Greedy Corporate Swine at Starbucks Cleverly Market Altruistic Image

Posted on | December 26, 2012 | 46 Comments

Perhaps you’re not old enough to remember the 1999 “Battle in Seattle,” when ~~mostly peaceful demonstrators~~ dangerous anarchists ~~exercised their First Amendment rights~~ went on a violent rampage in downtown Seattle during a meeting of the World Trade Organization.

What the rioters were allegedly protesting was “globalization,” which at the time was the trendy new left-wing code word for capitalism, in much the same way that Obama now talks about the “middle class,” instead of proletariat. (They update the language, but the ideology never changes.) Anyway, amid the senseless destruction wreaked by the rampaging anarchists, they smashed the windows at a Starbucks.

This was ironic symbolism, considering that Starbucks is a Seattle-based company which supports progressive political causes and has always cleverly marketed itself as concerned with environmentalism and other lefty “issues.” But this signifying jive didn’t fool the Black Bloc radicals, who despise all capitalist greedheads, no matter how much trendy progressive camouflage their marketing departments may deploy.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz made more than $65 million last year peddling his company’s left-wing brand and — displaying his shrewd marketing savvy — endorsed Obama, because nothing says Hope and Change quite like $4-a-cup Arabica. So now, Howard Schultz is hustling bipartisan cooperation on the “fiscal cliff”:

There are moments in our lives when we have an opportunity to ignite tremendous positive change—not just in the lives of the customers and communities we serve every day, but in our country. This was evident in the outpouring of support in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary that claimed 26 innocent lives, including one of our partners (employees), Lauren Rousseau.
This spirit of connectedness and humanity is powerful; so powerful that if we unleash it, we can make a difference on a much grander scale. . . .
As many of you know, our elected officials in Washington D.C. have been unable to come together and compromise to solve the tremendously important, time-sensitive issue to fix the national debt. . . .
Rather than be bystanders, we have an opportunity—and I believe a responsibility — to use our company’s scale for good by sending a respectful and optimistic message to our elected officials to come together and reach common ground on this important issue. This week through December 28, partners in our Washington D.C. area stores are writing “Come Together” on customers’ cups.
It’s a small gesture, but the power of small gestures is what Starbucks is about! Imagine the power of our partners and hundreds of thousands of customers each sharing such a simple message, one cup at a time.

Screw you, Howard Schultz. Screw you and your phony “progressivism,” your bogus idealism-for-profit image-mongering, while you cash in on the National Public Radio-listening MSNBC-watching fools who buy your product because they think it’s a way to “make a difference.”

Next time there’s a riot, I hope the Black Bloc trashes all your stores.

(Via Memeorandum.)

Category: Barack Obama, Budget, Progressivism, Taxes

Comments

46 Responses to “Greedy Corporate Swine at Starbucks Cleverly Market Altruistic Image”

Adjoran
December 26th, 2012 @ 1:33 pm

Face it: people who are dumb enough and lazy enough to pay $4-7 for a cup of coffee are already primed to believe that some low-wage coffee-slinger writing a slogan in disposable Sharpie ink on their disposal cup not only contributes to solving the fiscal crisis but also to saving the planet – no matter how much the proliferation of Starbucks locations and products increases their “carbon footprints.”

The Starbucks customer base consists of the very poster children for everything which went wrong in Western culture in the postwar period.
Jackie Wellfonder
December 26th, 2012 @ 1:35 pm

I confess, I love Starbucks 🙁
Steve Skubinna
December 26th, 2012 @ 1:39 pm

“Come Together?” At least they aren’t writing “Imagine” on the cups. I have always hated that one.
smitty
December 26th, 2012 @ 1:41 pm

What if customers just dig the product? Why the H8?
William_Teach
December 26th, 2012 @ 1:43 pm

Wow. Writing “come together ” on their coffee cups. Brilliant. Then again, still better than Obama’s plan.
robertstacymccain
December 26th, 2012 @ 1:47 pm

Fuck those sons of bitches. I’m drinking Folgers at home.
willpeir
December 26th, 2012 @ 1:50 pm

Until they start writing, “I love taxes and hate math,” on the coffee cups, it’s a rather empty gesture.
Lightwave
December 26th, 2012 @ 1:57 pm

No H8 necessary smitty. All Starbucks has to do is plow every dollar of profits into paying off the national debt. Should only take an eternity.

