On the Blame Game and Osama Bin Laden

_{Originally posted on Wednesday, May 4, 2011
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150172491071636}

Following the finding of a comment provided by a Facebook friend to a post written with obvious haste and little concern for the outcome of sharing such an opinion, I decided it best to provide my own thoughts in return. Attempting to maintain some decorum of diplomacy, as is proper in public debate, of course, I penned out my thoughts, checked my facts, where necessary, and commenced to post my comment to the one shared on my board by another Facebook friend. However, at once I realised it was already getting more than enough agitation, as it was, already mentioned, obviously hastily provided, with great passion and little consideration as to whether the facts within could be verified. I like things that make sense. So here, I will attempt to provide both sides of an argument that truly never should have begun as such (in my opinion.) And thus so, I will provide it here, in my own notes forum, as opposed to spilling it all over the poster’s original words. After all, though I don’t like what he said, especially, I don’t feel it my place to otherwise monopolise his chosen space in which to say it. And so I provide my own version of logic on the subject here. And I DO hope what I share here will make sense.

Dear Jeff~

Upon your posted comment to the post by another from your friend’s list, concerning responsibility for the finality of Bin Laden… I would like to add to the original poster: Would it then be fair, if one considers your argument to be of valid reasoning, would it then be fair to also rescind the blanket condemnation for our current commander in chief, laying responsibility for the housing crisis of ’09 and ’10 to all who were truly present and truly then responsible for the outcome of such as deregulations in the name of corporations. For by your own definition of responsibility, the current president, he truly just happened in on the ongoing situation of our failing economy when taking the office as our country’s leader. Or would you then say it was his doing, the failing of our economic structure? But then.. what of the previous 8 years before him? Was no one responsible then? And what of the war in Iraq, after countless new media worked tirelessly on so many channels for so many months to redefine what happened on September 11th… that Saddam Hussein was to blame for the tragedies as well as the al-Qaeda and their infamous leader of the “evil doers” in Afghanistan? …

Does this then mean we are thus repeating a dangerous and cyclic movement to haunt and re-haunt the very fabric of American life, where the greatest cause we can take up is to lay blame upon any target within reach. When once this process came into practice, during the Clinton/Gore years, the web was a place to see vacation photos, or pass Stanford U. programs (the first lines of code for such as the likes of Google and Yahoo, perhaps,) No longer is our reach so limited, with connectivity to world-wide access in social realms (like this one…) our choices and judgments shared with the whole of the world we choose to message at a moment’s notice, with the tap of a few keyboard strokes, a click or two of a mouse… we are heard. We are re-tweeted, our content is shared… over and over and over again.

We have thus become the journalistic public. But the responsibility lies in all of us with the ability to convey and reach others with our chosen methods and words in conveyance… to provide QUALIFIABLE (VALID) and QUANTIFIABLE (MEASURABLE) content that’s more than shocking, or even interesting and/or enjoyable for others to find and read and share. We must provide TRUTH in our content. Truth and knowledge that what we share will likely be shared again… and again… and yet again. And if you think that only “sticks and stones” can hurt… you’ve obviously never been the victim of the written word.

So as a journalist public of our own news and in many cases, as additions to news world-wide, we should know we have every right to write what we think.

BUT…

We have every responsibility to THINK BEFORE we WRITE.

Thanks for reading, and PS to Jeff… your comment to that post was one that DOES make sense, and I’m very glad that we’re friends:)

And happy writing, everyone!