Yelm Chamber of Commerce voting JZK - RSE 2013 business of the year - When economics trumps ethics

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Yelm Chamber of Commerce voting JZK - RSE 2013 business of the year - When economics trumps ethics

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When economics trumps ethics, cults and tyrants thrive.
More often than not it's the economics that feed into the devaluation and destruction of our hard won freedoms and our humanity.
The Yelm Chamber of Commerce voting JZ Knight's RSE cult 2013 business of the year :-?
a classic example of economics trumping ethics.
Where the virtues of respect, empathy, compassion and HONESTY have no place but for a Sunday morning sermon.
Cult leaders such as JZ Knight, political tyrants, sex abusers, abusive Facebook posters..ETC, all rely on our tacit consent to remain silent.
Latin: qui tacet consentire videtur, "he who is silent is taken to agree",
Just came across this great article today titled 'Economics Has Replaced Ethics" by Laura J. Rediehs'
David
"Economics Has Replaced Ethics" by Laura J. Rediehs
Co-Winner, Teacher/Postgraduate Category, Student/Teacher Essay Contest, "Ethics for a Connected World," 2012
February 21, 2013

Laura Rediehs
Laura J. Rediehs is an associate professor of philosophy, and the coordinator of peace studies at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY.

Essay Topic: In your opinion, what is the greatest ethical challenge or dilemma facing the planet?

Economics Has Replaced Ethics

The biggest ethical challenge facing us today is that we have let economics replace ethics as a guide to life, and in doing so, we have devalued people and the associated virtues of respect, cooperation, empathy, and compassion. This problem underlies and complicates the more specific ethical challenges we face.

We let the pragmatics of the "bottom line" trump ethics in our decision-making, turning money, which is properly a means, into an end in itself, while turning people, ethically understood as "ends in themselves" (according to Immanuel Kant) into mere means. Properly speaking, money is a resource that should be used to serve our ethical ends—making sure that our society functions in a way that addresses the needs of everyone—but we have collectively become so preoccupied by money itself that we have lost touch with how to stay ethically oriented in the world. Also, properly speaking, people should be regarded as ends in themselves (having intrinsic worth), but when economics replaces ethics, the value of people is reduced to their being consumers and/or workers, that is, as means to the economic end of profit. Giving economics priority over ethics thus dehumanizes people, hides or pushes out the ethical dimensions of our problems, and weakens our relational abilities and ethical reasoning skills. Examples abound, from our personal lives to business practices, politics, and global relations.

At the personal level, many young people, encouraged by their parents, regard money-making as their primary goal as they embark on adult independence. Not only are their own lives diminished by such a narrow goal, but these expectations create pressure on our educational institutions to abandon their ethical ideals in favor of the pragmatic goal of preparing young people for the workforce, as if technical knowledge and the skills of obedience and productivity are more important than history, identity, meaning, purpose, values, creativity, and vision. Relatedly, we talk of our work and define ourselves in terms of careers and income rather than vocation, and many people even accept jobs that run counter to their values. Furthermore, in the name of the economic value of efficiency, workers are increasingly asked to do more for less until health, family life, and civic responsibilities become compromised, if not sacrificed altogether.

At the business level, while there are businesses that aim to have a beneficial effect on society, many businesses adopt practices that compromise higher ideals in favor of profits. Some examples are businesses that engage in planned obsolescence or produce low-quality products that need to be replaced more frequently, and businesses that play on fears, anxieties, addictions, and other human weaknesses in order to generate "demand" and, hence, profits. One chilling example is how gun sales increase after mass shootings, and go down if stricter gun control laws are put into place. While one hopes that those who manufacture and sell firearms are not consciously placing concern for their own profits above the safety of society as they engage in policy debates, it is clear that there is an economic disincentive to impose stricter controls on access to guns. In this example and in many more, we see the strong temptation for businesses to exacerbate human vulnerabilities, instead of alleviating them, in order to serve the economic end of securing maximum profits for their investors.

Relatedly, many investors do not see investing as a moral act, but a financial one. Instead of approaching investment as an opportunity to use their extra money to support those businesses they believe are serving society the best, these investors are motivated simply to use their extra money to make even more money for themselves: they choose to invest in what they think will be most profitable, regardless of whether the values the companies they invest in line up with their own.

