Last night, one of the Thai television channels rebroadcast the Tsunami telethon, the one that featured a slew of celebrities answering the phones while other, more musically inclined famous folks sang a tune or two to raise money for a worthy cause.
Anything that raises money for charity is, fundamentally, a good thing. Plain and simple, no questions asked. When I was a ten year old kid, during the whole 'We are the world' phase of western culture, that brief period when the powers-that-be decided to focus attention on Ethiopia for a month or two, Marvel (Spider-Man, X-Men) Comics put out a special edition comic related to the famine, the proceeds of which went to help the starving in Africa. Marvel's main competitor, DC (Superman, Batman) Comics, did the same thing a few months later. A classic case of jumping on the bandwagon while the wheels were still rollin'. When I pointed out to my father that DC was just copying Marvel, (which made sense, 'cuz Marvel was, is and shall always be cooler, though I like DC, too) my dad basically said: "Hey, if it's for a good cause, things like that don't matter."
He was right.
Yes, it seems kind off odd to tempt people into donating money by offering them the chance to chat one-on-one with Brad Pitt or Matt Damon or Meg Ryan. It's condescending and pandering. It treats us all like star-struck juveniles.
But, like the Buckley's cough syrups ads say, it works.
The money is going (hopefully) towards a good cause. It can help save lives and ease pain. If showbiz glitz does a bit of good, I'm all for it.
I can't help but think that there's something larger at play, though, something that ties into our belief about what we can and can't control about the world we live in.
When a god-given act like a tsunami occurs, we're reminded of our vulnerabilities. Our ultimate smallness in the world suddenly becomes immense in our hearts and thoughts. We have little, if any, possibility of defending ourselves when Mother Nature decides it's time to kick a little ass.
So what can we do?
We can hop on the Net and click the mouse and send some money. We've played our part. We've contributed something to the world. It gives us puny earthlings a feeling of autonomy and direction. Our efforts have an end-point, even if it's just a sack of rice on the back of a truck, partially payed for with our rainy-day funds, and having an end-point is always an affirming thing.
The Internet gives us this access. God bless it. (I'm not sure why He didn't bless Indonesia or Thailand or Somalia, but I'll take that up with the Big Guy some day on the other side. Assuming I'm going up, of course...) It allows us a touch and a reach that was unthinkable even a decade ago.
And if you sense a 'but' coming, you're right.
Ready for it?
But...
With charity, with aid, with most of our lives, come to think of it, we're still in the hands of someone else. We still have to rely on something else. That else may be the bank that accesses our donation, or the charity that turns our piggy-back coins into something tangible. We have a role, a vital role, but it's just that -- something we put on and play with for awhile. Then it's back to our kitchen, our jobs, our lives.
The big boys (and it's still mostly boys) are the companies and the governments that control the funding, the flow, the access. The World Banks of the world. The White Houses of the world. The ones who actually build the choppers that take the food to Banda Aceh. While we sit at home and scan the progress on the Net or the tube. Waiting for Springer.
I'm not talking about the failings of democracy, or the inadequacy's of our social systems, or anything large scale like that. (Well, I guess I kind of am, but not doing a very good job of it, I'm afraid.)
I'm trying to get at something more personal and intimate, which is the fact that the Internet, the World Wide Web, whatever you want to call it, allows us a place and a space to breathe, vent, invent, collaborate, collide. It allows to do almost anything we want.
To a degree.
Spike Lee once said that all the entertainment that America watches is basically controlled by the five or six guys that own the five or six studios that produce the t.v. shows and movies we entertain ourselves to death with. Yes, yes, there's a wider variety of options, sure, and more media companies, certainly, but they are usually pieces of the bigger pie. The ultimate decisions rest on the shoulders of five or six very powerful, very profit-oriented, men, who could very easily fit into the smallest of hobbit-sized rooms.
What am I saying, you ask? I'm saying this: That the Internet allows generations of people, the young and the old and the sick and the seriously weird, to create their own world for themselves, to extend their desires around the globe and back in a series of moments, to change their lives for the better, to grasp and catch hold of ideas and concepts and people that are otherwise elusive, shadowy wisps. As Anthony Hopkins says in Alexander, the great warrior allowed men, when they were near him, to be greater than themselves. At its best, the Internet can do that, too.
But the damn thing is, like it or not, at some point in time, it still always comes down to those five or six guys in the room. They control entertainment; they control politics; they control peacekeeping. The names change, the facelifts differ in quality and texture, the suits go from brown to blue and back again, but it's basically the same five or six well-dressed dudes, the same Ward-Cleaver-in-Leave-It-To-Beaver room.
The people elect Bush and Blair and Koizumi and Martin, and they can unelect them. But once the die's cast, if Bush wants to go to war, he's going. If Blair wants to side with Bush, it's his call. What are we left to do if we don't like it? Rouse the rabble and wait for the next election.
Horrific incidents like the tsunami bring out the best in technology and people. Our ability to give without expecting anything in return is what makes us human. A person can sit in their living room and eat Doritos and flip through the latest US Weekly, the latest one, with Brad and Jen on the cover (which is probably every week, I guess, so maybe that's a bad example), and they can watch Madonna sing 'Imagine' and decide to pick up the phone, chat with Tom Selleck, donate ten bucks. This a great and empowering thing; this is a necessary thing. You gather ten, fifteen million of these Dorito-eating people together (of which I am one) and you can do a lot of good. Villages and towns can be rebuilt; schools can be put back together again, along with Humpty Dumpty's wall.
But maybe, just maybe, it's good to think about those five or six guys in the room, the ones with the real power, the true reach, the ones who listen to our voices, and then do what they want to do, regardless.
That scares me, because we can't all fit in the room. We can't all shove our way through the door, though many of us try. We push them in, those five or six guys (at least in democracies) , and we take them out, but we can't hear what they're saying, once the blinds are drawn and the door is shut. All we can do is go back out into the world and do our best, regardless. We have our telethons, and we donate our time, and we do what we can to make the world keep ticking.
And it's up to us to prod that door open, when given the chance. Hoping, of course, in our naive and human way, that the next five or six guys that we push in the room are better than the last.
