justice party
The Silence of the Lawyers
As another grand jury has let a cop walk away for gratuitously killing an unarmed black man, a loud silence reverberates through the country, just at it has for many years. It is the silence of the nation's lawyers.
As another grand jury has let a cop walk away for gratuitously killing an unarmed black man, a loud silence reverberates through the country, just at it has for many years. It is the silence of the nation's lawyers.
The fact is, we operate two criminal justice systems in the United States. One is for affluent white people, who when accused of crime are treated as citizens, as people with rights. They get the benefit of the constitutional protections we boast about in textbooks and television shows, protections like due process and trial by jury and proof beyond reasonable doubt. And they are often shown great leniency for very serious crimes, including homicide.
The other system is for poor people and racial minorities, who are treated more like trash to be removed from the streets. They are policed as if they enemy combatants; churned through overcrowded, underfunded courts that traffic in guilty pleas and long prison sentences for minor offenses; and harassed or killed by cops whose brutality would never be tolerated against those whose wealth and skin color entitles them to the privileges and protections of the first system.
Another fact is, the vast majority of the American legal profession maintains steadfast silence about this two-tiered regime. There are vocal civil rights organizations, legal aid groups, lawyer-activists and scholars who tirelessly call attention to, and try to combat, what Michelle Alexander terms "the new Jim Crow" permeating American criminal justice. But these voices, articulate as they are, constitute only a small fraction of the nation's lawyers. The rest of the profession mostly prefers to keep its mouth shut and look the other way.
In this respect, as in others, the new Jim Crow differs little from the old one. A century ago, when swaths of the south were ruled by lynch law, and the rest of the country barely pretended to apply the bill of rights to people other than affluent whites, it was left to civil rights groups and a few conscientious lawyers to press for reform in the courts and other public arenas. Most of the profession, when not denouncing the reformers for stirring up trouble, sat on the sidelines and pretended not to know what everybody what every sentient person knew -- that in the administration of criminal justice, the constitutional promise of "equal protection of the laws" was nothing but a cruel joke.
And fifty years ago, when the Supreme Court finally began to take seriously the idea of equal protection, it did so despite the indifference, if not the active hostility of, much of the legal establishment. As Earl Warren and his colleagues embraced the radical proposition that the bill of rights actually applied to everyone, including racial minorities and poor people -- and that police, prosecutors and courts would have to change their practices accordingly -- the predominant reaction among legal elites was concern about judicial activism, about getting involved in messy social and political matters that did not lend themselves to "legal" resolution, were not the proper province of lawyers, were better left to others to fix.
And today? Most lawyers, if we think about the matter at all, know perfectly well that criminal justice in this country is in disgraceful condition, that it makes indefensible distinctions between white and black, rich and poor, first class and second class. It's just that we prefer not to talk about it. We leave that to the civil rights groups and the the criminal law specialists and the street protesters. Maybe we privately hope they succeed in changing things. But it's really not our problem. There's no money in it, and our well-heeled clients wouldn't be too happy if we criticized the system that treats them so well.
We should consider the possibility, though, that our silence is self-incriminating. Lawyers, after all, are the guardians of the legal process, and we profess allegiance to the ideal of equal justice under law. As we play the part of helpless bystander to America's two-track system, we do more than expose our fellow citizens to discrimination and mistreatment and gasps of "I can't breathe." We expose ourselves to charges of fraud.
Third Party Candidates Add Fresh Perspective to Debates
Largely ignored by US cable news, int'l networks give outsiders platform
Eclipsed by the wake of the final presidential debate between Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, four third-party candidates took the stage last night in Chicago: Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, Jill Stein of the Green Party, Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party and Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party.
In an event sponsored by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, arguably the most well-known person present was moderator Larry King.
Though they represented the poles of the political spectrum, the four nominees agreed on a number of issues unheard of in the previous debates. The ineffectiveness of the War on Drugs and the imperative to cut defense spending were echoed across the board.
The Commission on Presidential Debates excludes parties with less than 15 percent support nationwide. So far, the only candidate who has met that criteria is billionaire Ross Perot, who debated Bill Clinton and George H W Bush in 1992.
A second third-party debate will be held on October 30. Tuesday's debate was broadcasted by Al Jazeera and Russia Today--which can be viewed below--but largely ignored by all major US cable news networks.
Larry King Moderating 3rd Party Debate; VotePact: An Escape from Voting for "the Lesser of Two Evils"
Larry King will moderate a debate tonight featuring third-party candidates. King told the Associated Press: "They have a story to tell. It's a valid story. It's a two-party system, but not a two-party system by law." The participants will be former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party), Green Party candidate Jill Stein, former Congressman Virgil Goode (Constitution Party) and former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson (Justice Party).
Larry King will moderate a debate tonight featuring third-party candidates. King told the Associated Press: "They have a story to tell. It's a valid story. It's a two-party system, but not a two-party system by law." The participants will be former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party), Green Party candidate Jill Stein, former Congressman Virgil Goode (Constitution Party) and former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson (Justice Party).
While many voters feel bound to vote for President Obama or Romney in order to voice their disapproval of the other, even if they agree more with a third-party candidate, two independent websites -- https://www.VotePact.org and https://www.VoteBuddy.com -- advocate a strategy that allows for voting one's conscience without fear.
KENT VAN CLEAVE [email]
Founder of VoteBuddy.com, Kent Van Cleave said today: "Those who always vote for 'the lesser of two evils' have a worry-free way to vote their consciences instead.
"It's almost a joke among couples: One reluctantly votes Republican while the other dejectedly votes Democrat. Neither likes the candidate they're stuck with, they always seem to be voting against the 'greater evil'. Few voters realize there's a way out of that rut.
"Such voters don't realize they have been wasting their votes, election after election, for no good reason at all. They are canceling out each other's vote, meaning that neither has an effect on the election at all.
"Worse, their votes are interpreted as wholehearted support for the recipient candidates. Their reluctance is never communicated.
"Such couples -- or two people in any kind of trusting relationship -- can use their differences of opinion to free both their votes to support third parties, independents, or write-in candidates. They can vote out of conviction rather than out of fear. They simply agree they'll both vote against the status quo."
SAM HUSSEINI [email]
Founder of VotePact.org, Husseini is also communications director for IPA. He said today: "Authentic progressives and authentic conservatives have been consistently manipulated by the establishments of the Democratic and Republican parties. The party establishments agree on wars that are causing resentment against the U.S., trade policies that are hurting U.S. workers and exploiting third world workers, Wall Street and the Federal Reserve being kept firmly in control of the financial system, subsidies to fossil fuels industries that are destroying the environment, civil liberties violations from drone killing on down and a whole host of other issues.
"Many principled progressives and conscientious conservatives are opposed to all these things, but feel locked into voting for their 'lesser evil'. They can continue to be effectively captured by the establishment parties, or they can take an opportunity to join together and back the candidates that better reflect what they believe. Instead of canceling out each others votes, progressives and conservatives who know and trust each other can vote in pairs without helping the establishment candidate they most dislike. They would in effect be freeing their votes, syphoning them off in pairs from automatically going to the Democratic and Republican parties. This strategy increases effective voter choice and enables people to no longer be taken for granted by the party establishments -- giving them 'some place to go' and political leverage."