A CEO emeritus position is a non-voting board seat. Does he attend the meetings? I don’t know. But by virtue of his control over the makeup of the board, does he really even need to? The people that run Nike are the people Phil chose to run Nike. I don’t understand why you think it’s some inconceivable inferential leap to assume that Phil still wields influence concerning something this big.
Mark Parker has been at Nike for 40 years. I’m absolutely sure that Phil Knight trusts him to do what he chose him for.
In the same token I’m sure he also trusts Parker not to make a move that could cause significant PR headaches without reaching out and getting his perspective. How is that even a controversial point to you?
I haven’t done that, nor does that make any fucking sense. Can you show me the press release that says Phil has nothing to do with Nike anymore? No, you can’t, because that doesn’t exist. On the other hand, planets of circumstantial evidence exists to support the notion that Phil still has some power over his baby.
And ya know what? None of that was even my fucking point. My point was concerning the irony that those dipshits and their boycott are aimed at an institution which has provided significant funding to the politicians they elect. That’s why I brought up his politics. Take a chill pill man.
This is a terrible argument and needs to be called out. Each of those headstones represents a person, a real, live breathing person, who isn’t any more. Those are not political props. Which is what that argument reduces them to.
It’s not an argument to be refuted with “I’m a veteran…” (I’m not) It’s an “argument” that should be dismissed as you would any other strawman, though hat tip to @anon61833566 , well said.
I’m torn on Kap. On the one hand, he’s brought needed attention to a social issue, and it cost him his career. On the other, he’s not getting CTE right now. He seems like a decent fellow, I’d be glad to keep his head in one piece.
Tebow apparently kneeled in prayer between plays, but not during the Anthem, so I don’t think there is an equivalence. I am sure plenty of people are not happy with those who ignore the anthem, or make up funny verses. Probably the status and prominence of the person showing deliberate disrespect to the flag and anthem is going to be related to the magnitude of the reaction against them.
I get that many people here think patriotic reverence for the flag or country is idiotic. But the article is about why people are reacting so harshly towards CK’s actions and and the ad campaign slogan. The truth is that a bunch of people take basic respect for the flag and the anthem fairly seriously. You can mock those sentiments or just call them a bunch of racists. That is certainly easier than trying to actually look at their real motivations.
Absolutely agree with you on that. In many cases, the people who stand for the flag are thinking of a family member or friend who is under a headstone like that when the anthem is played.
Is also exactly why those same people are upset. A lot of people believe that CK is politicizing their sacrifice, and Nike is following up by monetizing it.
Maybe this is a stupid thought, but I’ve always felt that the National Anthem that we currently have should never have been chosen as our song. I have always thought that we shouldn’t be singing about war and fighting, and all the other detritus that is in the lyrics. American the Beautiful should be our anthem. My two cents anyway.
And the reality is that every public act a company performs will be seen as marketing and analyzed internally as marketing. The original motivations disappear in the fray.
Atheist though I am, I’ve always had a soft spot for “God Bless America”. Great, stirring tune. For obvious Constitutional reasons it couldn’t be the anthem, but isn’t it strange that Xtianists never push for it? Or maybe not so strange…
Isn’t it quite likely that the number of people actually destroying their own property in this case is completely out of proportion with the news coverage being lavished upon them?
I might also posit that the whole thing has been craftily staged to bring attention to Nike’s hiring of Colin Kaepernick, but I guess the insanity has to stop somewhere.
Well, ya know, for the life of me I can’t remember WHY they were doing that. Something dumb. Did it change my mind? Not a bit. The only lesson I pulled from that was “wow! They wasted 200 bucks for some dumb ass reason, and people ARE really dumb.”
I thought Tebow was out of line and didn’t want his religion agenda being a thing during a game. Then CK happened and I was thrilled with his politicking before the game, and it was a huge bummer for me to realize my own hypocrisy.
So I’m sure there are people that are offended by every piece of flag clothing, flag license plate frames, anthems sung incorrectly, every person taking a knee, and every hot dog sold during the anthem. But then there is a much larger set of people just like me that don’t see their own hypocrisy and instead hide behind rhetoric. What do you think the overlap of anti Ferguson/ pro thin blue line folks and anti CK are? Maybe they are way more adept at removing their feelings from making sound social and political arguments than I am but I doubt it.
I get that, but it represents a severe cognitive problem, in which “criticism” is always equated with “disrespect.”
Like some Biblical level foolishness going on (someone help me out here with the citation on that?)
If I’m fixing a lawnmower, and a dude comes up to me and says “hey, you put that part in upside down, and it’s going to blow up in your face, might wanna fix it,” a wise man will say “Oh, really? Thanks,” and fix it. An idiot goes “No way man! I love my mower! Stop disrespecting me and my mower and saying I did a bad job fixing it because I love it and nothing I love can possibly have anything wrong with it! Now hold my beer while I pull the rip cord.”__
I don’t know if ArchStanton does, or does not. I don’t think I’m in a position to know their mind, relative to that of the people they are speaking for. As for needing to defend them (and, to be clear, I’m not defending them), I think a better word might be “translate” or “articulate for,” (which I AM all for). I think it’s VERY important that we understand each other as much as possible. Even (and especially) people with whom we disagree. Understanding builds connections, and bridges gaps. Some of these passionate folks, bless their hearts, are just not good at articulating concepts or emotions. And, I would wager that a lot of people on this platform and others may not have had exposure to, let us say, that value system. WHY people are the way they are, and helping foster actual communication is always a good thing. I want to disagree with someone for GOOD reasons, AFTER I understand where they are coming from.
That too, is stereotyping. Also, it is fairly important to understand that other people can have differing opinions on even major issues, and those can be opinions that they arrived at through normal reasoning processes, but started with different life experiences and perspectives.
This whole line of reasoning seems to be “I feel like I am a good and moral person, and I believe A, so anyone who does not believe A must be stupid, evil, or simply not understand the issue as well as I do.”. There is a name for that sort of reasoning, but I do not remember it.
But hey, it probably depends on what your goals are in this discussion. If the goal is to find an excuse to call people names, then any comment I make would be irrelevant. If the goal is to understand the motivations behind their actions, then we might want to make that the focus of our conversation.
There are just people who aren’t willing to dig deep (linear thinkers, per Rosenberg) or who aren’t willing to dig at all (sequential thinkers), especially when such lazy thinking helps them confirm an existing bias or personal agenda.
I’ve found that it really transcends ideology, family background, economic and social class. I’ve seen Marxists (usually white male ones) with college credentials refuse to acknowledge or even decry the role of identity politics because it interferes with their more linear traditional narrative of “everything is about economic class warfare.” I’ve also met conservative officer corps vets from hardscrabble backgrounds who understand what Kaepernick is doing and accept his form of protest even if they don’t agree with him fully about the issue.
We currently tend to perceive these thought processes as “conservative” ones in large part because for 40 years movement conservatism in the U.S. has been predicated on gulling their supporters into voting against and distracting them from their own economic and often social self-interests. This is what created the 27% Know-Nothing base (really a sucker list) during that period and why their voting for America’s foremost public confidence artist was a perfectly logical outcome.
