Live 8 aims a bad idea

Not really.... I don't know how many people I heard talking about seeing Pink Floyd play, and not mentioning Africa at all...

If it weren't fun and entertaining, it wouldn't have been popular.

"Also, I would like to remind him that the current state of Indian Reservations is actually a complex issue that falls upon many different issues: funding, mismanagement, and political standoffishness."

These are the exact problems that make Africa a hopeless case, along with intercine warfare.

I absolutely REFUSE to agree with that. Neither case is hopleless. Both problems can and must be solved, but it will take a lot of hard work and dedication.

Everyone I talk to simply thought of it as a big concert to watch, not really as a protest vehicle.

Debt relief wouldn't help out the poor Africans anyway.

It's only the first step.

Too many African nations want the aid (cash and food) without any conditions attached. This is welfare on an international level and we can see in Canada what wonderful system that is. Africa has the natural resources and wealth enough to help itself, yet they view advice from Europe/North America as paternalistic and smacking of neo colonialism. Change has to come from within, it can't be imposed from without. And before anyone goes spouting off, I've been in Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe. I have worked for agencies that have had to deal with local authorities and it is frustrating to the nth degree.

Change cannot be imposed, this is true. However, we can do things like forgiving African debt (which continually impoverishes the region), providing humanitarian relief in areas facing famine and disease, abolish unfair trade practices, and militarily intervene in places where atrocities are being committed.
Given that in a lot of places the misery in Africa can be directly linked to Colonialism, we in the west have a responsibility to help meet this challenge.
...But if you're trying to say that all we can ultimately do is help, I'd agree with you.

The best way that we can help is to offer up solutions on how to run accountable governments, build up a sustaianable economy, and the knowledge to create a modern infrasturcture. The problem with Africa is that its current leaders have it great and don't want to be turfed. I'm pretty sure that the people straving to death in Africa aren't too concerned with the false premise of neo-colonialism.

Debt relief does nothing if we don't change what made the debt in the first place.

No, the common people don't give a rat's ass about the politics, but you have to deal with the local bureaucracy to get even the tiniest bit done. Until the leaders of these governments are removed, either by internal or external forces, nothing is going to change. The problem then remains as to who replaces them, a UN provisional gov't? HAH!! they are as corrupt and inept as the local warlords and crooks already in place.