Under Lock & Key

U.$. citizens are said to comprise a nation which embraces freedom. Freedom is said to be such a fundamental element of our nation that we insist on forcing our concepts of it upon other countries. The government coined a military mission “Operation Enduring Freedom.” The colonists declared war on the British in the interests of freedom; freedom was a major element in the fuel for the civil war; and the U.S. invaded Iraq to “secure” Iraqi freedom. Freedom seems to be the fuel to the fire of many struggles over the centuries in U.S. related matters.

Justice is also something that’s supposedly held dear in this nation. This Justice Department, along with its affiliates, is among the biggest governmental agencies in the nation. Our courts supposedly produce justice. People are murdered by the government, via capital punishment, in the name of justice. People are killed on the battlefield in the name of justice. Unarmed men are shot down in the streets by police, in the name of justice. Justice, as we know it here in the U.S., seems to be a grim reaper with a thirst for blood.

Sometimes what one says about their character is not always in harmony with their actions; the same is applicable to a nation. As the old saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words,” and I believe that the actions carried out by a nation’s government are the true indicator of what that nation’s principles and values are. Governmental action here in the U.S comes in the form of legislation, policy, enforcement, and rulings.

So despite what we say as a nation regarding how important freedom is, the question becomes: Are our actions in line with what we say? I think not and here’s why. We say that we cherish freedom. In fact our Declaration of Independence says that man’s freedom is an unalienable right, yet we have a larger number of people incarcerated than any other nation in the world. People will have many rationalizations as to why this is so, but from a purely objective analysis none hold up. Being the number one wielder of human captivity, while supposedly holding man’s freedom in the highest regard, are two totally irreconcilable positions.

Additionally, even as the Declaration was written and for years afterward, slavery was an accepted institution in this country. So while freedom was being formally recognized as a man’s inalienable right, certain men were being denied that very right. How can those two positions be reconciled?

Freedom, as defined by the Black’s Law Dictionary is: Quality or state of being free; liberty; independence

And Free is defined as: Not in bondage to another; enjoying liberty; independent.

Prisoners, slavery, excessive laws, our government seems to be the personification of the anti-freedom. Surprisingly many citizens seem oblivious to this paradox.

And who defines justice, being that it’s such a fluid concept. I mean, one person’s justice can be another’s injustice. In the interest of having a formal gauge, I’ll refer to the “Webster’s” dictionary for definition. Justice is defined: Uprightness; equitableness; fairness.

Now consider some of the actions committed by our government.

During the westward expansion of this nation, the government continuously laid claim to lands that they had previously agreed to leave to the First Nations. The First Nations were, for the most part, patient as Buddhist monks when facing these recurring betrayals. But even a priest can reach his boiling point, and when the First Nations reached theirs, the government resorted to forcefully taking the land. To take the property of another by means of force or fear is robbery. Robbery is a crime punishable by imprisonment/fine. This is not very much in line with justice is it?

Then think of the governmental approval of slavery in this nation. Not in regard to the actual practice of slavery but the fact that our government once deemed it acceptable and now denounces it. The key here is that despite the reversal, the government has made no restitution for this crime. No formal apology, no monetary compensation, or any “peace offering” to the New Afrikan nation.

In contrast, the German government has formally apologized and committed monetary compensation to the Jews for the Holocaust. And even in the United Snakes of Amerika, the government has started providing compensation to the First Nations. But I suppose that the decision makers in the government feel that Amerika is above any measures to make amends to mere “niggers.” (No offense to anyone in the New Afrikan nation, to which I belong. I simply use the word that the imperialists would in their reasoning). Yet they still boast Amerika as a justice loving nation.

And moving right along into more modern times, a focal point relevant to this subject is Amerika’s criminal justice system, which is contrary to the meaning of justice. For starters, studies have shown that Black nations and Latino nations receive harsher sentences and more severe charges in comparison with their caucasian counterparts. This is in regards to the very same or similar criminal acts.

A good example of this is the sentencing disparities between crack cocaine (mostly found in inner city, oppressed nations, neighborhoods) offenses and powder cocaine (generally associated with suburban, caucasian, neighborhoods). Despite the fact that the powder form of the drug has more of it than crack, five grams of crack will get one the same amount of time as about one hundred grams of powder cocaine. How absurd is that? There’s nothing just about a system that harbors racial disparity.

In the interests of promoting a safe and healthy society, the government has instituted the position of prosecutor. In their prosecutorial duties, the prosecutor is supposed to be bound by moral, ethical, and legal restraints. One of the main legal restraints supposedly binding the actions of a prosecutor is the constitutional “guarantees” that every defendant is supposed to have. In theory, a prosecutor must respect a defendant’s constitutional rights.

In reality, Amerika’s Supreme Court has deemed a prosecutor’s violation of certain constitutional “guarantees” acceptable. Therefore prosecutors don’t feel very obligated to respect a defendant’s constitutional rights. Add to this the fact that prosecutors have been granted immunity from civil liability in relation to their on the job misconduct. This basically give them license to disregard the law, having nothing upright, fair, or equitable about it.

There are plenty of instances which can illustrate precisely how unjust the so-called justice system is. Biased/racist judges and prosecutors, intentionally ineffective defense attorneys, discriminatory laws, all of these things help shatter the facade of legitimacy and justness of what is called the justice system. And ironically New Afrikans, the same people who were subjected to the inhumanity of slavery, are disproportionately targeted by the criminal “justice” system. It appears that the main facet of justice in Amerika is overt oppression. Amerika is the enemy of both freedom and justice.

