schnumi
Refugee
Still no international shipping to europe. 
The (RED) Thread - Discuss Products Only! (#2)
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arw
Blue Crack Addict
I went to the Gap today and there it was.....a Reduce tote bag. It was half price too! I couldn't believe it was just sitting there in the middle of the Red display. I've checked a few Gap stores in town and haven't been able to find it. I tried to buy it online when it first came out but I got to the website too late and they were all gone. My mom was upset they only had 1. I told her she could have it as long as one of us bought it but she refused. Hopefully I'll be able to find one for her now too. They're $40 on eBay! I'm so excited to have found it. I would have paid full price today for it.
I'm so excited to have found it. I would have paid full price today for it.
waynetravis
Blue Crack Supplier
New tees with elephants and rhino
Elann
War Child
iloveedge said:I got three shirts and three bracelets for Christmas. My mum got a shirt and my sister got a purse and a necklace! Here are mine:
Et je vois le DVD en dessous ! Du grand film !
Au moins il est marrant !J'adore tes tee shirt... vraiment !
OP
OP
JCOSTER
ONE love, blood, life
arw9797 said:I went to the Gap today and there it was.....a Reduce tote bag. It was half price too! I couldn't believe it was just sitting there in the middle of the Red display. I've checked a few Gap stores in town and haven't been able to find it. I tried to buy it online when it first came out but I got to the website too late and they were all gone. My mom was upset they only had 1. I told her she could have it as long as one of us bought it but she refused. Hopefully I'll be able to find one for her now too. They're $40 on eBay!
OHHHH! I wanted to get that bag and could never find. I will have to search a few gaps!!!
bonocomet
Blue Crack Distributor
I was in Gap last night and picked up a few of the last of the necklaces they were clearing out for $1.97 each (regularly $15!)
They were playing Two Hearts Beat As One in the store
They were playing Two Hearts Beat As One in the store
OP
OP
JCOSTER
ONE love, blood, life
^See it was Karma that you get those necklaces. 
OP
OP
JCOSTER
ONE love, blood, life
Found this article ...
RED campaign accused of being ti(red)
Written by Ashley Walters, Ryerson Free Press (Ryerson University)
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Does shopping for charity really make sense in the big picture?
TORONTO (CUP) – A snapshot of Bono and Oprah, arms laden with red shopping bags, graces the main page of the Make Poverty History website, advertising its newest RED campaign.
RED, an offshoot of the famous U.K. campaign Make Poverty History, was pioneered by pop star Bono last year. It was created in an effort to get participating American companies to donate a fraction of their profits to his charity, The Global Fund, which works to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the developing world.
The image of Bono and Oprah is one of frenetic excitement stemming from consumerism, where red shopping bags symbolize social consciousness.The U.K. campaign began to take shape in 2003 when Oxfam, a non-profit development agency, met with various aid and charity groups and agreed to launch a 2005 coalition against poverty. They called on world leaders to work towards eliminating global poverty by increasing aid to developing countries, endorsing fair trade and forgiving foreign debt.
Two years after its birth, the campaign is now a global project that has inspired national campaigns in Australia, Norway, Canada and the United States. The U.K. campaign has over 460 member organizations, as well as numerous politicians, celebrities and multinationals lobbying, in one fashion or another, for the cause.
Of course none of this is new – it is only repackaged. The principle of new and better aid to Africa has been around since the 1980s when a BBC documentary on the famine in northern Ethiopia plucked at the heart strings of Irish pop star Bob Geldolf, spurring him to mobilize other stars to produce the 1984 saccharine sweet single ‘Do They Know it’s Christmas,’ which raised 8 million pounds to feed Africa’s hungry.
The American ‘We are the World’ and Canadian ‘Tears are not Enough’ versions of the song soon followed.
In 1985, celebrity rock stars united in London and Philadelphia for the Live Aid concert, which, along with similar events (fashion and sport aid), raised over $140 million for humanitarian organizations to help the fight.
