Trying to retain any type of support must be like carrying water in a cloth sack these days:
NYT:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 28 — The king of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, condemned the presence of American forces in Iraq as an “illegitimate foreign occupation” in a speech today, and said the withholding of aid to Palestinians should end.
The king’s speech, at the opening of the Arab League summit here, appeared to distance his country’s position from that of the United States. Saudi Arabia has been a powerful Arab ally to the United States in the Persian Gulf region.
Christian Science Monitor:
But war with Iran, or even targeted air strikes at presumed nuclear facilities, is looking less and less likely. Despite tough rhetoric from both sides and increased tension over Iran's move to detain 15 British sailors last week, a variety of influential thinkers who championed the US-led invasion of Iraq are now saying that containment, not confrontation, is the best approach to Iran.
"I think the discussion has really shifted," says M. J. Rosenberg, the director of analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, a pressure group in Washington that favors diplomatic efforts to resolve the Middle East's problems and worries that the Iraq war has made Israel and America less safe. "The conventional wisdom in Washington has changed," says Mr. Rosenberg. There were influential people who thought that thought military action could be possible this year, he says. "Now, hardly anyone does."
But it's not just doves like Rosenberg. The more hawkish forces in Washington – from neoconservatives who believe the Middle East should be remade by force to pro-Israel lobby groups that say military strikes would prevent Iran from advancing its nuclear ambitions – have taken a step back.
The logistics of a strike, with an expanded US military role in Iraq and the fact that the two US carrier groups in the Gulf can't stay there indefinitely, are growing ever more difficult. And polls show a large majority of Americans prefer diplomacy, at least for now.
Ken Pollack, another supporter of the Iraq invasion, said he favors keeping the pressure on Iran with sanctions...
He sees military action as an absolute last resort, and worries that Iran could easily tie up US forces in Iraq – where the US alleges many of the Shiite militias closely cooperate with Tehran. "We need to think about Iraq before we go off on some half-cocked military action against Iran,'' Mr. Pollack says.
Bob Dylan: "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows..."
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Fasten your seat belts
Arthur sure has...
Reuters has coverage of the next staggering step towards the unthinkable, yet seemingly more and more inevitable:
By Stefano Ambrogi
LONDON, March 27
Captain Dan Cloyd said in an interview the USS John C. Stennis strike group would carry out dual carrier exercises for a "few days or more", but could stay on in the Gulf for longer.
He said the deployment and exercises were not timed to exert pressure on Iran and did not mean a military confrontation was looming.
"We do not foresee, and have no desire to engage in any kind of kinetic exchange with any force in the region," he said.
meanwhile...
Britain's Prime Minister warned Tehran on Tuesday of a "different phase" if it did not free the 15 marines and sailors seized on Friday.
and rounding out the party:
Iran's navy began a week of exercises in the Gulf last Thursday with submarines and small missile carrying ships.
all this, and the biggest concern facing us remains:
Ariel Cohen, an energy expert with the U.S. Heritage Institute, has warned that a conflict in the strait could push oil prices to $120 a barrel.
Oh, the horror! (but not to horrible, especially where our portfolios are concerned...)
Hey radioactive oil is still oil. It can still be refined into gasoline... yeah, okay, radioactive gasoline, so maybe we'll sell it at a cut rate of $2.00 a gallon...
Despite the manoeuvres and political differences Cloyd said dealings with the Iranian military were cordial.
"We interact occasionally here in the Gulf and waters outside of the Gulf with Iranian navy and airforce units, they operate with us in a very professional and courteous way."
So we'll engage and destroy them in a very professional and courteous way.
If you think I'm being alarmist, that's okay. I'd love to be wrong on this as well as many other subjects. If all this happens to resolve itself in a manner that doesn't relegate us to a world bereft of any technology and societal structure, you can give me an unending raft of shit about my Chicken Little impersonation concerning it over a few stiff drinks and cigars...
Reuters has coverage of the next staggering step towards the unthinkable, yet seemingly more and more inevitable:
By Stefano Ambrogi
LONDON, March 27
Captain Dan Cloyd said in an interview the USS John C. Stennis strike group would carry out dual carrier exercises for a "few days or more", but could stay on in the Gulf for longer.
He said the deployment and exercises were not timed to exert pressure on Iran and did not mean a military confrontation was looming.
