Who Can You Trust?

Trusting people in leadership positions today is difficult. After all, everyone knows about the horrific pederasty scandal that has infected hundreds of ministers and especially Catholic priests, the widespread failure of national politicians to be committed to anyone except their deep pocketed financial supporters or the “Base,” the endless greed of Wall Street and the Big Banks, and the abject failure of the U.S. Justice Department to be able to understand what the word “justice” means. And hey, don’t forget George W. lied shamelessly to the nation about Saddam Hussein supporting Al Qaida and Obama lied equally shamelessly about being a liberal Democrat who wanted to “change” Washington.

Now we are treated to the prospect of the Catholic hierarchy going after American nuns, intent on whipping them into submission for failing to march lockstep with the bishops, those paragons of virtue who purposefully hid priestly pederasts for decades. What an abject travesty that is.

So, who can YOU trust? What about your spouse? That suggestion makes me think of John Edwards or Eliot Spitzer or the young mother who killed herself after murdering her three children. What about your minister? Oh-oh, don't go there. What about the military academies? Not if you have daughters and don’t want to see them get raped by upperclassmen and then abused by the Academy administrators who lie about trying to stop the sexual attacks.

Can you trust your boss? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sorry, I nearly choked to death on that one. What about your colleagues, can you trust them? Now that one's complicated. The answer is: it depends on a lot of things, like circumstances, meaning what's at stake and if there were witnesses.

Do you trust Republicans more than you do Democrats? As far as I'm concerned they're all unconscionable liars and charlatans so it's six of one and a half dozen of the other. How about corporations? Anyone out there trust Goldman Sucks? Oops, I meant Goldman Sachs; don't know how I could have made that silly blunder. Or what about General Motors or maybe JP Morgan and Jaime Dimon?

Can you trust stuff your friends say via Facebook, Twitter, or email? If you do you are certifiably mad since people post or send ridiculous, incorrect, off-the-wall shit every day. Which is why Snopes.com exists.

As for me, I trust my wife and my kids. I also trust my doctors, three of whom I've been seeing for more than 20 years. I trust my close friends and certain relatives. I have to be careful here because some of the ones I don’t trust follow this blog; just kidding. That doesn't mean I've haven’t been disappointed by their choices and actions. But that’s life.

Finally, as a group I trust nuns as much as I distrust bishops, which is a whole lot since many of those guys are worse than the worst politicians, who after all are only looking to fill their pockets and reward their supporters whereas many bishops are pederast protectors, like Cardinal Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, who had the great luck to die before he was arrested, or Cardinal Law, who was whisked off to Rome and promoted to a plum job by the Pope after documents revealed he had covered up decades of sexual abuse committed by priests in the Boston archdiocese.

Oh yeah, I'll take the good nuns any day.