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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday February 25 2018, @01:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the vox-populi dept.

We had submissions from three Soylentils with different takes on the NRA (National Rifle Association) and the public response in the wake of an attack at a Parkland, Florida high school.

Public Outcry Convinces National Companies to Cut Ties with NRA

Common Dreams reports:

In the latest sign that the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida tragedy may be playing out differently than the fallout from other mass shootings, several national companies have cut ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA).

[Car rental companies] Alamo, Enterprise, and National--all owned by Enterprise Holdings--announced late on [February 22] that they would end discounts for the NRA's five million members. Symantec, the security software giant that owns Lifelock and Norton, ended its discount program on Friday as well.

The First National Bank of Omaha also said it would stop issuing its NRA-branded Visa credit cards, emblazoned with the group's logo and called "the Official Credit Card of the NRA". The institution is the largest privately-held bank in the U.S., with locations in Nebraska, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and South Dakota.

Additional coverage on TheHill, MarketWatch, Independent and Politico.

The NRA Just Awarded FCC Chair Ajit Pai With a Gun for His 'Courage'

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai joined the pack at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday alongside fellow Republican commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Brendan Carr—the architects of the recent order repealing net neutrality protections passed in the Obama era.

Upon taking the stage, it was announced that Pai was receiving an award from the National Rifle Association: a handmade Kentucky long gun and plaque known as the "Charlton Heston Courage Under Fire Award."

https://gizmodo.com/the-nra-just-awarded-fcc-chair-ajit-pai-with-a-gun-for-1823273450

These Companies are Sticking by the NRA

Fallout continues from the mass murder in Florida. The National Rifle Association is taking it up the wazoo. A national boycott is emerging. If you are old enough, you will remember that this is what brought down Apartheid in South Africa.

From the Huffington Post:

In what may be a pivotal moment for American gun law reform, the National Rifle Association has become the object of intense pushback from anti-gun activists and survivors of last week's mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 dead.

All the attention prompted the gun-rights group to break from its usual strategy of keeping quiet after mass gun deaths. NRA officials have gone on the attack to rail against the "politicization" of a tragedy, and going so far as to suggest that members of the media "love mass shootings" because of the ratings they supposedly bring.

The uproar has once again presented companies affiliated with the NRA, and its powerful pro-gun lobby, with a question: to cut ties, or to continue a relationship with a large but controversial group?

The NRA partners with dozens of businesses to spread its pro-gun message and provide discounts to its members, who number 5 million, according to the group. But this week, some companies have begun to jump ship.

Facing pressure from consumers, the First National Bank of Omaha said Thursday it would stop issuing NRA-branded Visa credit cards after its contract with the group expires. Enterprise Holdings, which operates the rental car brands Enterprise, National and Alamo, says it will end its discount program for NRA members next month, along with Avis and Budget. Hertz is out, too.


Original Submissions: #1, #2, and #3.

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @04:59PM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @04:59PM (#643484)

    I would say that if your stats are true it makes the attack make more sense. Another crazy fucked up RWNJ being a crazy fucked up racist RWNJ targeting a racial group cause "they own the world and are screwing over everyone." You want to comain about PR making a difference? How about the this fucking story? Courage under fire award to the turd Pai? Lol, even hard core gun lovers probably took a step back at that one.

    Except you, you're a disgusting piece of human garbage so you just love this shit.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:09PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:09PM (#643551)

    "they own the world and are screwing over everyone."

    ...and when you draw back your focus, you notice that where that is true, it is only a part of the picture.

    The bigger picture is that the problem is CAPITALISM.

    Want things to get better?
    Change the ownership model where you work.
    A really smart guy suggests worker-owned cooperatives (Socialism). [democracyatwork.info] (More reasonable file sizes) [kpfa.org]

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:36PM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:36PM (#643563)

      If socialism is to work, it must be built atop capitalism; that is, socialism must be built atop voluntary trade.

      Capitalism is the necessary foundation of society.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:24PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:24PM (#643608)

        Capitalism is exploiting the labor of others.
        In a Socialist workplace, all workers are owners.

        If you're so smart, explain how it is possible to exploit yourself.

        voluntary trade

        Markets existed before Capitalism existed.
        These days, the (Socialist) Mondragon worker-owned cooperative engages in voluntary trade daily.

        Let me guess: You were "educated" in USAian schools.
        ...and clearly have swallowed a whole bunch of Cold War bullshit fed to you by Lamestream Media (a proxy for USA.gov).

