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Global Edition | Today Is Wednesday, March 17, 2010 |
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Global Edition | Today Is Wednesday, March 17, 2010 |
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| Politics Antithetic To Critical Thinking | « Scan Content In The Order It Was Published » | CBS Evening News At War | |
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Vikram Pandit: Prestigious Banker or Common Criminal?
As far as those events are concerned, I would not even start to justify myself…. What I did was wrong and I don’t see why I should go back to this for the purposes of this trial…. I made one mistake, and I am still suffering for that.
Roman Polanski
After decades of hiding out in France, the Swiss courts are having to deal with the indelicacy of demands from U.S. authorities for the extradition of alleged sex criminal Roman Polanski. Mr. Polanski’s recent arrest by Swiss authorities on his arrival in Bern for presentation of an award, points up an alarming disparity in American justice.
Those who are young, poor, uneducated or homeless are held to a higher standard of justice than those who are wealthy, powerful, or engaging in illegal activities as part of an otherwise legitimate business. If one foolishly robs the local 7-11 store jail is a near certainty, as it ought to be. But if one robs the government, or turns a once proud bank into a loan sharing operation, he or she is deemed too big to arrest.
As a result, our American criminal justice system is egregiously out of balance. It keeps our jails brimming with small-time perpetrators whose transgressions were unlawful, nefarious, antisocial, dangerous, and reprehensible — while finding it far more difficult to interdict persons or organizations whose transgressions are big-time. Thus our nation is suffering from an immense failure of its institutions of governance.
We are unable, or unwilling to deal with the real crooks and thieves preying on Americans, but it seems, entirely able to expend effort to prosecute Roman Polanski, a 32 year fugitive from American justice.
The issue isn’t that Roman Polanski didn’t wrongfully and cunningly take advantage of an under age female, nor that the event happened some 32 years ago — nor that he fled the country to evade prosecution. The issue is equality. Why aren’t we giving equal attention to the bankers who have done immense and perhaps irreparable harm to all Americans?
Now that Mr. Polanski is no longer protected by French aversion to the rights of women, he deserves to be made to face judgment for his misbehavior and transgression of trust. So do the men and women who brought down their nation just one year ago — and who are now back doing the exact same things again. Their behavior is criminal, but the government seems powerless, or willing, to send them off to join Bernard Madoff who was guilty of no greater crimes.
In comparison, what Mr. Polanski ( now age 76 ) did to Samantha Geimer ( the alleged victim, now age 45 ) some 32 years ago is of little or no significance whatsoever to the problems facing the United States. For unlike Ms. Geimer, who we have only recently learned reached a $500,000 settlement with Polanski nearly 20 years ago, the American nation, its peoples and its security have been seriously and perhaps irrevocably harmed by the gamers and schemers who ran international finance into the ground and remain, almost to the man, free of criminal investigation or threat of imprisonment.
The problem isn’t whether Mr. Polanski is made to return to Los Angeles to take his medicine, it’s the inability of our American justice system to hold accountable the rich and powerful who do us far more harm than Mr. Polanski could even imagine.
We offer no comfort to Mr. Polanski, nor should our nation afford comfort to any who behave criminally in business, finance or government.
