Category: Politics

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

Chris Owens has a really interesting blog post about Obama and Giuliani, about the power of an individual who thinks for himself and surrounds himself with advisors who raise questions versus the mentality of groupthink where advisors aren’t willing to question

As a black American, Owens also discusses–and dismisses–perceptions in the black community that Obama is “not black enough.” Fascinating.

I’m certainly not ready to make my choice just yet, but it’s early. Still, I see a lot of hope in the Obama candidacy–because he at least says all the right things (though his record doesn’t show so much leadership), he will attract capital and media, and he is a clear alternative to the warmongering, Patriot Act-supporting Hillary.

Democrats take note: If Hillary is the candidate, I and probably a lot of other progressive Democrats are likely to vote Green. The right will come out in droves to vote her down, but the left will not show enthusiasm, and she’ll be buried.

The candidate who most closely represents my own politics is Dennis Kucinich. I was thrilled to vote for him in the ’04 primary and will probably do so again. Unfortunately, he was ignored by the media and wildly underfunded. In short, his candidacy was utterly marginalized, to the continuing shame of the American media.

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By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Politics, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

It’s 5 p.m. on December 23, which means I have only 7 hours left in my 40s.

It’s been a magnificent decade. I feel very, very blessed.

In fact, since I was about 15, life continues to get better and better. 15-20 was better than what had come before, my 20s were very nice–getting married, and moving together to Western Massachusetts.

My 30s were even better, as I got to know my two amazing kids, born in 1987 and 1992, and as my writing and publishing career began to take really shape with the 1993 publication of Marketing Without Megabucks: How to Sell Anything on a Shoestring by Simon & Schuster, and then with my decision to buy back the remaining inventory two years later.

And my 40s? This was the decade where I began to make my mark on a wider world, not just my local community. I built strong communities in Cyberspace, transformed my home-based business into a global presence–and also had an impact in my own town, with the formation of Save the Mountain.

I founded STM to protect our much-loved local mountain from a very poorly conceived development plan. In all my years of organizing, this was the most amazing experience. I started the group when the first story in the local paper quoted a bunch of experts who said “this is terrible but there’s nothing we can do.”

I knew they were wrong. I figured we could gather a small group of activists and stop the project within five years or so. It astonished even me when we got hundreds of people to turn out at hearings, thousands to passively support us with petitions, bumper stickers, and so forth, a very diverse active core of 35, including scientists, legal liaisons, organizers, students, farmers, local landowners…it was the closest thing to a true consensus movement I’ve ever been involved with, bringing together people from all political views and even gaining support from town officials who had a reputation for opposing progressive change.

And we won…in just 13 months.

That experience was one of the forces that shaped my decision to make change on a more global level, and to institute the Business Ethics Pledge campaign. I’ve given that campaign 10 years to see if it can make a fundamental change in the world.

Meanwhile, I expect my 50s to be full of new books to write, new people to influence, new initiatives on sustainability and ethics, new countries to visit, plenty of fascinating client projects, land to preserve, speeches to give, and maybe even getting my office dug out of its clutter.

In short, I fully expect to have an awesome time and even surpass my amazing 40s.

I wish you, as well, an amazing 2007, and an amazing next ten years.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Politics, Uncategorized

Most American investors think that socially responsible mutual funds contribute to better corporate behavior, according to a new major investor survey conducted by Calvert [https://www.calvert.com]. Knowing that a company is rated higher in terms of their social performance would make 71 percent of Americans more likely to invest in that company and 77 percent would purchase more of their products and services.

Going through email that was not a priority when it arrived, I found the above tidbit in David Batstone’s WAG newsletter (from last April, I confess).

Those are remarkable statistics. Over 2/3 use social responsibility as an investment screen, and over 3/4 as a factor in making a purchase.

So why do we still have so much unresponsive, focused-only-on-financial-bottom-line, and downright nasty corporate behavior? Because people don’t realize that good corporate behavior is a direct path to better profitability. If you’d like to educate a corporate friend on this, I recommend my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First–it outlines exactly how and why companies succeed better by doing the right thing.

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

(I am sending this letter by postal mail, with copies to my own Congressman and Senators). If enough people write similar letters, maybe they’ll actually do some of this stuff)

Dear Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Reid:

It is thrilling to be able to write to both of you congratulating you on the Democrats’ election victories and on your new positions in majority leadership.

The Democrats have been given a window to make real change. I’m writing to ask that we not squander it. It is time for meaningful change on order of FDR’s First 100 Days–before the window slams shut and the American people once again have the sad image of a spineless do-nothing Congress, only this time with the Democrats in charge.

