BONO SPEAKS

Tokyo International Conference on African Development IV-6/29/2008-Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan

2008-05-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

Need Transcript

Inner Central Breakwater Landfill--Tuesday May 27, 2008-Tokyo Bay

2008-05-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

"We believe in taking people out of extreme poverty, and Japan is more successful (in this task) than any other (country). We see this in Southeast Asia" and other regions, Bono, known for his philanthropic activities in Africa, said in Tokyo. "We need Japan to take (the) lead. You are very modest people, sometimes (you) do not step forward to take credit, but you should."

"Tomorrow, Prime Minister Fukuda will make a speech where we will find out how serious Japan is about taking leadership on (fighting poverty in Africa). He is a good man, a gentleman, and we will see how serious Japan is getting ready for the G8 Summit."

He was invited to the event, hosted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, because of his friendship with renowned architect Tadao Ando, an advocate of the Umi-no-Mori planting project.

Complete transcript needed.

Sundance Film Festival-Park City, Utah-01/27/2008

2008-01-27T07:21:00.000-08:00

Anthony Breznican, who interviewed Bono & The Edge at the Sundance Film Festival last week for USA Today, has shared with us some of the interview outtakes, which he posted on his Sundance blog:

Bono's the chattier one, as you would guess, but The Edge has that low-key sense of humor that sneaks up on you. These anecdotes didn't fit into the larger story, but they're still fun little moments.

The drive began at Robert Redford's Sundance Ski Resort about an hour's drive from the main festival in Park City, where their three-dimensional concert film was premiering that night.

Redford invited them over for lunch and then toured them through the facility, catching their fancy with a restored 1890s rosewood bar that he brought in from Wyoming. It was once frequented by the bandit Butch Cassidy and his Hole-in-the-Wall gang.

"They got it from Ireland. It was built in Ireland," Bono says excitedly from the front seat, repeating what Redford had just told them. "It was 500 outlaws holed up and they had everything, but they were complaining about the quality of their bar. Of course a lot of them were Irish as you might imagine."

The Edge smiles and bobs his head in the back seat.

"And a bunch of them get together and go, 'Umm, this bar isn't really up to much. Who's good at bars...?' Butch Cassidy had it commissioned."

"You know, it's probably one of the first Irish bars ever exported out of Ireland," The Edge says.

I tell him, well, the Hole-in-the-Wall gang was a successful operation. The Edge says admiringly: "They had a lot of money."

Bono leans back and says he ordered a Bushmills Irish whiskey at the bar, but then wasn't sure how Redford would respond: "I'll tell you, fairplay to Bob. I order the Bushmills and I thought, uh, in America it's kind of against the law to drink during the day. And he was like, 'Yeah...gulp!'" The singer and guitarist laugh. Bono turns back to the front, "I said, 'This is my kind of man!'"

******************************
We conducted the interview in a car during an hour-long ride to Park City for their premiere, and shortly after we started off on the trip I explained to them that I'd asked friends who were U2 fans for a couple question suggestions.

I hit them with some serious ones, which led to most of the quotes in the top half of the story.

However, my brother, Greg, had responded to my call for a U2 question with: Ask them, if you're riding in a car at the speed of light and you turn on your headlights, what would happen?

The guys were in a joking mood (having just done whiskey shots with Robert Redford back at the Sundance Resort) and I wanted to keep things light.

So I asked my brother's stupid question.

Bono laughed, but The Edge was stone-faced, sitting beside me in the back seat.

"I can answer that," he said, holding back a smile.

Bono leaned in from the shotgun seat, while the driver glanced occasionally in the rearview mirror. "Edge is the band scientist," Bono said, pointing at the guitarist. "Go."

The Edge said, with finality, that what would happen is -- nothing. "No. Because the speed of light...is...it." He crossed his hands in the air.

Bono considered this in silence, then looked at me and asked, "Know what I think?"

The Edge, the driver and the reporter were all ears. Bono said: "I think you can see where you've come from..."

Twin eyebrows raised over his circular violet sunglasses as he gauged our reactions.