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:49PM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:49PM (#643622)

          What does it mean to "exploit" the labor of others?

          Capitalism is merely the philosophy that ownership must be defined by agreement in advance of interaction; a dispute over ownership is the lack of a well-defined contract.

          When you say that the labor of others is being exploited, it sounds like you are not describing Capitalism. If you want your arguments to be persuasive, then you should adopt another term.

          I don't know what you mean by "socialism", but what I do know is that if you want a certain philosophy of ownership to be implemented, then you must build that philosophy atop capitalism, because capitalism is the most fundamental philosophy of ownership in a free society.

          • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:45PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:45PM (#643640)

            You're attempting to be literal with words when that's not apt.

            Capitalism displaced Feudalism.
            Feudalism replaced slave economies.
            Look up those economic models and stop embarrassing yourself with nonsense definitions.

            ...and Socialism is on its way to replacing Capitalism.
            Milwaukee and Madison, WI as well as Boston and Toronto each have a cluster of worker co-ops.

            Italy has Socialist workplaces by the thousands.
            Hell, there are worker-owned co-ops all over Europe. [google.com]
            Mondragon, by itself, is in 40 countries on 5 continents.
            At Suma in UK, everybody in that worker-owned company gets the same compensation. [google.com]
            (You won't ever see that in a Capitalist operation.)
            Even the pay differential between the highest and lowest paid worker at Mondragon is less than 10:1.
            Again, you don't see that in Capitalist operations.

            In those places, they don't have top-down organization (i.e. exploitation).
            Professor of Comparative Economics Richard Wolff likes the term Worker Self-Directed Enterprises.

            ...and, again, your sources of "information" truly suck.

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:50PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:50PM (#643644)

            I believe by exploitative, socialists describe the monopsony effect on the working class. If each person in the working class bargains individually, they will all find themselves in a race to the bottom. One can see this demonstrated in the West in the past 40 some odd years.

            By working class, I mean people who own no capital and must sell time (labor) instead. (We can hem and haw about how it came about that so many people find themselves without capital. Failure to build generational wealth should be a cardinal sin [not sloth, because people without capital are anything but slothful, but perhaps some form of idiocy--"penny wise and pound foolish"], but it is not, and so many people fail at this.)

            I also believe that when men evolve to become more like angels, anarcho-capitalism will allow a more perfect system of collective bargaining to come about. In fact, I think that under anarcho-capitalism, the current status quo of capital and labor being separate will be very uncommon. Collective ownership and operation contracts would be the norm, so we would see many more Mondragons. The working class would be no more, because it would be normal for a worker to also become a capital owner (thus invalidating my definition of working class above) when signing on.

            I see socialism and anarcho-capitalism as beautifully compatible. Unfortunately, both systems require men to be angels.

            • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @12:15AM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @12:15AM (#643650)

              Thank you for the response.

              Under capitalism, what you call "labor" is indeed "capital"; your labor is a resource with well-defined ownership, and it is a resource that can be incorporated into contracts. That is to say, I dispute the premise on which "socialists" seem to base their arguments.

              Secondly, capitalism is the only philosophy that explicitly embraces the fact that men are not angels; under capitalism, the rules that govern interaction between men must be established in advance of interaction.

              Thirdly, socialism is what seems to ignore the fact that men are not angels; that is why socialist revolutions tend to seek a "new" Man, who is more noble, stronger, fitter, and more moral; the result is that dissenters get sent off to "re-education" camps, which devolve into concentration camps, which devolve into murder camps.

              I will never EVER agree with you until you acknowledge that capitalism is the sole foundation of a free society; do that, and then we can talk about more complex abstractions that one might call "socialism".

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @02:00AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @02:00AM (#643687)

                "labor" is indeed "capital"

                No, nitwit.
                All capital is derived from labor, [google.com] but the terms are NOT interchangeable.

                You are attempting to present yourself as an intellectual, but you don't have the knowledge base to pull that off.

                capitalism is the only philosophy that explicitly embraces the fact that men are not angels

                You may find that to be significant, but it isn't.
                (Small minds dwell on unimportant minutia.)
                ...and it isn't even correct, nitwit.

                socialism

                You don't understand the word.

                "re-education" camps

                ...and you just can't help but repeatedly show how much Cold War bullshit you have swallowed.

                -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]