It's Not My Fault

"There's an old saying, that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan…I am the responsible officer of the government and that is quite obvious."

So said President John F. Kennedy in April 1961, speaking of the 'Bay of Pigs' affair, the illegal invasion of Cuba that he had sanctioned and that ended in ignominy and disaster for the US and its cronies. Without getting too misty eyed about JFK, it's worth noting how open his comments were. He was prepared to clearly accept responsibility for an event that had gone terribly wrong, and which involved the deaths of thousands of people. Compare this to the words of just about any modern politician or businessmen, and I think you'd find that times, well, they've changed.

Consider Wembley Stadium. It's a disaster, obviously enough, which is presided over by the Australian building firm Multiplex. Despite being the group charged with overseeing and organising the building of the new stadium, Multiplex last week denied that they were responsible, in any way, for the failure to deliver the stadium on time. We had nothing to do with it, they said. It's not our fault. Quite who's fault it is – because it must be someone's – was not made clear, but doubtless there are already teams of lawyers gathering to fund their comfortable retirements on the proceeds of the upcoming legal battle.

To continue the footballing theme, José Mourihno is another one up to the same business. It's never his, or his show pony players' fault, if the team loses. It's always 'the referee', 'bad luck', or Arsene Wenger who is, somehow, to blame. The Special One's refusal to accept responsibility for anything except his success is perhaps a result of stupidity and arrogance, but it's symptomatic of a current trend to evade responsibility for the things you do wrong. Sad to say, but Mourihno and his ilk are cultural leaders of a sort, but the example they set does little good to the impressionable morons who take clowns like him seriously.

This trend is also amply reflected in the TV show, The Apprentice. Whilst, I must admit that I'm addicted to the grisly spectacle it present, the format of the show is always this: first half, a group of talentless and intensely tiresome egomaniacs with no business skills, fail to complete the task set for them. Second half, everyone blames everyone else for the failure, with not one of them ever prepared to accept responsibility for the things they have clearly done wrong.

This kind of thing isn't just limited to people in ther public eye, but they help set the agenda for the dumb, slavering mass that is the public. How many times have you witnessed instances of bad or ignorant driving? If the guilty driver is somehow made aware of his (and it usually is a 'him') poor driving, the common response is one of outraged and aggressive indignation. It's not their fault for driving like a total fucking ignoramus, it's your fault for pointing it out.

This kind of approach to life comes from the top, filters down to the plebs and creates the kind of unpleasant 'me first' society we live in today. I hereby announce, that Tony Blair and his revolting and shameless gang of hypocrites, toadys and self-hating lesbian martinets are to blame for all this. They never accept that they do anything wrong, and even when it is made publicly obvious that they have, they never resign, or even bother to say sorry. They just blame the media, who's fault it is for exposing them.