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June 14, 2010
Where Are All Those Altruistic Celebrities?
Posted by The MaryHunter at June 14, 2010 11:48 AM
In Hollywood, the crickets have been chirping in deafening fashion, lo these 55-plus days since the BP oil spill began. Where are our celebrities, who were so quick to jump on the bandwagons for Haiti, Darfur, and of course, Katrina? Very suspiciously MIA.
When you look at Hollywood's recent history in rallying for this kind of thing, you're left to ask why? Where are the telethons and public pleas for humanitarian assistance? [...] Is it that calling any attention to the ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf can only hurt Their One? What else could it be?
[...]
And in the Gulf, with the exception of Kevin Costner, all we've seen thus far from Hollywood are shockingly shameless A-listers covering for Obama and behaving in ways little better than price-gougers as they cravenly exploit this environmental and economic catastrophe to push their own political agendas.
By way of a wee comparison between past efforts and present pathetic ones:
According to Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy, donations to help have Haiti added up to $1.3 billion so far; Hurricane Katrina was an even bigger catalyst for altruism, commanding a whopping $5.3 billion. By contrast, the celebrity effort in the wake of the gulf oil spill has been a D-plus, B-list effort at best. [In mid-May], Lenny Kravitz, Mos Def, John Legend and others took part in Gulf Aid, a fundraising concert held in New Orleans, which producer Ben Jaffe says raised $350,000 for fishing families and wetlands restoration.
One might conclude that, if disasters happen in which there might be any hint of culpability from the government, well then they're OK to go and pitch for... unless it's not Bush 43's fault. Given this sick logic, maybe W should take one for the team and confess that it was all his doing.
The flip side is: at least the likes of Sean Penn are NOT down in the middle of the muck, screwing things up and drawing valuable gulf resources for their own rescue.
