Credibility, it is hard to get and very easy to lose. There has been so much credibility lost lately in so many different places. People all over the world have noticed the loss of credibility by politicians, even the ones which we may have voted for. Someone once asked me why I voted for a particular person and I had to give them this sad answer, I said it wasn’t that I liked the person so much as I disliked who was running against that person. When you have to give answers like that, it is a very sad state of affairs indeed. History has a way of making future generations forget what really happened and sometimes makes politicians, who lived in a certain period, look a lot better than they really were. It seems to me most politicians ascribe to the saying “promises were made to be broken.” I knew a lot of politicians and it was always a case of them telling people what they wanted to hear without really intending to do what they said. Their credibility was zero with me and with a lot of people.

When we speak of credibility one would think there are certain professions which had more credibility than others. Take doctors for example. One might think they are one of the most trustworthy professions and many doctors are dedicated people, there is no argument there, but many are involved with pushing drugs for the pharmaceutical companies, because of the rewards they get. I left one doctor because he was pushing drugs and his excuse for the dangerous drug he wanted my wife to take was for a condition which did not exist yet. It was not a preventive drug. Doctors get all sorts of perks when they push pharmaceuticals, including free vacations for the family and many other things. Representatives of the drug companies buy lunches for everyone in the office and endear themselves to the staff so they can get face time with the doctors. I hate to say this, but some people have died from taking risky drugs they didn’t need which were prescribed for them. This has made me think twice when I go to the doctor and made me choose doctors which I believe were not pushing these prescription drugs.

Credibility is being lost by people in many areas. Religion is no exception. Bad things have been committed in the name of religion by many different religions for thousands of years and those leaders not only have blood on their hands, but are also responsible for heinous acts committed upon others. I believe in God, but now I feel I cannot take anything I am told without first examining it to see if I feel it is morally correct. I am not going to single out any one religion, because they all have their problems, but I remember being in a church once where we were told from off the altar not to write to any soldiers in Vietnam, because the war was wrong. Yes we were being told to punish the individual soldiers even though most of them were sent there and the war was not their fault. Many were drafted. I can’t help but feel when your religious leaders ask you to blow yourself up and take innocent people with you there is definitely something wrong.

It only takes one time for a person to lose their credibility. Napoleon lost his. Napoleon had billed himself as a genius general and his troops bought into this. His soldiers felt he couldn’t lose and believed  all his bluster. He had credibility having won many battles against large forces. He convinced himself he couldn’t be beaten and took an army believed to have numbered 680,000 men into Russia. It was named the Grand Army. It was said he did this to force Czar Alexander I to stop trading with the British. I think Napoleon began to lose his credibility as soon as the weather in Russia got cold. His troops didn’t have warm winter clothing and it became only a matter of time before most of them were dead. As the Russians retreated the French marched deeper into Russia when the weather was changing. The French  also faced a policy of scorched-earth and were starving. By the time all this ended Napoleon had no credibility and he fled for his life deserting the surviving soldiers. There have been all different estimates of how many soldiers survived from the Grand Army and I have seen estimates as high as 70,000 and as low as 10,000.

What about scientists, I wonder how many people think what a scientist tells us is gospel? Does the scientific profession have credibility? There are many fine scientists, but sometimes some of them will be too over confident. Let’s look at space science. Remember the Challenger Space Shuttle launch? The scientists at NASA were told by scientists and engineers at Thiokol it was too cold to launch the shuttle, because it could affect what were known as the “O” rings on the rocket. The NASA scientists thought they knew better and launched the shuttle anyway, killing all seven astronauts when the “O” rings failed and the rocket boosters blew up taking the shuttle with it. Credibility with NASA at that point was lost along with the lives.

How does one feel about the health insurance industry? They pay the bills of the insured either partially, fully or not at all. Is there credibility when we are told they have to raise rates or they are only looking out for our own interests? First let me say more and more countries are providing universal health care, but it wouldn’t be as profitable to insurance companies here since these countries are paying far less than we are today for coverage. The entire health care industry has only one thing in mind and that is to make the most money even if people die. This was illustrated by a meeting held a couple of years ago when a health care official from an insurance company bragged at a meeting how she had saved over $1,000,000 by denying the right to a cancer patient to have a bone marrow procedure. How proud she was. There was no credibility there when a health care insurance company is supposed to cover our needs when we get sick and not condemn us to death because they don’t want to spend the money to help.

Credibility is becoming a very rare commodity. How many companies would you trust to do what you need done? I can’t think of a single company or organization which we can entirely trust with the exception of a couple of charities which actually pour their hearts into their work. Maybe this is the problem with the world today and if we could all be more honest with each other the world would be a better place.