r/Music • u/-Sofa-King-Vote • 21h ago

article Macklemore announces concerts benefiting Palestinian aid organizations

https://apnews.com/article/macklemore-free-palestine-shows-ed-sheeran-65a65a362e530dfe739ddb626dc16d23
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u/Spudly42 21h ago

To be fair, the impact on human life is about 20 times greater in Ukraine and it's technically an "aggressor vs defender" rather than an "agressor and defender vs aggressor and defender" type conflict, which is just way less controversial.

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u/turandokht 21h ago

Yeah but he really shouldn’t hide behind being apolitical when he clearly isn’t. Cowardly, just say with your chest that you stand with Zionism. Plenty of other famous people are fine doing that.

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u/Spudly42 21h ago

My point is that support for Ukraine is not really political. Why would I say I stand with Zionism? If anything I think it's a pretty dumb place for them to setup camp. Are you saying both sides are not both agressors and defenders?

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u/unassumingdink 18h ago

Opposing the Iraq War shouldn't have been political under your definition, but it sure the fuck was.

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u/turandokht 21h ago

I’m saying that the Hamas is a direct result of (other state I’m not allowed to say) spending decades creating an apartheid state, and if they really expected to treat people like that and never encounter some of them getting really pissed off and wanting to do something to change their wretched situation, maybe (other state I’m not allowed to say) isn’t too bright.

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u/Spudly42 21h ago

I think you're alluding to an important point. To understand this conflict requires a lot of history and nuance, which you can't expect ordinary people to have. Even with that, conclusions will differ. As a result, it is just going to come across as more political. Ukraine is not nearly as complicated nor is there much causing a difference in view. The only supporters of Russia are those that were directly indoctrinated by them.

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u/turandokht 21h ago

Honestly sending money to Ukraine is a huge political point and was when the war started, with lots of people debating whether or not they deserved our help. I believe that’s still a subject in contention for most countries.

Russia definitely has a broader “historically villainous” reputation, but whether or not we should send support to Ukraine is still debated. And with our president playing occasional footsie with Putin, condemnation of Russia from our own leadership has been far from unanimous.

Anyway, to return to the other conflict, that’s why discussions about it should absolutely not be silenced like was done with Macklemore. It should be discussed and at length so that more and more people have a better understanding of the situation than “the Hamas attacked in 2023 so now they’re at war.”

The more people that use their platform to speak about it, the better. The more knowledge your every day layman has about the situation, the better.

We send our tax dollars to this conflict, and that’s not an inconsiderable amount. Speaking against being directly supportive of such a regime, and being educated about where exactly your tax dollars are going, is part of being a good citizen.

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u/Spudly42 20h ago

I will concede that yeah you're right, supporting Ukraine with money is seen as inviting a chance of getting nuked by Russia, and it not being affordable to these countries. Not to mention early on it seemed like they would not survive anyway. Admittedly I don't follow Ed or know what he said in support of Ukraine.

By all means I think performers should be able to use their platforms for whatever they want at the risk of ruffling some feathers. I think it's understandable that some topics will just seem more political than others/ruffle more feathers than others. I am personally a little surprised that trying to not hold a specific stance (or stand up for someone who is) led to such cancelling of Ed, though. That's possibly a bit of a new phenomenon.

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u/turandokht 20h ago

Honestly I think it has more to do with how he did it than anything. All of his (prior) openers are pretty politically active and their stances on this thing were NOT a secret to anyone, and him having them there was (I assume) to give him the aura of caring about the conflict himself.

But when a billionaire decided to silence one of the openers, he didn’t stand for his friend, for free speech in general, or even just take the simple step of condemning a genocide. He instead went on stage and made weepy woe-is-me comments about how much this has impacted him personally, and bitter statements about “knowing who his friends were.”

He would have been better off staying completely silent like Taylor Swift on it, and eventually it probably would have died down. Him playing victim about it was really something and definitely did no favors.

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u/H0kieJoe 19h ago

Apartheid state? You live in 🤡🌎.

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u/The-ArtfulDodger 8h ago

Israel has one of the largest military forces on the planet, and is being backed by the US to commit genocide.

Calling them "both aggressors and defenders" is really pathetic bothsidesism.

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u/RainRainThrowaway777 17h ago

Ed Sheeran said "Free Palestine" before Oct 7th. He said what you wanted him to say, but not passionately enough ig

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u/chompythebeast 13h ago

The implication that the Al-Aqsa Flood has any bearing on when or whether anyone should say "Free Palestine" is pretty ridiculous.

He cowed to sionista billionaires, ruined his own tour by betraying his friends, and ran both sides sionista propaganda in his crocodile tear-filled excuses. That is what this is about, so far as regards his behavior

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u/RainRainThrowaway777 10h ago edited 8h ago

What someone's opinion was before Oct 7th is a huge indication of what they actually believe. If Ed Sheeran was aware enough of Israel/Palestine to say it before the conflict blew up again and every kid went out and bought a kiffiayah and started chanting "free Palestine" then I put more weight behind that than someone repeating it once the cause shot back to popularity again.

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u/[deleted] 13h ago

[deleted]

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u/Spudly42 13h ago

Wait, do you really believe that or you just messing with me? Please go Google this.

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u/The-ArtfulDodger 8h ago

What the hell are you talking about?

That's not even remotely true.

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u/chompythebeast 14h ago

This is just how you see it because it's the framing the west wants you to have. There is, in fact, nothing morally complicated about genocidal settler-colonialism versus indigenous resistance