Have Your Next Tea Party at Starbucks!

[mrjarrell]

J. Neil Schulman has a new piece up concerning Starbucks and their support for carriers. He, like many of us, thinks folks should be showing their support for Starbucks. He's also got a link for a free download of his ever popular book "Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns". He also started a Facebook group for supporters. He likes Starbucks. Apparently, so does Front Sight. Their giving Starbucks employees a $2000 training class free. Sweet!

From J. Neil Schulman

Big business, merely by being successful, is a target of those who hate private enterprise. And even though Dunkin’ Donuts, 7-Eleven, and McDonalds may sell more cups of coffee every day, Starbucks — with over 16,000 locations worldwide, including over 11,000 in the United States — may well be the signature brand of retail coffee today. Like WalMart, Starbucks is immediately controversial because its employees are not unionized. That’s okay with me. Starbucks is already known for its premium prices. I can’t imagine what a tall Mocha Frappuccino would cost if blended by union members.
There’s a Facebook Group with over a thousand members named “F**k Starbucks!” based on an old and refuted urban legend that Starbucks once refused to send its coffee to U.S. Marines deployed in Iraq, telling them, “We don’t support the War or anyone in it.” This group urges those who support the military to boycott Starbucks. It would be ironic if right-wing activists were boycotting Starbucks because of an urban legend started by left-wing union organizers as a way to strong-arm Starbucks.
Contrary to common opinion regarding the Starbucks barista, it’s definitely a job for skilled labor. My daughter worked at Starbucks while in high school, and showed me the procedural manual every employee had to master, detailed to the point of what vocabulary to use while describing coffee flavors to inquiring customers. The word smoky is used a lot. But mastering the full manual of these procedures might daunt a NASA astronaut.
In an age when Tea Party is supposed to describe a political movement, I’ve often felt how few actual beverages are involved. I mean, the actual Boston Tea Party was a minor bit of terrorism to protest a tax on tea. It was a one-time deal. Nobody was going out every weekend dumping tea in Boston Harbor. It’s no wonder the focus of a movement that started out with Ron Paul supporters looking for something else to do when the 2008 candidacy of Ron Paul ended quickly lost its focus, then becoming targets for hostile takeovers by establishment Republicans and neocons.
But Starbucks — which does actually sell real cups of tea — now finds itself, willy nilly, at the center of a controversy that would be of interest to many real grassroots Tea Party activists.

Read the rest at the source and avail yourself of the links. It's worth the time!