Editorial:
Glenn Marshall
8/28/07 (Feeling I had to write something, I wrote most of this editorial this morning. On reflection I added some thoughts at 5PM) - I was in Scotland when I logged onto the Internet and read the sad and surprsing news about Glenn Marshall. Finally home this morning I was greeted by some good news for casino supporters when I listened to the streaming video of Joe Shortsleeves (WBZ News) reporting that Governor Deval Patrick plans to endorse casino gambling. This was no surprise to me as I always thought that the governor would respond much as Middleboro did in weighing the pros and cons of gambling, and money and mitigation would trump any downside concerns.
The news is also reporting that Glenn Marshall's request to have his resignation effective in 30 days was rejected by the tirbal council last night and he was terminated as chairman effective immediately.
The reports described him as sitting in his SUV awaiting this decision outside the tribe's meeting house in Mashpee. Having been there I can see the image in my mind. I can only guess as to what he was feeling.
CasinoFacts.org didn't jump for joy in their published response (link), although through in their version of our columns and OpEd's, the personal blogs, Mary Tufts ( "Gladys Kravitz") photo-shopped an image representing Marshall wearing an orange prison jump suit with a pro-casino orange t-shirt.
It is possible, even probable, that privately some members of the casino opposition greeted the news which put nearly an 8 by 10 photo of Marshall's face under a screaming headline printed in one inch font reading "I have my demons" on a tabloid-like front page of the Standard Times.
I understand the all too human reaction of joy at seeing a disliked political figure fall suddenly from grace. After all how many Democrats among us would rejoice if identical revelations came out about George Bush and he was forced to resign?
I don't know enough of the details about either the rape, the conviction, the incarceration, and the lies about the service record to do more than speculate about Glenn Marshall the person then and Glenn Marshall the person now, except to reiterate his own words, i.e., he obviously has been living with demons from his past.
Were they "one inch font demons" that haunted him every day? It's hard to believe demons that intense could be present in someone accomplishing as much as Marshall. Generally people who function at a high level manage to repress such demons. Psychologists call this repression in service of the ego. It enables someone who has significant unresolved psychological conflicts to deal with the demands of living.
Having been a therapist for 37 years, and even started and run a program for Vietnam combats veterans suffering from PTSD (link), I have known people who could be like Marshall.
I've seen how they can lie to themselves as a defense against their "demons".
I have seen how they essentially dig themselves into a hole with so many lies and distortions of the truth that to come clean with others they first must face the painful process of owning up to their own deep feelings of self-loathing.
Anybody who has to live with past behaviors that represent a side of themselves that is contrary to their ego ideal, and still function at the high level that Glenn Marshall has, must have either resolved those conflicted parts of their core self or be living with a great deal of repression and self-deception.
Marshall was a charismatic leader with a dark side either nobody knew about, or nobody revealed.
Now he has to heal. His is the hardest task because he set himself up for a hard fall, and broke one of the cardinal (and most frequently broken) rules of politics: don't hide anything you can't deal with reading on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper.
For him to heal, because he lied to so many people, he has to come clean with the absolute detailed truth in a public forum. Just saying "im sorry isn't enough.
His loved ones have to heal.
The tribe has to heal.
Those who didn't know are likely to feels a mixture of a sense of betrayal, anger and perhaps even sympathy. If any knew, they will have to deal with guilt over having colluded in keeping a secret, even if they convinced themselves it was for the greater good.
Anyone who got to know him and came to trust and admire him in the course of the casino effort will have to deal with their feelings of having been let down, even betrayed.
I expect there are some who are like me and supported his cause but barely knew him except for his public persona (I had a brief casual cobnversation with him at the pow wow). We are still sorting out our feelings.
If Glenn Marshall is reading this, I have this message for him:
You now face a battle that will take more courage than any mission you went on in Vietnam, where the risks are just as deadly to your psyche as a sniper's bullet or booby trap were to your body in Vietnam.
In a different sense, your fight for tirbal recognition, and to persuade the voters in Middleboro to vote for the casino agreement, and the high power personal lobbying you've been doing in Washington and on Beacon Hill, all relied on your ability to persuade and your easy self-confidence.
But you will need incredible inner resources and the support of your closest family and friends to come back from this. So take to heart the song Frank Sinatra made famous in the 1960's and
... remember the famous men who have to fall and then rise again,
So take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.
In The Globe:
8/18/7 EXCERPT: "To stay together, as one family, is now possible.
"Why is this important? The immigrant experience is a personal one, one of leaving ancestral shores in search of a better life. The Indian story is the mirror image. Immigrants have their roots in another country to ground them. We have our roots in our sovereign territory restored through federal trust."
Editor's note: The tribe is working to ready their application to put the 540 acres they own or are in the process of buying into federal trust. They hope to submit this in two weeks. In the past, such applications have taken 18 to 24 months for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to make a decision.
This is, of course, based on past applications. It is impossible to predict with accuracy how long it will be for the Mashpee Wampanoag to get their application approved. If motivation and drive count for anything, my hunch is sooner than many people are anticipating.
Editorials:
8/15/07 The former CEO of John Hancock Financial Services writes about his childhood trauma watching his father having his hand mutilated by a Mafia hood wielding a meat cleaver in an opinion piece in The Boston Globe. Dad was addicted to gambling and even the 5% weekly vig and mob "enforcement" couldn't "cure" his pathology.
But author David D'Alessandro can't resist going too far as he describes the what he considers the evils of casino gambling in 2007.
He writes, with no substantiation save his own memories and vivid imagination:
Not every person who uses slot machines, crap tables, or roulette wheels, or plays poker, keno, bingo, or baccarat will find organized-crime thugs on their doorsteps. Many, unfortunately, will.
"Many", he says, but how many? One, two, three? How many people do you know who borrow money from the mob today when it's so easy to get credit which even at 18% doesn't bring a gargantuan named "Fats" with a meat cleaver into your life?
He writes:
Massachusetts residents who occasionally travel to Connecticut for "entertainment gambling" will now drive a few miles and gamble frequently. They will risk more and more because it is easy and convenient. The state will essentially become an "addict enabler."
The fact of the matter is that gambling in the form of the lottery, especially with its slot machines on cardboard, the scratch tickets, are about as convenient as possible. And that's not even to address the problem of Internet gambling.
While it is true that some gambling addicts steal from family members and friends and lies and deceit become a way of life hurting themselves and loved ones, there is no credible evidence based on research that this is the norm as D'Alessandro suggests.
In fact, people for whom gambling is a problem fall along a range from those who spend more than they planned at any given time, through those who spend more than they really ought to based on having a prudent budget, to those who deplete all their assets.
In addition, there is a similar range for how people whose gambling could be considered a compulsive disorder harm themselves and their family. Addressing gambling problems in absolutes makes for effective propaganda; but it is hardly scientific.
And just how many people who gamble periodically or even regularly even have anything resembling a psychiatric compulsive disorder?
We have to be cautious using words like many and most. Many can mean almost anything, and is often used to exaggerate claims. Likewise most can mean pretty much anything over 51%.
As this article by Douglas Walker points out, even using the best research methodology, it is difficult to come up with an accurate estimate of how casinos effects problem and pathological gambling.
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