Thread by @fascinatorfun

Read this
“In the face of political cowardice, it's tempting to yield to defeatism, to argue that the status quo remains fundamentally unchanged, while the Panama Papers are a glaring symptom of our society’s progressively diseased & decaying moral fabric
panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/572c8…

Read it again & again & make space to think hard about the messages from John Doe that brought us the Panama Papers

Thanks to @NarcAware and @RealBristolNews for bringing it to my attention

I don’t agree with every word but most of it rings true & resonates as a well tuned bell

Whistleblowing is complicated. Sometimes people are caught up innocently in a scene created by bad actors.

More often than not it takes people some time to fully realise they are doing something that is questionable or wrong.

Some carry on despite that. Some stop and report.

The wrong that people do during that period of unravelling has to be recognised-especially when the harm is great

So I think we should err on the side of generosity towards whistleblowers
But sometimes it is not possible because of the grave consequences simply to write it off.

Wikileaks (Assange) is an example of whistleblowing that can shine a light on wrong doing, but also to conceal wrong doings unevenly.

That does not suggest a drive to honesty but a drive to partisanship.

“Mossack Fonseca did not work in a vacuum—despite repeated fines and documented regulatory violations, it found allies and clients at major law firms in virtually every nation.”

“If the industry’s shattered economics were not already evidence enough, there is now no denying that lawyers can no longer be permitted to regulate one another. It simply does not work”.

“Those able to pay the most can always find a lawyer to serve their ends, whether that lawyer is at Mossack Fonseca or another firm of which we remain unaware. What about the rest of society?”

“The collective impact of these failures has been a complete erosion of ethical standards, ultimately leading to a novel system we still call Capitalism, but which is tantamount to economic slavery.”

“In this system—our system—the slaves are unaware both of their status and of their masters, who exist in a world apart where the intangible shackles are carefully hidden amongst reams of unreachable legalese. “

I do not know how to fix this.

I have been a lawyer in the past.

I know that something is rotten.

“The Bonfire of The Vanities” (Tom Wolfe) was written about bankers.

But how do lawyers practice ethically but fiercely protecting legitimate interests.

Who decides legitimacy?