DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Nike: Just Do It Campaign

We all use products that are formed, built, or constructed using slave labor, and most of us want social change. How are we any different from Nike?

the topic has already been widely discussed prior to '08 and beyond

List of sweatshop, child labor, and other companies with shoddy practices. All of the examples have sourced links.



It sort of was occasionally discussed here when I joined back in 2009. The tone started to change when African Americans took control of the narrative, and people have been scrambling ever since.

I'd say donate to charity to offset what we have to buy made by slave labor.

I'd say donate to charity to offset what we have to buy made by slave labor.

That is a massive list. I don't know what they're saving by treating people like that. I'd pay more (or get a lower grade model of whatever) rather than people being enslaved like that.

Damn, I made a grammatical error. The second "who" should have been "and."

I used to proof read my posts back in the day. Now, I just type quickly and throw them out there.

That would not be a grammatical error. It would be "monumental" error in judgement.

That was productive.

I am a proponent of open discussion from all groups. I despise comments that are designed to oppress open communication. And man, you work awfully hard at doing just that.

Once again, you resort to personal attacks and name calling because someone doesn't agree w/your line of thinking. I'm not going to reciprocate.

News › People
Fidel Castro: Cuban leader condemned as 'dictator' who presided over executions and human rights abuses

'This is a man who set up a dictatorship that had no tolerance for anyone who thought differently'

Lizzie Dearden
@lizziedearden
Saturday 26 November 2016 12:14
15 comments

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The Independent
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Fidel Castro waving upon his arrival at Cordoba airport to participate to the Mercosur's presidential summit in Cordoba, Argentina in 2006
Fidel Castro waving upon his arrival at Cordoba airport to participate to the Mercosur's presidential summit in Cordoba, Argentina in 2006 ( AFP )

As Cuba embarks on nine days of national mourning for Fidel Castro, dissidents and exiles around the world labelled the revolutionary a dictator whose “crimes against his own people” must not be forgotten.

“History will absolve me,” he once told judges of the regime he would eventually overthrow, transforming Cuba into a communist state and incurring the wrath of the US and its punishing trade embargo.

For many he was a champion of the poor, a symbol of liberation who overthrew a dictator and brought free education and health care to the masses.
Cubans around the world react to death of Fidel Castro

But to exiles who fled his autocratic rule, he personified a repressive regime that locked up political opponents, suppressed freedom and democracy and destroyed the national economy.

Orlando ​Gutiérrez, founder of the opposition Cuban Democratic Directorate in Miami, condemned Castro and his legacy as exiles and their descendants took to the streets of Little Havana to celebrate his death.
Read more

Ken Livingstone mentions Hitler while defending Fidel Castro
Cuban exiles in Miami celebrate death of Fidel Castro
Timeline of key events in Cuba under the former leader

“I regret that this criminal never faced a tribunal for all the crimes he committed against his own people,” Mr Gutiérrez said, according to a translation by the BBC.
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“This is a man who leaves a legacy of intolerance, of setting up a family-run dictatorship, which had no tolerance for anyone who thought differently, who set up a vicious totalitarian regime where people were persecuted for the most slight deviation from official ideology.”

In the wake of his overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista in 1959, supporters of the old government were sent before summary courts and at least 582 were shot by firing squads over two years.

Estimates of executions under Castro’s 50-year rule run into the thousands, with monitors warning of unfair trials, arbitrary imprisonment and extrajudicial executions.

Castro responded by insisting that “revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts, but on moral conviction”.

As the one-party system came into force, independent newspapers were closed and homosexuals, priests and others viewed as a threat were herded into labour camps for “re-education”.

Censorship and repression spread, with fans of American rock ‘n’ roll among those targeted. Freedom of expression, religion, association, assembly, movement and the press were denied.
The Castropedia: Fidel's Cuba in facts and figures

In 1964, Castro acknowledged holding 15,000 political prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled, including Castro’s daughter Alina Fernandez Revuelta and his younger sister Juana. An unknown number of Cubans drowned attempting to reach Florida in flimsy boats.

