The American Civil War was fought over the evil that was slavery. The assassination of Lincoln prevented the necessary prosecution of the Confederate leadership and the old guard, the former slave owners, rose up in power to continue the oppression and pain inflicted on the poor Whites and Blacks. They tried to rewrite history with “The Lost Cause” nonsense and during the Jim Crow era put up statues as signposts that clearly indicating that minority rights did not exist in the South. More crudely put, these monuments were a direct threat of murder and pain to those who stepped across the color line.
Tyrell County has one of these “monuments.” Erected in 1902, its connection to the Civil War is barely arguable but its public demonstration of the power of the white aristocracy and their willingness to murder and punish is plain for all to see. It is dedicated to faithful slaves, a calculated insult.
History is important. But history shorn of its truth is an abomination. These monuments to Jim Crow are an attempt which for many years was successful to intimidate Blacks and rewrite history. It has failed. And these nonsensical pieces of stone should be consigned to the scrap heap. It doesn’t take a deep grasp of morality or ethics to see that preserving the Southern way of life, an idea the included the practice of slavery and many other discriminations, was not a worthy goal but in fact an abomination. Societies based on slavery had long passed in large part into the failed systems of history.
At the end of the Civil War, there were more Black soldiers in the Union Army than the entire strength of the Confederates. I don’t see any monuments to the fact that freed Black men were willing to risk their lives to end the barbarous practice of slavery. That would be real history.
Why don’t we build some real monuments to celebrate the heroism and sacrifice of Americans who fought for the right?
I don’t generally feature an opinion piece as the center of my approach on writing about business ethics or the larger questions of morality and ethics in American society. But this one caught my attention as it focuses on some issues that have been bothering me.
Robert Reich has written an opinion piece which appeared in the Guardian. It’s called “The Trump hush-money trial reveals a seedy world shot through with moral rot.” (The link is at top.)
Let me quote a little piece so you can get a flavor of it. Referring to Trump and his associates he writes:
It’s a sell-or-tell society, a catch-and-kill society, a just-take-care-of-it society. A society where money and power are the only considerations. Where honor and integrity count for nothing.
I strongly agree. The trial has not surprised me. I knew about Donald Trump long before his Presidential aspirations. I don’t mind telling you how I became interested. It was Trump University. People paid large sums of money for a product advertised with the Trump name and got virtually nothing in return. That conduct has been consistent throughout Trump’s career.
But he has millions of followers who seem to believe that his moral and criminal failings amount to nothing or are made up charges, a product of the deep state — or one of their other many fantasies.
Reich’s clear eyed and direct condemnation is important because so few people especially Republicans seem to have any moral qualms these days. Sometimes I thing that a complete lack of moral or ethical qualities is necessary for participation in the inner workings of the Republican party.
Robert Reich speaks while so many are silent. Here is some more of what he had to say:
I sometimes worry that the daily dismal drone of Trump world – the continuous lies and vindictiveness that issue from Trump and his campaign, the dismissive and derogatory ways he deals with and talks about others, the people who testify at his criminal trial about what they have done for him and what he has done for or to them – has a subtly corrosive effect on our own world. I think it is important to remind ourselves that most of the people we know are not like this. That honor and integrity do count. That standards of decency guide most behavior. That relationships matter.
I am sure that Donald Trump has damaged the moral fiber of the United States. I believe that the unleashed anger of the Internet trolls will continue and that we will be dealing with Trump pretenders for decades to come. He and his demented followers have made politics and discourse distasteful and crude. They have made conducting the governing of this nation difficult and often demeaning.
It is a tragic time for the United States and the nation may yet not survive it. The dramatic attacks on our justice system are just one part of a hideous proto-fascist approach to governance that we may see more of in the coming years.
Sometimes reading and watching our various media, you get the impression that economic success is the ultimate determination of a nation’s success. This is the popular view in many circles. But if true at all, it is only partially true. The fact of the matter is – nations have value based not just on economic value but on art, culture and their civic life. It is better to live with a vibrant culture, movies, plays and books, – and better still to live in a society where the citizens can participate in the decisions that effect their lives.
