Reply #11: They wish. [View All]

There are enough laws on the books outlawing fraud in general that law is determined by enforcement and court rulings as to which laws are relevant and what their spirit, intent and wording really is.

What I'm saying is, they may have used their lobby power to deregulate and legalize all manner of crime in advance of Operation Plunder the Planet, but what the bankers just did to the world with the derivatives schemes and the "bailouts" remains criminal in spirit and intent and is no doubt covered by all manner of general purpose fraud law. Justice is very much open for the authorities and the judges to pursue, but guess who pays for them to be where they are?

Twenty million people marching and not stopping to shut down cities, demanding that the government establish new banks as public utilities and seize Wall Street's plundered assets also ain't happening. So there you are. The fuckers are getting off scot free.

ON EDIT: As for the crimes directly perpetrated by the Bush Regime, they have no cover. Torture is illegal, aggressive war is illegal, war on false pretexts is illegal, treason is illegal. They're relying on an impossibly "activist" interpretation of a clause in the constitution that says nothing other than that the President is the commander in chief during war time to produce the idea that they can do anything they like, in secret, without consequences, long as they pretend to be motivated by national security. And on a conspiracy in which they get the lawyers to write bogus memos claiming torture is legal and then declare the lawyers immune as Justice Dept. employees, so in the end everything's allowed. This is an unsustainable construct.

Unsustainable, that is, if anyone's going to bother with enforcement. Again it ain't happening without millions outraged and demanding justice no matter what to provide sufficient pressure. (I don't believe this is Nazi Germany, resistance can achieve results, but we're well trained not to see the obvious.)