Sir Bono: the Knight Who Fled From His Own Debate

[Chimerical]

Wow, that's quite an assumption you're making seeing as all I stated was common sense. I'm flattered, really, but you do me too much credit.

More grammar fail.

 

[platypus]

Bono is a ****.

 

[Von Smallhausen]

I like U2 as a band but Bono is amongst the most pretencious [EXPLETIVE] on earth.

 

[fez]

He parades around with a holier than thou attitude and plasters his face anywhere that there is injustice. There are loads and loads of rich people who do much more for charity that Bono does but they have the decency not to shove their own face all over it.

When you put yourself up on a pedistal and proclaim to be gods gift to charity then you have got to do everything right and even if you do everything right you will still have people hating you.

I think I dislike him because U2 seem to be a worldwide superband yet have very few fantastic songs to speak of and then his charity work just irks me. Always seems that he is more worried about getting associated with these charities than the charity itself.

 

[Skull]

aye, but it's easier to give a £1000 when you have £1,000,000 than it is to give £10 when you have £100, relativity and all that.

£1000 of £1,000,000 is 0.1%... £10 of £100 is 10% so it's hardly comparable... I doubt you'd say giving 10 pence when you have £100 is harder...

I hope you're not trying to justify not donating.

 

[vincent1989]

£1000 of £1,000,000 is 0.1%... £10 of £100 is 10% so it's hardly comparable... I doubt you'd say giving 10 pence when you have £100 is harder...

I hope you're not trying to justify not donating.

edit: i'm not even going to bother.


congratulations, you can do mathematics, well done on ignoring my answer to a comment on my statement in the same vein as yours.

 

[jas72]

easy for an unknown to critise someone who has without a doubt raised millions for the world's poor.

Also

Bono also carries into each project his off-stage political pronouncements, and his fawning affiliations with war criminals such as Tony Blair and George W. Bush.

Yes the only war criminal statement YAWN

Stopped reading at that.

 

[Secret_Window]

Wow, some of the comments here are very amusing. I like the way some people refer to U2's music as "Bono's music" and how U2 have very few fantastic songs as if it were FACT - oh how very uninformed you are. Some of you really don't know what the hell you are talking about.

Why is there so much hate on a person who is using their celebrity power for something good? Yet the likes of other celebrity ***s parading themselves in the public eye for pointless stuff like beating someone to a pulp is ok but Bono is still a ****?

You think because Bono has been with the likes of Tony Blair and George Bush he is their 'friend'. But, you fail to know what his band and he himself has agonised over about having to go meet with them...

You think because he wears sunglasses he has this "up himself attitude" but you don't realise he wears them for a medical condition for his eyes...

You think because he is seen everywhere in the news is because he puts himself there for ego trips? yet fail to realise the paparazzi could just be following him around?

It would seem the general consensus of people who call Bono a **** are the ones who actually know very little about him. It seems they just go by what they read in the Sun. But Bono is still a ****, even though he's probably a better role model than many other celebrities...

What am I doing trying to tell you otherwise? You're all quite happy to make assumptions based on what you read in the paper or what you've heard from other people. It's all pretty hillarious.

 

[RDM]

Why is there so much hate on a person who is using their celebrity power for something good? Yet the likes of other celebrity ***s parading themselves in the public eye for pointless stuff like beating someone to a pulp is ok but Bono is still a ****?

To be honest I hold pretty much the same opinion of all celebrity culture. It is a waste of airtime and a waste of paper. I don't overly like U2s music so can pretty much ignore them. Even if I did like his music it wouldn't make me pay any attention to the other stuff he says. I find the whole celebrity culture thing pretty tiresome.

 

[Secret_Window]

I don't like constantly hearing and seeing celebrity news either. But Bono is constantly projected as an ass by the media for the wrong reasons. I think it's actually because he is easy to make fun of, while at the same time being hard for them to find him doing anything remotely bad. So, they have to twist his words, mis-quote him, photograph him with MPs as if it were a nice social friendship gathering - just generally make things seem worse than they are because you won't find Bono taking drugs, beating people up etc like other celebrities...

