The Warren County Patriot » Dr. Les Sachs – Blogs
Dr. Les Sachs – Blogs
expert critic of US corruption, For detailed biography,
see Dr Les Sachs’ website at www.dr-les-sachs.be.
When you have been a victim of wrongdoing by a judge or lawyer, you have joined the ranks of what are now millions of victims of sleaze and corruption in the American legal system.
But you need first of all to realize that you are in an extremely difficult situation, and it will be very difficult for you to get help, despite your being surrounded by nearly a million lawyers in the USA, and living in a society that is obsessed with law and lawyers, with courts and with lawsuits.
This FAQ or list of Frequently Asked Questions, will help you understand the situation in which you find yourself. This FAQ will explain what will likely happen as you try the various avenues of seeking help and justice, and the powerful forces that are set up against you.
You have begun a road that is probably long and lonely, as well as dangerous. You or a loved one may be threatened with jail and prison, with losing everything you have or own, even with being physically and mentally tormented, being murdered or put to death.
You may be completely innocent, and have complete proof that a lawyer or judge or their friends have committed major felony crimes.
But still, you may have a terribly difficult time getting anyone to help you, or getting the news media to cover your story, or even getting someone to listen to you.
The first step is to face and confront the situation, and know exactly what forces you are facing in America’s strange legal system. This FAQ will help you understand all of this.
If you are a new victim of judicial or legal corruption, you will start to realize that America is a very different kind of place, than the way you used to think of it before. You are now confronted with the most hidden and terrible secret about life in modern America.
Regarding the American legal system, it is not like they told you in the schoolbooks when you were a child. It is not like the way they picture it in Hollywood movies, or on American television shows.
It is not like what you see in the news media, in a few cases when famous millionaires are on trial, and millions of dollars are being spent, and TV cameras are rolling, and reporters from around the world are watching everything that happens. Judges and lawyers behave very differently in those small numbers of legal cases that get high publicity.
On the other hand, in the vast majority of American legal cases, below the media radar screen, what happens is often very sordid and sleazy. Sometimes judges and lawyers commit crimes in broad daylight. Judges ignore the facts, ignore the law, ignore the truth and ignore justice. Lawyers cut sleazy deals and sell out their own clients. Bribery is commonplace.
There are courtrooms where judges and lawyers scream like lunatics at their victims, where judges and lawyers tell lies and plant false evidence, and no one says a word to fight them. Innocent people get sentenced to prison, or even to be strapped to a table and put to death; or people are told they will be sent to jail unless they pay extortion money to friends of the judge. Judges are hiring thugs to engage in extortion and intimidation against other people. Fake trials are held, where both “sides” of lawyers help the judge conduct a fake trial against the victim.
In fact, the best way for rich people to get away with committing felony crimes in America, is to get a judge to be part of the gang of criminals – because they almost never prosecute a judge, even when there is clear proof the judge is a criminal.
Yes, it is really that bad.
Unlike what people imagine, most legal cases are never even allowed to get to a jury – the judges make sure of that. People are crushed and destroyed, threatened and sentenced, denied access to their families and children, and lose everything they have and own, without any jury ever hearing what they had to say.
America brags about having the “rule of law”, but this does not mean that the law is taken seriously. All it means is that there are people with the title of “judges” and “lawyers” involved, while you are being railroaded and denied your rights, while your family is destroyed, your life ruined, and your freedoms are trampled by a court. “The rule of law” is just a propaganda phrase that covers for rule by lawyers.
The reality of American courts is an immense tragedy and catastrophe, a tragedy which is mostly un-reported in the news media. (See below on why the U.S. media are quiet about crooked judges and lawyers.) There are millions of victims, with stories that are largely hidden, suppressed or obscured by the big news media organizations. Some of these victims are under gag orders or bans on their freedom of speech, but many of these stories are out on the internet for you to see, some of them despite the gag orders.
Because these stories are not prominent on the TV news or in the major newspapers, most people who are not yet victims – maybe like you, before you became a victim yourself – most people tend to believe what they have been told, about living in a “free country” with “justice in the courts”, and the “greatest legal system in the world”.
It is natural to believe this propaganda, it is human nature for Americans to accept these stories. But it is not the truth about the American legal system. It is scary to confront that truth, to face the real facts about fraud and injustice in America’s courts. On the internet, however, you can find many of the particular cases and examples, which show you the real truth about what is going on in the American courts right now.
Additionally, the courts themselves in America, not only their decisions and decrees and orders, but also the ranting and ravings of judges themselves, are a powerful means of propaganda against the people who are victims of the legal system. What courts and judges say, is what everyone is allowed to talk about and repeat, no matter how dishonest, criminal, slanderous, or false and unjust, the statements made by the judge. However, the statements of a private person – especially if it is critical of a judge or court – are things that carry much less weight, and which the media often will refuse to publish. In America, the courts are allowed to shape the picture of reality presented by the mass media.
In both federal and state courts, you will find some theoretical grievance procedures for misconduct by judges. You can often find, even on the internet itself, instructions as to what forms to file and where to file them. But, in the end, nearly all of this is a joke, a farce, and a fraud on the American people.
Nearly all such complaints are kept secret, permanently. Some jurisdictions have even made it a crime to talk about the fact that you have filed a complaint against a judge.
The judges read these complaints, and pass them around to each other, and maybe even laugh and joke about them. Sometimes the judges have little private talks with each other, and suggest strategies so as to not be so blatantly obvious in their offenses in the future.
The judges almost never take any official action on these complaints, regardless of how much evidence you have submitted. The complaints are rejected, and they tend to not even reply to the victim. If a reply is made, it is to dismiss the complaint, with a remark that the complainant is a “disgruntled litigant”, or some technicality or other is invented to jettison the complaint.
Also, it can be nearly impossible to get a lawyer to help you file such misconduct charges – see below on why lawyers are afraid of revenge by the judges. But even with a lawyer making the complaint for you, the outcome would be the same: Nearly all complaints ignored or dismissed.
Starting in 2004, there was even appointed a national judicial ethics panel of the United States Supreme Court, with a Supreme Court judge as chairman. This is yet another group that is stonewalling on judicial corruption, so you can send in complaints and have them ignored right at the very top.
The judges of America look out very nicely for each other. On the other hand, judges who dare to expose the bribery and misconduct by other judges, can be attacked and driven out of office on trumped-up accusations.
The judges are jealous of their own sense of power, which is diminished every time a judicial scandal is exposed. The judges think it is better to cover up for any crimes by fellow judges, so that they don’t lose the respect that they have remaining, among the people who don’t know any better.
In each U.S. state you can also locate the procedures on how to file a complaint against a dishonest lawyer, a complaint usually filed with your local Bar, or lawyers’ supervision body. Just as with the complaint procedures about judges, these procedures are largely a joke, a farce and a fraud on the American people.
You may be amazed to see how fast the Bar sends you a letter back, claiming there is “no action warranted” on your complaint, even though you have submitted total clear proof of felony crimes by a lawyer. Across America, such “lawyer complaint procedures” are known for covering up for felony crimes and serious offenses by lawyers. These “Bar legal ethics” people are an important part of maintaining the American culture of bribery and judicial misconduct.
It is important to understand that, in the United States of America, the lawyers are under the direct personal control of the judges, not their fellow lawyers. This is different from other advanced nations, where lawyers are admitted to practice by their fellow lawyers. So, in other countries, lawyers are not directly under the thumb of judges who may be crooked. This is the difference between what is usually called the ‘Bar’ (a government body controlled by the judges in America), and the ‘Bar Association’ (the union or guild or private organization of lawyers).
Given that the judges in America are widely involved in misconduct and fraud and bribery, and that these judges also control the Bar, that means your complaint about dishonest lawyers, are going right to the same judges who are involved in bribery with the crooked lawyers. Ha-ha-ha, the judges laugh, because the joke is on the public.
The lawyers who are “disciplined” by the Bar are mostly lawyers who have made the judges angry in some way – lawyers who dared to expose corruption; lawyers involved in bribery without giving the judges their proper share; political radicals or minority lawyers who have caused trouble for the judges and politicians; or lawyers whose other crimes become so well known that the Bar feels it has to pretend to do something.
But it is usually an empty hope of getting justice, by means of filing a Bar complaint against a lawyer. The law, the truth, the facts, the evidence, and justice itself, are all usually irrelevant. What matters is the way the lawyer in question is politically and financially connected to the judges.
The Bar Associations, or lawyers’ unions, do not have power independent of the judges. They accept the system as it is, and join in the cover-up of offenses by other lawyers.
One of the several things you will discover in your battle against judicial or legal wrongdoing, is that it can be almost impossible to find a lawyer who will help you file lawsuits and complaints against judges, or against other lawyers.
One reason for this is because the judges generally control the Bar in your state, which means they have total instant control over whether a lawyer is even allowed to continue working as a lawyer.
With the judges’ direct personal control over the Bar, not only does the Bar ignore the complaints about dishonest lawyers who are involved in crimes with judges, the Bar can also take instant revenge on the lawyers who dare to question corruption. As you will find in numerous documented cases, lawyers who file complaints have been quickly stripped of their right to practice law, denied their livelihood and income and financially destroyed, and sometimes even criminally charged and sentenced to jail.
Sometimes the local Bar will even admit that talking about legal corruption, is a specific reason for taking away a lawyer’s license to practice. The revenge can be quick and instant.
Judges have many other ways to take revenge too. American judges love to abuse their “contempt of court” privileges, and send a lawyer or other person to jail right on the spot there in the courtroom, if the judge decides that person has been insufficiently submissive.
What this means, is that America’s army of nearly a million lawyers, is submissive to the control of some thousands of judges, who operate the game that is known as America’s legal system. Lawyers are genuinely in fear. You will find that even the many lawyers who are unemployed, the lawyers who are broke and desperate for money, are afraid to fight a case if it involves exposing judicial or legal corruption.
The small group of rich lawyers who make big money, and who run the various Bar and lawyers’ associations, have accepted the way that the “game” is currently played by the lawyers who have direct contact with judges. There is a feeling among lawyers that the current structure of bribery and fraud, is what maintains the high incomes of some lawyers, and helps lawyers to earn fees as high as $500 per hour. Rich people and companies pay this money because they are afraid of injustice, and they know that the fees are big enough to include the money for bribes to the judges.
Many other lawyers, privately, don’t like the system, but individual lawyers will not speak out about particular cases of bribery and fraud, because they know that revenge will likely be quickly taken against them.
Lawyers will line up by the dozen to help other crooked lawyers, and to help judges play bribery games and do personal harm to you. But if you have proof of lawyers or judges involved in crime and wrongdoing, lawyers in general will avoid you as if you have the plague.
Theoretically, there are a few lawyers who advertise among their specialties, that they are interested in “legal malpractice” cases. But you will almost certainly find this to be another dead end, as you search for a lawyer to help you.
Many of the lawyers interested in “legal malpractice” are only interested in defending and protecting lawyers who are accused of crimes and offenses – they are not interested in exposing any wrongdoing by other lawyers.
The lawyers who say they are willing to sue other lawyers, are basically only willing to file such lawsuits if it is all right with the judges first – they are not willing to sue lawyers who are committing crimes in collusion with the judges.
These lawyers first want to know if some judge is already angry at the lawyer in question, and wants to take revenge on the lawyer – in that case the “legal malpractice” lawyer might be willing to help you. A few narrow types of cases fall into this category – like lawyers who have missed a filing deadline in a personal injury lawsuit, thereby depriving other lawyers and judges of legal fees and bribery money.
The lawyers, and the judges supporting them, will also tolerate a few lawsuits about legal misconduct, where the lawyers have engaged in malpractice or misconduct that hurts the big corporations or their shareholders. The judges and lawyers don’t care about average citizens, but they do care about big corporations, shareholders, and wealthy people, so they might consider evaluating whether a lawyer has provided good service to big corporations and wealthy people.
As far as the average citizen goes, you can pretty much forget about even the so-called “legal malpractice” lawyers. No matter how clearly you can prove felony crimes by other lawyers and judges, the “legal malpractice” lawyers will almost never help you.
It’s true that there are lots of bogus, malicious, and perverted lawsuits filed in America, for all sorts of trivial and dishonest reasons. And it’s true that some of these lawsuits even win money, where somebody gets a big pile of money for some silly complaint.
But that doesn’t mean you will be able to get legal help to fight a crooked lawyer or judge, even though you have massive proof of misconduct and felony crime by the lawyers and the judges.
The legal profession likes the media to tell all those general lawsuit stories. They like the way these stories create terror among people and small businesses, and help induce people to pay more money for lawyers.
The legal profession also likes the media to tell the stories of a few people who win millions of dollars in lawsuits. It is just like in gambling casinos, where the casino very proudly announces that someone has won a huge jackpot. A few people win big, but most people will lose, and the stories of a few people hitting the “jackpot” give false hope to all the many people who lose money. Also, many people who win lots of money in a lawsuit, are people who have serious injuries and medical problems, and who need to spend all that money on America’s hugely expensive medical care system.
The lawyers also like to create the impression that, “You can find a lawyer to sue anybody for almost anything.” This, however, is a lie. It’s true that you can find lawyers to file all sorts of silly, worthless and dishonest lawsuits, but only against certain targets.
If you want to make up some lies and sue a doctor or a hospital, lawyers will jump out of the woodwork to help you. If you want to make up some lies and sue a small business, that doesn’t have any political connections, lawyers will be glad to take your money and play this game with you. If you want to harass your poor neighbor down the street, and your neighbor doesn’t have political connections, lawyers will be glad to take your money and play the lawsuit game.
But if you want to sue a big powerful company with political connections, lawyers start to slow down a bit. They might take your money and file a lawsuit against that kind of company, but they will start to be a little timid about what they do. And they might steal your money, and then take a bribe from the lawyers for the big company to sabotage your case.
If you want to file a lawsuit against some politician or the government, now things really start to slow down. Lawyers, even broke lawyers desperate for money, will start to walk on eggshells here. They might be willing to file some sort of general administrative lawsuit about this or that, but they also will be very hesitant to expose wrongdoing by some powerful official, politician or government agency. Lawyers are very careful about taking legal action against the government in general.
But if you want to sue another lawyer, or file some lawsuit that exposes the misconduct of a dishonest judge, then you will likely hear: No way, buster! This is the territory of career suicide for a lawyer. He might end up losing his license to practice law, and both the lawyer and you might wind up in jail on phony charges. You can keep on asking several thousand lawyers, like other people have done, and yet never find a single lawyer who is willing to file a lawsuit against other crooked lawyers. You can have lots of money, and total proof of crime by the guilty lawyers, and yet you may never find a lawyer to help you.
That’s the reality of “how the game is played” in the American legal system.
The lawyers’ fear of judges also changes their legal behavior in regular legal cases, too, even cases that don’t seem (at first) to involve legal corruption.