"We do not foresee, and have no desire to engage in any kind of kinetic exchange with any force in the region," he said.
meanwhile...
Britain's Prime Minister warned Tehran on Tuesday of a "different phase" if it did not free the 15 marines and sailors seized on Friday.
and rounding out the party:
Iran's navy began a week of exercises in the Gulf last Thursday with submarines and small missile carrying ships.
all this, and the biggest concern facing us remains:
Ariel Cohen, an energy expert with the U.S. Heritage Institute, has warned that a conflict in the strait could push oil prices to $120 a barrel.
Oh, the horror! (but not to horrible, especially where our portfolios are concerned...)
Hey radioactive oil is still oil. It can still be refined into gasoline... yeah, okay, radioactive gasoline, so maybe we'll sell it at a cut rate of $2.00 a gallon...
Despite the manoeuvres and political differences Cloyd said dealings with the Iranian military were cordial.
"We interact occasionally here in the Gulf and waters outside of the Gulf with Iranian navy and airforce units, they operate with us in a very professional and courteous way."
So we'll engage and destroy them in a very professional and courteous way.
If you think I'm being alarmist, that's okay. I'd love to be wrong on this as well as many other subjects. If all this happens to resolve itself in a manner that doesn't relegate us to a world bereft of any technology and societal structure, you can give me an unending raft of shit about my Chicken Little impersonation concerning it over a few stiff drinks and cigars...
The most tenacious enemy...
is the one we find within the ranks.
More sparks are flying as I grind my axe down to nothingness over the insanity of the military's treatment of their most valuable resource (until they perfect the art of engineering the perfect human soldier, that is), people. Of course, unlike unnecessary and redundant weapons systems and vaccines that sicken and kill the very people they are supposedly protecting, there are not potential financial windfalls in the signing of the contract between the government and the individual serving, so they are not worth protecting.
I can't really write anything coherent beyond this (I was able to here and here though), so I just ask you to check out the links and act as your sense of humanity compels you to, keeping in mind that the folks impacted by this nefarious conduct are mere pawns whose desire to serve the country they love has ended up changing their lives in ways that they could have never imagined.
More sparks are flying as I grind my axe down to nothingness over the insanity of the military's treatment of their most valuable resource (until they perfect the art of engineering the perfect human soldier, that is), people. Of course, unlike unnecessary and redundant weapons systems and vaccines that sicken and kill the very people they are supposedly protecting, there are not potential financial windfalls in the signing of the contract between the government and the individual serving, so they are not worth protecting.
I can't really write anything coherent beyond this (I was able to here and here though), so I just ask you to check out the links and act as your sense of humanity compels you to, keeping in mind that the folks impacted by this nefarious conduct are mere pawns whose desire to serve the country they love has ended up changing their lives in ways that they could have never imagined.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Those aren't numbers that you're crunching...
This is delving into the realm of fantasy not seen since Hitler reinstated nonexistent Army divisions with the wave of a hand during the waning days of World War II on the Eastern Front.
Salon:
March 26, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- Last November, Army Spc. Edgar Hernandez, a communications specialist with a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, had surgery on an ankle he had injured during physical training. After the surgery, doctors put his leg in a cast, and he was supposed to start physical therapy when that cast came off six weeks later.
But two days after his cast was removed, Army commanders decided it was more important to send him to a training site in a remote desert rather than let him stay at Fort Benning, Ga., to rehabilitate. In January, Hernandez was shipped to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., where his unit, the 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, was conducting a month of training in anticipation of leaving for Iraq in March.
Hernandez says he was in no shape to train for war so soon after his injury. "I could not walk," he told Salon in an interview. He said he was amazed when he learned he was being sent to California. "Did they not realize that I'm hurt and I needed this physical therapy?" he remembered thinking. "I was told by my doctor and my physical therapist that this was crazy."
Military experts say they suspect that the deployment to Fort Irwin of injured soldiers was an effort to pump up manpower statistics used to show the readiness of Army units. With the military increasingly strained after four years of war, Army readiness has become a critical part of the debate over Iraq. Some congressional Democrats have considered plans to limit the White House's ability to deploy more troops unless the Pentagon can certify that units headed into the fray are fully equipped and fully manned.
Who are they seriously trying to kid? Besides themselves? Anyone... anyone at all? Bueller?
