Bono the Genocidal Hand Clapper
This cracked me up. Pious prat that he is.
During one concert in Ireland, Bono suddenly stopped singing, hushed his band, and waited for the hall to fall silent. Stepping into a spotlight he began to rhythmically clap his hands. "Every time I clap my hands," he intoned, "a child dies in Africa." Whereupon a voice from the audience yelled: "Well stop fooking clapping then."
Hat Tip The Conservative Pulpit
Perhaps Africa should be thankful that Bono usually has one hand occupied.
During one concert in Ireland, Bono suddenly stopped singing, hushed his band, and waited for the hall to fall silent. Stepping into a spotlight he began to rhythmically clap his hands. "Every time I clap my hands," he intoned, "a child dies in Africa." Whereupon a voice from the audience yelled: "Well stop fooking clapping then."
Hat Tip The Conservative Pulpit
Perhaps Africa should be thankful that Bono usually has one hand occupied.
posted by Trevor Loudon at
11/20/2006 03:22:00 PM
11 Comments:
Credit should be given where it is due. Trevor, you have done much more to help the children of Africa than this Bono idiot. Who does he think he is? Keep up the good work, Trev, the people of Africa are counting on you to continue highlighting their plight.
Thanks Anon. Recognition at last.
Where do you get off criticising someone who is actually helping people, as opposed to moaning about communists on a blog in New Zealand, which is how you seem to spend your time?
How is Bono helping anybody anon? All he is doing is trying to embarrass governments into ripping off their own people, to send foreign aid to Africa.
That small amount that isn't wasted, stolen or diverted to buy arms will then be given to African villagers to destroy them, just like welfare and reservationism has destroyed Australian aboriginal and American Indian societies.
If Bono was promoting real free market solutions I would applaud him.
With both hands.
Yes hilarious to see Bono demand the Irish government spend more taxes on aid, whilst U2 arranges its tax activities to avoid paying tax. Fine on it avoid tax, but the hypocrisy is galling.
Nothing like sitting on a net wealth of over $100 million and wonder why everyone else doesn't do something to help. By contrast, Bill Gates sits on many times more and invests in medical research and the like, and doesn't use one hand as Bono does.
I would assume that Jeffrey Sachs - who is an aid advocate - knows more about what is useful in helping the people of Africa to rise out of poverty than you would Trevor. It's easy to sit back and criticise aid when you aren't the one personally benefitting from it.
"Mr. Sachs of Columbia University said Mr. Shikwati was “part of a game” the conservative movement played to create an impression that Africans oppose foreign help. Although he agrees that some aid programs have failed, he said others had eradicated smallpox, slashed polio rates and started Asia’s green revolution, saving hundreds of millions of people from famine."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/us/politics/18thinktank.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&ref=africa
So Mr Sachs, who one would presume knows a thing or two about economics, as opposed to Mr Loudon, says that foreign aid ha saved hundreds of millions of people from famine. Trevor is against foreign aid. Trevor prefers those people to have died from famine.
Anon I've always been in two minds about Jeffrey Sachs. I recognize a lot of the good he has said and done, but if he is as pro foreign aid as you say he is, he needs to sort his act out out.
No-one can deny that certain infrastructure projects and public health campaigns have built waelth and saved lives.
Tat however is the small picture.
The real question is how much greater might the wealth be and how many more lives might not just have been saved but greatly enhanced, had governments got out out of the way and allowed people to benefit through a free market approach?
People like Bono, are in my opinion, highly destructive to the people they claim to champion, because they help to perpetuate the welfare/aid mentality that has done so much damage to Africa and other parts of the third world.
Pity its a hoax, though funny that actual newspapers got caught.
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bono.asp
i like to put it in the "if its not true it should be" category.
we are off to see the pious git this weekend, hopefully he just sticks to the music. i am 50/50 about their music (the wife is a die hard fan and its our anniversary), but his politics are total wank.
AL2
I don't like Bono, Bob Geldof and other celebrities who pose as Saints on a mission to help Africa. They are complete posers who don't actually give a stuff. Bono, Geldof and Co are profiting from the unfair global capitalist system that's making Africa poor in the first place. The only solution they ever talk about is giving Africa more aid. Why not look at the direct causes of the continent's problems instead?
You knew that would get a rise didn't you Cameron?
Most of Sub-Saharan Africa has had some form of socialist government since the independence wave of the '50s and '60s.
Every one of them has struggled and starved ever since.
Why not try free trade, limited constitutional government, the rule of law and free enterprise?
It's produced freedom and bounty every where else it has been tried, why should not Africa enjoy its benefits as well?
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