Hmmm…I’ve been thinking about this, and I think I was wrong - it’s not reading too much into it to be offended. And looking at the snopes article, it looks like maybe there was an intent to allude to the Isreali-Palestinian conflict:
I still don’t understand what Binky said in that last post, but I concede the point, although it looks like it’s not VW’s fault.
Although there is some symbolism to Jews boycotting companies that were complicit in the Holocaust, some present day companies manage to stir up new reasons. Here’s a link to an article that discusses pandering by BMW and (especially) Mercedes Benz to Arab resentment of Israel: Maps Missing Israel | Snopes.com. If you don’t feel like checking out the link, the gist is that both companies were guilty of putting out maps of their dealerships that failed to note the existence of Israel (but did note every Arab country, whether or not a distributorship was there). Mercedes was particularly slimy about it, making up phony excuses and never having the guts to simply fix the matter by labeling Israel on its map.
That Snopes article references something that happened even before this thread started. Is there anything recent?
Wouldn’t the Jews boycott Bayer Aspirin as well?
Bayer was the company that designed and made Zyklon B gas.
By this logic should African-Americans boycott Kentucky Fried Chicken, Jack Daniel’s and Texas Roadhouse.
That was more then ten years ago. Beyond that I’m not sure how far you want to go in suggesting that insulting Israel should be seen as insulting all Jews, including non-Israelis.
That’s not terribly different than insisting non-Israeli Jews have some special responsibility to criticize Israel when Israel fucks up.
How do you feel about affirmative action?
Americans holding a grudge against the Brits for 18th century grievances that were mostly economic and political seems a bit of a stretch.
That the German auto manufacturers actively helped the Nazis and the Nazis seriously attempted to exterminate all the Jews strikes me as something more acceptable to hold a grudge about. I have Jewish relatives who nonetheless insist on driving Mercedes and BMWs. It stuns me frankly. VW is a car company personally founded by Adolf Genocidal Hitler. Why this isn’t a bigger deal does puzzle me. I’d never own a German automobile made by a company founded before the war. I’d never buy a German Bentley or Rolls or Bugatti. Mercedes, VW and the others were huge war suppliers.
So are German companies “tainted” forever by their involvement in war crimes? Also see this post: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5728050&postcount=15
Also by saying you won’t buy a German Bentley or Rolls or Bugatti, does that mean you wouldn’t buy any car manufactured by German hands regardless of whether its company even existed in World War II?
Yep. And Bentley and Rolls and Bugatti are manufactured in the UK and France for Bugatti. The owners are the same German companies that made munitions and vehicles that killed millions.
New company, without an ownership history as participants in war crimes? I’d be okay with that. Like Honda or Toyota. But not Mitsubishi.
I don’t buy any Dupont products because of Napalm.
I don’t buy any GE products because they ship jobs overseas and don’t pay their fair share of US taxes.
I don’t buy Nestle products because of their baby formula practices in Africa dating back to the 1980s.
Corporations are continuous entities, people, as the Supreme Court has ruled, and I hold them to the standards of people.
I won’t buy products from companies that make products that deliberately kill people. Your company does that, I’ll never buy your product. There is no Krupp product in my house.
If I have to buy a weapon, I’ll buy a weapon from a weapons only manufacturer, and one that wasn’t raking money in hand over fist killing Chinese, Jews or Slavs. You put a Confederate Stars and Bars logo on your restaurant? That may be your right, but it is my right to interpret that as a sign of treason, slavery, racism and Jim Crow. And I do.
Will I buy a product of a company that supports Republican political causes and not Democratic ones? Probably. The Coors family are big Republican donors and have been for a long time. They are also anti-union. But they have settled with their union and their politics aren’t supporting crimes against humanity, so if I drank beer, I’d be fine with Coors. That is keeping the family politics separate from the business.
I hope you know that Krupp, the maker of weapons and diesel engines, among other things, and Krups, the maker of kitchen appliances such as coffeemakers, are two different companies.
That’s good to hear, because I love my little Krups coffee maker. <3
Toyota existed before the war and cranked out trucks for the Japanese Army throughout the war. Not as glamorous as the Mitsubishi Zero, but just as essential. The Honda Motor Company didn’t exist during the war, but Honda (the man) ran factories during the war and the company owes much of its post-war success to the extremely cozy relationship he cultivated with the government and industry during the war.
No it wasn’t.
Newcastle Brown Ale
Better boycott Ford too, seeing how Henry Ford eagerly did business in Nazi Germany and fomented anti-Semitism at home. And buying a Japanese car from a manufacturer like Mitsubishi should be a big no-no too.
Better just to walk wherever you need to go.
Sort of yes. Not quite, but almost. Hitler understood the need for a People’s Car, and Porsche designed it. That’s why the Classic Bug is so damn awesome: