An Election Day message:

At the core of democracy is the idea that citizens can vote, and their votes will be counted. Unfortunately, for at least the past six years, that lofty ideal seems to be at variance with reality. This year, the election is in process as I write this–and the number of posts crossing my desk that raise serious concerns about the validity of the process is just plain shocking.

You want examples? I’ll give you examples from five different states (note that I’m not passing judgment of the accuracy of these claims, which I have not personally investigated–but it does raise a whole lot of suspicion):

  • Virginia: dirty tricks include fliers that tell voters to skip the election, calls to registered voters falsely informing them that their poling place is changed or that they are not allowed to vote. Oh yes, and how about ballots that make it almost impossible to vote for the Democratic candidate for Senator.
  • Ohio: a spurious telephone poll that accuses the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s opponent of hiring a child molester–on behalf of the same candidate who, as Secretary of State, has presided over the disenfranchisement of some 500,000 likely Democratic voters
  • Maryland: Report on security flaws in election machines was apparently sanitized by the company’s own executives and hidden from governmental authorities
  • California: The most widely used voting machine has a button that allows multiple votes–although election officials say they’ve trained poll workers to watch for suspicious behavior or extra beep tones (hard to imagine how that will work in a busy, crowded, noisy poling place, however)
  • Nevada: A Reno voter had to sue a voting machine manufacturer on the grounds that her vote wasn’t being recorded or counted (this quote is from her press release; the link is to the official complaint)
  • the Wyle
    Laboratory December 2004 test results of the AVC Edge with VeriVote printer that she
    and other Washoe citizens and most of Nevada voted on in 2004; and will again in 2006. Wyle tested the machines for reliability and certified the AVC machine suitable for Nevada voter use. Axelrod says Wyle’s operational, test and evaluation records reveal that test machines “ failed to operate when subjected to electrical surge, electromagnetic radiation and electrostatic discharge; overall standard reliability testing failed at 4, 8, and 10 hours causing the machine to lock up; VeriVote printers slipped out of alignment and/or repeatedly jammed and stopped printing even though the machines read “Printing Ballot Selections; and VeriVote Printing paper folded up on itself accordion style”. Axelrod also says, “Wyle engineers found that, “ongoing review of individual VeriVote paper receipts produced during testing show that a font size change had occurred on multiple occasions which in turn caused some of the information on the printer receipt to be found missing.” Axelrod also says that, “Wyle Laboratory suppressed and failed to print out VeriVote serial number data of machines under test so that printed rolls could not be traced back to the specific machine from which the voter receipts were printed.

    There’s more–a lot more than these five states. But that’s enough for now.

    Democracy: an idea whose time has come…in the U.S., too.

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    From the Christian Science Monitor, regarding Lesotho’s once-moribund, now resurgent clothing industry, and how it shifted toward ethically clean clothing:

    But at the same time, an alliance of companies, NGOs, government representatives, and others were trying to find ways to protect the country’s industry. Already, some brands had improved working conditions in Lesotho to answer concerns about sweatshop labor. The group realized that if Lesotho could start aggressively marketing itself as an ethical source of clothing, it could retain and even grow business. “Ethical trading gives you a competitive edge,” says Andy Selm, regional textile and apparel specialist at ComMark Trust. “You can attract a better quality of customer.”

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    When I saw Robin Williams’ movie yesterday (see my previous blog post), one of the coming attractions was for “Shut Up and Sing,” a movie about the Dixie Chicks and their battle to avoid being completely suppressed after one of them made a public remark opposing the GWB administration. It was a great trailer; Dina and I put that movie on our go-to-see-it list.

    Lo and behold, today I stumbled on a story (via Alternet) that NBC has refused to air a promo for the movie because it “disparaged President Bush.” You can find stories here with every point of view from conservative Matt Drudge to various left-wing bloggers.

    You can also see the spot–a much-condensed version of the trailer I saw–by clicking here.

    Hmmmm. Sounds suspiciously like the old Divine Right of Kings theory and its dictatorial corollary that you weren’t allowed to criticize the royal government without severe consequences, if you ask me.

    Earth to NBC: It is NOT the job of the media to sanitize controversy. It is, in fact, the job of the media to investigate the news and report it, even if that means exposing a government buried in corruption, lies, and power grabs. With far too few exceptions (one of whom is NBC’s own Keith Olbermann), the large corporate media have not been holding their end of the bargain. But still, whether or not they act like it, the mainstream media should be (as the Quakers say) “speaking truth to power”–not helping to protect that power from ever hearing criticism.

    As it is, it is utterly shameful that the American people have allowed their protests to be marginalized and their picketers herded into enclosures far form the targets. I call that un-American and unpatriotic, and I salute those brave Americans who continue to defend the right of protest. Including the Dixie Chicks.

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    Just saw this movie today. Not only is Williams brilliant as the comedian running for President–and dealing with the ethical dilemma of his life–but the movie makes wonderful points about vulnerability of electronic voting machines, ruthlessness of certain corporations, politicians of both major parties and their all-too-cozy relationships with special interests, and more.

    No matter what your politics, it’s a great romp making serious points. Ideally, see it *before* the election. And tell your friends.

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    Andrew Bourland, founder of ClickZ and a very successful entrepreneur, did a wonderful blog post on how proud he was of his competitors, and how their strategy of offering great information all year round made their expensive conference a very easy sell.

    So chances are good that they are one of the resources you would have turned to, along with Business Blog Consulting, for information and guidance on business blogging. You might have bookmarked us both in your list of RSS feeds you check regularly, and if you haven’t already, you should.

    But something may have happened around mid-August or September when you were reading all those great articles that Teresa, Steve, DL and our very own Dave Taylor regularly write: you might have noticed they had a conference coming up.

    And then as time progressed, you might have thought you ought to go… and then, if you were one of the smart and fortunate ones who wisely reserved a seat at their conference this past week

    This is something I’ve been writing and talking about for many years, especially in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

    Disclosure: I “know” Andy virtually because we were both active participants for many years on the now-defunct (and sorely missed) Internet Sales Discussion List.

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    By coincidence, I received two pieces of e-mail today that both deal with the question of how
    much disclosure is appropriate when someone takes up a cause and is quietly paid to do it.

    First, a ray of hope from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association: a proposed list of 20 questions marketers should ask themselves to determine if their buzz campaign is ethical–and prefaced with these instructions:

  • Ask these questions before launching any word of mouth marketing campaign.
    Get answers from your agencies and vendors, as well as from their subcontractors.
    Think about the risks to your reputation before you cross any ethical lines.
  • Remember: Consumers come first, honesty isn’t optional, and deception is always exposed.

    Just as an example, # 8 of the 20 asks,

    Do we forbid the use of expressly deceptive practices from our employees/advocates, such as impersonating consumers; concealing their true identities; or lying about factors such as age, gender, race, familiarity with or use of product, or other circumstances intended to enhance the credibility of the advocate while deliberately misleading the public?

    This is a draft, and they’re actively soliciting public comment.

    But then the other post was a note from blogger BL Ochman about “flogs”–fake blogs–in support of Wal-Mart, by people who were paid by the retail giant’s PR firm to be in support of Wal-Mart and until recently didn’t disclose this relationship.

    She cites a much more in-depth article about the situation.

    That post says, in part,

    As a result of the new transparency, every entry on the blogs is now credited to one of three contributors: Miranda, Brian or Kate. A click on these single monikers reveals biographies of [the PR firm] Edelman employees Miranda Gill, Brian McNeill and Kate Marshall, whose clients include Working Families for Wal-Mart, the sites say.

    While noting that he was speaking in generalities and not to this specific situation, Dave Balter, president of the Boston word-of-mouth marketing firm BzzAgent, said: “Even if you’re doing the right thing but you know you’re going to deceive people, you have to do everything to make sure it’s completely transparent, and any tactic that crosses that line you’re doing a disservice to the brand [and] the consumer.”

    Now, Edelman has decided, finally, to disclose these relationships. What were they thinking trying to hide them?

    My suggestion to the floggers: go back and read those 20 questions from WOMMA, and try to answer them honestly. Otherwise, people will answer them for you, and it may not be pretty.

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    The four big issues I name in this post’s headline–Ford Motor Company’s massive earnings losses of $5.8 billion in the third quarter of 2006, Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling sentenced to 24 years, Democratic hopes raised with some 48 House seats in play and at least four of the six Senate seats needed to shift control expected to go Democratic, and the no-confidence vote President George W. Bush has been getting in recent polls–may seem on the surface to have nothing in common–but actually, there’s a strong thread running through all of them.