"Ooohh," The Edge said turning to me slowly. "He's very deep, you know."

******************************
Bono said the best for him was the rendition of "Miss Sarajevo," a song the band had originally recorded with a tenor part sung by Luciano Pavarotti.

Hearing it now, Bono said, will raise a lot of memories of his friend, who died last September. "Oh my God, it's going to be very difficult to watch," he said.

U2 and Pavarotti recorded that song in 1995, and over the next 12 years remained close.

"He was a funny one," Bono said. "Pavarotti was so great because he didn't just want everyone to love his music -- but to look like him. So at Christmas he would send these sides of beef and parmesan cheese -- stuff that if you ate you would immediately..." He held his hands out over his belly.

Bono said it was that little thing -- the Christmas present -- that reopened a sense of mourning months after the tenor's death.

"All of the sudden this year, after Christmas, I went and opened the fridge just to look for it. Over 10 years it's been happening. The fridge is filled by Pavarotti." He looks at The Edge in the back seat with me. "And yours too, I'm sure."

The Edge says, "Yes, mmm, good stuff."

Bono continues, "I went to open the fridge, and it wasn't there. Nicoletta (Pavarotti's widow) had sent something, though she would send something more discrete. But he was opera..."

******************************
They also played a one-off song, written for their friend Ronnie Drew, co-founding folk singer of The Dubliners, who at 73 is battling cancer.

"It was a night with some wine bottles," Bono said, as The Edge listened on from the back seat. "We started talking about great singers, like this guy from The Dubliners. We started talking about Robert Hunter from The Grateful Dead. Never met him, but he learned German to translate The Duino Elegies, by Rainer Maria Rilke, one of my favorite poets. So I happen to know him from that..."

The singer went on: "With the wine, we thought we could ring him, and we got the number eventually and we were going to write a song for this fellow Ronnie Drew. Anyway, he misheard the message -- not write a song for Ronnie Drew to sing, but write a song about Ronnie Drew."

Bono and The Edge agreed that worked out even better.

"He sent us some lyrics and we worked on the music and lyrics together. It was just recorded a few days ago," Bono said, slipping a homemade CD into the car stereo.

It's a jaunty Irish folk tune with lines that sound like a pub-full of admirers reciting a toast. Sinead O'Connor and Andrea Coor sing backup.

"It's not for our album it's just a gift for him," the singer said. "I think we might put it out in the next few months, or the summer. I don't know when it will be put out. He's one of the great folk singers of all time and we’re trying to cheer him from the sidelines as he fights against his illness."

I said the subject reminded me of an earlier song for another singer, "Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad," written for Frank Sinatra in his final years.

Bono described performing it for Ol' Blue Eyes, but said: "The best bit with that would have been if Frank had sang it." Then he launches into a Sinatra lounge impression, complete with the flat Hoboken accent: "Yes, I've been GREEDY / All of my LIFE / Greedy with my children / my lover, my wife..."

"We played it for him," Bono said wistfully. "He never sang it though."

******************************
Bono had just finished playing me a demo track from their upcoming album, a song called "No Line on the Horizon" that he was inspired to slip into the CD player by the gorgeous white sunset settling over the surrounding mountains.

Bono looks back at the guitarist and says, "Edge -- look, it's 6 o'clock," and the two look from the green digits on the stereo to each other. Bono explains that numbers are significant in each of the new songs, and slips in another CD that may be the first track on the album. It's opening lyric is, "It's six o'clock..."

I said, "Isn't it weird how certain numbers seem to turn up in our lives? It seems like this kind of thing is especially common kind of game with musical people, who must make numbers and patterns a part of their art." "Yeah, we like numbers," Bono says.

Some friends of mine in a Pittsburgh band called Race the Ghost have that thing with 316, which would pop up with all of us at strange times -- the address of a party, part of an important phone number, the title of a Van Halen song, the row and seat number at a concert...

"Three-sixteen?" Bono says, turning down the music to ponder it. For a moment I think he's going to dismiss the phenomenon. Then he jerks his head toward the guitarist and says knowingly: "Edge's is 42."

