Month: July 2007

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics

And both of them less-than-easy to link to!

Chris Bauer’s e-newsletter posed the scenario of a disconnect between a company’s ethics policies and its other behavior.

If you are in an organization with a CSR program that seems out of synch with the rest of its actions, you may have a great opportunity to lobby for a better alignment between your organization’s stated values and its actual actions. The strategy to use? Simply point out the CSR program as a great example of fulfilling the company’s stated values and contrast that with its other policies and actions. If the contrast is glaring enough, you may have a shot at driving your point home, assuming you know how to pick the right audience and style for your remarks.

I can’t find it on his blog. But I bet if you contact him and ask for a copy of “Corporate Math: A Right + A Wrong = ?”, he’ll be happy to send you one.

Meanwhile, in a June 15 post, Chris MacDonald applauds cereal giant Kellogg’s agreement to stop spoonfeeding its sugar- and chemical-laden stuff to kids watching TV, even while acknowledging that the company is probably dong this for less-than-altruistic reasons. There seems to be no way to capture the permalink and link to it, but you can find it on the June 2007 archives page.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics

Can you believe it? John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, has been often cited in the press as a model of ethical, compassionate leadership. Now it turns out that he’s been writing anonymous postings online aimed at lowering the stock price of competitor Wild Oats–which his company has been trying to buy!

This was a shocker–I’d always thought of Whole Foods as a pretty ethical company, even as I watched it swallow several competitors (including our local equivalent, Bread & Circus).

As someone who has written an award-winning book about why ethical companies are more likely to succeed (Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First) and who founded a movement called the Business Ethics Pledge https://www.business-ethics-pledge.org , I’m of the opinion–based on research–that strong ethics helps a company succeed.

Anonymous attempts to drive down the stock price of a company you’re considering buying down the road is the antithesis of ethical behavior. And worse,the radio story where I first learned about this claimed Mackey did it because it was “fun.”

If this is an America that values honesty, the FTC should deny the merger based solely on Mackey’s sneak attack.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Arts & Entertainment, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice

We have close friends who moved last year from California to New Zealand, because they were concerned about the growing rightward drift in the US–even though they lived in one of the most liberal cities in the whole country.

Well, my wife and I saw “Sicko,” the other night: Michael Moore’s movie about the healthcare crisis in the US–and indepedently, both of us thought, ‘hmmm, New Zealand doesn’t seem so outrageous right now.’

Moore exposes the human cost of the USA’s failed healthcare system: doctors who are paid to deny necessary procedures, 9/11 volunteers who fell between the very large cracks, a cancer patient who had to sell her home and move into a spare room in her daughter’s house, thousands of miles away…and in true Moore fashion he bundles a few of these folks off on small boats to Guantanamo Bay–to demand the same free, state-of-the-art healthcare that the Bush-Cheney government repeatedly brags is offered to the prisoners there.

Of course, he’s turned away there–but finds a very receptive audience within the Cuban medical system, which treats the 9/11 volunteers as true heroes. In a very moving moment, a doctor in Cuba tells Moore that Cuba is a very poor country with few resources, but it has made healthcare a priority for all its citizens–and she pretty much tells him, if we can do it, you can too.

Cuba is not the only place that has made healthcare a priority–just about every First World country except the US offers high-quality free or minimal-cost universal healthcare, and Moore documents this with interviews in Canada, France, and England.

Less strident and more poignant than in some of his earlier films, Moore has made a film that I think could reach mainstream American audiences and show them it doesn’t have to be that way. And why, Moore asks, is “socialized medicine” such a demonized concept in the US? After all, we have socialized police and fire protection, public education, and plenty more. Why isn’t healthcare likewise considered a basic service?

In 1979 and 1980, I worked as a paid organizer for the Gray Panthers. Their biggest platform was the need for single-payer healthcare. Back then, we used to say that the United States and South Africa were the only two industrialized countries to lack this basic right–and South Africa, of course, embraced universal healthcare when it voted out the old apartheid government. So the US is all alone in its insistence that healthcare should be for profit, and not for health. Almost 30 years later, the Gray Panthers’ call is more important than ever.

And will I leave the country just to get affordable healthcare? At the moment, no. Our parents are here, our children are here, we live in Paradise in our antique farmhouse next to the mountain…and at the resent, we’re both in fine health. But certainly, this movie made us consider the option.

The website for the movie is https://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

Wow! The editor of a major Methodist publication, while noting that George W. Bush is also a Methodist and “brother in Christ,” is sharply critical of Bush’s action to keep Scooter Libby for sending even a single day in jail.

Cynthia B. Astle also cites several other commentaries condemning the action, including conservative sources. She doesn’t use the word “hypocrite” but she comes real close:

If, as our denominational leadership repeats endlessly, the UMC’s mission is “To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” then we must analyze how the action of the United Methodist layman in the White House has deleteriously transformed the American legal system – to say nothing of the blot on his soul.

You need not take my word for it. In the past four days, pols and pundits high and low have responded with incredulity and outrage to President Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence, which Bush contends was “too harsh.” Most legal experts have said that Libby’s commutation has been 1) exactly the opposite of the arguments used by the U.S. Justice Department itself in nearly 3,000 other federal cases and 2) likely to set a precedent throughout the legal system that, in effect, completely overturns the U.S. ideal of “equal justice before the law.”

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By Posted on Posted in Frugality/Frugal Fun, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

The other day, I bought a loaf of artisan bread at a supermarket. It even happened to be a locally owned, single-location supermarket.

