[grumple]

This played out much like many coffee shops that I’ve seen in my city and others [0]. Basically some leftist with a little money and little to no business acumen opens a low margin business and hires far-left employees. Those employees, dissatisfied with their low wages - they are, after all, baristas at coffee shops that are barely profitable, if at all - form a union. When the owner tells them they can’t pay more and offer benefits because they are literally losing money, the employees then take to social media, destroying what little customer base the business had. The business closes, and the employees are now unemployed, having destroyed their own livelihood and a place they actually liked working, because they had this absurd idea that their queer/trans owner that was scraping by was some maniacal oligarch that deserved to be crushed by the workers.

The real lesson is that if you’re opening a small coffee shop or bookshop or similar small business, you have to work full time and not hire people unless absolutely necessary. And if you do hire others, avoid the communists.

0. https://www.34st.com/article/2022/08/minas-world-lgbtq-coffe...

[nativeit]

If I’m a barista at an indie shop shitting on my small business employer for not giving me more money, then I’m sort of by definition not much of a communist. The handful of sincere communists I know would absolutely label those people (correctly) as ignorant dipshits larping as communists (or at the very least, deploying convenient tropes as cudgels for their own narrow self-interests). No one who’s serious in their communist ideals would seek validation from their capitalist employers in the first place, and anyone who does should take the opportunity for some self-reflection.

The best people I’ve known from all over the political spectrum shared a capacity to bring me into their corner, for a few select issues anyway. They could only get to the point in the conversation where my mind is changed because they were sincere, humble, informed, curious, empathetic, and open to having the discussions.

I feel like so much of contemporary public discourse is shaped by the worst, most transparently dishonest idiots in society. This perspective of mine is also probably bent by the fact that I left Facebook around 2012, and haven’t really spent much time on social media since. I logged onto Instagram not long ago, and it all feels really weird from a naive point of view.