Responsibility

[McCamy Taylor]

"The buck stops here” Harry S. Truman

I. Denial

Today’s headline is Obama Takes Responsibility as spill becomes worst ever.

While meditating on the president’s “responsibility”, I got to thinking about other people who have refused to accept responsibility. For instance:

1. George W. Bush is not responsible for the World Trade Center bombing---even though he was briefed on the possibility of a 9-11 type attack in advance and even though his administration failed to put into place safety rules designed by Al Gore that would have prevented the attacks and even though Condie already had the plans on her desk for the invasion of Afghanistan and admitted that she knew that some form of terrorist attack was going happen.

2. George W. Bush is also not responsible for the destruction and deaths from Katrina, even though his Army Corp of Engineers let the levees decay and even though he delayed sending aid even as news crews were filming the chaos. Nope, not his fault. Katrina was God punishing the gays. Or was that the abortionists?

http://mediamatters.org/research/200509130004

3. George W. Bush did not wreck the economy. No, Bill Clinton did that by making us too prosperous.

Other famous deniers include

4. The Nation of Turkey for the Armenian Genocide:

Whereas the Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of more than 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland
(From Sen. Durbin’s proposed resolution)

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r110:FLD001:S03144

5. Nixon did not apologize for Watergate---though Hollywood would have us believe that he did.

Unfortunately for Frost, most of the recorded interviews were a journalistic disaster. Nixon, the master stonewaller, fulfilled his contractual obligation to get through all 24 hours of televised interrogation. Although he never actually gave an answer lasting 23 minutes to a single question (as the film suggests), he did succeed in weaving a web of maximum tedium and minimum disclosure.
Worst of all, Nixon gave no ground on Watergate; nor did he come anywhere near offering an apology for it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1127039/Nixon-v-Frost-The-true-story-really-happened-British-journalist-bullied-TV-confession-disgraced-ex-President.html#ixzz0pFSRvrYX

6. Far from apologizing for the role Pope Pius XII played as Mussolinni’s hand picked pontiff, the Vatican wants to make Pius a saint. Does this remind anyone else of the Roman practice of making the worst emperors gods (and therefore above reproach)?

http://addisvoice.com/article/why_is_the_vatican_adding_insult.htm

The Pope's indifference to the mistreatment of Jews was often clear. In 1941, for example, after being asked by French Marshal Henri Philippe Petain if the Vatican would object to anti-Jewish laws, Pius XII answered that the church condemned racism, but did not repudiate every rule against the Jews.(16) When Petain's French puppet government introduced "Jewish statutes," the Vichy ambassador to the Holy See informed Petain that the Vatican did not consider the legislation in conflict with Catholic teachings, as long as they were carried out with "charity" and "justice."

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html

7. The U.S. will not apologize for dropping two, not one, atomic bombs on Japanese civilians.

Some say America owes Japan an apology for using the Atomic Bomb. The lives sacrificed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved many times the lives, Japanese, American, as well as others, that would have been spent if the war had continued. Without Pearl Harbor and the refusal of Japan to end the war that they had started, not only would there have been no Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but millions of people, Japanese as well as others, would not have died. If the people of Japan are due an apology it more appropriately should come from their own government

http://www.bransoncourier.com/issue-25/Hiroshima-Nagasaki-atom-bomb-Truman-Cordell-H-839.html

Passing the buck for Hiroshima onto the Japanese people themselves takes some kind of balls.

8. Exxon (probably on the advice of its lawyers who will continue to appeal this case until the end of time) still has not gotten down on the floor and groveled over the damage it did with the Exxon-Valdez.
9. IBM and the Bush Family along with

Henry Ford, JP Morgan, Dupont, Mellon, Allen Dulles (America's first CIA director), John Foster Dulles (President Eisenhower's Secretary of State), Charles Lindbergh, William Randolph Hearst, Alcoa Aluminum, Rockefellers' Standard Oil (now Exxon), General Motors, ITT and Chase Manhattan Bank.

http://bluecollarpolitics.com/lederman/bush-ibm-2-13-01.html

supported Nazi Germany during the war. How many of these companies and individuals have apologized?

Just in case you get the mistaken impression that no one ever apologizes for anything, the U.S. has finally apologized for slavery (a century and a half latter) and the attacks on Native Americans. And, a few years back, Tony Blair apologized for the Irish Potato Famine---just before he helped W. launch the Iraq War. Japan is always apologizing for atrocities committed during the Second World War—though sometimes they sound like they do not really mean it.

