Operating a Protection Racket

Reading Liz Rose's presentation of the "Rhetoric or Resources: It is Time to get Serious" report by Bart Dzivi I managed a wry smile. Here was yet another report, worthy and earnest making the case for action against systemic fraud at the highest level within the American Financial system. It calls for urgent action in order to prevent criminality escaping justice through the statute of limitations. The call for justice is based on the assumption the Department of Justice would prosecute if the true facts were officially known, a reasonable assumption in a society based on the rule of law and democratic accountability.

With respect to the US government that assumption is no longer valid. Its toleration of latent criminality within the institutions of power is legend.

Latent Criminality

In criminology, the part of criminality that for some reason is not reflected in the criminal judiciary statistics and does not become the object of criminal judicial proceedings. In latent criminality, crimes remain unknown to the authorities who have the duty to institute criminal proceedings because the criminals conceal their actions or because the victims and witnesses are unwilling to appeal to the authorities. Latent criminality also includes crimes that became known to officials or the competent authorities but were not registered because of the shortcomings of the system of crime accounting or as a result of negligence on the part of the officials.

The level of latent criminality differs for different crimes and is minimal for serious crimes (for example, assaults upon life or health of a person); the level is somewhat higher in connection with such forms of crime as theft. The existence of latent criminality makes crime analysis more difficult and adversely affects crime prevention.

The Free Dictionary

You can go back a very long way in US history and find evidence of criminality, unrecognised and unpunished and in some respects encouraged and rewarded in the halls of power. You can understand why whistle-blowers are an anathema in such a regime, a junta, a closed circle of the elite political class for whom the laws exist but are not enforced.

To support this view let me introduce one of the most powerful pieces of investigative reporting giving an historical perspective to the crimes of today by author Lamar Waldron. It's about a thoroughgoing criminal the gullible American people "freely" chose to elect, govern them and then to systematically abuse them: President and un-prosecuted criminal Richard Nixon.

If there is no other book you get this year to place on your shelf as a reference then this is the one. It is a well researched, detailed, annotated narrative of the US government's sleazy inner workings. It shows how criminal links between the White House, the Mob and the CIA are cultivated, nurtured and developed for the sake of political expediency and mutual profit.

To Liz Rose and Bart Dzivi, don't hold your breath, the report is fine but I am not sure you understand that the class of people you are asking to prosecute for their crimes are the running the government and making the decisions about who should be prosecuted. Your report is no more than a letter to oblivion.

Read the book, understand the connections, how they are made, then review the actions of subsequent presidents with your new found knowledge.

If Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice and Powell have not been impeached or imprisoned for lying their country into a war with Iraq for no good reason, with thousands killed, then what chance does this report stand of bringing to book a few fraudsters?.

You will have noticed the DOJ doesn't like getting involved. I wonder why? I leave you with this quote from the book.

Time Magazine reported that in 1973 the Nixon "White House had received a $1million underworld bribe".......

 

The Mafia got something in return for their money: a Justice Department official complained that Nixon "pardoned organized crime figures after millions were spent by the government putting them away". Over eight hundred organized crime indictments had to be voided because Nixon's first Attorney General John Mitchell used "improper procedures" to get court approvals for wiretaps. - Lamar Waldron

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future