On the rise and fall of Martha Stewart

[JoeKSimmons]

The thinking and humane observer of American life will take no particular glee in the downfall of Martha Stewart, the American businesswoman and multi-media advisor on everything for the home and garden. Her conviction March 5 on four charges of lying to the government, conspiracy and obstruction of justice over a stock transaction in December 2001 will probably earn her a short prison term and may very well bring about the dismantling of her media empire (books, television program, magazines), once worth more than one billion dollars.
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As for lying to the FBI, under certain conditions such an action would not only be meritorious, but obligatory. The federal police agency, under the direction of that arch-enemy of democracy, J. Edgar Hoover, and his successors, has an unbroken record of provocations, illegal spying, frame-ups, anticommunist witch-hunting and outright murder (in the case of the assassinations of leading Black Panther leaders in the late 1960s).
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In his brilliant The Soul of Man Under Socialism, Oscar Wilde took note of the fact that the system of “Private Property” had a crushing effect on those it financially rewarded. He observed that “The industry necessary for the making of money is also very demoralising.” Wilde continued: “One’s regret is that society should be constructed on such a basis that man has been forced into a groove in which he cannot freely develop what is wonderful, and fascinating, and delightful in him—in which, in fact, he misses the true pleasure and joy of living. He is also, under existing conditions, very insecure. An enormously wealthy merchant may be—often is—at every moment of his life at the mercy of things that are not under his control. If the wind blows an extra point or so, or the weather suddenly changes, or some trivial thing happens, his ship may go down, his speculations may go wrong, and he finds himself a poor man, with his social position quite gone.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/stew-m12.shtml