Japan refuses to apologize for sex-slaves

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6418337.stm

Two weeks later, Japan bows to pressure and apologizes for sex slaves.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6495115.stm

And, of course, Teflon coated Ronald Reagan was famous for accepting responsibility for ever criminal act committed by his administration, even though everyone knew that he was a figurehead.

We have even made a hero of the sinner who refuses to repent:

DON GIOVANNI
(vainly tries to free himself)
For me there's no repentance,
Vanish thou from my sight!

II. God

Years ago, someone brought up the question “How could a loving God allow the Holocaust to happen to His Chosen people?”

To Calvinists, who believe that you can tell the state of a human soul by the material fortune God showers upon him, the Holocaust seems like punishment. To atheists, it seems like proof that there is no god. To Catholics, the more you suffer on earth, the more God loves you. To Buddhists, suffering is an illusion—like everything else.

None of the traditional explanations seemed to answer this question. So, I decided to study it from a different point of view. When you frame it as a matter of capability , i.e. could a loving God allow something so awful to happen, you run up against a logical brick wall. By definition a loving God is compassionate. By definition, a compassionate being does not allow the Holocaust to happen---assuming He (or She or It) has the power to determine what happens on this planet.

But wait? Is the real question one of capability ? Do we really care if God is powerful enough to do things like kill millions of people? If we define God as omnipotent, then He can do whatever the Hell He wants. Question answered---but was that the right question? Maybe what we really meant to discuss was not capability but culpability .

At this point, the answer to the first question became clear:

God is that which accepts responsibility for the Holocaust.

It is human nature to deny our faults. It is human nature to makes villains of our enemies. We want to think that the world is painted in black and white and that we are always on the side of goodness and light. And, in doing so, we commit some of the worst atrocities---the witch hunts in Europe where whole villages were put to death, the Crusades in which Jerusalem was sacked by those who planned to save it, the Holocaust.

It takes guts to admit “I am wrong. I hurt you. I feel your pain.”

III. East Meets West and In Between

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

Martin Luther King Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

http://www.mlkonline.net/jail.html

In view of this, I am convinced that it is essential that we cultivate a sense of what I call Universal Responsibility. This may not be an exact translation of the Tibetan term I have in mind, chi sem, which means, literally, universal (chi) consciousness (sem). Although the notion of responsibility is implied rather than explicit in the Tibetan, it is definitely there. When I say that on the basis of concern for others' well-being we can, and should, develop a sense of universal responsibility, I do not, however, mean to suggest that each individual has a direct responsibility for the existence of, for example, wars and famines in different parts of the world. Clearly certain things, such as the poverty of a single village 10,000 miles away are completely beyond the scope of the individual. What is entailed, however, is not an admission of guilt, but, again, a reorientation of our heart and mind away from self and toward others. To develop a sense of universal responsibility&emdash;of the universal dimension of our every act and of the equal right of all others to happiness and not to suffer--is to develop an attitude of mind whereby, when we see an opportunity to benefit others, we will take it in preference to merely looking after our own narrow interests. Of course we care about what is beyond our scope--we accept it as part of nature and concern ourselves with doing what we can.
Dali Lama

http://www.shareguide.com/DalaiLama.html

The ways may vary, but the goal is one. Don’t you see that there are many roads to the Kaaba? For some the road is from Rum, for some from Syria, others come from Persia or China or by sea from India and Yemen. So if you consider the roads, they are beyond counting, with infinite differences. But when you consider the goal they are all in accord with one desire.
The hearts of all are upon the Kaaba. The hearts are one in their longing and love for the Kaaba, and in that there is no room for separation. That love is neither belief nor non-belief, for it has nothing to do with the various roads. Once we arrive, this argument and war and those differences in the roads - this woman saying to that man, “You are false, you are an infidel,” and that man saying the same about her – once we arrive at the Kaaba, we realize that such fighting is over the roads only, and that the goal of all is the same.
Rumi

http://www.littleknownpubs.com/Rumi23.htm

But in God's sight the repentant sinner has a higher status than the man who has never sinned.
Moses Cordovero

http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/deborah/c178.htm

[DonCoquixote]

1. One of the best quotes ever in DU or anywhere

"It is human nature to deny our faults. It is human nature to makes villains of our enemies. We want to think that the world is painted in black and white and that we are always on the side of goodness and light. And, in doing so, we commit some of the worst atrocities---the witch hunts in Europe where whole villages were put to death, the Crusades in which Jerusalem was sacked by those who planned to save it, the Holocaust.

It takes guts to admit “I am wrong. I hurt you. I feel your pain.”

[inna]

2. K&R

:kick: