Eric Clapton helps raise $1 million for RFK Jr. campaign
Eric Clapton helped raise $1 million for Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign at a private fundraiser on Monday night, Kennedy’s campaign announced Tuesday.
Clapton and his band performed at an event, which raised a total of $2.2 million, including $1 million for Kennedy’s campaign and $1.2 million for a political action committee supporting him.
“I am deeply grateful to Eric Clapton for bringing his musical artistry and rebellious spirit to my gathering in Los Angeles last night,” Kennedy said in the press release, which described the Monday night event as a “once-in-a-lifetime musical performance.”
Kennedy’s campaign announced in late August that Clapton would perform at the private fundraiser, which reportedly offered tickets starting at $3,300, up to a maximum of $6,600.
Kennedy and Clapton have both been outspoken about their skepticism of vaccines, which has resulted in fierce blowback from the public.
In the statement Tuesday, Kennedy praised Clapton but did not mention their shared skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines.
“I sometimes think that in our divided society, it is music rather than any kind of intellectual agreement that has the most potential to bring us together again,” Kennedy said in the press release.
“Eric sings from the depths of the human condition. If he sees in me the possibility of bringing unity to our country, it is only possible because artists like him invoke a buried faith in the limitless power of human beings to overcome any obstacle,” he added.
Kennedy is one of two long-shot Democratic presidential bids to challenge incumbent President Biden for the Democratic nomination. While neither Kennedy nor author Marianne Williamson have made any significant headway against the president, Kennedy has been critical of efforts of establishment Democrats to block any serious threat to Biden’s campaign.
Eric "Keep Britain White" Clapton?
Dude's been a racist assbag longer than I've been alive.
If the horrible crap coming out of RFK Jr or Eric Clapton was previously unknown to you: they both suck pretty hard. If you're like "Oh, Tears in Heaven is so meaningful" please realize that he fucking sucks, and anyone he's giving a million dollars to also fucking sucks.
As always, it's best to separate the art from the artist. Just don't give them your money.
Partial disagreement. The artist and art, by their nature, are indelibly bound. If you can enjoy the art without benefiting a horrible person that made it, sure, but any penny or ounce of clout given to them is positive reinforcement for their being awful.
No, it's not. It's a reinforcement for their artistic talent. That's what you're paying for—their art, not their political views (unless their art expresses their political views, in which case I can't imagine you'd like their art and thus wouldn't buy it). You can support a person for one thing without supporting other aspects of their character or behavior.
As you can see from the post you quite literally can not.
Yes, you can. Watch.
You like Clapton's music, but disagree with his politics, so you buy his albums, but don't attend his fundraising performances. I can say with virtual certainty that everyone at that event agreed with his politics too. You can't say with that level of certainty that everyone who buys his music does.
Hard disagreement there. Clapton wouldn't have the money or draw for political fundraising if people ignored his racist ass and shamed him and those that support him. Giving anti-social people a microphone lets them use it to detriment of society.
Add to that that he has a history of literally expressing his views during his performance.
So, everyone who buys an Eric Clapton album is supporting his racism? Would you go and tell someone that to their face? Shame them into not doing that? Would you do the same to someone who buys a Harry Potter book these days? Hows about everyone with an iPhone, because of Apple's horrible business practices in China?
It will never end. Blaming people in this way is totally untenable as a practical way of living. I'm sure you don't actually abide by your own principles here, so what really is your point?
Well...yes. Art is produced by an artist and giving material support to awful people allows them to keep being awful. Pretending otherwise is, I think, nothing but an attempt at self-delusion to avoid cognitive dissonance. Humans are social creatures and social pressures work - look at the pressure on scabs trying to start filming despite the strikes.
For Harry Potter, in particular, there is a lot of racism, xenophobia, and other problematic stuff. So, discouraging people from giving more money to the transphobic hack who is using her influence to harm people is a good thing.
For goods produced with unethical labor standards, yeah. There's a reason that I buy tools from Lee Valley and PCBs from either OSHPark or Aisler. Who you choose to give your money to has a societal impact.
As long as there are bad actors, no, it won't end. The price of freedom and universal prosperity is eternal vigilance.
I do indeed put in the effort. Am I 100% successful? Fuck no. I'm a human and humans aren't perfect. But, I try to act in a manner that supports ethical producers of art and goods while not supporting those that are just plain awful, and think it's more than fair to expect that others should do so, if it is within their means.
Maybe, but sometimes they can't be separated. I don't listen to Eric Clapton's music because he's a racist piece of shit and I don't watch Woody Allen's movies because he's a fucking pedo.
What sucks is that Remix to Ignition is such a banger.
Hey, Woody Allen has made some terrific movies. So has Roman Polanski. I don't care anymore. I can't justify watching them and I can't justify listening to Clapton (or Michael Jackson) no matter how talented a musician he is.
It's kind of an extreme stance, are people going to stop listening to the Beatles, Pink Floyd... all these great bands that had shitty people? Can you discard Hitchcock films because he was a piece of shit? So many pieces of art were made by bad people.
You can listen to whatever you like. I'm not telling anyone what to listen to. You might re-read what I wrote.
What's the difference between a child and a bag of cocaine?
Eric Clapton would never let a bag of cocaine fall out of a window.
Of the many jokes I've heard over the years, I've forgotten most. This one, which I heard about 20 years ago, I've never forgotten, and it still hasn't gotten old.
Just like Connor Clapton.
I just woke my spouse up with my gasp, good one
Interesting. I had no idea that Eric Clapton was a moron.
