eThoughts : Reigning Fiascos.

Fiascos can be interesting—such events upset the expectations and the shoulds in our lives. That upset is not such a bad thing, having our maps attacked can elicit a lizard-brain response, or drive us in deeper, forcing us to create new landscapes.

I was recently involved in a fiasco. It was a doozie too. There were lies, misrepresentations, manipulations, mismanagement, naiveté, confusion, misapplications; in short, it was everything in a microcosm that is not so good about humans.

Here’s the story as I saw it. After years of ridiculous, continual, and illegal infringement by a person who just plain didn’t care, I sought relief. Officials, paid public employees, were supposed to help. Some did. Some were resentful, doing what I’d heard once was a mantra of such officials: do as little as possible and hope the situation goes away. Some just seemed to outright work against the issue, making assumptions not in evidence as well as working against the complaint. It was a tough road and I had little voice. But one aspect of my complaint was supported by unarguable evidence, and the person whom I had made the complaint against had been found in violation. However, even that part hadn’t mattered, the entire issue continued unabated. So I had to seek help again. And, once more, the person was found in violation for the same illegality as the first time. I’ve never seen such niceties generated towards someone who continued to take up public funds by doing what they pleased. One might have thought there was a feeling that the perpetuator was actually the victim, so sympathetic was the attitude of the one rendering judgment. Clearly objectivity was not going to rule the day.

The second facet of the problem was what turned nasty and became a fiasco. And I contributed to the fiasco part by being so caught off guard by the ensuing melee that I looked like a bumbling idiot—but then I made the massive mistake of assuming I’d finally be in a venue where reason and not prejudice ruled. Some professions get a bad rap sometimes, and that “sometimes perception” can morph into a “generally-speaking perception.” But what was generated by this particular person was what contributes greatly to distain for their profession. The person’s behavior was just plain sleazy. And it was allowed by the one charged with directing the proceedings. In fact, let’s be clear, it was encouraged. The exchanges between these two were astounding, as though they were discussing how amazing that anyone (that would be me) with half a brain would ever say the things I did, ignoring the entire time that I never said them. Called on the matter, the relevancy or accuracy of the assertions could not be supported, but their misrepresentations were left to stand, and I was limited in the scope of my reply and admonished to stay on the issue. That same standard was not even closely applied to the other party, who was allowed to veer off in any direction they wanted.

When I was astonished at what was taking place, it was interpreted as intimidating. Objecting as to the relevance of false statements and misleading, out-of-context assertions, I was told not to interrupt (yep, you guessed it, I was the only one held to that standard). Asking to see the evidence of my alleged transgressions, I was told to it was my job to find them in the papers given to me. Attempting to counter the preposterous allegations and irrelevancies, I was asked what my arguments had to do with my complaint. Requesting to present my evidence, I was told it was inadmissible, yet the same manner of evidence gathering was allowed to be presented by one of the “professionals,” though it was clearly irrelevant to the standard I was being held to, not to mention insignificant to the entirety of the complaint!

The distain of those charged with presenting and protecting the truth was not subtle. And the bias running rampant in this situation was beyond belief. What these people allowed and promoted was just downright unconscionable.

I lost the second part of the problem, though the first part, as it did the first time, stood. Interestingly, the penalty was not much increased for the second offense despite the fact that it had occurred within a few months of the first.

Okay, let’s take a moment here. Perhaps on that particular day, this particular problem was not indicative of some of these people’s lives, though the evidence strongly suggests that the one causing the trouble doesn’t care one whit about the violation, the intrusion, or the trouble—they seemed conscience-free. Maybe it was just about this matter, and maybe that day and this situation were not indicative of all that was good and clean and helpful about these people’s lives and their professions. But there is no mistake that on that particular day, in that particular situation, most of these people made a mockery of their work and their profession, not to mention community responsibility. With a chance to do something simple and right, they failed to do so. And at least one failed to do so deliberately.

After the fiasco, I thought of all the humans before me, in matters much more serious than mine, who relied on a system of justice that did not deserve to have the word justice associated with it. I thought of all the humans who entered into what was supposed to be an objective inquiry and found themselves among those with such a subjective bias that the facts were subjugated to the clear preference for prejudice. I thought of all the humans who would follow, relying on people hired to protect their rights, instead committed to trampling them.

As I said, maybe it was just a bad day. And I understand that we can say all we want to about how the system is not perfect, it’s the best we’ve got and it works most of the time. But when we refuse to listen, when human prejudice trumps sense-making, when we blatantly and deliberately allow lies and misrepresentations, what may be a bad day, extends across time to be a bad way. It is in that manner that the practice, intentional or otherwise, of such prejudice and insensitivity has tentacles that reach into the future and block our beauty and our transcendence. When this happens, we all become victims, not just those who are on the receiving end of such stupid judgments.