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January 04, 2005

I'll have some cynicism along with my coffee ...

... this morning. Make it a double shot and keep it coming. Michele first puts words to a nagging feeling I've had for the last few days.

It was only a matter of time before the self-anointed pop stars, legends and entertainment kings and queens came out of the woodwork to show an outpouring of love, sympathy and a willingness to chip in to the tsunami-ravaged lands.

I don't mean to sound cynical (wait, yes I do), but the stars and their benefits are just a bit tiresome, not to mention unnecessary.

Then there is LiveAid2 Planned for Tsunami Victims

There is no friggin' reason for a concert. It's not like the tsunami hasn't been all over the news and 'net. Awareness is not the problem here and the "nobodies" of the 'net have been organizing getting the cash from day one.

Bono? Just open your effin' checkbook and challenge your peers to do the same. Then you won't be "working against an almost impossible deadline" of January 22 (during which other humble, unheralded people are actually helping the relief efforts.)

This is form over substance. Hell, this is worse than that. I've come to expect, having grown up alongside The Industry in So. California, that the holidays will bring the usual spread of celebs who roll out of their Brentwood/Hollywood Hills/Palisades homes down for a few photo ops at the local soup kitchens, then climb back into their limos with the waiting luncheon of lemon-herb blini with smoked salmon. What Bono and company are doing is wrapping a produced commodity that profits them and calling it charity.

Of course, they could be just taking their cues from the excreable United Nations, where Kofi is busy organizing conferences to study the problem of tsunami relief and his minions are busy bad-mouthing the United States and Bush, even as within 24 hours we were putting military assets in motion ... ships with water-production facilities and helicopters to deliver supplies. While the USAID and Australia are actualling doing work on the ground, much of the EU and the UN are no where to do be seen, except in front of the media whining about how the US doesn't have the moral authority to give aid directly. Go read the last several entries from The Diplomad to get an eyeopening look at stark anti-American politics being played out on the bodies of tsunami victims.

Feh.

Posted by Darleen at January 4, 2005 06:17 AM

Comments

Yo, Darleen! Next time say what you REALLY mean.

I have to agree with you, though. Awareness is not the problem - the whole (deleted) world is aware of this one. Encouraging people to donate should not be a problem, either. In fact, private sector America has already sprung for an estimated $200,000,000. Actually, I'll go you one more. Anyone who needs an excuse to send money (No really, Dude. I didn't give to any of those other rip-offs because. like, they were just about taking my money. But this is a righteous gig, man. I get to see all these big name stars and stuff. I'm really getting something for my money.) If you want something for your money, Dude, think about the satisfaction of doing the right thing and then - just do it.

And by the way, kudos to Sandra Bullock - $1,000,000 ain't chump change and it sets a standard for other celebrities.

Posted by: Dave at January 4, 2005 05:52 PM

MY GOD DARLEEN! You are one sourpuss. Who are you to question or judge ANY good intention? Who cares how it happens but that it does happen. Those who are predisposed to give have and will again but if Bono or Willie Nelson or the girl down the street selling lemonade inspire people to give who would not normally, we should welcome that. Is your heart really that hard?

"If anyone has material possessions, and sees his brother in need, but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?...let us not love with words, but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3: 17-18

Posted by: Mieke at January 5, 2005 09:54 PM

Mieke

I'm being realistic. Anyone that hasn't heard about the tsunami is living under a rock and anyone that hasn't been "inspired" to give just reading about the devesation will not be "inspired" by $100/head tickets to see Bono, et al.

My kudos to people like Sandra Bullock who just said, "Hmmm... I see a need, let me write a check" or who have foundations who immediately jumped into the arena, like Bill Gates.

Maybe your Biblical quote should be directed at Bono, et al, since their concert at the end of January is more about media face time for them then it is about immediate help to the tsunami victims.

It's now, what, 11 days out from the disaster and poor old Kofi is still up to his ears organizing conferences to discuss the relief while USAID and Australia have been the actual boots on the ground. The US was the first of ANY outside government to contact the Thai government asking "what do you NEED?" GW gave the order and within 48 hours the USS Lincoln was steaming out of Hong Kong towards the area (if you have any idea of the logistics involved in getting an aircraft carrier outfitted and ready to set sail, this is almost unprecedented).

Actions, Mieke. Actual actions speak a hell of a lot truer to intentions than the jaw-jawing infront of MSM "journalists" about "the UN is the only moral authority to coordinate the relief" or how US and Aussie military personnel should "get out of" their uniforms and don UN "blue" or putting together an official LiveAid2 The Tsunami Edition (copywrite protected) double gold CD/DVD, get your official t-shirts and mugs here ...

Posted by: Darleen at January 6, 2005 06:35 AM

you have a few things in quotes that I'd love for you to source for me.

A)how US and Aussie military personnel should "get out of" their uniforms and don UN "blue" - who said that and where?

B) the UN is the only moral authority to coordinate the relief" you imply Kofi said this, I'd like the source of your info please

C) The US was the first of ANY outside government to contact the Thai government asking "what do you NEED?" -source of this fact please.

I wish you wouldn't look at the world in such black and white terms. Only the people you belive in are good and everyone else are schmucks with bad intentions.

