The Harder They Come-Jimmy Cliff

Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky
Waiting for me when I die
But between the day you’re born and when you die
They never seem to hear even your cry
So as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share now of what’s mine
And then the harder they come the harder they’ll fall,
One and all!

Well the oppressors are trying to keep me down
Trying to drive me underground
And they think that they have got the battle won
I say ‘forgive them Lord, they know not what they’ve done’.
‘Cause as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share now of what’s mine
And then the harder they come the harder they’ll fall,
One and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they’ll fall,
One and all
And I keep on fighting for the things I want
Though I know that when you’re dead you can’t
…But I’d rather be a free man in my grave
Than living as a puppet or a slave
So as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share now of what’s mine
And then the harder they come the harder they’ll fall,
One and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they’ll fall,
One and all …

The Harder They Come

Along with the massive onslaught of “shut up Steve!” emails and complaints, I’ve also been sent further info on Dragon*Con matters I chose not to post initially. Since the apologists are out in force this week, thanks in part to elfgrove.tumblr’s viral post, let’s share a bit more, shall we?

This in:

“In 2010 DragonCon suffered a bout of sexual assaults at the convention, due largely to the fact they do not have a professional security force to keep the geeks away from the football fans sharing the same hotels.

http://dragoncon.livejournal.com/2542632.html?page=4

On page four of the discussion of this problem amongst (mostly) female and sympathetic fans, a poster called Moral Decision makes this rather shocking declaration:

“I can’t really say anything about inappropriate touching… but I don’t expect much protection of anyone when they let a convicted child molester work security a couple years in a row.

http://services.georgia.gov/gbi/gbisor/SexualOffenderDetails.jsp?action=SexualOffenderDetails&sexualoffenderId=97324CB8

Just sayin’.”

Then on page 5, at the bottom of the page, a poster called catiep2011 describes being drugged and raped at DragonCon in 2011.

“drugged and raped (content not suitable for children)
I came to dragoncon this year for my first time. It was my 23rd birthday so my girlfriend payed for me to go for the whole event. She has been going for years and never had a problem. to make a long story short. I got separated from my friends, wound up meeting a group of people and hanging out with them for a while. I met them in the stairwell. I made the mistake of passing my birthday drink around for them to try. about 45 mins later i black out. I don’t remember the next 8 hours. My girlfriend found me with a SKETCHY guy who had no dcon pass. she said he helped her get me to our room and on the way there i started punching him sceaming “you fucked me” over and over. I have no memory of it. but i later found my tampon shoved waaay up in my. what a birthday. she remembers what he looked like, but we are at a loss on how to find him. I wound up sitting in jail for 4nights 5days. appearantly i flipped my shit after i started punching him. it has ruined a lot of my life. I am rebuilding but am very scared of long term effects from this. The guy told my girlfriend he was suppose to die from Cancer in two months. then asked her if they could just leave me in the room and offered to buy her a drink. glad she stayed with me.”

http://dragoncon.livejournal.com/2542632.html?page=5

…”

So, there that is, too.

Dragon*Con has gotten a free ride from the comics and media fan community for too long. Volunteer labor-driven conventions—particularly conventions of such magnitude—invite abuses like these.

Again: THIS is Dragon*Con’s problem, NOT ours.

This post, according to our statistics, has now had well over 9,000 unique visitors; the sequel post, mere hundreds. Read the post, then talk to me here, if you’re so moved.

Everyone HAS considered “the other side” for 12+ years, MM.
TWELVE.
YEARS.

That’s a lot of slack.

During those twelve years, Dragon*Con has reportedly continued to depend primarily on volunteer labor—so the “work”/job argument is specious, at best, in terms of the convention itself—and during those twelve years, by ALL accounts, Dragon*Con has relentlessly discouraged and crushed any and all competitors.

Judging by the 2008 evidence, for eight of those twelve years, Dragon*Con lied about trying to disassociate itself from Kramer, too.

My sympathies are not with the giant business entity here. As I’ve said directly, I’ve no dog in this fight—I don’t live in or near Georgia.

I do, however, have a stake in my friendship with Nancy Collins, and she has yet to get ANY apology from ANYONE—which is, after all, if you’ll reread my post, all I personally suggested or asked for here.

So:
TWELVE.
YEARS.

Enough is enough.

As I’ve repeatedly stated, this IS NOT Nancy’s problem, or MY problem.

This is Dragon*Con’s problem, and their problem to solve.

The tenor of your post—that I really “should” consider “the other side”—is risible at best. That’s the status quo: ignore the offense. Ignore the questionable. Do not question the important doing of important business, little man.

Screw that.

The specious arguments at the link you’ve cited are the classic arguments of an enabler mentality. Such specious business-centric arguments carried sway at Penn State for decades, too, and for much the same reason.

TIME TO ROCK THE BOAT. Time for Dragon*Con to SOLVE this, however extreme the measures required.

http://elfgrove.tumblr.com/post/42488318281

There have been people suggesting that Dragon*Con Corp “could dissolve the corporation, and then form a brand new corporation without Ed Kramer before lunch.” That is entirely untrue. For one, if they were to dissolve the corporation, the con would lose the Dragon*Con name, which it has spent 26 years building up as a recognizable brand. It could potentially take years to reform the corporation and reinstate a convention from that dissolution. Also, a dissolution would force the con to pay out even more money to Mr. Kramer. BUT. Let’s assume the Dragon*Con Board of Directors decided to take the risk, lose the name, maybe work for years before the con could get started again. They still can’t.
Under Georgia corporate law, Dragon*Con Corp cannot voluntarily choose to dissolve so long as there are outstanding legal cases pending against it. So they can’t force Kramer to sell his stock, and every time they try to take other actions, he files a lawsuit against Dragon*Con Corp so that they cannot dissolve the corporation. If they were to attempt to simply not hold the con in the hopes of forcing Kramer to sell, he could sue the con for negligent use of IP and get even more money, and still own 31% of the convention’s shares. The city of Atlanta and local businesses would be hurt by the lost income normally produced by the influx of 40~50,000 attendees spending money.

…
Dragon*Con does not support Ed Kramer, he’s the gum on the shoe of the con that they’ve spent 12 years trying to scrape off. Yet, every time this bastard pops out from under his rock, people try to accuse the con of supporting and working with him when they’ve been doing their damnedest to keep him as far as legally possible from anything related to Dragon*Con.

Dragon*Con wants Ed Kramer gone as much as you do, and boycotting the con isn’t going to change their inability to force him out because it’s the legal system that has their hands tied, not a lack of desire to be rid of him.

So: “do nothing; you can do nothing; quit complaining; don’t hurt ‘a good thing”; just consume.”

You know what? Fuck this. It’s the American comicbook industry in a nutshell: corrupt to the core, but ignore that: ENJOY, and resent anyone who speaks up how corrupt the whole monster is.

Given just the events of this past week, I wouldn’t piss on Dragon*Con if it were on fire.

All the more reason NOT TO PARTICIPATE WITH DRAGONCON, period.
On any level.
Ever.

And, keep in mind that here in the USA, no one is actually guilty until proven innocent. The dividend that Kramer gains from Dragon*Con is due to legal requirements. However, while he is under house arrest, and now that he broke that and had to be re-arrested he has not been allowed to actually use/access those finances until his court dates and decisions have been finalized.

The reason those have not happened is solely on the shoulders of Bob Barr.