12/12/2011 2:10:38 PM
Lowe's is not taking a position on the show itself. Lowe's purchased broad ad space on TLC, and they just wanted to remove themselves from a polarizing issue - hence pulling ads from this one show. Apparently, the whole situation was fait accompli when TLC signed the show. Lowe's should not have to be required to be the moral beacon of America. If they want to not alienate any group (racist or otherwise) that is their prerogative as a company - no laws against it. Now if you, Russel Simmons, and Mia Farrow, think that corporations have a moral obligation to take a stand against bigotry (beyond everything thing they already do -- hiring practices etc..) and want to get together and focus all your energy on boycotting lowe's -- that's fine and well within your rights.However, I think your time will best served fighting bigotry in other ways. In fact, if you don't mobilize yourself and make a real impact, then you are being complicit in hate, and you are morally wrong. (hint: I don't actually believe that last statement).[Edited on December 12, 2011 at 2:14 PM. Reason : .]
12/12/2011 2:11:53 PM
12/12/2011 2:34:01 PM
12/12/2011 2:42:14 PM
I just want to point out that Lowe's does give back to the community. They can't be expected to take a stand on every issue.http://www.lowes.com/cd_charity+giving_973215566_[Edited on December 12, 2011 at 2:47 PM. Reason : god damn i feel like a PR rep for Lowe's, when I'm usually the one rallying against corporations.]
12/12/2011 2:46:55 PM
What your literal words are saying is that if you see person A unjustly demonizing person B then it's ok to be indifferent, because after all, it would cost you to do something.What you're probably meaning to say is that if a corporation sees person A unjustly demonizing person B and responds with indifference, then they're going to get away with it in as much as no one will sue them.
12/12/2011 2:48:17 PM
12/12/2011 2:55:11 PM
Lowes is awful for doing this. They're clearly making efforts to appease these bigots - this is undeniable. Rather than continuing on their current course (e.g. running ads across all of TLC's programming), they've decided to make a change and pull ads from one show because bigots told them to. That's what happened here, plain and simple. They made an explicit decision to appease these clowns. Now, you can argue that this is a good business decision for Lowes because they have a portion of their customers who agree with the bigots, but to try to argue that Lowes is "not taking sides" is flawed. They undoubtedly are. Had this been any other minority group, people would be completely outraged. I'm no bleedin'-heart-liberal, but I do find this disgusting and won't shop at Lowes ever again.(and note, I'm not responding to any single post or poster with my comments, just the general back/forth of the thread)[Edited on December 12, 2011 at 3:29 PM. Reason : .]
12/12/2011 3:27:35 PM
12/12/2011 3:37:57 PM
If you're going to boycott Lowe's, make sure you also boycott:3M (Command, Scotchbrand tape), Airborne Vitamin, Amway, Anheuser Busch Inbev (Select55), Art Instruction Schools, Bamboozles, Bank of America (Cash Rewards), Bare Escentuals, Brother International (Ptouch), Campbell's Soup, Capital One, Church & Dwight (Oxi Clean, Arm & Hammer), City Furniture, Conagra (Hunt's Diced Tomatoes), Corinthian Colleges (Everst411), Cotton, Inc., Cumberland Packing (Sweet'N Low), Dell computers, Diamond Foods (Kettlebrand Chips), Estee Lauder (Clinique), ET Browe (Palmer's Cocoa butter), Gap, General Motors (Chevy Runs Deep), Good Year, Green Mountain Coffee, Guthy Renker (Proactiv), Hershey kisses, Home Depot, Honda North America, HTC Phones, Ikea, JC Penney, JP Morgan Chase (Chase Sapphire), Kayak.com, Kellogg (Special K), Koa Brands (John Frieda), Leapfrog Enterprise (Leapster Explorer), Mars (Dove Chocolate), McDonald's, Nationwide Insurance, News Corp (We bought a zoo movie), Nintendo (Mariokartz.com), Novartis (Theraflu), Old Navy, Pernod Ricard (Kahlua), Petsmart, Pier One, Pfizer (Centrum vitamin), Procter & Gamble (Align Probiotic, Crest, Febreze, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, Pur, Tide), Progressive Insurance, Prudential Financial, Radio Shack, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, SC Johnson (Drano, Glade, Scrubbing Bubbles), Sears , Signet (Kay Jewelers), Sonic Drive-ins, Subaru, THQ (uDraw), T-Mobil, Toyota (Camry), Volkswagen, Vtech (Mobi Go, V Reader), Wal-Mart and Whirlpool (Maytag)
12/12/2011 3:57:47 PM
^^ they made a decision that TLC is a good network for them, and placed ads on all their shows. once the bigots said "oh no, these muslims are normal!!" they pulled them from this one particular show. making an exception because one side complained is not being neutral - it's pandering to that one side that complained. the only way to really be neutral in this case would've been to say "hey, we advertise across all of TLC's programming, and we see no reason to discontinue doing so." ^ no problem at all, other than P&G i'm not much of a customer of any of those companies anyway. especially Old Navy and Gap, their shit is wack.
