Starbucks Expands AIDS in Africa Donations Program

If one doesn’t like these gestures, it’s a simple matter of refusing to trade at stores such as The Gap, Hallmark, etc.

When Marshall Fields endorsed and sold Jane Fonda exercise clothing in the 1970’s, I stopped buying there. In fact, I never did return, even when they were bought out by Macy’s. Lord knows how many dollars I have spent elsewhere on my wife over the last 35+ years.

Consumers should indicate what they think of a corporation’s “social stance” by voting with their feet and not going to a store until they change their ways.

Combatting AIDS in Africa will have the effect, if it is successful at all,of accelerating their rate of population growth, which is causing more problems to them than anything else.It is a case of the dog chasing its tail.

This is Napoleon in Animal Farm, getting the animals to work on a windmill that will never be finished. This merely serves to make whimsical Starbucks patrons feel self-important while they sip on a latte, knowing that they “helped” people with AIDS.

“Beginning on Thanksgiving, Starbucks will give 5 cents for every holiday drink that is purchased to combat AIDS in Africa.”

Remind me never EVER to buy anything at Starbucks.

The company is in pretty serious financial trouble and could go belly up before much longer.

I wonder if the genius responsible for sending the money to Africa ever realized that they might find better use for it trying to keep the company afloat so he won’t be without a job?

I wonder also if he ever realized how stupid it is to give money to people who don’t even try to prevent spreading the virus?

When are people going to learn that this is an education problem and not a funding problem?

Yet one more reason to not pay ridiculous prices for coffee. Every dollar spent on African aid eventually comes back to haunt us - in the form of more African immigrants, higher crime and even more suffering in Africa.

Starbucks’ customer base includes people who think efforts to “combat AIDS in Africa” will actually have some effect.

The company builds goodwill and the five cents it contributes is tax-deductible. It really is little different than sponsoring a little league team.

Good luck, Fools!

I can think of a lot of more worthy causes then AIDS - perhaps the most easily preventable disease on earth.

This article is similar to many that you read in the same vein, “we’re going to combat, eradicate, eliminate, wipe-out, abolish “X”, just send us money and lots of it.” So, I’m curious. How are they going “combat” AIDS in Africa? Are they going to put the money into research to find a cure? Are they going to provide condoms (that they wouldn’t use anyways)? How about an ad campaign; JUST SAY NO TO INDISCRIMINATE SEX!? Are they going to provide them with sex awareness classes and counseling. Is that it? Step right up, folk! Don’t be shy! For a mere $100.00 you can help “combat” AIDS in Africa! What’s that mean? The answer is just a few steps away! Walk through the entrance of the tent, the shroud before you to behold the wonders and amazement, the glories and majesty of all there is, was and ever will be. That’s right. Thank you, sir! Put it right here in the collection plate. Please keep the line moving, folks!

Stop destroying Africa with your self aggrandizing ‘help’. Starbucks is ‘helping’ Africa to show how compassionate they are and therefore more deserving of your business. Why don’t they donate to Iceland or SE Asia who are struggling in this hard economy?

Africa is a country that lives in the stone age with diseases that are necessary for culling out the population to prevent starvation of its primitive inhabitants. Stopping Aids will only encourage population growth and more suffering amongst these groups.

Thanks, now I know where not to spend my money.

I love it — a marketing pitch designed to lure in bleeding-heart liberals who would love to feel they are “making a difference” by purchasing their Peppermint Mocha Twists! AIDS always works best for these purposes (note that this is only for AIDS in Africa, which is better yet). Cystic fibrosis, or even childhood cancer, are far too white, mundane and potentially curable.

Starbucks correctly assumes that most customers are A) so addicted to their sweetened, flavored coffee drinks and B) so dedicated to a self-aggrandizing version of “social/global justice” that they will simply miss the fact that they are being manipulated and exploited by a big corporation.

I’ll stick to Dunkin’ Donuts for my coffee, thank you very much.

Oh good lord, it’s more humanitarian assistance to Africa! When I hear about these types of programs, I shudder.

Honesty and common sense: 0%
Political posturing and total waste of money: 100%

The money could be better spent on the people who have lost their jobs in this bad economy. Humanitarian assistance within the West, not on hopeless cases thousands of miles away in the bottomless pit of Africa. Mindless charity and assistance to the Third World has only rewarded us with an overpopulated planet and a surging immigration problem from these countries. That’s our reward for misguided altruism. What a price to pay.

