They're Not Even Pretending Any More

So Paris Hilton gets to go home after serving five days of her 45-day sentence? Why am I so completely unsurprised by this?

Tell me again how we have the "greatest country in the world" here?

Tell me again, all about our wonderful democracy and "equality under the law?"

Tell me again about how Justice is blind in this country and there would never, ever be one law for the rich and another law for the poor, oh, no no no, Heaven forbid!

Okay, granted, I'm kind of a hard sell. I've seen "American Jewstice" from the inside. I am (to the best of my knowledge) the only American dissident writer ever sentenced to what amounts to a thoroughly unconstitutional, Soviet-style internal exile by a judge, after an allegedly "legal" proceeding during which I was denied the right to an attorney, denied the right to call witnesses to defend myself, everything I said was simply ignored, every attempt I made to settle the matter sensibly was slapped aside, and wherein I was denied any meaningful, bona fide opportunity to defend myself.

And all that was many years pre-9/11. God knows what it would be like today. I'd probably be sitting in Guantanamo Bay waiting to have my toenails torn out by Israeli Mossad interrogators and buzz-cut Marines with nothing but Pat Robertson and pork fat between their ears.

So like I said, I'm a cynic to begin with. But still, this Paris Hilton thing is so damned blatant it even makes me want to upchuck. Is it possible she would have had to do some time if she'd run down a little kid in a baby carriage while drunk? How about Lindsay Lohan? Will the cops be charging the little tramp with cocaine possession? If so, it doesn't matter. She's going to skate out of it, whereas some country boy from Arkansas who got pulled over with the same amount would be "Strange Fruit" now.

Amurrica isn't even bothering to pretend any more.