Category: Ethics in Government

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Politics, Uncategorized

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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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Uncategorized

It is possible that as many as 655,000 Iraqis have died in the invasion and occupation of that troubled country–the vast majority civilians.

This according to a study conducted by Johns Hopkins University epidemiologists, funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies, and published in Britain’s premier medical journal, The Lancet. That link will give you the original (not very readable) article in PDF format.

The results were much more accessibly summarized in The Guardian, a major UK newspaper,

Thus they calculate that 654,965 Iraqis have died as a consequence of the invasion. It is an estimate and the mid-point, and most likely of a range of numbers that could also be correct in the context of their statistical analysis. But even the lowest number in the range – 392,979 – is higher that anyone else has suggested. Of the deaths, 31% were ascribed to the US-led forces. Most deaths were from gunshot wounds (56%), with a further 13% from car bomb injuries and 14% the result of other explosions.

I became aware of the study through a commentary by Paul Craig Roberts, who had been an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under conservative President Ronald Reagan. Roberts is blunt–he calls it “genocide.”

So even some people with solid Republican conservative credentials are saying “enough!”

I think this study provides a leverage point for organizing. Just as we don’t want to be complicit in the deaths at Darfur, we (those of us who are American or British, anyway) certainly want no complicity in the genocidal actions of our own governments.

It is time to demand withdrawal–NOW! With a concerted effort and a firm commitment to rapid withdrawal, the troops could be home in 60 or maybe even 30 days–and we would stop making enemies and inspiring future terrorists. It is long past time to admit that the US/UK Iraq policy is a massive failure, a disaster, and deadly to the lives of the people we are supposedly there to protect.

Out now!

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

It’s wonderful to see a national figure like Senator Russ Feingold who’s not afraid to connect the dots. In an insightful piece on Huffington Post, he all but calls the Foley-lusts-for-boy-pages scandal a distraction from the continuing disaster of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld’s totally failed Iraq policy:

We all saw the recently declassified key findings of the National Intelligence Estimate. One thing those findings underscored is that our continued and indefinite presence in Iraq is benefiting global terrorist networks that threaten our country. The war has been a disaster, but the Administration refuses to admit its mistake. It refuses to do what’s right for our national security. By “staying the course,” this Administration is ignoring the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the growing threats we face around the world.

I hope this guy runs for President! But the Dems will probably run Hillary Clinton, and if they do, I’ll vote Green–I will not vote for a candidate who still doesn’t understand that the Iraq war is a moral and practical failure, and who as far as I know has not repudiated her support for the so-called Patriot Act (which was one of the most unpatriotic pieces of legislation in its time–unfortunately surpassed by last month’s shameful embrace of torture and spying).

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

I’ve been following the issue of election fraud ever since the highly questionable 2000 results in Florida–but I learned a few new things from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s latest article in this week’s Rolling Stone:

* The highly partisan Ohio Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, who wore the two incompatible hats of chairing the Bush 2004 campaign and overseeing the election in his state, bought $10,000 worth of Diebold stock shortly before trying to circumvent the competitive bidding process in favor of a Diebold-only “solution.” Oh, the stink of corruption in the land!

* RFK found a Diebold whistleblower willing to go public: Chris Hood, who was part of an effort to patch 5000 voting machines in and around Atlanta (the most Demcoratic-leaning part of Georgia), personally patched 56 and directly observed the patching of 1200 others–under the direct supervision of the president of Diebold’s elections division, Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas for the occasion. this was the election in which both the Governor and Senate races came out the opposite of everything that was expected, with Republicans winning despite huge leads by Democrats in polls the week before.

Georgia law mandates that any change made in voting machines be certified by the state. But thanks to [Georgia Secretary of State] Cox’s agreement with Diebold, the company was essentially allowed to certify itself. “It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state,” Hood told me. “We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from Urosevich. It was very unusual that a president of the company would give an order like that and be involved at that level.”

My fellow Americans–we have the rights in a democracy to know that every eligible voter who tried to vote was able to do so…that every vote is recorded and counted…and that the count reflects the accurate reality of how those votes were actually cast. It is time to insist on these rights. Right now, we don’t even know if we’ve had a coup, in election after election using these troubling machines and similar others from their competitors. We do know that there have been all sorts of irregularities, breakdowns, false totals, and more.

Senators Barbara Boxer and Chris Dodd have introduced emergency legislation to provide for–and fund–paper ballots in case of machine breakdown, in time for this year’s election. Urge your Senators and Representatives to support this crucial measure.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, Uncategorized

As a marketer and copywriter, I’m very interested in the science of persuasion. I read writers like Dave Lakhani, Mark Joyner, Janet Switzer, Ben Mack, Robert Cialdini, Kevin Hogan, Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, and Sean D’Souza, among many others. (Why is this list so male dominated? I don’t know.

But as someone who stresses ethical marketing, I have lines I do not cross.

