Bono the "Unforgivable Liar"

I don't follow Bono very closely. Is there a shred of truth to this?

the U2 fanzine Rolling Stone

Good one, that. Though technically isn't it still more of a Sgt. Pepper 'zine?

All that said, what have Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie done that Bono hasn't?

In Caracas, Venezuela, the World Social Forum took place at the same time as the Davos conference. The WSF is a meeting of leaders and activists from around the globe, from poor nations as well as rich ones. It is dedicated to the proposition that social justice occurs only when people govern themselves. The World Social Forum is the sound of some of the world's have-nots speaking for themselves, which Bono sees as counter-productive. But today, five South American nations are run by governments that believe otherwise, while the countries where schemes like Red operate, particularly Britain and the U.S., allow their populations to grow poorer and more powerless by the day.

otm

This is a good point. Bono is ironically dubbed the, "spokesman for the poor" while that same title is unironically given to to the World Social Forum's people...

"The World Social Forum is the sound of some of the world's have-nots speaking for themselves"

Why do I doubt the people speaking there represent the world's have-nots? Organizations representing the poor and the unfortunate are usually like PETA with animals. They do all that they do in the name of animals but nobody expects PETA to nominate any animals to the top of the board or to have them make any decisions for the company.

while the countries where schemes like Red operate, particularly Britain and the U.S., allow their populations to grow poorer and more powerless by the day.

So the U.S. is a country with declining living standards now? Are people hiding their IPods from social workers?

On the other hand...do a search for "DaveM39749" on Google Groups when you have a few hours.

henry llach is a liar. his parents were both members of the kkk, and he has never met a black person on whom he did not spit. Due to his child molestation, I don't think you'll have to put up with his rantings much longer in these parts, unless they have net access in the federal prison system. I also imagine that henry will be viciously murdered, as most baby rapists are, while in custody.

"Penny Lover," anyone?

Umm, kinda, yeah? Or at least for the bottom 80% or so of the income distribution. Real wages from 1973-1997 = declined for most everyone* except the top income bracket.

(* Except women, for obvious reasons; I dunno if there's any case to be made that adding more women to the workforce just naturally lowered wages across the board.)

Also pretty key to Marsh's revulsion: Bono is hopelessly NOT AMERICAN.

ugh sorry accidentally hit submit. and that joke wasn't funny anyway

just like rock music

BINGO

Marsh is very hung up on U2 for the reasons Daddino specified, and has a hate-on for RS that makes Jim Dero seem like Anthony DeCurtis…that he has the balls to call ANY publication a fanzine, in light of writing two book-length fellations of Springsteen and supervising RRC, the Springsteen-suckfest newsletter, all while his wife worked for Jon landau, is absurd.

that book mansion on the hill by Fred Goodman suggests that Springsteen had no concerns re: social justice, until Landau and his bitch Marsh came along and started whispering in his ear…

(a)Bono is stupid
(b)Bono is incredibly clever and quite possibly evil
(c)Bono is a deluded egomaniac with a post-modern self-conscious Christ complex that needs feeding.

whether or not the above article's points are sound, it should be pointed out that Marsh is petty, vindictive and WAY up Springsteen's ass, which is relevant when he's clearly jealous of Bono on Springsteen's behalf. funnily enuff, U2 and Springsteen are pals…bruce inducted them into the RRHoF last year.

I'll admit that I do not like marsh…at a 1998 panel at SXSW, i drunkenly accused him of being Springsteen's Boswell…he responded by challenging me to a fight outside…

this may be a bit grand-standy, but I responded by laughing in his face.

...which is usually all a Marsh-hata can muster.

The anti-Marsh sections of Fred Goodman's book read like the bizarre ravings of a neighbor whose dog was run over by Dave Marsh. Goodman hilariously dismisses Marsh's characterization of Springsteen's rendition of Edwin Starr's "War" as "a bold choice" by saying, "as if no band had ever played a Motown cover before!" Um, yeah Fred, because "War" is indistinguishable from "Baby Love." Yeesh. His case for Springsteen's politcal "apathy" is based entirely on the fact that Bruce never voted in a presidential election -- as if that were a political act (um...it isn't).