    This is the common thread: The American people are totally sick of being lied to, manipulated, and stepped on by powerful interests who care only about a narrow agenda of partisanship and greed. To say it another way, the real issue in the psyche of America right now is ethics.

    And as someone who has started an international movement to tilt business toward higher ethics and written an award-winning book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, about how ethics is one of the strongest drivers for business success, I see this as a positive trend.

    And it’s clearly time for a change, in both business and politics. In my opinion, the last ethical Presidents–both of them had a strong sense of personal integrity, even as their politics were vastly different–were Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Now, as regular readers of this blog know, I have no love for the policies of Reagan, or for some of the very creepy people he surrounded himself with (some of whom have prominent places in the GWB administration)–but the man himself always impressed me as someone who honestly believed in the things he was saying, and the numerous ethics scandals of his administration never seemed to enmesh him personally, and seemed far more a matter of a hands-off governance style. As for Carter…could anyone imagine that the man who freely admitted to “lust in my heart” but knew how to control that lust going through the shameful charade that Bill Clinton engaged in? And Carter as an ex-president has been a world statesman for social and economic justice around the world. I daresay he has made more of a difference in the last 26 years than in his four in the Oval Office.

    So how does Ford fit into all of this? It’s simple. Not once but twice, Ford has been caught with its ethical pants down, putting short-term profit above human safety, failing to rework known design flaws that cause fatal accidents, because its actuaries decided that paying the wrongful death lawsuits would be cheaper than fixing the problem. You’d think the company would have learned from the mess it made with the Pinto’s exploding gas tanks in the 1970s, but they were back with the same attitude about the Explorer’s little problem staying upright in hot weather–a problem the company apparently was well aware of before the car even began production. Compare that short-sighted and dangerous attitude with the amazing response of Johnson & Johnson to the Tylenol poisoning scare–and it’s not at all surprising to me that J&J rebounded very quickly after spending a vast sum to warn everybody about the problem and institute a massive recall of all Tylenol products.

    I can tell you that when I went car shopping two years ago, I didn’t even bother checking into Ford. I figured any company that would rather pay death benefits than spend a couple of bucks to fix a known cause of fatal accidents was not a company that I wanted to entrust with my family’s safety for the next five or ten years. And I suspect a lot of other people have done the same. The safety blowback may have even been a factor in Ford’s quiet decision a few years ago to purchase Volvo, a car manufacturer known for its concern with safety.

    I would absolutely love to see Ford start practicing all the groovy, concerned, and earth-friendly messages that Bill Ford says the company stands for–but I have to laugh when we get all these Green talking points from the company that unleashed the massive, gas-hogging Expedition. Sure, Escape hybrids are a step in the right direction, but a small one. My non-hybrid gas-powered small sedans get better mileage than an Escape even with the hybrid boost. So I don’t expect that a lot of people buy Escapes because they want to save gas.

    Skilling, of course, got hit hard in part because he was unlucky enough to have his literal partner in crime Ken Lay drop dead before the sentencing. But as the New York Times points out, the sentence was as strong as it was because people got hurt by his lies:

    The higher sentence, the judge said, was because he found that Mr. Skilling had lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission about the real reasons for his sales of Enron stock before the company’s collapse in December 2001. Mr. Skilling said he sold the stock only because of the impact on the market of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

    And one very positive aspect of this case is that the government is going after his–and Lay’s–ill-gotten gains. Of course, the lawyers will get a huge chunk, but they are actually discussing restitution to those who were badly burned as the company’s failure sucked the life out of their retirement savings.

    * * *

    Before I close…a quick thank-you for several recent articles encouraging people to help stop future Enron and Ford scandals by joining the Business Ethics Pledge…and especially to blogger Jill Draperand e-zine editor John Forde (sorry, I can’t find a link, but you can subscribe to his newsletter at jackforde.com) for their rousing endorsements.

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    Tellman Knudson is conducting an experiment in list building and traffic building. He’s asking people to comment on at least one post per day on this one of his blogs, and to link back to each of our comments over a five day period. My first comment is to the post, Seminar Dos and Don’ts, where I added two tactics that have been successful for me in seminar networking.

    This post will grow a bit over the next few days, as I will simply edit in new links.

    Since tomorrow will be my try-to-be-weekly day off the computer, I’ve done two today. The second was on his post about long-term relationships with your list members–something I’m a big believer in.