"I discovered recently that it is actually the secret number of the universe," The Edge says.

"What is it?" Bono asks, and The Edge repeats himself. Bono feigns concern and says, "Steady on, The Edge..."

"Why is that funny? Quite honestly..." The Edge replies. He's so stoic it's hard to tell if he's joking -- but he's joking. "It was in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...But scientists have recently discovered that it's actually true..."

The Edge's voice is then drowned out as Bono blasts the volume on his jangling guitar intro, just in time for the "six o'clock" lyric. Bono sings along with himself for a moment, then turns the sound down again and looks back at the guitarist and smiles sarcastically: "Say it again...Sorry, Edge, for interrupting you, oh master of the universe."

The Edge is undaunted by his friend's teasing and describes a mathematical study about 42 recurring in formulas relating to mass, energy, speed and other physical properties. It's clear he's the scientist, and Bono is the poet -- but both see a mysticism in numbers from different directions.

While transcribing the interview recording, I was trying to Google the number 42 and see what Edge was talking about. But I stopped when I noticed something...

This discussion started precisely at minute 42 on the recording. No joke. I went back to 3:16 on the recording, and that is the precise end of my very first question.

Coincidence...or Mysterious Ways?

Larry King Live Interview

2006-10-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

CNN LARRY KING LIVE

Interview with Bono

Aired October 13, 2006 - 21:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight, Bono, he's hanging out with the president on Air Force One and joining Oprah for a major shopping spree. Why do world leaders, even the pope, make time to see this Irish rock star? How come he gets more serious stuff done than a lot of politicians?

Bono is here with Bobby Shriver. They're men with an urgent global mission and they're aiming to save millions of lives and you can help; Bono, next on LARRY KING LIVE.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Good evening and welcome to what we consider a very special edition of LARRY KING LIVE, our special guests, both in New York, are Bono, the acclaimed musician, lead singer for U2, global philanthropist and activist, co-creator of Product RED.

It's a groundbreaking initiative designed to bring new money into the global fund and help fight AIDS in Africa; and joining him is Bobby Shriver, who created the Product RED campaign with Bono. He and Bono also co-founded DATA, Debt, AIDS, Trade and Africa.

Bono, what got you interested particularly in this project?

BONO, CO-FOUNDER (RED) CAMPAIGN AND DATA: Well, you know, with Bobby we've been, you know, banging (INAUDIBLE) and tramping the corridors of, you know Congress and the capitals around the world on extreme poverty issues. But we were realizing that all the work that we're doing there, all the development stuff can be undone by this tiny little virus, HIV/AIDS.

It is shocking to think that it's 5,000 Africans are dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease. That's like two twin towers a day or a tsunami every month and they're dying because they can't get the drugs we can get in any corner store. So, we were trying to figure out a way of raising money for the global fund, which gets the drugs to the people in Africa who don't have them.

And, also we're trying to -- how do we create heat in the shopping malls? I mean we've got the churches and the student activists with the one campaign. There's two and a half million American have signed up for that. But how do you get to where people are where they live and how do you get -- how do you access the firepower of corporate America and the creative genius in their marketing departments? So, that's where Product RED started.

KING: Bobby, do we live under the presumption, I guess in America we do that AIDS is no longer a big deal that people live a long time with it and it's not the factor it was?

BOBBY SHRIVER, CO-FOUNDER (RED) CAMPAIGN AND DATA: Probably, Larry, you're right. I know in many of the gay communities that's a big concern, particularly among young men. They figure that they can take a pill and survive even if they are HIV positive.

But, as you know, in Africa people don't have this medicine at all. In fact, many people don't know that there is such a medicine, so part of what these RED phones, when people buy these RED phones or these RED shirts, we get the money and we buy the drugs for these folks and it's super, super important that they continue to live, look after their families.

We don't -- we have ten million orphans now, Larry, in Africa, 14 and 15-year-old boys and girls heading households because their parents have died because they don't have these 40-cent medicines. It's just got to stop.

