September 19, 2013

Lost in the Shuffle: How bad people happen to good people

"An arrest is not a charge; a charge is not a conviction.

"All of those lesser things are a blurry flurry of paperwork that may be retained or not; that may be accessible or not. And then you come to the vast piles of files that have to be processed, and unless a red flag sticks out, the file is processed.

"The surveillance state may be here, but someone has to sift through all of that stuff and say 'Hold'. Even if the computers filter, someone has to make the final call and those people are as overloaded with info and and cramped with time as are the people processing the VA's paperwork.

"George Orwell meets bureaucratic inertia; Winston Smith fathers four children with Julia before O'Brien (just before his retirement party) actually hears about Smith and then tosses the file because it would ruin his record with the Party and jeopardize his retirement pension and benefits. Big Brother continues babbling on the telescreens as things are swept away to keep everything looking good and all reports continue to be filed in proper form and on time - content be damned." -- Side-Lines: Background Checks? Check and Double Check. Comment by: Mikey NTH

Posted by gerardvanderleun at September 19, 2013 7:00 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Stick in the fact that, in our time, there's no quicker way to lose your job and pension than to be charged with discriminating against a black man, and the picture is complete

Posted by: Callmelennie at September 19, 2013 7:56 AM

When looking for needles in a haystack, it's just like the government to make a bigger haystack.

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at September 19, 2013 9:40 AM

And, that someone who has to make the final call likely had been a low performing student with an affirmative action admission to a second-rate college, who majored in a soft, or imaginary field.

Posted by: BillH at September 19, 2013 3:31 PM