Category: Politics

By Posted on Posted in Politics, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , ,

My friend Elsom Eldridge has a nice article about how to avoid becoming “Social Media Roadkill.” And I agree with almost everything he says.

Almost everything. With my usual focus on transparency, here’s what I disagree with (emphasis added):

Be personable but don’t give people a reason to dislike you. Mention your dog or your kids so that consumers see you in a dimensional way; skip over religion and politics where you are sure to make enemies no matter what you say.

This was my response:
On the whole, good advice–but I think it’s possible to succeed in social media without hiding your politics. As long as you don’t promote them in an offensive way. I’ve had spirited but friendly debates on political issues for years via social media. My politics are part of who I am, and it would be a blow against integrity to hide them.

I find that most people respect my stances, even when they disagree. And I am careful to challenge views while not attacking the person who holds those views, to keep the debate positive, to avoid namecalling or other forms of dumping.

Some of the people I disagree with strongly about politics have in fact sent me clients, endorsed my books, and had long, complex off-list explorations with me about our points of agreement and disagreement. I am seen as a friendly, helpful, and yes, opinionated person.

Shel Horowitz, award-winning author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Media Ethics, Politics, Transparency vs. Secrecy

What an outrage! If there is a PR equivalent of disbarment, Bonner & Associates would be a candidate.

As U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello was considering how to vote on an important piece of climate change legislation in June, the freshman congressman’s office received at least six letters from two Charlottesville-based minority organizations voicing opposition to the measure.

The letters, as it turns out, were forgeries.

“They stole our name. They stole our logo. They created a position title and made up the name of someone to fill it. They forged a letter and sent it to our congressman without our authorization,” said Tim Freilich, who sits on the executive committee of Creciendo Juntos, a nonprofit network that tackles issues related to Charlottesville’s Hispanic community. “It’s this type of activity that undermines Americans’ faith in democracy.”

You can read the newspaper article here If you prefer audio. Democracy Now covered this today (briefly) as well.

I make a good part of my living as a Pr copywritier and marketing strategist, and I’m totally appalled. I also note that all the press coverage I’ve seen points out that this particular firm has a long history of “astroturfing,” which casts suspicion on the claim that this was an accident. I don’t know how you forge a letter from an imaginary person on someone else’s official letterhead—twice!—and call it an accident. I also don’t know how you can run a PR agency for decades for 25 years and not think that the Public Relations Society of America Code of Ethics has any relevance to you.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics-International, General Commentary, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

Pope Benedict XVI’s third encyclical is a sweeping, 144-page document addressing and interlocking a wide range of social issues. He calls on the financial industry to tame its greed and turn to ethics, asks the United Nations and individual governments to address deep-rooted poverty issues–not only from economic development perspectives but also making sure these countries have a voice and a seat at the table of power–a political shift, in other words.

Good coverage in the Washington Post (see above link). And a shoutout to Allan Holender of the World Wide Association of Zentrepreneurs, for bringing this important document to my attention.

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By Posted on Posted in Politics, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Yesterday, the fate of Minnesota’s Senate seat, undecided since the November election, was finally decided; the margin, out of 2.9 million votes cast, all of 312. Congratulations to Senator Al Franken.

In 2000, George W. Bush’s winning margin in Florida (and thus the presidency of the United States), was 537 votes, in an election whose legitimacy is still hotly debated (and to me, will never be legitimate). The hanging-chads issue alone could have swung the election to Gore by thousands of votes–just one among many irregularities. But in any case, it was close enough that it was possible to steal.

Years ago, I managed a friend’s campaign for local office; he was declared the winner by seven votes, and in the recount, his margin of victory slipped to four.

Four votes determined that election. If just five more people had shown up up to vote for his (entrenched incumbent) opponent, he would have lost.

Of course, it’s not enough that every vote counts. Who counts the votes is also an issue; witness the calamity in Iran.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Ethics-International, People Helping People, Politics

Like many others, I am appalled both by the apparently stolen election in Iran and by the repressive, violent response of the government to the mass protests.

And like many bloggers today who want to be cheerleaders for democracy and (to use Martin Luther King’s wonderful phrase) “drum majors for justice,” I’m joining in a worldwide campaign today to call attention to the problems with the Iran vote and its bloody aftermath. Click the link to see a long list of grievances and solidarity actions.

Thanks to @engagejoe on Twitter for calling this solidarity action to my attention.

