Every Monday, this blog will focus on, not the flight of the bumble bee, but the plight of the whistleblower, the "private attorney general" superhero who is supposed to risk either his life, job, home, or his friends so that he can "do the right thing" and snitch out those criminals who have placed their trust in him, or who have been unfortunate enough to have their bad behavior witnessed by him. He is supposed to fight for justice and speak up, and suffer the consequences without complaint, lest he be kicked further by being called "bitter" or a "hater" by those who need to marginalize him because it is too difficult to pitch in.
The "don't snitch" campaign that began in the ghetto, by which residents no longer cooperate with police, even in cases where children are murdered, has led to a huge increase in unsolved murders and other crimes, calling for police to implore the public to speak up. The public, rightly so, refuses, for once someone is identified as a snitch, there is literally no turning back, and they will never be trusted again. Even if they seek no rewards, they will bring untold suffering on themselves, while little or nothing will change in an era where even the Democrats are more concerned with who is winning the fundraising race than who is doing the right thing.
In a way, the ghetto is catching up to the workplace, becuase workers have known for decades that whistleblowing is tantamount to career suicide. Even in cases where their need is obvious, such as the Enron scandal, literally every such story has the tale of one or a few whistleblowers who tried to stop the carnage and protect the public, only to wind up unemployed, blacklisted, and homeless, which puts them at increased risk for everything up to and including disease and death, due to poor survival resources. This plays into the hands of the criminals, who can simply let nature do what would be illegal for them to do themselves. As Ghandi warned, the "silence of our friends" inflicts the most damage of all, as many "good" people either stand down in the face of retailation against a whistleblower, or take active steps to harm them by refusing to hire them as well, not wanting to take a chance on even hiring a known snitch.
With an environment such as this, it is no surprise that don't-snitch has caught on. Human beings have too strong a self-preservation instinct for it not to.
Ray Gordon is an internet publisher and write-in candidate for every open office in the United States. Whistleblower Cental appears every Monday.
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