The biggest issue facing the US is foreign policy. President Bush managed to squander a huge international reservoir of good will toward the US in the aftermath of 911, along with the entire Clinton budget surplus, and the Democrats must work to rebuild our standing not as a rogue state but as a leader among nations in the campaign for world peace and prosperity. Specifically…

  • Get us out of Iraq NOW! That troubled country will face a civil war regardless of how long we stay. The longer we stay, the longer and more bloody that war is likely to be. As in Vietnam, let’s get out and let them get it over with. Less blood will be shed than by staying. The only possibility I see for avoiding civil war is to divide the country among Sunni, Shi’a, and Kurdish factions—but that strategy hasn’t worked well elsewhere in the world (e.g., India/Pakistan, Serbia/Albania, Ireland/Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine). Demand from the Bush administration an immediate timetable for phased withdrawal within 90 days.
  • Bring North Korea and Iran to the bargaining table. Use diplomacy to avoid additional wars.
  • Play a peacemaker role in the Israel/Palestine/Lebanon conflict–through which, if real progress can be made, it might actually influence Iraq toward peace.
  • Change the dynamics of the US role in Latin America. Right now, we’re seen as “the neighborhood bully.” It is time to form working coalitions with the promising new governments in that region, to identify and work toward mutual objectives.

    Another “elephant in the room” is energy policy. It is time for a Marshall Plan-style campaign for true energy independence, based on renewable and nonpolluting technologies such as solar, wind, and small-scale hydro. We need to see our rooftops as an energy (and possibly food) resource, and the government needs to put programs into place to make these systems affordable to those who can’t come up with the large capital investment necessary to eliminate oil dependence and reduce carbon emissions/global warming in the long run. These could even be loans paid back directly out of energy savings. Large-scale involvement would bring down the price, make it affordable to every homeowner, reduce or eliminate dependence on foreign oil and uranium, reduce CO2 buildup and thus global warming. I live in a 1743 New England farmhouse and even in this somewhat challenging environment, solar systems provide nearly all our hot water and a portion of our electricity.

    A third major concern is fair elections. For starters every American needs to know that if they are registered to vote, they will be allowed to vote, and that their vote will be counted accurately. This requires a Federal law mandating voter-verifiable paper ballots, hand-counted in open and supervised public session. But beyond this basic and fundamental right, we need to be looking at other electoral reforms. Top of my list is Instant Runoff, which would take 3rd parties out of the role of “spoiler” and into the same kind of meaningful force and alternate voice that they provide in other democracies around the world.

    Fourth, the role of Congress. In the last few years, Congress has not fulfilled its responsibilities to the American people. Highly dubious, extremist Presidential appointments are approved with little debate. Massive bills are shoved at members at the last minute, with no time for adequate review. And the Legislative branch has been largely afraid to challenge the continuous power-grabs on the part of the Executive branch. The American people elected you to be part of the checks and balances, and I trust you will help your colleagues rise to their responsibility.

    And finally, there’s the question of what to do about the many high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration. Rep. Pelosi, I understand why you would not want to engage in the divisive and all-consuming process of impeachment–but at the same time, we should not give these people a free ride for the serious crimes they have committed–for establishing a culture of greed, corruption, abuse of power, negation of the Legislative branch, corporate favoritism, unnecessary and unjustified curtailment of liberty, an international role as a pariah who has created space for terrorists that never existed before…and the unnecessary death and injury of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in a move that only strengthened the hand of our terrorist enemies. Perhaps the appropriate response is something like South Africa’s Commission on truth and Reconciliation, that holds the perpetrators accountable but does not divide the country.

    In short, there’s a big agenda, you have the support of the American people, and that support can be strengthened by an assertive program of action. I wish you the best of luck.

    Sincerely,

    Shel Horowitz

    cc: Hon. Richard Neal, Sen. Edward Kennedy, Sen. John Kerry

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

    Two brief excerpts from this New York Times story:

    RedState.com, the conservative journal, heralded a “massive meltdown in Pennsylvania” early in the day, citing “widespread reports of an electoral nightmare shaping up in Pennsylvania with certain types of electronic voting machines.”

    Among the litany of issues cited at Talking Points: computer problems that caused long lines in Denver; polling stations that stayed open later in Indiana after voting problems and delays; votes for Claire C. McCaskill in the Missouri Senate race that somehow registered for her opponent, Jim Talent; complaints that crashed an Ohio county phone system.

    In short, our work is not over even with most of the votes counted.

    I think the time has come for a mass movement around electoral fairness. We have the right to now that

  • Eligible voters are able to vote
  • Once they’ve voted, their votes are counted accurately using systems that cannot be hacked

    Watch this space. I will be contacting voting rights experts to help draft legislation, and then asking them to help contact mass-advocacy groups such as MoveOn and yes, its conservative counterpart RightMarch to create a massive bipartisan push for fair elections.

    The goal: Passed in 2007 and implemented in time for the 2008 elections.

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

    Yesterday’s big gain for the Democrats was a vote for peace, for ethics, for election process reform (most visibly in Ohio and Florida, where Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris, architects of Bush’s questionable victories in 2004 and 2000, were soundly defeated) and for competence.

    It was also, in many places, a vote for positive campaigning, Voters repudiated at least some of the candidates who put out the most vicious attack ads, including Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who lost the governorship of Massachusetts after 16 years of continuous Republican rule, and Rep. Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, who lost her seat.

    I actually had two personal friends running for Congress this time: Tony Trupiano in Michigan and Jeeni Criscenzo in California, both endorsed by Progressive Democrats of America. Both lost, unfortunately. But it was exciting to see them go this far.

    Now, it’s up to the Democrats to actually put forth an agenda of peace, ethics, elections that can be trusted, competence, and positive focus. We will be watching!

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    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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