Bono's repetitious rap on Conan

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Dreadsox said:


Bono may even be opposed to the Iraq War, my gut says he is. But I do not get that from the show.


I sort of agree...I do definitely get the anti-torture stance.

We're talking about irony, but it seems like there's quite a bit of irony in Bono singing idealistically "Love and Peace." (I mean, I hope Bono's lyrical skills haven't fallen so low that he could completely earnestly write a song with the words "where is the love" in it! :wink: )
 
LivLuvAndBootlegMusic said:
but I really don't think that was the point of what Bono was saying on Conan. I think he was trying to make a point about world hunger/Africa/the ONE campaign, not trying to make point about disagreeing w/ Bush and the war.

I just was momentarily annoyed by Jamila's post b/c she seemed to be annoyed that pro-Bush/war people were trying to twist Bono's words to fit their purposes, but then she says Bono's "one of us", like she can use Bono to fit her purposes when in reality, what Bono was saying on Conan wasn't for the purpose of a pro/anti war debate.

Ok. I misunderstood your post.
 
He's clearly anti-war, but you will never hear the B-man criticize Bush. On the Rolling Stone interview podcast, it sounds like Jann Werner actually tries to get Bono to rag on Bush, but he just won't do it.
 
Wow--this is the first thread I ever started that actually "had legs"--thanks for the deep, down, and dirty--y'all.

Now, seriously, every single one of us can claim that Bono is one of us. That's the whole point. Bono's music is the megalomaniacal and messianic magic that belongs to "all that have ears to hear."

Of course, he's like me when he's against the war, but not when he's praising Condy Rice or Billy Graham--which is enough for "the right" to claim him as theirs.

After Atlanta, I said it this way (see
http://www.interference.com/stories/id146992.html):

We're all "One," just not the same.

And of course, Bono loves to make the links and loathes the divisions he sees between us—the real and imagined trenches between right and left, fundamentalist and free thinker, soldier and protester, preacher and punk. When Bono introduced "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by saying, "America, this is your song now," I don't think he simply meant to invoke the woeful tragedies of war and hurricanes.

Rather, I think he spoke to the war within, the divisions in our country since the culture war intensified, in our school and church communities, about dogmas and social demons, over drugs and religion, in our blurred and fatigued attitudes towards the war in Iraq, in our treatment of others with whom we disagree, including those we saw in the seats at this very show. With a "tough-guy" preteen onstage with him, Bono in his "coexist" bandanna offered his prayer for the next generation, "That in order to defeat a monster, we don't become a monster."

One more addendum: that last quote seems clearly a paraphrase of another radical thinker: Friedrich Nietzsche.

He said: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Of course, I have always tried to remind myself of this in another context: when I rebel against the stagnant status quo, I do not want to become the stagnant status quo. Bono, I think, uses this as challenge for Europeans and Americans in the so-called War on Terror. In both cases, may we not become monsters. And as we intend, may it be so.
 
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