Bono Partners With Monsanto?

[Rachel D.]

I've read a lot of speculation, but I haven't seen any concrete link. Is there one?

No, there isn't, yet. Bono was mentioned in the same article as Monsanto, but he never said anything about partnering with them or approving of them. I pointed this out in the first page, but everyone apparently prefers to continue freaking out for no reason instead of practicing good reading comprehension.

 

[Nick66]

I've read a lot of speculation, but I haven't seen any concrete link. Is there one?

Right now it's all speculation. When someone Tweets about it, it will become fact.

 

[Anu]

For what it's worth. It will take some time to read through and/or listen to all the links. The webzine isn't endorsing a position per se but encouraging your engagement.

Why Is Bono Endorsing Monsanto In Africa? - U2 Interference

 

[digitize]

I've yet to actually read something that Bono has said that points to any sort of endorsement of Monsanto. Am I missing something? The original article, and the one that was just linked to, just say that Bono "endorsed Monsanto" without providing a quote or any evidence that I can find.

 

[popacrobat]

I've yet to actually read something that Bono has said that points to any sort of endorsement of Monsanto. Am I missing something? The original article, and the one that was just linked to, just say that Bono "endorsed Monsanto" without providing a quote or any evidence that I can find.

Welcome to the internet.

 

[BVS]

For what it's worth. It will take some time to read through and/or listen to all the links. The webzine isn't endorsing a position per se but encouraging your engagement.

Why Is Bono Endorsing Monsanto In Africa? - U2 Interference

I was truly disappointed that interference even posted such a piece, it's based entirely on assumption, the assumption of a year old internet rumor. There is no evidence, and if there is, the article didn't back it up.

 

[mama cass]

ok this is bugging me like hell so i've had a little look around...

maybe this is what everyone's talking about, i.e. what Bono's supposedly endorsing? (if it were true, i would find it very disturbing)

Obama Leaves Monsanto in Charge of Ending Hunger in Africa

Obama Leaves Monsanto in Charge of Ending Hunger in Africa
By Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq., Political Director
Organic Consumers Association, May 23, 2012

At the Group of 8 (G8) meetings this past weekend, President Obama and the leaders of the rest of the world's richest nations abandoned their governments' previous commitments to donate $7.3 billion a year to end hunger in Africa, after disbursing only 58 percent of the total pledge of $22 billion and giving less than 6 percent in new money they pledged three years ago.

Instead, rich nations will leave the problem in the hands of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition where private corporations will invest $3 billion over 10 years -- Monsanto has committed $50 million -- beginning in three countries, Tanzania, Ghana and Ethiopia. (Human-rights activists have questioned the inclusion of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, noting that his authoritarian government has jailed dissidents and banned media access to hunger zones. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a letter to President Obama that the Ethiopian government "routinely downplays the extent of the crisis by denying journalists access to sensitive areas and censoring independent news coverage.")

The main U.S. spokesperson for the New Alliance is USAID administrator Rajiv Shah. OCA opposed Dr. Shah's appointment because of his work for the Gates Foundation and his position as a board member of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which actively promote expensive and unsustainable technologies like genetic engineering.

 

[mama cass]

ok, disturbing indeed...

Big win for agriculture: President Obama outlines new plan for global food security | ONE.org

it does indeed look like ONE is backing the "New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition" in which Monsanto is a big player

 

[mama cass]

they you go, they've got a whole fucking continent by the balls (or they're trying to at least!), imperialistic corporate twats

 

[BVS]

Thank you mama cass, you produced more evidence in two posts than this entire thread.

 

[mama cass]

Thank you mama cass, you produced more evidence in two posts than this entire thread.

no problem BVS!

now, those of us who are so inclined can

 

[Rachel D.]

...President Obama and the leaders of the rest of the world's richest nations abandoned their governments' previous commitments to donate $7.3 billion a year to end hunger in Africa, after disbursing only 58 percent of the total pledge of $22 billion and giving less than 6 percent in new money they pledged three years ago.

Instead, rich nations will leave the problem in the hands of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition where private corporations will invest $3 billion over 10 years -- Monsanto has committed $50 million -- beginning in three countries, Tanzania, Ghana and Ethiopia.

So, basically, Obama is going to let this corporate conglomeration end hunger instead of the US sending its own aid? It doesn't look like Bono is the one to be blamed. I suppose ONE has to report on it, since this is the new thing that's happening now, but that still doesn't mean that Bono personally likes Monsanto. Whatever the case may be, it doesn't sound like a good thing at all.

