Folded, Spindled, Mutilated (via Grand Strategy: The View from Oregon)

This is a paragraph from the blog I’m recommending. It’s just a sample and the rest of the article is just as good. Reading Geopolicraticus is taking a tour in a dozen different fields of endeavor. I recommend it.

In the US, fear of loss of one’s job, fear of poverty, fear of homelessness, is real and palpable. Talk to people and you will hear it in their voices and see it in their faces. It is one of the things that makes life in the US a little bit weird at times, as when you see people spiraling out of control over little things (like the current tempest in a teapot over TSA screeners) and it becomes all-too-apparent from a studied distance that this is misplaced anxiety that, according to a classic psychodynamic model, is being expressed in a safe way, because one cannot express one’s fear directly because that would call into question the foundations upon which one has constructed one’s life.

James Pilant

Monday In the early stages of the Computer Age there were punched paper cards that held data, and in order for the data to be correctly read by the machine the punched cards needed to be kept flat and in good shape. It came to be the custom to print on these punched cards "Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate." In an early protest against the growing anonymity, depersonalization, and dehumanization of the Machine Age, a slogan began making the round … Read More

via Grand Strategy: The View from Oregon

Business Ethics Blog’s 5th Blogaversary (via The Business Ethics Blog)

Chris MacDonald has spent five years writing on the subject of business ethics. How many people have learned from his words, how many choices were made differently because of his moral ardor, how much he has made life better for all of us by his pursuit of ethics, all these could be the subject of debate. But the only debate that’s really viable here is the amount of good he has done. I do not believe an objective human being can conclude that his influence was null or small.

Let’s celebrate his success and hope for another five years (or better yet, a whole lifetime) of ethics blogging.

James Pilant

Five years ago today, I posted my very first blog entry. It had no real substance, but it was a start. Five years later, I'm still blogging. And given that the average lifespan of a blog is something less than the average lifespan of a fruit fly, I think I now get to call myself a veteran blogger. Over the last five years, I've written over 720 blog entries. I've written on topics big and small and ridiculous. I've written about the collapse of m … Read More

via The Business Ethics Blog

Lots of Links on the Foreclosure Fraud Crisis (via Rortybomb)

As usual, our good friend, Rortybomb does not let a day go by (even a holiday) without staying on top of the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

My compliments!

James Pilant

If you are not reading Rortybomb, let me ask you, “Why not and how soon can you start?”

Like you were going to get any work done today. Chris Hayes has really been on the foreclosure crisis over at MSNBC. Here he is, substituting for Lawrence O'Donnell, interviews noted foreclosure defense attorney Bubba Grimsley about servicer abuse. I can't embed the video, but the link is here (also here). Here he is on Rachel Maddow also interviewing Matt Taibbi on the recent foreclosure fraud … Read More

via Rortybomb

I Was Wrong – The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) Should Be Abolished

When the humiliating scanners and grope searches were put in place, I believed that the government could be convinced to make changes that would respect human dignity and American rights.

It has become evident that the government from the President on down, have no interest in having a discussion on the issue. They have made it clear that they will not change course.

Their response to the legitimate claims of American citizens have been a rush of public officials and “so called” security experts to explain that this is absolutely necessary and that those who oppose these measures do not understand the dangers. At every point in this series of events, those criticizing the policies have been insulted, marginalized and ridiculed.

I have predicted and I firmly believe that the government’s next step will be to blame people with views like mine of empowering the terrorists.

Based on my observations of what has happened so far, it is now evident that private screening companies are far more amenable to public opinion and criticism than the government of the United States.

The government has taken the position that criticism on this issue is the result of internet activists and paranoid zealots.

I have long been a critic of private industry and the common abuse of citizens by exorbitant fees and other wrong doing.

But the government has indicated through its actions that criticism is not acceptable.

It is as if the government itself were a private corporation acting as if its actions were merely its own concern.

This is wrong.

Destroying this regulatory agency will be an important signal to the government to heed the people of the United States and their legitimate concerns.

I do not believe that this administration has any interest in middle class Americans, their struggles or their concerns.

James Pilant