Nike co-founder Phil Knight makes record-setting donation to help elect Republicans
Nike co-founder Phil Knight makes record-setting donation to help elect Republicans
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/58347995
BOYCOTT NIKE!
He sells a running shoe. A shoe folks. Now he thinks he has the ability to shape the worlds future because of all the money he made exploiting the producers of the shoes and gouging the customers of the shoe. What a fucking stretch. What is with these "too much money" guys?
"a guy who exploits vulnerable workers in 3rd world countries to sell boujee sports wear to Americans makes a truly outrageous donation to ensure he can further inflict harm on the world without having to pay his fair share."
Fixed the headline
They have severe OCD Hoarding Disorder, and they have a serious compulsion to hoard money, even when they have far more than they or their descendents can ever spend.
If this was someone hoarding anything else at that level, cats, rusty cars, newspapers, junk, etc., the government would step in, remove their treasure, and get that person the mental help they require. We should do the same with Financial Hoarders - detain them and get them the mental health care they require, and remove their hoard that is making life difficult for their neighbors. If they were hoarding cats, we'd put them up for adoption, so their financial hoard should be redistributed to the citizens.
Oh look, yet another example of why we should tax wealth and not work.
I can't boycott no harder, we haven't purchased a name brand in weeks!
This is exactly why we shouldn't have billionaires. It's literally impossible to spend a billion dollars on things for yourself, so what's left but to spend it on manipulating other people.
They could spend it on bettering the world, but that would never occur to them.
"I don't want to live in a world where my company isn't the one company making the world better"
I resolved never to buy or wear Nike back in the late 90s. The companies practices are abominable but I also hated the culture of conspicuous consumption and the way people believed it gave them license to shit on others for not turning themselves into a walking ad. I grew up poor, so I know the feeling of being made to feel less-than because I got Pro Wings on instead of Jordans.
I know you said pro wings what are there any other brands you recommend? Is adidas any better? Been putting off buying new sneakers since Isreals genocide because every brand I looked at seemed to have some sort of ties.
Republican are the ones that burned Nikes for sponsoring Colin Kaepernick....
Imagine how many copies this sold
Yep, they were the wokiest of the woke before woke was woke.
Of course a sweat-shop owner is a republican.
Why are old republicans so fucking weird looking.
While Knight is generally reluctant to give interviews, he spoke with the New York Times in October 2022 regarding his support for Republican candidates. He argued Oregon's government had drifted too far to the left and described himself as "more conservative than Nike," responding to criticism of him backing an anti-abortion candidate which apparently contrasted with the company's image of supporting progressive social justice causes.[109] Nike itself donated $75,000 to Drazan and Johnson's Democratic opponent, Tina Kotek, the eventual winner of the election. - WIKIPEDIA
Not just the old ones, many of them in the administration look super strange with even weirder views.
One looks like they fought a lawnmower at a barbershop and lost, another looks like a fanfic witch from The Matrix, several of them look like cast members from The Witch (movie), others have...odd features that make them look like WW2 villains or slightly methed out. And all of them are batshit insane.
You can't even find people like that in a big city.
Psssttt....Nike replicas are so good now that they sometimes use medical scanning devices to try to tell them apart. They look identical down to the correct boxes, security tags, etc...
The people i know who wear nike, only wear nike. It's like a weird cult. I met two women this year who said they would NEVER wear anything else.
A cult...for Nike? Sounds classical
The weird, cultlike pseudo-romantic obsession people develop with brands is, frankly, deserving of medication for their mental derrangement.
Nike isnt even that good!
The last time I owned a pair of Nikes, they literally fell apart and were ruined by getting caught one time in the rain.
Imagine what these replica brands could achieve if they made their own stuff and people weren't married to the brands
So you are saying that you need medical scanning devices to make sure that a person wearing what looks like Nikes is not a fascist.
Some people buy products without looking too closely at the politics of the manufacturer. I would say that's how most people buy things.
