A FEW GOOD MEN Is mainly a courtroom drama involving two army men who are accused of murdering a colleague. Tom Cruise and Demi Moore are the reluctant lawyers representing them. As the film progresses we find that the men ‘were acting under orders’ from Col. Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicholson). As he wanted to create an elite team he sanctioned and encouraged any mistreatment or bullying behaviour as a punishment for those who could not keep up. We’ve seen this before in many war films; Full metal Jacket with Vincent DOnofrio being victimised because he was too fat to keep up. So the question that A FEW GOOD MEN asks is, who is responsible for the death of the Marine? Is it the ones who carried out the act or the person who gave the orders? In life we often find this to be an ethical dilemma, especially currently in the economic climate with the ‘blame game’ that is going on with the Banks. The banks are blaming a few ‘rogue traders’ within the bank for mis-selling and causing the ‘Crash’, but if this was ordered by their bosses (the company CEO’s) then why should they be blamed when they too were only following orders? In this situation it is interesting how the courts and governments both blame the Bank itself, often fining huge amounts of money; but how can you blame an inanimate object, which does not exist? (It is only a title and a group of buildings.) So if the BANK does not exist and cannot make decisions then why is it being held responsible and punished for the things that happened? We know that fining Banks solves nothing especially when so many people depend on the bank for savings, pensions and salaries. And if we question why the governments and courts blame the workers when they were only doing what they were told it may be perceived that they (the bank leaders and Politicians) are either negligent or there are other agendas going on. The questions that we need to ask is; 1.Is it right to ‘blame’ or punish the worker (or solider) if the behaviour was not only sanctioned but encouraged by those at the top? 2 Why, if a behaviour is acceptable at the one time is it deemed unacceptable later on, when people (at the top) change their view and move the ‘goal posts? 3. Does anyone have the right to punish someone who was doing what was previously accepted? It’s interesting that when all the ‘problems’ were going on the FSA did not find anything wrong with the banks behaviour, but when this organisation was discredited and taken over by the FCA (probably made up of the same people) they now penalise them. The bottom line is, whichever scenario we look at, those who follow orders have really little or no say in what they do, they are always controlled by those in charge. As in the case of the marine the war depends on the ability to ‘follow orders’ so breaking those orders will either break the chain of command and thus put the unit at risk, or by speaking out you put your life or job on the line. So from this aspect we can assume that it was right to send Col. Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicholson) to prison, because it was he who was ultimately responsible for the death of the marine. However it is interesting to note that from this bank vendetta, not one CEO has been charged or gone to court. Makes you wonder are those ‘at the top’ always immune from responsibility? The term ‘The buck stops here’ is meaningless; the reality is the buck stops well below ‘here’! NB: A good film about Banks is Rouge Trader w(1999) with Ewan Mcgregor. It tells the true story of how Nick Leeson managed to bring down Barings Bank, one of the largest and oldest banks in Britain. Encouraging him to ‘bet’ with millions of pounds worth of someone else’s money there was no fail safe to stop him breaking rules and trading illegally, and even after 20 years no lessons have been learned as traders are still doing the exact same things.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 07:40:26 +0000
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