And, as Bono was saying, that's why we've gotten, you know, this is today's "New York Times." I hope I can show this without offending you, Larry, but there's your friend Stephen Spielberg and they bought -- this is an amazing thing.

BONO: Chris Rock.

SHRIVER: Chris Rock bought the back page of every section today of the "New York Times."

KING: I saw it.

SHRIVER: And this kind of communication is the thing that we were never in our marching boots, activist, lobbying, educating thing, we were never able to do this kind of thing.

BONO: Well, we couldn't afford it.

SHRIVER: Send people to a website, joinred.com, and say, you know, "Hey, Chris Rock is working on this." Look at him, fantastic, Stephen Spielberg. I don't know if Stephen's ever done an ad before, I don't know. But look at that, what an amazing thing for him to do that.

KING: Bono, you had a -- Bono, you had a short meeting with President Bush yesterday in Chicago on the ground aboard Air Force One. What happened?

BONO: You know, we were sitting on the ground after launching Product RED in Chicago. We had been on Oprah Winfrey. And, they closed down the airspace. They said the president was trying to leave the country. We said, "This is an outrage." We wanted to complain. They said, "Well, you're going to have to complain to the president." So, we said, "Well there are a lot of things we might want to complain to the president." But let's go see him. And, actually one of the things we wouldn't be complaining about this president is what's happening on AIDS.

And, I want to tell you that America is in the lead on AIDS and it's great to be able to meet him and tell him that his leadership has really counted. There is, of course, great support in the Democratic Party also on these things. There's bipartisan support.

But, I think, you know, it's good to be able to show him that it's not just all government money that's going to fight this deadly little virus but the private sector is important.

And, he had always said, "Why is the private sector not getting involved in the global fund?" You know, we want them to spend more on the global fund. And he's always been challenging us back, "Get the private sector to do it." So, we went onboard Air Force One, showed him these products, said we want to see him out jogging wearing his Gap tee shirt, you know.

SHRIVER: There you go, Larry. We're going to have him with -- he's not going to wear "Desired" probably. He'll wear "Inspired." Or, what was the other one, "Perspired." Maybe we'll have him wearing one that says "Perspired."

KING: Are you guys -- are you guys surprised in the area, we don't imagine you're great fans of him generally politically, are you surprised that in the area of AIDS he's come through?

BONO: Well, you know, let me say on extreme poverty it's not clear, you know, who your friends are sometimes. I mean it's true that in the early days on the left they were more supportive of the fight against AIDS. But now you have a conservative president leading the world on AIDS.

But say also on trade, you know, trade is probably the biggest problem facing the continent of Africa. If they could get back to the level of global trade they had in the mid-'70s, it would dwarf all the aid from all over the world that's going to that continent now.

So, getting trade rules re-described to be fairer for the world's poor, sometimes on the left they go missing on you there, you know. And so, it's not clear left or right. We've always with DATA just treated people exactly the same.

And, of course, I come from a labor home. I come from the north side of Dublin and, you know, there are many things many politicians do whom I meet that I don't agree with but I only have to agree with them on one thing and that's that they put the world's poor at the center of -- center stage.

KING: Bobby.

SHRIVER: Larry, one of the interesting things can I just say on that point about the Republicans, one of the interesting things we've seen with them is this emphasis on effectiveness and making sure that the money is well spent and that kind of discipline for the American people to know that the money that they are giving, and they're giving the most of any country in the world in this AIDS fight that that money is being monitored by Republicans who are watching for a rate of return on investment. That's a very good thing.

BONO: That must be hard for a Democrat like you to say.

KING: Yes.

SHRIVER: I have to give my props where they're due. They've done a great job.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Hold it one second, Bono. Where, Bobby, do we buy these RED products?

SHRIVER: You buy them in every Gap store today. In fact, we're having a bit of a rush on the Gap stores here in New York. They're all sold out of the shirts and the other products there. This incidentally, Larry is a Gap RED Product, so not all RED products are red. They just have a red thing here.

KING: This is one day only?

SHRIVER: No, no, no. They're going to be on sale for five years, five years.

