Monday, July 5, 2004

The U.S. system of 'justice' is a tragic joke

US: Police abuse, and sometimes kill, innocent persons at will. Cops plant evidence, they lie, they coerce confessions and they commit perjury. Many are, simply, criminals.

Prosecutors suborn perjury. They introduce "evidence" they know is false, they fail to disclose and try to suppress exculpatory evidence and they knowingly prosecute innocent people.

The laws against some drugs are primarily a means to give the cops an open-ended warrant for search and seizure and a mechanism to keep poor people, young people and especially poor, young *black* people fearful, off-balance and easy to control.

The law that mandates heavier penalties for crack cocaine possession than for the powdered Hollywood variety is an outrageous act of oppression aimed at ensuring that blacks are punished more harshly than whites for the same offence.

Criminal court judges, for the most part, are in collusion with the cops and prosecutors and many wouldn't know justice if God came down from Heaven and handed it to them on a golden platter.

The result is that almost one in four (23 percent) black men in the age group 20-29 is either in prison, jail, on probation, or parole on any given day (four times that of whites). The number of young black men under the control of the criminal justice system, [criminal law system], is greater than the total number of black men of all ages enrolled in college as of 1996.

That the system is a blunt weapon for the continued oppression of black people - and, in a larger sense, poor people - is so obvious it needs no further assertion.

The prisons are overflowing with people who have never harmed a soul, and uncounted thousands who are innocent of the crimes they were convicted of.

The system must be brought down. It must be strangled, clogged and made so unworkable that it collapses under its own corrupt weight. Once the system grinds to a halt, the powers-that-be will panic, the legislators will be forced to act and the laws will change.

Accomplishing this may not be as difficult as it sounds. What it will take is to educate young people - and especially young BLACK people - to follow a few simple rules when dealing with the authorities.

The rules should be posted in foot-high letters on billboards in every city. They should be scrawled as graffiti on every ghetto wall. They should be taped to lockers in schools and carved into police-cell walls and posted all over the Internet. They should be set to a beat and turned into a hip-hop song. They should be seen wherever people who are the system's favourite targets gather.

If everyone followed the rules to the letter, the system would stumble to a halt under its own ponderous weight. And then, either the laws would change in an attempt to eliminate injustice, or the system would forced to cast off its mask and reveal the monster police state lurking underneath.

If that happens, there can be only one response, and that's to take it to the streets, dismantle the motherfucker and start afresh.

The rules fall into two categories: Stymie the Cops, and Get Your Rights - ALL Your Rights.

You've waited long enough. Here are

THE RULES OF RESISTANCE

NEVER tell the police anything the law doesn't require you to tell.

(According to a disastrous U.S. Supreme Court decision in June 2004, that means your name only [unless you're driving a car]. Practice these words for all other cop questions: "I'd rather not say.")

NEVER consent to a search of your person, your vehicle, your possessions or your residence.

(Insist they get a warrant. If they search without one, they generally can't use as evidence whatever they might find.)

NEVER confess. To anything. Never admit to anything.

(If arrested, say "I want to speak to a lawyer." Say nothing until you have. Never believe the cops when they tell you things will "go easier with you" if you give a statement, turn in your partner or point them towards evidence. This is the biggest lie cops tell, everyone knows it and yet, dumb motherfuckers fall for it every day. Don't be a dumb motherfucker.)

NEVER discuss your case with cellmates or others in or out of jail.

(Assume everyone you meet in jail is a police informant. Many of them are.)

NEVER plea bargain.

ALWAYS demand a lawyer.

(From the moment you are arrested, tell the cops you want to speak to a lawyer.

At the police station, tell everyone you come into contact with that you want a lawyer. Don't talk to the cops until you've spoken with a lawyer.)

ALWAYS plead not guilty.

(Even if you're guilty as hell. Make them prove it. Often, they won't be able to if you don't help them.)

ALWAYS demand a full jury trial.

(Use the rights you have. Challenge jurors. Drag out the process. Make it as expensive as possible for the State.)

ALWAYS appeal, if you are convicted.

ALWAYS pass on these rules to everyone you know.

There they are. Ten simple rules that hold awesome power.

Skeptical? Good. But think about it.


Can you imagine what the impact would be on the system if every single mother's son picked up by the cops refused to co-operate? Refused to tell them where he threw the dope, declined to identify the other dudes who were hanging out on the street corner, withheld permission for a search, demanded a lawyer, refused to confess or make a deal and insisted on a trial, complete with a jury of his peers? Do you think the system could withstand that for long?

It could not. The system sustains itself only because it is a revolving door into which the vast majority of its victims are sucked into the vicious vortex of arrest, bargain, confession, guilty plea, prison. Kind of like a giant garbage disposal unit.

But there are not enough public defenders to represent even a small percentage of charged persons if *everyone* demanded a lawyer and pleaded not guilty, not enough prosecutors to prosecute them, not enough courtrooms to try them in and not enough judges to fall asleep during their trials. Just finding enough people to sit on the vastly increased number of juries that would be required would throttle the system into paralysis.

And consider the effects on the police, if they knew that every single sonofabitch they charged would eventually face them in court, demanding to see their evidence, with a lawyer at their side to challenge their every lie.

The costs of running the system would rise astronomically. It could not be sustained. Things would change. And change is good.

So here they are again. The rules. Pass them on. Post them. Give them to your friends.

Think about it - revolution without firing a shot.

You have nothing to lose except the gun in your back.

THE RULES OF RESISTANCE

NEVER tell the police anything.
NEVER consent to a search.
NEVER confess.
NEVER discuss your case with others.
NEVER plea bargain.
ALWAYS demand a lawyer.
ALWAYS plead not guilty.
ALWAYS demand a full jury trial.
ALWAYS appeal, if you are convicted.
ALWAYS pass on these rules.

"Where you find the laws most numerous, there you will find also the greatest injustice." - Arcesilaus.


By Everyone Knows It 5 July 04

Ed: Actually there is no justice in laws made by the ruling class, only their rule of law in their institutions. Justice is the word they use but, it is 'US Law' and much of police corruption starts out as 'Noble Cause Corruption' because The Government is the Problem. Then once the cops get used to that 'Green Light' then, 'Monkey See Monkey Do', for themselves of course, and straight out Police Corruption is born.

Remembering the Common Hood Soweto and Runnymede

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