A reader writes:
Hope you are enjoying Italy and the beer!
Meanwhile here in the good old USA, I just received a clothing catalog from Lands End. OK – good so far, nice clothes, modest, feminine – wait – what the ! A three page spread in their latest catalog on Gloria Steinem “Legend”.
Has this country come unhinged? I can’t even shop for clothes without being exposed to agitprop? Worse – the catalog is planning on donating proceeds from its sale to Gloria. “For every buyer who orders an ERA Coalition logo monogram on one of its items, Land’s End will donate $3 to the coalition’s Fund for Women’s Equality, Inc., according to the website. The campaign – “in honor of Gloria’s work” – is running now through Jan. 31, 2017, the website states.”
Now, I’m just a mom looking for a bathing suit that will cover my middle aged lumps but for frig’s sake. Now I can’t order them from Lands End. So – yes, a little pain and suffering having to switch to LL Bean or Eddie Bauer. Not a big deal – but as I have been thinking about it – damn it, I am withdrawing consent to be governed by corporate America. We already avoid eating processed foods, buy most stuff locally, but even more so – I am not buying clothing unless its from a place that doesn’t have some kind of activist agenda. We have to buy furniture soon – guess what? Will be buying used or locally made by someone that is not going to use my money to work against our values.
Good grief. I’m so frustrated by this – it just seems so crazy. Can you imagine ever getting a Sears catalog in the mail in the 70s with a spread lauding an partisan activist?
What makes me nervous about this is that a) either they are clueless, b) they don’t give a crap about losing middle aged women like myself or c) they’ve run the numbers and I am a dying breed, i.e. the millennial demographic they are trying to attract (per their new CEO, who refuses to live in Wisconsin, by the way – flyover country – Federica Marchionni) *loves* Gloria Steinem. That is a truly frightening thought – and given that business is so data driven – there might be some merit to it.
Also – how many Lands End employees had to stuff their pro life views to keep their jobs when this lady took the helm? I feel badly for them…
Stupid Lands End. As I type this, I am wearing a sweater from Lands End. My family spends a lot with them. I will take my custom elsewhere in the future. What is the point of praising Gloria Steinem, for heaven’s sake? Are Federica Marchionni and the people who surround her so out of touch that they think most Americans admire the aging pro-abortion activist? We see here another instance of Big Business taking sides in the culture war, in a big way.
Guess what, ye Reaganauts, and those who still believe that the 1980s model of conservatism is relative to today: Big Business Is Not Our Friend.
Again and again I say unto you, my brethren and sistren: this kind of thing is aiding and abetting the Trumpening. A lot of people are sick and tired of it, and have no way to express their frustration politically. Trump is the pushback.