I am a 53 year old teacher. I have double major in Speech and Criminal Justice resulting in a Bachelor's degree from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and a law degree.
In these terrible times, calls for respect and good behavior seem almost surprising. We are literally being drenched in Administration insults and lies.
And yet, the Milwaukee Brewers issue a statement sublime in its simple call for human decency and good public behavior.
Someday, we may have public servants, even Presidents, whose first response to an opponent isn’t a slur or an obscenity. Someday, decency, eloquence and tolerance may once again become factors in public discourse.
But not now.
Let us hope and pray for better days to come.
James Alan Pilant
Here is the story and the public statement put out by the sports team.
“The Brewers expect all persons attending games to be respectful of each other, and we do not condone in any way offensive statements fans make to each other about race, gender, or national origin. Our priority is to ensure that all in attendance have a safe and enjoyable experience at the ballpark.”
(I just liked the picture. It is hard to find a non-copyrighted picture of an airport or the controversial video. JP.)
When you think of Oklahoma, it is common to believe the State a hotbed of Trump sympathizers. Yet, that does not appear at least in this single case to be true.
Risking the wrath of the Trump Administration has frightened law firms, colleges, universities, multi-national corporations and a literal horde of Republican politicians of which Oklahoma has many, and yet Oklahoma airports are standing up in defiance.
It gives you some faith in humankind to find courage and a backbone even in Oklahoma where right wing politics and reactionary Baptists rule.
As a business ethics issue, the airports are looking at possible liability under the Hatch Act for presenting a partisan video. That is very wise. The current administration will not last forever and these kinds of violations can be punished for some years.
So, while certainly decisions requiring courage, there is also a question of legal liability.
A reflection.
When I was a young man, I spoke to a number of Republicans running for office and from time to time voted for them. At no time, did I suspect that they did not have my best interests in mind and I was right about them. They loved the United States and they valued my vote and my interest in their campaign. They were good and fine human human beings.
I miss those days.
The News Story this column (blog post) is based on.
Here is the link to the news story about the airport’s decisions to not air the video. I have also included a brief quote.
This week, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem distributed a video to be played in airport security lines, across the country, blaming Democrats for travel delays during the shutdown.
“We will continue to do all that we can to avoid delays that will impact your travel,” Noem says in the video. “And our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government.”
Some experts say the video violates the Hatch Act, a federal law banning executive officials from using their titles for partisan activities. It also bans the use of federal resources to help or harm individual political parties.
Along with dozens of airports across the country, Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City is not displaying the video.
Two Million More People Participated than the Last One
(A great day for American Patriotism!)
Today was the day of days, when American came together to voice their discontent with our increasingly corrupt and incompetent government. I can’t convey in words how proud and hopeful today’s events make me.
Will Americans be able to stop the march to a fascist state that is quite some distance along? I don’t know. But the marchers today put a marker down that obedience and compliance are unlikely if the oppression continues. Americans are putting this administration on notice that they will not sit idly by while our liberties are trampled on.
Let the work go forth that we are patriotic Americans, the bedrock of the nation and we stand together.
What is particularly striking about these demonstrations, these marchers, is the disparity between the message they are sending and the text messages sent between Young Republicans that were exposed just a few days ago.
We see on the streets a sea of patriots and believers in American democracy while in the chat rooms of the future leaders of the Republican Party, the denizens laugh about gas chambers, joke about killing and raping their enemies, ridicule minorities and praise the Third Reich.
You tell me which one of these is the future of the United States, an excited committed group of patriots or the dregs of a once proud political party drifting into a sort of happy fascism? I know which one I want.
And if you want to claim that a group of Young Republicans who had to be 18 to 40 years of age to be on those chats were just a bunch of naive kids, I’ve got swampland in Florida or I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, whichever appeals to your lack of judgment.
In the last few days we’ve seen two different Americas. If God is kind, we will follow the righteous and good path.
Here is the latest news about the march and the participation.
Organizers for the event said that nearly 7 million Americans around the country attended ― two million more than the first “No Kings” protest in June.
“With more than 2,700 lawful and peaceful protests across all 50 states, today’s mobilization was 14 times larger than both of President Trump’s presidential inaugurations combined, marking a historic moment of unity and resistance,” a statement from ‘No Kings’ organizers said. “From rural communities to major metropolitan centers, the message was clear: America will not be ruled by fear, force, or one man’s power grab.”
And in case you’re curious about what the Young Republicans posted, here is a link to the original article and a bit of text.
Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
This week marks sixteen years of me owning and posting on this Blog, Pilant’s Business Ethics.
When I started I was teaching both online and in the classroom. My son was a teenager and I was still married. It seems a whole world away.
And now, the world seems so dark and dangerous as American democracy is under attack and whether or not, our representative government survives will be seen in the next couple of years.
But I should just bask in the fact that I have persevered so long and with some success.
