The has been a lot of discussion about whether Italian firm Moleskine’s position on embossing firearms manufacturer’s logos on their notebooks after we reported that they are right against it. Turns out, according to their brand guidelines, they not only don’t work with firearms companies but also, “Pornographers, Extreme Political Organizations, Religious Organizations, or the Defense Industry.”
On one level, I understand that they want to steer clear of anything controversial, but the Defense Industry? I guess on some level it does go to strengthen my argument that the firearms and defense industries are one in the same and all of these half-baked anti-2A laws only serve to weaken our military in the long run.
Still, I hope they don’t realize Arc’teryx has a LEAF division. Those notebooks are a pretty cool giveaway.
Thanks to BE Meyers for the additional info on Molseskine.
Tags: Moleskine
I love how we’re all being lumped into the same category of “ones to avoid” along with extremists, fanatics and pornographers…
We are EXTREMELY FANATICAL about our PORN
F*** them…I’m going to laser-print my rifle on my Moleskine.
But they’re okay with using Chinese labor.
To paraphrase “Tombstone”, “Their hypocrisy knows no bounds!”
We will be buying, stocking/selling Field Note Brand books now. They are more than happy to work with firearm companies.
I highly suggest everyone switch to them.
So they’re italian? That explains a few things.
Italy has faced extreme political organizations: fascists 1922-1945, various separatist organizations, communist terrorists, a current ultra-nationalist party, etc;
Italian porn is a bit messed up and often linked to the mafia;
They don’t want flak from ANY religious organizations (Italy is heavily catholic), also might link to the porn bit.
The defence industry reasoning is a bit tougher to guess. Maybe they don’t want to look like they’re taking sides in their circles?
Basically they want to keep clear of ANY field that is perceived as controversial.
Just my two € cents.
I’m European too, and frankly, you don’t know too much about Italy (and not, I’m not Italian)
Porn linked to mafia? Yes, like in USA, France, Spain, Germany, Japan, Russia,…
Heavily Catholic? Only on Holidays… like most of Europe with the -maybe- exception of Poland (and dropping quickly)
Faced extreme political organizations? Again, like most of Europe in the last 120 years with very few exceptions
Moleskine avoiding the defense industry and putting them in the same basket as Nazis, Pornographers and such is just another example of a company staff that don’t know shit about a specific industry. If they want to keep that way, their choice… plenty of options on the market, including mine, branding my Moleskine products myself, once I paid for it, it is mine and I can do whatever I want with it.
Same continent, different latitude, myself.
Just bouncing ideas around. Don’t KNOW what they’re thinking, but I can make guesses.
On the religion note, I have little first-hand experience how the everyday things are in Italy, but I do hear things yle.fi/uutiset/finnish-italian_mother_loses_crucifix_fight/5328671
Indeed, they might not know about the industry they’re boycotting, taking political playing-it-safe a tad too far.
I travel to Italy a couple times per year minimum, every region (not only country) is different from each other… you won’t find the same attitude in Milan that in Napoles, the same with Madrid and Sevilla, Hamburg and Berlin, Paris and Marselle… etc. With my US friends is the same… West/East, etc… is not only a geographical factor, but too much stuff involving local/regional cultures, mindset, traditions… but you can find a common “Western Mindset” in all this countries.
I don’t know where is exactly located the HQ of Moleskine or the personal, political or social background of its CEO and Chair of Boards, I think that they simply don’t have a f***ing clue of what the “Defense Industry” is. Their loss, in money.
Guess Rite in the Rain is going to see an increase in their sales!!!
Rite In The Rain has and will always be my go to.
Hell with them, it’s overpriced paper anyway. Walmart has almost identical notebooks that are also Chinese made for way less, probably made with the same equipment without the markup and either way you are buying Chinese. These are also good and made in the usa http://fieldnotesbrand.com/
This attitude is apparently pretty common in a lot of European countries. The guys at Roedale precision (British engineer making precision rifle parts in Germany) had this issue a few years back. They were developing a chassis system for bolt guns like the Remmy 700 and needed someone to make the polymer side panels for it. They couldn’t get almost any reputable companies to do it for them, every one of them citing “ethical reasons” for not wanting to build parts for firearms. Roedale eventually gave up and redesigned their chassis to use Viperskins (an American company).
Europe looks at firearms, and especially the private ownership of them, very differently than the US.
Because they never look at firearms as a tool, but a causation. The only people who rebelled over there with any success were the French.
And look where they are now!
Yes, they have an excellent free health service, great food/restaurants, twice the holidays of America, hundreds of years of culture to draw on and don’t have the obesity problem you lot do. I am not French, just saying…
I am Italian. I do some business with the defense industry. I am a gun nuts (as far as the local laws allow me to).
I want to be clear on that: this behaivour is ABSOLUTELLY normal for an Italian company. Why? Because weapon, down here, are the direct emanation of the Devil himself! You like gun? You are a killer. You are a hunter? You are a killer. You collect knife? You are a killer.
We have some of the most strict guns law of the whole Europe.. belive it or not guns around here are one of the most hated(sp) items you can talk of.
And we have Beretta, Benelli and many many other in the field of small weapon, we have OTO-Melara and Breda in the field of big caliber (the 127mm cannon used by most of the Navy in the western wrld is an Italian design..) and we have some nice capability in making Helicopter (if President Obama didn’t cancel the program today Marine One should have been an Italian chopper). This is the situation here.. and Moleskine is the tipical Italian company: they prefer to stay away from anything that can create controversy. It is very sad for people like me to see company like Moleskine to act this way. About religion: please not that many around here can “proudly” wear the bigot title. Blasphemy is used as punctuation in many region, so don’t consider that religion is so heavy to impact business policy.. it is more “marketing” related. Note that Moleskine is a simbol of the left here in Italy: more or less every intellectual-opinionmaker-non-educated-jurnalist carry at last one Moleskine and this is the “core” of the Moleskine movment here. So said: I was a big Moleskine fan.. since they don’t wamt to make business with company that I like, they don’t want to make business with people like me.. I will spend my money elsewere (i am developing a strong feeling for a Japanese company) and I will probably get rid of all my moleskin stuff..
An alternative that was posted back in Nov’12. Hope these clowns don’t go all lib and we can see some MultiCam, Kryptek and ODG pattern notepads.
https://soldiersystems.net/2012/11/25/word-notebooks/#comments
Their position on the defense industry is quite ironic. According to the CIA museum, Moleskine notebooks and 3×5″ index cards were two of the most important weapons to the Jawbreaker teams.