When Castro handed the presidency to his brother Raul in 2008, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that the “abusive legal and institutional mechanisms” set up during the communist revolution continued to deprive Cubans of their basic rights.

Read more

World reacts to Fidel Castro's death - live

“Even if Castro no longer calls the shots, the repressive machinery he constructed over almost half a century remains fully intact,” said the group’s Americas director, José Miguel Vivanco. “Until that changes, it’s unlikely there will be any real progress on human rights in Cuba.”

HRW cited secret police, surveillance, short-term detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions and politically motivated sackings as methods of “enforcing political conformity”, as well as restrictions embedded in legal and constitutional structures.
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All media is heavily censored and the spreading of “unauthorised news” a criminal offence, with internet access heavily limited by cost and restrictions.

HRW also warned that the “counterproductive” US embargo, which President Barack Obama, in his final State of the Union address to condemn, gave the Cuban government a pretext for violations.

Instead of achieving the aim of toppling Castro’s regime, monitors said the policy helped consolidate his hold on power “by providing his government with an excuse for its problems and a justification for its abuses” and enabling him to garner sympathy abroad – as did numerous and bizarre assassination attempts.

Perhaps the country’s most prominent ally was Russia, where past and present leaders were paying tribute to Castro on Saturday.
[fidel-castro-celebrations.jpg]

People celebrate after the announcement of the death of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, in the Little Havana district of Miami, Florida, US. 26 November 2016. (Reuters)

In a message of condolence sent to the current Cuban President, his brother Raul, Vladimir Putin praised Castro’s “free and independent Cuba” as an “inspirational example” around the world.

“He embodied the high ideals of a politician, citizen and patriot, truly convinced of the cause to which he devoted his entire life,” said the Russian President.

The Chinese President, Xi Jinping issued a national address saying, “Comrade Castro will live forever”.

Statements from other world leaders were more measured, with France’s President Francois Hollande acknowledging human rights violations and “disillusionment” following Castro’s revolution.

Among his British defenders was Ken Livingstone, who described the former leader as an “absolute giant of the 20th century” and blamed the US for the restrictions on civil liberties.

The former mayor of London said: “I’m sure they will, over time, move towards something like a traditional west European democracy. It could have happened a lot earlier if you hadn’t had, the entire time, a blockade by America, attempts to overthrow the regime, eight assassination attempts authorised by American presidents.”

Mr Livingstone told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “of course Fidel did things that were wrong”, adding: “Initially he wasn’t very good on lesbian and gay rights, but the key thing that mattered was that people had a good education, good healthcare and wealth was evenly distributed.”

There was no such praise among hundreds of Cuban exiles and their descendants who poured into the streets of Little Havana in Miami to celebrate Castro’s death.

“Cuba si! Castro no!” they chanted, while others screamed “Cuba libre!” as cars blew their horns and people danced.

“We're all celebrating, this is like a carnival,” said 72-year-old Jay Fernandez, who fled to the US aged 18 in 1961. He held a sign reading: “Satan, Fidel is now yours. Give him what he deserves. Don’t let him rest in peace.”


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/peopl...p-a7440636.html

Cuba: Fidel Castro’s Record of Repression

Misguided US Embargo Provided Pretext for Abuse

(Washington, DC) – During his nearly five decades of rule in Cuba, Fidel Castro built a repressive system that punished virtually all forms of dissent, a dark legacy that lives on even after his death.
Fidel Castro.
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Fidel Castro. © 2016 Reuters

During Castro’s rule, thousands of Cubans were incarcerated in abysmal prisons, thousands more were harassed and intimidated, and entire generations were denied basic political freedoms. Cuba made improvements in health and education, though many of these gains were undermined by extended periods of economic hardship and by repressive policies.

“As other countries in the region turned away from authoritarian rule, only Fidel Castro’s Cuba continued to repress virtually all civil and political rights,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Castro’s draconian rule and the harsh punishments he meted out to dissidents kept his repressive system rooted firmly in place for decades.”

