No Black Lives Matter T-shirts and no Kamala Harris coffee mugs demands Director General of the BBC.
(From the children’s book, The Wonder Clock.)
So, what the BBC is apparently going for is a silent, reserved stance in which it is understood in some subconscious, perhaps in a meditative spiritual way opposed to racism.
It would seem that overt statements affirming racial equality are offensive, and we all know how easy authority figures in Great Britain are offended by any mention of the nation’s racist past. We don’t want to ruffle feathers or suggest that tolerance is an important value just a quiet, low priority one.
Racism is like Voldemort. It must not be spoken of.
Let me quote from the article.
The BBC director general also said his “number one priority” was “trying to navigate a course where you are impartial” and that required “elements of diversity”, adding that “socioeconomic diversity” was something that “hadn’t been talked about enough”.
He added: “It is absolutely a big battle, and I’m getting questions: ‘Why are you giving a voice to Reform?’, ‘Why are you doing this?’ We’re not giving a voice, we’re covering – covering what people are interested in, covering the reality of what people feel.”
Perhaps I’m mistaken but what I take from this is that he expects the BBC to do the stenography thing and have no view as to the right or wrong of an issue, to suspend their moral judgments.
This is an abhorrent environment to create in a news service because it puts outright evil and monstrous people on the same reporting plane as the righteous and good. Imagine covering the statements coming out of the Third Reich as substantial and normal as the statements of the democracies opposing them.
All he is asking is for reporters to suspend their critical judgment. If that isn’t wrong, nothing is.
Neutrality in the face of evil is also a decision and it is the wrong one.
(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.
(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.
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.
The Anti-Defamation League, one of the most prominent Jewish advocacy and anti-hate organizations in the US, removed over a thousand pages of extremism research from its site on Tuesday night following online backlash from rightwing influencers and Elon Musk.
The ADL’s now-deleted “glossary of extremism” contained over a thousand entries that gave background information on groups and ideologies connected to racist, antisemitic and otherwise hateful incidents. Its pages on neo-Nazi groups, militias and antisemitic conspiracies now redirect to the landing page for its extremism research.
Musk and prominent rightwing accounts on X had targeted the ADL in recent days over the glossary, which included an entry on slain far right activist Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA. Musk also attacked the group for its page on Christian Identity, responding to posts on X that falsely conflated that extremist movement with Christians as a whole. In reality, the term refers to a movement which believes in a racial holy war against Jews and other minorities.
(A vanishing species, an American with courage standing up for what he believes.)
Seeing this kind of cowardice and moral bankruptcy is painful.
This is a case of massive organizational failure. What are they supposed to be doing if not discouraging defamation? Should they change their name? How about “On Rare Occasions We Oppose Lies and Misleading Information?” I have to admit this isn’t very catchy. But since they gave up on that anti-defamation stuff, what’s left?
Since the rise of Donald Trump, we have seen more and more of this institutional cowardice and a complete lack of a moral and ethical backbone. Universities, Businesses, Law Firms and Media Companies rushing to pay money and give up their principles for a little safety and a little relief.
We see it again and again. The bully shows up, demands the lunch money, and he gets it. What happened to American courage and honor?
I really don’t get it. Wasn’t the ADL supposed to call out these people instead of cravenly surrendering?
How do they live without honor, decency or courage?
It must be a bleak existence to surrender up your basic principles in the face of the every people you were supposed to be keeping an eye on.
Every true American should be sickened by this pitiful display. What cowards!
In business, if someone files a silly lawsuit, that is, one without merit, you take them to court and get it dismissed. That is the place where meritless lawsuits go. You use the fact that the law in that area is settled and clobber them in court. And go your merry way.
But what if you are a tech bro?
Now, that is a different kettle of fish, so to speak. If you defeat the current manifestation of that man behind the curtain (See, The Wizard of Oz for the cultural reference.) he might not benevolently smile on your sort of legal attempt to build an AI empire worth trillions of dollars.
So, what do you do? You grovel and fold. You settle.
