Yes, the article glosses over the harm that she’s done. But she not only realized that she was being harmful, she turned around and started fighting against that same harm, and that’s worth something.
Does the good she’s doing outweigh the harm that she’s done? I don’t know if that’s a question that even someone with perfect knowledge, of how things are and how things would have otherwise been, could answer. How can you really say that a future where person A is worse off than they would have been, but person B is better off, in vastly different ways, is better than the alternative? How can you acknowledge A’s perspective and yet say that it’s better? How can you acknowledge B’s perspective and yet say that it’s not?
All we can really measure is whether people are behaving better or worse than they have been in the past, and, by that measure, Ms. Peña has definitely improved. She’s admitting the harm she’s caused; she’s trying to make amends for it. And while I don’t think this excuses her, I think she can at least be commended for it.
I also think we must make an effort to commend people like this, for making progress towards being better people. If we treat people every day based on how they behaved on their worst day, then why should anyone bother today to be better than their worst day? What incentive do they have to be good when good behaviour is scoffed at because of past bad behaviour?
Clearly, we shouldn’t forget what people have done in the past; bad habits have a tendency to recapture people. But I fail to see what good holding a grudge against someone for the harm that they’ve done, when they’re already actively working to make recompense for that harm, does for anyone.
There were ~8,500,000 members of the Nazi party in 1945.
Fewer than 2,000 were charged.
Fewer than 500 were convicted; many were acquitted because anything that the Allies did was, by definition, not a war crime.
About 200 were executed; most of the rest were released after serving less than five years.
Which category do you think she belongs in? Among the 200 worst Nazis, the ones literally putting people into ovens? Or among the other ~8,500,000 who received less punishment than the US mandatory minimum for possession distribution of 5g of crack cocaine, or no punishment at all?
She thought she was.
She was mistaken.
She learned from her mistake, admitted it publicly, and is now putting forth all of her effort to rectifying it.
Given that her mistake is in the past, and cannot be undone, what more could you ask of her to do? Not yesterday, not last week, not three years ago; nothing can be undone. What more could you ask her to do today?
The article certainly has a certain story it’s trying to push, of the prodigal daughter brought back into the fold. And I wouldn’t argue that that characterization is fair, either.
The article also uses the term “pro bono” (which, as I understand it, means that the attorney isn’t being compensated) for legal aid work that it sounds like she’s being paid to do, which also makes her sound better than it would otherwise.
This isn’t a case of a defeated enemy being brought on board after the war is lost; it’s a defection.
How much adulation would you expect to be given to:
My cousin is part of the problem. She is rich (husband’s an investment banker) and white, and like the rest of her cohort, thinks paying taxes to stop such problems is an abomination, and blames the victims anyway.
We went to dinner last night at a first cousin’s house (parent of the person I’m talking about). There were about twelve people there. The only other vaguely liberal person there (besides myself and my wife) were a cousin of my cousin. It was an anxiety-provoking, unpleasant experience.
The weird thing is that the cousin’s husband is of Indian extraction from Great Britain I believe. That’s where they live. They’re in the US for a five week vacation.
Relatives said Paddock was worth at least US$2 million when he sold off the real-estate business Among his most profitable investments was an apartment complex purchased in 2004, which gave him more than $500,000 in annual income by 2011. IRS records show he made $5–6 million in profits from its sale in 2015.
It seems that lots of people have their own private definitions of neoliberalism.
My own private definition of neoliberalism is
“faith in the free market’s ability to solve the “economic calculation problem” and belief that governments are ill suited to the task of regulating self organizing social structures.”
Lots of people try to connect neoliberalism and neoconservatism into an inchoate critique of “atlanticism.” Jeez. If you want me to read Chomsky, I’ll read Chomsky. I don’t need some half assed defense of Assad.
Ok. I must have missed something in what you mean. My understanding, from academia mind you, is that taxation is practically Classical (one major step down from the regime of autocratic decree from Antiquity) and “credit markets” are the neoliberal watered down compromise that just makes assholes rich and doesn’t really change anything, which is just above paleoconservaliberal Cartman saying “Imma do what I want!”
Emphasizing former enemies as the main heroes of a movement leads to a culture where you’re expected to collaborate with the oppressor before you’re allowed to criticize it.
For instance, the mainstream corporate media hardly ever quotes anybody criticizing America’s endless wars unless they’re politicians who are veterans of those same wars.
And “Scared Straight” type programs that hold up violent convicts as role models because they’ve repudiated their former crimes just make being a former criminal look cool.
On the other hand, I’m sure Alternet has published articles about civil rights lawyers who were never Nazis, so maybe that’s not the best example.
It’s a fair point that the article is far too nice to her. I’m just trying to correct from going too far the other way, which I thought the use of “She’s still a Nazi ex-cop,” despite her current career protecting migrants, was in serious danger of doing.
See also: disappearance of Native-American women (I wonder).
When a case relies on an arrest by an untrained cop who has a criminal record, prosecutors sometimes do not want to put that person in front of a jury and instead might drop or reduce felony charges, Griffiths warned. “I could see felony domestic violence assault cases that end up being pleaded down to harassment or coercion.”