I think many even in the middle class don't have COMPLETE illusions about justice. But they do have tolerance for inconsistencies, especially if things are working out OK FOR THEM. Why cure your blind spots when things are sort of OK?
But they do require at least some lip service to "justice". I'm thinking that the trip point is when the hypocrisy is so in your face and blatant that people finally rebel and say
"Enough, at least pay lip service to justice, we can deal with that level of hypocrisy. At least pay us some lip service and we'll be fine and compliant"
But what we've been witnessing for too long now is complete and utter contempt for even lip service to the concept of "justice"
If you don't even embrace the concept of justice how can you ever have anything remotely approaching it? You don't even have an aspirational North Star to aim at.
I often think about Elvis Presley being conscripted in the prime of his career as were many of the base ball heroes who we worshiped in that era. Just conscripted and whisked off to fight justice or unjust wars and police actions (however you care to see it) just like the ordinary people. By Elvis' time no one really thought OR EXPECTED that he would do front line dangerous service like the canon fodder. But guys like Ted Williams and Jimmy Stewart and JFK and Roosevelt's kids and many others did REAL service, no exceptions just because they were present or future icons. At least they paid lip service to justice. Careers had to wait icon or not
Before Elvis MANY of the elites we knew had seen hard core duty in nasty WWII and Korea places
But now we've come to a place where the elite exception to ANY fairness or paying lip service justice is beyond people's tolerance. People are triggered and pissed by it. IMO a lot of the slippery slope of not even having pretense about justice started in Vietnam. Too many phony ridiculous "wars" to be conducted for elites to tolerate feeding THEIR kids to the meat grinder. So they openly gave up over time any pretense of justice and fairness when it came to service. Hard as it was for ANYONE to avoid the draft back then the slippery slope is when they gave full 4 year deferments to "students". Meaning if you were cognitively gifted enough to get a scholarship or you had parents who could afford to park you in some "draft dodger warehouse college" you were exempted from potentially coming home maimed or in a box for at least 4 years. IMO it RUINED colleges because many lowered their standards to accommodate and harvest the cash of the artificial draft dodger demand. NOT THE SAME AS seeking an education. Far as I could see colleges were inventing courses for kids who really were there for the party and to avoid the draft. Nice deal if you can afford it. But it changed college culture.
But now, we don't pay ANY lip service to justice in any direction. You can as easily be passed over for being too privileged and elite as you can be passed over for being underprivileged and not elite. Many IVY league schools for example may as easily pass you over with EXEPTIONAL test scores as for having exceptionally low scores for such a school. The very foundational ideas of justice, merit and equal opportunity are being eroded at a foundational level AND PRESENTED AS JUSTICE. The whole idea of merit end even application of opportunity has been eroded. We don't even bother paying lip service.
IE Injustice is justice. They just come out and flaunt it.
So it feels to me like we've reached a temporary tripping point where even the complacent middle class are temporarily outraged
But perhaps we'll soon go back to the paradigm you outline IF THE MIDDLE CLASS IS EVER RESTORED. The poor and the elite will know there is no justice and the middle class will embrace the illusion because they're comfortable enough not to be pissed off.
Reading that list made me sick to my stomach. So many instances of misfeasance and malfeasance. And zero accountability. I’m actually in favor of closing it down and starting over. Get rid of FBI, CIA, NSA, and start over with rebuilding trust with citizens.
While acknowledging that no person or institution or person is perfect, particularly in the vast amount of threats matrix that an organization such as the FBI must try and adequately police... IMO a lot of the corruption that you see in the FBI can be laid at the feet of a closeted, self-aggrandizing founder who was virtually untouchable for 50 or so years till his death because he kept black mail files on dam near everyone has a lot to do with the institutional culture we see manifest
A guy who backs his position with black mail files that he threatens to use is not exactly the best prototype for an institutional culture. As a "policing agency" you should be policing the weak and the powerful evenly. If it is your practice NOT to police and prosecute the powerful in favor of potential black mail value then perhaps that's not the best template for a police department.
Institutions tend to retain the imprint of their founders for a long time as those who come up under the imprint of the founding culture percolate to the top. IE if your boss is a guy who keeps blackmail files on everyone why would anyone expect the trainees clawing their way to the top to be any different? If your boss is self-aggrandizing like Hoover was why would you expect future insiders who make it to the top to be different? If your boss was closeted and kept a lot of secrets on himself and others why would the trainees from that culture be expected to be different.
And before I hear the inevitable, it is not an indictment of Hoover being gay, it is just reasonable speculation (IMO) on the mindset of such an individual. Perhaps the same speculations can be made about Obama, a man who seems to have nothing BUT secrets. Hard to get the simplest answers about Obama.