The Campaign to Make Poverty History, the American version of the U.K. organization, has drawn support from 2.5 million Americans in its effort to combat AIDS and extreme poverty in the developing world. The RED campaign has partnered with corporate heavyweights like American Express, the Gap, Converse, Motorola, Apple and Armani.
Armani is among the most generous, donating 40 percent of its sales of RED products to the charity, while American Express gives 1.25 percent and Apple gives approximately $10 US for every RED IPod Nano sold.
Sources have argued the U.K.’s RED campaign is a failure. It cost 50 million pounds to set up and only raised 9 million pounds for charity.
The website Buylesscrap.com pokes fun at the RED campaign, labelling it as “a ti(red) notion that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering,” and suggests that consumers should focus on the real issues and donate money directly to charity organizations.
Is RED attempting to manufacture a brand of corporate consciousness? The Joinred.com manifesto refutes this notion by describing the campaign as “not a charity. It is simply a business model.” In the July 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, Bono describes the RED campaign as a “judo strategy [...] using the strength of your opponent to overthrow him,” as a way to explain why the corporate model could serve as a powerful tool for social change.
Contention exists regarding the U.K.-based campaign Make Poverty History. A Red Pepper magazine article, ‘Inside the Murky World of Make Poverty History,’ references a New Statesman exposé that points out some overlap between central Make Poverty History aid organizations and development agencies. For one, the central partner in Make Poverty History, Oxfam, has been accused of championing the Labour Party’s foreign trade agenda.
Justin Forsyth, the previous Oxfam campaign manager, left the organization to become Tony Blair’s special advisor on foreign development. Shriti Vadera, presently an Oxfam board member, previously held the position of director at the U.S. bank UBS Warburg and specialized in public-private partnerships, experience that could be interpreted as influencing Oxfam’s development policies. John Clarke left Oxfam to work at the World Bank in 1992 and was in charge of the bank’s co-optation strategy with civil society.
In 2000, Clarke met with Blair to discuss an “Africa partnership initiative” that spawned the New Partnership for Africa’s Development in 2001. A key player in Make Poverty History is Sarah Kline, a previous official for the World Bank who nurtures Oxfam’s relations with the IMF and World Bank.
With such a revolving door of employees and advisors between Oxfam and international financial institutions and government, one might begin to question whether Oxfam is merely helping to establish Africa as a free trade playground for the United Kingdom.
Oxfam’s first slip-up was chronicled in a 2005 exposé in The Sunday Telegraph that revealed Oxfam purchased the white plastic Make Poverty History bracelets, a product that contributes $1 of its profits to eliminating poverty, from Chinese sweatshops. Ethical audit reports from the Tat Shing Rubber Manufacturing Company in Shenzhen and Fuzhou Xing Chun Trade Company in Fujian province confirmed that the companies endorsed sweatshop conditions.
Oxfam responded by arguing that the factory committed to improving its working conditions through the adoption of a “corrective and protective action plan” before the bracelets were produced.
One of the central mandates of Make Poverty History, “trade justice not free trade,” has been criticized as a watered down version of its original ideal. New York Times editorialist Stephen Pollard argued that it completely misses the mark in terms of recognizing the value of free trade in strengthening the economies of developing countries. He said it is trade that keeps market economies alive and prevents countries from slipping into dire poverty. According to him, the only thing the tariffs (advocated by the campaign) protect is poverty, by discouraging international trade and eventually contributing to economic collapse.
Other critics argue the meaning behind “fair trade not free trade” focuses on lobbying international financial institutions to stop forcing developing countries to adopt neo-liberal policies as a contingent on development loans, which results in a devaluation of local currency, privatization of industry and overall national impotence, which is only increased through the country’s reliance on a sole industry of goods for foreign export.
Are poverty watchdog organizations becoming corporate lapdogs? Is the Make Poverty History campaign making activism history? You can reach your own conclusions when you make your next RED purchase at the Gap.
