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Live 8 And Dead Brains
Tuesday, July 05, 2005   By: Mahone Dunbar

The Imposition Of Leftist Morality On Besieged Humanity

The Imposition Of Leftist Morality On Besieged Humanity

The Live 8 concert took place this weekend. Just to be fair, let me see if I've got this right: a former rock star, Bob Geldof (a musician whose records I've never listened to), held a benefit concert, and, since two billion people reportedly attended or watched on TV, their political will (Geldof's, actually) must bend the will of the elected officials of America and the Western world, who assemble at the G8 conference this week? (We will politely ignore, for the moment, the possibility that the three-billion figure might have been derived using Million Man March Math - which is more inflationary than the early universe.) And what is the will of these concert goers? For America to spend 0.7 per cent of its gross income on Africa; and for all Western nations to drop the current debts owed by Africa!

Yikes!

Well, here's another thought for you - one I'm sure hasn't occurred to Mr. Geldof and company: Since the United States government doesn't have any money, but gets it from the working public, how about asking them how they feel about having Uncle Sammy go deeper into their pockets - not because of some arcane constitutional principle, or legislative mandate, but because a bunch of music fans supposedly thinks it's a good idea. The concert goers, and Mr. Geldof and company, want to us to help appease the personal guilt they feel about the state of Africa - a continent that has elsewhere been characterized as an endless begging bowl.

History is nothing if not a track record of bad ideas that have been endorsed by the masses. In the long term, these political fixations of the masses (or aggressive and well-armed minorities) most often prove every bit as dangerous or insipid as the whims or tyrants - that other inexhaustible plot-generator for the historic record.

Morality And The Will Of The Masses

Whether it's witch-burning, political re-education through gulag vacations, or forcing the reduction of debt to umpteen dozen countries located in luckless Africa, the will of the masses is not always a good thing - particularly if you are a witch, a Russian dissident or an American taxpayer.

The issue of debt-reduction is a matter of conscience. In plain terms, that means morality - the nasty M-word most often thrown at the right as if it were monkey feces. Does the left even realize it is dealing with a moral question? Why does Geldof suppose he and his admirers have the right to tell us how to feel? To assert their morality is superior and to force us to yield to theirs? Isn't that what tyrants do? What about the feelings of the masses on abortion? Drug de-criminalization? The right to private property? Or, what if millions of young people suddenly felt they had the moral "right" to fileshare rock n' roll and DVDs without paying royalties to the artist? Now there's an idea whose time may have come - but wait! Aren't there hosts of lawyers now suing "the people" for trying to download and skip royalty payments on music and movies? And if you are a Hollywood star, what if your agent and his family, who outnumber you and your family, suddenly felt it was their right to take fifty-percent of your gross earnings instead of ten or fifteen (or twenty for foreign rights)? To the left, which rights the masses are allowed to assert is always a selective thing.

Geldof and company want a rock n' roll revolution. Good luck. A musical revolution might be better conducted if the guitarist took his guitar and hit his opponent over the head with it. (You can just re-envision the Russian revolution: Bolsheviks with solid-body Stratocasters and Telecasters opposing a Czarist army armed with less effective Gibson Les Pauls and ES 335s.)

Unenlightened Self-Interest

If you want to be blunt about self-interest, Africa doesn't have much we need; yams are not a staple of the American diet, Kente cloth suits and Kwanza decorations haven't exactly swept the market yet, nor does the world need slaves anymore - with the notable exception of other African nations where the practice still exists. So, other than appeasing the conscience of Bob Geldof, other rich liberals in the fabulously rich entertainment industry, and those easily duped by their swagger or swayed by their charisma, where is my payoff as an American for giving yet more money to the continent that can't shoot straight? Since I am in a different demographic category than Geldof's minions (I'm a baby boomer), one may think my view of Africa is colored by old Tarzan movies; not true. My opinion of Africa is shaped in large part by the steady supply of scam emails I get from Nigeria offering me millions if I'll just take part in a little fraud scheme. My thinking is, If so many Africans can use a damn computer so effectively, know so much about the international monetary system and how to do bank fund transfers, and have so much time on their hands, what the hell do they need more of our financial assistance for? And here's another thought: Let Africa get a job on Kofi Annan's staff. Soon it would have enough acumen in hi-tech thievery, bribery, and payoffs to establish itself in the world of international high finance.

Now, as a greedy Republican blue-eyed devil, I'm admittedly prone to think about self-interest, enlightened or not. So, is there anything in Africa that we could use in exchange for the money we are pouring into that bottomless beggar's bowl? Yes. Oil. There are estimated to be approximately thirty-billion barrels of oil reserves in Libya, the oil-richest county in Africa. Though not approaching Eastern or Russian reserves, it is considerable and would provide needed economic stimulus for Africa and provide an actual reason for Americans to care about the place - other than as a reserve for stocking local zoos and a place to take poignant photographs of big-eyed, big-bellied kids. The current drawback to us getting heavily involved in African oil is, of course, leftist politics. The eco rads, psychotic kissing cousins of the Live 8 audience, do not want us there - even though African oil is predominantly on the western coast of Africa and is easy to pull up and ship without harming the environment. Nope. Instead of having an Africa that is capable and self-sustaining, perhaps even a vital partner in America's economy, the leftists would rather be beggars on its behalf. Do beggars ever wind up doing anything but more begging? And whining. And blaming George Bush.