What Bono is doing can hardly be called "political." Just "destructive," "wrong-headed," "fucked-up," and absolutely guaranteed to net zero results in terms of what he thinks he's fighting for. Marsh jealous of Bono? Um...well, Springsteen's politics were never about what Bono's politics are (meaning, actual action -- working with unions, for instance -- not peddling trinkets).

I haven't read the book in a long while, but that's not how I remember it at all. What I do remember is that Goodman makes a rational case, with strong evidence, that Marsh's writings on Springsteen were compromised due to self-interest, and that Marsh's Springsteen book was written (or can be interpreted) as a sort of "services rendered" history from Springsteen's management team, rather than an objective biography, while it was promoted as the latter.

And Goodman didn't write "as if no band had ever played a Motown cover before!" I forget exactly what he did write, but it was something much more nuanced.

Again, this is what I remember, and I haven't read the book in awhile. I could read it again and change my mind and find myself agreeing with you. But, honestly, I remember Goodman's writing, throughout the book, as being quite cool and rational, and hardly "bizzare rantings."

that said, the guy FREAKED out when I asked him about what Goodman said (and i should revise to say that I asked him calmly, not accusatorily). his response to someone asking him a pointed question was to challenge him a fukkin' fight…perhaps I should have countered him, but i couldn't help but laugh as he fumed.

What Bono is doing can hardly be called "political." Just "destructive," "wrong-headed," "fucked-up," and absolutely guaranteed to net zero results in terms of what he thinks he's fighting for. Marsh jealous of Bono? Um...well, Springsteen's politics were never about what Bono's politics are (meaning, actual action -- working with unions, for instance -- not peddling trinkets).

Even if what Bono does is fucked up, I don't understand how it's not political (no need for scare quotes here) in a broad sense of the term. No, he doesn't wield power -- nobody elected him or even tacitly assented to let him speak for them, not least of all the African poor -- but he does attempt to influence the people, those they elect/those who rule over them, and the policies they effect, and I can't how that's not political if, say, lobbying or "working with unions" is*. Of course, Bono is above such trifles: far as I can see, Bono works his black magic by spreading his charisma over the world like pixie dust, where in its wake communities of like-minded and right-minded people form ab nihilo and proceed to do The Right Thing.

Ha ha, anyway...there are important distinctions between Bono does and what Springsteen does, how they do it, their goals, etc. OBVIOUSLY but I don't think these distinctions necessarily render what one does political and the other not.

You can still say that Bono's approach and Springsteen approach to The World are incompatible while thinking that the Bono-sized hole in the social landscape could be and should be filled by someone more thoughtful. Unless you think that hole has to be filled by definition by somebody of Bono's vacuity -- that no do-gooder could ever reach Bono's level of influence by doing things the Springsteen way.

Never read the Goodman book and nothing I've read about it makes me think he's on the ball.

*I believe unions are good things and whatever Springsteen probably does for or with them is almost certainly a good thing, too...but in his case, what does "working with unions" entail, exactly? Financial contributions? Logistical coordination? Voicing support? Promoting legislation? Arguing a future direction? Cooking food? Handing out leaflets? Organizing? Organizing benefits? Collecting dues? Doing research? Writing? Advice? Secretarial work? The sharing of contacts? The strong and slow boring of hard boards?

I lived in New Jersey for a long time, and word circulated often of Springsteen's financial generosity toward all sorts of organizations, from low income housing for the poor to policemen's benevolent associations (I never heard a specific story about Springtseen granting money to a union, but if you told me he did, I'd believe it). The things is, Springsteen does and did these things without any press attention (benefit concerts excepted, obviously). With Springsteen being a superstar, word gets out, anyway (in Jersey, at least).