RED campaign accused of being ti(red)
Written by Ashley Walters, Ryerson Free Press (Ryerson University)
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Does shopping for charity really make sense in the big picture?
TORONTO (CUP) – A snapshot of Bono and Oprah, arms laden with red shopping bags, graces the main page of the Make Poverty History website, advertising its newest RED campaign.
RED, an offshoot of the famous U.K. campaign Make Poverty History, was pioneered by pop star Bono last year. It was created in an effort to get participating American companies to donate a fraction of their profits to his charity, The Global Fund, which works to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the developing world.
The image of Bono and Oprah is one of frenetic excitement stemming from consumerism, where red shopping bags symbolize social consciousness.The U.K. campaign began to take shape in 2003 when Oxfam, a non-profit development agency, met with various aid and charity groups and agreed to launch a 2005 coalition against poverty. They called on world leaders to work towards eliminating global poverty by increasing aid to developing countries, endorsing fair trade and forgiving foreign debt.
Two years after its birth, the campaign is now a global project that has inspired national campaigns in Australia, Norway, Canada and the United States. The U.K. campaign has over 460 member organizations, as well as numerous politicians, celebrities and multinationals lobbying, in one fashion or another, for the cause.
Of course none of this is new – it is only repackaged. The principle of new and better aid to Africa has been around since the 1980s when a BBC documentary on the famine in northern Ethiopia plucked at the heart strings of Irish pop star Bob Geldolf, spurring him to mobilize other stars to produce the 1984 saccharine sweet single ‘Do They Know it’s Christmas,’ which raised 8 million pounds to feed Africa’s hungry.
The American ‘We are the World’ and Canadian ‘Tears are not Enough’ versions of the song soon followed.
In 1985, celebrity rock stars united in London and Philadelphia for the Live Aid concert, which, along with similar events (fashion and sport aid), raised over $140 million for humanitarian organizations to help the fight.
The Campaign to Make Poverty History, the American version of the U.K. organization, has drawn support from 2.5 million Americans in its effort to combat AIDS and extreme poverty in the developing world. The RED campaign has partnered with corporate heavyweights like American Express, the Gap, Converse, Motorola, Apple and Armani.
Armani is among the most generous, donating 40 percent of its sales of RED products to the charity, while American Express gives 1.25 percent and Apple gives approximately $10 US for every RED IPod Nano sold.
Sources have argued the U.K.’s RED campaign is a failure. It cost 50 million pounds to set up and only raised 9 million pounds for charity.
The website Buylesscrap.com pokes fun at the RED campaign, labelling it as “a ti(red) notion that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering,” and suggests that consumers should focus on the real issues and donate money directly to charity organizations.
Is RED attempting to manufacture a brand of corporate consciousness? The Joinred.com manifesto refutes this notion by describing the campaign as “not a charity. It is simply a business model.” In the July 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, Bono describes the RED campaign as a “judo strategy [...] using the strength of your opponent to overthrow him,” as a way to explain why the corporate model could serve as a powerful tool for social change.
Contention exists regarding the U.K.-based campaign Make Poverty History. A Red Pepper magazine article, ‘Inside the Murky World of Make Poverty History,’ references a New Statesman exposé that points out some overlap between central Make Poverty History aid organizations and development agencies. For one, the central partner in Make Poverty History, Oxfam, has been accused of championing the Labour Party’s foreign trade agenda.
Justin Forsyth, the previous Oxfam campaign manager, left the organization to become Tony Blair’s special advisor on foreign development. Shriti Vadera, presently an Oxfam board member, previously held the position of director at the U.S. bank UBS Warburg and specialized in public-private partnerships, experience that could be interpreted as influencing Oxfam’s development policies. John Clarke left Oxfam to work at the World Bank in 1992 and was in charge of the bank’s co-optation strategy with civil society.
