Live 8 concert
Some of the world's biggest artists are pooling their efforts to convince world leaders to increase thier aid to African nations. Tomorrow, July 2 there will be 10 Live 8 concerts around the world from Philidelphia to Japan. The concerts are meant to coincide with the G8 Summit, a gathering of the leaders of the 8 most powerful countries, set to take place next week in Scotland. Rock the Vote is proud to support this effort.
The campaign is not really about raising money. It's about mobilizing people to call on their governments to do more to eradicate poverty in Africa. This is one of our generation's big chances to use music to change the world. And, by the way, its not about Bush bashing, in case you were wondering. As USA Today reports:
"This isn't going to ba a Bush-bashing event. In fact, praising Bush is part of the strategy...Bob, Geldof, the British rocker who conceived Live Aid and Live 8 commends Bush for creating the Millennium Challenge Accounts to increase aid to poor countries."
So if you're near any one of the 10 cities with a Live 8 concert, purchase a ticket! And if not, make relieving poverty in Afica one of your issues!
--posted by, Nicole RTV Intern
The campaign is not really about raising money. It's about mobilizing people to call on their governments to do more to eradicate poverty in Africa. This is one of our generation's big chances to use music to change the world. And, by the way, its not about Bush bashing, in case you were wondering. As USA Today reports:
"This isn't going to ba a Bush-bashing event. In fact, praising Bush is part of the strategy...Bob, Geldof, the British rocker who conceived Live Aid and Live 8 commends Bush for creating the Millennium Challenge Accounts to increase aid to poor countries."
So if you're near any one of the 10 cities with a Live 8 concert, purchase a ticket! And if not, make relieving poverty in Afica one of your issues!
--posted by, Nicole RTV Intern
posted by Anonymous at 11:37 AM
12 Comments:
How is Aid to Africa the government's business? Have you read the Bill of Rights? The 10th Amendment? If these people want to encourage private charity, that's great but to try to get the feds to do it is wrong.
I have to agree with Noid on this one. I have no problem with Private charities giving to Africa, but the government's use of our tax dollars to provide aid to anyone is misuse of power.
Do you mean tax dollars going to iraq? This kills far right wingers and republcians because it goes against what Republicans have preached for so long. That you are in poverty, sickness, and hunger because you are lazy, homosexual, or a non-christian. Live 8 and the tsunami relief effort has shown the true face of republcians and far right wing so-called christians. That they don't practice the values that jesus preached.
The 95 theses on the religious right tacked to the door of the republicans party by philospher Peter Ludlow:
95 THESES ON THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT
Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed on the internet, under the presidency of the Peter Ludlow. Anyone wishing to debate with us, may do so by e-mail at ludlow@umich.edu.
In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said "love thy neighbor", willed that believers should show *compassion* toward others.
2. This word cannot be understood to mean mere lip service ("I love them, but I hate their sin"), but genuine concern for the welfare of others.
3. Yet the Religious Right has forsaken compassion for a doctrine of institutionalized hatred and violence.
4. Specifically, the Religious Right has taken the Word of God and wrapped it in the flag of Right Wing Politics, replacing God's message of redemption for the entire world with a narrow message endorsing right wing American politics.
5. Item: the Religious Right has neglected the teachings of Jesus in the gospel of Luke, where He instructs that we are to show compassion for the poor.
6. In place of God's words, the Religious Right has substituted a right wing political doctrine in which the poor have only themselves and their alleged laziness and moral weakness to blame.
7. For example, the Religious Right has rejected the needs of poor children of unwed mothers.
8. The Religious Right has rejected the cries for help from the children of impoverished families in the inner cities.
9. The Religious Right, has advocated fewer resources for the elderly poor and for the millions of children now living in poverty.
10. In place of giving to the poor, the Religious Right has advocated political doctrines specifically designed so that
individuals may acquire vast sums of money.
11. The Religious Right has thus seized on a contemporary economic ideology as an excuse to ignore the teachings of Jesus.
