Starbucks In Politics


I don't patronize Starbucks, so I was unaware of all the talk about their liberal bias. To me, they are too expensive for my budget, and I don't particularly like most flavored coffees like the pumpkin mix that Dunkin Donuts advertises – just pure Colombian with half and half is what I usually want. I do make an exception for mocha. I also want plenty of coffee grounds in the brew – the one time I had a cup at Starbucks it tasted weak to me. One of my favorite places to get coffee is in Middle Eastern restaurants where the coffee is very strong with several spices and sugar in the mix, but no cream. Making a public stand on politics involving what could be considered “confronting” customers on their views is probably, as the writer below said, not good for business. “An issue as tough as racial and ethnic inequality requires risk-taking and tough-minded action,” said Howard Schultz. I'm glad to see that the owner of the company has stopped his “Race Together” policy. I think it was probably misguided as an effort to encourage helpful dialogue.

I am glad to see that the Starbucks management favors liberals, however. As long as the coal and oil companies are helping the Republicans, we should have businesses backing our candidates, too. I would still like to bring back the law against allowing mega donations from the wealthy and corporations, however. That way the Middle Class and the poor can have a comparatively greater chance at affecting the winning party. The following articles about libs and conservatives and Starbuck are all interesting reading. In case you're wondering about it, Starbucks calls it's workers “Partners.” Have a look.




http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/22/394710277/starbucks-will-stop-writing-race-together-on-coffee-cups

Starbucks Will Stop Putting The Words 'Race Together' On Cups
Sam Sanders
March 22, 2015

Photogrqaph – Larenda Myres holds an iced coffee drink with a "Race Together" sticker on it at a Starbucks store in Seattle. Starbucks baristas will no longer write "Race Together" on customers' cups starting Sunday.
Ted S. Warren/AP

The most visible part of Starbucks' campaign to get customers talking about race — putting the slogan "Race Together" on coffee cups — has come to an end.

In a memo sent to all Starbucks employees Sunday, CEO Howard Schultz wrote: "This phase of the effort — writing 'Race Together' (or placing stickers) on cups, which was always just the catalyst for a much broader and longer term conversation — will be completed as originally planned today, March 22."

The company received widespread criticism of its Race Together Initiative, which was announced last week. But Starbucks spokeswoman Laurel Harper told NPR that the move occurred right on schedule and was unrelated to the fallout. "This is not a change at all," Harper said. "We are not straying from what we set out to do, in fact, we are doing more."

The company says a number of Race Together activities will still take place over the next few months, including open forums and special sections in USA Today. Starbucks is also committing to hire 10,000 disadvantaged youth over the next three years and open new stores in communities with large minority populations.

Reporting on the large amount of criticism the Race Together Initiative received since it was launched last week,NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates said, "Some people think it's just a naked marketing ploy, kind of a catalyst for free advertising ... Other people think it was well-intentioned but really poorly executed." And our Code Switch blog noted that some people thought the campaign was unfair to Starbucks employees, who could face possibly awkward or offensive reactions.

But in that memo Schultz sent to Starbucks employees, he seemed to double down on the campaign. "While there has been criticism of the initiative — and I know this hasn't been easy for any of you — let me assure you that we didn't expect universal praise," he wrote. "We leaned in because we believed that starting this dialogue is what matters most. We are learning a lot."

He continued, "An issue as tough as racial and ethnic inequality requires risk-taking and tough-minded action. And let me reassure you that our conviction and commitment to the notion of equality and opportunity for all has never been stronger."

Whether reaction to Starbucks' continued focus on race will become more positive remains to be seen, but so far, the new push hasn't hurt the company financially. Starbucks stock actually went up in spite of last week's backlash to the Race Together Initiative — it started last week at 94.03, and closed Friday at 97.45.






http://patriotupdate.com/articles/39755-2/

Starbucks Howard Schultz: Liberal Intolerance at Its Worst
by David L. Goetsch
April 5, 2013

For all of my adult life I have heard conservatives labeled intolerant by liberal elites who believe their worldview is the only acceptable worldview. However, in recent years—like most conservatives—I have learned what liberals really mean by tolerance. When a liberal labels someone intolerant, it means the person in question holds views that differ from those of the liberal doing the labeling. Correspondingly, a tolerant person is one whose views comport with liberal orthodoxy.

