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