Penn State Cult (Joe Knew)

[409fold]

Maybe you missed this but Barron has already disparaged the Freeh report with subtle comments about what it was and what it wasn't and he still leaves himself room for more condemnation or outright dismissal in the future should all the charges be dropped against C/S/S. Just FYI Roberto is in the process of filing that right now for Curley in the PA supreme court..

Barron has never disparaged the Freeh report as regards its conclusions regarding Curley, Schultz, Spanier or Paterno. Never.

Barron's January 2016 comment about "not being a fan of the Freeh Report" was in reference to the Freeh blaming Penn State as a whole (his "culture" comments). A quote from Barron from January 2016: "There’s no doubt in my mind what was completely and totally wrong was the notion that this entire alumni base, our students, our faculty, our staff, got the blame for what occurred.”

Freeh's statement that "there is a culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community" is 100% bull kaka. "ALL" levels???

Come on. As at every University, there are tons of Penn State folk who could give a damn less about football or athletics. And among those who do care about football, many of us (myself included) hardly "revere" the football program. Penn State football is something to watch and enjoy, but it's hardly a centerpiece of my life, or something I would willingly sacrifice for.

Second, Wetzel nailed the overall theme that by challenging the insurance companies, Barron made himself part of this. If you stay humble, don't cave to the pressure that people like Lubrano and the Paterno faction are bringing, you move on, the school is better off and things like this never make the news cycle. But he didn't and you have what happened. That's really the point of the story. It has nothing to do with the $ per se as Wetzel said. Yes money is involved but as Wetzel pointed out the university has a 3$ billion endowment and these cases are chump change. It has everything to do with the inability to let go of something that the rest of the world moved on from 4 years ago.

Lastly as Wetzel pointed out the school settled the cases by placing nondisclosures on every victim that got a check. But they left themselves an open door to make general statements about the relative veracity of each case which is tool used to drive public opinion. It's done all the time. They are able to call into question the truthfulness of some cases by simply saying it was easier/cheaper to just settle and not go to court but we don't really believe much of what was reported. Very slick but also very transparent in execution because they did actually deny claims outright but that won't be mentioned in those press statements.

Penn State's strategy of "pay every claim we can't easily disprove, and then go fight with the insurance companies" began in 2012 ---- well before Barron became President (2014). He didn't set into motion the original strategy. Besides, the original strategy is the correct one (it's not ideal, but it's the. Why pay an 8-digit amount of money when you think someone else is legally obligated to pay a portion of it? I mean, Penn State did WIN a portion of that lawsuit.

I get it, the insurance company is pissed and angry that Penn State filed claims. Well, that's what court is for. They won a portion of the lawsuit, they lost a portion of the lawsuit. They have 2 choices: pay up and move on, or appeal. Or a 3rd choice: appeal while simultaneously leaking information from the sealed depositions. Fair enough, but they're a pig playing in the mud here.

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

I had already concluded that JoePa was "a bad person" prior to last week.

Now some folk want to debate between "was Joe a very very very bad person", a "very very bad person", "a very bad person" or a "bad person"? Fair enough if some want to debate that, but it's an irrelevant debate IMO. The point is that he is "bad." Qualifiers beyond that, in the "big picture", it doesn't matter.

I think it's the difference between officially a bad person and more than likely a bad person but any crazy cultist could still probably argue he did enough to prevent the bad person tag, praise be to Joesus. In my world, that's a difference worth distinguishing. I want that monster exposed for what he was without a shadow of a doubt. That's the only way to make some of these people understand that their insane reverence to him was a small part of the problem.

 

[Delaware Buck]

Barron has never disparaged the Freeh report as regards its conclusions regarding Curley, Schultz, Spanier or Paterno. Never.

Barron's January 2016 comment about "not being a fan of the Freeh Report" was in reference to the Freeh blaming Penn State as a whole (his "culture" comments). A quote from Barron from January 2016: "There’s no doubt in my mind what was completely and totally wrong was the notion that this entire alumni base, our students, our faculty, our staff, got the blame for what occurred.”

