Why Do People Defend Unjust, Inept, and Corrupt Systems?
Detail from Corrupt Legislation. Mural by Elihu Vedder (1896).
Via ScienceDaily:
Why do we stick up for a system or institution we live in — a government, company, or marriage — even when anyone else can see it is failing miserably? Why do we resist change even when the system is corrupt or unjust?
A new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, illuminates the conditions under which we’re motivated to defend the status quo — a process called “system justification.”System justification isn’t the same as acquiescence, explains Aaron C. Kay, a psychologist at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, who co-authored the paper with University of Waterloo graduate student Justin Friesen. “It’s pro-active. When someone comes to justify the status quo, they also come to see it as what should be.”
Reviewing laboratory and cross-national studies, the…
Who Will Protect the Protectors?
“What bullsh*t, Liam. If your lot really thought they [i.e., the police] were part of the “99%”, you’d be doing something to protect them, too,” Sorcha Nic Congail
Well, it has to be admitted that my cousin Sorcha has a point. A powerful point. Not the sort of thing that I would have been inclined to explore on my own unbidden. But that’s what friends are for, I guess. To prod you along some paths you would never have even considered, left to your own devices.
Here’s where the hole ugly mess began:
Photo, allegedly of the dog Parrot moments before being shot to death by police.
I received a copy of this photo last weekend from an FB friend and as a dog lover was immediately horrified. As a kid I grew up with dogs — lots of dogs. Probably the best, most loving and loyal animals on earth. I’d long ago come to…
Was 14-Year-Old Executed By South Carolina Innocent?
The saddest part is that I’m not 100 percent certain that something like this could never happen again today. Raw Story writes:
Over 67 years after 14-year-old George Junius Stinney Jr. was put to death by the state of South Carolina, he may soon be cleared of the crime that people familiar with the case say he never could have committed.
A lawyer and an activist both told Raw Story recently that new evidence will show that the black boy could not have possibly murdered two white girls, 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker and seven-year-old Mary Emma Thames.
Stinney, the youngest person to receive the death penalty in the last 100 years, was executed on June 16, 1944. At five feet one inch and only 95 pounds, the straps of the electric chair did not fit the boy. His feet could not touch the floor. As he was hit with the first 2,400-volt surge of…
Troy Davis Executed in Georgia
Reports the AP via CBS News:
Georgia executed Troy Davis on Wednesday night for the murder of an off-duty police officer, a crime he denied committing right to the end as supporters around the world mourned and declared that an innocent man was put to death.
Defiant to the end, he told relatives of Mark MacPhail that his 1989 slaying was not his fault. “I did not have a gun,” he insisted. “For those about to take my life,” he told prison officials, “may God have mercy on your souls. May God bless your souls.”
Davis was declared dead at 11:08 ET. The lethal injection began about 15 minutes earlier, after the Supreme Court rejected an 11th-hour request for a stay. The court did not comment on its order, which came about four hours after it received the request and more than three hours after the planned execution time.
Though Davis’ attorneys said seven…
West Memphis Three “Plead Guilty”, Freed After 18 Years
The trio of teenage friends were accused and convicted of several child murders in Arkansas in 1993, with the evidence more or less amounting to their interest in heavy metal music and dark-colored clothing. DNA evidence since confirmed their innocence, turning them into a cause célèbre as symbols of legal injustice, ’90s-era hysteria over provocative music, and, more broadly, the human tendency to scapegoat outsiders. The Los Angeles Times writes:
The three men known as the “West Memphis 3,” who have been imprisoned for 18 years for a notorious 1993 child-murder case, have won their freedom in an Arkansas courtroom.
In an agreement with prosecutors, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin pleaded guilty to the murders of three 8-year-old boys in May 1993, but are able to claim they are innocent, an arrangement known as an “Alford plea.” The three men were released Friday after serving sentences of 18 years plus credit…
‘Kids For Cash’ Judge Gets 28-Year Prison Sentence
Pennsylvania Judge Mark Ciavarella jailed teenagers for minor offenses (e.g. satirizing a teacher on Myspace) in return for over $1 million in kickbacks from the area’s for-profit youth prison. Mother Sandy Fonzo alleges that Judge Ciavarella is only “the tip of the iceberg” in a practice that is occurring across the country. Fonzo’s star-wrestler son, whom Ciavarella sentenced, committed suicide after spending six months imprisoned among violent offenders as punishment for being caught with a marijuana pipe. In her words, “Judge Ciavarella is proof that for-profit incarceration cannot happen.”
The Kids For Cash scandal involved more than 30 state and local government officials and contractors, says ABC News.
The Blue Eyes Of Terror Challenge The World To Respond
Move over Osama bin Laden—I know you already have had in the physical sense —because you now have an emulator who borrows your tactics and inverts your ideology.
Anders Behring Breivik, is Norway’s candidate for the new world’s top living evil-doer and terror supremo having admitted to killing 93 young people and blowing up buildings in Oslo.
