Celebrities' Embrace of Africa Has Critics

NY Times ^ | July 1, 2005 | ALAN COWELL

[Pharmboy]

Jon Super/Associated Press
The rock star Sir Bob Geldof is
leading a drive for aid to Africa.

LONDON, June 30 - It is virtually impossible these days to open a newspaper or turn on the television here without confronting the cavalier locks, rumpled visage and hectoring tones of Sir Bob Geldof, the former Boomtown Rats lead singer now cast by friends and foes alike as Africa's savior.

With awesome ubiquity - a rock concert here, a documentary there, interviews at every turn - he offers his listeners a blend of profanity, rage and messianic imprecation, urging the political leaders of the developed world to end Africa's poverty by rewriting the rules on aid, trade and debt. "To die of hunger is an intellectual absurdity and morally repulsive," he told the crowd last weekend at a rock concert in Glastonbury in western England.

This weekend, in anticipation of the annual summit meeting of the Group of 8 nations in Scotland next week, there are to be demonstrations and free concerts spanning the globe under the title Live 8. Beyond the high-sounding pronouncements, though, the last-minute series of events arranged by Sir Bob signals a profound and to some a worrisome shift in the realm of mass advocacy by the world's richest in the name of the poorest.

[Pharmboy]

Interesting--this was only in the print edition and not (as far as I could tell) in the online edition (Mrs. Pharmboy bought the paper Times home today).

[JimSEA]

"Eight men in one room could quite literally save hundreds of millions of lives,"

Humm, more likely the nine could enrich some bureaucrats, local mafia types, petty dictators, and militia leaders beyond their fondest dreams. Meanwhile the starvation and murder will continue. Don't any of these folk realize that the starvation is part of the purposeful elimination of whole cultures and peoples.

[CO Gal]

Every night forever watching people live on TV dying on our screens?"

This will sound very cynical (and if heartless, I apologize), but how about going after the brutal dictators who have had hundreds of thousands killed instead of spending so much time/money on a preventable disease? I refuse to believe that the Africans cannot through education learn how to eradicate AIDS. Same thing can be said in the U.S.

[satchmodog9]

bump to that

[RegulatorCountry]

"I refuse to believe that the Africans cannot through education learn how to eradicate AIDS. Same thing can be said in the U.S."

Until we reach the point that the actual truth is not so highly politically charged, AIDS will not be eradicated. Those who are enraged by the fact that certain behaviors create a disease vector par excellence are never going to be the best source for advice on how to avoid acquiring the disease.

[bluerose]

I was listening to Rush today and a caller called in to the show and said it's all about raising taxes. They want G8 to forgive all debts and also give more money to China. That means the money will come out of the World Bank & the Int'l Monetary Fund which is primarily funded by the US.

Rush ended with this from Tracy Smith of CBS news. She stated one sour note to this concert was all the stars are getting $12,000.00 goody bags. They're pathetic.

[Pharmboy]

No--not at all heartless. Right on the money, IMO.

[CO Gal]

Since our blood supply is relatively safe now, I wonder if our school-aged children are taught that AIDS is preventable? Since the majority of teachers lean left, I'm sure the AIDS epidemic has been blamed on Bush.

[RegulatorCountry]

" I wonder if our school-aged children are taught that AIDS is preventable?"

With all the caterwauling about abstinence education programs that is going on, I somehow doubt it. Condoms are not even an especially reliable contraceptive, but they're unassailable as THE means of preventing AIDS. Can't undermine four decades of work to create sexual liberation, by admitting that abstinence until monogamous marriage is the sane, healthy choice in life, now can we? There will continue to be every manner of rationalization and excuse under the sun put out there to avoid admitting that certain sexual behaviors inherently create a dangerous vector for disease. Children are just pawns to these people.

[Mister Baredog]

I hear the entertainers are each getting a $12,000 gift basket full of goodies. Poor babies, they're used to getting sooo much more, what sacrifices they make, for those charitable tax deductions of course.

BARF ALERT

[DumpsterDiver]

BARF ALERT

See if this'll cheer you up.

From John Lennon on live 8

An excerpt from David Sheff's September 1980 Playboy interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono:

Sheff: Just to finish your favorite subject [the Beatles], what about the suggestion that the four of you put aside your personal feelings and regroup to give a mammoth concert for charity, some sort of giant benefit?

Lennon: I don't want to have anything to do with benefits. I have been benefited to death.

Sheff: Why?

Lennon: Because they're always rip-offs....

snip

Sheff: But the fact is, $200,000,000 to a poverty-stricken country in South America...

Lennon: Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway.

http://john-lennon.com/playboyinterviewwithjohnlennonandyokoono.htm

[RegulatorCountry]

"We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour"

Well. "Imagine" that.

[Mister Baredog]

There is no one concert.

Well now, there's a hidden gem.

Something else to be ignored by the intelligensia and the MSM.