Supervillain Style

Sometimes, supervillains need more style than just financial lawsuits. In the meantime, new materials open possibilities for everything from machinery to buildings to clothes to medicine. Perhaps more importantly, they can be 3D printed.

Otherwise, there's tricks more like cartoon and comic book villains. We're also seeing the beginning of automating security. I wonder what happens when police and soldiers who once enforced the law find themselves employed?

End of the Show

While news worldwide is constantly depressing, careers in supervillainy are poised to rise. For as systems fail, there will always be those who benefit from the chaos. From politicians advocating martial law to terrorists to criminal masterminds, there's always those who seek power. The problem is, in their rush to control the world, they may have destroyed that which they sought to preserve.

Lessons in Supervillainy: Attorney General Eric Holder

Today's lecture will put an example of practical supervillainy into focus. A supervillain, by definition, uses their rank, connections, and abilities to commit massive crime, prevent the administration of justice, or preferably administer injustice. Now, in the United States, there is a Department of Justice, the group in charge of law enforcement administration at a Federal level. The Attorney General in charge of the DoJ is a Presidential Cabinet member and a powerful figure in the interpretation and enforcement of the laws of the land. 

As such, assignment of the position to a corrupt and/or criminally incompetent person would seriously compromise any attempts to retain the rule of law across the USA. As of this writing, the current holder of that position has done his best to turn the DoJ into the Department of Injustice. Appointing a corrupt public official to a position involving legal matters is the very incarnation of regulatory capture.

The list is certainly something worthy of a Bond villain more than an equitable arbiter. Some noteworthy events:

-Mexican drug cartels were armed by US law enforcement.

-Spying was performed upon all manner of political groups.

-There is a failure to prosecute the admission of nearly a trillion dollars with of money laundering for criminal and terrorist groups by mega-bank HSBC.

-The latest scandal, surveillance on even mainstream media reporters, is merely the icing on the cake.

 This is no isolated case, either. Neocon remnants of the Bush years linger on like a bad hangover. Interventions (overt and covert) continue. With due process free drone assassinations, indefinite detection on no evidence, blanket legal immunities for political and corporate leaders, and a growing gap between the rich and poor, what could possibly go wrong?