THE PERSECUTION OF MISS MARTHA
What The Martha Stewart Case Means … Why the
GOV goes after a popular celebrity. By Harry Browne
The Martha Stewart guilty
verdict is more than troubling. It is an outrage. The very
case itself typifies today’s government - an entity that is
free to intrude in any area of your life, free to make up
the rules as it goes along, free to allow prosecutors to
make names for themselves in high-profile cases without
facing any personal consequences, no matter what harm they
do. And selecting celebrities so that the impact on the
average citizen is painful and scary. It is a kind of scare
tactic to keep people in line.
Let me make it clear that I
don’t know Martha Stewart, I’ve never seen her TV show, and
I’ve never read any of her books or magazines. I don’t know
what kind of person she is, and I don’t care. But I care
deeply about the kind of country America has turned into -
one in which there is no firm rule of law and anyone can be
prosecuted at any time for any kind of offense that the
government wants to invent.
No Crime Was Committed; NO ONE WAS HURT.
Before
you try to tell me Martha Stewart was proven guilty, I must
first ask, “Guilty of what?”
Whom
has she harmed? What is she supposed to have done that
warrants sending her to prison?
The entire case arose because
the prosecutor claims that she sold her
ImClone stock on an “inside” tip when her broker told her
that the head of ImClone was selling his stock.
So what????
What if she did act on inside information?
Is
that any more unfair than some investor having a bigger
computer than you have? Or having enough money to subscribe to
more investment tip sheets than you do? Or being smarter than
you are?
Since
when it is a crime in America to use your wits, your
knowledge, your talents, and - yes - your contacts to make
money?
Although everyone in the courtroom
for the Stewart trial - and everyone talking about it on
television - assumes that there is something evil about
so-called insider trading, the truth is that it is a
victimless crime.
There is no victim - no one who was
hurt by the actions of someone buying or selling on inside
information. Maybe it seems obvious to you that an insider
can’t profit without someone else being hurt, but that
simply isn’t the case. When Martha Stewart was indicted last
year, I explained in Part I why “insider trading” is a crime
without a victim.
And since there’s no victim, “insider
trading” is really a crime against the state - and only the
state - like using recreational drugs or doing business with
someone in a way that pleases all participants but
displeases some politician or bureaucratic idiot who has no
idea what he’s doing.
And speaking of not knowing what he’s
doing, juror Chappell Hartridge remarked proudly on
television that the Stewart guilty verdict sends a message
that the investment markets will be safer for the little
investor. He said, “Maybe it’s a victory for the little guys
who lose money in the market because of these kinds of
transactions.”
He hasn’t the faintest idea
how the investment markets work (and neither, apparently,
did anyone else in the courtroom), but he holds the life of
Martha Stewart in his hands.
Is Lying
a Crime?
The
prosecution also charged Martha Stewart with lying to
government investigators.
Again,
so what????
Just
imagine for a moment how you would feel if you discovered
that the United States Government had suddenly decided to
use millions of dollars of its resources to prosecute you
for something.
Most
likely, you’d be scared to death. Imagine: you’re likely to
be put in prison for several years, lose your life savings,
be separated from your family, lose your career. Your whole
life would crumble.
In this situation, barely able to keep your
emotions in check, if you saw a chance to beat the rap by
telling a lie or doctoring some evidence, you’d have a huge
incentive to do so - even if you were innocent.
Doing anything you can to get the
investigators off your back is a perfectly natural act. But
now it’s a crime. And the prosecutor in the Martha Stewart
case smugly tells the world that the guilty verdict “sends a
message” that lying to government employees will get you
prison time.
(I wish these guys would put their messages in
bottles and drop them in the ocean. I’m tired of hearing
them.)
Of course, when government employees lie to
you, they get promotions.Conspiracy? Another charge was that
of “conspiracy.” Conspiracy to do what? Conspiracy to do
what the other charges were. The whole concept of conspiracy
crimes makes no sense. If you rob someone of $1,000, you’re
guilty of robbery. If you and I together rob that person of
$1,000, we’re both guilty of robbery - but the victim is no
worse off than if you had done the job by yourself.
But in today’s Alice-in-Wonderland
legal system, we are not just guilty of robbery, we’re also
guilty of conspiring to rob - because we’re so inept it took
two of us to do the job. (This may sound like a Polack joke,
but it’s serious business.) Anyway, Martha is of Polish
stock.
Three
Charges
So
Martha Stewart was indicted on three different meaningless
concepts:
(1) selling
some stock because someone told her an insider was selling,
(2)
lying to investigators,
(3) conspiring with someone else to lie to
investigators.