But then I looked at the label and saw it was made in California. I live in Massachusetts.

I’ve got plenty of stuff in my pantry that made a long trip–but for the most part, it’s stuff for which there is no local source. I can’t get chocolate of any sort, let alone the organic fair trade chocolate that I buy, that’s grown within even 1000 miles of my house. Ditto with olives, Indian pickles, etc. I can buy from local companies that import the stuff, but it will never be locally grown unless global warming happens a *lot* faster than I think it will.

The bread made me feel guilty, though. Within 10 miles of my house there are close to a dozen quality bakers, most of them locally owned and operated. I buy a lot of bread from them.

And part of my belief in people helping people is buying local, keeping money in my own local economy (or the local economy where I happen to be traveling)–as well as, where practical, reducing my environmental footprint. So I shop local a lot. The majority of my food dollars, at least in the summer time, are spent at farmer’s markets, our local Community Supported Agriculture farm store. I’ve even managed to find a local supplier for the recycled paper I feed my computer printer.

But in two ways, I’m not a purist. I do spend a fair amount of money in the local branches of nationally owned food stores, because selection, price, and convenience make that a sensible path for me, at least in the winter. (I’ve been shifting more and more to local markets, however–and when I happen to be in the town 25 miles form me with that local supermarket, I shop there.)

And I’m not yet willing to live the stark and barren life without the stuff that doesn’t grow around here. I want my daily cup of cocoa, my wife wants her black tea, we add those Oriental hot sauces to our cooking.

But bread? What was I thinking?

Resources:
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), a nationwide network working on keeping money in the local economy. Website is unintuitive–even s a member, I had to hunt for it: https://www.livingeconomies.org/

Community Involved in Local Agriculture, a group here in Western mass focusing on buying local.

29,10o answers to the question, “Why Buy Local?”

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By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

Hidden Tech was founded by Amy Zuckerman five years ago, to provide both virtual and physical networking for those of us who work at home or other nontraditional settings and use technology to get our work done.

Originally it was focused on the hidden economy of the four westernmost counties of Massachusetts, including my home base of Hampshire County–but now there are members in all sorts of places, like Arizona.

Wile Amy has left the H-T board, she’s still very committed to the concept. She’s recently begun to profile some of the members, and I’m honored that she chose me as the second person to profile.

Here’s a bit from her article that not a lot of people know about me:

He has also been living the virtual American dream by operating a successful virtual business owner for the last 13 years — Accurate Writing & More — from a bucolic farm-house setting in Hadley, Mass. He and his wife, Dina Friedman, a children’s book author and academic, came to this lifestyle region in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts (also known as the “Five Colleges” region) “as a compromise between Brooklyn and the Ozarks.” They wanted “fresh air, clean water and an easy pace. Dina wanted job possibilities, friends, others of her ethnicity in the area, so we looked at the intersection of our needs and came to the Valley,” said Horowitz.

I’ve donated a fair amount of time to Hidden-Tech over the years, mostly as a speaker on various aspects of frugal and ethical marketing–and Amy and I have had some preliminary conversations about a book project. It’s nice to get some recognition. Thanks, Amy, and good luck with the new blog!

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics, Uncategorized

Remember George W. Bush’s pre-election promises to clean up what he saw as corruption of the Clinton era?

Already this administration held the dubious distinction of most corrupt in my memory. Now he’s granted clemency to Scooter Libby, shifting his prison sentence from 30 months to zero.

This is the same president who said he would bring the leaker to justice. But even one day behind bars would apparently offend the sensibilities of Cheney’s good friend Libby.

Some anti-corruption president, huh? What a lovely legacy.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics, Uncategorized

Remember a few months back, when we learned that Karl Rove had engineered the firing of several highly competent, high-performing U.S. Attorneys and their replacement by Bush loyalists who wouldn’t question their orders?

One of those who got kicked out was Bud Cummins, who was replaced by a particularly disgusting hack named Tim Griffin–a good friend of Karl Rove’s.

Griffin, according to BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast, left his cushy appointment in a hurry once the story broke about his criminal activities stripping likely Democratic voters, disproportionate numbers of whom happened to be black–including active-duty service men and women in Iraq!–of their right to vote, through a process known as “caging.”

Palast says:

“I didn’t cage votes. I didn’t cage mail,” Griffin asserted.

At the risk of making you cry again, Tim, may I point you to an email dated August 26, 2004. It says, “Subject: Re: Caging.” And it says, “From: Tim Griffin – Research/Communications” with the email tgriffin@rnchq.org. RNCHQ is the Republican National Committee Headquarters, is it not, Mr. Griffin? Now do you remember caging mail?

If that doesn’t ring a bell, please note that at the bottom is this: “ATTACHMENT: Caging-1.xls”. And that attachment was a list of voters.

Two U.S. Senators have already formally asked Attorney General Gonzales to investigate.

This, of course, is only one scandal. Just a week ago, I wrote two posts about Cheney setting himself up as above the law, again. If you want more background on that, I heartily recommend the Washington Post’s four-part series on Cheney’s various power grabs. And then of course there’s the stuff we’ve known for years–lying about WMDs, cooking up backroom deals with big energy corporations, suspending the civil liberties of Americans (including illegal wiretaps), intimidation and fraud in multiple elections, and on and on it goes.

And still, the Democrats don’t talk about impeachment. Just what will it take to get these villains out of office?

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