Chapter 11 announced - Part 3 - BSA's Toggle Plan

[HICO_Eagle]

The IVFs were created in a time when Scouting could effectively deny a volunteer application without causing a stir while openly stating they suspected someone of sexual abuse or homosexuality could have wrecked lives -- many of them innocent.  I'm a single male (never found Ms. Right and put too much time into work and Scouting) who simply wanted to give back to a program that I got a lot out of as a youth -- I'm willing to bet someone somewhere "wondered" about me at times and that could have been a career wrecker.

The context of Scouting is precisely what made it attractive to predators (as do high school athletic teams and clubs).  The context of the intelligence community and national security are what make them attractive to spies.  The DoD and IC spend 10s (if not 100s) of millions of dollars and many man-years of effort to prevent and root out espionage but still suffer from it.  Scouting recorded suspected incidents they couldn't (or wouldn't) get taken up by law enforcement so they could keep the individuals from being placed with youth again -- that was the whole raison d'etre for the IVF -- and instituted programs to try to prevent the inadvertent and unmeaning violations.

Locking my door keeps people from wandering in off the street, it doesn't prevent the determined burglar from getting in.  Should realtors and homeowners post notices letting people know that their houses aren't secured like the White House or Pentagon?

I am sorry for your experience but this crisis was precipitated by 1) lawyers smelling money, 2) activists seeking to tear down another pillar of traditional American society & culture, 3) bureaucrats protecting their rears.  That doesn't excuse the mistakes made by various individuals at all levels of Scouting over the years but it is far from "a rape culture" as alleged by someone I know.  I think the victims are being victimized all over again by #1 and #2 in pursuit of their own goals.

[johnsch322]

6 minutes ago, HICO_Eagle said:

I am sorry for your experience but this crisis was precipitated by 1) lawyers smelling money, 2) activists seeking to tear down another pillar of traditional American society & culture, 3) bureaucrats protecting their rears.  That doesn't excuse the mistakes made by various individuals at all levels of Scouting over the years but it is far from "a rape culture" as alleged by someone I know.  I think the victims are being victimized all over again by #1 and #2 in pursuit of their own goals.

My experience is that my rapist raped 11- 13 other young boys.  The Boy Scouts knew about it (several letters from Troop Master to local council talking about it.  Yes he was forced out out of that troop tried again in a different state and was denied the ability to volunteer (and he got his $2 application fee back) and that local council was told to tell him politely that his services were not needed.  Wonder where he went next to get his rocks off? I wonder how many more young boys did he victimize?  If he was caught later was BSA culpable because they didn't turn him into law enforcement.  This crisis/sh_t storm was caused because the BSA did not want bad publicity which could cause harm to their fund raising efforts.  And yes you are making excuses and as a victim I don't feel victimized again I actually feel empowered!!

[ThenNow]

28 minutes ago, HICO_Eagle said:

Locking my door keeps people from wandering in off the street, it doesn't prevent the determined burglar from getting in.  Should realtors and homeowners post notices letting people know that their houses aren't secured like the White House or Pentagon?

I'm sorry, but those analogies do not fly in this context. Did these guys really have to be "determined," at least prior to when YPT began to more effectively implemented, as in not too long ago? No argument that they did can be made with a straight face. The yarn about the bad guys can always find the secret door and slip in the back way is simply nonsense here. The front door was unlocked, open and had a sign out front. Yes, Scouting was attractive to boys and families for it's adventure, but that doesn't mean it was wise to put boys in the woods and homes and private places with men like they/we did. And, it's not like the hatches were battened once the breaking and entering was a cognizable and recorded pattern. Were they? How long did it take?

28 minutes ago, HICO_Eagle said:

I am sorry for your experience but this crisis was precipitated by 1) lawyers smelling money, 2) activists seeking to tear down another pillar of traditional American society & culture, 3) bureaucrats protecting their rears.  That doesn't excuse the mistakes made by various individuals at all levels of Scouting over the years but it is far from "a rape culture" as alleged by someone I know.  I think the victims are being victimized all over again by #1 and #2 in pursuit of their own goals.

