Where We Stand and Why We're Here

Where WE stand, and Why We’re Here
the FREEHdom Fighters.

For followers of this blog, its time we provided an update and some perspective on where WE are as an organization standing as a voice of dissent in the rush to judgment against Penn State.  Most of the country believes they have the real story, have drawn their conclusions, and closed the door on this scandal.  Sandusky’s sentencing was just one more deadbolt sealing that door.  But it’s far from over.  The general public has lost sight of, and compassion for, the immediate victims of Jerry Sandusky’s actions, as well as the many, many thousands of victims for whom this saga is an ongoing matter of daily life.  Perhaps as importantly, good people have been condemned outside the realm of justice.

For many contributors to the story it was never about “the kids”, but a one of a kind, sensational news event with the potential to bring down an institution, and a man who was the least deserving of a campaign of accusation and derision as anyone connected to the scandal.  Some people will re-engage when a new tidbit of information emerges regarding the case, many won’t bother.  We’re here to keep this ongoing injustice in the forefront of public consciousness, and to help those with the necessary standing to take action in correcting these injustices.



Why are the people across the land who absorbed this story important to this scandal?  They…you,  are part of the dialog because you too are victims. Victims of a media that passed off sensationalism for journalism; victims of government officials who shamelessly lied to you to advance their individual agendas, victims of a hidden truth you have every right to know. While the Penn State community has suffered greatly, the outcomes are far reaching for all of us.

Many people both inside and outside the Penn State world were immediately struck by the notion that something wasn’t quite right in the way things unfolded in November 2011.  Penn State’s back was suddenly against the wall of public opinion and curiously had no apparent idea how to deal with this reality.  It began publicly with the firing of Joe Paterno, which signaled an admission of implausible guilt, and was followed by inexplicable actions of the institutional management organization of Penn State, centered on the Board of Trustees. These actions are at the forefront of our scrutiny.  An institution that evolved over decades as a paragon of doing things “the right way” had, over the span of a few weeks, been recast as among the worst examples of institutional corruption in our history, with the lightning rod of child abuse engendering the moral outrage needed to sell that story.  We don’t believe the abrupt conclusions regarding Penn State came about accidentally, or were reached based on the merit of facts.

If you’ve followed this case and this website you know that something is very wrong with what has transpired, and at this point you likely are beginning to distrust what you’ve been fed by the broad spectrum of  sports and news media.  Some media personalities are beginning to soften their tone, if not back-pedal. There is a lot more to come before this chapter is closed, if it ever does in fact find closure. The premise behind this website, and others like it, it is to widen the scope of public understanding beyond the now-accepted notion that this was a Penn State problem, a  Penn State crime; and to show there are ties to this scandal far beyond the university that have been artfully pushed into the shadows.  There are many powerful public and private figures who stand to fare poorly from this scrutiny, and some of them are publicly urging that we need to ‘move on’ and accept the current version of events, and turn our focus back to a false normalcy.  Some of these people are Penn Staters of the highest standing.  A few might be simply misinformed, some just easily misguided by deliberate deception, and some complicit in the cover-up that is intuitive to many.

The people here at SMSSS who have joined together to examine the very complex web of misperceptions, factually strained conclusions, and hidden agendas who committed to this effort following a flawed Grand Jury Presentment by the Pennsylvania District Attorney have no motivation beyond learning the truth, no matter where that truth might lead.  We have put a great deal of effort into dissecting the available information, and have presented the resulting analysis in a series of articles here. Some may question our tedious focus on seemingly minor details, given that a man is in jail for the crimes,  our leadership is calling for us to move on, and there is as yet no other smoking gun.  We are sometimes strident in our affirmations; we’re human, we’re passionate, and we’re not journalists.  We recognize the story for Penn State could get uglier, but none of us believe that responsibility falls on the man we largely recognize as a moral and institutional leader of Penn State:  Joseph Vincent Paterno.

We ask for your support, your contribution of knowledge you may have of these matters, your time where you can lend it, and most importantly that you keep your minds open and embrace the belief that we can uncover the truth. The deliberate destruction of an honorable institution and the honorable men who made it so should not stand in a society with every means short of capitulation to find the truth.  Please help us in our quest.
Fight On, State