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Big Brother Skateboarding
March 2003
‘BUCK FUCKING
Inside the Anti-Starbucks Movement
By Andrew Vontz
For many youths, every good day starts with a fine bonus cup of coffee. It seems a simple enough pleasure. Water and coffee beans combine to produce a feeling as satisfying as a sunflower blossom delicately opening to kiss the sun or an oak-stoked fire on a cold winter day.
But with the proliferation of giant corporate coffee chains like Starbucks and the questionable environmental and labor practices that take place on the supply side of these coffee chains (read: third world peasants working for nothing on environmentally destructive corporate farms so you can enjoy your giant frothy Frappucino), that cup of coffee comes with a price that activists say far outweighs the benefits of the product.
But corporations are not entirely evil. In a shithole economy, companies like Starbucks give people jobs that pay better than minimum wage and that come with health insurance.
And they make a damn good cup of coffee.
So do these crybaby trust-fund activists really have a case? Or is a good cup of coffee just that: a good cup of coffee.
Big Brother talked to anti-Starbucks activist Kurt Ellison, 22, a student at the University of Wisconsin, to find out.
How do most people get involved in the anti-Starbucks movement?
A lot of people come to the Anti-Starbucks movement either through being conscious about environmental or labor issues. Starbucks is all over the place. It violates both environmental and labor principles and they’re a key player in a lot of these things. So they’re a key target.
Why do you hate Starbucks so much?
The issue of gentrification. Starbucks will come into a neighborhood and take over an area that has a nice culture to it and try to run all of the other coffee shops out of business. That’s something we’ve seen here in Madison on State Street. Starbucks was one of the first chain stores to come into that street, which was mainly locally owned businesses and was very diverse. Now we’re seeing more and more chain stores come into that area.
If you had to anthropomorphize Starbucks, what would it look like?
It would be a greedy fat man. Maybe the big bad wolf character.
How do you imagine its scrotum looking?
Probably rather large and threatening in a bad way.
Wrinkled?
Yes, definitely. Perhaps injured as well.
When I was in college, being an activist was a sure-fire way to get laid. How has it worked out for you?
Pretty good. It’s a very diverse movement.
Has anyone shaken your Frappucino?
I stay away from the Frapuccinos.
With a war about to happen in Iraq and a government ruled by corporate oligarchies, why have you chosen to protest the practices of Starbucks instead of, say, Enron?
I protest all of those different groups. This is one of the many things I’m working against. I’m against the Gap and Enron and Shell as well.
In a totally shitty economy Starbucks pays better than minimum wage and provides its employees with health insurance. What’s so bad about that?
On the surface level it isn’t so bad. The people who are actually working at the counter in the stores are relatively well paid and have benefits. But the people where they’re getting their raw materials, their coffee, their baked goods, are not being treated that way. There has been a lot of strong anti-union organizing being done by Starbucks to put down unions within their distributors and within their stores.
How are the people who are producing the raw materials being treated?
In the coffee industry, not only at Starbucks but also at other large coffee distributors, there’s been a race to the bottom for lowering the raw price farmers are paid for their coffee. In Mexico the price for coffee in the last two years has dropped fifty percent. The price drop has happened because of large American coffee companies going in and controlling the prices they’re being paid.
We have homeless people shitting and dying in the streets and no one gives a fuck about them. Why should we care about the working conditions of people in the third world?
It’s all one struggle. An injury to one is an injury to all. It’s a global struggle.
Isn’t Starbucks doing these people a favor by giving them jobs in the first place?
If we weren’t forcing Western economic practices on coffee farmers, they could be doing traditional farming and other things that meet their subsistence. But at this point they’re producing a commodity for US markets that isn’t meeting their subsistence or even putting food on their table. There’s no reason farmers shouldn’t be able to put food on their tables.
But no one is twisting their arms to do this. . .
