#It's both good and moral to steal from billion dollar corporations

[8one6]

Every single example from this ad is a physical good you can actually own. Remember folks

Anti-piracy ad from 2004

[atamascolily]

Lily liveblogs: “Resistance Reborn,” part four

When we last left off, Finn and Poe and friends were about to go to a birthday party for one of Maz's smugger friends who has the list macguffin they're after. Please note they're not actually crashing this party for once - Maz got them actual invitations, lol.

Meanwhile, Bratt the Brat comes back to the office and beats Yama to a pulp, only to be taken aback when his superiors commend her for her loyalty in reporting Monti's theft. But he's offered a chance to prove his loyalty if he can fix the mess, even though he's still in denial about Yama and Monti's true allegiances because he’s a sexist asshole.  

The party is awesome - ocean and fish and rich people and smugglers, with the First Order providing security (??). Poe and Finn eat a bunch of sea-themed canapes and banter. It's delightful and I want entire fics of this instead of, like, three pages. They had to bring presents, and one of the other members of Poe's team got the gifts, so it's a surprise to him too when the birthday girl opens it, but it's a dwarf lylek, a spiky hermit-crab/praying mantis creature that stays small "as long as you don't feed it flesh".

The guest of honor is delighted because--who would have guessed?--she used to be an entomologist! I love her, and I'm kinda sad she's a throwaway character, because she's a member of the Collective, the Corellian techie version of antifa, which sounds wayyyy more interesting than the actual book.  

(I was also hoping that the lylek would start devouring canapes when the First Order inevitably breaks up the party and the shooting starts, only for the lylek to get HUGE and start going after stormtroopers... but alas, no, that doesn't happen either. DON'T TEASE ME LIKE THAT, OKAY??)

There's an auction to get the list macguffin as a fundraiser for the Collective and Poe is trying to figure out what the trick is because they're rapidly running out of cash. CorSec breaks up the party in the name of the First Order, which is weird because I thought the FO was providing security, but whatever.

Wedge, Norra, Snap, and Tasa Nasz, the ex-Imperial badass, go to the shipyards to steal ships for the Resistance. There's a Baleen-class freighter, and I love it. They run into Yama Dee, badly injured from Bratt's beating, and we learn that Yama is 15, so Bratt isn't just an abusive asshole, he's a child abuser, ughhh. Our heroes are rightly incensed and vow to help Yama, who is uniquely positioned to give them what they need.

Leia and Rey are sitting around on Ryloth, when... Rey has a bad feeling seconds before the First Order starts taking over (for totally unrelated reasons) and the Resistance forces have to GTFO.

Back at the party, the birthday girl is devastated because her husband was shot in front of her, so she agrees to give Poe the list macguffin for revenge (it's hidden in her jewelry in the form of a snake, which is a nice touch). They jump into a pool to escape the FO, and Finn hauls them out. Poe is afraid she's lost the necklace, but it turns out to come when called, which everyone agrees is awesome.

Bratt attacks the FO officer accusing him of treason and runs back to his office to track down information about Monti the Traitor--only to find Wedge and company with Yama and the escaped prisoners (including Leia's old political friend). Yama confronts Bratt, who denies everything, and Yama is appalled when she realizes she's parrotting his exact same arguments, that she is becoming the same as her abuser.

They fight, only to be interrupted by Teza, who is unsympathetic when she learns Bratt is the one who beat Yama in the first place. She tells Bratt he has a choice: either let Yama continue the beatdown, or she shoots him. Bratt is aghast at the idea of letting Yama beat him, so Teza shoots him and he bleeds out on the floor in astonishment while everyone else walks out. Leia's senatorial friend tries to offer him a hand up, but Bratt bats it away and dies alone and confused.

(Please note that the main reason the ex-Imperial comes along seems to be so she can be the agent of divine justice without our "good" heroes having to get their hands dirty. For all that ST fans like to talk about "edginess" and "grey Jedi" and "moral complexity" in TLJ, this is still Star Wars and our heroes don't shoot (usually) shoot people at point-blank range and leave them to die even when they're assholes.)

Wedge and company meet up with Poe and company, who have lost their own ship, so they steal a FO shuttle and escape with the prisoners and the full list. Since Ryloth is no longer safe, Poe makes a deal with the Collective for a safe haven in exchange for the rest of their credits.

Leia and her old friend have a tearful reunion. Poe makes an inspiring speech about scattering to the winds to become the spark that will burn the FO down. I don't know how much sense that makes in terms of strategy and tactics, but everybody is impressed. Poe has overcome all his angst about Crait and is happy to be--in charge? Second in command? I have no idea how the chain of command even works right now.

Wedge and Norra leave to do their own stuff; Snap wants to go with them, but Poe won't let him. Finn says he's coming with Poe, and that's Rey's cue to show up.

"Where are we going?" Both men turned to find Rey, looking expectant.

Finn grinned. "I didn't want to ask."

Rey grinned back. "You didn't have to."

The two friends laughed, leaning in to touch shoulders in acknowledgment. Rey looked at Poe, eyes narrowed as if unsure. "You don't mind?"

Poe pressed a hand to his heart, giving Rey a small bow. "I'm honored."

She flushed, pleased as he'd hoped she would be.

This is great, and I love it, but this doesn't have as much emotional resonance as it could have because THIS IS LITERALLY THE SECOND TIME IN THIS BOOK THAT ALL THREE OF THEM HAVE BEEN IN THE SAME ROOM WITH EACH OTHER AND REY AND POE HAVE SPOKEN TO EACH OTHER and so it feels like... it wasn't really earned??

Leia is smiling at the three of them in satisfaction because "the Resistance is in good hands" and "she's got us".

Poe slung an arm around Finn's shoulders and pulled Rey in close on the opposite side.

"That's right, Poe said. She's got us.

"Now let's go and save the galaxy."

Again, this is all A++ good, but I don't feel like any of this has been earned. At all. Like, does Poe know anything about why Leia believes in Rey, what Rey can do? They're just all friends now because of Finn even though Poe and Rey barely know each other?? Is he this affectionate with everyone?? I don't mind this closeness, but... it would have been nice to have more of this earlier so it doesn't feel so out of the blue and forced.

Also, what did this book accomplish? So the Resistance has some ships now. It has a few more fighters, they freed a bunch of influential prisoners from the New Republic that the First Order had taken into custody, and they have a list of current and future targets to warn. And they're not dead yet, so that's good.

But Leia and Rey barely got to do anything in this book, Rose is barely there at all, and Finn is only tangentially involved at the end. Most of the plot features Poe, Wedge, and occasionally other characters like Bratt, Snap, and Dross Squadron.

So despite the marketing, which makes it sound like this is an All-Resistance Adventure featuring our main trio, I would say Poe is the protagonist, because he's the only one with a character arc: moving from depressed and angsty over the failed mutiny at Crait to letting go of his failures and moving on to be a leader. There's also a smaller arc with Wedge moving from retired warrior and active farmer back to warrior again, but it's much less nuanced.

Outside of that, though, the book feels like it's tugging in too many direction and not going anywhere near the ones I find most interesting. There are lots of characters I'm expected to care about who are not in the films, and little in the narrative itself makes me want to. (The only reason I know about Leia's friend, for instance, is because I read a summary of Bloodline on Wookieepeedia.) It feels like Disney made a very deliberate decision to make all the plotlines 100% more convoluted and confusing than they needed to be, just so you'd read/buy all the supplementary material, and that is a... choice, I guess. But it makes me grumpy.

Honestly, if I wasn't writing a ST fix-it fic, I wouldn't have bothered with this. I found Resistance Reborn to be adequate, but mostly unexceptional, and occasionally frustrating. The few really delightful bits are when major movie characters are together in the same room, but that is weirdly and woefully rare, and I honestly do not understand what the story group/Disney was thinking here in not making those the meat of the book.

Question: who is Disney's target audience for this book? I'm honestly not sure, and I'm not sure they know, either, and I think this book demonstrates that. Which is... really weird for a billion-dollar corporation intent on milking every last cent out of the franchise, that's all. I don't get it. 

TL;DR:

The Good:

Stormpilot feels (brotp or otp depending on your preferred ship)

the Collective (Corellian techie antifa) 

Poe’s fabulous hair

fancy dress party heist

Wedge’s garden and space chickens

barely any mention of Kylo Ren whatsoever

The Meh:

loads and loads of characters that are not in the movies and therefore hard to keep track of or care

macguffin plot macguffin

cooler plot threads and story ideas are teased and never followed up on (in this book, at least)

The WTF:

movie characters barely interact with each other

assuming they have a role at all

does any of this matter?

feels like filler

[randomthingsthatilike1]

You know, sometimes the things I see on this website about Lena just make me go ???????? (and here is going to be some constructive criticism. Key word here! This is not bashing or hate but genuinely thoughtful and sincere critique about a character I love and often seen wobified by fandom)

Because Lena isn’t her family and she’s not responsible for their actions, but at the same time Lena is a billionaire. With a B. I am reminded a bit about what I’ve seen people say why they don’t like the modern day royal family, the Queen especially—sure they didn’t quite play a role in some of the atrocities their family committed and are innocent of those acts, but because of those acts they are still benefiting—and Lena is still benefitting from plenty of pretty damning things that her family did.

