terrorism

Unethical Quote of the Month: President Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

“We don’t have a strategy yet.”

—President Barack Obama, responding to a question regarding the military response to ISIS in Iraq and Stria.

But hey, there’s no rush!

no-we-cantI don’t enjoy beating dead horses, I don’t like using Ethics Alarms to pile on, and I try not to say I told you so. However, if you were looking for a statement that constitutes signature significance of this man’s complete lack of fitness to serve as a leader of anything more complicated or important than a Rotary Chapter, this is it. Let’s see:

  • It is an admission of inattention to duty.
  • It is a confession of incompetence.
  • Coming on the heels of studied disengagement via fundraisers and golfing, it is proof of neglect.
  • In the context of Obama’s reported focus on illegal immigration and climate change, it demonstrates warped priorities
  • It is frightening, and
  • Even if  true, this is an irresponsible thing to say in public if you want to be taken seriously as Commander-in-Chief and as a world leader.

It is depressing to read the comments of desperate Democratic Obama enablers on various websites. One said, “You don’t reveal to your enemy that you have a strategy!” No, you utter fool, you don’t reveal to your enemy what your strategy is. (Obama has done this too, in Iraq and Afghanistan.) If you believe world leaders benefit by acting as if they just walked off the street with no clue what they are doing, perhaps Obama’s next brilliant ploy should be to appear wearing a propeller beanie and speak like stroke victim. That should really fool ’em!

Finance blogger Jeffrey Carter explains why the answer is so alarming and ominous (though, I have to say, it shouldn’t be surprising): Continue reading →

“The Death of Klinghoffer” : The Metropolitan Opera Flunks Its Ethical Duty

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Death of Klinghoffer

New York’s Metropolitan Opera is scheduled to present John Adams’s 1991 opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer” this fall. [Full disclosure: Adams, then an unknown, was one of my professors in college] The opera is a dramatization of the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking,in which the Palestine Liberation Front murdered the wheelchair-bound Jewish-American businessman Leon Klinghoffer. The opera has always been the target of Jewish and other critics who believe that it is too sympathetic to the Palestinians, and is thus anti–Semitic. Predictably (although for some reason the Met seemed not to be prepared for it) the Anti-Defamation League and conservative pundits are condemning the new production, typified by the reliably simple-minded Michele Bachmann, who denounced the Met for sympathizing with terrorists.

This is, and I state this without moderation or equivocation, is anti-cultural, anti-art, anti-free speech political correctness bullying from the right. This is an opera, and it, like any work of art, stands for itself. Whatever the political message of “The Death of Klinghoffer,” it is secondary to the main purpose of any opera, which is music and entertainment. The Met, as an organization dedicated to music and opera, should not be held to any standard in producing it other than whether it meets the company’s standards of excellence. An arts organization like the Met is apolitical, and should never allow the political or ideological messages of the artists whose work is presented there change its programming in any way. This means telling critics like those of “The Death of Klinghoffer,” be they advocacy organizations, would-be public censors or embarrassments to Congress like Bachmann to go fly a kite when they attempt to dictate what art is or isn’t “appropriate.” Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Train Wrecks Collide, As The Redskins And Trayvon Martin’s Mother Board The Ferguson Express”

/ Jack Marshall / 66 Comments

lynch mob

I had just read a nauseating post by self-declared liberal pragmatist Justin Barogona, who authored this despicable sentiment:

“The fact is that the protests would quickly simmer down if a handful of actions were taken, none of which involves SWAT teams, tear gas, riot gear, assault rifles or armored vehicles. The moment Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson gets charged with the murder of Mike Brown, the city of Ferguson won’t find itself overtaken with protests, rallies and marches…Wilson needs to be charged with a crime, and that needs to happen sooner rather than later. Anger and frustration will only continue to build upon itself as long as Wilson isn’t staring down a murder charge.”

This is essentially extortion, bordering on terrorism, I thought. Is this really mainstream liberal thought today in the United States—mob coerced indictments, regardless of truth, due process or fairness? Sacrifice a possibly innocent public servant so Ferguson, Mo. won’t burn? Bragona’s smug insistence that the obvious course of action is to charge a man with murder for political expediency marks him as beneath contempt, an enemy of the rule of law as well as basic fairness and decency. But how close is the position of Eric Holder and the Justice Department, as well as President Obama?

This story, telling us the the Obama Administration is promising civil rights leaders “justice,”  is ominous. “Justice,” to the protesters and those who decided to make the death of Mike Brown another symbolic indictment of white racism, and the facts be damned,means only one thing: tar Darren Wilson as a racist killer. Is Obama playing a dangerous game of deceit with his core supporters, or is he merely promising justice as it is supposed to be, letting the law follow the facts after an objective investigation? The latter is the obvious ethical and responsible course, indeed the only legitimate course. I don’t believe that is what is intended or meant, however. I think the Obama Administration is determined to prosecute Wilson regardless of what the investigation reveals, because it does not have the integrity or courage to oppose the mob, and “liberals” like Bragona.

