On Corruption

Here's a strange boast. As I write this I am the informant in a police corruption investigation. It's not a comfortable position I can assure you, every time I have brought the corruption to the attention of the police I have made a note of who I have spoken to. On a couple of occasions the cops who I made the allegations to turned out to be corrupt themselves - playing a dual role, it is only to be expected of course. Once the police switchboard operator asked "can we phone you back? " Instinctively I answered no absolutely not. I have raised the matter a total of six times since November when I first answered bail.

It's very unlikely to go anywhere. Only the police can investigate a thing like this, and they have a habit of closing ranks. When I first raised the issue with the police (see previous blogpost) I forgot to mention the sergeant who was handling me bounded out of the door a second time with all the bumf for escalating the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, I figure I have played my hand well by not taking that poisoned chalice. Police corruption is not the only plank in my defence, it addresses the motivations of the police force's interest in me. I am able to blog about this now because I learned last week that their investigation into me has concluded with No Further Action.

You might wonder why being the informant in a police corruption investigation is so uncomfortable. Well, let's just say one doesn't know how deep it goes, and it's impossible to manouver into this position without learning things you really don't want to know and if it all goes pear shaped they could harass me for wasting police time, I suppose.

What has all this got to do with anything? We live in a corrupt paranoid society, we mostly collude with it all too. It's everywhere goddammit. Here's two examples brought to my attention just now. One is about a corrupt lawyer, and the other from the New York Times is about the corruption of youth, in the context of the second amendment, no less.

I can offer no tips on how to fire your lawyer or how to tell the police they are corrupt. But the New York Times article may yet inspire me to write a blogpost entitled 'How to make a very comfortable living through astroturfing without really trying'.