Time to Give Starbucks a Break

I notice there’s still quite a lot of pictures of guns and coffee appearing on Starbucks’ Facebook page. I would like to note that Starbucks never asked for their brand to be associated with gun rights; all they want to do is sell coffee. Now that two days have passed since the end of the appreciation day, I’d like to ask everyone to support Starbucks by continuing to buy their coffee, and yummy baked goods. That is what I intend to do. For the purposes of really playing up the Buycott, I think we’ve gotten our message through. It’s time to let them go about hawking their product. By all means, let’s keep the gratitude pouring into corporate, and pouring into their coffers, but I think we ought to let Starbucks’ brand go back to just being about great coffee. That means not engaging in, what in a person-to-person analogy would be walking up to the barista, and continuing to stick pro-gun stickers all over her, and handing her guns. She didn’t ask for that. She just wants to serve you coffee.

UPDATE: I should note that, I don’t want to dissuade anyone from polite engagement with the anti-gunners bringing fourth their own hate on Starbuck’s page. But I would concentrate on shaming them for dragging coffee into politics, rather than trying to turn their FB into a battleground.

18 thoughts on “Time to Give Starbucks a Break”

  1. Hear hear! Remember guys, WE are the normal folks who just want to be let alone, to live our lives w/o gov’t interference, WE do not force others to accept our beliefs! (leave that brand of foolishness for the Anti’s!). Instead lets be respectful and polite, but firm about our convictions!

    1. To be honest, flooding their FB with pictures of guns was not really smart activism. It wasn’t the day of the appreciation, or now. Starbucks does not want to be anti-gun, nor does it want to be pro-gun. It wants to sell coffee. The more attention they get associated with our cause, the more incentive they have to enter negotiations with our opponents to try to get them to back down, so we back down.

      I think we’ve made our point to the degree that Starbucks won’t reverse and ban guns from its stores. They now know that’s a losing proposition for them. But what you don’t want is for them to talk to the other side, and make an arrangement to make them back down, so that we back down. If I were Starbucks CEO, and I had no real dog in this fight, I’d consider quietly writing the other side a check, with the stipulation that it not be disclosed, in the hopes that it would make them back away, so they don’t have the kind of branding nightmare gun people have created for them by plastering guns all over their social media outlets. And it’s not just guns, I wouldn’t really want that kind of attention for any contentious issue (which is why I’m surprised they took a position on marriage equality, to be honest).

      The best thing is to keep buying, and keep writing corporate every once in a while. We really don’t want to make Starbucks have to wear our brand, rather than make its own.

      1. To be honest, flooding their FB with pictures of guns was not really smart activism.

        This was never about smart activism. The reason Starbucks became a focal point is because OC activists in California were running out of places to convince to ban guns. But I guess that doesn’t matter now, since those same people convinced the whole state to ban their OC activism. Smart activism? Not so much. Just one of the many lousy ideas coming from California.

        1. It’s very tough for gun-owners living in California. So I give the open-carry demonstrators here in this state full credit for brass balls. And I think the criticism of them is unfair, particularly from people who aren’t fully informed of the circumstances here in California.

          First off those people were openly carrying unloaded pistols, because that’s the best you can get in California. To carry a loaded weapon, concealed or unconcealed, requires a CCW permit and California is a may-issue state. Which means if you are a cab driver or have some other dangerous job you can’t get a permit, but if you are the notorious hothead celebrity Sean Penn you can.

          What the open carry events were protesting is the absence of a fair permit process for loaded weapons. They were not parading or attempting to flaunt open armament. The situation here is not like in other states. We are battling just for the right to be armed, period. Open, concealed, whatever.

          There is active litigation in California challenging the CCW law. The judge hearing the case in San Diego ruled that the law was fine since people had the option of openly carrying unloaded pistols. So what do you suppose is going to happen in the appeal of that case, now that even open carry of an unloaded handgun is against the law?

          The open carry protesters, by provoking the anti-gun politicians into over-reach, may have just opened the door to true reform of California law. Good for them!

          1. And I think the criticism of them is unfair, particularly from people who aren’t fully informed of the circumstances here in California.

            You’re mistaken. I’m fully aware of the circumstances in CA that lead up to their misguided open carry PR stunts. I’m also aware that each time they conducted another misguided open carry PR stunt, another private business banned firearms, and more private citizens called their legislators and delivered the liberal mantra, “There Should Be A Law!”