Always has been. Here's his drunk on-stage rant from 1976 in Birmingham.
** Content warning: Racism and racist slurs. **
Enoch Powell was a conservative party politician running for election, incidentally.
Clapton has always been truly awful and this is completely in character for him.
This reads like a cover of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, but with messed up lyrics.
Except In The Flesh is meant to be satire.
The character, Pink, imagines himself as a fascist dictator as he struggles to keep his sanity. The whole scene echoes the power he wields over his fans and in turn how blindly they will follow him, not at all unlike Hitler and the nazi regime. It echoes his hatred for his authoritarian teacher, his overbearing mother, the war that killed his father, and his inability to cope with who he is, his stardom, his isolation, any of it.
There's a cool analysis of it here.
Clapton is just being a PoS. Brilliant musician, but a trash heap of a human.
Even though I knew about both of these things, I'm just now realizing that Pink Floyd released The Wall in 1979--three years after Clapton's rant. Suddenly I'm thinking these are not unrelated. What's more, Roger Waters himself says the idea for the album was inspired in 1977, only 1 year following.
There was a large xenophobic movement going on at the time. This forbidden site post has several points about the similarities too. There were a few others when I searched Google too. Clapton's speech spurred the creation of the "Rock Against Racism" movement. I'd say it's very possible. Definitely makes sense when you put it in the same perspective as Pink's character. Rock legend gets a little too drunk with power, and a little too drunk and high in general, uses his platform to spew out his beliefs, knowing his fans will soak it up because they love him and would do anything for him.
Ironically, Waters and Clapton played the song together back in 84!
Get 'em up against the wall ('gainst the wall)
Now there's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me
Get him up against the wall ('gainst the-)🎶
Holy crap. Fuck that dude.
It’s become more and more apparent over the years
Yeh he's always been a piece of shit.
Ah yes, Eric Clapton. The voice of unity and inspiration!
A lot of people were racist as hell in the 70s and 50 years is a long time to possibly change. I don't know anything about Clapton beyond hearing his music. He still a racist xenophobe?
He said he regretted it, he was young and stupid and he no longer holds those views.
But, a lot of people were also not racist in the 1970s.
Most of the people that weren't racist in the 70s had reasons to be not racist in the 70s. Mostly you grew up in a mixed neighborhood and had friends of other races, or your parents weren't racist. Chances are if you'd have taken 100 people who weren't racist and threw them in families in some white kkk town in Alabama to grow up, 95 of them would have been racist.
If they guy apologized ages ago for it and never said any other racist shit for 40 years I'm not going to hold it against him. I'll just hold him backing Kennedy against him. I don't know about Clapton, but I know RFK JR is a twat. Lol
I'm thinking of the UK, I'm not directly familiar woth 70's USA.
Just another reason to hate both these people
You know what they say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go with Eric Clapton and RFK Jr, go fuck yourself.
And why exactly is a British man being allowed to raise funds for an American political campaign?
Because there are no restrictions for the moneyed class.
You're a multi-millionaire and you want to hold a little $6,600-a-ticket private concert to raise a couple of millions for a fellow multi-millionaire so that he can spread his toxic ideas while running for office? Go right ahead.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
That's an awesome quote.
The Supreme Court basically ruled that money for political campaigns can now come from anyone, anywhere. Even secretly is fine.
I didn't know RFK JR needed it, considering he's being funded by the Republican party
shitbirds of a feather
Well known really good dude Eric Clapton /s
I didn't realize Clapton is a fucking moron.
he's also a racist piece of shit
🌏👨🚀🔫👨🚀 always has been
Finally know the answer to all the "If I saw you in heaven..." lyrics. No, Eric. You aren't going there.
Not gonna listen to his songs, but I'll torrent and seed his discography for this.
Honestly one of my favorite musicians from the pure music side of things. Tales of brave Ulysses is incredible and white room goes so hard.
Please do seed, as this is the least objectionable political idea I’ve ever heard from Clapton. Fuck him.
Edit: every single time, I say ballad of brave Ulysses, I don’t know why I can’t remember it
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Eric Clapton helped raise $1 million for Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign at a private fundraiser on Monday night, Kennedy’s campaign announced Tuesday.
“I am deeply grateful to Eric Clapton for bringing his musical artistry and rebellious spirit to my gathering in Los Angeles last night,” Kennedy said in the press release, which described the Monday night event as a “once-in-a-lifetime musical performance.”
Kennedy’s campaign announced in late August that Clapton would perform at the private fundraiser, which reportedly offered tickets starting at $3,300, up to a maximum of $6,600.
Kennedy and Clapton have both been outspoken about their skepticism of vaccines, which has resulted in fierce blowback from the public.
In the statement Tuesday, Kennedy praised Clapton but did not mention their shared skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines.
“I sometimes think that in our divided society, it is music rather than any kind of intellectual agreement that has the most potential to bring us together again,” Kennedy said in the press release.
The original article contains 293 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 44%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Assholes are gonna asshole, I guess.
RFK Jr is going to be a bigger spoiler this election cycle than I think most people realize. All it will take is a few percentage points.
Between RFK Jr and that clown West, and more and more polls showing that Trump is trending far better with black and hispanic voters, and this could very well be a tough one.
This is especially true since the Dems are so inept when it comes to marketing their successes and blindly focusing on pointless issues like pronouns and drag queens.
Then sprinkle in an endless stream of misinformation from bad actors on social media platforms like Reddit and Lemmy and we could be seeing a 2nd Trump term. That should be a joke, but it really isn't.