The rioting students destroyed news vehicles and other property, but there were no arrests of the rioters by campus police or any other police.
Meanwhile peaceful protesters (who are unhappy that the 1% have established a coup and have installed a plutocracy to rule over the 99%) are shot and arrested around the country.
And don't forget the Kent State of mind where students were shot down and killed on their university campus for wanting a war stopped, shot down in cold blood by American storm troopers who were in disagreement with the students' want for peace.
This is The Penn State of Mind, which should now dampen the laughter and skepticism concerning Dredd Blog posts entitled This is Your Brain on Propaganda.
This public behavior by a university and its students, an American institution that is supposed to be the seat of American intelligence, the seat of American learning, yes, the seat of the future of America, comes at a time when most Republican primary candidates are advocating war and torture on the public airwaves in public debates.
These young riotous Penn State students, after attending this university, after watching leaders clamoring to be the warmonger in chief, the torturer in chief, yes, after graduating, are going to sit down at the seats of power, they are going to be given the helm of government sooner or later.
You can bet that over six billion people in the world (who are watching these events take place in a nation that has military bases strewn across the world, who are watching a warlike nation that has been invading and occupying other nations for a decade) are wondering "what ... is this the future of America?"
As a manager, do you have an obligation to follow the rules of the workplace with regard to personnel issues?
ReplyDeleteYou seem to think not. Coach Paterno did his duty in reporting the incident to his boss. A cover up would have been Coach Paterno not reporting the incident.
Mr. Paterno's job was not to investigate the matter that he did not eyewitness. If he did, it would have potentially opened himself up personally to a lawsuit as well as put the university potentially on the hook with an employee not following the published policy in personnel matters.
And what if the report that Coach Paterno did hear was just the rantings of another member of staff looking to discredit the heir apparent? This is still a country where innoccence is presumed until proven guilty, last time I checked, even if it does involve the good of the children.
A person's life and reputation would have been scuttled in the media eye due to false accusations, the university & program would have been given a black eye in the media for acting on false accusations, and Coach Paterno still would have been out of a job.
There was no winning strategy in such a scenario. This was damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Santa,
ReplyDeleteThere are distinctions among criminal guilt, civil liability, and public ethics.
We ought not skew these perspectives to either inordinately enhance or diminish any of them.
You do that by saying "Mr. Paterno's job was not to investigate the matter that he did not eyewitness."
That is because as Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
A "job" does not magically evaporate what is required of decent, law abiding people.
Paterno is not criminally liable because he committed no crime by seeing as little evil, hearing as little evil, and speaking as little evil as he could.
But he helped the university toward the demise of its reputation and enhanced the potential for civil liability in lawsuits that are sure to develop.
And as to public ethics, Paterno should have removed the assistant coach who saw it happen, because that man did not at once summons the football team members or managers within earshot to advance upon the perpetrator to kick his ass in the shower room while waiting for the police to arrive.
Thereafter, all others who did not witness that event could presume the accused innocent until proven guilty.
There is more honor in the prisons where the puke child abuser is going, than there is in all the university's elites.
The puke child abuser will likely not live to complete the sentence, like some judges near there in Pennsylvania who were sentenced to 28 years in prison for being paid under the table to sentence undeserving nice looking teenagers to privatized prisons so their co-criminals could soak the state they all feigned service to.
Santa man, have you no scruples? Fix your Penn State of mind!