It would be one thing if like. Lillian and Lex and Lionel were just straight up murderers and she was suffering by guilty by association, and therefore didn’t actually derive anything from that, but she benefits from the profits made by their anti-alien technology—she’s not a self-made person suffering from mere stigma. She wants to be better than her family, and I genuinely do think she is better! But this is about how she can grow!

Lena is a billionaire and that has implications, but I think I’ve only ever read one fic that really explored that? Because if she is a billionaire, and knows that the former head of security is a xenophobic murderer, and she has in her possession several devices that can be used as weapons against humans and aliens alike, as we see with the anti-xray glass, with Kryptonite, with the device she made at the gala, with the Lexo suit, and god possibly the most dangerous and most innocuous looking one of all, the alien detection device (a device that outs you to any business or place of employment or residence or friend that requires you to take it, while also selling something meant to conceal your identity as an alien as well? Not great moral optics there). The actions of her family are not her fault, but the subsequent actions she takes are her responsibility.  

Now, someone was going to take over LuthorCorp, and I do agree that it is better Lena, who does genuinely care about being a good person, than one of Lillian or Lex’s cronies. Bad shit could have happened. You can’t just get rid of a multibillion corporation overnight either without very bad consequences—jobs lost, stock market in tatters, etc etc. But, Lena’s still a billionaire. Funding this out of her own pocket if she absolutely had to—and she probably wouldn’t, since bad security looks really bad to the public and clients and the board would not want to have inventions and prototypes stolen.

Lena’s a billionaire. Let’s explore that.

This is a corporation. A corporation is, despite Citizens United (fuck that ruling), not a person. The first security breach wouldn’t be her fault, or even maybe the second, but consider that Metallo was able to steal Kryptonite, Lillian’s goons were able to throw her off the balcony in their attempts to get the information they wanted, and now this with Mercy—a pattern is being established.

Yeah, Lena, you may not use it against Supergirl but that is irrelevant if your security is so bad that the xenophobic people who would use it against Supergirl can easily enough break in and steal weapons. If it can’t be kept safe from the people who would use them to cause egregious harm, then it shouldn’t exist!

(this is one of the main arguments for gun control. If you can’t keep a gun securely in your house where other irresponsible people can find it and use it accidentally or on purpose that shouldn’t, then it should not be in your house.) Sure, that may seem unrealistic, and you may be then bringing up examples in your head of people and companies and organizations that don’t do this, but then ask yourself—are they good people? And if your argument is why Lena as the CEO of LCorp can’t do this without risking profits, then again, this ties back into Lena being a billionaire has interesting moral ramifications and they should be explored.

And yes, I am including the DEO in this answer. So many times I see oh what Lena does vs what the DEO does, especially regarding Kryptonite but they can both be wrong.

Sure, you may be saying she can’t guarantee that—well if that’s the case then do not make any life ending weapons. Lena is not a starving scientist type with a gun to her head; Lena Luthor has billions of dollars. She can completely afford to redo her security, and as long as others will be harmed if she does not then she has an obligation to do so.

The DEO is also her employer and a government agency who’s also tortured her aunt—they don’t have any obligation to listen to Kara, and she probably thinks she’ll be ignored. Lena is her friend, who’s life she’s saved several times—persuading your friend vs. persuading the US government? Yeah, I would go with trying to change the mind of the friend.

The DEO is a black ops government program started about 14 years ago originally headed by a very xenophobic man who hunted down not just Fort Rozz aliens but also J’onn and probably countless other innocents and is the reason why Alex grew up without a father. The only reason why J’onn took over is because he had to, and even still had to play the part of Hank Henshaw, a known xenophobe. Also, for a government organization, 14 years isn’t all that long to be working there—there are definitely people who have been a part of the DEO since the beginning still working for that organization, especially since it is nationwide, possibly even worldwide considering Alex in the first ep was on her way to Geneva. Shit happened at the DEO. (To quote James from season 1, the DEO is “a secret Guantanamo, and it’s not just for aliens anymore.” They torture aliens, hold them without parole, without trial, without a lawyer, definitely not complying with Geneva standards for holding and for bringing them in. What part of the DEO is not Guantanamo?)

And these are the people who recruited Kara’s sister and shot her out of the sky and are trained to take her down and tortured her aunt in front of her as Kara begged them for mercy. I wonder why she didn’t protest too much oh yeah IT’S BECAUSE KARA HAS VERY LITTLE INFLUENCE WITH ACTUAL DEO POLICY BEYOND WHAT SHE CAN CONVINCE J’ONN AND ALEX OF. AND GENERAL LANE CAN AND HAS TAKEN OVER WHEN HE WANTS.

The DEO has always been bad. It’s just been less bad with J’onn and Alex at the helm. But anyway. Back to the main point

Do you know how many times I’ve seen on this website “eat the rich”—and I am not at all saying you can’t like Lena because she is a billionaire. This is a fictional show. It is not real life. But it should be talked about.

With CatCo, they had one security breach, and it turned out to be an internal one. The consequences of that were on the shoulders of Cat Grant alone, and she was fully willing to pay the consequences herself and the only reason why she didn’t step down from CatCo is the last-minute save from Kara and friends. CatCo is a media empire built from the ground up by Cat herself, who’s talked about the consequences of her actions shaping her future direction—she thinks about the actress with the abusive husband every day, knowing that it wasn’t her fault but it was her responsibility as a reporter to say what she saw—and she didn’t. Inaction in itself has consequences.

They’re both willing to face the consequences of their actions–but Cat is the one who is a well known Democrat, who left her multi million dollar company to pursue public service, the whole: “ that’s why we do what we do. That’s why we’re driven to tell the truth. Not only because we want to be good journalists, but because we also want to be good people” and yes with Kara’s help, trying to elevate the conversation, valuing loyalty and integrity beyond just what it could potentially bring to CatCo (that video of Supergirl letting that Fort Rozz escapee go could have brought so much traffic to CatCo, but that wasn’t the point. Compare with the alien IDer. And. Well. We’re getting to the pretty damn grey area).

Cat is willing to do things that are for the benefit of National City and potentially the world at the expense of her company. That isn’t the case with Lena. Lena wants to be a good person! She does! But her motivations for being a good scientist haven’t, even as a kid, been “I am doing this directly because I want to be a good person”—we have seen time and time again that Lena’s main priority is LCorp, and doing what is in the best interest of her company. I am not going to stop harping on the alien identification device because it is horrific and this is something Lena, not her family but Lena, has done in an attempt to increase LCorp’s bottom line.

I am not at all saying Cat is perfect and without flaws and Lena is not, since I just finished detailing one of Cat’s past mistakes (and I’m not going on to detail Cat’s flaws and mistakes, which I have done in the past, because this is about Lena and I’ve counted this now--it’s a total of 2.1k and I’m tired) but when shit happens at CatCo it’s usually something that only affects Cat and her employees, or something unexpected—like really, having one of your employees spontaneously develop superpowers? Unexpected. You really can’t get security for that shit—and there are very few cyber security breaches (Winn is brilliant, but he’s also just one person. There are plenty of people L Corp could hire to deal with cyber security issue, and they have one if they were able to be hacked from the Cloud—and that hacking was human, predictable, and preventable.

I really did appreciate the single Lena/Kara scene past episode, because I keep seeing as well “oh but the DEO has Kryptonite and that’s fine”—clearly, as we saw this past episode, it is very much not fine that the DEO had Kryptonite since Kara almost d i e d. Lena very well have been asking herself this question—and we see this episode that for Kara it is equally bad. This is not a witch hunt because her last name is Luthor but as we see this episode there are very bad things that can happen when people can steal Kryptonite. Kara is the only one who suffers. Katie’s acting choices were great—she was genuinely shaken and concerned as she sees the scenario that Supergirl was most afraid of happening concerning Kryptonite happen—and happen only to her. Everyone else was fine—but Kara lay seizing in the hospital bed from the device that she created (although let me be clear—this one is completely on the DEO. They were the ones who were supposed to be guarding the device, they were the ones with the stolen Kryptonite that was entered into the atmosphere, it was their agent and their security breach that caused this, they were the ones who took responsibility for the device—and dropped the ball).

Lena sees Supergirl on a hospital bed, and hell if she didn’t realize Supergirl was Kara before Lena almost definitely did, staring as she watched the person she loved more than anyone else in the world fade away before her eyes and this is what she was talking about before. This is what she was worried about—it’s an understandable fear. They took the Kryptonite from the DEO, but if they didn’t get a mole, would they have turned to L Corp? Would they try to break in, and succeed?

Would this be because of her? She wouldn’t have deployed the weapon the used herself but she would have created everything they used to do it. Kryptonite isn’t used for anything except as a weapon. This isn’t about Lena “going evil,” or becoming like her family. This is about how just because Lena is willing to be the one who pays the price for her actions and the risks that she takes doesn’t mean that someone else wont.

Tl;dr the 2.1k word monstrosity: Lena is not her family and she isnt evil but oh my god shes the CEO of a multibillion dollar company that makes weapons and still benefits from the actions of her family, and who's main priority has always been her company. Shes not just a perfect ideal who can do no wrong or cant improve--shes done a lot of good but just look at the alien detection device--shes done a lot of wrong too.