In some cases, they are. Especially in the indigenous people in Southern Mexico, the Mexican government took away all of their commonly held land for farming and privatized it and forced people off the land. These people no longer have the means for subsistence so they have to be employed. They can’t follow their traditional ways. It would be silly to say they can just go back, because they just can’t do that. But companies who are buying the coffee should be pressured to pay a reasonable price for the coffee. There’s no reason with inflation that cost pressure should be going down. It should be going up. Pressuring companies to pay a fair price and empowering workers to collectivize their products will also help get them a better selling price.
I read on an anti-Starbucks web site that Starbucks allegedly uses koalas and small goats in the initial phases of product testing, frequently resulting in these poor animals burning their tongues. What is your organization doing to prevent this tragedy?
That’s news to me. I hadn’t heard that one before. Generally I’m opposed to all animal testing. I’ve worked on various campaigns of that nature.
In Singapore, they beat the shit out of criminals with wooden canes and our attorney general has helped pass a law that allows the government to indiscriminately imprison people for as long as they want. Why don’t you go after the people that are really fucking shit up?
Again, it’s not a single-issue question. I do work against the Patriot act and things of that nature. Protesting Starbucks is only a very small part of the time I spend working on these issues.
Many people have the impression that the people protesting things like Starbucks coffee are trustafarian college students who have nothing better to do than bitch. Are they wrong?
There is a small amount of truth to that. There are a lot of college students who participate in short-term, single-issue activism where they’re concerned about one business and one practice for a very short amount of time. But the anti-globalization movement has spawned a growing number of people from diverse backgrounds who are questioning not just one or two issues but the entire structure as a whole. That’s how I look at it and why I’m fighting more than one issue. There is the problem of upper-middle class backing to these movements. But we are seeing a growing inclusion and movements with other folks in this country and abroad that are questioning the same issues.
In my experience, Starbucks makes a good cup of coffee. Have all of the independent coffee shops out there thought about brewing a decent cup of coffee and having friendly employees?
In my experience and from the folks I’ve talked to, at least in Madison, most people prefer the taste of coffee at the independents over Starbucks.
Starbucks is notorious for moving into towns and shutting down independent coffee shops. On the up side, they might be doing us a favor by preventing angst-ridden teenagers from sitting around and writing shitty poetry. Why should we care?
It depends on what kind of communities we want to have. Do we want to have a community that is diverse and reflects the individuality of different cities? Or do we want all of our cities to be and look alike and not have the unique nature of communities in different places?
But if people through capitalism want to have homogenous communities, why should we care? Isn’t that what people want if they’re voting that way with their money?
Sometimes. It may be easy to say we have a choice. But we don’t really have a choice. When you have entire suburbs and downtown areas and there simply isn’t a choice for blocks because the local competition has been driven out, you can no longer vote with your dollars. A corporation like Starbucks has the financial benefit to lose money over the long-term because they have so many stores to handle that loss. A local business only has their one store and if they start losing money they’re gonna go under.
So what’s a man supposed to do when he needs a strong, rich cup of coffee with a flavor as complex as the color of leaves changing in the fall in Vermont?
If you can find another coffee shop that offers good coffee, I would go there. If you are forced to go to Starbucks, as consumers you have the right to question where the coffee is coming from and what they’re doing to prevent certain labor and environmental practices. They should be listening to consumers who are buying their coffee.
Not many people in the world, let alone the United States, can even afford the luxury of a $2 cup of coffee. Does it feel decadent to be spending your time protesting the practices of a company that sells really expensive coffee to rich people?
It’s definitely worth the time. It’s a symbol of a certain type of culture, a certain level of consumerism which to me is inherently questionable. And why should we be paying two dollars for a cup of coffee when there’s a homeless person right outside? That’s why I feel it’s necessary to protest Starbucks and to feed homeless people.
Does having a pony tail help one get laid in the activist movement?
I found that it doesn’t help. I don’t have a pony tail any more. I would say shorter hair works better.
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