Saturday, April 13, 2013

Angels & Demons

Mrs. Gina Marie Clark (age 42, Marstons Mills, MA, USA), founder of Touched By Angels, is now on trial in Barnstable Superior Court. She's charged with 15 counts of larceny over $250, one count of larceny under $250, one count of larceny under $250, one count of gross fraud over $250, one count of operating an illegal lottery scheme, 10 counts of failing to pay minimum wage, two counts of failing to pay overtime, one count of failing to furnish suitable pay stubs, and one count of independent contractor misclassification.


Mrs. Clark worked with broken families that suddenly lost a loved one, and with the gravely ill. Using the family tragedy to generate local sympathy, she raised money for survivors and their crucial needs. She's under indictment for how she distributed the monies raised ("the split") and how she managed the charity operations. More about Touched by Angels (now defunct) is here (link); and also here. Here (link) is an Aug. 2010 interview with Gina Clark. Video interviews critical of Gina & her husband Chris Clark are here (or here at Vimeo).

It's claimed the Clark family "Angels" operations generated more pain than help. Justice will soon decide.

Well, that sounds good... But the bottom line is:
"Don't hold your breath waiting for Justice to arrive" 

It's unjust those families are in distress. It's unjust their friends are bled for money. It's not justice when innocent children die. The bottom line: we've chosen to justify a dog-eat-dog system where we're cruelly chomped by dirty dogs.

Many people in our communities are kind & honorable, helpful to their neighbors. (Surely Mrs. Clark has helped some people). But there's an abundance of desperation and unnecessary suffering. Weasels run the country. Cronyism & corruption are common. Unapologetic conquerors such as Dick Cheney are manipulative predators. Many more people & scummy organizations persist as opportunists & parasites, feeding on scraps of human misery.

Gina Clark is not an angel; neither is former NASDAQ boss & flim-flam weasel Bernie Madoff & Company. Defrauding the needy is vile & ghoulish. But we all suffer from more widespread ills: militarism, big bank deprivations, the infamous & illegal robo-signing, and other mega swindles. Far darker forces continue profiting from such frauds; remaining in the shadows and celebrating the troubles of small-scale grifters. Minor demons are a sideshow of distraction. Meanwhile, the worst devils continue to suck dry community energies & livelihood, polluting minds to ensure our continuing servitude. We envy the wealthy lifestyles of overabundance, though the excesses often leech from exploitation and victimization of neighbors. We support freedom of choice, but nobody chooses to be defrauded. What disincentives might minimize predatory behavior & discourage fraud?