When you talk with a lawyer in his office, you may hear him talk about all sorts of wonderful things he promises to do for you – all sorts of countersuits he will file, all sorts of things he will say to defend you. He sounds like a smart guy or girl.
But then you may find, when it comes to the actual legal filings, or the lawyer’s performance in the courtroom, your lawyer is suddenly a wimp and an idiot. He only argues about trivial matters, and forgets to mention the most important evidence about why you are innocent or right.
The reason for this is that much of what goes on in American courtrooms is phony or fake, with the outcome decided in advance by the judge and the lawyers. Lawyers don’t really work for their clients in many cases; their real allegiance is channeled through the judges, and their loyalty is to the government, or to the rich people or corporations who pay the big bribes.
Even though you might have given a lot of money to “your” lawyer, the judge might have gotten a really big bribe from the other side. This is part of why the big corporation usually wins their cases against the little guy.
Your lawyer is often like a crooked pro wrestler who gets paid to take a dive in a rigged wrestling match. He pretends to fight a little bit, then he lays down while the judge/referee counts to 10.
Lawyers are submissive to the judges in the way that they present their cases. If the judge doesn’t want to hear something, the lawyer will try to avoid presenting those facts or arguments. So the truth is never spoken, the motion is never filed, the claims are not made, the facts are not presented. The person whom you imagine is “your” lawyer, trims and narrows his presentation to make it pleasing to the judge, and to the forces of wealth, power and government that the judge represents. Your lawyer may well be bribed by the other side’s lawyers, to help him along in betraying you.
If the lawyers don’t play along with this game, they may suffer the destruction of their careers, or even be railroaded into prison.
This is also how so many poor people and minorities are sent to prison, even though they are completely innocent. They are shoved into accepting a “plea bargain”, with no jury trial, by the lies and deceptions of a “public defender lawyer”, who is trying to hold onto his job. If the “public defender” does not cooperate with the judge and prosecutors in railroading poor people into jail, he can be pushed out of work, or even suffer worse revenge, like being disbarred or jailed on false charges himself.
In lawsuits between people and big companies, the big corporations and rich people who pay for the bribes may not even specifically talk about bribery with their lawyer. They hire a lawyer with “connections”, pay him $500 an hour or whatever he asks, and don’t ask any questions about the details. The lawyers themselves have lots of cash floating around in their pockets, and wait for a discreet moment to pass it to the judge. Occasionally an ex-judge will even reveal that this is how the system actually works, that bribery is commonplace.
Often, the judge and the lawyers agree among themselves about how it’s all going to “go down”, with the end result decided in advance, and you merely hear the result of “the best deal possible”, according to “your” lawyer, whose job is to sell the deal to you, and make you take it – or else. “Your” lawyer will start to threaten or intimidate you, if you do not go along. If a lawyer tries to fight this system, he and his client may both be quickly crushed and destroyed. American lawyers learn quickly that they must “play the game” if they are to survive at all.
Lawyers who wish they could help people, find themselves too afraid to take the actions they know should be taken to really defend and fight for their clients. America’s lawyers are themselves in fear, well-trained in being submissive and timid to America’s judges.
It is almost impossible to find radical, bold, brave lawyers like there were in an earlier day, or like you imagine from television and movies. The judges don’t allow such lawyers to survive very long. Such lawyers have been successfully suppressed, disbarred, jailed, or otherwise intimidated and constrained. That is why when you try to confront judicial and legal corruption, you are usually very much alone and without any legal help.
This is another frustrating dead end in your search for justice. In theory, the local district attorney, or the police, or the federal prosecutors and the FBI, should all be going after crooked lawyers and judges.
But you will find that these people usually have no interest in going after crooked lawyers and judges, no matter how clear and devastating the proof of crime that you present to them. They may even give you back the evidence and refuse to accept it, so they can pretend later that they never saw it and don’t have it.
One of the sad things about life in America, is that average citizens are usually denied the right to bring criminal complaints against other people. You aren’t allowed to yourself bring criminal charges of extortion and fraud against a lawyer, unless a prosecutor or other magistrate or official “approves” of prosecuting your accusations.
And what you will find is that the public officials cover up for crimes by their special friends, the lawyers and judges. This is all part of the “game”. The police and prosecutors, after all, depend on crooked lawyers and judges to succeed in their own work. Many of Americans 2 million prisoners who are now in America’s jails, are innocent, railroaded into jail on flimsy evidence, on unreliable testimony from criminal snitches, or by a plea bargain backed by extortion threats.
Lawyers and judges are the people who help the police and prosecutors do their dirtiest work. There is lots of mutual back-scratching here. Judges and lawyers help cover up for crimes and misconduct by police and prosecutors; in return, police and prosecutors help cover up for crimes by judges and lawyers. It is an old, ancient game, and the players are all familiar with the rules.
Occasionally there is a prosecution of some lawyer or low-level judge for some crime, but this is usually when that person has become a wild card, who went too far, or didn’t play by the established rules, maybe got too greedy in exceeding the quiet system of influence and bribery. But sometimes it is exactly because that lawyer or judge tried to fight the system or not play along, that they are being railroaded on some accusation. The news reports rarely tell the real story of what is going on behind the scenes.
But for the average person who has clear proof of felony crimes by a lawyer or judge, the police and prosecutors and FBI are usually not interested. They will simply put the material in their files, and not do anything about it.
Yes. There is no person more isolated in the American legal system, than someone who is a victim of legal and judicial corruption and who has started to complain about it, or shown any signs that he is aware of the crooked game that is being played.
By complaining about dishonest lawyers and judges, you may no longer have any shred of safety left in your life inside America. The judges and lawyers and police will make you, in the ancient sense of the word, an “outlaw”, outside the law, where it is open season for anyone to do harm to you, and no lawyer or judge or police will ever protect you.
Murderers and rapists can find a lawyer – no problem at all. Lawyers love to have clients who are guilty of serious crimes, sleazy clients who want to cut “a deal” with the system.
But if you are an innocent person who has complained about a lawyer or a judge, or who has shown signs of even being aware of dishonesty or corruption in the legal system, then you are in great danger, and may already be an “outlaw” to America’s lawyers and courts. You may be an outlaw not only in the particular legal case where you complained about corruption, but in any future legal case of any kind at all. You might find yourself totally without legal help in unrelated legal matters, and have now become fair game for all gangsters and criminals as well as the government.
You might be arrested on false criminal charges, and find that no lawyer wants to help you. Other people can wreck your house and steal money from you, and you may find that no lawyer will dare come forward to help protect your rights.
If you had a past record of robbing banks or harming children, sure, lawyers will help you, no problem. But if you have a past record of complaining about lawyers and judges, then you are alone, and lawyers and judges will sit back and watch and laugh while you are victimized. And lawyers themselves may start lining up to cheat you and steal your money, knowing that you are helpless to fight back.
You may be surprised that even fairly large piles of money, are not enough to fight legal corruption.
You may initially have become a victim of legal corruption, in part because you didn’t have much money. Lawyers told you they couldn’t help you, because you didn’t have money. But you will find that even if you win the lottery and get a large pile of money later, you often still cannot hire any lawyers to fight legal corruption.
It is an iron wall of corruption with America’s judges and lawyers. The lawyers are totally scared to represent you or help you, if you are someone who has exposed or criticized wrongdoing among the judges, and that doesn’t change because you can afford to pay legal fees.
If you do come into some money, you may only find lawyers who will steal your money, but not actually represent you and fight for you. One way they do this is by the common “research and review” scam. A lawyer says first you have to pay him to “evaluate the issues”. He takes a large pile of money, and writes a short and useless “legal memorandum”, telling you there is this issue and that issue and blah-blah-blah, but in the end he refuses to help you, and all you have is a useless “memorandum”.
Another way a lawyer will steal your money is by making false promises to you, even giving you a phony written contract, and then just pocketing your money. Once he cashes your checks, the lawyer then begins abusing you and backing out on his promises. He refuses to do work for you or file the lawsuits he promised, he suddenly tells you that you must keep quiet about bribery and corruption, and meanwhile he keeps all your money because of all his “legal work” and “research” on your case.
America really has two legal systems using the same courts. One system is for rich people and big corporations, and those who can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees and bribes. The other system is for everybody else, who are simply pawns in the big legal “game”. The average middle class or poor person, simply doesn’t matter very much to the judges and lawyers.
But even people who are wealthy, or big wealthy corporations, cannot directly fight the legal culture of bribery and corruption. Even the lawyers for big corporations, are too scared to expose bribery and fraud by other lawyers and judges.
Even a big corporation, confronted with bribery, will simply file complex appeals on technical issues, and hire other expensive lawyers who may bribe other judges, so as to get the initial bad results reversed or limited in some way. A business knows that if it speaks up about dishonest judges, it will have a bad time in the courts from other judges in the future. It will start losing big lawsuits, and may even be wiped out or destroyed, as the judges take revenge on the company.
To understand American legal corruption, it’s necessary to go into a deeper understanding of how the machinery of American society really works – who has power, and why they use it that way. This is a big and complex question, about which many books can be written, and which can be looked at in different ways. But here are some short summaries to help you initially understand why the American judicial system has gotten into this mess.
As for “someone” to fight this system, right now there are many little “someones” trying to fight this crooked system, you can find such people on the internet, even though you may not have heard about them before. There is a growing movement across the country seeking to do something about America’s terrifying and catastrophic legal system.
But as of now, there is no big powerful “someone”, with money and power and lawyers and media coverage, who is willing to fight this system as it now stands.
In America right now, two giant institutions are breaking down at the same time. One is the legal and court system, with the moral collapse of America’s lawyers, now submissive to America’s judges and to the culture of legal corruption.
The second institution that is breaking down, is that of the big news media organizations, now very timid, and not covering much of the news that people need and want to hear. The lawyers are afraid, and the reporters are afraid, and so the real story about America’s courts is not getting told. America is now the land of fear. This needs to be understood in more detail, so you can understand why the judges have such power and control, and why judicial corruption is so rampant.
A good question to start analyzing power and corruption, is to ask: Who benefits from it?
With judicial and legal corruption, clearly the judges and the rich lawyers benefit from it. An unfair system that involves bribery and influence peddling, makes the judges and the leading lawyers richer. They get a lot more money than they would in a fair system. The more injustice in America, the more fear that clients have, the more money they will pay to lawyers. Fear and injustice equals money for lawyers and judges.
By being able to bribe judges and influence court results, this is also an inducement for people to pay large money for lawyers. It means that paying big money is a reliable way to get the results that you want. If the system was fair, the little guy or victim would win more often. On the other hand, a bribery system, will tend to give more reliable results for the people who are paying the big fees and bribery money.
And partly it is just the ancient human emotion of the quest for power. A dishonest judge feels more powerful than an honest one. It is one thing to decide a legal case; it is another all together, to fix and rig the system for yourself and your friends. It can make people feel like a god, to twist and pervert the system and America’s Constitution. Pride and the lust for power, are ancient human emotions, especially for people who are drawn to politics, like judges.
In America, people grow up thinking that judges are the ultimate power. So people who seek power, want to become judges. And then how much more powerful you can feel as a judge, to twist and rig the whole game. Especially when you know that other judges are twisting and rigging the game too.
But we need to look more deeply, beyond the judges and lawyers themselves, to see who is benefiting from the current crooked USA legal system, and why the system keeps going. See the following questions for more on this topic.
To understand the reasons for the abuse of judicial power in America, it’s necessary to talk a little about the politics of America itself – who is powerful in America, and how America is really run. This discussion is necessarily controversial, and many people will have differing perspectives. But there is no way to discuss the root of the problem of judicial and legal corruption, without at least partially discussing the problems of American politics.
Also, it’s necessary to say a little bit about American politics, before we discuss why various other groups and entities – like the political parties, non-profit groups and organizations, and the media — won’t help you fight or expose legal corruption either.
So here in this FAQ is a brief political discussion that will at least explain what is holding up the current environment of judicial corruption and bribery, and why nobody powerful is trying to stop the judges and lawyers.
You don’t have to agree with this discussion, to appreciate that there is a terrible problem in America with injustice; with dishonest, crooked and political biased judges; and with lawyers who regularly abandon, sabotage and betray their own clients. But for those who want to understand why this is happening, the political discussion here will provide one framework of reference, and an initial explanation for why this terrible tragic “game” is still being played, with no powerful group out there calling “Stop” to these terrors.
In America there are said to be three “branches” of government: the judiciary branch of judges, the executive branch under the president and the governors, and the legislative branch under congress and the various state legislatures. Two main political “parties”, the Democrats and Republicans, control nearly everyone in government throughout America – with just a handful of exceptions, all judges, the President and the governors, and all legislators, are members of these two big parties.
Of these three branches of government in the USA, the judges are the highest or supreme branch. The President has more raw power in his hands, but he is still somewhat under the courts in the way the government is structured. Weaker still are the legislators. The Congress passes laws, but is not as powerful as the President, or the courts, since the judges can nullify or re-interpret the laws.
The weakest branch of government, the bodies of individual legislators, is the one closest to the people. The President is more distant, and the most distant of all are the judges. The highest powers, in other words, are the most distant from the public.
This is all very different from other advanced countries, where the parliaments or legislators are really supreme, because they directly represent the people. In other countries like on the continent of Europe, the parliament is usually more powerful than the executive (usually the prime minister), or the judges. But in America, like no where else, the judges are on top of the heap, not the parliament or congress.
In America the judges hold the highest political power, and yet the judges are the government group that people are supposed to be afraid to criticize. People are allowed to talk politics about the President or Congress, but are fearful and timid of saying things about the judges.
But the real biggest power in America, worth trillions of dollars, are the big corporations, and the very wealthiest billionaires and multi-millionaires, the big investors who own those corporations. These corporations are more powerful than any individual or any branch of the government, and if they wanted, they could change the way the government works.
These big corporations, with the billionaires and multi-millionaire investors, have effective ownership and funding and control of the important institutions in the United States. They own almost all of the major news media, nearly all the television and radio and newspapers and even many internet sites, that most Americans read as sources of news and information.
The corporations and wealthy people provide most of the money for both political parties – both the Democrats and the Republicans – yes, they are the sources of most of the money used by BOTH of these two parties in their billion dollar election campaigns. Both political parties really get their money from largely the same people, who give to both parties, so they have influence no matter who wins any election.
The big corporations and billionaires and multi-millionaires, also supply the money for most of the big “non profit organizations” and think tanks, the organizations you see that have good funding, paid employees, and money to spend on fancy internet sites, fundraising and advertising. Wherever you turn in America for established information, or to observe well-funded political activity, you are usually running into something ultimately funded by America’s biggest corporations and wealthiest people.
