Over the past two days, I’ve tried to see it from their point of view, I’ve tried to understand how Paterno could justify his lack of actions, I really have.  There are many out there who want to excuse the “great” man, pointing out that he did what he was supposed to by passing the allegations on to his superiors.  Even the police admit he fulfilled his legal obligations.  I really tried to be fair. 

But after last night, I’m not trying anymore.  The scene at Paterno’s house was a disgrace.  The man, who spent the entire day avoiding the tough but necessary questions, gave a half-hearted line about, “you know, we should maybe pray for the victims and whatever” and then led the crowd of students in a Go Penn State pep rally chant. That pretty much killed any lingering sympathy or doubts within me toward Paterno.

He’s a hypocrit, a coward and a disgrace.  The only way he can redeem himself is to admit that he was wrong in his inactions, and I’m not even sure that’ll do it because I don’t think he understands that he was wrong.  He has to face the music and answer all the tough questions thrown at him.  And unlike the written statement from Sunday, and his comments yesterday, showing a little compassion toward the children who’d been victimized in such a terrible fashion would be nice.  But now, today, I have yet to see any inkling in Paterno that he did anything wrong.  He’s acting like a victim himself, wrongfully persecuted because he did what he was supposed to, even when it’s obvious to almost everyone with a conscience that those actions were far too little from a man who’s made honor and integrity his personal motto.

This is a man who has spent 50 years preaching about morality and honor, doing things the right way and taking responsibility for your actions.  And now, we see that when he was faced with a genuine moral and ethical quandry, he ran from it.  Paterno did the bare minimum he was legally required to do and he’s hiding behind that.

I don’t believe that he didn’t know more.  Sandusky was told in a private meeting with Paterno in 1999 that he wouldn’t be the next head coach at Penn State, and soon thereafter retired from a program he’d been at for 30 years.  Not long before that, Sandusky had been investigated by campus police for taking naked showers with young boys.  Am I supposed to believe that’s a coincidence?  That Paterno didn’t know about that or that it didn’t play a role in Sandusky’s early, likely forced, retirement?

Then, less than three years later, here’s another report of Sandusky in the showers with a young child, and Paterno somehow thought it acceptable to simply pass the buck on to his superiors and wash his hands of the matter because “it was what he was supposed to do?”

I’m supposed to believe his statement of shock and disbelief when there’s multiple instances where Paterno’s aware of Sandusky’s disgusting proclivities of showering with naked young boys?  If they were truly surprised, and I don’t believe for a minute they were, then it was only because they willfully turned a blind eye to what was right in front of them.  Expedience is not morality.

The man, Sandusky, ran an organization for troubled young people, for god’s sake, didn’t somebody think it might be a good idea to check up on these allegations?  And what did Paterno think when he inevitably saw Sandusky around with young boys?  You expect me to believe he wasn’t the least bit suspicious?

No, I have no sympathy for Paterno.  The number of boys who have come forward is now around 20.  If he had practiced more of that morality he’d preached about all these years, done something, virtually anything more than the bare minimum he was required to, how many fewer victims would there be today?  I have to wonder if Paterno even realizes that fact?  It was in his power to act more assertively and he didn’t. 

To be certain, he wasn’t the only one.  Assistant coach Mike McQueary, who found Sandusky raping a boy in the shower and simply walked away, needs to be fired.  I would not be opposed to his spending a little time behind bars, as well.  His was the most direct position to put a stop to this mess, and he bailed.  McQueary played and now works for Paterno.  Is this the kind of lessons in morality and responsibility and honor Paterno teaches?  Walk away from a heinous act and tell your superiors because that’s what you’re supposed to do?

Former university vice president Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley have been charged but are basing their defense on the statute of limitations expiring.  Is that the kind of ethics and honor they trumpet at Penn State?  It’s okay to cover for a child molester and not report it to police so long as no one finds out until the statute of limitations are up? 

University President Graham Spanier, who ostensibly oversaw this pattern of bare minimum effort and obfuscation, actually released a statement defending Schultz and Curley, claiming that the pair “operate at the highest levels of honesty, integrity and compassion.”  He needs to be fired for that statement alone.

So, no, Paterno wasn’t the only one who failed to do the right thing here, he wasn’t even the most egregious example of apathy and inaction.  But that doesn’t excuse his personal lack of action. 

If he is, in fact, the man of honor, integrity and morality he has claimed to be all these years, he has to know that.  He has to know, regardless of what others above him did or didn’t do, he had the personal responsibility to speak up.  He has to know that his failure to see this through very likely contributed to numerous boys being subjected to the most vile of crimes.  He has to know he could of stopped it by doing just a little more than the bare minimum he had to.

