This morning I found an excellent moral statement which I have copied below.
The idea that the United States is pursuing a deal favorable to Russia because it might very well enrich a number of billionaires is unsettling.
It is also not surprising considering the open nature of a cascade of corruption under this regime.
I’ll try and keep the story of this flawed and awful “peace” plan updated.
James Alan Pilant
(Indeed it does! An Illustration from the book, “The Wonder Clock.”)
There was once an older woman who was asked to invest in a gold mine. She did so and lost all of that money. Her attorney asked her why she didn’t ask him about the deal before investing as he was on retainer and it cost nothing to ask his opinion. And she said, “I was afraid you’d tell me not to do it.”
Facts keep us from doing all kinds of things. For instance, countless young beautiful women want to be my friend on Facebook. The facts of online scamming and the reuse and actual theft of pictures would lead one to believe that there is usually a financial angle to these beautiful women. And all of life is like that. Many things that appear at first glance to be attractive and seductive are in the long term deeply painful.
We want to do stuff but facts prevent it because we would be injured. We also use them to make decisions and these decisions are often criticized as “cold-blooded.” Sometimes I suppose that is so. For instance I once had a girl friend who was pretty and smart and crazy. I ended the relationship in spite of the good looks and intelligence because crazy (and it wasn’t a little crazy) is bad. I am sure I was right but I do miss her from time to time.
Often we are given permission to act and think on our worst impulses. The Internet outrage machine is opposed to facts and human judgment and intelligence in general. What do I mean by the internet outrage machine? Well, many web sites like Facebook are designed around rage and anger as the most effective ways of getting clicks.
So, if you search for “Angry Karens,” you will get first a few and then a flood of angry Karen posts. They want you angry because anger is a strong emotion that enables you to act in foolish and counterproductive ways in voting and buying.
I want you know that Facebook or any other web site where people can post content could just as easily have been designed around love, strong relationships, artistic merit and peace keeping. But there was more money in rage and hatred. And if you were to suggest that the originators of these sites must have been very cold blooded. You are right. They still are.
Manipulating people with emotion and conspiracy theories is very profitable and even though profitable, very wrong. Nevertheless, based on emotion people buy the most awful useless things and are ripped off on a truly epic scale and it is happening right now, moment by moment.
Not only are we manipulated by the Internet and a variety of scammers and conspiracy theorists we have actual totalitarians who have an extreme contempt for facts. They live in a world of feelings that they believe supersede facts. Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Tojo all had a very high level of contempt for facts. They essentially lived like a good many American politicians in a world of myth and legend (not the good ones). The current hideous myths are the foolish ideas of a mythic American past particularly the glorification of the 1950’s. And so, when we do things like multi-culturalism which runs against the values of the “Jim Crow” era, they react with unreasoning hatred and rage.
I am a member of the reality based community. I admit right now that I do not understand why everyone doesn’t rely on facts to make decisions and live their lives. It seems to me obvious that this is the most likely path to lead to success.
Right now, our current national leadership appears to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, bragging about imaginary accomplishments and threatening to arrest and destroy his domestic enemies. He lives in a world of lies and nonsense which he is forcing on the rest of us.
He might succeed. There are a great many people who see monetary benefits from this set of lies and fake mythology. But the facts, the ones they have not managed to obscure and distort, remain. And we who have lived and want to live in a reality based world are still here.
So, the struggle continues.
May truth and righteousness prevail.
James Alan Pilant
I did some internet searches on the topic. And it is still germinating. Karoline Leavitt says it is all “manufactured outrage.” No, I don’t think so. People are in pain over the loss of part of their heritage. Maybe to her and to her regime, this is just a piece of property, but it is not. Like the battlefields of Gettysburg and Yorktown, the White House is in a real way, sacred ground.
I believe that that outrage is building and it just starting. Why would I believe that? Because of how I feel. After dealing with this continual parade of stupidity, lies and the carefully organized theatre of cruelty that is this administration, it was hard to surprise me. But they managed it. I didn’t see this coming.
And it hurts. Maybe this will delight the standard MAGA follower, the fact that it hurts me to see American history so casually destroyed and then to see it used as filler for a golf course. I guess denying food and medical care to millions isn’t enough when it come to owning the libs, a little historical desecration is necessary to pile on the pain.
The administration, once again, Karoline Leavitt, says renovations are normal in the White House. Really? If I renovate my kitchen I might get new countertops and a better microwave, that’s renovation. What they did more resembles carpet bombing from the Second World War, that is, total destruction. And total destruction is what we have.
I’m angry. What do I want? I want every last brick and every last bit of gold plated poor taste of that new ballroom utterly demolished just like they did to the East Wing. I want every single change this administration has made to the Peoples’ property reversed and erased. I want every evidence of that man’s lack of taste, his concept of some gold plated European bordello as a matter of style, gone and gone forever.
But we must remember with great care and precision, the enablers, the cowards and corporate scum who are paying for this ball room. They are also responsible for these crimes against the American people, against our history and against our glorious past. They have to pay for their crimes. Their moral failures and their pathetic desire to please our alleged leader is now clearly on the record.
When this regime is done, there must be hearings, there must be trials, there must be investigations and people must go to prison, must go to jail, must pay fines and must lose their reputations and livelihoods. Our suffering must have meaning and that meaning will come only when justice is done.
Here is a news article listing the pitiful moral failures who are financing the ball room.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/heres-list-donors-paying-trumps-223813539.html
I’m not going to put the list up here but read the article and read through the list of cowardice and shame.
When do these horrors end? I don’t know. But I have faith in America and in the path of justice. There will be a reckoning for these evil people and their crimes.
James Alan Pilant
(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.
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.
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.
(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.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/no-kings-protests-kick-off-across-us_n_68f28d77e4b0ee732e25083d
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.
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.
KOSU and NPR have a news article written by Robby Korth and Lionel Ramos.
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.
James Alan Pilant
(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.
James Alan Pilant
(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.
James Alan Pilant
Over the last year, we have seen many American institutions cave in to the demands of the current administration.
But in the last couple of days, media outlets have united in refusing to give in to Pentagon demands over their reporting.
Here is the opening part of a statement from NPR:
Courage has been rare in the last six months, but we’re seeing it now. It is a good thing.
(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.
James Alan Pilant
He was told “Resign or be Fired.”
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.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/head-eisenhower-library-resigns-sword-110206460.html
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.
James Alan Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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