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MySpace Organizes Sudan Fundraiser
tanman writes to tell us CNN is reporting that MySpace is sponsoring a series of 20 concerts as an effort to raise awareness about the humanitarian relief efforts in Sudan. From the article: "The concerts will take place October 21. Artists include TV on the Radio in Philadelphia, Alice in Chains in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Ziggy Marley in Medford, Oregon, Citizen Cope in Seattle, Gov't Mule in Spokane, Washington, and Insane Clown Posse in St. Petersburg, Florida."
I only hope that the concerts will not be broadcast from the profiles of 400 million users simultaneously.
Most of these cities get good or at least halfway decent bands, while we in St Pete get Insane Clown Posse?! Hooray, thanks a lot MySpace, I can hardly wait.
Couldn't Fox (MySpace's owner) raise a lot more awareness with their news network than they could with concerts?
Insane Clown Posse was already scheduled to have a concert that day anyway as part of their Hallowicked Clown Tour. It's noble of them to go ahead and donate the profits from that show to that cause.
;-)
i'm probably the only juggalo here, let me get my armor on
All the ICP fans I know are huge fans care very deeply about humanitarian relief efforts in Sudan. (Oh shit, is that funny because ICP fans don't care about that, or because there are no ICP fans?)
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
insane clown posse? i thought they want to attract people to raise money, not scare them away...
Unfortunately, Sudan exists in that giant blind spot the developed world seems to have south of Europe and west of the Middle East. Sure, we have these benefits which do some good, but meanwhile the governments of the most powerful and wealthy nations in the world are willing to do nothing more than prop up dictatorial regimes by lending them money their countrymen will never be able to repay, while trying to decide what is the least amount of aid they can get away with while still looking like they care.
The way the west has dealt with Africa since pretty much the beginning of time is shameful, and it doesn't look like it's going to improve any time soon.
It wants its music back. But keep that Insane Clown Posse CD. 1994 said you could just keep that.
So now I can hear from every teenager out there about how important things are in Sudan. And how much it means to them personally. "Hey, put this in your profile if you care about the Sudan cause! But don't forget to comment up. Because it means so much to me." Puke.
It's always confirmation bias!
...MySpace did a series of benefit concerts for children lured by sexual predators over the Internet, given that they seem to facilitate it more than anyone these days?
Help us build a better map!
How much money will actually make it to the Sudan?
I don't see how having a concert or two is in any way related to solving real world problems. What? You going to party your way to a better environment?
This is a perfect way to sell tickets and raise profits. It will be like Live8.
I for one would like to be the first to say thank-you Tom. Your contributions to society have affected us all. Thank-you.
Honestly, for the US to send in troops would be a fool's errand, and as for the UN.....they could send in troops but the problem is that besides the US, not many countries are willing to put forward troops for UN missions. And the UN has worn out their welcome with the US (you can only complain about everything they do for so long until they start to ignore you)
Everyone thinks it's a good idea until the time comes to actually do it, and you have alienated the entity provides 85% of your military support (the US).
The west doesn't provide foriegn aid/intervention out of the infinite goodness of our charitable heart - we do it for relatively practical reasons. We want to help the economies of undeveloped nations grow and become more stable, so that first world countries (via transnational corps) have better access to the potential natural resources and cheap labor.
However, poverty, corruption, and strife are so endemic in many parts of Africa that the financial and political investment needed to stabilize and repair the developing nations is far higher than would be "practical" from a business standpoint. Since we can't easily fix the situation, the best alternative is to ignore it as much as possible, and hope that nobody notices this inconsistency in our supposedly humanitarian Western policies.
So, yes, while preventing millions of deaths a year and bringing entire societies out of the dark ages might seem like the "right" thing to do, it really isn't, when you think like a politician or a CEO.
MySpace still sucks. This is just like the crap that WalMart and the tobacco do. They do a few nice things, and then publicize the hell out of them, to make them look better. I bet they spend more money publicizing the event than they actually donate...
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
The way *Africans* have dealt with Africa is shameful. Sure, we can blame colonialism for many of Africa's problems, but we're more than 40 years on from the last of Europe's colonial possessions. At some point the Africans themselves have to reject corruption, violence and tribalism and begin to work cooperatively for a better life for themselves. No amount of charity on the part of the west can help them with this.
(And yes, I know Africa is a continent and that not all African countries are in this predicament. Still, why have Europe's former Asian colonies done so much better?)
Got on Vans but they look like sneakers!!!