And he needs to say that.  Maybe the university did cut off his press conference yesterday, but he had ample opportunities to speak up.  He needs to answer these questions, no matter how difficult.  He needs to show that the morality, the honor, the integrity he’s preached all these years really exists and aren’t just convenient hollow phrases that get left on the football field.

Joe Paterno needs to speak up now or resign already, and forever hold his peace. 

Before I go too far, let me clarify a point.  Middleman isn’t always a dirty word.  Often, just their very existence creates benefits for both ends that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.  The problem lies with how middleman relationships develop over time.

At first, the middleman usually brings value to both sides, that’s how they get in the door in the first place, after all.  Not all authors can afford to publish and market their own books, so publishers spring up to allow more writers more opportunities to bring their wares to potential customers.  Readers benefit from increased variety and options, writers benefit from increased opportunities to make money, and the publisher middlemen get a nice cut for expediting that arrangement.

Same with health insurance.  Health care can be expensive, so insurance springs up giving doctors more opportunities to sell their services, patients get more access to care providers and insurers get a nice cut for expediting that arrangement.

In the NBA, the best players in the world don’t have the resources to bring their talents before paying customers in a critical mass, so the league and teams developed to create a framework for players to show off their skills, and create access for larger numbers of fans to see those skills.  Team owners get a nice cut for expediting that arrangement.

All three of these situations illustrate positives that middlemen bring to the table, initially expanding opportunities for all involved.  But over time, these relationships change.  As the middlemen become more entrenched in the relationship, they slowly bleed both sides, getting fatter all the while.  In that respect, they’re much like ticks.

We see it in publishing.  Legacy publishers are currently struggling because the emergence of digital books and new technologies are exposing their ever-fattening middleman position.  Readers, over time, see costs go up more and more, while value stagnates or declines.  But writers on the other side don’t see their returns go up, even with higher prices on customers.  Readers pay more, writers royalties stagnate or decline, and all that extra value from both ends only serves to fatten the entrenched tick in between.

Same thing with health insurance.  We see premiums skyrocketing every year, far beyond any reasonable, market driven cause.  At the same time, insurers are squeezing providers, declining claims or cutting back on payments.  Patients are paying more and more for less value and yet the providers aren’t seeing those increases reflected in their payouts.  All the while, the entrenched tick in the middle gets fatter and fatter.

In the NBA, we see the same process at work right now.  The league presents a watered down product by having too many franchises, yet ticket prices, merchandising prices, etc, keep going up.  The fans pay more and more for less value.  On the other end, the league is squeezing the players to cover their bad business decisions.  The fans pay more for a declining product, yet the players aren’t receiving the benefits of that, in fact, their pay is about to take a giant leap backwards.  Both ends squeezed, and the entrenched tick in the middle gets fatter and fatter.

Now some people would argue that the NBA isn’t a middleman, but its no different than any of the other industries I’ve talked about here.  There’s clearly a market for performances of high level basketball, the NBA simply creates a framework to service that market, nothing more.  Players aren’t employees any more than authors are employees of publishers.

And consider what noted conservative George Will had to say about Major League Baseball in a segment of Ken Burns’ ten-part documentary on the subject:

“Baseball is enormously popular, 55 or 60 million people buy tickets to games every year, and not one of those people bought a ticket to see an owner.  The players create all of that value and they deserve the lion’s share of the rewards.”

The problem with our economy right now is that we’ve become slaves to entrenched middlemen in almost all walks of life.  And as the middlemen get fatter on the resources they bleed from both ends, they use those resources to get government protection to defend their entrenched positions.  The NBA, and pro sports in general, are defacto monopolies who willfully and blatantly disregard antitrust laws with the tacit approval of the government.  What’s worse is that they use that monopoly on franchises to extort cities into spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to build new facilities in order to further enrich themselves.  And those stadium related monies frequently are kept out of player compensation pools altogether.

The recent health care reform does nothing to rein in insurers’ excess.  In fact, the individual mandate only serves to further entrench insurers into the patient-provider relationship, costs will inevitably continue to go up, and now taxpayers will be kicking in too, to cover the shortages.

Media companies have essentially purchased legislation to defend their entrenched positions, such as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and the Mickey Mouse copyright extensions that have absurdly extended copyright for close to 130 years.  Now, they have their sights set on taking down net neutrality, and the new Protect IP act designed to stifle competition and fair use and gives all media companies the ability to shut down entire domains with little more than an unproven accusation of infringement. 

These aren’t legitimate measures to protect copyrighted works or their creators.  These are middlemen using the vast resources they’ve bled from the artist-customer relationship to defend and further entrench themselves in what has become an exploitative position to parties on both ends.