12. Item: the Religious Right has ignored God's injunction that we are to be caretakers for the Earth.
13. In place of God's injunction, the Religious Right has advocated policies in which the natural resources of God's creation are stripped from the earth and given to wealthy corporations without replacement.
14. In place of God's injunction that we are to be caretakers for the creatures of His creation, they have advocated policies through which these creatures may be extinguished forever.
15. The Religious Right has rejected laws designed to protect God's creation from pollution, claiming the "rights" of property owners are to be paramount.
16. In each case they have ignored the message of the Bible that this is God's creation, and they have substituted a doctrine in which God's creation may be partitioned and sold to the highest bidder.
17. Again, God's message has been cast aside for a message that supports a narrow economic message with its roots in right wing American politics.
18. Item: the Religious Right has neglected the teachings of Jesus that "he who is without sin should cast the first stone."
19. In place of God's words, the Religious Right has substituted a doctrine in which perceived sinners are to be persecuted.
20. Gays, for example, are persecuted because of their alleged sins. In some cases, leaders of the Religious Right have encouraged acts of physical violence against gays.
21. While the Religious Right has been eager to persecute others for their alleged sins, they have been blind to their own.
22. While the Bible counsels that a rich man can no more enter the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, many in the Religious Right have celebrated the acquisition of wealth.
23. While the Bible enjoins us against pride, the Religious Right appears to be flush with pride in it's holier than thou stance.
24. While the Bible asks that we be slow to anger, the Religious Right is quick to anger -- indeed it appears to revel in anger and in fanning the flames of anger in others.
25. While the Bible counsels that we are not to be "revilers," key members of the religious right have consistently and aggressively reviled their political enemies as well as those who are perceived to be sinners.
26. It seems then, that the Religious Right picks its sins selectively, ignoring the clear Biblical message against avarice, pride, and anger, and emphasizing selected “sins” that have little to no Biblical basis.
27. Item: While the Bible counsels that we are not to bear false witness, the Religious Right has engaged in smear campaigns against numerous political foes, often telling outright lies about “liberal” political leaders.
28. Worse yet, these smear campaigns have often been carried out in the house of God, sometimes in the form of inserts in church bulletins, and sometimes directly from the pulpit.
29. But the Religious Right has not merely spread its lies within the Church; they have done so outside the Church as well.
30. The Religious Right has used its financial resources not to spread the word of God, but to spread lies in the populace.
31. Item: Religious Right has failed to see that God's call to help our neighbors also extends to our international neighbors.
32. International aggression is not a Christian doctrine.
33. Where the Bible calls us to be peacemakers, the Religious Right claims that we have no business trying to bring peace to troubled areas but rather counsels that we should use military might to secure our business interests.
34. Where the Bible, through the story of the good Samaritan, instructs that we are to help our international neighbors -- indeed, even our enemies -- the Religious Right counsels "America First".
35. But "America First" cannot be a true Christian Doctrine.
36. The Bible gives no special status to political entities like the United States of America, and any suggestion to the contrary is to simply lie about the content of the Bible.
37. God does not bless nation states, and if He did, He surely would not bless them for practicing international internal intolerance, and propping up corrupt kingdoms and military juntas that traffic in institutionalized poverty and violence.
38. Item: the Religious Right has claimed that abortion is immoral, yet there is no Biblical basis for this claim
39. Rather, the doctrine appears to be driven by a medieval philosophy of the person, which they have imported into their theology.
40. Why has medieval philosophy taken precedence over the Scriptures? Perhaps the Religious Right never took the Scriptures very seriously in the first place.
41. This is highlighted by the frightening extremes to which they have taken this political dogma.
42. Victims of rape and incest are not to be allowed abortions. What could the Biblical basis of this possibly be?
43. Even when the mother's life is in danger, they would reject the possibility of abortion. Thus once again God's message of love and redemption is tarnished by advocates of a political doctrine of hatred and cruelty.
44. More troubling than their anti-abortion doctrine, however, is the tone with which that doctrine is advanced.
45. Here they use they weapon of hatred, encouraging the harassment of women, the bombing of clinics, and in some cases the taking of human life.
