Some.

Glenn Greenwald wrote an entire book highlighting this fact called, "With Liberty and Justice for Some".

And sometimes it isn't "murder" if there are mitigating circumstances. We have many different charges based on lots of different factors and scenarios. He could be screwed up mentally and not been properly evaluated. I think it is obvious he had incredibly shitty legal representation. I didn't say him killing them was the correct thing to do or that he shouldn't answer for that in some way. All I said was that I, personally, would refuse to convict him of murder given that he had suffered years of abuse and might face the death penalty.

And, I'm sorry, but you are a fool if you think we have even a passable "justice system." Our "justice system" is nothing of the kind. It is a two tiered system of injustice.

You might benefit from reading this book.

http://www.amazon.com/With-Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality/dp/0805092056

Because the laws they make are designed to protect the elite, not the people. There was an interesting article I read that talks about how The US is becoming a country with two separate sets of laws, one for the common people and one for the elite.

Glen Greenwald wrote a book on this...

With Liberty and Justice for some

With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805092056/ref=asc_df_08050920561823493?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395093&creativeASIN=0805092056

[Glenn Greenwald - With liberty and justice for some. ] (http://www.amazon.com/With-Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality/dp/0805092056)