Dave Lakhani sent a link to an extremely disturbing video by Derren Brown, who’s apparently quite well known as a persuasion guy in the UK (I wasn’t familiar with him before). Under the guise of running a corporate motivational seminar, he cues four of his trainees into a subliminal process in which they’re supposed to figure out all by themselves to stage an armed robbery against an armored van. He uses all manner of subliminal and blatant cues to produce this reaction–but to me, this is over the line. it shows what these techniques can do if they “fall into the wrong hands.”

It has been rumored that a lot of the tactics used by the Bush administration to hypnotize the US into going to war against Iraq, into letting our liberties slip by at home, etc. are directly correlated with their study of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). In this video, we can not only see the techniques in use, but hear Derren explain exactly what he’s doing and why. I won’t spoil the surprise by telling the results.

The video is fascinating watching (and the time goes by very quickly). The lesson to me is: know when you’re being manipulated, even controlled, and take steps to protect yourself.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Uncategorized

Quixotic it may be–but a few concerned people are launching a last-minute effort to pass emergency legislation mandating the presence and use of emergency paper ballots in the event that voters would otherwise be turned away because of voting machine failures.

The bill is far from perfect. It doesn’t specify much about how to do this.. It has a sunset clause and is designed only for the coming November 7 election (why not make it permanent?) and of course it would be a royal pain for every city and town clerk in the country, and every administrator of polling places.

Still, it’s the right thing to do. The right of people to show up and cast a vote is fundamental and crucial if we are to call ourselves a democracy.

Follow the link above to read the Act and contact your Representative by clicking here. Yes, it’s way too little and probably too late. But it’s an important first step. Remember what Margaret Mad said about a small committed group being the only thing that ever changes the world.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

The always-fascinating Romensko newsletter on journalism has a run of ethics stories in its September 8 issue, with links to the major media where the stories appear. I confess–I can’t begin to keep up with this very informative newsletter. I read it once in a while, and often quite a bit after publication.

In this one issue, it reports:
10 Miami-area journalists take government money to promote an anti-Castro message
HP has been spying on the phone records of major journos
An article about the Wall Street Journal’s policy of accepting ads on the front page–and how a recent front page bore both a story on the HP scandal and an ad from HP!

These are just three of a number of links to related stories in this roundup

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Uncategorized

A lot of things have happened on a September 11th. I’ll talk about three of them. Two were Days of Infamy, one a Day of Honor.

September 11, 1906, one hundred years ago today. Gandhi launched his first massive civil disobedience campaign, against the Apartheid government of South Africa. Civil disobedience can be traced as far back as the Bible, but sustained and organized campaigns were new with Gandhi, as far as I know.

September 11, 1973. In a US-backed coup, the dictator Pinochet overthrew (and killed) the democratically elected President, Salvador Allende, leading to over a decade of repression, disappearances, and totalitarianism. Henry Kissinger is not a popular guy in that country.

And then, of course, September 11, 2001. It may be many years before we know the full extent of what happened on that day, who was behind it, and who allowed it to be carried out. It is almost certain that elements of the US government were at least aware, if not complicit–and the trail of bad policy stemming from that day to this is one of our modern shames.

We can only be a democracy if we promote democracy. Here and abroad.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Uncategorized

I think of myself as fairly aware of the various conspiracy reports around 9/11, and the clear case that we’re not being told the whole story by our government or by the mainstream media. There are so, so many irregularities, anomalies, eyewitnesses… I’m familiar with the idea that the towers were dynamited, and that Building 7 in particular would not have collapsed as it did from the aftershock of two nearby buildings being slammed by jet aircraft. I’ve also seen skepticism about what really hit the Pentagon.

But until just the other day, I’d never heard the theory that Flight 93 was not crashed by a re-hijacking of the cabin by courageous passengers, but by a US military missile. However, I happened to be in my car with the radio on, and I caught a rebroadcast of an archived interview with David Ray Griffin, on of the most respected 9/11 scholars around. He was saying, and this is new to me, that there’s strong evidence that the Pennsylvania crash was the doing of the US military.

this has huge implications about the coverup, the real reasons for 9/11, and much more.

Unfortunately it didn’t have a transcript, but I tracked down an audio of the interview.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, Uncategorized

Why do we let these people continue to stay in office? When King George III abused his power, the colonists threw him out. Yet George II is not even a king; he just acts like one.

Today’s news reports that

United States President George W Bush finally is acknowledging that the CIA runs secret prisons overseas,

where the locals know better than to ask questions. This is outside the scope of the Constitution *and* international law. Even the Nazis got in trouble for this (ever hear of the Nuremberg trials?). These prisons, until now largely ignored by the mainstream media, are widely reported to be torture centers. Bush so far continues to deny that the US ever uses torture, but that denial strains credulity.

Again, the United States was founded in opposition to a despotic government that had overstepped its bounds. Surely, the current regime in the US has overstepped its bounds. Again.

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