Category: ethics

ethics, GOP USA, government, movies

Movie – Trial of the Chicago 7

Rick Mc

On the 51st anniversary of the trial verdict, Netflix put this film on YouTube for free.

 It’s the true story of the seven people on trial (eight including Bobby Seale) for protesting the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The film depicts both the courtroom drama and circus surrounding the trial, as well as the protests in which people were beaten by Chicago police for expressing their constitutional rights. …

The Wrap

Sacha Baron Cohen plays Abbie Hoffman.

Sacha Baron Cohen has become the conscience of the American people. Certainly a hero of mine.

Born in England, of course.

Any thinking person in 2021 knows that the Vietnam War was a huge mistake.

80% of Americans once supported that war, fearing Communism. 80% of Americans were wrong.

The Chicago 7 were right. Mohammad Ali was right.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

books, ethics, government

A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre

Rick Mc

Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

More entertaining than the fiction of Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John Le Carré.

In the case of Philby, truth stranger than fiction.

I can see how Kim Philby evaded detection for so long — but not Guy Burgess. He was a hopeless alcoholic looking for trouble, yet kept getting promoted.

Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot.

Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time. 

Amazon
economics, ethics, government

Smartmatic sues FOX for $2.7 billion

Rick Mc

FOX just might lose this court case. That would really reduce future deliberate propaganda campaigns.

There are a number of other court cases against the same FOX bad actors already dropped and yet to come.

Smartmatic is a multinational company that builds and implements electronic voting systems.

BUT during the 2020 election their product was used only in one California county.

FOX and the the Four Seasons Total Landscaping lawyer knew this — yet deliberately waged a “disinformation campaign” blaming Smartmatic for election fraud.

Damages were done to the company. Perhaps $600 million. It should be easy to prove their case.

On February 4, 2021, Smartmatic sued Fox Corporation, Fox News Network, and its anchors Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro for $2.7 billion in the New York State Supreme Court as well as Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who spread baseless claims of election fraud on Fox.

The 276-page complaint alleges that Fox, its anchors, Guiliani, and Powell spread a “conspiracy to defame and disparage Smartmatic and its election technology and software” by making new business opportunities increasingly scarce.

wikipedia

Here’s a FOX host talking to Giuliani, for example.

ethics, GOP USA, government, health & fitness, things getting worse

$5 trillion COVID relief mostly gone to the RICH

Rick Mc

American taxpayers are throwing around money like drunken sailers.

WHY have the outcomes been so lousy?

Just 400 wealthy families provide about half the funding for presidential campaigns, and they speedball their influence through think tanks, legal advocacy groups, and friendly media.

Rupert Murdoch, the Mercer family, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos all shape our views and influence national policy.  …

… $3 trillion in new money and historically low interest rates have been the nitro and the glycerin, respectively, of the stock market’s ascent.

The dirty secret is that there are two pandemics. While a quarter of America is food insecure and behind on rent, the shareholder class has experienced an explosion in net worth …

Professor Galloway
Apple, ethics, Facebook, good news, Google, government, human rights, internet, things getting better

Why we LOVE Stacey Abrams

Rick Mc

If you’re celebrating seeing Donald Trump and the worst of his deplorable followers driven off social media, thank Stacey Abrams.

She devoted years to building the Democratic Party in Georgia. Wrote a book about voter suppression and co-produced an Amazon Prime documentary, “All In: the Fight for Democracy.”

People in the know credit Stacey Abrams for flipping the 2 Senate seats from Republican to Democrat.

NOW the Biden team has control of all 3 branches of government for 2 years.

NOW the Biden team can enthusiastically regulate BIG TECH.

NOW Twitter, Facebook and pretty much every other major platform is banning Trumpy hate speech.

Thanks Stacey.

books, ethics, government

A Time for Mercy by John Grisham

Rick Mc

A Time for Mercy is a 2020 legal drama by John Grisham, the sequel to A Time to Kill and Sycamore Row, which features Jake Brigance.

42nd published novel from one of our best story tellers.

Clanton, Mississippi. 1990. Jake Brigance finds himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial when the court appoints him attorney for Drew Gamble, a timid sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a local deputy.

Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance digs in and discovers that there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Jake’s fierce commitment to saving Drew from the gas chamber puts his career, his financial security, and the safety of his family on the line.

jgrisham.com

Legal, ethical and moral issues. It makes you think.

Click PLAY or watch an excerpt on YouTube.

books, ethics, government, science

Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller

Rick Mc

A Story of Loss, Love and the Hidden Order of Life

Great book.

One thread is the astonishing story of David Starr Jordan, Stanford University’s first president, a leading scientist of his day.

Did he murder Jane Stanford, wife of the University founder?

More interesting to me was the life story of the author, intertwined with her research into this obscure topic. Lulu Miller is hilarious.

One awful thread is the fact that the USA was the first nation to legislate eugenics. Forced sterilization was the law in 32 U.S. states, and actually inspired Hitler.

AND there’s the fact new to me that … Fish Don’t Exist.

Read the National Book Review.

books, economics, ethics, Facebook, internet, product complaints

Zucked by Roger McNamee (2019)

Rick Mc

Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe

Roger McNamee was early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg. And an early investor.

A big Facebook promoter.

ZUCKED is McNamee’s intimate reckoning with the catastrophic failure of the head of one of the world’s most powerful companies to face up to the damage he is doing.

I’ve not heard any other critic as astute, nor as fair, as to exactly why Facebook is harming and even killing some of their customers around the world.

As Facebook is unable to police itself, governments should step in.