CHILDISH, BUT IRREFUTABLE
Spot the difference :
ROYAL ASCOT
GLASTONBURY (they call themselves revellers, you know)
Answer : there is none (except that, as far as I know, Ascot is not organised by a fiercely right-wing organisation whose board members promote blowing up brown people).
posted by paddington at 9:30 PM
7 Comments:
Is Glastonbury organised by Clear Channel? Where's that info from?
And, on the other hand, Ascot doesn't give £2m a year to Greenpeace, Water Aid and Oxfam, so, you know, swings and roundabouts.
Ascot got the better hats...
Sorry, digging around, found out for myself that it's through their purchase of the already less-than-above-board Mean Fiddler.
Ho hum. Life, and Glastonbury, goes on.
Swings and roundabouts - that's not only morally bankrupt, but logically as well. Are the donations to those charities to assuage the guilt arising from mass warfare ; or did the charity come first, the carpet bombs a mere concession to "the way of the world"?
Of course, that's far from being the only reason for my Glasto resentment.
Glastonbury, at this point in your life, was never likely to be something you'd go for.
Also, I think there's a difference between actually being responsible for the war, and a situation where one of the companies that supports you financially is partially bought out by a company that's supported the war. Besides anything else, what exactly should Michael Eavis have done? Cancelled the festival when the buy-out took place?
And as you well know, the charity donations did come first and I don't think an uncontrollable buy out of a company you with is a "concession" of any type.
But why single out Glastonbury? I mean, a huge chunk of British festivals and gigs are run by Mean Fiddler, the Prince gig that you're going to in a couple of months is run in conjunction with Ticketmaster, who are a pretty objectionable company at best. We're both using blogging software owned by Google who run a censored search engine in China. I'm not in favour of Glastonbury working so closely with a company of that type and with those values, of course not, but I'd be interested to know exactly what you think should have been done...
In reply to above comments:
"what exactly should Michael Eavis have done, cancelled the festival when the buy-out took place?"
Simple: Michael Eavis CBE should not have sold out to corporations at all. When it happened they lost complete touch with the original ethos of the festival. I would not expect ME to be anything other than a typical businessman, and would be very surprised if he cancelled his biggest money earner because of some debatable ethics.
"the charity donations did come first"
Er wtf, is that a joke?
“But why single out Glastonbury”
Because it is the largest festival in the UK, rather topical at the moment, and revellers in my experience seem quite vociferous in their anti-war (and to be honest anti-establishment) sentiments.
"Ticketmaster ... Google"
Don't know what it is that TicketMaster have done to upset you, and Google also runs a censored search engine in the US, Germany and France. It must obey the laws of the country it operates in, so either censor or not be available. Surely whatever Ticketmaster have done it is not as un-debatable as, amongst other things, organizing and paying for pro-war demonstrations, which CCC did.
“I'm not in favour of Glastonbury working so closely with a company of that type and with those values, of course not, but I'd be interested to know exactly what you think should have been done...”
I got the impression you were defending it. As to what should have been done, other than not selling out in the first place ... I have one suggestion; if you are anti Iraq war don’t go to Glastonbury as it is completely hypocritical.
You are actively supporting an organization that is very much pro-war, half the profit from Glasto(revenue £25m+) goes to the corporate owners (most of the people who do the work at Glasto are volunteers, lovely).
“Also, I think there's a difference between actually being responsible for the war, and a situation where one of the companies that supports you financially is partially bought out by a company that's supported the war. Besides anything else, what exactly should Michael Eavis have done? Cancelled the festival when the buy-out took place?”
Minifig, you ask these questions as if they pose difficult moral conundrums. They each have a very simple answer : Michael Eavis should have refused to have anything to do with Mean Fiddler / Clear Channel Communications, and should have cancelled the festival if it meant compromising his politics (btw – I am naively assuming his politics are vaguely leftwing). I really hope this is not a question you have an ethical difficulty trying to answer.
There is of course an economic difficulty, which the previous commenter mentioned. Michael Eavis is a businessman. He might disguise this by wearing a big, bushy beard, but he is still a businessman. By not cooperating with CCC, his profit margins would have been affected. He was faced with a choice and he chose profit. Sorry if this surprises you, but this is how capitalism works.
My comparison with Ascot was a little cheap, but it stands up under scrutiny. Even the Guardian has stopped pretending Glastonbury is anything other than a holiday camp for the middle-everything brigade (class, age, England). This year’s line-up was unusual, not in being dull, but in being SO dull, SO conformist, SO London-Lite. As someone once said, “Is this the counterculture of today? Only if the counter is at Virgin Megastores.”
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