This is called ripping someone a new one the only place you can, on their official Chat forum. This was in reaction to the closing of Bono/U2's interview with Conan, 10/06/05.
Please bear in mind that I wasn't ignoring his efforts in Africa. I simply felt that with that one line, he'd effectively whored his entire effort. I still stand by it; for that one closing sentence at 6:50, he ought to have been absolutely shredded and put up on a stick (metaphorically), meaning "litertarily" as follows. What did he say? Well it's perhaps the most devastating piece of Orwellian tripe ever uttered, thanks to the fact that he said it. I posted this response quite immediately, creating my profile for the purpose. What made it a real transgression was how U2 was scrolling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights every night during this tour, and how this one falsehood had instantly made their belief in application of this apparently selective (or utterly obliviated reality) when it came to Western human rights abuses under the auspices of "the War on Terror". Here it is:
"On Conan and the 'war on terror' how
'bout it?!! Having seen U2 on Conan last night, I can only say I could not be
more disheartened by this appearance, due to Bono's closing sentence, where he
declared that the One campaign, or the campaign for debt relief to Third World
Countries was a noble cause for this generation to be remembered for, like 'the
war on terror'. It was overwhelming to hear the two equated with each other and
leaves me with few other things I can think other than that in being
conciliatory in the interest of his greatest achievement, Bono has finally
managed to sell the greater part of his soul. While I have been encountering
this sort of disillusionment in just about everyone I know (fan-mily excepted)
when it comes to Bono (in Ireland especially) for many years, I now am counted
among them, and it is final. While my opinion is solitary and unnoticeable, and
pointless to put here, I am still declaring that had I known that he would make
such a public statement, I never would have supported this album or this tour,
and never will support U2 again. There have to be other people who feel the
same even if in a small minority. It's safe to say you have lost the support of
my entire family (not a small number), who have followed you with singular
devotion for 18 years. ('Singular' to the extent that two of us were 'nutters'
enough to even travel alone to Ireland over it.)
I have seen this tour and duly noted your efforts towards religious tolerance between Christians, Jews and Moslems, as we are all commonly sprung from the God of Abraham, but the bitter fact is with this one public statement alone, to realms of people above and beyond your fan-base at such a key juncture, you have successfully betrayed your efforts in that moment, and betrayed peace itself. You have betrayed every single innocent Arab, Moslem victim of the 'war on terror', -traded them for Africa, by implying their victimization is 'noble', just as saving Africa is 'noble'. This dismisses every Iraqi and Afghani unborn child who will be deformed, all the civilians who die of cancer, possibly for the next hundred years or so, from all the depleted uranium bombs that have been dropped on their countries, in the name of 'the war on terror', everyone who suffers unjustly from it. While the mounting casualties in the Middle East and Eurasia of 'the war on terror' are still a minority compared to the implosion of Africa due to poverty and AIDs, the causes and potential ramifications of the 'war on terror' threaten to engulf far more, indeed, are well capable of precipitating WWIII, partly along religious fault-lines though its motives are of course far baser and basic, and more related, as you well know, to poverty. It relates to energy and who is going to control it as we start to run low. It relates to greed about basic standards of living and who gets to live by far higher standards than everyone else.