These organizations have a better chance of inventing a fusion generated power plant than they do of “eliminating” aids in Africa. Do they plan to monitor every person with AIDS to make sure they put that condom on before intercourse? Ridiculous.

Boycott them all! Why is it that American companies and people only help nonwhite peoples throughout the world? We send billions a year to Africa for their self-induced AIDS epidemic.Yet it keeps multiplying and they keep multiplying.

I don’t even drink coffee, but I intend to go to a starbucks, order a drink, and when it comes time to pay say “oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know about this program and couldn’t care less about AIDS in Africa so you can keep your coffee, I’ll go elsewhere.” Then on to Hallmark and The Gap. I’ll REALLY go wild at The Gap. I’ll load the counter down with $500 worth of cloths, THEN give them my line. I just hope I can keep a straight face.

They’re just wasting time, money, and energy. Black Africans are doomed. The AIDS Epidemic is a perfect example of natural selection at work. AIDS is a fully preventable disease, but because of their low IQ’s, Blacks aren’t willing to change their habits, or to take the steps neccesary to eradicate this disease. For the time being, Western(i.e. White) Nations continue to pour money onto this issue, which is only postponing the inevitable. It’s the same principle that’s behind sending massive supplies of food to countries that will never have the resources to support themselves. You’re not fixing the problem, you’re just delaying the inevitable, and prolonging the misery.

One of the biggest problems that our race has is our “God Complex”, or as it’s been called before, “White Man’s Burden”. I think that most Whites who take part in these charities do it as a form of mental-masturbation. Whites love to help poor disadvantaged minorities, because it boosts their own sense of self-worth. A person can’t help but feel better about themselves, if they are “morally obligated” to help those who are less fortunate. The term “less fortunate” says it all. The other person is “less” than you.

This has been a common theme throughout White History. Of all the great empires the earth has seen, Greece was the first that actively tried to export it’s culture outside of it’s own racial boundaries. Rome, the next empire, did the exact same thing. Skip ahead in history to the British Empire, and you see the same thing. The British were notorious for trying to “Anglo-size” the rest of the world. Every other European Nation with imperial ambitions has done, and is doing, the same thing. By allowing alien races into our borders, we are assuming that our “vastly superior culture” will leave them no choice but to assimilate. Why wouldn’t these poor wretched souls want to adopt our wonderful, and obviously better way of life?

It is this arrogance and narcisism that is leading us to our downfall. No culture is one size fits all. Our way of life works well for us, because it was designed by us for us. Should everyone have to wear the same blue jeans I do, simply because they fit me so well? We really have to get over ourselves if we are ever going to save our race.

I don’t know if these companies donate funds to take care of sick Americans. If they don’t, they should be boycotted. What’s wrong with taking care of our own people first ?

How can measurable progress be made against AIDS when the thieves on the continent will not accurately report the number of AIDS cases? If four people are killed in an automobile accident, the deaths are sometimes falsely reported as AIDS cases to keep the dollars coming in.

Liberals love to be mugged.

Hucks has pretty good coffee and it is alot less expensive.

It was bad enough when our churches felt compelled to be busybodies, obsessed with “doing good” for other races and other cultures on other continents. But now, our corporations are getting into the act too!

Btw, the last I read, I thought Starbucks was having financial difficulties. But they can aford this?

AIDS in Africa? How about leukemia in America? Oh, I’m sorry, that was “jingoistic” and “racist.”

Only Africa can stop AIDS in Africa and as a people I doubt they are willing to relinquish their proclivities long enough to make any real progress in that direction . Unfortunately I’ve got the feeling the American tax-payer is fixing to invest heavily in Africa whether he wants to or not .

If they took all that money and spent it on lavish parties for the company CEO’s, it would do exactly the same to combat AIDS in africa….which is to say, nothing.

Note to all of the mentioned companies.

You are wasting your time and money. If Africans have not learnt yet, they never will.

Africa has been given the equivalent of more than 6 Marshall Plans and have zip zero to show for it.

Subsequent to WW2 Europe was assisted through the Marshall Plan, and look where they are compared to Africa.

To steal from John PM, but really God help us all - to awaken!!

This disease won’t be stopped until the people who have it stop their random sex and drug use - OH, but that’s politically incorrect!

I would like to know why none of these organizations donate money to eliminate AIDS in Eastern Europe, where the disease is spreading rapidly.

Stay at home and drink coffee.

