Red, White, and Blue Collar Crime

The blue collar-white collar crime dichotomy is fairly well know. One can distinguish Blue Collar Crime thus: Criminology, a branch of Sociology, defines blue-collar crime as any crime committed by an individual from a lower social class. The types of crimes involved are largely defined by opportunities to commit crime. Blue collar crime is typically contrasted with white collar crime: "Edwin Sutherland coined the term ‘white collar crime’ in 1939. During a speech to the American Sociological Society, he stated that a white collar crime was a “crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.” Red Collar Crime is a lesser known and used term: Red collar crime is white collar crime that results in injury or death.

A nice typology, I suppose, but I think it is incomplete. Given the fascist shift we are experiencing and the pending End of America, I have created my own new category: "Red, White, and Blue Collar Crime."

"Red, White, and Blue Collar Crime" is crime committed against America in the name of patriotism.

Red White & Blue, originally uploaded by maxedaperture.

Allow me to illustrate with some examples:

1. Lie the country into war in the name of national security (make stuff up)
2. Torture people (like you used to torture animals) to keep America safe
   
3. Secret rendition to help the war on terror (kidnap people so you can do #2 more easily)
   
4. Suspend Habeas Corpus (give yourself permission to imprison people on a whim) in the name of national security
   
5. Spy on America for the good of America (Hey, Nixon did it! Wait, it's the same people doing it!)
6. Award lots of no-bid contracts to your friends, while removing oversight and auditing functions ("Some people call you the elite, I call you my base") because this is essential to protecting America from terrorism
   
7. And perhaps the latest, greatest crime: Pardon yourself and your accomplices (you cover mine, I'll cover yours)
   

Though I admit, it's hard to tell if it's truly the latest, greatest; crime flows like blood under this administration.

Here's a clip of Cafferty speaking about Bush's deeply buried pardon of himself and his war criminal minions, along with a CNN poll about the post hoc pardon. (Text of clip available here.)

"...crime committed against America in the name of patriotism."

Even today, the Bush manipulators, led by Karl Rove, continue to utilize fear and hyped-up patriotism and a permanent war on terrorism as the basis for their policy agenda, the top item of which, at this juncture, consists of getting Bush elected in 2004. This, in order to continue to fulfill their primary objectives, not the least of which domestically is to roll back and, where possible, decimate and eliminate social programs that the far-right has hated since the New Deal/Great Society days.

Abrogate the rights and protections guaranteed to Americans by the Constitution in the name of American security and guess what you have?

Red, White, and Blue Collar Crime.

TAGS: Red, White, and Blue Collar Crime, Treason, Pardon, George Bush