In 2000, Clarke met with Blair to discuss an “Africa partnership initiative” that spawned the New Partnership for Africa’s Development in 2001. A key player in Make Poverty History is Sarah Kline, a previous official for the World Bank who nurtures Oxfam’s relations with the IMF and World Bank.
With such a revolving door of employees and advisors between Oxfam and international financial institutions and government, one might begin to question whether Oxfam is merely helping to establish Africa as a free trade playground for the United Kingdom.
Oxfam’s first slip-up was chronicled in a 2005 exposé in The Sunday Telegraph that revealed Oxfam purchased the white plastic Make Poverty History bracelets, a product that contributes $1 of its profits to eliminating poverty, from Chinese sweatshops. Ethical audit reports from the Tat Shing Rubber Manufacturing Company in Shenzhen and Fuzhou Xing Chun Trade Company in Fujian province confirmed that the companies endorsed sweatshop conditions.
Oxfam responded by arguing that the factory committed to improving its working conditions through the adoption of a “corrective and protective action plan” before the bracelets were produced.
One of the central mandates of Make Poverty History, “trade justice not free trade,” has been criticized as a watered down version of its original ideal. New York Times editorialist Stephen Pollard argued that it completely misses the mark in terms of recognizing the value of free trade in strengthening the economies of developing countries. He said it is trade that keeps market economies alive and prevents countries from slipping into dire poverty. According to him, the only thing the tariffs (advocated by the campaign) protect is poverty, by discouraging international trade and eventually contributing to economic collapse.
Other critics argue the meaning behind “fair trade not free trade” focuses on lobbying international financial institutions to stop forcing developing countries to adopt neo-liberal policies as a contingent on development loans, which results in a devaluation of local currency, privatization of industry and overall national impotence, which is only increased through the country’s reliance on a sole industry of goods for foreign export.
Are poverty watchdog organizations becoming corporate lapdogs? Is the Make Poverty History campaign making activism history? You can reach your own conclusions when you make your next RED purchase at the Gap.
OP
OP
JCOSTER
ONE love, blood, life
Val said:
It would be good to stuff my Hallmark stuff in!!!
arw
Blue Crack Addict
JCOSTER said:
I've been to 3 different Gap stores this week and didn't find one.
One of the stores I went to today was at the Mall of America. There's a 2 story Gap store plus Baby Gap and Gap kids....nothing in any of them. Actually I was really surprised at how low the stock was at the main store today. It's probably the biggest store in the Twin Cities area. Plus I was at 2 other stores yesterday. I must have gotten a holiday return or something because I've never seen it in the stores once or I would have already owned it. I hope I can find one for my mom eventually without having to buy one on ebay. She's a huge Oprah fan so she follows the Product Red stuff through her.Several comments -
Thank you, JCOSTER, for that article on (RED). It is really important to keep up with what people are saying about the brand in public.
Do you have a direct link for that article?
Over the weekend, I went to a GAP store and bought four silvertone bracelets all done in a leaf motif.
The bracelets were on a drastic mark down (under $5 each) from their original price and all I could keep doing was thinking about how EDUN's logo cente(red) around the leaf motif.
I also got a new (RED) t-shirt from GAP with a lot of writing on it but since I liked what it said - I bought it and I didn't mind shelling out the $28 for it.
Last (but not least), here is (RED)'s Holiday message from the (RED) website - www.joinred.com
HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM (RED)
Thanks for your support in 2007. We look forward to bringing you new (PRODUCT) RED items this year! Make sure you're registered for the (RED) list so we can keep you posted.
Thank you, JCOSTER, for that article on (RED). It is really important to keep up with what people are saying about the brand in public.
Do you have a direct link for that article?
Over the weekend, I went to a GAP store and bought four silvertone bracelets all done in a leaf motif.
The bracelets were on a drastic mark down (under $5 each) from their original price and all I could keep doing was thinking about how EDUN's logo cente(red) around the leaf motif.
