Category: Transparency vs. Secrecy

By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Technology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , ,

I’ve said for years that industrial designers should have to live and work with their products for six to twelve months before they’re released to the market. It’s much easier to fix the bugs pre-release, but the designers don’t actually use the product, so they don’t see the bugs.

This witty and entertaining 20-minute speech by Seth Godin offers seven reasons why products, systems, organizations, or even mindsets are broken (scroll down to the video):

  1. Not my job
  2. Selfish jerks
  3. The world changed
  4. I didn’t know
  5. I’m not a fish
  6. Contradictions
  7. Broken on purpose

“I’m not a fish” is the one that too-often rules the design world. He shows slides of a culvert designed to transport fish—but designed so fish can’t use it. The industrial designer is unable to think like his or her “customer,” and the project fails.

Some of the others, among them “not my job” and “the world changed” lead to other types of stupidity. Most of them are actual real-life examples—but I’m hoping the photo of a sign that says “Caution: This sign has sharp edges. Do not touch the edges of this sign” in large, dramatic letters, and then in tiny letters, “also, the bridge is out ahead” is a joke.

The seventh item, “broken on purpose,” is about thinking differently—about making your project not only attractive to the right people, but unattractive to the wrong people. If you want to stimulate your brain toward genius, pay careful attention to that segment.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Ethics in Government, Peace and War, Politics, poverty, privacy, propaganda, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is a rare occurrence: Three of my heroes made separate local appearances this week—two from the generation older than me, and one from the generation that follows me.

George McGovern
George McGovern, 89, former Senator, Democratic nominee for President in 1972, and stalwart of the ’70s-era peace movement spoke Saturday to support his new book, What It Means To Be A Democrat, to bring attention to hunger causes—and to support Rep. James McGovern’s (no relation) re-election campaign. (I’m looking forward to having the younger McGovern, one of the most progressive voices in Congress, represent me; our town just got moved into his district.)

Born in 1956, I was too young to cast my vote for McGovern in 1972—but not too young to campaign for him, which I did. I also met the candidate at a campaign rally in the north Bronx (NYC) neighborhood where I was living (not a place that typically attracted national political figures). He impressed me with his decency, although not his speaking skills (charisma was not one of his big qualities). Listening to him on a local radio station this week, I was glad he’s become a better speaker—and glad, too, that he’s still willing to buck the system and oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq…stand for positivity and discourse in politics…and be a voice for the voiceless whose safety net continues to be slashed by both parties.

McGovern, the elder, is a reminder of the days when the Democratic Party actually supported democratic values of peace, an anti-poverty agenda, and civil liberties—values that seem hard-to-find in today’s party, where the Dennis Kuciniches and Barbara Lees, Alan Graysons, and James McGoverns of the world are a tiny isolated minority at the far-left edge of a party filled with “centrists” who are less willing to back a progressive agenda than Richard Nixon was during his presidency. How can you take seriously a party that claims to be progressive and lets people like Ben Nelson and Steny Hoyer define it?

Where are the towering figures like Barbara Jordan, Birch Bayh, Bela Abzug, Shirley Chisolm, Tom Harkin, James Abourezk and so many others—all of whom served with George McGovern in Congress? Where is even a figure like Lyndon Johnson, able to grow past his southern segregationist heritage and shepherd through a series of civil rights bills? These were Democrats who were not afraid to speak their mind, not afraid to fight for justice, and willing to do what they could to steer the US toward a better path. They didn’t turn tail and start mumbling apologies any time someone called them a liberal as if it were some kind of curse word instead of a badge of honor—a disgraceful path embraced by Michael Dukakis during his 1988 Presidential run, and by far too many Democrats since.

Daniel Ellsberg
Another of my pantheon of childhood heroes, Daniel Ellsberg, 80, spoke on a panel of whistleblowers Thursday evening at Mt.Holyoke College. Ellsberg risked life in prison to release the Pentagon Papers, a massive set of documents that utterly discredited any plausible justification for the Vietnam war.

Ellsberg didn’t go to prison, though—because the government’s case was dismissed after it was discovered that the feds had way overstepped their bounds in investigating him. Unfortunately, under laws championed by and passed under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, what they did to him would be legal today. That is a travesty, and part of what I mean when I say the Democrats have abandoned a progressive agenda. Despite whistleblower protection laws and even payment passed since the 1970s, the government is not nice when the whistleblowers go after government fraud. Whistleblowers still risk severe punishment (just look at Bradley Manning).

If you ask me, those who expose corruption at great personal risk are heroes, not criminals.