So how do we change this?  We have to disconnect ourselves from these entrenched, increasingly parasitic middlemen.  Artists, now more than ever, can forego publishers and media companies and develop more direct and beneficial relationships with customers.  After all, readers aren’t buying the publishers, they’re buying the writers.  NBA players can find backing and found an entirely new league.  After all, in basketball perhaps more than any other sport, the fans pay to see the players, not the NBA logo.  We need to break the notion that health care and health insurance are synonymous.  They’re not.  And we should come down hard on any politician who votes to further entrench insurance company interests over the interests of patients and providers.

Every step we take to break the stranglehold these embedded ticks have on us can only be positive.  Even if a new basketball league fails, the attempt alone can force a more equitable deal for players and fans alike.  Even if self publishing fails to become the norm, if enough people engage in it, it can force a more equitable deal for authors and readers alike.  Efforts to break the stranglehold of insurers on health care may not ultimately succeed, but it can force a more equitable deal for patients and providers alike.

What we can’t continue to do is just accept that this is the way it is.  Any of these attempts will be costly in the short term.  Some self published authors would likely be leaving some money on the table from entrenched publishers.  Some NBA players would be leaving some money on the table if they split with the league to go a new way.  Some care providers would likely be leaving money on the table by breaking from the insurance monopoly.  But make no mistake, you might lose in the immediate sense in these efforts, but to do nothing, we will all lose much more over time. 

Entrenched middlemen get fatter and fatter and fatter if left unchecked, eventually reaching the point where their excess exceeds the value they brought to the relationship in the first place.  I would argue we’ve already passed that point in health care.  NBA players are rapidly heading toward that point as hardline owners become more and more aggressive in pursuing unfair and punitive system changes.  And we are likely much closer to that point in publishing than many authors care to admit.

The key problem with entrenched middlemen is that, as the relationship matures, they ultimately serve to drive up costs for everyone while reaping rewards only for themselves.  Now, as our economy is in shambles and more and more people are coming to the long-overdue realization that the system has been rigged against us and legitimate opportunities that we always believed existed are proven to be illusory, we have a chance to right the ship.

The government won’t do it for us, in fact, I’d expect it to be an obstacle because of the undue influence of entrenched interests.  Corporations won’t go along willingly, and I expect they’ll become increasingly punitive to anyone who steps out of line.  The only power we truly have is the power of our own individual choices.  We can either continue to submit, continue to be bled until there’s not a drop left in any of us, or we can break the cycle. 

It won’t be easy, and it may not work as we hope, but one thing is for certain, the path we’re on right now is a dead end.  And we’re rapidly approaching the cliff at the end.  Don’t be yet another lemming.

Well, today I received the following comment on a piece I posted last week about the growing income inequality in this country and my profound disgust with the GOP’s continued and repeated refrain that increased taxes on the rich is tantamount to class warfare and punishing success.  The reader was, apparently, quite perturbed by what she (and I say she because the name seems female but I’m not really sure and calling someone it is just wrong) perceived as my advocacy that everyone should be paid equally regardless of actual value and that life is supposed to be fair.  Not exactly sure how she devined that out of my piece, primarily because I’m pretty certain that I pointed out examples like Kobe Bryant and Steve Jobs who more than deserve every penny of compensation they’ve received and then some. 

I also pointed out that I’m getting sick of picking up the tab for corporate CEOs like Craig Debow of Gannett who presided over putting 20,000 people out of work and a $2 billion annual shrinkage in corporate revenue yet walks away with a $37 million parting gift.  And believe me, I’m pretty sure there was a sizable hunk of taxpayer dollars that went to some of the 20,000 he put on the unemployment line to earn that bonus, which he’ll likely use a variety of overseas banks and investment schemes to get out of being taxed on as much as possible.

Anyway, I intend to address this commenter in full at a later point as, at the moment, I’m currently engaged in a 13 Days of Halloween marketing promotion trying to sell some copies of my short story collections. You know, engaging in some entrepreneurial free market economic activity that apparently I don’t believe in because, according to her, I’m a communist, not that there’s anything wrong with that (her words).

Anyway, here’s the comment and I’ll be back in a day or two with my thoughts.

Ellemenopee on October 19, 2011 at 2:38 pm said:

Someday, you will grow up and realize that life is not fair.  Income inequality is just part of it. The saying “all men are created equal” only means that everyone has the same rights. Equal income is not a right. Will the occupy wallstreet morons next target Milan Italy where the super models hang out? It is
simply not fair how attractive some people are while others are forced to be ugly. What
about those guys and girls that can seem to eat anything they want yet never gain a pound. That is very unfair to those of us that are fat slobs.

