http://ethi.cx/forty.html
For Forty Years...
Joe Paterno â praised college football coach and idol to hundreds of
thousands of people â continued in silence, allowing Jerry Sandusky to
nurture a mechanism that leveraged the Penn State football program to
prey on his victims, which totals 32 at the time of writing. Forty
years, Paterno continued the conspiracy of silence until his dying
days, disgraced in the eyes of the sane and a mistreated God to the
idol worshipers, sycophants and zealots. They rioted in the streets,
refused to listen to evidence, as more and more piled in daily. They
screamed and cursed the victims, media and anyone calling Paterno an
enabler.
In 2012 the famed Statue of Joe Paterno was taken down. After years of
fighting, Penn State football fans took it into their own hands and
made two replica statues: one to give to the Paterno family, the other
to take to Penn State football games. One of the fans who constructed
the statues commented, âWe are creators. We are not in politics. We
are not copsâthis is who we are.â
This kind of idol worship is terrifying, but very real.
The comparison to the Jerry Sandusky scandal and Jacob Appelbaum's may
be wild to some people, considering the formers grandiosity, however
the similarities are astounding. The predatory behavior exemplified by
both men is that of asserting themselves into places of power and
exploiting their positions to take advantage of those who admired them
or felt safe with. While the many people who have been hurt by Jake,
either physically, sexually, emotionally, or professionally are
ignored or even attacked by starry-eyed fans who believe their heroes
can do no wrong. The statue of ioerror was being built through the
myth of heroism in the face of tyranny and what better place to
provide more building material than the Tor Project.
It hasnât been forty years for the Tor Project, and Iâm glad that
under new management this issue was addressed and brought to light.
While personally knowing a handful of people he has stolen research
from or tried to squeeze his way into their research groups, I knew
his m.o. and warned anyone that even brought him up. For years. I had
no idea of the sexual abuse claims, but in retrospect it makes
complete sense. Some people remained silent, while others spoke out
and were quickly silenced by the "PROVE IT" brigade. For some people
it's not that easy. Proving it isn't the hard part, but reliving the
pain, shame, and loss is.
However terrible the alleged atrocities committed by Appelbaum, if
they ever all come to light, there will still be a large contingent of
naysayers, forever trying to pick up their fallen idol to some sort of
irredeemable glory. There is no government agenda to discredit him,
this isnât JTRIG or the NSA running a disinformation operation against
him, this is simply just a very bad person.
The conspiracy of silence is unravelling around Jake and luckily, it
hasnât been forty years.