Rachel Maddow
Local weekend resident Rachel Maddow speaks tonight, also at Mount Holyoke. Maddow, who turns 39 tomorrow, has been a refreshing progressive, articulate, and intelligent voice in a generally desolate mainstream-media landscape. I’ve been a fan of hers since she made her radio debut as a morning-show newscaster on WRNX here in the Valley.

It’s great that there are people like Maddow to catch the torch as my generation, and my parents’ generation, starts passing it. We need more like her.

[Disclosure: I was not able to attend any of the events in person. This post is based on hearing McGovern and Ellsberg in separate appearances on Bill Newman’s radio show on WHMP, and on coverage in the Northampton, MA newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette.]

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Politics, propaganda, Technology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,

Jim Hightower, populist author and entertaining voice for common sense for decades (and a terrific speaker—if you ever get the chance, go hear him!) has a great article on the real agenda of those pushing the Keystone XL gas pipeline from Canada to Texas.

It’s to get that Canadian crude down to oil refineries in the free trade zone at Port Arthur, Texas—where it can be shipped overseas a lot more cheaply.

We Americans get the land takings, the toxic leakage, the interruption of wildlife habitat corridors and all the rest of the “good stuff”; foreign markets get the oil; prices in the US go up. Such a Deal!

Hightower is the former Texas Commissioner of Agriculture and a generally knowledgeable guy. I find him credible, and I trust his analysis.

Thanks but no thanks. Please spread this widely.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability, language, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, propaganda, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Want to buy a scientist?

When you find a scientist who claims to show that human-caused catastrophic climate change either isn’t real or isn’t a problem or doesn’t really exist, you usually find a money trail leading to one of the worst polluters (usually, oil giant ExxonMobil, sometimes, petrochemical magnates and right-wing darlings Koch brothers).

But ultra-right-wing think-tanks play in this sandbox too. Friday, TriplePundit posted leaked secret anti-climate-change strategy documents from Heartland Institute; they actually have the chutzpah to put $100,000 toward developing a K-12 school curriculum to

…show that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.

Oh yes, and they’ve also set aside $18,000 a monthly to fund pundits who present the climate-change-is-not-a-problem viewpoint.

Hmm, that sounds a lot like the attempts by creationists to throttle the study of evolution and biology. When science can’t back up your position, influence young kids with the Big Lie technique that was so beloved by Nazi propagandists. And the get television news commentators to present a “fair and balanced” approach, pitting your purchased experts against objective scientists as if they were equally credible, and sow doubt in the public mind.

To climate skeptics, I say “look out the window.” In my own area of Western Massachusetts alone, we’ve experienced the following just since June 1:

None of these events are the normal weather pattern around here.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, propaganda, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,

In the Dumb and Dumber department: I opened a letter marked “Personal Correspondence,” knowing full well that it was not. It used a very obvious handwriting font, nonprofit bulk-mail indicia instead of a postage stamp, and a sprayed barcode, and on the back was a Washington, DC mailing address with no name.

Personal correspondence, my arse! I opened it up because I wanted to find out who was lying to me.

Turned out to be a charity group that works on gay and lesbian rights issues, a group I’ve previously donated money to. Inside, there was no longer any attempt to look personal. It was a fairly standard fearmongering letter, some slick full-color inserts and a decal. I separated the decal into the trash, put the rest of it in the recycling—but I kept the postage paid return envelope. I’m going to print this blog post and mail it back to the org at their expense, to make a statement that I don’t like being lied to, do not condone unethical marketing even from causes I support, and to make it a few cents more expensive to treat me as a fool.

Doesn’t anyone vet this stuff before it goes out?

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

…But I’m going to write it anyway.

As a young teenager protesting the Vietnam war, I had a huge poster in my room with a picture of a Vietnam-era peace demonstration and the quote,

It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.

—Abraham Lincoln

It is my duty to protest.

I am only one generation removed from the Holocaust, and I wonder how many millions of lives might have been saved if ordinary Germans and Italians had protested and organized in large numbers against the gradual encroachments on their liberty that provided the legal framework for Nazi and Fascist repression.

Earlier this week, while the rest of us were merrily celebrating the arrival of 2012, President Obama signed a truly wretched piece of legislation: The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

In the words of one commentator whose post is entitled “R.I.P. Bill of Rights 1789 – 2011,” this law

grants the U.S. military the “legal” right to conduct secret kidnappings of U.S. citizens, followed by indefinite detention, interrogation, torture and even murder. This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law, with no jury, no trial, no legal representation and not even any requirement that the government produce evidence against the accused. It is a system of outright government tyranny against the American people, and it effectively nullifies the Bill of Rights.

