There was no reckoning.<\/p>\n
Barack Obama is sworn in as President, with control of both houses of Congress, and almost immediately it starts: this is no time for looking back. There\u2019s no point in rehashing the past. Any retrospective investigation would be a counterproductive witch-hunt. Best just to get on with it and go forward. \u00a0And thus did the people escape who lied us into a war in Iraq, the ones who sandbagged the regulatory regime and allowed the banks to fleece us blind, the ones who laid low for a matter of weeks before inventing the grass-roots GOP-laundering known as the \u201ctea party\u201d with which to perpetuate the idea that the world was just fine until January 20, 2009.<\/p>\n
That comes to mind because of work. \u00a0I haven\u2019t exactly had a grand time the last year and a half, and there\u2019s very little secret of that. I now have a completely different management chain (well, at least a couple layers up) and there\u2019s going to be a huge reorganization at some point. \u00a0I admit, I feel slightly better about it than I did when it looked as if the reorg was going to be brought to us by the people who drove things into the ground over the last year and a half.<\/p>\n
And yet.<\/p>\n
More and more, it looks as if there\u2019s going to be no reckoning. \u00a0The people who made the mess will just move on. \u00a0There will be no accountability for those who clusterfucked the entire process, and those who sacrificed time and health and quality of life will just have to be happy with a small bonus and a small raise and a pizza party – and the fervent hope that they can\u2019t be stupid enough to fuck it all up again.<\/p>\n
Looking for justice in this world is a fool\u2019s errand, which is why as a child you\u2019re taught to be good in life so you can get a land of milk and honey and fried catfish when you die. \u00a0Oddly enough, the people laying up treasure on Earth never seem that worried about their eternal reward – not enough to make it worth delaying gratification, anyway. Fuck up all you like, but as long as you\u2019re above the Whiffle Line, the consequences are inconsequential.<\/p>\n
And ultimately, that\u2019s why I wanted a new job. \u00a0It\u2019s as close as I can get to a reset – the hope that it\u2019ll be different, that at least if it\u2019s no better it\u2019s at least a change from the previous caliber of shit. \u00a0But it also means walking away, accepting that you took the loss, that you couldn\u2019t get over on your foes, and there\u2019s a very real chance you\u2019re not going to be able to leave the baggage behind just because you hit the reset button.<\/p>\n
Of which more later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There was no reckoning. Barack Obama is sworn in as President, with control of both houses of Congress, and almost immediately it starts: this is no time for looking back. There\u2019s no point in rehashing the past. Any retrospective investigation would be a counterproductive witch-hunt. Best just to get on with it and go forward. … <\/p>\n