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Here's that original story as seen from Fox: https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/internet-evangelist-says-starbucks-holiday-cups-are-red-because-they-hate-jesus

Here's that original story as seen from Fox: https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/internet-evangelist-says-starbucks-holiday-cups-are-red-because-they-hate-jesus https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/internet-evangelist-says-... Something about it stuck with their audience, it seems, since here's them covering a new iteration in 2019... https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/starbucks-risks-more-war-on-christmas-backlash-with-merry-coffee-cups https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/starbucks-risks-more-war-... > Whether an aversion to using the word “Christmas” extends beyond Starbucks is difficult to measure. But in 2017, President Trump tweeted on Christmas Eve that Americans were “proud to be saying Merry Christmas again,” since he took office. It's nice that your conservative Christian friends aren't so easily triggered, but that Trump quote points to the views of a sizable set of their peers.

edbob 6y ago
I don't know the extent to which this is a problem (i.e., I don't want to make this into a "weak man"), but there are some legitimate reasons to be concerned with the replacement and/or minimization of traditional holidays. At least one important motive for the replacement was to create the foundation for violent revolution: "the creation of its own series of holidays all underscored Karenga's premise that 'you must have a cultural revolution before the violent revolution. The cultural revolution gives identity, purpose, and direction.'" [0] It's easy for people to laugh at such concerns when they don't see them as plausible, but when you also have people like Dick Costolo promising shootings and a violent revolution, it's hard to know who can be trusted. When the left spends a year "mostly peacefully" killing dozens of people and burning our cities, it becomes a lot easier to believe that they might want a full revolution. Again, not to say that these concerns are necessarily justified, but that it's very difficult to know whether they are or not. If one prefers to err on the side of caution and criticize Starbucks here, I think that's a legitimate position. (Kind of hoping that someone can give me a good way to debunk these concerns, so I'm just going to ignore any troll responses). [0] https://books.google.com/books?id=Vhgk72OGBRYC&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=Vhgk72OGBRYC&pg=PA65#v=one...
- majormajor 6y ago
  We're moving on quite a bit from the original post here, which was claiming that there was an overreaction to a position that supposedly didn't actually exist outside of this one person. I think it's pretty clear that that position does exist, which your post lines up with ;). However, I think something significant to note here about if it's an overreaction or not is that even these cups are still traditional Christmas colors. We're a really long way away from them saying something like "it's not a holiday season at all," or "the actual holidays are some other time." So if on one side we have a "let's be a little more inclusive of our friends celebrating different holidays" and on the other side we have "let's replace your holidays to help encourage a future violent revolution" it seems to me that they've only taken the babiest of baby steps towards the former, not the latter. (One wonders what the reaction would be if they came out with Hanukkah colored cups - lets not forget that there are non-"replacement"-motivated other holidays out there...)
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    There’s a difference between being concerned about a little cultural erasure and the idea that Christians en masse would choose Starbucks as the hill to die on over that issue. Of course, this is a lot more believable nowadays since we deal exclusively in caricatures but as I said earlier, it was novel at the time.
    - majormajor 6y ago
      I knew Christians in the 90s boycotting Proctor and Gamble products because they were supposedly Satanic. (The company eventually won a lawsuit about this https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/business/worldbusiness/20iht-satan.4966053.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/business/worldbusiness/20... ) So, no, none of this was novel to me in 2015... you seem to be reading in the "en masse" part yourself. A substantial number of people believe in this War on Christmas stuff and do let it influence their behavior, including the 2015 cups. You seem to only be willing to accept that it's either just 1 person, or EVERYBODY. I can show you more links if you want, but so far you're not even trying to consider the counter-evidence people have posted here... if you were actually curious, it's easy to Google. But - ironically, considering the claims of your original post - your mind seems made up.
throwaway894345 6y ago
I don't find "it could have been true!" to be a very good justification for publishing caricatures, moreover I don't think "the Trump Supporter" was a breed that existed in 2012. Not only was Trump not a conceivable candidate at the time, but even the caricatures of conservatives (never mind Christians) didn't resemble our caricature of Trump supporters.
- majormajor 6y ago
  The story was 2015, not 2012, so Trump supporters definitely existed. And Trump wouldn't be speaking to his base in 2017 about "bringing back Christmas" if that wasn't an issue that had existed long before him. If we're even less lazy, we can click through to more 2015 articles, such as this other Fox one https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/not-everyone-thinks-starbucks-new-holiday-cups-are-so-great https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/not-everyone-thinks-starb... which does the "both sides" thing in a nice convenient not-just-an-example-from-Arizona-dude way: > An article posted to Breitbart London even called the plain red cups part of the “War on Christmas.” > “This is a denial of historical reality and the great Christian heritage behind the American Dream that has so benefitted Starbucks," wrote Andrea Williams of the U.K.'s Christian Concern. > But not all Christian groups feel the same way. Paul Batura, vice president of communications at Focus on the Family, said snowflakes and carolers are not symbols of Christmas. > "I wonder if we’re not overthinking or overanalyzing this,” he said. “Christmas isn’t found in a cup or in a snowflake. Instead, it’s found in the hearts and minds of those of us who believe that God sent His only son to earth in the form of an innocent, helpless baby." Growing up in evangelical media, these aren't caricatures.