It seems that there is more money sent to combat aids in africa than is used to combat every other disease in the world. Just about every celebrity is always it seems having a fundraiser for aids. Every politician is funding aids programs for here and in africa. Organizations like the UN and others make it a top priority. Even Pres Bush, of who I may be his last fan, said last week that his aids policys to africa were among his greatest achievments. It never ends for supporting aids in africa. WHERE does all this money, billions and billions go that is sent to africa. I bet a lot of it goes to pad a lot of african pockets…. We will never wake up and see that all this money could do some real good in other ways,, but the politicians brag about it to get votes and the celebrities get to feel all warm and fuzzy about all they have done for the poor african aids victims. If you cant whip em join em,,, Lets start collecting money here for aids in africa,, will you join me with your financial gifts to send to africa so we can feel all warm and fuzzy too??? Kingfish

I think a lot of commenters are giving Starbucks way too much credit here in assuming that their motives, while naiive, are sincere. Isn’t this just a clever sales pitch designed to set a trap for guilty liberals — Starbucks’ most reliable customer base?

Starbucks knows that once the typical Upper West Side resident hears the words “AIDS in Africa,” she’ll be pulled in, as if by some magnetic force, out of a compulsive desire to “make a difference,” and knows she will be seen by many other liberal types as she proudly buys her $4.94+5 cent donation drink. And who knows, maybe Starbucks is getting a tax break out of this somewhere, too — I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

I predict a quick “worldcom” type of rape of the company. This sort of promotional will give a reason to skim money from the company just before raping it and filing bankruptcy. I just hope not to many people have invested in a 401k with this company because IT IS GOING TO IMPLODE!!

“Stopping Aids will only encourage population growth and more suffering amongst these groups.”
Posted by realist
— — — — — —
Exactly. The ramifications of which, in turn, will all come back to haunt us in the form of even more refugees, more immigrants, more pirates, more terrorists, and more illegal aliens.

And thus more crime, more slums, more welfare, more affirmative action, more demands for cultural concessions, more special programs for “minorities”, and more erosion of America’s traditions and culture.

“Even Pres Bush…said last week that his aids policys to africa were among his greatest achievments.”

He has a list of great achievements? I didn’t know there were any.

Well, I’m glad at least he thinkis so.

I have never understood the mentality of purchasing a product in order to make a charitable donation. Just goes to show that most people only care about giving so long as they get something too (coffee, t-shirts, concerts). If you really care about a cause, then donate directly to it.

Also, as far as I can tell, no money sent to Africa to combat the AIDs epidemic has made any difference at all. If someone could point to an example proving me wrong, I’ll happily eat dirt.

And it IS sad that all these people are sick. I especially feel bad for women and children who, in reality, have very little say when it comes to sex. Before developing a vaccine or a cure, we should focus on stopping child abuse, forced marriages, and polygamy. In addition, women need to be educated and empowered so that they are not at the mercy of (promiscuous) men in order to survive.

Oh but wait, then we would be interfering with their “culture” so…..

AIDS is the liberal Iraq Campaign. They refuse to pull out even though the locals involved won’t do anything to help themselves.

Jeez! What next? Prostitutes promising to send 10% of their take to fight AIDS in dear old Africa???

Well GOLLY, folks! We already know the cures for Aids…..straight from the wise men of South Africa (They’re automatically right, you know, because they’re black.)

CURE ONE: Eat avocados (I believe the SA president said this a few years back).

CURE TWO: Have sex with a virgin. There are even reports of infants being used as cures, so apparently any age will do. Who are we to criticize? The bad juju apparently leaves the body during this health-giving procedure.

How insulting for us push our crass western ‘medicine’, when these subsaharan Einsteins already have the problem licked. I mean, how patronizing is THAT?

In no time (unless they run out of both avocados AND virgins) health will be restored to the populace, totally without white man’s interference, and they can get back to the important things in life (robbing, torturing and killing white farmers, then robbing torturing and killing each other in ways too gruesome to describe).

While it’s comforting to think that we can enhance our status as a debtor nation, by sending still more money overseas, it’s time we stop infecting proud black nations with our evil white money, and direct our dollars toward desperate people here in America.

I would like to know why none of these organizations donate money to eliminate AIDS in Eastern Europe, where the disease is spreading rapidly.

Of course it would be wouldn’t it?? what with all of the black africans being allowed to wander in with their usual customs.

People must understand that money will only buy anti-virals which will slow the virus, but it still kills.

New aids cases continue on at a rapid rate every day. It’s not possible to stop a viral disease if it is sexually transmitted and most of the people who have it are not concerned about spreading it, while a very large contingent of them believe aids can be cured by having sex with a virgin.