I have no idea if Dave Marsh hates Bono for being what Springsteen isn't, in the political sense (not sure I care, either). But Springsteen's approach to politics and charity are considerably different. I have no idea if Bono has ever bought a house for a low income family, but Springsteen's done that more than once. None of which negates my ambivilence toward the hype machine that has surrounded Springsteen for much of his career (which Marsh is undeniably a part of), but then again U2 has had a similar machine around them for decades, too.

I found the quote; it's, "rock bands often play covers of Motown songs..."

I will say that Goodman's book has a few moments here and there, particularly the cursory history of the MC5 and the chapter on Peter Frampton. But the premise itself is already shakey; "the collision of rock & commerce" ? We live in a capitalist society. Nothing can exist independently of commerce. Goodman approaches his subject with a great deal of naivete (ok, I don't really know how to spell that), like he's just discovered for the first time that the goals of a profit-generating industry are sometimes at odds with those of artists. Shocking!

As for Bono's work being political, he's not trying to effect any changes to the way things are run; he's naively (there's that word again) assuming that gee, capitalism has a pure heart, it's just confused sometimes. If Nike Converse had any interest in anything other than profits, they wouldn't still run sweatshops (ditto the Gap). This makes Bono look like the saint he wants to be and lets the corporations off the hook. As for AMEX, looking at the terms of the Red card, oooh, they're being REAL altruistic here:

17. CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTION

We will pay a charitable contribution quarterly in arrears directly to the Red Charity equal to 1% of each Transaction (other than Cash Withdrawals and subject to the exceptions detailed in clause 17.2) in the preceding quarter. Once you have made transactions in excess of £5,000 in a calendar year, we will also pay an additional charitable contribution quarterly in arrears directly to the Red Charity equal to 0.25% of the aggregate transactions in the corresponding quarter (other than Cash Withdrawals and subject to the exceptions detailed in clause 17.2) in excess of £5,000.

All charitable contributions paid under this clause 17 are subject to the following:

17.1) The total amount of expenditure used to calculate the quarterly charitable contributions is limited to the amount of the Credit Limit. Payment will be made direct to the Red Charity.

17.2) No charitable contribution will be payable in respect of:
17.2.1) Any interest , or fees, or the amount of any Balance Transfer
17.2.2) Any spending which, in any one month, exceeds your Credit Limit
17.2.3) Any amounts that are subsequently recredited to your Account because of refunds
17.2.4) Any month in which the minimum payment amount shown on your statement is not paid by the due date due shown for payment on the statement.

17.3) No quarterly charitable contribution will be made if the payments due from you in respect of the Account are, or have been at any time, in arrears in any month of the preceding quarter.

Plus, the 1% donation only kicks in after you spend 5000 pounds on the card.

I meant to clarify that I don't see what Bono does as political in the least; I didn't mean to imply that it is, by definition, not political.

Not exactly. The premise of his book was more complicated than that. Goodman was arguing (correctly) that rock became a prominent music genre at a time when the music business was hitting new, stratospheric levels of income that were previously unheard of (he makes the statement in his introduction that sales of albums that topped the charts for weeks in the early 60's would be considered extremely low for a major label today). And as rock found itself attached to a level of critical attention (Rolling Stone, rock critcs, et.al.) that wasn't quite as common to pop music previously, some of those journalists (canny types like Wenner, Landau and Marsh) were becoming part of the business rather than writing from outside of it objectively. I don't think Goodman was under any illusion that rock music wasn't a business.

On his 1984-85 tours he made donations to union food banks in each city they played. I believe this practice continued on subsequent tours.

thx for clarifying that

Goodman approaches his subject with a great deal of naivete (ok, I don't really know how to spell that), like he's just discovered for the first time that the goals of a profit-generating industry are sometimes at odds with those of artists.

IMO Goodman is naive abt the 60s, he really buys into the hippie myth/counterculture hype. In his defense, for anyone who lived through that era, a certain starry-eyed myopia is pretty hard to avoid. But Goodman is a veteran business reporter and while he may not want to smash the system he certainly has no illusions abt it.

17.2.4) Any month in which the minimum payment amount shown on your statement is not paid by the due date due shown for payment on the statement.