Taxing the rich simply because you dont like how much they make and are jealous of their success is no way to live your life. The country is broke and in need of severe cuts. More taxes doesnt solve the issue it only perpetuates it.

Also, swing and a huge miss on your point about CEOs. Sorry, but the GOP is not protecting morons like the Gannet CEO. If
you dislike the compensation schedule designed for these idiot CEOs, protest the company that hired them. The board of
directors hire the CEO and they negoiate the salary. If you believe (which you might) that
governments need to regulate salaries, then you are a communist. Not that there is
anything wrong with that, I am just saying that you would need to also include the democrats in your rant. The GOP hates seeing these guys get paid for success just like you and the democrats.

When a corporation loses its CEO it spends (sadly) thousands of dollars trying to find a new
one. Once they have settled on someone, they usually find someone already working
somewhere else. In order to get them to leave, they need to provide bonuses that are
ridiculous.  Instead of ranting about the evil GOP, try actually reading a book or a newspaper and educating yourself.

Here is your most ridiculous comment: “we as Americans don’t want to punish success. We have no problem with rewarding success and honoring the successful.” You just want to regulate how much success they actually have.  I agree that CEOs should have responsible employment contracts but it is up to shareholders to see that this happens. I agree that bailing out Wall Street was wrong
however, it is the governments fault not theres – sadly, they committed no crimes.  However, you have no facts that are correct and cant make an argument that doesnt contradict itself. So, I respectfully ask you to get off my side. You are very misinformed and quit frankly stupid for showing off your
ignorance.

Income inequality is at or near an all time high in the U.S. and we currently rank 93rd out of 125 countries (and falling rapidly) in that tellingly bad metric.  Real wages for your average American worker haven’t increased in almost half a century while CEO income has increased 300% since 1990 alone.  CEO pay was roughly 50 times that of an average worker in 1985.  Today, it’s 350 times as much.  I don’t care how you slice it, it’s fairly clear that regular Americans are suffering under the weight of an increasingly top heavy economic system and things must change.

But to the GOP, any mention of taxing top earners and corporations falls under the banner of punishing success.  Well, it’s not success or the rewards of it that people want to punish.  Nobody was crying about the compensation Steve Jobs got from Apple.  He created a range of products that have benefited people in this country in a number of ways.  I’ll admit, I have issues with Apple shifting some of its high tech manufacturing facilities and skilled jobs to China for cheaper labor, but that’s another issue.  Jobs got paid for his leadership, and well he should.

The NBA is in a lockout right now.  Kobe Bryant of the Lakers is making $25 million per season.  Do you see anyone pointing a finger at Kobe’s exorbitant salary as the problem with the league?  No, because he’s worth every penny of it and then some.  Even Lakers owner Jerry Buss admitted he’s probably worth three times that.  Kobe got paid, as well he should.

The problem we have as Americans isn’t that we resent the successful.  We love the successful, America likes nothing more than a winner.  It’s that we resent the unsuccessful reaping similar rewards.  Gilbert Arenas of the Orlando Magic is getting paid enormous sums of money for being little more than a headache and a mediocre role player.  Kobe’s ultra-high salary isn’t a problem, Arenas’ is. 

Corporate CEOs all over this country are raking in obscene compensation packages for running their companies into the ground.  It’s not the Steve Jobs of the world we resent, it’s the failed leaders who cost tens of thousands of people’s jobs, who make decisions screwing over their employees for short term earnings gains that boost stock prices long enough for them to cash out the rich package of stock options they own with little regard to that company’s long term future, and no regard for their current employees. 

You want to know why CEO pay is 300 times greater in comparison to employee pay than it was just 25 years ago?  It’s because these top level, supposedly successful people the GOP protects have gamed the system for their benefit alone at all of our expense.  Many of these companies aren’t creating value with products or services that change the world, like Jobs did.  They’re playing numbers games to exponentially multiply capital in their own bank accounts on all of our dimes.

And once they cash out, often leaving their companies a mess, they gracefully glide out to pasture on golden parachutes while the now-jobless employees they left in their wake have only unemployment insurance to break their fall; a lead parachute with holes in it.  And not only does the GOP want to protect and defend the CEOs who cause this carnage, they want to gut what little assistance regular people have to keep their heads above water.  These kinds of CEOs are portrayed as successes and job creators (an indefensible oxymoron in far too many cases) and the employees they discarded are failures and deadbeats sucking unfairly on the public dime.