You show the American people that paying off the bad guy is a legitimate way of doing business. You expose your lack of morality and backbone. You kick morality and ethics to the curb with great contempt. You cosy up to the orange manifestation of American frustrations and make purring sounds.
It is all pretty disgusting.
What do the tech bros hope to get for caving on these lawsuits? They have the developing technology of AI.
You have to understand that AI dwells in a never never land of not quite legality. In fact, that we are allowing these individuals to pursue this tech is very questionable in itself. The potential for vast and permanent harm is clearly visible. Currently AI’s data mine copyrighted material in an almost infinite abuse of intellectual property. Their content is dominating the internet and displacing actual human beings and their work. Probably not legal. The tech bros are building AI data centers whose electrical consumption borders on the wilder dreams of science fiction excess. I’m just mentioning some of the high points.
And of course, we must touch on the thousand ton elephant in the room, and that is, that the game plan involves the destruction of millions upon millions of jobs, maybe as many as ninety percent.
And so the tech bros need the government to look the other way and bless their semi-legal activities so that they make their trillions of dollars.
It is all very elementary and, not exactly, what we are taught in business school although very much inline with Milton Friedman, the great snake in the garden who reduced all business decisions to matters of money.
Here is a link to the article reported one of these pitiful settlements.
YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5m to settle a suit brought by Donald Trump in 2021 that alleged the platform wrongly suspended his channel after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Google subsidiary is the latest in a long string of tech companies to make a multimillion-dollar payout to the president over past decisions about his accounts.
Trump had filed the suit against YouTube and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, alleging that the platform had “accumulated an unprecedented concentration of power, market share, and ability to dictate our nation’s public discourse”. YouTube said it suspended Trump’s channel because it had violated the website’s policies against inciting violence. Because of the settlement, the case is now dismissed. Google did not immediately return a request for comment.
Every society has to deal with the results of its historical creations. The United States in the 1830’s began the process of building railroads and small industry beginning a process which resulted in mass production and the many social changes this brought about.
We through a combination of law and custom created the tech bros. A group of people whose self worship is beyond all human understanding and whose willingness to destroy the current social order an ongoing fact of American Life.
Why did we do this?
It is very simple. We worshipped a model of economic activity that deified profit as the sole goal. We failed to believe in the importance of treating our fellow citizens people with economic justice. We failed to employ any of the basic elements of Christianity into our economic way of life. We failed to believe that doing what was right was important. And we taught generations of business students to get the money first and try to live decent lives of purpose sometime later if at all.
This cannot continue, not in its present form. But that leaves the question, what are we willing to do instead.
I was having class one day and in the front row was a veteran of several combat tours in Iraq. The class got into a spirited discussion about a woman’s time of the month and the things you can buy like tampons and pads to help with that very common malady.
My combat veteran laid his head on the desk, covered his ears with his hands and tried to make the subject go away. I doubt if he was successful. We were friends, probably still are, haven’t heard from him in some years. I respected his service and gave him class time to talk about it.
Not everyone is going to be comfortable with every topic brought up in class. And I understand that.
But removing the phrase, “Climate Change” is different in a major and important way.
Climate Change is real, observable, and needs to be dealt with. And our government is supposed to dealing with it.
Before we go any further, let me give you a link and a quote from the current topic:
“Please ensure that every member of your team is aware that this is the latest list of words to avoid — and continue to be conscientious about avoiding any terminology that you know to be misaligned with the Administration’s perspectives and priorities,” the directive from acting director of external affairs Rachel Overbey said.
“Misaligned with the administration’s perspectives and priorities,” the weasel words for pitiful stupidity from the reality denying loons that currently form our ruling regime.
(Admiring the latest delusion at the Dept. of Energy.)
Tell me, do you think that covering your ears and making racket will drop the earth’s temperature? Because I don’t.
What are these idiots doing? Well, they are completely devoted to chasing fossil fuel money, billions of dollars, and in pursuit of that money, there is no action no matter how obviously moronic and stupid that they won’t do.
And this is one of the stupid and moronic decisions that these people are embracing in the hope of stalling effective action against climate change so that fossil fuel companies can rake in the cash.
