A recent blog piece by psychologist Kenneth Pope explaining how reports of torture can be easily denied, discounted, and dismissed strongly resonated with my understanding of the dynamics of bullying and abuse at work. I thought it worth sharing and discussing with readers here.
Three cognitive strategies
Dr. Pope identifies “three common cognitive strategies for denying, discounting, dismissing, or distorting instances of torture and for turning away from effective steps to stop it and hold those responsible accountable”:
First, “reflexively dismissing all evidence as questionable, incomplete, misleading, false, or in some other way inadequate.”
Second, “using euphemism, abstraction, and other linguistic transformations” to hide the abuse.
Third, by “turning away: ‘I’m not involved,’ ‘There is nothing I can do about it,’ ‘I have no authority, jurisdiction, power, or influence,’ ‘This is no concern of mine,’ etc.”
Applied to workplace bullying
I quickly thought of workplace bullying when I read this blog post.
I guess it is the nature of the beast. Whenever a profit can be made by converting a public asset into a private one, the knives are out. The reasons for net neutrality are so obvious and so important, it should not be necessary for me to repeat them here. The idea of favoring one user over another has one major advantage over net neutrality, the enormous profits possible on services already provided.
James Pilant
Net neutrality: What is it, and why is the U.S. about to lose it? | Al Jazeera America
For decades, Americans have taken for granted that every website, service and app is treated equally by their Internet service providers. This principle, dubbed Net neutrality, is what allows startups and large corporations to compete on a level playing field, ensuring that Internet providers can’t pick winners and losers by blocking websites or having some load faster than others.
But Internet advocates warn that under a new set of rules scheduled to be introduced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday, this guarantee will be effectively gone, allowing Internet service providers to give prioritized access to websites that pay a premium — and slower service to everyone else.
The FCC proposal would be welcome news for broadband Internet providers like Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, some of which have already begun experimenting with charging online services for fast-lane access to their customers. FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has tried to reassure critics that these arrangements would be strictly regulated on a case-by-case basis. But a growing coalition of Net neutrality advocates, tech companies, investors and members of Congress have slammed the anticipated proposal, calling it “a threat to the Internet” as a domain for free speech and commerce.
“It’s going to be ruinous for innovation online,” said April Glaser, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “It directs people away from newer, innovative services that might not be able to afford that price tier.”
First off, the web could get more expensive. The impact on the average Internet user will likely not be felt right away. But over time, websites would probably pass on to consumers the costs of paying for high-speed access, according to Harold Feld, a senior vice president at the consumer group Public Knowledge.
In addition, it could become difficult to view certain websites owned by companies that can’t afford to pay for access to an Internet fast lane, Feld said.
On top of Internet users potentially paying more, they would also be more confused, Feld said. Under the proposed rules, people would need to make sense of a fragmented Internet landscape where the time it takes to load an online video would depend on whether that website paid extra to their Internet provider. Consumers may start choosing their Internet providers based on which websites they like to visit.
Feld compared the situation to the exclusive deals that AT&T and Apple once made that only allowed AT&T subscribers to purchase the iPhone.
This sounds pretty frustrating. It would be. Under the FCC’s proposed rules, the quality of online streaming services like Netflix or HBO Go would depend on whether those services are paying your Internet provider or not, Feld said.
“It will become more fragmented and more frustrating,” he added.
The proposed rules could affect not just entertainment, but also education. If schools use an online curriculum made by a company that cut a deal with Verizon, students who subscribe to Verizon’s Internet service at home would have an advantage over other students who subscribe to another provider, Feld said.
This is simple intelligence. I wish everybody did this. Remember, I emphasize over and over again the importance of facts and reason in business ethics. How do you get those watching nonsense on television?
