Chiraq: And why we fail ourselves in politics (September 2016)

(( https://medium.com/@karasoth/chiraq-and-why-we-fail-ourselves-in-politics-455efe590116 ))

An important article starts to talk about how we fail ourselves in our political discourse. We have all scene the violence in Chicago and rubbed our hands in concern. Its part of our cultural gesalt and our social media platforms. “We care” because we have an opinion about things.

The article goes into a firm breakdown of how street gangs not only provide money and influence to politics, but get a firm benefit. Gang members have in the past (and probably do today) have connections in city politics that influence law enforcement. The end result of rent seeking by criminals and their allied interests in chicago can be seen with black lives matter protesting police. Marx would point to one set of monied elites pitting working poor African Americans vs working class law enforcement and show you the repetition of the Hegelian cycle in our major cities.

While these events detailed in Chicago have a lot to do with the very specific politics of Chicago similar stories are likely going on in every major urban area. We know why local and state law enforcement doesn’t step in but where is the department of Justice? An aspect of the recent Hillary Clinton investigation not looked at by many commentators

“You say careless but not intentionally. You and I both know intent is really difficult to prove. Very rarely do defendants announce, ‘On this date I intend to break this criminal code section. Just to put everyone on notice, I am going to break the law on this date.’ It never happens that way. You have to do it with circumstantial evidence … “.

In part the Department of Justice would have a very hard time prosecuting deep levels of city government (especially city government like that in Chicago) of deep and systemic corruption. The major players in the city would have deep funds to protect themselves. But in prosecuting criminal corruption that is tied to grass roots political activism you also put yourself in danger of attacking the American political system.

Is doing a small favor, for no financial benefit, to a donor criminal? No. Is it corrupt? Most likely no. But to enforce laws on those situations where corrupt, criminal, or unethical conduct would occur you would have to fundamentally attack core constitutional processes of political organization and grass roots activism.

Prosecutors are people, and people in a highly competitive field (law). Federal Prosecutors become Judges, Congressmen, Senators, and even Governors. What Assistant US Attorney would want to be the man who attacked Democracy in Chicago to uproot the corrupt Chicago political machine? Even though 10s to 100s of people are likely victims of this corruption every year?

We fail ourselves in politics because we do not demand these conversations with our elected leaders. And they fail us because they think we are foolish and possibly too stupid to understand.