To
defend herself, Martha Stewart claimed the stock was sold
because of a previously entered stop-loss order - an
instruction to her broker to sell the stock whenever it fell
to $60.
The
general response to Stewart’s claim was a collective
horselaugh.
The jury decided that she wasn’t
telling the truth - that she had lied when she told the
government investigators about the stop-loss.
I have no idea whether Martha
Stewart’s claim is true. Neither do you, neither do the
jurors, neither does the judge, and neither do the
prosecutors. Which means, without any hard evidence that she
lied, the jurors can’t possibly say they know she’s guilty
“beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Anyone can suspect that he knows what
happened. But a lot of innocent people have gone to prison
on such suspicions.
The whole case came down to the
testimony of Douglas Faneuil, a broker’s assistant who
claims that his boss told him to call Martha Stewart and
tell her the head of ImClone was selling, and she should
sell, too.
Apparently lost in all this
is the fact that Douglas Faneuil originally said there was a
stop-loss order and neither Martha Stewart or Faneuil’s
boss, Peter Bacanovic, did anything wrong.
What
caused him to change his story?
The
government charged him with being a participant in this
venal conspiracy.
Not
surprisingly, Faneuil decided to change his story. And,
again not surprisingly, the charges against Faneuil were
dropped.
So the main thrust of the case against Martha
Stewart rested on the testimony of a man who changed his
story in order to free himself from the wrath of the United
States Government.
It’s interesting that none of the news reports
I read or heard after the guilty verdict mentioned that star
witness Faneuil had traded his testimony for his freedom.
Modern
America
So
here we are in modern America - a place where anyone can be
charged with anything. And if there’s no law against what
you’ve done, the prosecutor can call it “conspiracy,”
“obstruction of justice,” or “lying to investigators”
because you claimed to be innocent.
Aside
from Saddam Hussein, the Devil of the Day right now is the
corporate executive. Many of these businessmen have been
playing by the very rules set down by the government. But
those rules aren’t rules of law; they’re rules of men, and
they can be changed at a moment’s notice.
While TV commentators “tsk, tsk”
about the heinous acts supposedly committed by corporate
executives, while George W. Bush reminds us periodically
that CEOs have been “cooking the books,” the truth is that
neither George Bush, the TV commentators, you, nor I have
the faintest idea how the books were kept or how they should
have been kept. All we know are the stories that
self-serving government employees have fed to us.
For example, I heard Fox commentator
Bill O’Reilly say that Dennis Kozlowski (of the Tyco case)
should get 20 years in prison. But all Bill O’Reilly knows
about the case is what the government has told the press and
the TV networks.
( Neill’s Comment: My brother loves
this guy O’Reilly and his so called “No Spin Zone” . I have
watched him when visiting and find him incredibly shallow
and obnoxious. He studiously avoids the real news hot
spots—i.e. Business as usual in the News Whore Media . )
Prosecutors make names for themselves
by indicting high-profile people and by padding their
conviction records. The latter is easy to do. All that’s
required is to indict someone for a dozen crimes and then
offer to drop two thirds of the charges if the defendant
will plead guilty to the remaining charges.
You may not be aware that hero de
jour Rudolf Giuliani first made a name for himself
this way as a U.S. attorney in the 1970s and 1980s -
prosecuting so-called “white collar crime.” Today numerous
other government employees are feeding off celebrities and
ordinary people like you and me.
Anyone can be grist for a
prosecutor’s conviction record. The Drug War has provided a
bonanza for U.S. attorneys. Getting a conviction on drug
charges is a slam-dunk. The defendant doesn’t have to have
dealt drugs or even to have used them. Just charge him,
scare him to death, and get him to plead guilty to a lesser
charge. Or promise someone a lighter sentence if he’ll name
other people (with no concern for the guilt or innocence of
the other people).
The November Coalition has
documented scores of these cases. For one example, look
what happened to Debbie Vineyard. Here are some more
examples.
Outrage
Yes, I’m outraged by the Martha Stewart case.
She probably will go to prison - on invented charges and
suspect evidence. Her corporation’s value will shrink to a
tenth of what it was, the employees will be fired, all so
the courts can make her a whipping boy.
Is
there anything to be learned by all this?
Yes.
What you know about these cases is only what the government
claims. Just as with Iraq, everything we think we know
actually originates with some government employee - leaking
the “truth” to people in the press, who dutifully report
these planted claims as facts.
