see title 
I think events like these are just crap. Poverty should have been wiped out years ago. I also donāt think that concerts are the way to go about it. They cheapen and commercialize important matters.
I especially hate when actors and actresses stand and click their damn fingers pretentiously in TV ads like they give a damn about all the people dying in the world when they all go back to their multi-million dollar celebrity lifestyles at the end of the day.
awsome concert. great cause, and a great way to promote awareness of the cause.
I especially hate when actors and actresses stand and click their damn fingers pretentiously in TV ads like they give a damn about all the people dying in the world when they all go back to their multi-million dollar celebrity lifestyles at the end of the day.
better that they go and say āscrew the rest of the worldā like George Bush, and click their fingers and have many millions of people die. rather than use their āINFLUENTIALā positions to do some good in the world.
Osxrules, understand that with a high position in society like being an actor you have a massive potential to influence more than what you personally can.
so every actor that stand up, if they get 10,00 people even to donate some cash then that is a lot of money.
the Live 8 concerts (been around for over 2 decades) have helped thousands upon tousand of africans.
get off your ass dude, and show some support. āPoverty should have been wiped out years ago.ā so who the F is gonna do it if nobody knows its a problem. and what do you think these concerts are about. they are about pushing governments into actually doing somthing about it.
how would you wipe out poverty then huh?
Alltaken
Madonna was awesome. What a LADY!
No need to get aggressive about it.
I have to say I agree to some extent to osxrules. It should have been wiped ages ago and i canāt say i personally like āstarsā going about saying we need to end poverty, then their more than happy sueing somone for illegaly watching ātheirā movie or song and ruining /screwing their lifes over, waste thousands of pounds sueing themā¦ and so on.
As to concerts, iām sure they raise more money for poverty than if there was none, so somthing is better than nothing, be the motive behind it good or bad in nature.
As for myself, i think we should sort out our way of business and life styles. Everyone probabily owns something that was made in another country by children who get paid like less than Ā£500 a yearā¦ Do we need that 30th pair of shoes? do we need half the shit we buy? Do we need to spend billions of pounds to send a satlilite up in space so we can gain rock sample from mars just for the whole āmissionā to fail and all that money goes to waste? Do we need to waste money on satlite dishes ālisteningā for āalien life formsāā¦ Do you seriously need 10 cars simply sitting on your drive way?
how would you wipe out poverty then huh?
Birth control might help. I really cant stand the adverts about new born babies dieing before thier like 5 months oldā¦ i meanā¦ should they really be having sex in their possitions. itās like for every person we help, they produce another 2 we have to helpā¦ iām sure it goes into more depthā¦ like selling themselfs out for money but seriously that pisses me off a bit.
Any bets on what songs Pink Floyd will do?
They just keep reproducing because they are 1, uneducated, and 2, donāt have much else to do other than that and trying and survive. Pumping money into African governments isnāt going to do a whole lot. Whatās needed is direct action in each specific country to establish infrastructure and proper administration. Of course, thatās too much work for most people, and really it is very difficult to do, so theyāre rather content to throw in a few dollars, much of which is wasted anyway.
Hehe, you underestimate my influential power. Do you know who I am? does a celebrity style strop
Ok, sure actors and actresses do have some sort of influence but no more than they have endorsing products. Thatās probably what bothers me about it - just the fact that celebrities are publicity whores and seem to love being seen to be making a difference while everyone else does the hard graft. It also doesnāt hurt their careers.
Iām curious to know has anyone ever bought a product because it was endorsed by a celebrity?
Well, thereās no reason to think itās because of the celebrity that they are giving the money. Also, on average people will give maybe Ā£30 so that is about Ā£300,000. Each one of those actors will earn in excess of a few million for one movie.
There is such a great divide between rich and poor in the Western world that the it should be the people at the bottom of the earning tree telling the people at the top to give money rather than the other way round. Anyway I think part of the idea like you said is to convince the governments to give more so that part is probably covered.