Oh great in addition to being malnourished most underaged kids in Sudan will now have to live with the fact that they're going to be in the radar of Myspace predators now
Select SigText from Signatures where Len(SigText) > 120 Order By Len(SigText) desc
Insane Clown Posse is also one of the reasons why nobody takes the Internet Cache Protocol seriously. I used to have "Experience working with ICP" on my resume but I have switched to a more conservative "Experience implementing ICP (RFC2186)".
I think Insane Clown Posse, juggalo bitches.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Sure, but that assumes that the point is to actually do something in Sudan, and not improve the tarnished image of the online service that they forked out a bunch of dough for, and are currently burdened with. It's a little bit of a Hail Mary, but hey, when you've got a web site that most people only know of because they've seen it on the news in the same sentence with "pedophile," you can't really go wrong.
Why would News Corp give a damn about people in Sudan? Here's a hint: they don't.
The only reason they're raising money for people in Sudan is that it's the least-offensive cause some focus group could come up with. Right now, MySpace needs the most heart-warming, family-friendly but not totally-unhip image resuscitation that money can buy.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I already gave all my money to some e-mail dude in Africa who promised to pay me back once I filled out some paper-work for him. He never did.
Table-ized A.I.
I used to think Darfur was just a fairy tale
Until that genocide until that first smile
But if I had to do it all again I wouldn't change a thing
Cause this war is everlasting
Sudanly "gangaweed" has new meaning to me
There's beauty up above and things we never take notice of
You wake up Sudanly you're in poverty
Girl you're everthing a man could rape and more
One thousand words are not enough to say what I feel inside
Holding dismembered hands as we walk along the shore
Never felt like this before now you're dying in Darfur
Each day I pray this love affair would last forever
There's beauty up above and things you never take notice of
You wake and Sudanly you're at war
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Although I think that the organizers are attempting to hitch a ride on a hot-topic issue that celebrities are rallying around, I still believe that it's a good cause and deserves our attention. It's such a shame that organizations like the UN seem unable/unwilling to address these types of problems globally, I'm starting to wonder whether or not the UN still has a place on issues like this. It seems that US billionaires are doing more good in Africa than entire countries, and even small companies are trying to help in their small ways. The US may still suck according to most people in other countries, at least I believe we're still trying to do good, even when the attempt is very naive.
I too, concur that this is a tragedy of epic proportions, but, I think, is being ignored by both sides of the aisle for political reasons.
The Right, unfortunately, knows that our military cannot support serious actions to halt the genocide that is happening. As typically strong supporters of our military, they don't want to see the military face losses on top of what they are incurring in Iraq. Such an act could quickly become a political lightening rod.
In order for the Left to support such an action, they would have to support invading a sovereign nation whose official ties to terrorism are only hints and whispers, and without official UN approval, which is exactly their protest against the Iraq Invasion. Even with knowledge that the Iraqi government was killing their own citizens, The Left opposed invasion. To suddenly support a Darfur excursion would end up making them look like extreme hypocrites.
Also, the lesson we learned from Vietnam is that in order to win the war, we would have to wage war on the "tail" side of the agressors, drawing their front-line troops away to defend their home turf. That turns in a CQB (Close-Quarter Battle), which inflicts heavy losses on an invading force. Or we carpet bomb the mostly muslim north, allowing for the (pardon me for saying this) anti-US Muslim propaganda machine to run at full tilt again.
Remember, these conquering forces have many 10-year-old boys with AK-47s. All you have to do is take away the gun, and suddenly, "THE UNITED STATES MILITARY IS KILLING MUSLIM CHILDREN" shows up on CNN.
Then there will be protests at a University, but that's ok.
If I might suggest a situation for history to repeat itself, I propose Kent State.
I support evacuation. The issue I see is that any provisions sent to the region would just as likely end up feeding conquering Janjaweed forces as hungry Christians.
After evacuation, our forces could carpet bomb at will, knowing that any movement in the area was hostile invaders.
In my opinion, the Sudanese Government is attempting genocide. The ironic part is that it is mostly African (Read: Black) population that is bearing the brunt of this, and the Arab population is causing it. I think this is a problem of politically correct crisis. You can't support one side without appearing biased against the other. No politician will touch it, so no action will happen.
Which is truly unfortunate.
Of course, there is a solution to all of this, and I think it should be widely deployed after evacuation:
But, I wonder how the people who were opposed to the Iraqi Invasion are going to react. Are they going to admit that invading Iraq for the reasons stated were acceptable after all, or simply wait for the UN to draft up a strongly worded letter to the Sudanese government?
