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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9403 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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Macklemore x Ed Sheeran concert: politics cannot be ignored

Ed Sheeran (everyone's favorite dreamy male singer) is holding a big tour across North and South America. Macklemore (everyone's favorite white rapper) got kicked out after (in an earlier concert) saying "Free Palestine", playing a song with pro-Palestine lyrics, and this:

To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide, it in no way is criticism of you...This message is for peace, love, for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality.

Ed Sheeran has defended himself, saying it was not his decision - indeed, one Robert Kraft graciously confirmed he coordinated venues to boycott Macklemore - though Sheeran also remarked he tries to avoid politics in general:

I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict...Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care. Nor does it mean I don’t support causes in my own, personal way.

There is a reason I do not use my professional platform for politics - my audience includes young people, often children, from all backgrounds. Those who come to my shows do not expect a political forum. I respect Macklemore's strength of purpose to stand up and shout for what he believes. However, there is room for multiple approaches to the same end: peace...

So far, four other performers have dropped in solidarity with Macklemore.

Interestingly, Gillette stadium which banned Macklemore is hosting Kanye West, yes, the guy who was praising Hitler a year ago (albeit later admitting mental illness).

What do you think?

First, let me address the elephant in the room: the music industry is a corrupt dumpsterfire, basically a cartel. This is what cartels do. Besides dropping his pro-Palestine friend, Sheeran must also accept Ticketmaster price-gouging attendees, limited tour dates (I overheard somewhere there used to be far more concerts), and other nonsense. He probably could just find more accomodating venues if every one wasn't owned by Live Nation.

Lots of people are discussing how politics can't be avoided, and they're right. This is an excellent case study of how the endgame of "politics" convolutes everything and makes everyone miserable. Everyone loses here: Macklemore for taking a mild pro-Palestine stance gets kicked out of venues and attacked by Palestine opposers, Sheeran for taking a pro-peace neutral stance gets his tour lineup wrecked and attacked by Palestine supporters. There is nothing these performers can do, even be completely silent, that won't get them attacked by some group.

But the other side of "every side gets you attacked" is that no side is truly best. With no obvious winning strategy, you can be truer to yourself. And as Macklemore says:

I am not a victim. Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink is not a victim. We have careers, money, opportunity, safety, and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families.

Less tyrannical cartels, more people able to say what they want and go home to their families (with careers, money, opportunity, safety, and audiences)...I can defend these by linking them to other axioms, but ultimately they just seem right to me. I think celebrities should express their politics (including neutrality), for authenticity, and moreso because they can: it widens the Overton Window as they avoid life-ruining consequences. Even Kanye and his edgy schizo-manifestations, which I (unsuprisingly) strongly disagree with, but don't hate and even sort of appreciate for some odd reason. Yes my thinking is flawed, but look, his "cancellation" gave him the Streisand effect and today he performs where even Macklemore cannot, so what is flawless?

(Also, holy shit, can news sites link to their actual sources instead of writing articles whose sole content is paraphrasing them? Credit to variety.com of all outlets, the one article I found that did, albeit in the middle.)

Two of the worst industry plants together huh. Are we expecting a false flag this time? It would be the perfect opportunity.

Macklemore is honestly one of the more independent rap success stories I can think of. He's corny but I wouldn't call him a plant

Normally I'm all for private hosts having full control of who is and isn't allowed in them like this, but most venues to my knowledge are heavily government subsidized and paid for so it seems to me they should have to follow the first amendment. Free markets are typically quite good at protecting speech and providing different options, so it's not normally an issue! Just go to a different venue to perform.

Except like most buildings, the free market doesn't exist for venues. Zoning rules restrict the ability to build competition over censorship and outright subsidies mean even when you can you're starting at a massive financial disadvantage. Markets don't, and can't, function properly when the government is literally choosing winners and losers.

Privately controlled but government protected venues is essentially then a loophole to get around constitutional rights, and it should not be allowed.

I don’t think we have ever agreed before but I posted the same thing below. Kraft though did privately fund the stadium or atleast mostly.

I don’t think the SC has ever had a great test case on free speech in stadiums. Macklemore was apparently banned from other venues too. I would love to see a test case here if he sues.

By the way Robert Kraft built a literal surveillance operation inside the Patriots' stadium that tracks criticism of Jews and Israel on social media and sends the intelligence to university campus administrations. It's just so unbelievably brazen. How much longer is everyone going to shout "antisemitism" for acknowledging what is going on here?

Stadium surveillance isn't unique to Kraft or anti-semitism/Zionism: The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine (archive).

