Patagonia..my beloved Patagonia!

Suck my Dick, Trump!

No, not the region at the tip of South America shared by Chile and Argentina. The "Yupscale" firm that sells "rugged outdoor gear" to the bike lock wielding, anti-Trump, Antifa SJWs who have blood shooting out of their eyes whenever they even think about our duly-elected POTUS. And it's run by Rose Marcario who has declared war on the Trump administration. (Emphasis added.) She's pledged her company's resources in a life and death struggle to topple the regime of the hated Orange Hitler. Apparently, the butt hurt is occasioned because the government isn't going to gobble up land that belongs to the states and/or the people for the sake of a few granola-crunching, tree-hugging, socialist EnviroNazis:

The CEO of outdoor clothing giant Patagonia is burnishing her anti-Republican bona fides again, this time saying she intends to pledge her entire company to the “resistance” of President Donald Trump.

Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario recently attacked President Trump for his statements about rolling back President Obama’s unusually aggressive campaign of confiscating millions of acres of state lands and claiming them as “national monuments.”

“We have to fight like hell to keep every inch of public land,” Marcario said in a May article at Huffpost. “I don’t have a lot of faith in politics and politicians right now.”

In an effort to prevent citizens from retaking possession of their state lands, one of her immediate actions will be to sue the Trump administration for its efforts to scale back Obama’s unprecedented land grab.

“A president does not have the authority to rescind a national monument,” Marcario said in an April 26 statement after Trump announced his national monuments order. “An attempt to change the boundaries ignores the review process of cultural and historical characteristics and the public input.”

Boy-o, where to begin?

“I don’t have a lot of faith in politics and politicians right now.”

Right now? How about your looking the other way when The Lawn Jockey POTUS and his cronies in Congress and the DOJ and other agencies was stealing the bread out of the mouths of American workers and their families? How about, oh great lover of peace and calm and open spaces and Kumbaya, coming down on the ramping up of obscene violence and loss of civility by the unhinged left of which you are a part? How about just suck a giant dick, you Adam's apple-ed, transgender piece of shit!

But, to the point: Tucker Carson and several pro-Trump folks on You Tube and other social media outlets decry boycotts because "it affect the employees at a company or business" or words to that effect. To which I politely but firmly respond, "Bullsh*t"!

And, on sites like Weasel Zippers and The Gateway Pundit many wise commenters concur: corporate actions have consequences. Target could have solved the transgender thing quietly and simply by adding several of those single-person restrooms in their stores so the over-the-road teamster who had a desire to wear a colorful Summer chemise and open toed pumps could take a dump there instead of wandering into the ladies' room and ogling your nine year old. But, no-o-o-o-o, they wanted to make a big deal out of it and virtue signal. The consequences were a purported loss of $20 billion in their stock value.

Also, who in the hell feels like going to see a Matt Damon or Mark Ruffalo movie these days? Or have you recently tried to get seats at one of those rapidly vanishing Kathy Griffin roadhouse appearances? Don;t know about you, but I am now MORE inclined to purchase a Squatty Potty these days.

Beating a dead horse here, I realize, but boycotting is the one relatively easy and bloodless methods of expressing our outrage at those who virtue signal -- whether it's a marketing ploy or the CEO just lost it.

Anyway, I posted essentially the same thing on today's Gateway Pundit's thread and harvested some stuff from a couple of commenters. The first, plastic_jeezus, picked up on Patagonia's self-serving Newspeak in their FAQ's:

Here I pick up Mr Jeezus's narrative with a screen scrape of this preposterous load of cod's wallop that the fleece-lined bull dyke's company emits:

....their "public relations" department might as well be called "the ministry of truth"....

http://www.patagonia.com/co...

Do workers in factories making Patagonia clothes earn a living wage?

Most do not earn a living wage, which is generally defined as sufficient compensation for a family to live on. Since early 2013, our Code of Conduct has required Patagonia factories to move toward paying a living wage, as well as paying legal minimum wage, overtime and abiding by benefit regulations. Manufacture of our more technical clothing requires highly skilled labor from operators who generally earn a decent hourly rate in their labor market. Some workers can earn close to a living wage through piece-rate pay. We prefer to work with factories that pay workers enough to meet basic needs–and more. We track minimum and prevailing wages in each country we work in, and work toward a fair or living wage in our costing negotiations with each factory. Our social audits and FLA monitoring reveal that many of our factories already pay above minimum wage for some or all of their workers.

We agree workers should be paid a living wage, but we don’t pay it, at least not yet. There are several reasons why. Sewing is low-paid work, the industry is competitive and many governments, including the U.S., set a low minimum wage. Factories often make products for multiple brands, and pay their workers the same wage regardless of which brand they’re working for. So for a factory to pay its workers more, all brands making products in that factory have to agree to pay more. Factories also have to be assured they will not lose business if they charge more for their products to pay higher wages. (A loss of business can result in worker layoffs, which would not be a good outcome.) And last, consumers have to be willing to pay more for products to ensure workers earn a living wage.

