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I'm proud of Canada.

I'm proud that Canadian nationalism is imbued with a tasty degree of cynicism and self-depreciation. That keeps us Real.

I'm proud that our government, no matter how middling, is actually taking steps to push us away from the American Majority. The American Majority is not somewhere I want to be, nor do I want their views jammed into my eye sockets by various powerful lobby groups with tentacles in all the right campaign funds and media stocks. I want to smoke pot without going to jail and I would marry another man if they weren't so damn ugly and didn't have, you know, penises. Penises freak me out.

I am not proud of Live 8. Live 8 is stupid; an orgy of self-congratulatory dick-sucking. Look at us! We're raising awareness of poverty with free buttons and white armbands that show we want to MAKE POVERTY HISTORY! We have all the best bands playing for free and our catch-phrase is "We don't want your money, we just want your voice."

Think about this. Everyone already knows that poverty exists. It's been beaten into our brains by so many public access specials and celebrity-driven fundraisers that I find it difficult to believe that anyone doesn't know about poverty by now. Maybe not everybody cares, but we all know - it's there, in the back of our minds: flies on corpses, emaciated skeletons, homeless helpless. We've got media fatigue. Potent, vivid images dull over time and empathy erodes. Ideological imprints are a dime a dozen and - SURPRISE - haven't really worked to this point. An awareness campaign at this point is stupid, very stupid and meaningless and a waste of opportunity.

Lobbying for more government aid? Please. What a backhanded, fruitless effort. Influencing the G8 summit? Live 8 just keeps the masses happy and distracted while the walls are built higher and higher.

If you really want to make poverty history, you'll take 50 or 60 of the dollars that the Western comfortables would pour down their throats in a typical night of binge drinking and *gasp* GIVE IT TO THE POOR. You would make some money off those Live 8 tickets and not use it to bolster advertising or pay the 'volunteers' or go on cocaine rampages - you would give the fucking money to the poor. That's what they need. That's what Making Poverty History is; reallocating wealth from those who don't need it to those who do.

Not stroking your own collective cock in celebration of the profound realization that people are dying right now on the other side of the world. Masturbation is fun. Cue guitar solo.

Posted by Chris at 01:49 PM >> Commentations (7)