Liberals, as it turns out, are not really tolerant at all. Oh sure, they tolerate homosexuality, entitlement, redistribution of wealth, abortion on demand, class envy, terrorism, and many other things that are destructive to a civilized society. But, as it turns out, liberals are not so tolerant when it comes to such things as the principles of Christianity, traditional American values, patriotism, and merit-based decision making in hiring and college admissions. And they are downright intolerant when it comes to black Americans who adopt conservative values.

One of the most egregious examples of liberal intolerance of late was recently provided by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks. According to Joe Miller, Chairman of Restoring Liberty Action Committee, “At the Starbucks annual shareholders meeting…, CEO Howard Schultz sent a clear message to anyone who supports traditional marriage over gay marriage: we don’t want your business. After saying Starbucks wants to ‘embrace diversity of all kinds,’ he told a shareholder who supports traditional marriage that he should sell his shares and invest in some other company.” The shareholder in question had pointed out to Schultz—the individual responsible for maintaining and increasing the value of Starbucks stock—that the company’s support of a gay marriage referendum had resulted in a decline in sales revenue.

This episode is just another example of a liberal who is out of touch with the responsibilities of his position. Howard Schultz was hired as CEO of Starbucks to add value for shareholders and ensure the financial well-being of his employer, not to use his position as a bully pulpit for personal social causes. Schultz’s views on gay marriage are his business and he can vote anyway he chooses on gay-marriage referendums in his home state. But as CEO of Starbuck’s he cannot justify knowingly taking actions that are detrimental to the company’s bottom line. Before telling customers and shareholders who are traditional marriage supporters to get lost, Schultz should have considered the example of J.C. Penney following its disastrous pro-homosexuality ad campaign featuring Ellen DeGeneres. In the wake of a precipitous decline in sales, J.C. Penney’s CEO was given a stark reminder that his job is to protect the investments of shareholders in his company, not to use his position to espouse controversial social causes.

I predict that liberal intolerance at the top is going to cost Starbucks dollars on the bottom line. When this happens, Mr. Schultz will have no one to blame but himself. Schultz may not like the fact that there are still Americans who have moral and religious objections to same-sex marriage, but he had better get used to it and become more tolerant of their views. Many of these Americans drink coffee and Starbucks is not the only provider of overpriced drinks with names like Quadruple Grande, Soy, Decaf, Five-Pump, Vanilla, Extra-Caramel, Add Whip, 180 degree Caramel Macchiato. Coffee lovers can now get drinks like this in convenience stores for less than Starbucks charges and no one will even ask about their views on same-sex marriage.





http://news.starbucks.com/news/a-letter-from-howard-schultz-to-starbucks-partners-regarding-race-together

A Letter from Howard Schultz to Starbucks Partners Regarding Race Together
March 22, 2015  – Partner (Employee) Experience

Dear partners,

I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to every one of you for your fearless and energetic support of the Race Together initiative.  Our objective from the very start of this effort -- dating back to our first open forum in Seattle last December -- was to stimulate conversation, empathy and compassion toward one another, and then to broaden that dialogue beyond just our Starbucks family to the greater American public by using our scale for good.  

After a historic Annual Shareholders Meeting that focused on diversity and inequality, and an initial push for much-needed national discussion around these difficult topics, it is time for us to take stock of where we are, what we have learned from our efforts so far, and what is next.  

This phase of the effort -- writing "Race Together" (or placing stickers) on cups, which was always just the catalyst for a much broader and longer term conversation -- will be completed as originally planned today, March 22. 

But this initiative is far from over. We have a number of planned Race Together activities in the weeks and months to come: more partner open forums, three more special sections co-produced with USA TODAY over the course of the next year, more open dialogue with police and community leaders in cities across our country, a continued focus on jobs and education for our nation's young people plus our commitment to hire 10,000 opportunity youth over the next three years, expanding our store footprint in urban communities across the country, and new partnerships to foster dialogue and empathy and help bridge the racial and ethnic divides within our society that have existed for so many years.