I donāt deny that they will help but I just think that itās rather tacky the way itās done. The problem is a serious long-lasting one and it shouldnāt be turned into a yearly give-athon.
Aw but my ass is comfy.
Oh cāmon who doesnāt know that the third world has a problem?
Yeah but like I say, I donāt think that a concert is a good way to make a political statement. I would agree with Lukus though that something being done is better than nothing.
Well, using the American approach and bomb the poor countries thereby liberating them from the tyranny of famine.
No, I would do what Lukus was saying. Just provide mandatory birth control. I mean these people are having children in poor circumstances and then wailing that they canāt feed their children. Well duh, did they think that having babies would improve their situation somehow? Itās all very well saying people have a right to have offspring but if they arenāt able to care for them then they should make the morally responsible choice.
Some of them have loads of babies too so the problem rises exponentially. Thatās not a problem that money can solve because it needs resources to be sent to inhospitable places.
Anyway, the reason Iām a bit cynical about the event is because of things like the website we are encouraged to visit. If you go to www.makepovertyhistory.org you will see the kind of silly attitude that is around the event:
It says 6 things to do today:
- Join Us & Email Tony Blair
- Listen to the events in Edinburgh on Make Poverty History Radio
- Send us your photo for the G8 gallery
- Take part in the virtual march on Edinburgh
- Read the G8 blog
- Watch the rally on Make Poverty History TV
The email it says to send to Tony Blair is the following:
Next week you and your G8 colleagues have the opportunity to make poverty history by delivering crucial changes on trade justice, debt and aid.
You and seven other men in Gleneagles can stop a child dying every three seconds. You can stop the policies that create poverty and instead begin to transform the lives of the worldās poorest people.
Please use your unique position and influence as G8 host to:
- change the unjust rules of trade, respecting poor countriesā rights to decide on trade policies that will help end poverty
- cancel all the debt of all the poorest countries that need it
- deliver at least $50 billion more in aid each year starting now, and make it work better for people in poverty.
Along with millions of others around the world, Iāll be wearing a white band to remind you of what you must do and waiting to see if you deliver.
Now is the time Mr Blair. Please do not squander this moment.
Wearing bands and making up some arbitrary number of dollars to send out. It sound like a five year old laid out the plan of action. It reminds me of the bit in Austin Powers where he was demanding Ā£1 million dollars and it them escalates to $100 billion etc.
Ultimately I donāt like our government system and the fact that outsiders have to plead with them to take sensible action. Thatās not my idea of a democracy.
I donāt want to sound too cynical about the whole thing because if it effectively ends poverty then thatās great. However, Iām aware that it depends a lot on the actions of a very ignorant political system, which Iāve entirely lost faith in. I could see it fizzle out and become just another concert that happened.
Well, pumping money to the goverment (well putting the money into real action like devellopping hospital etcā¦) is a good wayā¦ one of the main problem in Africa is that the church (no offense meant here, itās a fact) try to impose sex as a āway to reproduce onlyā. By saying so they say that preservative goes against God because if you use one you do not make sex to reproduce, but only for fun. Unfortunatly this just help the epidemi of aids and other sexually transmited diseaseā¦
NIce concerts, but what a waste of time. Giving more and more money to corrupt African governments is never going to solve poverty question in Africa.
Sir Bob has gotta get rid of those corrupt and incompetent African governments first, if he wants his plans to work. Nice try though, canāt wait for the next set of useless concerts in 20 years time. 
I agree with osxrules.
yeah i watched it liveā¦ i was watching the london broadcastā¦ crowd was huge and energizingā¦ and Robbie Williams rocked the show!!
Poverty should have been wiped out years ago.
the fact is that poverty āhasnātā been wiped out years, ago.
so living in reality and the here and now. what are people gonna do about it.
the only people trying to promote any action against poverty are the actors and singers.
if these actors and singers gave up their careers and jobs to go and build homes for poor people, they would build a few hundred homes (well help build a few hundred homes)
by standing up and giving āfreeā concerts, and promoting the cause they are helping build thousands of homes.
the math raelly stacks up. and BTW have you tried to find out how much cash these artists are donating themselves?
2 billion people watched the live 8 if 10% of those donate $1 thats 200 million dollars.
no actor or star could afford to do that alone.
i do however agree that the governments of these african countries need to have corruption clamped down on.
however birth control, as ecks has said is largely because of the church (the pope), with over 40% of all africans infected with HIV.
telling them not to have children is stupid, its a survival strategy to have children in those countries, as children support you when you are older.
enforcing ideals on the people is stupid, and saying āit should have beenā¦ā is equally as stupid.
Alltaken
Correct, so how is one concert going to make a difference?
It seems people are going to go listen to a concert. Instead of directly highlighting the plight of poor people, they abstract the cause into an easily digestible format for an uncaring Western world. People arenāt going to the concert to help poor people, they are going to listen to their favourite bands, hence the reason they picked what are supposed to be the best bands. It was in the papers that the Spice Girls wouldnāt be there because they werenāt popular enough.
The word promote is very appropriate. They are the ones who like to be seen to be doing something.
I would be more content watching them actually building the houses. Saying they are helping build thousands of homes means nothing to me. A home for an African probably costs less than Ā£1000 to build. The āstarsā could pay for contractors to build thousands of houses and hospitals if they wanted too and not even lift a finger.
The same people also spend thousands of pounds on alternate religions like Madonna and her kabbala or alternative therapies like Gwyneth Paltrow and her macrobiotic diet and new age health treatments.
The bottom line is, when you are lucky enough to be in a position to sit on your ass all day with millions in your bank account then giving to charity is just a way you can be seen to be a nice person. But what about all the doctors and nurses and builders who are out there making a difference? Why arenāt they in the papers? The reason is because they are actually making a difference instead of trying to be seen making a difference.
To pay for something to get done is not what I consider an honourable achievement especially when itās from people who havenāt really earned it in my eyes. Footballers who kick a ball about, musicians who sing a catchy song and actors who pretend what they do is a real job (they read a script - how bloody hard is that) are not people who I have a lot of respect for.
The people I respect are the ones who are treating the thousands of sick people and who have to look into the eyes of children who have minutes to live and actually do something about it.
No, but what Iām saying is that irrespective of what people donate, the rich people in the world could top that by just emptying their wallets. Example to follow.
200 celebs donate $1 million = $200 million. Some rich people spend more than a million on a party. And how many billionaires are there on the planet?
So how will the concert do this?
So are you agreeing they do need birth control?
I believe the average life expentancy in Africa is somewhere between 33-39 now. People donāt live long enough to need being cared for. Many parents will outlive their children so to say that having kids is a survival strategy is stupid.
I donāt think itās stupid forcing what are hardly ideals onto people. They are common sense solutions that have been tried and tested by governments before.
Saying āit should have been doneā is of course no excuse for not doing anything now. I guess thatās what you mean is stupid and I agree. But thatās not what Iām saying. Iām saying the concert is merely an abstract way to present a cause to an uncaring world wrapped up as some event that people can then go home thinking theyāve made a difference.
If they have then great but Iām just skeptical especially considering the cost of staging the concert and the summit and repairing the damage done by protestors and all the time taken off work will outweigh the funds raised. Some speculate that the summit alone will cost $100 million.
Again itās not just about money either but the way itās used. That hinges on regime change (that rings a bell somehow) and politics, not music.
And Iām not alone in thinking the whole thing may make little difference
Thereās a lot of articles like that.
I know I shouldnāt judge before I see results but Iām just expressing my distaste of the system as per usual.
and how would you see this? since they wouldnāt be celebrities and would get no airtime.
if celebrities went to help you would label it as a tolken effort.
