Bono censored

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Irvine511

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and for saying a word worse than "fuck" -- "torture."

[q]Bono speaks out against torture - and gets censored

by Mary Shaw | Sep 30 2007 - 8:22am |

On September 27th, here in Philadelphia, the Liberty Medal for 2007 was awarded to Bono and his organization DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), for their work in fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa. Each year, the National Constitution Center awards the Liberty Medal to a person or persons for outstanding work in advancing the cause of liberty around the world.

While Bono's entire acceptance speech was quite good, I was particularly moved when he spoke out against the use of torture. He said, "You do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster."

Indeed. Very well put.

And I wrote those words down right after I heard them, because I was so impressed and wanted to share the wisdom.

However, two days after the event, I downloaded the official video of Bono's speech at www.libertymedal.org. And I discovered that the official video had been edited so that it no longer contains the references to torture, or other portions of the speech that apparently were not acceptable to The Powers That Be. Furthermore, the edited version seems to over-emphasize the few gratuitous positive comments that Bono made regarding the current Bush administration. (By the way, George Bush Sr. presented the award.)

Not being a conspiracy theorist, I began to question whether I had heard it all correctly the first time.

Fortunately, I discovered that Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News heard the same speech that I heard, and he wrote about it in his blog at www.attytood.com. Bunch's blog entry about Bono's speech fills in some of the gaps that are missing from the official video, including the context surrounding Bono's "monster" comment.

So, thanks to Will Bunch, here is what Bono had to say about torture:

[q]Today I read in the Economist an article reporting that over 38 percent of Americans support some type of torture in exceptional circumstances. My country? No. Your country? Tell me no. Today, when I receive this great honor, I ask you, I implore you as an Irishman who has seen some of these things close up, I ask you to remember, you do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster. Your America’s better than that.[/q]

Yes, that is exactly what I heard.

But, in the official video, all is missing except the last two sentences.

Yes, this is America, land of the free. Or so it once appeared to be.

Let's face it: When you feel you must censor the acceptance speech of a Liberty Medal recipient, something is seriously wrong.[/q]
 
I was there in Philly. The speech was amazing. At particular points during the speech especially those mentioned in the article, my section standing room went wild screaming and yelling.
I cannot believe that they censored him. I wonder what he would think and feel if he found out. When he mentioned Burma you can tell how disturbed and passionate he is about the issue.

Maybe he should give the medal back? :huh:
 
but i think either the lm people expected bono would say some stuff, or perhaps they suck at bandwidth, because it was advertised on the site before bono's speech that a clipped version of it would be posted.
 
Well if it was censored for anything other than length that's just not right. Even if it was just for length that would certainly be a coinkydink that those portions were removed. At least they did leave the last two sentences in.
 
i wish i had gone too! we'll meet up sometime soon though. :D

the lm web site would've had to censor me yelling loads of "fuck yeah bono!"s in the audience and eventually getting escorted out.
 
You can watch the 2 minute condensed version of the whole event. Obviously they had to cut something from a 12 minute speech. Or you can watch the whole thing. They didn't censor it from the whole thing.

And it was indeed an amazing speech. Even if you could have predicted the monster line and the America is an idea line.
 
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