Curley, Spanier, Schultz and Paterno were all faculty and or staff. Again, Barron is leaving himself room here to expand in the future because he never really supports the Freeh report in anything he says. Why not just come out and say, "I've reviewed the Freeh report and while it's not 100% perfect, I find most of it to be very credible and I'm proud to say that the university has implemented nearly all (99%) of the recommendations...We're moving forward and not back and I'm happy to be a part of that change..."

Freeh's statement that "there is a culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community" is 100% bull kaka. "ALL" levels???

Come on. As at every University, there are tons of Penn State folk who could give a damn less about football or athletics. And among those who do care about football, many of us (myself included) hardly "revere" the football program. Penn State football is something to watch and enjoy, but it's hardly a centerpiece of my life, or something I would willingly sacrifice for.

Not just the campus community but the entire alumni base on the whole is showing signs of being very cultish. 91% of alumni survey by your own PSU Alum Assoc responded that "honoring Joe" in 2016 should be the highest priority at the school. There wasn't another initiative that was over 50%. But you told us most PSU alum have moved on and don't care about any of this. And before you attempt to disparage the survey methodology, this was an open survey that any alumni could fill out. It wasn't something that they just gave to avowed cultists so you had access either way. Lastly if the general PSU alumni and community don't really care about football, JoePa, FAX/EVIDENTS why then did they just reelect 3 cultist (for the 4th straight year) to the BOT? If they don't care why are the elections so completely lopsided for 4 years running? Help me understand that.

Penn State's strategy of "pay every claim we can't easily disprove, and then go fight with the insurance companies" began in 2012 ---- well before Barron became President (2014). He didn't set into motion the original strategy. Besides, the original strategy is the correct one (it's not ideal, but it's the. Why pay an 8-digit amount of money when you think someone else is legally obligated to pay a portion of it? I mean, Penn State did WIN a portion of that lawsuit.

I get it, the insurance company is pissed and angry that Penn State filed claims. Well, that's what court is for. They won a portion of the lawsuit, they lost a portion of the lawsuit. They have 2 choices: pay up and move on, or appeal. Or a 3rd choice: appeal while simultaneously leaking information from the sealed depositions. Fair enough, but they're a pig playing in the mud here.

Again you miss the point of Wetzel argument. Yes, Barron was not part of the original strategy and Wetzel points that out. The original strategy is wrong and short sighted. When Barron arrived fresh of his exemplary performance in the Winston case he could have said, "hey lets put this in the past. Let's get this cleaned up, pay the claims that are legit/deny those that are clearly suspect and lets not spend a lot of time and energy arguing with insurance companies about pennies. And let's not get into a pissing contest with claims we paid but weren't 100% convinced were 100% accurate. My vision is to move this university forward and not focus on the past..." But the pressure got to him and he allowed this to transpire and now all he can do is make asinine statements like the one on Sunday. Barron is skating on very thin ice here and it would not surprise me to see this blow up in his face.

 

[Bill Lucas]

Fuck Joe. The same goes for Penn State and their "culture".

 

[Joe Pa Thetic]

The question I have is how many people responded to that survey in which 91 percent of the respondents say honoring Joesus is the highest priority? For as much as the Joebots claim to represent the views of the entire alumni base, the alumni vote for BoT seats still doesn't even draw 10 percent of the eligible voters. The people voting in such a survey are the true believers/BWI posters. Ninety percent of the alumni don't even give a shit enough to vote in the BoT elections. Even BWI contains the occasional thread bitching about how apathetic many of the alumni are when it comes to voting for BoT seats and finding the "truth."

 

[LostLassie]

The question I have is how many people responded to that survey in which 91 percent of the respondents say honoring Joesus is the highest priority? For as much as the Joebots claim to represent the views of the entire alumni base, the alumni vote for BoT seats still doesn't even draw 10 percent of the eligible voters. The people voting in such a survey are the true believers/BWI posters. Ninety percent of the alumni don't even give a [Mark May] enough to vote in the BoT elections. Even BWI contains the occasional thread bitching about how apathetic many of the alumni are when it comes to voting for BoT seats and finding the "truth."