Thank you. Sincerely. Me too.

One question: Did lawyers smelling money and people with cancer precipitate the inquiry and lawsuits against Big Tobacco or any of the other contexts where a product was defective and the manufacturer blew the chance to disclose, while continuing to market their product? I don't think you see this clearly at all. I don't say things like "rape culture" or "the largest pedophile ring in history," but I do try to look at this objectively. The BSA produced this, plain and simple. But for the perpetuation of the context and opportunity for CSA and the negligence that allowed it to continue, the target wouldn't have been on BSA's back. They hung it there. As I've said before, lawyers aren't suing BSA and the related parties because they don't like the bowline knot or long shorts and funny socks or neckerchiefs or skill awards. (Ok. Somebody should've sued over skill awards. I had a recurrent fear of being pushed in the water while wearing that divers belt. [glug * glug] Glad they're gone!) Seriously. The abuse, the pattern, the lack of supervision...the failure to disclose and warn are the threads that wove this target.

Edited June 15, 2021 by ThenNow

[qwazse]

2 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

... Did lawyers smelling money and people with cancer precipitate the inquiry and lawsuits against Big Tobacco or any of the other contexts where a product was defective and the manufacturer blew the chance to disclose, while continuing to market their product. ...

To be precise, Big Tobacco knew the general use of their product would increase risk (as opposed to generally not using it). I attended Kessler's lecture on the subject while he headed the FDA . It wasn't merely that smokers got cancer (among other things). Lot's of people did. It was that, in company-funded studies, multiple times the percentage of smokers got sick than did non-smokers, tobacco -- especially concentrated nicotine was likely to be addictive, smokers who started as youth were less likely to quit, And the corporate response (documented by whistle-blowers) was to begin ad campaigns targeting youth.

With regard to scouting and CSA, there are no such smoking guns. BSA had no evidence that CSA is more frequent as a result of the scouting program. That is why Kosnoff and others who've posted here hypothesize that BSA should have more victims. They are generalizing from what they know to be the background rate. Take 130 million, multiply by .07 (proportion of US males reporting that they experienced CSA), multiply by .1 (the proportion of time youth would be scouting as opposed to other activities like religion, school, sports) ... there should be 910,000 victims. (How we adjust other assumptions will make that number go up and down, but by rights there should be at least a quarter million still alive.) So either:

• The TCC is an abject failure at finding victims (Kosnoff's point),
• The majority of victims don't want any part of this action, or
• Hundreds of thousands of "other" victims don't exist.

And, at the moment we only have each others' anecdotal experience (and all the personal biases therein) on which we can base how likely each is.

[yknot]

49 minutes ago, HICO_Eagle said:

The IVFs were created in a time when Scouting could effectively deny a volunteer application without causing a stir while openly stating they suspected someone of sexual abuse or homosexuality could have wrecked lives -- many of them innocent.  I'm a single male (never found Ms. Right and put too much time into work and Scouting) who simply wanted to give back to a program that I got a lot out of as a youth -- I'm willing to bet someone somewhere "wondered" about me at times and that could have been a career wrecker.

The context of Scouting is precisely what made it attractive to predators (as do high school athletic teams and clubs).  The context of the intelligence community and national security are what make them attractive to spies.  The DoD and IC spend 10s (if not 100s) of millions of dollars and many man-years of effort to prevent and root out espionage but still suffer from it.  Scouting recorded suspected incidents they couldn't (or wouldn't) get taken up by law enforcement so they could keep the individuals from being placed with youth again -- that was the whole raison d'etre for the IVF -- and instituted programs to try to prevent the inadvertent and unmeaning violations.

Locking my door keeps people from wandering in off the street, it doesn't prevent the determined burglar from getting in.  Should realtors and homeowners post notices letting people know that their houses aren't secured like the White House or Pentagon?