Colin was just saying that the boots on the ground are great, but that these countries have only the most basic facilities and operational systems and that we needed to get in there and take over things like air-traffic control because we could better handle huge amounts of flights (the airport with the surviving runway in Indonsia usually gets three flights a day - not exactly busy). Kofi's team is busting their asses to get this right and coordinate the thousands of organizations trying to get in there. As the leader of the UN are you suggesting that this is not his role? If not, who or what organization do you suggest should do it?

Just as all that Bush has done is not bad or pathetic (though one would argue his intial offer of aid was a little like my offering you a dollar for major surgery) Kofi's team is busting their asses to get this right and coordinate the thousands of organizations trying to get in there. As the leader of the UN are you suggesting that this is not his role?

Actions do speak louder than anything - that's why it was so curious that Bush kept riding his bike around his ranch ejoying his vacation having his staff issuing statements for the first few days and not taking hte time to climb off his bike to have a five minute press conference on such a huge world catasrophe- as ever other world leader that matters had done. But since then he has been pushed into doing right thing -and for that I give him credit.

I didn't realize you knew Bono so well, so that you know that his true desire is to get face time and that is his motivation.

Clearly you know very little about Bono: Exerpts rom a Time Magazine article written in 2002; since then he's done even more.

The world's biggest rock star is also Africa's biggest advocate. But Bono knows he has to make the case for aid with his head, not his heart
By JOSH TYRANGIEL

Mar. 4, 2002

...Bono's involvement with Africa began in typical celebrity-dilettante fashion. In 1984, U2 took part in Band Aid and Live Aid, Bob Geldof's Ethiopian famine-relief efforts. While many of Live Aid's participants played their sets and moved on to the next cause, Bono and his wife Alison Stewart decided to find out just how bad the African famine was. They traveled to Wello, Ethiopia, and spent six weeks working at an orphanage. "You'd wake up in the morning, and mist would be lifting," Bono recalls. "You'd walk out of your tent, and you'd count bodies of dead and abandoned children. Or worse, the father of a child would walk up to you and try to give you his living child and say, 'You take it, because if this is your child, it won't die.'"

The experience remained with him through 1999, when he joined the Jubilee 2000 movement. Citing the Book of Leviticus ("Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year...and ye shall return every man unto his possessions"), Jubilee 2000's aim was to get the U.S. and other wealthy nations, as well as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to erase the public debt of 52 of the world's poorest countries, most of them in Africa. By wiping $350 billion from their books, these countries would be free to spend money on health care and education, rather than pay down the principal on loans floated by corrupt and sometimes long-gone governments. "We have squeezed these countries to the point where their health systems are absolutely unable to function," says Jeffrey Sachs, the Harvard economist who negotiated a debt-relief package for Bolivia in 1986. "Education systems are broken down, and there's a lot of death associated with the collapse of public health and the lack of access to medicine. I don't think any American wants that."
Though Bono knew the basics of debt relief, he consulted with Sachs when he began his unofficial tenure as a Jubilee ambassador. "He gave a call and said he'd like to meet and talk about foreign debts," says Sachs. "And he said to bring a conservative colleague with me, because he wanted to hear the other side." Armed with his quick grad-school tutorial on debt relief, Bono began using his fame to lobby politicians, even those who may not have known exactly who he was. "I'll never forget one day during my Administration," says former President Bill Clinton, "[Treasury] Secretary Lawrence] Summers comes in to my office and says, 'You know, some guy just came in to see me in jeans and a T shirt, and he just had one name, but he sure was smart. Do you know anything about him?'"

Last year Jubilee 2000 was renamed Drop the Debt, and Bono stayed on as the group's most persuasive and high-profile spokesman. He founded DATA, which he hopes to officially launch in mid-March, as a vehicle to expand his African agenda to include short-term economic aid, lowered trade embargoes and money to fight AIDS, in return for democracy, accountability and transparency in governments across that continent. "I know how absurd it is to have a rock star talk about the World Health Organization or debt relief or HIV/AIDS in Africa," Bono says. But he also knows that no one else with his kind of access to media and money has taken on the job. In an effort to keep the discussion serious and avoid the appearance of being just another rocker against bad things, he refrains from treating Africa as an emotional issue. "We don't argue compassion," he says. His argument is pragmatic, not preachy. "We put it in the most crass terms possible; we argue it as a financial and security issue for America...There are potentially another 10 Afghanistans in Africa, and it is cheaper by a factor of 100 to prevent the fires from happening than to put them out."

More later. My baby wants to nurse.

Posted by: Mieke at January 6, 2005 09:55 AM

Quickly

I know Bono, himself, has proven his true humanitarian instincts in regards to charity; why he's pursuing a concert now really is at odds with what I DO know.

A) here

B) here

C) Colin Powell indicated in his press conference a couple of days ago (I heard the clip on the radio) that he had been in contact with the Thai government within a few hours of the disaster. I also heard a quote from a Thai official that Powell was the first person from a foreign government that had contacted them and the first thing Powell said was "What do you need?"

the UN is doing NOTHING substantial in this regard..it was the UNITED STATES and AUSTRALIA that have actually DONE something.

Time is overripe to totally dismantal the UN.

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Posted by: old at November 25, 2005 09:51 PM