Many participate in art. Some draw, some play an instrument, some participate in little theatre. But once in a while a person rises to the level of director, a professional artist. Successful societies run by the wise, experienced and based on a civilized tradition honor the great artists among us. But primitive and repressive societies do not.
There is no clearer indication of a society in decline than its attempt to destroy a human being for making art.
Rasoulof condemned the Iranian government in an Instagram post on Monday, calling it a tyrannical and oppressive regime, and posting a video that showed him crossing the country’s mountainous border. “If geographical Iran suffers beneath the boots of your religious tyranny, cultural Iran is alive in the common minds of millions of Iranians who were forced to leave Iran due to your brutality and no power can impose its will on it. From today, I am a resident of cultural Iran,” he said.
I have been exploring the concept of social capital recently and find it fascinating. During the dark days of the candidacy of Trump, the ties that bind together as the American people are becoming increasingly frayed.
Rasking is talking about the oil and gas industry. They were aware of the dangers of global warming for decades and not only concealed this knowledge but made it difficult for the general public to understand the issue and actively prevented action to remedy the situation. He is, of course, right. We owe the oil and gas industry a lot for their use of lead, their propaganda to encourage our use of natural gas, and their willingness to cut corners and costs while letting the public bear the burdens of these decisions.
“Whistleblowing allows people to align their actions with their moral compass by exposing wrongdoing”, says Nick Oberheiden from Federal-Lawyer.com. “It fosters transparency and accountability, potentially leading to organizational reforms and societal protection against corrupt practices. Whistleblowers can take solace in knowing there are laws designed to shield them from retaliation and, in some cases, they may even be rewarded for their courage.”
They polled a thousand individuals and found that slightly more than half would become whistleblowers if the circumstances merited it. I am delighted with those numbers. It is good to see so many Americans with an ethical backbone in this time of political turmoil.
Stiglitz explains why we should be using a broader definition of freedom rather than the commonly stated simplistic ideas around individual freedom.
From the article:
Freedom is about what you can do. It’s freedom to do and freedom from harm by others including government, but also corporations or anybody. It’s about freedom from fear—the very idea that children in kindergarten have to be prepared for gunmen coming in and shooting them, they totally lost their freedom from fear. We need a broader conceptual framework for freedom. When we think about taxes a lot of people at the top say, “you’re taking away my freedom.” But they wouldn’t have that income without the government having made the investments in basic R&D, technology, infrastructure, an educated labor force, and the rule of law. If they were born in some poor, disorganized country with a civil war, they wouldn’t have that money. In the U.S., 20% of our children grow up in poverty. We’re taking away those kids’ freedom to live up to their potential and it’s hurting us as a society.
I think that this is a better, deeper and more compelling definition of freedom. I intend to return to it in later writing.
I think these recommendations are probably wise but whether they can be enacted or enforced is another matter. I know that many parents believe that having ready contact with their children at all times is very important. And the individual harm to the psychology of young people may be that evident to their guardians but still we should probably as a society try to give our children an opportunity to have an actual “childhood” rather than a debased form of adult conflict.
From the article referenced above:
The report, “Children and Screens: In Search of Lost Time,” said that children should not be allowed to have cellphones before the age of 11, should be barred from social media before they turn 13, and that between 15 and 18, social media access should be “limited” to those with “ethical thinking.” As for toddlers, it recommended against exposing those under 3 and advised to move toward moderate, controlled exposure only after age 6.
It is odd that in this very same week there were two online news pieces about what is meant by freedom. I have quoted Alfred Stiglitz above and here we have another discussion about freedom and capitalism.
