#justice system

[thoughtportal]

[charl0ttan]

hi i dont listen to a lot of rap r there any recommendations u have . best rap albums of all time ? essential rap albums for ppl new to the genre ?

hi uay<3 so i think theres a lot to be said for a Tribe called quest especially their first two albums i personally love a lot. Excursions was the song that launched my rap era. but also beyond the stuff everyone will tell u about i have to give my fun as fuck album Rooftop soundcheck by Justice system. super sunshiney rooftop jammin funky funk jazzy jazz rappy rap. it does all three of those a whole lot and super well + fun + W + yay + smiling:) super great vibe all throughout it is so intensely charcore possibly my favorite rap album of all time. very very extremely likely. but also speaking of rap albums that also do jazz really well. okay well so i have a whole philosophy abt jazz rap okay. i really love any jazz rap ofc but what i go CRAZEY for is when the jazz part is actually accentuated beyond just Vibes kinda? not that vibes is bad but yk :p anyway i think Shades of blue by Madlib and Jazzmatazz by Guru are to jazz rap what Lizard by King crimson is to the realm of 'symphonic rock'. like a lot of music in the area is just doing Electric light orchestra stuff, basically just tossing some of the instrumentation over to some strings or such. but lizard is like. Okay So This Is Orchestra Music Also. and thats what those last few albums but especially shades+jmt are for jazz rap to me:) so so cool i just go crazy for a nice low end upright bass type of sound with my cool & chill & funky beats. but anyway!!!! i also rec Life's like by Jazzyfact and Home brew self titled and. oh oh my god. this is bad. this is really really bad. ive totally neglected to mention my darling sunshine joy of my life Six feet deep by Gravediggaz... go n listen to my girlfriend six feet deep by gravediggaz.. its like the total opposite vibe of rooftop but still just as funky n fun<33 so so cool. anyway im gonna add the album covers for all the stuff here just bc this turned into a whole big overwhelming (for me at least) wall of text^-^ tysm for askinggg hoping u well on ur rap voyage:)

[reality-detective]

Remember this? (1999)

“Paula Jones is paid a $850,000 check from President Clinton, bringing an official end to the four-year saga spurred by her allegations of sexual harassment.”

When does the trial for Bill Clinton begin? 🤔

[politijohn]

Source

Source

Literally this meme…

[afriblaq]

▫️Malik’s lawyer believes he may have been transferred for helping other incarcerated people advocate for their legal rights. ▫️ Supporters also say Muhammad had already been targeted inside prison because of his outspoken political beliefs and organizing efforts while incarcerated. ▫️ For weeks, Malik’s supporters were told that Muhammad had been sent to a “confidential location” ▫️ Recently someone suddenly received a letter from Malik from Kirkland Correctional Institution in South Carolina! 3,000 miles away from the Oregon prison he disappeared from

[curtis-brothers-hug]

If the Socs had drowned Ponyboy in that fountain, Darry and Soda and the gang wouldn’t just have to suffer the personal grief, but the system’s injustice.

There’s no way the Socs would be facing the charges or possible sentencing that Johnny was. They wouldn’t have to go on the run. Their families would hire fancy lawyers to “prove” that they were the ones who acted in self defense against the juvenile delinquents who obviously provoked them.

Darry and Soda would not only have to mourn their baby brother, they would have to sit in court listening to his name get dragged through the mud; listening to rich, smug lawyers for rich, smug murderers paint their kindhearted, sensitive, bookish, sunset-watching, poetry-reading, precious baby brother as a menace to society who deserved to die. They would probably see newspaper articles saying the same thing; the boy with good grades so much potential reduced to just another hood who had it coming. They would be recognized by respectable, middle class folks who would shake their heads in disapproval or pity.

