Sounds like the first of the Three Letters joke:
A new CEO had been hired by the board to take over a flagging company. Asking the old guy if there was anything he needed to know, he was given three letters and told to open each in turn only in case of dire need.
The new CEO took things in hand, and pretty soon things were going smoothly for the company. Unfortunately, eventually disaster struck, and he was called by the Board to explain himself. At a loss on what to do, he finally remembered the Three Letters. He opened the first one, which contained these simple words: “Blame it on your precedecessor”.
He took the advice to heart and stood before the Board with that explanation. They grumbled but let him continue as the CEO. The company weathered that rough patch, and things looked good again.
But some time later, things turned rough again. Sales were down and prospects were grim. When all else failed, he opened the second letter: “Blame it on the economy”.
He made some grand speeches to the company, got everyone to hunker down, and eventually the company saw it through.
Things were looking good when the third downturn hit. Despite his frantic management, the CEO couldn’t get things going again. He finally opened the third letter to read what it said: “Write three letters…”
But seriously though, good on Rahm Emmanuel to owning up to the fuckup. The first step of solving a problem is admitting there is one…
Apologize? Why isn’t someone going to prison?
Daley (as former Cook County state’s attorney) had a stake in keeping stone-faced, Rahm does not. That simple really. Meanwhile Rahm dismantles the public school system and sends black and latino neighborhoods into chaos. Progressives bemoaned the corruption of the seemingly endless Daley era in Chicago, but Rahm’s version of it makes many of us sadly wistful when thinking of “Da Mare”.
Having said that, any acknowledgement from the city about this is long overdue, so despite his motives I have to congratulate this supreme asshole for doing the right thing*
*almost surely for the wrong reasons.
Also, thanks for the cycling infrastructure! Apart from that you’re a despicable misery in almost every way…
Maybe the most upsetting thing is that there are only 4 comments on this article while the one above has 67. No one cares. And it will continue, because no one cares.
Exactly. My first question (anyone from the US care to enlighten me?) is - how come there’s no criminal prosecution to go along with this?
It’s not that no one cares, it’s that it rings hollow. A tiny gesture. As others have said, where are the prosecutions?
You have consistently mis-spelled Emanuel’s last name, though it is correct in the linked story.
Burge was prosecuted, and currently lives in a Federal prison in North Carolina.
Already happened. Burge is in prison in North Carolina.
Already happened, a couple of years ago. The story just doesn’t mention it.
That may be true on the internet, but here in Chicago, we pushed for Burge’s prosecution. He’s in prison now.
I stand corrected.
It is at least good to see Americans being honest about torture rather than the (frankly evil) circumlocution that has been used over Gitmo and CIA black prisons.
It says in the article that for many of the cases of torture, the statute of limitations have run out, meaning they got away with it and will never be punished (by the justice system) even if they go on TV bragging about how fun it was to torture people.
Basically came here to say this. Rahm is the kind of scumbag that takes money from teachers and gives it to options traders. Fuck that guy in his tiny ears.
Burge was sued in a civil case, lied about it, was prosecuted for perjury, and is in Federal prison now.
Right, but the posters seemed to (to me) be asking why there aren’t several former cops in jail for long periods, and the answer to that, according to the article, is statute of limitations. Burge is one of the few who faced any penalty, and even in his case, it wasn’t for the crime itself, but for perjury in a civil suit about it, a sentence of 4 1/2 years
At least someone faced some penalty, and it’s great that, despite the statute of limitations, the people prosecuting Burge did what little they could do put somebody in jail for something related to it, rather than the far easier task of just shrugging and sweeping it under the rug, but it’s far short of what should have happened if there were any real justice.
Honest testimony to this American horror here –
Because Mayor Daley, through the use of settlements, was able to avoid having to give sworn testimony regarding this until the statute of limitations ran out.
Yeah it sucks.
on edit: what everyone else said regarding Burge being in prison. It should have happened YEARS ago. I lived in Park Ridge (a suburb for rich folk) back in the late 70’s and it was reported on back then. Just not to the point where anyone actually gave a shit about it. Even though I lived in Park Ridge with my Uncle and Aunt, I hated every minute of it because of shit like this.
Then again, Chicago was so corrupt that even as an obviously underage guy with out of state plates on my van (which also invariably smelled like a Grateful Dead concert) I was able to pretty much drink in an of the city’s fine liquor dispensing establishments. Even after being pulled over numerous times, the worst that ever happened was for the cops to tell me to go straight home.
Good thing I wasn’t that ugly shade of brown that the cops despised so much.
