Martha Stewart evokes an amazing range of emotions in all segments of American society. She has both diehard loyal fans as well as many vocal detractors. And she has both in large numbers. In marketing she has what is known as a polarizing personality; in plain English, that means we have a love-hate relationship with Martha Stewart. It is that love-hate relationship that was the impetus for Save Martha.

Not to get too Freudian, but the relationship people have with Martha the brand and Martha the person is very much like the relationship children of all ages have with their parents. It is an odd mixture of respect and fear, love and rebellion, and in extreme cases, deep seeded anger.

The people who love Martha are much more than just loyal, they are grateful for the lessons she shares with them every day, for the values that she brings back into the home. In a society where more people live alone than in any other on earth, where traditional values are under attack in every form of media from music to film and television, Martha stands out by trying not to stand out. Martha has turned tradition into innovation, old fashioned activities into new age experiences.

The people who dislike Martha do so out of a fear of the past, a resentment of successful women, perhaps even an anger or loathing of their own mothers. Believe it or not, there are many people out there who did not or do not like mom or apple pie. Martha bashers tend to be men, and they will run with glee to bash any woman who has achieved the American dream and has stumbled or fallen.

The Martha Syndrome is characterized by a sensibility trained on Mad Magazine and MTV, professional wrestling, and Ozzy and Rap, in short everything devoid of the traditional values Martha espouses. The vicarious pleasures these people gain from cruelty shown in modern media is the drug within the Martha Syndrome.

Nobody really knows if media makes people this way or if media just satisfies an existing demand for the cruel and lurid spectacles of society. But one thing is certain: Martha bashing sells. Although they buy none of her products or watch her shows, the anti-Martha camp are drawn to her like lemmings to the sea, launching droves of parody sites, writing sketches and jokes for Letterman, Leno and Saturday Nite Live.

These two poles represent the extremes of American culture, from those that try to preserve tradition, family, and home, to those who try to tear it down. Many in the latter camp try to excuse their behavior by saying Martha is a celebrity, a billionaire, and thus fair game. They will even say she had it coming, that she deserves this ridicule. But aren’t celebrities and billionaires people too? Don’t the people who have achieved the American dream deserve equal treatment by the press, and by each of us, a sense of proportionality and fairness?

The reason why we have the best judicial system in the world is that it was designed to avoid the rush to judgement, the witch-hunt, the irreversible mistakes made by judgments based on passion vs. judgements based on facts. The very people calling for justice must wait for the hangman to tie his noose, for a rush to judgment is the essence of injustice itself.