Generally voting rights are not considered a business ethics issue but they are the subject of business lobbying. Two of the organizations heavily committed to voting restrictions are ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council and Americans for Prosperity are in large part corporate financed. Would it be a logical assumption that if corporate interests are best served by less democracy, than less democracy will be lobbied for? We’re also seeing this in school privatization where local control is superseded so that school board elections don’t interrupt the process of moving the money. It may well be that corporations being oligarchal in structure themselves prefer other creatures of the same species. Red China with its capitalist heresy intact could be the natural home for the American corporation. After all, they speak the same language of power and disdain for the rabble whose desire to breath air and drink water are serious encumbrances to the pursuit of power and profit.
Of course, the problem with China is that benefits conferred may be taken away. A nation under an oligarchy may have too powerful a central government for a corporation to feel security – just as a democracy may have to much self government for a corporation to feel secure. Does that mean that corporations naturally act in conflict against nations, all nations, seeking a continuous round of benefits concessions and controls? If that were so, we individuals in the wake of Citizens United are pawns in a much larger struggle.
The corporate form is a creature of the state, at least for now. They desire the status of independent nations and the new trans-pacific trade agreement is designed to help them achieve this. But that “free trade” agreement is in serious difficulty. So we still have time to act before the leave our jurisdiction. We Americans can change the form of their organization and we should consider this seriously. National registration of corporations is the most logical step. The corporations can play havoc with the states playing one off against another, and they’ve been doing it for years. Let’s make them play in the big leagues.
James Pilant
When ‘patriots’ unite to restrict voting rights | Al Jazeera America
For groups such as Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council, measures that restrict ballot access are one point in a larger agenda. The states in which Republican governors are passing restrictions on voting — such as Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina — are the same places where conservative lawmakers have tried to roll back people’s voice in the workplace, curtailing union rights and inhibiting employees’ opportunities to have collective representation. Taken together, these efforts align with a vision of America that concentrates political power in the hands of a wealthy few.
Most offensive of all is that the same wealthy donors restricting the influence of regular voters are also actively seeking to expand the power of money in politics, supporting Supreme Court decisions such as Citizens United v. FEC, which eliminated restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations, associations and labor unions.
Conservative billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers and the politicians they support have every right to debate their views. Like all other citizens in our democracy, they should enjoy the freedom to present their opinions in the public sphere. But when their agenda involves expanding the already enormous influence of big money in politics while limiting access to the polls by ordinary citizens, their actions become a cynical assault on the American system and American values they purport to uphold.
The Republican legislature and the Republican governor passed this law in 2012. There was almost zero evidence of voter fraud, but they thought it was a pretty good way to help Romney win (watch this if you don’t believe me).
And then, even when it didn’t help Romney, I guess they looked at some demographic trends and kept thinking it was a good idea and so, every election, we’d get these instructions about what we were supposed to say (it’s not required YET, but we’re requested to request proof that you are you) and sheets of paper telling people that soon they’d have to somehow try to get an ID if they didn’t have one – though, as it turned out, it wouldn’t have been easy:
Required IDs were only available through 71 PennDOT Drivers Licensing Centers across the state. Five of the 71 DLCs are located in Philadelphia, nine counties have no DLCs at all, and DLCs are openly only one day per week in nine counties and two days per week thirteen counties. The Pennsylvania Department of State provided too little access, no financial support to providing IDs to those without access, and no alternatives to obtaining the required IDs.
Anyway, the registered Republicans were all over this. They’d come in and triumphantly whip out their driver’s licenses. It’s not required, we’d say. Well it should be, they’d say. “Voting should be a privilege, not a right,” one even said. There was a lot of huffing and puffing on both sides.
Now, it’s dead. The Commonwealth Court ruled against it, and our fine Governor Corbett has finally said he’ll no longer fight to get it reinstated.
The Republican legislature and the Republican governor passed this law in 2012. There was almost zero evidence of voter fraud, but they thought it was a pretty good way to help Romney win (watch this if you don’t believe me).
