I want to believe in the American justice system. I spent years as a new immigrant obsessively watching Law & Order. It’s a beautiful system, and we all need it to work.
Seeing these terrible, politicized prosecutions where the defendant is referred to in court not by his name but, again and again and again, as “the white man” is killing that faith. The wall-to-wall media propaganda that already influenced and terrorized juries in the past stacks the deck against anybody who is disliked by the aggressively BLMing chattering classes. And it’s particularly appalling that the same prosecutors who unleashed Neely on peaceful New Yorkers were punishing Penny for their own failings. Neely had been arrested dozens of times, most recently for violently assaulting a 67-year-old woman and shattering bones in her face. He was on that subway car, threatening to murder passengers. They all testified they were terrified. A mother was trying to shelter her toddler behind a stroller. Nobody cared about these peaceful, utterly blameless people.
The police that arrived at the scene while Neely was still alive refused to do CPR because he was dirty and icky. Once again, the system failed but Penny was blamed for a preventable death that police chose not to prevent.
The judge was playing so openly and shamelessly on the prosecution’s side that even the initially deadlocked jury realized what was happening and refused to participate in the sham. And the really sad thing is that we are all surprised. Nobody expected a New York jury to do the reasonable thing.
We are being deprived of the most basic services we want to count on. The police doesn’t police, unhinged drug addicts make going out in large cities unpleasant and dangerous. I was in Chicago for a conference a few weeks ago and I didn’t manage to leave the hotel for the duration because every time I stepped outside I observed scenes that made me want to head back to my room. And we are getting blamed for defending ourselves from the chaos that’s unleashed on us! We are told to sit quietly and apologetically while we are bathed in neoliberal gore (not my term but I like it). We don’t have money for mansions, gated communities and limousines that would protect us from this dysfunction. Yet we are lectured by those who barricaded themselves against the chaos about the unacceptable nature of our lack of eagerness to become its victims. We are bamboozled by stories of racial guilt to accept our dispossession.
But once, just once, 12 people in New York said, “no, we aren’t falling for it again.”
And that’s what gives me joy.
Clarissa's Blog 
Beautifully constructed and developed. You hit the nail on the head. Thank you!
“But once, just once, 12 people in New York said, “no, we aren’t falling for it again.”
And that’s what gives me joy.”
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Anyone chirping about lack of funding for social services can shut the fuck up.
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Bleeding hearts with single-digit IQ is a dangerous combination. Evidently 🙄
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Ah, Stringer Bell, somehow I find myself in agreement with just about every comment you’ve posted over the last few years.
Dreidel
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lol almost makes me nostalgic for when we used to be at each other’s throats. Fun times.
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It’s the same with the plummeting school performance. I used to believe it’s because schools are underfunded. Then I looked into it, and it’s a lie. Money is not the issue at all.
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Our city spends in excess of $250 million dollars per year on its public school and we are in MA — the bastion of higher education eminence! Still the quality of education in the city public school remains abysmal — this is not entirely surprising given that a non-insignificant portion is spent on dumb stuff such as printing brochures in more than 10 languages to be “inclusive”, giving expensive welcome packs to first-generation students (these include “mattresses” — is it just me who find this item strange and somewhat inappropriate!?), and in general confusing quality education with distribution of high-tech resources such as personalized tablets.
The US genuinely depends on immigrants to do white collar jobs because it is rendering Its own population completely unprepared for competing in any job market. So people who beat their chests about rights for illegal immigrants should worry about imparting education and skills to their own students/citizens, then legal immigrants who bring in valuable complementary expertise, and then illegal immigrants in that order. And I say this being an immigrant myself.
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Thank you for this excellent comment. I agree completely. Our public high school sunk a gigantic amount of money into redesigning the toilet so it’s not separate for boys and girls. They could have done a separate toilet for gender-confused kids at a fraction of the cost but no, it’s important to spend, spend, spend. It’s nuts.
At my university, we are smarter, so we simply slapped an “all gender toilet” on one separate toilet, and that’s that. I use it because I’m uncomfortable peeing in the next stall from a student. Cheap, effective, and everybody is happy.
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In high schools, the “all gender toilet” instantly becomes the “skip class for a quick f*ck” because it’s private and lockable.
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All you have to do is look at the proportion of the school-funding budget allotted to admin, building and maintaining the physical schools (buildings, maintenance, books, desks, etc), and teacher pay, over time.
Then overlay that on a graph of school/student performance over time.
They’re getting tons more money, and it’s all going to admin. And then they say the problem is not enough money.
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Yes!
It warms the cockles of my heart that in America, in 2024, the jury can still perform its primary function as a check on abusive law enforcement.
I often have doubts about that.
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Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop
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That’s a pithy yet excellent summary of my post. 🙂
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