Contact Us Advertising Information Online exclusives Cover Story Buzz Feature In Case You Missed It Vote 2009 Boulderganic Fall 2009 Student Guide 2009 Boulder Weekly Sweet 16 Anniversary Boulderganic 2009 Summer Scene 2009 Email Newsletter Legal Services Best of Boulder 2009 Annual Manual 2009 Newspaper of the Future Kids Camp Guide 2009 Wedding Marketplace 09 Jobs available Student Guide 2008 Best of Boulder 2008 Annual Manual 2008 Join Our Mailing List
|
May 15-21 2008
editorial@boulderweekly.com
See letters
An epitaph for activism
by Ben Corbett
Let us bow in praise to activist celebrities — those all-knowing martyrs of the American melodrama, forever guiding the aimless masses with their acute political observations and personal reflections. For instance, left-wing radical Sheryl Crow, who recently informed us: “I feel frighteningly awake right now.” Sheryl made this statement during a CNN interview about her new album, Detours, an anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-corporate diatribe of epic proportions. According to Crow, her new single, “Shine Over Babylon,” is “environmentally conscious in the tradition of Bob Dylan.” What’s more, a whopping $1 of each ticket sold in her upcoming tour will be donated to the UN World Food Bank. Further, Crow and tour mate James Blunt will provide fans with means “to neutralize pollution from your drive to and from the show.”
Perhaps Crow would do more to save the planet by just staying home. During the Live Earth Concerts last year, an independent study found that the carbon footprint left by the event was so huge that it actually negated any positive results the performances may have had. Concerts suck massive amounts of energy. Besides the clouds of pollution caused by fan, employee, and public safety transportation, there is coal and oil-fired electricity consumption, superfluous water usage, not to mention the energy consumed and residual toxic byproducts caused by souvenir production. We can forgive Crow her fashionably late arrival to the “I’m suddenly concerned about humanity” celebrity pageant. But her commercial approach as planetary savior is nothing more than showboating that caters to your average bumper-sticker activist, ready to jump on the cathartic bandwagon and buy the product, in the process destroying what he or she aims to save. “Going Green” is Sheryl Crow’s new gimmick. A real moneymaker these days. (If you’re into irony, check out her website, www.sherylcrow.com, where right above a “Stop Global Warming” banner ad sits a weblink to her exclusive Wal-Mart Soundcheck performance).
Which reminds me of an interview I once did with Rob Zombie. “Music is a business,” he said, “and the people running it want to make money. As soon as you don’t make them money, they don’t want to know you exist. It’s about as simple as that.” He went on to explain that all musicians have some hook to sell records. “Even Pearl Jam,” said Zombie with a laugh. “Their gimmick is they have no gimmick.”
Last year at the Pearl Jam concert, walking into the Pepsi Center, this young hippie girl came straight toward me, clipboard in hand, that zealous gleam of accomplishment in her eye, asking me to sign her petition for some global warming cause which would instantly get me on the mailing list. I felt like bursting her bubble, telling her that her initiative was worthless and nothing short of armed revolution (or at the very least violent demonstrations) would change anything. But instead I walked away, leaving her to her fantasy. The people behind me signed gleefully, as did those behind them.
This is activism today. Donate money. Sign clipboards. Make yourself feel good. Sleep easy. In the late ’80s, long before the advent of the Greenpeace Visa card (where for every dollar you spend, a couple pennies go to the cause), the organization was capturing headlines with their daring exploits, blocking offshore fishing trawlers and Japanese whalers. Righteous stuff. I was in my late teens, and one day, figuring I found my calling, I scribbled out a hand-written letter to their headquarters, offering my services in whatever capacity. In response, I received an envelope with some stickers inside and a contribution form. This was Greenpeace’s big transition from grassroots to professional activism. Today they’re simply a lobbyist firm in Washington. Playing the game, achieving nothing.
Back in 1994, the same year Sheryl Crow’s song “All I Wanna Do (Is Have Some Fun)” was a smash hit on the American airwaves, CU-Boulder cut the ribbon for its Dalton Trumbo Free Speech Fountain. A group of good friends (all of us students at the time) decided to baptize the monument by burning an American flag to protest war, government oppression, globalization — you name it. It was a hell of an affair. Some ROTC muscleheads showed up to kick some ass, and it almost got physical. But the flag got burned, free speech got accomplished, and it was real. This kind of stuff was a weekly event. Today, activism takes place in the form of social networking and even MTV is cashing in with Think MTV, the Viacom network’s answer to MySpace but with a political edge. In the end, MTV’s move amounts to nothing more than watered-down, feel-good rationalism in the same vein as the product Sheryl Crow is selling. Suddenly activism is hip. Easy. Sexy. No risk involved. Traditionally, it has always been college-aged youths that have demanded change, and they did it with action, with their fists, setting themselves on fire, throwing rocks, protesting. Not cyber chatter. But those days are over. Everyone has gone to sleep.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
back to top
|
| |