[harryweaver]

Terrorists

Written in 2013

Terrorists

Who Are They?

I took a plane flight the other day.

While waiting for take off I was looking round, noticing the ever decreasing amounts of metal employed in the interior of aircraft these days, consistent with the need for weight saving. Even the little there was appeared to be aluminium, or an aluminium alloy type, to make it lighter and I thought about the degree of fossil fuel involvement in: its removal from the ground; transport to the foundry; during the processing and moulding; and then transport to the assembly facility. Even the minimal amounts employed by the power tools necessary for assembly. Then I thought of all the other metal aspects in the wiring and the exterior fabrication, the fossil fuel requirement there and the associated transportation factor. After that, I envisaged the insulation involved, looked at the plastic, overhead locker housings, the vinyl seating and paint, the polyester involved in the carpeting, stewardess' uniform and even her nail polish. All petroleum based.

I thought about what our 'civilisation' would be like without oil and realised we'd be back in the days of the horse and cart, looking round for something to grease the axles.

The thought then occurred how foolish it would seem to have the entire basis of your economy in someone else's hands.

Iraq.

Not two wars, but two fronts in the one war with a blockade to provide the siege factor between. With the blockade in the Gulf of Arabia ensuring that such things as wheelbarrows were not permitted through as they might conceivably be employed as tools in the construction of nuclear weaponry sites. Vaccines were not permitted through, as they were deemed capable of being employed as the basis for the production of biological weaponry, although, as any secondary school biology student could tell us, the bacteria that make up the vast array of vaccines are dead. As a direct result of this latter action 200,000 Iraqi children, in their first five years of life, died during the Iraqi occupation while doctors in hospitals begged, unsuccessfully, for the release of the vaccines needed to save them. These are just two examples of assessment guidelines imposed, to facilitate the degree of compliance required, that had nothing to do with international rulings.

Not to mention such aspects as the destruction of Fallujah. One of the more direct modes of winning hearts and minds.

The carefully targeted destruction elsewhere in Iraq, destroying some of the very foundations of known civilisation. Destruction of cultural identity - the hallmark of genocide.

All this in a country where, before the latest Kuwaiti invasion (No, it hasn't always been a convenient part of Britain), 98% of households had a potable water supply and the same percentage of the population had unrestricted access to a quality tertiary education. But none of this has relevance in relation to our own requirement, obvious when it's observed that the high-minded motive for the launch of the second front was a decidedly fuzzy, high-resolution satellite picture of a garbage truck. The siege simply wasn't meeting the time frame.

Moslem acquaintances of mine had been united in the assessment that, in traditional Arabic tribal culture, even if Saddam Hussein was removed, somebody just as bad or even worse would take his place. The tribe in power always abuses the privilege (and in this, I see little to differentiate Western cultures), other tribes that were associated in their ascendancy reaping concessions, with ancient grudges ensuring placement in the substrata of the social order. This tribal mode of behaviour is practically genetic in Arabic culture and not about to transpose into a 'Rag-Head' copy of 'America the Beautiful' as the result of some eye-blink stop-over, which makes zero difference to a cultural outlook that was ancient before America was mistakenly discovered by Columbus.

'America the Beautiful' is losing some of her sheen now, with the rapidly growing efficiency of direct information exchange mediums making it obvious that, for example, a new trade good described as 'foreign aid' is to be supplied to some deserving situations that have some strategic value while others just as deserving, but with no advantage to offer, receive none. Some, like Eritrea, are not even 'recognised'. This appears to do nothing toward slowing the death rate, however. Nothing of their plight appears on the pages and screens of a corporate media that has a product to sell that, these days, appears to have nothing to do with the concepts implied by the terminology, 'journalism'.

As far as the armed forces go, sentient beings, even in those instances where their full intelligence quotient might not have been permitted full flight by peer pressure and their adversary has had their humanity stripped from them by appellations such as 'Rag-Heads', know when they are being conned. They are aware, if only on a subconscious level, that they are involved in the first of the major corporate wars.

Being asked to die for corporate requirement instead of the principles laid down by Founding Fathers that created an admirable American ideal, that exists now only in the memories of a rightfully proud and ever diminishing American few. Could this be the reason American servicemen are at their lowest ever ebb in regard to the morale factor? And American armed forces conscription is at an all time low also?

There appears to be a great level of confusion on this level, as illustrated by the case of Bradley Manning, a Private, First Class in the American Armed Forces who hears one stance espoused by the commanders of those forces, sees what are obviously radical discrepancies that contradict that stated stance, takes those discrepancies to his direct superiors and is told to 'Go away'. Then, apparently having no other direction to go in, he decides to go public with an ethical stance that does himself, the armed forces he serves and his country proud. As a product of the confused maelstrom of contradiction posed by stated policy and actual practice, he is branded a traitor, locked up on the sole evidence provide by a madman and subjected to the latest fashion in psychological torture practices for a grossly extended period, before, and this is yet to happen, he is sent to trial to determine his guilt or innocence.

And then there's Afghanistan. There are too many other examples of global tragedies, that have no fiscal/material benefit to offer that go ignored and unattended, to have any faith in the much trumpeted ethical stance any longer. Let's not forget that the Taliban were originally founded and funded by the American taxpayer, to the tune of four and a half billion dollars, in order to destabilise the Soviet presence in Afghanistan.

And now, with regard to Afghanistan's massive predisposition for poppy farming, the world's basis for pharmaceutical commodities of everything from basic Codeine all the way through to Heroin (oops, sorry, Morphine) placed in 'Protective Custody'? Suddenly there appears to be the outline of what could be interpreted as an intentional drive toward a stranglehold on oil and pharmaceuticals, the two largest global corporate economies.

With other bonuses

Which are enacted upon, as quickly as possible

Idealistic standards of the past supply no more than a format for the oratory, that enables the future plundering of assets, with techniques that bear little relation to the rhetoric.

While the location, location, location aspect screams to be recognised with the border of mainland China just a short flight up the Hindu Kush. And in the middle, between Iraq and Afghanistan (Oh! Amazing coincidence!), Iran, with a production of over 4 million barrels of oil/day.

Terrorism.

Who are the terrorists?

Actually?

If your party spills over into the neighbours’ backyard and you start stealing his beer, you'll get a negative reaction.

If you invade half the middle east, taking from them control and ownership of the only commodity they have that keeps the desert warm at night and cool during the day, you don't think you are going to get an adverse reaction? Go back and repeat the slow learner class!

As Noam Chomsky once said, `If you want to stop terrorism, stop participating in it’.

There are many conspiracy theories surrounding such phenomenon as the Twin Towers tragedy, but when a complex of this size, where 50,000 people worked on any weekday, with another 200,000/day passing through as visitors, it's a marvellous thing to me that only 2,800 were killed - including over 400 utilities workers who came along afterward. The complex was so large, it had its own zip code: 10048, so nobody had to leave the complex to go to lunch when it happened, at 8.45 a.m.

It was the Twin Towers incident that 'launched' the 'War On Terror'.

But perhaps there is something else at work here also?

Barack Obama and his would-be Mini-Me, the then Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, both arrive on the last day of the recent international climate change conference to abundantly demonstrate how concerned they weren't with the issues. Massive industrial outsourcing investments have gone into both China and India, to take full advantage of the cheap labour overhead, so they'll never be asked to cut emissions. No advantage in that. It'd just drive up the price of the product. That's the reason they were outsourced in the first place. The demand for oil will only increase within industrial and commercial environments that follow production processes that require them. An entirely new definition of pollution, powered by over half the world's population, will be carried along by water-tables, ocean and wind currents, phenomena that have absolutely no respect for national boundaries either.

As pollution increases, natural resources will suffer in quality and availability and, as a consequence, escalate in value. Future wars will be fought over water and that won't be too far into the future. The overtures have already been well and truly played.

As I have said previously: We consider our 'selves' to be a separate entity to our environment, rather than an integral, interacting aspect of it, so any harm we inflict on the environment has no real effect on our situation, we surmise. (The comparative example of this would be that of a race of people, travelling through endless space, systematically destroying the space ship they are travelling in.) There have been highly qualified dissenting voices to this supposition, even economists like E.F. Schumacher who advise that, "If we ever find ourselves in the position of winning our battle with nature, we will automatically find ourselves on the losing side".

As a species, are we really this stupid? Or do we employ our elected political heads to make these awkward decisions for us, while we fiddle as our ethical state burns and we hide our heads in the sands of short term profit? And we pretend not to know until, only occasionally, the truth of the situation finds its way through the cracks in the walls of mainstream media platitudes. Truth finally hurled in our faces to the point where we can no longer ignore it and we throw our political, human sacrifices on the fiery, self righteous altars of our conscience?

Absolution!

Let's do it again!

Is this the trade off?

```````````````````````````````````````````````

'Religion is regarded by the common people as true,

by the wise as false,

and by the rulers as useful.'

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

Terrorism, the new religion?

```````````````````````````````````````````````

We'll live quietly, in our allocated suburban box and pay you very well, if you'll perpetuate our preferred illusions? The veneer of civilisation, over the greatest predator in the history of the planet, isn't even rice paper, Bible-page thick.