And then, even when it didn’t help Romney, I guess they looked at some demographic trends and kept thinking it was a good idea and so, every election, we’d get these instructions about what we were supposed to say (it’s not required YET, but we’re requested to request proof that you are you) and sheets of paper telling people that soon they’d have to somehow try to get an ID if they didn’t have one – though, as it turned out, it wouldn’t have been easy:
Required IDs were only available through 71 PennDOT Drivers Licensing Centers across the state. Five of the 71 DLCs are located in Philadelphia, nine counties have no DLCs at all, and DLCs are openly only one day per week in nine counties and two days per week thirteen counties. The Pennsylvania Department of State provided too little access, no financial support to providing IDs to those without access, and no alternatives to obtaining the required IDs.
Anyway, the registered Republicans were all over this. They’d come in and triumphantly whip out their driver’s licenses. It’s not required, we’d say. Well it should be, they’d say. “Voting should be a privilege, not a right,” one even said. There was a lot of huffing and puffing on both sides.
Now, it’s dead. The Commonwealth Court ruled against it, and our fine Governor Corbett has finally said he’ll no longer fight to get it reinstated.
On Tuesday in the nation’s capital the CEO of General Motors testified about a dangerous vehicle defect that apparently has resulted in at least 13 deaths. GM has issued a recall on vehicles due to
Donald Sterling – Sometimes Business Ethics Means Shutting Up
Self awareness is an important skill. Sometimes, individuals lack any perspective on themselves. The advantage of this is that you feel good about yourself with little or no justification. You have a golden and continuous opportunity to project all of your inferiority and weaknesses on everyone else. Thus it is for Donald Sterling who is undoubtedly wondering out loud to his wealthy friends even as you read this how unfair all this news coverage is. He is no doubt explaining to his friends that the media just won’t stop saying he’s a racist when everybody who knows him, anyone with half a brain knows he’s no more a racist than Martin Luther King.
If you think I’m being cruel – watch the interview, the level of self-deceit is incredible. In his mind, his beliefs are “factual.”
And that in the end is the benefit of being a member of the .01 percent, you have the privilege of being stupid. Because in that comfortable world, there is no countervailing reality to have to deal with. You can believe any set of comforting nonsense. It is a pity that Anderson Cooper didn’t ask him about voting rights or taxes.
Before business ethics can be exercised there has to be an understanding of facts and reasoning. There has to be a firm connection to reality. That is harder than it sounds. There are many individuals who have a difficulty telling opinion from facts, and many more who don’t understand how logic and reasoning are exercised.
When I was very young man, I worked at a store. One day the owner explained to me that doctors had told her that black people were arranged differently on the inside – their organs were in different places. When I appeared surprised, she was surprised that I didn’t understand something so obvious. It has been more than thirty years now and I have not yet ran into a “black” physiology textbook. I’m not expecting it to happen soon.
Her “facts” were different from reality, and when such is the case, business ethics are often irrelevant.
James Pilant
Donald Sterling’s interview disaster: Rich old racist self-destructs to Anderson Cooper – Salon.com
Donald Sterling, in all his reprehensible anti-glory, is officially representative of only one person, Donald Sterling. But it was hard not to think about the insularity and cossetting the super-wealthy enjoy, once they get super-wealthy, watching the maligned Los Angeles Clippers owner self-destruct with Anderson Cooper Monday night.
Sterling is a man who is obviously used to holding forth on his mind-blowingly prejudiced views without challenge. He wants us to think V. Stiviano entrapped him with her magic lady parts — “I don’t know why the girl had me say those things,” he told Cooper — and got him to launch a paranoid racist rant out of lust. But clearly that is not true, unless he’s lusting after Anderson Cooper.
“I’m not a racist,” Sterling told Cooper. “I made a terrible, terrible mistake. And I’m here with you today to apologize and to ask for forgiveness for all the people that I’ve hurt. When I listen to that tape, I don’t even know how I can say words like that…. I mean, that’s not the way I talk.” Actually, it seems to be exactly the way Sterling talks.