Until they do that, their gesture is as worthless as their product, their employees, and their customers.
JeffS
December 26th, 2012 @ 2:15 pm

Of course, the really stupid thing about this is that American citizens can drop an e-mail to their elected Congresscritters without paying extra. Just go to their Official Federal Goobermint Website™, and hit the “contact” link.

Easy peasy. Unless one is a pea brained, low information voter, capable of making the journey to buy a cup of trumped up joe, but lazy to visit house.gov or senate.gov
robertstacymccain
December 26th, 2012 @ 2:21 pm

The $65-million-a-year CEO ostentatiously displaying his compassion by requiring $9-an-hour barristas to write “Come Together” on $4 cups of coffee — enough irony to make your head hurt.
robertstacymccain
December 26th, 2012 @ 2:27 pm

It’s the Politics of Gesture: “Let’s feel good about ourselves because we’re Making a Difference!”
This is the kind of narcissistic do-gooder “progressivism” that makes me want to cheer for black-masked brick-throwing anarchist assholes.
Post Christmas Catch-Up « Nice Deb
December 26th, 2012 @ 2:31 pm

[…] Other McCain: Greedy Corporate Swine at Starbucks Cleverly Market Altruistic Image: Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz made more than $65 million last year peddling his company’s […]
gwheelockvan
December 26th, 2012 @ 2:44 pm

Only if they toss that brick right at the head of Howard.
Paul H. Lemmen
December 26th, 2012 @ 2:47 pm

Black Silk … a better cuppa than anything from $tarbuck$. Folger’s French Roast is quite decent too.
McGehee
December 26th, 2012 @ 3:02 pm

Can anyone tell me whether the stuff Starbucks sells tastes like coffee? I know that’s what they call it, but people call the thing in Washington, D.C. “government” instead of the world’s biggest “legit” mafia, so you can understand my skepticism.
Becca Lower
December 26th, 2012 @ 3:18 pm

There’s one glaring point that needs mentioning: the similarity between the Schultz statement and every Dem/liberal speech since Sandy Hook. How is the wrenching mass murder of schoolchildren and their teachers in Connecticut in any way connected to “bipartisanship” on the fiscal cliff in D.C. IT ISN’T!
Becca Lower
December 26th, 2012 @ 3:23 pm

It’s good for meetings/blogging when the house is too noisy. What to do?
Steve Skubinna
December 26th, 2012 @ 3:24 pm

Profits? You mean Starbucks makes a profit? They do it for money?

Those bastards!
Steve Skubinna
December 26th, 2012 @ 3:26 pm

Oh yeah? I’ll bet you don’t even have a “Coexist” sticker on your Prius, you racist asshole.
WarEagle82
December 26th, 2012 @ 3:29 pm

I sold my SBUX for a little profit a couple of years ago. They are basically selling hot milk for $4.00 a cup. With government subsidized milk going for about $2.50 A GALLON in Northern Virginia, why aren’t these greedy capitalists getting pilloried over WINDFALL PROFITS and PRICE GOUGING?

For the same reason DICK GREGORY will walk on his gun law violation. The same rules don’t apply to them…
JeffS
December 26th, 2012 @ 4:12 pm

No foolin’. I’d cheer for terminal narcissism, save, it’s likely to drag us all down the toilet.

And gestures I can do as well as any stupid leftie, only they ain’t “down twinkles”.
missred
December 26th, 2012 @ 5:09 pm

As you said, shrewd marketing savvy. And the idiots who buy their overpriced lousy coffee will think they are saving the world while Howard Schultz laughs all the way to the bank, avoiding taxes on the way, no doubt
Dianna Deeley
December 26th, 2012 @ 5:22 pm

It tastes like burnt coffee. It’s over-roasted, to begin with, then made with water that’s too hot.
Dianna Deeley
December 26th, 2012 @ 5:25 pm