It is wrong. It is immoral. It is pathetic. And I hope and pray for the time when these fools are driven from the government, polite society and any hope of profit.
I am very unhappy today. I haven’t posted very much lately because I have some ideas percolating in my mind.
I have been wanting to write a major piece on the fact that everyone in politics seems to talk up the “free market” while working very hard to make sure that there is little or no free market activity in countless fields of ende3avor. I wanted to talk about the necessary elements for a free market and how government action is necessary to prevent combinations and price fixing.
(Our current national leadership.)
I also want to severely criticize business schools for their nonsensical devotion to the idea that in some strange way, the teachings of business are generally applicable in all industries and businesses. They are not. An understanding of how, why and a historical understanding of a business is absolutely essential to a successful leadership and day to day running of a company. Any examination of American movies and Boeing aircraft reveal the folly of a general business set of teachings applied where it simply does not belong. And I will get to it. It is a difficult subject.
No, today is a bad, bad day. Jimmy Kimmel has been removed from the air by a state sponsored form of censorship. The FCC threatened to pull broadcast licenses and the network complied with their demands.
These last twenty four hours have changed our futures. If this government, incompetent and pitiful as its is, can successfully tell media companies what is and is not acceptable, we have little chance of having fair election or even intelligent national discussion.
This is a nail in the coffin of democracy.
It is very painful for me to see the end of the American experiment in representative democracy, and I will be in mourning for some days.
I find it hard to believe that that coming elections in 2026 will be anything but a rigged farce and that will be the final act in America’s story.
After that we will live in some kind of 4th Reich.
I had whooping cough at six weeks old. I burst my belly I was coughing so hard. If you run your hand down the center of my abdomen you can still feel the place. I am an old man now and in those far off years there were no vaccine for that disease. I also got to experience measles, chicken pox, and mumps. The measles infection was very serious and they put me in a bedroom by myself and a doctor came and checked on me. I didn’t quite die. But I remember how it felt. I remember rolling back and forth in the bed trying to make the pain go away.
Florida’s Surgeon General is doing away with vaccine requirements.
He says requiring vaccines is a form of slavery.
So, my suffering and near death were celebrations of freedom? If I had been freed at birth from the dangerous diseases which diminished my life and didn’t quite kill me, I would have been in some larger sense “free?”
What about the millions upon millions of Americans who died from these diseases before vaccines were developed? Were they free? I don’t understand, is there some freedom resting beneath a tombstone that I am so devoid of understanding that I just don’t get it?
What would I say to the Florida Surgeon General given the opportunity? I would say “Do you know what I want to be free of, Mr. Ladapo?”
“Vaccine requirements don’t bother me, not only did I get all of mine, I made sure my son got his too. No, what bothers me is the explosion of charlatans and fools thinking they know better. And not just thinking they know better but demanding other people yield to their crackpot ideas. What I want is to be free of crazy people trying to run my life. ”
It would be nice to be free of the loonies spouting their nonsense. And comparing vaccine mandates to slavery is so repulsive and disgusting that I don’t feel I could do my anger on the subject justice in less that two or three thousand words. Suffice to say, slavery as practiced in the American South was vile beyond belief and a crime so terrible that we as a nation have not and are unlikely to ever finish paying for it
Below is a link to the story I quote from and a brief passage.
(Just another crank lost deep in his own foolishness.)
Aysha Bagchi writing for USA Today has the following story: Florida surgeon general says he doesn’t need to study impact of ending vaccine mandate.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said he doesn’t need to study the potential impact of ending vaccine mandates for children before his state becomes the first to do so in 45 years.
“We do have outbreaks in Florida, just like every state, and we manage those,” Ladapo told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sept. 7. “So there are no new, special, you know, special procedures that need to be made.”
The Florida Surgeon General confesses he didn’t bother to study the effects of his decision.
What are the business ethics here?
Any decision made about Americans’ health should be taken with great consideration for the facts. To not even bother to collect the relevant facts is a complete and total dereliction of duty and a failure to conduct oneself in accordance with simple human intelligence.
I don’t see any need for further analysis.
It is painful to live in such times where these kinds of decisions are being made based on lunacy and stupidity.
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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