• psvrh@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      To be honest, the people who actually run LL Bean have written open letters distancing them and the company from Linda and her views.

      They are (were) stuck with her earning dividends, but she didn’t have actual support from or much influence on the company.

      She mostly just took dividends, hocked her lobster rolls and created a PR problem for the company.

      • NegativeInf@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        The money the company made, whether the company liked it or not, benefited causes that oppressed or sought oppression of one’s fellow man. I don’t care how “nice” and “good” and “distant” the Nazi fundraiser is from your core business. Your core business still in practice supports those causes financially. It’s difference without distinction. Stop buying Nazi stormtrooper coats because they are “Just so fluffy!”

        • psvrh@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          The thing is they had no way to stop paying shareholder dividends to a her.

          Currently, there’s no law on the books that let’s a company not sell shares or not pay dividends to a Nazi. I wish there was, but there isn’t.

          They did the best they could, which was saying “this person and their views are not held, endorsed or supported by the company and its staff and other directors.”

          This is very different from, eg Hobby Lobby or MyPillow, where the company endorsed the views of and is actively run by Nazis.

          • NegativeInf@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I’m not saying don’t pay the Nazi from the company perspective. I’m saying as a consumer I shouldn’t support this company because the dividends go to a Nazi.

            • psvrh@lemmy.ca
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              8 months ago

              Fair, but I suppose the concern is that doing so punishes every non-Nazi owner, manager or worker.

              If I started a company, went public, and a fascist dipshit bought 10% of that company shares on the open market, do I deserve to be punished despite my putting out a press release that says I don’t agree with said fascist dipshit, but I can’t do anything about them because of contract law?

        • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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          8 months ago

          But they just said this Nazi lady had nothing to do with them other than collecting share dividends. I don’t understand your comment based on that?

          • krolden
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            8 months ago

            Share dividends that she no doubt used to fund right wing organizations.

              • krolden
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                8 months ago

                I can not buy llbean stuff and neither should you. Thats the point.

                If you bought any LL bean stuff you were indirectly funding trump and anti abortion orgs

    • BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      They were amazing once, but that was sort of a long time ago now.

      They had super high quality with an unbelievably good warranty. Basically, most of the store was buy it for life. They dropped quality and then the warranty followed. Now it’s mostly just a familiar name.

      Makes sense they’re trumptards

      • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        List of chairmen

        • Leon Gorman (2001–2013)
        • Shawn Gorman (since May 2013)

        List of CEOs

        • Leon L. Bean (1912–1967)
        • Leon Gorman (1967–2001)
        • Christopher McCormick (2001–2015); first non-family CEO
        • Stephen Smith (since November 2015)

        This largely lines up with my experience with their quality over time.

      • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I remember learning about LL Bean from Seinfeld and asking why people like it. Later when I wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck and started buying quality goods, I learned that their famous warranty was gone. Which sucks because I’m all about BIFL.

        • Empyreus@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          This is why I switched to Patagonia, quality stuff, great customer service, great warranty.

            • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Yeah from what I’ve heard it’s owned by someone who genuinely wants to make the world less awful. Whether or not that’s true idk, but I’ll always prioritize a company that acknowledges and claims to attempt to minimize environmental impact over one owned by bigots

              • Dark Arc@lemmy.world
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                It was owned by someone like that, he gave the company away and it’s now owned by a bunch of non-profits oriented around environmentalism.

    • jeffw@lemmy.worldOPM
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      8 months ago

      That was the lesson in 2017, idk who the heirs are now or what their politics are

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I hadn’t heard about this one. New Balance was the big one for me since they also heavily donated to Trump.

        • Zerlyna@lemmy.world
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          We need an updated list of those companies. I don’t readily see a current one.

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Did they? Damn, they’re the only shoes I’ve tried that fit my flat feet.

          • stoly@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Try out some urban boots or even just a casual “dress” shoe. In my experience, having the hard, lifted heel makes all the difference in the world to your back and other things. It made my knees better, my feet don’t hurt, and I don’t deal with daily back pain anymore. I have tennis shoes/sneakers/etc at home but the are only for exercise. For walking around, going to work, etc., it’s always a pair of boots.

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            8 months ago

            I have flat feet and Hokas are pretty good.

            Now I just wait for someone to come along and tell me they support Cthulhu or something for president.

        • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 months ago

          FUCK. They’re the only ones I’ve found that make a 6E width shoe that actually fits me (flat, super wide feet with massive instep. my feet are basically bricks.)

            • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              8 months ago

              Yeah, I do need to make the switch. I had boots for work at something (nonslip and it’s all that would fit) but food service destroyed them. Just very hesitant to drop that kinda cash (tennis shoes alone run ne $200+). Red wing still any good? Heard mixed things about them these days, and specific product lines being good/bad

              • stoly@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                My boss turned me on to these:

                https://thursdayboots.com

                They are great. I wear them everywhere and am on my second pair now. I’d say you get 2 - 5 years of heavy, daily use but they probably aren’t for work in a woodshop or whatnot.

                • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  I wish online shopping was an option for me, I can’t justify the money on things I can’t try on in-person sadly. Looks like they only go up to 3E width anyway.

                  They do look nice though!

              • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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                I like my red wings but I can’t speak on the company’s politics.

                In general find a smaller company and ask how resoleable they are. A great boot can be repaired for life instead of replaced. They can be uncomfortable to break in but once you do they’re amazing.

        • Wahots@pawb.social
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          8 months ago

          NB seems to be Trump’s target market, lol. Or at least I tend to associate them with old people.

          Vans? Now, that would be a shocker.

  • anon6789@lemmy.world
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    From the Linda Bean wiki entry:

    In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation, stated that Linda Bean was a member of the then-35-year-old “shadowy and intensely secretive group” the Council for National Policy; stating what is “most remarkable about the directory is that it reveals how the CNP has become a key meeting place where ostensibly mainstream conservatives interact with individuals who are, by any reasonable definition, genuinely extremist.” She was a longtime member, having been invited to join the Council for National Policy established by Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese after the Reagan years.

    Wow, never heard of the Council for National Policy before, which seems to be the point.

    If you ever wondered why the right believes in shadowy liberal cabals, give the Wikipedia article a read

    Members are instructed not to reveal their membership or even name the group.

    The CNP has been described by The New York Times as “a little-known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country”, who meet three times yearly behind closed doors at undisclosed locations for a confidential conference.

    • jeffw@lemmy.worldOPM
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      There’s a great book called Dark Money. It doesn’t get into CNP (I don’t recall it, at least), but it goes into a lot of the GOP megadonors and their shady shit. Probably dated by now, I’m sure shit has changed over the past 7 or 8 years

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        That looks pretty good. I’m a big fan of the Behind the Bastards podcast, and now that I’m commuting again I’ve also started listening to their It Could Happen Here one as well and it’s amazing how many of these groups exist from the local level on up. They feel like conspiracy theories until you start following legitimate reporting about them. It’s not Pizza Gate level crap, this has all been documented for decades. I like learning about it, but damn is it depressing when you see how the world works.

    • Wahots@pawb.social
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      Started by the Regan administration. When the US falls someday, it will be Regan who started it all. What a fucking dickhead.

      • anon6789@lemmy.world
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        I think Reagan has just been the most successful. I was just in single digits when he was president, but he seems to have had the charisma all the people wish they had. He seems to have accomplished a lot while still carrying on a positive legacy to anyone that doesn’t dig too deep, which is sadly the majority of adults in the US. If someone supported the things he did, I can see why they would think very fondly about this era.

        We can also look back to the pardoning of Nixon as the beginning of the end, as the right got to see what they did wrong and therefor remove most of those obstacles in the future. This is where we can really trace back their solid control over the media narrative to. Roger Ailes, Roger Stone, and numerous other began laying the groundwork for enabling what future conservative could get away with.

        Rewind more and we have Andrew Johnson and company going weak on the South. The path to becoming a progressive and inclusive nation was really screwed up by sweeping so much of the war under the rug and giving rich racists a do-over.

        I’m slowly learning more about the event before that as well, and there are numerous periods we could pick as being the moment, but no matter when or where you look, you’ll find a bunch of rich and/or powerful bastards trying to horde resources for themselves. We just seem to have a mental flaw as a species or something that we have a high enough percent of people that would rather burn everything down than to help someone they don’t like. It’s like some kind of universal limiter put on us from the plot of a sci-fi book .

        But I try not to get all fatalistic about it. I’m here for fun and to share things I’ve learned and cheer people up with hundreds of owl pictures. The political news scene on Lemmy is not the greatest, so I try to comment where I can avoid getting people more riled up while still showing them more details about a situation in a nonconfrontational way, but that’s a thin path to walk on…

      • anon6789@lemmy.world
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        Yes, the very same!

        Meese is still alive at a ripe old age of 92 and is on the board of directors for both the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.

        He was the most controversial Attorney General candidate since the 1920s. He served until being charged with numerous ethical violations, including bribing Israel to protect his friends’ oil pipeline in Iraq and using his position to profit in private business.

        He’s also famous for saying kids don’t go hungry in America, that’s just political lies and that people go to soup kitchens because they’re cheap and lazy.

        Meese Shmeese indeed!

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    The sudden removal of evil is always worth celebrating.

    May she be remembered as a villain so as to deter others from following in evil’s footsteps.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      I now feel the need to start leaving disgusting things to people I don’t like.

      “To Trump, I leave the unused roll of TP that feels like sandpaper in the hopes that he will finally cover his shittiness.”

      (in my defense, the TP was pandemic shortage TP. I’m not even sure it is TP.)

  • Wahots@pawb.social
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    8 months ago

    She was a major opponent of abortion rights, gay rights, and gun control, and even campaigned unsuccessfully for Congress in 1988 and 1992.

    What a lovely human being, I’m sure she was a great mother/s

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    8 months ago

    My condolences to LL. Cool J. She will be miss no more. No more will her musical fruit bring Truth to all of the Trumpfus supporters.