The financial sector spent the past 15 years raping and pillaging the American Dream.  They’ve virtually destroyed home ownership as part of the path to upward mobility, taking with it the majority of net worth most Americans had accumulated.  Worse yet, they packed bad loans into bogus securities and sold them to pension plans, taking away the retirement savings of millions.  And what did we do to punish this?  We invented new and interesting ways to bail out these essentially criminal enterprises, allowing them to quickly dump losses from their scams on taxpayers, reap massive profits and some of the same CEOs who presided over the fraud in the first place are again receiving bonuses that should make even the wealthiest of us blush with shame.  The GOP wants to protect these “success stories” who stole so much from so many, and for the rest of us who lost our homes, the equity in them and our retirement savings?  Well, they wanna gut Social Security, too.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.  Gannett CEO Craig Debow presided over some serious declines in his five years at the head of the giant media company.  During his tenure, 20,000 Gannett employees lost their jobs, annual revenue dropped by $2 billion and the stock price fell from $72 per share to $10.  By no criteria that makes any rational sense can Debow’s tenure be deemed a success.  It is, in fact, a failure of epic proportions.  What kind of parting gift does he get for this far-less-than-stellar performance?  A compensation package of $37 million!  He also gets a free office, free secretary, lifetime health benefits and some other assorted goodies.  Let me reiterate–miserable failure yet walks away with $37 million and then some.  Meanwhile, the company is in shambles and 20,000 people lost their jobs.

Again, why does the GOP want to protect this kind of guy and portray his actions as successful when it’s clearly anything but?  No, we as Americans don’t want to punish success.  We have no problem with rewarding  success and honoring the successful.  We, however, have a very big problem with rewarding failure and redefining it as success.  Especially when that faux-success comes attached with tens of thousands of people out of work and billions of dollars lost.

And lest anyone thinks I’m politically slanted, the Democrats protect the very same people.  There is little difference between the parties in this respect.  The reason I chose to use GOP throughout this is because they are most outwardly vocal about it.  They are the ones unapologetically throwing this rhetoric out there, and fronting this bogus premise of defending the rich as successful is also defending us all.  Neither party has the high ground here, they’re both equally rotten, but the GOP makes the most noise about it.  That’s why I called them out specifically.

There are certainly systemic issues with the league that need to be addressed, but it was clearly a situation calling for some tweaking.  But the owners weren’t satisfied with that, they wanted a full-blown NHL style do-over.  And because of this catastrophic mistake in judgement, what they’ve gotten is an NBA nuclear winter that, if they don’t pry their heads out of David Stern’s ass immediately and do some actual negotiating, will take years to recover from.

The owners went into this with two giant misconceptions.  The first was that the NBA is a business like any other and the players are simply run of the mill employees like you’d find in most companies in this country.  The second was that they preside over a league that holds a position in the sporting public’s imagination more similar to the NFL than the NHL.  Hell, even Nascar probably has a more diverse, widespread and dedicated fan base. 

The owners had no intention of negotiating anything.  They had the deal they wanted mapped out all along and thought the way to get it was to ram armageddon style economic changes down the players throats for months with no exceptions, then about a week before cancelling games, offer a bad deal to the players that would look downright generous by comparison.  In their minds, the players would be so happy to avoid the end of the world that they’d happily sign up.  Guess what?  Didn’t work, and the effort, if you can call it that, was so transparent that I’ve seen more able negotiators work out deals for used cookware at the local flea market.  All the while, the players tried desperately to actually negotiate while the owners postured, trying to look the part of astute businessmen as opposed to the conglomeration of incompetent douchebags they really are.

The NBA is not a Walmart.  Management is not going to be able to lob threats at the workers, forcing them to accept longer hours, less pay, fewer benefits and no vacation and just say, “thank you sir, may I have another?”  Real people need their jobs no matter how shitty they are, especially now because we have bills to pay, mouths to feed and other assorted survival-centric concerns that won’t allow us to be able to tell our bosses to pack sand when they continually screw us over for their benefit.  Try that with NBA players, and they’ll do exactly what they did here every time, tell you to go fuck yourself.  And in the owners case here, that is a much-deserved sentiment.

If the owners had come to the table in July with the offer they made last weekend, a deal would’ve already been done and we’d be watching preseason basketball right now and talking about what a great season we were about to witness.  Instead, because of their unnecessary hardline obstinance, the “good news” is that both sides will be meeting with a federal mediator next week.  That’s just great, because we all know how good the feds have been lately at working out reasonable compromise that benefits everyone.

