| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 4:52:41 PM | Ran across a website that touts the power of each person joining together to solve problems like hunger and poverty in the world as a whole.
Wondering what the sages and skillful debaters here in the C.E. forum thought...
The initiating plea is that each person give not money, but his support in a moral or spiritual manner by taking an "oath" of sorts.
“WE BELIEVE that in the best American tradition of helping others help themselves, now is the time to join with other countries in a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world overcome AIDS and extreme poverty. WE RECOGNIZE that a pact including such measures as fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption and directing additional resources for basic needs – education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans – would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the poorest countries, at a cost equal to just one percent more of the US budget. WE COMMIT ourselves - one person, one voice, one vote at a time - to make a better, safer world for all.”
www.one.org | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 5:25:33 PM | I agree Bulldog. Talk is cheap.
Hollywod is an elitist group who should only be made out as eye candy and nothing more. Half of those people aren't even very educated. There are alot of dropouts making a zillion dollars sucking face with some hot bod on the big screen. Some members of Hollywood were in the papers a few months ago supporting Fidel Castro. These are the people that brainwash the country with the reality TV and biased Media, and doesn anyone really care who Paula Abdul is sleeping with? Is it enough to make such big news? Is Michael Jackson so important that a three ring circus has been made out of his trial? These are the zsame people that would parade half naked ladies around your 12 year old daughter and fill her heads with thoughts of inadaquacies about herself. She's fat, she's ugly, she'll never be like that. Make her think that sex is it, and then we have 13 year olds having babies. We have these rappers rapping about ghettos they've never been to. Glorifying drugs violence and random sex. And we're all tuned in, it seems to see a glipse of Britney Spears' boobs. Well, now it's her growing belly.
I guess it's a good idea, but that's all I think it is, is an idea. I guess I'll have more faith in these Hollywood screw balls when I see them doing things like that. Not to discredit anything that some have done in their own times, as individuals. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 6:30:07 PM | So you don't think I should be swayed by all the "pretty people" on this advertisement pleading with me to give my voice to the problems of the world?
I really don't understand what they want from the public or how giving them my email address will solve world hunger and poverty. Seems like some kind of trick bag, huh. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 6:53:53 PM |  Well actually Holly Weed should have No Say what so ever,because The Film Industry in owned and controled by Israilly Jews,who will hatch and promote the grand plann and sit back and watch you finance it,organise it,accomplish it and then they will rush in and take all the credit for it...(-;
 Leaving all of you out in the cold feeling and looking like the fool's that you are for ever getting involved with them to begin with...
 Lest we NEVER FORGET what they did to THE USS LIBIRTY after they said TRUST US...*J* | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 6:59:46 PM | | I'm all for changing the world for the better, and having a positive attitude. But, I'm not gullible enough to believe that wishing hard enough is going to fix anything. Back in the 70's, John Lennon had the great idea, that if he started to declare that the war in Viet Nam was over, and if enough people thought it, and said it, then it would happen. Well, I don't think he was the sole reason the war ended, but maybe it did help. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 7:05:20 PM | | If you have a car stuck in the mud, and twenty people stand around discussing what is the best way to push it out, and none of them will until the rest agree with their own plan, the car stays stuck. But if someone steps up and says, lets all push, and each person leans in and finds a place to put their hands, it doesn't have to be the perfect plan, they still manage to move the car. So when I see a car stuck, and someone says "let's push", my hands find a spot on the car and I give it a good shove. Ideas don't have to agree for people to act together. This site is about helping people who suffer and die without help. I don't know how to say that is a bad thing. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 7:24:38 PM | But, they're not actually pushing the car out of the mud. They just want you to say you are thinking about it. Just like your scenario.
Wouldn't it be better to go out and feed some people, or give money to charity, or build someone a house, instead of just making a pledge to have good thoughts? | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 7:27:30 PM | | Their idea is one hand pushing, along with all the rest. It all helps, and I can do more than one thing. So I choose to help here and there and it all adds up. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 7:30:30 PM | Go for it. Couldn't hurt. My only thought was that some people might say "Hey, I pledged to have good thoughts, so I don't have to help this homeless guy eat. I already did my part."
