Starbucks doesn't need a coming-out day to convince me that they're 'red,' but here it comes: Starbucks goes (RED) for World AIDS Day! So on December 1, it's a nickel to the Global Fund for every coffee served.
Its facebook group members include the pitifully innocent: "I will be there! I love coffee and I love to help any way I can;" the idealistic: "They should give way more than 5 cents per beverage;" and the so-liberal-they're-conservative: "How about instead of them giving 5 cents, you go get a cup of coffee from somewhere that isn't a corporate giant, saving yourself about an entire dollar, and give that dollar to the aids fund?"
Few, though, share my reasoned pessimism. It's high time we question whether the "end AIDS" crowd really cares about Africans. Of course Starbucks is motivated by profit - it's a business! But what excuse remains for the Global Funds acolytes?
For it's been well documented that these earmarks for AIDS devastate Sub-Saharan Africa. Children are dying from diarrhea and asphyxia because foreign donations pay for AIDS pills, not oxygen ventilators. If you practice medicine in, say, Lesotho, it's more lucrative to get trained in AIDS treatment than in how to save the lives of sickly babies born in roach-infested hospitals.
If you oppose money for AIDS in Africa, people suspect the basest of motivations. How long, though, until we who know the "unintended consequences" of liberals' bravados stop assuming they have the best intentions? It's eye-catching and hip on the résumé to say you led your college's Global Fund chapter. Not so glamorous to watch people's faces frost over as you explain the need for better basic health infrastructure and diarrhea treatment in Rwanda.
Who better than a profit-seeker like Starbuck's to know what sells, anyway? "Well duh, of course I'll be there!!" writes Laura from California.
Laura's five cents will help buy AIDS pills for some sickly kid, who's too hungry and nauseated to keep from vomiting when he swallows them: Like whatever, I just want to buy coffee so I can like end poverty in the Africa.
If these people want to help save African lives more than they want to be self-righteous and accepted in the gay community, they can start by buying McDonald's coffee on Red Day. For my part, I will assume liberals understand the economics of disease in Africa, and will suspect the basest of motivations.
For more on this, read the LA Times’ “Unintended victims of Gates Foundation generosity”:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gates16dec16,0,6256166,full.story
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Even without considering the silliness of the do-good-works-through-material-consumption ehtos that is so popular, it seems that the Red campaign fall shorts even if all you are concerned about is AIDS relief. The RED campaign is first and foremost and advertising venture, and not an effective means to any sort of charity.
AdAge has reported that the collective marketing expenditures by Gap, Apple, and Motorola has already passed $100 million, which has translated into only $10 million towards the Global Fund.
But hey, at least I can feel good buying my coffee, right?
http://www.africomnet.org/news/mustreads/read03081.php
Post a Comment