![https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Emblema_Stasi.svg/251px-Emblema_Stasi.svg.png](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Emblema_Stasi.svg/251px-Emblema_Stasi.svg.png)
Dated. Can't believe I missed it.
LANGUAGE!
But, in her defense, "she’s had some severe personal tragedy in her life".
And that's why, it seems, she's being allowed to check herself into rehab instead of being thrown in jail.
…because not a single poor person or non government employee who gets caught using drugs ever "had some severe personal tragedy in her life".
I'm reminded of something I read earlier today:
techdirt.com
We've discussed the whole "high court/low court" concept here a few times before — in that those who are powerful play by one set of rules, while the rest of us have to play by a very different set of rules.
…
The end result seems clear. If you're super high up in the political chain, you get the high court. Reveal classified info to filmmakers? No worries. Not only will you not be prosecuted or even lose your job, the inspectors will scrub your name from the report and, according to the article, the person in charge of the investigation will "slow roll" the eventual release of the report until you switch jobs.
But if you're just a worker bee and you leaked the unclassified draft report that names Panetta and Vickers? Well, you get the low court. A new investigation, including aggressive pursuit by the government, and interrogations of staffers to try to find out who leaked the report.Twenty years ago I was a libertarian. I thought the system could be reformed. I thought that some parts of it "worked"… whatever that means. I thought that the goals were noble, even if not often achieved.
The older I get, the more I see, the more I read, the more clear it becomes to me that the entire game is rigged.
More @ Popehat
Ah, but it isn't really necessary to burn the system to the ground, is it? Étienne de la Boétie knew the score 500 years ago. You don't have to topple the king, all you have to do is stop propping him up. Are you a plumber? Stop taking work from members of the political class and their enforcers. Own a restaurant? Stop serving them. Have one in your neighborhood? Shun them. Are you a professor, researcher, engineer? Don't do work for the surveillance/industrial complex. Will this cost you money? Yes, probably. Might it affect your reputation? Possibly. Is it worth it? That's a question we each have to answer for ourselves. What would it be worth to know that, today, in some concrete way, you took away some tangible measure of support from the regime, some measure they can never get back, and made them permanently that much weaker?
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid things will need to get worst for many to participate.
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