Friday, July 15, 2005
Warden Norton's Bitch
So cowboy Bernard Ebbers, formerly of WorldCom [with a company name like that, how could they NOT be corrupt?], will rot in the can until death for his involvement in an $11B scam - and have to pay back nearly every penny he has. [Makes me wonder what cowboy George W. Bush's punishment will be for scamming about 20 times that from US taxpayers. "You're always talking about the here-and-after well it don't mean much to me, but for all the men that you condemned, I hope there's some kind of heaven, and there's got to be some kind of hell for you." --Greg Keelor.]
They don't come much more anti-corporate than yours truely, and even I feel tremendous sympothy for this guy, who bawled like a baby, along with his wife, at the sentencing. How does him rotting in jail serve society, or anybody within it? Answer: it gives his victims (well off shareholders who lost bundles from their retirement funds) some satisfaction, ugly vengeance y'all.
My assertion is that the same vengeance could be achieved without completely destroying this poor fallen rodeo star. Throw him on an assembly line pumping out cell phones, circulate his home phone number to every telephone con artist in America, and show him how it feels to be on the receiving end of a billionaire's bravado. Still make him pay back all his assets, but give him a chance to be a mostly honest schmuck like the rest of us. Bar him from ever having a position of any real responsibility or leadership again. He can't hurt anyone now, he's outted for the slimy megalomaniac he is. No need to make him Warden Norton's bitch.
--Bopper
ps. Alternatively, we could collectively and systematically try to move past our vengeful lust.
They don't come much more anti-corporate than yours truely, and even I feel tremendous sympothy for this guy, who bawled like a baby, along with his wife, at the sentencing. How does him rotting in jail serve society, or anybody within it? Answer: it gives his victims (well off shareholders who lost bundles from their retirement funds) some satisfaction, ugly vengeance y'all.
My assertion is that the same vengeance could be achieved without completely destroying this poor fallen rodeo star. Throw him on an assembly line pumping out cell phones, circulate his home phone number to every telephone con artist in America, and show him how it feels to be on the receiving end of a billionaire's bravado. Still make him pay back all his assets, but give him a chance to be a mostly honest schmuck like the rest of us. Bar him from ever having a position of any real responsibility or leadership again. He can't hurt anyone now, he's outted for the slimy megalomaniac he is. No need to make him Warden Norton's bitch.
--Bopper
ps. Alternatively, we could collectively and systematically try to move past our vengeful lust.
Labels: 2005, Canada, non-fiction, politics
