I have come to realise that the general lack of accountability in almost all walks of life in The West is responsible for the majority of our ills. I believe that if we were all held accountable for our actions then our society would be quite a lot better.
I am placing the blame for some of this on Christianity and some on general laziness. It seems too easy these days to forgive someone for something they have done wrong and to forget the problem than it is to punish or even recognise that there was some wrongdoing. (not that I am criticising Christianity entirely; just some aspects of it)
This isn't such a problem at the familial level of society, but much more of an issue in the way the country is run through corporations and government. The worst examples of this I find are in large companies and in central government… and there are so many examples that I don't know where to start. I expect to be coming back to this topic in the future as I think it's so critical to modern society and there are so many instances of abuse that I think it's always worthy of examination.
The inspiration this morning is the current Iraq war. I will predict that George Bush and Tony Blair will not have to be accountable for the disgraceful events that have taken place in Iraq in the last few years even though they are the heads of state of the two countries most involved. They will both ease out of government (or should that be slime out of government) and into their luxury lifestyles (including a library for George - what's he going to use that for!!) without having to be tried for war crimes. I'm sure there will be calls for prosecution, but there is nothing that anyone can do about it (unless we start a revolution - by the way I'm up for it).
The fact that George either didn't listen to his advisors, didn't have the right advisors or didn't have any advisors means that he was negligent. It seems obvious now that Iraq would descend into a civil war-type scenario and any expert would have been able to predict this. It seems amazing to be thinking that Saddam Hussein was in some way a unifying force and he seems almost benign compared to the savagery and pure evil taking over Iraq at the moment (it's heart-breaking to see what's happening there every day). Surely there is someone in the US government who understands the way that Iraqi politics and dictator politics has defined Iraq and would continue to define the country with or without US intervention.
Of course, I can see the reasons behind an invasion. I can understand the thought processes that sent the soldiers there and the way it was passed through the flimsy governmental checks to get there, however it is simply unacceptable for there to not have been the right people in the right place to tell George Bush and Tony Blair that if you do this then there will be worse carnage than before and it will be on your hands. How could they have lived with that?! But worse of all is how they will not have to pay the price and, in fact, they will end up being rewarded for instigating such a human catastrophe.
Another example is the Enron case a couple of years ago. How the people who "stole" that money haven't been shot is beyond me. If I was one of the employees who lost thousands of dollars while the company managers were taking millions (and I lived in a country where it is relatively easy to get hand guns) then I surely would have waited for one of these thieves to come home and then shoot him on his driveway. I'm genuinely surprised that that hasn't happened yet. It is criminal (actually it is literally criminal since there is an impending court case) that these crooks can do this. I know there is a legislative punishment coming to some of the top guys, but it's not enough. The subject of crime and punishment is an upcoming entry to this blog so I won't spoil it now, but I do believe that the punishment should fit the crime and too often it doesn't. Anyway, it's another case of accountability gone crazy. There are many, many more… from the silly company I work for, to the railway network in the UK, to Microsoft, to food manufacturing companies etc etc etc. Please, please, please can we start being accountable?!
