American oligarchs kicking Macklemore off the Ed Sheeran tour for saying "Free Palestine" is a very in-your-face illustration of why mainstream culture is so vapid and fake. This is what happens if someone stands on a large and influential platform and dissents against the imperial status quo. Their platform gets taken away. Mainstream artists in our capitalist dystopia rely on infrastructure that is owned by billionaires, and if the billionaires don't like what the artist is saying, the artist loses access to the infrastructure. In this specific case it was stadiums, but throughout modern history it has also been TV stations, movie studios, radio play, record labels, publications, etc. When the wealthy control all the major platforms, you don't get to stand on a major platform and say things the wealthy don't want you to say. Macklemore explained this very eloquently in his statement on the matter: "What I said at MetLife I have been saying on stages around the world for almost three years. So why is it an issue now? Because now I’m sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, in some of the biggest stadiums in America. At a certain level of exposure, ‘Free Palestine’ becomes too much of a risk. If I kept doing the shows, saying Free Palestine, with Ed implicitly supporting it, the crowd getting loud and showing undeniable support for Palestinian liberation, what artist might speak out next? The stage becomes resistance. Maybe that’s why this time it became so important to silence me." If you've been wondering why more artists haven't been speaking out about Gaza, this is why. They all know they'll lose their lucrative platforms if they say anything that offends the sensibilities of the plutocrats they depend on for mainstream success. If they want to remain millionaires, they need to get along with the billionaires. So they don't say anything that offends the powerful. They don't say anything critical of capitalism. They don't say anything critical of Zionism. They don't say anything critical of the western empire. They stick to churning out toothless tunes about romance and relationships, writing shallow lyrics about dancing and partying with your friends, making dopey Hollywood action flicks, and creating empty-headed sitcoms about friends getting up to hilarious antics in an imaginary universe where capitalism is working fine for everybody. If you want to be a mainstream artist in this dystopia, your vehicles for creative expression are (A) propaganda or (B) empty distraction. That's it. Nothing that edifies or helps improve the world is ever allowed past the keeper. The media-owning class wants us all to be a bunch of mindless, distracted, compliant consumers who march along to the imperial drum, so that's the only type of "art" you get to make if you want to be rich and famous. In that sense the mainstream artists of our day are actually just mercenaries for the western empire. Ed Sheeran kicked Macklemore off the tour as soon as the Zionist billionaire Robert Kraft told him to, and will replace him with an opening act who promises never to say "Free Palestine" on stage. Sheeran is essentially just a rich, soft-handed thug responsible for keeping any dissident ideas from reaching the ears of his audience, which is why he's been allowed to become as famous as he has. If it were Sheeran saying "Free Palestine", he'd be the one getting banned from stadiums. Mainstream culture is designed to keep us docile, ignorant and submissive while thinking we are free. This is the dystopia we were warned about generations ago by fiction writers describing the dark future they saw approaching. This is it. We are living in it.