IMO the FBI for all it's good points was run under the umbrella of a manipulative secretive any thing but transparent founder. IMO what we see now is that institutional heritage playing out
A major league house cleaning or restart is the only thing that can clean that sort of heritage because throughout the institution you will have critical cogs who adhere to that cagey, manipulative "black mail willing" mind set of the founding father. Sometimes it takes decades to change cultures. Particularly in large government enterprises. Unlike private enterprise government agencies do NOT have the brutal metric of the stock price that can clean out and replace whole divisions of employees in private enterprise. In government, PARTICULARLY IF YOU HAVE BLACKMAIL WORTHY FILES it is hard to clean out ANYTHING EVEN IF THERE IS A LANDSLIDE CHANGE IN ADMINISTRATIONS. A blackmail entity like the FBI and the deep state will fight back massively hard and ugly. The chance of ANYONE beating them back is small and any win is a miracle. Because, as we've seen, it reasonable to speculate (IMO) that deep state worthy orgs like the FBI will resort to ANY means to protect their turf up to and including lethal means.. Anyone choosing to take on that fight like Kash Patel better be prepared for some real ugliness. Hope he doesn't have any inappropriate girl friends in his past.
Excellent, yet you forgot to mention the destruction of Mike Flynn’s life orchestrated by FBI director James Comey. The unlawful search and seizure of James Okeefe’s home as well.
People posting on twitter seem to have more power and effectiveness than our government oversight committees. This uniparty bs has got to get blown up. Everything gets buried as Sharyl's list proves. All the noise that was recently made about releasing the Epstein files sure seems to be following the pattern of being further buried. I wonder why.
What an awesome job of listing events which can not be dismissed as mere incompetence.
One additional item .... Hunter Biden was using former FBI Director Louie Freeh in his delivery of "Biden Influence " . Freeh emailed Hunter that he was working with "top FBI official" to assist in getting the prosecutors to back off Burisma.
If one were acquiring a company with the FBI's high level incompetence/corruption the operating assumption was that the house needed to be cleaned.
Just another 150 examples and you may be able to convince one “progressive” that something is wrong. We were victimized in a real estate transaction by a professional fraudster. Good news- the FBI did catch him and seize his assets. Bad news, 7 years later we are all still waiting for financial compensation. 10 victims. Last update- “ we have no idea if or when funds will be dispersed”. Thanks guys.
Imagine how long that list would be if it started in the 1920's. The FBI has always been an out of control corrupt organization. The disturbing part is they were allowed to do so because it has served Washington's interests.
“ A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.” -Cicero-
Faded??? It’s gone 1000%. Shut the damn thing down.
You should be in Trump's cabinet somewhere.
"Justice is merely a middle class illusion.
The rich know better
The poor know better
Each from opposite directions".
The FBI has nothing in common with the Rule of Law. Their only mission from the start has been to subvert it.
I think many even in the middle class don't have COMPLETE illusions about justice. But they do have tolerance for inconsistencies, especially if things are working out OK FOR THEM. Why cure your blind spots when things are sort of OK?
But they do require at least some lip service to "justice". I'm thinking that the trip point is when the hypocrisy is so in your face and blatant that people finally rebel and say
"Enough, at least pay lip service to justice, we can deal with that level of hypocrisy. At least pay us some lip service and we'll be fine and compliant"
But what we've been witnessing for too long now is complete and utter contempt for even lip service to the concept of "justice"
If you don't even embrace the concept of justice how can you ever have anything remotely approaching it? You don't even have an aspirational North Star to aim at.
I often think about Elvis Presley being conscripted in the prime of his career as were many of the base ball heroes who we worshiped in that era. Just conscripted and whisked off to fight justice or unjust wars and police actions (however you care to see it) just like the ordinary people. By Elvis' time no one really thought OR EXPECTED that he would do front line dangerous service like the canon fodder. But guys like Ted Williams and Jimmy Stewart and JFK and Roosevelt's kids and many others did REAL service, no exceptions just because they were present or future icons. At least they paid lip service to justice. Careers had to wait icon or not
Before Elvis MANY of the elites we knew had seen hard core duty in nasty WWII and Korea places
But now we've come to a place where the elite exception to ANY fairness or paying lip service justice is beyond people's tolerance. People are triggered and pissed by it. IMO a lot of the slippery slope of not even having pretense about justice started in Vietnam. Too many phony ridiculous "wars" to be conducted for elites to tolerate feeding THEIR kids to the meat grinder. So they openly gave up over time any pretense of justice and fairness when it came to service. Hard as it was for ANYONE to avoid the draft back then the slippery slope is when they gave full 4 year deferments to "students". Meaning if you were cognitively gifted enough to get a scholarship or you had parents who could afford to park you in some "draft dodger warehouse college" you were exempted from potentially coming home maimed or in a box for at least 4 years. IMO it RUINED colleges because many lowered their standards to accommodate and harvest the cash of the artificial draft dodger demand. NOT THE SAME AS seeking an education. Far as I could see colleges were inventing courses for kids who really were there for the party and to avoid the draft. Nice deal if you can afford it. But it changed college culture.
But now, we don't pay ANY lip service to justice in any direction. You can as easily be passed over for being too privileged and elite as you can be passed over for being underprivileged and not elite. Many IVY league schools for example may as easily pass you over with EXEPTIONAL test scores as for having exceptionally low scores for such a school. The very foundational ideas of justice, merit and equal opportunity are being eroded at a foundational level AND PRESENTED AS JUSTICE. The whole idea of merit end even application of opportunity has been eroded. We don't even bother paying lip service.