The repression was codified in law and enforced by security forces, groups of civilian sympathizers tied to the state, and a judiciary that lacked independence. Such abusive practices generated a pervasive climate of fear in Cuba, which hindered the exercise of fundamental rights, and pressured Cubans to show their allegiance to the state while discouraging criticism.
Raúl Castro speaks at a rally in Camagüey, Cuba, in July 2007, a year after being handed power by his ailing brother, Fidel Castro (depicted in the bas-relief in the foreground).
Expand

Raúl Castro speaks at a rally in Camagüey, Cuba, in July 2007, a year after being handed power by his ailing brother, Fidel Castro (depicted in the bas-relief in the foreground). © 2007 Jose Goitia/The New York Times/Redux Pictures

Many of the abusive tactics developed during his time in power – including surveillance, beatings, arbitrary detention, and public acts of repudiation – are still used by the Cuban government.

Castro came to power in 1959 after leading a revolution that toppled the corrupt and abusive government of Fulgencio Batista. He ruled by decree until 1976, when a new constitution – whose drafting he oversaw – reformed the structure of the government. From that time until he transferred power to his brother Raúl in July 2006, Fidel Castro held all three of the most powerful positions in Cuba’s government: president of the Council of State, president of the Council of Ministers, and first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party. Fidel Castro did not officially relinquish his title as president of the councils of state and ministers until February 2008, and stepped down as first secretary on April 19, 2011.

Cuba made important advances under Castro in the progressive realization of some economic, social, and cultural rights such as education and healthcare. For example, UNESCO has concluded that there is near-universal literacy on the island, and the country either met the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that the UN established in 2000, or came close by the 2015 deadline.

The progress on economic, social, and cultural rights was never matched in terms of respect for civil and political rights. The denial of fundamental freedoms throughout Castro’s decades in power was unrelenting, and marked by periods of heightened repression, such as the 2003 crackdown on 75 human rights defenders, journalists, trade unionists, and other critics of the government. Accused of being “mercenaries” of the United States government, the individuals were summarily tried in closed hearings. Many served years in inhumane prisons, where they were subjected to extended solitary confinement and beatings, and denied basic medical care for serious ailments. More than 50 of the remaining prisoners were released after Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother, most on the condition that they accept exile to Spain.
November 18, 2009 Report
New Castro, Same Cuba

Political Prisoners in the Post-Fidel Era

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Under Fidel Castro, the Cuban government refused to recognize the legitimacy of Cuban human rights organizations, alternative political parties, independent labor unions, or a free press. He also denied international monitors such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and international nongovernmental organizations like Human Rights Watch access to the island to investigate human rights conditions.

Efforts by the US government during Castro’s rule to press for change in Cuba repeatedly failed. In the 1960s, those efforts took the form of covert military action to unseat Castro, including the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and multiple botched assassination attempts. President Dwight Eisenhower established the embargo in 1960, which was later expanded by President John F Kennedy and eventually locked in place by the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act. Also known as “Helms-Burton,” the law prohibits the US president from lifting trade restrictions until Cuba has legalized political activity and made a commitment to free and fair elections. It also prohibits lifting the embargo as long as Fidel or Raúl Castro remains in office.

The embargo imposed indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban population as a whole, and has done nothing to improve the situation of human rights in Cuba. Rather than isolating Cuba, the policy isolated the US. Castro proved especially adept at using the embargo to garner sympathy abroad, while at the same time exploiting it as a pretext to repress legitimate efforts to reform Cuba from within, dismissing them as US-driven and -funded initiatives.

In December 2014, President Barack Obama began a long-overdue shift in US policy, announcing that the US would normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba and ease restrictions on travel and commerce, calling on Congress to consider lifting the embargo. In exchange, the government of Raúl Castro granted conditional release to the 53 political prisoners that it had been holding for between two months and two years.

