Reverend Marcia Dyson, a Roosevelt Institute Braintruster, outlines the principles that must guide the inquiry into the financial collapse.
"There is no respect of persons with God." (Romans2:11)
Amidst all the noise and bluster about seating a commission to investigate the causes of our financial ruin, let's not forget the fundamental moral and spiritual principles that should guide their search for the truth. And in the spirit of the bi-partisan approach being heralded, these principles aren't the province of one religion or moral tradition; rather, these ideas are the fault lines that trace beneath the common ethical ground all good citizens should occupy. Call it 'terra moralis'.
The first principle is telling the truth. This principle seems so obvious that it shouldn't even warrant an honorable mention on our list of commission virtues. And yet, isn't that why we're in the mess we're in now? Bankers couldn't tell the truth to potential homeowners about the prime, and sub-prime, mortgages being doled out. A lot of black folk got the short end of the mortgage stick -- that is, a sub-prime loan -- because bankers didn't tell them the truth that they qualified for a prime loan. Wall Street bankers lied to us, and to each other, about just how bad things were looking, but greed blinded them to the risks they callously asked us to assume. Investment bankers fleeced even high profile clients of their cash and made off - or is that Madoff? - with billions of hard-earned dollars. But it's obviously easier to throw Bernie Madoff in the clinker than it is to arrest a corrupt system. But arrest it we must, and the only way to prevent its criminal forays in the future is to demand from this commission the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God! If the Hippocratic Oath is "first, do no harm," the oath of this commission must be, "first, tell no lie."
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You can read the rest of Roosevelt Braintruster Rev. Marcia Dyson's piece at New Deal 2.0.