Someone needs to walk up to these shills with a hammer and smash all the shells they're using in their nefarious misdirection ploys to expose the sham that this occupation is and has been. And if a few fingers get broken in the process, so be it...
Salon:
March 26, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- Last November, Army Spc. Edgar Hernandez, a communications specialist with a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, had surgery on an ankle he had injured during physical training. After the surgery, doctors put his leg in a cast, and he was supposed to start physical therapy when that cast came off six weeks later.
But two days after his cast was removed, Army commanders decided it was more important to send him to a training site in a remote desert rather than let him stay at Fort Benning, Ga., to rehabilitate. In January, Hernandez was shipped to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., where his unit, the 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, was conducting a month of training in anticipation of leaving for Iraq in March.
Hernandez says he was in no shape to train for war so soon after his injury. "I could not walk," he told Salon in an interview. He said he was amazed when he learned he was being sent to California. "Did they not realize that I'm hurt and I needed this physical therapy?" he remembered thinking. "I was told by my doctor and my physical therapist that this was crazy."
Military experts say they suspect that the deployment to Fort Irwin of injured soldiers was an effort to pump up manpower statistics used to show the readiness of Army units. With the military increasingly strained after four years of war, Army readiness has become a critical part of the debate over Iraq. Some congressional Democrats have considered plans to limit the White House's ability to deploy more troops unless the Pentagon can certify that units headed into the fray are fully equipped and fully manned.
Who are they seriously trying to kid? Besides themselves? Anyone... anyone at all? Bueller?
Someone needs to walk up to these shills with a hammer and smash all the shells they're using in their nefarious misdirection ploys to expose the sham that this occupation is and has been. And if a few fingers get broken in the process, so be it...
Why do you Serve? No, really...
This article got me thinking about why people get into public service in the first place, why they chose to remain there, and how they go about staying if they do decide to try and stick around.
My optimistic and 'willing to try to see the good side of peoples' intentions' streak is readily willing to accept the premise that most individuals entering the world of public service and the politics that go along with it do so with the best and most noble intentions. However, it seems that the fetid and twisted world of politics; be it local, state, or national; can quickly suck even the most purely intentioned individual into the mire of back scratching and deal-making that is modern day politicing in our supposedly utopian democratic system of government. The most recent example of this arm twisting that is commonplace in the daily workings of legislation in our Congress is the persuasive tactics (some which we probably would be more comfortable not knowing the details of) employed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to secure the passage of the new Iraq funding bill which places a timetable on the deployment of US troops in Iraq as well as authorizing the funding to keep them in place and ensuring that returning troops in the period before the deadline expires are properly trained and equipped. The bill barely passed with the gratefully accepted (but by no means easily obtained) votes from key "Blue Dog" Democrats and these two brave rank breaking Republicans. The merits (or lack thereof) of this bill have been chronicled in almost infinite depth already, so I will spare you digression in that direction (pause for sighs of relief).
My main quandry here is the motivation of individuals for staying in office and the methods they employ to achieve that goal. Most seem to think that adhering to the mainstream party line where major issues are concerned is the safest bet, based on the soul-less data provided by regional and national polls. While it seems to work in terms of getting re-elected, what about serving one's constituents, i.e. the people who are ostensibly paying your salary and therefore the ones whom you work for and answer to? Don't they have a say in whether you as a public servant are retained in your position? How hard is it to take the time to meet with them on a semi regular basis to find out how they feel about the war that their sons and daughters are being asked to fight in a conflict with no foreseeable end and no clear objective? Or possibly what they might want you to try to accomplish for the district that you represent on a local level? Do these elected officials rally think that once placed in office the mandate given to them by the electorate is forfeit and subject to their personal whims? Again I realize that my naivite (and whiskey enhanced sense of outrage) may be distorting my expectations and realistic handle on the concept, but my understanding of the government as outlined in the Constitution is that it is one that is By the People, Of the People, and For the People.
Has something changed?
If so, can we change it back?
If the results from last November and the recently manifesting actions of those results are any indication, then the answer is an unqualified, albeit slow to appear, yes.
We're not a nation of drones waiting to be told what to think, contrary to the beliefs of the extreme right wing media monolithic totem pole (featuring the mugs of Rush, the Coultergeist, the Jane wanna-be and Mr. leading-the-wrong-witness). When we're given the facts, we are perfectly capable of drawing our own conclusions and forming our own opinions. The key to keeping people on the straight and narrow is to limit the flow of information to them, which the mainstream right wing media has perfected, but which is being poked with more and more holes every day in this wonderful day and age of information in multiple forms.
