Richardson Steps Up
Published by Mike Stark June 11th, 2007 in UncategorizedIn the last month I’ve, through back channels, sent a suggestion to all of the top-tier 2008 Democratic candidates for President.
The thought occurred to me that, within the DOJ, you’ll find a bunch of alphabet agencies tasked with this and that, but mostly the prosecution of brown people. For instance, there’s the INS. I’ve heard that they’ve prosecuted, detained and/or deported over 250,000 people last year. Needless to say, they were almost all brown.
The DEA is another one. Of the 2 million or so drug prosecutions in 2006, the DEA took the lead in 30,000 of them. I don’t have the stat sheet in front of me, and I’m not going to go get it simply because this is such a no-brainer. If you don’t think the majority of the prosecutions were of brown people, you’re nuts.
(Parenthetical: by far, the largest amount of drugs are sold on college campuses. If law enforcement targeted the white kids buying, selling and using drugs at their schools with the same vigor they’ve targeted the hip-hop community… well, we might have 25% of white males between the ages of 18 and 25 in prison, on parole or on probation. I’m pretty damned certain the War on Drugs would all of a sudden take on the fresh air of sanity that has been so absent for the last 20 years or so. And let me quiet the naysayers - those of you that are saying if college campuses were as violent as hip-hop communities, they would be equally targeted. My answer to you is that as you pour enforcement into the equation, prices go up. As prices (incentives) go up, more people enter the field. As competition heats up in any illegal activity, violence is a by-product. It happened with whites and Prohibition. So the very reason there is a shortage of violence on college campuses is that there is a shortage of enforcement efforts.)
Then there’s the IRS. I think they are probably part of the Treasury, but none-the-less, they’ve decided to focus recovery efforts on those that mistakenly or criminally file for the Earned Income Tax Credit. The maximum credit available is $4,536 - if you have two kids and are married filing jointly. For, oh, I dunno, your average corrupt corporate executive… well, I’m betting that’s not much more than a rounding error. So here, again, who’s going to jail? It ain’t rich white people…
So…
I’m pondering. And all the while I’m thinking this and thinking that, rich white people are being prosecuted!! First, it was Jack’s boys… Scanlon and Co. Then the Dukester… Then poor Bobby Ney… Then The Jack-man himself… And Safavian… and Scooter… And Ken Lay and his boy-wonder… and Bernie Ebbers and the Tyco guy and even the grand ol’ pill-popper himself, Rush Limbaugh…
But there were so many others that seemed to be wriggling free. Even these guys, thieves and liars all, seemed to drag justice out forever, and then get not much more than a slap on the wrist when compared to their less fortunate brown brethren…
So…
A light bulb went off. How ’bout this? Let’s create another alphabet department within the DOJ for corporate crooks and bureaucratic bamboozlers? A special division of the DOJ tasked with going after greedy white men that just can’t get enough without resorting to ripping the rest of us off? Oh, yeah, there’ll be the occasional William Jefferson, just like there’s the occasional Irish fellow swept up in INS raids… But for the most part, I’m thinking that cleaning up corporate and political crime will reach rough parity with regards to economic benefits as compared to the INS, Drug War and IRS put together… Many of these corporate and political crimes cost us billions.
So yeah, I’m quite certain that the establishment of this new department would pay for itself in its first year. Beyond that, it’d be a public-relations coup for the Feds. We all hate murderers, gangsters and thieves, but there is nothing like the feeling one gets when a g-man takes down a powerfully corrupt icon of avarice.
So I reached out to all the candidates. I explained that this idea had the added benefit of being a dog-whistle for the base - essentially what we would hear is that the passing of the Bush administration would not mean the end of criminal liability for Rove, Cheney and Gonzalez. I explained that with all of the public corruption and corporate fraud cases playing out across our news-screens, this would be a sure-fire way to get some good press. I explained that for similar reasons, this was safe as vanilla - there’s no way anyone from the dark side could credibly launch an attack. The simple, delicious response would be, “What are you afraid of, Mr. Guliani?”
But none of the candidates took me up on the offer. Nobody made any effort that I know of to flesh out my advice.
Until today.
I spoke with Governor Bill Richardson on BlogTalk radio’s HeadingLeft. I made the suggestion. His response?
“So I endorse what you say… So I like this idea and within Justice I believe that’s something that I would envision, and I’ll maybe start talking about.”
Listen in below, or hear the entire interview over at HeadingLeft.
4 Responses to “Richardson Steps Up”
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Richardson’s Idea on Boycotting the Olympics Deserves Further Consideration.
I am very glad that more and more people seem to recognize the importance of Richardson’s breakthrough regarding the Bush Adminstration’s abjectly failed Iraq policy. These failures have impacted almost every phase of American foreign policy, which has based more on military power than traditional diplomacy for the past six years. Richardson’s effectiveness is even clearer now, with Lieberman threatening to use nuclear weapons on Iran. I find this posturing and blustering to be totally absurd and even dangerous; because of my extensive studies of the horrendous effects of nuclear weapons on the health of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, called “hibakusha” in Japanese.