That’s why South African blacks have the highest rate of rape in the world and, shamefully, the highest incidents of infant rape that often leave the baby either dead or near death.

As the crime and rape capital of the world, why would anyone want to contribute money to help blacks commit more rapes and every other crime? Only a sick mind would want to give money to increase infant and female suffering.

Anybody who buys Starbucks coffee contibutes to human misery. They must be very proud.

Howard Fezell wrote: “Starbucks’ customer base includes people who think efforts to “combat AIDS in Africa” will actually have some effect.

The company builds goodwill and the five cents it contributes is tax-deductible. It really is little different than sponsoring a little league team.”
______________________________________________

Though I’ve never been in a Starbucks and probably never will, I’d MUCH rather support a Little League team than an “AIDS in Africa” drive.

Don’t you just love it when these corporations decide what charity you should fund? Our family gives a lot of money to organizations that reflect our non-profit priorities. This is usually the case with most individuals.

Even so, customers are asked to give extra money at grocery stores, restaurants, etc. to fund non-profit organizations corporate executives have selected.

When that happens, I later e-mail or write the headquarters of the corporation, asking if they would like to support our church’s latest fundraiser. Not surprising, not one has replied in the affirmative.

Didn’t Congress and Bush recently commit $48 Billion more of our tax dollars to ”fight AIDS in Africa”? How many other billions upon billions have been thrown down this bottomless pit? And what do we have to show for it after all these years? Is it possible that a cure for this disease could have been discovered by now had all these funds been applied to U.S. medical research instead of being wasted away as feel-good donations?

There are reports that there might seriously be a cure for AIDS in the works. This time it could be true. I wonder if the recent money spent on AIDS is a PR campaign. It’s easy to spend a little bit of money on AIDS when you know you wont have to keep up the efforts.

Aside from sending more money out of the country (Am I the only one who remembers Macroeconomics from college?….you know…as in MULTIPLIER EFFECT?!!!), the only lasting effect that buying aids medications for Africa will have will be epidemiological.

I don’t mean that in a good way. Taking antivirals haphazardly, which I have every reason to believe will be the case in Africa, results in the development of resistant strains of a virus. Those resistant strains will arrive in America, on the next flight from Johannesburg via Dakar to Atlanta, and spread like wildfire….making AIDS medications ineffective over here.

And there’s no reason to believe that Africa’s indigent will get the drugs free of charge (or according to whatever scenario the do-gooders have envisioned), any more than the food relief that gets sent over there does. My conceptual model for any aid to Africa is an apparently real occurrence where food was unloaded from a relief ship on one side of a dock, and carried directly through a warehouse, to be loaded onto a vessel owned by profiteers, who resold the relief goods for profit. Maybe that’s oversimplified, but it’s how things go down, over there.

HERE, you don’t have to look far to find a poor white family in desperate need, or a handicapped person who will really benefit from any kindness you have time to do. The four dollars some people squander on a ‘cuppa joe’ will buy eight cans of vegetables for a disabled and possibly homeless war veteran, or a bottle of shampoo for an elderly widow whose pennies just won’t stretch far enough to buy something like that….not anymore…

What is Foreign aid to Africa?

Direct Deposit for Dictators

Mass transfer of funds from the American and European working class to african aristocrats.

National Review once did some research on AIDS workers. They found that out of every 11 AIDS workers, only 1 was involved in research or patient care. The rest were all involved in consciousness raising, community organizing and political lobbying.

That 1 out of 11 AIDS workers actually working directly on patient care or medical research included everyone involved, from physicians and researchers to janitors, clerks and diswashers working in hospitals and clinics.

AIDS has been a great financial bonanza for the non profit sector. But the disease is still spreading for all their efforts at ‘education’ over the last 30 years.

These AIDS non profits also function as a social scene where persons with AIDS and HIV can hook up with each other and persons not yet infected and spread the disease.

Never has there been a more politically correct disease than AIDS.
If it didn’t exist, the diversity would have had to invent it.

I’ll try to find a coffee company that donates 5 cents a cup to find a cure for cystic fibrosis.

“National Review once did some research on AIDS workers. They found that out of every 11 AIDS workers, only 1 was involved in research or patient care. The rest were all involved in consciousness raising, community organizing and political lobbying.
AIDS has been a great financial bonanza for the non profit sector.”