Joe
Want to listen to better music and still help the people of Sudan? Check out the Genocide in Sudan compilation. All proceeds go to UNICEF and The UN Refugee Agency. Or you could donate directly to UNICEF, the UN Refugee Agency, or the UN world food programme
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Well yeah -- I mean, if they really wanted to send money to Sudan, you'd think that one of the brain surgeons there at News Corp would realize that it's a little ridiculous for a giant multinational corporation with $25 billion in revenue to sponsor a fucking fund raiser, in order to get regular folks to send in a couple of bucks here and there, as if they were the Pigs Knuckle, Arkansas Rotary Club ... if the goal of the whole process was "let's send money to Sudan," Rupert Murdoch could probably just cut a check out of his petty cash fund and be done with it.
As they are not doing that and are conducting a fund raiser, however ironic, I think it's safe to assume that the ultimate goal of the process is not, in fact, sending money to Sudan.
As to what the real motive might be, I'll leave that up to you to consider.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That is, if it were the Christians killing the Muslims in Sudan, there would be no such fundraiser. Shame.
Until the bastards in Khartoum are ousted from power.
Explaining why this "fund raiser" is being conducted almost exclusively in the U.S. (It would be exclusive, except for a show in Toronto.)
From TFA:
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Is the Sudan a two-door or four-door, and does it have a dock for my iPod?"
Relief efforts? Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the "humanitarian problem" in Sudan basicly genocide? Does the relief supplies include AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades?
I misread that as "MySpace Organizes Sudden Fundraiser", and was expecting to read that MySpace is in financial troubles and needed to raise some money fast.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
Look, corporations *never* operate benevolently. Those that do go out of business pretty quickly. They are always out to make a profit.
This fundraiser is not about being nice. It's a deal that they're making with you: They'll do this fundraiser to raise money for a good cause. They're doing it for publicity. You may or may not bite and send some money to Sudan. Who cares?!?!
It's all about profits, and that's not a bad thing - the profit motive is what creates incentive for XYZ corporation to pay attention to little, itty, bitty you. (en masse) So, appreciate the good cause! Send a little money if you approve! The sooner you do away with the "good corp - bad corp" routine, the sooner you can get on to seeing things as they really are.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
...that are propping up the slave owning and oil selling* fundy nutjobs in the north who are doing all the genocide action in the south that is the problem. Google around and catch the names of the companies providing funding and support for the north there, you'll see.
0 44
*The sudan has oil, that is what is going on. Fight over oil and a major religious split. Here, google already answered it: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=1
If you go to fill up your car - just about anywhere - you are most likely supporting genocide in the sudan by funding the fundies. And because it *is* oil, that means it *will be* sold, which means this conflict will not stop until all the oil is completely gone and/or one side or the other is completely wiped out. My best guess is the chinese will be the big winners there eventually, they are providing the most support and sub rosa military aid, but most of europe and canada and the alleged offshore branches of US multinationals are all in there, directly or one or two shell companies away.
They don't give a crap, there's a buck to be made, oil ownership trumps everything in today's globalised economy. It's all abouyt profits. Sudan has oil to sell and they want to buy weapons-so, this gencide on't stop. Now it could be slowed down, by arming the south, via airdrops if nothing else so they could have some self defense, and by restricting trade with the official regime, all the way to sinking their tankers (no matter which capitalist pig flag it is flying under) and establishing no fly zones-but that most likely won't happen, because global oil is calling the shots.
If only putting an "I support the Sudan thingy" icon in your profile could enter you to win concert tickets AND the option to buy a rubber-ish wrist bracelet in a fashionable color for $3.99, then people would REALLY support the whole Sudan thing and look cool doing it. Plus, good ol' Rupert might be able to make a few bucks in addition to helping their PR image.
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... in Bosnia, not only did they get nice little fundraisers, they got a US-lead military campaign. Which was about the only effective part of the operation (and I'm being generous calling it effective), since the UN, as per usual, let the genocide continue in the supposedly safe areas right under their nose. Now the area is mostly lawless, overseen by a toothless UN agency whose only mandate is protecting their mandate, and has a growing Islamic terrorist problem.