MIM(Prisons) adds: A recent book review further highlights the true injustice of the prison system in Amerika. And overall this comrade makes a very important point about the hypocrisy of the U.$. claim to support freedom and justice. We will, however, point out that in order to achieve a society that truly affords everyone freedom and justice, we must first dismantle capitalism. And that will not happen overnight. For this reason, we support an explicitly repressive society called the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which is a transition period between capitalism and communism where the government is run by the people and actively represses the freedom of the former bourgeoisie. We can not be idealists and think that it is possible to just magically conjure up a society where all are equal when those in power will fight to retain their power, and our culture teaches people to work first for individualist selfish goals. We will need years of retraining and re-education for people to truly work in cooperation for the common good.

America is delusional. One need look no further than the Disney Corporation’s attempt to trademark “SEAL Team 6,” in order to market the image of paid killers as toys for children. How is this acceptable on any level? It’s not, it’s insane. In fact, a reasonable psychological diagnosis of the American state would conclude that it is severely schizophrenic.

Americans are indoctrinated since childhood to believe that America is a bastion of freedom, equality, and law; a bulwark against the lawlessness, murder, mayhem and terrorism that is rampant in the world today. Nevertheless, the reality is that America is the number one source of lawlessness and terrorism in the world today and has been for quite some time. Moreover, when America isn’t committing acts of terrorism, it is abetting those that do, such as the European settler state in Palestine known as Israel.

America has many fine-sounding laws against assassination, hostage-taking, and torture (in a word “terrorism”) but follows none of them. See the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, 28 USC §1602 et seq.; Civil Liability for Acts of State Sponsored Terrorism Act of 1996, 28 USC §1605 (i.e., the Flatow Amendment); Antiterrorism Act of 1990, 18 USC §2331, et seq.; and Torture Victims Protection Act of 1991, 28 USC §1350 (i.e., the Alien Tort Statute). Further, America is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, and the International Convention Against Taking Hostages, codified at 18 USC §1203.

All the foregoing laws and conventions expressly forbid the majority of acts taken by the American military in the world, but America ignores them all when it comes to its actions and only applies them to other countries when they dare try to emulate America’s propensity for murder and mayhem. Long ago America’s rulers chose to follow the old Spanish Colonial aphorism that “the law is to be obeyed but not followed.”

For example, in Elahi v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 124 F. Supp. 2d 97, 107 (D.D.C. 2000), the court found Iran’s murder of an American citizen fit the definition of an extra-judicial killing, as follows:

First, …the assassination was a deliberate act. Second, Cyrus Elahi was not afforded the judicial process contemplated by the statute. Third, as this Court stated over twenty years ago, assassination is “clearly contrary to the precepts of humanity as recognized in both national and international law.”[citation omitted.]

The American government admitted bin Laden was unarmed and surrounded by his children, who had to be cleared out of the way, and at least one of his wives, who was shot in the leg, so as not to interfere in the U.S. Navy SEALs’ hit. And hit it was, as bin Laden was shot once in the chest and once in the head in the classic assassination style known as the double-tap. No doubt there were powder burns surrounding his head wound, where the coup de grace was administered by these cold-blooded killers as he lay on the floor of his home, but we will never know as his body was promptly disposed of as is common in many professional hits.

Earlier the same day, it was reported that Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi’s youngest son and three grandchildren were murdered by NATO bombs dropped on their home. Whether it was done by American planes or not is of little matter, as we all know if the American government didn’t support this bombing it wouldn’t have happened. This was nothing less than an assassination attempt, that included the intentional bombing of civilians in their home, which was done in direct violation of the UN mandate to protect civilians in Libya via a no-fly zone and the laws and conventions cited above.

It should come as no surprise that the assassination target was Qadhafi, who was said to have been at the home and narrowly escaped along with his wife, as the American government has been trying to murder him for years. President Reagan had Qadhafi’s home bombed on April 14, 1986, successfully murdering women and children but failing in his attempt to murder Qadhafi. President Obama has proclaimed his authority to assassinate anyone overseas, including American citizens, without a trial, so murdering Qadhafi would be no problem for him. Wives, daughters and sons are all just collateral damage.

America has never hesitated to murder civilians, men, women and children, in their homes. In WWII, America fire-bombed civilian targets in Germany and Japan’s cities and used nuclear weapons on Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the Japanese government tried to surrender. Post-WWII, the American government has targeted the people of Korea, the Congo, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and, now, Libya. My apologies if I left anyone out.

This campaign of control through terror is by no means limited to the rest of the world. Here in the good ol’ USA, on May 13, 1985, the infamous “Mothers’ Day Massacre” occurred, perpetrated by the police, who murdered 11 MOVE organization members, including children, in their home and incinerated an entire neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with the full cooperation of the American government, who supplied the explosives used in the massacre.

Not to be outdone, the FBI murdered 76 people, including children, in Waco, Texas, by blowing up their home and burning them alive on April 19, 1993. The FBI has proven time and again that it is willing to murder whoever, wherever, whenever, from Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in Chicago, Illinois, on December 4, 1969, to Randall Weaver’s wife and son at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in August 1992. “No crime too foul” ought to be the FBI motto.

Speaking of mottos, the infamous mass-murderer and war criminal Harry S. Truman had a motto: “the buck stops here.” No doubt, the buck should stop with the American presidents, but it also reaches back into the cesspools known as corporate boardrooms. Consequently, it is time to end this criminal reign of terror. Every single one of these criminals in high office, national or corporate, should be tried and hung as the murderers they are. To continue to allow them to run free, let alone run the country, makes us all complicit in their assassination nation. It is high time we, as Americans, put an end to our complicity and our complacency once and for all!