Corporations Rule

While it's not wrong to be cynical about it, this isn't exactly the right reason. The Nazis would just take over companies and install new leadership if they were inadequately supportive.
It's not even "if I don't do it, someone else will, so I may as well do it". A lot of people did refuse to do it and were arrested or fired.
Beyond that, everyone involved in the decision is dead now. They could have all been Nazis and that would have little bearing on if the people who work there now were.
The reason to be cynical is because companies can't care about things, so if they say they do it's a lie.
People inside the company might care, and might find a way to get the company to do something good, but that's a person finding a way to use the company for good, not the company caring or being good.
Unlike the Nazis, no one is forcing them to embrace pride. They do it because they think it's a profitable demographic.
- The family that still owns large parts of BMW had multiple members in the NSDAP and other Nazi organisations. They made a fortune with selling military equipment to fuel world war 2 and they kept most of that fortune after the war.
  They were absolutely deliberate in what they did and the only thing that coerced them was their greed.
  
  Oh, I'm not defending BMW or any company in specific regarding Nazism. I'm saying the actions and beliefs of dead people who used to run the company are the wrong reasons for cynicism, particularly in the context of a violent and coercive regime.
  A company doesn't have opinions so it can't support anything, good or evil. It makes as much sense to be cynical of "posters" because there have also been evil posters.
  
  on the other hand, bmw didn't really exist outside germany at that time, like most companies pre-globalization. if the choice was between "collaborate" and "stop existing" it becomes murkier.
- They do it because they think it's a profitable demographic.
  Maybe it’s just liberalism Stockholm syndrome talking, but I find it somehow comforting that communicating support for LGBT+ issues is considered a good business move.
  It’s an important bell-weather. Hate might be increasingly popular, but it’s still not a good way to make money.
  So yeah, rainbow capitalism is crass and self serving and shallow. But it also means the global economic elite aren’t quite ready embrace full on queer killing Nazis just yet.
  
  It's precisely a good bell-weather! It means that the cold money monsters think gay people and their supporters have more money, and hate doesn't have the power to punish them. It also means that good people who work for the company feel safe saying "donating resources to LGBT teen suicide prevention would be great.... Advertising?" And the money monsters don't disagree, and the bad people don't have enough sway to squash it.
  Rainbow capitalism is a parasite that feeds on social tolerance. It's gross that it showed up, but it couldn't unless society was in an at least moderately healthy place.
  Just don't fall into the trap of personifying the companies that do many people do.
- BMW didn't exactly need to be forced, they were directly involved in the Holocaust.
- It's not even "if I don't do it, someone else will, so I may as well do it".
  Or in BMWs case
  "I'll do it".
  
  Fair. Not intending to convey sympathy for companies and the people in them that supported Nazism, to be clear.
  They're not people that can have opinions to flip-flop. They're legal fictions made of people who are now dead.

Also see the recent "anti-DEI" backlash.
I tried to get hired at an "anti-DEI" company pre-pandemic, for an intern position. They asked my brother if I had "unexplainable" fits of rage that would lead to destroyed equipment and bitten coworkers. Then in the second round they asked if I knew how much is 2 + 2, in a joking manner. Finally they instead tried to hire those who actually cheated the entry tests (they had to be let go), they had the best luck with reeducating a Javascript dev into a Java one. All because they though all disability that isn't coming from amputation is "severe intellectual disability", because joke made at the expense of the intellectually disabled.
- And what was the severe intellectual disability that got you this treatment?
  
  Autism. Did not tell them, but they found out.
- DEI or die in action again.

This isn't a good example. These two images were 80 years apart, and the people running the company under Nazi rule are long dead. May as well be a different company at that point. A much better example is the exact same company in the exact same year putting Pride flags all over their socials in western countries, while refusing to put Pride flags on any of their non-western socials because they don't want to offend the countries that gleefully imprison and execute LGBTQ+ people.
- Even better example would be the day after Pride month when all the Pride stuff suddenly disappears from every one of those stores.
  Though I'd be willing to bet real money that those companies won't be putting any pride flags up this year or any other year that Trump is President.
- Also BMW was a major sponsor if NSDAP when the Communists were considering nationalizing private wealth.
  All the hate and cynicism directed at Bavarian Motor Works can never be enough.

I mean to be fair, the nazis would fuck your life up / kill you if you didn't do as they said, so... Yea.
My great grandfather was in the Gestapo. I've painstakingly translated and read his old journals. Fucking wooof.
- You can’t just say that and not lay any dirt down at all.
- OMG, this is so historical and it would be amaaazing if you published it

Ooh, ooh! Now do Hugo Boss!

LGBT and Buddhism, didn’t know BMW was so lib
- Bisexual Monks Works

I'm all for the cynicism, but supposedly that BMW badge is a fake.
But for real, don't let me dampen the corpo snark. Just thought some of you may like to know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_the_Holocaust

I think the lesson we've all just recently learned is that you'd rather see them do pride in a cynical attempt to win our dollars than not see it.

There are much better examples that aren’t 80 years apart

i think they are a reasonable indicator. if spineless corporation want to market to queer audiences, it means it is deem OK to be queer, however, consider banks prode campaigns to be a canary in a coalmine, when they are gone it's time to worry and probably get out.

the original swasticar

That's right, reform is impossible and people are absolutely never allowed to change.
Sorry buddy, your opinions from 10 years ago? Your political stance 80 years ago? That's who you are. We won't be taking any rebuttals.
- Sure bud. BMW is on your side.
  
  I always forget lemmy is filled with edge lord reddit refugees and always take things at face value. Oops, my bad.