Yesterday’s announcement that Seattle-based Starbucks’ fourth-quarter 2010 earnings were up again – as reported in this morning’s Seattle Times – is evidently driving gun prohibitionists nuts.
Why else would Chicago-based anti-gunner Elliot N. Fineman make the absolutely crazy public demand that Starbucks donate $10 million annually to the gun prohibition lobby and change its policy of catering to legally-armed private citizens? Fineman, like the Brady Campaign and Washington CeaseFire before him, is promoting a boycott of Starbucks until the coffee giant hands over the money.
This sounds an awful lot like blackmail. Some might suggest it borders on racketeering.
…the bottom line to this argument is Starbucks’ bottom line. That has looked much better in a down economy ever since the anti-gun-rights lobby tried to intimidate the company with its campaign of political thuggery.
Dave Workman
January 27, 2011
Time for a hard January lesson in economics, public sentiment, common sense
[I guess that “buycott” by gun owners is working out okay for Starbucks.—Joe]
That attempt to coerce a donation is blackmail, and everyone from race hucksters to Chicago politicians use it.
Why else, other than coercive threats of punitive regulatory action, would BP set up a fund of $20BILLION under the executive branch’s control when there was no apparent legal need to do so?
Nice little business you have there, Starbucks. Too bad if anything happens to it.
This scam only works if done without much public scrutiny, and fails when the scammer is exposed as the lying, dangerous sack of offal most really are.
WAAAAAtaminute! You used Chicago Anti-gunner and Extortion in the same sentence. Redundancy Alert! Redundancy Alert! BTW, were the civil-rights-denier to make any headway with his boycott, since he is speaking as an organized entity, he would be liable under the tort of Improper Secondary Boycott. I’d LOOOVE to see the Starbucken sue his panties off.