From the article above:
Capitalism is a system under which the means of production can be bought and sold by private individuals, and anyone who can’t afford to start a business of their own has to submit themselves to the domination of those who can if they want to make a living. Workers spend eight out of every sixteen waking hours most days of the week in workplaces that are run like totalitarian dictatorships — and it’s only eight hours, and only most days of the week, because of victories won over generations of workers’ struggles. If the comparison to totalitarian dictatorships seems hyperbolic, it shouldn’t. In fact, capitalists often regulate far more intimate aspects of workers’ behavior — especially for relatively “unskilled” workers without much bargaining power — than do the laws of a typical totalitarian dictatorship. Employers frequently tell workers, for example, when they have to smile, when they’re allowed to talk to each other, and when they’re allowed to go to the bathroom.
We need to start having a real discussion about our right to dignity and autonomy. We discovered that working from home was efficient and successful yet businesses are truly desperate to end the practice. Why? I think they fear the loss of social control. What is the point of being the big boss if you can’t strut around at work as a sort of martinet demi-god? I have had some wonderful bosses and some of them were little more than well paid crooks. One the great tragedies of American life is how minimum wage workers are treated. Long ago before law school and college, I worked in a factory. They treated the cockroaches on the floor better than we workers.
As a writer who takes as his main topics, morality and ethics, it would be wrong and cowardly of me to dodge the great moral issue of the coming election. Fascism in on the march in American and the polling numbers referenced in the article show that the great mass is gradually awakening to the danger. With this election we could very well seen the end of the last vestiges of American democracy.
From the article:
An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National poll released Wednesday found that 31 percent of surveyed Americans, when asked about their greatest fears for the country’s future, mention a rise of fascism and extremism. There is also a notable partisan split in the findings, with almost half of surveyed Democrats, 47 percent, reporting that a rise of fascism and extremism was their biggest concern. Republicans in the survey, comparatively, were far less concerned. Only 15 percent of Republicans said they were worried about growing fascism. For surveyed GOP voters, the No. 1 concern was a lack of values at 36 percent and the U.S. becoming a “weak” country at 30 percent.
This is more quote than essay but I’m quoting a legal proceeding and the proceeding, a disciplinary hearing, is eloquent beyond my poor command of the English language. They wrote for the ages.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS BOARD ON PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY HEARING COMMITTEE NUMBER TWELVE
In the Matter of : Board Docket No. 22-BD-039 : JEFFREY B. CLARK, ESQUIRE : Disciplinary Docket No. 2021-D193
Across the United States, the legal profession is busy removing several Trump lawyers from the profession. The matter referenced above relates to Jeff Clark. But there are others include John Eastman and Rudy Giuliana. Another fourteen attorneys have gotten fines and other sanctions. And there will be more to come as other Trump trials move forward.
Here is a quote from the Disciplinary Hearing referenced above:
The lawyers who contested the 2020 election on behalf of President Trump, far from upholding the nobliest traditions of the profession, betrayed their ethical obligations. At President Trump’s direction, they employed any means necessary to keep him in office. This included frivolous civil rights actions filed in federal court seeking to set aside the results of lawful elections.
That’s the facts surrounding the decision to remove this man’s license to practice law. But this is the steel edge of the decision:
It is not enough that the efforts of these lawyers ultimately failed. As a profession, we must do what we can to ensure that this conduct is never repeated. The way to accomplish that goal is to remove from the profession lawyers who betrayed their constitutional obligations and their country. It is important that other lawyers who might be tempted to engage in similar misconduct be aware that doing so will cost them their privilege to practice law. It is also important for the courts and the legal profession to state clearly that the ends do not justify the means; that process matters; and that this is a society of laws, not men. Jeffrey Clark betrayed his oath to support the Constitution of the United States of America. He is not fit to be a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
I share that opinion.
Let justice be done.
James Pilant
This is a month old but discusses the Jeff Clark Disbarment Process.
In Great Britain, austerity was imposed on the public and lasted for many years. The decline in the quality and quantity of the infrastructure, schools, public facilities like libraries and medical care has been very hard on the population and is considered a major factor in British economic decline. . It also was cruel and it seems both in fore and hind sight to be unnecessary. But the Tories basked in their “get tough” attitude toward the public. They has showed themselves to be “manly” men, willing to put hard limits on the disorganized mob of citizenry always “looking for a handout.”