 

[slylittlefox]

Bono has received 3 nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize, and was knighted in 2007."

WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!

I'm gonna go away and reevaluate my life as a result of that post. The mind boggles, it really does.

He's an absolute runt. A big fat truckin runt.

 

[Secret_Window]

Big LOLs at you.

 

[samat2001]

Wow, some of the comments here are very amusing. I like the way some people refer to U2's music as "Bono's music" and how U2 have very few fantastic songs as if it were FACT - oh how very uninformed you are. Some of you really don't know what the hell you are talking about.

Why is there so much hate on a person who is using their celebrity power for something good? Yet the likes of other celebrity ***s parading themselves in the public eye for pointless stuff like beating someone to a pulp is ok but Bono is still a ****?

You think because Bono has been with the likes of Tony Blair and George Bush he is their 'friend'. But, you fail to know what his band and he himself has agonised over about having to go meet with them...

You think because he wears sunglasses he has this "up himself attitude" but you don't realise he wears them for a medical condition for his eyes...

You think because he is seen everywhere in the news is because he puts himself there for ego trips? yet fail to realise the paparazzi could just be following him around?

It would seem the general consensus of people who call Bono a **** are the ones who actually know very little about him. It seems they just go by what they read in the Sun. But Bono is still a ****, even though he's probably a better role model than many other celebrities...

What am I doing trying to tell you otherwise? You're all quite happy to make assumptions based on what you read in the paper or what you've heard from other people. It's all pretty hillarious.

Great post. Bono has done a lot of good and people criticise him for it...would people rather he didn't do any of this at all and just live the rock and roll life style? Look up the 'One' campaign - Bono isn't just looking for peoples money, he wants peoples awareness...it's all about change, something that money can't always buy.

 

[mjt]

Bono is a ****ing ****. He flew a HAT first class. a ****ing HAT.

 

[slylittlefox]

How can you all stick up for him? He's the smarmiest, most pretencious, holier-than-thou **** in mainstream celebrity culture.

At least every other celebrity knows how shallow and conceited they are. And for the one's who aren't, they don't parade around making as much fuss as possible because they've decided to jump on the latest charity-cause bandwagon.

He preaches how selfish and evil the majority of us are, and how disgusting it is that half the world live in poverty, whilst he lives the life of a rock-star in a palatial mansion. If he was genuine, and truly believed in everything that spouted forth from his smarmy smug pie-hole, then why doesn't he dedicate his life, and the sum of all his wealth, to the causes. Why isn't he out in Africa now, building schools and communities, letting all of the profits from his royalties pay for food for the starving?

He supports charity work because it raises his profile. It's as simple as that. With every Live-Earth or similar event he does, his ego gets a boost. And by god does he love an ego boost. He eats ego boosts for breakfast.

Gilo said it best with:

Q: What’s the difference between Bono and God?

A: God doesnt walk down the street thinking he’s Bono

And as if all of the above wasn't enough - his music's ****.

 

[Secret_Window]

How can you all stick up for him? He's the smarmiest, most pretencious, holier-than-thou **** in mainstream celebrity culture.

Based on what? From what you read in the newspapers and hear from others?

At least every other celebrity knows how shallow and conceited they are. And for the one's who aren't, they don't parade around making as much fuss as possible because they've decided to jump on the latest charity-cause bandwagon.

So making the general public aware of a crisis in africa is a bad thing? Ok... You can't tell me other celebrities like Tom Cruise are not worse - who are preaching people to join a cult and pay to join it...