Famously vengeful Knicks owner Jim Dolan has long spied on people at his iconic arenas. WIRED goes deep inside the operation that allegedly tracked a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more.

Last March, Dolan’s security team blocked a graphic designer from seeing a concert; the designer, years earlier, had printed and sold a half-dozen T-shirts reading “Ban Dolan.” He has locked out whole firms’ worth of lawyers, even keeping out a mom who was trying to take her 9-year-old Girl Scout to a Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall; the mom’s coworker had pissed him off.

Behind the scenes, the atmosphere is so rooted in paranoia that former Knicks players warn one another about rooms being bugged, and staffers worry about being watched when they go out to local bars.

Kraft's surveillance operation has nothing to do with stadium security, they are monitoring social media for criticism of Israel and sending intelligence to College Campuses and who knows what else. That is actually entirely unique. This is not stadium security, this is activism for a foreign country.

it widens the Overton Window

Indeed, the former Sheeran fans (just look at Reddit's opinion) are trying to prevent this. You speak as if widening the the Overton Window is good, but lots of people disagree.

Reddit used to be interesting, now even Redditors agree it's boring. Can they see that narrowing its Overton Window almost directly caused that? (Overzealous mods and corporatization are themselves narrowing the window, and ordinary Redditors at least didn't push back)

Have they ever done a mass unbanning? I haven’t tried to see if I could create an account and quit using it. I thought the Reddit IPO would get management to figure out how to boost usage.

I have long thought that stadiums and arenas are essentially government and free speech rights need to apply there. Krafts venue is the only venue that was 100% paid for with private money. So in this case I think he gets to tell Macklemore he can’t come.

Most stadium deals are something like the government spends 1 gazillion dollars building it and then leases it to the local sports team for $1 a year. To me this is government funded and hence government and speech can’t be restricted.

Now most cases where they’ve banned someone from a stadium it’s because a fan said some asshole thing to a player. And the banning have been mostly for being obnoxious versus any kind of actual purpose of free speech. But stadium deals are also obnoxious to taxpayers so I am down with limiting teams rights in their stadiums since they took taxpayer money.

I don’t believe anyone is a free speech absolutists. I hope my interests and Jewish interests align more so they limit the speech of my adversaries.

Most stadium deals are something like "the government spends 1 gazillion dollars building it and then leases it to the local sports team for $1 a year".

Source

Until the early 1950s, most professional sports stadiums were privately built. That changed in 1953 when the Boston Braves were lured to Milwaukee by a new stadium built with public money. Since then, public funding of stadiums has been the norm.

We examine the size of the subsidy and the federal tax expenditure for all professional sports stadiums newly constructed, majorly renovated, or currently under construction in the United States since the year 2000 for the four largest American sports leagues: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL). Of the 45 stadiums that fit this description, 36 of them were funded, at least in part, with federal tax expenditures in the form of tax-exempt municipal bonds. We estimate that the total tax-exempt bond principal issued to fund these stadiums [i. e., spent by municipal govts.] was approximately $13.0 billion, the present value subsidy to the bond issuers was $3.2 billion (assuming a 3 percent discount rate) or $2.6 billion (assuming a 5 percent discount rate), and the present value federal tax revenue loss was $3.7 billion (3 percent discount rate) or $3.0 billion (5 percent discount rate), with all terms in 2014 dollars. We conclude the paper with suggested reforms to reduce or eliminate this inefficient subsidy for local sports stadiums.

I would argue that the attached image is slightly more than mildly pro Palestine stance. Wage the culture war, die by the culture war. He could have gone the whole tour without mentioning Palestine on stage. It is possible. But his narcissism took precedence.

One thing that celebrities should learn is just to keep their fucking mouths shut. Which the celebrities of pre social era managed to do. He is a servant whom I pay to sing to me. I don't care what he thinks about two countries that are just a speck on the map.

For cartels - this is government job. They should break monopolies, monopsonies and vertical integration.

Politically neutral outfit for a rapper.

But his narcissism took precedence.

Disclaimer: I do not know any of the guys (presumably they are guys?) involved.

Perhaps you are right and this is all about him making a scene for the attention and press coverage.

But in the age of DJT, it is easy to forget that sometimes, famous (?) people can be motivated by something besides greed and ego. It happens.

Famous people have reach, and sometimes they decide to use that reach to transmit a message unrelated to the thing which they are famous for. It is a whole thing. My understanding is that plenty of musicians protested the Vietnam war, and this was genuinely a sign of being authentic.