That would be my one question about the 91%, too--those who have actually moved on or don't care if they ever hear the name Paterno again, may very well have ignored the survey, while the nutjobs whose entire universe revolves around the dark sun that was/is/ever shall be Joesus would have looked for a way to vote twice. Just my tattered shards of faith in humanity trying to assert themselves perhaps, but I HOPE that is the explanation. Otherwise, back to wishing to nuke the whole damn place.

 

[Delaware Buck]

The question I have is how many people responded to that survey in which 91 percent of the respondents say honoring Joesus is the highest priority? For as much as the Joebots claim to represent the views of the entire alumni base, the alumni vote for BoT seats still doesn't even draw 10 percent of the eligible voters. The people voting in such a survey are the true believers/BWI posters. Ninety percent of the alumni don't even give a [Mark May] enough to vote in the BoT elections. Even BWI contains the occasional thread bitching about how apathetic many of the alumni are when it comes to voting for BoT seats and finding the "truth."

I saw the survey and it took little to no effort to complete. Across any population there should be a cross sampling of enough views that you can start to draw reasonable conclusions about overall results - no matter if just a small percentage participate. Isn't what polling gives us in elections? The survey went out to everyone. Apathy is not really an excuse because nothing is stopping anyone (sane included) from responding. I think it's far more likely that one could extrapolate the results from the survey and elections and get a pretty close approximation of the overall mindset of the group in question. Some people are outright avowed cultists - loud and proud of their views and others are closet cultists that only share their true beliefs when surrounded by other cultist.

And apathy cuts both ways... I don't really care about some stupid survey or I'm so sick of this school and what they did to Joe that I'm not giving money and I'm taking my name/email/phone number off the call list for things like this

 

[Joe Pa Thetic]

I saw the survey and it took little to no effort to complete. Across any population there should be a cross sampling of enough views that you can start to draw reasonable conclusions about overall results - no matter if just a small percentage participate. Isn't what polling gives us in elections? The survey went out to everyone. Apathy is not really an excuse because nothing is stopping anyone (sane included) from responding. I think it's far more likely that one could extrapolate the results from the survey and elections and get a pretty close approximation of the overall mindset of the group in question. Some people are outright avowed cultists - loud and proud of their views and others are closet cultists that only share their true beliefs when surrounded by other cultist.

"Little to no effort" is still more effort than most people want to expend. I think it is a safe assumption that the BoT voting also requires the same little to no effort, yet less than 10 percent of the eligible voters expend the effort to vote. Do you really think the BoT voting forum requires voters to expend hours and hours of painstaking effort -- and that is why 90 percent of the people eligible to vote don't?

Those type of surveys attract the true believers. The people who are indifferent or don't give a shit don't bother voting in an election that has meaning, but they are going to vote in a meaningless survey? If there are all these closet Cultists who will only express their views in secret, why do only 10 percent of them vote in the BoT elections?

 

[Delaware Buck]

"Little to no effort" is still more effort than most people want to expend. I think it is a safe assumption that the BoT voting also requires the same little to no effort, yet less than 10 percent of the eligible voters expend the effort to vote. Do you really think the BoT voting forum requires voters to expend hours and hours of painstaking effort -- and that is why 90 percent of the people eligible to vote don't?

Those type of surveys attract the true believers. The people who are indifferent or don't give a [Mark May] don't bother voting in an election that has meaning, but they are going to vote in a meaningless survey? If there are all these closet Cultists who will only express their views in secret, why do only 10 percent of them vote in the BoT elections?

I don't think either process takes a lot of effort but I do believe simple extrapolation is your friend here and I think your argument would hold more water if the numbers were in the 40-60%. But I don't see how you can possibly ignore 91%. There is just no way to explain that away. As a society we accept all election results and no one tries to get into the head of those that voted or didn't. We accept it and move on and it should be a lesson to those that didn't vote and watched the election results turn out as they did to vote the next time around. And the elections for 4 years running have been complete blowouts with no intermediate corrections in between. In fact no sane person will even try to run now. So what does that say? At some point you just have to accept the fact that there is a large contingent of PSU cultists that exist in this world. It's sad for humanity and as others have said it should have been nuked. As it stands now an entire generation of true believes is going to need to die off before some sanity returns.

