2007 Progressive Gift Guide
This holiday season, give the progressives in your life something better than a Wii.By Ben Furnas
December 17, 2007
Photo courtesy stock.xchng
Bad news, guys. The secular progressives haven’t won the War on Christmas just yet, and Christopher Hitchens hasn’t gotten his hands on Hanukkah. That means you’ve still got some shopping to do. But, never fear, we here at Campus Progress have put together a handy list of gifts for all the different types of progressives on your list.
The energy-efficient green
They’re busy working with the student assembly to install solar panels on the library and make double-sided printing the default in all campus computer labs. Here are some gifts to set their wind farms spinning:
- A carbon offset gift card from Carbonfund, available in 2-ton and 10-ton increments.
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- The Live Earth Concert DVD , a two-disc set honoring Al Gore’s mega-event to save the planet, with some dull performances but also some fluorescent highlights, like the Alicia Keys-Keith Urban “Gimme Shelter” duet..
- Some eco-friendly bling made from recycled materials. Cool Planet Jewelry donates half their proceeds to StopGlobalWarming.org and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The canvassing anti-war
activist
With more patches on their backpack than you can count, these activists know what A.N.S.W.E.R. stands for and can’t get though a holiday gathering without signing someone up for a rally. Here are some gifts that’ll commodify their
dissent :
- A copy of Naomi Klein’s latest anti-corporate manifesto, The Shock Doctrine . Buy it from Better World Books for carbon-neutral shipping and support for global literacy campaigns.
- A Code Pink holiday gift pack , including a “CODEPINK Women For Peace” t-shirt, a fuchsia scarf from a Pakistani women’s collective, a documentary DVD, and a collection of CODEPINK buttons and stickers. Senate Appropriations Committee, watch out !
- A CD of protest songs from longtime anti-war activist David Rovics, called “the poet and troubadour for our time” by Cindy Sheehan.
- A dowel and a white plastic bucket to bang on at the next protest rally.
The armchair revolutionary
They can’t decide whether they’re a neo-Marxist poststructuralist or a Deleuzian nomad. In any case, they’d rather be at home snuggled up with the latest edition of Social Text than handing out flyers or attending a rally. Here’s some stuff to get their bodies without organs pumping:
- A copy of Zizek! , a heady documentary profile of the eccentric Slovenian cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek.
- A used, beat-up copy of Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman (purchased, of course, from your local independent book reseller).
- Revolution Vol. 1 , the debut album from Immortal Technique. Rapid-fire intellectual hip hop with rhymes to inspire a budding slam poet.
- Season 4 of The Wire on DVD. Creator David Simon says the Baltimore-based show chronicles the “ decline of the American empire. ”
The bloviating blogger
They know more about the FISA courts than you could possibly imagine, their egos rise and fall with the subscriptions to their RSS feed, and they’re secretly hoping for a link from Drudge. Here are some gifts that will get you a hat tip :
- A “legendary” Timbuk2 laptop messenger bag , to keep them stylish as they lug their laptop all over town.
- A thermoskin carpal tunnel brace to keep those fingers tippity-typing away.
- A copy of Matt Bai’s The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics so they can write a scathing post about a book written by a member of the mainstream media.
- Some fair trade espresso from Grounds for Change, to fuel their 24-hour need to post.
Give something to yourself by helping those in need
Sometimes it’s best to give to those who need it most. Here are some ways to charitably direct your holiday generosity:
- Give a family a sheep, plant 50 trees, or clothe a classroom of children through Oxfam International or Heifer International .
- Work against the food pantry shortages by donating to a local food bank .
- Support our troops and their families with the National Military Family Association .
- Donate money or blood to the American Red Cross .
- Protect a woman’s right to choose by donating to a member of the National Network of Abortion Funds or the National Abortion Federation .
- Help folks still struggling to get by in the wake of Hurricane Katrina with Catholic Charities of New Orleans or the Brother’s Brother Foundation .
- Support aid workers bringing hope to refugees from conflicts in the Sudan and Uganda with the American Refugees Committee .
- Make sure the world is prepared for the next humanitarian crisis with AmeriCares .
- Provide medical care abroad by donating to Doctors Without Borders .
- Fight AIDS in Africa with the Clinton Foundation or African Medical and Research Foundation .
Ben Furnas is the research assistant for MicCheckRadio.org.