Put it another way: would you also express disgust at him professing his beliefs on stage if it was about his religion, or a cause which you supported? "Can you believe the nerve of that guy, going on stage and asking for a minute of silence for the victims of 9/11? I don't give a fuck about Bush vs Osama, he should just shut the fuck up and entertain me."

I am sure the AI musicians of the future will be more to your liking -- the perfectly bland entertainment machines whose silver-grey surfaces can reflect any message equally well once the advertisement contract is signed or the focus group reports are in.

Politically neutral outfit for a rapper.

I think we've seen all we need to see here. Time to wrap up the investigation.

If Macklemore had donned black minstrel paint like he donned this Jew nose, he would have lost a lot more than the Sheeran gig. He would have been drummed out of the industry entirely. Half the country would spit when they heard his name.

The idea that Jews are getting special treatment is just dumb. Sure, compared to normal white people they are higher on the totem pole. But in America they are not the "chosen people". Blacks are.

I'm reminded of Scott's witches analogy. If Jews really controlled the world, you'd be afraid to say anything negative about them. But in the real world, people are constantly saying bad stuff about Jews. Its basically omnipresent in academia and Hollywood. If anything, Macklemore will be more popular after this stunt.

For the record, I am totally fine with Macklemore's jew nose. I'm also fine with minstrel paint. And I also recognize that Jews are responsible for a lot of the social justice stuff in the first place and deserve to be hoisted on their own petard. But also I just, like, don't care. I don't care about Israel. I don't care about Palestine. And I don't care that a talentless rapper lost his job for giving a sermon instead of doing his dancing monkey act. I care about my country and my people, not whatever this is.

Wage the culture war, die by the culture war.

These consequences aren't being delivered because he "waged culture war", celebrities wage culture war all the time. Every single day. The problem is he took a stance against Israel in a Jewish-dominated industry. Robert Kraft taking the credit for "coordinating" the boycott doesn't change what is actually going on here. The consequences are Culture War even more so than the initial statement because they will have a cooling effect on all celebrities everywhere.

Not that I care about Macklemore's opinion on anything, but I do care that these culture-producing industries are themselves waging culture war to enforce a pro-Israel consensus. These artists rely on tours to make money, if they want to make money they can't criticize Israel. That's the message, not that they can't wage Culture War. That's a bigger deal than Macklemore's statement.

Ah, it's not because he waged the culture war. It's because he waged the culture war against an enemy that had resources.

Politically neutral outfit for a rapper.

Yeah, that makes him more than pro-Palestine, and his excuse makes it worse ("A fake witches nose, wig, and beard = random costume,"). Although apparently it's from 2014 (long before the tour initially approved him). It's still annoying that zero articles I've read mention it, even the Washington Times.

Yet

One thing that celebrities should learn is just to keep their fucking mouths shut.

If everything is politics, and everything becomes politics, it will creep into their performance. Do you want celebrities to only wear boring outfits and sing boring songs? Even a love song may get in trouble with puritans, who are unpopular today, but that seems to cycle. Rather than every celebrity conforming to mediocrity, I would prefer different brands of offense, even if sometimes it leads to that.

Which the celebrities of pre social era managed to do

Not all. Punk and rock bands were very political in the "counter-culture" sense, and it made them authentic and energetic. Live Aid can be considered political, but is widely regarded as one of the best concerts of all time, with estimated 40% of the population watching.

There is subtle difference between UK band playing God Save the Queen, Black musicians releasing Straight from Compton, Germans singing winds of change and people that are neither Israeli nor Palestinian shouting free Palestine.

There is nothing in common between Macklemore and Palestinians aside from being the same species.

Second - counter culture wasn't really counter. Most of the people didn't want continuous involvement in Vietnam, very few people wanted communism to survive, only really hardcore racists and people with common sense wanted the apartheid to continue (both tiny minorities). They were pissing off The Man, but were not pissing off fellow normies. The issues that the normies cared about and were willing to show at least some resistance took a lot more time to be won. Right now some issues are toxic. Best to stay away from them.

If everything is politics,

Begging the question doesn't really prove anything, "everything is political" is their postulate, not some sort of widely agreed neutral principal.

and everything becomes politics

I think Jews have a word for using consequences of own conduct as a defense. The prototypical example is quite similar, and usually is not accepted.

One thing that celebrities should learn is just to keep their fucking mouths shut. Which the celebrities of pre social era managed to do. He is a servant whom I pay to sing to me. I don't care what he thinks about two countries that are just a speck on the map.

I want this so much. Celebrities' opinions are worth less than the median person's, their life is so different than that of the average person that any insight they have is alien and irrelevant to me.

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