The power of the corporations and billionaires and multi-millionaires, are the real force behind the judges, and the current environment of unlimited judicial power. See the following questions for more details as to why.
So why don’t the rich people and corporations keep the judges under control, and force them to be honest?
In talking about the power of the big corporations, the billionaires, and the multi-millionaires, it is not necessary to take sides on issues like free-market capitalism versus leftist social democracy, or the old-fashioned debate about what Americans call the “conservative” versus “liberal” viewpoint.
What is being talked about here, is the monopoly power of rich companies and a few rich people, so concentrated that is so huge and dangerous, and stifles free competition. It is what former American President Teddy Roosevelt warned about as the dangerous power of “trusts”, or cartels and monopolies. It is also what former American President Dwight Eisenhower warned against as the power of the “military industrial complex”, the big corporations and wealthy people whom he said might eventually control all branches and aspects of government, if people were not vigilant.
It is that kind of concentrated, monopoly power that is at issue here – not just the power of the judges and lawyers themselves as a monopoly, but the power of the corporations behind them.
Clearly it benefits the judges themselves to operate a culture of almost naked and unrestrained power, where complaints about judges are only reviewed by other judges. It benefits the judges themselves to have a system where the lawyers themselves must submit to the judges, and not dare expose corruption, or else instantly lose their ability to practice law, and maybe face jail and prison themselves. Where judges can commit crimes and develop a culture of bribery, secure in the knowledge that they themselves can cover up for fellow judges who engage in bribery and misconduct.
The current game benefits the judges, and it benefits the group of wealthy lawyers who play dirty games with the judges and who buy influence with them. But all of that may not be enough to explain why the game keeps going on.
Over and over again, people cry out in private: Why doesn’t “somebody” do something about these crooked judges and lawyers? Why won’t anyone help me? Why do the politicians, the police and everybody else, stay silent why all of this is going on?
Yes, theoretically, the legislators have the power to go after the judges. The media could start publicizing on the front page of the newspapers, and in the headlines of news broadcasts, all the terrible crimes being committed by judges and lawyers, all the stories of so many victims, with so much proof in written documents. If it wanted, the media could publicize all those stories that are usually only found by people on the internet, after they themselves have become victims, and go looking on the internet for help, only to find that there are hundreds of thousands of other victims, too.
But nonetheless, all the millions of victims of the legal system are suffering, and finding that no one in power, no big political party or influential media organization is taking up their cause. Why not?
The answer ultimately lies in the power of the big corporations, and the billionaire and multi-millionaire investors. These powers, ultimately, like the current system as it is. It works for them, even though the average common person often gets run over by the big bus known as the American legal system. These big corporations, who also own the media companies, and who also supply the money for your congress-people and legislators, like the system as it is. So the people who get their money – the media and the legislators – stay quiet about legal corruption, because they know that the current legal system is what is wanted by those big corporations and investors.
A “fair” legal system, which made the little guy equal to the big corporation, is obviously something dangerous to the corporations, that would cost them money. An unfair legal system – where only the richest can afford to play the game well – benefits the corporations greatly.
Almost no one in America can pay lawyers $500 an hour for months and months. But this is small chump change for big companies or billionaires, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers.
And it is not just lawsuits and legal claims, that the big corporations and rich investors are worried about. It is control of all the machinery of government, control of democracy itself, that is secured by owning the legal system.
America is the only developed nation in the world whose political system, is so well controlled and owned by the big corporations and investors. An unfair legal system, with lots of influence-buying and bribery, not only lets companies win their particular legal battles, in taking away the rights of the little guy. It also prevents other kinds of protest and political activity that could threaten the big companies’ profits and power. The working class and middle class people, can be kept submissive and in fear, afraid of ever trying to ask for their rights either in the court or in politics.
America’s unfair legal system is an important tool to keep people shut up and quiet and fearful. Similarly, the monopoly ownership of America’s media by the big companies keeps many Americans ignorant of things that are going on, if it is not what the corporations want them to hear.
Americans are in terror of the law and the legal system. If the average American is arrested, he already fears that he will be railroaded and sent to jail if he is not rich, and if he does not have several hundred thousand dollars to spend. If he is sued by a big company, the average person expects to lose everything he owns, and go bankrupt.
The legal system is used to quash, silence and destroy, and even imprison, little people who try to criticize big companies, rich people, or (of course) judges and lawyers. The legal system is used to attack and harass people who try to start independent political parties or reform movements, or engage in protest activity, or to crush independent writers and critics.
One big tool of crushing democracy, is the whole farce of American courts on divorce and family law, the custody of children and alimony and divorce property disputes. By keeping millions of Americans tied up in years of legal hell and losing money to this system, working Americans are kept poor, and drained of energy and resources they could use for other political activity.
In a general demoralization of the working and lower classes, America has built a giant gulag of prisons, with more than 2 million prisoners – this is one-fourth, twenty-five percent, of all the prisoners in the entire world. America is now a big jailhouse. More than 1 out of 140 Americans is currently in prison. Hardly anybody is in jail in Europe, and the crime rates are much lower. America imprisons a much higher percentage of people than China, Cuba or other countries that America likes to criticize.
Working class and minority Americans live in fear of being sent to jail on false and bogus charges, with fake evidence from crooked jailhouse snitches, who tell lies just to get a lighter sentence for themselves. Sometimes you learn that an innocent man was strapped to a table and put to death, on the basis of such flimsy crooked evidence.
The average person is already at least subconsciously aware that the legal system is a terrifying monster. Indeed, it is a frightening iron fist, or iron curtain, of corruption.
The legal system works well for the big corporations and investors and multi-millionaires and billionaires – they can play the legal “game” and often get what they want. On the other hand, the legal system works badly for the average person, the innocent man or woman who is getting financially destroyed or jailed, or banned from seeing children that they care for and love.
Some long time ago in America, the decision was firmed up by the big powers of wealth that control America, to make the legal system the tool of control and fear of the American people. It has worked very well in that way. It is an implicit deal of quiet understanding. You don’t need to believe in a conspiracy, or any central control, to realize that slowly over time, a natural convergence of interest has come about, between the judges and lawyers on the one hand, and the corporations and wealthiest people on the other.
The deal goes something like this. The big corporations said, “Look here, judges, we will give you nearly total control over life in America. You will be supreme, in charge, you will get to bend and twist the law around any way you want. You will get to bend and twist the Constitution or any laws passed by the legislature, and the facts of any particular case, to suit your whims and preferences. You judges and lawyers can get filthy rich from all sorts of lawsuits. You will even get to totally control America’s lawyers, who will even be afraid to file papers or say things in court, without advance approval from you judges. You will be able to get instant revenge on lawyers who dare to question you, or who don’t play along with your bribery games.”
The corporations continued: “Everyone will be afraid of you judges, and no one will be able to question you and your lawyer friends, even when you commit crimes of fraud and extortion and bribery in broad daylight, and conduct fake trials. Even the legislators (whom we corporations also control through the money we give them) will not dare to impeach you. Everyone will spout little schoolbook phrases about ‘the rule of law’ and ‘respecting the judgement of the court’. The big media organizations (whom we corporations also own and control) will be afraid to print news stories that expose the real workings of the law or the courts. You judges, and many lawyers who play the game with you, will be very rich, and very powerful. You will be the ultimate guardians of the American empire.”
The corporations went on: “All you need to do is make sure that the American people stay under your thumb, and that you judges serve the big corporations and rich people on the really important big issues. You can sometimes let people win some lawsuits, especially some of those personal-injury cases that create such good legal fees and opportunities for bribery. The American people can look at the courts as a kind of casino, where they might win a million dollars, even though most people will really lose money and get destroyed. You judges will be in charge of this whole game. But on the really big issues, you judges will take sides with the big companies, or with the government and politicians, who also work for the big companies and multi-millionaire investors.”
The corporations continued: “You judges will do everything you can to see that democracy is kept limited and under control. You will see that the courts make the big decisions, not the people, and not the legislators who can be influenced by people visiting their offices. You will see that the highest power remains in the hands of federal judges, who cannot even be fired or transferred out of a job. In general, you judges will work to see that the common people are afraid and terrified of the legal system. You will use your powers to keep people in check, and hinder political parties or political movements that are not owned by the big companies. Sometimes you will see that critics are shut up and jailed.”
The corporations continued: “You will send millions of people to prison, and some thousands of people to death, you judges will be in charge of the biggest gulag prison system in the entire world. You will be in charge of the jail and the terror of the American people. You will destroy the lives of so many little people, making them broke and separating them from their families and making them worry about money and going to jail and losing their children, so they will not be able to organize themselves and fight the big companies. You will encourage fear and hatred, you will help make the middle class to be afraid of the poor, you will help stir up fear between different races and religious groups.”
The corporations concluded: “The American people will be deceived and manipulated and fearful and helpless to fight you. You judges and we corporations, we will maintain power together, and we will be rich together. You judges will be the most powerful people in the most powerful country in the world. And we corporations will gladly pay you well for it. Together we will inhibit and limit democracy, we will stop whatever laws and lawsuits and political movements, that will threaten to limit the profits and power of the corporations, or which try to limit the power games of you judges and lawyers. We will rule America together, because it is the only way to rule America to our maximum benefit. We will laugh and call it ‘democracy’ and the ‘rule of law’, even while American people live in fear, and become powerless and have their rights taken away. The rule of law will become the rule of lawyers, under the judges who exercise supreme power for the big corporations.”
No conversation like this ever took place, most likely. But it is a fairly good statement of the quiet understanding that exists, between America’s corporate powers and wealthy investors, on the other hand, and the judges and lawyers who control America’s legal system.
If the legal system did not control, manipulate, and divide the American people, there would be more popular democracy, more political parties, less abuse of the average person, and smaller profits for the richest people and big corporations, as Americans won back their rights that they have lost.
Next to the initial shock of realizing the crooked nature of American judges and courts, the next biggest shock for the typical victim is finding out that the politicians of both major parties, have no interest in helping the victim or confronting the injustice.
Often you hear a victim of legal corruption say, “I’ve been a Republican/Democrat all my life, but when I asked for help about how I was victimized by a judge or lawyer, all I got was the run-around. They slammed the door in my face. My legislator just told me, ‘We don’t interfere with the courts, that’s a different branch of government.’ I told them about all the crimes I saw committed, but they didn’t care. They just abandoned me, even though I voted for those people for years.”
It’s often the same story. If you have some problem with an executive branch government agency, not getting some permit you need or some issue like that, your legislator might help you. But raise an issue about crooked lawyers and judges, then Whoa! You find that your legislators and their staff look at you like some criminal, who has just tried to get away with armed robbery. They don’t want to talk to you, they don’t want to hear about your problems, and they almost certainly won’t do anything about it.
The political party that you imagined was on your side all those years you voted for them, now suddenly has no time for you. You will find that both political parties are the same.
Even if you have a strong political angle, they won’t help you. If a Republican judge has committed a felony crime against you, don’t expect the Democrats to help. If a law firm of Democrat lawyers has robbed you, don’t expect the Republicans to help.
You are confronting something very deep and dark about American life here. Your legislators will not help you about legal corruption and wrong-doing, not only for the reason that the legislator and leading staff members may well all be lawyers. Of course that is a factor, too. Sometimes even the majority of legislators are lawyers, the same kind of politically-hungry lawyers who become judges. They start their careers playing the familiar dirty games with judges and other lawyers, and they do not want to start fighting that dirty game just because they won an election as the supposed “people’s representative”.
The legislator knows it is very dangerous to talk about crime and wrongdoing by lawyers and judges. Legislators who start talking like that, are quickly attacked by the legal profession, by the judges and by their fellow legislators. If they don’t shut up quickly, their political careers, and maybe their private ones, will be sabotaged. They might find themselves suddenly themselves facing trumped-up “corruption charges”, and there will be lots of snickering as to how they only complained about judges and lawyers because they were crooks themselves.
Ultimately, legislators are loyal to the people who pay their bills – the richest people and the biggest corporations. Nearly all legislators belong to the two major political parties, and they have benefited financially and in many other ways from these parties and related political-action groups, which are mostly funded in turn by the rich people and big corporations.
The big money behind the two political parties, do not want to see legislators rocking the boat, going on a crusade against crooked lawyers and judges, when the American legal system is exactly the main tool that is being used to keep the whole American “system” the way it is, the way that is most profitable for the big companies. A legislator who makes trouble here, has a very difficult road, and will usually not be allowed to stay in politics very long, and be lucky not to get jailed before it is all over.
Yes, sadly this is true. Though it may take a while for you to accept and digest this, especially if you have lived a lot of your previous life imagining that one of these two parties really “represented” you, or represented your views.
To real understand why American legal corruption is so entrenched, it’s also necessary to understand the political fakery and illusions that are helping to hold it up.
As you look for help for your situation in being a victim of America’s crooked legal system, you have run smack into another ugly truth about American life. Not only does America have a basically fake legal system, pretending to be fair while really working for the big corporations. America also has a basically fake political system – two big “political parties” that pretend to be different, but they are really “two wings on the same airplane”.
This is already known, subconsciously, by a large segment of the American people. It’s why so few people vote in America, why sometimes even the majority of people don’t vote. Many people feel, down deep, that the two big parties are really the same; there’s no other parties to pick from that have any realistic chance or hope; so people feel better not voting at all. People feel better not voting, so as to not give any legitimacy to politicians, whom they know don’t care about the common people.
If you vote for a smaller, third-party, or independent candidate, the media often won’t even report such votes, so as to help discourage the independent voters. And the media tries to do very little news reporting about independent candidates – otherwise people might vote for them.
Of course many millions of Americans still have the impression that “their party”, that of the Democrats or Republicans, is really “different” in some way. But this is largely smoke and illusion. The fact is that both parties really agree on most all issues that are important to the rich people and big corporations. That’s why you often see legislation get passed on near-unanimous votes, if it affects big corporations and wealthy investors.
On the other hand, there is a certain game being played, a game of illusion about certain issues which excite a lot of emotion with some voters, but where the big corporations either don’t really care, or in which the results are pre-managed despite the heated debate. These are issues like abortion, prayer in the schools, ownership of assault weapons, gay rights, flag burning and so on.
Such issues inflame the passions of millions of people, and make them vote passionately for either Republicans or Democrats. Such issues help people to imagine that one of the two big parties “represents” them. But such issues are smoke and mirrors, designed to deflect and detour the average person’s mind, from the bread-and-butter issues, that are important to the profits of the big corporations.
You will notice, too, that with regard to such “hot button” issues, very little changes regardless of who is elected. America has elected a number of “anti-abortion” Presidents and congresses since 1980, and yet the abortion laws don’t really change, despite all the promises and all the millions of people who gave money and voted, voted in the hope there would be a new Constitutional amendment about abortion. Every four years, the same story works all over again, even though nothing has changed.