The Tories in Britain are watched closely by their American counterparts and the Americans bounce ideas between themselves and as far as I can tell, almost all right wing think tanks and a good number of right leaning politicians find these ideas compelling.
So, all over the United States, Republicans are doing cruel, obnoxious and borderline evil acts to prove that they too have the cojones to deprive the public of important things. So, we have cuts in food to school children, laws against giving water to waiting voters, regular attempts to gut child labor laws and finally — and our topic for today, denying municipalities the right to require water and shade for workers.
Florida under the “leadership” of Gov. DeSantis have a adopted a law banning municipalities from requiring heat protections for worker beyond those provided by state and federal law. This follows adoption of a similar law in Texas. You would think that heat isn’t much of a problem if two legislatures feel that nothing needs to be done locally but people do die: (link below)
A sugar cane worker on a work visa from Mexico died just the other day. Is that the only death? I very much doubt it but I don’t know of any data base I can find more extensive data from. The sugar cane worker death made the news because they’re contesting the OSHA fine. I suspect that foreign worker deaths rarely make the news.
A study from the University of Florida shows that heat deaths in the stare are on the rise with the changes caused by global warming. (Link Below)
What do Republicans say about these cruel measures. Well, let me quote:
Republican Rep. Tiffany Esposito of Fort Myers, who sponsored the House version of the bill, told reporters that her husband has worked in South Florida’s construction sector for two decades and that she knows the industry takes worker safety seriously. “This is very much a people-centric bill,” Esposito said. “If we want to talk about Floridians thriving, they do that by having good job opportunities. And if you want to talk about health and wellness, and you want to talk about how we can make sure that all Floridians are healthy, you do that by making sure that they have a good job. And in order to provide good jobs, we need to not put businesses out of business.” (This quote is from the link below.)
“People-centric.” Sometimes you get the impression that the Republican Party is actually some sort of satirical variation on an actual political party. Dead workers are not a demonstration of people centered legislature. And the idea that companies will go out of business if they have to follow heat rules is nonsense.
So, in conclusion, the cruelty is the point. Although there is a certain element of corporate boot licking and servile obedience to the construction industry, inflicting pain on workers is a considered a mark of virtue in the current Republican Party and I am appalled by this pseudo-masculine nonsense.
It is better to feed children, protect the weak and maintain worker protections from danger than to aspire to some kind keyboard machismo.
Actually it may just be that he doesn’t want to. In his job as a “Newsman,” he wanted to overstate the effect of the $20 an hour California has mandated for fast food workers in some sectors. So, he implied that a single worker would make a 100,000 dollars a year on that salary. Surprisingly there was someone there who correctly stated the actual income.
So, he than claimed that a couple working fast food would earn a 100,000 dollars a year, only to once again be corrected.. Watters found the real figure of 40,000 dollars to be horribly unfair. I’m less sure about this. Let me quote a paragraph from the article:
While he may believe that these workers are living lives of unearned luxury, the dollars amounts seem much less impressive against the cost of living and taxes.
Middle and lower class wages have been stagnant for about thirty-five years and the current minimum wage is pitiful. Yet, Watters and Fox News wants to portray these workers as the undeserving while portraying the owners of these huge chains as poor victims of state overreach. But the industry has been recording record profits over the last several years.
I think what the financial press is troubled most by is the empowerment and electoral clout of these workers being effective. In the past wage increases, like those in Washington State have not proven to be the disastert predicted.
And the simple fact is – paying working American a decent salary is a key element of economic growth and simple fairness.
Running for office has long been big business in the United States. Consultants, election observers, campaign managers and many others have careers in the election cycle.
In this kind of business there are things commonly done and commonly not done. One of the things commonly done is to create strategies for appealing to what are called interest groups. These can range from relatively tight categories like doctors to larger more diverse categories like “white females, aged 18-24” or even huge categories like in this case the elderly.