Yes, we can go ahead and pretend that none of this is happening, but if we create a Golgotha that is free of any chance of vice, we will have removed the only stage where virtue has the opportunity to dance, so what spiritual aspect to existence will we have to console us then?

Spirituality is no longer a required attribute in a Production Unit however:

Religion, as described above, will do as a substitute;

Basic diet requirement, yes;

Health maintenance, also (any need for it to be preventative would be associated with the lowering of retraining cost);

and a little R&R as a last condescending concession to our humanity, to aid in compliance and prove corporate benevolence.

It'll suffice.

After all, why not give up our civil liberties?

We weren't using them anyway.

[glittergummicandypeach]

Opinion: Trump acolyte DeVos steers more COVID-19 stimulus money to religion

Republicans found another means of enriching religion with taxpayer dollars meant to aid Americans suffering the horrid effects of Trump’s plague and economic devastation.

When filthy rich, and highly-unqualified, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos began her quest to shift all taxpayer dollars intended for public education to private, for-profit religious schools, evangelicals and Republicans were ecstatic. After all, money allocated to sustain small businesses ravaged by Trump’s plague and economic disaster was just recently handed over to churches and clergy even though those institutions pay no taxes because they claim they are not businesses.

Apparently it was not enough to use coronavirus stimulus dollars to support churches and clergy at the expense of struggling small businesses, so DeVos made sure that even more taxpayer dollars were given to private religious schools.

Particularly exciting to the evangelical Republican sect was DeVos’ stated intent that as Education Secretary she would reform the public education system to “advance god’s kingdom.” Of course her secondary goal was robbing funding intended for public schools to give for-profit corporate schools the keys to the education budget vault, but it is noteworthy that no small number of those private schools are founded and run by evangelicals.

DeVos’ theft of taxpayer dollars fulfills both of her goals and one can only imagine that the religious Republican cult and dirty Don Trump are celebrating another fleecing of the taxpayers; especially because the theft involves hurting the poor to advance religion.

When Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), it designated billions for public schools to be distributed to public school districts based on the number of low-income students they enroll. However, DeVos ignored the congressional mandate and issued a directive from the Department of Education ordering that the money belongs to private and religious school students; despite the fact that fewer than 5% of those children are poor.

Even before Trump single-handedly decimated the economy, children in low-income neighborhoods were disadvantaged because they, and their school districts, lacked the resources to participate in digital learning opportunities. Democrats in the House understood the dilemma and appropriated funds in the CARES stimulus bill to aid those students in low-income school districts with equipment and Internet access to continue learning while schools were closed.

Those funds, like the funds meant to assist small businesses suffering Trump’s economic disaster, were prime for theft by the likes of DeVos who seized on the opportunity to steal those funds and transfer them directly to private religious schools as an integral part of using taxpayer dollars to “advance god’s kingdom.”

It is noteworthy that DeVos is unabashed in declaring her intent to spend taxpayer dollars on private and religious schools at the expense of public schools. The evangelical extremist stated:

“There are not enough philanthropic dollars to fund the need of [private religious] education…versus what is currently being spent every year on public education…Our desire is to confront this culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s Kingdom.”

Although Republicans are wont to claim America was founded as a Christian nation and forcing taxpayers to fund religion is the intent of the Founding Fathers, nothing is farther from the historical truth. None other than Founding Father Thomas Jefferson stated emphatically that:

“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.”

Not only is handing out money allocated for small businesses to members of the clergy and their churches directly “supporting religious worship, place[s] or ministries,” sending taxpayer money to private religious schools is obviously supporting religious places and ministries.

Jefferson’s statement fits squarely with the rest of the Founding Fathers and Constitution’s Framers intent that the religious clauses in the First Amendment serve as “a wall of separation” between church and state. Since the rise of the so-called moral majority that concept has been systematically attacked and any pushback is treated as an attack on Christians’ religious liberty.

No-one denies religious people their liberty to worship as they please, but the idea of Republicans, especially Trump, supporting them with taxpayer money is a gross abomination as well as contrary to the Founders’ intent in the First Amendment.

Allowing Republicans to give churches and clergy money allotted for “real businesses” who are struggling due to Trump’s economic catastrophe is beyond cruel, but it is unconscionable that Trump’s Education Secretary is taking money allotted for low-income public schools and giving it to private religious schools.

The real tragedy is there is hardly any pushback from the people because for some bizarre reason too many Americans still consider it a mortal sin to utter an unflattering word about Republicans handing taxpayer dollars to the evangelical (Christian) religion. For dog’s sake, it is a horror that Republicans are willingly allowing them to shape domestic policy, but it is an atrocity that Republicans are granting them nearly unfettered access to taxpayers’ money.

Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.

Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.

Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.

This content was originally published here.

[curtolson]

Why I am a former Republican

The Christianity Today editorial by Mark Galli has stirred up folks amid Big Evangelicalism--the Christian leaders often connected to the President. No matter if it is Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins, Richard Land, JFJr., Robert Jeffress, Eric Metaxas, or others, each makes the mistake of contending we have just two choices--the standard R or D--in any election for POTUS.

None of them, that I have seen, have responded to John Piper, who said the following the Sunday before election 2016:

“The right to vote in America is not a binding duty (without regard to other factors) for Christians in every election.

“’The children are free.’ ” We are free from human institutions. As citizens of heaven, we are not bound in every situation to participate in the processes of human government. This is not our homeland. We vote — if we vote — because the Lord of our homeland commissions us to vote. And he does not absolutize this act above all other considerations of Christian witness.

“In this election, with the flagrant wickedness of both party candidates, the logic that moves from “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution” (1 Peter 2:13) to the necessity — the binding duty — of voting, has lost sight of three things:

--the radical meaning of the words, “for the Lord’s sake,” and how it relativizes all human authority and how it brings to bear many other considerations;

--the radical freedom of the children of God from the inherent authority of human institutions like government; and

--the aim of every citizen of heaven in all human engagements to display our allegiance to the values of another world.

“I am not saying we are bound not to vote. I am saying that the children of God are free to hear the voice of their Master about how to best witness to his supremacy. . . .”

I turned 18 in the latter part of the Reagan Administration: 1986. My first Presidential election was 1988. I had voted for the Republican nominee each time. And yes, there were times I believed I had to settle for "the lesser of two evils" because, after all, isn't that how Christians are conditioned to accept political reality? A seat at the table. Get whatever influence you can. Always engage in the left-wing-right-wing banter. Any fighting is winning. I subscribed to all of it.

Sometime after election 2012, I began critically examining what the GOP had been feeding me for nearly 30 years as a voter. The GOP tells Christians they are the party of a strong national defense, lower taxes, expanding liberty, strong families, and the party that would bring the federal leviathan under control, not to mention judicial appointments that will stand for the rule of law.. And this is where they also promote themselves as being pro-life.

"You can trust us," we are repeatedly told.

Unfortunately, their rhetoric and actions are too often polar opposites. "Talk is cheap," as the saying goes. We see several things happening over time, but they accelerated after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Prior to 9-11-01, we had former President George HW Bush get crushed politically by his failure to follow through on a tax cut. Remember, "Read my lips. No new taxes"? We also had Reagan high court appointees Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy relish in their swing-vote roles, frequently acting activist, not defending the Constitution's plain simple language. Kennedy emerged as a nominee after Robert Bork's character assassination by the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy.

When the GOP emerged with the Contract for America in 1994, it seemed as if Republicans genuinely cared that their word was their bond. It did not last, however. After the terrorist attacks in NYC and DC, we witnessed genuine assaults on liberty and freedom, and it is accelerating. 

The following are just a partial list of the grievances I have with the GOP, which compelled me to become a former Republican (I will never be a Democrat.) within the past 5 years:

During the Bush 43 administration (I voted for him in 2000 and 2004), the GOP passed Medicare Part D, which launched the feds further into healthcare policy. The government doesn't do much very well, let alone thinking it's smart and benevolent enough to regulate medicine and healthcare for seniors. The Bush 43 administration also gave us No Child Left Behind, which was the federal government sticking its nose further and further into education policy. The more the feds mandate, the less power that exists for local school boards and parents. Republicans should know this, but they "had to do something."

The Patriot Act that emerged from the Bush 43 administration following the terrorist attacks has been one of the most significant assaults on liberty and an ability to live without the government intruding on American citizens. It could very well be the most tyrannical piece of legislation passed in American history. It has been tweaked here and there, but nearly two decades later it has survived as the NSA and other federal agencies monitor the phone calls and emails of Americans, complete with the assistance of corporate America. The passage and reauthorization of The Patriot Act (there are some in Congress who consistently vote against its reauthorization) is perhaps the clearest sign the GOP has no problem with tyranny triumphing over liberty and freedom. It is inexcusable.  And just because the government hasn't called me in for questioning doesn't make it right or just.