While there has been criticism of the initiative -- and I know this hasn't been easy for any of you -- let me assure you that we didn’t expect universal praise. The heart of Race Together has always been about humanity: the promise of the American Dream should be available to every person in this country, not just a select few.  We leaned in because we believed that starting this dialogue is what matters most.  We are learning a lot. And will always aim high in our efforts to make a difference on the issues that matter most.  

I want to thank those of you who took time this week to share what you were seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking as we rolled out Race Together across the country.  An issue as tough as racial and ethnic inequality requires risk-taking and tough-minded action. And let me reassure you that our conviction and commitmecommitment [sic]to the notion of equality and opportunity for all has never been stronger.

Take care of yourselves and each other.  I am proud to be your partner. 

With great respect,   

Howard





http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/03/19/3636233/starbucks-race-together-employees/

This Is What Starbucks Employees Think About ‘Race Together’
BY BRYCE COVERT 
POSTED ON MARCH 19, 2015

“This isn’t the forum to have these discussions.”


That’s the opinion of Jaime Prater, a barista at Starbucks, of the company’s new initiativeasking its employees to start conversations about race with customers by writing things on coffee cups and using stickers. It’s not that Prater doesn’t agree with CEO Howard Schultz that race is an important topic in the country right now. But, he says, “It’s a very, very involved and in-depth conversation that needs a lot of time devoted to it. Having your baristas engaging in those conversations, it puts them in a very difficult position.”

Prater is himself half black and is also gay. “That’s something that I deal with in my life, it’s part of who I am,” he said. But the workplace is not somewhere he wants to be starting discussions — he said he worries that the initiative will invite uncomfortable remarks. That may also be a concern for the 40 percent of the company’s workforce that is of color.

Prater wants to have these discussions, just not at the workplace. “It’s a fascinating topic of conversation for me, I’m someone who enjoys deep conversation,” he said. And he says he’s had “some great conversations in Starbucks before, but nothing ever too deep.” He also thinks CEO Howard Schultz’s heart is in the right place. “He’s concerned about this country, and I think it’s a wonderful thing.”

Jamie, another Starbucks employee who asked not to use her last name, is white but also worries what kind of comments it invites. “Awesome idea, terrible implementation,” she said. “Yes it’s optional, but baristas are essentially being made to look like absolute idiots.” She noted that most people don’t think much of the those who serve them coffee. “People tend to think a bunch of idiots who couldn’t graduate college are working behind the bar,” she said. So they’re not necessarily open to having those baristas launch into a conversation about race.

Of course, Jamie and Prater’s views don’t represent the views of all of Starbucks’ employees, but it is a window into trying to implement such a complex initiative with individual employees.

They say there is still confusion among workers about how this will work. Prater and his coworkers spent the first day of the roll out wondering about the logistics. “My first reaction was, how do we go about this in the workplace? When I hand out a Frappuccino, I have 40 seconds to talk about race while I’m trying to make drinks,” he noted. “How long do you talk about this? What do you talk about?” He said not a single customer discussed race or the project with him or his coworkers. “This doesn’t seem like the venue for that kind of a thing,” he added.

He decided to write “I can’t breathe,” the words Eric Garner said while in a chokehold from police right before he died, on the side of a coffee cup instead. “Writing that on the cup was like, do I assert my opinion?” he noted. But he doubted it would work within the store. “That might offend someone.”

Jamie also pointed out that previously, the company has had an explicit policy that employees weren’t supposed to talk about politics on the job. “I remember when the Republican National Convention came through, just as an example, Starbucks sending something saying don’t engage in political conversations, when you’re wearing the green apron you’re representing the company,” she said. “But now we’re being told to do the exact opposite.”

She noted that many of the people her store serves are affluent and white and many not be receptive to the topic, or might even get angry. “The last thing I want is to have an irate customer and a long line of people behind them yelling at me,” she said. “That’s not at all the position I want to be in.” Yet, she pointed out, these are the very people who the conversations probably should be targeted at.

