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The Senate hearings on who knew what and when as far as the attacks on September 11th have been going full swing for a couple of weeks now. They are looking to place blame on someone for the tragedy and are grilling everyone that they can subpoena.
Well, it’s time to stop this massive waste of time and money and get back to the business of healing and protecting our country from having a repeat performance. The only solutions that would justify the existence of the 9/11 Commission would be if they came up with a solution to the terrorism problem and viable ways to prevent it from ever happening again.
Even though the Commission claims that this is their aim, all of us with any gray matter know that the possibility of this happening is next to nil. If you don’t think that’s true turn off “The Bachelor” and “Survivor” and turn on CNN and watch for a while. You want reality TV that matters? There it is.
I mean let’s face it, have you ever seen anything positive come out of one of these over blown witch-hunts? Of course not. They usually spend a ton of time, our time, and a bundle of money, our money, to come to no conclusion at all. And when hearings of this type get completely out of control they end up ruining people’s lives in the process. Did I hear somebody say The McCarthy Hearings?
Call it what you will, but it’s nothing more than the old Blame Game. Most people out there aren’t happy until either somebody takes the hit or a sacrificial lamb is hoisted onto an alter and sacrificed. It shouldn’t be that way. The damage has already been done, and in the case of the current hearings, nothing will ever bring back those that were lost.
But they keep doing it and our elected officials are not alone in this little exercise. We are all guilty of it to a certain degree, myself included. It is something we are all taught and/or conditioned to do, whether it be at home, at school, or in sports. While we are all looking for someone to blame, at the same time, it is the one thing that we all desperately want to avoid. Being the one who is at fault and blamed for it.
The stigma that it carries, especially when you are young, can be daunting at the very least. If it is repeatedly hammered home by an overzealous parent, teacher, or coach it can trash a kid’s self esteem for life. I have seen it happen in all three arenas and the outcome is never pretty. The kids either become candidates for years of therapy; someone who thinks killing fellow students and teachers is a good idea; or Darryl Strawberry.
With Little League baseball season now in full swing you have a great barometer to gauge the type of behavior I am referring to. As this season has unfolded I have unfortunately witnessed the game being played, and I am not referring to baseball. It all depends on where you are during the course of the game as to what you hear and witness. I rarely sit during the games and since I tend to pace a lot, I pick up on many different aspects as to what is going on. A fly on the backstop so to speak.
If you have ever been to a game and been in or around the stands you know what I mean when I say there is a constant dialogue amongst the spectators, mostly parents and family members. When I say dialogue I am trying to be diplomatic, it’s really an intense mini version of the blame game.
If it’s not one player’s fault it’s another, and if it’s not the player’s fault it’s the coach’s fault, and if it’s not the coach’s fault, it’s the umpire’s fault. I know we are in California but that’s an awful lot of faults for such a small area. You could whittle that list down quite a bit because, as all of us in little league know, 99 percent of the time it’s the umpire’s fault.
If you move over to the player’s dugout you hear the same blame being thrown around. And surprise, it usually mirrors the parent’s reactions in the stands. Monkey see, monkey do. So even though you may not think the blame lesson is being taught, it is being absorbed nonetheless.
I have worked at companies with this same mindset. Employers, as well as fellow employees, always looking for someone to blame if something goes wrong. All this can do is manifest itself into employees who are constantly looking over their shoulders for fear of making a mistake. That in itself is an impossible task because being human, we all make mistakes.
If you are lucky enough in your work career you will hopefully have an employer like M. Wayne Thompson. I worked for this man for ten years and he taught me, along with many other things, a very valuable lesson. The company he owned was very customer service oriented. One day, shortly after I began my tenure with him, I made a mistake. A big and costly one. We made custom cases and I had made $10,000 worth that were wrong and could not be corrected.
Having worked in those torture cell environments like what I described earlier I thought my time at Mr. T’s company was drawing to a rapid end. I knew that there was no way to avoid it so I made the walk to his office to fess up to what I assumed was my career ending error. A longer walk I have never made.
I stood before him confessing my crime and waited for what I thought would be the inevitable. After hearing my tale of woe he looked me right in the eye and said “Well Wild Bill you better get the customer the corrected cases right away” and looked back down at his desk. In my shock and perhaps stupidity I asked, “Is that it?” He looked back up at me and said, “Wild Bill, it’s not who’s right, it’s who’s left.”
Those words have always stuck with me especially when I am quick enough to catch myself about to try and find someone to blame for something that has gone wrong. It’s not important who did what, it’s more important to focus on the problem and correct it with as little trauma to those it effects most. I always try when pointing a finger in this column to offer some kind of solution.
In the case of the 9/11 Commission hearings we know that the outcome will never correct the problem or give us any definitive solutions, so stop wasting our time and money. If you’re itching to spend money give it to the FBI like they asked you for in the first place so they can update their antiquated terrorist detection systems. All you are doing now is opening old wounds for those who lost loved ones on that tragic day and making the country as a whole relive it every day you are in session.
So to the 9/11 Commission please stop and think about who’s left.
The Shrub Speaks: And we can't let people blow up a process. But that's what happened, as you might recall. And there's been suiciders and killers and -- you know -- and it's essential that we work together to stop that kind of terror. Crawford, Texas April 12, 2004
B.D.’s Response: As if this statement wasn’t confusing, Dubya really needs to stop making up words. Suiciders? I couldn’t find that one in the dictionary.
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