The same goes for gay rights, or gun laws or many other issues – the only changes made are minor, despite all the promises. And in many cases the politicians throw up their hands and say, “Well, the courts decided, and we can’t do anything about it just yet . . .” The politicians claim they are helpless before the courts, so of course the average person feels even more helpless. Every election, the same issues get paraded around to inflame people’s passions, and meanwhile the same powers keep running America: The big corporations, and the judges and lawyers, who get what they want. And not much is ever said by any politician about the dominance of big companies, and the crimes of judges and lawyers, most especially the latter.
The two parties also cultivate images that are different, even though their basic policies are quite similar. The Republicans appeal more to people who identify with evangelical religion, “traditional” values, or who think of themselves as “conservative”, while the Democrats appeal more to people who lean toward leftist or social-democracy government programs. (Americans use the word “liberal” to describe leftist views, though in other countries “liberal” often means pro-capitalist. Americans often call Democrats the “more liberal” party, but this label can be confusing overseas.)
Both parties try to be like blank computer screens for their voters, so that people can imagine whatever they like on the screen. Perhaps about half of Americans are fooled by this game; the other half realize, on some level, that the two parties “are both playing the same crooked game”, but don’t know what to do about it.
So it should not be a mystery that the Republican President Bush family, are friends with former Democratic President Clinton. The friendship there, is a symbol of how the two American “political parties” are really partners in running America.
The two big parties in America make sure now that little third parties, that might make a difference, never get off the ground. Such parties don’t get money from the big corporations, they don’t get media coverage, and they get attacked by the big parties with all sorts of legal challenges, so they have to spend whatever little money they have in the courts, fighting lawsuits just so they can get on the ballot. And the voters are regularly reminded that voting for anyone except the two big parties is a “wasted” vote. So real voters are made to feel helpless and hopeless, unless they imagine that one of the two big political parties “represents” them.
It is very different in Europe for example, where there are often many distinctive political parties, and because of proportional voting, even a small political party can get seats in a parliament, and become a part of government or at least parliamentary debates. But that’s not allowed in America, where the two big parties control everything, and third parties will not get represented even if they get huge percentages of the vote.
For millions of Americans who try to get involved in politics, they may spend their entire lives trying to make either the Republicans or the Democrats a little different, trying to influence the policies of the big party a little bit on some issue. But much of this energy is wasted. In the end, most legislators of the two big parties vote in the way that the lobbyists for the big corporations tell them to vote.
People in America cling desperately to one of the two big parties, despite the evidence, because otherwise they may feel really hopeless and depressed. It is a comfort to imagine that one of the political parties really does care about you. But when you become a victim of judicial or legal corruption, you will find out how much the big parties really don’t care, about corruption, about injustice, or about you.
It may indeed be a mistake to think that America is a “democracy with two big political parties”, as it is no longer fully a democracy at all. It’s really a country with only one political party, but a party that has two factions or branches, the Democrats and Republicans. The big corporations pay for both political parties, to keep the show and the illusion going. But the two parties represent the same big corporations and the same policies.
Somewhat hilariously, there are opinion polls in America showing that people are 50 per cent or even 80 per cent in favor of something, but yet such policy has “no support” in either the Democratic or Republic party in Congress. It is getting very obvious that the two parties are at odds with the American people.
And the subject of judicial and legal corruption, with millions of victims, is one of those issues where the two big parties basically won’t do anything.
That’s why you hit the brick wall when you go to your politicians with clear-cut evidence and total proof of felony crimes that have been committed, by some lawyer or judge. The politicians won’t touch it, they won’t help you. They just refer you right back to lawyers and judges.
But, you tell the politicians, you already went to the lawyers and judges, and the judges are ignoring you and no lawyer will help you.
Too bad, say the politicians, they never “interfere with the courts”. The politicians just won’t help you either. You are alone and abandoned, and the politicians will ignore you just like they ignored the many other victims who approached them before.
There’s no effective opposition to the judges in America, because there’s no effective political opposition, period. The two supposed “political parties” are really factions of one party, a party that belongs to the big corporations and the wealthiest investors, who are backing the judges and lawyers.
In any country with only one political party, the judges end up being a tool for servicing that one party, and maintaining its power over the people. And that’s what has gone wrong in America. America needs more than reform of its judges and legal system. America needs more democracy, so that there is real political opposition, not just the fake “battle” between two parties that get their money in the same place, and which basically have the same policies.
These problems are related, but very different. The problem of judicial and legal corruption, is a much wider and deeper problem, of which the problem of “political activist judges” is only one aspect.
It is important to understand the difference, as the political discussion about the smaller problem of “political activist judges” is often used to confuse and distract the debate about needed judicial reform.
In America people worry when they pick a judge for the U.S. Supreme Court, and they are all scared about what will happen. Even the people who pick him worry about him, given he might be in the job for another 35 years, and might later change his views in some screwy direction.
The power of the judges in America, however, really shows the weakness of American democracy. Why is a Supreme Court judge a kind of “king for life”, with unlimited powers to make political policy, and no one can over-rule these judges or remove them?
The power of judges in America, is quite ridiculous from the point of view of democracies in Europe, where people decide policies in a parliament they have recently elected. In Europe, there is no particular worry about choosing judges. In Europe judges might secretly be communists or capitalists or anything in between, but people don’t worry that they will destroy the country if they pick a judge with the wrong political position.
In Europe, the judges tend to stay out of politics – they leave the political questions to the elective government, as their job is to just apply the law and seek justice. In Europe, countries have multiple political parties across the spectrum, who will speak out if the judges get political. There is no political fear of unelected judges-for-life who are making policy for the people.
When Americans complain about “political judges”, it’s funny to observe, that the voters who still think they are Democrats or Republicans, each look at the judges as biased the other way. The Democrats see America’s judges as “too right wing, too conservative”; the Republicans see America’s judges as “too Democrat, too liberal”, even though most American federal judges now are Republicans. But both sides are actually right, and also wrong at the same time. The judges are just plain arrogant, and are constantly twisting the laws in a way to increase their own unlimited power as judges. Just pick your preferred filter to look at the biased decisions one way or the other.
There are a few cases where American politicians do tap a little bit, into the public feeling of anger about judges. However, this is almost never about the really big issues of outright fraud, corruption, bribery and extortion by the judicial branch. The complaints that you do sometimes see by politicians, are about the more narrow problem of judges who are openly bending their decisions on one of the emotional issues usually associated with one political party versus the other.
The problem of political judges, versus judicial corruption, has the same basis – arrogant judges out of control, ignoring the law and doing what they want – but the politicians stick to a very narrow script about a few controversial decisions, and they ignore the more general problem of bribery and court fraud, innocent people getting railroaded, and families getting destroyed.
There has long been a great problem in America, even going back more than a century, of judges who end up twisting the law and re-interpreting the law in some way to meet a preconceived political objective. In such cases the judge often goes to the extent of ignoring the Constitution or the laws as clearly written, and just making up his own rules or laws, using the terrifying power that American judges possess over the people appearing in their courtrooms.
If other judges do not move quickly to overturn or overrule such bad rulings, a lot of damage can be done. And judges are nearly always inclined to cover up for each other, especially if the victim is not wealthy or powerful.
But this is only one aspect of the far bigger problem, that “the law” in America has become almost infinitely devious in the hands of judges and lawyers. Nowadays, lawyers do not see the law or the Constitution as what is clearly written and understood by most people; the law is whatever the judges say it is.
And if the judges get together to say the Constitution means something else, then the original Constitution is effectively dead, if the judges won’t honor it, and if the lawyers won’t even fight for it, because they are too afraid of contradicting the judges.
The process of bending and twisting the law for political purposes has been accelerating over the last century. It has been accelerating extremely rapidly since the 1960s and 1970s, with the rapid expansion of lawsuits, prisons, and the power of lawyers and judges in America. Nowadays, lawyers just laugh at the “stupid Americans” who still read the old Constitution, or some written law, and expect to be protected by those laws or provisions. To an American lawyer, now, what is legal or not, just depends on what judges say is legal. What is written in the law, are just some words that the judge will use as a starting point as he plays the “legal game” in his courtroom.
Very clearly, over the last several decades, judges have made all sorts of politically-oriented rulings on controversial issues that tend to be very emotional for the American people – putting children on busses to integrate schools, or abortion for example. It is very strange to watch for other countries, because in other countries, such controversial issues are usually decided by a political debate in their parliament. In America, however, such issues, over and over again, are decided in the courts, by judges elected by nobody.
Some of these cases are in that very narrow realm of issues that politicians use as emotional footballs – abortion, gay marriage, school prayer, displaying passages from the Bible, things like that. Yes politicians do talk about judges, and accuse them of twisting the law one way or the other, about such issues.
This does help to distract many people into believing that one or the other political parties cares about “dishonest” judges, because they talk about a few judicial decisions on these high-heat emotional issues.
But what politicians, of any party, still avoid discussing, is the general problem of the wide corruption in American courts, the total violation and denial of rights to the average person, the railroading of innocent people, the destruction of families, and courts that favor the rich people and big corporations over the little person.
About such real issues, all of a sudden the politicians become very reverent, like they are talking about a god in heaven, and they mumble about “respect for the courts” and “not interfering with the great American legal system”.
Amazingly, though you can find many American organizations supposedly dealing with lawyers and judges, and the topic of reforming the legal system, they will mostly all ignore you, if you are a victim of judicial or legal corruption. This is true of the whole range of well-funded advocacy groups, non-profit study groups, and various civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights organizations.
Such groups tell you they try to “work within the system”, which is code language for telling you that they almost never get involved in complaining about crooked lawyers and judges. These organizations are not out to rock the boat of America’s judicial nightmare, even though they may be engaged in other political-type legal cases.
If such organizations have any money, resources, or lawyers on their staff, they will very likely totally ignore you.
But if the organization has no money, has nothing much more than a website, and no lawyers or legal help, you may find a sympathetic ear to receive your e-mails, but perhaps little else.
Like many other victims, you may find that the same civil rights or civil liberties organization, to whom you were donating money all these years, now dumps you on the street like a load of garbage when you ask them to help, in an actual case of judicial or legal corruption.
It is all a tragedy, indeed.
And it will be quite a surprise, as you sift through the websites, many of which claim that they are advocates for civil liberties, human rights, more honest judges, a more open judicial process and blah-blah-blah.
Some of them have very nice websites, put up at great expense. You can read about their paid staff members with their executive director, and all the important people on their board of directors – which is almost a sure sign that the organization will not help you.
If you dig into those websites, though, you will usually not find any great heroic stories, of how the group helped some poor victim of legal corruption, who had been railroaded by a dishonest judge or lawyer.
If you call them up, you will find that such brave fighting is not their “mission”. If such groups have money, that usually means that these groups are part of the general game of politics that serves either the Democratic or Republican parties, or both. Or sometimes the group is actually a group working for the very lawyers and judges who are running the current system as it stands right now.
Such groups are sometimes quite passionately involved in a few partisan legal cases, where Republican politicians are going after Democrats, or vice-versa. Sometimes they are involved with one of those public emotional issues – like school prayer or family values or so on – in the framework of one political party or another. Occasionally, they do help some private individual, who is lucky enough to have his or her problem fit exactly into their political agenda, but that is very rare.
And such cases are almost never about the usual bribery, fraud, corruption, and brutality, of America’s day-to-day lawyers and judges. There is no well-funded organization out there, helping the simple average American who is being robbed, violated and railroaded by crooked lawyers and judges.
Any well-funded organizations, and their lawyers, tend to chase after cases that are already in the media, or obviously suited to the political game of the two main parties.
Such well-funded organizations, tend to get their money from big corporations, precisely because they serve the interests of those corporations. They may help “recommend” judges who are eager to help the big corporations, and fit into the framework of one of the two big parties.
One of the many ways that political life in America is managed, is by the smoke and mirrors of so-called non-profit think tanks and political advocacy groups. For example, big corporations pay for “environmental study” groups that help the big corporations to damage the environment and get away with it, as the “independent study” group then feeds false information to the media, in a big game of deceiving the members of the public.
The “legal and justice” organizations you find on the internet, are sometimes no different. First of all, they are organizations trying to keep their own money flowing, and the biggest source of money is from rich people and big corporations.
Some organizations do some good work for human rights or civil rights, but they are very timid or limited in what they do. So many tens of millions of people need help, they say No to most people anyway.
And such organizations are afraid of exposing crooked lawyers and judges. They have the same problem you do: The judges and lawyers will destroy them if they speak out too much. If they criticize judges and lawyers, they face lawsuits and false criminal charges, just like you do. The judges can see to it that the organization’s lawyers lose the right to practice law, and that the organization gets destroyed with a few big lawsuits. And they will lose their “corporate” funding if they have any, and all those paid employees at the organization will be out of work, or worse.
When you are a victim of a crooked judge or lawyer, that often means your civil rights have been violated, either by what originally happened, or the subsequent cover up. However, that is exactly the kind of violation of your civil rights and civil liberties, that the various organizations are afraid to touch, even if they claim to be national “civil rights and civil liberties” organizations.
“We have to work within the system,” they will tell you. “Our resources are limited, we can’t take every case, it’s not the kind of case we handle . . .” Eventually you get used to the routine responses.
Most victims will find that, for their own case, there is no one out there, with money or resources or lawyers, who is willing to help fight legal or judicial corruption in America.
This role of the American news media, and how they are silent on legal and judicial corruption, is another big shocker for the victims of injustice.
When you are a new victim of legal injustice in America, you tend to start out thinking that the horrors that happened to you, can wind up on the front pages of the newspaper, or in the headlines on at least the local TV news broadcasts. You think you have a great and important and news story – and you may be right. You think that the public will be interested in what happened to you – and you may be right. You think your story is very unique – but you are probably wrong about that.
As a victim of injustice by lawyers or judges, you may think your story is unique, because you haven’t heard about similar stories on the news, or read about similar stories in the newspapers. But that is only because the big media in America – the newspapers and television news shows, and the major news internet sites that you read – almost never publish such stories.
The reality is that the so-called “reporters” at media outlets, are actually bombarded every day with endless horror stories of things happening to innocent people, especially in the legal system. Typically, reporters don’t pursue such stories, because they know they won’t be allowed to publish such stories in the newspapers, or talk about them on television.
While millions of Americans have already been victims of the legal system, millions more have not yet had the opportunity to bump into it. And because the news media refuses to report on the stories of legal and judicial corruption, the millions who haven’t been in court, have an imaginary fairy-tale view of American justice, that has been created by television and Hollywood movies, and the propaganda they learned in school in childhood.
So when you become a victim of injustice, you are tempted to call the newspapers and TV stations, and you imagine you might be on nationwide television. And, in fact, if they had the courage to do a story on you, it might be an interesting one.
But they don’t want to tell your story. You just take a number, behind the many thousands of other people, who wish the media was talking about their story, too.
The American media does not want to talk about particular cases of legal corruption, and does not want to talk about attempts by citizens to reform the legal system. Their coverage of such cases is almost always limited to cases where some government official or politician is taking some action or saying something. The media avoids news and stories about judicial and legal corruption, that are supplied by citizens themselves.
The media is afraid of confronting legal corruption, for the same reason lawyers and everyone else are afraid. If a newspaper starts publishing material on the corruption of lawyers and judges, that newspaper would quickly become a target of revenge by the legal system. Possibly a direct target, but more importantly an indirect target.
All of a sudden, court cases in which that media organization was involved would not go very well. People would show up and sue the newspaper for millions of dollars – in seemingly unrelated cases – and suddenly win, maybe even destroying and wiping out the newspaper. People at the newspaper might suddenly find themselves arrested and criminally charged for something that seems unrelated. Lawyers would be unwilling to defend the newspaper, or else only defend it badly, giving a victory to the other side. It might take a while, but eventually the newspaper might be totally destroyed by the legal machine, unless it learned its lesson of being submissive to the lawyers and the judges.
The legal system has certainly been terrifically savage and brutal to individual writers and journalists, who have dared to raise questions about legal and judicial misconduct.
And as been said above, the media ground rules in America, are such that the media is obligated to present the view of reality that is painted by a judge in his orders and decrees. Even if the judge is a perverted criminal lunatic, his “verdict” is how the media can smear someone, unless there’s some higher judge that has over-ruled the first judge. The response of a private person to the slanders of a judge or a false court verdict, is heavily discounted by the media, and often not published at all. The judges control everything in America – their words then become lawful propaganda.
But there is more to the story of the media, than just typical fear of lawyers and judges. Just like the corporations and rich investors fund and “own” both of the major political parties, the same corporations and investors own and control most of the major media in America. Just like there is no real political opposition, there is no real media opposition, either.
No, the US government does not “own” the media. Somewhat the other way around, and more complex: It is the big corporations and rich investors, who own most all the major media, as well as the political parties and the machinery of US government. The bottom line is still the same. No effective political opposition in America, no opposition parties, no opposition media.
Like they say, freedom of the press belongs to the people who own the press. And the press, in the United States of America, is owned by the same big corporations and rich investors, who own the machinery of government, and are backing the culture of judicial dominance and corruption.
A recent article showed how the top 10 media conglomerates in America, including many of the big media names that you know, was actually controlled by a very small group of less than 120 people who formed the directors of these media corporations. These people were, in many cases, on the boards of many other big companies. In fact, these 120 people were also on the boards of directors of over 280 of the richest corporations in America.
So the biggest American corporations and investors, are also controlling America’s media that you see and hear and read. And it’s just 120 very rich people at the controls of a dominant chunk of that media pie. These people don’t have to be part of an ultra-secret conspiracy, or some secret society. They might just be rich people who have a common interest: Profit and money and control. Control the media, control democracy, control the profit.
These corporations like the system the way it is. Otherwise they could make it different. If they didn’t like America’s crooked judges and lawyers, the media owners could launch a big crusade for more democracy, power to the people, more political parties, prosecution of dishonest judges and lawyers.
But it’s funny, they’re not interested in any of that stuff. You look at the major media outlets, on TV or in the newspapers, and you don’t hear much about legal corruption, or the need for reforming the judges and the legal system. You’re confronted with “info-tainment”, a few sensational stories that avoid telling the real news about corruption. The media avoids telling how the old America is rotting away. Aside from celebrity and fluff pieces, what is generally allowed to appear as “news”, is nearly all sourced in the government itself.
If you look closely at what’s in the newspaper or a major media outlet, you will find in many cases that nearly all of what’s in the newspaper, or big media website, has its origins in actions or statements by the government. The President said this, the government spokesman said this, an unnamed official said this, the town councilman said this, someone leaked this from the government, the police did this, the courts are doing that. What comprises the “news” is often government from A to Z, and then the media adds a little bit about what dress some celebrity was wearing. Even with celebrities, the news is often government-oriented – the celebrity was in divorce court, was caught buying drugs, etc..
There isn’t really much that’s allowed to be “news” in the USA unless the government, or some faction in the government, starts it first. On legal and judicial corruption, the media usually don’t pursue the story, unless the lawyer or judge is actually being officially prosecuted or investigated by an official government agency, or is being sued in a lawsuit by a law firm that is politically impressive enough to win media attention.
The media don’t want to hear about how your rights were being violated, or how much crystal clear evidence you have that the lawyers or a judge committed a crime. They want to know: Is someone in the GOVERNMENT doing something about your evidence? The bar, the police, the prosecutors, the judges, a politician speaking out on your behalf? If not, they usually don’t want to print your story.
As a victim of legal or judicial corruption, you find the media is another brick wall in your struggle.
It’s not a question of your writing a good press release, or getting your facts well-presented, or having good evidence. You could have the greatest story in the world, with the most well-written press release, but the media will ignore you, if you are trying to expose judicial and legal corruption in America.
Even worse, in some cases the big media companies are actually helping lawyers and judges to commit felony crimes. The big media companies are working with lawyers to help set up lawsuits – they plant fake “news” stories, and even invent fake interviews, which later serve as false evidence in court cases, to help take away the rights of victims. Yes, these kind of frightening events are really happening. And once again, you may not know these facts until you seriously research things on the internet. The big media companies are hardly going to let you know, that big media companies are in cahoots with crooked lawyers and judges.
Americans might be the most expertly manipulated and deceived people in the entire world now, as their political life is managed by the biggest propaganda operation in world history. It is wise never to trust the mainstream media from the USA; always think of what might possibly be the real truth behind the surface story. Since the time of Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister Goebbels, it has been known that the best way to control a nation is to control the mass media – that’s why the big corporations place such importance on their control of the mass media in America.
Americans who are still stuck inside the two-party myth, the Democrat vs. Republican ways of thinking, have the same problem with interpreting the news media that they have in looking at the judges. The Republican voters think the media is “too Democrat, too liberal, too leftist”, while the Democrats think the media is “too Republican, too conservative”. And once again, just as with the judges, both sides are right, and also wrong at the same time.
The big media companies, like the judges, are serving the government, and serving the big corporations who own the media as well as pay for the politicians. You can pick your viewpoint, to point out some news stories that slant toward the Republican wing of the airplane, and other sides that slant toward the Democrat wing, depending on where you want to start. But what you can be sure of, is that nearly all news stories, fit into the mainstream framework of the ruling big-party machine. What the news stories aren’t telling very well, is the stories of real grass-roots Americans, trying to fight back against big government and the big corporations, or the millions of Americans who are victimized or fighting back against one of the world’s most crooked legal systems.
This is another myth that people inherit from Hollywood movies and television – that stereotypical “investigative reporter”, the brave man or woman eager to fight for the little person, and present the truth and help fight the rich and the powerful.
The reality is something else, however. Those kind of “investigative reporters” basically died out a long time ago, they were exterminated as the local media sources got bought up by the big conglomerates, and as America’s media became increasingly part of the big machine that controls American life.
The people who are “investigative reporters” today in America, basically only start “investigating” more details about someone after the government initiates the process. The prosecutors tip off the reporters that they will be going after some person, and then the media will go chasing after details. But the government is nearly always the original source of a story.
What rarely happens, is where people come to a newspaper with proof of some crime that the government isn’t prosecuting, and then the newspaper runs a big story to “expose” the wrongdoing. That happens very rarely now, and when it does, the target of the story is usually someone who has no political connections.
What basically never happens at all, is where the media starts running stories about crooked lawyers or judges, just because they have proof of crimes that those people have committed. You can present totally slam-dunk evidence of crimes involving a judge, and the American media won’t touch the story. That’s the way it is in America.
In modern America, “journalists” for the big media companies are people very submissive to their bosses. They know the unspoken “rules”. Stories that violate the rules, don’t get published or broadcast. And if the stories don’t get published or broadcast, pretty soon the reporter is out of a job.
Since the ultimate bosses are the big corporations that own the media groups, it filters down very clearly to the staff what is supposed to be news and what is supposed to be ignored. They don’t need to put things in writing, for the reporters to figure out how to kiss up to the bosses and company owners.
For some reason, people keep citing the old Watergate case, and the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974, as showing that America has a “great legal system” in which a President was shoved out of office because of the work of some “investigative reporters”. But even that is neither accurate, nor a good example, for two reasons.
One is that this is an old story, more than 30 years old. Since then, the American legal system, and the corporate ownership of media companies, are both a lot worse than they were in the Watergate days.
But even more significantly, even this Watergate case, was really about how other factions in the American government wanted to get rid of Nixon, for various political reasons. The two reporters, Woodward and Bernstein, were themselves very well connected to other government officials, both in personal background, and in their attack against the Nixon presidency. The Watergate case, like nearly all other news in America, had its origins in the powers of government itself, not the so-called “investigative reporters”.
The circus of political “news” in America is not about the common people, who are often crushed and ignored and thrown under the bus. The so-called news stories are more often about one part of government in petty bickering with another, playing a power game among themselves, while hiding the fact that the real needs of the people are ignored.
The big corporations own most of the major news media in America, but they don’t own or control all of it yet. There is a somewhat lively alternative or radical media, mostly found now on the internet, and a little bit in print or magazines, not too much on television.
Such alternative media are important – and a much better source for news than the mainstream media, which is so heavily filtered to benefit the big corporations. But alternative media does not have the large following it deserves, although that following is passionate. Getting your story in the alternative media, may not do much for you in real life, in the same way that a story in the mainstream media tends to get a reaction from politicians and the public.
You might ask, why doesn’t someone start a new kind of cable television news network, that tells the real news about corruption in the government and courts? Well, such a project takes a lot of money, and people and corporations with big money, are not interested in funding a radical news network, that would damage the power of the rich people and corporations.
Also, if such a radical news network got started and became popular, one of two things would happen. Either the big companies would buy it, and slowly force it to become more submissive to the corporations and government; or else, the legal system would start to destroy it. In revenge for telling the stories of corruption, the judges and lawyers would allow lots of lawsuits to start destroying the alternative news service. Very quickly, the company would be broke and bankrupt and unable to provide the alternative news at all. Which is why no one is investing in the start of such a radical television news service in the first place – they know they cannot get legal protection in America.
That is the way of America: The legal system threatens to silence and destroy those who start to criticize the system, and the media companies are naturally submissive to legal corruption.
So even in the alternative or radical news media, it is very hard to get these media to cover your particular story of legal or judicial corruption, however interesting or significant.
The reason is that, inside the United States, any one who does journalism, even on the internet, has largely internalized the fear of the legal system, and the fear of talking about lawyers and judges.
The alternative and radical media doesn’t like to admit it, but they, too, are afraid. And they’re more vulnerable than the big media, because they don’t have big money for lawyers and big political connections.
The little guy, the little media magazine or web-zine, or small publisher, can be much more easily destroyed by a single lawsuit. Or banned or put in jail on false charges.
Quite a number of journalists and people with websites have not only been sued, but also had their freedom of speech banned, been criminally charged or jailed in America. And the reason you may not know about these events, of course, is once again that the big media is not reporting on these stories. The big media doesn’t want to rouse the anger of the American people, by making it too obvious that little people with websites are getting criminally charged and jailed.
So the alternative media in America, helpful as it is in many ways, still stays away from the most taboo subject in all of American journalism: the vast corruption of America’s judges and lawyers. Even all sorts of radicals and rebels, are in fear of the great American legal monster, how it will come and destroy them if they dare to speak too boldly.
The alternative media, like so many in America, now tries to play it safe, by merely often reacting to what they read in the mainstream media. Or else they tend to analyze and take apart the mainstream media, while looking for the little nuggets of truth that still come through the propaganda, if you keep hunting between the lines. The alternative media will take the little detail on the back pages of some newspaper article, and point out how it combines with something else to point to a deeper truth behind the superficial news story.
But no alternative media outlet is making a significant attack on exposing new cases of legal corruption, if such a case is not already in the news media loop. This is a topic they think it is wiser to leave for the bigger and more well-funded news organizations, which of course won’t touch the topic either.
So it is pretty much of an empty hope, to think that some alternative journalist will be brave enough and interested enough, to start exposing your particular case of corruption by a dishonest lawyer or judge.
It is very sad how America has become the land of fear, in its journalism like in much of its daily life.
Also, if you look outside of the borders of America to try to find a journalist, your own particular case of corruption, is unlikely to be a big story. America does not have a good reputation in much of the world now. Outsiders often see America as a country that starts illegal wars, kidnaps and tortures people and holds them without trial at places like Guantanamo. So your own particular case of getting victimized by America’s legal system, is just one more little case in a country that other people think is crooked and nasty anyway. You are just one more victim, compared to tens of thousands of dead bodies of children and civilian dead in Iraq or other places.
With very few exceptions, no. The law professors at American law schools, writing all sorts of long articles full of legal jargon on the supposed “issues” of the American legal system, generally stay away from the topic of legal corruption and misconduct. Like everybody else in the American legal system, the professors at American law schools are afraid of speaking the truth about American corruption and bribery.
These professors will have various kinds of scholarly excuses – they will tell you that, as professors, they are focusing on “technical” issues in the law, as it is found in the decisions of judges. They will tell you that issues of simple corruption and bribery, are not “intellectually interesting”, or that they have no way of investigating such complaints, given that complaints about judges and lawyers are almost all held secret in the American legal system.
But the reality is that most every American law school and university, like most everything else in America, is basically a business trying to raise money and maintain its funding. The big money for the universities, aside from tuition fees, comes from donations from the big corporations and the wealthy donors, and from the American government, which is itself a servant of those big corporations.
And the law professors are afraid of revenge, too, just like lawyers and people in the media. If they speak out against corruption, they can get sued, and their university can get sued, and start losing money from the government and the big donations from business people. And the particular law instructors might lose their jobs.
The students of the law schools often graduate to become highly-paid lawyers directly involved in legal corruption. Often, the crooked judges themselves teach part-time on the law school faculty. The law professors are closely connected to the culture of bribery and corruption, even though they won’t admit it. Many law professors get rich on the side, earning big money by using their prestige as a “law professor” and earning big fees. You will find cases of law professors even allowing their names to be used for criminal projects by crooked lawyers and judges.
Yes, law professors will sometimes be chasing after publicity on some big case that is already in the news. Lawyers and law professors love to be involved in big famous cases.
But law professors almost always stay away from the millions of poor little victims of the law, who are getting their lives destroyed by crooked lawyers and judges. Law professors find themselves in trouble if they rock the boat and try to expose the culture of bribery and court fraud, so they stay away from it. Like practicing lawyers, they won’t risk their careers to help poor victims, whom they feel they won’t be able to help anyway, because everything is stacked against the victim.
So it’s the same game all over again. The law professors are usually another dead end, another brick wall, as you look for help to fight American legal or judicial corruption.
This is another topic that tends to mislead the general public, both in America and around the world. Yes, it’s true that even in America, rich people are sometimes arrested and go on trial. Sometimes the executives of big companies get put on trial and go to prison for a long time. Supposedly, this proves that “the system works”, because even some very rich people get sentenced and go to jail. And some of these rich people are executives of big corporations – doesn’t that prove that the legal system is really “fair”, because even the big corporate executives can face criminal charges?
But, once again, there is something behind the scenes here, that makes all of this very misleading. If you analyze the reasons that these executives are going to jail, you often find the same thing underneath the various cases. These rich executives, millionaires though they might be, generally got into trouble for violating the one set of “rules” that they were supposed to obey – loyalty to the shareholders and investors who own the big corporations of America.
Remember, the big corporations are not the same as the rich executives who run them, even though those executives might be paid many millions of dollars. The executives just work for the corporations, who are really owned by their shareholders. These shareholders are dominated by investors, who are the richest people and institutions in America.
When the executives are sentenced to prison for their fraud and other crimes, the basic reason behind it all, is that these people are accused of cheating the investors who put their money into the corporation. In other words, these executives did not provide good service to the really and truly rich people who owned their corporations. That’s the story of the Enron or WorldCom executives. The government will talk about how these executives cheated average Americans, but that is just talk. What they really are angry about, is how these executives cheated America’s millionaires and billionaires who owned stock in Enron or WorldCom or whatever.
America’s richest people have their assets in stocks, more than anything else. That’s why the government spends so many millions of dollars on regulation of the stock market.
As far as lawyers and judges go, there’s hardly any regulation at all. Lawyers and judges can be criminals and perverts and lunatics, and commit a new felony crime every day of the week, and the government will do nothing about it. Especially if the victims are everyday average Americans.
But stock fraud? Play games with stock prices, that might slightly affect the profits of multi-millionaire investors? – That’s where the government is very, very serious. Lots of officials may swing into action immediately, if you have broken any rules of stock-market trading. That was why they started going after Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart was rich, but she was involved in trading stocks that are also owned by other rich people, and that’s something the government is very concerned about.
The prosecution of a few rich executives doesn’t prove that the system works to protect the common people. It is just another case of how the government spends a lot more money protecting the big investors more than anyone else. The government is concerned that everything is “fair” and equal for the billionaires and big investors, and even rich people can go to jail if they do things to hurt other rich people, if they break the rules of loyalty to the big stockholders.
Beyond that, there are a few other trials of celebrities who are rich, but yet go on trial in some big media circus, accused of some crime or other. Many of these celebrities have some money, but are minorities or have no big political connections. If they had really good connections, made a lot of political donations, they often would never have been charged in the first place, some lawyer would have “fixed” the whole thing very quietly with the right government officials. Rich people who make big political donations in America, are sometimes able to commit quite serious felony crimes and get away with them, just by continuing to bribe politicians and judges.
After the long hopeless search for a lawyer, sometimes people think about acting as their own lawyer, filing lawsuits against legal, judicial and government corruption on their own.
It is certainly good to know something about the details of the law in America, so as to better understand the legal tricks that are being played by lawyers and judges.
As you start to study the law, you may get all excited about what a great case you have, and you dream of winning a great victory on your own, acting as your own lawyer. You may start reading the law, and you may find you’re just as smart as many lawyers. You may find all sorts of laws, and statutes, and previous cases, that support your position. You see that the law, theoretically, allows you to win a lot of money for your pain and suffering and for the harm that was done to you.
There are also a number of resources you can use to help you. On the internet you can find companies to supply you with do-it-yourself legal guides. Near your home you may have a free law library you can use, and with time and study you can become reasonably educated with the law.
On one level, it’s not that hard. The law is full of jargon and is annoying and inconsistent, and takes some time to get used to the jargon and learn the rules, and know all the stuff you should know. You get used to the ways that lawyers are constantly twisting words around to mean different things, depending on what they are arguing. It’s not beyond the average person.
After all, many actual lawyers are total idiots. America has nearly a million lawyers, and many of them are total morons, despite three years of law school and having passed the bar exam. With your passion and dedication to your own case, and some diligent self-study, you can out-learn and out-think those morons.
However, it is usually just a fantasy to think you can get somewhere by acting as your own lawyer. To fulfill your fantasy, you would need to find a judge somewhere who cares about the law, the truth, the evidence, the facts and about justice, more than he cares about covering up for his fellow lawyers and judges. And that’s where your fantasy starts to fall apart.
The reality of law and courts in America, is not that idealistic image you invent in your mind after reading the law books. In a real court, the judges and lawyers can find and invent a thousand ways to delay and deny you justice. If not legally, they will do so illegally. They will just rule against you, period, and tell you that you lost. “But . . . but . . . but . . .” you will sputter, because the law and the facts and the evidence and the truth are on your side. And then the judge will tell you to shut up, or he’ll send you to jail for contempt of court.
The Constitution and the law turn out to be empty words that will not help you, when you discover that the judges ignore not just the written law of statutes, but the Constitution itself. And you will be amazed at how judges can rig a court proceeding just with a series of small rulings on court procedure. Right to a jury – denied. Right to present some piece of evidence – denied. Right to cite some specific statute, or example, or a previous case – denied. Right to talk about the Constitution – denied, “Irrelevant!” screams the judge. When the judge starts yelling at you, that he is going to put you in jail, if you say one more thing he doesn’t like, you will finally understand how American judges really behave. Indeed, it is nothing at all like you see on television.
Maybe you can appeal the illegal orders of the first judge. (Although sometimes they even threaten to jail you on false charges, or contempt of court, if you file any appeals.) But even with an appeal, you typically just go to another judge, who dismisses your appeal, maybe even without listening to what you have to say. Most judges are not interested in reading or hearing appeals by little people who have no lawyers. And the other side will tell the judge, that the fact that you have no lawyer, just proves what a lousy and worthless case you are trying to present.
Another illusion you may have about acting as your own lawyer, is that you think you will get media coverage, after you file a lawsuit on your own. You imagine that your case will start to win public support, after the media informs people about what you are trying to do. And you imagine that there will be all sorts of TV and news reporters watching you in the courtroom.
But you are often wrong, if you think that the media will cover your lawsuit that you file on your own. Yes, the media does cover some legal cases. But they often totally ignore any cases filed by people who do not have lawyers, regardless of how interesting, or how strong the evidence. The media pretends that you are a nut or a crackpot, just because you have no lawyer. And they know your case will not get anywhere. So for all your efforts in court, not only with the judges dismiss your case or delay it indefinitely, but you will suffer in silence, as the media won’t cover your struggle either.
Sometimes you can be caught in this hopeless game for months and years, before it all crashes down into nothingness. Or before you are finally arrested by the local cops on some supposedly unrelated charge. Or before the judge and the lawyers themselves file a lawsuit against you, and their lawsuit actually works out very well for their side. One way or another, they will most likely show you the nature of their power over you.
Almost certainly, there is very little you can accomplish against legal or judicial corruption, by filing lawsuits acting as your own lawyer. The judges will rig the game to nail you, regardless of the law, the facts, the evidence, precedents, the truth, or anything else.
And in legal cases in general, judges just hate people who show up in their courts without lawyers. Judges think it means you don’t respect the court, because you aren’t taking your case seriously enough to pay money to one of the judge’s friends.
If you’re not yet regarded as an outlaw in the American legal system, and can still get a lawyer for a normal legal case, it is often a good idea to pay even some idiot lawyer to stand there before the judge, as it generally goes easier on you when you have a lawyer, than if you don’t. It is like protection money to gangsters; the alternative is dangerous.
As long as you are living in America and having to deal with lawyers, it is important to keep some things in mind to protect yourself.
A few lawyers try to be ethical and helpful, within the limits of their fears, even though they still won’t fight corruption and bribery by other lawyers and judges. But with so many millions of victims of legal corruption in America, it’s better to be mentally prepared for the worst when dealing with lawyers.
In America, think of a lawyer as someone who is trying to take your money, while doing as little as possible for you by way of rocking the political boat in your community. Remember that lawyers are used to taking money from people when they are desperate and vulnerable – that is exactly the time for lawyers to pounce, and squeeze money out of a person in trouble. Don’t ever expect an American lawyer to accomplish much of anything, other than helping avoid the judge’s anger and revenge at you if you didn’t have a lawyer there with you.
Remember that nearly all lawyers, regardless of what they say, are submissive to the judges, to the government, and to the lawyers for big corporations. Regardless of what you pay a lawyer, your so-called lawyer may easily betray you and cut a dirty deal on the side with the other lawyers for the government or the big company, and will usually follow the judge’s secret instructions and demands.
Remember that all promises, words, and even written contracts by lawyers, are worthless. American lawyers are the biggest liars in the world, above all to their own clients. Lawyers will sign written contracts, take your money, cash your check, and then instantly tell you they are not honoring the contract, and not returning your money, and then may even threaten to sue you if you don’t keep your mouth shut about how they defrauded you. Yes, things like that actually happen.
Your problem is that, even if a lawyer commits clear fraud against you and violates his written contract, you still cannot find another lawyer to sue the first lawyer, and if you go to court, the judge will usually cover up for the fraud and theft by the lawyer, and rule against you. The same goes for the lawyer complaint office at the Bar, which is run by the judges. That’s how it all works.
If you give a lawyer your money, kiss it goodbye. Even if he does nothing, he will often keep all the money. The lawyer will tell lies and claim he did “many hours of research” for you.
Lawyers are basically only loyal to clients who will keep paying them large amounts of more money in the future. This is the only kind of relationship where the lawyer is forced to have some respect for you, and where you have some hope of trusting him. If you give a lawyer a large amount of money in one big lump, and he doesn’t expect another big lump from you, he basically kisses you goodbye in his mind, and already starts looking for his next “big ticket”, which may be a bribe from the other side, in the same case for which you just paid him.
So try not to pay your lawyer in a big lump – pay him in stages, once or twice a month, so that he is worried you will fire him and become a cash cow for some other lawyer instead.
Don’t tell a lawyer how much money you have – he will scheme to ask for all of it. Keep your money a secret. Just allow that you will “try to find” the money he wants from you. Take a while to think about it, whether it is worth it.
Never give a lawyer your last money that you have. It won’t help you or save you. Lawyers tend to despise people who only have a little bit of money. Better to use that last little bit of money for personal needs, or possible escape out of the state or country.
If you do have some significant amount of money, more than a few thousand dollars that you can easily carry, then keep it in a bank account in a foreign country, so that American lawyers and lawsuits can’t find it. Rich people do this, and you should do this, too, even if it’s just some ten thousand dollars or more. It’s much harder for the lawyers to grab your money in a foreign country, as foreign countries know the American legal system is a joke, a farce and a fraud, and American court judgments are not recognized in many other countries.
There’s a good reason so many people, even just middle class people, keep their money in Switzerland or other places. It’s easier to set up an account than you might think, as you can find on the internet. You can even get a nice little money-machine card, and access your foreign bank in America or around the world. A lot of Americans have been saved much grief, because they kept their money in foreign banks. America is not a safe place for your money, because of the crazy legal system.
Your main purpose in hiring a lawyer, is first of all so the judge won’t be angry with you and take revenge on you because you refused to hire a lawyer. But be prepared that the lawyer will tend to betray you to the other side or the government, if you are in any kind of conflict with the government or someone who is richer than you. Your goal is first to keep the costs down, not giving too much money to the lawyers; and secondly, while your lawyer slowly sells you out to the other side, you try to make it so your lawyer doesn’t sell you out too badly.
Obviously, in general, you want to avoid going near courtrooms and lawyers in America. Often, nearly everybody loses, except the lawyers.
If you do need a lawyer, smart or clever lawyers are not that important. What is more important is lawyers with connections to the judges who can pay the bribes that are needed. If you can afford it, this is what you are paying for, in hiring an American lawyer.
Don’t let your lawyer know how smart you are, about him or about the crooked system. Lawyers and judges hate people who talk directly about bribery, or about the games lawyers play. You will be safer with the lawyers, if you appear to be someone stupid whom they can manipulate. Lawyers and judges have big egos, and like to think they are experts at manipulating and deceiving and dominating other people. Pretending to play along with lawyers, while guarding your money and your personal safety, may even save your life in America.
This is obviously a big topic, with many different perspectives. But a few brief notes on the history of America, and how judges and lawyers got so much power, may be a help to you in understanding your own struggle within the American legal system.
Americans often say they “love” their “great Constitution”, but they actually might not be totally clear on what part of the document that they love. What they probably love, most likely, is not so much the original Constitution that took effect in 1789, but more likely the Bill of Rights of 1791, the first ten “amendments” or changes to that Constitution, that put onto paper the basic freedoms that people think they have: Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and so on. These first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, indeed contain many wonderful words, that sound like they will protect people. Too bad that America’s judges no longer take the Bill of Rights very seriously, and will just twist and turn these words to mean whatever they want.
It is important to understand that the original American Constitution was regarded as defective even by many of the people who were involved in writing it – the Bill of Rights was the first “bug fix”, almost immediately after it was enacted, and just one sign of the problems that people had with the Constitution even before it went into effect.
Although Americans are very reverent in talking about the “Constitution”, if you read the original document, it is not very inspiring. For one thing, of course, it is not very nice about the full human rights of either black slaves, or native Americans, and these issues are still being fought today. But beyond that, the American Constitution basically is a diagram of some machinery for government, theoretically “checks and balances” in bureaucratic machinery, that the writers claimed would help preserve freedom.
But this machinery had problems, right from the beginning, and has continued to show more problems with age. For one thing, there is just the problem that it is a bunch of machinery for government institutions. The people who wrote the U.S. Constitution were actually a little afraid of democracy, they worried about the “mob”, the rabble, the general public, whom they thought might elect a dictator – or perhaps start taking things away from the (generally rich) kind of people who were writing the Constitution.
A problem, however, is that if you just install a bunch of bureaucratic machinery, that means that whoever controls the machinery, controls the government itself. The people who wrote the Constitution were afraid of too much democracy, so they included some elements of monarchy and aristocracy in it. They made the President a strong figure, a little like a king, independent of the Congress. And even stronger, they put judges and a Supreme Court at the top of all the machinery, like a whole group of kings or dukes and duchesses. A lot of the people who helped write the Constitution were rich lawyers, so they thought it was only natural to put lawyers, judges and the legal system at the top of the whole machine.
The danger that some people saw from the beginning, was that eventually America would become a tyranny of the lawyers and judges, denying democracy to the people. And of course, that is what has happened today.
