MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
A matter of
A matter of
justice
The status quo managerial elite – consisting of the political and financial masters of the universe – cannot tolerate progressive advocacy that threatens to redistribute power or wealth. That is why police across the nation were instructed to crush the Occupy Movement, to pummel it into dust as a public occupation of space – and more importantly to remove its message of grassroots power and wealth redistribution from the headlines of the media.
The status quo managerial elite – consisting of the political and financial masters of the universe – cannot tolerate progressive advocacy that threatens to redistribute power or wealth. That is why police across the nation were instructed to crush the Occupy Movement, to pummel it into dust as a public occupation of space – and more importantly to remove its message of grassroots power and wealth redistribution from the headlines of the media.
Those
in the driver's seat of the nation fear empowering activism such as
Occupy, as if it were a virulent contagion that might rapidly spread
across the population and infect the public with "dangerous" ideas of
financial and political justice.
Last week, BuzzFlash at Truthout yet
again chastised the Department of Justice (DOJ) for giving a get out of
jail free card to the moneyed elite. But that applies to the political
elite too, who generally are not prosecuted for war crimes, torture,
etc. Those in power protect those in power.
But
the DOJ appears to have limitless resources to pursue Internet
transparency activists such as Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide the
other day at the age of 26. The pursuit only stopped with death, as the
DOJ, according to The Hill,
formally dropped the charges that appeared to be the precipitating
factor in Swartz's taking his own life (in what appears to have been a
valley of personal depression):
The Justice Department dropped its charges against Internet activist Aaron Swartz on Monday, citing his death.
Swartz, who was facing computer hacking charges, hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment on Friday. He was 26.
The filing is standard when the defendant in a case has died.
Federal
prosecutors indicted Swartz in 2011, accusing him of breaking into a
computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
downloading 4.8 million documents from JSTOR, a subscription service of
academic articles.
He faced up to 35 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. His trial was scheduled to begin in April.
One
can play the devil's advocate and argue that Swartz (an Internet
software prodigy) knowingly broke the law and therefore had to face the
punishment. But why do those on Wall Street and in DC who violate laws
and regulations retain impunity from the DOJ? Why does someone such as
Swartz face an oppressive legal assault from the US government? It is
because Swartz, who was an activist on other fronts, presented a threat
to the ruling order.
US Attorney Carmen Ortiz who unrelentingly pressed for a prison sentence for Swartz stated after his arrest:
Stealing
is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, whether
you take documents, data, or dollars. It is equally harmful to the
victim whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away.
Why
is it that the DOJ selectively applies this standard? It appears not to
have been a legal doctrine as applied to Wall Street, when trillions of
dollars were at issue.
Swartz's family released a statement that was sharply critical of the DOJ: "Aaron’s
death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal
justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach."
As Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks lamented on Truthout:
This
is the exact same sort of prosecutorial overreach we’re now getting
used to in a nation that more and more resembles a police state. It’s a
nation where soldiers like Bradley Manning, whistleblowers like John
Kiriakou, politicians like former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman who
dare to take on Karl Rove, and medical marijuana growers receive the
full brunt of the American Justice system and suffer dearly for their
crimes or non-crimes.
To be a principled person in a world of "realist" knaves is a pejorative: it is a sign of subversion to those sitting in DC.
It
is from this world -- the anti-principled consensus villager "wisdom"
of the DC and financial ruling elite – that the Department of Justice
(DOJ) takes its cue on issues such as the prosecution of Aaron Swartz –
whether the administration be Republican or Democratic.
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