I've absolutely despised Plain Dealer "columnist" Phillip Morris, as a "writer" and inhuman, since he attempted to send my friend Kieth's son to the electric chair by branding him a "hate" criminal [1]. Morris is an irresponsible psychopath.
psychosis (sī-kō'sĭs)
A mental state caused by psychiatric or organic illness, characterized by a loss of contact with reality and an inability to think rationally. A psychotic person often behaves inappropriately and is incapable of normal social functioning.
I hate Morris even more now that I know he was one of the "journalists" who helped friend-only-to-the-rich former Mayor Mike White and his partner in crime Dick Jacobs get out of jail free for all the crimes they committed together here - Morris still celebrates hisself for celebrating the corruption of that day... recounting when scumbag friend of all corrupt scumbags in town Nate Grey "didn't snitch" on his scumbag political friends, all rooted around the evil Mike White... as Morris features in his latest contemptible column today - The silence of the good allowed the unfettered plunder of the bad: Phillip Morris [2] - offering a free guilt-if-not-jail-pass to more of Morris' scumbag friends in local politics and leadership today, asking "How did honest public officials (and there are many) sit silently (almost universally) while thieves raided the temple for so long?"
You see, this psychopath Morris doesn't understand that people who aid and abet crimes are criminals... not honest people. Lacking that basic ethical and legal understanding, Morris causes this community great harm... and has for decades. As Morris writes...
I recently recalled the plight of Nate Gray, a former confidant of Mayor Michael R. White, who is serving a 16-year term for public corruption. I noted Gray's silence and refusal to turn state's evidence in return for a lesser sentence, compared with the plea-bargaining shenanigans of many of the people indicted in the county corruption sting.
I am not overly impressed with the plea-bargained prosecutions of many of the rats now lining up to sing the state's Hallelujah chorus. It allows them to walk easier. It allows future rats to calculate the relative cost and risk of graft. It compromises justice.
In the inverse, I said Gray, who was corrupt to the gills, was a thief who understood something about honor because he fell on the sword and refused to make the state's job easier by pointing fingers. That's why he will likely serve every day of the sentence he so richly deserved.
Some angrily challenged my characterization of Gray as a glorification of a no-snitch culture. I understand the merit of that argument, but disagree. Here's the way I see it.
If clean government is ever to return to Cuyahoga County, it must come at the behest of principled men and women who are willing to govern honestly and automatically turn states' evidence whenever corruption flares.
We need honorable public officials who are willing to be whistle blowers whenever they see proof of a crime, not rats who become state's evidence whenever their necks are on the line.
Sorry, but there are no "guiltless who chose to remain silent."
Like if a person knows of a rape and doesn't report that they are guilty of a crime.
Morris should know that, as he is covering the Sowell serial rapes and murders involving a relative of Mayor Frank Jackson, in Mount Pleasant, and if the Mayor's relative knew crimes were committed at the rape and murder scene she is guilty of crimes. If people are protecting her, they are guilty of crimes.
If people are protecting any politicians or other community leaders here from prosecution for crimes related to the corruption here, even if just by remaining silent, they are guilty of crimes.
Got that Morris?
Get a new job.
The silence of the good allowed the unfettered plunder of the bad: Phillip Morris [2]
Published: Friday, September 17, 2010, 6:00 AM Updated: Friday, September 17, 2010, 6:18 AMIn his autobiography, "The Years Were Good [5]," Louis B. Seltzer, the legendary Cleveland Press editor, wrote the following:
"We reflect our times."
"If times are bad, we think they will be forever bad."
"If times are good, we think they will be forever good."
"Neither happens."
That was 1956 and Cleveland was thriving.
If Seltzer, a corruption-busting, king-making dynamo who once turned down an offer to succeed Robert A. Taft in the U.S. Senate because he refused to leave Cleveland, were alive in 2010, would he be so optimistic about our future?
Would he be willing to suggest that this current era of rampant disillusionment will soon pass?
This isn't rock bottom, but it's bad. In some ways, this is worse than the nightmare of Dec. 15, 1978, when Cleveland became the first city since the Great Depression to go into default. We are experiencing a different kind of default, a different kind of loss of faith.
Basic survival questions abound:
Who can we trust?
What can we believe in?
Who among us is principled?
Who among us is equipped with vision to lead us from this suffocating swamp into which we have so deeply descended?
As we watch some of our best known political figures arrested and carted off in chains or handcuffs, as we watch former community "leaders" turn states' evidence to lessen their punishment, weighty questions reverberate:
How much deeper does the corruption go?
How did honest public officials (and there are many) sit silently (almost universally) while thieves raided the temple for so long?
Why did the good turn a blind eye to the bad?
I think this latter question is one that must be addressed with urgency.
Was it the inevitable straitjacket of one-party rule?
Was it the lack of accountability and comfort that coalesces around those who have grown far too familiar?
Was it the lack of intense scrutiny that too often exists in lazy or one-newspaper towns?
If we don't address the complete failure of peer scrutiny and peer accountability, it makes little difference what form of government we transition to in the coming year. If we continue to accept a culture where our inside watchdogs don't bark and our outside sentries don't guard, corruption will quickly flourish again.
I recently recalled the plight of Nate Gray, a former confidant of Mayor Michael R. White, who is serving a 16-year term for public corruption. I noted Gray's silence and refusal to turn state's evidence in return for a lesser sentence, compared with the plea-bargaining shenanigans of many of the people indicted in the county corruption sting.
I am not overly impressed with the plea-bargained prosecutions of many of the rats now lining up to sing the state's Hallelujah chorus. It allows them to walk easier. It allows future rats to calculate the relative cost and risk of graft. It compromises justice.
In the inverse, I said Gray, who was corrupt to the gills, was a thief who understood something about honor because he fell on the sword and refused to make the state's job easier by pointing fingers. That's why he will likely serve every day of the sentence he so richly deserved.
Some angrily challenged my characterization of Gray as a glorification of a no-snitch culture. I understand the merit of that argument, but disagree. Here's the way I see it.
If clean government is ever to return to Cuyahoga County, it must come at the behest of principled men and women who are willing to govern honestly and automatically turn states' evidence whenever corruption flares.
We need honorable public officials who are willing to be whistle blowers whenever they see proof of a crime, not rats who become state's evidence whenever their necks are on the line.
We need a culture where the good are willing to challenge the bad regardless of party, ethnic or racial affiliations.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once famously said:
"Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we will also have to repent for the appalling silence of good people."
While we're busy carting people off to jail, this might be a good time for some countywide repenting on the part of the guiltless who chose to remain silent.