One of the delegates to the original Constitutional convention, Robert Yates, denounced the document and wouldn’t sign it. You can find his writings from 1788, in the Anti-Federalist papers (quoted in various places on the web). Yates predicted that the American Constitution and its granting of ultimate power to un-elected judges “created a dangerously unaccountable branch that would usurp power and ultimately grant itself more power” than the people’s elected representatives in the legislatures. Yates turned out to be absolutely right, but it would be a while before the disaster became fully visible.
The great advantage of America in its early period, is that it was more like modern Europe. Between 1789 and 1863, America was only partly a single nation, because the individual states were almost independent countries, each with their own culture and laws. People were loyal to their own states, more than to America as a whole. The power and influence and identity of the states, prevented America from becoming too much of a centralized power. The federal government was restrained, because the individual states had a lot of power and identity.
But that didn’t last. America’s civil war of 1861-1865 was theoretically fought to free the slaves, but what was really driving the war, was a big economic push to make America a centralized and expanding empire, based in Washington, D.C. When the tide of war turned at Gettysburg in 1863, and the states effectively lost their ability to oppose Washington, it was really the end of the original America. A new national empire was born.
During the civil war itself, some of the basic Constitutional freedoms were suspended, while hundreds of thousands died. Afterwards, the old American freedoms began to slowly chip away, and America’s courts began to assert increasing control over the people.
In the late 1800s, in the new America, the traditional rights of the American jury started to die away. Judges began to limit the use and power of citizen juries in court cases. Judges began to give juries more “instructions” which sounded like orders, so the citizens no longer felt they were free to do what they wanted. Americans started to forget their old rights as citizens.
Under the rule of the judges, Americans forgot their right to let an innocent man go free, regardless of what the judge said, or the way the law was written. The judges worked to keep people ignorant of their right to give their independent verdict if they thought a law was unjustly written, or if they thought the judge was behaving badly.
The late 1800s also saw the rise of the “robber barons”, the really wealthy people, who wound up wielding enormous power in America. Some of the descendants of those original robber barons, are still among the wealthiest and most powerful people in America today. And the American central courts became more and more active, in protecting the growing national financial interests of the newly powerful corporations.
Basic American democracy remained vibrant for a long time, despite the rising power of the wealthy people and corporations, and a certain progressive movement reached a high point in the national election of 1912, where there were actually four major political parties involved, including one quite radical party that got a lot of votes. It was the high water of America being a multi-party democracy, before the two parties settled into their final comfortable control of American politics.
Around that time, however, there were also some more changes to the Constitution and the laws, which really sealed the dominance of centralized power in the new America. In the 1910s, a national income tax was established, along with central government banking, giving Washington the greatest taxing-and-borrowing machine the world has ever known. And World War I came along to jump-start America’s armaments industry, what President Eisenhower would later call the “military-industrial complex”, now able to be funded by the Washington money machine.
As Washington became ever more powerful, the courts became more important to manage that power. The old Constitution, where supposedly the federal government had “limited powers” and the individual states had all remaining power, was really and truly dead, although few people admitted it. The old Constitution had died in the Civil War, along with the rights of the individual states to rebel against Washington.
America’s judges got used to bending and twisting the Constitution just to make things work, as a practical matter. Sometimes this was very well-intentioned, as in the great Depression – the federal government had the big money, and seemed to be in a position to help people. So most people didn’t worry too much about old words on paper, and the old ideas that went with them.
As the judges assembled more power, they also began to even take power away from individual lawyers. During the 20th century, the legal profession slowly changed from an independent body in each state, and instead became a group of people who were under the thumb of the judges, and forced to play along with whatever games the judges were playing. It was all part of the slow death of the old American freedoms.
After World War II, with America now the richest and most powerful nation in the world, it was just natural to the big corporations to give increased power to the judges and the American legal system. It was a way to control things, to keep radicals and communists from getting power, like was happening in other countries. It was a sweet deal for all the powerful forces – the judges got bribes, the lawyers got rich, and the corporations maintained their profits.
As America continued to get richer, the power of the judges and lawyers expanded. As American society changed, those changes were often imposed by the judges, instead of through political activity in the legislatures. The major changes in civil rights, women’s rights, and abortion rights, for example, were often led by judges and court decisions, instead of by laws voted on by legislatures. The big corporations actually favored things like civil rights, women’s rights, and abortion rights, because they helped make the workplace more efficient, and got more people into the workplace on a flexible basis.
The big corporations may have actually preferred things to be changed by courts, instead of by legislatures. There could see a problem with democracy: if you give people the idea that the legislature will pass laws they want, people might start asking for all sorts of things – like better wages and free health care and child care. That was happening in Europe and Canada, where corporations made smaller profits and people got a lot more benefits.
In America, however, where the judges were in charge, the corporations ruled the country like no where else, and made bigger profits. Americans started to get used to the idea that they were mostly helpless to change society, and should just wait for the judges to change things.
In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a big chance for America to start becoming a lot more like Europe or Canada, which were developing very different societies – more social benefits, though smaller profits for big companies and investors. But, in the end, America took a different path, and by the late 1970s, you could see America turning in a different direction than other advanced nations. After America lost the Vietnam War, and the early 1970s energy crisis, America began to be managed by a climate of subtle fear, that turned it into a very different country.
America wound up being the only developed nation in the world, without a national health policy, so tens of millions of people could remain afraid of losing health care if they lost their jobs. The fear helped the worker loyalty and submissiveness, and the company profits.
But the largest part of how they made America a different place, is by use of the law and the legal system. While other countries became kinder and gentler, America became a place of crime, lawyers, lawsuits and fear – and a place where huge profits can be made.
The 1970s saw the big explosion of the American lawsuit culture – lawyers and lawsuits filled the news and people’s thoughts and lives, and the entire medical care system was transformed with all the endless malpractice lawsuits by lawyers. This helped make Americans think that lawyers and courts are the only ways to handle things.
The judges and lawyers created a big booming industry in divorce, child custody and alimony cases, so that tends of millions of working Americans would have their lives all tied up in knots in the courts. People would be drained of money, and be in courts for years and years fighting over children and money. The system was designed to drag down people’s lives into endless legal battles that would prevent them from doing anything else.
America’s streets flooded with drugs – a few even said they were brought in by the government. Crime skyrocketed, prison populations boomed, so now America has the biggest prison gulag in the entire world. In fact, America now has over 2 million prisoners – 25 per cent of all the prisoners, anywhere in the entire world. 1 out of every 140 Americans is in jail. America has more crime, more prisons, the longest prison sentences, and more lawyers; they all go together.
The court and prison business became a giant industry – lots of work for greasy little lawyers, helping send poor people to prison. The public was afraid of being a victim of crime, and also subconsciously afraid of getting arrested for some false or trivial reason, and sent to America’s awful prisons. Fear and more fear, which is very good for inhibiting democracy.
An interesting symbol of the different U.S. path from other developed countries, is the practice of the death penalty. Much of the world no longer allows the death penalty; outside of America, it is considered barbaric and cruel. It has been outlawed in all of Europe for a long time. But Americans tend to want it very much, they are very emotional about it. It is a part of the whole American culture of fear and crime and blood.
And many people forget that America actually ended the death penalty, too, for a long time. From the late 1960s to the late 1970s, there was about ten years that America didn’t execute anybody; America was on the same track as Europe. At first, the judges almost outlawed the death penalty altogether. But then, the political decision was made – by the judges themselves – to bring it all back, and America is now one of the leading cultures of executions and death in the world. Being put to death is after all, the ultimate terror of law and lawyers and judges. What better way for a judge to feel like a god?
The restoration of the death penalty, is an interesting symbol of the pathway of the American legal system. Americans largely support and want to read about these prisoners being killed by the government, even though many people on American death rows, were later proven to be innocent. But the American people, made so fearful in their daily lives, and so full of anger, feel a great need to take the blood of some of their prisoners, whereas other nations have let this pass into history.
The monster of American judicial and legal corruption, however, gives a special perspective to America’s many executions, its thousands of prisoners waiting for death. Once you realize the deviousness and corruption of America’s judges and lawyers, it is frightening to give such gangsters the power of imposing death. The abuse of this power is proven by all the innocent people, who have been sentenced to die in America, and later shown to be innocent.
As the new 21st century began, America is a very strange nation, when compared to other countries. Its judges are indeed supreme, its legal and prison system and gangs of lawyers, the biggest of all. The legal system completely dominates the political life of the United States, even though nearly all who know this system well, find it a very disgusting and dishonest legal system indeed.
America’s legal system is what replaces its stagnant politics, where not much happens in Congress aside from what is wanted by the big corporations. The American people are constantly distracted and manipulated through the media, by means of various emotional-heat issues, so that they rarely see the real big picture of their society. In their private lives, Americans have debts and work long hours and try to get by, and they don’t know what to do if the big legal monster comes for themselves, let alone for their neighbor.
Americans have largely given up on trying to change things, as they feel so helpless, with the two big political parties. They no longer even think very often about political action. They wait, usually in vain, for someone to take a lawsuit into a court (“Take it all the way to the Supreme Court!” is a favorite American phrase), hoping that some judge might change things for the better. (And America’s Supreme Court ignores and rejects nearly all requests that come to them.)
What people worried about in the 1780s, has come true. The judges and lawyers in America are the tools of tyranny, democracy now a fading ideal in the USA, trampled upon by the judges in black robes.
Only the naive and the ignorant, those who haven’t yet been victims, still believe in the old fairy tales about the American legal system. Only the naive and the ignorant, still believe that American judges are like in those Hollywood movies, smiling like wise old uncles.
Americans tend not to travel very much outside the USA, so they often assume other countries have the same kind of crooked, rigged, oppressive legal system, even though it’s actually much better in every other developed nation.
In terms of corruption, bribery and oppression of the innocent, America’s legal system is like that of a sleazy and totally corrupt little country in the third or fourth world. But it is a giant monster of a system, fueled and funded by the richest country on earth. There is nothing like it.
It’s really a lot better in all other developed, advanced nations, than it is in America. Americans are more oppressed by the law, by lawyers and by crooked courts, than in any other developed economy. It’s almost a very funny equation – in America, more lawyers equals more crime, more prisoners, and less justice.
From comparing other societies, it can be argued that the Anglo-American type of legal system, with its roots in English law, and where lawyers can make lots of money arguing about “precedents”, is really the inferior one. And that America has taken the defects of this system, to an absurd extreme
On the European continent, with its differing system with roots in the Roman and French civil codes, the law is really a simpler kind of thing. It is the law as written that matters, and if the law is not clear in some respect, it’s not really enforceable.
But in the English kind of system, there is a legal culture that is based on lawyers arguing at great length about precedents and historical cases, every time they are in court. The lawyers like this because they make more money from rich clients, and can just argue endlessly about this and about that. It makes for more money and more of a cult of lawyers.
In Great Britain, Canada and Australia, for example, which all share the same roots in the English legal system, you can see a little bit – a tiny fraction – of the American cult of law and lawsuits. The British, in particular, are starting to develop a little bit of the American-style zest for lawsuits, maybe after watching so many American movies about lawsuits, and realizing they could play the same game. And sometimes, from these countries, you read about cases of lawyer corruption, that sound a little like the typical American corruption. But it is not anywhere near as widespread a problem, as in the United States.
Even though they share the same English-based common law legal system, none of these countries has the same kind of American-style legal disease. In all of them, there is much less crime, a much smaller percentage of people in prison, many fewer lawsuits, and much less oppression by lawyers and judges.
The situation is even better on the continent of Europe, where the legal systems, usually with roots in the Roman and French legal codes, function in a simpler way. Living in Europe, many people hardly think about the law in their lives. There’s quite little crime, by American standards, and very few people in prison. Prison sentences are usually pretty short, too, especially for a first offense.
In Europe, lawsuits are relatively rare; things like that are usually handled informally. Lawsuits are actively discouraged, especially silly or nonsensical ones. And there is no cult of lawyers. Lawyers are just other working professional people, and often don’t make very much money. The law and courts are just not a big factor in people’s lives. Overall, people more often trust the courts, and expect justice when they go to court. They expect the judge to be fair, and not political at all, even though the judge might have some private and very strong political opinions. The judge might even be a communist, or have some other very bold personal views, but people do not worry; they feel good about getting justice in the courts.
In Europe, you tend to hear very little about the American-style complaints about legal and judicial corruption. The judges tend to very explicitly stay out of politics. They don’t pass laws, or try to make new ones. That is for the parliament or legislature, and the judges very specifically defer to the legislators, who are the voice of the people.
There are a number of reasons why other advanced nations, in Europe, Canada and elsewhere, have much better legal systems than in America. You could consider things like the fact that in all these other countries, lawyers are an independent profession which is not under the control of anyone else, whereas in America, the lawyers have to be slaves to the judges, or else lose their right to practice law. And other factors could be cited as well.
But the biggest overall reason why other developed nations have much better legal systems, is because they have more democracy. Democracy that is not just a word, but real, effective, multi-party democracy, where people feel they have representatives who really speak for them. And the democracy is at the top of the political system, not the judges.
In a typical European country, you have a real, thriving multi-party political system in the parliament – not like in America where there are the somewhat phony “two parties” who actually both get their money from the same corporations.
In Europe, there might be a few large political parties, but also several smaller ones, thanks to “proportional representation”, so even small parties have seats in parliament. What this means, is that if your party gets 10 per cent of the vote, you may get 10 per cent of the seats in Parliament. Whereas in America, a political party can get one-third of the vote, and have no seats in Congress at all.
In Europe, the political parties cover a much bigger range of views, and it is much easier to start a political party. It takes much less money to start a party or campaign. So there are left-wingers, right wingers, socialists, ex-communists, animal rights advocates, people who like big business, people who hate big business, people who want more rights for working people, and so on. It is lively, and a lot of fun. So even the smaller political groups, get a voice, and get heard. Most people get to see some elected representatives yelling and shouting on their behalf. It is very satisfying, even if you don’t have the biggest party, because even the minority point of view influences the law-making.
Also, the government is often a coalition of various parties. And the prime minister, is himself or herself, very close to the elected representatives, and can lose his job tomorrow if he does something wrong. The parliament can vote, and call a new election; you don’t need an impeachment.
The parliament system seems to work much better, than the big American political machine. In Europe, if the public is concerned about an issue, it is often debated quickly in parliament. People do not wait for years for some judge to decide something, after a long string of lawsuits, like happens in America.
In Europe, people do not worry so much about the politics or appointment of judges, like they do in the USA. In Europe, judges come from the full range of the political spectrum, but they have limited powers. No one worries about appointing some high court judge, and then being imprisoned by that judge’s decisions for the next 20 years because he has political power over the country, like in America. People expect the judges to be professional and not twist the law to suit their purposes. If there are changes needed in the law, the parliament will do that itself, not the judges. The judge can protect the innocent, but he does not have the ability to manage the political life of the country.
