THIS HAS GOT TO STOP

      I recall a few years ago, a fellow whom I knew was going to Law School. I dropped by his place; he was busy studying for something and I was waiting for his dad (some families still have those in the US). While I was waiting, I spied on his textbooks that looked interesting. It was about defending murder trial cases and written by one of the celebrity lawyers who defended O.J. Simpson (I don't recall which one). The very first chapter was all about stressing the need for the lawyer to be paid in advance; after all, if a murder trial goes against a defendant, there isn't much his attorney can do if the defendant decides not to pay him. 

   Of course, in Simpson's case, he was exonerated but died in poverty while everyone else connected to the case raked in a fortune, so his attorney's advice worked out well for the system. The Simpson Case was a perfect example of 'Justice' has been turned into an industry---one on roughly the same moral plane as predatory financial octopuses, Big Pharma, the Corporate Media, etc. Bear in mind that the Simpson Case happened in 1994; it's not as though we've had a system well-renown for its fairness and commitment to bedrock principles during the last 30 years despite the Controlled Opposition's insistence that the System has only been corrupted since Biden took office. 

  Speaking of our nominal Head-of-State, in a particularly ironic twist of fate after a weekend of hand-wringing over the Trump Verdict, his son Hunter Biden is the star of this week's Trial of the Century. Now, naturally the Controlled Opposition is arguing that, unlike the Trump Trial, there is not slightest political motivation behind bringing Hunter Biden to trial, and the fact that his dad is also running for president this year is just a coincidence. Nobody is above the law, including the President's son. In other words, let's all just flip last week's narratives because it's different now. 

   The bottom line here is that this has got to stop. By 'this' I mean the whole Lawfare Industry in general, but the politicization of the System in particular. It's bad enough outside the political sphere: the mercenary law firms, the corruption, the Media Circuses, the inequality of legal representation, etc; but people need to wake up. Elected officials are being impeached on a regular basis; show-trials are concocted against political opponents, elections are being decided in Courts. The problem has gone beyond the guilt or innocence of this or that person: the System itself has become a criminal enterprise. 

   One would think that the Trump Verdict would result in demands from the Right that Lawfare be stopped once and for all and meaningful Judicial Reforms---reforms with teeth---would be forthcoming, but apparently not.

    Unfortunately, as the above tweet shows, we don't really have a Conservative Movement based upon principle: what passes for a Conservative Party today is merely Reactionary Politics. Statements like that one spell it out clearly. The Right is not interested in a Justice System based upon impartial equality before the Law; they want the same unaccountable power for themselves to employ against their own perceived enemies. 

   I'm not arguing here that the criminals on the Left shouldn't be held accountable for their crimes. They should be ejected from power and reforms put in place to keep the kinds of abuses of power they've committed from happening again. However, that's not what these pundits on the Right are calling for. What they really want is the same system with different people in control of it to "give the Democrats a taste of their own medicine." It is an attitude based not upon a desire for Justice but upon envy of those wielding arbitrary and irresponsible power and the desire take that power to lord over others in the same way.

  Worse still, what the reaction on the Right is suggesting is an escalation of the Strategy of Tension---an escalation because, in the case of Lawfare, it is employing the very purposes of Law as a weapon against the foundational principles of Law. The Strategy of Tension encourages social upheaval and division to build consensus for a strong Government; but when that chaos is sown within the Justice System itself, the end result can only be an even more brutal and repressive Judiciary.

    Given though that the current system is both politically and financially profitable, and that the American Public holds courtrooms in a superstitious, almost reverential awe, the chances of meaningful reform of any kind are slim. So until we see a change of public attitudes---where courts become a venue of Justice again instead of a public display of the worst elements in human nature---injustice will be the New Normal while the lawyers and judges laugh all the way to the bank.