What is "yes, obviously" Alex?

[Lord Jim]

Should Celebrities Donate Money They Made Off the Gaddafi Family?

One of the problems with accepting money from powerful dictators? You don't look so good when people find out about it.

Many people in the music industry have called for heavyweights like Beyoncé and Mariah Carey to donate money they made from performances for the Gaddafi family. Naturally, this has caused some controversy for the stars.

(More on TIME.com: See Gaddafi's crazy fashion choices)

The family of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has been known to throw lavish parties with big name entertainment. In addition to Beyoncé and Mariah Carey, mega-stars such as 50 Cent, Usher, and Nelly Furtado have all banked impressive cash for playing short sets for Gaddafi's son Muatassim.

Reportedly, Carey was paid $1 million for singing at a New Year's Eve party in 2008 in St. Barts, the same amount that Furtado took home from a performance the year before. The other singers have also done shows at the request of the Gaddafis, for undisclosed amounts.

After the recent protests in Libya, which led to even wider-spread reporting of Gaddafi's well-documented brutality, rumors and accusations have circulated about which celebrities have ties with the dictator. Music agents, managers and the media are suggesting that it would be in the best interest of the stars' reputations, if not their bank accounts, to admit to accepting the money and donating the same amount to a charity.

Furtado has already led the pack with that public relations move when she tweeted, "In 2007, I received 1million$ from the Qaddafi clan to perform a 45 min. Show for guests at a hotel in Italy. I am going to donate the $".

So far there hasn't been word from Carey and the rest, on their plans for donations.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/02/sho ... z1FUz1W7vS

I'd never heard of Miss Furtado, but good on her. (Assuming she follows through.) I have a suggestion for an excellent place to donate the money; there are currently about 15,000 people a day streaming across the Libyan Tunisian border, trying to escape the violence Ghaddafi has unleashed. The groups trying to provide these folks with food, blankets, tents, medical care etc., could certainly use the help.

And the same goes for the rest of those Hollywood and music industry types. I admit I don't know what they're politics are, but I certainly wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out that they're lefty types who wax righteously indignant about things like the US support of dictators....

Shame on them, accepting money they had to know was stolen from the oppressed people of Libya.

I'd like to see a lot of public pressure put on those hypocrites to pony up.

And they ought to toss in a little extra for good measure.

[Gob]

I totally agree Jim, however I'd be more interested in this shitbag coughing!

Lord Mandelson should 'immediately' refer himself to an independent committee to investigate whether he has worked with Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi since leaving government, the Prime Minister said today. David Cameron was responding to reports that the Labour former business secretary has worked with Gaddafi's regime. Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, Labour's foreign affairs spokeswoman in the Lords, and Adam Ingram, the former Labour armed forces minister, are also suspected of being involved with the reckless dictator.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1FV2yjaE5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mandelson

[Lord Jim]

Is he one of the guys who's believed to have been involved in getting that terrorist who was supposedly dying (and still hasn't) released? The one who was behind the Lockerbee TWA bombing?

[Lord Jim]

Geez, I just followed your link and read the rest of the article....

His Lordship really is quite the scum bag:

Lord Mandelson had earlier this week launched a shameless defence of the Gaddafi family yesterday, claiming he and Tony Blair were ‘absolutely right’ to make friends with them.

The former cabinet minister even said Saif, the second son of Colonel Gaddafi, should have called him for advice on spinning a positive message before he made a bloodcurdling TV address last week.

[Gob]

Always has been Jim.

Lord Mandelson met Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son at a Corfu villa only a week before the announcement that the perpetrator of the Lockerbie bombing could be released from prison, it was revealed today.

It also emerged that the business secretary met a leading Hollywood critic of illegal filesharing at the same location just days before launching a crackdown on internet piracy.

Mandelson came under fire following his stay at the Greek property of the Rothschild family in Corfu, where he was invited as part of a wider annual gathering of influential people, according to the Financial Times

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009 ... rbie-corfu

[Gob]

The director of the London School of Economics has resigned over its links to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Sir Howard Davies said he recognised the university's reputation had "suffered" and he had to quit.

He said the decision to accept £300,000 for research from a foundation run by Col Gaddafi's son, Saif, "backfired".

The LSE council has commissioned an independent inquiry into the university's relationship with Libya and Saif Gaddafi.

It will seek to clarify the extent of the LSE's links with Libya and establish guidelines for future donations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12642636

[Scooter]

So should any companies who have been doing business with Gaddafi since the thaw in relations with Libya just as "obviously" donate the profits of those ventures to charity? I see that the pressure on these performers to give away this money is coming from within the music industry itself (as it should be). Would that corporate America had been as vocal about those of its kind that have taken Gaddafi's blood money.

[Gob]

So should any companies who have been doing business with Gaddafi since the thaw in relations with Libya just as "obviously" donate the profits of those ventures to charity?

Interesting one. I think this sort of thing can begin with populist ideas, such as the pop starts who whored their "talents" for Gadaffi's sons, giving away the cash, and spread to pressure on other corporate bodies who dealt with teh shitbag.

See above, the director of the LSE has already fallen on his sword.

[rubato]

And still more whoring for dollars:


_______________________________

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03 ... itor-group

In February 2007 Harvard professor Joseph Nye Jr., who developed the concept of "soft power," visited Libya and sipped tea for three hours with Muammar Qaddafi. Months later, he penned an elegant description of the chat for The New Republic, reporting that Qaddafi had been interested in discussing "direct democracy." Nye noted that "there is no doubt that" the Libyan autocrat "acts differently on the world stage today than he did in decades past. And the fact that he took so much time to discuss ideas—including soft power—with a visiting professor suggests that he is actively seeking a new strategy." The article struck a hopeful tone: that there was a new Qaddafi. It also noted that Nye had gone to Libya "at the invitation of the Monitor Group, a consulting company that is helping Libya open itself to the global economy."

Nye did not disclose all. He had actually traveled to Tripoli as a paid consultant of the Monitor Group (a relationship he disclosed in an email to Mother Jones), and the firm was working under a $3 million-per-year contract with Libya. Monitor, a Boston-based consulting firm with ties to the Harvard Business School, had been retained, according to internal documents obtained by a Libyan dissident group, not to promote economic development, but "to enhance the profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi." So The New Republic published an article sympathetic to Qaddafi that had been written by a prominent American intellectual paid by a firm that was being compensated by Libya to burnish the dictator's image.
... "
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yrs,
rubato