 

[Delaware Buck]

"Little to no effort" is still more effort than most people want to expend. I think it is a safe assumption that the BoT voting also requires the same little to no effort, yet less than 10 percent of the eligible voters expend the effort to vote. Do you really think the BoT voting forum requires voters to expend hours and hours of painstaking effort -- and that is why 90 percent of the people eligible to vote don't?

Those type of surveys attract the true believers. The people who are indifferent or don't give a [Mark May] don't bother voting in an election that has meaning, but they are going to vote in a meaningless survey? If there are all these closet Cultists who will only express their views in secret, why do only 10 percent of them vote in the BoT elections?

And here is something else to think about. In those 5 years since JoePed was canned and the others indicted we've seen a huge growth in groups supporting the Paterno's. Well organized, motivated and aggressively trying to create momentum and craft a narrative. Your theory is that this group only represents the views of maybe 10% of the overall PSU population (alum, community, fans, etc...). If the other 90% of the PSU population (alum, community, fans, etc...) is sane and doesn't subscribe to the same cultish beliefs why are they not completely embarrassed by what the 10% is doing and motivated to change things by establishing some counter organization that is more in alignment with the rest of the world? How come we haven't seen anything even close to that?

 

[jwinslow]

And here is something else to think about. In those 5 years since JoePed was canned and the others indicted we've seen a huge growth in groups supporting the Paterno's. Well organized, motivated and aggressively trying to create momentum and craft a narrative. Your theory is that this group only represents the views of maybe 10% of the overall PSU population (alum, community, fans, etc...). If the other 90% of the PSU population (alum, community, fans, etc...) is sane and doesn't subscribe to the same cultish beliefs why are they not completely embarrassed by what the 10% is doing and motivated to change things by establishing some counter organization that is more in alignment with the rest of the world? How come we haven't seen anything even close to that?

1) you can't argue with idiots you can only join them.

2) the sane alumni like their jobs and safety. Both are surrendered to fight the mob

 

[409fold]

Not just the campus community but the entire alumni base on the whole is showing signs of being very cultish. 91% of alumni survey by your own PSU Alum Assoc responded that "honoring Joe" in 2016 should be the highest priority at the school. There wasn't another initiative that was over 50%. But you told us most PSU alum have moved on and don't care about any of this. And before you attempt to disparage the survey methodology, this was an open survey that any alumni could fill out. It wasn't something that they just gave to avowed cultists so you had access either way. Lastly if the general PSU alumni and community don't really care about football, JoePa, FAX/EVIDENTS why then did they just reelect 3 cultist (for the 4th straight year) to the BOT? If they don't care why are the elections so completely lopsided for 4 years running? Help me understand that.

Is there a link to this 91% number? Where are your sourcing that from?

I just looked in my e-mail now, it turns out I got a e-mail message from the Penn State Alumni Association a month ago. I get a fair amount of junk e-mail, I don't carefully look at everything. But anyway, I clicked on the survey, see what sort of questions they were asking. I'm not seeing a single question there as regards Joe Paterno or Sandusky or the scandal.

Now, if PS4RS (a completely different organization from the PSAA) sent out a survey, I can see them getting to a 91% number. That's a different subset of Penn Staters, nearly solely composed of Paterno Loyalists.

Anyway, if you don't believe me as regards the PSAA survey, the e-mail I got is below, along with my unique link to the survey. Feel free to steal my link and answer as "me". :-)

-----------------

Dear 409fold,

The Penn State Alumni Association needs your help.

We want to learn more about your Penn State experience—how it influenced your career and your life, and what would be of value to you in making and keeping connections with your alma mater.

Your feedback is important to the Alumni Association because our mission of service and support to you and Penn State begins with our alumni. We want to better understand your interests and expectations for programming, services, communications, and opportunities to help you stay connected to what you love about Penn State.

And so I ask you to please take a few minutes to complete this very important survey.

To access your unique survey link, please click here. Your individual responses will be confidential, and the survey should take about 15 minutes to complete.

We’re grateful for your participation. And we are committed to using your feedback to inform our priorities and planning in the years ahead. Thank you for your time and input.

For the Glory,

Paul J. Clifford
CEO and Life Member

P.S. Please note that each survey link is unique to the recipient, and individual responses will be tracked by our external market research partner, PEG Ltd. If you have questions or feedback about the survey, contact our Alumni Association team at [email protected]. Thanks, again, for your participation.

