Current mood:	nerdy
Current music:	The Drowning Man - The Cure

throwing arms around yesterday
There is something really traumatizing about horses that commit suicide or jump to their death. It's like a curse or something. A curse on the Calgary Stampede. 

I want to stop being so forgiving and resilient.  I want to be more angry and hold a grudge longer.  If people can give me some tips, it may help. 

I also had to give myself a few days before ranting about G8 End Poverty concerts that happened around the world.  I know it may seem kind of cynical to constantly complain when people are trying to do good things - and I have to admit it's the first time I saw the G8 in the news so much with so much criticism.  Remember when the G8 came to Calgary? Yeesh.  So, we can have Bob Geldof implore people to party it up and get hundreds of thousands of people in stadiums getting down on the G8. 

But what's fucked about it is the whole ending poverty in Africa is that there is no word about globalization and capitalism.  I mean, the G8 aren't a eight mean white guys.  Well, they are.  But they are countries that profit from poverty and prop up dictatorships and under-development in Africa. The nature of debt and structural adjustment is that others will profit from interest rates.  It isn't some mean attitude - it's the basis of capitalism.

I guess if we can get hundreds of thousands of jocks in the stadium listening to Metallica, it might be a good start to talk about it.  My guess is that it's all forgotten.  And I ain't expecting Bono or Madonna to have succint anti-capitalist and anti-racist analysis about it.  But it reeks of Live Aid - the whities helping the blackies.  And you can see this in the images of naked African children on tv that are supposed to drive compassion and charity.  But all these images do is cement racist structures in our minds - the West as the saviors for a problem that kills Africa and allows some of us to live in Western comfort.  We absolve high consumption by going to a stupid concert thinking Brian Adams is the step for self-determination in Africa.  I find it really interesting to see how the racial images of starving Africans is posited beside the West and how it shapes our consciousness. 

And god, did anyone else want to slit their throat when Madonna dragged Birhan Woldu around the stage singing "Like a Prayer?"  Claiming it was "us" that saved her? 

I understand that these campaigns will probably be more effective because it engages so many people (although it engages them with consumption).  But when its posited with savior vs victim, posits charity over self-determination, it can be so condescending.