GVOX, LemonMelon, EXCELLENT posts!
Aygo, let 75% of people you talk to or people in forums like these only for international politics all disagree with Bono as a political actor or think its stupid. Who cares? The facts: One, DATA, Red are all effective and have contributed greatly to the fight against global disease and extreme poverty. I get emails from ONE petitioning me to support some piece of common sense, non controversial bipartisan piece of legislation that merely needs the assurances that people care about and are behind our leaderson this issue. The amounts, in the grand scheme of our federal budget ,are truly crumbs from our table. In fact, its common this or that legislation on education or access to clean water in Africa involves about $15 million in a federal budget of more than 3 trillion. All of these petitions come back about a week later with a thank you and an update on how the legislation sailed through and was signed by the President.
As a result of Red, money we spend is going directly to the Global fund set up to deal with disease and extreme poverty. DATA has been lobbying governments and explaining the issues to people. Many, many politicians, including Presidents, most notably Clinton and current Bush have talked about their prior level of support and interest in the issue being greatly increased after having consulted with and heard Bono's arguments, both practical and moral.
Jesse Helms supported almost no foreign aid, and certainly none that benefited AIDS victims. We could go on, Tony Blair, Paul Martin, many other world leaders have met with Bono and come away convinced that this was a practical and moral expenditure of public funds that had the support of citizens of many nations. These are the people that actually control where all of this money we throw around goes attesting to Bono's effectiveness as a world leader. What holds more sway, them or people in "forums?"
Bono has earned his status as a world leader. Many objective observers, experts in their respective fields, have testified to the fact that Bono knows as much about health policy as a drug researcher, as much about international trade and finance as a finance minister, as much about budgets as a senior congressional official, etc. He does his homework, gets educated on the issues and uses that education to further his agenda. He does not come in and say "hey, I am a rock star so you should listen to me on this," he does it on the power of his own arguments and his own merit. Bono uses his fame to gain access to world leaders, but it is his knowledge combined with his passion and commitment to the causes he believes in that ultimately influences their decision making.
The bailout example is perfect: Bono had the most coherent statement on that yet to come out of anyone in a position of authority!! Yes, Chris Dodd is doing a great job of not accepting a blank, unaccountable check, but he has not brought up what is fundamentally wrong from an economic and moral standpoint with giving $700 billion of taxpayer money to very wealthy people who, for a lack of a better term, are getting it because they f**ed up so bad! Anyone who thinks the American economy can not live without adding 700 billion to our national debt to take on bad debt that will never become profitable needs to get in touch with me about selling them the Brooklyn Bridge. The bigger risk is putting all this on the credit card; the smaller risk is a few more banks fail due to mortgage defaults that are already happening. Less of 2 evils is let them fail, but I digress.
Once again, the people you talk to can think whatever they want about Bono as politician, whether its a good thing or not, takes away from music or not, trivializes the issue, etc but the OBJECTIVE FACTS prove them wrong. The work Bono is doing has had an enormous impact on the positive actions taken by world leaders against AIDS/Poverty from Clinton's debt relief to the creation of the global fund to the G8 commitments to the One campaign. Bono's activism, DATA, ONE and RED have all been incredibly succesful- regardless of what some(many of whom have their own agendas and resent being overshadowed by a celebrity who is also a capitalist) would like to believe.