 

[FlyontheHorizon]

It looks like mama cass found the link between Bono and Monsanto. Or rather, a chain of links, and a tenuous one too. We still don't know whether Bono personally endorses Monsanto, as he's never spoken on it. Still sounds to me like the original article is just another written to smear Bono. Maybe he's okay with Monsanto. Maybe not. We don't know. We can see that ONE has done its research on this, so it likely knows about Monsanto here. Whatever the case may be, I'm still not convinced until I hear the name "Monsanto" out of Bono's own mouth.

That being said, I don't know the details about this "New Alliance," either. Is Monsanto playing an active role in this, as part of a committee that decides where and how the money is spent, or is it just contributing the money? Either way, it's obviously good for their PR, but beyond that, what effect will they have?

I am not a fan of this "New Alliance" mostly not necessarily because of Monsanto alone but because it smacks of a top-down approach to aid, and those tend not to be either efficient or effective. And I'm personally suspicious of USAID as well.

This is interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGRA_-_Alliance_for_a_Green_Revolution_in_Africa#Critiques
It sounds like the old Green Revolution of the 20th century. Some people are still patting themselves on the back for it, but it was far from a success and in fact more detrimental than anything else.

 

[mama cass]

i guess because B-man is pretty much the face and mouthpiece of ONE, he would be an easy target for this kind of negative press whether he was involved in the decisions behind it all or not

 

[FlyontheHorizon]

i guess because B-man is pretty much the face and mouthpiece of ONE, he would be an easy target for this kind of negative press whether he was involved in the decisions behind it all or not

That's why I'm hesitant to attach Bono's name to this all until/unless we hear more. I think of ONE as an organization that operates independently often without his input, no matter how heavily he is associated with them. But to a lot of people, ONE is Bono, as he is their public face.

I re-watched Bono's speech at the Chicago Council's Global Agriculture and Food Security Symposium (that was mentioned in the ONE article), and all he talked about was his usual stuff, about transparency and horizontal partnership rather than paternalism, yadda yadda yadda, all of which seem antithetical to Monsanto's practices. Then again, we don't know.

 

[popacrobat]

en·dorse
/enˈdôrs/
Verb
Declare one's public approval or support of.


i still don't see anything where Bono has come out and declared his approval of Monsanto. The links in the thread stating that he has are nothing more than sensational journalism/asking for hits by using bono-monsanto in the permalinks and all that stuff.

child please.

I do understand why Bono's name is dragged in all of this because of ONE, but it's still incredibly lazy and amazingly misleading to say he endorses something, when there is zero evidence of endorsement.

 

[mama cass]

but it's still incredibly lazy and amazingly misleading

that's 99.9% of "journalism" for you

 

[jeevey]

Maybe rather than arguing over whether what Bono has done equals endorsement, we can observe that his organization has promoted and facilitated Monsanto's presence in Africa on Monsanto's terms.

Bono's been clear on his feelings about the capacity of capitalism to do good. And it can. But Monsanto is a whole different ball game... Maybe we can hope that Bono really doesn't understand how cutthroat they are, and excuse his ignorance. But I don't really feel confident about that.

I'm sure he sees them as a way to inject huge amount of fast cash into Africa. And they are. But their long term objectives are anything but self sufficient food security, for individuals or nations.

 

[mama cass]

 

[mama cass]

George Monbiot is writing about it now too:

Bono can't help Africans by stealing their voice | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

 

[mama cass]

and ONE's defence of the Alliance:

New alliance as imperialism in another guise? Monbiot should know better | Global development | guardian.co.uk

 

[mama cass]

and an article on the Gates foundation investing in Monsanto

Why is the Gates foundation investing in GM giant Monsanto? | John Vidal | Global development | guardian.co.uk

 

[mama cass]

On the board of ONE:

John Doerr
Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

John Doerr joined Intel in 1974 just as they invented the famous "8080" 8 bit microprocessor. At Intel he held various engineering, marketing and management assignments, and was one of their top-ranked sales executives. In 1980 he joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and sponsored a series of investments including Compaq, Cypress, Intuit, Netscape, Lotus, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, S3, Sun Microsystems, Amazon.com, Symantec and Google.