            Failing to learn anything from these repeated blunders – namely that private businesses and folks enjoying coffee or pizza aren’t interested in gun politics or gun PR stunts – they kept chugging away with the same predictable results.. until they came upon Starbucks. But they tried desperately to convince Starbucks to ban firearms too, and thankfully AB144 put a stop to that by outlawing the open carry of unloaded handguns.

            Undeterred, and unable to learn a damned thing, some of these geniuses started openly carrying unloaded long guns – virtually guaranteeing that this activity will be outlawed soon as well.

            Did I miss anything, aside from gambling that this will somehow magically bring liberalized CCW permitting to CA? (Surely due to the events above convincing everyone that gun folks are perfectly reasonable people and not in any way irresponsible or dangerous)

  2. I gave them my $2 bill, but honestly I’ve had better coffee in a truck stop.

  3. Cash is the best message. Though if one is too subtle the message won’t be received at all.

    So on the morning of the 14th I bought a mocha and fritter for $6.30, and put the remaining change from $10 into the tip jar. And I asked for the receipt. The place was busy, so I stepped aside.

    I wrote on the receipt how much I tipped, and I also wrote NRA (heart) Starbucks, 2-14-2012 anti-boycott. Then I handed my receipt to the worker and asked her to please give that receipt to the supervisor, then I left. From behind me I think I heard the worker exclaim in laughter and surprise as she read the receipt (no doubt curious). I think it was the heart symbol that got her.

    I wouldn’t surprise me at all if my odd purchase was the first and only news that the staff had ever had of the boycott and our counter-efforts. But I hoped the supervisor would get the message and pass it up the chain of command.

      1. Someone else posted it claiming that Ladd posted it first. I also suspect that the “Associate” field at the bottom was his wife-first name began with an R.

  4. Wow. If our guys would just stop posting to Starbuck’s Facebook page, the antis would look like the idiots they are. Instead, we’re getting baited into looking like the idiots we are, too:
    http://www.facebook.com/Starbucks

    I imagine Starbucks is getting tired of us using their business for our political protest. Seriously, we’re just begging them to cave in – and I wouldn’t be surprised if they do if the idiots on our side keep obliging the idiots on the other side.

    All we need is for some more geniuses in California to organize another PR stunt at Starbucks. Oh, wait, they can’t. Well, at least we have that going in our favor.

    1. Yeah… that’s kind of my point. We don’t want to cede the field to them, but let them be the ones spamming Starbucks’ FB wall with political stuff… though I don’t mind the folks leaving a short message of support for their position. But you have a lot of our people making political statements, that don’t have anything to do with Starbucks or their position.

      1. Um, aren’t you one of the guys who was pushing this whole buycott in the first place? And now you’re saying it’s time to back off? C’mon, a lot of the folks on our side are rabid morons. In fact, they’re posting on Starbuck’s Facebook page right now. If you give throngs of rabid morons an idea, don’t be surprised when a bunch of them run with it. Which is why it was probably better to just let the CSGV folks and their whopping 200 people just not buy coffee they had no intention of buying anyway. Now Starbuck’s Facebook page is being spammed about guns. I can’t imagine anyone at Starbucks is happy about that. Too late now, but it’s something to think about for next time.

        1. I told people to buy coffee and send some appreciation to corporate. What people did with it from there isn’t my doing. I’m advocating what I think is smart activism. If I worried about what idiots were going to do with every idea, we’d never do anything. I’ll err on the side of action than inaction, generally speaking.

        2. BTW, unrelated to what’s happening on Starbucks’ FB page right now, I think if they try to Boycott in the future, the best tactic is to ignore it. I think we’ve made our point to Starbucks.

  5. FWIW, it looks like Ladd is trolling the Starbucks FB page with the sole purpose of keeping useful idiots on our side posting:
    http://i41.tinypic.com/euoea8.png

    And there are plenty of useful idiots willing to oblige him:
    http://www.facebook.com/Starbucks

    I’d say his strategy of having these idiots make the rest of us look bad is a winning one. Anyone visiting that page would think we’re all extremists who think about guns all the time. If I were in his shoes, I’d focus more on things like this – coaxing rabid morons on our side to make his case for him. Unfortunately, there’s not really any way to stop it, since you can’t prevent stupid.

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