Disclaimer:
Please note that I am not ‘anti-police’, ‘anti-medicine’ or
‘anti-government’.
This article is not intended to malign these institutions as a whole. It is
intended to explore the issue of individual police officers, medical and
psychiatric personnel, and government bureaucrats who are corrupt and abuse
their power to further career, personal or other agendas.
I don’t doubt that the vast majority of police officers, medical and
psychiatric personnel, and government bureaucrats are honest, decent,
hard-working people with difficult jobs to do and do them ethically and
exceedingly well.
The few that are corrupt, especially those in high places can do a great deal
of damage not only to the targets of their corruption but to the institutions of
policing, medicine, psychiatry and government as well. So this is a matter that
should be of concern to those institutions as well as every individual member of
those institutions.
I’ve been writing a lot about corruption lately. Probably because it really
does permeate every aspect of our society.
Here in Canada, in my opinion, it’s gone to such extremes that we are now
moving in line with the third world where it’s simply accepted and a given.
The only exception to this appears to be Quebec where some standards
apparently do exist and recent attempts to engage in bribery and corruption have
been exposed.
Whether anything substantive comes out of these exposures in Quebec or
whether they will simply fizzle out, allowing the corrupt to return to business
as usual, remains to be seen but at least something is happening there.
Ontario, on the other hand ….
The reality is that much of this activity is already illegal. The problem
isn’t that these acts aren’t recognized as illegal and often criminal acts.
The problem is that the processes in place are abused by
those that society has provided with special trust like certain
individual police officers, doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, government
bureaucrats, politicians, intelligence agents, etc. And they are abused to
further corporate, political and even personal agendas of the members of the
wealthy elite and their associates, agents of influence, et al.
You and I can’t abuse these processes. We’d get caught and go to jail. But
the right people with the right connections and enough money, resources to back
up their demands, certainly can and have done as evidenced by the articles
provided.
We are also moving in line with some of the most fascist and authoritarian
states in history and the strategies they used to keep the populace from
rebelling against the injustices heaped on them with impunity. Note that these
strategies were also used by members of the elite to target individuals for
personal reasons.
For example, one well known and respected social activist in Toronto, has been explicitly told by a member of the TPS that they are mentally ill. Why? Because they’re engaging in
legitimate dissent. Although I’m sure the individual officer making that vile claim won’t give that as the explanation. Irrespective how they rationalize it, such claims effectively take the position that it’s ‘delusional’ to
think that we have some serious problems in the political and social system we
live in that are crying out to be resolved.
I don’t doubt that those particular members of the TPS who advocate this fascist and rather authoritarian position would love to do the
following and we may yet see that happen in Canada, if it hasn’t happened
already without our knowledge:
A new psychiatric disorder has even been invented to deal with the ‘problem’
of social activists engaging in legitimate dissent, called Oppositional Defiant Disorder.
No doubt that anyone who disputes a police officer’s testimony in a court
room must be delusional or mentally ill because a police officer would never
perjure themselves on the stand or provide unreliable testimony for any reason
now would they? And if they did we would hold them accountable for that criminal
act and for betraying the special trust we’ve provided to them wouldn’t we?
According to this article, yes some police officers do lie under oath and no we don't always hold them accountable.
A police officer would never threaten citizens with frame-ups and false
arrests now would they?
Apparently they would and no doubt this has actually happened to others by
police officers who were lucky enough not to have been exposed on video.
Despite this reality, our Justice System, when dealing with anything from the
most serious crimes to the most minor traffic infractions takes the police
officer’s word as gospel when there’s a direct conflict between what the police
officer says and what the defendant says.
Just like the Medical and Psychiatric system takes the word of it’s
professionals as gospel when there’s a direct conflict.
Or, the government bureaucracy takes word of it’s civil servants as gospel
when there’s a direct conflict.
One can argue that the defendant should have evidence to support their
claims. This is true.
However, how does one defend themselves (by getting that evidence) when the
police officer lies in court and the defendant is unaware that they are going to
do this? Or, when Medical/Psychiatric professionals and government bureaucrats
lie in Hearings and the defendant is unaware that they are going to do this?
Even if the defendant is aware that lies will be told, unless the defendant
knows what lies will be told how are they to get the evidence and be properly
prepared to defend themselves?
Under those circumstances, they can’t. The other side, the side that’s
lying, has the unfair advantage in this system no matter which bureaucracy one
is dealing with.
And since one is dealing with professionals who are lying and know the
system far better than their victims, one can be sure they’ve done what they think they need to do to cover
their tracks. Or, at least try to cover their tracks.
One can also argue that those professionals should also have evidence to
support their claims but our system doesn’t require that they do and if they do
provide evidence our system doesn’t require that it be vetted in circumstances
where the word of the professional contradicts the word of the defendant.
One can hire a lawyer to ensure that evidence is provided and is vetted but
even that doesn’t protect the defendant if the lawyer also doesn’t know what
lies will be told and what evidence will be fabricated. The lawyer has the same
disadvantage the defendant has.
As a result, it’s rare for any kind of corruption to be exposed in
Canada because the state machine itself is corrupt. When it is exposed, I suspect that it’s
probably because some member of the wealthy elite is ticked off at another member
of the wealthy elite so out of pure spite or revenge they reveal the other’s
dirty laundry. They are the only one’s who could do this and get away with it
without any repercussions. Whichever one has the better connections wins. Or, a deal is negotiated behind the scenes and the scandal conveniently
disappears from the air waves while the state machine looks for a way to
rationalize it’s way of the situation.
Seriously. How many Canadian scandals have just disappeared into the woodwork suddenly
and nothing more is heard about them? There is no follow up on how the issues
were resolved assuming they were or not. This occurs no matter how irrefutable
the evidence is or how strong the case is.
The solution to this sort of systemic corruption is quite simple. The professional's word should not be accepted as gospel under any circumstances. When there is a conflict in testimony there should be an automatic investigation into both the claims made by the professional and the claims made by the defendant.
A process like this would protect everyone's rights because it would deter liars who would then also have to fabricate evidence and it would protect those telling the truth who can back up their claims.
That won't stop evidence and witness tampering, etc. but those things would harder to set up and it would be easier for the liars to get caught in their lies when the evidence is being vetted rather than just accepted as automatically true because a police officer, doctor, mental health professional, government bureaucrat, etc. says so.
A process like this would give the ordinary citizen a fighting chance at standing up to corrupt professionals who abuse their power.
A process like this would give the ordinary citizen a fighting chance at standing up to corrupt professionals who abuse their power.
I have recently run into a personal situation where precisely the above has
occurred and the entire drama is circulating around a minor traffic ticket I was
issued for an offence I didn’t commit.
Details about that story in tomorrows blog.
“There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” ― Mario Savio
I'm not advocating that we shut the machine down. I still think it can be fixed. I hope I'm right.
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