While Bin Laden castigated crusaders, Breivik salutes them in a 1518 page manifesto of madness. And his lawyer has rationalized his murder spree in a similar way to those who defended Al Qaeda as defending Islam.
The two are almost carbon copies. The Norwegian posted videos on You Tube while Bin Laden relied on TV communiqués.
One was killing in the name of Islam, the other in the name of Christianity.
Foreign Policy reports, ”Breivik’s lawyer said that his client admitted to the killings, but rejected ‘criminal responsibility.’” He described Breivik as being motivated to carry out the…
An Environmental Advocate Faces Jail Time For Peacefully Derailing The Government’s Auction Of Utah Land
Photo: Nodar Kherkheulidze
Environmental hero or another illegal tactic of a peaceful activist? Jurors are often told that they must come to a verdict based on the law and not their moral conscious. Should DeChristopher get a 4 1/2 year prison sentence, or should his trial lead to a reconsideration of the law? AlterNet reports:
Tim DeChristopher is scheduled to be sentenced in a Salt Lake City courtroom by U.S. District Judge Dee Benson on July 26. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine for fraudulently bidding in December 2008 on parcels of land, including areas around eastern Utah’s national parks, which were being sold off by the Bush administration to the oil and natural gas industry. As Bidder No. 70, he drove up the prices of some of the bids and won more than a dozen other parcels for $1.8 million. The government is asking Judge Benson…
For Women, Darker Skin Tone Means Longer Prison Sentences
Racial bias in our criminal justice system isn’t a binary matter, with different treatment for blacks versus whites — rather, a new study suggests that it is a sliding scale, in which severity of punishment increases proportionally as skin color becomes darker. Via the Root:
Villanova researchers studied more than 12,000 cases of African-American women imprisoned in North Carolina and found that women with lighter skin tones received more-lenient sentences and served less time than women with darker skin tones.
The researchers found that light-skinned women were sentenced to approximately 12 percent less time behind bars than their darker-skinned counterparts. Women with light skin also served 11 percent less time than darker women.
The study took into account the type of crimes the women committed and each woman’s criminal history to generate apples-to-apples comparisons. The work builds on previous studies by Stanford University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and other institutions, which…
US, Russia, China Faulted For ‘Serious Deficiencies’ In Rule Of Law
Protesters clash with riot police on 7 November 2007 during Georgian demonstrations. Photo: Diaoha, Georgia Today
How well has America upheld ‘justice for all’ this year? Via Solidarity Institute:
An annual survey of the rule of law around the world released Monday sees weak protections for fundamental rights in China, “serious deficiencies” in Russia, and problems with discrimination in the United States.
Sweden and Norway scored highest on the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, which ranks countries on such key areas as whether the government is held accountable, there is access to justice, rights are protected and crime and corruption is prevented.
“Achieving the rule of law is a constant challenge and a work in progress in all countries,” said Hongsia Liu, the executive director of the project, which was funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
He said the index was “not designed to shame or blame, but…
On the Death of Osama and the Rise of the Magic Brooms
Mickey Fantasia Fountain, Disneyland Paris. (CC)
Via Aaron Dames: Observations on Nature and Humanity:
The end excuses any evil. — Sophocles, Electra
Read what’s presented to you the same way you would read Iraqi Propaganda. — Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions
For the liberation of a people more is needed than economic policy, more than industry: if a people is to become free, it needs pride and willpower, defiance, hate, hate and once again hate. — Adolf Hitler, Munich speech, April 10, 1923
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Why do we kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong? — From a bumper sticker
Jesus Christ would slap the shit of out you. — Another bumper sticker
This week President Obama visited the World Trade Center due to the death of Osama Bin…
Bradley Manning Supporters Heckle Obama During Fundraiser
Reuters reports:
Protesters interrupted President Barack Obama at a campaign fund-raiser on Thursday to complain about the treatment in detention of a U.S. soldier accused of leaking documents that appeared on the WikiLeaks website.
Obama’s administration has been criticized for Bradley Manning’s treatment, although the president says the Pentagon has assured him the soldier is not being ill-treated while he is awaiting trial.
Obama was addressing a room of about 200 people — many of whom paid as much as $35,800 to see him — when a woman in a white suit stood up and announced that she and nine others sitting at her table had written a song for him.
Despite Obama’s protestations, they then broke into a song that called for the 23-year-old soldier’s release. They passed out “Free Bradley Manning” signs and the woman took off her jacket to reveal a black T-shirt with Manning’s image.
“Now, where was I?” the somewhat flustered…
April Gallop Sues For 9/11 Truth With George W. Bush’s Cousin As Judge
This press release sets the scene for the continuing battle for 9/11 Truth by former Army Specialist April Gallop, who was in the wing of the Pentagon that was hit on 9/11:
… On the morning of September 11, 2001, she was ordered by her supervisor to go directly to work at the Pentagon, before dropping off her ten-week-old son Elisha at day care.