At the political level too we often find economics trumping ethics. While those who enter into political life may initially do so out of a motivation to serve the public good, the need to gain votes is increasingly dominated by money. Lobbyists, usually representing companies and industries, try to influence politicians to support their interests. Where once these interests might have been phrased in ethical terms of responding to human needs, now economic arguments dominate. Each industry tries to make the case that it plays a key role in holding the whole economy together—again, under the presumption that economics is and should be the fundamental determinant of all else. The paradox of equating "the economy" with "the common good" becomes more evident when we find politicians debating which services to cut, instead of asking how to summon further resources to provide for the community's, state's, or nation’s needs. Somehow, it has become unquestionably acceptable to cut services that address human needs in order to save some abstract entity called "the economy" that is implicitly equated with the common good, even as the common good is what is sacrificed to serve it!

Even the ethical problems of global climate change and war become controlled by financial concerns that trump the ethical. We are told that it is impossible to reverse global warming because of the economic costs. In truth, the attempt to reverse global warming can stimulate new economic activity, and thus the overall economic effect would actually be neutral if not positive. The ethical effects, however, are not neutral. Ignoring global warming disproportionately disadvantages the global poor and future generations. But there are economic incentives not to address this problem: some powerful businesses profit from the systems that increase global warming and do not want to lose their economic advantage.

War too is likely controlled more by economic than ethical concerns. From an ethical point of view, war is increasingly unjustifiable. First of all, an increasing percentage of civilians are harmed by war—a fact clearly violating just war theory. Second, we know a lot now about how to resolve conflicts nonviolently, and nonviolent approaches tend to be less expensive and significantly more effective than military responses at resolving conflicts and at transforming unjust systems of power into more just ones. Why then are we not employing nonviolence more often in place of war? The answer, sadly, might again be economic: war is immensely profitable to some, especially the makers of weapons. Because nonviolence is a lot less expensive and its practitioners and trainers are not motivated by a desire to generate large profits, nonviolence is not seen, from an economic point of view, as valuable.

Once we detach the ethical considerations from the economic ones, the ethical responses are clear. It is the mixing in of economic considerations that obscures the ethical clarity and makes the problems seem intractable. But there is no inherent reason why living true to our ideals or doing what is best for society, the global community, or the planet should be economically impossible. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that our fundamental task is exactly to pool our resources, financial and otherwise, to solve these problems.

What is the impediment, then? We have a structural problem: unfortunately, our economic system is such that people can benefit financially from being on the advantageous side of an unethical situation. Such people are reluctant to use the power they have thereby gained to remedy the unethical situation, as doing so might cause them to lose their wealth and power. But again, this is not an inherent or necessary problem: it is socially constructed largely by how we have prioritized money above ethics. Individuals can and do transcend this constructed dichotomy, and collectively we can choose to dismantle it by changing how money and power function in society.

We can start by thinking and talking more honestly about money, exposing and critically examining the mythology of economics representing the common good. There is a paradox in this mythology: on the one hand, we moralize money, associating wealth with virtue; on the other hand, we regard money as morally neutral. In this paradox, perhaps we strive to create a non-moral value system by which to run our lives, but that itself is only a clever disguise for the re-emergence of "might makes right." What gets lost is human dignity.

Ethics is about the well-being of people, and so it is ethics that should be the end while money is merely one kind of means. By restoring this proper relationship, we resist the temptation to regard money and ethics as existing in opposition to each other. The only opposition is that greed is unethical. But greed is not the only possible relationship we can have with money—we can establish ethical relationships with money, by keeping clearly in mind that money is a means that should serve the well-being of people and their ethical aims. It is not unrealistic to hold each other accountable to this standard and insist that our financial policies and social institutions uphold this ideal as well. It is imperative.

"Economics Has Replaced Ethics" by Laura J. Rediehs
http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publicat ... ports/0139
But he has nothing on at all, cried at last the whole people....
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Re: Yelm Chamber of Commerce voting JZK - RSE 2013 business of the year

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Yelm Chamber of Commerce voting JZK - RSE 2013 business of the year
The Yelm Area Chamber of Commerce held its annual awards luncheon Tuesday, recognizing several businesses and individuals in the community.

Chamber Director Cecelia Jenkins was named Citizen of the Year and April Sage of KeyBank was named Chamber Volunteer of the Year. The Rotary Club of Yelm, represented by President Tom Dewell, was named Nonprofit of the Year.