 

[409fold]

"Little to no effort" is still more effort than most people want to expend. I think it is a safe assumption that the BoT voting also requires the same little to no effort, yet less than 10 percent of the eligible voters expend the effort to vote. Do you really think the BoT voting forum requires voters to expend hours and hours of painstaking effort -- and that is why 90 percent of the people eligible to vote don't?

Those type of surveys attract the true believers. The people who are indifferent or don't give a [Mark May] don't bother voting in an election that has meaning, but they are going to vote in a meaningless survey? If there are all these closet Cultists who will only express their views in secret, why do only 10 percent of them vote in the BoT elections?

Yeah, most people simply aren't engaged. And the "Paterno Loyalists" have more motive to participate in these surveys/elections. They just do.

FWIW, I do work in the market research field. There's an element of truth to the joke: "tell me what number you want, there's a way for me to spin things to produce that number."

 

[Abenaki]

In a thread titled "How many victims were there?" the first response:

So far, none, because no credibility to their tales has been established.

 

[Delaware Buck]

"Little to no effort" is still more effort than most people want to expend. I think it is a safe assumption that the BoT voting also requires the same little to no effort, yet less than 10 percent of the eligible voters expend the effort to vote. Do you really think the BoT voting forum requires voters to expend hours and hours of painstaking effort -- and that is why 90 percent of the people eligible to vote don't?

Those type of surveys attract the true believers. The people who are indifferent or don't give a [Mark May] don't bother voting in an election that has meaning, but they are going to vote in a meaningless survey? If there are all these closet Cultists who will only express their views in secret, why do only 10 percent of them vote in the BoT elections?

And here is something else to think about. In those 5 years since JoePed was canned and the others indicted we've seen a huge growth in groups supporting the Paterno's. Well organized, motivated and aggressively trying to create momentum and craft a narrative. Your theory is that this group only represents the views of maybe 10% of the overall PSU population (alum, community, fans, etc...). If the other 90% of the PSU population (alum, community, fans, etc...) is sane and doesn't subscribe to the same cultish beliefs why are they not completely embarrassed by what the 10% is doing and motivated to change things by establishing some counter organization that is more in alignment with the rest of the world? How come we haven't seen anything even close to that?

Is there a link to this 91% number? Where are your sourcing that from?

I just looked in my e-mail now, it turns out I got a e-mail message from the Penn State Alumni Association a month ago. I get a fair amount of junk e-mail, I don't carefully look at everything. But anyway, I clicked on the survey, see what sort of questions they were asking. I'm not seeing a single question there as regards Joe Paterno or Sandusky or the scandal.

Now, if PS4RS (a completely different organization from the PSAA) sent out a survey, I can see them getting to a 91% number. That's a different subset of Penn Staters, nearly solely composed of Paterno Loyalists.

Anyway, if you don't believe me as regards the PSAA survey, the e-mail I got is below, along with my unique link to the survey. Feel free to steal my link and answer as "me". :-)

-----------------

Dear 409fold,

The Penn State Alumni Association needs your help.

We want to learn more about your Penn State experience—how it influenced your career and your life, and what would be of value to you in making and keeping connections with your alma mater.

Your feedback is important to the Alumni Association because our mission of service and support to you and Penn State begins with our alumni. We want to better understand your interests and expectations for programming, services, communications, and opportunities to help you stay connected to what you love about Penn State.

And so I ask you to please take a few minutes to complete this very important survey.

To access your unique survey link, please click here. Your individual responses will be confidential, and the survey should take about 15 minutes to complete.

We’re grateful for your participation. And we are committed to using your feedback to inform our priorities and planning in the years ahead. Thank you for your time and input.

For the Glory,

Paul J. Clifford
CEO and Life Member

P.S. Please note that each survey link is unique to the recipient, and individual responses will be tracked by our external market research partner, PEG Ltd. If you have questions or feedback about the survey, contact our Alumni Association team at [email protected]. Thanks, again, for your participation.

Here it is http://psaaforall.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PSAAforAll-survey-results-2016.pdf

You could have made a difference (or not) but it's closed to further input