We believe the Fair Labor Association’s effort to establish a living wage (or fair wage) clause is the best way to achieve it. All companies that belong to the association would agree to it in their Codes of Conduct, along with a graduated or “stepped” timetable for achieving it. To be effective, any new wage clause has to have teeth and include provisions for auditor training and factory verification. We are working for this within the FLA.

In 2013, we announced our partnership with Fair Trade USA–an NGO that audits our Fair Trade factories, calculates a living wage for their workers and manages a program whereby Patagonia pays a premium, on top of our FOB price, that goes directly into a bank account controlled by the workers. A democratically elected worker committee decides how best to use the money. This includes distributing it as a bonus to bring workers closer to a living wage. It’s one of our first concrete steps in figuring out how Patagonia can best help to raise wages in our supply chain.

Also, I earned this stunning response from Uncle Monkey who put all this Corporate virtue signalling in stark perspective:

I'll leave it there, but if you all are in need of outdoor wear and want to go a few notches above Wal-Mart or the local Salvation Army store but want to make a pilitical statement and do not want to spend $800 for a fleece-lined coat made from $5 worth of materials and $10 is sweatshop labor in some third world shit hole, consider sending some of your filthy lucre to Linda Bean of L. L. Bean who supported and endorsed Donald Trump for President. Hell, we might turn this into a contest to see who is successful and who folds.

My money's on Linda Bean.

The Play is the Thing..

I wanted to briefly wander back to the modern rendition of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar being on offer for free in New York City's Central Park wherein the play's namesake is a character bearing a planned resemblance to President Donald Trump. Per the play and history, Julius Caesar is assassinated by Cassius, the ringleader of the conspirators and those who he has convinced to participate -- among them Brutus, a general and close friend of Caesar.

Because of the portrayal, there seems to be outrage from the right and counter-outrage from the left, apparently because corporate sponsorship has been disappearing faster that Kathy Griffin's roadhouse gigs.

But the controversy largely ignores the history of Julius Caesar, which has been nodding to contemporary politics since its very first staging. “The play was written for a fiercely politicized and partisan people,” the playwright Tony Kushner has argued, “during a time ... when democratic institutions were seriously jeopardized by immensely arrogant, immensely popular leaders with despotic inclinations and dreams of empires.” In 1599 when Caesar premiered, Queen Elizabeth I had been in power for four decades and the question of who would succeed her was a troublesome one. A “Bishop’s Ban” imposed on literary works the same year had cracked down on satire, and many have interpreted Caesar as critiquing the monarch’s stranglehold on power while slyly evading the wrath of the censors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah..whatevs. But a point is being missed. Those of you who have read/studied this play (oft required in high school English in the old days) should remember that, while Julius Caesar (Trump), was brutally murdered in Act 3 Scene 1, the play drags on for two more full acts ending up with a lot of the conspirators having their weekends ruined and otherwise "running on their swords", etc.

A good time was not had by all.

So, after the players get their yucks for the first two acts of the play (Caesar gets his in Act 3 Scene 1), the rest of the show slogs through hand wringing and the general unraveling of the conspirators' cohesion. Literally, from the moment of Caesar's death and, in fact, while he was lying on the steps of the Senate, Mark Antony steps in and gives the pivotal speech that basically turns the animosity and hatred of the assembled crowd towards Caesar and sympathy for the conspirators to antipathy for their deeds and sadness at the loss of their emperor. (Especially when they find that JC left them all something in his will.)

Below is Marc Antony's speech -- done by Marlon Brando in his tour de force 1953 performance. I excerpted some of the speech so you can appreciate how Antony sarcastically skewers Brutus and Cassius and the rest of that posse over the brutal assassination.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones: So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault; And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest..for Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honorable men.

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me. But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, whose ransoms did the general coffers fill. Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff! Yet Brutus says he was ambitious and Brutus is an honourable man. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious and, sure, he is an honourable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once -- not without cause. What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him? O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason!

Bear with me. My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world. Now lies he there and none so poor to do him reverence. O masters, if I were disposed to stir Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong, who, you all know, are honourable men And I will not do them wrong. I rather choose To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you, than I will wrong such honourable men. But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar -- I found it in his closet -- tis his will. Let but the commons hear this testament which, pardon me, I do not mean to read and they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, and dip their napkins in his sacred blood, Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, and, dying, mention it within their wills, bequeathing it as a rich legacy Unto their issue.

Indeed, for the company of players -- who I will wager has few Trump fans in their midst -- it must have been a tough slog to the play's end with their having to choke out the ironic words that described the conspirators' downfall and the concomitant rise of the adoration of their Caesar~Trump. I am certain-sure they will bring it off like the troopers they are.

For they are, all, honorable men.

¡Juk! ¡Juk! ¡Juk!

Hint: it's like one of those Hitler remixes! But this one is not:

Wish I could can the laughter on the last one and replay it to these folks!

London Bridges Falling Down..