I mean, don't most people already try to have good thoughts and do the right thing? It just feels redundant, and useless compared to actual, physical or monetary aid. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 7:43:57 PM | It's like advertising anything. Your attention span is real estate and they want to stake a claim to some part of it. People don't go out and buy a Coke every single time they see an ad for it, but over a years time they drink gallons of the stuff. And, lots of people who feel badly in general about such problems out there in the world are impulse contributors. They happen upon a pledge drive and react by pitching in. I don't think it keeps people from giving in other ways, any more than buying a pair of sneakers would make them less likely to buy a pair of jeans. It's just one more way to click on something to have an emotional experience. Let's say they only save 1,000 lives. It's still a pretty good deal for those people.
I don't think there is a down side to this one. I may be wrong. I don't think there is an upside to doing nothing. I don't think people who respond to this site were on their way to donate someplace else. I think they were looking to get laid, download songs, or buy designer cell phone covers.
But I do see your points. They make sense. They just don't tip the scales enough for me to keep my hands in my pockets. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 7:54:27 PM | Ok, I went to the sight, and they just want you to sign a petition. That petition is to raise an additional 1% of the US budget for use in AIDS and poverty measures in some countries. So, I was wrong, it's not like we won't be donating money. However, I doubt the US govt is going to raise taxes, accumulate some CA$H and give it to charity, without them knowing what, where, why and how it's being distributed. It's not a bad idea, but it's just not going to work.
Also, I was going to sign it, but then I saw that Eddie Vedder, and Bono had signed, and I hate those ****ers. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/8/2005 10:50:18 PM | I'm losing faith in these petitions, anyway. I advocate for medical marijuana, quite a bit. Maybe no one's paying attention to that.  I get alot of junk mail, though...
Random, I love that analogy. I really think it applies. Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder.
We have lots of ideas, but we need plans. We need action. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/9/2005 7:10:58 PM | So I guess the conscencious is that it is okay to sign the petition and get the "feel good" from it, but that one should also try to make a real, concrete attempt at making it better for someone, somewhere.
I agree with the notion that everyone has to "push" or the "car stays stuck in the mud".
So... is this dropping a few coins in the hand of a homeless person? Signing a check to the local food bank? Getting on a plane and going to Africa and "teaching someone to fish"? | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/9/2005 7:18:51 PM | Whatever moves you to action, is how you help out.
The other thing a signature campaign does is that it actually influences policy. It's like taking a poll. Politicinas go by those. So if a billion people bother to click and sign up, it may seem empty, but in political terms it represents a huge potential. It's how to take a poll without it being counted by party affiliation. If you get ten million signatures on a petition, you have gold.
I just keep thinking that a starving man doesn't care what your motivation is, or about your political opinions, or even what color your socks are. Anything that gets food in his belly, works.
Concrete works matter most. Abtsract campaigns are used to convince policy makers to fund concrete programs. Even a failed campaigh can succeed in other ways, from raising awareness to educating people to inspiring other solutions. Get up and do something!
Where the hell did I leave the remote? | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/9/2005 7:23:25 PM | | I ahve anotehr idea why doesn't Hollywood just take one year and donate all of their huge salaries to these starving people for one year and wipe out starvation themselves and then shut up for a while and quit bothering me. Just because your on T.V. or in a movie does not mean you should be looked up to like your Gahndi or the Dahli lama. Stick to entertaining me and leave the causes and the politics alone please. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/9/2005 7:25:41 PM | When you need help, I will be glad to tell you to shut up and quit bothering me. Please starve someplace I can't see you, and do it quietly. My show is on.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????  | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/9/2005 8:03:03 PM | | I just find it highly ironic that a group of people that has untold wealth and the power to actually take their wealth and solve the problem wants us to all join hands and and agree it's a problem. I give where I can these people can afford to give lots more than you or I. So why don't they? They have this self inflated sense of purpose that they should motivate all the little people to help all the other little people before they go out to Paris Hiltons party and drink $500.00 a bottle champagne. Facts are they probably could stop poverty with their own pocket books so why don't they if it's such a going concern? I can not stand to see someone who has a hundred times the money I do telling me how I'm a crappy person if I don't give to this or that. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/9/2005 8:12:42 PM | I can certainly see your point.