The NBA is not the NFL.  If you need any more evidence of that, and apparently the owners do, look at the public reaction to their respective lockouts.  The NFL version was major news, all over everything all the time.  The slightest change in things exploded all over even mainstream, non-sports news outlets.  The NBA canceled games the other day and, outside of a few hardcore blogs and the occasional tweet, it went largely unnoticed.  Hey owners, you guys have canceled actual games and nobody gives a shit!  You think, maybe, you ought to do whatever you have to and get your product back on the court right now?  Might be a thought.

There is still a chance, however, that these guys come to their senses before it’s too late.  A fair and reasonable deal is sitting there waiting to be made, but they have to come to grips with the fact that their grand plan has been a miserable failure.  You’ve already lost crucial time and money in your little dominance-related pissing contest.  Make a damn deal now and move on.  Keeping this lockout going is just throwing good money after bad.  You’re amateur-hour negotiating ploy to break the union simply didn’t work. 

You have two choices now: either buckle down and find a fair deal everyone can live with, or go straight to Defcon 1 and scrap the whole season if you are so attached to your destroy the players approach.  Of course, the latter will be mutually assured destruction, but from what I’ve seen so far, you’ll probably declare victory even if you lose a billion dollars in the process.

Just get it done, already. Five years from now, I really don’t want to have to watch preempted NBA playoff games on ESPN 6 at 2:30 a.m. squeezed between major league darts and a tractor pull.

The mainstream media is as confused as anyone.  They have no idea how to portray this nascent movement.  Without clear soundbites on specific positions, the press is unable to use their dismissive stock and trade, that being writing a story that’s little more than competing soundbites.  Lacking a clear position from the protesters, they are unable to find someone to quote saying the exact opposite and call it journalism.  So, more often than not, they’ve just ignored the whole affair.  It doesn’t fit neatly into the socio-political dynamic they’re comfortable with and earn their livings on, so they have no idea how to cover it.

There are no clear leaders in New York because this is the very essence of a democratic exercise.  Every day, protesters meet in quorums to openly discuss issues relating to the protest and larger concerns. Every one involved has a voice and is included in the discussions.  We’ve seen how easily our “leaders” are corrupted, just look at the President who currently bears little resemblance to the man who was elected.  Recently, he’s been talking tougher but it’s pretty obviously a reelection campaign strategy.  He doesn’t really want these policies to pass, and he’s counting on GOP obstruction to frame next year’s election.  And once he wins, it’ll be right back to four more years of G.W. Bush-extended.  We all see it, and we all now know that’s how it’ll be.  It’s no wonder that confusion about the motivations of the protesters rein, we haven’t seen legitimate democratic activities like these in a long time in this country.

Why is their no list of demands?  Well, for one thing, this is a peaceful protest, not a hostage negotiation.  And specificity would only serve to dilute the message.  If the group comes out to say “We demand you tax the rich,” would that change anything?  Even if the government capitulates and does it, would that solve our problems?  Not even close.  End the wars?  Nope.  Jail the bankers?  No way.  Don’t cut Social Security?  Nada.  Affordable health care for all?  Not in the least.  Specific policy positions no longer serve any purpose.  We have an overall systemic problem. 

We could argue all day over detailed political positions, and even if every one this protest group supports gets enacted, that still isn’t enough, it still won’t cure the rot corrupting the heart of our once great democracy.  No, our problems go far beyond simple (or even complicated) policy issues.  These people in New York seem to understand that in a way the politicians, corporations, interest groups and the media don’t.  Hence, they just don’t understand or know how to deal with a protest that isn’t based on a catchy slogan or in direct opposition to a specific law or policy action that can be summed up on a tee shirt or bumper sticker.

Eventually, inevitably, there will be real changes advocated from this.  But for now, it’s far more important to show that we, the people aren’t powerless.  We can gather together, we can create a voice capable of shouting down the din of the corporate-political moneyed interests and the media that serves them.  Once the people on a large scale understand that, we can bring about progress on our own, regardless of and in spite of the institutions that have controlled and pacified us for so long.  Then real, effective, long-term change can occur.

This protest, and the others like it springing up around the country, are about that awareness.  They’re not pushing for a vote on an agenda, or tax reform, or regulations, or stimulus bills, or bailouts.  Those issues are just the means used to divide and conquer us all.  Once we get past the petty divisions separating us, then and only then can the changes we truly need come about.  That’s what Occupy Wall Street is about. 

So last week, I changed it up to a new variation on the theme I use for my primary blog, The Watershed Chronicle.  It looked great on my computer, provided a much cleaner, easier read and put the sidebar back where I like it best, on the side rather than the bottom.  Unfortunately, as I later discovered, it looked really bad on my phone, squeezing the text and, somewhat inexplicably, lopped off the sidebar altogether.  So I tried another new one this morning.  This one has the same benefits of the last one, and it carries over very well to my phone screen.  I think I’ve finally got it the way I want it.