He preaches how selfish and evil the majority of us are, and how disgusting it is that half the world live in poverty, whilst he lives the life of a rock-star in a palatial mansion. If he was genuine, and truly believed in everything that spouted forth from his smarmy smug pie-hole, then why doesn't he dedicate his life, and the sum of all his wealth, to the causes. Why isn't he out in Africa now, building schools and communities, letting all of the profits from his royalties pay for food for the starving?

Oh how uninformed you are. He has been to africa countless times, touring and helping to build schools and communities so to say he hasn't is complete bull.

Getting rid of his fortune would not FIX the problems with Africa. He is campaigning for awareness. So giving away his fortune would not solve Africa's problems at all. Plus, how do you know he doesn't give his money away? Just because he doesn't tell everyone about it...

He supports charity work because it raises his profile. It's as simple as that. With every Live-Earth or similar event he does, his ego gets a boost. And by god does he love an ego boost. He eats ego boosts for breakfast.

Really? He is quite the opposite really. He uses his profile for the good. You actually think he enjoys hanging around with MPs plus giving up all his free time travelling pillar to post campaigning for justice for a little mention in the paper? Bono does it because he can and believes he has to (rather than sitting on his arse doing nothing) - wouldn't you try to do something about people dying and suffering if you could?

And as if all of the above wasn't enough - his music's ****.

Epic fail. I didn't realise Bono had gone solo and made his own music.

 

[silvercut]

Bono is crap...what gives him the right to spout unwarranted pseudo-political bull manure about society's shortcomings ? What a ****ing communist.

Hippy Communist Celebrity Bull Manure - that's what Bono's good for.

God, that felt good.

 

[semi-pro waster]

So how much would a person have to earn before they could afford to give ten percent of it away?

That surely varies according to how much they require, you can earn a million pounds but if your outgoings are 1.2 million then you can't afford to give anything away, if you earn twenty pounds but only need ten pounds to live comfortably then you can afford the two quid I guess. The basic point I suppose is that beyond a certain level of wealth the actual money makes very little difference to your standard of living and therefore might be better going to someone who can use the money more effectively but that is a matter between whoever is that rich and their conscience.

However he doesn't have to give any money, nor time to the causes he does so because of his position and wealth almost anything he does in this vein should be well received. What makes it slightly harder to applaud the man is that he comes across as an opinionated sanctimonious tool a lot of the time (no need to point out the irony in me saying that ).

I'd quite like to see Bono and that Journo locked in a room together. Maybe if left long enough they'd react much like matter/antimatter and mutually annihilate, and we'd all be better off as a result.

Of course, I don't make a habit of wishing death on anyone, so I'd never attempt to carry that through. A "Celebrity Deathmatch"-esque show might work though.

In a Kevin Keegan stylee I would love it, love it for that to happen.

 

[s-p]

Oh how uninformed you are. He has been to africa countless times, touring and helping to build schools and communities so to say he hasn't is complete bull.

Getting rid of his fortune would not FIX the problems with Africa. He is campaigning for awareness. So giving away his fortune would not solve Africa's problems at all. Plus, how do you know he doesn't give his money away? Just because he doesn't tell everyone about it...

It's not the amount of money that Bono gives away that's the problem. It's the hypocritical approach that it's ok for the general public to pay taxes and donate on top of that, whilst people like himself do everything possible to avoid either. The token gesture denoted earlier in the thread about a $50,000 donation is nothing in the grand scheme of things, especially if you investigate how little tax this man pays relative to income.

I know this site has been linked to previously, but it's a wonderful insight into the type of person Bono is. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2008/06/12/bono-helping-make-poverty-reality/. As a comparison, please take a note of someone like Katie Melua http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2008/11/12/melua-norton-vs-geldof-bono/.

You may or may not be aware, but the amount in unpaid taxes far outweigh the amount of funds given in AID to relieve poverty. Bono's part of the problem, not the solution!

 

[Secret_Window]

How do you know his scheme to avoid taxes wasn't so he could pay more to africa? Listen, neither I or you or the person who wrote the article actually knows. It's all speculation...