The bottom line is, when you are lucky enough to be in a position to sit on your ass all day with millions in your bank account then giving to charity is just a way you can be seen to be a nice person. But what about all the doctors and nurses and builders who are out there making a difference? Why arenāt they in the papers? The reason is because they are actually making a difference instead of trying to be seen making a difference.
by continuing their jobs and making MOre money, they are in a position to better help the other people.
you think being a star is no work? and they sit down? LOL thats funny.
i guess artists just sit around smoking weed nto doing any real work too.
To pay for something to get done is not what I consider an honourable achievement especially when itās from people who havenāt really earned it in my eyes. Footballers who kick a ball about, musicians who sing a catchy song and actors who pretend what they do is a real job (they read a script - how bloody hard is that) are not people who I have a lot of respect for.
The people I respect are the ones who are treating the thousands of sick people and who have to look into the eyes of children who have minutes to live and actually do something about it.
so you are being disrespectfull by not donating just because you donāt like celebrities.
hey i respect the people on the ground as much as you do. but i donāt hate the whole Live8 coz there are celebrities there.
well how much can one donate before they are nolonger rich?
i agree. but your comments seem to be more about your personal issues with celebrities, than logical help for the africans in trouble.
i am trying to find lists of celebrity donations but cannto find them easily (with all the crap google finds)
public awareness is the first process in any plight.
my disagreement with your comment was the āmandatoryā part of your original birth control statement.
birth control is an educational problem, and a supply problem. not somthing that should be mandatory.
Alltaken
[quote=āAlltakenā]
and how would you see this? since they wouldnāt be celebrities and would get no airtime.[/quote]
We donāt need to see it. It would in fact be better that we didnāt so that the celebrities didnāt act up for the cameras. But just because they are doing real work for a change doesnāt immediately stop them being celebrities. There have been many celebrities who go over to Africa and do things like that but yes they do it for publicity.
Anyway, Iām not realistically suggesting that these entertainers breaking a nail building a mud hut and wailing all day about it would be beneficial to the cause. Iām just saying that I donāt like seeing celebrities endorsing charitable events when they would just as quickly endorse McDonalds or GAP jeans.
Only if they stood around doing nothing and having the odd photo shoot holding a sick baby. If there were reports that some real work was done then that would be fine.
by continuing their jobs and making MOre money, they are in a position to better help the other people.
But money is not the issue. There is enough money as I keep saying in the banks of all these rich stars. It just needs to be used properly and that rests in politics.
You ever watched Big Brother? Ok being a real star takes some work but no more than my mum does as a cleaner having to scrape sh*t off the floor with bleach. Is singing a song harder than that? I donāt think so. Being a star depends on talent and luck. You donāt need all that much talent even. Look at Bjork: terrible singer but she makes loads of money. Even Joss Stone has a terrible voice IMO but she was at live8.
Now I do hear that celebrities work hard but usually I hear it from celebs themselves. The people who work around them (not the PR people) tell the truth.
Freudian slip methinks. I never mentioned drugs. But Iām talking about the people who have made it as celebrities and donāt need to work. Keanu Reeves said he made enough money from the Matrix films so that he would never have to work again. Itās why he bought Harley Davidson motorbikes for crew members because he doesnāt need the money. Now Keanu Reeves is not that big a star so how much better off are the other celebs?
so you are being disrespectfull by not donating just because you donāt like celebrities.
Would it make a difference if I donated to a pointless gimmick of a concert or some old guy with his collecting bucket in the street? How do I know the money is getting used properly?
So you hate live8 for other reasons? Hehe j/k. I donāt hate live8 or giving to charity, I hate that there isnāt a coherent structure for helping people who need it.
The average person can live on Ā£50,000 per year and to be comfortable Ā£100,000. If the average person lives 80 years, then Ā£8 million should be enough. Anyone with savings above that can give as much as takes them down to that.
