Cynical or what?

7 Responses to Cynical or what?

1. Di-Ohso says:

   January 26, 2013 at 10:49 am

   Or perhaps they’re finally learning that you can only go so far before the shortcuts to huge profits come back to haunt you.

   0
2. bim_ballace says:

   January 26, 2013 at 3:51 pm

   The stock has really tanked too over the past 5 months – down from about $700 to $440 or so.

   0
3. bim_ballace says:

   January 26, 2013 at 4:08 pm

   They are, in any case, trying REALLY hard to burnish their image, as this story, as well, would seem to show.

   Interesting thing here in the US, at least: there is a hierarchy of loathing when it comes to companies; those that sell products used and loved by the rich and their proxies (Apple, Whole Foods) are often given a pass, while those that can easily be avoided by these same people (Walmart, Taco Bell) are excoriated.

   There are a million ways to improve the lives of workers (just as there are a million ways to improve healthcare), but you can generally count on a solution to problems that is wholly amenable to the soulless corporatist golf buddies of the Boehners and Obamas of the world. The lumpenproletariat really don’t matter much as long as they don’t get all riled up.

   0
4. bluthner says:

   January 27, 2013 at 3:38 am

   The lumpenproletariat really don’t matter much as long as they don’t get all riled up.

   Hence of course the drive to keep them all riled up about other stuff, like black helicopters flying in to take their guns away, and shifless umarried welfare wenches eating lobster on food stamps.

   The beauty of global labor markets (as seen from the heights) is that, in the same way movies with ‘foreign’ protagonists don’t find much traction with mass audiences (in the U.S. in any case) stories about exploited workers who are foreign don’t find much traction with the those same ‘folks’ either.

   Christ we are having enough trouble getting low-earning whites even to recognize the humanity of their low-earning darker skinned neighbors. Now you want them to care about some kids in a factory in commie totalitarian capitalist fucking China? Where they eat all that weird shit and and don’t even use forks?!

   We could of course appeal to brother Jesus: insofar as you deny the humanity of any other person you deny your own humanity, but then even brother Jesus has been transformed into a light-haired, light-eyed, pointy-nosed pale-skinned nordic type in the Christian mass audience’s inner eye. They can’t even identify with Him as he would have been.

   Apple isn’t hurting anybody they know or would be able to know or would be able to care about if they could even imagine knowing her or him. So it kinda makes sense that they don’t give a shit about Apple, but they do give a shit about Wallmart. And Taco Bell. They can feel that pain.

   0
5. bluthner says:

   January 27, 2013 at 3:40 am

   Okay that was weird. I’m gonna try again:

   The lumpenproletariat really don’t matter much as long as they don’t get all riled up.

   Hence of course the drive to keep them all riled up about other stuff, like black helicopters flying in to take their guns away, and shifless umarried welfare wenches eating lobster on food stamps.

   The beauty of global labor markets (as seen from the heights) is that, in the same way movies with ‘foreign’ protagonists don’t find much traction with mass audiences (in the U.S. in any case) stories about exploited workers who are foreign don’t find much traction with the those same ‘folks’ either.

   Christ we are having enough trouble getting low-earning whites even to recognize the humanity of their low-earning darker skinned neighbors. Now you want them to care about some kids in a factory in commie (strike that) totalitarian capitalist fucking China? Where they eat all that weird shit and and don’t even use forks?!

   We could of course appeal to brother Jesus: insofar as you deny the humanity of any other person you deny your own humanity, but then even brother Jesus has been transformed into a light-haired, light-eyed, pointy-nosed pale-skinned nordic type in the Christian mass audience’s inner eye. They can’t even identify with Him as he would have been.

   Apple isn’t hurting anybody they know or would be able to know or would be able to care about if they could even imagine knowing her or him. So it kinda makes sense that they don’t give a shit about Apple, but they do give a shit about Wallmart. And Taco Bell. They can feel that pain.

   1
6. Pornstar says:

   January 27, 2013 at 6:46 am

   I’d like to put a bid in for Amazon as the anti-christ too. So there really isn’t anywhere to buy your books or music these days, is there.

   0
7. bim_ballace says:

   January 27, 2013 at 10:30 am

   So it kinda makes sense that they don’t give a shit about Apple, but they do give a shit about Wallmart. And Taco Bell. They can feel that pain.

   Proximity does seem to foster some useful sentimentality, but there’s no substitute for mixing it up a little with those who engender such concern. But who does that when they don’t have to? When they’re not born into it? Very few, I would think, though I can name a few (including some big-name American politicians) who have.

   0