- Joined
- Sep 13, 2012
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- veni, vidi, volo - now back in NC
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Imagine you go to your nearest 4th of July parade this weekend and there's 100 floats of which 70 of them are large corporations who have slapped a logo and a flag onto a pickup and trailer, and bused in a bunch of employees there only to sit and wave at you and maybe hand out pencils with the logo on it.
KPMG, Hyatt, Tyson, TD Ameritrade, GAP, JP-Morgan Chase, Comcast, Walgreens, Aon, ORBITZ, Boeing ...
That's what nearly all Pride Parades have become. Painfully boring. A giant two hour long commercial. Totally unrelated to the point of the parade.
Everything else that's interesting has been condensed into a few couple floats: LGBT veterans, marching bands, Dykes on Bikes, drag queens. You blink and you miss them.
It's so not worth it.
(* And actually, the 4th of July parades are having this problem too.)
In a free society, things occur that not all people will like, including those that some find objectionable for whatever reason, like who's funding events that would otherwise not be able fund themselves, and asking for banners and so forth being placed as advertisement in return for their funding. I prefer that to the opposite, which would be complete state sponsorship and complete state control.
If a group doesn't need outside funding, then fine, there's no reason for outside funding or commercial advertising in return. Otherwise, we all just need to suck it up, put our big boy and big girl pants on, and be happy that there are companies out there that support LGBT communities, as well as the celebration of the 4th of July, and all they ask for is to be recognized for their funding of events that we all should support.
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