I lived for a time at the YMCA, where a number of AIDS patients were also being housed. They received meals from some organization which delivered them. (God’s Love We Deliver, or something like that.) These were no ordinary meals — they were gourmet meals from fancy restaurants, more epensive than I could afford to buy. Nothing but the best. Obviously, there was plenty of money available. I can’t tell you how many times I saw whole meals thrown out, tossed in the garbage, not even opened. I suppose the recipients were too ill to eat them. What a waste!

“That’s why South African blacks have the highest rate of rape in the world and, shamefully, the highest incidents of infant rape that often leave the baby either dead or near death.”
Posted by q

No doubt South Africa’s statistics are the higest in Africa simply because (black rule regardless) it’s still the best organized, best run country in Africa, as compared to other black African states.

I’d be willing to bet that other black countries have even worse rates of rape, crime, etc., but they just don’t have the means (or the will) to keep track of it all.

Someone mentioned that no one really knows how many AIDS and HIV cases there are in Africa. The dictators use AIDS as a mean to deposit vast fortunes of charity money in their overseas bank accounts.

African countries refuse to test for AIDS. Pres Bill Clinton addressed this issue once, just once. He made a speech that African countries should start testing for AIDS. The issue was buried and the kelptomaniac dictators continued raking in the AIDS money.

Here’s how it works. There is a list of 10 symptoms of AIDS and HIV. Most of the symptoms are symptoms of other diseases and just living in filthy, latrine free African settlements.

If a person has 3 of those symptoms they are deemed to have AIDS and it is reported to WHO and all the charities as AIDS.

Here are some symptoms. 10 percent less than normal weight for the person’s height. Thus a 5’4 woman who weighs 105 pounds has a symptom of AIDS. She may be a young teen. She may have slender genes. She may be malnourished. Whatever the reason for her slimness, she has a symptom of AIDS.

Other symptoms are fatigue, nausea, feeling of weakness aka malaise, diarrhea, loss of weight.

All these symptoms are symptoms of everything from the common cold to TB. Fatigue and weakness are also symptoms of iron and potassium deficiency and malnutrition. They are also symptoms of being an African woman who has to do all the farm work in the hot sun as well as all the housework and child care when pregnant while her man lounges at the local bar with his drinking buddies all day.

Diarahhea is a symptom of being near the horrible African sanitation and waste disposal arrangements.

So a woman presents with fatigue, nausea, and diarrhhea. Presto!! She’s got AIDS and the local dictator gets his bloodstained hands on more charity money.

If an AIDS person in Africa and one in San Fran take the same combination of drugs in the same proportion and ratio, what is the cost of that in Africa compared to that of the San Fran person……Relative to the money sent to Africa….who signs for it? who authorizes it? is anyone accountable for it? does the fed have a checkbook we depositors can look at? Is any of it going to Mugabe?

The only way Aids in africa will stop is when africans, primarily african men, change their sexual practices. Until then, people can throw all the money they want at the problem and it won’t go away. I personally would never donate any money to a “stop Aids” program in Africa because it would be a total waste. If Blacks are equal in every way to Whites, then they should be held equally responsible for their own behavior and disease prevention, correct?

i have never heard such racist and disgusting and ignorant things ….. IF you guys did some real research youll learn how Africa was robbed naked from Europeans, who pretended to help them and instead exploited them while stealing them of their independence ….. leaving their countries poor, wherever there is poverty there is disease… I dont know why i even bother white people will always be ignorant and racist and ethnocentric …..

I agree completely that sending money to provide aid in the form of medication/food/water etc. is a waste of everyone’s time and effort. Until the countries affected produce leaders who are able to restore law and order and basic living standards and education to their populations, crime rates will never be reduced and HIV/AIDS infection will still continue to expand through a combination of lack of education, cultural taboos/myths surrounding HIV and the severe lack of deterrant for humanitarian crimes such as rape.

Without adequate education, equality and serious cultural and political reforms to bring these poverty-stricken populations out of the dark ages, ignorance will continue to fuel both the unsustainable population increases and the spread of HIV. It’s not a Black vs White issue and although it is true that the majority of criminals and victims in Africa are within poor, Black communities, it’s about socio-economic groups who happen to fit into these catagories rather than any absurd notion of White intellectual supremacy as some people here seem to think.

Bottom line? If you want to make a significant impact on Africa’s social problems, stop trying to run futile grass-roots campaigns on African soil with poor civilians and start lobbying governments to sort out the rich, power-hungry dictators who keep their people starving, uneducated, diseased and downtrodden in order that they don’t lose their high social status and riches.