Oklahoma Stuck with 500 Trump Bibles Already Purchased
Oklahoma has ended Ryan Walter’s mandate to place a Bible in every classroom. The Oklahoma Supreme Court in the wake of Walter’s resignation asked the State Superintendent if he wished to continue the current lawsuit defending the mandate. Walter’s replacement, Lindel Fields, withdrew the mandate this last Wednesday.
It appears much that Walters did while in office will be reversed and removed. I prefer not to think of him as having resigned preferring to think him melted by a bucket of water.
Ryan Walters’ controversial plan to put a Bible in every classroom last summer almost immediately met pushback. About a year ago, a coalition of parents, teachers and faith leaders filed a lawsuit against him and the state over the mandate.
The suit is ongoing, but because of Walters’ exit, Oklahoma’s State Supreme Court gave his replacement Lindel Fields, the opportunity to withdraw or resolve the case in the next two weeks.
But he ultimately took much less time. On Wednesday, Fields announced he would withdraw the mandate at the heart of the case.
(This is from a book picturing “The vanished places of worship and cathedrals in France from 1917.”)
Oklahoma like much of the United States is a place of many faiths. The Pew Research Center found that there were Oklahomans who practiced the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu faiths besides a bewildering variety of Protestant sects.
Here in Oklahoma we are leaving this chapter, this episode, of the culture wars to return to the very real problems of low morale among teachers and administrators as well as a tragic lack of funding for education in general. We are the 50th state in per pupil funding and I must reluctantly admit, a national laughingstock.
But stay tuned as various investigations into Walter’s conduct are now ongoing and there may be much, much more to see and hear about what passed for administrative decisions in Oklahoma Education.
In regard to business ethics, this is a cautionary tale of a narrow minded ideologue running wild. It is not the last one we will ever see although we may hope.
Salaries were paid to people who barely showed up, the most pitiful propaganda was adopted as if they somehow qualified as “teaching materials,” and the department was run like a personal fiefdom.
I wish the new Superintendent well and pray for his success.
The people of Oklahoma deserve so much better than what was done and a new beginning is called for.
(A picture from the work, “The Boys’ Book of Battle-Lyrics.)
While the current regime claims we focus too much on the history of slavery, in Oklahoma, the City of Tulsa is continuing its efforts to find the bodies of victims of racial violence.
It’s an effort that could take weeks, Mayor Monroe Nichols said during a press conference at City Hall. Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield and archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck joined Nichols as he gave an update on the city’s progress.
“This groundbreaking work from our archaeological and genealogy teams is a great mark of success and it tells us where we are, certainly in the right place and on the right track,” Nichols said. “The latest report from the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey gave us very detailed information as to what we believe we have left at the Oaklawn Cemetery.”
The destruction of “Black Wall Street” and the deaths of so many of our black citizens deserve remembrance. That such horrors happened are matters of fact and history which we ignore at our peril.
A free and great people does not fear its history. It embraces its past with a willingness to change and improve.
Ethics and Morality demand that we remember the crimes and mistakes of the past in the hope that we are now a better people who have found a better moral compass and a greater responsibility toward our fellow human beings.
Let us pay attention to the great words of one of our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln:
Lincoln didn’t just talk about having more money but assumed that social and political health were also of great importance. He could not have spoken truer words. While we live in an age of the most disgusting and degrading money grubbing and corruption, he calls us to be a great people with an unwavering committment to doing what is right.
(Presumably over the last dime of profit just like our tech bros.)
Billionaire bosses scoff at the concept of work life balance. Squeezing every conceivable sacrifice from the pitiful workers they exploit mercilessly is embedded in their DNA. The cruelty is the purpose. The cruelty is to instill fear and obedience in their worker drones.
You might say, “James, you don’t seem to like them very much?”
“No, I don’t.”
And I will tell you why. These individuals with their enormous wealth larger than most of the world’s nations’ annual budgets have it in their power to make their workplaces worker friendly, a paradise and continuing benefit to the nation. They could provide day care, scholarships, travel and most importantly, a guarantee of employment as a reward for loyalty. Instead they impose pain and hardship as a means of getting every last dime even thought they have billions upon billions of those “last dimes.”
When I was a young man I read a lot of history. I still do. There is the story of George Pullman. He created the Pullman Car. It is a train car that allows passengers to travel in comfort and sleep while traveling. He made many millions of dollars. Like today’s billionaire bosses, he wanted every last dime. So, he built a “model community” for his workers where they had to live and where every action and every expenditure could be controlled. A horrible cruel dictatorships that demanded moment by moment obedience punishable by immediate dismissal for any failure. He could have built a paradise just like our beyond all human understanding levels of greedy tech bros could but they won’t.
I think they relish the power. The idea of doing good of doing what is right is repugnant to their openly fascist belief systems. They take and they take and they take — and that is all the rationale they need. They want and have created a nationwide atmosphere of fear to keep wages and worker demands low. And in case, we forget for a moment their power they sail their yachts before us, fly their planes above us and buy our politicians cheap.