Relevant Twitter tags: #FreeIran #IranElection #bloggersunite

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By Posted on Posted in Peace and War, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

It is so amazing for me to watch a major foreign policy and development speech by a sitting US president and actually agree with more than 80 percent of it–yet that was the case for Obama’s speech in Cairo, Egypt. Even under Clinton, I was lucky if I agreed with him 25 or 30 percent of the time, and the number was far lower for speeches of the other presidents in my conscious lifetime.

As a progressive, I issue this challenge to other progressives: hold him to the grand rhetoric of peace, international cooperation, multicultural tolerance, and yes, feminism in the Arab world and at home…and to keep him maintaining his acknowledgment of the important roles of Israel and Iran as well as the Arab and Muslim countries.

But what was that he said about being in Iraq until 2012? Waaay too long.!

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, Politics, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

Been spending some time on Huffington Post this morning, always a fascinating place. Here’s some of what I’ve been reading:

Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley on Republican strategist Frank Luntz’s plan to derail health reform. What he doesn’t talk about is single-payer, which I believe could engage the strong support of the American people and roll right over all the roadblocks put there by industry lobbyists–while piecemeal “reform” would gain no such support. I do not understand why mainstream Democrats aren’t pushing this issue. It’s key to a raft of economic boosts that would help, for instance, both US automakers and labor. It’s little-talked-about that because most governments around the world, at least in developed nations, provide a real health care service, foreign competitors to GM, Ford, and Chrysler aren’t stuck with that enormous cost.

Robert Borosage on the general climate of business corruption in Washington. And on how that corruption has caused us to fail in such areas as mandatory sick leave, which then in turn makes the “stay home” response to swine flu impractical for those at the bottom of the ladder, who might lose their jobs and would certainly lose their pay.

Apparently some right-wing pundits have nothing better to do than attack Obama as elitist because–are you sitting down?–he likes Grey Poupon or Dijon mustard on his burgers! Give me a break! You can buy the stuff for two dollars a bottle at a discount store, and it sure does taste a lot better than the yellow glop that’s largely turmeric. I say unto them: get a life!

Stephen Colbert’s very funny video spoofing the big too-big-to-fail bailouts; no commentary necessary from me

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By Posted on Posted in media-general, Politics, Web 2.0/Social Media

I read a very interesting article called “How to Weather a Twitterstorm“–and one of the most interesting parts was the comments, which included a whole lot of people who basically said that Twitter, Facebook and other social media are a marginal part of the overall audience, and kowtowing to them is a mistake.

I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Twitter, et al. They have influence beyond their numbers, and there’s certainly precedent for stories leaping out of niche social media into the mainstream, with major consequences. Just ask Dan Rather about the fake memo about Bush’s military service that cost several key staffers their jobs and forced Rather into premature retirement. I have been a deep critic of Bush (and a fan of Rather), but when I saw the memo reproduced online, I knew there was no way it could be authentic. It was done on a modern word processor.

In my view, the article’s author, Abbey Klaassen, is more on target. she offers strategies to evaluate, contain, and appropriately respond to online criticism.

The point is critical that you want to acknowledge and contain the problem, and do so rapidly. And Twitter can be a great tool for this. Smart companies are finding ways to build their brand on Twitter, and one of the best is to be open to criticism while finding effective ways to defuse it. The Twitter page for Comcastcares is a great example of this. It’s all about customer service for cable TV customers with technical problems.

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Politics

Yeah, I know, I’m late to the party. Should’ve blogged on this five weeks ago. But I only just found the brilliant analysis by George Lakoff, the Left’s best theorist on the power of framing and language. He wrote “Don’t think of an Elephant” and many other books.

If you want to better understand marketing, patriotism, and a progressive agenda, click here to go and read it. Well worth the time.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, media-general, Politics Tagged with , , , , ,

Want to know why right-wing pundits far outnumber those on the left in mainstream US TV? Bloggers Jay Rosen and Glenn Greenwald shared a theory on Bill Moyers Journal: having someone like Amy Goodman of Democracy Now would interfere too much with the construct disseminated by US mainstream media that the US government and major corporations are our benevolent friends, and they don’t want to air views that might help explain why the US has enemies abroad.

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter, those preachers of hate, are OK in their view because they are simply putting out a more vitriolic version of the Reaganite “mainstream.” But the soft-spoken, highly articulate and very well informed Goodman (who I consider one of the best interviewers in contemporary journalism) is considered a threat!

Of course, this doesn’t explain how another articulate and well-informed progressive,
Rachel Maddow, gets air. But it says a lot about the nature of today’s corporate media.

In the “know your enemies” department, fans of intelligent TV must read this brief transcript or watch the video. It’s a shocker.

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