Band-Aid for the Broken Brain

In case you haven't already heard, Martha Stewart was "found guilty of obstruction of justice and lying to the government." While I feel very little sympathy for someone who may very well have broken the law... give me a break. We are talking about a whole $250,000 worth of stock. There are hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their jobs because of unethical business practices by giant companies. Corporations have devastated our economy with their bogus accounting practices. And the best our government can do is slap a professional homemaker on the wrist? What about the real corporate criminals like Kenneth Lay of Enron, Jack Welch of GE (the primary financial backer to WorldCom), or even President George W. Bush- formerly of Harken Energy. For more info about our President's insider trading history click here. It seems that Martha is the sacrificial lamb of the recent corporate scandals. While most of the charges against her were dropped, any type of guilty verdict is devastating. I guess that is what happens when you are a woman without powerful political connections to protect you. Maybe that was a little exaggerated (Martha probably has plenty), but there are so many bigger fish to fry. Maybe when oil companies are not determining our foreign policy decisions (gas is $3 a gallon in California!!!), maybe when insurance companies provide adequate coverage without being ordered by courts, maybe when discrimination is not tolerated against any groups, maybe when our men and women aren't dying in another country protecting us from the illusion of WMD's, maybe when we have Supreme Court Judges that decide cases without wining and dining with the defendants, maybe when our public education system isn't being flushed down the toilet, maybe when we have a real President that can make real decisions that affect real people. Martha's guilt is just a damnation of this country. We could have real social change, but we will settle with made-for-tv dramatizations.