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Karen Telleen-Lawton: Forgiveness and Accountability
At this time of year when we try to uphold the values of peace and brotherhood, it’s appropriate to ponder: When is the time for accountability, and when is the time for forgiveness?
The blogosphere buzz-phrase about this issue is “the inequality of accountability.” A blogger implored Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold in 2007 to examine “the inequality of accountability between those regarding themselves as elite and the rest of us who answer to the swift and Draconian laws, excessive punitive fees and fines for the least of our errors.”
It’s probably true that when we ourselves are caught in an error, we tend to believe we are being singled out unfairly. We tend to skim over the more numerous times we got away with speeding or failing to stop when a pedestrian waited at an intersection. But what about the larger public sphere?
It takes about a nanosecond to come up with examples of the elite getting away with “stuff.” You remember Blackwater, the private military firm hired by the U.S. government. Recent federal audits suggest it may owe the government tens of millions of dollars for allegedly failing to meet federal contract terms. Five of its employees face murder charges for the massacre of Iraqi civilians, and founder Erik Prince is accused of running a crusade (or might we say jihad?) against Muslims and Islam. But Blackwater’s contracts have been extended indefinitely.
Yadda yadda for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and CEOs of government-bailed financial institutions with their jaw-dropping bonuses (Goldman Sachs may be coming around). For them and many privileged others, it’s foot-dragging justice or swift injustice in their favor — all the way to the bank.
Members of society with the least access to safety nets and the least access to justice are held accountable in proportionately larger numbers. Within a few days after hidden videos showed Acorn, the community organizing nonprofit, giving illegal or illegitimate tax-preparation advice to the poor, members of both houses of Congress voted to deny federal dollars. This swift action certainly wasn’t proportionate to the taxpayer cost of its transgressions, but rather proof of its meager influence.
The man whose birth we commemorate this month, revered by Jews and Muslims and hallowed by Christians, was most interested in this balance between swift justice and compassion. As Jesus of Nazareth warned in the book of Matthew, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of he law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!” (Love the visuals!)
For the powerless, he took a different tack. Addressing an angry crowd preparing to stone a prostitute, he admonished them to let “he who is sinless throw the first stone.” When the crowd dispersed in frustration, he turned to the woman and told her to “go and sin no more.”
During this season — and beyond — when you read about the next belligerent Acorn or supercilious CEO, notice what happens to the offenders. What is the balance between forgiveness and accountability? Is there equality in the way the haves and have-nots are held accountable? What would a sustainable justice call for, and how can we build it?
— Karen Telleen-Lawton’s column is a mélange of observations supporting sustainability. Graze her writing and excerpts from Canyon Voices: The Nature of Rattlesnake Canyon at www.CanyonVoices.com.
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» on 12.15.09 @ 09:14 PM
Can a liberal talk about politics for more than three sentences without saying “Halliburton”? Karen actually made it past ten. Good job Karen. Now stick to subjects you actually know something about so you don’t have to bore us by parroting the same tired chip-on-your-shoulder mantras that you heard at some elite liberal cocktail party ..yeah yeah Halliburton corporate greed blah blah…
Acorn had meager influence? - hilarious, they only got Obama elected.
Christ revered by Jews and Muslims is an especially ignorant thing to say as the Muslims murder and persecute Christians and the Jews dismiss Him as simply a blasphemous nutjob. And the Pharisees, teachers of the law being hypocritical is hardly comparable to corporate CEO’s, I don’t see too many of them teaching Jewish law, and they were hardly in power under the rule of the occupying Romans of the day.
» on 12.16.09 @ 10:01 AM
Government workers are not the sharpest tools in the shed as we all know, but the unions—Liberals pay them with our money 40% more than the private sector—The ones who produce something???—US
» on 12.16.09 @ 01:35 PM
Karen,
Thanks for laying the groundwork on some interesting thoughts and discussions (well at least for most of us) during the holiday seasons.
I’m sure we all have a wealth of experience dealing with the inequity of accountability…where we’ve gotten away with not being held accountable and where we thought we were being held more accountable than others.
I’m a big backer of the free-market system. What kills the system is the back-room influence that is not properly priced in the system. You would think penalties and fines would help to square the activities, but when you get too “big” you can ignore logical and realistic consequences.
I think besides the “inequity of accountability”, there is also an interesting discussion of the “inequity of influence”. Well, it’s probably really not an inequity per se. It’s just that we all hate to believe our government leaders are really that strongly influenced by campaign contributions. It’s not inequity…if we gave $100,000, we would have influence, too.
I don’t know that much about ACORN, but I would bet Halliburton contributes a lot more to our elected officials than anyone at ACORN can or does.
P.S. I noticed that “Stick to Green” couldn’t make it past one sentence before mentioning Halliburton…now how liberal does that make StG? oops, “sarcasm is the protest of the weak”
» on 12.16.09 @ 04:18 PM
Another fine, thought-provoking essay.
Where does the line between law, justice, mercy really fall?
Way too bad that so many readers get so worked up responding, Pavlov’s dog style,
to Red Button words in the essay that they totally lose Karen’s main points entirely,
and just go back to their default position - anonymously attacking the author.
But Karen, is this recent Bush-Enron era different from those which preceded it?
Hasn’t there always been a huge disparity between the penalties the rich and powerful face, and what everyone else would face in similar situations?
An unemployed person, a drifter, the parent of an under-nourished baby, a druggie,
goes into a store and shoplifts something small, to eat or sell.
Or waves a knife, and boosts $100 in small bills from a cash register.
If they get caught, it’s 2-10 in County Jail or state prison.
But if the same person wears a white collar, drives a nice car, and diverts $1million
over the computer, or by muddying up a company’s ledger’s, they get 2-10 months
of house arrest, wearing an ankle bracelet under their designer pants.
Gun-crazy mercenaries; Guantanamo torturers; Enron-style embezzlers; Wall Street
mega-speculators.
How many have actually been convicted of felonies and gone to jail? How many have
actually been forced to make restitution? How many have been compelled to face
their victims directly, and pretend some actual contrition?
In the end, sick Michael Jackson never did a day’s hard labor for what he did to kids.
Will Roman Polanski ever come back to face the woman he abused all those years
ago? Will Senator Baucus face the music for trying to get his main squeeze in as a
highly paid federal prosecutor, without revealing a “relationship”? Will Lieberman
ever have to account for the massive “soft money” he’s taken from insurance firms
to scuttle “Health Care reform”? Will Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rumsfeld-Rice ever have
to answer, Pinochet-style, for their Iraq adventure?
If the answer is NO, is that because the larger community agreed to “forgive” as we
did the kite-flying boy who accidentally started the Sycamore Canyon fire.
Or is it because the watchdogs, the guards, the prosecutors, the judges, have all
be suborned or cowed along the way?
Will it be from faith, from brotherhood, from mercy? Or from greed, clout, and fear?
People’s faith in so many of the world’s basic institutions has been so compromised
by weakness, hypocrisy, vice, that it’s getting really hard to tell anymore.
» on 12.21.09 @ 03:47 PM
“Revered by Muslims”??????Have you read any bit of literature written by brave women from that part of the world who spell out the hatred their men have for Christians and Jews? Try “Princess” and/or “A Thousand Splendid Suns”...
Your ignorance is appalling and predictable. The problems of the world are NOT caused by the USA.
And ACORN? One of the most corrupted organizations ever. Do some research.
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