Cafe Press

[Beloved Citizen]

I know that Cafe Press is the manufacturer of some of the gear sold in the DU store, but is anyone aware of what else Cafe Press AKA Cafeshops.com peddles?

http://www.cafeshops.com/rightwingstuff

Yep. Jane Fonda / John Kerry Viet Cong coffee cups, "Kerry Lied" bumperstickers w/ So Vietnamese flag, Verry Leftwards bumperstickers with dreaded French flag, Kerry and Edwards imposed on a "2 Johns" toilet and, you got it, Freeper gear!

Talk about your one stop shopping.

Why would anyone want to send their money to people like these?

[indigobusiness]

1. Cafe Press has no agenda

it provides a service for independent merchandisers.

[Beloved Citizen]

3. But shouldn't we want to do business...

...with an organization that not only has an agenda, but shares ours?

[indigobusiness]

5. Cafe Press gets a commission from all sales

and some of those agree with your views.

I support a free country with a full spectrum of opinions. A debate of ideas, not dogma.

A society where everyone supported one view would be a nightmare...or entirely enlightened.



Buy a cap from my store...

[Beloved Citizen]

7. Kind of reminds me of an old Subgenius cartoon

Bob standing between both the right and the left, pretending to agree with either side while freely taking the money of both.

The point being they're both suckers in Bob's eyes.

[indigobusiness]

9. You are missing the point. It's not about fence sitting.

But the friction of the two opposing views that illuminates the truth.
The problem is a corrupt debate generates no light.
Both sides must be honorable. Otherwise it is just a gutter fight.
Don't be dragged into the gutter.

[Beloved Citizen]

10. Oh c'mon.

Even cosmic statements such as the one you just made cannot disguise the fact that they're laughing all the way to the bank.

I'd rather give my political cash to an organization that will do some good. Why would I want to send my hard earned dough to a company that produces such hateful anti-Democratic smear?

[indigobusiness]

11. They are like a car company. You add the bumper sticker.

I don't follow you. Nor would I.

[nostamj]

12. "political cash" WTF are you talking about???

these are PRODUCTS, not DONATIONS.

and I repeat: there is MORE bush-bashing merchandise available through cafepress stores than anti-Dem stuff.

just don't BUY PRODUCTS there. sheesh! what a tempest in a designer mug!

[Beloved Citizen]

15. There ARE organizations selling political gear...

... that use the proceeds to help do some good in this world. Greenpeace would be one. The Kerry/Edwards campaign would be another.

I don't understand the passion you're showing here. Why defend what is basically a company that hustles cash off gullible ideologues?

They don't have a stake in this place, do they?

[nostamj]

16. uh, it's the shop owners

who are 'hustling' their merchandise. (and, btw, political items make up a fraction of what cafepress store owners hustle)

if there's no market, there's no sale.

and well, duh... there are other merchandisers and do Greenpeace and Kerry/Edwards manufacture their products themselves? do the people who produce Greenpeace t-shirts refuse orders for Bush/Cheney products?

I don't understand your passion on this... it's just capitalism.

and again, if you know of a politically correct service that will allow me to design a new product and have it available in less than an hour who will handle production and order fulfillment, please let me know... OK?

[Beloved Citizen]

17. No really, no problem. I get you, man. I'm hip.

But I've always found the posturing of people who refuse to allow their politics to interfere with a commercial life that involves the selling of supposedly progressive products to be a little disturbing.

Face it, Cafe Press sells a lot of very nasty garbage. And by participating in their enterprise you are in certain ways sharing in that effort.

But I guess business is business, and ethics are ethics. Two distinctly different concerns for most of us.

Hey, at least Bruce Springsteen came around, right? To me he is no longer the fellow decrying the collapse of American blue collar industrial life for the profit of a Japanese owned corporation. An irony I had always found poignant to be a poignant one, to say the least.

There is hope.

[SemperEadem]

19. if they hustled more cash from anti-bush merchandise

then what's the problem?

They provide the infrastructure for the client to manufacture marketing collateral--whether it's t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumperstickers. They get a cut for their electricity and maintenence of the machines and the storage of your design for manufacturing at their website; you collect royalties from sales on your design.

They don't take one side or the other--they provide the "press" to get your message out.

[nostamj]

6. it would be nice BUT...

I'll settle for an organization that has NO agenda and is OPEN to ours for now. if you know an equivalent service, please, let us know. until then... the store is open!

[gmoney]

2. Cafe Press is open to anyone...

Anyone with a few minutes and a design can get their stuff produced by Cafe Press. I don't know that they're allowed to discriminate on political grounds... probably just indecency and hate speech.

The Dean campaign told supporters not to use Cafe Press because they're not union...

Cafe does perform a "valuable" service by making imprinted items available in small quantities (as low as one) so that any group (good, bad or neutral) can get stuff made. I think all the Air America stuff is from Cafe Press, too.

[nostamj]

4. look, anyone can open a cafeshops store

and sell pretty much anything they want.

individual store owners design and market, not cafe press - the just produce the merchandise based on orders. and there is just as much (actually at least TWICE as much as far as I can tell) anti-bush, anti-GOP stuff as there is anti-Kerry, anti-Dem stuff.

unless you're not into that 'free speech stuff,' I'd relax. I don't want some freeper trying to shut me down for selling a SHOVE IT! t-shirt or an ABB bumper sticker.

[Deja Q]

8. Makes me respect Jane Fonda that much more...

(see subject line)


Tolerance can only be practiced by those with the highest of convictions and virtue. Everyone else is a pompous animal who doesn't care about anything except him/herself. Just tell * who's turning the other cheeck against Pat Robertson and his friends who treated with Al Quaeda in the past...


And I thought he was impotent...

[Cybergata]

13. Cafe Press has one interest...

that is giving anyone on the web a chance to well their wares. It doesn't matter who it is, they are open to everyone. This is very Democratic.

Have you looked through all their stores. They don't just have political things, they have stores for every possible way a person can have a web presence. It actually is a very good service. It makes it easy for anyone to have a web store.

[Sabriel]

14. There's always Northern Sun

They carry similar (left-only) stuff, but not in the same way that Cafe Press does. Here's their site if you're interested. I've ordered quite a bit from them over the years.
Sabriel (who's not affiliated in any way with NS)

http://www.northernsun.com/cgi-bin/ns/index.html

[CrispyQ]

18. You should check out some of the other shops . . .

I haven't checked out the right wing shops, but they'd be hard pressed to have more anti-dem/anti-Kerry stuff than there is anti-bush stuff!

Here's one of the shops at CafePress. They offer some of the most radical anti-bush products I've seen. The Good Dick/Bad Dick & Good Bush/Bad Bush graphics are awesome.

http://www.cafeshops.com/aroseisarose


And Irregular Times has a great selection of anti-bush stuff too.

http://www.cafeshops.com/irregulargoods

Cafe Press is a great way for smaller businesses to get their goods out there. Sure they take a small cut, but you are really supporting the individual shops more than CP.

[Beloved Citizen]

20. Thank You.

At least somebody here gets it.

I wonder what the Kerry Campaign thinks of Cafe Press...

I can't help but think they'd have a different perspective from many of the folks here.


Another fine product from our treasured friends at Cafe Press

[nostamj]

21. another fine product...

btw, are you thanking yourself?

[Beloved Citizen]

22. No, I was thanking Sabriel

Must have hit the wrong reply.

But here's a point I'd like to share with you. One of my favorite countercultural critiques of the music industry (circa 1983) dealt with the sense of alienation brought about through the purchasing of what were apparently protest products from the very people responsible for the problems the item was purportedly a statement against.

The band in question was Gang Of Four, popularly believed to be in underground circles quite the radical group of fellows. And one of the things they sang so stridently about were armaments.
Well, unfortunately for many of the true believers who purchased this bands renderings, Go4 were on a label that was part of a much larger corporation that made most of its profits from, you got it, missile guidance systems.

The kids were so disappointed, and nobody went to their shows anymore. But what nostalgia! Back when in the days when I'd get to sleep on the pool table at CBGBs.

Want to hear about how we used to borrow leather jackets with "Meat Is Murder" written on the back? We'd urinate on them and hand them back to their owners. You'd be surprised at how many of them there were. But we had lots of piss.


Inspirational product from Cafe Press

[jpgray]

23. This is like blaming a company that makes paper for an offensive flyer

Cafe Press just provides the material, and that's it.