Took my twenty dollar bill
and he vanished in the air."
(CHORUS)
"Friend of the Devil," American Beauty,
Grateful Dead, 1970
The oligarchs have created a system of "justice"--political, social, and economic--that is so heavily weighted in favor of those individuals (as well as their corporate proxies) with a high degree of wealth and social status, that they make the term "justice" extremely ironic, if not completely hypocritical.
The only place that America's wealthy regularly get thrown into prison--and then a disproportionate amount of time for murder--are in TV crime dramas. If one were to believe the television, one-third of people charged with murder in this country are in the upper one or two percent of America's economic firmament.
This I believe is intentional on the part of the money men who control Hollywood: a propaganda device to deflect the 99 Percent's righteous anger from the wealthiest Americans by giving to the American people the false impression that the rich are treated in the same way that the rest of us are. By showing a disproportionate number of the "beautiful people" as heinous criminals, committing murder--often with some unfortunate middle or working class hanger-on as their victim--they try to misdirect the truth of the matter: too often the rich get away with murder, both figuratively and literally; sometimes even at the wholesale level.
Vincent Bugliosi in his book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, makes a good prima facie case for indicting Bush, Cheney, et al., with charges of murder for the deaths of any and all American troops in Iraq resident to an individual state, by the appropriate state court. Mr. Bugliosi's legal basis for these charges is that the invasion and occupation of Iraq were illegal, due to the fraudulent means by which the Bush Administration received the approval of the Congress and the United Nations, through a series of lies and deceptions.
I would also point out that these actions in my mind fulfill all of the requirements for filing charges under the Federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) statutes, in that the Iraq war knowingly enriched Vice President Cheney through his Halliburton stock options, in addition to the enrichment of friends and associates of the President and other high-ranking administration officials, through the use of fraud and force, resulting in the deaths and maiming of thousands of American citizens, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the malfeasance of public funds amounting to over one trillion dollars.
I think indictments under the RICO statutes--using the facts that Mr. Bugliosi has stated in his book, which in turn, are the basis upon which I have arrived at the logical conclusion of the need to file indictments under the RICO statutes--of the entire National Security Council under George W. Bush, including President Bush himself, should be brought by a special prosecutor. Among the consequences of these indictments would be the seizure of those assets which were acquired or improved upon as a result of these actions, as permitted under those statues.
I'm not going to hold my breath waiting. (See Justice Integrity Project, " Obama Team Feared Coup If He Prosecuted War Crimes ," Andrew Kreig, September 7, 2011.)
BRIDGE:
"Got two reasons why I cry away each lonely night,
The first one's named Sweet Anne Marie and she's my heart's delight;
Second one is prison, baby, the sheriff's on my trail,
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