I'm just so full of sass.
Here is the email I fired off today using the Starbucks.com contact section:
Please see to it that this messages reaches the desk of Howard Schultz.
Mr Schultz, I recently read an article describing your call to end corporate funding of political campaigns. You said that corporations should be, in summary, putting all those piles of money to better use. Well, being that you earn over 12 million dollars a year and I earn $8.00 an hour while going to school full time, I think it would be super if you could help me out and toss a few pennies my way to help me finish paying for college. You'll be interested to know that I am an undergraduate at NMU - your alumni. In the mean time, while waiting for your check to come in the mail, I hope I don't have to read anymore about your great ideas on how to better society as they come to you in your billion dollar house. What's it like to be part of the 1% controlling 35% of the nation's wealth? I bet it's real cool. Thanks for your time, don't forget to send those pennies Howie.
Sincerely, Erin
Surprisingly, I got a reply that wasn’t totally generic:
Hello Erin,
Thank you for contacting Starbucks Coffee Company.
Thank you for your feedback in response to the pledge taken by Starbucks chairman, president and ceo Howard Schultz. We will share your feedback. If you'd like to offer further feedback or suggestions, we encourage you to continue the discussion at www.upwardspiral2011.org. Thanks once again for your interest.
If you have any further questions or concerns that I was unable to address, please feel free to let me know.
Warm Regards,
Ryan H
I posted my first email on facebook as my status and received a lot of feedback. Which is awesome. It is my opinion that more people my age need to be engaged in discussions on the actions of our political and corporate leaders. This mini social outburst of mine was no doubt inspired in me today by two things: 1. I read an article yesterday about Howard Schultz’s call to end corporate backing of campaigns and instead using the money to create more jobs. And 2. I’ve been closely following the Occupy Wall Street protest that has been going on in New York since Saturday.
On the first issue, you might ask me why I’m so against a CEO actually taking a public stand against something negative that nearly all large corporations do. Well, I’m not. Actually, ending corporate funding in political campaigns is a big issue for me. I’m happy to hear that Starbucks will no longer be doing this. However, Howard Schultz is not breaking any major ground here. People have been calling for this action for years. It is fairly new for a CEO to say that they will accept this call and choose to end the practice, and for that I offer my respect and support. The problem I have here is hailing the Starbucks CEO as a great guy who has all of our best interests at heart because of it. I followed the link included in Starbucks' response and it lead me to a spankin new website devoted to Schultz’s noble cause. Here we can see softly glowing black and white photos of millionaires smiling. A thoughtful quote from old Howard and a taupe background gets us all warm and fuzzy inside as we can see, by evidence of this here website, that corporate America is really ready to do some good. Now let’s pump the brakes. To me this is yet another exercise of power and coercion by the wealthy 1% over the rest of us. Let’s not be sheeple. Are we going to get off the backs of these enormous money gobbling, human rights exploiting corporations just because they make a pretty website? Fuck no. This is our revolution and I refuse to let is be one more thing that corporate America takes away. Which leads me to my second point.
For the past couple of months, the #occupywallstreet campaign has been gaining momentum across the internet and social networking sites. I first heard about the idea in the August issue of Adbusters magazine. The idea is simple: Thousands of people show up on Wall Street, set up camp, and don't leave until we make our point. But what is our point?
1% of the nation holds 99% of the wealth. While corporations enjoy rights equivalent to people, CEOs earn more money than their company pays in taxes, the wealthiest 1% receives tax breaks, politicians run million dollar campaigns, and corporations report all time high profit margins, the rest of us, THE OTHER 99% OF US, lose our jobs, pay higher and even more unreasonable tuition to get an education, rack up loans that will take decades to pay off, pay more taxes, enjoy less funding for public programs, and have to sift through the endless stream of lies, manipulation and general bullshit that our politicians and corporate world flood us with daily. There have been multiple arrests, videos showing potentially excessive force being used by the NYPD (which baffles me considering that police officers are most definitely part of the middle class), and at least 1,000 people protesting, occupying and sleeping the park renamed "Liberty Plaza" at all times. Yet most people haven’t heard a peep about it. Mainstream media is intentionally not covering the story. Can you guess why? Main stream media is controlled by multi-million dollar corporations who have totalitarian control over what does and does not get reported on the news. Disturbing isn’t it?
I think I’ll wrap this post up as it’s getting a bit long and a bit ranty and I have more homework to do. I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions.
Erin
What I'm Listening to: The Whole Love - New album by Wilco
What I'm Watching: Harold and Maude
What I'm reading: The Small-Mart Revolution by Michael H Shuman
