Boycott for Peace: Boycott Starbucks!

The coffee available at your corner store, coffee shop, or local supermarket by and large is provided by large multinational cutthroat corporations. These corporations, together, effectively form a cartel, squeezing the payments made to coffee growers down to the minimum possible while still keeping coffee in production. They also minimize payments to workers, minimize environmental protections, and maximize the prices consumers pay for their morning cup of brew.

This profit production scheme forces coffee growers into the position of slashing expenses way below the minimum necessary to operate in an ethical, sustainable, and environmentally sound manner. Many coffee growers employ child labor and pay slave wages. Workers are housed in crowded shanties with no power, no running water, and without adequate sanitation. Their clothing is old and wretched and there are no provisions for health care, sick leave, disability, or retirement. The situation can be worse. There are large coffee plantations, which produce your morning cup of brew, they utilize forced labor, well armed supervisors, and razor wire enclosed and guarded sleeping quarters.

Labor abuses often do not stop at the farms where coffee is grown. Starbucks in particular, pays its part time baristas low wages, and while it is open long hours, it does not offer guaranteed schedules. In order to keep their Starbucks jobs baristas are seldom able to work a second job or pursue education or training. And Starbucks makes a habit of doing everything it can to prevent unionization of its workers. So far those efforts have been successful. If all this wasn’t bad enough, Starbucks has also used prison labor to package your beans.

All of this has been done to maximize profits. Those profits have been used, in part, to subvert our democracy. Starbucks, again, has a huge lobbying machine, which it has used to reduce its corporate tax burden, while at the same time it is pushing to reduce the very same social safety nets that its own workers depend on to survive. Starbucks, however, doesn’t stop there. The CEO, Howard Schultz, coerced his baristas into supporting his ‘austerity’ campaign, and they were required to smile while they were at it.

For those concerned about the environment here at home and about factory farming and GMO’s, Starbucks is a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), the lobbying group that has spent millions of dollars to defeat GMO labeling laws. The milk and cream, as well as the food served in Starbucks, by and large come from chemical, corporate, factory farms using GMO seeds and feed.

And then there is the genocide and ethnic cleansing being perpetrated on Gaza and the West Bank. Genocide and ethnic cleansing based on a radical and violent Zionism. Howard Shultz, CEO of Starbucks, is an active Zionist. Starbucks has made him rich, his net worth is estimated at 2.2 billion dollars, and his annual salary from Starbucks is $28.9 million. That’s a lot of nickels and dimes available for Shultz to throw around at causes he believes in. Unfortunately, his private interests are no more humanitarian than his business interests.

It is well documented that Howard Shultz, CEO of Starbucks, has supported and championed the goals of Zionism in the apartheid state of Israel. The following article, on ‘Why We Must Boycott Starbucks,’ covers the information clearly: http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/news/id_1971

Just in case anyone wonders if the on-going boycotts against Starbucks have changed Howard Shultz’s tune, please check out the following pro-Israel site, where Starbucks is listed as the Number 1—pro-Israeli company, “The Chairman and CEO of STARBUCKS, Howard Schultz, is an active Zionist. In 1998 he was honored by the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah with 'The Israel 50th Anniversary Friend of Zion Tribute Award' for his services to the Zionist state in 'playing a key role in promoting close alliance between the United States and Israel.' At a time when other businesses were desperately pulling out of Israel, Starbucks decided to help Israel's floundering economy and invest in Israel. It has been revealed that Starbucks still continues to support Israel by sponsoring fund raisers for Israel.” From: http://www.jerusalemchai.org/contents/read.cfm?categoryID=115&cID=1134

Better coffee is available. If you are grabbing a cup on the go or just looking for a coffee shop to hang out in, any coffee shop is better than Starbucks. A locally owned coffee shop is an awesome idea. If they serve Certified Organic, Certified Fair Trade, and/or Certified Shade Grown Coffee—that’s even better.

Next time you are shopping for coffee for your home or office, look for USDA Certified Organic, Certified Fair Trade, and/or Certified Shade Grown Coffee. It might take a little homework, you might have to spend a little more money, but we create the world we live in by our spending habits.

If you know of some great tasting and ethical coffee brands, please give them a shout out in comments!

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Facebook Shareable Meme.

Please note, the facebook meme starts right off with Zionism. If you need a subtle version for facebook let us know in comments.

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