Dear Starbucks

[Bigredhunk]

37. --

This boycott shit just gets to be about too much anymore. You could go crazy trying to figure out who deserves your $$ and who doesn't. We boycott some places/brands, but it's impossible to boycott them all. Our list of no-no's:

Mall-Wart - We haven't stepped foot or spent $$ one in 10 years. This is fairly tough to do in small town Eastern IA, where there aren't a lot of options. Something else that makes it difficult is that I/we like to shop at night when people aren't out. They're the only store of their type to be open 24/7. Everyone closes too damn early.

Papa John's

Domino's

Jimmy John's

Dunkin Donuts

Nestle - Although it's hard to COMPLETELY boycott them.

Home Depot

Lowe's - Not sure about the whole outfit, but they brought in non-union labor to build the local store.

I'm sure there are plenty more we boycott (including local assholes), but I'm drawing a blank right now. Reading all the posts on progressive forums makes me feel like giving up. Let's face it, there are very few left-leaning companies (let alone progressive ones). Most businesses are cut-throat and do only bottom-line thinking. It's easy to shop as a righty, everyone has your interests at heart. As a lefty? There's almost nowhere.

Costco is pretty good (although I don't think they're big union fans). I'm the biggest Costco nuthugger on the planet. I'd love to spend most of my paycheck there. Unfortunately, their (very successful) business model is to build around affluent larger cities. It works well for them. It doesn't work for me. We've been paying members for 10 years. The first 4 of those years, we didn't have a Costco in our state. We'd drive to Minneapolis...stay a few days...load up our car beyond belief...haul it all home. Then they finally built one in Des Moines in '04, but that's still way too far (200-250 miles). Then came Madison, WI (120 miles). The newest is Coralville, IA...but that's still 100 miles away. We don't have the vehicles or the $$ to drive 100 miles one way to get our supplies. We get there as often as possible and spend a bunch (usually about every 6-10 weeks...$400-$700). The median income of a Costco family is something like $77k per year (and that was years ago, might be more now). We don't make that much. Throw in $40 in gas to get there and back...it's just hard.

But we spend plenty at places we should boycott for one reason or another. Target is bad for various reasons, so they should be boycotted (we don't). They're our alternative to Mall-Wart. Menard's is the big home improvement shop around here. They were very pro-Walker, so we should boycott them (we don't). Amazon has had there share of problems (ALEC, bad warehouse conditions), so we should boycott them (we don't). Whole Foods has a jerkoff of a CEO, so we should boycott them (we don't -- they have great produce...are good about no artificial sugars/GMO's).

I've always counted Starbucks as one of the better ones. I know they knocked out mom and pop stores. I don't like that. But people don't go to mom and pop stores. It's the same with the giant booksellers knocking out the indies. Yeah, I hate that B & N did that. But are you telling me the cheap fucks in America are going to go indie and pay $35 for a Stephen King book? I don't like if Schultz thinks cutting SS is a smart move. I'll let them know that. But Starbucks is for raising the minimum wage. They try to bring attention to joblessness. They provide HC to employees working 20 hours per week or more (I've read Mall-Wart covers a higher % of workers -- no idea if that's true). Every time they have shareholder meeting, some asshole that owns 1 share raises a stink about their stance on gay marriage -- Schultz shoots them down every time (check Youtube).

People always talk shit about their overpriced coffee. We've spent tons there over the years. We never coffee at the stores. We get their coffee drinks (or actually, espresso drinks) and Frapps. We love their drinks. There aren't many alternatives around here either. There are a few Caribuou's, but Caribou sucks. Their drinks are way too sweet...and even worse, they taste fake sweet. And pretty much every place charges $3-$5 for drinks. We also drink their VIA, which we think is great. We load up when the price drops. 1 packet = 1 big cup of coffee. That's how we do our coffee at home now.

Anyway, you can't boycott everyone/everything you disagree with. There's just nothing left. And it's especially tough if you don't make a lot of $$. Fair trade coffee costs more, fair trade chocolate costs more, etc... Nike is bad, so we don't get them. Was always proud of the made-in-USA line of New Balance. Then you find out their CEO is a big republican backer. I will write Starbucks if this is true though.

I thought B & N and Bed, Bath, & Beyond were good. Not sure where I read that. Here's an older list:

http://www.goodguide.com/contributions#sector=All%20Categories&sort=-leaning&query=