Versus Nurture
Available February 2012

The Best Sniper Ever
Available February 2012

WEEKLY COLUMN:
JDM vs the WORLD

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FINE PRINT

Attention Kmart shoppers: Would Martha Stewart please report to the lifestyle aisle? Martha Stewart please report to the lifestyle aisle. Thank you.

That’s right, it’s time for Martha Stewart to clean up her mess, time for this Kmart Queen to do her job as a million-dollar homemaker and sleep in the bed she’s made—the bed in which she presumably slept beside the stock-swindling scoundrels that brought down a company known as ImClone.

Months ago, you see, on the eve of the FDA’s then-forthcoming rejection of ImClone’s controversial cancer drug, Martha Stewart just so happened to sell off her stock in the company, and just so happened to save herself a hefty fortune from a company that just so happened to tank on Wall Street shortly thereafter. It’s all a coincidence, of course, or it is if you ask Martha Stewart.

And if you ask Martha Stewart, she’ll tell you that any investigation into this blatant biopharmaceutical stock fraud is part of a rightwing conspiracy designed to bring her down.

Must be the same rightwing conspiracy Hillary Clinton spoke of when her husband Bill was caught with his pants down back in ‘98. Must be the same rightwing conspiracy that prompted then-President Bill to angrily declare, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” and the same rightwing conspiracy that mere months later prompted him to say, “Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate.”

Those were Bill’s words, by the way. Not mine. Not the vast rightwing conspiracy’s.

But this is the kind of responsibility shirking that we, the people, have come to expect—and sadly accept—from the likes of Martha Stewart, Bill and Hillary, and the rest of the rich and powerful.

Take a look at Michael Jackson, for example. His latest effort, Invincible, was an adequate but altogether average album. By many accounts, it was a testament to the advancing age and declining musicality of a man who can rightfully call himself one of the two or three most talented, most accomplished music-professionals in American history. And when it flopped? The Gloved One came unglued, blaming Sony Music’s Tommy Mottola for purposely scaling back the record’s promotional push, actions that Jackson claimed were racial in motive.

Mind you, Jackson’s comments came to the astonished dismay of those surrounding him on the dais at the time, including none other than the fiery Rev. Al Sharpton, a man who’s hardly unaccustomed to playing the race card. That’s because Jackson’s comments were largely ludicrous and anyone in their right mind knew it.

For starters, if Tommy Mottola is anything like the rest of the music industry, there’s a slim chance he’s a racist. After all, outside of boy bands and the occasional Britney Spears knockoff, African-Americans have just about ruled the Billboard charts over the course of the last decade. And the fact of the matter is, record execs will exploit pretty much anyone and everyone—nation of origin, skin color or religion be damned.

The second thing to keep in mind here is that, while Invincible may have flopped by Michael Jackson standards, it still flopped to the tune of two million units sold. That’s multi-platinum, okay?

The rest of us should flop so well.

But this is just another example of the pass-the-blame behavior that’s permeated our cultural commonsense.

Nowhere do you see this more than in today’s courtroom. The O.J. Simpson verdict virtually defiled the entire legal system. Hardly anyone believes in justice anymore and who could blame them? Simpson’s celebrity afforded him the best damned lawyers—or is it liars?—that money could buy. Johnnie Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense squad went on to commit a terrible travesty; they turned the trial into a three-ring circus of silly rhymes and racist accusations when, in fact, it was supposed to be about a stomach-churning double murder.

In a way, Cochran’s vile twisting of the truth became a turning point. Avoiding accountability has since become something of a spectator sport in America, and, in true follow-the-leader fashion, the slew of spectators that witnessed Cochran’s bad example have joined the fray.

Here’s a for-instance for you: Though it ended in a much more sensible manner, the recent trial of David Westerfield was, indeed, somewhat similar to the Simpson fiasco.

Westerfield was the San Diego man accused of murdering his 7-year old neighbor, Danielle Van Dam, this past February. And in spite of the fact that the little girl’s blood was found on Westerfield’s clothes and in his home, his lawyers painted a picture of the Family Van Dam as irresponsible, drug-addicted partygoers, essentially calling them unfit parents in the process. But after almost two weeks of deliberations earlier this month, the jury finally—fortunately—elected to convict him.

Now, the question is: What the Hell did her mom and dad’s alleged drug habits have to do with the fact that Danielle Van Dam was murdered? One thing has nothing to do with the other. Her blood was found in Westerfield’s home, all right? Not her parents’ home, not the rightwing conspiracy’s home but Westerfield’s home and his home alone.

His lawyers did what they could to stave off conviction, and, to that end, they did their job. They also did a disservice to the community by trying to set an obvious child murderer free. But hey, can we fault them for trying? If Cochran & Co. got away with it in Judge Ito’s courtroom, were Westerfield’s lawyers wrong for trying to do the same? Well, of course they were wrong. But in a society too often blind to proof and charmed by snake-like lines of defense, you’d never know it.

Is this what it’s come to, America?

Don’t we deserve better than this?

Here, it’s no longer about owning up to one’s errors. It’s no longer about preserving what’s right or reasonable. It’s about avoiding accountability at all costs. It’s about achieving the American dream by making the lives of others a nightmare.

If it’s not a courtroom thing, it’s a corporate thing. If it’s not a corporate thing, it’s just about anything else.

It’s Martha Stewart accusing others for reviewing the shady stock trades that she made. It’s Hillary Clinton accusing others for reviewing the perjury that her husband committed. It’s Michael Jackson accusing Sony Music of racism when his last record was said to have sucked. It’s Ken Lay’s wife crying poverty on the morning shows when her husband brought Enron to its billion-dollar knees.

It’s madness, that’s what it is. It’s got to stop.

You know, back when the knuckleheads down in Florida were choking to death on hanging chads, it was suggested—again and again till your ears bled—that the 2000 presidential election proved Americans were a people divided. To a much different extent, I agree.

It’s not that Americans are split by Republicans and Democrats, or conservatives and liberals, and it’s not that there’s a rift between black and white, gay and straight, tall and short, or fat and skinny. In truth, America is split between those that suck it up and suffer the consequences of their actions and those that weasel their way out of blame for their own lies and crimes.

From the headlines, one might safely assume that the former is losing ground most everyday. Theirs isn’t a battle of right and wrong, though. Theirs is a battle for peace of mind.

Perhaps Bill Clinton said it best when he admitted to those infamously inappropriate sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. He said, and I quote: “It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.”

That’s the spirit, Bill, and, if you ask me, you’re already one-up on Martha Stewart.

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