I am sorry for your experience but this crisis was precipitated by 1) lawyers smelling money, 2) activists seeking to tear down another pillar of traditional American society & culture, 3) bureaucrats protecting their rears.  That doesn't excuse the mistakes made by various individuals at all levels of Scouting over the years but it is far from "a rape culture" as alleged by someone I know.  I think the victims are being victimized all over again by #1 and #2 in pursuit of their own goals.

Some version of the ineligible volunteers files have been in existence since 1919. They were referenced in the 1930s. BSA long knew it was a particular target for pedophiles.  4-H is also a 100 plus year old legacy youth organization and no such files exist there. 

[johnsch322]

38 minutes ago, qwazse said:

To be precise, Big Tobacco knew the general use of their product would increase risk (as opposed to generally not using it).

Even the smokers knew that it increased risk for death.  My father started smoking at the age of 12 and told me that they called cigarettes "coffin sticks" back that then. He died of lung cancer and it didn't take a warning on a cigarette pack to tell him what his eventuality would be.  BSA knew long before I became a scout that there was a distinct chance that I could be abused (they had records and files about abusers) yet I am sure that no one told my parents and definitely never told me "hey be careful we don't know a lot about those men that will be camping with you or your child".  Maybe if they had I would never been a scout and never been abused.  

Edited June 15, 2021 by johnsch322

[Sentinel947]

1 hour ago, yknot said:

Some version of the ineligible volunteers files have been in existence since 1919. They were referenced in the 1930s. BSA long knew it was a particular target for pedophiles.  4-H is also a 100 plus year old legacy youth organization and no such files exist there. 

So we hope. Beyond leadership of the BSA not having the spine to do the right thing, what makes 4-H less likely to have abuse than the BSA did historically? While many victims who were abused by BSA volunteers were abused at BSA events, there were some that were groomed at BSA events but the actual assault took place outside of those BSA events. Not sure how 4H would have tackled that issue before "Grooming" became something adults were publicly conscious of. 

[mrjohns2]

22 minutes ago, Sentinel947 said:

So we hope. Beyond leadership of the BSA not having the spine to do the right thing, what makes 4-H less likely to have abuse than the BSA did historically?

Because it didn’t involve a lot of camping and vulnerable situations that camping brings with it (showers, swimming, changing, sleeping, homesickness). These vulnerable / risky situations happen each month, month after month.  

[yknot]

2 minutes ago, Sentinel947 said:

So we hope. Beyond leadership of the BSA not having the spine to do the right thing, what makes 4-H less likely to have abuse than the BSA did historically? While many victims who were abused by BSA volunteers were abused at BSA events, there were some that were groomed at BSA events but the actual assault took place outside of those BSA events. Not sure how 4H would have tackled that issue before "Grooming" became something adults were publicly conscious of. 

One of the differences to explain it might be that 88% of abuse perpetrators are male. Scouts, especially at the troop level, has been predominantly male. 4H leadership gender varies. There is plenty of camping and outdoor activity in 4H, but the leader/member dynamic is also completely different. Most of the 4H I was involved with was also kid run, but the program really didn't have a lot of opportunity for one on one contact with a leader. Just based on headlines, there seem to be very few cases of abuse in 4H. Google scout abuse and you get dozens if not hundreds of hits for cases filed or reported on in scouting. Google 4H leader abuse you get few. There could be a media bias there, and maybe we'll see more, but for now it appears other youth organizations are safer. Even among sports, most of the abuse cases seem to be at the late middle school/high school level. There are very few at the elementary school ages but there are plenty of cases in that age group in cub scouts in scouting. 

[Sentinel947]

@mrjohns2 @yknot I appreciate the context. I'm entirely unfamiliar with 4-H and how that program operates. 

[johnsch322]

5 hours ago, HICO_Eagle said:

this crisis was precipitated by 1) lawyers smelling money, 2) activists seeking to tear down another pillar of traditional American society & culture, 3) bureaucrats protecting their rears. 

