Michael Vick
I'm assuming that you all have been following this case. If the charges against him are true, and it's still an if, he is one royally stupid guy. I hope it's not true. Today he pleaded not guilty and he has hired a defense team to prove so in court.
The Feds are coming....
The Federal authorities announced that Vick has a "Superceding Indictment" filed against him. This basically means that the authorities have the power to keep adding charges in their case against him and, according to at least one legal expert, most likely mens that the authorities have gotten someone to cooperate against Vick in return for dropping the charges brought against them.
In addition to the superceding indictment against Vick, the authorities have an 18 page document filled with the charges against Vick as it stands. According to documents submitted by the authorities, the Feds have been building a case against Vick for 6 years and over 5 states. Now, if Vick is innocent, the Feds have put in an awful amount of work for this to at least seem he's guilty. I mean, the authorities don't usually put in this much work and wait years to arrest someone unless they're preparing to bring down someone who is at the top of a family or something along those lines. It would be hard to believe that he is completely innocent of the charges brought against him.
The court of public opinion...
I want to make something perfectly clear: I personally believe that dog fighting is disgusting. Period. I think it's barbaric and cruel to animals. Psychologists will tell you that serial killers and people sociopaths are usually very cruel to animals growing up. It's not exactly the same as taking a human beings life, but there are some parallels that can be drawn. Among the actions that Vick allegedly took place in are electrocuting, drowning and hanging dogs if they were injured badly during fights and even if the dog was just not, "living up to expectations" as a fighter. Really, really awful stuff.
I also know full well that besides that, this was an illegal gambling ring and all that basically means is that the government can't collect taxes from it. Having said all that, for the court of public opinion - good "old fashioned" Americans - to be appalled by his alleged actions is obscene. As I said in response to Dre and Is the other day, this country is filled with hypocrites. This country's track record has proven that we can't even treat human beings humanely let alone animals. Now by saying that I'm not saying that should be let Vick off the hook, I'm just saying that this country needs to look at itself in the mirror before it starts screaming from the rooftops that Vick is an awful human being or a monster.
Dre attested that he knew someone that was arrested for cock fighting...and then he pulled his pants up. Sorry. Kidding. The federal authorities are going hard after Vick for this and, to me, it just seems unwarranted. I mean, it's dog fighting. DOG fighting. You know, dogs? This wasn't a multi-million dollar ripping off of the American people or the way our government responded to Hurricane Katrina where we showed again how humane we are to other human beings. If Vick did this, he should be found guilty. I just think this is yet another news story to divert us from what's really bad in this country. It's DOG fighting.
12 comments:
I would ask you to contain your homo-erotic fantasies of me to the confines of your own perverted mind, but that would be like asking Richard Simmons to be with a woman. So keep the cock jokes to yourself and stop being a dick (pun intended).
speaking of dick... you are contradicting yourself. You spend a paragraph on how you are appalled by the inhumane aspects of dog fighting, then go on to minimize the seriousness of the situation because its "DOG fighting. You know, dogs?". You make valid points about the psychological connections between animal cruelty and murdering socio-paths only to invalidate your statements the same way I'm sure many dog fighters justify what they do. Sure we live in a cruel world, sure humans are the most inhumane of all animal species, sure the government's response to Katrina was all messed up, but why does that make this unwarranted? This is a public figure, a celebrity, who is making millions off of people who buy his jerseys, sneakers, tickets to his games, etc... A person who the feds have been building a case on for 6 YEARS! 6 YEARS! You said it yourself, the feds don't spend that kind of time building if its small potatoes.
Now sure, we cannot condemn the man if he is found innocent. And in this day and age of talk radio and media frenzy, the public is quick to find people guilty until proven innocent ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16327270/ ), but this isn't a case of a woman saying Vick raped her and its her word against his. This is a federal crackdown on a 6 year case over 5 states against a prominent sports figure. Opinions are Luis', everyone's got one (ok.. last one). And everyone will state theirs, whether its from the rooftops or on blogs, or on ESPN radio, and everyone is entitled to theirs. So I agree that this is just something else to divert us from giving attention to the real problems in this country and on a larger scale, the world. But let's not fool ourselves. SPORTS is one of the biggest forms of propaganda to get our minds off the real problems of this world. SPORTS is one of the ways the "man" keeps the rich wealthy and the poor in their place. And we are ALL guilty of falling for it. We are trained from birth to sit on Sunday afternoon and watch seven hours of football, or baseball or the sport du jour instead of devising a way to stop global warming or treat each other the right way. people spend thousands on sneakers and jerseys, but would not think once about donating 50 bucks to a charity or research.
In 2004, the ATTORNEY GENERAL of our country announced an indictment against four men and started the whole "steroid" controversy in baseball. And to this day, I hear more debate about whether athletes are juicing than if we should continue to allow thousands of American soldiers to die in a war that was well underway back in 2004. 204 people were killed and 1,400 injured when four Spanish trains were bombed by terrorists in March of 2004, Ashcroft made his steroid announcement a month earlier.
Dogs are pack animals that work together to provide for the pack. We could learn a thing or to from them.
http://www.workingpitbull.com/dogfighting2.htm
It seems from your comments the other day that you already have convicted Vick. You stated that hes going to "wiggle" his way out of these charges. We don't know if he did it. Considering our governments track record of late, they could definitely be wrong. I think thats an understatement for sure.
I don't think I contradicted myself when all I did was state my opinion that I don't condone dog fighting. I also don't condone cheering for the Red Sox. It doesn't mean that I think we should be allowed to lock them up either.
When you were incensed that people didn't agree that the Roots should be on our list of top 10 most influential hip hop artists of the last 20 years, that was only your opinion. It did not mean that other people didn't know what they were talking about or didn't know enough about music. All it meant was that they didn't share the same opinion as you.