17.3) No quarterly charitable contribution will be made if the payments due from you in respect of the Account are, or have been at any time, in arrears in any month of the preceding quarter.

Plus, the 1% donation only kicks in after you spend 5000 pounds on the card.

this is sickening

right. you just heard about them from a friend, who heard about it from a friend, who heard about it from ... where, exactly?

as the amex/red thing, i'm not going to sit here and defend amex as a great charitable entity, but i would looooove to have 1 percent of every transaction on this card of theirs. so would you.

and as for bono, i'm not politically astute enough to know whether he's misguided or not. but i've got common sense enough to recognize that he's trying really fucking hard, and that puts him pretty high up in my book.

Nah, his private charitable contributions have been reported in New Jersey newspapers, particularly the Newark Star Ledger, which I read daily. The Smoking Gun website has also posted legal files pertaining to his charitable help in the past. Is that enough fact checking for you, cuz?

Obviously they are different, but I was implying that Marsh's anger might (in part) go beyond the fact that one engages with The World in an asshole way and the other does it a principled way, but also that the latter recieves a level of respect and deference for his engagement that the former doesn't.

I'm still a little puzzled by LL's definition of "the political": seems to me that it rests on the idea that something has to actively resist the status quo in order for it to be properly "political," and this strikes me as weird because it would disinclude a great many things that politicians and those they represent (or fail to) *do*.

Call me a cynic, but I half-suspect that the money Amex spends hyping their donations to charity will utlimately be more than the donations themselves, much like that infamous Philip Morris/Kraft commercial 'bout how their shipments of macaroni & cheese made Kosovar refugees happy. (I *saw* this commercial and it was even more sickening than the WSJ article suggests.)

My impression of Springsteen's charitable contributions has been that they've been largely anonymous and that were it not for the investigative reports James mentioned, almost nobody would know about them, or they'd only be known on the level of local rumor.

Face it, Bono is an impatient man who wants to see "results" within his lifetime and get widespread public attention for it. Instead of creating a workable long-term plan he's decided that capitalism is the lingua franca of the empowered so he's pretending he can latch on to it.

Apparently Bono lives in a world where many are too lazy to do this on their own. I'm shocked too. Anyway, we put the people that Bono feels he has to deal with in power. If the Dave Marshes of the world don't want Bush, Nike and American Express weilding power, they should do something about it.

but also that the latter recieves a level of respect and deference for his engagement that the former doesn't."

is the latter Bono, who gets respect and deference from the likes of Jesse Helms and Paul Wolfowitz for the past couple years? or is the latter Springsteen, who has received respect and deference from the American cultural establishment as the Great Liberal Rock Guy for two decades?

honestly, i can't tell even from the context…sorry…

Point of interest: In the late 90s, the Bank of Montreal used that very song in an advertising campaign. They didn't use the Dylan version, it was a choir singing, but, I mean, THE BANK!

Are those gym ads that use it exlusive to So. Cal then? Thought that would stir more attention than it has.

CUNGA COMPARES POOR TO ANIMALS!!! ;-)

(I Realise now it was more a sense of 'raising consciousness' etc)

But even now, most charity fundraising is aimed more at the very general public, rather than the welloff.

If Bono is aiming his efforts at the super-rich, then fine: He can play megaexpensive gigs for them as fundraisers. I would be more pissed if I liked U2 loads (as opposed to "I don't hate their music").

1. Comments have focused mostly on the Amex 1% thing, but the main push behind this thing seems to be getting compainies to use products manufactured in developing nations. One of the main thrusts behind Bono's agenda (at least before it became diluted into whatever it has become now) is Fair Trade....one of the primary causes of continued poverty. The US and other developed nations have a way of embracing globalization when it suits their bottom line, and against it when it means that textile manufacture is cheaper elsewhere.

2. UNITE HERE is an American textile union. Is it a shock that he is against compainies using foreign textiles? That a bunch of self serving, economically and politically motivated nonsense. If you're the "buy American" type, you're going to agree with the guy. But if you are more concerned with the larger world economy, basic fairness, and the alleviation of poverty, then this guy's argument holds no water.

