IS MURDER OF THE CITIZENRY BY THE POLICE A RESULT OF COR PORATE TAKEOVER OF EDUCATION AND LOSS OF LOCAL CONTROL II?

            As I reflect over my career, I have tried to make sense out of all the changes I’ve seen over 4 decades. I failed. Although, having drifted in and out of the academic arena over the years and having tried cases in multiple jurisdictions both state and federal, I’ve made some observations from which I can make some conclusions. In an earlier comment, I described the situation wherein a knife wielding student was murdered by police, who claimed they feared for their life or safety. This is a typical excuse of a police officer when he murders somebody. Of course, such an incident is generally reviewed by a prosecutor who inevidently concludes that the police officer was following his training and, therefore, did nothing wrong.  I can’t help but wonder who the hell are training these killers. Police officers I’ve known for four decades take pride in the fact that they never drew their guns. When I first started practicing law the prison population was approximately 10% of what it is today. And at that time and there was an uneasiness and undertow of rebellion in United States with racial tension, antiwar protest, and unruly hippies rebelling against their parents and society.

 I think that one of the many causal factors is that of linguistic programming or semiotics. I will begin by commenting on the concept of a criminal prosecution. Criminal prosecutions for centuries dealt with the relationship between a citizen and as sovereign or state. Individuals had nothing to do with the process, they could of course sue if they were injured.  Most prosecutors, even in large cities like Chicago, had private practices and dealt with a wide experience of circumstances and people while prosecuting. The broader the experience of the prosecutor, the greater the range of discretion used in the process and the perception of their role as maintaining or promoting the best interest of society. Now, professional prosecutors whose sole purpose is to get convictions have replaced them.  The modern prosecutor typically has no outside experience and is not taught to think in terms of societal interests, but in narrow terms of whether or not there was a violation of law which can yield a conviction. This has not been healthy. It is particularly harmful, since most prosecutions over the last four decades have been based upon enforcement of drug laws which were invented by a president and his staff to target groups, such as anti-war protesters, and other young people such as hippies thought of as political enemies.

For that to view of reality to succeed, there had to be a great propaganda effort by the government to change perception and get support for a policy not based on science or to wage a war not declared by Congress as the Constitution dictated, but designed to instill fear.  With the Nixon administration, a new fear-based construction of reality was created, calculated to control citizens and make them docile.

By changing the construct of the word, our concept of justice was altered. When I started practicing law, anyone who stated that he defendant pleaded innocent was deemed to be an ignoramus. Anyone with a 9^th grade civics class knew that a criminal trial was about whether or not the government had shown whether it had the right to interfere with the person's life liberty or property. Innocence had nothing to do with the matter.  I noticed over time that reporters and commentators, when reporting on an appearance in court by an accused, would report that the accused pleaded innocent. There is no such plea, nor was there ever such a plea. But after hearing term used by the press repeatedly, the expectation of the public changed.  The public now expects that an accused should show that he’s innocent in some manner. If the accused didn’t explain, the perception was that he had escaped Justice, because Justice and punishment were now synonymous.  Changing that one word caused ramifications that we are witnessing today.  Since people who are been arrested have not shown innocence and typically plea bargain, the Public feels cheated or believes the system is corrupt. Otherwise whilst with the guilty sums of bitches walk?

Politically savvy district attorneys don’t bother correcting the press, because the misuse of the term helps them win cases and get votes.  They don’t view their job as looking out for the best interest of society but, like the Inquisitors of foreign jurisdictions, extorting confessions or admissions to justify punishment.  After a few decades of failed expectations, and no officials, or anyone else for that matter bothering to correct the perception, the public’s view of the court system is one of incompetence, corruption, or dysfunction.

This Perception been reinforced by the propaganda of the police, who belly-ache about arrestees being released on bond. I have been compelled to believe this is deliberate or intentional. Most police that I’ve met are intelligent and don’t display that type of ignorance. However, the party line of the police is “we worked hard to catch criminals and keep the streets safe, and the court lets them go after their arrest.” That leads the public to conclude that an arrest should be the end of it. And if a person is released, the public is un protected. Only an idiot could believe that this is actually what should occur. They’ve been trained that there is a presumption of innocence. They have been trained that defendants have a right to bond. They have been trained that a person isn’t a criminal until tried by a jury or judge or pleading guilty in front of a court.  They ignore these inconvenient facts to propagandize and deliberately miss-state things, blaming the Constitution for endangering the public. So, everything after arrest is viewed as inefficient pandering of criminals or worse.  Even worse, it leaves the public with the wrong conclusions and misperceptions about our justice system.

So, after a few decades of misperception, this information and conscious propaganda, we have now been sent well on the way to a police state. To placate the public’s perception of criminals escaping Justice, incarceration has increased tenfold over the last four decades. Even though some attempts have been made to change that statistic, no attempt has been made to rectify the underlying perception problem. So, like the Mafia, the government continues to sell protection to its citizens from problems or threats created by the government itself.  They also ferment change and undermining of our common-law traditions and protections.  We have become the enemy to the police who are now at war with us.  Who benefits?

When I started practicing law there were no private prisons. There were no privatized pretrial services because the purpose of the bail was just a guarantee one’s appearance at court. There was still a presumption of innocence, so the courts couldn’t take jurisdiction until it improved guilt in some manner. However, fearful or ignorant judges, generally trained as prosecutors blithely proceed, ignoring ten centuries of precedent regarding bond making illegal conditions a condition of bond to support a new industry of privatized pretrial services. This serves as a double why me to the poor of our country, but then, as a “famous line from the movie “Magnificent Seven” stated “if God had not intended them to be sheared he wouldn’t have made them sheep,” referring to the peasants who got periodically raped, pillaged and plundered.

A police state can only exist when there are no constitutional restraints or the flagrant violation of such rights, backed by an ignorant public.  Our Constitutional form of government and our social framework are being deliberately altered or destroyed.  Fear is destroying our tradition of fairness and justice.  Police, pandering to that fear, do the will of the elite against the people changing a police force system that should protect its citizens into an occupation army.