Last Thursday was a rainy day at Epcot in Disneyworld. At 4pm, I sat on a bench outside of Canada and joined in another conference call with bloggers about Live 8, this time with Mike McCurry (as Reagan is the first President I was conscious of, so is McCurry the first White House Press Secretary) and Mark McKinnon, chief media advisor to Dubya during the 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Also in attendance was David Sifry of Technorati.com (who set up a special Live 8 Technorati page), and Joe Trippi hosted once more. George Clooney tried to be a part of the call, but had a scheduling conflict. Thus, I did not make him answer for his crime against humanity that was Batman and Robin.
This was a shorter conference that the first, and I got in one question (and had another but it ended for I got it out). If you’ve seen the ads about One.org, you know that there is no fundraising involved with Live 8, it’s all about getting people on board to build political influence. My question (more of an observation, really) was that I lacked a good place to point my readers to that describes in simple terms what is the plan to help Africa emerge from poverty. Hearing Bob Geldof himself speak about it, it seemed like there really are things that can be done – which involved political and economic reforms in Africa. I’m at a loss to repeat that plan to you and am simply not as well educated on Africa, and my big point is that right-wingers are going to be extremely skeptical about anything involving rock stars and need to hear about things like making free trade work in Africa.
My other question that I didn’t get to ask (again, more of an observation) is that getting the blogosphere to all talk about this is not a simple thing. Sure, we’ve had influence in the past, but that was because issues sprung up we cared about (like the Rathergate scandal). There was no concerted effort to influence people; we just all spoke our voice. Here, no one is talking much about poverty in Africa, and thus we have to first break static friction to get a conversation rolling. To me, that seems like something that would require a coordinated effort, but I’ve seen little organization so far about this in the blogosphere (last e-mail I got was to tell me when the next conference call was). Actually, if some conservative bloggers wrote about this second conference call, I missed it.
Still, I’m hopeful there is something to this Live 8 effort. After all the criticism America gets in the world these days, it’s nice to hear Europeans like Bob Geldof and Bono (who was recently on Meet the Press) talk about how great and generous Americans are and how much good the Bush administration has already done in Africa. Despite the rock stars, there seems to be some pragmatism behind this. Not sure what I can do, but had to get this off my chest.
Be honorable, ronin.
Oh come on now. There’s plenty of Europeans that speak good of America.
They just don’t get much press time because the media in Europe is to the left of the NYT.
It’s probably hard to get something started in the blog world because it’s old news. I heard parts of the interview and one of the goals stated was to raise awareness. Who doesn’t know that Africa is the armpit of the world?
Hey … I’ll be right in front behind these socially-conscious celebs … right after they start yelping about the leaders of those countries instead of the lack of effort we make.
Everytime I hear this Geldorf crap, I flash on the mountains of wasted materials that were sent for tsunami rrelief … but encountered the same old hate-filled leftie and muslim roadbloacks.
Anyone want to hear Frank J. and Sarah K. reivew the performances at this weekend’s Live8 concerts in the IMAO Podcast?
One of your favorite people, Frank, hit the nail on the head, in my opinion.
Rush Limbaugh answered a caller on this whole Africa thing by saying that no matter how much money the world throws at Africa, nothing will change.
The problem is that Africa’s best and brightest leave. They find a better life elsewhere, but who better to solve Africa’s problems than them?
I would care more about this subject, but it’s time for my afternoon Guinness.
I didn’t catch Rush’s entire reaction to the Africa issue, but I did hear him call Live 8 “a concert to raise taxes”.
Not quite sure what he meant by that, but I don’t think you can count on Rush for support with this.
If we don’t care, we sure ought to. Toddlers who are neglected become sociopaths. One of five children in Africa will be orphaned by AIDS within a few years if nothing changes. An entire continent of sociopaths should scare the snot out of us. They might decide to challenge our sociopathic regime, and then we’d have to nuke more than the moon. And that’s a waste of resources.
