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 Business Ethics, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

I couldn’t agree more with John Ritskowitz’s blog entry criticizing the marketers of a new anti-wrinkle product that was actually Nestle’s Quik powder–yup, the chocolate breakfast drink of your childhood.

This was a test by NBC’s Dateline, to see if they could find a marketing firm unscrupulous enough to take on the project despite dubious clinical results. And they did.

His blog includes a link to the Dateline report, which describes informercial scoundrels as “television terrorists.”

Masquerading as a representative from “Johnston Products,” a Dateline reporter contacted a marketing firm and told them up front that he didn’t think the product would help many people, and that no clinical trials were run to test its effectiveness.

And what did the marketing firm think? They thought there wouldn’t be a problem, as all that was needed was “somebody in a white coat” to give the impression that the product had been scientifically tested. That and a few paid testimonials.

The real shame was that the marketing firm then found a real doctor, a well-credentialed doctor, a hospital’s Chef of Dermatology, in fact (Dr. Margaret Olsen, then of Santa Monica’s St. John’s Hospital), who gave a glowing endorsement without ever examining the product. Yuck!

Ritskowitz goes on to cite several other products that give marketers a bad name, and were eventually pulled off the market under government pressure.

I totally agree with is analysis that this deceitful crap makes it much harder for us legitimate marketers. And of course, I agree with his call to sign the Business Ethics Pledge, which I founded (big grin). We currently have signatories from 24 countries, and I’d love you to be the next to sign.

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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 Energy & Sustainability, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Uncategorized

Since 1974, I’ve been deeply concerned about the economic, safety, and environmental hazards of nuclear power generation. It was the subject of my first book, published in 1980.

Today’s edition of my local paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, reported that three nuclear plants were awarded a combined total of $143 million in a court judgment, because the federal government has broken its contract to remove the waste.

The article is subscription-only, but here’s an excerpt:

It also could foreshadow a series of additional financial awards to operators of reactors nationwide who have argued the federal government broke contractual agreements that promised the waste would be taken away by 1998.

The award, granted by Court of Claims Judge James Merow on Saturday, was unsealed Wednesday.

It gives $32.9 million in damages to Yankee Atomic Electric Co., operator of the former Yankee Rowe reactor in Massachusetts; $34.1 million to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of Connecticut Yankee reactor, and $75.8 million to Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of the Maine Yankee reactor.

Note that first paragraph. As a taxpayer, I am far from enthusiastic about a long series of payouts to nuclear utilities.

The reason the feds can’t take the waste is they have nowhere to put it, and that’s in large part because there is no safe way to store the stuff for tens of thousands of years, and that’s what would be required. So it’s not surprising that local activists don’t want a waste dump shoved down their throats. This was true even before anyone thought they might be a terrorist target.

‘Nuff said–shut ’em down!

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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 Business Ethics, Uncategorized

I found a really good blog entry by Chris Raymond about the HP scandal (sent by my good friend and comrade-in-ethics Nancy Smith, author of Workplace Spirituality–one day I’ll have to meet her!)

As an ethics writer (Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First) and blogger ( https://www.principledprofit.com/good-business-blog/ ), I am completely appalled at HP’s actions–and the more I learn, the worse it gets. This is the first I’ve heard that the ethics officer actually was aware of these egregious violations and chose to protect the company instead of doing the right thing.

I used to have a lot of respect for HP, influenced in no small measure by an amazing book called The Soul in the Computer by Barbara Waugh–but that ws then, this is now. I own an HP computer and an HP printer–but it will be a very long time before I buy another one.

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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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