This
is why the Founding Fathers were determined that the federal
government would have nothing to do with such matters as
business dealings. They knew that government officials -
armed with threats of fines and imprisonment - would
inevitably abuse such powers.
Thomas Jefferson wanted America to be
an agrarian society, but he didn’t use the power of his
office to aid farmers at the expense of commercial
interests. He knew that politicians must be bound down by
“the chains of the Constitution,” as he put it.
Today, however, the guns of the
government are available to force you and me to conduct our
lives in whatever way such paragons of virtue as George Bush
or John Kerry want us to live.
It seems that nothing is a matter of
persuasion anymore. Everything is a criminal matter -
subject to fines and imprisonment.
Whatever isn’t compulsory is
prohibited.
Our 'POSTER-BLOGGER' is ANITA SANDS HERNANDEZ, Los Angeles Writer, Progressive activist, Conspiracy Researcher, mother of 4, grandmother of 6, also a career Astrologer. Catch up with her websites TRUTHS GOV WILL HIDE & NEVER TELL YOU, also The FUTURE, WHAT'S COMIN' AT YA! FRUGAL LIFE STYLE TIPS, HOW TO SURVIVE the COMING GREAT DEPRESSION, and Secrets of Nature, HOLISTIC, AFFORDABLE HEALING. Also ARTISANRY FOR EXPORT, EARN EUROS...* Anita is at astrology@earthlink.net ). Get a 35$ natal horoscope "my money/future life" reading now + copy horoscope as a Gif file graphic! No smarter DESTINY reading out there.
<====BACK TO THE OLIGARCH EMPIRE ARCHIVE
<=== BACK TO SECRETS THE GOV DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW
<==== BACK TO THE WALL STREET MELTDOWN WEBSITE, WHO DUNNIT? WHY?
<=== SHOW ME THE FIX INDEX PAGE.
<== SHOW ME THE HAPPY R)EVOLUTION PAGE
<=== BACK TO "GUERILLA CAPITALISM" God's answer to POVERTY and Taxation
<=== BACK TO SCREEN WRITING, NOVEL WRITING, the BIG $$, Anita's SHOW BIZ INDEX
<====BACK TO IMPORT/EXPORT BIZ, TRAVEL THE WORLD = ARTISANS, MAKE $$
<==== BACK TO THE "VITAL SIGNS OF A DYING ECONOMY" the "FUTURE" WEBPAGE
<=== BACK TO ENRON PLANET, the DOOMSDAY SCENARIO that started it all
<====BACK TO THE HOLISTIC GOURMET, BON MARCHE
<=== BACK TO THE GLEENERS PAGE
<=== BACK TO THE FRUGAL INDEX PAGE
<== BACK TO THE FUTURE INDEX PAGE
<=== BACK TO THE GENTLEMAN FARMER'S GARDEN INDEX
<=== INVESTIGATE DOING DRIP IRRIGATE- LINES -- big earnings, Learn in l hr at Home Depot
<=== BACK TO ACTIVISM IS A DELIGHT & CREATES CAREERS as well as PLANETARY EVOLUTION
<=== BACK TO THE MALTHUSIAN NEUROSIS PAGE
<===BACK TO THE PHILOSOPHY INDEX PAGE
<=== BACK TO THE LUCK IN LOVE WEBSITE, HOW TO MARRY WELL!
<== BACK TO THE PROPAGANDA STUDIES WEBSITE, HOW GOV LIES TO YOU
<=== BACK TO ALL POINTS OF THE COMPASS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY reflects our HEAD TRIPS. A TUTORIAL
<=== BACK TO JERRY'S REFRIGERATOR & the Tin Foil Hat Collection of CONSPIRACY THEORIES!
<=== BACK TO TRACKING THE ECONOMY, an INDEX PAGE
<===BACK TO MONEY SECRETS ONLY THE EXPERTS KNOW
<====BACK TO THE FREE MONEY WEBSITE
<==== BACK TO THE HARD TIMES WEBSITE
<===== BACK TO THE POVERTY INDEX PAGE
<==== BACK TO THE "TIPS to SURVIVE THE FUTURE" INDEX PAGE
BACK TO THE "FIX YOUR FLAGGING AMBITION" SEMINAR
<===== BACK TO REJUVENATION 101 (POSTPONING DEATH, AGING, ILLNESS)
<===== BACK TO THE PORTAL to 7,000 CLASSROOMS, REPUBLISH FREE, GET AD REVENUE AT YOUR BLOG
<====
BACK
TO THE CLEAN HOUSE INDEX PAGE