So this happened quietly last week:
U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez on Wednesday gave the final approval for the $1 million settlement, initially filed in September.
As part of the settlement, the university has agreed to pay $30,000 to each of the 21 plaintiffs, a total of $250,000 to their attorneys and a total of $100,000 to 15 other claimants.
The settlement also stipulates that UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi issue a formal written apology to the students and alumni who were pepper-sprayed. It also calls for the university to develop new policies regarding student demonstrations and use of force.
In the very same week…
• A military judge agreed that U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning’s pre-trial confinement, for having allegedly leaked classified diplomatic cables, was excessively harsh, but refused to dismiss the charges against him. Instead, the judge reduced 4 months from Manning’s potential life sentence that he hasn’t even received yet while being jailed for 2 years and 8 months, so far, waiting for his day in military court. The judge also delayed the start of his trial for another 3 months in the bargain.
• 26-year old activist and Internet prodigy and pioneer Aaron Swartz killed himself after what his family describes as bullying by a federal prosecutor who filed 13 felony charges against him — with potential penalties of nearly 50 years in prison — for something that has never been a crime and has no victims.
Meanwhile, just a few weeks earlier…
• Britain’s largest bank, HSBC, was slapped on the wrist with a $1.9 billion settlement (a few weeks of profit) for having knowingly laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels and terrorist organizations and rogue states after federal prosecutors in the U.S. decided that any harsher punishment — such as larger fines or taking them to court or, God forbid, sending any single one of their employees or board members to prison for even a day — would potentially result in bankruptcy for the “too big to jail” international bank.
And, a few weeks before that…
• Oil giant BP pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter and other criminal charges related to the massive oil spill and deaths of 11 men on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. They agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines (they made more than that in profit alone in the third quarter of 2012) over a five year period. Nobody would face any jail time in the settlement.
Yet, all the while…
• NRA stooges continued to pretend that their big bad assault weapons are responsible for keeping this country safe from big government tyranny.
What the fuck is wrong with this picture, those people, this Administration, our Dept. of Justice, and this country?
I think if the NRA people were serious about defending against “tyranny” they would have supported the Occupy movement. A lot of conservatives seem to think “tyranny” can only come from the federal government. But I think that finance has undue influence on the feds. But a lot of conservatives only think the feds can corrupt the private sector. They don’t believe the private sector can corrupt the government.
Welcome back. Dancing seems to help.
As a retired UC faculty member, I wonder why does UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi still have her job?
More importantly, concerning corporate crime, I often yearn for the moral code of old Japan, where those responsible for despicable acts had the decency to commit seppuku.
So much for accountability.
Is the “gun confiscation scare” yet another distraction?
The cry of, “They’re coming for your guns,” is blaring from the usual pack of fear mongers. Yet there is nothing happening now but talk, and that is mostly the public safety issue of limiting access to certain weapons and accessories. We’ve had that before and no one lost their right to own weapons. While I’m sure they want to drown out these discussions, I’m wondering if “gun control” is replacing abortion and gays as a wedge issue.
One of their fear tactics is the image of Hitler confiscating people’s guns. I confess to having believed this for years until I read the article at Salon.com about how Hitler did the opposite. “The 1938 law signed by Hitler that LaPierre mentions in his book basically does the opposite of what he says it did. “The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition,”
After reading your article I went back and reread Dr Lawrence Britt’s 14 Key Points of Fascism. (Dr. Lawrence Britt examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes and found 14 defining characteristics common to each.)
Not one of these 14 points mentioned guns. However, the tyrannies you point out are among the many that do fit into these 14 points.
I believe we have a lot of immediate threats to our freedoms, but having our guns confiscated is not one of them.