Rainbow capitalism is still exploitive capitalism

  • bean@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Why is it legal for them to donate money to policymakers? I don’t understand how we just allow lobbying like this. It is a root of corruption! It overrides the will of the people through buying an politicians vote on an issue.

    • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      because citizens united allows for corporate personhood, giving them all the benefits of citizenry, with none of the obligations.

      • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I remember them saying it was the death of democracy. I remember saying 2010 was the last real election. And then before we knew it, dark money super PAC hell. This court hasn’t been legitimate in a long time.

    • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      The people in charge of whether they can be bribed are the same people receiving the bribes. The accountability of politicians under elections to prevent this behavior depends on a well informed and educated electorate which the wealth class has undermined for decades.

    • fiercekitten@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      Because our politicians are bought and corrupted by corporate money, so getting them to repeal Citzens United is going to be very difficult.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago
    AT&T                         $63,050          $581,500           $625,000                 $1,269,550
    Altria                       $36,000          $252,000           $937,471                 $1,225,471
    Comcast                      $26,000          $413,000           $785,000                 $1,224,000
    Charter Communications       $26,350          $321,500           $717,200                 $1,101,050
    CVS                          $17,250          $127,000           $935,235                 $1,079,485
    UnitedHealth Group           $40,750          $188,000           $800,000                 $1,028,750
    Pfizer                       $23,950          $223,000           $752,120                 $999,070
    Walmart                      $14,500          $280,500           $670,000                 $965,000
    General Motors               $18,250          $206,800           $670,000                 $894,250
    Home Depot                   $0               $407,500           $450,000                 $857,500
    Google                       $0               $158,000           $570,000                 $728,000
    Deloitte                     $12,500          $365,500           $301,000                 $679,000
    Amazon                       $31,500          $170,500           $475,635                 $677,635
    UPS                          $15,000          $481,500           $100,000                 $596,500
    Microsoft                    $2,000           $180,500           $400,000                 $582,500
    Visa                         $0               $211,000           $350,000                 $561,000
    Eli Lilly and Company        $25,000          $155,000           $332,500                 $512,500
    Aflac                        $0               $352,000           $100,950                 $452,950
    Blue Cross Blue Shield       $0               $222,650           $225,500                 $448,150
    T-Mobile                     $3,450           $237,000           $200,950                 $441,400
    Boeing                       $2,000           $384,000           $0                       $386,000
    Verizon                      $0               $321,000           $0                       $321,000
    Delta Air Lines              $0               $205,000           $105,500                 $310,500
    FedEx                        $22,500          $24,000            $0                       $46,500
    Dell                         $0               $209,000           $0                       $209,000```
    • Maeve@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

      Shares location, collects other data, no data deletion. I really like the idea of the app, just not the lack* of privacy.

      • Beaver @lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        Yeah that is my sticking point of the app as well. I have submitted feedback asking for more privacy.

      • Beaver @lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        I’m unaware of any at the moment.

        You can do manual research by auditing companies and reading articles.

  • Unlocalhost@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    This is was bound to happen once corporate interests started showing up. They don’t care about the people they simply want their $$.

  • twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days ago

    Even barring actual harm done against the queer community, there really should be a requirement that companies using pride flags for advertising contribute in some way to LGBTQ+ organizations. Otherwise all it will ever mean is: “we’ll take your money.”

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      The gays need to go Susan G. Komen on the rainbow flag. Trademark it and sue the hell out of anyone that doesn’t “lease the rights to display the flag outside of a place of business”.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

      I think you’re going to have to use trademarks for this.

      Start a non-profit group promoting queer community rights, create a trademarkable logo (maybe a rainbow flag could be used, or you might need more unique symbology) and then you can license that logo only to companies that do actually support the cause.

  • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I’m going to my city’s Pride parade tomorrow, Verizon will have a booth there as a “silver level” sponsor, I think I’ll stop and give them a piece of my mind.

    • Themadbeagle@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      If you do, please know that it is possible the people at the booth are just low level employees with no say in the corporate policy and while these companies do deserve your ire, these individuals don’t deserve you yelling or screaming. By all means let them know your opinion and tell them that version is not welcome at the parade, but don’t attack or harass the employees.

    • rozodru@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      hot take on my part but I think people should stop going to pride parades completely. I dont’ know about other cities but here in Toronto it’s become essentially a walking in real life commercial for companies. This combined with the fact they took nearly $2mil in government grants here and simply pocketed the money. now they have to pay back $500k of it. They didn’t use that money to benefit the community or LGTBQ+ orgs, nope, they just stuck it in their pockets.

      Add to the fact none of these companies care about you giving them a piece of your mind, they don’t care. Some low level Verizon employee couldn’t give two flying fucks what you say about their corporate overlords. they don’t get paid enough to deal with that.

      How do you stick it to them? stop going to pride, stop buying their shit in June. Once they realize that pandering to people for one month to hopefully see an increase in sales doesn’t work then they’ll stop doing it. And show these pride orgs that have sold their souls to corporations that you won’t tolerate them making money on the backs of the community.

      • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        I go to Pride to revel in my community and support the local LGBT vendors/small businesses. Couldn’t care less about whatever big corp is there, as they’re all equally soulless. Plus I like to get my face painted

      • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        We’ve got at least two pride events where I live. There’s “corpo pride” with the parades and booths set up by corporate sponsors. You may get a few local businesses in there, but it’s mostly the flag waving corporations clamoring for cash. That was earlier this month. Next weekend we’ll have “people’s pride” which is funded and organized directly by local people. Tends to be much more fun.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Sounds like the Human Rights Campaign organization is crap if they just hand out good ratings regardless even if the reviewed corp donated to anti-lgbtq politicians.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I feel sorry for people that fall for companies that do performative things like slap some colors on a product…

  • eskimofry@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Not trying to side with businesses (Yuck) but was it about other issues where these politicians were pro business? I mean if you are trying to avoid antigay politicians… you might run the risk of missing out on the majority who have significant power to sway policy making…

    • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Any company that would trade the dignity of a group of people for their own profits doesn’t deserve my patronage.

    • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Seems pretty easy to avoid if you don’t donate to the Republican party. And if you are willing to do that, then the business is fundamentally immoral (or amoral if you’re being generous).

    • daq@lemmy.sdf.org
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      6 days ago

      Interesting that there’s a comment posted an hour before yours that says the same exact thing, but it’s upvoted, but yours is downvoted. Would be interesting to see conservative VS liberal leanings on Lemmy by time of day.

      By the way, I completely agree with you. These stats have nothing to do with lgbtq community and everything to do with business looking out for its interests.

      For example all 3 cellphone providers available in US are on the list. Most likely the only reason donations vary is because they are either based in or focusing their business in different states. What are you going to do? Switch to using ham radio?

    • PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 days ago

      Not even just that. How many of these companies also donated to other politicians in that same race? Seems more of a move to have sway in politics than endorsement of any particular stance.