3. The author states, "For the past several years, Bono has argued that African nations need to be relieved of their multibillion dollar debt to rich countries. Much of that debt has been erased. This has produced no tangible reduction in poverty. Bono has issued pronouncements about increased U.S. aid to Africa after every one of his meetings with George Bush and his senior officials. That increase never comes and, as detailed by an article last summer in the U2 fanzine Rolling Stone, the way what little aid there is gets dispensed makes conditions worse."

This shows a either a propensity for blatant lies or a remarkable lack of understanding. While it's far too complicated of an issue to tackle in a paragraph, anyone with even a loose understanding of the issue knows that this statement is laughably untrue.

Bono started his organization (DATA) with clear and acheivable principles: 100% Debt forgiveness (far different than debt relief) for any HIPC country, but ONLY when they adopted policies that guraranteed transparency and accountability. He correctly (in my opinion) identified this as the key problem, that once solved would lead to the others (Aids/Healthcare and Fair Trade) being addressed. In the last few years he has fallen into the trap of trying to address all of it at once, which diluted his message and his crediblity. But doubting his motivation seems a bit disengenuous.

This is one of those issues where there are good points to be made on both sides....unforunately that nonsensical screed above has nothing to add to the argument other than the typical ego-driven bullshit.

As spoken by Bruce:

"Well...there I was sitting down on the couch in my pajamas with my eldest son. He was watching TV. I was doing one of my favorite things -- I was tallying up all the money I passed up in endorsements over the years (laughter) and thinking of all the fun I could have had with it. Suddenly I hear "Uno, dos, tres, catorce!" I look up. But instead of the silhouettes of the hippie wannabes bouncing around in the iPod commercial, I see my boys!

Oh, my God! They sold out!

Now...what I know about the iPod is this: It is a device that plays music. Of course their new song sounded great, my guys are doing great, but methinks I hear the footsteps of my old tape operator Jimmy Iovine somewhere. Wily. Smart. Now, personally, I live an insanely expensive lifestyle that my wife barely tolerates. I burn money, and that calls for huge amounts of cash flow. But I also have a ludicrous image of myself that keeps me from truly cashing in. (laughter) You can see my problem. Woe is me.

So the next morning, I call up Jon Landau -- or as I refer to him, "the American Paul McGuinness" -- and I say, "Did you see that iPod thing?" And he says, "Yes." And he says, "And I hear they didn't take any money." And I said, "They didn't take any money?!" And he says, "No." I said, "Smart, wily Irish guys." (laughter) Anybody...anybody...can do an ad and take the money. But to do the ad and not take the money...that's smart. That's wily. I say, "Jon, I want you to call up Bill Gates or whoever is behind this thing and float this: A red, white, and blue iPod signed by Bruce "the Boss" Springsteen. Now remember, no matter how much money he offers, don't take it!" (laughter)

At any rate...at any rate, after that evening, for the next month or so, I hear emanating from my lovely 14-year-old son's room, day after day, down the hall calling out in a voice that has recently dropped very low: Uno, dos, tres, catorce. The correct math for rock and roll. Thank you, boys."

I'm just sayin'...

http://www.eliminatebono.com

sooooooo OTM.

Wait. No it hasn't.

Bono called Pope John Paul II "the funky pope". That is all.

I wonder…

with respect to the arguments that Dave Marsh may have resented Bono's eclipsing Springsteen as the premiere rock do-gooder, has Springsteen's association w/ Team Obama kinda redressed that? (obv, U2 are F.O.O.'s as well…)

Hmmm... I don't know, but I'm guessing that Marsh isn't necessarily THAT enthusiastic about Obama. I base this on the fact that his opinions about the Democratic Party in general seem to mirror the hard-left ideologues at Counterpunch (Alexander Cockburn and that crew). Some of those people can't see Democrats without automatically filling in their pictures with devil horns (blame it on Clinton?).

I did read something a few months back about how Marsh was going to debate Bono live on the radio -- that'd be entertaining, I'm sure.