Am I wrong?? Show me the kindness of these men. Show me at any time where their workers were a priority. Show me.
We should expect more of the wealthy. We should expect more of Americans. We all have duties to each other as citizens and as members of human kind.
It is painful to write about business ethics when the prevailing mood in the business world is crass exploitation.
And I’ll tell you something else. Right now in the halls of power both in business and government, the idea of obeying the law is greeted with merriment and scorn.
But verily, verily I say unto you, they have their reward and it may well be coming sooner than they think.
(The finest journalism in American history has often come from the battlefield.)
Pete Hegseth, the unqualified current Secretary of Defense, and a former commentator on Fox News, is demanding that journalists comply with his demands. And these demands go far beyond any conditions imposed even in the midst of war.
Walter Cronkite was a war correspondent in World War II. I have read some of his work. Eric Sevareid was another. I’ve read his book on his tour as a correspondent. I am confident from that they would refuse this nonsense just like the current journalists do.
But lets us mention the legend, Ernie Pyle. He was killed while reporting on the American troops whose stories and sacrifices he so carefully documented. I have read his books and marveled at his courage and writings. I have every confidence that he would have told Hegseth to go straight to hell.
For the moment we still live in a democracy and our Defense Department is funded to the tune of more than one trillion dollars in public money. Surely, some journalistic oversight is called for.
Wherever American troops have gone from the time of the American Revolution to the current sad age, there have been rules that have been followed. I know this and understand this. Military secrets must be protected and the lives of the troops placed first and foremost in journalistic ethics.
But what has been happening has nothing to do with military secrets given up by journalists. It is the Secretary of Defense himself who threw open military planning and secrets. We are not at war. But we have seen a truly incredible number of firings and retirements in our military. This administration and its lackeys seem to have serios difficulty with minorities and women serving our country. And I believe it is these controversies not military secrets or the defense of the United States that are in question here. It is simply a matter of an administration that wished to avoid oversight for its often bizarre decisions.
But there is a larger issue here. We are constantly being threatened and cajoled by this administration toward obedience and compliance like some sort of medieval peasants.
But we are not medieval peasants, we are a nation of free men and women who will not bow down and give up our rights to a band of incompetent and openly corrupt government officials.
I’ve missed posting for several days and I apologize. My allergies result in my face being swollen among other symptoms and I have difficulty concentrating enough to write intelligently.
I’m feeling a little better today and will see about posting tonight.
(I saw the news about the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and was delighted.)
You have no idea how much I appreciate you, my kind and intelligent readers.
Todd Arrington refused to give up one of Eisenhower’s swords so our current regime could give it to King Charles III.
So, we the American people retain our property, one of the prized possessions of a famous soldier and former President of the United States.
This is one of those times I wish I knew nothing about ethics, honor and righteousness. If I didn’t know, I would not know the depths to which a nation has to sink for a man to stand with honor and do his job and I might, do his job well strongly evidencing courage and then see him constructively fired.
What kind of people when looking around for gifts for foreign royalty goes to the preserved treasures of our heritage, our history, and says “Let’s get one of those!” What kind of people want to grab an item from our museums and historical collections so that we might flatter the faltering and flawed royalty of another nation and gratify the thoughtless greed of the President and those around him?
On the plus side, the sword was saved. On the negative side, our nation’s lack of leadership and the all consuming grasping greed of our current government is on display once again. .
(Eisenhower trained a tank unit for World War I and was deployed to France in 1918, before he arrived the armistice was signed.)
Here is a link to a news story on the subject written by Ed O’Keefe for CBS News.
It is entitled: Head of Eisenhower library resigns after sword spat with Trump administration
Todd Arrington, a career historian who previously held posts with the National Park Service and National Archives and Records Administration, said he stepped down on Monday under pressure as director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home.
In an interview with CBS News, Arrington said he was told on Monday, “Resign — or be fired.”
This story concludes with the following two paragraphs.
The 52-year-old said he is less than five years away from retirement eligibility and is hoping to find a new job at a different federal agency.
But, he said, “If there’s any way for it to happen, I’d return to this job in a heartbeat. I love the job, I love the people, I love the history. I never in a million years wanted this to happen.”
As a business ethics expert, I am appalled. If you get into the weeds of the story, there are the usual denials of White House responsibility we have come to know so well. And once again, the clear message sent directly by this administration is that any form of opposition will not be tolerated. What this administration wants and desires are to be yielded to under all circumstances as if it were the law.
But this administration lives for revenge and payback. (Is it not written that we are to forgive our enemies?)
This is wrong. This is unethical. This is a violation of dozens of systems of morality. This is petty and pathetic.
We should honor the man and women who do their jobs with pride and serve the interests of the American people.
What kind of nation punishes those that follow the way of duty? What kind of nation seeks vengeance for every act that offends the President?
The answer is the one we have now – honorless, crude, grasping and incompetent.
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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