“REALISTIC” DRAMAS?

There are thousands of movies, made-for-TV movies and dramatic series that claim to portray events in people’s (or fictional characters based upon real people) lives with a modicum of “realism”.

Because of the nature of the dramatic events in people’s lives, a large portion of these portrayals include at least one scene that takes place in a courtroom, jail or prison and, while the rest of the events in these dramas may be faithfully represented, I find it disgusting and frustrating that -- as they relate to the accused, prisoners and others held in custody -- 99% of these instances are anything but “realistic”.

You’ve seen it a thousand times:

The accused is found “guilty”, everyone in the courtroom gasps in disbelief, the judge pronounces a sentence of imprisonment (or even the death penalty), and the defendant turns around to be embraced his or her weeping and distraught wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, parents or children before the bailiff remands he or she into custody.

What is wrong with this picture?

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it: With the distinct exception of his/her attorney and the judge when specifically requested to do so, at no time, under no circumstances are defendants allowed to communicate with (much less touch or embrace) anyone in any courtroom under any jurisdiction in this country.

Am I “splitting hairs”? I don’t think so. . .

I firmly believe that the prevalence of this oft-repeated chunk of utter fantasy being played-out hundreds of times each day over the airwaves in otherwise “realistic dramas” contributes significantly to the distorted, complacent and patently false opinions held by most people regarding the present state of the judicial and penal systems of America.

Along with an erroneous belief that the judicial system somehow treats perpetrators more “justly” than it does victims -- an assertion completely belied by facts -- the mythological scene of a sentenced prisoner being comforted by family and friends isn’t the only misrepresentation of the treatment of those in custody that one finds in “realistic” dramas. . .

Another is the “you’re free to go” fallacy. . .

The Scene:

The last-minute “courtroom confession” of the genuinely guilty party or the testimony of an impeachable “surprise” witness has proved the innocence of the defendant. The judge then proclaims, “All charges against the Defendant are dismissed. You are free to go” and the former defendant is swept from the courtroom by a wave of jubilant celebrants.

Nothing could be further from the truth. . .

The simple fact is that it doesn’t matter how falsely a person has been accused of a crime (or crimes) or how obvious it is that they are innocent. In court proceedings, when a judge issues an order to release a former defendant, that person will be escorted from the courtroom by a bailiff, sheriff’s deputy or other law enforcement officer and immediately returned to the detention facility they came from. During this removal, the former-defendant will not be allowed to communicate with anyone (with the possible exception of his or her attorney) and forced to wait for a minimum of several hours to a maximum of several days (in some cases, weeks) before being allowed to walk free.

This is standard procedure in every state in the Union.

I don’t point out these discrepancies to nit-pick. I don’t even point them out because of some inner need on my part to advocate historic and factual accuracy. I point them out because, in particular, these two fallacies serve to whitewash in the minds of the public the images of governmental systems which have lost all traces of the notions of human dignity, humaneness, empathy and justice.

Somewhere, in today’s “Patriot Act” climate, the fundamental precepts of personal liberty upon which the judicial and penal systems in this country were originally based have been buried and forgotten but, even worse in my opinion, is the climate which allows these principles to go down without so much as a whimper or gasp from our collective societal sense of what is right and proper treatment toward those who stand accused -- from which 100% of those who may be found to be falsely accused are taken.

Subtle and yet pervasive in the minds of the public is the axiom “If they weren’t guilty, they wouldn’t have been arrested”. The proliferation of “cop shows” and crime dramas seems to have cemented this unsound rule of thumb. Yet, there are sub-sections of the population that know all too well how fallible this axiom is.

These groups are not confined within racial lines but, they can be found roughly divided into socio-economic ones.

In the Declaration of Independence, the future Framers of the Constitution set forth “the pursuit of happiness” as one of the primary rights that should be guaranteed to the citizens of the newly formed revolutionary country, the United States of America. This is another guarantee which has fallen to the wayside -- knocked down and shoved into a limbo-like pit by misguided effort to guarantee our “safety” -- a guarantee which, realistically, can never be made.