We all have to exist in this system whether we like it or not, and unless you're living 100% off grid in a hovel in the woods, you're contributing to the slow ascent of fascism in one way or another. Turn your justifiably angry energy upwards, not at your fellow working class brothers and sisters.
No, I'm saying if you like the look of the shoes, but don't want to give money to a shitty company, pirate them via illegitimate copies.
Got it. Brand is dead to me.
Been dead for decades with their quality and child labor abuse.
In a shocking turn of events, a business executive is scum.
What a piece of shit
After the recent election? You can kiss that fucking money goodbye. Have fun losing big.
Maybe he's also invested in the advertising agencies that the candidates will be spending their money with.
I'm sure Russia will appreciate the income.
Wow.
What an utter piece of human garbage who's doing what he can at the end of his privileged life to harm others.
Wow fuck that guy
MFW I don't buy Nike shit anyway
This is the guy who invented asian labor exploitation and hid it behind Michael Jordan.
He looks exactly how you would think.
Fuck him. I have not and never will support his brand.
Evil really makes you look like a corroded ballsack
Bruh, I remember a few years ago (before covid) in my deep blue city public school, kids would make fun of you if your wear shoes that aren't nikes, especially like no name brand shoes or even sketchers.
Like wtf. Its highschool, so immature...
Some kids even got "designer" shoes or whatever for $500-$1000, like... the fuck?!?
Its shoes... 🤦♂️
Ugh, kids these days.
Vans or bust
I remember in the late 80s and early 90s multiple kids were killed in the US over their shoes. Usually by people they knew.
When the designer luxury worship culture gets so bad that kids are killing each other over attaining it.. something major has to change.
Solution is to raise minimum wage, increase social support, and raise the poorest up out of poverty. These killings are incredibly rare in the rest of the developed world.
But thanks mostly to conservatives we know that this hasn't happened in the US, and kids who live in borderline poverty are still killing people for their designer sneakers. The only thing that's changed in 30 years is the brands.
Bribe. That's called a bribe. Also in an actual developed world, it would be called blatant corruption and treasonous.
That's why their shoes are so expensive!
Havent bought Nikes in awhile. Sadly, kids are still under the impression they are worth something. So you have to fight the brand building at a young age
Time for a good old fashioned shoe burning!
How does he go from this:
to supporting Trump and Oregon republicans?
It does not compute
Corporations are psychopaths. They don't need you to be republican, they just want your money to become more powerful. They say whatever you want to hear to get it.
He just used him to sell shoes.
Phil was no longer directly involved with the company when this ad campaign came out.
Easily. People as rich as he is, view people like you and I as a different class of humans (which we are) so the things they tell us to do (like "sacrificing everything") are not applicable to people from their own class (who sacrifice nothing, except us).
"Billions of you are probably going to die so that we can have everything we want, but that is a sacrifice we are willing to make... and really, the planet will be better off with you gone anyway"
Fuck Nike
Boycott
Just don't do it.
Pretty ironic, given that Oregon Republicans are best known for taking the ball and going home...
I wore Nike running shoes one season. They broke my leg (stress fracture) before I hit 200 miles. Never had that problem with any other shoe.
nike is short for nikael.
Meh. This is Oregon. That kind of money may get 1 or 2 more republicans in the legislature. Probably moderate republicans even. But it isn't going to change much for the state. I don’t happen to buy anything Nike anyway. But overall, we got bigger fish to fry right now.
Just Boycott
Fuck the ducks.
Yeah, f-him and I have not purchased a Nike product in over 20 years. Onitsuka, Asics, Brooks, Astra and Puma are the ones I choose from.
I some some bad news for you about Brooks.
+1....NOOOOO!!! I thought Brooks was politically neutral.
Oh no, not them too!?!?
Welp, won't be hard for me to buy Nike shoes ever again. Is uhhh the Adidas founder just as shit too or can I buy those or Puma? I just want some low profile shoes like converse, but that you can actually walk around in all day. I used to wear converse, but those killed my feet and def aren't shoes for winter either lol.