I strongly agree with Richardson’s overall focus on diplomacy, and putting economic sanctions on Iran. I agree especially his innovative idea put forth during the New Hampshire debates. There has been a general silence among nations vis-à-vis China’s ghastly atrocities in the human rights realm, and not just about China and Darfur, but especially toward Tibetans. China has constructed in Tibet dozens of prisons which, for Tibetans, are exactly like Auschwitz and Dachau.
I posited the same idea in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, in correspondence to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and to many heads-of-state, that the moral indignation of the nations in the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 could be harnessed into at least the threat of a boycott. To be effective, this could be perhaps worded more diplomatically. During the debate, both Senator Edwards and Senator Biden clearly agreed with this point by Richardson.
Make no mistake: this is probably the last chance in human history to do anything constructive about Tibet, to prevent henceforth the genocidal treatment of Tibetans remaining in Tibet, which has since 1959 seen 1.2 million Tibetans killed. This totals, roughly 20% of the entire population of Tibet. American political powers could decline to put to use what little remains of our powers of moral suasion in the world at large, and we could to once again docilely capitulate to dim-witted politicians who say that the Olympics are only about sport, and not about politics, and such claptrap as “a boycott would unfairly punish the athletes.” Then we would be no better than the many nations who were oblivious to the growing obviousness of the genocide of Jews in Europe before and during World War II.
Actually, the USA was for many years totally oblivious in this regard, whether you blame Roosevelt or anti-Semitics in the State Department, all of which is thoroughly documented in Arthur Morse’s book, While Six Million Died. In that light, we think Richardson is on the right track! The case is even stronger, when you consider the dead pets and the poisoned cold medicines and toothpaste from China. Those considerations are just not “about politics”: that was life and death for many, including at least 100 dead, mostly children, in Panama!
News: In what may be its most audacious Olympic act yet, China’s Ministry of Public Security has issued an incredible directive that lists 43 categories of “unwanteds” who are to be investigated and barred from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Pariah groups include: - eerily vague “key individuals in ideological fields” - “overseas hostile forces” - “counterrevolutionary”
figures - the Dalai Lama and all affiliates - members of “religious entities not sanctioned by the state” (e.g., Roman Catholics) - “individuals who instigate discontentment toward the Chinese Communist Party through the Internet,” - and even certain types of “disabled” persons. Members of the Falun Gong would be barred, as would be “family members of deceased persons” killed in “riots” — a euphemism for events such as the Tiananmen Massacre — and Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, which the regime brands “national separatists.” Only at the very bottom of the directive does it identify “violent terrorists” and members of “illegal organizations” as
targets for investigation and possible barring.
Respectfully,
Stephen Fox, stephen@santafefineart.com
Ironically, the media’s fixation on Paris Hilton has given this idea some juice. People know in their hearts their are two different justice systems in this country. The fat cat corporate crooks are basically the only people who are going to be affected by this, and the GOP has their votes.
Populism is a nice idea. Why hasn’t anybody thought of it before? (/snark)
Hi Mike. I heard you here in L.A. this morning talking with Stephanie Miller. Too bad you ran out of time. She blabs too much when she has guests (most hosts do, even Thom Hartmann who is easily the best and most intellectual host on the air today).
Anyway, I really do like Richardson when it comes to his personality and apparent genuine concern for others and I have felt that way for years since he joined Clinton’s cabinet. What follows changed my view of him. Richardson has made at least one promise to his New Mexico constituents that he never kept. Now, folks in Northeast NM would rather vote Republican than put him in the Whitehouse because of it and other things he apparently never made good on or has downright lied about (I can’t remember specifics but they are numerous). Mike, the next time you talk to him, please ask him about his promise not to close the boys reform school in Springer. He told my girlfriend’s mother that tidbit in-person at a meeting there a few years ago and assured her and the other residents that nothing would change. Well, they did close it and converted it to a medium security adult prison, leaving a small token unit of under-18 inmates housed just outside the fence in another location, and do not have the same level of educational support that the original school provided. I would really like to know his side of it.
I understand that politicians can and will say alot of things to get elected, but Richardson is supposed to be different, right? As much as I often politically disagree with my girlfriend or her very conservative mother (she claims to be a not-too-distant relation to Shrub), I have to agree with them when it comes to Richardson. They think he’s a lying snake (and that’s a toned-down description). If he had been honest about their plans for the school, few would be upset over it when you consider that the prison actually generated some new jobs for an economically stagnant area. The problem is that he lied and that the state has not created any sort of replacement juvenile facility that offers kids in trouble what the school in Springer did for decades. Something like this could potentially sink him if more people knew what happened. It is a reflection of his ethics when he lies to those that he is supposed to serve and makes him no different from the rest of the bunch that he claims to be different from. This has been bugging me since last year and I finally had to say something about it where it might make a difference.
Whump!
Nice work Mike!,
I missed you on with Stephanie Miller yesterday, but went to he site and found the clip.
http://www.stephaniemiller.com/bits/2007_0613_stark.mp3
Nice to hear you on the radio again, Heard you with Hannity today. Hope your studies are going well!
Best to you and your family.