Nation building--The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq compelled us to eventually engage in nation building, which is not the role or function of the US military. We have spent trillions of dollars in both nations. A recent Washington Post investigative piece revealed billions--or perhaps more--of American dollars lost on corruption in Afghanistan and political promises from three administrations--Bush 43, Obama, and Trump (notice that wonderful bipartisanship)--that was just hot air. I was initially in favor of both wars. As time has passed I have come to a hard conclusion: no amount of force can compel folks to prefer freedom and self-government if they have no idea what it will mean to sustain it. I believe freedom and self-government require a knowledge and acceptance of spiritual truth because our founders warned us that to keep the system we had would require people living by biblical principles. We are imposing this on Muslims, who do not believe the Bible. As much as I was moved by women voting in both countries, Islam will not allow freedom and self-government to be sustained. PS. I am not a neocon and do not believe we should be finding places to engage in warfare. Many neocons have their sights set on Iran. That would be a disaster. PSS I do believe the US should be actively engaged in defending persecuted religious minorities and insisting other countries protect those folks. Religious freedom either is a priority or it isn't. This s determined by actions, not rhetoric.

Department of Homeland Security--A new federal agency behemoth--DHS--surfaced as an expansion of the federal government after the terrorist attacks. Again, Republicans had no problem expanding government.

National Debt--The National Debt, which is now $23 trillion and climbing, has been doubling every 10 years since Bush 43. Note that we grew government (DHS) and funded two wars on a credit card. And of course President Obama grew government with ObamaCare. When is Big Evangelicalism (I remember JFJr. said Trump was needed to get the debt under control. Trump is spending like Barack Obama.) going to start treating the national debt like the moral issue that it is? We are stealing from future generations of Americans. Worse, the more both parties kick the can down the road, the options they will have when something is forced upon them will be extremely limited. And this doesn't account for all of the unfunded liabilities, which some estimate to be . . . $122 trillion. This. Is. Not. Sustainable.

Lack of transparency in budgeting and legislation--The leadership of both parties love to use Omnibus spending bills just before the Christmas recess to justify the crafting of bills behind closed doors, with little, if any, ability to amend these bills. Additionally, there's no ability for any member of the House or Senate to read the details of these spending bills that typically arrive in a late afternoon and they have less than 24 hours to read over 2,000 pages. Th Rs and Ds actually expect members of the House and Senate to just line up and vote and not consider the details of which they vote. It's tyrannical. The spending of money this way ensures no accountability. Taxpayers learn about the stupid ideas later. Why can't they have an honest debate and siphon the garbage out of these bills? That makes too much sense.

Planned Parenthood/Abortion--There has been more rhetoric from the Republican party attached to this issue and the premier organization promoting infanticide than any other issue. The dirty little secret is most of the "changes" coming from DC surface as executive orders that a Democrat will change with the stroke of a pen. Kermit Gosnell commits his crimes in PA and there's nothing that surfaces mandating inspections of abortion clinics. PP is caught on film bragging about the harvesting of organs from aborted babies and the GOP does nothing. No prosecution of the guilty. No accountability, Nothing. Yes, PP opted out of Title X funding when the Trump administration changed rule (this was a very good thing). But PP still gets hundreds of millions of dollars off American taxpayers for killing babies. The GOP has threatened de-funding PP multiple times. They never follow through on the threats. They are all bark and no bite.

Former President Obama and others perpetuate the lie that administration was "scandal free." Fast and Furious. The IRS weaponized to go after political opponents of President Obama. The rollout of ObamaCare. Benghazi. All we ever received from Republicans were congressional hearings that allowed members of the House or Senate to play to the cameras of C-SPAN and others This is not accountability. The lack of accountability flourishes all across the three branches of government.

Judges--The Trump administration has now put its stamp on the lower federal courts. This is a good thing. But I would remind everyone who utters the phrases, "But Gorsuch." or "But Kavanaugh." that judges are bound to make a lousy decision. When they do what will happen to the high court argument regarding judicial appointments?  Additionally, all of this attention on the courts leaves me wondering is this the new fail safe for losing the White House or Congress? "At least we can rely on the courts." Can we?

I do vote for Republicans at the local and state levels. 

I have been challenged by Exodus 18:21 where Jethro instructs Moses on the attributes to seek for judges for the growing Israelite population. There are four requirements: able men who fear God, men of truth, and men who hate dishonest gain. The argument is this is a group of people who were not elected and it automatically ignores women. Really? Are you really going to suggest these four attributes don't apply to the 21st century for Americans seeking character traits of elected officials? How myopic and insulting. Yes, even women can possess these traits.

Christians have been aiding and abetting the dumbing down of the American electoral process. We should, can, and must be better. We owe our allegiance to the King not of this world, yet our rhetoric in America reveals something very, very different.

[vegas-glitz]

Unsuccessful Company Leadership - Lessons in Company Greed

http://topicsofnote.com/?p=9739&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr

Corporate greed has lately dominated the headlines in the United States. The list of fallen and disgraced Main Executive Officers and Chief Economical Officers is prolonged and alarming, and the tales rising from the rubble of big companies are very disturbing.

How did this all come to go? What ended up the triggers? Who unsuccessful to guide? What occur to educating ethics?

Ethics is now being taught in the school rooms in the Graduate Universities of Enterprise all through American and now the environment. It is much too small and a quite late. The paradox is at these identical Graduate Schools of Business, is that fewer than two a long time back the MBA lessons had been hearing and finding out all the rewards, govt "benefits," tricks of the boardroom, and the tales of "large bucks", war stories of corporate raiders, merger and acquisition mega-millionaire and billionaires, and king's ransom "golden parachutes."

It should not surprise anybody that having Ivan Bosky bragging about his rewarding bargains that they ended up building a deficiency of morals virtue and coveting all the toys and "perks." The environment of the immoral entire world of greedy CEO is entire of 100 foot yachts, 10,000 sq. ft houses with tennis courts, media rooms, and 10 motor vehicle garages, immorality and affairs, correct objective for a senior govt, predicted habits, and necessary for all effective CEO's.

For the Ivan Bosky to be invited to produce a major lecture to all the MBA students of 1 of the most prestigious Graduate Educational facilities of Enterprise with the unbelievable information: "GREED IS Excellent!" is beyong perception in an institution of increased understanding. Universities are meant to establish are leaders, not our blunders.

It is as unfortunate but telling comment on the point out of our collective lack of ethical integrity which the well-liked film, WALL Road, experienced actor Michael Douglas, as Company Raider Gordon Geeko, which he portraited as a abundant tycoon of market. In the motion picture, Gordon Geeko is presented as a powerful offer maker with no morals. Geeko in the movie makes use of genuine rates and shut paraphrases the quickly to be indicted, fined, and jailed Ivan Bosky message "GREED IS Very good!" It is extremely unfortunate remark that that same information was delivered to the environment and all the hopeful employees who now understood that it was Ok to steal, lie, and cheat!

The occasions of the previous 10 many years expose a material flaw in the ethical material of some beforehand perfectly-revered corporate leaders. The at any time-current tension of the up coming quarter's revenue, and the push to raise "earnings for each share" and push up the stock price have prompted some senior executives of American corporations to ignore the basic morals of honesty, in particular if the information is undesirable. Sad to say, some of the company executives began to believe that their very own press kits, misplaced their moral compasses, and fell victims to the illness of corporate greed. All of the executives whose behavior is described over have unsuccessful to exhibit "ethical virtue" or reside a life regular with fundamental honesty, the basic standard legal guidelines of the Old Testomony's, "10 Commandments."

Just as we ideally elevate our possess little ones by all those a few fantastic academics, "illustration, illustration, and example," we must need that our leaders and other essential purpose styles supply the "correct instance." Ethical advantage has been regrettably missing in these top rated executives in big American publicly traded corporations. In order to construct trust, Individuals have to have to have that our company and political leaders exhibit by each and every motion, imagined, and deed that they stand for honesty and integrity. The leaders described earlier mentioned failed to be dependable. These fallen govt have shown failed leadership.

Permit's stroll by the latest company crime scene and the success of preaching in the Ivy Halls in the MBA classrooms that in fact making revenue no matter of the expense to other and that "Greed is Excellent!" to the MBA learners and complete the world that has unfolded from instructing the "Seeds of Greed." The merged losses from corporate fraud, company greed, career losses, and Federal Authorities bailouts are climbing day by day into the dozens of Trillions of Dollar.

The totals only carry on to develop, and the economic issues they make materially adversely influence the steadiness of the stock sector. The legitimate tragedy is the devastation to millions of unique buyers' finances and the own havoc to the staff who shed not only their jobs but their retirement all at the very same time.

Even the watchdog New York Stock Exchange (NTSE) has experienced a scandal. Retiring Chairman Dick Grasso's notorious multi-million greenback retirement bundle, approved by the NYSE Board of Administrators, stunned everyone when the more than $ 139.5 million payout bundle offer grew to become public know-how.

The senior executives at Enron have turn out to be an icon of company greed, substantial fraud, dishonesty, unethical behavior, and failed leadership. Andrew and Lea Fastow have fallen from grace, plea bargained, and have been convicted. Andrew, Enron's former CFO, will commence to commence his 10-year sentence for securities and wire fraud as quickly as his multi-millionaire heiress spouse, Lea, completes her one-year jail time period for insider buying and selling of Enron stock in her family charity. Lea Fastow, along with Enron senior executives Kenneth Lay, the (now deceased) founder and former Chairman of Enron, Jeffery Skilling, the previous President and CEO of Enron, and Richard Causey, Main Accounting Officer of Enron, all denied any wrongdoing. The juries have attempted them and found them guilty, guilty and responsible.