12/12/2011 4:23:55 PM
oh look, a company is trying to appease its customer base.this is just smart business...the bottom line effect because of pulling the ads is going to be much less than the effect would have been had they kept the ads.like it or not, lowes has no moral obligation to either of these groups....This type of thing happens all the time
12/12/2011 4:32:04 PM
The show, in and of itself, is pretty wrong.OMG LOOK HOW WHITE-BREAD THESE MUSLIMS ARE. JUST LIKE YOU AND ME.Seriously, folks. This is lowest-common-denominator tv that, because of it's subject matter, gets called "brave" and "compelling."Companies, just like viewers, can either choose to support or ignore it. In this case, Lowe's is just making their choice. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.I do wonder about the father being a football coach, with the kids playing under him - can they use pigskin or does it have to be synthetic? And that's an honest question - not being inflammatory.
12/12/2011 4:36:38 PM
oh, i totally agree that they have no moral obligation. and i'm not saying i don't understand why they did this (of COURSE it was for appeasing customers and making money) - what i am saying is that they clearly sided with the bigots at FFA to appease bigots within their customer base, i find it disgusting, and i won't buy from them anymore. they can do what they like, i'm going to do what i like. and we're cool.
12/12/2011 4:37:46 PM
^^^^I agree that it would have been a better choice to say "We advertise on all TLC shows." I just think its ridiculous to get upset and boycott them over the the choice they did make. Good luck doing your shopping...every company makes decisions like these.[Edited on December 12, 2011 at 4:39 PM. Reason : .]
12/12/2011 4:39:18 PM
haha, thats right-take your business elsewhere you DUMPY FAGGOT!luckily home depot has topsy turvy tomato planters too-
12/12/2011 5:44:41 PM
12/12/2011 7:07:55 PM
12/12/2011 7:27:55 PM
12/12/2011 7:56:46 PM
12/12/2011 8:04:31 PM
^^lolztbqh after looking into it, it seems like Lowe's is the least heinous of the big three hardware stores; Home Depot is a Rethugnican operation while Menards is malevolent to the core towards its employees and the environment of Wisconsin
12/12/2011 9:00:47 PM
12/12/2011 10:19:53 PM
^ the problem is that the show doesn't paint Islam as inherently good in any way, but obviously (as anyone with a brain already knew) American muslims, and most muslims, are nothing like the terrorists you can see 24/7 on the major news shows.If Lowes had any kind of balls or back bone, they would have made a simple statement to that effect.As it is now, Lowe's seems tacitly complicit with projecting the idea that we shouldn't portray muslims as anything but terrorists.
12/12/2011 10:56:11 PM
12/12/2011 11:36:23 PM
It is not our job to impose our beliefs upon others. If the operators of Lowe's want to be bigoted assholes that is their business. We should only consider interfering in-so-far as their bigotry impacts us. As customers, it does not, so stay out of it. To put it another way: Mind your own business. [Edited on December 12, 2011 at 11:44 PM. Reason : .,.]
12/12/2011 11:43:21 PM
you are right they would probably not have 17k posts on their facebook page. So what? I mean JesusHChrist. I can't blame Lowes for trying to remove themselves from this, but it looks like Russel Simmons is trying to find something to do since the occupy movements are dying out. This TLC show will NOT change america, so why even bother. That's just mytwocents. See, boycotting is too easy, it's just taking a lazy person and letting them do that they do best. So instead of boycotting lowes why doesn't everyone pitching a fit get off their ass and do something meaningful for the Muslim community.
