Album: Spoils Of Failure (2009)

V

Unsheathe the final report, the digest of findings from the task force commission on is this really happening.
A lot of cant about law and order.
The daunting calculus of an enduring failure.
What must be tolerated?
What does it take to mitigate disaster?
And how long?
How long to file a shiv arrogant enough to puncture the great trust?
Whether red tape inquiries or blue ribbon initiatives, the race to the bottom crowns everyone for their efforts.
Skin the blubber on Walkerton and the Westray Mine and the muscle works are bleak.
At bone: the pumping mantra of mala prohibita and the obituary is complete.
Regulations with the shelf life of milk and rye.
And formal charges that of cut flowers.
Argued into obsolescence.
Interests valorized, benefits conferred.
The race to the bottom yields avenues of success.
But the race to the bottom is not without redress.
The hounds will be along soon.
One last goodbye to the spoils of failure.
One last goodbye to the stock rewards.
Here they come.

Criminal justice fails in order to project a particular image of crime.
[Jeffrey Reinman, "A Crime By Any Other Name"]