As ever a well balanced response.
My single biggest bug bear in all this, and why it feels like virtue signalling, is the same people who buy their LFC replica shirts (knowing they are made by exploited slave labour) are the ones on here talking about protecting human rights!
We cannot save the world, but someone saying they would boycott the club in the event of a Saudi takeover because human rights need to be protected, I find is disingenuous to the cause when they at the same time supporting Nike in exploiting said human rights!
Simple thing, not whataboutery, don’t buy the LFC replica shirt, as you’re supporting exploitation. You know you’re supporting exploitation.
So please don’t anyone tell me about human rights if you choose not to do the most basic thing of not supporting Nike.
I assume that there
are fans who won't buy replica shirts on principle. I have to say, though, that although worker exploitation is grotesque, even that pales into relative insignificance when you put it against the absolute horrors of the regimes currently taking over football.
I sort of tried to say in my other post how we cannot buy
anything at all if we go down that route though. Of course, we all have to find our own line in the sand on these things, but it's damn difficult to do when virtually everything we buy in this world is made via the exploitation of people somewhere in the chain. That's not the fault of football fans, or those who buy electrical goods, mobile phones, clothing etc. That's the fault of the capitalist system we have no real choice but to live with. The workers are exploited, and so too is the consumer. We are
all being screwed over by the system.
Thing is, to be 100% principled in this world you simply cannot live. You would have to boycott virtually everything, because society is unfair, it's rigged and it's deeply unjust. Everyone is getting screwed from all angles. That's the way the system works, and that's why you cannot fight everything. You just have to make a stand where and when you can.
When I've done counselling work with a lot of people, part of what we do is try to help them to stop letting every issue stick to them and drag them down. In life, if you care, you tend to let a lot of issues stick to you. You can end up feeling like every day is a battle. You see the injustice everywhere and, in time, it overwhelms people because they feel helpless in the face of it all. So, you have to learn to filter. Take on battles that you can maybe influence. You can still be against X and Y whilst your focus is on Z. You have to prioritise or you will drown.
Yes, I'm sure some people do boycott companies like Nike. Some won't, despite knowing that workers are being exploited. Again though, if we boycott everything that involves exploitation somewhere along the line, we simply cannot function. We would have to live in a cave. Now that's absolutely tragic, but it's not our fault. It's the fault of the system we are all forced to live with because there is no alternative. Just writing this post and you writing yours means we are probably using computers or phones built in some far off place where the workers are paid peanuts. Will you give up your PC and/or phone? Will I? No, but it doesn't mean we cannot stand up for issues in our lives right now that matter to us. The entire world matters to me. The planet itself, humanity in general. They all matter to me, but there is only so much fight in me. Only so much I can do. Many people just say ''fuck it'' and do nothing and stand for nothing. That's up to them. We can only do what we can do, and only fight the battles we find most pressing in our lives. For a lot of people, this club and its values matter, and that's where much of their focus currently is.
For me, every single human being on this planet should be paid a fair days pay for a fair days work. Everyone. Everyone should have enough money to then pay their bills and have enough left over to actually enjoy life too. Sadly, the system we live under has other ideas. Again, that's not our fault. That's the fault of the twats in power who use the population as an exploitable resource. The same twats who allow multi billion dollar companies to set up sweat shops in impoverishing countries, exploiting both the workers there then the consumer here.