Go to Peet’s?
Becca Lower
December 26th, 2012 @ 5:50 pm

We don’t have Peet’s, but there are local coffeeshops and/or McDonald’s with wifi. Guess I have no choice, do I?
Dianna Deeley
December 26th, 2012 @ 6:26 pm

We support a local coffee roaster – it’s really shocking what coffee snobs we are, in this house. Though, if push comes to shove, I want caffeine, and I don’t really care how I get it. I speak as the person who once received a 500 cc drip of pure caffeine intravenously, and went to sleep.
Greg Toombs
December 26th, 2012 @ 7:58 pm

I don’t want either sexual advice or references when I buy coffee.
rjacobse
December 26th, 2012 @ 11:05 pm

Fourbux coffee is nasty stuff; tastes charred. Yeah, the stores are nice. Who cares when the product tastes like carburator cleaner?
And now their CEO has demonstrated that he is a useful idiot. It’s a two-bagger!
Blair
December 27th, 2012 @ 6:17 am

We had a Starbucks open in our mall a few years back. Typically a tenant gets one ton (12,000 btu/h) of air conditioning for every 360 ft2.

The Starbucks lease insists on one ton for every 200 ft2. We had to run a 200 amp service to their coffee shop. Nothing ‘Green’ about those guys except what’s in the cash registers.
Quartermaster
December 27th, 2012 @ 8:07 am

Perc your own?
Quartermaster
December 27th, 2012 @ 8:09 am

Libtards, like Starbuck’s CEO, has a serious problem with cognitive dissonance, nicht wahr?
wanderer
December 27th, 2012 @ 8:11 am

Amen to that.

Get a press if you don’t have one. Even a really cheap one is worth the money.
Quartermaster
December 27th, 2012 @ 1:34 pm

You slammed Smitty the Great, who evidently loves Starbucks.
Wombat_socho
December 27th, 2012 @ 7:00 pm

McD’s is the coffee source of choice, if there’s no Dunkin Donuts.
Wombat_socho
December 27th, 2012 @ 7:02 pm

For about a year after Starbucks opened in the IDS Crystal Court in downtown Minneapolis, the whole indoor atrium was saturated with the smell of burned coffee. It was like being trapped in the coffee machine of a fifth-rate mess hall. 🙁
Wombat_socho
December 27th, 2012 @ 7:03 pm

Wait, Obama has a plan?
Becca Lower
December 27th, 2012 @ 10:42 pm

If I wanted to make my own coffee, I would have stayed working at McDonald’s.
Bob Belvedere
December 29th, 2012 @ 6:43 pm

Glad to know I’m not the only one whom caffeine can either wake-up or make tired.
Bob Belvedere
December 29th, 2012 @ 6:43 pm

Love me my Folgers.
Bob Belvedere
December 29th, 2012 @ 6:45 pm

The hate is easily explained: Schultz acts and writes like a German Industrialist in the 1930’s.
Bob Belvedere
December 29th, 2012 @ 6:47 pm

That Schultz, he one spinal cracker.
Bob Belvedere
December 29th, 2012 @ 6:48 pm

I have one plastered right up my raaaaacist arsehole!
Bob Belvedere
December 29th, 2012 @ 6:50 pm

That’s the dead-giveaway that drinking it is mere posturing on most people’s part.
Bob Belvedere
December 29th, 2012 @ 6:51 pm

And while they’re waiting in line to see a doctor and he has one who makes house calls.
Fiscal-Cliff Kabuki Nears Final Scene : The Other McCain
January 1st, 2013 @ 3:58 pm

[…] the Democrat Party. Damn them all to hell.UPDATE: In the interests of bipartisanship and the Starbucks ”Come Togther” spirit, I’ll quote Tom Blumer’s PJ Media column:What Breitbart understood, and what all […]
House Passes Fiscal-Cliff Deal 257-167 : The Other McCain
January 1st, 2013 @ 11:09 pm

[…] They DecryDec. 28: Civility, He Says: Steny Hoyer Compares Republicans to Hostage-TakersDec. 26: Greedy Corporate Swine at Starbucks Cleverly Market Altruistic ImageDec. 10: Two Weeks Until Christmas and Three Weeks Until ‘Fiscal Cliff’Dec. 1: Happy Fiscal […]