Enron's Kenneth Lay, Jeffery Skilling, and Richard Causey all arrogantly refused to plea deal with federal prosecutors, or acknowledge their guilt. All 3 of them are now experimented with and convicted on a selection of legal prices like securities fraud, bribery, collusion and conspiracy to commit fraud, wire fraud, filing wrong monetary statements, and quite a few more. In addition to the legal charges pending, there are civil lawsuits from buyers and workforce who have shed billions in the tumble of Enron.

The late Kenneth Lay continued to proclaim his innocence of any prison functions at Enron, even just after his conviction. He moreover claimed that he, the founder and former Chairman of Enron, was unaware of the Enron monetary aspects. Nevertheless just before the United States Senate Committee Lay as a substitute of testifying he took "the...Fifth" The conclusion will have to be drawn that Lay appreciates he is responsible of various felony acts. He was plainly not willing to admit his guilt just before the United States Senate Committee.

Enron is, regrettably, just portion of the long record of corporate greed plaguing The us in the 21st Century. Bernard Ebbers, former CEO of [MCI] WorldCom Inc., was indicted and convicted on prices of conspiracy, securities fraud, and making fake regulatory filings. The Prosecutors allege and it was properly confirmed to the jury that Ebber's was the ring chief in an $ 11 billion accounting fraud. "

Flamboyant and extravagant former CEO of Tyco Intercontinental Ltd. L. Dennis Kozlowski and his ex-Main Financial Officer Mark Swartz are both about to head back to Federal Court for a retrial. Kozlowski has been dubbed the poster boy for company extra. He was convicted on a selection of legal expenses together with stealing $ 600 million from Tyco Company, and it's shareholders ..

Kozlowski's exploits with females and wild spending are all comprehensive in the e-book, Testosterone Inc: Tales of CEOs Absent Wild (Byron, 2004). He portrays Kozlowski, along with Jack Welsh, previous Chairman of Normal Electric, "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap of Sunbeam, and Revlon's Ron Pearlman, as having toes of clay and the morality of rock stars - drunk on ability and pushed by sex, greed, extravagance, and glamor.

Richard Scrushy, founder and previous Main Government Officer of HealthSouth Corp, is another in the checklist of CEOs who deny any wrongdoing. He was acquitted on the criminal rates of fiscal improprieties. But, William Owens, previous Chief Monetary Officer of HealthSouth, and 4 other HealthSouth previous CFOs have all plead guilty.

Scrushy was accused of supporting overstate the corporation earnings by just about $ 3 billion from 1996 to 2003. Scrushy was indicted by a federal grand jury on 85 counts of fraud, income laundering, and other offenses. He faced 650 years in jail and $ 36 million in fines on these rates.

At Scrushy's demo, Leif Murphy, a former HealthSouth Vice President, who labored in the business's treasury office and is not billed with a crime, presented harming testimony about Scrushy. Murphy testified that Scrushy experienced gotten very angry and Scrushy had yelled at Murphy when Leif Murphy challenged Scrushy on the launch of false fiscal facts. Not withstanding the simple fact that Scrushy's string of four Chief Monetary Officers in which convicted or plead guilt, Scrushy was identified not guilt of all prison expenses.

The federal government also was seeking $ 278 million in forfeitures from Scrushy, who has proclaimed "I am an innocent male" many instances, together with in his job interview on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Oct 26, 2003. His legal professionals in some way managed to get him off on these legal costs similar to important fraud at HealthSouth, only have Richard Scrushy get convicted on expenses several counts of bribery and his now in jail.

At Fannie Mae, the profession of perfectly-revered CEO Franklin Raines came to an abrupt end when the Business of Federal Housing Organization Oversight compelled a quite resistant Fannie Mae Board of Directors to oust Raines. Raines, Fannie Mae's Board, and his supporters insisted that he was culpable for the misuse of obscure accounting requirements. But his friend ideas were being turned down and his testimony was not recognized as the entire truth of the matter by the SEC, the US Congress, or the community.

Raines rose from remaining a bad child from Seattle to graduate from Harvard, earn a Rhodes scholarship, and getting to be White House Budget Director, before remaining tapped to be the CEO of Fannie Mae. Now Raines' rewarding severance package deal ("early retirement") has turn into a new concern of competition. There have been very well documented scenarios of enormous fraud, mismanagement, and accounting faults at Fannie Mae during Raines' tenure as CEO.

Even though Raines has by no means been convicted of perpetrating or approving the fraudulent accounting, there was a main uproar around his severance deal when the information broke that he experienced evidently been negligent in overseeing accounting capabilities at Fannie Mae. Still someway astonishingly, the then fallen and sacked Franklin Raines (just after the US Government took above and bailed out Fannie Mae) turned a "money advisor" to then US Presidential Applicant, US Senator Barrack H. Obama,

In this put up-Enron, put up-WorldCom, and publish-Tyco planet, the policies are currently being enforced on the enjoying fields of company The united states. Even a single of the premier and most worthwhile insurance policy firms in the planet, American Intercontinental Group Inc. (AIG), has had a serious bout with equally the Securities & Trade Commission and the US Justice Division, commencing back again several years back.

The money troubles and fraud at AIG seriously began in 2001 (or it's possible even earlier), but took 3 years for SEC securities regulators to capture it. In 2004, the SEC knowledgeable AIG that it was checking out submitting securities fraud expenses from it for their non arms duration romance with PNC Economical Solutions Team Inc. and what the SEC call a pattern of assisting PNC conceal their underperforming financial loans, commencing clear again in at the very least 2001.

The entire effects of the seeds of greed sown previously this ten years and subsequent misdeeds have resulted in the important disaster at AIG, which has now been unveiled in 2008 and 2009. Now, the failing of AIG has resulted in the Federal Federal government Bailout is costing American's Billions and Billions of Taxpayer Dollars.

The checklist of the indicted and fallen corporate leaders is extended and developing. In August of 2003 it was claimed that story of the misdeeds of Adlephia's John Rigas, and two of his sons unsuccessful arrived to gentle. They were indicted and convicted of defrauding Adlephia Communications Corp. of $ 2.5 billion.

One particular of the lessons that these leaders really should have acquired and lived was basic ethics or morals. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 [HR 3763], passed by the United States Congress on January 23, 2003 and instantly signed into regulation by President George W. Bush.

From a basic moral, maybe even a religious point of view, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act would not have been vital if company executives had just lived the "10 Commandments," or at least just three of them: "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not covet, "and" Thou shalt not bear bogus witness. "

Resource by Dr Howard Edward Haller

[talabib]

How To Create The Perfect Business Culture.

Every business owner and CEO know the importance of workplace culture, even if they might struggle to define it. Creating the right environment for people to work in and making sure the whole company approaches their work with the right attitude can be just as important – and just as difficult – as developing the perfect product or making the perfect investment.

But culture isn’t something unique to the modern world. In fact, there are lessons to be learned from some of history’s great leaders – even ones who seem far removed from the world of business. That’s why this post doesn’t just take in examples from Amazon and other contemporary giants – it also turns back the clock to look at historical leaders and people who transformed cultures in unexpected places, from 12th-century Mongolia to a Michigan prison.

Ultimately, creating the perfect culture for your business comes down to you, because every culture must reflect the specifics of the company in question, as well as the people who run it. This post contains some great advice on figuring out what that perfect culture is and how to make it work.

Culture is crucial – and it's unique to each successful company.

It’s common for business leaders to say that culture is key to a company’s success. But ask for more detail, and the response is often vague. What exactly is culture, and why is it so important?

Let’s start with what it’s not. Culture isn’t the same as values – values are more like aspirations, while culture has to mean something in practice. Culture isn’t the personality of the CEO, either: that can only ever be one part of it.

What’s more, culture varies hugely from one company to the next. Compare Apple and Amazon: the former places such an emphasis on quality that it spent $5 billion dollars on a beautiful new headquarters. Amazon, meanwhile, is famously thrifty – an expense like that would be unthinkable on the Amazon campus.

What culture should be is an expression of the business itself. Bob Noyce, who co-founded Intel in 1968, provides a great example. He found that the developing field of technology, in which it was the engineers who were really driving things forward, needed a new sort of workplace environment. So, he created a radically different business culture that profoundly influenced the development of Silicon Valley. His egalitarian system had no vice presidents; he gave most of his workers stock options; and he sat everyone in a single large room, rather than in separate offices. He also made people go to sessions on what was known as “the Intel Culture.” All of this created a culture in which ideas could flourish – exactly what this innovative company needed.

A great workplace culture won’t magically transform your company into Intel. And a bad culture isn’t automatically a recipe for disaster. Think of a hugely talented athlete with a bad training regime: it’s still possible that they’ll succeed based on talent alone. A better diet and training schedule, though, will still help them to maximize their potential – which is also what culture can do for your business.

In this post, a diverse range of examples from both business and the wider world – stretching all the way back to Genghis Khan – will demonstrate the many ways in which culture contributes to success, and give you some advice on defining your business’s culture for yourself. Because culture isn’t something that can be generalized; it has to be your own.

Toussaint Louverture knew how to imprint cultural virtues in his army’s minds.