The Animus Of Guilt

Slavery is most often tossed about as the reason Americans should feel moral culpability about Africa's lamentable state. But it is hard to hang the moral Albatross of slavery around America's neck when slavery existed pre and post United States involvement. The United States did not start the slave trade, but did fight a war over ending it and has been the world's leading opponent of it. Nope. That dog won't hunt - except perhaps when you are leading a gullible audience of young, uneducated, culturally insulated, mostly minimum-wage ner-do-wells. In which case emotional states take precedence over dry facts. Hitler knew this. He had great success using large scale entertainment pageants to influence the masses in Germany. Such events as Live 8 are tried-and-true methods for working the populace into a frenzy. Is Geldof aware of the ironic parallels - the utilization of entertainment for the purpose of social and political mobilization - between his methods and Hitler's?

Those who practice moral one-upmanship are bad enough. The left constantly harps against moralists from the mainstream religions (with the exception of Islam, of course, since they are anti-American they get a pass and a big hurrah from the left), but never shies away from asserting its own moral superiority and the consequential right to wield it like a sword. This, mind you, is a type of what is called "racism" today, or "culturalism", i.e., the belief that one's own moral position is superior and that as a result of this superior moral position they have a right to enforce it on others. And isn't Live 8 the ultimate expression of Western liberal racism? The belief that western, i.e., European, i.e., white, nations still have to take care of poor retarded Africa?

What Causes Starvation In Africa?

Teacher: "Now class. Can anyone tell me what is the cause of the perpetual starvation in Africa? Yes, Little Johnny."

Little Johnny: "George W. Bush!"

Teacher: "Well, while it is Bush's fault that the ozone layer is being depleted, that our Islamic brothers are in such a bad mood that they are blowing themselves up, and that AIDS exists and is devastating Africa, your answer about starvation is not exactly correct; technically, I guess, starvation and famine existed prior to the Evil One's administration; however, since there are no wrong answers in this class, you get an A for attitude."

According to "Hunger In History" (Editor: Lucille F. Newman, Brown University Press, 1990), global food sufficiency was reached in the mid 1960s; further, if world food resources were distributed equally there would be enough to amply serve the world's needs for daily nutrition. In addition, numerous droughts and crop failures have occurred throughout history without resulting in mass starvation; the reason, governments that were forward looking and had the welfare of the population in mind. So why is Africa so unfortunate? As P.J. O'Rouke says in "All The Trouble In The World," if starvation isn't caused by drought or crop-failure, the cause can only be politics. And this is Africa's problem, politics.

The truth is there should be no starvation in Africa. There is sufficient arable land in Africa - and God knows plenty of labor available - and a good climate. There is massive starvation in Africa because food stores and relief supplies are used as weapons by Africans against other Africans. For example, during the severe drought that hit sub-Saharan Africa in 1983/1984, food production was down in the following countries: Sudan was down 11%; Ethiopia by 12.5%; and both experienced severe famine. Meanwhile, Botswana's food production was down by 17% and Zimbabwe's by 37.5% - and neither of these countries suffered famine. The difference was, as O'Rouke pointed out (ibid), that political leaders in Sudan and Ethiopia wanted their political opposition to die and withheld food reserves from them.

A Conservative Solution?

So what do we do about all the rock n' roll bozos trying to separate us from more of our money - on top of the millions they've made in royalties, which, for the record, we don't demand they spend in conformity with our moral agenda? (Can you imagine the entertainment industry's reaction if someone held a concert and then demanded that the government spend billions of dollars on anti-abortion propaganda?) And there just might be a germ of wisdom in that last parenthetical note. For me, the answer is clear: I've decided to put together an oldies rock concert to appeal to the growing elder class in America: our goal: to declare we had three billion viewers (using MMM math, thereby increasing the number of all black male participants a hundredfold will help) and that, as a result, the following agenda for aid to Africa be put into immediate action To wit:

All American rap stars will sell their fleet of Rolls, cash in their bling bling, and donate those proceeds and a year's worth of their CD sales profits to Africa. (There were complaints of not enough black participation in Live 8. We want to make sure that doesn't happen here.)

All concerned American rock stars will give up their drug habits for one year and donate what would have been wasted on nose candy for AIDS drugs for Africans. (There should be enough overage to also take care of malaria, beri-beri, ebola, and about 10% of the STDs in Africa.)

All Hollywood stars of the left-leaning persuasion (can you imagine the noise they'd make if they were left out?) will sell-off all their extra real estate holdings (meaning everything other than a modest primary residence - of no greater than, say, the average sq. footage of a thirty-room hotel -  sell off all but twenty-pounds of their favorite jewelry, and donate those proceeds and their salaries from their next five movies to a project dedicated to buying arms to be used for the overthrow of socialist and communist regimes in Africa and for the subsequent establishment of constitutional republics.

Finally, let all the screaming young geeks (who have the intellectual acumen of a piece of toast) that are impressed by the likes of Madonna et. al.,  donate what they would normally spend in rent-to-own furniture in a year, (or rented rims for their cars, for Black American youth) and donate the proceeds to a yam-enrichment project for Africa.

Now, all I need is a list of has-been rock stars from the fifties who desperately need exposure and I'm on my way. Stay tuned for a list of concert dates - and get those check-books ready.

(Ed. note - Fausta also has some views on Live 8)

 

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