I also got a new (RED) t-shirt from GAP with a lot of writing on it but since I liked what it said - I bought it and I didn't mind shelling out the $28 for it.
Last (but not least), here is (RED)'s Holiday message from the (RED) website - www.joinred.com
HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM (RED)
Thanks for your support in 2007. We look forward to bringing you new (PRODUCT) RED items this year! Make sure you're registered for the (RED) list so we can keep you posted.
OP
OP
JCOSTER
ONE love, blood, life
Okay, so today I got the leather bracelets for .49 cents. Bought a bunch of them! I found 1 Reduce bag for my auction (although I would like one myself, I might have to bid on my own!) The little journal with the fish on it for .97 cents and the black honored tank for 6.99. I also picked up the red henley for my hubby for $18.99 for valentines day!
BTW: the blue military coat marked down to $49.00.
BTW: the blue military coat marked down to $49.00.
waynetravis
Blue Crack Supplier
Damn you guys are getting them cheap, ours are still full price 
seajewel
War Child
JCOSTER said:
Wow, I paid full price for the coat - but I love it and wore it for holiday parties.
bonocomet
Blue Crack Distributor
^ same here. I wore it so much over the holidays. I'd pay full price again. It was worth it.
bonocomet
Blue Crack Distributor
Oh we might be talking about different coats now that I look. I have the navy peacoat.
I've seen it referred to as a military coat but there was another actually called that too I think. But I think that one is black. Bono wears the mens version of the peacoat.
I've seen it referred to as a military coat but there was another actually called that too I think. But I think that one is black. Bono wears the mens version of the peacoat.
Last edited:
I did want to mention that the (RED) tee that I bought the other day at the GAP store was the one on the left hand side of iloveedge's Christmas present picture of her three (RED) GAP tees.
I'll be wearing that tee on a very special business trip next month. It will be perfect for the occasion.
Thank you all for your continued support of (RED) in support of the Global Fund (www.theglobalfund.org)
I'll be wearing that tee on a very special business trip next month. It will be perfect for the occasion.
Thank you all for your continued support of (RED) in support of the Global Fund (www.theglobalfund.org)
OP
OP
JCOSTER
ONE love, blood, life
bonocomet said:Oh we might be talking about different coats now that I look. I have the navy peacoat.
I've seen it referred to as a military coat but there was another actually called that too I think. But I think that one is black. Bono wears the mens version of the peacoat.
This is the one that was on sale. I would have bought it it was the only one in my size but there were buttons missing.
bonocomet
Blue Crack Distributor
I have noticed that about some of the RED clothing... they lose their buttons! One of mine also fell off this coat so I sewed it back on and reinforced the others. I saw a few in the store with missing buttons too and buttons have fallen off when I've tried things on. I usually buy them anyways though, I figure a button is easily replaced
Plus... you could always add your own red button
Plus... you could always add your own red button
bonocomet said:Oh we might be talking about different coats now that I look. I have the navy peacoat.
I've seen it referred to as a military coat but there was another actually called that too I think. But I think that one is black. Bono wears the mens version of the peacoat.
Very nice coat!
seajewel
War Child
I have the coat above - thanks for letting me know about the buttons - The buttons are really nice and I don't want them to fall off! I love my coat!
waynetravis
Blue Crack Supplier
Comet said she was going to model her coat for us!!! 
bonocomet
Blue Crack Distributor
^ yeah when you show us your llama
waynetravis
Blue Crack Supplier
OP
OP
JCOSTER
ONE love, blood, life
Went to Hallmark today and I was pretty disappointed. I expected to see alot of new items but saw only 1/4 of what was on line.
The boxed christmas cards and wrapping were 1/2 price so I picked up some for next year and my auction.
My biggest complaint with Hallmark is that they don't carry everthing shown on the website.
The boxed christmas cards and wrapping were 1/2 price so I picked up some for next year and my auction.
My biggest complaint with Hallmark is that they don't carry everthing shown on the website.
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