I hope, I think, that some of the current events unfolding are harbringers of much needed change. However, while there may be a slight glimmer at the end of the tunnel that one may construe as sunlight from the end of said tunnel, the possibility of it being the headlamp of an oncoming locomotive cannot yet be ruled out. Another passage from a King novel comes to mind as a source of optimism:
"They'll turn him out and put in some one who understands the Lesson:
Don't fuck the people over for too long. That's the lesson. Adam Clayton Powell found out. Agnew and Nixon did, too. Just... don't fuck the people for too long."
Roger Chadsworth
-The Dead Zone
Fear is a great blinder, but eventually even those scales fall off. And when they do, God help the Fuckers, that's all I'm saying...
My optimistic and 'willing to try to see the good side of peoples' intentions' streak is readily willing to accept the premise that most individuals entering the world of public service and the politics that go along with it do so with the best and most noble intentions. However, it seems that the fetid and twisted world of politics; be it local, state, or national; can quickly suck even the most purely intentioned individual into the mire of back scratching and deal-making that is modern day politicing in our supposedly utopian democratic system of government. The most recent example of this arm twisting that is commonplace in the daily workings of legislation in our Congress is the persuasive tactics (some which we probably would be more comfortable not knowing the details of) employed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to secure the passage of the new Iraq funding bill which places a timetable on the deployment of US troops in Iraq as well as authorizing the funding to keep them in place and ensuring that returning troops in the period before the deadline expires are properly trained and equipped. The bill barely passed with the gratefully accepted (but by no means easily obtained) votes from key "Blue Dog" Democrats and these two brave rank breaking Republicans. The merits (or lack thereof) of this bill have been chronicled in almost infinite depth already, so I will spare you digression in that direction (pause for sighs of relief).
My main quandry here is the motivation of individuals for staying in office and the methods they employ to achieve that goal. Most seem to think that adhering to the mainstream party line where major issues are concerned is the safest bet, based on the soul-less data provided by regional and national polls. While it seems to work in terms of getting re-elected, what about serving one's constituents, i.e. the people who are ostensibly paying your salary and therefore the ones whom you work for and answer to? Don't they have a say in whether you as a public servant are retained in your position? How hard is it to take the time to meet with them on a semi regular basis to find out how they feel about the war that their sons and daughters are being asked to fight in a conflict with no foreseeable end and no clear objective? Or possibly what they might want you to try to accomplish for the district that you represent on a local level? Do these elected officials rally think that once placed in office the mandate given to them by the electorate is forfeit and subject to their personal whims? Again I realize that my naivite (and whiskey enhanced sense of outrage) may be distorting my expectations and realistic handle on the concept, but my understanding of the government as outlined in the Constitution is that it is one that is By the People, Of the People, and For the People.
Has something changed?
If so, can we change it back?
If the results from last November and the recently manifesting actions of those results are any indication, then the answer is an unqualified, albeit slow to appear, yes.
We're not a nation of drones waiting to be told what to think, contrary to the beliefs of the extreme right wing media monolithic totem pole (featuring the mugs of Rush, the Coultergeist, the Jane wanna-be and Mr. leading-the-wrong-witness). When we're given the facts, we are perfectly capable of drawing our own conclusions and forming our own opinions. The key to keeping people on the straight and narrow is to limit the flow of information to them, which the mainstream right wing media has perfected, but which is being poked with more and more holes every day in this wonderful day and age of information in multiple forms.
I hope, I think, that some of the current events unfolding are harbringers of much needed change. However, while there may be a slight glimmer at the end of the tunnel that one may construe as sunlight from the end of said tunnel, the possibility of it being the headlamp of an oncoming locomotive cannot yet be ruled out. Another passage from a King novel comes to mind as a source of optimism:
"They'll turn him out and put in some one who understands the Lesson:
Don't fuck the people over for too long. That's the lesson. Adam Clayton Powell found out. Agnew and Nixon did, too. Just... don't fuck the people for too long."
Roger Chadsworth
-The Dead Zone
Fear is a great blinder, but eventually even those scales fall off. And when they do, God help the Fuckers, that's all I'm saying...