There would be no justice for Ponyboy Curtis. And what would that do to Darry and Soda? To the gang. To the whole east side, to all the greasers in Tulsa.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Radical juries

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/22/jury-nullification/#voir-dire

I don't know if you've heard, but water has started running uphill – I mean, speaking in a politico-scientific sense:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/#trustbusting

By which I mean, the bedrock consensus of political science appears to have been disproved. Broadly speaking, political scientists believe that lawmakers and regulators only respond to the policy preferences of powerful people. If economic elites want a policy, that's the policy we get – no matter how unpopular it is with everyone else. Likewise, even if something is very, very popular with all of us, we won't get it if the super-rich hate it.

Just take a look at the gap between public opinion and policy outcomes: most people think "capitalism does more harm than good"; most Canadians, Britons and Australians aged 18-34 think "socialism will improve the economy and well-being of citizens"; 72% of Brits support a national job guarantee; the majority of Californians support permanent rent-controls; and most people in 40 countries want CEO salaries capped at 4X that of their lowest-paid employees:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/07/the-people-no-2/#water-flowing-uphill

The inability of the public to get its way isn't just an impressionistic view – it's an empirical finding, based on a representative sample of 1,779 policy outcomes, that politicians ignore the will of the people in favor of the will of billionaires:

economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

And yet, all over the world, we're seeing these irrepressible outbreaks of antitrust policy, aimed squarely at shattering corporate power:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/#trustbusting

It's a mystery. There's no policy that would be harder on billionaire wealth and power than vigorous antitrust enforcement (not least because preventing corporate concentration is key to preventing regulatory capture):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Certainly, there are a lot of merely obscenely rich people who are angry that the farcically rich people are screwing them over, and this class division between the 0.01% and the 1% has opened up some political space:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/09/elite-disunity/#awoken-giants

But that wouldn't be enough, not without the massive supermajorities of everyday people who are sick to the back teeth of being abused by corporations, and who are desperate for any outlet to strike back.

Take juries. Orrick is a big corporate law firm that represents the kinds of companies that might find their future in the hands of a jury in a state or federal courthouse. Orrick periodically surveys representative samples of people who show up for jury service to get a picture of their attitude towards the kinds of companies that can afford to hire a firm like theirs:

https://www.orrick.com/en/Insights/Groundbreaking-Jury-Research-Reveals-US-Jury-Attitudes-in-a-Polarized-Society

Their latest report contrasts the results of a pre-pandemic 2019 survey with a 2025 survey of 1,011 jurors in California, Florida, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas, New Jersey, and New York.

They found that jurors' trust in the court system has plummeted since 2019 (67% in 2019, 48% in 2025); hostility to cops has tripled (11% to 33%); anti-corporate sentiment is way up (27% then, 45% now). The percentage of jurors who believe that they should use the courts to "send messages to companies to improve their behavior" has risen from 58% to 62%; and 77% want to award punitive damages to "punish a corporation" (up from 69%).

And jurors are notably hostile to pharma companies, energy companies and large banks, but they especially hate social media companies.

It's no wonder that corporations are so desperate to take away our right to sue them, and why "binding arbitration" clauses that permanently confiscate your legal rights are now part of every corner of modern life:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/15/dogs-breakfast/#by-clicking-this-you-agree-on-behalf-of-your-employer-to-release-me-from-all-obligations-and-waivers-arising-from-any-and-all-NON-NEGOTIATED-agreements

The business lobby has been trying to take away workers' and customers' and citizens' right to seek justice in court for decades, ginning up urban legends like "A lady's coffee was too hot so McDonald's had to give her $2.7 million":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico

Don't believe it. The courts are rarely on our side, but the fact that sometimes, every now and again, a jury will seize an opportunity to deliver a smidgen of justice just drives plutocrats nuts. Billionaireism is the belief that you don't owe anything to anyone else, that morality is whatever you can get away with. You don't have to be a billionaire to contract a wicked case of billionaireism – but you do have to be stinking rich to benefit from it:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/20/billionaireism/#surveillance-infantalism

[onlytiktoks]