Virtually none of the victims of the 'war on terror' were actually targets because they were causes of terror, and every time the catch-phrase is used, it is to abrogate human rights and create more terror. Iraq did not support Al Qaeda. They did not possess WMDs. The entire Afghani nation did not support Al Qaeda, in fact the US developed Al Qaeda in that country and Osama was a CIA asset then. The 'war on terror' is used over and over as a premise for abuse by states. The precedent by the United States of unilateral, unending potential warfare against anyone they choose, the precedent for waging pre-emptive war that they have set (illegally), has spawned and validated repressive efforts by other countries against their internal populations worldwide. It is used as a defense of illegal brutalities by the Israelis against the Palestinians, by Russia towards Chechnya (neither of whom's hands are not bloody), -it is used by many western nations as a ploy to limit the freedoms of their citizens, witness Australia and Italy, -where you cannot use an internet cafe anymore without a passport or ID. It's used in the US the same way. I am wasting my breath here. Simply put, if there is a war going on that physically, brutally enforces who is going to control the oil spigots in the coming years of decline, which translates directly into inequality where some will remain impoverished and others won't, which is enforced through brute force, it is not tenable, in the same breath, to espouse our equality, and equalization for all (the war on poverty), and yet espouse the enforcement of inequality and poverty that is enacted in the 'war on terror'. You've just wiped out your entire premise, upended your efforts. This war on terror is the enforcement of poverty and repression of equal human rights, via warfare and intimidation. Is the alleviation of debt you've managed to help accomplish -does it somehow cancel this out, or does articulating such a double standard, as if it doesn't exist, just support the continued enforcement of that double-standard? Sure it does, especially coming from you! Now it hardly seems appropriate to berate rock stars on their politics, especially considering their next to nil impact on politics, but you have always had a political stand, gained stature from it, and used it, so if you play there, you're open to criticism there. I'm sure most of your fan-base has always been grateful for your unabashed stance and the fact that you were willing to be a voice for peace, which included, in this sense, politics. I avidly observed the course of ZOOTV and your courage, everywhere, in your active stance in politics, manifest so many ways. The night you performed in Vancouver, that was the night Clinton won the presidency. How thankful we were for the unseating of Bush 1 and his gulf war in Iraq. The war is just as unjust today as it was then when you called Daddy Bush at the White House every night, worse now than it was then, when Daddy Bush mocked Clinton for meeting with the 'rock growp' U2, and I thought to myself, amazing, he just lost the entire U2 fan-base who votes because he thinks rock stars' politics are irrelevant, and they don't. Years later I felt right in this assumption when I read (in the Irish Times), that Clinton personally thanked your prime minister for how you, U2, had helped swing votes in his favour then. I'm sure the Bushes took notice of this misstep and it helps to open the door today. They never dismissed you again.
Who's singing whose tune now? Yes, you play politics, even though you don't play; you were so careful to not endorse anybody, remained untainted by politics, but rabble-roused your way all through Europe, pulling the pants down on injustice. Through the entire course you have managed to be unpartisan, wending the middle way. As Conan said, you're doing it more now than ever, bridging between the Right and Left. But then they both support the War on Terror. How politically expedient for you!
Never, in those heady times of ZOOTV, when you had the courage to broadcast the suffering of Sarajevo under the bombs of their own compatriots (but more so NATO), -never would I have foreseen you'd capitulate to voicing support for the darker modus operandi of Establishment. Never in my sad dreams would I have thought you'd parrot a political line in favour of anyone. Last night you did. How timely it was for Bush's latest exhortation to continue the 'war on terror' the same day in his state of the union address, treating this as the war on Iraq! (Compounded the senate's full endorsement of over 400 billion for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan today.) On your latest tour you use the Fly to point out how helpless 'they' want us to feel, as if we have no voice or power, since we have no economic power. But with that one statement, you took away our voice, the alternative voice you've always been, that simply looked at suffering, conveyed it to us all, and showed it for what it was, NO MATTER WHO was causing it, and just by conveying it, indicted it for what it really was. With that one declaration that the war on terror is 'noble', you've become selective about who's causing suffering and upended the truth.
By doing so, you robbed one of the last voices I thought remained in the public sphere that had any sort of broad impact, -yours. -In that sense, I have little or no voice left now that speaks for me, and so does everyone else who feels pain at all injustice no matter who's doing it -who feels like me. I feel even more helpless because of you. (No matter I felt helpless anyway.) Thanks for helping to close the full circle of the invisible, we are completely excised from the public debate, I'm now fully invisible. This war makes us all victims, whether our home is being blown up by the IDF, or we are subject to the Patriot Act. We are all victims of the erosion of human equality and freedoms. How well you know this, it is the fount of this entire tour, yet how fully you undermined it last night. You empathized with Africa after you saw it and it has transformed and dictated the sum of your efforts today. My father said for years that the first thing that had to be done to rectify what was wrong in this world was to forgive Third World debt and how grateful I was to see someone manage that somewhat!
