Interesting. As a young kid in the early 80's (USA), I remember going to a Disney movie with my mom and brothers called "Night Crossing," which was about a family in East Germany escaping to West Germany via a hot air balloon in the middle of the night that they constructed. Being less than 10, I had no clue what was going on in Europe or the effects of post-WW2, but that movie sure stuck with me even to this day. It prompted many healthy discussions as a child that would probably never have been brought up, or at least for another 10 years.
> Products that use the words 'Russia' or 'Russian' in the brand name, advertising, or product description—along with products that depict Russian architecture or symbols colloquially associated with Russia—are all considered to be Russian-branded products and have been removed under the Governor's Executive Order[2]
It’s hard to see how that’s anything other than emotional. And, I would imagine, illegal.
[1](PDF)https://www.governor.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt336/files/in...
[2]https://www.newsweek.com/vodka-brands-remind-they-arent-russ...
Also, they are rightly concerned about the longer term effects of sanctions and instability as even if Russia pulled their troops out of Ukraine today (not going to happen), tensions aren't going to ease in the near term and sanctions are likely to remain in place for at least months, if not years. So it's not like business is going to come back in the short term. For the brands that depend on a 'squeaky clean' image, trying to keep as far from controversy as possible is good business.
[1] See, I just did it.
Companies that don’t severe ties with Russia as fast as possibly seem to be at a very real risk losing their customer bases here in Europe in the wake of the invasion.
I can’t even claim to be above it. I cancelled my Netflix subscription when it was aired that they complied with Russian broadcast laws. Something Netflix no longer does by the way.
I’ve never had an issue buying products from Russia before, so if I’m not the only one reacting like this, and it seems like my reaction has been amongst the milder here, then you may find some of the answer in that.
"How does this action help end the war in Ukraine?" should be the litmus test, and if the logic to get there is too tortured, maybe rethink the action.
That wasn't the main reason for my action. The main reason was to cease doing business with a nation behaving in brutal and barbaric ways we have long considered completely and utterly unacceptable, and haven't seen the like of since WWII. There has to be a cost, and this is an additional cost, albeit minor, on top of the existing sanctions. I'll consider re-subscribing when this is all over, perhaps. I might not have been able to renew the subscription in any case, now that making payments is nearly impossible.
We haven't even begun to see the full economic cost of the sanctions yet, but from what I can see I suspect it will be significant, way beyond what's been reported so far. Within just a few days of the freezing of the payments systems, commercial contracts can no longer be honoured and are being cancelled wholesale. That business is going to be redirected to other countries, and I'm afraid that's going to be extremely painful for the affected companies, employees and families. And that's including for internal business projects, and is on top of companies which are explicitly pulling out of consumer-facing Russian markets. Whether this will actually effect any change in policy I don't know, I hope it does, but doing nothing would have been worse.
Drone striking middle eastern children didn't do it for you? Something about this rhetoric I keep seeing is just so.. selective. So nakedly biased. If people feel so strongly about Russias actions in Europe, how is it that millions of dead Muslims are inconsequential?
That question is rhetorical, I think it's obvious why that really is
Now, those products are ubiquitous and it’s their withdrawal that might have some effect. Most kids through middle age adults in Russia don’t know what it’s like without those Western products.
The West seems happy to give Putin the full USSR glory days experience.
How did consumer goods and food distribution actually happen in (commun|social)ist economies? As in, the last mile experience as a consumer?
Check this photo of a "bodega" in Cuba (first image in this page): https://www.cibercuba.com/noticias/2018-08-01-u1-e192519-s27...
Despite the reputation, the government usually was very sensitive to the issue of keeping meat or at least a lot of bread on the table. When the DDR ran out of money to import coffee in the 70s, it was one of the more serious threats to their rule and it stimulated the development of the Vietnamese coffee industry in "socialist cooperation". (Fun fact: to this day Germany is still Vietnam's largest coffee buyer.). Prices were quite low in proportion to wages, effectively government subsidised. Hence shortages, though rarely for staples. Hunger was rare after 1950. Dietary boredom was not.
In the not so good economic years, or in many parts of the Soviet Union or less wealthy socialist countries, similar story, except meat shortages and too many turnips and your wages might not afford too many restaurant visits. Out in the country there was some subsistence agriculture in the poorer places like Vietnam. Some places never Stalin-style collectivised the farms, and there you saw small market or at least barter economies in small towns and rural areas consuming local product locally, farmer's markets basically.