MB Civic

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In case after case, our political establishment has adopted the “principle” that our most powerful actors are immune from the rule of law. And they’ve adopted the enabling supplemental “principle” that any information which our political leaders want to keep suppressed is — by definition, for that reason alone — information that is “classified” and should not be disclosed.

The instruments used to secure these prerogatives are numerous and growing. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick this week summarized the Bush administration’s 10 most egregious legal inventions to enable lawbreaking, including the “states secrets privilege” which has now “has ballooned into a doctrine of blanket immunity for any conduct the administration wishes to hide” and the claim that “everyone who has ever spoken to the president about anything is barred from congressional testimony by executive privilege.” All of these developments have a common strain, a shared objective: ensuring that our highest political officials and our most powerful corporations are beyond the reach of the law.

Thus, our establishment believes that any information that would shed light on whether our most powerful actors have broken the law is information that shouldn’t be disclosed. In those accidental cases when — via unauthorized leaks — information is disclosed that demonstrates that crimes have been committed, our establishment bands together to insist that nothing be done, that there is no need to investigate or hold anyone accountable, and that the only real wrongdoing is by those “the leakers” who disclosed the lawbreaking.

This is the same pattern seen over and over: leakers reveal that Bush broke the law for years by spying on Americans without the warrants required by law, and every investigation — legislative and judicial — is successfully blocked, and Congress then moves to legalize the lawbreaking. The top aide to Bush and Cheney, Lewis Libby, is found unanimously by a 12-person jury to have lied deliberately with the intent of blocking an FBI and Grand Jury investigation into illegal leaks and is sentenced by a conservative judge to prison, yet is protected from jail time by the President while our media and political establishment cheer almost unanimously.

Our largest telecommunication corporations reap huge profits by brazenly violating numerous, long-standing federal laws (.pdf) for years by enabling government access to our communications without any judicial approval, and our political establishment bands together to demand that they be protected from any consequences and that any efforts to uncover what happened be squelched. Our government implements a secret torture regime that violates numerous laws and treaties and Congress acts to legalize it and provide retroactive immunity to the lawbreakers. Congress subpoenas numerous officials to find out why 9 federal prosecutors were fired and, when the subpoenas are literally ignored, nothing happens.

And now, our government just destroys evidence crucial both to all sorts of court proceedings and a comprehensive investigation into the worst attack on U.S. soil in our history — part and parcel of its general pattern of destroying or “losing” key evidence — and the Honorable, Independent Attorney General tells both the legislative and judicial branches that they have no right even to investigate. And although we know for a fact that the top aides to both Bush and Cheney were involved in discussions of whether the tapes should be destroyed, we have no idea what they said and are unlikely ever to know, and even if we did find out, it’s impossible to envision anything happening as a result…

Anything that results in accountability for our largest corporations is inherently bad, even when they’re found under our legal system to have broken the law or acted recklessly. Thus, John Edwards’ self-made wealth is deeply dishonorable and shameful because it came at the expense of our largest corporations and on behalf of the poor and dirty masses, while Mitt Romeny’s wealth, spawned by his CEO-father’s connections, is to be honored and praised because it benefited our establishment and was on behalf of our glorious elite.