My personal empathy with suffering I've encountered came from living among the Palestinians in the West Bank at the onset of the intifada. Maybe it is part of our human nature, and while empathy is essential it is pathetic in its way to only empathize and act towards suffering and injustice we ourselves witness and experience, the flaw being we should be capable of empathizing universally. You've always appeared to have done so, until last night. You stood for something. That was the aspect of U2 that was more than just Rock 'n' Roll, music to feel and enjoy, was the aspect that actually could be believed in, and is gone for me today. You lost me. I'm someone you met once, because once around the time of the eclipse and the millennium I came and handed you a letter in four parts, one you appeared to have named both your sons after. Maybe that was just a really bizarre coincidence, but if you did, and you remember, you can put a face on this disillusionment."
I have seen this tour and duly noted your efforts towards religious tolerance between Christians, Jews and Moslems, as we are all commonly sprung from the God of Abraham, but the bitter fact is with this one public statement alone, to realms of people above and beyond your fan-base at such a key juncture, you have successfully betrayed your efforts in that moment, and betrayed peace itself. You have betrayed every single innocent Arab, Moslem victim of the 'war on terror', -traded them for Africa, by implying their victimization is 'noble', just as saving Africa is 'noble'. This dismisses every Iraqi and Afghani unborn child who will be deformed, all the civilians who die of cancer, possibly for the next hundred years or so, from all the depleted uranium bombs that have been dropped on their countries, in the name of 'the war on terror', everyone who suffers unjustly from it. While the mounting casualties in the Middle East and Eurasia of 'the war on terror' are still a minority compared to the implosion of Africa due to poverty and AIDs, the causes and potential ramifications of the 'war on terror' threaten to engulf far more, indeed, are well capable of precipitating WWIII, partly along religious fault-lines though its motives are of course far baser and basic, and more related, as you well know, to poverty. It relates to energy and who is going to control it as we start to run low. It relates to greed about basic standards of living and who gets to live by far higher standards than everyone else.
Virtually none of the victims of the 'war on terror' were actually targets because they were causes of terror, and every time the catch-phrase is used, it is to abrogate human rights and create more terror. Iraq did not support Al Qaeda. They did not possess WMDs. The entire Afghani nation did not support Al Qaeda, in fact the US developed Al Qaeda in that country and Osama was a CIA asset then. The 'war on terror' is used over and over as a premise for abuse by states. The precedent by the United States of unilateral, unending potential warfare against anyone they choose, the precedent for waging pre-emptive war that they have set (illegally), has spawned and validated repressive efforts by other countries against their internal populations worldwide. It is used as a defense of illegal brutalities by the Israelis against the Palestinians, by Russia towards Chechnya (neither of whom's hands are not bloody), -it is used by many western nations as a ploy to limit the freedoms of their citizens, witness Australia and Italy, -where you cannot use an internet cafe anymore without a passport or ID. It's used in the US the same way. I am wasting my breath here. Simply put, if there is a war going on that physically, brutally enforces who is going to control the oil spigots in the coming years of decline, which translates directly into inequality where some will remain impoverished and others won't, which is enforced through brute force, it is not tenable, in the same breath, to espouse our equality, and equalization for all (the war on poverty), and yet espouse the enforcement of inequality and poverty that is enacted in the 'war on terror'. You've just wiped out your entire premise, upended your efforts. This war on terror is the enforcement of poverty and repression of equal human rights, via warfare and intimidation. Is the alleviation of debt you've managed to help accomplish -does it somehow cancel this out, or does articulating such a double standard, as if it doesn't exist, just support the continued enforcement of that double-standard? Sure it does, especially coming from you! Now it hardly seems appropriate to berate rock stars on their politics, especially considering their next to nil impact on politics, but you have always had a political stand, gained stature from it, and used it, so if you play there, you're open to criticism there. I'm sure most of your fan-base has always been grateful for your unabashed stance and the fact that you were willing to be a voice for peace, which included, in this sense, politics. I avidly observed the course of ZOOTV and your courage, everywhere, in your active stance in politics, manifest so many ways. The night you performed in Vancouver, that was the night Clinton won the presidency. How thankful we were for the unseating of Bush 1 and his gulf war in Iraq. The war is just as unjust today as it was then when you called Daddy Bush at the White House every night, worse now than it was then, when Daddy Bush mocked Clinton for meeting with the 'rock growp' U2, and I thought to myself, amazing, he just lost the entire U2 fan-base who votes because he thinks rock stars' politics are irrelevant, and they don't. Years later I felt right in this assumption when I read (in the Irish Times), that Clinton personally thanked your prime minister for how you, U2, had helped swing votes in his favour then. I'm sure the Bushes took notice of this misstep and it helps to open the door today. They never dismissed you again.