Businesses in five categories based on its size were named Business of the Year. They are: Allstate Insurance, Ronelle Funk, for 0-5 employees; Nisqually Valley News, Michael Wagar, for 6-10 employees; Jason’s Greenhouse, Jason Witherow, for 11-20 employees; McDonald’s of Yelm, Joseph Bravo, for 21-49 employees; and JZK, Inc., JZ Knight, for 50 or more employees.
Yelm Mayor Ron Harding presented Jenkins with her award for Citizen of the Year.
“I humbly accept this on behalf of all of you because every one of you deserve the same award,” Jenkins said.
Harding said Jenkins has been the Chamber director for the past 15 years and worked 42 years in the Yelm School District, and been involved in various programs in both organizations.
Jenkins started the Chamber Education Foundation, an organization that awards scholarships to local youth and provides new books to school libraries each year and started a variety of programs, Harding said, including Project Community Santa, Backpacks for Kids, the Clothing Connection for Kids, and the Yelm Business Partnership Program.

“These are legacies that will be hard to be matched by anybody that have had a significant impact on our community,” Harding said.
Jenkins received a statue, “the key to the city” — a key-shaped pin — and, to Jenkins’ delight, a Hawthorn pen.
Jenkins has been clamoring for a Hawthorn pen for years, Harding said. More than 80 years ago, people in the community brought trees from Oregon and planted them along Yelm Avenue. Those are the city’s historical Hawthorn trees, he said.
When those trees are trimmed, Harding takes some of the trimmings and has pens made out of them.
“I think it’s important for those members of our community to always have a little piece of our community and our history with them,” Harding said. “And that’s why I like to tell them you’ll always have a little bit of Yelm with you no matter where you go.”
Jenkins said she walked to school every day for 12 years as a child under the Hawthorn trees.

“I wanted the pen,” she said. “He (Harding) wouldn’t give it to me, but today he had to give me one,” she said with a laugh.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013, JZ Knight accepted the Yelm Chamber of Commerce 2013 Business of the Year award.jpg
5) comments

coverdalev Dec 16, 2013 11:52pm


Cecelia Jenkins and any other person who sits on the board of the Yelm Chamber who allowed a cult leader to be awarded any award, of any kind, is a disgrace. JZ Knight has run financial scams, had her followers drink an "elixir" made with Red Devil Lye for five years until many were very ill. As far as JZK inc claiming to employ 50 plus people I would ask to see that list. By the way does it count if she has people work for free while they are collecting unemployment from her laying them off? That scam she has run for years. The reason people such as Knight continue to operate is because the community leaders in Yelm have no backbone, or clearly morals of any kind. This women should be run out of town, not given awards. I called Ms. Jenkins to express my outrage and she claimed "she (Knight) has done a lot for this community". I told her she was "off her rocker" and she hung up on me. You know the mafia throws turkeys off the back of a truck every year, however I doubt they get awards for it from their local Chamber of Commerce. I can't believe people allow themselves to be so easily bought and paid for as they do in Thurston County. Knight's followers are aging and have no savings and no money left. People have DIED for not seeking medical attention due to this organization. Many decent people that JZ Knight lured to Yelm under false pretenses have nothing left. The city of Yelm itself was just about BANKRUPTED by Knight when she sued them. Once again the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil game you guys play is growing old.

Aeolian Dec 17, 2013 11:04am


Well what a surprise!...Virginia Coverdale posting poison in comments about JZ.
You and your minions don't hold any water here. You spout the same old trash talk that has been going on for months, regurgitated from sour grapes. Funny how your rants and vitriol don't change anything.. huh Ginny. Just hot air blowing around, and you do seem to get a lot of doors slammed in your face, and hung up phones, don't you. Maybe you should move away before you have an aneurysm from all that outrage.
One should take care of one's health you know. Have a Happy Christmas, enjoy your rocking chair, and don't fall off.

coverdalev Dec 17, 2013 11:44am

So you didn't drink Red Devil Lye? You don't realize Omega and many other investments she told you to invest in were scams? No one calls me Ginny so you don't know me, don't pretend you do. I don't care how many doors slam in my face I will continue to try to alert people as to what is really going on behind that wall. I don't have minions, there are hundreds of ex followers who are waking up to the way they have been bamboozled and are courageous enough to speak out. I have no army, I don't need one. I have the truth on my side. I assume you asking about my health is not a threat for if is is I live at 8313 Meridian Rd. SE Olympia WA. Have enough guts to come in person.

eyeswideopen
eyeswideopen Dec 17, 2013 11:34am

Virginia is not the only person in the Thurston County area or the world who knows that JZ Knight is a cult leader and also a fraud. You can't buy everyone, only those who can't think for themselves or those who like to be next to someone who oozes someone else's money out of her pores!
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But he has nothing on at all, cried at last the whole people....
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