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    As someone who writes about business ethics, I have, of course, been following the appalling scandal of backdating stock options–rewarding overpaid CEOs and other executives by pretending the option was issued earlier, at a lower price–creating a windfall for the employee, whose stock is immediately worth more than it’s supposed to be. It has tax consequences, too.

    But I’d somehow missed the part about at least one company providing backdated stock options to the estate of its deceased CEO! Paul Krugman writes about this in yesterday’s New York Times:

    The moral of the story is that we still haven’t come to grips with the epidemic of corporate misgovernance revealed four years ago by the Enron and WorldCom scandals, then drowned out as a political issue by the clamor for war with Iraq. Even now, we’re still learning how deep the rot went.

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    For maybe a year now, there’s been huge buzz about the movie “The Secret” and its cast of well-known millionaire lifestyle gurus. I saw the trailers many months ago and was frankly blown away by them. They were intensely cinematographic, full of sound and motion, filmed at least as powerfully as anything I’ve seen coming out of Hollywood–and, like any good promo piece, they created a desire to experience the entire film. You can see the latest version of the trailer here, although this time it crashed Firefox twice when I tried.

    Yet I held back. There’s so much I need to do on the computer, every single day, that it’s hard for me to find the time to watch a 108 minute movie, especially since when my computer is paying a DVD, it hides all the other applications.

    Yesterday, after two days in a row where I hadn’t gotten a lot done, I received an e-mail from my colleague Joe Nicassio, containing a link to a copy posted at MySpace, with no charge for viewing. Knowing that such things didn’t happen by coincidence and figuring perhaps it would help me get out of my rut, and understanding that watching it on MySpace would let me work on other things in the background, I gave it a try.

    And the movie held my interest all the way through–something that’s not easy when most of it is “talking heads”: interviews of people, one on one. Sometimes they put more active sequences behind the voice, but there’s a lot of looking at people’s faces while they talk. And in the MySpace copy, the picture and sound are slightly out of synch and the film is slightly out of proportion, so that these heads seem unusually tall and thin. I imagine you don’t get these minor glitches if you pay your $4.95 for the official copy.

    For the first 30 or 40 minutes, I didn’t even do anything else at the same time. After that, I felt I knew where it was going and started multitasking. Yet there were a few key sections where I stopped and gave it full attention.

    However, I really didn’t see it as worthy of the hype. The core of the movie, the big secret of the title, is something I’ve known about for years: the Law of Attraction that says you attract to yourself whatever you focus on. And maybe for that reason it didn’t ultimately move me very far, because I’ve been living that truth for a long time. If this is the first time you’re exposed to it, it could easily shake up your whole world.

    I started learning this lesson a few years after I published by fourth book, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook: a book that shows people how to enjoy a lifestyle that would cost most people a lot of money, while spending little to nothing to achieve it. Perhaps because I’ve figured out many ways to slash the cost of travel, entertainment, fine dining, etc., I’ve never had a desire to be super-rich. I don’t need to. I travel frequently, live in a beautiful home, see lots of top-name concerts, etc., and in that e-book, now eleven years old, I tell others exactly how. But money is a means to these things, not an end. I have achieved them without anything close to a seven-figure income. You might say I’ve used the Law of Attraction–which, in my world, I call the Abundance Principle (and discuss in some detail in Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First–to bring those things into my life, bypassing money as an intermediary.

    The film makes the point that you can use the Attraction Principle to improve your life and improve the world, not just on the material plane. But still, far, far too much is devoted to envisioning the car or house or beautiful necklace of your dreams, and far too little to healing the illnesses within yourself or in the world at large.

    These small parts of the movie I think actually are life-changing: the woman who cures herself of cancer, the paralytic who beats the doctors and learns to walk again, the idea (quoting Mother Theresa) that if you want peace you don’t attend an anti-war rally, but a peace rally, because you don’t want to attract more war by paying too much homage to it…these concepts I’d have loved to see in more detail, but the coverage is scant. I love the idea that you can overcome even the toughest adversity by focusing on what you actually want, rather than where you’re stuck–and was deeply moved to hear people like Jack Canfield and Joe Vitale talk openly about the adversity in their own childhoods, that they’d learned to move past. I was especially struck by one doctor who was told as a child that his communication disorders were so severe that he’d never learn to write or converse.

    When they make a sequel about applying these principles to social change, I want to be there!

    My recommendation: see it, but know that what you take away from it may be something other than what the hype has led you to believe.

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