Check this out, fantastic site in response to the GAP RED campaign:

http://buylesscrap.org

SHOPPING IS NOT A SOLUTION.

Buy (Less). Give More.

Join us in rejecting the ti(red) notion that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering.

We invite you to donate directly to the RED campaign's beneficiary The Global Fund and to these other charitable causes... without consuming.

--
My personal thoughts... it's great that GAP is getting these issues out on the table, but the campaign barely even mentions AIDS, TB or Malaria. I wonder if most people buying the products even know that is the purpose of the campaign, and it's just not some marketing campaign! In the US alone almost 1mn people are living with HIV and less than half know they are infected. Imagine if GAP had used the opportunity to encourage testing?

With the Amex RED card, only 1% of transactions is donated. Not sure how much of GAP RED products are donated or the Motorola Red phone, but I doubt it's very much. What is the point of the whole campaign if they don't mention the need/ cause and not much money is generated?

I absolutely despise non-profits, campaigns and "charities" that are just about PR and the hype. Such crap....

CNN mentions campaign:



Joya

Check out this awesome project,
Hometown Baghdad. It's on http://www.salon.com

Hometown Baghdad is a new initiative of an organization that GYCA
partners with and shares an office with, Chat the Planet.

Please send out widely if you think it's cool and be sure to link to
the webisodes (link to http://www.hometownbaghdad.com) if you have a
blog! Would love to hear your thoughts.

Below is an excerpt of the press release.


Watch the Websisodes

Enjoy!

Joya


-----


Press Contacts:
Michael DiBenedetto
Chat the Planet
212-375-2620 ext. 203
mike@hometownbaghdad.com

"HOMETOWN BAGHDAD" TO DEBUT ON SALON.COM, FOLLOWED BY A LAUNCH ACROSS
MULTIPLE DISTRIBUTION OUTLETS

CHAT THE PLANET'S INNOVATIVE DOCUMENTARY WEB SERIES OFFERS AN INTIMATE
LOOK AT ORDINARY IRAQIS AND THE STRUGGLES THEY FACE

New York, NY (March 16, 2007)—CHAT THE PLANET announced today that its
documentary web series HOMETOWN BAGHDAD will premier on SALON.COM on
Monday, March 19th, the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war
in Iraq. The series will then launch across multiple digital platforms
in the following days, including mtvU, MTV's 24-hour college network.
This groundbreaking series, shot entirely by Iraqis who want to share
their stories with America and the West, offers viewers an
unprecedented and extraordinary look into the homes and lives of
regular Iraqis. The everyday life of the Iraqi citizen has been the
great untold story of the Iraq war. That is about to change.

"Hometown Baghdad", which is comprised of approximately 35 "webisodes"
that range from one to three minutes long, tells the stories of three
young Iraqis who are struggling to survive in the most dangerous city
in the world. Saif is a 23-year-old recent college grad with dreams of
becoming a dentist. Adel is an aspiring rock musician whose hopes of
forming a band are continually dashed by the violence and tragedy
surrounding him. And Ausama is a 20-year-old med student whose family
is repeatedly threatened and endangered by both American and insurgent
forces.

The people profiled in 'Hometown Baghdad' are not the usual figures
that dominate the media's coverage of the Iraq war: the politicians,
the troops, the insurgents or the religious fanatics. They are young,
smart ambitious Iraqis struggling with everyday concerns in the middle
of a deadly war.


full press release

Watch the Websisodes

To compound the disgusting Abu Ghraib affair and the Bush Administration's subsequent denial of the Geneva Convention and defense of the US use of torture, now American and American-trained Iraqi security forces are raping women with impunity, and even being rewarded for their crimes.

Have we made anything better in Iraq? I can't name one thing except the removal of Saddam Hussein, who will surely be replaced by an even more brutal dictator once the endless and bloody civil war comes to a close.

For now, it seems that all we are doing is prolonging and obfuscating the realities of the conflict on the ground to avoid admitting that we've LOST THIS WAR. To me it seems quite clear but I realize that this truth will finally be acknowledged once we bring the troops back home. There is no other reason for them to be there now.

Everyday when the numbers of deaths are tallied on the news and Americans flip the channel to a more entertaining reality tv show, what is really going on? What's going on is that everyday people with no ties to Saddam, terrorism, or politics are being raped, tortured and murdered, for one reason alone- so that Bush and his cronies will not have to admit defeat.


Check this out:


Iraq Diaries
The Rape of Sabrine...
Riverbend, Baghdad Burning, 21 February 2007
http://electroniciraq.net/news/2917.shtml

excerpts:


"They abducted Sabrine from her house in an area in southern Baghdad called Hai Al Amil. No, it wasn't a gang; it was Iraqi peace keeping or security forces (the ones trained by Americans - you know them). She was brutally gang-raped and is now telling the story. Half her face is covered for security reasons or reasons of privacy. I translated what she said below.

SABRINE: "I told him, 'I don't have anything. I did not do anything.' He said, 'You don't have anything?' One of them threw me on the ground and my head hit the tiles. He did what he did - I mean he raped me. The second one came and raped me. The third one also raped me.

...
Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It's worse. It's over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq's first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3,000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

...
No Iraqi woman under the circumstances - under any circumstances - would publicly, falsely claim she was raped. There are just too many risks. There is the risk of being shunned socially. There is the risk of beginning an endless chain of retaliations and revenge killings between tribes. There is the shame of coming out publicly and talking about a subject so taboo, she and her husband are not only risking their reputations by telling this story, they are risking their lives."


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