The Tide is Turning

There is bad propaganda, and there is good propaganda. I'm listening to the good kind right now. The Live 8 concert is roaring through the speakers over my computer - Madonna's "Ray of Light." Every song has an intentional weight today. They're saying it with music. Poverty sucks. People shouldn't starve to death. Is it ironic as hell that Madonna is telling us this? You bet. But what's the alternative?
Twenty odd years ago, I was sitting in my apartment with my roommate listening to the college radio station. It was very late at night, and the DJ was obviously a little stoned (and we probably were too). He was fishing for someone to call him on the studio line - he was insisting that "somebody's getting rich off of this 'We Are The World' crap." My roommate and I looked at each other and smiled; cynical as we could be about any and all things, we believed in ending famine in Africa - Bruce Springsteen sang on the record, for crap's sake. We waited for the rant to escalate. He took some wide swipes at Michael Jackson and Huey Lewis, but he stayed away for our boy Bruce. Later that summer we watched and taped (I still have all five VHS tapes in my basement) Live Aid. We pledged our money. Later that Fall I got my T-shirt. On the back it read: "This shirt saved a life." We amused ourselves with all the ways in which a shirt might save a life, but down inside we knew we had participated. We had gotten off the fence and done something instead of just sitting in the stands and jeering.
Today they're asking again. Save a life. Feed a child. Help the world fix itself. I am especially happy to see Roger Waters coming back to play with Pink Floyd today - it was his song from the "Radio KAOS" CD that helped me integrate this into my deeply doubting mind. From "The Tide is Turning" -
I used to think the world was flat
Rarely threw my hat into the crowd
I felt I had used up my quota of yearning
Used to look in on the children at night
In the glow of their Donald Duck light
And frighten myself with the thought of my little ones burning
But oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
The tide is turning

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