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Nth verse, same as the first!
In the spirit of the Tonkin Gulf incident and the Gleiwitz raid, the seizure of 15 British Naval and Marine personnel and their subsequent transit in custody to Tehran is giving all the alarmists and war doggies plenty of reason to howl, rattle sabers and beat war drums. Coupled with the new sanctions recently imposed on Iran by the UN security council the Iranian government is being backed into a corner more and more tight each day.
The key fact that is being hotly contested right now is where the British patrol boats (2 rubber boat with outboard motors) actually were when they were seized. Predictably, the "we said, they said" debate began hours after the sailors and marines were surrounded and detained by the Iranian forces. It has only gotten louder over the course of two days, with the majority of the western mainstream media printing the governments version of these events as the unshakeable truth. Glenn Greenwald has written a lengthy column on it today at Salon. The updates are especially telling, III in particular:
UPDATE III: At the new National Review blog called "The Tank" (that's really tough - they must mean business over there), J. Peter Pham asks: "did Iran just declare war on the Coalition?" Meanwhile, in a NR feature article, Mario Loyola suggests that Iran may very well be telling the truth about what happened here, and that this incident was the by-product of efforts by the U.S. and Britian to provoke Iran into war -- justifiably, in Loyola's view (needless to say):
It wouldn't surprise me if the Iranians were actually responding, in this case, to a carefully planned provocation of our own. As Churchill said, sometimes the truth is so precious that she must be attended by a bodyguard of lies. . . .
The gloves are coming off. And the risk-calculation here is: If someone gets nervous and starts shooting, the timing would be more auspicious now for us than for the Iranians. Therefore, it only makes sense that American and British naval units operating in the Gulf would be in a more forward-leaning and aggressive posture than the Iranians.
It wouldn't surprise me if the British sailors were detained because the British did something to make the Iranians really angry. Khamanei dramatically upped the ante this week. We probably raised. And they probably raised back. The stakes in this nuclear-poker game just got a little higher.
So the U.S. and Britain are deliberately provoking Iran in a "nuclear-poker game" and then lying about what they are up to, and Loyola thinks that's all great. A whole new war -- it's all so exciting and pulsating.
As C3PO liked to put it on numerous occasions in several of the SW films: "I have a bad feeling about this..." Of course, the irony of this statement by an android with no naturally occurring emotions (only those written into the programming) could be the subject of a lengthy essay on the reflection of the state of mankind's relationship with the his creations based on one of said creations uttering such a sentiment.
I wrote here that the Iranians are in quite a tight spot with hostile and/or Nuclear powers surrounding them on all sides.
Iran is not an immediate threat to the United States or its allies in the region. IF Iran is pursuing nuclear enrichment technology for the purpose of developing a weapons program in addition to an energy program, it is not an offensive act. It is an act of defense motivated by the fact that Iran is now surrounded by declared and undeclared nuclear powers: Russia to the North, Pakistan, India and China to the East, Israel to the West, and the United States to the South in the Persian Gulf with an disproportionately sized naval armada.
Whether or not they recognize the tactics of the British and American forces and, to a certain extent, the UN Security Council (in many ways just another wing of US influence) as provocative, restraint has to be getting harder and harder to adhere to. Their patience and/or feelings of security may have reached their limit what with this latest incident on top of the sanctions imposed by the Security council this week which the Iranians have rejected, of course.
More and more these days that great song by REM keeps going through my head...
UPDATE 26 MAR 07: Justin Raimondo writes here that the seizure of the sailors smacks in a painfully obvious way of the same maneuvering that I referenced in the beginning of this post and that the wheels are starting to spin faster on the war machine being steered in the direction of Iran.
The key fact that is being hotly contested right now is where the British patrol boats (2 rubber boat with outboard motors) actually were when they were seized. Predictably, the "we said, they said" debate began hours after the sailors and marines were surrounded and detained by the Iranian forces. It has only gotten louder over the course of two days, with the majority of the western mainstream media printing the governments version of these events as the unshakeable truth. Glenn Greenwald has written a lengthy column on it today at Salon. The updates are especially telling, III in particular:
UPDATE III: At the new National Review blog called "The Tank" (that's really tough - they must mean business over there), J. Peter Pham asks: "did Iran just declare war on the Coalition?" Meanwhile, in a NR feature article, Mario Loyola suggests that Iran may very well be telling the truth about what happened here, and that this incident was the by-product of efforts by the U.S. and Britian to provoke Iran into war -- justifiably, in Loyola's view (needless to say):
It wouldn't surprise me if the Iranians were actually responding, in this case, to a carefully planned provocation of our own. As Churchill said, sometimes the truth is so precious that she must be attended by a bodyguard of lies. . . .