The story of the man who abolished slavery in Haiti might not sound like it has lessons about contemporary business culture. But in fact, he created a culture from which you can learn a lot.

Toussaint Louverture was born into slavery on Saint Domingue, as Haiti was then called, in 1743. When an insurrection emerged in 1791, he became a leader. He brilliantly saw off attacks from the Spanish and the British, and in 1801 became governor and banned slavery.

Louverture had a genius for making big decisions that clearly communicated the values and culture he was trying to inculcate in his army. He did so by creating rules that shocked his soldiers and that made them think about the values inherent in the things they did. 

For one, he banned his married officers from having concubines – highly unusual at the time. The reason? Trust. If the officers’ wives couldn’t trust them, why should the army? Louverture’s shocking rules pushed key cultural virtues – in this case, trust – to the forefront of his soldiers’ minds.

Louverture also understood that his decisions had to conspicuously demonstrate his cultural priorities. After he gained control of the island, his army could easily have killed the former plantation owners in revenge. But he made his army understand that the most important thing was economic survival. So he let the ex-slave owners live, and even let them keep running the plantations, harnessing their expertise. Prosperity was more important than revenge.

Using shocking rules to keep people thinking is just as effective in contemporary business as it was in Louverture’s time. Amazon, for instance, encapsulates its famous frugality in the rule “Accomplish more with less.” Early on, this rule was even embodied in the harsh practice of providing employees with office desks made out of a cheap door with legs nailed onto it. This ensured that employees thought about frugality every single time they sat down.

Additionally, Reed Hastings of Netflix made a Louverture-esque decision in 2010, boldly demonstrating his company’s shifting priorities. Though Netflix was enjoying success in DVD rental, he knew that the streaming revolution was beginning. So he stopped inviting his DVD executives to meetings. A tough decision, but one that sent a crystal-clear message about the direction the company was moving in.

Contemporary businesses may face different challenges from Louverture, but his leadership method is still exemplary. The culture to which he aspired was imprinted in everything he did.

Keep death in mind at all times, like a samurai – it’s good for business.

The warriors of ancient Japan, the samurai, lived by a set of cultural virtues known as bushido that still resonate today. Bushido is certainly still relevant when it comes to thinking about business culture.

Crucially, bushido isn’t a set of principles, but a set of practices: it’s about actions, not beliefs. In the modern world, you would liken it not to a set of corporate “values” – the sort pinned up on a bulletin board, which often end up proving meaningless – but instead to corporate virtues. Virtues are all about what you actually do.

The most important samurai rule of all is grim but helpful: think about death constantly. An awareness of the ever-present possibility of death helps you focus your attention, and means that you’ve already accepted the worst possible outcome. In a business context, that means accepting that you could always go bankrupt or lose to a competitor. Accept those possibilities, and you’ll find that you’re free to reflect on more important concerns – perhaps considering whether or not your company is a great place to work or if you’re proud of your products.

Other samurai virtues included honor, politeness, and sincerity: three complementary qualities that translate well to business. When Marc Andreessen set up the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in 2009, he recognized that the company’s success depended on the entrepreneurs he planned to back. So, he defined one of the company’s cultural virtues as always respecting the entrepreneur. It was a fireable offense to criticize an entrepreneur in public.

But that didn’t mean giving entrepreneurs an easy ride. Another virtue recalled the samurai’s emphasis on sincerity: always tell the truth, even if it hurts. Hard truths, though, were delivered with good, samurai-style politeness.

When it comes to doing difficult things like delivering hard truths, bushido has some sound advice: why you do good isn’t as important as the simple fact that you do. Regardless of your motivations, the only important thing is that you act right. It’s our actions that define us.

Keep that in mind, and if you do die today – or if your business folds – you can still look back on it with pride, as a samurai would.

Shaka Senghor made an amazing cultural transformation while in prison, demonstrating great leadership.

Shaka Senghor would probably have made a good samurai, and there are lessons in his story for anyone in business today. He went to prison in Michigan for second-degree murder at the age of 19, but now, out of prison and a best-selling author, Senghor has a lot to teach us, especially about how to shape – and re-shape – a group’s culture. 

While he was incarcerated, he became the leader of one of the gangs, the Melanics, which he transformed into an organization that ran according to a rigorous moral code. After joining the Melanics, Senghor discovered that they weren’t honoring their own code. He soon challenged the gang’s leaders over their treatment of a member they were stealing money from, pointing out it was against their code to do so. Through asking more questions about virtuous leadership – questioning, for instance, if a leader is really a leader if he doesn’t follow his own instructions – he rose to the top, as the members gradually came around to his way of thinking.

Eventually, having reflected on the pain that violence caused, Senghor realized that he needed to change the Melanics’ cultural code altogether. He did this through constant engagement: he made members eat, work out, and study together. Daily meetings are one of the very best ways to change a culture. Through this, the members moved away from violence and towards a more ethical approach to life.

One important lesson in shaping group culture is to look at it through the eyes of a newcomer. Early in Senghor’s time in state prison, he saw someone get stabbed in the neck, which profoundly shaped his view of prison culture. First impressions generally have a defining effect, regardless of whether or not they’re as dramatic as that. This is why it’s always worth talking to new employees directly about their first impressions, to check that your company culture is shaping people in the right way.

Business leaders should be just as open to change as Senghor was. The CEO of Loudcloud was once almost persuaded to rewrite the accounts to make it look like one relatively unsuccessful quarter had gone better than it had. The suggestion wasn’t illegal, but it did create a misleading impression. An advisor reminded the CEO that, as trust was one of the company’s key goals, he shouldn’t just be keeping to the letter of the law, but exemplifying trustworthiness. So he did. As Senghor showed, you have to walk the talk.

Genghis Khan achieved his success through encouraging inclusion and loyalty.

One of the most important aspects of any successful culture is a sense of inclusion: everyone should feel that they belong there and are working toward the same goals. Inclusion isn’t a contemporary invention – one master of inclusion was also the most effective leader in military history, Genghis Khan.

Born an outcast in 1162, Genghis became supreme, albeit vicious, leader of the Mongol tribes, who traditionally had fought bitterly against one another. What they lacked, Genghis realized, was a common goal – and, in a relentless military campaign, he found one for them.

This campaign can partly be attributed to Genghis’s meritocratic principles. He banned inherited titles, and anyone who excelled could rise up. He also prized loyalty. When he defeated his rival Jamuka, he executed those of Jamuka’s men who had turned their leader in, because of their disloyalty. On the other hand, he enthusiastically brought in talent from vanquished tribes. He made great use of the Uighur peoples’ sophisticated civilization, for instance, sending their skilled workers, like judges and scribes, throughout his empire. He also encouraged marriage between tribes to integrate their cultures.

These are smart practices in any endeavor, not just in times of war, and when it comes to inclusion and loyalty, modern companies can learn from some of them. 

One example of this happened at Frontier Communications in 2004. When Maggie Wilderotter became CEO, she found a starkly class-based system in the company: the white-collar staff barely communicated with the poorly-treated blue-collar workers. So she fired the least effective executives, gave all employees a raise, and always sided with the underdogs in disputes.

It had to go both ways, though: everyone had to be loyal. After Frontier acquired some parts of Verizon, Wilderotter found out that almost half of the former Verizon employees weren’t using Frontier’s product but subscribing to the cable companies with which they were in competition. So, she gave them a month to switch to Frontier – or they were fired.

A CEO adapted his own company’s hiring process toward greater inclusivity by making sure that people from a variety of talent pools had input. This resulted in a company of 50 percent female, 27 percent Asian and 18.4 percent African American staff. Even more importantly, the new hiring process has improved company culture, with people from different backgrounds contributing their different experiences and strengths. Just as Genghis integrated all those different tribes together, the company took the best from everywhere.

There’s no secret formula for creating a great business culture, but you do have to be yourself.

So, let’s get down to it. It’s great to learn from examples, whether it’s Toussaint Louverture or Amazon, Genghis Khan or Frontier. But how can you define the culture that’s exactly right for your business?

 The first step is simply to be yourself. And that’s not just good general advice; it’s the only way to design a successful culture. Being yourself involves knowing your own weaknesses as well as your strengths. Jack, for instance, relishes long conversations – not an ideal attribute when he was CEO of a busy software company. So he surrounded himself with people who weren’t big talkers like him. That ensured that his less-desirable personality trait didn’t define his company.

Your useful personal attributes, on the other hand, should be the cornerstone of the culture. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, for instance, is an especially hard worker, which was ideal when he first started at the company. At that time, he found he needed to change a culture where people routinely left work early. To encourage staying late, he would go back home for dinner each night, then return to the office and talk to the people who were still there, a very conspicuous way of rewarding hard work and leading by example.

That’s also an example of how culture needs to match strategy: the cultural attributes you encourage need to complement your business plan. For instance, “Move fast and break things” was a great motto for the early Facebook, whose aim was to innovate rapidly. But if you’re the CEO of, say, Airbus, it’s not such good advice.