Just buy some quality shoes. They'll last. Poor people buy cheap shoes that don't last long. Hence they have to buy more shoes, thus staying poor because they need do keep buying shoes. Simple economics
It's almost like poor people buy cheap shoes because they can't afford quality shoes.
I like lems for converse type shoes. Roomy and not much cushion, but in a good way.
Boycot all rich assholes who think they have a right to interfere in our democracy! Fuck these rich Nazis. Also nikes are shit. Overpriced garbage and they smell terrible if they get wet.
Hoka, On, and any other brand it is.
👀 Adidas and Puma right, no longer being the only sportswear brands with connections to fascism
Its like ethics and morality don't matter to capitalists when there is a despot with big coffers to appease.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_the_Holocaust
More drama USA! get popcorn guys! comments will be fun to read!
\
Thats how USA solves problems.
Phil isn’t even on the board of directors anymore. Most Nike employees are pretty progressive.
nike customers likely lean to the left as well. its usually corporate employees that are conservative, this excludes the "lower than managment employees"
I already did, since they rejected "Sweatshop" from the customizable snickers
Nikes are bar none the worst shoes people try to have me repair. They are made from shitty criminally overpriced plastic and foam that decomposes and falls apart in the box let alone after someone wears them
What shoes do you recommend? Looking to get a new pair soon.
From my point of view athletic shoes aren't really a thing that can be effectively repaired because even the nice ones use plastics that aren't easy to work with after they've been worn. I can usually do something but its sentiment that keeps them going not quality. But really the lesson I try to teach people is to not give a fuck about the name on the shoe. It vastly more important to know how a shoe is supposed to fit on your foot and that it feels comfortable long term.
Edit: I will add a few names to avoid pretty much entirely though. Post-1988 Cole Haan (owned by Nike), Louis Vuitton and Ecco
I have a pair of redwings I've had repaired 3x over the last 14 years. They're expensive, but worth adding to the list.
I wouldn't expect any sneaker to be repairable. I switched to OnCloud and love them, Hoka is another solid brand.
For repairable shoes, leather Goodyear welt is where to start. Best entry level brand is Thursday Boot company, but Redwing is super popular too.
Solomon are hands down my favorite shoe brand. The perfect blend of comfort and ruggedness.
If you're talking about easily available running shoes, there are still select New Balances that are union made in the US (as of a couple of years ago).
If you're looking for just sneakers, there are a ton made in Europe you can get shipped to north america! I have Vegas at the moment
At least when it comes to running shoes, I’m of the opinion that the shoe chooses you. Go to a running store and try on a few brands, find the one that feels the best. Buy one pair from that store; every subsequent time you buy running shoes you know the band and model and can buy it wherever is cheaper.
I don't repair shoes, but I work in a place that sells them and I know exactly what you mean. They're shit. Adidas are the better of the big 2 brands.
How does Puma rate in comparison?
Definitely like Adidas better than most
As someone with wide feet, Nike seems to be the only one making shoes that even fit my feet. There's been numerous Adidas shoes that I wanted to get but the fit is just way too narrow.
Nikes - made for children by children.
Huh, I would have never thought to ask about most mass produced shoes. I guess my redwing boots are fairly mass produced, and ive gotten those resolved, but even my merril boots I dont think of as being repairable.
I used to work as a bike mechanic in my teens, and it was pretty standard for shops to have a 'no department store' policy for repairs. We'd chance a tube, but trying true a wheel, or properly set breaks and gear on those soft metal, low presicision components just wasnt worth it.
I won't say it'll always be a good looking repair but it'll be functional. Always worth it to let one of us take a look
and the obvious sweatshop, factory labor.
I have never had shoes that fit my feet. Ever.
How hard/expensive would it realistically be to design and build/have built my own shoes?
$500-2000 depends on what sort of shoe, where you buy it and so forth. If you go to a poor country it can be had for a lot less though. It might well be worth to have that vacation and find a shoemaker. You certainly will not exploit them nearly as badly as Nike.