It’s hard to know where to start with the NBA franchise owner’s outrageous remarks. He called Stiviano “a street person” and said Magic Johnson “ought to be ashamed of himself.” No, that doesn’t do Sterling justice. This is what he said about Johnson:
Here is a man, he acts so holy. He made love to every girl in America in every city and he had AIDS. When he had those AIDS, I went to my synagogue and I prayed for him.
“Those AIDS”? (For the record, Johnson has HIV, not AIDS). But it got worse:
What has Magic Johnson done? He’s got AIDS. Did he do any business? Did he help anybody in south L.A.? I think he should be ashamed of himself. What does he do for the black people? I’m telling you he does nothing. It’s all talk.
I spent millions on giving away and helping minorities. Does he do that? That’s one problem I have. Jews, when they get successful, they will help their people.
And some of the African-Americans, maybe I’ll get in trouble again. They don’t want to help anybody. What has Magic Johnson really done for Children’s Hospital which kids are lying in the hallways. They are sick. They need a bed. What has he done for any hospital? What has he done for any group?
Donald Sterling (1934- ), an American billionaire, is best known as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, a basketball team. It accounts for a third of his wealth. On April 25th 2014, a recording of what seems to be him talking to his girlfriend, Vanessa Stiviano, was made public on the Internet. In it he tells her not to be seen in public with Black people.
We do not know where the recording came from, when it was made or whether it has been edited. But it is probably all too true: In 2009, for example, Sterling was made to pay $2.725 million for discriminating against Blacks and Latinos at his apartment buildings in metropolitan Los Angeles. It is a matter of public record that he has said stuff like this:
Is she one of those black people that stink? […] Just evict the bitch.
…
On racism:
Sterling: It’s the world! You go to Israel, the blacks are just treated like dogs.
Stiviano: So do you have to treat them like that too?
Sterling: The white Jews, there’s white Jews and black Jews, do you understand?
Stiviano: And are the black Jews less than the white Jews?
Sterling: A 100%, 50, a 100%.
Stiviano: And is that right?
Sterling: It isn’t a question – we don’t evaluate what’s right and wrong, we live in a society. We live in a culture. We have to live within that culture.
When we conducted an informal survey last year asking people when it’s okay to tell a white lie, a large majority, 71%, came down hard on politicians, saying it’s wrong for them to shade the truth, even when it’s just a matter of emphasizing facts that support their point of view and ignoring those that don’t.
This is the very first post of a brand new blog. I find what is being said of interest and I hope you will take a look at this blog with as high a hope as I have for it.
So I realize there are quite a few different uses and meanings of this term, but I’ll be focusing on one that was developed by Gisbon-Graham in their bookA Postcapitalist Politics.
For the purposes of this blog, postcapitalism will refer to a space, place, moment, project, etc. that does not lie “within” the capitalist mindset. It doesn’t rely on free-market money making principles but instead reminds us that we have other values– we’re a community oriented, environmentally minded, sharing, creative, and caring society.
It’s time to change the current discourse from one that is “capitalocentric,” one where “other forms of economy (not to mention noneconomic aspects of social life) are often understood primarily with reference to capitalism: as being fundamentally the same as (or modeled upon) capitalism, or as being deficient or substandard imitations; as being opposite to capitalism; as being the complement of capitalism; as existing in capitalism’s space or…
I would suggest that it is unethical to burden students with the costs of their education. Education is a society wide benefit, and we should all share the burden.
The outstanding debt held in student loans, estimated at over one trillion dollars, is now the second largest class of debt held by consumers — second only to home mortgages. The dangers posed by this debt may not be as great as the mortgage debt and its role in the ensuing financial system crash of 2008. But it is consequential for the economy, not to mention it’s devastating personal effects. You can read about the dimensions and find the relevant data here.
While this news isn’t “buried,” in the sense I’ve been using the term here in Page Seven, it does not receive the attention it deserves by economists or business writers as a major factor in the sluggish recovery, or in the prospects for long term growth. Nor is it prominent in the scripts and talking points of the two major ideological…
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