 

5 hours ago, HICO_Eagle said:

I think the victims are being victimized all over again by #1 and #2 in pursuit of their own goals.

I feel a need to revisit this.  BSA has spent a tremendous amount of money for legal fees and other costs associated with this bankruptcy and they did it for one reason to keep themselves from losing everything.  It is probably more then the amount that they want National to put into the settlement trust.  White Cassel has made a large bucket of money and will make more the longer that this drags on (which is to their benefit).  Who are the activists you are referring to that wants to "tear down another pillar of traditional American society & culture"?  The "bureaucrats protecting their rears" all seem to be part of BSA national hence the strategy of the global plan and the short sightedness of how many survivors would come forward (and that back fired big time).

I don't think victims are being victimized all over again by #1 and #2 but more by the #1 the BSA (offering so little and spending so much to offer so little) and  the BSA legal team who came up with this crazy legal strategy.   

If it wasn't for the lawyers who reached out and made it OK to come forward who let survivors know they weren't the only victims the BSA's strategy may have worked.  I believe that if it wasn't for the lawyers you believe are victimizing survivors would get much less compensation when all is said and done.  Who is going to go up against the insurance company's, the CO's and maybe the LC's?  And yes they do not do it for free.

Edited June 16, 2021 by johnsch322

[CynicalScouter]

5 hours ago, HICO_Eagle said:

1) lawyers smelling money, 2) activists seeking to tear down another pillar of traditional American society & culture, 3) bureaucrats protecting their rears. 

Really? Not the abusers? And the BSA that, we now have documented proof, failed to protect these scouts and instead covered up?

As for trashing lawyers (again), let me remind you and everyone: BSA has lawyers. The LCs have lawyers. The insurance companies have lawyers. Are you OK with the child sexual abuse victims NOT having access to legal counsel while everyone else does?

As for "activists", I have no idea what you are even talking about.

And what "bureaucrats" are you talking about? Again, no idea what you are saying.

You want to lay blame? How about on the abusers? And on the institution which was supposed to keep scouts safe?

How about on the state legislatures that unanimously (or within 1-2 votes of unanimous) opened up the lookback windows for sexual abuse claims.

But trashing the lawyers, hired by the child sexual abuse victims or appointed on their behalf (TCC), to take their case(s) and fight for their interests? Nope. That I wholeheartedly disagree with.

Edited June 16, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[ThenNow]

18 hours ago, qwazse said:

And the corporate response (documented by whistle-blowers) was to begin ad campaigns targeting youth.

I'd be careful how you phrase this and attempt to make a distinction. In the midst of my abuse during the 70's, when BSA was fully aware of what was going on, the marketing was pretty hot and heavy. I'm not saying the two contexts are exactly parallel, but a clear comparison is easy. (As to Big Tobacco, fill in any product liability debacle. Let's toss that one if you'd like.) The comparison trips out like this:

1) Defect - broad opportunities for access to boys --> predation and abuse;

2) Knowledge and recording of incidents of abuse impacts arising from defect;

3) Failure to adequately protect and disclose risks;

4) Ongoing marketing and sales, continued broad access and opportunities for abuse;

5) More abuse;

6) Abuse/injuries known and recorded;

7) Still no disclosure;

8) Failure to adequately address defect/modify access, implement safety measures and report/warn of abuse risks...more abuse;

9) CSA lawsuits based on negligence and failure of duty of care, etc.;

9) Reluctant and meager disclosure, but only when forced;

10) Legislation to open avenues for direct accountability to victims (civil lawsuits); and

10) Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

[RobertCalifornia]

When exactly is the next scheduled court date?

[CynicalScouter]

3 minutes ago, RobertCalifornia said:

When exactly is the next scheduled court date?

 

Next scheduled hearing dates filed https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/1a937a93-6226-4d6f-b425-3b83355a2462_5309.pdf

 July 21, 2021 10:00 a.m. (ET)

August 25, 2021 10:00 a.m. (ET)

September 23, 2021 10:00 a.m. (ET)