Nevertheless, the Orwellian laws that allowed their imprisonment – and the imprisonment of thousands before them – remain on the books, and the Cuban government continues to repress individuals and groups who criticize the government or call for basic human rights. Arbitrary arrests and short-term detention routinely prevent human rights defenders, independent journalists, and others from gathering or moving freely. Detention is often used pre-emptively to prevent people from participating in peaceful marches or political meetings.

The two governments restored diplomatic relations in July 2015. In March, President Obama visited Cuba, where he met with President Raúl Castro, as well as with representatives of Cuban civil society. Obama gave a nationally televised address and joint press conference with Castro in which he urged the Cuban government to lift restrictions on political freedoms and reiterated his call for the US Congress to end the economic embargo of the island.

“For decades, Fidel Castro was the chief beneficiary of a misguided US policy that allowed him to play the victim and discouraged other governments from condemning his repressive policies,” Vivanco said. “While the embargo remains in place, the Obama administration’s policy of engagement has changed the equation, depriving the Cuban government of its main pretext for repressing dissent on the island.”


https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-record-repression

Fidel Castro's dark legacy: abuses, draconian rule and 'ruthless suppression'

Castro hounded critics, scorned elections and ran a police state – facts which impressive statistics about literacy and life expectancy cannot erase
Rory Carroll

Rory Carroll in Los Angeles
@rorycarroll72

Sun 27 Nov 2016 12.36 EST



Fidel Castro’s death has sparked eulogies for a 20th-century giant but also lamentations about the Cuban revolution’s dark side: executions, political prisoners, surveillance, censorship.

The dictator’s security apparatus controlled and cowed his people even while dispensing free healthcare and education, a profoundly mixed legacy which has polarised opinion about Castro in death as in life.
Havana in mourning: 'We Cubans are Fidelista even if we are not communist'


“Over more than five decades documenting the state of human rights in Cuba, Amnesty has recorded a relentless campaign against those who dare to speak out against the Cuban government’s policies and practices,” the advocacy group’s Americas director, Erika Guevara-Rosas, said on Saturday.

Authorities jailed hundreds of prisoners of conscience solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, association and assembly in a campaign of “ruthless suppression”, she said. “The state of freedom of expression in Cuba, where activists continue to face arrest and harassment for speaking out against the government, is Fidel Castro’s darkest legacy.”

Human Rights Watch said thousands were jailed in abysmal prisons, thousands more were harassed and intimidated and that entire generations were denied political freedoms, a system based on abuses which felt increasingly anachronistic.

“As other countries in the region turned away from authoritarian rule, only Fidel Castro’s Cuba continued to repress virtually all civil and political rights,” said José Miguel Vivanco, the group’s Americas director. “Castro’s draconian rule and the harsh punishments he meted out to dissidents kept his repressive system rooted firmly in place for decades.”

The critiques articulated what some admirers of the late “maximum leader” ignored or only elliptically acknowledged: he was a dictator. He hounded critics, scorned elections and ran a police state – facts which impressive statistics about literacy, infant mortality and life expectancy cannot erase.

The newly victorious rebels executed hundreds – some say thousands – after seizing power in 1959. Debate still rages over whether this was a legitimate settling of accounts with Fulgencio Batista’s henchmen or kangaroo court-sanctioned atrocities.
Castro's legacy and the envy of many nations: social care in Cuba
Read more

Over ensuing decades Castro used threats, jail and banishment against critics, including intellectuals, journalists and former allies. State media became a mouthpiece for the leader.

Officials heavily censored books, newspapers, radio, television, music and film, stunting discourse even while promoting arts and culture. Only a few Cubans were trusted with full internet access. Havana ranked near the bottom of Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index.

Peaceful attempts at democratic reform, such as the Varela project, triggered swift crackdowns, including the so-called Black Spring in 2003.

More than a million Cubans took to leaky boats and risked drowning to flee poverty, stagnation and a sense of claustrophobia which most blamed on Castro, not the US embargo.