Prater doesn’t think the initiative, which he says “saddl[es] your store employees” with having these conversations, is the right way to go about it. “It’s not the environment to talk about this,” he said. “We have a lot going on and this is something that’s a very hot button issue in this country right now.”

Like Prater, Jamie agrees that Schultz does care about the issue. “I honestly think the guy’s got a heart for this,” she noted. But she also says it’s far too big a topic to bring into the workplace. “It’s as hot button an issue, for obviously very different reasons, as abortion or the death penalty,” she said. “These are things that people lose friends over because they don’t have the same thoughts on it.”





http://freebeacon.com/blog/starbucks-ceo-doesnt-fear-guns-he-fears-liberals/

Starbucks’ CEO Doesn’t Fear Guns. He Fears Liberals
BY: Sonny Bunch
September 18, 2013

Photograph – The big brew-haha* this morning revolves around the decision of Starbucks’ CEO to politely ask gunowners not to wear their six-shooters in his coffee shops. Wrote Howard Schultz:

I am writing today with a respectful request that customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas. …

For these reasons, today we are respectfully requesting that customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas—even in states where “open carry” is permitted—unless they are authorized law enforcement personnel.

I would like to clarify two points. First, this is a request and not an outright ban. Why? Because we want to give responsible gun owners the chance to respect our request—and also because enforcing a ban would potentially require our partners to confront armed customers, and that is not a role I am comfortable asking Starbucks partners to take on. Second, we know we cannot satisfy everyone.

Schultz cites pressure from outside activist groups as one of the reasons for making this extremely polite, extremely non-binding request of potential customers. What’s interesting to me is that it’s obvious Schultz has no fear of guns (nor should he; when’s the last time there was a mass-shooting at a Starbucks perpetrated by someone with an open-carry permit?). No. He fears the left. And he doesn’t fear the right.

These are all sensible positions for him to take.

Look, here are the facts of life, my conservative friends: We don’t do the politicized life particularly well. We don’t make our decisions about where to buy our coffee based on who Howard Schultz donates to in election campaigns or what sort of policy they have toward guns or how they accumulate their fair trade coffee beans. We care about taste, expense, and convenience.

The left, however, does the politicized life exceptionally well. They mount campaigns to pressure corporations to get what they want. They organize boycotts. They direct their complaints to gatekeepers who share their views and can influence policy. They blacklist artists with whom they disagree and pressure corporations to do the same. They control the levers of the media to add additional pressure from newspapers and television networks.

So there will be a lot of fulmination on social media from those on the right about rights and guns and the Constitution, and then a little less the next day, and a little less the day after that, until finally you forgot why you were mad at Starbucks and you stop tweeting and facebooking and kvetching and start buying pumpkin spice lattes by the bucketful and, in a moment of clarity, you’ll think about how silly it was for you to give up Starbucks in the name of something that literally never impacted you in the first place because you don’t have an open-carry permit.

The right is wired different than the left. It’s a healthier wiring, one that leads to far more enjoyment in life and far less heartache.

But it’s a wiring that leaves you particularly poorly equipped to wage these kinds of fights. It’s why you lose. It’s why you’re losing the culture. It’s why Howard Schultz doesn’t fear you.

It’s why Howard Schultz will never fear you.
*GET IT? 

Updated: I accidentally called Howard Schultz “George Schultz.” That egregious error has been fixed.





https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130824093200AAmix6F

Why do Conservatives associate Starbucks with Liberals?

Best Answer:  1. Because starbucks is a frequent target of angry rant comics. Many conservatives think that angry rant comics are conservatives, because they hate just like them. 

2. When conservatives start to wind up on a rant, they just pull out a laundry list of things people get angry over and just select anything they don't like or aren't involved in themselves. So things like paying child support are suddenly "liberal" because the gummint makes you do that. The PTA is Liberal, because they don't go to PTA. This is how they end up ranting about college sports being liberal and not being liberal, depending on if they watch them. 

3.Starbucks uses fancy words, which aren't always foreign, but they sure sound foreign. 