edbob 6y ago

I don't know the extent to which this is a problem (i.e., I don't want to make this into a "weak man"), but there are some legitimate reasons to be concerned with the replacement and/or minimization of traditional holidays. At least one important motive for the replacement was to create the foundation for violent revolution: "the creation of its own series of holidays all underscored Karenga's premise that 'you must have a cultural revolution before the violent revolution. The cultural revolution gives identity, purpose, and direction.'" [0] It's easy for people to laugh at such concerns when they don't see them as plausible, but when you also have people like Dick Costolo promising shootings and a violent revolution, it's hard to know who can be trusted. When the left spends a year "mostly peacefully" killing dozens of people and burning our cities, it becomes a lot easier to believe that they might want a full revolution. Again, not to say that these concerns are necessarily justified, but that it's very difficult to know whether they are or not. If one prefers to err on the side of caution and criticize Starbucks here, I think that's a legitimate position. (Kind of hoping that someone can give me a good way to debunk these concerns, so I'm just going to ignore any troll responses). [0] https://books.google.com/books?id=Vhgk72OGBRYC&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=Vhgk72OGBRYC&pg=PA65#v=one...

majormajor 6y ago
We're moving on quite a bit from the original post here, which was claiming that there was an overreaction to a position that supposedly didn't actually exist outside of this one person. I think it's pretty clear that that position does exist, which your post lines up with ;). However, I think something significant to note here about if it's an overreaction or not is that even these cups are still traditional Christmas colors. We're a really long way away from them saying something like "it's not a holiday season at all," or "the actual holidays are some other time." So if on one side we have a "let's be a little more inclusive of our friends celebrating different holidays" and on the other side we have "let's replace your holidays to help encourage a future violent revolution" it seems to me that they've only taken the babiest of baby steps towards the former, not the latter. (One wonders what the reaction would be if they came out with Hanukkah colored cups - lets not forget that there are non-"replacement"-motivated other holidays out there...)
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  There’s a difference between being concerned about a little cultural erasure and the idea that Christians en masse would choose Starbucks as the hill to die on over that issue. Of course, this is a lot more believable nowadays since we deal exclusively in caricatures but as I said earlier, it was novel at the time.
  - majormajor 6y ago
    I knew Christians in the 90s boycotting Proctor and Gamble products because they were supposedly Satanic. (The company eventually won a lawsuit about this https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/business/worldbusiness/20iht-satan.4966053.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/business/worldbusiness/20... ) So, no, none of this was novel to me in 2015... you seem to be reading in the "en masse" part yourself. A substantial number of people believe in this War on Christmas stuff and do let it influence their behavior, including the 2015 cups. You seem to only be willing to accept that it's either just 1 person, or EVERYBODY. I can show you more links if you want, but so far you're not even trying to consider the counter-evidence people have posted here... if you were actually curious, it's easy to Google. But - ironically, considering the claims of your original post - your mind seems made up.

throwaway894345 6y ago

I don't find "it could have been true!" to be a very good justification for publishing caricatures, moreover I don't think "the Trump Supporter" was a breed that existed in 2012. Not only was Trump not a conceivable candidate at the time, but even the caricatures of conservatives (never mind Christians) didn't resemble our caricature of Trump supporters.

majormajor 6y ago
The story was 2015, not 2012, so Trump supporters definitely existed. And Trump wouldn't be speaking to his base in 2017 about "bringing back Christmas" if that wasn't an issue that had existed long before him. If we're even less lazy, we can click through to more 2015 articles, such as this other Fox one https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/not-everyone-thinks-starbucks-new-holiday-cups-are-so-great https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/not-everyone-thinks-starb... which does the "both sides" thing in a nice convenient not-just-an-example-from-Arizona-dude way: > An article posted to Breitbart London even called the plain red cups part of the “War on Christmas.” > “This is a denial of historical reality and the great Christian heritage behind the American Dream that has so benefitted Starbucks," wrote Andrea Williams of the U.K.'s Christian Concern. > But not all Christian groups feel the same way. Paul Batura, vice president of communications at Focus on the Family, said snowflakes and carolers are not symbols of Christmas. > "I wonder if we’re not overthinking or overanalyzing this,” he said. “Christmas isn’t found in a cup or in a snowflake. Instead, it’s found in the hearts and minds of those of us who believe that God sent His only son to earth in the form of an innocent, helpless baby." Growing up in evangelical media, these aren't caricatures.