Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is coming out strong for America to come together and pull back from the Fiscal Cliff. Here’s his message as posted on his compay’s website:
There are moments in our lives when we have an opportunity to ignite tremendous positive change—not just in the lives of the customers and communities we serve every day, but in our country. This was evident in the outpouring of support in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary that claimed 26 innocent lives, including one of our partners (employees), Lauren Rousseau.
This spirit of connectedness and humanity is powerful; so powerful that if we unleash it, we can make a difference on a much grander scale.
In the spirit of the Holiday season and the Starbucks tradition of bringing people together, we have a unique opportunity to unite and take action on an incredibly important topic. As many of you know, our elected officials in Washington D.C. have been unable to come together and compromise to solve the tremendously important, time-sensitive issue to fix the national debt. You can learn more about this impending crisis at www.fixthedebt.org.
Rather than be bystanders, we have an opportunity—and I believe a responsibility—to use our company’s scale for good by sending a respectful and optimistic message to our elected officials to come together and reach common ground on this important issue. This week through December 28, partners in our Washington D.C. area stores are writing “Come Together” on customers’ cups.
It’s a small gesture, but the power of small gestures is what Starbucks is about! Imagine the power of our partners and hundreds of thousands of customers each sharing such a simple message, one cup at a time.
Never before have we asked our partners to write something specific on our customers’ cups. These words express the optimism that’s core to the holiday season, to our country’s heritage, and to our Starbucks Mission. This effort is also being amplified by our friends at AOL and Patch who are joining us in activating their hyper-localnetwork of websites to share the “Come Together” message.
My hope is that this simple message will serve as a holiday reminder from Starbucks of the spirit that has always bridged differences and that we all have the power to come together and make a difference during every season of the year./p>
I wish you the warmest holiday wishes and a very happy New Year.
Howard
Normally we don’t run an entire post but we think in this instance Starbucks and CEO Schultz wouldn’t mind: this is the message of many of us here on TMV as well.
Read blog reaction to his post HERE.
FOOTNOTE: I’m fully expecting to now hear some conservative talkers and pundits blast Starbucks for this. I’m sure we’ll even see an inevitable post from a blog urging its readers to buy Nescafe instead.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.