IE Injustice is justice. They just come out and flaunt it.
So it feels to me like we've reached a temporary tripping point where even the complacent middle class are temporarily outraged
But perhaps we'll soon go back to the paradigm you outline IF THE MIDDLE CLASS IS EVER RESTORED. The poor and the elite will know there is no justice and the middle class will embrace the illusion because they're comfortable enough not to be pissed off.
Reading that list made me sick to my stomach. So many instances of misfeasance and malfeasance. And zero accountability. I’m actually in favor of closing it down and starting over. Get rid of FBI, CIA, NSA, and start over with rebuilding trust with citizens.
Enough said — more taxpayer $$$ wasted to fund either incompetent or malevolent people. Shut it down.
Just an opinion but ...
While acknowledging that no person or institution or person is perfect, particularly in the vast amount of threats matrix that an organization such as the FBI must try and adequately police... IMO a lot of the corruption that you see in the FBI can be laid at the feet of a closeted, self-aggrandizing founder who was virtually untouchable for 50 or so years till his death because he kept black mail files on dam near everyone has a lot to do with the institutional culture we see manifest
A guy who backs his position with black mail files that he threatens to use is not exactly the best prototype for an institutional culture. As a "policing agency" you should be policing the weak and the powerful evenly. If it is your practice NOT to police and prosecute the powerful in favor of potential black mail value then perhaps that's not the best template for a police department.
Institutions tend to retain the imprint of their founders for a long time as those who come up under the imprint of the founding culture percolate to the top. IE if your boss is a guy who keeps blackmail files on everyone why would anyone expect the trainees clawing their way to the top to be any different? If your boss is self-aggrandizing like Hoover was why would you expect future insiders who make it to the top to be different? If your boss was closeted and kept a lot of secrets on himself and others why would the trainees from that culture be expected to be different.
And before I hear the inevitable, it is not an indictment of Hoover being gay, it is just reasonable speculation (IMO) on the mindset of such an individual. Perhaps the same speculations can be made about Obama, a man who seems to have nothing BUT secrets. Hard to get the simplest answers about Obama.
IMO the FBI for all it's good points was run under the umbrella of a manipulative secretive any thing but transparent founder. IMO what we see now is that institutional heritage playing out
A major league house cleaning or restart is the only thing that can clean that sort of heritage because throughout the institution you will have critical cogs who adhere to that cagey, manipulative "black mail willing" mind set of the founding father. Sometimes it takes decades to change cultures. Particularly in large government enterprises. Unlike private enterprise government agencies do NOT have the brutal metric of the stock price that can clean out and replace whole divisions of employees in private enterprise. In government, PARTICULARLY IF YOU HAVE BLACKMAIL WORTHY FILES it is hard to clean out ANYTHING EVEN IF THERE IS A LANDSLIDE CHANGE IN ADMINISTRATIONS. A blackmail entity like the FBI and the deep state will fight back massively hard and ugly. The chance of ANYONE beating them back is small and any win is a miracle. Because, as we've seen, it reasonable to speculate (IMO) that deep state worthy orgs like the FBI will resort to ANY means to protect their turf up to and including lethal means.. Anyone choosing to take on that fight like Kash Patel better be prepared for some real ugliness. Hope he doesn't have any inappropriate girl friends in his past.
Excellent, yet you forgot to mention the destruction of Mike Flynn’s life orchestrated by FBI director James Comey. The unlawful search and seizure of James Okeefe’s home as well.
People posting on twitter seem to have more power and effectiveness than our government oversight committees. This uniparty bs has got to get blown up. Everything gets buried as Sharyl's list proves. All the noise that was recently made about releasing the Epstein files sure seems to be following the pattern of being further buried. I wonder why.
What an awesome job of listing events which can not be dismissed as mere incompetence.
One additional item .... Hunter Biden was using former FBI Director Louie Freeh in his delivery of "Biden Influence " . Freeh emailed Hunter that he was working with "top FBI official" to assist in getting the prosecutors to back off Burisma.
If one were acquiring a company with the FBI's high level incompetence/corruption the operating assumption was that the house needed to be cleaned.
Shut. It. Down.
Just another 150 examples and you may be able to convince one “progressive” that something is wrong. We were victimized in a real estate transaction by a professional fraudster. Good news- the FBI did catch him and seize his assets. Bad news, 7 years later we are all still waiting for financial compensation. 10 victims. Last update- “ we have no idea if or when funds will be dispersed”. Thanks guys.
Please help! I can’t open any of the links. I’m sure it’s operator error, but I’d really like to read the content the links could provide.
FBI, Fools Bungling Investigations.
Damn girl! Impressive. You are the best i have ever seen. All the journalism are belong to you!
Imagine how long that list would be if it started in the 1920's. The FBI has always been an out of control corrupt organization. The disturbing part is they were allowed to do so because it has served Washington's interests.
“ A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.” -Cicero-