On top of that, I’ve fleshed out the sidebar.  I’ve added links to both of my books–try one, you’ll like it–rss feeds to my other sites, a feed of all my Twitter ramblings, and a link to the feed from this site in case anyone cares to take advantage of it.

Since this site is (mostly) dedicated to following politics, I’ve also added some context toward the bottom of the sidebar.  I’ve included three feeds to political news and information, one for each major spectrum of the political scene.  There’s one from the Huffington Post for the liberal angle, one from The Young Turks for the progressive point of view, and one from Fox News for the conservative view.  That’s about as fair and balanced as I can get here.

Anyway, I hope these changes are well received and make this site a better reading and informational source.  And now, back to my political rantings…

“It’s a total Ponzi scheme, and I’m glad Perry said it,” said a Florida woman who remained nameless. “Things were fine before Social Security was put in place.  People took care of each other.  Communities looked after each other.”

My first reaction to reading that was of course this woman remained nameless.  Nobody would want their name attached to a statement that uninformed and ignorant. 

And just how fine were things before Social Security?  The poverty rate among senior citizens at the time was 47%.  Damn near 1 out of every 2 seniors lived in poverty.  Today, that rate is about 10% or 1 out of every 10 seniors living in poverty.

Oddly, at least if your a republican living in the Social Security demonizing echo chamber, those numbers would seem to indicate that the program is far from the massive failure being portrayed and more like a virtually unprecedented success.  In fact, it may well be the single most successful government program ever conceived.

And as for Rick Perry’s ponzi scheme line, Social Security has been around for nearly a century, and even the conservative estimates suggest it’s fully funded until some time well into the 2030s.  If that’s a ponzi scheme, it’s the longest con I’ve ever heard of.

I find it somewhat ironic that the same people who’re cheering for executions, booing gay soldiers and yelling “let ‘em die” to questions about sick people without insurance are only too happy to talk about how charity and community will be all we need to care for the downtrodden once they wipe out the social safety net.

Of course, when they feed people that rosy load of bullshit, what they really mean is they’re sure someone else will step up to help out because they’ll be too busy hoarding their cash to give a damn about the sick, elderly, infirm or poor.

One day, god forbid, when this mysterious unnamed woman in Florida finds herself in a position where she needs a little help, she can go door to door to all her tea party buddies and get a better idea on exactly how much charity the needy are likely to get from that bunch.  Maybe then she could actually make an informed comment to the local paper, you know, something she wouldn’t be ashamed to attach her name to?

Davis’ case had gone through numerous legal wranglings, getting three temporary stays, bunches of hearings but never the ruling he was seeking, and likely should have received: a new trial.  Even last night, the U.S. Supreme Court held up the execution for a few hours but came back with no further stay, or comment as to why, either.  Davis was finally given lethal injection and was declared dead at 11:08 p.m. 

But was he guilty?  I don’t know, and that’s the problem.

I am, without much doubt, a death penalty supporter.  I don’t live in a rose-colored world where all people are redeemable and any actions can be forgiven.  Some people and certain acts are so heinous, so despicable that those who perpetrate them should forfeit their right to continue to draw breath.  It’s not about deterrence or vengeance to me, the world is simply a better place with fewer evil people in it.  But if we’re going to exact the ultimate penalty on someone, we need to be damned sure.  Even beyond a reasonable doubt isn’t sufficient.  To end someone’s life, the standard needs to be beyond any doubt.  Anything less is tantamount to murder.

Here we have a man convicted and eventually executed not with smoking gun physical evidence but with eye witness testimony.  It has long been understood that eye witness claims can be among some of the most unreliable evidence; people mis-remember important details or worse yet, their memories can be manipulated by savvy third parties.  The fact that no fewer than seven eye witnesses in Davis’ case have since changed their tune, and that many of them claim police pressure should cause us all pause.  There is no smoking gun here, and many of the witnesses who testified aren’t even certain at this point.  Davis was convicted on the strength of these witnesses.  If they aren’t certain, how can any of us pass the reasonable doubt threshhold necessary to justify ending his life?

For me, this case comes right on the heels of reading about the similarly disconcerting execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas under the seemingly disinterested eye of current GOP darling Rick Perry.  If you haven’t heard about this case, you should definitely read all the sordid details here.  Willingham was convicted and put to death for the murder by arson of his three children.  The problem here is that the scientific evidence used at trial was, to be polite, half assed.  Several examinations of the evidence, both before and after Willingham’s execution found that there was no credible evidence to support the assertion that arson even occurred.  The obvious implication is that you can’t very well murder anyone by arson if you didn’t actually burn the place down.

