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cafe
 
"Real livable wage for coffee workers"
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Topic: Cafes


Real livable wage for coffee workers

Those who grow, pick and prepare the coffee beans we buy should earn a living wage. More than 'fair trade,' these workers should be able to afford decent housing, healthy food, and more.
Cafes should work together to purchase supplies from cooperatives that can guarantee that the workers are paid fairly.


Our cafes are clean and warm cafes, with music and conversation, comfortable chairs, and perfectly brewed coffee. But what about those who grew and picked and brought our coffee to us?
The fair trade movement is a step in the right direction, but provides only incremental improvements in basic living conditions. Coffee workers who earn 50 cents a pound on the open market may get up to twice that with fair trade, and have access to other benefits such as bank credit.
These are certainly improvements. But how fair could it be if no Westerner—no one at all who had a choice—would work under the conditions that ‘fair trade’ workers must?
How do these benefits affect the actual living conditions of the workers? Though better off, they are still desperately poor. Their home is likely to be a hut, with dirt floors, without running water. Normally workers cannot afford a balanced diet, which means that they and their children may be malnourished. They have minimal medical care, and very little education.
We need real fairness, true justice in economic relationships between those in rich and poor countries. At the least there should be a measure of equality between producers and consumers.

Additional possibilities
In spite of well-meaning efforts to purchase coffee, sugar and chocolate using Fair Trade standards, most of the profit still goes not to those who grow, but those who process and sell the products. There are few viable options for those in the less developed parts of the world who actually grow it.
We should collaborate in returning some of the power, by helping local growers to create added value.
Empower the sellers of resources to benefit from finishing the product. Support local value added factories in the places where the coffee is actually grown.
Also, why not make an effort hire workers from the countries (and actual farms) where the coffee is sold?
 
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Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!
 
What is the Bias?
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What is your Personal Experience?
How does it make you feel? How do your experiences, privileges, and personal interests affect your understanding of it?
Now, enter the heart
▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.
▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.
▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!
 
Opinion added by
Visionary Society
on June 23, 2018
 
"Quiet spaces"
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Topic: Cafes


Quiet spaces

Create music free spaces or areas where music is low enough so that one's own private thoughts can be heard. Any place that pipes in music ought to think about the impact on the lives of their guests. Combat mass culture. Encourage thought, reflection and discussion.


Wealth brings psychic numbing along with it. To combat this we need spaces for sensitivity to the real.
Two hundred years ago there was no recorded music. Fifty years ago recorded music existed but was not considered to be appropriate in most public spaces. It has taken a great deal of ‘open-mindedness’ to make us tolerant of and addicted to this habit.
Recorded music in businesses and public spaces has an insidious effect. It numbs the mind, stops serious conversation, and make it hard to reflect. Music pollution is mind pollution. What can we do about the brainwashing that occurs continually in the quasi-public places that we congregate in: restaurants, stores, malls, and government property?
Any place that pipes in music ought to think about the impact on the lives of their guests. We have the right to reflect!

Other possibilities:
Decent reading material.
An area dedicated to public conversation. Spaces for community, reflection, discussion, peace and quiet.
Period after closing for discussion and possibly free beverage or food
 
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How to Explore a Perspective
Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!
 
What is the Bias?
What assumptions does it make? Whose interests does it serve?

What is your Personal Experience?
How does it make you feel? How do your experiences, privileges, and personal interests affect your understanding of it?
Now, enter the heart
▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.
▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.
▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!
 
Opinion added by
Visionary Society
on June 23, 2018
 
 


cafe library mall
 
"Quiet spaces"
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Topic: Cafes


Quiet spaces

Create music free spaces or areas where music is low enough so that one's own private thoughts can be heard. Any place that pipes in music ought to think about the impact on the lives of their guests. Combat mass culture. Encourage thought, reflection and discussion.


Wealth brings psychic numbing along with it. To combat this we need spaces for sensitivity to the real.
Two hundred years ago there was no recorded music. Fifty years ago recorded music existed but was not considered to be appropriate in most public spaces. It has taken a great deal of ‘open-mindedness’ to make us tolerant of and addicted to this habit.
Recorded music in businesses and public spaces has an insidious effect. It numbs the mind, stops serious conversation, and make it hard to reflect. Music pollution is mind pollution. What can we do about the brainwashing that occurs continually in the quasi-public places that we congregate in: restaurants, stores, malls, and government property?
Any place that pipes in music ought to think about the impact on the lives of their guests. We have the right to reflect!