Which virtues should you choose, then? It’s difficult to generalize, because they have to come from you and your business. But there are some broad points you should consider. First, whatever these virtues are, your new hires should embody them: always hire people well suited to your culture. Second, make sure the virtues you choose are actionable. Like the samurai’s bushido code, they should be things you do, not just idealized beliefs. Third, while the virtues don’t have to be totally unique, they should at least distinguish your company from the competition. If they don’t, you’re like a Silicon Valley tech company who makes a big deal out of allowing casual dress – if that’s the default, it doesn’t matter.

When you think about successful cultures, then, don’t just think about the virtues themselves: think about their context, how they reflect a leader, and how they complement the organization’s objectives.

Good leadership requires strong decision-making – and redefining a culture when necessary.

Sometimes, a cultural virtue will end up having an unforeseen negative impact. When that happens, it’s vital that the company quickly reevaluates and then adjusts its priorities. That requires strong decision-making.

For instance, Research In Motion, or RIM – the company behind the BlackBerry – valued customer satisfaction above everything, and hence developed their phones with long battery life and great keyboard speed. When Apple’s iPhone first came out, the sleekly designed newcomer initially underperformed in those areas – so RIM didn’t take it seriously, and ignored it as a competitor. That proved very costly. The company should have shown flexibility and made the drastic decision to re-prioritize based on the new market context.

An object lesson might have helped RIM make the necessary turnaround; that is, a shocking warning about what a company’s priorities need to be. Say, for instance, a salesperson does something illegal. Simply firing them may not be enough; to place due emphasis on sticking to the law, you may also need to fire the people the salesperson reported to, even if they weren’t personally involved.  

Strong decision-making is tough, and leaders have differing styles. But in general, it’s best to strike a balance between empowerment and control: let everyone have input, but make final decisions yourself. Also make sure to spend an appropriate amount of time on each decision: sometimes there’s great value in rapid decision-making, but not always. For example, at a venture capital firm, decisions on what to invest in require careful and lengthy discussion and debate. Rapid decisions would be counterproductive.

Your decisions will also be affected by whether or not you run what experts call a wartime or peacetime operation. A wartime CEO has to place victory ahead of protocol on occasion, and needs to act fast and aggressively. A calmer, peacetime CEO focuses more on good protocol and longer-term success. Switching between these modes can be hard, and may require different management teams. Apple is one company that’s achieved such a shift: Steve Jobs was a wartime CEO, while his successor Tim Cook operates in peacetime. It’s been a profound change.

In times of crisis or calm, it’s down to the CEO to make decisions that define, enforce or reimagine a company’s cultural virtues – whatever these virtues are. There are a couple, though, that should never be far from a CEO’s mind.

Trust and loyalty are two near-universal virtues that companies should maintain.

While virtues generally have to be specific to an organization, there are a few that pretty much everyone would do well to nurture, from Genghis Khan’s Mongol empire to a tech company like Apple. Naturally, they’re especially difficult ones to implement.

First of all, trust. No matter where you work, make sure your employees trust both each other and you. They should trust you so much that you can deliver bad news when necessary – for instance, when there will be layoffs – and still retain their respect. If they don’t, bad situations will have a habit of just getting worse and worse.

Think about Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. With that speech, Lincoln managed to imbue the American Civil War with new meaning by explaining why so many soldiers had died at Gettysburg. He acknowledged the cost of the war, but also explained why he believed in its significance – a model for any CEO.

Bad news goes both ways, of course, and you should foster a culture in which you always know the worst of what’s going on. Every organization of significant size is home to lots and lots of problems: your job is to know about as many of them as possible. Your employees should therefore trust you enough that they can come forward with issues, and know that you’ll be positive and constructive about them when they do. You certainly shouldn’t blame your employees for problems by default, especially because, at the root, most come up because of fixable concerns like, prioritization.

Though difficult to instil, the other virtue you should definitely foster is loyalty. How can you encourage loyalty between you and your employees? Simply aim to maintain a good relationship with them: take a genuine interest and remain honest. Don’t expect them to stay with you forever, as that’s rare these days – but remember, employees leave managers more often than companies.

Beyond trust and loyalty, your company’s virtues should be truly unique. But if you bear in mind the advice covered in this post – from creating a culture aligned with your own personality, to making rules that show your virtues in stark relief – you’ll be well on track to creating exactly the workplace culture that your company needs.

Never underestimate the importance of a business’s culture. Examples past and present show that culture should be much more than just a list of values pinned to the wall: it should be a set of virtues that underpins everything your business does. That’s because it’s our actions – what we do, not what we say or feel – that define who we are.

 Action plan : Define your company’s own culture. Your culture shouldn’t just be your product’s best features, or your own. It should be the whole approach that you and all your employees bring to work. To test whether this is the case, make a list of the things that make your own company unique, then ask yourself: are those attributes abstract values that you aspire to, or virtues that you can put into practice every time you make a decision? If your virtues aren’t exhibited in all the things you actually do, chances are your culture isn’t what you think it is. 

[coin-news-blog]

Bitcoin Is a Viable Way to Remove the State From Your Life

New Post has been published on https://coinmakers.tech/news/bitcoin-is-a-viable-way-to-remove-the-state-from-your-life

Bitcoin Is a Viable Way to Remove the State From Your Life

Bitcoin Is a Viable Way to Remove the State From Your Life

The last decade has seen central banks print trillions of dollars, governments grown much larger, wars continue with no end, and ordinary citizens taxed even more. Thankfully there are individuals and small pockets of people all around the world who believe something is wrong. Many of these people have a plan to help end the illegitimacy of the nation states. Whether it be through protests, unschooling, and spreading stateless education, there are various methods available in this day and age. Bitcoin and the cryptoconomy are also great forms of protest, providing an experiment of voluntarily trade in an untaxed, unregulated economy.

Satoshi’s Invention Unleashed an Alternative to the Rigged Financial System

Despite the negativity surroundings stemming from the failures of governments worldwide, some people have a strategy to fight back. As the years have progressed, bureaucrats have continued to plunder the everyday lives of billions of people worldwide. They wage wars, devalue currencies and cause inflation. The state and colluding corporations pollute and perpetuate violence on a regular basis. Even though things look bleak, there are people fostering a slow evolution toward a free society. Various methods and tools can be used to build a comprehensible plan that removes the state from every individual’s life. One of the tools that’s being used to achieve more liberty is Satoshi’s bitcoin and the wide variety of other digital currencies born afterward. Using a digital currency can remove the state from economic equations and bypass intrusive bureaucracies.

“Bitcoin is Weaponized Agorism”- @BitcoinBlake

— Eric of Last Resort ⚡️ (@allene418) December 14, 2018

Governments get most of their power from the financial system and they have rigged the structure so as to drain the world’s wealth to a small corrupt group of individuals. To a lot of people, using a digital currency to circumvent the rigged system is morally valid in the face of the nation state’s deceit and fraud. At any point in time, individuals can use a cryptocurrency like bitcoin cash to remove themselves from the manipulated economy that funds evil.

When Satoshi unleashed the network in January 2009, the creator gave people an alternative to the state’s tender and the ability to remove ourselves from the global banking system. Cryptocurrencies have been around for over 10 years now and they have provided individuals and organizations with the ability to pull value away from the corrupt monetary system the world’s bureaucrats have created. Alternative monetary systems can make the nation state’s filthy fiat irrelevant.

Anarchy, Agora, Action: Building a Strong Counter Economy

Despite the fact that a lot of digital assets are tied to public ledgers, there are still ways to transact anonymously. People can barter or work for cryptocurrencies and obtain them in a private fashion. They can pay cash for digital currencies as well by skipping over the banking rails entirely. Certain cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash (BCH) can be mixed with shuffling platforms like Cashshuffle. There are coins have high sets of anonymity and blockchains that render transaction analysis null and void. People can still use Tor, virtual private networks (VPNs) and trade printed paper bearer bonds as well.

Using bitcoin or cryptocurrency solutions to bypass the state is a form of agorism. The philosophy of agorism is based on the principles of counter economics and free markets. State monopolies are challenged because there is no restriction on the voluntary exchange of goods and services in the counter economy.

With some determination and good operations security (opsec), anyone can transact with cryptocurrencies in a private manner. Over time, individuals can create a better financial system that’s both anti-establishment but which also develops axiomatic tenets toward a strong counter economy. All it takes to join this sub-economy is some effort and a passionate drive toward freedom. In April 2014, Bitcoin Not Bombs founder Davi Barker explained in a Daily Anarchist blog post that the counter economy is the most efficient tactic against the state, writing:

It may take a while for the counter economy to defeat the state but it’s wielding more strength every day. Satoshi’s invention has, at the very least, shown the world that there are alternatives to this manipulated monetary system. There are lots of people who believe Nakamoto was a libertarian who gave the world a new tool to fight against the status quo.

“We will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years,” Satoshi said in November 2008. “Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.” Bitcoin’s inventor outlined a permissionless roadmap for peer-to-peer electronic cash that attracted people who rejected the traditional financial incumbents.

An interview I did with Cody Wilson in 2015.

Cryptocurrencies derive their value and power from voluntary consumers while the state takes its power from stealing from nonviolent consumers they call citizens. Without continued support from consumers, the state and its monetary system will eventually fall apart. All people have to do is convince enough individuals to support the counter economy.

Do you want to learn more about the counter economy? Check out these links below.

Source: news.bitcoin