I’m with the let’s get their dictators crowd. I gotta believe we can make a difference before I’ll be willing to give my time to this.
I listened to the audio of the first conference with Geldof, and it really seemed like there was no ‘there’ there. He basically whined about how it’s such an awful problem, and told bloggers to convince their readers of that.
Not quite what’s needed, as someone noted above.
Furthermore, after sending all that money to the tsunami survivors, and watching what happened, well….
There’s a whole lot that we could be donating to in the U.S., with a better idea of how it actually gets spent. (Freestar Media comes to mind. Minuteman-type projects. Stem-cell research. Etc.)
You say there’s no fundraising; that it’s all about political influence. Does that mean convincing the government to tax us and spend it on international welfare? Because if so, then you’re right: it will be hard for conservatives to swallow, no matter how it’s packaged.
My two cents, anyway.
Things For Frank To Be Concerned About (in order):
#1: Painting Sarah K’s toenails.
#2: Painting his own toenails.
#3: Painting InstaPundit’s toenails.
…
#1,000,000: Live8, and Africa in general.
Oh, and #10,000,000: An entire continent of African psychopaths.
Here’s an article on this subject ya might find interesting, Frank.
Kim makes a pretty good case for why we should help Africa. If not from a strictly humanitarian perspective then our own self-interest- our health and our pocketbooks. I’m sold on both perspectives. http://www.theinternetparty.org/commentary/c_s.php?td=20050615000105§ion_type=com&sec=r_com
I can understand the enthusiasm – the idea of making the world a better place has a certain attraction – but it’s not going to go very far among the conservatives. Those of us who’ve been alive long enough to watch Africa descend into its current madness, and have seen previous relief efforts founder on the corruption that engulfs the continent, won’t have anything to do with it (and I must say that I’m among that number). Live Aid, We Are The World, etcetera, ad nauseam, were nothing but exercises in Western liberal guilt-mongering. Wasted efforts – Nigerian spammers do more for Africa’s well-being than Geldof’s latest attempt to have other people finance his amour propre ever will. Deny Geldof and Bono what they consider their divinely ordained due and see what they say about ‘great and generous Americans’.
The other side of the coin is political/social/legal – unless Africa rejects the Socialist fallacy, no amount of money thrown at the continent will change one thing. There are few areas with anything resembling a legal system, and property rights are either tenuous or completely non-existent (much as they’ve become in the U.S.). As long as the world continues acquiescing to the multicultural pieties there will be no external pressure on odious African regimes to modify their behaviour. That Geldof and Bono get good press in Europe and North America has no effect on the attitude of such as Robert Mugabe.
None of this is to say I lack sympathy for the Africans suffering under these regimes. But we could bankrupt the West handing out financial aid and not make one bit of difference there. For all the talk about a Marshall Plan for Africa, everyone forgets one, crucial element that made the Marshall Plan possible – we had our troops all over Europe at the time.
President Bush has pledged $1.7 billion for Africa and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care about the concert or the dorks (making an exception for FrankJ here) who promote it.
Do we still have to have a concert?
Oh, and if it does end up being the case that we still do need a concert, does Geldork still have to be invovled in it?
quote/ Do we still have to have a concert?
Posted by JMK at July 3, 2005 12:56 AM
Oh, and if it does end up being the case that we still do need a concert, does Geldork still have to be invovled in it?
Posted by JMK at July 3, 2005 12:59 AM /end quote
Having the concert makes the guys who do the Live 8 feel better about driving around in limos and drinking F**king Krystal champagne on their own time.
TEEEEEEJ
If you want to make a difference in Africa, I most unprofessionally suggest investing money in Western-owned corporations with African holdings. First, the local factory manager will not take the money and buy himself a private jet or arm his workers with Kalashnikovs. Secondly, you could help generate jobs through facility expansion and such. Lastly, even if the company falls through, you were just giving that money away to a warlord dictator anyway.
whether or not we actually fix Africa, at least we got to see PINK FLOYD play.