A staggering percentage of Americans have indicated they are in favor of losing some of their personal freedoms and privacies in order to secure their physical safety, never realizing that no such security exists and, further, that any person or agency which claims to be able to make such a guarantee is lying through its teeth. What is worse is that any such person or agency making such a claim knows that it is lying through its teeth because safety beyond all doubt or risk can never be attained.

The populace could give up every, single one of its Constitutional rights and it would still not stall or foil an intelligent, suicidal terrorist bent upon destruction. Unfortunately, given Man’s penchant for crazed violence, there will always be at least one intelligent, suicidal terrorist bent upon destruction.

Taking out of the equation the whimsical, false guarantees we as a nation have been given -- such as the promise of every American’s complete safety -- we are forced to compromise with the only attainable, realistic, securable guarantees which have been afforded to us: Those of Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

To our misfortune, however, when we turn our collective gaze back to these hallowed precepts, we find them in a shambles -- disheveled and soiled with huge, integral pieces missing -- as if edited by a horror movie slasher. What has happened is the “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” sleight of hand whereby the now-mythological “rosy” state of the Union cunningly projected in the media by those who would wish to deceive us has served merely as a distraction meant to divert us from any accounting of our rapidly vanishing means to counteract their detriments.

Little by little, piece by piece we have been stripped of our lawful right to assemble, our ability to raise our voices in protest and the power of our votes that might oust these perpetrators and replace them with representatives more sympathetic to the plight of the common man.

The proof of what I say is, and has been, all around you. . .

Look at what happened to the protesters against this newest war upon Iraq: They were beaten, shot at, cuffed and carted off to be booked into jail. Then look at what happened to our system of voting when the brother of one of the presidential candidates “fixed” an election with the power of his governorship. Now, turn to the present when the President and his other executive branch lackeys can remove and detain anyone they care to for whatever amount of time they desire.

If they fear that Constitutional guarantees against torture and false imprisonment might “interfere” with their plans, they simply export their victims to “combat zones” throughout the world where these rights can be questioned and their invocations bogged down in endless red tape -- all the while leaving their victims without benefit of counsel, representation, habeas corpus or even the necessity of conferring formal charges against them.

Recently, our esteemed President has even voiced his total and complete disregard for the rules of the Geneva Convention -- a minimalist document that even Nazi Germany (while admittedly violating it) conceded was right and proper. . .

My question to Americans is: Are you scared yet? Has the situation yet become frightening enough for you? Have you even come close to pushing the panic button over your rapidly disappearing rights?

If not, I ask: Why not?

How much more do you have to lose before you wake up to the daily, ordinary, hidden war being waged upon you and your most sacred documents and rights?

By the time the concentration camps in Germany were in full operation, the German people had lost all means by which to dismantle them and declare them illegal. . . Will it take having that same thing happen here before you open your eyes?

I hope not. I pray not but, day after day, time after time, the mythological “empathy” for the rights of the accused that was one of the greatest differences between our mode of government and any that came before it has dried up and blown away while a whimsical, theatrical sham -- a puppet theater of patent lies -- is dangled in front of your eyes and passed off as truth.

It continues its success because, if you are not Black, Hispanic, Native American, of Middle-Eastern decent, a recreational drug user, a Socialist, Radical, Leftist or extremely poor, you won’t even know how much of what you’re being fed -- every day, every hour, every minute -- is the fantasy of “the man behind the curtain” and nothing more. . .

The recent elections of Democratic party members to a majority in the House and Senate was a good start but, now, these same representatives must work quickly to restore all that has been lost and the rest of us cannot allow lethargy to stay them from the work yet to be done.

Our job is to question, illuminate, point out, cry out, write, speak, vote and keep it up for as long as it takes to set things aright. . .