Now of course then they are not rich persay but my answer to that is that no one needs to be rich - they want to be rich. I donāt like greedy people.
If I was king of the world, Iād ensure that no one had wealth beyond necessity and that way the wealth would be divided more equally and poverty would not exist.
Ok in a way they are. But my cynicism lies in the fact that the problem lies entirely with politics. An analogy is when I was young, my Sunday School teachers offered candy in return for reiterating religious dogma. In other words they were using a distractive technique to encourage youngsters to hear the ātruthā. This concert to me is not much different in that it is giving people music in return for attention on poverty. People shouldnāt have to be fed pap like that to get them to pay attention.
The way to go about it should have been to set up a concrete plan of action and go through the political motions. From the whole scheme of things, the celebs organising the thing seem to be behaving like children (or students - no offense). Thereās no doubt in my mind that the politicians are all too aware of the problems in Africa, which is why Iāve been saying it should have been sorted out. All the concerts do is to raise public awareness of the inadequacies of our government and Africaās. It cannot change it.
Yeah googleās getting pretty bad for finding meaningful stuff. Normally I come across blogs from weird loner people who think their opinions matter. Hereās one I guess:
Remember though that celebrities often give to charities as a means of a tax break.
public awareness is the first process in any plight.[/quote]
Yeah, I agree with you there. Iām sure that not a lot of people are aware of the corruption in Africa and public awareness could put pressure on political parties to shape up - that kind of contradicts what I said earlier but my concern like I said is that our politicians are ignorant f*ckers. They didnāt listen about the war so why would they listen now?
Itās not like we can do anything if they donāt. This is a democracy yāknow. Under democratic rules, the people have no say except who gets to have the last word and we have elected who gets that already.
Right I follow you. I was considering not using the word mandatory but the fact of the matter is that in the Western world, we have education about sex and look at the situation weāre in. Mandatory birth control would fix the problem much sooner and more reliably.
I know this is going to sound like a horrible analogy but when you have pets who know nothing other than to reproduce, you have to have them neutered. You can probably teach them not to have sex but it would likely take forever and who knows how many offspring will appear in between?
public awareness is the first process in any plight.
[/quote]
I have to say I strongly disagree. Look at AIDS, as you said yourself:
(By the way, I find there is a slight trend to bullshitism in this remark, as most Africans are either of local or of Muslim faith, some Christian, but not Catholic, where Catholic obviously does not equal Christian)
You see? Everybody knows about how bad HIV infection rates are, and this has been the case for over 20 years. Have things changed for the better? No way! More and more Africans are being infected and nobody does as much as to lift a finger.
There are exceptions, like the Christian missions from my local community, but the task is quite overwhelming. What makes matters worse is that corporations and people with a lot of money are not interested in actually helping the people there, but in establishing businesses there. What this does is that the populations there become dependant on foregin goods and services, and by taking advantage of these services they are driving forth the economic decline of their respective countries.
A pastor from the local church flew to the Republic of Central Africa to transport the gifts of church members to a village there, and he was told that all that happens with āgenerous investmentsā into the economy is that the president buys himself a new Learjet or buys more arms from the same countries the money came from. Quite futile.
On a finishing note, I would like to come back to the idea of spreading public awareness. This is good in theory, however it does not work in practice. Not so long ago I read in the news that a woman had been raped on the street by several men. A few teenagers saw it all happen, but did not act; they just watched without lifting a finger to help her. Itās exactly the same thing; people know itās bad, see it happening (newsreels, etc.), but donāt give a s.hit. Itās quite sad. Even though promoting awareness is very noble, Iām very sceptical about its effectiveness.
Cheers,
Tom
Look at Bjork: terrible singer but she makes loads of money.
Oh BTW i have 3 of Bjorks Albums, and i think she is a very good singer ;), but some may find her hard to appreciate.
Alltaken