Other possibilities:
Decent reading material.
An area dedicated to public conversation. Spaces for community, reflection, discussion, peace and quiet.
Period after closing for discussion and possibly free beverage or food
 
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How to Explore a Perspective
Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!
 
What is the Bias?
What assumptions does it make? Whose interests does it serve?

What is your Personal Experience?
How does it make you feel? How do your experiences, privileges, and personal interests affect your understanding of it?
Now, enter the heart
▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.
▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.
▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!
 
Opinion added by
Visionary Society
on June 23, 2018
 
 


 
Visionary
Visionary
"The goal of recorded music in cafes is to reach a drug-like pleasure of non-existence"
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Topic: Cafes


The goal of recorded music in cafes is to reach a drug-like pleasure of non-existence

Recorded music is everywhere, in restaurants and stores and elevators, and it is almost impossible to escape it. The goal of its numbing repetitive rhythms are a harmonization of humanity on the lowest possible level, the mild drug-like pleasure of non-existence. It is used to manipulate states of mind, to exercise control, to stimulate desire. It is employed as a tool to distract people from the actual situation they are in.

 
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How to Explore a Perspective
Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!
 
What is the Bias?
What assumptions does it make? Whose interests does it serve?

What is your Personal Experience?
How does it make you feel? How do your experiences, privileges, and personal interests affect your understanding of it?
Now, enter the heart
▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.
▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.
▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!
 
Opinion added by
Visionary Society
on February 10, 2018
 
This is the view of the Opinion creator
John Ruskin
"I will not hurt, or cause to be hurt, any human being"
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Topic: Cafes


I will not hurt, or cause to be hurt, any human being

“I will not deceive, or cause to be deceived, any human being for my gain or pleasure; nor hurt, or cause to be hurt, any human being for my gain or pleasure; nor rob, or cause to be robbed, any human being for my gain or pleasure.”
 
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How to Explore a Perspective
Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!
 
What is the Bias?
What assumptions does it make? Whose interests does it serve?

What is your Personal Experience?
How does it make you feel? How do your experiences, privileges, and personal interests affect your understanding of it?
Now, enter the heart
▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.
▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.
▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!
 
Opinion added by
Visionary Society
on October 17, 2017
 
Geoff
Geoff
"Instead of blaming corporations, take responsibility for what we buy"
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Topic: Cafes


Instead of blaming corporations, take responsibility for what we buy

It’s easy to blame corporations, bureaucracy, culture. But that’s an evasion. It’s an excuse: an excuse about the unavoidable and irredeemable choices we must make and do make every day. When we prosper through the suffering of others, we ourselves are unjust.      
The solution is simple: we can simply buy products which are produced under just conditions. All we need do is find those producers, and purchase from them. The solution is simple; the problem is courage: courage to do what we know is right. 

 
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How to Explore a Perspective
Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!
 
What is the Bias?
What assumptions does it make? Whose interests does it serve?

What is your Personal Experience?
How does it make you feel? How do your experiences, privileges, and personal interests affect your understanding of it?
Now, enter the heart
▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.
▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.
▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!
 
Opinion added by
Geoff Bederson
on October 17, 2017
 
This is the view of the Opinion creator
Peter Griffiths
"Fair trade is not fair"
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Topic: Cafes


Fair trade is not fair

Fair trade is fantastic at making rich Europeans think that they are good, and making money for European countries.

How much extra are people paying for fair trade? We don’t record that. Only 2% of the extra way pay for fair trade goes to the farmers, the rest goes into the pocket of the sellers. Fair trade actually makes things worse. It imposes a very inefficient marketing system. Cooperatives impose terrible social costs. Certification is so expensive they don’t have anything to pass onto farmers.

When the coffee price falls, that’s bad times. In Sierra Leone, 1 in 2 children will die before they are five. We have these beautiful pictures of a smiling faced. peasant in Mexico. The photographer is waving their ten dollar bill. That is not evidence. They do not give us the picture of the couple burying their baby daughter who died of hunger because the coffee prices have fallen. Do we really want this kind of ethical marketing, or do we want something that really helps the poorest of the poor.

 
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How to Explore a Perspective
Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!
 
What is the Bias?
What assumptions does it make? Whose interests does it serve?

What is your Personal Experience?
How does it make you feel? How do your experiences, privileges, and personal interests affect your understanding of it?
Now, enter the heart
▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.
▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.
▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!
 
Opinion added by
Geoff Bederson
on February 26, 2018
 
This is the opinion of Peter Griffiths