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Bono and Russert on Live 8

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 10:11:27 PM EST
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Bono was on Meet the Press today to discuss the upcoming Live 8 efforts to end poverty in Africa. The transcript is here. A few highlights:

One billions dollars is all it would take to save a million lives from malaria, with bed nets, etc., $1 billion. Four billion dollars, you could change the world. From the United States, an extra commitment of $4 billion.....there's a tsunami happening every month in Africa, but it's an avoidable catastrophe. It is not a natural calamity.

On the issue of whether he and Bob Geldof are being used by Blair, Bush and others in power:

Am I being used? In a certain sense perhaps, but it works both ways. If they deliver, we must deserve applause. We must give the respect.

And on the debt issue which they've delivered in this last week, they deserve credit. If they blow it, then they deserve our boos and our hisses and they will lose our audience, and our audience is a big audience. I don't mean the U2 audience, but music constituency. They're the floating vote. They're the people who haven't made up their mind where they're going to vote.

For more information on Live 8:

On July 6th, we finally have the opportunity to stop that shameful statistic. 8 world leaders, gathered in Scotland for the G8 summit, will be presented with a workable plan to double aid, drop the debt and make the trade laws fair. If these 8 men agree, then we will become the generation that made poverty history.

  • One.Org: The campaign to make poverty history
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    • Bono and Russert on Live 8 | 19 comments (19 topical)
    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:35 PM EST
    "One billions dollars is all it would take to save a million lives from malaria, with bed nets, etc., $1 billion." D*mn, those are some expensive bed nets and malaria pills! I mean, I know Bono has that whole Elton John sunglass thing going on so he probably doesn't know wht stuff really costs, but $1,000/person? I just got a month's worth of Malaria pills for $25 bucks! -C

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#3)
    by Wile ECoyote on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:35 PM EST
    I wish Live 8 would fight African Gov't corruption instead. I see no reason to give money to countries when there are headlines like these around: Billions go missing' in Angola £220bn stolen by Nigeria's corrupt rulers I would consider it if the money could go directly to the NGO without having to go through gov't coffers.

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    DA - Ah, like many people who delight in spending others money, you have grasped the details rather then the big picture. Do you really think it takes $1K/person to add "spraying, [and] education for folks?" (And let's not even get into what they can spray since they banned DDT.) OTOH, a $1k/person budget leaves plenty of room for first class travel, land rovers, and, of course, the ever important condoms for UN workers. -C

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    The problem is that they have assumed the role of arbiters: of determining on our behalf whether the leaders of the G8 nations should be congratulated or condemned for the decisions they make. They are not qualified to do so, and I fear that they will sell us down the river.
    from The Guardian

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    Cute concert, good tunes I am sure, but it will do little to help those in Africa. Extreme poverty can only be held in check when corporate greed subsides. Do They Know its Not Christmas Anymore? By Mark Levine

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    there's a tsunami happening every month in Africa

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#9)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    Too bad our right leaning friends don't share the same monetary concern when billions go missing in Iraq.

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#10)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    Better that money is wasted saving lives than taking them.

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    you can get both in Africa-aid used by government to reward supporters and kill opponents. let's throw money at Mugabe to make ourselves feel better and wonder why people are still starving.

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    Here's an eye-opener for some of the not-so-objective thinkers on this site:
    Well, I think [Bush has] done an incredible job, his administration, on AIDS. ...If he, though, in his second term, is as bold in his commitments to Africa as he was in the first term, he indeed deserves a place in history in turning the fate of that continent around.
    - Bono, 6/26/2005 (Meet the Press)

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    Bono panders to everyone for attention to issues that are important to him. I think I've heard him say these issues are bigger then politics, but unfornately they are inseparable. There is a vested interest in keeping Sub-Saharan Africa in a state of flux. Until those interests are challenged, little will change. From the article linked above:
    What keeps Africa poor [is] not a lack of political will but the tremendous profitability of the current arrangement. Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest place on earth, is also its most profitable investment destination: It offers, according to the World Bank's 2003 Global Development Finance report, "the highest returns on foreign direct investment of any region in the world." Africa is poor because its investors and its creditors are so unspeakably rich.
    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    beautiful quote-so the Tutsis/Hutus were worrying about the investment options when the hacking was being done? Psycho Mugabe is thinking the same as he destroys his nation's food production system? Please stop making excuses-the leaders are bad of their own volition.

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:36 PM EST
    DA - Well, I dunno anyone in the Malaria business, but I do know a research scientist at UNC-CH who does immunology research and testing in Africa and other places. He told me to not use his name, so nutcases won't bother him, but costs he knows about "anywhere in Africa" are: (b) $2/person to deliver any individual vaccination (c) consider that a full days supply of food (p'nutter - some concentrated food thing) costs $3/day/person (d) water costs an astounding $3/day/person (e) he bought a mosquito net and six months of malaria pills in Addis Abba for $20/USD. I dunno, $1K still sounds like UN puffery dollars. -C

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:37 PM EST
    Ed ignorance is bliss. Slave traders were making the same argument as you in the early modern period. Do some research and see for yourself just how racial distinctions came to exist in Rawanda.

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#18)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:38 PM EST
    ignorance must be bliss-it imagines a peaceful time before the advent of the colonialist where the natives lived in harmony with one another. that way, you can ignore modern reality and hold the current leaders of Africa to a much lower standard. Here is reality-Mugabe is destroying his nation's food supply and distribution chains for political purposes. He doesn't care if his citizens starve. In that way, he's not much different than a lot of leaders on the continent. All the aid dollars in the world will not change that and neither will your naive Garden of Eden fantasies.

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#19)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:38 PM EST
    How you wingnuts blame the victims everytime is beyond me, but I'll be damn, if theres a will there is a way for you people.

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:38 PM EST
    I hope are still reading this thread. Did you not read the linked article and still attempted to critize it Ed?
    None of this absolves Africans of their complicity in the problems facing the continent. Indeed, from trading slaves to trading conflict diamonds, and like their counterparts across the Global South, African elites have enriched themselves at the expense of their peoples for as long as Europeans have offered a market for such goods. But if Bob, Bono and Brad really think Western politicians, corporate leaders, and their local subcontractors, are about to walk away from a well-oiled 500 year-old gravy train without a nasty, even vicious fight, they are sadly mistaken.
    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:39 PM EST
    that quote changes absolutely nothing-when it begins with not to absolve, you know the intent of what follows. the bad African leaders are bad of their own volition-don't blame the West for their evil. there is no Great White Hope for Africa-the problems of Africa will be solved or not solved by Africans. Aid money is often funnelled through the same government doing the oppressing.

    Re: Bono and Russert on Live 8 (none / 0) (#22)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:40 PM EST
    the problems of Africa will be solved or not solved by Africans
    Agreed, but at least admit that many of those same problems have been introduced by non-Africans. And those non-Africans often saw to it that the incorruptible African leaders were bumped off and replaced with "friendlier governments".

    Bono and Russert on Live 8 | 19 comments (19 topical)