Comment by Rinzler89 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Rinzler89 | Hacker News Reader

I know this topic resurfaced due to the Googler protest scandal but nothing really changed under the surface since then. A lot of western corporations are still active in Russia today after the invasion. Corporations don't heave a soul or moral compass, they don't care who they hurt or kill, they just follow the money.

French concrete corporation Lafarge was caught funding terorism by paying ISIS to leave their concrete trucks lone in Syria and all they got was a fine from the US government. Nestle is responsible for a shit tonne of infant mortality in impoverished nations and IKEA for major deforestation and nothing really happened to them despite preaching how much they care about people and the environemnt.

I still maintain my PoV that if the execs were to face jailtime or a trail at The Hague instead of petty corporate fines that become part of the cost of doing business, companies would be a lot more mindful on how humane they earn their money. Bring the downvotes, I made peace with it.

Actually things have changed for IBM. Speaking as an IBM employee, but not on behalf of IBM, my team (and I suspect all others) had to identify any work done by Russian IBM employees and then subsequently divested ourselves of those employees and offices during the start of the invasion of Ukraine.

Throwaway for obvious reasons. Do you mean that you've "divested" yourselves from the employees of Russian IBM branch or from anyone who's a Russian national?

The company I work for is in the process of being acquired by IBM. Even though I'm located in Europe, I have Russian citizenship. Does it mean that I'm also going to be "divested from" after the acquisition is complete?

Not OP, but I believe for most companies including IBM the policy was "anyone residing within Russia who did not wish to or could not relocate outside of Russia" would be terminated. If you did relocate (and I believe some assistance was provided) then you were fine.

I work for an IBM subsidary, and to the best of my knowledge this is how it worked. One of my coworkers is a Russian expat (and I believe still citizen) living in Europe and they were unaffected.

> Corporations don't heave a soul or moral compass, they just follow the money.

It's less true that corporations don't have a soul or moral compass and more so that they reflect the soul and moral compass of their owners. Anti-semitism was common amongst the US business and intellectual classes, and many companies - IBM included - were run by people who sympathized with Hitler's ideals.

The uncomfortable truth is that the US and Nazi Germany were a lot more similar in terms of their ideology than the propaganda leads people to believe. Hitler even credited the US' policies of genocide against native Americans, eugenics and racial discrimination as inspiration.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin for an example of US ideology aligned with Hitler's.

The business plot [1] was the potential inflection point in the USA where fascism could have enveloped the nation. (IMO). We got lucky. We STILL are getting lucky.

This stuff is why businesses need to be equally owned by the workers that do all the work. That power and wealth is diffused throughout the population, not concentraighted in the hands of a few men with fewer morals.

The inequity of our way of life is a existential threat.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

It seems entirely possible that the business plot succeeded, just with someone other than Smedley Butler as the figurehead. Despite Smedley informing congress of the plot, it seems no disciplinary action was taken against the conspirators.

I’m feeling that this submission might be more apropos of Gaza than the Russian invasion.

Yeah, the sanctions against Russia were among the most severe in history, and widely observed by Western corporations. That they failed is a different discussion. Meanwhile, BDS is a "hate crime".

BDS is not a hate crime, but the movement is hateful in the methods it employs. It assumes all Jewish entities are guilty by association, unless they make an effort to proclaim their ideological alignment with anti-Israel ideology. Jews are seen by this movement as Zionist-by-default until they declare otherwise, and it takes a very small amount of circumstantial evidence to be targeted for boycott.

We don’t treat other ethnic or religious groups this way. We shouldn’t treat anyone this way.

I think you are making things up; if not, can you give an example of a "Jewish entity" with no significant links to Israel that was explicitly targeted by BDS?

I can give many examples of non-Jewish businesses with links to Israel that have been targeted by BDS.

https://www.adl.org/boston-mapping-project

Also I never questioned that some targets are non-Jewish. There being some non-Jewish targets who support the self-determination of the people of Israel doesn’t invalidate targets that are placed on synagogues, day cares, schools, community centers, bagel shops, etc on specious grounds.

They are targeting Zionists. That the most active Zionist actors are Jewish doesn’t make it a witch hunt based on religion. Also lol at the level of Main Character Syndrome involved in using a phrase like “the self-determination of the people of Israel” - I wonder if any other people in those parts could do with some self-determination?

That example is appalling and indefensible.

I think it's important to note that it has been condemned by BDS.

According to the website you linked to - "Even the BDS Movement has called on BDS Boston, a group promoting the Mapping Project, to cease doing so"

I don't know more about the issue than what you shared, and do not know the structure of BDS, but decentralised groups are vulnerable to their sort of thing where one autonomous group undertakes actions that are entirely unacceptable.

It's one of the reasons it is so important for groups to stamp out antisemitism within their own ranks and not let it fester.

Others have brought up good points about why this is a weak example.

Anyways, do you think ADL should be defined by its loose association with genocidal extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir? Because that's the level of guilt-by-association that you are recommending here.

I didn't investigate all of the obviously Jewish entities in the "Mapping Project", but I looked up half a dozen and all but one of them had explicit "we support Israel in their conflict with Palestine" language at least, and some were actively raising funds for that explicit purpose. (note that most of the list is non-Jewish organizations)

I'm not local, but I did see random internet comments to the effect that "most local Jewish organizations aren't listed", so it seems plausible that the list might in fact be limited to Zionist organizations and those who do business with htem?

Besides that, remember that the ADL in particular has a history of mapping projects of its own, and went beyond that to actually committing crimes. Either mapping of bigots is acceptable or it is not; the one stance that is obviously wrong is that only some types of bigots are allowed to be mapped.

and Ukraine is still on track to lose the war even after all that sanction

Western companies exiting Russia created several Russian billionaires overnight

Resulting in more tax revenues and money staying within that country

I'm sorry but Western virtue signaling impact is routinely over-exaggerated and actually achieves the complete opposite of what it set out to do

Sanctions do work, but anyone claiming that they would single handedly crush the Russian economy in a matter of months were delusional, especially due to all of the avoidance going on through Turkey and Kazakhstan.

Nonetheless, it does add a lot of friction that slowly grinds away at the economy.

For example:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/russias-arctic-l...

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-sp...

Russia can't sustain autarky on their own, and especially not with their demographics, manpower shortages due to the war, wartime spending, and corruption. Right now they're coasting on what's left of their reserves, but those are finite. Their economy won't outright collapse but it will get more and more inefficient and fragile.

yet the sanctions are doing little to change the outcome in the battlefield

Russia is clearing pulling out ahead and its delusional to think that Ukraine even had a chance to begin with

Quantity always wins over quality.

>Russia can't sustain autarky on their own, and especially not with their demographics

Do you think Ukraine's demographics are doing any better?

I live in western Europe and every day I hear Ukrainian on the streets . Wherever you go in Europe, Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland, etc. it's full of Ukrainians (mostly women and youngsters). How do you think Ukraine's chances of success look like when all their women and youngsters are living abroad? Those are you future and they're not where they're needed most but building up other countries future and economies.

Ukraine is dying the slow death. If Russia doesn't do it, their demographics will. Even if they "win", the victory gained will be bombed out land hosting mostly scarred men and elderly pensioners. How is that a victory?

Especially when your leaders, elites telling economically disenfranchised Ukranian men to a meat grinder while they themselves live abroad and have acquired German citizenship

> Do you think Ukraine's demographics are doing any better?

How is that relevant to the discussion? I only brought it up in the context of Russia not being able to compensate for sanctions with their internal economic output.

It's relevant to your comment I replied to because you brought up demographics as being not in Russia's favor.

In a very specific context which your comment does not acknowledge.

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