In Europe, people look to the parliament, not the judges, for making changes in law and in society. And that is always available. They never feel trapped, like Americans do with their Supreme Court. The parliament can change things right away, if change is needed.
In America there is this whole cult of the law and lawyers and judges. People pretend that the law is “above” politics, “supreme” like the Supreme Court, when actually of course, American judges are supremely political. There is this false image of judges in America, as a kind of priesthood of law, at the same time that judges are given all this absurd power, that really should belong to the people themselves.
In Europe, they understand that it works better the other way around. In Europe, they don’t pretend the judges are gods, so they don’t put courts higher than the democracy. They understand the danger that judges might start to get political – so that precisely keeps the judges from being political, exactly because everyone understands the danger, and there are multiple political parties to keep an eye on things. If some judge starts getting political or twisted in his decisions, then it is likely that someone in parliament will start complaining about it, and steps will quickly be taken to restore fairness and modesty to the judge’s role.
Instead of a cult of law and judges, there’s more of a genuine respect for voters and democracy, which ends up being better, even for the courts and the judges, who wind up being more truly of service to the public.
In a nutshell, there’s no substitute for democracy, and in America that the smothering of democracy is what has happened: The judges, and the cult of the law and lawyers, has taken the place of democracy. The big corporations prefer the judicial dominance, because it helps them to maintain power and profits, and the “two party system” that quashes all other parties helps maintain the whole scheme. In Europe, the corporations and rich people have to be more socially responsible, because there are usually several political parties in parliament who are not afraid to question them.
In America, democracy is, sadly, just a shadow now, despite all the American boasting about the “land of freedom”. The big corporations in America pay for both of the two political parties, which both support the cult of lawyers and judges as a way to serve the big corporations. Because there is no significant political opposition, the cult of judges and lawyers is out of control, and there is no restraint on their power. This is the background of the endless particular cases of legal and judicial corruption, with so many victims.
In the above questions of this FAQ, you have come to understand what typically happens when people look for help in fighting against legal and judicial corruption in America. You now understand the frustration and agony of the victims of American injustice as they look for help from other lawyers; from the Bar that supervises lawyers; from the judges who receive complaints about other judges; from the law professors; from the police and prosecutors; from the politicians; from the civil rights organizations and advocacy groups; and from the news media and reporters. Very commonly, it all comes to the same dead end. No one will help you, people avoid you, and hardly anyone even knows how to advise you.
And you face grave dangers if you try to fight back, or challenge judicial and legal corruption in America. You face harassment, threats, false criminal charges, illegal jailings, or slander by the news media and the rich and powerful, and all sorts of attempts to discredit you. People may even threaten to murder you, and you might have to leave the country in the end, like other victims. In the end, if you have rock-solid documentation of your position and place it widely on the internet, their final tactic is just to ignore you and pretend you don’t exist.
You will feel very lonely, as perhaps even old friends abandon you, not wanting to associate with someone like you who has now become a target and a victim. Most people in America just try to continue leading a normal life, in quiet subconscious fear of the big ugly legal machine, just hoping that they won’t get sucked into it and destroyed by it.
The ancient Greek writer Thucydides summarized the philosophy of power as, “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” This is a phrase that applies to life in modern America. As a victim of American legal corruption, you find yourself among the weak and powerless. And that is painful, especially in a culture like America that values and prizes power and strength.
Obviously you just must try to survive in some way, as best you can. As far as your particular legal case goes, you are at least better prepared, if you understand the forces that you are up against, and this FAQ has given you some of the tools of understanding.
Although it’s unlikely you have a lawyer who will directly and boldly fight judicial and legal corruption, you may be lucky enough to find a good hearted lawyer who will, somewhat timidly, try to protect you from having too much harm done to you. Just remember that the lawyer has his own reasons to be afraid, and will tend to be very timid and limited in what he will do.
Also, remember that many lawyers will tell lies and make false promises, but in fact they are thieves and criminals who will sell you out to the other lawyers and to the judges. Be careful what you say to them, or how much money you give to them. Maybe you will find a lawyer who can bribe a judge to soften or diminish what happens to you. But beware of lawyers’ promises, they often lie to little people, they just steal your money and do nothing.
Remember that the system wants you to appear submissive to what they are doing to you. Trying to fight back is dangerous, as they tend to take much bigger revenge on you. So you need to weigh your strategy carefully. Sometimes you can gently fight back a little, while also appearing to be submissive for example. Every case is different, and the risks are high. It is too bad there are not more resources, or people, or lawyers to help.
If you become a target of American legal or judicial corruption, think about whether escape is an option. If your situation is a more minor one, you can consider a path of escape to some other region of America, where you are not in the immediate neighborhood of the same criminals. Or you may be one of the many people for whom it is time to escape the USA. It is often better to just leave America, than to hang around and think you will accomplish something within America’s crooked and near-hopeless legal system.
The US media doesn’t want to tell you the stories of the people who have been forced to leave America, the so-called “great land of freedom”. But actually, there are six million Americans living outside USA borders, and many of them are not coming back.
If you do not have a criminal record and a little bit of money, and some skills, you can consider countries like Canada, Australia and Great Britain, that are actively looking for immigrants. If you have a parent or ancestors who were born overseas, you may qualify for citizenship in some other countries.
Political asylum in other countries can be a difficult process, and a last resort, but for special cases of people who have been human rights victims in America, it may be necessary to ask for this. Hopefully, more of the world will soon be realizing that America has a crooked, unjust and politically perverted legal system, and will be more accommodating of asylum requests from America, as victims of the American government cannot hope for justice in American courts.
But for those who stay in America, or who feel they cannot leave, and where the legal system does not threaten death, they just often wind up submitting to the rape of their lives by American courts and lawyers. These victims, and you may be one of them, just accept the separation from their children, the prison terms, the financial destruction, the payment of extortion money to lawyers, and then live always with the inner sickness of knowing that they are victims.
You may find some comfort on the internet, as you wind up reading about, and connecting with, many other victims of the legal system. Many of these stories and websites are very hard to read, however, as the anguish of the victims comes through in what they write.
Indeed, some psychologists have identified a “legal abuse syndrome”, where the victims of law and injustice, show the awful trauma of their experiences. What feeds this syndrome, is how lonely and helpless people feel when they are the victims of American judicial and legal corruption, given the lack of support, how no one will help you, and how almost no one even wants to hear your story. You can see this in how many victims of the American courts, talk about their experiences.
You may be tempted to tell your own story on the internet, and put up some of your own websites telling what happened to you. As you try to tell your own story, so vivid in your own mind, try hard to realize how easy it is to sound angry and hysterical. That is part of the nature of being a traumatized victim. But it can be very fulfilling, and liberating to tell your story, to name the criminals and gangsters, and call them by their true names. Indeed, the truth does set you free in some ways.
But also, be aware of just how dangerous it is to tell your story. Innocent people have suffered false criminal charges and jail, just because they dared to speak the truth on the internet. What about freedom of speech, you ask? Well, freedom of speech is dead in America, if the judges will not enforce it, and if the lawyers will not fight for it. And judges and lawyers are especially eager to stamp out those who criticize the American legal system. That’s part of why this FAQ itself, is being written from a safe haven in Europe.
One does wish there was more to recommend, for particular cases, for the many victims of America’s horrifying legal system. But it may be a comfort in itself to you, as well as save you much time and money, to realize there is often not much you can do, from inside America. Other people have tried, and failed, and died, in the same endless battle.
You are not alone as a victim of America’s crooked judges and lawyers, there are many others like you, whom you can meet on the internet. But regrettably, there is likely no clever strategy you can use to salvage your own situation, there is no “someone” who is out there to help you and save you.
Every case is different, every story of survival is a different one. Good luck to all.
It is difficult, but there is a small ray of hope, once you sort through all the ideas floating around on the internet.
Although on the one hand it can be comforting to connect with other people in the same situation, one of the painful aspects of connecting with other victims of American injustice on the internet, is seeing just how anguished and self-centered other people have become because of their traumas.
Their web sites and material are sometimes very hard, downright confusing to read. You may not realize that you will sound like that, too, at first, if you start to write about your own story.
You will come across various websites by other victims of injustice, some of them suggesting that they are starting new organizations to fight injustice and so on. But you will find that some of these sites are just extended material on one particular situation, by one particular victim or group of victims. You can see that the “organization” is just a little one, with no power, or money, or influence.
And it is puzzling that these sites often do not connect with each other, with what is obviously a whole community of victims. Here is one site and one new “organization”, there is another site and another new “organization”, and so on. It’s very discouraging. Some of the sites even try to ask you for money for the service of helping you tell your story, or in exchange for telling your story on their website. It can be sad to look through these sites.
But as you keep plowing through the internet sites, you will find some material that is easier to read, and which has at least helpful little bits or ideas, or just good factual accounts that help put perspective on your own situation. You will connect to some of the people who are trying to wrestle in some way with the American problem of judicial and legal corruption in America.
Occasionally you will see items or proposals that seem to suggest hope, or a glimmer of hope for a mass movement in America. Certainly there are a number of little nearly-broke organizations that would like to suggest they are the beginnings of a “mass movement”. Very frustratingly, these multiple little “organizations”, sometimes with just one or two people, are often not connected even to each other.
Some people still have hopes in some miracle coming from the Republican or Democrat political parties, because of occasional remarks by a few people in Congress, who say they would like to do something about crooked and biased judges. We can all keep hoping and dreaming a little, but politicians usually back off, before starting anything like that.
Every now and then you will see a request come out, that either some Congress-person, or some reporter or producer in the media, would like to know about specific cases of legal corruption. That person then gets flooded with material, supplied by people around the country, and even from ex-Americans in other countries. And then, the big fizzle, as the politicians or media reporter realizes that for their own good, they better stay away from this hot potato.
The idea of a “mass movement” is very difficult, despite the many victims, because you need the media participation to have a mass movement, and the media is very hostile to exposing legal and judicial corruption, for the reasons described above in this FAQ.
People talk about the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s as an example. But that civil rights movement had lots of media coverage, supported by the big corporations. The big corporations themselves wanted to end official racism and segregation, for more efficient personnel policies. The big corporations wanted women’s rights and abortion, so women could become more eager employees on the job, and less tied to unplanned children.
Nowadays, the American media ignores many things that have grass-roots support. They have ignored huge demonstrations in the streets, where the government has arrested thousands of people. Currently, the media have no interest in publicizing any movement of judicial or legal reform in America. The big corporations like the system like it is now, and they own the mass media.
Because even many victims of legal corruption are afraid to speak up, and because no one with power or clout or influence or money will speak for these victims, and because the American mass media is firmly hostile to exposing legal corruption, the many victims will continue to have no large public voice of America, even though the number of victims is in the millions.
That could change overnight if the corporations wanted to change it. By publicizing a few of the major clear-cut cases of legal and judicial corruption, the media could create an unstoppable revolution of public opinion in favor of reform of the judicial and legal system. People would start to call for the hanging of many judges from the lamp-posts of America.
But such a revolution would involve actually expanding American democracy, giving power back to the people, and ultimately risking that American workers would want more social benefits, like in Canada or Europe. This would come at a price of profits and power that are currently maintained by America’s largest corporations and wealthy investors.
So most of these “legal and judicial reform organizations” on the internet, will remain unable to do anything. Some of them, as described above, the ones with funding and money, are actually not fighting corruption, they are just serving the two big political parties with various big-party political agendas, like trying to shift judicial nominations a little to one side or another. These fat and happy “organizations” are avoiding the real issues of America’s crooked lawyers and judges.
The other internet organizations – the little ones that have no money, that are sometimes one or two people, or a small group of people – keep dreaming that one day they will have more money and will get more media coverage and then become the start of a “mass movement”. But these are most likely just dreams. They will likely not find much money, and not get any media coverage; if they did start to achieve something, the lawyers and judges would file lawsuits and sue them and shut them down and take away whatever money they had, and maybe even send their leaders to prison.
For a mass movement to get started, such organizations will normally need to publicize particular cases, which is a chance for the lawyers and judges to destroy them with lawsuits and false criminal charges. Unless the government, the media and the big corporations are part of the process from the beginning, protecting the little organization, it will be destroyed before it gets very far. But those people are exactly whom the little organization needs to fight, because those are the forces supporting America’s judicial and legal corruption in the first place.
There is one grass-roots organization on the internet, which is very cleverly designed, and which may offer the very best hope for the reform of judicial and legal corruption in America. On the internet you can find information about Jail 4 Judges (www.jail4judges.org), a grass roots movement to change the fundamental laws throughout America, and give people the right to supervise and punish wayward judges.
This is real and true potential for democratic revolution. The idea for Jail 4 Judges is immensely brilliant and appealing, in several ways that may make it successful.
First, the basic idea is simple and appealing, something to grab the imagination, and to which no citizen really objects – that judges can be held accountable by the people, instead of non-accountable like they are now, where the judges cover up for each other. The judges, lawyers and politicians hate this idea, precisely because it is so beautiful and instantly appealing to the public.
Secondly, Jail 4 Judges is bypassing the traditional problems that beset the usual attempts for legal and judicial reform “mass movements”. Jail 4 Judges is trying to make use of America’s small remaining apparatus of direct democracy – where people can circulate petitions, to get enough signatures for a referendum for new laws that can be voted upon at the ballot-box. So Jail 4 Judges is not trapped by the usual dead-end efforts of trying to influence the main political parties, trying to raise huge amounts of money, trying to get the mass media to cover the story, or trying to get lawyers to litigate or prosecute some important cases. It only depends on a few people getting enough signatures on the ballot, and then the voters making a common-sense decision.
Starting in a referendum attempt in South Dakota for the 2006 election, Jail 4 Judges is the spark that could truly ignite a real pro-democracy revolution in America, by destroying the arbitrary power of America’s judges. Jail 4 Judges, if passed nationally, would go a long way toward remedying the most serious missing element in the framework of America’s 1789 Constitution.
The odds are still against it, though Jail 4 Judges is the best hope for American reform in this area, and maybe even for saving American democracy itself. The current corporate powers of America are against it, of course. If the Jail 4 Judges proposal gets on the ballot, one can expect lots of money to be spent to defeat it. But the concept is so beautifully drawn, that attempts to attack the Jail 4 Judges idea could backfire, and wind up generating more support for it. There are so many victims of the legal system out there in America; they have just needed something around which to rally their support. Jail 4 Judges could be that magic item.
If there is a multi-millionaire who really wants to change the United States of America for the better, who really wants to give America a pro-democracy revolution that it badly needs, broad funding for Jail 4 Judges would be the way to do it. Something like Jail 4 Judges must succeed, if America is to turn back from the disastrous road onto which it is now tumbling. The horrors of America’s judicial and legal corruption, need dramatic relief, if any shred of the old freedoms are to remain alive in America at all.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
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