[free-sklyarov] re: Celebs

[Rick Moen]

begin Chuck Mead quotation:

> This comment of yours became a part of a discussion going on at
> advogato.org today. Here was my response there, to your question here on 
> free-sklyarov:
> 
> I think this is a relevant question... I'm sure they exist but I'll go 
> out on a limb and say that the stats would clearly reveal the grotesque 
> inequity visited on individual complainants in our civil courts. Unless 
> you are a gazillionaire there is no justice any more for individuals 
> because there is no equality under the law. 

I can put this in perspective with a case from a bit _over_ thirty years
ago.  On December 26, 1968, my father, Pan Am Captain Arthur Moen, was
killed by a defective-from-the-factory Boeing 707 (along with all the
other occupants of Pan American Flight 7).  Within a couple of days, my
mother was visited by private detectives attempting to extort her into
not filing lawsuit.  During the six years of pre-trial delaying tactics
that followed, my family was audited by the Internal Revenue Service
every year, apparently on the basis of "tips" from undisclosed persons.
When Boeing Company could no longer delay the trial, in 1974, it
asserted to the incredulous judge that all flight-recording records had
mysteriously vanished -- and then it settled.  (This was hard on the
heels of news about Rosemary Woods and the missing 18 minutes of Nixon
recordings.)

My mother emerged with life-threatening clinical depression and
hypertension.  We won -- sort of.

Regards,
Frederick Arthur Moen