Liliputin-4545

Most whistblowers are whistling in the dark ... "
Oliver Stone

Liliputins. What, the heck, is this?
http://stihi.ru/2021/11/24/7101

***
The achievement of JFK movie (1991) is not that it answers the mystery of the Kennedy assassination, because it does not, or even that it vindicates Garrison, who is seen here as a man often whistling in the dark. Its achievement is that it tries to marshal the anger which ever since 1963 has been gnawing away on some dark shelf of the national psyche.

***

Whistling in the dark is an idiom that means trying to remain brave or hopeful in a difficult or scary situation or believing in a positive outcome when all evidence points to the contrary. The literal idea is to whistle to keep oneself from being afraid in the dark.

***
A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whistleblowers can use a variety of internal or external channels to communicate information or allegations. Over 83% of whistleblowers report internally to a supervisor, human resources, compliance, or a neutral third party within the company, hoping that the company will address and correct the issues. A whistleblower can also bring allegations to light by communicating with external entities, such as the media, government, or law enforcement.[1] Whistleblowing can occur in either the private sector or the public sector.

Retaliation is a real risk for whistleblowers, who often pay a heavy price for blowing the whistle. The most common form of retaliation is abrupt termination of employment. However, several other actions may also be considered retaliatory, including extreme increases in workloads, having hours cut drastically, preventing task completion, or bullying.[2] Laws in many countries attempt to protect whistleblowers and to regulate the whistleblowing activities. These laws tend to adopt different approaches to public and private sector whistleblowing.

Whistleblowers do not always achieve their aims. For their claims to be credible and successful, they must have compelling evidence to support their claims that the government or regulating body can use or investigate to "prove" such claims and hold corrupt companies and/or government agencies to account.

Overview
Origin of term
U.S. civic activist Ralph Nader is said to have coined the phrase in the early 1970s[3] in order to avoid the negative connotations found in other words such as "informer" and "snitch".[4] However, the origins of the word date back to the 19th century.

The word is linked to the use of a whistle to alert the public or a crowd about such problems as the commission of a crime or the breaking of rules during a game. The phrase whistle blower attached itself to law enforcement officials in the 19th century because they used a whistle to alert the public or fellow police.[5] Sports referees, who use a whistle to indicate an illegal or foul play, also were called whistle blowers.[6][7]

An 1883 story in the Janesville Gazette called a policeman who used his whistle to alert citizens about a riot a whistle blower, without the hyphen. By the year 1963, the phrase had become a hyphenated word, whistle-blower. The word began to be used by journalists in the 1960s for people who revealed wrongdoing, such as Nader. It eventually evolved into the compound word whistleblower.[5]