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Since Nike Pulled US Flag Shoe, Arizona Might Pull Plug on New Nike Plant
It’s been a busy 24 hours for Nike. The day began with great news: They unveiled plans Monday for a multimillion-dollar manufacturing plant outside of Phoenix in the city of Goodyear, AZ. This would be Nike’s third manufacturing facility in the US.
The expected 500-plus jobs motivated city leaders to waive nearly $1 million in plan review and permit fees, and reimburse Nike another $1 million for the jobs created. “We are delighted to welcome Nike to Goodyear,” Councilwoman Wally Campbell said. “We look forward to a long-lasting relationship.”
That was before another story hit the athletic apparel giant. Later on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Nike pulled a sneaker featuring a Betsy Ross American flag because company pitchman Colin Kaepernick decided it was offensive.
The Air Max 1 USA was designed to celebrate Independence Day and was to go on sale this week. But Nike suddenly asked for all the shoes to be returned without explanation.
“Nike has chosen not to release the Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July as it featured the old version of the American flag,” a Nike spokeswoman said. Kaepernick claimed to take offense because that flag was designed during the slavery era.
Arizona’s governor was not amused. Taking to Twitter in the wee hours of Tuesday, Republican Doug Ducey said the following:
Today was supposed to be a good day in Arizona, with the announcement of a major Nike investment in Goodyear, AZ. And then this news broke yesterday afternoon.
Words cannot express my disappointment at this terrible decision. I am embarrassed for Nike.
Nike is an iconic American brand and American company. This country, our system of government and free enterprise have allowed them to prosper and flourish.
Instead of celebrating American history the week of our nation’s independence, Nike has apparently decided that Betsy Ross is unworthy, and has bowed to the current onslaught of political correctness and historical revisionism. It is a shameful retreat for the company.
American businesses should be proud of our country’s history, not abandoning it.
Nike has made its decision, and now we’re making ours. I’ve ordered the Arizona Commerce Authority to withdraw all financial incentive dollars under their discretion that the State was providing for the company to locate here.
Arizona’s economy is doing just fine without Nike. We don’t need to suck up to companies that consciously denigrate our nation’s history.
And finally, it shouldn’t take a controversy over a shoe for our kids to know who Betsy Ross is. A founding mother. Her story should be taught in all American schools. In the meantime, it’s worth googling her.
Nike still hasn’t decided on a facility in Goodyear. “The company is in the final stages of a real estate transaction,” city spokeswoman Tammy Vo said. “So nothing final yet on a location.”
Now Nike and Arizona have to decide if it’s a partnership worth having.
Published in General
That’s why this is about more than just the usual disagreement with a woke company and why, while I usually don’t like political decisions based upon corporate decisions, I fully support Gov Ducey on this.
Nike has made Kaepernick its moral arbiter, a man who openly supports the homophobic, racist, murdering thugs Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.
And, as I pointed out on the Member Feed, just last week Nike suspended sales of sneakers sold in China because their designer tweeted in support of the demonstrators in Hong Kong, and Nike didn’t want to offend the Chinese government.
Nike – Even Dictators Can Just Do It!
As @cliffordbrown says, make Nike own their support of dictators.
I’m ok with letting him be wrong, and letting Nike be wrong, for that matter. I’m not talking about seeking dollars for the sake of dollars, like they’re totems or idols or something. They’re the things that put food on the table, gas in the car, shoes on the kids’ feet, cushion in the savings accounts, payments for Ricochet memberships, tax money for roads and cops and whatever else. What are the people of this area getting in return for giving up that little piece of economic prosperity and security? Some kind of satisfaction that they stuck it to Colin Kaepernick? That’s a good deal for them?
A false premise as prelude to your question. The people of Arizona, by giving up this specific economic option, are standing up for the principle that they are Americans and have a heritage that they can support. They also can have confidence that in doing this another equally attractive economic option will surface that also does not go out of its way to disparage being American. That’s a good deal for the people of Arizona.
Try this:
Get back in bed and get out on the other side.
No he’s not like those two…unlike Kaepernick they actually are stars in their respective sports.
The decisions to placate China’s communist party and to make Kaepernick, with his love of communists, the moral arbiter of Nike, was not something undertaken by a rogue marketing department. It is a strategic decision by the company. It is appropriate to inquire of Nike’s Board whether they endorse the company’s support of dictators.
Board members include:
Cathleen Benko, Vice-Chairman, Deloitte
John J Donohoe II, Chairman, PayPal
Alan B Graf Jr, Executive VP, Fedex
John Lechleiter, Former CEO, Eli Lilly
Michelle A Peluso, Senior VP, IBM
Tim Cooke, CEO of Apple is also on the Board but he’s a lost cause. We know how he feels about dictators.
I have a criticism of this.
I do not like it when purported conservatives criticize people for being “homophobic.” I agree with Castro and Che on the basic idea that homosexuality is a bad thing (if this is actually what they believed — I don’t actually know their position). I doubt that I would agree with the severity of the types of sanctions that such bloodthirsty Communist thugs would likely impose.
It’s not just you, Mark. I hear this from many apparently conservative leaders and commentators. I’ve even heard that the Trump administration has been pushing the homosexual agenda on the international front. I seem to recall Jonah Goldberg criticizing Iran for being “homophobic” or being hostile to “gay rights.”
I notice that it is the same radical Leftists who have pushed the philosodomite agenda, generally using the tactics of lying propaganda and character assassination, who also support the whole anti-American Nike SJW agenda. I find it disappointing when my fellow conservatives don’t see this.
Of course, perhaps they do see it, but simply take a libertarian view and agree with the radical Leftists on this issue. Even if so, however, it is strange that they would adopt the “homophobic” slur and join the Left’s efforts to ostracize those who disagree.
