bono: an apology
I am very very sorry that when I wrote about Bono earlier, I did not include a link to this website: Bono The Puppet (I had already heard about the book of the same name).
I still intend to write more on this issue, and more broadly on the issue of 'mainstream' activism, and the false dichotomy of "getting your hands dirty" v. "sitting back and doing nothing", as well as the question as to whether I myself comprehend the world in too binary a fashion. But for now, I give you this quotation without comment, taken from the section of the website entitled 'Why Bono?' (a section which I would point to in answer to Matthew's question "why not Jay-Z?"):
"I see an America that has rehabilitated in a way that was unimaginable to me 10 years ago. Back then the US was the neighborhood bully, inept in the foreign policy, beating up on the wrong guy everywhere. With the Joshua Tree, we were writing about Central America and the dark side of the US. Now, America looks smart and dare I say it, sexy again."
A date is not provided, but I don't think it needs to be (it might have been more understandable if it was said Clinton-era, but not much more accurate). Has there ever been a time since The Joshua Tree when to speak approvingly of US foreign policy, whilst being fully aware of what those policies entail, is not chilling? I would then ask, if we assume that Bono is not monumentally stupid or incredibly misinformed (and neither seem that likely), what does a statement like that imply about Bono's politics? Is it a mistake to assume that "left leaning lobbyists" are the people with whom a comparison ought to be drawn? The above quotation is pretty much textbook apologism. Specifically, it's from a Noam Chomsky textbook:
"Those who are still not satisfied can be offered the doctrine of "change of course," soberly invoked whenever the stance of noble intent becomes impossible to sustain. True, bad things have been done in the past for understandable reasons, but now all will be different. So our terrorist wars against the church and other deviants in Central America in the 1980s, leaving the region littered with hundreds of thousands of tortured and mutilated victims and ruining its countries perhaps beyond recovery, was really a war with the Russians. Now we will "change course" and lead the way to a bright future."
(Only marginally related, but meant for one person: I don't really understand how anyone who liked Achtung Baby / Zooropa era U2 could not like 'Thrills' off the LCD Soundsystem album. It even has an even-better-than-the-real-Adam-Clayton bassline!)
I am very very sorry that when I wrote about Bono earlier, I did not include a link to this website: Bono The Puppet (I had already heard about the book of the same name).
I still intend to write more on this issue, and more broadly on the issue of 'mainstream' activism, and the false dichotomy of "getting your hands dirty" v. "sitting back and doing nothing", as well as the question as to whether I myself comprehend the world in too binary a fashion. But for now, I give you this quotation without comment, taken from the section of the website entitled 'Why Bono?' (a section which I would point to in answer to Matthew's question "why not Jay-Z?"):
"I see an America that has rehabilitated in a way that was unimaginable to me 10 years ago. Back then the US was the neighborhood bully, inept in the foreign policy, beating up on the wrong guy everywhere. With the Joshua Tree, we were writing about Central America and the dark side of the US. Now, America looks smart and dare I say it, sexy again."
A date is not provided, but I don't think it needs to be (it might have been more understandable if it was said Clinton-era, but not much more accurate). Has there ever been a time since The Joshua Tree when to speak approvingly of US foreign policy, whilst being fully aware of what those policies entail, is not chilling? I would then ask, if we assume that Bono is not monumentally stupid or incredibly misinformed (and neither seem that likely), what does a statement like that imply about Bono's politics? Is it a mistake to assume that "left leaning lobbyists" are the people with whom a comparison ought to be drawn? The above quotation is pretty much textbook apologism. Specifically, it's from a Noam Chomsky textbook:
"Those who are still not satisfied can be offered the doctrine of "change of course," soberly invoked whenever the stance of noble intent becomes impossible to sustain. True, bad things have been done in the past for understandable reasons, but now all will be different. So our terrorist wars against the church and other deviants in Central America in the 1980s, leaving the region littered with hundreds of thousands of tortured and mutilated victims and ruining its countries perhaps beyond recovery, was really a war with the Russians. Now we will "change course" and lead the way to a bright future."
(Only marginally related, but meant for one person: I don't really understand how anyone who liked Achtung Baby / Zooropa era U2 could not like 'Thrills' off the LCD Soundsystem album. It even has an even-better-than-the-real-Adam-Clayton bassline!)
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