Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass..... Why do we need a face for bad judgement or atrocity? Is it because through that, we can feel less responsible? Does the face of someone to blame relieve all those present as the deed is commited a free ride when the consequences of such actions come to bear? When a ball team loses we blame the coach. Does that mean the level of individual play on the field was governed by the coach even though some of the players may have been ill, hung over or drugged? When a medical procedure doesn't produce the desired results we sue the Doctor even though many more faces have participated and the patient might not have been suitable for such an undertaking and known so beforehand. In a court of law when a large settlement case is tried the winning and losing attorney's will prosper or suffer from the verdict and the circumstances of the case and the recipients are usually forgotten before the settlements are awarded. In World War Two, Adolph Hitler will be forever viewed as the epitomy of evil. Does this mean the German populace who participated in the activities of the death camps should not have been held accountable? Most of them swore they had no idea what was going on in there even though many lived nearby and worked in them, not to mention the soldiers who pulled the triggers of the automatic weapons in the civilian killing fields and those who opened the valves of the gas lines of the sealed off rooms filled with victims, and those who stoked the furnaces to dispose of the bodies. Should we trade them forgiveness in return for the face of a crazy man to blame? We didn't even require a face to blame for the murderous and incredibly brutal ways of the World War Two Japanese. Somehow the one to blame faded off into nothingness and we now apologise for stopping their madness with an atom bomb, even though they burned those captured alive in trenches after they shot the legs out from under them, and as they took Nanking in the Ukraine it was considered great sport to rape a pregnant women then cut the fetus out of her belly and present it to their Commanding Officer still hanging from the bayonet. Our answer to that has been to line up to buy a Toyota, proclaiming it as the most wonderful thing ever built while Ford and General Motors have no occupants on the board who tried to slice the stomach of my father, but who must announce the jobs of thousands to be lost. Did any man in the street have any power to stop any of these disasters of history? Of course. It was called 'the vote'. And yes, public opinion and support was crucial, even if the voting process wasn't available, because warfare couldn't happen if no one supported it. So, here we are. Is George Bush and George Bush alone responsible for all our troubles? Hardly. Although The President can get us involved in military action, it can only remain small scale without the blessings of Congress. In the end, should we accept George Bush as the only one responsible for the most unnecessary and dangerous war in history? Or should we blame Congress as they led the march to stupidity hand in hand and in lockstep, most of them whom we had sent back election after election without thinking whether or not they had really done a good job or not and instead said 'their experience was indispensible. Or should we shoulder some of the responsibility because we don't have the honesty in our hearts to accept the fact that all elected officials work for us at our direction? And reserve the right to send them packing when they're unable to separate responsible from irresponsible. Of course that would require an informed and alert electorate.......duh