All in all, a pretty successful international peacekeeping operation by historical standards. By the way, have you heard about Kosovo in your newspaper in the last, oh, 5 years or so? The answer is probably a "no" for the same reason you hear about Darfur fairly little: it just isn't that useful as a talking point against the US. If you want to get some worldwide attention for Darfur, screw the little MySpace singalong: figure out a way that it reflects badly on Bush and I guarantee you AFRICANS DYING BY MILLIONS AS DUBYA YAWNS will be the headline of half the papers in the free world.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Don't forget the foreign aid and intervention is not nessicarily going to have the effect intended. We could be sending aid, and it could be going to a dictator (actually, this is how it happens and it is usually by design, but it can happen by accident or ignorance too). We could subsidize the wrong parts of the economy or the wrong industries and end up killing self-sustaining industries for whatever industry someone in Europe or the U.S. thinks is good for that country (and doesn't compete with European or U.S. economic interests). It is called "paternalism", and it is usually a disaster.
The fact is, the West does not have the skills to fix Africas problems... and we are not trustworthy enough not to use foriegn aid or intervention to further our own interests. So in the meantime, if we can't help Aftrica, we can at least try not to mess them up worse. Leave Africa alone, and keep our hands and noses out. No country has ever gone to war or bore resentment towards another country for not giving enough aid or intervention. At the same time, plenty of countries have grown to hate the countries that they were once dependent on. Paternalism is a nasty thing.
The West should have a strict non-intervention policy with Africa. It is better not to do anything for the time being.
I have the opposite problem... When I put "experience working with ICP" on my resume, they think I am talking about Internet Cache Protocal, when I mean I have experience working with the Insane Clown Posse. :)
The people looking for experience with the Insane Clown Posse are much more interesting than the people looking for experience with Internet Cache Protocal. Perhaps you should reconsider your resume change?
>>How much money will actually make it to the Sudan?
More importantly, how much money will be stolen/diverted/given to the same Islamic groups which have CAUSED the crisis. They control the area, after all. The problem in Sudan is as much a problem of transportation of goods as it is a shortage of goods.
(Today's trivia: Even wonder why jeeps with mounted machine guns are called 'technicals'? Because the purchase of these vehicles, sans machinegun, can be made with UN food money -- they are given an "technical exemption" for four-wheel drive vehicles.)
The muslim government is waging Jihad (inner struggle my ass) on the mostly christian south (and on Ethiopia perhaps, we'll see soon enough). If kids were to start spreading that message. That would rock.
But such a thing would be racist. When muslims kill christians for islam, we should stay silent. When christians kill muslims who are shooting at them, we should bomb the hell out of them (see Jugoslavia).
If you listen to the plethora of liberal activist groups who have adopted Darfur as the new subject of their sermon (with typical missionary zeal), what you generally hear about how the government of Sudan needs to be stopped. Their tactics range from calling for UN intervention to conjuring memories of economic divestment in South Africa. In all of this, what you don't hear about are the people who were living Darfur. If anything, they are simply noted as a large helpless mass of "refugees" who need to "be helped." And by help, they mean receive the treatment activists proscribe.
If you talk with anarchists who have been in Darfur, you hear a different story. You hear about a revolution, and those who were there are not refugees but revolutionaries. This represents one of the fundamental differences between liberals and anarchists: liberals hope to limit the power of those who have it, while anarchists hope to empower individuals.
If you really want to help someone, you need to listen to what they're asking for. Neither of the things that you're proposing do that. The UN is a Union of *Nations*. They do not deal with individuals, and they do not acknowledge communities attempting to live in resistance to a nation. Just as in Haiti, where the UN is currently acting as an occupying counter-insurgency force -- by disarming insurgents and only acknowledging the right of The Government to have weapons, the same would hold true for UN intervention in Sudan. Sudan has authored a bogus peace agreement that says nothing about stopping genocide, much less about the simple disarmament of the janjaweed. The rebels recognize it as bullshit, but the UN does not deal with anyone but nations. If they were to move into Sudan, they'd do what they always do -- enforce the "peace agreement" authored by a "nation." In this case, it'd set Darfur up for whole-sale slaughter.
Your suspicion is correct, the UN does not have a place in this. Nor do they have a place in any conflict that's about power vs. people. But US billionaires don't either. Where do you think money raised "to benefit darfur" is going? To Darfur? What's their mailing address there, anyway? Can we get one of these donors to release the address for 'Darfur'? I'd like to send a postcard.
The money goes to these fucked up liberal groups who haven't been there, don't know arabic, haven't snuck across the border to hear what's happening from the SLA, and are stuck thinking within a context of nations. If you really want to help the rebels, make contact with them and send them money directly. They already have the connections to buy and transport weapons, and a rocket propelled grenade launcher only costs so much.
