Some companies advertise their fall from grace. Bud Light, for example, signaled descent into woke darkness with a “trans” influencer ad campaign. It didn’t end well (though, really, it hasn’t yet ended). Jaguar exhibited symptoms of mad cat disease with a commercial featuring what looked like sexually confused extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Whether this results in the auto manufacturer blazing past the finish line or just being finished remains to be seen.
But then there are the companies that, keeping their wokeness close to the vest, damage society without attracting attention. And on his show No Spin News Monday, commentator Bill O’Reilly exposed a number of such quietly woke brands. Let’s take a look at them.
Nike — Just Don’t Do It
In 2018, sporting-goods manufacturer Nike chose kneeling BLM darling Colin Kaepernick as its spokesman for its 30th anniversary “Just Do It” campaign. O’Reilly points out that Nike’s people also “feature ‘transgender’ athletes in their marketing campaigns.” Good little PC boys, huh?
Not so fast. Proving it just may be the corporate world’s Bill Clinton, Nike’s work environment is allegedly rife with sexual harassment. The company has also been condemned for its labor practices, with charges that it’s complicit in human trafficking. (Video below.)
Perhaps Nike’s new motto should be “Just Do It — Make Us Money Any Way You can!”
Ben & Jerry’s
Most companies get rich and then woke. Ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s started out woke and never looked back (at sanity). An example?
Last year the company sent out this Independence Day message via a tweet: “This 4th of July, it’s high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it.”
Note here that Unilever, which now owns Ben & Jerry’s, was rated 2023’s most woke brand by Newsweek/Veebs. For O’Reilly’s part, he just says Ben & Jerry’s “are communists.”
Oh, whether or not the company plans to return the land its Vermont plant occupies to that state’s “Indigenous” people was not reported.
Missing the Target
Target department stores have “gender neutral” restrooms and have sold “flamboyantly pro-LGBTQ+ merchandise,” Newsweek reported last year. The company also promotes racial “equity,” O’Reilly notes, which is just a euphemism for racial discrimination. So the brand misses the target morally and, consequently, many patriotic Americans don’t miss it; they just avoid it.
Starbucks
Starbucks, how woke art thou? Let me count the ways. The coffee chain supported BLM, releases reusable “Pride” coffee cups to support sexual devolutionary causes, and embraces DEI racial discrimination/preferences. That’s just a short list, too. But the real bitter cup of joe? As Today.com informed in 2022, Starbucks announced
it will pay the travel expenses for employees seeking to have an abortion or a gender-affirming procedures [read: sexual distortion treatments] when those services are not available within 100 miles of an employee’s residence.
So while Starbucks’ original logo was a fully topless siren, the company won’t be seducing patriots who know its works.
Netflix
“The woke mind virus is making Netflix unwatchable,” tweeted Elon Musk in 2022. The problem? For starters, the streaming company states that it’s “proud to partner with Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions.” And, of course, the Obamas aren’t exactly fonts of traditionalism.
Netflix also hosts Bill Nye Saves the World, which featured a song about “gender,” anti-vaccine-skeptic prejudice, and global-warming propaganda. Just call it Wokeflix and move on.
Microsoft
The software company is the tech world’s Starbucks. An example is that Microsoft Office has a “wokeness” editor that will flag your writing if it contains politically incorrect phrases. So use the word “mankind” and it will surely mind.
None of this is surprising, though. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has more of a left-wing savior complex than Bill Nye.
Disney
O’Reilly points out that Disney owns ABC News, which hosts The View, which is rarely correct but usually politically correct. But that pales in comparison to Disney’s greatest sin: corrupting children with sexual devolutionary propaganda. The video below addresses this trespass.
In fact, Disney’s influence on kids is so toxic that it could bring to mind an old admonition involving a millstone and the sea.
Levi’s
Levi’s has strayed a long way from its 1853 founding, as the company ad below evidences.
Yikes. As one respondent put it on X, “Nah, don’t want to ‘explore my style’. I’ll stick with men’s clothes for men. Goodbye Levi.”
Bank of America
Or is it Bank of Amerika?
First, the company divulged private customer data to the feds, allegedly to combat “extremism” (read: patriotism). BOA also, it was revealed, was instructing its employees that white toddlers can be “racist” and that America is a white supremacist country (video below).
In other words, for most patriotic Americans, BOA is DOA.
Returning to O’Reilly (video below), he also cites the aforementioned Newsweek list of the top 10 most woke brands. They are:
- Unilever
- e.l.f. Cosmetics (beauty supplies)
- Mars (M&M candy, Pedigree dog food)
- Pernod Ricard (Seagram’s gin, Jameson whiskey)
- Campbell’s (soup, Goldfish snacks, Prego pasta sauce)
- PepsiCo (soft drinks, Gatorade, Quaker Oats)
- The Hershey Co. (chocolate, SkinnyPop snacks)
- Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
- Mattel (Fisher-Price games, DC Comics-licensed toys)
- McCormick (Lawry’s spices, French’s mustard)
Nice Guys Finish Last
Towards his segment’s conclusion, O’Reilly mentions that he’s reluctant to avoid small businesses that are straightforward about their woke beliefs because, as he puts it, he doesn’t like to “punish people for freedom of expression.” This is misguided — it’s a reason conservatives lose culture wars.
The spirit and law behind “freedom of expression” (“speech,” really) only relates to freedom from legal consequences for speech. It doesn’t mean there are no social consequences. Would O’Reilly (or anyone else) take his position if the given business displayed overtly Nazi or Marxist beliefs? What about advocating genocide or pedophilia? Everyone draws a line.
And that line should be at destructive beliefs, whatever they may be. Note, too, that destructive beliefs remain destructive whether expressed by a business great or small. Realize as well that every society in history has used social pressure — inclusive of scorn and ostracism — to control behavior. “Cancel culture” is an example of using this tool for evil. Traditionalists can, and should, use it for good.
Of course, there is another choice. You can control the culture — or the culture can control you.