Then I read about  Isis beheading photo-journalist James Foley, and their threat to kill another American if Obama doesn’t capitulate to their demands. As the two situations began to coalesce as a blog post in my fevered brain, Chris Marchener posted what follows, making my post superfluous.

Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, Ethics Train Wrecks Collide, As The Redskins And Trayvon Martin’s Mother Board The Ferguson Express: Continue reading →

Sparing Bin Laden: Ethics Lessons From Bill Clinton’s 2011 Admission

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
In an alternate universe, this missile strike prevented 9-11. It doesn't matter.

In an alternate universe, this missile strike prevented 9-11. It doesn’t matter.

Sky News host Paul Murray revealed a previously unreleased audio recording of Bill Clinton speaking to a group of Australian businessman in Melbourne (undoubtedly for an obscene fee, since the Clintons were poor as church mice back then, but I digress) on September 10, 2001.  Clinton’s fascinating answer to an audience question about terrorism has raised a lot of eyebrows:

“Osama bin Laden — he’s a very smart guy, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about him, and I nearly got him once. I nearly got him. And I could have gotten, I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children. And then I would have been no better than him. And so I didn’t do it.”

Observations from an ethics perspective: Continue reading →

The TSA Flunks Integrity, Equity, Common Sense, Fairness…But I Guess This Isn’t News. Is It?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments
"You have the US Air credit card? Proceed to your flight, sir!"

“You have the US Air credit card? Proceed to your flight, sir!”

Apparently I am less likely to be a terrorist because I have a credit card.

Ever since I laid out $400 for the new American Airlines-US Air merger credit card and special flyer’s program (it included two round trip tickets to any domestic destination), I have been able to use the “pre-screened” line for my US Air flights. That means my shoes don’t have to be x-rayed, my computer can stay in my brief case, I don’t have to take off my belt (a key benefit, as my pants have fallen down during screenings on three occasions) and I don’t have to take off my jacket.

I also can now skip long lines, as the poor peasants in the adjoining lines glare at me as one of the hated Privileged of the Air. Oh—and since I have an artificial hip that sets off the old-fashioned gates (that’s all you get at the Pre-Screened area), a TSA agent will escort me to that spinny thing that takes nude magnetic imaging photos so I don’t have to get a sexual molesting, of which I have complained about bitterly in the past.  He pushes through all the other passengers waiting in line, –the fools! Bwahahahahah!— and takes me right through. “Pre-screened!” he says, and that’s all there is  to it.*

But I wasn’t “pre-screened,” was I? I just paid a fee to get a credit card. Boy, wait until terrorists catch on to the credit card loophole. KaBOOM!

How can the TSA claim that all of their annoying, humiliating, obtrusive procedures are necessary to protect our safety, when so many of those procedures will be waived for flyers who have the resources to plunk down the money for a premium credit card? It can’t.

Please tell me that the only reason these procedures are still required isn’t so the airlines have something to barter in exchange for money.

Please.

* Once, I didn’t even have to do that. I used the gate, and the alarm went off. I said: “This is a metal hip–you’ll have to wand me and pat me down.” “Nah, never mind,” the TSA agent said. “You can go.”

 

Bergen Community College Shows Us Why Justin Carter Is Being Persecuted

/ Jack Marshall / 80 Comments
Can't have this. Terrifying. Dangerous.

Can’t have this. Terrifying. Dangerous.

Remember Justin Carter? Last I checked, he was being tried for making a joke on Facebook, because of the culture of fear and speech monitoring created by the irresponsible hysteria over guns and terrorism.  He faces prison time. That this is a freedom-suffocating societal illness that threatens any and all of us is chronicled in Ken White account, and accompanying commentary, on the astonishing mistreatment of Bergen Community College Professor Francis Schmidt by the school, which was sent into a frenzy of terror because he posted to Google+ “a cute picture of his young daughter wearing a Game of Thrones t-shirt in a yoga pose next to a cat.”  Inside Higher Ed reports what happened next: Continue reading →

The Ethics of Singing For Muammar…No, Wait, I Mean José

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Mariah-CareyIt is seldom that an ethics controversy repeats itself so exactly that I am tempted to re-run a previous post word for word with just a couple of names changed, but the flack Mariah Carey is getting from human rights activists and others for accepting a million bucks to perform for Angola’s dictator is just such an instance.

I wrote about this situation in 2011, when Nelly Furtado (and Carey) were under fire for performing for the late Muamar Gaddafi, when he was dictating to Libya.  I officially incorporate said post into this one, in full.  Just read it here, with “Mariah” substituted wherever I wrote “Nelly,” “Carey” for “Furtado,” and the name of Angola’s president, José Eduardo dos Santos, wherever the dead Libyan leader’s name appears.It all still applies. To sum up for the large percentage of people who, surveys say, can’t be bothered to click on links, it’s completely bogus criticism. Continue reading →

Nelson Mandela, John Brown, And The Perils Of Hagiography

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments
Mandela

He wasn’t a saint. Is it unethical to say so?

The truth made a surprising appearance where one should least expect it, MSNBC, yesterday. As the rest of the news media was awash in the sanctification of the late South African leader Nelson Mandela, former TIME reporter Richard Stengel, who worked closely with Mandela his autobiography, told shocked MSNBC hosts yesterday that the image of  Mandela being broadcast was, in fact, a false one.

“He was a pragmatic politician,” Stengal told “Morning Joe” that Mandela “wasn’t a visionary necessarily, he wasn’t a philosopher, he wasn’t a saint. But he never deviated from [his goal of overturning apartheid]. But anything that would get him there, he embraced, including violence. He created the violent wing of the ANC. And people don’t realize that and don’t remember that. We’ve kind of made him into a Santa Claus. He wasn’t. He was a revolutionary.”

The same day that Mandela’s death was reserved for testimonials and glowing remembrances, the website Buzzfeed had the impertinence to re-publish some of Mandela’s less Santa-like quotes, including praise for communism, communists, and dictators, and condemnations of the U.S. and Israel: Continue reading →

The Ethics Of Demanding Charity

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments
Joanna Leigh

Joanna Leigh

I can not imagine much more heartbreaking plights than that of Boston Marathon bombing victim Joanna Leigh.

By April 14, 2013, Leigh, 39, had a newly minted doctorate in international development, and a promising career as a consultant. On April 15, she was at the finish line of the marathon, waiting for a friend to cross it, when the second of two bombs exploded ten feet from her. She was shielded from the deadly flying metal by other spectators, but still knocked unconscious. When she awoke, there was chaos around her, people screaming, maimed, covered with blood. She helped some injured find help, and then, dazed, walked home. For various reasons, she did not get herself checked out at a hospital until more than a week had passed.

Gradually, however, the symptoms of her injuries began appearing. Soon, it became obvious that the closed head injuries she suffered in the explosion have caused devastating long-term damage to her brain, and it is doubtful that her life will ever be normal again. Today, she says, she has to sleep most of the day. She cannot work or drive, and is easily disoriented, even getting lost on her own block. She has blurred vision, her hearing is impaired and she cannot avoid the constant ringing in her ears. Concentration has become difficult, and the simplest everyday tasks are overwhelming.   Continue reading →

If Only Justin Carter Were Black…Or Muslim…

/ Jack Marshall / 84 Comments
Justin2

Maybe people would care if he looked like the President’s son, and not mine…

If Justin Carter were black or Muslim….

  • …maybe the news media would take an interest in a Texas teenager being imprisoned and charged with a terrorist threat for an obvious joke on Facebook;
  • …maybe progressive and civil rights organizations would question whether his prosecution was the result of an abuse of power by prosecutors, and fearful paranoia by the his community;
  • …maybe pundit and commentator accusations of official bias against his race or religion would result in authorities questioning the wisdom of their actions and the cruelty of Justin’s persecution;
  • …maybe professional activists and race-hucksters would use their influence to focus attention on his plight, the miscarriage of justice, and its dangerous implications for the rest of us;
  • …maybe the ACLU would deem his case worthy of its intervention and support;
  • ...maybe Al Sharpton would organize demonstrations protesting law enforcement ruining the life of an innocent young man  because he was insufficient sensitive to irrational public fearfulness, instead of organizing protests against a jury’s just and unimpeachable acquittal of a defendant based on inadequate evidence to convict.
  • …maybe the President of the United States would feel that his case was worthy of a lecture to the nation about the importance of free speech, and why fear of guns, violence and terrorism shouldn’t turn the U.S. into a censorious police state.

But unfortunately for Justin Carter and the First Amendment, he isn’t black or Muslim, so the serious criminal charges against him for daring to express himself remain, the news media has been silent on the case for more than a week, the ACLU ignores him, the President’s attentions and priorities remain elsewhere, and most of the public has never heard of him, or doesn’t give a damn.

Please join me in trying to get this terrible injustice noticed and rectified, and by participating in “Quote Justin Carter On Social Media Day,”

August 1, 2013.

Remember, the words that made Justin a criminal are these:

“Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head. I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat the beating heart of one of them.” lol. jk.”

Post them on Facebook, Twitter, Link’d In, or your own blog, and let’s see if they can arrest all of us.