4.Starbucks was once trendy. Big chains are OK when they come out of Arkansas, but when they come out of Seattle or a "big city" they must be liberal. Thirty years ago, they'd have been griping about PIzza or Chinese food in this same manner, but don't these days because pizza is now made by a guy from rural michigan. 

5. Think you're better than me? Starbucks is based around being great coffee rather than OK coffee. The thing is, if you like coffee you have to admit it is better than the gas station coffee. However if you don't care about the taste, then someone who does care is "thinking you better than me?" This is also known as "acting white" in some neighborhoods. They get uncomfortable when someone implies they should question something they never questioned before. The idea of good and bad coffee never really entered their minds before. They might have a favorite car or hamburger, but quite often small towns mean no choices. 

6. Starbucks don't have TVs. Now in the old days, many places didn't have tvs, but today they're everywhere. If you're drinking in a bar which doesn't have multiple tvs, that is a deliberate choice against tv by the bar owner. Starbucks is filled with people not watching tv. Now admittedly, they're all usually still glued to an electronic device, but it's not the communal activity of "we're all watching the same thing." People in starbucks aren't a hive organism like a movie theater audience, some are even having conversations or reading. Individuality is threatening to conservatives, who by definition are natural herd animals. They're put off by the fact that there is a group of people, who aren't unified by a single pursuit. This is also why cities often confuse them. 

7. "Ultra-liberals love sitting on their laptops, pretending to look like intellects while drinking overpriced coffee." See? having a laptop somehow makes you liberal, you're an intellectual for having a laptop! Huh? Suddenly using a computer in public makes you intellectual? If that God derned dial up was good enough for my granddaddy, it's good enuf fer me!. Madge stop trying to use the phone, I got to git me on AOl and tell these liberals what is what! 

It's a computer, they're likely playing a dig dug simulator or watching netflix.

Smells like New Screen Names · 2 years ag2
2 comments
Asker's rating 


The intellectuals students and nerds usually hang out in coffee shops so I assume that is the connection. I do go to Starbucks because I like mocha latte but, usually use the drive up in the morning.
 tigeress · 2 years ago


Maybe because the CEO of Starbucks supported Obama in 2012.
Dennis · 2 years ago
 
Comment

And so Starbucks sales have gone down. Small coffee shops are being supported by conservative communities ala Chick-Fil-A. I haven't been in a Starbucks in almost 6 years and don't miss it one bit.

Source(s):Life.
Wanda Bagram · 2 years ago
 
Comment

Howard Schultz the CEO of starbucks announced on CNBC that Starbucks earnings were better than expected, that he is raising shareholders’ quarterly dividends by a whopping 24%, and he’s voting for Barack Obama. 

"He has the politics all wrong, in the characteristic centrist way: he makes it sound as if the problem was one of symmetric partisanship, with both sides refusing to compromise. The reality is that Obama has moved a huge way both in offering to exempt more high-earner income from tax hikes and in offering to cut Social Security benefits; meanwhile, the GOP not only won’t agree to any kind of tax hike at all, it also has yet to make any specific offer of any kind." - Paul Krugman written critique of Howard Schultz. Krugman is an American economist, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. 

"You will also begin to see pyramids increasingly all around you, and the eye in the pyramid, and the eye alone. And you will see circles with the dot in the center. And you will see obelisks appearing all over the place. And these are not the only signs. There are many, many, many more. They are the signs of the religion Mystery Babylon, .... now that is a lie, folks. It means that it's OK for some of us to lay back and do nothing and reap the rewards of the labor of others. That’s socialism! That’s what it’s all about. Communism, socialism...it’s the same. And these people, the worshipers of Mystery Babylon, are the original Communists. They are international socialism. They invented it. It is their creation. It is their dream of a world Utopia -- a one-world, totalitarian socialist government." - Milton William (Bill) Cooper was an American conspiracy theorist, radio broadcaster, and author best known for his 1991 book Behold a Pale Horse, in which he warned of multiple global conspiracies. 

Communities Against Terrorism (CAT) program urges shop owners and others to report such suspicious activity to authorities like purchasing a cup of coffee using cash instead of a credit or debit card, using Google Maps to view photos of sporting event stadiums and large cities, and installing software to protect your internet privacy on your mobile phone.