46. Their rejoinder that abortion is the taking of a human life has no basis in Biblical authority.
47. Their anti-abortion campaign is merely a political campaign dressed in the clothing of religion.
48. Item: The Religious Right has failed to distinguish its political message from what is left of its genuine religious message, leading Christians to conflate the two.
49. The Religious Right has engaged in a form of idolatry -- idolatry of certain patriotic symbols.
50. They have wrapped the Bible in the American flag. Indeed, one can find Bibles that contain documents such as the United States Constitution and pictures of the presidents.
51. Such Bibles arguably defile the word of God.
52. The American flag is not a symbol to be worshipped; yet the Religious Right has argued that it should be a crime to "desecrate" the flag. But what religious basis is there for such advocacy?
53. What basis is there for putting the American flag in the front of a church, next to the altar and the cross?
54. There can be no Biblical basis for placing such symbols in the house of God, nor for the undue reverence paid to them.
55. The Religious Right has failed to grasp the full power of God, supposing that spiritual growth for Christians can only come in the wake of political change in the United States.
56. On the contrary, God is perfectly capable of creating spiritual revival without the help of the Republican Party, and certainly without the help of an organizations that espouse doctrines that are antithetical to the teaching of God
at almost every turn.
57. Item: the Religious Right has preyed on people's fears -- their fear of crime, of other races, of the future, of the unknown.
58. Rather than say "fear not, for God is with us," they have used fear to sow the seeds of hatred and violence.
59. They have led their congregations to fear people of other races.
60. They have led their congregations to fear people of other sexual orientations.
61. They have led their congregations to fear our own judicial system.
62. They have led their congregations to fear the teachings of science.
63. They have led their congregations to fear anyone and anything different from their narrow conception of what they consider to be normal.
64. Worse, they have fanned this fear into hatred, encouraging their congregations to despise those who are different.
65. Item: The Religious Right has paid lipservice to the moral development of children, yet their doctrines are antithetical to the interests of children.
66. They appear to believe that moral development can be accomplished solely through discipline and censorship --
censorship of thought-provoking materials and censorship of the findings of science.
67. Yet, as a group, the members of the Religious Right have failed miserably as parents.
68. Jesus said, "suffer the children come unto me," yet members of the Religious Right have physically and psychologically abused their children.
69. They have advocated corporeal punishment, and have carried out acts of indoctrination on their children which, truth be known, are as severe as those of any fringe religious cult.
70. They have made children to be ashamed of and hate their bodies, when they should be proud that those bodies are the temples of God.
71. They have lied to children about the nature of God's creation, teaching them to ignore the great beauty God has revealed through the biological sciences.
72. In place of that beauty, they have taught their children a theory in which God's revelation through nature is ignored, and an ugly doctrine of fiat creation is espoused.
73. They have taught their children to be intolerant of others, to be hateful of gays and persons of color.
74. They have failed to instruct their children in God's message of love and redemption and have substituted for it a message of exclusion, suspicion, and contempt.
75. They have failed to raise their children according to the teachings of the Bible.
76. They have utterly failed as parents, yet they presume to dictate how we should raise our own children.
77. Item: The Religious Right, caught up in its hypocritical attacks on others has utterly ignored the solteriolocial aspects of Christianity.
78. Gone is the message that Jesus dies on the cross to save us from our sins.
79. Gone is the message of salvation, of hope and redemption.
80. In effect, the one core fact of Christianity, it's very reason for being, has been lost in the Religious Right's orgy of hatred and accusation.
81. How many souls will be lost because of their campaign of hatred?
82. At what price do these political triumphs come? Are they really worth the loss of the core message of Christianity?
83. Item: the Religious Right pays lip service to the authority of the Word of God, yet that Word plays little role in the treating of the Religious Right.
84. In place of the message of God's Grace and our redemption, they have substituted a purely political doctrine with no grounding in the Scriptures.
85. Rare are the references to passages of the Bible in the sermons of the Religious Right.
86. Those references that survive, are taken out of context and are merely used to justify preestablished political doctrines.