I concluded by stating I didn't think that this case merited the time and money that was probably used to bring this case to light. Period. I can believe both and those two beliefs don't contradict one another. Is shop lifting a crime? Yes. Do I think that the FBI or police should follow Joe Smith for 3 years and spend about a couple million dollars to nab him? No.
Sports wouldn't qualify as propaganda per se, but it would qualify as a diversion.
P.S.
I think the feds involvement in this case is not simply the cruelty aspect but, as you alluded to, the tax-free money being exchanged. Maybe it wasn't a "multi-million dollar ripping off of the American people" (which if he is found guilty, then given his product endorsements, in a sense it was) but it wasn't just your local thugs fighting their pits in the park.
This is an excerpt from a larger article that can be found here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2884063
"He's a pit bull fighter," the source said of Vick. "He's one of the ones that they call 'the big boys': that's who bets a large dollar. And they have the money to bet large money. As I'm talking about large money -- $30,000 to $40,000 -- even higher. He's one of the heavyweights."
On April 25, authorities raided a house in Surry County, Va., owned by Vick and reportedly found -- among other things -- 66 dogs (most of which were pit bulls), a dog-fighting pit, bloodstained carpets and equipment commonly associated with dogfighting.
This trial will be very interesting. History has shown that high-profile people, such as athletes and actors, always find a way to get out of these kinds of jams, but here you may have a lot of smaller pawns ratting out the "big dog" to save their asses. Time will tell.
30-40,000 dollars on an undetermined amount of individual dog fights over a six year period is a little different than Joe Smith stealing watches from Target for three years.
And I'm not convicting anyone. And I said in my response that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I'm simply stunned with disbelief at the dismissive feelings toward an operation that, as you agree, is disgusting and inhumane. An operation that makes these sick individuals who bet on animals a lot of money. Be that lot of money thousands, millions or even hundreds, its still disgusting. You say in your post that you think people being appalled by his alleged actions is "obscene" because of the injustices of our government. Is that not you doing the same thing you are accusing me of in regard to people's opinions?
Regardless of whether Vick is guilty or innocent of the charges, he owns property where dog fighting has taken place. Whether you know about it or not, your name is on that deed and that makes you responsible for the individuals you allow to operate in that place. If you had NO IDEA that for six years this operation was taking place, you are still responsible.
I gotta say, I've always had issues with the idea of pets. If some 20ft aliens from another planet came to earth and took us as pets I think most of us would be very upset (if they all looked like Sofia Vergara less so, but still a little upset). But to take animals and condition them through the use of cruelty, starvation, eletrocution, among other despicable things crosses a line that you can't excuse.
At this point I feel like Vick's punishment will be a matter of how much they can directly tie to him and how much he will be willing to plead to. The NFL will(I'm being hopeful) determine some of that by eventually issuing a policy that determines whether athletes can return to the NFL after being convicted (whether a plea or not) of felonies or other moral crimes. Pacman Jones and Ricky Williams are already feeling the economic cost of their actions off the field. He'll plea to more if he knows he can get a lesser sentence and return than he would to if he knew he may be banned-then the money starts flowing into lawyer's pockets. Or he may just hit someone off to take the rap, confess to most of the greater charges and pretend he was taken advantage of by people who he trusted. Scenario: You take care of Vick's dogs for $250 a week in a rural part of Virginia-would you take the rap for a quarter mil? The answer is hell yes.
In any case it's just stupid for someone making that much money legitametly to risk what he has for something so meaningless (i.e. "my dog beat your dog and I won $40K off you").
The NFL/NCAA would do well to provide special courses for student athletes and rookies that speak to short-term and long-term economic planning, how to identify and get rid of bad influences around you, among others.
By the way, Feds love building cases around celebrity figures-it makes them look like like they are doing something. If this same case, same charges, same violations, did not involve Michael Vick we would not be discussing it. Six years is plenty of time to make sure everything leads back to the celebrity.
Agreed. The Feds want to look like they're working hard and what better way to display it than to get Vick on TV.
I think you're right about him paying someone off though, unless there really are mountains of evidence pointing to Vick. We'll see. This may become almost as big as the whole OJ trial circus. One thing holding back this trial from becoming that big is Vick's attorney. His attorney, Billy Martin, doesn't rhyme as much as Cochrane did. It may not be sexy enough to capture the hearts and minds of freedom lovers everywhere.
Maybe he can kick dirt on the judge's shoes and people will think it's the other Billy Martin.
Yeah, the feds like going after celebrities cause of the exposure, but I could also be the fact that celebrities have a lot of money and time on their hands and some are too stupid to let old habits die when blessed with celebrity status and money. The one thing we all agree with on this issue is that Vick was stupid. I don't fault the feds for making a big scandal of this. It should be. whether they like it or not, athletes are in the public eye and they are role models for thousands of kids who are looking to be them in the future. they are perceived and depicted as "superstars", "heroes", "warriors", and other media-based titles that they are NOT, while the feds are generally looked at as oppressive minions of a corrupt govt. going after athletes in order to get their faces on television. REALLY?!?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RjtVnqZCndo
I think Vick is a "superstar" because if you look at what a professional athlete must do during the course of a season I do believe they are special people who work hard to achieve what seem at times, to most people, seemingly impossible feats. In addition, while media can overexpose us to someone and market their "specialness" we sometimes choose not to accept them via the media mainstream; I'll choose an easy example like Taylor Hicks.
The titles of hero and warrior are more subjective as far as I'm concerned and should be applied sparingly and with great care at the public level.
In any case, you are correct about the stupidity these folk demonstrate.
ignore that chick she is just trying to sell something.
Post a Comment