Bono at the Tory Party Conference

[tempelton1]

Here's a little satirical rant I did about Bono - a fellow country man of mine - appearing at the Tory Party Conference last week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qi_3CRqP4Y
(nsfw - please rate)

To some degree I do understand his pragmatic reasoning as to why to appear at the conference (trying to sidle up alongside the next inevitable government over the issue of overseas aid). However, sidling up alongside war criminals (in the past) in order to advance a humanitarian agenda has already been an hypocrisy too far - I suppose we shouldn't be surprised he is now sidling up alongside Lord Bullingdon either. It seems there is nobody that the obviously conservative-by-nature Bono won't do business with. I wonder would there ever be a leader he would actually oppose, rather than schmooze and compliment?

Then there is his tax exile hypocrisy (something that certainly has got the back up of my fellow Irish charity sector colleagues), his undoubted admiration for the anti-semite scumbag Billy Graham and his dubious investing in Forbes Magazine (rather than in a progressive publication, such as The Nation) to consider. The dossier on Bono is, of course, not without caveats and to deny that he has done some good work would be unfair. Perhaps his approach is the correct one (although, I am dubious - no real change in the world has ever come by begging governments for help via the medium of endless compliments and predictable speeches, but rather by building alternative narratives and movements of change). But the cost of his approach has been to give cultural cover and legitimacy to those who have perpetrated the Iraq war, amongst other crimes. That is the choice he has made.

It all is certainly enough to lead me towards a definite distaste for the hair-plug-wearing one.

(p.s. I grew up near Bono and know people he knows - I am assured, those are hair plugs!)

[oldironside]

1. I´m a great believer that....

... you can judge a man by the company he keeps.