The Age of Impunity

Is how I would summarize the last 10 years. We were witness to stolen elections, illegal wars, torture, looted companies, plundered treasury, etc.etc. The actions and illegalities are well documented and were committed in plain sight.But, few if any have been held accountable for the innumerable criminal and civil crimes that have been committed.

The fear of retribution for an act society has deemed illegal is what creates an orderly society. Once that fear of retribution or moral hazard is removed, people act with no holds barred, as they have. To investigate, have a legal trial, and then punish someone is not "looking backward", it is pushing forward to a world where people have the comfort of knowing that miscreants and their actions are not tolerated.

If we punish the people who abused and dismantled our civic structure, i.e the Constitution, it will be stronger as a result. If we punish the people who abused our financial systems, banks and stock markets, it will be stronger as a result.

I don't want to see Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and the like investigated and tried because I don't like them or to satisfy a partisan blood lust. I want them investigated and tried because they did many things that were ILLEGAL according to our Constitution and the Laws of the land. I was told as a child that this was not allowed and I was dumb enough to believe that. Now I am finding out that this basic assumption is not true. It actually has tipped my world view of the United States as a nation of laws upside down. We are a nation of laws only if you are poor or disfavored. The rich and powerful operate with an open writ of impunity.

The same holds true for the financial system. I have seen it gamed. I have seen so-called "financial geniuses" pawn off a Ponzi scheme on the worlds' economies and get away with it. And keep their jobs. I don't want to investigate and try them out of jealousy or vengence. I want this done so that I can once again believe that it is safe to put my hard earned dollars into a market and system where sharpies will not run a bunco scheme and take it all for themselves and leave me nothing. No one is trying to do that and they have left all the same people who got us into this mess in charge. More impunity.

A woman on Morning Joe today made an interesting observation about the difference in outcome between 2 banking crisises, one in Sweden, one in Japan. In Sweden, they launched investigations and fired the people responsible and punished them when founded. They restored confidence in their system and sailed forward. In Japan, the Japanese pretty much kept they same people who created the crisis in power (sound familiar?) and suffered what is known as the "lost decade" as a result. We seem to be following the Japanese model, unfortunately.

We will never ever ever be the country we thought we were and aspire to be unless we end the Age of Impunity.

k&r

And it's funny how few Americans even seem to care about this.

"You know that the Iraq war was planned before 9-11 and had nothing to do with protecting America..."

"<Yawn> Who's winning on Idol?"

that is what this administration wants. But unlike us, they have to weigh the costs and the likelihood of success with much more information than we have. So, I'm stuck with trusting this administration to carefully weigh things and make the right decisions. From what I have seen of how Obama has been handling things, especially keeping the high ground, which ultimately gives him the power to prosecute if he has to, I feel pretty confident that we have a good man in the job. But at a certain point, people have to recognize that they are operating on more information than most of us will ever know. The only way that this is going to get done is if very careful steps are taken and in the right order. In the meantime, we will have to see a hundred threads everyday about what he's doing wrong and why until we get there. And when we do, the impatient ones will take credit for it and say, "see, if it wasn't for our brilliant criticisms, he wouldn't have done the right thing".

But Obama doesn't care about that. That's what I like about him. Just get it done.