Cops, Big Banks, Wall Street and the Rest of Us

So what do cops, big banks and Wall Street have in common?

“All three,” according to Wally, “can get away with most anything and never go to jail.”

Cops are, after all, our last best defense against total breakdown and chaos while big banks and Wall Street are the only things standing between us and total breakdown and chaos.  And because of their special status as our protectors and preservers, we tend to treat them like gods and allow them special favors and dispensations.   “In theory, that might be all well and good,” Wally recently texted to a friend, “but in reality, it is bullshit.”

Because their social roles are so important, we also tend to endow them with a kind of super human sense of wisdom and integrity.   But that is seldom the case.   Specifically, cops are charged with making our lives safe by going after the “bad guys” as they define them.   More often than not, being young and black is enough to make anyone a bad guy.  And, as we all know, bad guys get whatever they deserve.

And it a cop’s job, as they may see it, is to deal out righteous justice to bad guys.  The bankers and Wall Street traders, meanwhile, see their jobs as making a lot of money and to deal out righteous Karma to the rest of us non sociopaths who aren’t clever enough to make it big in the financial services sector.  In other words, they are rich, can hire lobbyist and lawyers and don’t have to give a shit.

“But the point is,” Wally said, during a recent indie TED event in Denver, “as long as the protectors and  preservers are never held accountable for the pain and suffering they cause, there is no reason for them to stop.”

People who have lost homes and savings and ended up declaring bankruptcy know how corrupt that system is.  But believe it or not, a lot of those barely legal and, in some cases, totally illegal financial schemes got started in black neighborhoods right after World War II.  Once perfected, spun and semi legalized, these schemes left the ghettos and are now are now feeding the fat financial and real estate sectors.  

But much like drugs, jazz and rock and roll, a lot of stuff makes it out of the ghetto and into the mainstream.   And since cops are getting away with cold blooded murder of black citizens now, might these unavenged behaviors escape the ghetto and become a scary part of your everyday life?  “It might sound a little crazy,” Wally said at the above mentioned event.  “But in a land where corporations can become people overnight, anything is possible.”