One of things you try not to do as a rule is to alienate any large group of voters by insult. In the situation noted in the links above we have a serious divergence from that rule.
Let me quote:
(Eric) Hovde continued, “We had nursing homes, where the sheriff of Racine investigated, where you had 100 percent voting in nursing homes. Well, if you’re in a nursing home, you only have a five, six-month life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote.”
I suspect that if I lived in a nursing home I might resent the impression that I am in immediate danger of death and incompetent to vote. And I further suspect that other elderly citizens in his state might resent the implications of his remarks.
Do you wonder just what has happened to our politics when this kind of nonsense is bandied about as if it was similar to a coherent thought? It was not too long ago that political eloquence was valued in our American society. Today, capturing the new cycle with a quote so bizarre, it begs normal human belief, appears to be the principle goal of political rhetoric.
Now you can argue that “James, shouldn’t you discuss the merits of denying or preserving the elderly’s right to vote?”
No. Absolutely no. This claims is just nuts. The idea of taking away basic rights based on advanced age with no other factors in consideration is just crazy. I’m not going to honor these weird babblings from a fool by pretending to detect a thread of an actual argument in it.
I think I am like you in that I am tired of crazed conspiracy nuts. They seem to be everywhere and they never seem to be ignored.
A lot of it has to do with the long term horror of our online world. Where we have each and every individual one of us become accessible moment to moment to every loon, crook, foreign power, and political manipulator. Our government and ruling class have failed all of us by not insisting on enshrining our right to our identities and private information in the letter of the law.
What about Eric Hovde? This is not the only strange controversial remark on his part. There are other conspiracies and strangeness. See below:
Hovde, a banking and real estate development executive, has already faced a number of controversies in his bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin. He came under scrutiny over a multi-decade-long fight to tear down a beloved family bar in Madison, and has said that in his ideal world, alcohol wouldn’t be legal for commercial sale.
Let me lead with a quote from the Yahoo News story listed above: (The MSN story is the source of several listed quotes.)
When James Crumbley hurled profanity toward the Oakland County prosecutor in jailhouse phone calls, called her a “whore” and warned, “Your ass is going down and you better be f—— scared,” he wasn’t physically threatening her, his lawyer says. He was just venting, his attorney argues, and expressing his hopes that Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald would lose her law license over her handling of his unprecedented case.
Let me summarize. So, when Crumbley said, “Your ass is going down and you better be f—— scared,” he was merely suggesting that the other members of the bar would look at her trial performance in a negative light and eventually disbar or otherwise discipline her in its due process. I have a law degree. I’ve read dozens of cases and heard more than a few stories. And …
I suspect that the court may have trouble with this line of reasoning.
Let me add some additional quotes to give you fuller look at Crumbleys’ remarks.
Crumbley was “just venting” at greater length. “Well, she’s going to be f—— sucking on a f—— hot rock down in hell soon,” he said in a Dec. 6, 2022, jail call — more than a year before his trial.
And how about this little gem: “I am f—— on a rampage, Karen. Yes, Karen McDonald. Your ass is going down and you better be f—— scared,” he said in a Jan. 3 jail phone call, just months before he went to trial.
So, what do you think? Does the phrase “I am f——on a rampage, Karen … ” mean that Crumbley is patiently waiting for a state bar disciplinary committee to act?
I’m sure you’re thinking that I am being critical of the attorney but the fact is my heart goes out to the poor individual stuck with this client. There is no where to go legally that is more viable than this. James Crumbley needs to show remorse or some level of responsibility and that has not happened and it is not going to happen.
But it might have been a hair more effective to point out that prosecutors get a lot of abuse and Mr. and Mrs. Crumbley believe that histrionics is always called for when an issue gets to a certain size. And from there point out that he is an overblown braggart and fool.
You can definitely sell that and that is where I would have gone. But my argument would have flown only a few inches further than the one made so no big deal.
James Crumbley will be sentenced soon and I’m predicting that he will receive the maximum or close to the maximum possible. This will be justice.