John was the founding CEO of Silicon Compilers. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Amazon.com and Google. The privately-held company boards include Zazzle, Miasole, Bloom Energy, and Spatial Photonics. He holds patents for computer memory devices he invented as a design engineer at Monsanto.

lol, no wonder! it's a fucking joke!

 

[Zoomerang96]

At this risk of sounding like I've come here to troll, Bono is fucking shady.

I have never, ever agreed with an article written by Monbiot but he is uncomfortably on the money with this one.

Bono needs to step away and shut the living fuck up already. Let someone else deal with this, he has become a burden to the cause. If he truly is interested, and I still somehow believe his heart is in the right place, the best thing he can do is properly fund this organisation. Oh, and how about pay some fucking taxes in Ireland, too.

That's a story for another time, though.

I've really started getting back into U2's older stuff again lately (post 90's has never been my thing), but it's really hard to listen to this without thinking about what Bono does when he's not singing songs.

 

[CosmoKramer]

. Oh, and how about pay some fucking taxes in Ireland, too.

If I could legally find a way to pay less income tax, I would. In fact, I would have to believe if you asked 100 people if they would want to pay say 40% income tax or 20% income tax, 100 would go for the lower rate. I never understood the fuss over this, it's not like they are just not paying taxes, they moved their business to a lower tax country like any business would.

Do you know how much U2 has payed in taxes to Ireland over the years or given to charity, like music programs for schools?

 

[mama cass]

At this risk of sounding like I've come here to troll, Bono is fucking shady.

I have never, ever agreed with an article written by Monbiot but he is uncomfortably on the money with this one.

Bono needs to step away and shut the living fuck up already. Let someone else deal with this, he has become a burden to the cause. If he truly is interested, and I still somehow believe his heart is in the right place, the best thing he can do is properly fund this organisation. Oh, and how about pay some fucking taxes in Ireland, too.

That's a story for another time, though.

I've really started getting back into U2's older stuff again lately (post 90's has never been my thing), but it's really hard to listen to this without thinking about what Bono does when he's not singing songs.

i think Bono has done some great work, the lobbying stuff with Drop the Debt/Jubilee was fantastic, as well as the malaria/antiretroviral drug issue

i worry that he has been sucked into something different now, with all the corporate connections - he is living in a bubble, in a different world to the average person, he hangs out with all these suits and power-players, and he's now off the barricades and into the board rooms, which would be fine if he was giving them a good kicking and holding them to account instead of pallying up with them, and, at best, being a stooge for their schemes, vested interests and agendas

i believe he has good intentions and that he is just misguided rather than complicit, but that doesn't mean he's doing the right thing

 

[mama cass]

I never understood the fuss over this, it's not like they are just not paying taxes, they moved their business to a lower tax country like any business would.

like Amazon, Starbucks, Google etc. who are also facing the backlash - these aren't good times and people are getting sick of the corporations and their legal loop holes while the rest of us have no choice but to pay and get squeezed

it just looks really unfair

 

[Galeongirl]

If I could legally find a way to pay less income tax, I would. In fact, I would have to believe if you asked 100 people if they would want to pay say 40% income tax or 20% income tax, 100 would go for the lower rate. I never understood the fuss over this, it's not like they are just not paying taxes, they moved their business to a lower tax country like any business would.

Do you know how much U2 has payed in taxes to Ireland over the years or given to charity, like music programs for schools?

Yeah I never even understood this stupid debate. They still pay fuckloads of taxes in Ireland on properties and everything they do there. The ONLY thing moved to the Netherlands is the royalties, because Ireland suddenly went from no tax to 40% tax. What person would enjoy paying that much when you can do it cheaper? The band aren't idiots. They all want to make money, of course. Yet they all still pay PLENTY of Irish taxes. So what exactly is the problem?

 

[chrissybaby]

George Monbiot is writing about it now too:

Bono can't help Africans by stealing their voice | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

The comments on this article are scathing.
Bono really needs a new U2 album and the day job

That Glasgow story is nonsense though, isn't it?

 

[mama cass]

The comments on this article are scathing.
Bono really needs a new U2 album and the day job

That Glasgow story is nonsense though, isn't it?

yep, the comments are always particularly horrible whenever there's an article on Bono or Geldof on the Guardian

i thought that Glasgow story was rubbish too - i swear it was started by some comedian, and then became "fact"

all this surely must have a negative impact on the band though i would think - it comes across pretty bad... wonder what they all think...