The revolution’s defenders called the oppression a survival strategy for a small Caribbean island besieged by a hostile superpower which deployed spooks, stooges and would-be assassins. Detractors called it tyranny.

Some tributes to Castro misjudged the balance, said Christopher Sabatini, a Columbia University expert on Cuba who advised Barack Obama’s administration and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“Unfortunately, his human rights record will not get the weight it deserves. You see that in many of the declarations of presidents calling him a revolutionary icon. Let’s be honest: this was a regime which when it came to power lined up its opponents and shot them.”


At times Castro did promote equality and social justice, for instance by combating South Africa’s apartheid forces in Angola, creating a mixed, complex legacy, said Sabatini.
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Castro’s romantic appeal became entangled with his record of oppression and Cuba’s legitimate sovereignty, he added. “It has prevented a really honest reckoning of the Cuban revolution and its price.”

Obama offered a cautious, lawyerly response to Castro’s passing, avoiding criticism or praise. Donald Trump, in contrast, made a full-throated condemnation: “Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.”

Castro’s death may be one of the few occasions when Trump, who during the Republican presidential primary advocated torture and killing terrorists’ families, will be in accord with Human Rights Watch.

The watchdog group accused the late comandante of using Orwellian tactics to sow a pervasive climate of fear. “Many of the abusive tactics developed during his time in power – including surveillance, beatings, arbitrary detention, and public acts of repudiation – are still used by the Cuban government.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/27/fidel-castro-dictator-legacy-abuses

Army Veteran's Apparel Line Counters Nike-Kaepernick Campaign with 'Just Stand' Shirt


http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/09/08/co...ust-stand-shirt

An Army veteran called out Nike Saturday on Fox & Friends for featuring Colin Kaepernick at the center of the company's "Just Do It" campaign.

Tyler Merritt's company, Nine Line Apparel, has countered Nike by releasing a shirt of its own that reads "Just Stand."

Merritt, a former Army captain and Nine Line's CEO, said Saturday, "They decided to take a stance. This is our stand.”

Nike recently announced a multiyear agreement with Kaepernick, including for his own apparel line, video ads and billboards featuring his image, and a contribution to the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback's Know Your Rights charity.

The company drew immediate backlash after releasing a print ad that stated, "Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything."

Merritt said Saturday that it's hard to make a parallel between an athlete's sacrifice and a soldier's.

"The word 'sacrifice' in the military members, it's something severe," he said.






He said that Nike's move to feature a controversial figure like Kaepernick was done with a lack of concern about those who may find the former quarterback's actions offensive.

"I agree that police brutality is bad, but you know, wearing socks that say pigs..." he said, in reference to when Kaepernick wore socks depicting police officers as pigs.


"Actions speak louder than words," Merritt said. "If you want to say that you're promoting social injustice, then actually do something."

Last fall, Trump invoked Tillman's death to criticize Kaepernick for kneeling.

Soon after, Tillman's widow, Marie, asked people not to use her husband's service to silence others.


"The very action of self expression and the freedom to speak from one’s heart — no matter those views — is what Pat and so many other Americans have given their lives for,” she said in a statement.

Yeah, someone else tried to use Pat Tillman to try to shame Collin Kaepernick and it came off so poorly. Then they tried to use Chris Kyle and well LOL

Yep, Tillmans friends said he would be right there with Kaep.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/...m=.126f56707a0f

Yeah, someone else tried to use Pat Tillman to try to shame Collin Kaepernick and it came off so poorly.

Pat Tillerman hated the war and called it illegal multiple times while occupying Iraq. He was then killed by friendly fire. And morons still want to paint him as one of the reasons why we need to continue our war on terror. These people turn Tillerman, Martin Luther King Jr., anyone with a real message into a commodity that can be surmised in one long sentence and given back to the masses. Reading has certainly gone by the way side, which is a shame because Tillerman and others have written some amazing things and are great people to learn from.

Sometimes I wish we could just lobotomize everyone with an IQ below say 115...