SOME have reportedly accepted payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to show up and even perform at the private parties of superrich despots. The musicians Mariah Carey, Nelly Furtado, Usher and Beyoncé (a pitchwoman over time for L’Oréal, Armani, Nintendo, Pepsi) sang for members of the Qaddafi family. Will they be warbling at the funeral? Hilary Swank and Jean-Claude Van Damme attended the 35th-birthday bash for the Chechen tyrant Ramzan Kadyrov. This was not the outgrowth of a long, deep friendship.

Let’s hope these entertainers steer clear of Zuccotti Park, but you never know. Performers do love their political pronouncements, even though they view the world from a vantage point as skewed and cloistered in its way as a Fortune 500 chief executive’s. There are many causes that want for notice and can benefit mightily from celebrity interventions.

Occupy Wall Street isn’t one of them, at least not at this point. It’s running strong, with ample news media attention. Entertainers who raise its banner may get some self-promotion and ego inflation from the effort, but they do the protest questionable good. And protesters would be wise to keep all that glitters — including the gold chain that was on Kanye West’s neck — at arm’s length.