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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2747 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 18, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Trolling street protesters is good fun. Walking up the street and the Revolutionary Communist Party have set up a stand. One of the members calls out to me and my girlfriend, "hey guys, are you interested in communism?"

I shout back "absolutely not!" without breaking stride. Even he laughed at that.

A few hours later we go to McDonald's. When we're leaving, a bunch of pro-Palestine protesters wearing ghoulish costumes have congregated outside, shaming all the people who enter or exit in light of McDonald's support for Israel (?). One of them calls out to us "you don't have to do this again!" I replied "but I will!"

It's fascinating what's happened with McDonald's over this war. The only pro-Israel action was that the dude who owned all their franchises in Israel decided to give free meals to the IDF, of his own accord with no involvement from corporate HQ, and in fact corporate leadership took pains to distance McDonald's as a whole from this guy's actions, but nonetheless Muslims around the world became convinced that McDonald's supports Israel and should be boycotted, to the point where McDonald's franchises in Arab countries suffered substantial loss of business. Corporate HQ even decided it was worth buying all the Israeli restaurants from the aforementioned Israeli franchisee in hopes of restoring their reputation among Muslims, and apparently that happened in April of this year, but if you're still seeing protestors outside a McDonald's in October I guess that didn't work out as well as they hoped.

It calls to mind this post I saw on reddit a while ago.

Damn, is that really all they did? That's so silly.

I'm guessing there are a lot of people who really don't understand how the franchising business model works and don't really get how much autonomy individual franchise owners are afforded.

This is why they win. Someone who is aggressive and unreasonable is far more intimidating than a reasonable person, and gets a lot more of what they want. That goes double for a group, and triple when most modern structures of (corporate) governance are carefully designed to dilute responsibility as much as possible.

corporate leadership took pains to distance McDonald's as a whole from this guy's actions .... Corporate HQ even decided it was worth buying all the Israeli restaurants from the aforementioned Israeli franchisee in hopes of restoring their reputation among Muslims

What would being reasonable have got Muslims? If they'd sent a letter to corporate about how one francise owner was behaving badly, or boycotted that one store, it would have been completely ignored. As it is, they have the board practically on its knees. The applicability of this to political struggles closer to home is left as an exercise for the reader.

There’s even more comedy when it comes to Starbucks.

Some of them can be quite funny. A bearded guy, niqabi wife in to, had some kind of breakdown on the street in front of me yesterday and started shouting at random shoppers. “FORTY THREE THOUSAND DEAD AND YOU’RE SHOPPING”, he screamed several times, as if concern for Gaza should make buying clothes or groceries impossible, then his wife tapped him on the arm and he recomposed himself.

In your case the protestors may well have been communists. We have them too, but they hold their rallies relatively infrequently. It’s more Muslim people who have PDS.

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