Very few people seem to object to the philosodomite agenda, at present. I find this curious. Perhaps I’m just a troglodyte on the issue. But perhaps many agree with me, but are browbeaten into silence.
There comes a time when principle is more important that money.
On July 4, 1776, the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor when they signed the Declaration. Surely we in Arizona can match their commitment.
Good for Governor Ducey. I am so glad that I voted for him in 2018.
It is not what they would likely impose. It is what they did impose including jailing. And if you read Che’s statements you would see he was not objecting to the “homosexual agenda” – he hated homosexuals.
This is not about pushing some homosexual agenda, it’s about treating human beings decently. They didn’t.
It is essential to make the Left confront its own contradictions.
That doesn’t work. If you point out contradictions, they either deny them, or double down. For instance, if we were to convince them that biologists shoved straws up turtle noses and straws weren’t a problem after all, they would say, “sure, we see that but straws are made of plastic and we need to pan plastic forks and knives now too.”
It’s not for the purpose of changing the minds of those already on the Left. Politics is about persuasion and you need to use tools like this to make the large segment of people who don’t live and breathe politics understand what is happening.
Mark, I don’t doubt you about Castro and Che, I just don’t know. Though if all that they did was jailing, what is the big deal? We were doing the same thing in the 1950s and 1960s. I’d prefer a more libertarian approach, but I actually think that I might prefer the old rule of criminalization to the current rule of philosodomic celebration and persecution of anyone who disagrees.
I still think that using the term “homophobia” is pushing the philosodomite agenda. It is strange to me that your very first objection to Castro and Che are that they are “homophobic.” They were murderous thugs committed to one of the most evil and destructive ideologies in history — and your criticism of them is that they didn’t like sodomy. Strange.
Are you concerned here with crime or sin? For Christians in America I guess what used to be a crime and a sin is now merely a sin. Am I missing your point?
I would love to see Governor Ducey on a national ticket. He is a very solid Conservative, not unlike Mitch Daniels in that he is relatively quiet and thoughtful, and 100% solid.
In the alternative, I would love to see Governor Ducey in a Republican Cabinet, such as the Secretary of the Treasury or Commerce.
I agree, as long as they take Kaepernick with them . . .
You and I are in total agreement with Nike deporting Kaepernick to Mexico. Dogs and cats living together!
Excellent and reasoned response! I too support the Gov. move. He is not kicking Nike out of Az. He is simply withholding incentives.
As for my feelings for our President, I too was a reluctant (very) Trump voter. Looking at the across the aisle candidates for 2020, my vote for him will be less tepid.
Yeah – that the primary criticism is their homophobia, not their murderous dictatorship.
However, I think Gumby prefaced it that way to stick it to Kaepernick. It was a rhetorical flourish that draws attention to a quirk in the left’s thinking, if not to illuminate them, to amuse ourselves.
Thanks – yes, to stick it to Kaepernick but even more so Nike.
I agree…After he completes as many terms as governor as Arizona allows…
Unfortunately, he is allowed only two terms, and he is on his second term. Senator Sinema’s term will be up in 2024.
Why is Kaepernick still associated with anything? It looked like a great idea and the perfect week to launch them. Stupid – would have been cheaper to let Kaepernick find another gig and go forward with the shoe…
Here’s a question I posed on @gumbymark‘s post:
‘A question I had is ‘how did these shoes get as far as they did if Colin Kaepernick hadn’t been consulted?’.
Either the executive management really is stupid or this whole thing is some kind of publicity ploy that was planned from the beginning. Either way, it only makes sense to me if Nike really is a very Un-American company in all respects. And considering its origins in Oregon maybe that’s the case.
Nike paid for a race hustler to represent their product. They shouldn’t be surprised that he race hustles.
It’s like something an acolyte of Ellsworth Toohey would do.
It is difficult to square libertarianism with wanting to incarcerate adults for consensual behavior because Pride Month went on a bit too long. I don’t like the idea of societally enforced approval, but not because I have a problem with teh gays; I just don’t like being told what I’m supposed to endorse, and I’d feel the same way about Vegan Pride Month or Mandatory Bourbon Celebration Fortnight. Criminalization ruined lives.
Sodomy laws applied to straights, too, because it’s totally government’s business if your personal sexuality activity has not been approved by the state legislature.
I agree with that as far as it goes, but I can also see Giordano’s point; we’ve replaced strong to intense persecution (both legal and societal) against a very small minority (notwithstanding the law’s technical application to straights) with fairly significant persecution (mostly but not entirely carried out through non-governmental institutions) against 40% of the population. The ‘quality’ of the persecution is different, but at a certain point quantity becomes a ‘quality’ all its own. If we ever go as far as Canada and much of Europe, where freedom of religion, speech, and assembly are denied to dissenters by law (which is all too possible given the forces we’re up against), then I would argue that in a hypothetical choice between previous criminalizations (which still existed a little over a generation ago) and the status quo in Canada, the former would be the least-bad option from both a libertarian and utilitarian perspective.
In the real world we don’t have to make that choice, but at the hypothetical level its not so clear-cut.
There’s also a huge difference between not persecuting someone for being homosexual, and forcing everyone to support others for being homosexual.
I agree, it was never proper to beat someone up for being a pervert. It’s a free country, and people have the right to be perverted. But there’s no reason I should be forced to deny that homosexuality is a perversion.
I consider it an abnormality rather than a perversion, but I also consider tolerance (the real kind, not the progressive distortion) and support for individual liberty to be infinitely more important than one’s position on the matter. At least within my lifetime, most people who used to support criminalization did so the same way many people today still support marijuana prohibition-without particular malice and with tolerance for people voicing a dissenting opinion. Not so much the case with modern progressives.
Semantics