But i say... "Screw 'em!!"
I do things for my own edification and karma. Can't worry bout other people and their place on the wheel. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/9/2005 9:12:16 PM | | Maybe Hollywood actors could give a little more, but should they really be doomed to a life of only semi-luxury? I mean, what's hypocritical of them wanting Joe Schmo give a little more, if they can't enjoy the fruits of their labor (ironically ALSO paid for by Joe Schmo)? For instance, without them, I wouldn't know the true meaning of the holidays, as taught to me by the $150 million movie: The Polar Express. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/10/2005 5:03:30 PM | Below is an excerpt from the March 28th New York Times.
The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.
"These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri," says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo's father. "These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!"
Privacy experts said the sale of the list was legal and even predictable, if ghoulish.
Be careful with your info.
Just goes to show you that you can't trust people with your personal information. Must be nice to live off your daughter's death. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/11/2005 7:15:13 AM | My biggest problem with Hollywood (and not all by any stretch) in general is that many folks there equate a bad feeling with an opinion. I don't know anyone who thinks war is fun or good. We all think it is bad bad business. But some of us can see the need for war when other options are not viable. Now we can disagree all day about when to go to war or not and still agree that war is a terrible terrible thing. But when i see some folks from hollywood try and argue their position that this war is bad or to save the environment, I don't get the impression they haven't gotten much farther past the feeling that pollution is bad or war is bad.
Hollywood is consumerism run amok. Folks in hollywood have the wealth to consume far more than the average person. How much do you think it costs to heat and light a 7500 sq foot house or drive a suburban. And that energy corresponds directly to pollution. So they can feel good that they went to a rally to save the snail darter of Eastern Tennessee but in reality they don't make the connection that their consumerism is what drives pollution.
War is another issue. I see this logic from some people in Hollywood: war is bad: anyone who conducts a war is bad: George W. Bush conducts a war: George W. Bush is bad. But when asked, what about Clinton and Bosnia, the response is less conclusive. What about Korea and Vietnam? Certainly winning the war in Korea has been good for the people of South Korea (who have a $14,000 income per year on average) versus loosing the war in Vietnam (who have a $500 per capita income on average) in many ways. Were the wars terrible? But are the causes and effects a lot more complicated than: War is bad? Damn right.
I don't mind dissent. Dissent is good and necessary in our democracy. We should disagree all the time. But I don't like dissent without analysis just like I don't like assent without analysis. Democracy is scary, huh?
The last thing I'll end with is: peace without justice is tyranny. | |
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| hollywood leftist agenda or darn good idea?
Posted: 5/11/2005 7:26:48 AM | kadmus,
People don't dislike George W. because he took his country to war... it's that he lied, or "misled" if you will....he lied.
I agree with you that the issue nowadays is consumerism run amok. However, it is not just Hollywood. It is industrialised nations in general. The average household has 2.5 cars. Most people live in homes with a piece of property. The planet can't afford for everyone to have what they want. Big ass SUV's roll over and kill the people driving them, they cost more to repair, they burn more fuel, they roll over more fuel efficient vehicles and kill or injure the occupants. People want to buy them because they are marketed as vehicles for active people. I dare say that less than 10% carry 7 passengers into the mountains to go snowboarding and then into the woods to go camping. People are mindless consuming machines who do whatever the marketers want.
So maybe their needs to be a wholesale revolution back to carrying about family and friends instead of IPODS and Humvees... Up with the People | |
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