Who's singing whose tune now? Yes, you play politics, even though you don't play; you were so careful to not endorse anybody, remained untainted by politics, but rabble-roused your way all through Europe, pulling the pants down on injustice. Through the entire course you have managed to be unpartisan, wending the middle way. As Conan said, you're doing it more now than ever, bridging between the Right and Left. But then they both support the War on Terror. How politically expedient for you!
Never, in those heady times of ZOOTV, when you had the courage to broadcast the suffering of Sarajevo under the bombs of their own compatriots (but more so NATO), -never would I have foreseen you'd capitulate to voicing support for the darker modus operandi of Establishment. Never in my sad dreams would I have thought you'd parrot a political line in favour of anyone. Last night you did. How timely it was for Bush's latest exhortation to continue the 'war on terror' the same day in his state of the union address, treating this as the war on Iraq! (Compounded the senate's full endorsement of over 400 billion for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan today.) On your latest tour you use the Fly to point out how helpless 'they' want us to feel, as if we have no voice or power, since we have no economic power. But with that one statement, you took away our voice, the alternative voice you've always been, that simply looked at suffering, conveyed it to us all, and showed it for what it was, NO MATTER WHO was causing it, and just by conveying it, indicted it for what it really was. With that one declaration that the war on terror is 'noble', you've become selective about who's causing suffering and upended the truth.
By doing so, you robbed one of the last voices I thought remained in the public sphere that had any sort of broad impact, -yours. -In that sense, I have little or no voice left now that speaks for me, and so does everyone else who feels pain at all injustice no matter who's doing it -who feels like me. I feel even more helpless because of you. (No matter I felt helpless anyway.) Thanks for helping to close the full circle of the invisible, we are completely excised from the public debate, I'm now fully invisible. This war makes us all victims, whether our home is being blown up by the IDF, or we are subject to the Patriot Act. We are all victims of the erosion of human equality and freedoms. How well you know this, it is the fount of this entire tour, yet how fully you undermined it last night. You empathized with Africa after you saw it and it has transformed and dictated the sum of your efforts today. My father said for years that the first thing that had to be done to rectify what was wrong in this world was to forgive Third World debt and how grateful I was to see someone manage that somewhat!
My personal empathy with suffering I've encountered came from living among the Palestinians in the West Bank at the onset of the intifada. Maybe it is part of our human nature, and while empathy is essential it is pathetic in its way to only empathize and act towards suffering and injustice we ourselves witness and experience, the flaw being we should be capable of empathizing universally. You've always appeared to have done so, until last night. You stood for something. That was the aspect of U2 that was more than just Rock 'n' Roll, music to feel and enjoy, was the aspect that actually could be believed in, and is gone for me today. You lost me. I'm someone you met once, because once around the time of the eclipse and the millennium I came and handed you a letter in four parts, one you appeared to have named both your sons after. Maybe that was just a really bizarre coincidence, but if you did, and you remember, you can put a face on this disillusionment."
Oh, and technically the boycott has stood up awfuly well, even despite a number of make-ups since then, since the only way I ever got anything U2 was if people bought (or ripped) it for me. Since Détente there have only been two purchases. Ever. Trust me, it takes an awful lot for me to say Détente.