87. For example, there is no Biblical support for their views on abortion.
88. There is no Biblical support for their right wing economic theories.
89. There is no Biblical support for their campaign of abuse against their own children.
90. There is no Biblical support for their "America First" doctrines.
91. There is no Biblical support for their treatment of persons of color.
92. There is no Biblical support for their treatment of homosexuals.
93. In conclusion: the Religious Right has desecrated the house of God, taking a place of worship and treating it as a soap box in the service or the Right Wing of the Republican Party.
94. The Religious Right has likewise desecrated the Word of God, attributing to the Bible doctrines that are hateful, cruel, and entirely antithetical to the actual contents of the Bible.
95. Christians are to be exhorted to speak out against the Religious Right, as it is a vile heretical movement, wholly outside the teachings of the Word of God.
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QUOTE:
Do you mean tax dollars going to iraq? This kills far right wingers and republcians because it goes against what Republicans have preached for so long. That you are in poverty, sickness, and hunger because you are lazy, homosexual, or a non-christian. Live 8 and the tsunami relief effort has shown the true face of republcians and far right wing
/QUOTE:
I'm not a Republican or a right winger. I can read though and think that the constitution should be both read and enforced.
With regard to Iraq, while I disagree with the war, and have some issue with the constitutionality of congress deciding to just put the all discretion about war into the presidents hands instead of declaring war specifically, you could at least make an argument that the war was *constitutional*. THat doesn't mean it was a good idea, just that at least it something the feds have constitutional power to do.
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
This must be Tuesday, because poverty in Africa ended Monday.
All it took were a few chords, a lot of screaming, several acres of dirty hair and a cloud cover of lethal body odor. When the last guitar strings snapped Saturday night at those Live 8 concerts across the world, promoter Bob Geldof's over-the-hill gang had the prescription: just stuff a few billion dollars down the bottomless holes on the Dark Continent.
"This is the greatest rock show in the history of the world," cried the announcer at the London concert. Gushed a disc jockey on XM Satellite Radio: "This is the single most important concert ever."
No one wanted to stop there. Shouted one of the "musicians" of a group called Coldplay: "This is the greatest thing that's ever been in the entire history of the world."
Since "the entire history of the world" includes the extinction of the dinosaurs, the eruption of Krakatoa, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the construction of the pyramids, the Resurrection of Christ and man's landing on the moon, Live 8 had to be impressive mush.
But this week the grown-ups take over, as grown-ups always must, when the G-8 economic summit commences in Scotland under the baton of Tony Blair, who not only wants to eliminate African poverty but to end global warming before Christmas.
The nations of the West must do something to ease the brutal pain of generations of unbridled greed, ignorant incompetence and rabid corruption in Africa. It's our Christian duty. But it will require discipline that is out of fashion in the 21st century, and it certainly isn't what the simple-minded noisemakers of Live 8 had in mind.
The example of Nigeria says it all. Figures released last month by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, as reported in the London Daily Telegraph, reveal that in the 45 years since Britain granted independence in 1960 a succession of despots squandered $387 billion (that's a "b," not an "m"), almost to the dollar the sum of all Western aid to all of Africa between 1960 and 1997. One of the despots, Gen. Sani Abacha, now safely dead, is believed to have looted Nigeria's vast oil reserves of more than $5 billion in just five years.
William Bellamy, the U.S. ambassador to neighboring Kenya, startled the guests at his Fourth of July garden party yesterday with just the kind of bluntness needed to keep African aid in realistic perspective. "Turning on the fire hose of international compassion and asking Kenya and other African nations to drink from it is not a serious strategy for promoting growth or ending poverty."
President Mwai Kibaki, the Kenyan president, was off at the African Union summit in Libya, helping other despots draw up their gimme list. In his absence, a deputy fired back at Ambassador Bellamy, complaining that Kenya had been singled out for criticism just because it doesn't take terrorism seriously. Aid for Africa, he told the ambassador, "should not get entangled with the politics of your dissatisfaction with a regime, unless you have decided on a regime change."
Nobody has, unfortunately, and that's exactly why aid for Africa is as close to hopeless as anything can be. Regime change all across the continent is sorely needed, even more than another concert by unemployed service-station attendants whanging away on electric guitars and other noisemakers.
