responsible christmas presents?

Sturdy Pete

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with the ever approaching festival the media force upon us, i find myself in the position of not wanting to have anything to do with this capitalist wet dream, but on the other hand, not wanting to annoy friends and relatives by not getting them anything..

so i have the thought - is there a way to do both? does anyone know if it's possible to get a gift of "i gave money to this charity on your behalf" card? or something similar?

would be nice if christmas was actually about caring for other people, rather than buying stuff for people that they don't want, much less need..


(off topic, but isn't it rather ironic that america has a celebration of the fact that they stole their country off its natives by means of genocide?!?! :mad: )
EDIT: i feel i should apologise for this rather unnecessary and offensive comment. I've let my hatrid of mr bush turn into a dislike of all things american, which to be honest, isn't very fair at all. sorry to all.
 
Sturdy Pete said:
(off topic, but isn't it rather ironic that america has a celebration of the fact that they stole their country off its natives by means of genocide?!?! :mad: )

England, on the other hand, aquired all its territories through joyous happy love festivals with the natives. They were so overwhelmed by the English hospitatlity that they just gave their lands away. The English empire that is smeared in the history books as being one of the most violent empires ever to terrorize humanity was really just a big happy love festival where everyone united in song and dance and were overjoyed when their invaders came to take their resources.:rolleyes:
 
nice ideas, but i'm too poor for that - have to look into oxfam

Reconstructed - yeah, we're just as bad.. :sad:
would be amazing if people could be nice
 
Reconstructed said:
Sturdy Pete said:
(off topic, but isn't it rather ironic that america has a celebration of the fact that they stole their country off its natives by means of genocide?!?! :mad: )

England, on the other hand, aquired all its territories through joyous happy love festivals with the natives. They were so overwhelmed by the English hospitatlity that they just gave their lands away. The English empire that is smeared in the history books as being one of the most violent empires ever to terrorize humanity was really just a big happy love festival where everyone united in song and dance and were overjoyed when their invaders came to take their resources.:rolleyes:

you can get a bit touchy about usa cant you reconstructed?
 
gingerwarrior said:
you can get a bit touchy about usa cant you reconstructed?

Quite the contrary. I enjoy reading any kind of well thought out criticism on the US. If we ever had a thread with an intelligent discussion towards the problems of the US I would love to read and participate. Unfortunately, they all just turn into US bashing contests.

I'm touchy when people generalize an entire population from an ivory tower that was built by the exact same means that they are criticizing. That is just being hypocritical.
 
gingerwarrior said:
you can get a bit touchy about usa cant you reconstructed?

So can I, this is a thread about what might be a good Christmas present and then a comment like that comes up, how crap is that? There are lots of different nationalities on here, it is not necessary to keep harping on about stuff! :no:

Anyway, I was going to suppgest www.oxfamunwrapped.com. You can buy all sorts of nice things for all sorts of prices, for example £10 buys a brood of 10 chickens or two radios, £16 buys 50 tree seedlings, £24 buys a goat, £35 buys a bicycle, etc, etc. I really like the idea, I really do not need anything for Christmas, nor do my kids or rest of the family. Good luck, hope you find something nice!! :Grin:
 
stranger in a strange land, lol

I think CAT has some reasonably priced gifts, catalogue online 'ere :

http://www.cat.org.uk/shopping/search.tmpl?init=0&subdir=shopping&cart=11031241217110185


uh, except I didn't check if you're in the UK, so it might be a bit late for ordering if you aren't......

on that other topic, that is goading - posting stuff like someone gets touchy about a topic as if to suggest to them that they should feel inferior or wrong because they raised some issue there.

I'm sick of the anti-USA crap myself, I never liked it. It's so ugly. It's a big step down from normal consciousness, getting into politics at all.

I would think that anyone who has ever had a decent trip in their lives knows that we aren't separate from those at the top - we're all in the same boat and they are often more controlled against their wills than we are. That doesn't mean there aren't bad folk in those jobs - it just means recognise when you are being led astray and made to create dualistic polarised thinking exist. Bad people wear all sorts of guises and exist at every level, same as good.

It's painful to see the fruition of some of the great Intelligence Agents of the psychedelic 60s go un-noticed and condemned by people who just can't see what is going on at all.
 
stranger in a strange land, lol

duff beer dragon said:
on that other topic, that is goading - posting stuff like someone gets touchy about a topic as if to suggest to them that they should feel inferior or wrong because they raised some issue there.

I'm sick of the anti-USA crap myself, I never liked it. It's so ugly. It's a big step down from normal consciousness, getting into politics at all.

I would think that anyone who has ever had a decent trip in their lives knows that we aren't separate from those at the top - we're all in the same boat and they are often more controlled against their wills than we are. That doesn't mean there aren't bad folk in those jobs - it just means recognise when you are being led astray and made to create dualistic polarised thinking exist. Bad people wear all sorts of guises and exist at every level, same as good.

It's painful to see the fruition of some of the great Intelligence Agents of the psychedelic 60s go un-noticed and condemned by people who just can't see what is going on at all.

Well said, I expected to get stepped on for saying what I did. Would be interested in what you meant by the last paragraph!

Anyway, welcome to the forum, have not had the pleasure of meeting you yet!

:Grin:
 
I'm going straight to the charity shops to get presents for people. I always leave it till last minute so never get round to sending off for stuff. The good thing about charity shop stuff is it's reusing the stuff rather than buying new, as well as donating to charity. There are also shops that sell fairtrade tat, but out of my price range this year...

Got a good one last year - a sponsored tree planting! I just got a certificate saying that whoever got me the present had paid money to a tree planting charity.

My friend has got mushroom logs for people - just an oak log impregnated with shitake mushrooms, to grow in the garden.
 
The shitake mushrooms logs are a great idea, I was thinking of giving home grown mushroom kits, but think my kids might think I am being cheap!! My friends love it though! :wizard1: :shrooms:
 
I bought the shitake mushroom log for me mum from the hawkins bazaar website if anyone needs to find one. Although as its Christmas Eve i guess i should have found the forum earlier. :Sad:
 
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