12/13/2011 12:05:16 AM
12/13/2011 12:36:50 AM
Honestly, this is probably one of the most character defining threads I've seen in TSB. The range of opinions is interesting, I would characterize the following:a. Lowes actually made a good decision deciding to pull the adb. Both options would have upset someone and they were both roughly equalc. It was morally wrong for Lowes to pull the ad, but it's not the business of their customersd. It was morally wrong and it is only the business of the customerse. It was morally wrong and we should all speak out against itI suppose we could add an (f.) to this list, which is that legal action should be taken, but not a single person has argued that. I, for one, am surprised how almost everyone I've argued with is at (b.), either that, or they just fail to vocalize a personal belief that the action was wrong. I'm curious to know which it is.For reference, many of the people posting on the Facebook wall are fucktard-to-the-max kind of (a.). I'm talking about aaronburro level of stupid. Again, most hope is that most people in TSB are really in the (c-e) range but stall in overtly saying so.[Edited on December 13, 2011 at 1:14 AM. Reason : ]
12/13/2011 1:14:11 AM
^b-c. It wasn't the best choice, but it's not morally wrong for them to take a neutral stance on one issue, considering the ridiculous amount of charity they already give, including charity to minority groups.They're choosing their battles as they see fit. Obviously they didn't intend for this to blow up like it did.[Edited on December 13, 2011 at 3:07 AM. Reason : .]
12/13/2011 3:06:16 AM
12/13/2011 6:32:28 AM
just an ordinary person, who's down with the "struggle" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPjpqiCxc4oshe is arguably anyone that you guys would jump to defend, up until she showed her true colors. but seriously, wtf am I even talking about - 90% of you guys would probably defend her even still and claim that she's in the mainstream of american thought
12/13/2011 8:17:06 AM
^ No one questioned her on her stance on a Jewish genocide, although the speaker acts like he did. She got a question with 2 links: a. That an official position of Hammas can be unraveled to be genocide b. That she renounces them for this genocide positionLook, I don't know what Hammas's positions are, but I have no basis to say whether {a} is true or not. It is my suspicion that the speaker's assumption of {a} is non-trivial in the first place. Now anyone should agree with {b given a}, I mean, dear God I hope everyone agrees with {b given a}But that's not what she was asked. She was asked "{b}?", and she sucked at answering the question, because she answered {} and people took it to be {!b}.
12/13/2011 10:34:26 AM
12/13/2011 11:03:53 AM
The speaker quoted the Hamas leader's own words that he would like to genocide jewish people and she was asked directly if she supported this. She said, "yes"This is totally mainstream... [Edited on December 13, 2011 at 11:16 AM. Reason : ]
12/13/2011 11:15:51 AM
12/13/2011 11:31:29 AM
the speaker indicated that he experienced this same reaction from MSA leaders he encountered before.thereby indicating that this belief structure might be more mainstream than you think.relevant to this thread i suppose because the TLC show represents whitebread muslims who are the supposedly hard to find normal ones?idk. this thread i think has been derailed, although i found the video to be somewhat interesting.[Edited on December 13, 2011 at 2:04 PM. Reason : the hitler youth thing was weird-]
12/13/2011 2:02:45 PM
What a surprise, Capitalist corporation relies on bigots for profits, puts their feelings first.
12/13/2011 2:14:56 PM
The video did make the point well. She appears to be very extreme, that, or completely clueless, although I'm not sure how different those two are.The relevant claim was that if you asked the "ordinary" Muslims on the show these questions they would revel to be secretly extreme. I think this is false. Although the Muslims I know feel strongly about Palestine, they will agree with the need for a 2-state solution. The perception you get can be almost a direct result of the questions you ask.But it's probably correct that ordinary Muslims will have conflicted feelings about Hamas, I don't doubt that, but if I remember correctly this is a group who's won elections before. So instead of trying to make indirect connections between a group and terrorism, and then between the group and broad Muslim support, why not just get to the issue? - support of terrorism on citizens to achieve objectives? - belief that Jews should be either removed from Israel or killed?I think the answer for virtually all of them is "no" to both of these.
12/13/2011 2:17:16 PM
i wish i had muslim friends so we could compare notes.
12/13/2011 2:20:45 PM
12/13/2011 3:05:52 PM
12/13/2011 3:33:00 PM
12/13/2011 5:45:21 PM
12/13/2011 6:09:00 PM
mrfrog has a hearing disability. here's the transcript, son.Horowitz: ‘Okay, I’ll put it to you this way. I am a Jew. The head of Hizbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally. For or Against it?Muslim Student Assc Member: For it.
12/13/2011 7:38:44 PM
I think mrfrog's naivety and lack of critical reasoning skills can be summed up by the following quote
12/13/2011 9:00:18 PM
stewart is tearing this shit up tonight-
12/13/2011 11:07:25 PM
History is written by the victors.
12/13/2011 11:22:20 PM
It used to be the losers moved to America and lived happily ever after. What went wrong?
12/14/2011 12:21:25 AM
12/14/2011 9:24:47 AM
If anything Lowes was donating to Discovery Communications and themselves (advertising is for self gain) not a real "cause" if you will.
12/14/2011 10:17:52 AM