Murder is Murder...

...Whether You Use a Gun, an Unmanned Drone, Judicial Harassment or Other Means.

While not a single bankster has been (or will be) prosecuted for defrauding billions of dollars, Aaron Swarz, a talented young American, was hounded to death by his own Government.

Aaron Swartz, RIP. [A]

His crime?

"At the time of his death, Aaron was being prosecuted [...] for the crime of-- and I'm not exaggerating here-- 'Downloading too many free articles'" (See here)

Make no mistake, the particular details of the cases vary, but, as a victim of the powerful, Swarz is no different from thousands around the world. You know, Afghans, Greeks, Palestinians, Spaniards, Syrians, Tibetans.

In Swarz' case, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz decided that Swarz had to pay for the crime of not giving his money to a publisher of papers written by people who didn't charge for them.

Was she honestly convinced of the justice of her actions, or was she only trying to further her own career? Was she trying to please JSTOR, owner of the articles downloaded? Maybe a bit of the three things?

In any case, we'll never know and it really isn't relevant. What's relevant is that for her, Swarz was not important, just like the "collateral damage" of an unmanned drone attack is not important for the pilot's commanding officer back in the US, or old pensioners like Dimitris Christoulas are unimportant for the Greek government and the troika.

Important, for her, was that Swarz paid, just like Christoulas needed to pay.

It's not a matter of race, age, gender, nationality, or religion. It's a matter of class, money, friends in high places, networks, influence, connections, clout.

That's why the banksters will never be prosecuted: give them your money, they are important.

We aren't. It's time you face this fact.

Update:
14-01-2013. A friend of Swarz', Lawrence Lessig, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University and the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, speaks his mind on this case: Prosecutor as Bully.

Image Credit:
[A] "Swartz at 2009 Boston Wikipedia Meetup", by Sage Ross. File licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence. Wikipedia. My use of the file does not in any way suggests Sage Ross endorses me or my use of the work.