Author’s note: There has been a lot of speculation that the prosecution of the parents in this case opens doors to every kind of case being brought when children commit crimes. I just don’t see it. This is truly an extraordinary case. A neglected child cries out for help and instead of getting counseling or working with the school to deal with their child’s emotional difficulties the parent buy him a Sig Sauer 9mm and get him some practice on the range so he’ll have some skills with it. Just how many times have you seen parental judgment collapse to that level?? We may never see another case like this.
If you believe in morality and ethics, you have a duty to speak out particularly when there is an particularly offensive tragedy that has taken place.
Seven aid workers were killed by a precision drone strike. Israel is responsible for these deaths.
Let me begin by naming the seven dead aid workers: (I’m going to use a quote since I don’t want to get any names wrong.)
The victims have been identified as Poland’s Damian Soból, Australia’s Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, Gaza’s Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha and American-Canadian dual citizen Jacob Flickinger, as well as the United Kingdom’s John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby.
These seven people are heroes, in my judgment, the best of us. They died attempt to feed and help other human beings. Their lives are a testament to the good that can be achieved by high moral values and the rare qualities of courage and sacrifice. God love every one of these wonderful people now lost to all of us.
Israel calls claims that the attack was targeted, “Absurd.” Yet, the food convoy had just dropped off food in a designated safe travel zone with the full knowledge of the Israeli military in clearly marked vehicles which were hit individually although they were hundreds of yards apart. Looking at the pictures of the destroyed cars I was shocked at the almost perfect precision of the hits.
I am having real trouble believing that Israel did not kill these people to deprive the Palestinians of food and to drive foreign observers out of the region so they can kill and commit crimes at will.
But there’s more. It is reported that the Israeli military established a ratio for acceptable collateral damage, that is, the killing of civilians. For a low level Hamas official it was okay to up to 20 civilians, for a high ranking as many as a hundred.
Israel has long been a United States ally. Sometimes I get the impression that they are shocked that we in the United States would question what they have done. But at this point in history, not counting the seven aid workers blown into pieces, 33,000 Palestinians have died in the current conflict and more than a million are starving. It is time to start asking questions and making demands. They depend on American money. That money should no longer be free of conditions. Why? Because the blood of the innocent is calling out to us and we have a duty as human beings to respond with justice.
Is Israel willing to make changes? I doubt it. There is this from the great state of Arizona:
An Israeli diplomat praised Arizona lawmakers for their support and condemned the international community’s lack of outrage at the harm Israel has suffered from the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. In a speech punctuated by three standing ovations, Israel Bachar, the country’s counsel general for the Pacific Southwest, refuted reports of starvation in Gaza and rebuffed calls for a ceasefire unless Hamas meets certain conditions.
It is pretty obvious to me that they feel with their allies in the media, politics and of course, American Evangelicals, they can just bluff their way through this. They can’t. There is too much blood.
We in the United States cannot escape blame. We give Israel about three billion a year and our total aid comes to about 260 billion dollars over the long term. Last year in response to the Hamas attacks, they received a 14.5 billion dollar military aid package. This emboldened that nation and every time someone dies at the hands of Israel, it is more than a little likely that U.S. dollars paid for the bullet.
Now, I am sure that some will do the “what about” argument so popular on the internet and on Fox News. So, here it is.
What about the crimes of Hamas? Aren’t you being naïve and serving their purposes by calling out Israel for their supposed crimes?
Hamas has murdered and kidnapped. They are currently holding hostages. They should be brought to justice. I am not on their “side.” We have a responsibility and a duty to humanity to do what is right. And what is right is avoiding indiscriminate killing, collateral damage and at the very, very least missile strikes on food convoys. And that is true whether “we” did it, our friends did it or our enemies did it.
You don’t do what is right because it is convenient. You do it because it is the right thing to do. We have duties in this life. If there is anything that I am completely sure of, it is that those seven dead aid workers deserve more a passing mention in a news feed. Something must be done about this.
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