The gloves are coming off. And the risk-calculation here is: If someone gets nervous and starts shooting, the timing would be more auspicious now for us than for the Iranians. Therefore, it only makes sense that American and British naval units operating in the Gulf would be in a more forward-leaning and aggressive posture than the Iranians.
It wouldn't surprise me if the British sailors were detained because the British did something to make the Iranians really angry. Khamanei dramatically upped the ante this week. We probably raised. And they probably raised back. The stakes in this nuclear-poker game just got a little higher.
So the U.S. and Britain are deliberately provoking Iran in a "nuclear-poker game" and then lying about what they are up to, and Loyola thinks that's all great. A whole new war -- it's all so exciting and pulsating.
As C3PO liked to put it on numerous occasions in several of the SW films: "I have a bad feeling about this..." Of course, the irony of this statement by an android with no naturally occurring emotions (only those written into the programming) could be the subject of a lengthy essay on the reflection of the state of mankind's relationship with the his creations based on one of said creations uttering such a sentiment.
I wrote here that the Iranians are in quite a tight spot with hostile and/or Nuclear powers surrounding them on all sides.
Iran is not an immediate threat to the United States or its allies in the region. IF Iran is pursuing nuclear enrichment technology for the purpose of developing a weapons program in addition to an energy program, it is not an offensive act. It is an act of defense motivated by the fact that Iran is now surrounded by declared and undeclared nuclear powers: Russia to the North, Pakistan, India and China to the East, Israel to the West, and the United States to the South in the Persian Gulf with an disproportionately sized naval armada.
Whether or not they recognize the tactics of the British and American forces and, to a certain extent, the UN Security Council (in many ways just another wing of US influence) as provocative, restraint has to be getting harder and harder to adhere to. Their patience and/or feelings of security may have reached their limit what with this latest incident on top of the sanctions imposed by the Security council this week which the Iranians have rejected, of course.
More and more these days that great song by REM keeps going through my head...
UPDATE 26 MAR 07: Justin Raimondo writes here that the seizure of the sailors smacks in a painfully obvious way of the same maneuvering that I referenced in the beginning of this post and that the wheels are starting to spin faster on the war machine being steered in the direction of Iran.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
The 'S' in $ must signify the soul that they once had...
Corporate greed and disregard for the value of life (in multiple forms) and limb continue to amaze me, although after seeing examples like this and this, I tend to be more and more (cynically) accepting of them. Lambert's suggestion is an interesting one, albeit highly unlikely.
As long as the only accountability that matters is that of the board's concern with the amount of black ink on the balance sheet, matters such as the impact that the products have on the customers or the criteria on which who the customers are will fall by the wayside.
The ramifications on the health (physical and spiritual) of the individuals behind these sort of policies are frightening to contemplate for me. I can see how someone who has known nothing but wealth and privilege all their lives might not be able to recognize them, but that still doesn't make it any easier to understand the fact that the consequences of corporate policies such as these can be so easily dismissed by those who define them.
Maybe if boardrooms looked and felt more like a back patio instead of the situation room in the basement of the White House it might be easier for corporate leaders to think of their fellow men, women, and furry friends as more than just potential black numbers in an Excel file.
As long as the only accountability that matters is that of the board's concern with the amount of black ink on the balance sheet, matters such as the impact that the products have on the customers or the criteria on which who the customers are will fall by the wayside.
The ramifications on the health (physical and spiritual) of the individuals behind these sort of policies are frightening to contemplate for me. I can see how someone who has known nothing but wealth and privilege all their lives might not be able to recognize them, but that still doesn't make it any easier to understand the fact that the consequences of corporate policies such as these can be so easily dismissed by those who define them.
Maybe if boardrooms looked and felt more like a back patio instead of the situation room in the basement of the White House it might be easier for corporate leaders to think of their fellow men, women, and furry friends as more than just potential black numbers in an Excel file.
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