Name: With liberty and justice for some
ISBN: 9781250013835

With liberty and justice for some

"From "the most important voice to have entered the political discourse in years" (Bill Moyers), a scathing critique of the two-tiered system of justice that has emerged in AmericaFrom the nation's beginnings, the law was to be the great equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But over the past four decades, the principle of equality before the law has been effectively abolished. Instead, a two-tiered system of justice ensures that the country's political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution, licensed to act without restraint, while the politically powerless are imprisoned with greater ease and in greater numbers than in any other country in the world. Starting with Watergate, continuing on through the Iran-Contra scandal, and culminating with the crimes of the Bush era, Glenn Greenwald lays bare the mechanisms that have come to shield the elite from accountability. He shows how the media, both political parties, and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes, domestic spying, and financial fraud. Cogent, sharp, and urgent, this is a no-holds-barred indictment of a profoundly un-American system that sanctions immunity at the top and mercilessness for everyone else"-- "A narrative examining how elites have been able to skirt the system with impunity"

What Hacker News says

gorbachevAug 2025

This book from 2011 describes how it's been that way for basically forever.

https://www.amazon.com/With-Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality/dp...

With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful - by Glenn Greenwald

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StanislavPetrovMay 2018

This entire problem can be explained with one line from the above essay:

>Punishable conduct is rarely punished.

As long as judges allow landlords to break the law without facing serious sanctions, they will continue to do so. Its the same behavior that encourages police officers to perjure themselves constantly on the stand and prosecutors to hide evidence and perform other misconduct in the pursuit of criminal convictions. In many cases throughout society, unfortunately, the law has become nothing more than a tool for the wealthy and powerful to punish and control the poor and powerless. Anyone interested in reading an excellent book on this subject should check out Glenn Greenwald's With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful.

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deftturtleApr 2018

> Essentially, if you believe in the rule of law and democracy, the government is simply ourselves, getting collectively together to fix something.

Rule of law being the key part. The U.S. has no rule of law, and our legal system doesn't punish those in power or those with money. For some relevant reading, I recommend Greenwald's book, With Liberty and Justice for Some.

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shermablancaNov 2015

Not surprising to anyone who follows greenwald. Read his book With Liberty And Justice For _Some_

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rdancerApr 2016

It's not that you cannot play for Blackhawks for a few seasons, and then sign up with Rangers. As the revolving door metaphor suggests, the movement is both more frequent and continuous. Glenn Greenwald goes even further in With Liberty and Justice For Some, suggesting the government and the industry have in practice become two departments of the same organization, with employees being reassigned, but never actually leaving:

"People like [the Democratic appointees] Rubin, Summers, Patterson, and Gensler shuffle back and forth between the public and private sectors, taking turns as needed with their GOP counterparts. When in government, they ensure that laws and regulations are written to redound directly to the benefit of a handful of Wall Street firms, abolishing most regulatory safeguards that keep those behemoths in check. When the electoral tide turns against them, they return to those very firms and collect millions upon millions of dollars, profits made possible by the laws and regulations they implemented (or failed to implement) when they were in charge. Then, when their party returns to power, back they go into government, where they use their influence to ensure that the cycle keeps on going."

And if you don't care for a 9–5 back at your old bank, or your party holds the presidency for too long and you're kinda strapped for dineros, you just ask for a reassignment with a short period of unemployment. During the sabbatical, you visit your Wall Street office for a few hours, collect a "speaking fee"[1], and take a holiday. When you come back, infused with vitamin D and liquidity, your lesser-minded colleagues may think you never left or (gosh!) took a bribe.

[1] http://americablog.com/2013/07/tim-geithner-speaking-fees-go...

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gizmoOct 2015

Unfortunately, your logic is based on a faulty premise. It's not the goal of the american justice system to fairly enforce the law and to rehabilitate criminals so they can reenter society.

The evidence that the current "tough on crime" approach doesn't work is utterly overwhelming, but that doesn't matter in the least if building a more just society isn't the goal in the first place.

The reality is that the justice system is two-tiered. As long as powerful people don't get crushed by the system there's no real incentive for them to enact change. The American public is convinced only real criminals get treated inhumanely; it can't possibly happen to them. So they don't demand change from their politicians.

And so the cycle of police abuse, minimum sentencing laws, plea bargains and other brutality continues. The victims of the system are utterly expendable economically, and the public doesn't care or even notice what's going on.

See for instance "With Liberty and Justice for Some", by Greenwald (the guy who published the Snowden leaks)

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