Signed into law by the same President Obama who, as a candidate, was the champion of liberty and “change” who would close the illegal prison at Guantanamo, rein in the torturers of Abu Ghraib, and quickly end the US presence in Iraq. The same Obama who had said he would veto this dreadful bill. (Yes, the soldiers have come home. But it took three years and we still have thousands of “advisors” there, along with a highly fortified embassy in Baghdad  that could easily be the nerve center for US command and control.) Guantanamo is still open, the climate of anti-Muslim racism persists, and the torturers at the highest levels (e.g., Cheney and Rumsfeld) have never been held to account.)

So I am protesting. Even though it puts my own liberty potentially at risk.

In his signing statement, Obama said he would…

interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that …upholds the values on which this country was founded.

Two problems with that. Number 1, he has not shown himself trustworthy in upholding those values in the past.

And second, there is no guarantee that the presidency won’t be delivered to a much more repressive figure with no such scruples. The contenders on the Republican side include several sworn enemies of freedom for those of us who don’t happen to be straight, conservative, and some repressive flavor of Christian: Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum (in alphabetical order).

This is merely the latest in a gradual erosion of our civil liberties committed during both Democratic and Republican governments; two other examples (among many) are the shift over the last two decades of ballot counting to insecure, easily manipulated, and highly suspect electronic counting devices that in some cases don’t even HAVE a paper trail (and that led directly to the disastrous worst-in-history administration of George W. Bush) and the citizens United Supreme Court decision that nakedly grants corporations the power to buy elections.

Yes I protest.

I have never forgiven myself for not doing enough to stop the coup that let Bush seize power in 2000—in part because I didn’t see Gore as any great champion of my values, in part because I could not foresee just how bad that eight years was going to be—but mostly because I was feeling too shut down and disempowered to help organize a movement like we saw in Mexico, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere.

I still don’t feel like I can personally organize a movement. But I can at least protest, and send some money to a civil liberties group.  I hope you will too.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Ethics: General, Green Business, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with ,

It’s been a good year for recognition of my work for a better world. In October, I was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame (View pictures and read the transcript here.)

And then last night, I received notification that I (as the human face of GreenAndProfitable.com) am the very first business in the country to be certified by Green America at the Gold level (which was a fairly arduous process involving several reviews of an extensive questionnaire covering socially responsible investing, supply chain, commitment to social and economic justice, and, of course, environmental benchmarks, among other things).

I’m thrilled. After 40 years in the environmental world, it is nice to have people notice.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethics in Government, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy

Must-read article by Eliot Spitzer on how banks defrauded the government into giving a whopping $7.7 trillion in secret loans, with no conditions, under false pretenses. That is half the entire GDP!

And that’s OUR money, folks! Bush’s “regulators” let these deals happen with no scrutiny of the banks, and nobody was scrutinizing the regulators.

“If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” (author unknown)

“Justice, justice shalt thou pursue.” (The Talmud)

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By Posted on Posted in censorship, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,

For more than 30 years, one of the arguments I’ve made against nuclear power is the chilling effect on our freedom.

Now, it seems that Japan may have passed a law heading down that slippery slope. Or not—I am not so far convinced that the claims are accurate.

A blogger for the UK Progressive put up a rambling, jumbled article claiming that Japan has passed a law giving sweeping powers to shut down bloggers, people who post videos on Youtube, etc. when they’re critical of the government and/or TEPCO.

I did a bit of Googling and found dozens of other blogs basing their story on that same article, which I consider unreliable. But I did find this in the Tokyo Times, which seems to be a genuine news organization that fact-checks and posts corrections. The Tokyo Times article says the Computer Network Monitoring Law was passed on June 17.

It also says that during March and April, even before the law was passed, government agents sent 41

“letters of request” to internet providers, telecom companies, cable TV stations and others to take measures in order to respond to illegal information, including erasing any information from the Internet that can be seen as harmful to morality and public order.

However, this article links back to coverage in the Examiner which again ties back to the original, untrustworthy blog post. I certainly am not going to pore over all 6000 citations to see whether this story is legitimate. But it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability, propaganda, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,

The latest news from Daichi makes it clear: Nothing these officials say can be trusted:

Highly toxic plutonium has seeped into the soil outside the troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex in northeastern Japan, officials say. The amounts detected in five different soil samples taken from the facility did not pose a risk to humans, safety officials say.

Yes, I am calling that last sentence an outright lie—a disgusting, damnable, and definitely dangerous dissembling.

Want to know the safe level of inhaled plutonium? Zero. The risks are lower if it’s eaten or drank. Breathing the stuff has a very high deadliness factor because it settles in the lungs.

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