A report stating this actually reached Gov. Perry’s desk in time to stop the death sentence from being carried out but it appears that he never bothered to even read it.  Worse yet, a few years later, a committee was investigating the case once more and Perry used his political authority to stifle the investigation, and stop a noted fire investigation authority from testifying about the fraudulent nature of the arson claim used to convict Willingham.

Yet still worse, the man Perry appointed to kill the investigation, John Bradley, now a Williamson County, Texas district attorney was recently called out in another questionable prosecution.  In this one, Bradley fought DNA testing that later, done under court order, pointed clearly away from a convicted man who has been in jail for 24 years for the murder.  Bradley also, likely illegally, kept key witness testimony from the defense that called into question the state’s case.

Despite an almost scientific consensus that evidence supporting arson in the Willingham case was faulty at best and outright fraudulent at worst, he was put to death in 2004.  But was he guilty?  Again, I don’t know.  And that bothers me.

Both of these cases, along with many others, have one thing in common:  a total unwillingness of the people we trust to have this authority over life and death to question the results when it clearly needs to be.  Rare is the case that someone freed from jail with DNA evidence available years later didn’t have to fight through a gauntlet of government and prosecutor stonewalling to even get the testing done.  Sometimes, as in the case of the recently freed West Memphis Three, even with exonerating DNA, it can still be difficult to find justice. 

DNA testing in 2007 showed the West Memphis Three’s innocence, but they still sat in jail for four more years before finally being released, and even then they weren’t completely cleared officially and were forced to give up any rights to seek financial compensation for the 17 years they wrongfully spent in prison.  By the way, the supposed leader of the group, Damien Echols, spent that time on death row.

But what can we reasonably expect when we have a sitting Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, who says things like, “Innocence is no bar to upholding a criminal conviction.”  And here I always thought innocence was a pretty important part our criminal justice system. 

As I said, I support the death penalty when it’s called for, and I do believe there are times it is, and people who have clearly earned such an inglorious result.  My doubts now are whether our justice system has the capacity and integrity to shoulder the awesome responsibility of handing out such a sentence.  When we have judges who will fleetingly dismiss innocence in favor of a flawed jury verdict, prosecutors who will manipulate evidence and try to block even common sense actions like DNA testing, police officers willing to pressure and coerce witnesses and accused alike, and Governors who care more about their political posturing and poll positions than whether or not they’re about to kill an innocent man, let’s just say I have my doubts.

Have we ever executed an innocent person in this country?  At this point, I have to say without a doubt, yes we have.  And that, to me, is not acceptable.  I believe in the death penalty but I believe it takes certainty to invoke it.  Our system, as it stands today, does not and cannot provide it consistently enough to assure we’re not executing the innocent.  Until we fix that, there should be no further executions in this country.

At principle issue is a change in the patent process that altered the “first to invent” requirement into a “first to file” system.  Under the new system, once President Obama signs it as he undoubtedly will, it will no longer matter who actually invents something.  All that will matter is who files the application first.  How does that protect inventors and spur innovation?  It strains credibility to believe this does anything but open up actual inventors to even less protection than before.

The patent process is a lengthy and expensive one.  For a small inventor, it is frequently necessary to raise funds to even enter the process.  In this atmosphere, where the inventor has no protection prior to filing at all, how do you go about doing that?  You can’t reveal your invention because whoever you show it to can simply cut you out, rip off your idea and file on their own, soon to be all perfectly legal. 

Whatever else may be in this legislation is totally irrelevant, the first to file rule completely destroys any protections for actual creators.  What would I, as a small independent inventor, have as motivation to invent something when I would need outside funding to patent my idea, and could very conceivably get legally screwed because someone else stole it and filed the application before me?  If I have no protections at all prior to paying Uncle Sam for them, my and every other inventor’s efforts become meaningless.

This act is touted as being able to create jobs, as well.  On that score, it just might.  Industrial espionage is certain to increase, as well as large corporations creating entire divisions designed to replicate other people’s ideas and generate applications in the new race to the patent office.  I guess the innovation Leahy was talking about was large, deep pocketed organizations innovating new, faster and more unique ways to rip people off, all now under the cover of law.

This bill only serves to make inventors secondary to paper pushers.  And it benefits companies with the money to hire large numbers of people to handle these replications and application processing.  The little guy, who they’re so fond of talking about in glowing terms, gets screwed royally.

But then, what else should we expect from a government who’s every action benefits large corporate interests over anyone and everyone else.  And the way things are going, when these corporations do create these idea swiping mills, they’ll likely be staffed overseas by people making 50 cents a day.