Philanthropy and hypocrisy

As an Irishman leaving abroad I can only say I fucking hate Bono. All around the world people buy his bullshit and reckon he’s Ghandi come again. You can’t go out a for a pint without hearing Sunday Bloody Sunday. Drives me wild.
I notice Bono never talks about how these countries end up so indebted. Or what type of aide was supplied in exchange.
When I worked in Dublin as a cook, I knew some cooks who worked in the Clarence Hotel (owned by Paul and Dave) and they told me stories of Bono landing into the restaurant at midnight and making the whole brigade stay behind to feed him and whatever 18 year old he had on his arm. Hypocrite is right.
C'est La Craic (Email) (URL) - 16 11 08 - 15:37

As an Irishman abroad, I’m fed up with this chameleon if not at times borderline charlatan antics of this individual. I trust people are waking up to what is really behind this gent. Mixing theology with biased politics is a dangerous combo as we have known for years with the North. We need less of that in Ireland and abroad that has more to so with shrewd planned egocentricism to further ones personal goals rather then needed ideology to make a profond unselfish difference.

Being a Dub with his other cohorts he was insulated from experiencing any of this but he sure uses it to further his cause wearing it on his sleeve influencing the less informed and gullible individuals abroad who do not know whatever went on here in the guise of furthering his own personal agenda at the expense of the poor.He even admits it himself but it helps to move CDs, t shirts and fill stadiums quite well.

I was amazed at his recent lobbying being in front of fundamentalists and evangelicals being a critic of why most Christians in churches are not doing enough for Africa, even hoodwinking religious leaders in these megachurches who should be more cautious and reserved believing his false banter. His One group has taken his DATA with a whole array of professional charities as a new business monopoly on philanthropy at the expense of other hard working NGOs and religious groups as a sort of highly endorsed entity to speak de facto on behalf of global AIDS and charity issues like Africa. Some of these charities are pretty political and questionable in themselves.His work hardly emancipates and keeps the third world debt free with tokenism giving the impression its helping these dictator and nepotistic controlled regimes always in chains while herding Westerners into the same debtor slavery prison.

It’s commonly acknowledged that of the estimated $500 billion that has been poured into Africa over the last 40 years, the majority has gone no further than ruling despots who keep the money and use it to bankroll their opulent lifestyles. The only way to truly elevate the third world is to give them the tools to build the infrastructure necessary for modernization and invest heavily in water development, education and health. We need more educated immigrants in the west going home to dare to invoke change with our support, not just capital but project infrastructure support to agreed minimum standards of living.

As well, we need to educate ourselves and be more informed each and every one of us by not being influenced by those who dare to preach but are too wrapped around their own blackberrys of what they would prefer you hear relying on your lethargy.The Bonos and his ilk would prefer that.

The plan is not to elevate the third world but to lower the living standards of westerners by guilt-tripping them into financial sacrifice in the name of humanitarian disasters created by the greedy globalists themselves, in addition to a global tax at the fuel pump mandated by the imaginary specter of global warming.

No doubt Bono would also embrace the virtues of the ‘global warming’ orthodoxy elite as a bourgeoisie socialist who zoom from each scripted press conference in their air-conditioned luxury jets while preaching that the rest of us should be taking austerity measures. In that he shares this with his other neocon chums who have hijacked the meaning of fiscal responsibility with what was best about capitalism to further their own agenda aims in conservative movements.

Do you think you would see Bono being seriously critical of Washington lobbyists like AIPEC where some of his friends are for siphoning taxpayer funds in the U.S. Congress to promote their self centered agenda when those very large funds could be earmarked for greater use with good to the poor and Africa right away making a huge difference? Is their Dutch holding company set up to provide social capitalism to fund African projects rather then avoid taxes after Ireland has been generous with their tax laws to these people?

No, hell would freeze over before that occured. We don’t need this fellow in later years running for any public office election in Ireland or for Brussels to invoke his phony charade when his music career is over. Live8,G8 summits and the Red campaign have had very mixed results except for being in the public eye. Sorry, people like Bono and his entourage are way past their sell by date to be speaking in this capacity in any shape or form.

Bono and U2 can learn a lot of humility too from someone like Neil Young who has his beliefs, invokes change but does not take one cent from commercial corporate interests nor will he ever of his intellectual property in a quiet reserved manner fostering issues he believes in with dignity. Reworking his music may be by permission but your message to Neil’s chorus Bono is fairly distorted.

We need less pompous charades that don’t serve Ireland’s interests at all by lumping this fellow in with the too many crony politicians who only worry about their image and less about getting the job complete and done. There is really only good and indifference in this world and we need an awful lot less indifference.

To those of you abroad reading this, I trust you see this man and what he represents in a much different capacity as to what the media paints of him and can formulate your own opinions of his carry on in a more objective enlightened manner.
John Hedge - 23 11 08 - 19:42

HOLY SHIT.
SHUT UP.
I am only 14 yrs old and Bono is my role model, my inspiration .
You two, as Irish men, should simply be ashamed. Why waste your time writing
bad things about Bono on the internet? He is an AMAZING man and atleast hes not spending
all his money on useless shit, hes actually helping people ! if you had a heart you would
respect the man.
Tyra - 30 10 09 - 16:35

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