Tony Blair's No. 2 man, George Brown, talks giddily of a Marshall Plan for Africa, but Nigerian despots alone have already pocketed the equivalent of six Marshall Plans. George C. Marshall's miracle scheme for rebuilding Europe worked because mature European leadership was determined to rescue the continent from the ravages of World War II. There's scant evidence that Africa's "leaders" want anything more than to drink from the fire hose.
Live 8 concerts are nice, and the photographs of starving children will break the coldest heart, but unless Europe and the West accompany aid with the kind of supervision nobody has the courage to impose, the aid will wind up in the usual Swiss banks, and 20 years from now another generation of children will die while naive hearts bleed.
I wish the US government would just give me money. Then when I inevitabley misspend it and waste it, they will forgive my debt. What a fantastic deal!
Here's a lesson the African countries should learn----how to handle money, just like every kid with an allowance learns.
Personal responsiblity people.
how can africa extinguish corruption in politics if their children are starving, diseased, and unsheltered? How is africa expected to support its economy with nations like the us and uk putting up more so much in agricultural subsidies, all just for farmer's votes too?
how about we let africa deal with agriculture and the powerful nations deal with industry. rooting out corruption is of high concern, but lets not forget how many children are dying every day.
live8 was a cause to remember. however, the atmosphere during the performance was more like a good charlotte concert with a bunch of pop kids getting drunk screaming YAY JAYZ while mandela was on the screens explaining the importance of live8. it was a disappointment only because it opened my eyes to how ignorant a nation can be and how idle so many are to cause a change. at least in philadelphia, so many artists seemed reluctant to talk about the cause and were only there for the money they were being paid for performing or for the positive publicity.
Erik -
I support Bush! He's a great president for America! I'm Christian.
But re: your post about some guy preening as a modern Luther... a few points are true, but there are many many steaming pile of shit.
The true bits: the utter selfishness of some Americans who hiss and grumble about 'Aid to Africa'. eg: Noid.
I'll address two of your shitty points:
"Live 8 and the tsunami relief effort has shown the true face of republcians and far right wing so-called christians."
Crap! This year, I contributed $1500 of my own money to the tsunami relief. Remember... I think Bush is a great president.
"no Biblical support for their views on abortion"
Are you nuts? Remember John the Baptist? The Bible talks about him when he was a 6 month old fetus -- as a real person who could leap for joy within his mother's womb.
Read:
http://www.antelope-ebooks.com/RELIGIOUS/Jesus/Jesus01.html
And you support aborting such people? Hypocrite!
As Christian, we cannot judge anyone. Yet we are sure homosexuality is sexual sin whose reward is hell's eternal flames.
At this point, you should be getting ready to lecture me about not judging people (having already "judged" me as having said something wrong)
Well, read up on what Jesus said to the woman who was caught in adultery: "Go and **SIN NO MORE**"
Why? Don't feel like lecturing Jesus about the necessity of "not judging" that woman?
Understand: we Christians are allowed to have an opinion and express it. But we cannot take vengeance for others sins against us.
Why was Live8 about bringing awareness to the poverty in Africa? Everyone knows Africa poor. With all the aid and natural resources, why is Africa so poor? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Live8 should have been all about bringing awareness to the corruption of the Governments in Africa. How they take all aid money for themselves and leave nothing for their citizens. What a joke. All the leaders in Africa were probably sitting back in their mansions in disbelief at how stupid everyone involved in Live8 could be. They are laughing straight to the bank. Stupid drug addict artists are making the situation worse
LIVE 8 WAS A GREAT THING. I CAN NEVER AFFORD TO DONATE MONEY BUT I WAS VERY THANKFUL TO BE ABLE TO DONATE MY VOICE, PICTURE AND OF COURSE NAME....TY
LIVE 8 WAS A GREAT THING. I CAN NEVER AFFORD TO DONATE MONEY BUT I WAS VERY THANKFUL TO BE ABLE TO DONATE MY VOICE, PICTURE AND OF COURSE NAME....TY
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