Amazingly, the infant was given immediate security clearance upon arrival.
The instant Gallop turned on her computer an enormous explosion blew her out of her chair, knocking her momentarily unconscious.
Escaping through the hole reportedly made by Flight 77, she saw no signs of an aircraft – no seats, luggage, metal, or human remains. Her watch (and other clocks nearby) had stopped at 9:30-9:31 a.m., seven minutes before the Pentagon was allegedly struck at 9:38 a.m.
The 9/11 Commission reported that “by no later than 9:18 a.m., FAA centers in Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Washington were aware that Flight 77 was…
Texas Blocked From Debuting Controversial New Lethal-Injection Cocktail
The state of Texas will have to wait until another day to try out a newly formulated death-inducing mixture which critics say could cause agonizing suffering. Cleve Foster, a Desert Storm veteran convicted of the murder of a woman he’d met in a bar, was scheduled to be executed tonight; this afternoon the Supreme Court blocked his execution for reasons including “questions related to his guilt.” The Atlantic Wire elaborates:
Foster has maintained his innocence for years, writing that he is “on death row waiting to die for a crime another man has confessed to.” He’s referring to Sheldon Ward, who was convicted alongside Foster in 2004 and has since died in prison of a brain tumor.
The drugs the state would have used to execute Foster–a cocktail of pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride–have never been used in a Texas execution before.
If the cocktail doesn’t work properly, says Stafford Smith, director of…
More Black Men Now In Prison System Than Were Enslaved Before the Civil War Began
LA Progressive reports on law professor Michelle Alexander’s stunning claims:
“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began,” Michelle Alexander told a standing room only house at the Pasadena Main Library this past Wednesday, the first of many jarring points she made in a riveting presentation…
Introducing The American Party
Dear Friends, Countrymen, Freethinking Radicals and Brainwashed Monkeys,
Thank you for coming. Thank you for showing your support. Thank you all for making The American Party happen. If this is your first time learning of us then an introduction is in order.
We’re responsible for creating the petition to free Patricia Marilyn Spottedcrow. A mother of four sent to ten years in prison for selling $31 of marijuana. On April 20th, 2011 we’re going to march on Washington D.C. and petition President Obama to pardon her of all criminal charges and penalties.
But I got to let you in on a little secret. This isn’t entirely about Patricia or getting her out of prison. This is bigger than that. This movement is about the fact that everything in this country is fucked up on every level: top to bottom, large to small. Patricia was just the straw that broke the camels back. And…
Obama Restarts Guantanamo Trials
The Washington Post reports:
President Barack Obama approved Monday the resumption of military trials for detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ending a two-year ban.
It was the latest acknowledgement that the detention facility Obama had vowed to shut down within a year of taking office will remain open for some time to come. But even while announcing a resumption of military commission trials, Obama reaffirmed his support for trying terror suspects in U.S. federal courts – something that’s met vehement resistance on Capitol Hill.
“I strongly believe that the American system of justice is a key part of our arsenal in the war against al-Qaida and its affiliates, and we will continue to draw on all aspects of our justice system – including Article III courts – to ensure that our security and our values are strengthened,” the president said in a statement.
The Presidential Pardon
Like any sensible American, I was outraged when I heard a mother of four was sent to 10 years in prison for the sale of $31 of weed.
The mind boggles at this travesty of “American Justice,” and so I encourage everyone else outraged by this egregious violation of basic human dignity to petition President Obama to immediately pardon Patricia Marilyn Spottedcrow of any criminal charges and penalties. Let’s get organized and march (is April 20th, on D.C. good for you?). Peacefully of course. If Egyptians can topple their government — I think the least we can do is get this woman out of prison.
Here are some slogans that may or may not catch on:
JUST SAY NO TO THE WAR ON DRUGS.
FREEDOM ISN’T FREE – SO WHERE’S THE FREEDOM?
When it’s all said and done, I think history will show this to be the incident that ‘broke the camel’s back’ in regard to…
U.S. Justice System Rampant With ‘Bad Science’
Every year, convictions for serious crimes occur based on debunked pseudo-science such as forensic dentistry and arson science. Add in poor usage of police lineups and fingerprinting, and the potential for finding innocent people guilty is immense. All in all, our courts are scientifically impaired to a degree that’s a menace to justice. Via Yahoo News:
The story of an American man cleared of a rape and robbery conviction by DNA evidence after spending 30 years in jail made headlines across the world on Tuesday.
But despite advances in science and technology, such exonerations are rare, and experts say the US criminal justice system remains riddled with problems that arise from outdated practices and, quite simply, bad science.
Perhaps the worst offender is the police lineup. Research shows that 75 percent of all wrongful convictions that are later cleared by DNA evidence start with eyewitness mistakes.
That was the case for Cornelius Dupree, who…
