Posted on 07/05/2005 3:22:18 PM PDT by Miami Vice
It is always amusing when extremely wealthy entertainers stage a concert to eradicate poverty. They appear on stage, and do interviews, before and after the concert, criticizing other wealthy people and politicians. What is never mentioned is that they arrived at the venue by private jet or helicopter, lodging at five star hotel suites that cost several thousands of dollars per night.
What is even more amusing is when the liberal mainstream media proclaim – as the Philadelphia Inquirer did the next day - that the concert did not communicate the message properly because they did not speak with moral clarity. Moral clarity? Complaining about world poverty while performing on stage in front of a VIP section - while the hoi polloi like myself stood several blocks away watching a Jumbotron.
I went to the Live 8 concert because I thought my youngest daughter might like to attend a popular culture historical moment. This event will probably be mentioned in a future Gilmore Girls episode.
What I did want to learn while I was there was the attitude of the crowd and to hear the opinions of the performers. After all, performers have been known to offer their unsolicited political and cultural opinions. This would be the right time and place for it.
The performers were apolitical. There were no “Bush lied “ or similar comments by any of them. I was shocked that they did not.
As for the audience, they were clueless. There was a group of young men and women in front of us – early to mid-twenties and college educated from what I could gather. They seem to be from the suburbs. After they were done gyrating to Black-Eyed Peas’ Let’s Get It Started, I started talking to them. I asked one of them – a young woman who knew every word to Will Smith’s The Fresh Prince of Bel Air - why this concert was called Live 8.
“It’s because of the 8 countries where the groups are (performing), “ she replied.
“What about them? “ I asked.
“It’s like Paris, London, South Africa, and.. I can’t remember the rest,” she answered.
What she did was name some of the countries that were hosting the global concert. This had nothing to do with why the event was called Live 8.
The name Live 8 was derived from two things. One, was that Live8 was sort of a sequel to the Live Aid concert in London and Philadelphia in 1985. Lie Aid was organized as a sort of a telethon for funds to feed starving people in Africa. Two, it was a parody of the Group of Eight conference in Scotland July 6. The Group of Eight (or G8) consists of the world's major industrial democracies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, who confer annually about economics. It originated with five countries in 1975 in France. By 1992 Russia, Canada and Italy joined and the appellation became G8 in 1998.
I could have explained this to her. However, she was unquestionably more interested in the concert.
I then spotted a guy wearing a “Bush Chickenhawk-in-Chief” T-shirt. I asked him what was this concert was about. He said it was about HIV in Africa. I told him President Bush committed $15 billion for that and about $1 billion more to eradicate malaria.
He walked away in disbelief.
The next person I asked told me she did not have the slightest clue as to what the purpose of the concert was. She just wanted to listen to the music.
Now it is easy to criticize these people as being typical liberals activists. Yet, is this not exactly what this type of event is supposed to accomplish? It is supposed to inform the uninformed while getting their attention via entertainment.
The liberals are very good at doing this. This is why liberals control the movies, the news media, the novels, and the music. They know it has an affect. It is why nearly all works of fiction - whether it be TV, movies, or books - are written with a liberal perspective. It is why song lyrics are mostly liberal.
I once heard Steve Allen say, ‘why would I want to make laws if I could write all the world’s songs.’ It makes sense. Song lyrics influence the way people think. So do movies, novels, and TV shows.
This is something conservatives are very poor at doing – influencing the popular culture. It is because conservatives are clueless about it. They retreat into their think tanks and publish nonfiction books that only a small fraction of the population will read. The only conservative groups that have realized the importance of influencing the culture are the religious groups which have their own TV shows ( Trinity Broadcasting), movies ( think Stephen Baldwin), music ( Christian Rock bands), and books ( such as the Left Behind series).
You will not find many novels with conservatives themes. Conservative novelists have not been able to find a publisher. Nonfiction conservative writers can always go to Regnery - where does the conservative novelist go?
The same is true with conservative music. Other than some Country and Christian labels, you are not going to find conservative music lyrics anywhere.
The problems with movies are well documented. Hollywood conservatives are rare – and almost never given awards. It is only recently - with the Renaissance and Liberty Film Festivals - that conservative movies are being noticed. Still even those movies are mostly nonfiction types.
This is one reason why conservatism does not resonate well with the young. It will remain so until such time as conservatives realize that while nonfiction books and movies provide an intellectual reservoir for people, the emotional reservoir will be dry if there are no fictional books, TV shows, movies, and songs portraying conservative thoughts, feelings, and values.
This is why Live 8 was a success because it made people think and feel about something they ordinarily would not even bother noticing. Conservatives need to do the same if they want to keep from wandering in the wilderness for forty years again.
Michael P. Tremoglie is a writer whose work has appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Human Events, Front Page and Insight magazines. He is working on his first novel 'A Sense of Duty'. E-mail him at elfegobaca2@earthlink.net
They will all grow up to be clueless DEMS.
What a crappy concert. Where was Foreigner? Where was REO Speedwagon? Where was Foghat...dammit! I've never even heard of most of the pseudo-celebs at the G-Hate. I thought Paul McCartney died from a lack of protein. I thought Elton John Died of AIDS. Really, if you want to have a concert to combat famine, where was Nugent? Ted could teach all these starving natives how to use a compound bow!
People who grow up aren't Dems. Unfortunately, many people just age - they don't grow up.
Uhh...dead.
Nahhh...I saw them just last year at the SW Mo state fair in Springfield. I think they were trying to raise money for walkers and colostomy bags. Then again, I believe that all the members of this Foghat were in truth former members of Molly Hatchet.
Does this mean dementia is a dems disease?
But Lonesome Dave died a few years ago and just recently Rod Price passed away.
Don't let the wind out of his sails. Was it over whent the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
What you mention is not even a drop in the bucket.
Maybe, but it's better than it was ten years ago.
This is true
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