C'mon - step up.
Who here couldn't do a free day of work for a cause like Darfur?
DC
It' rather telling that you find --> this <-- funny.
You seem so eager to kill people. Are you certain there is not something terribly wrong with you?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
That you cannot help what is too weak to survive?
Its evolution baby
Does anyone remember something called "We Are the World"? Ever wonder how that turned out? Look up "USA for Africa" on Wikipedia. Seems to me that something similar will probably happen with this. Most of the money/food/medicine/etc will end up in the hands of the government cronies, and very little will help the people.
My Slashdot Journal! YAY!
Unfortunatly the UN is powerless to do anything meaningful because the major world powers do not want a precident set that can then be used against them in regards to their own internal problems.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Raising money for Sudan is fantastic and I wish everyone all the luck they can handle with this.
On the other hand, This may be one of those watershed events when our culture changes course. In this case it may signal a (very slight) shift from music being national to music being regional. If the USA or even the world can watch a concert without the musicians moving around, then all music becomes local.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
When most of the continent is ruled by dictatorial regimes, who exactly do you give money to? Aid agencies have long complained that the governments themselves are the biggest parts of the problem, and prevent them from distributing the sometimes massive amounts of aid given.
A good amount of those loans are forgiven, and the point of those loans is to invest in the country and get a return on that money spent. If they are unable to pay, they probably didn't invest very wisely.
The current methodologies in use by the west today to "nation build" are utter failures and create power vacuums that enable strongmen to take over and carve up an area into fiefdoms. I have no confidence in the US's ability to "liberate" any nation.
Is the situation completely hopeless? No I don't think so. "Microlending" appears to be quite promising. Microlending is the practice of giving out small loans to individuals or small groups of people to start small businesses. Its a "bottom up" approach as opposed to a top-down approach, and in the case of Africa it gives money directly to the people as opposed to a corrupt government that will build palaces instead of sewers. Its a new practice, and it is not going to be a silver bullet. Thus far, it seems to be working best in more stable areas like South America and India where the most basic needs are generally being met (IE no mass famine's, disease and war like there are in Africa). The practice has also been criticized because people who actually receive this money are rarely the poorest of the poor. I personally don't see the problem with that- I would rather see the money go to someone literate who is not spending all of his time just trying to survive. A stronger middle class has never as far as I know been detrimental to a country.
But WTF good will 'raising awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Sudan' do for ANYONE?
What, someone's going to feel all guilty and donate another $5 in aid that can be sent to Sudan for the gov't to either take for the military or give to the janjaweed?
All the compassion in the world doesn't help for crap unless someone is willing to man up and kill bad guys. And frankly, if you have to kill *lots* of bad guys (because, say, previous generations/governments couldn't or wouldn't come to grips with the problem), some good guys/gals/kids are going to get killed in the crossfire.
The 'enlightened' Western world has to understand this calculus and either shit or get off the pot: either quit whining about humanitarian crises or DO something about them. Because the whinging PLUS inaction just makes you look like the effete, useless busybodies you are.
-Styopa
Why was parent modded troll? All he suggested was that people are being slaughtered, and maybe they need a means to defend themselves in addition to basic supplies.
Slashdot has become the ideological embarassment of the universe. Toe the hyperleftist and/or uberconspiracy line, or be modded into oblivion. Scumbags.
Much of the time, foreign aid ends up doing little more than giving foreign aid workers the chance to live in luxury while the people they're supposed to help are starving. Sure, that's a cynical view of all of it, but the reality is that massive amounts of cash thrown at a situation rarely do anything significant to fix the problem. There are good development models that can provide long term solutions, however, those take far more time and effort than simply having a bunch of celebrities running around making statements. If you aren't careful, you can actually make the situation worse for people in the particular region you're trying to help. I'm all for international aid, my sister even has a degree in community development, but you've got to have more than just good intentions. The combinitation of unintended consequences and relief workers who see their job as a way to get rich (and you can do quite well for yourself if you work for certain agencies) can wreak all sorts of havoc.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
perhaps they should worry about people in the US first. Not to knock the sedanese but think about it. If we can get americans off the streets and into jobs, they could get a computer and a myspace account and then start browsing and makeing myspace (fox) money through adds so the monies spent wouldnt be a total loss and would turn into a gain.
I can hear the argumends against this post right now (i.e. PMC are bad, they are answerable to no one, etc) but you should keep in mind doing nothing is worse. Remember, the standard is not perfection - the standard is the alternative.
*head explodes*