Poetic Justice: a particular turning of unforeseen events that institute perfect justice by circumstances unimaginable and with a concluding poetic flare.
This is how I defined the recent public confession of Congressman Randall - the "Duke" - Cuningham. He was caught accepting bribes in excess of $2.5 million in taxpayer money from favor-seeking defense contractor lobbyists. The tall, fair-skinned, clean-cut Republican was forced to accept the humiliation of his dishonorable deeds in front of a live and televised audience.
And please don't misconstrue, I do not gloat at the demise of anyone. Being a prisoner myself for the last seventeen years, I wouldn't wish these repressive inhumane circumstances on anyone - especially the thousands of non-violent offenders like Cunningham who are treated no better than the most depraved and wretched.
I even wonder if there's a more feasible way to counter this growing epidemic of incarceration. People like Cunningham could pay society back in much more tangible ways, as opposed to the vain and intangible recompense of merely being able to say, "He got his."
House arrest and long term community service would be a lot more beneficial to everyone. Vindictive imprisonment just sticks it to the taxpayers, twice. Once by his multi-million dollar theft, and then a second time by his costly room and board.
Cunningham's was an irony that just couldn't be ignored. This man, this high-falluten hypocrite, who has a history of being hostile to productive prison programs - like weight training, television and visiting programs - will now languish among the ranks of those once in the crosshairs of his pernicious demagoguery.
Though his privileges will likely be a lot more extensive than your average inmate, he can now lie in one of the cookie-sheet-thin-bunks he helped promote. "Cunningham the crook," as his newly acquired papers are likely to call him, will now have the opportunity to mingle with the many three-strikers, in for life, who stole much less than he during all three of their offenses.
Now he will get a taste of the loneliness so common among other non-violent human beings locked away from their daily-longed-for families.
Yes, it will be poetic justice to set him face-to-face with his real constituents. Those whose lives went by the wayside because of the rapacious policies he supported while abusing the power the people trustingly gave him.
He will see the contrast of the Rolls Royce-driving, mansion-living, yacht-cruising, life-style he lived, while a growing number of his constituents predictably sank to a life of theft to survive; while he stole for . . . well, who knows why - go figure!
But there's one good thing he can look forward to following his grand failure: after a long stressful day in his new mundane and insanely regimented surroundings - perhaps working eight-hours a day making license plates or sweeping tiers - he can return to his cell and watch a little news or one of the many educational programs piped in on the televisions he previously tried to legislate away.
Notes: The Chris Matthews Show, NBC, December 3, 2005
- a ca prisoner, April 2006