KING: Oh but it started today.

SHRIVER: And these shoes are going to be available in the Gap today. The Motorola RED phone at the Sprint stores in about two weeks, these RED razors will be available in all Sprint stores in the United States.

KING: Why did you pick the color red?

SHRIVER: It's the color of emergency, Larry. We always tell people it's an emergency that 6,000 people are dying every day from a treatable disease and they all nod their heads and then don't act like it's an emergency. So, we want them to know that it is an emergency and we're acting like it's an emergency. We're here working to get this stuff going on and they can do it when they're in the store.

BONO: Yes, people need to call us.

SHRIVER: You know, everybody is buying these phones and iPods and tee shirts and jeans anyway so why not buy a RED one. That's the idea of RED.

KING: We'll take a break and when we come back we'll ask Bono what inspires him to do all that he does. Bono and Bobby Shriver are with us. This is a historic day, the beginning of Product RED, going to go on a long time at all the Gap stores. You can buy lots of things and help a lot of people much less fortunate than you. We'll be right back. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Bono and Bobby Shriver. Bono, why do you do all that you do? What inspires you to do -- you raise more money probably than any single individual in the world, why?

BONO: Well, you know, to be fair it's not my money. It's my time and time is precious to me. And, you know, we raise money in DATA from governments but we also now with RED will be raising money through, you know...

SHRIVER: The malls.

BONO: ...you know, the shopping malls. And, again, this is not -- we're not asking the American people to put their hands in their pocket. They just have to upgrade their choice, choose a RED product and those companies will raise the money.

KING: But why do you do all this?

BONO: Well, you know, I'm sure there's a complicated response to that and that, you know, maybe I haven't had time to figure out. I started off during Live Aid in the mid-'80s. U2 played on Live Aid and I kind of got caught up in this and ended up in Africa working in an orphanage in Ethiopia during the famine there.

And, I certainly saw things there that I wish I hadn't and had experiences I wish I and my wife had not had. And, you know, you say you won't forget but we did. We got back to our lives. But always in the back of my head I kind of had a feeling that this kind of poverty is not there just by accident.

There's a sort of structural nature of this and I started to discover that, for instance, that Africa was paying much more back to the western world servicing old debts than it was ever getting, receiving in aid monies and I thought this was mad.

And, you know, we raised $250 million or something at Live Aid back in the mid-'80s. Well Africa is paying that every few weeks back to us. So, I started to see things through a slightly different prism, one that you might call justice rather than charity.

It offended my sense of fairness is probably the answer to your question. And we were talking earlier about this, myself and Bobby, him being a Shriver/Kennedy there's Irish blood there and me, somewhere in the back of your head there has to be a sense that as Irish people we faced a very brutal famine, which was not as people often describe as a tater blight. It was actually -- it was organized by the then oppressive British forces in Ireland that we couldn't get to the food.

And, I started, you know, any Irish person has this folk memory of famine and, you know, as a result of that famine, you know, you have, you know, you have all the policemen in New York now. SHRIVER: You have Shrivers in California.

BONO: And Catholics in office.

KING: Wait a minute.

SHRIVER: You got (INAUDIBLE).

KING: Are you saying it's in your genes?

BONO: I'm saying, well they're Gap jeans today and as you're walking down the street feeling good in your Gap jeans you know that some people...

KING: (INAUDIBLE). Bobby.

SHRIVER: Yes, sir.

KING: What do you think drives Bono?

SHRIVER: I think (INAUDIBLE), Larry, I was telling the story earlier about I asked my mother a little while ago why she really started the Special Olympics, which as you know she started.

KING: Sure do.

SHRIVER: And she said rage. And I think, you know, there's a lot of that in B. He probably wouldn't say that and there's a certain amount of that in me. It's just the unfairness of poor people or vulnerable people being bullied there's something very offensive about that. If you see someone being bullied you really want to stop it.

And, you know, mentally challenged people were being bullied when my mom started that work. People with AIDS in Africa right now are being bullied by us not giving them that medicine, you know.

KING: Your uncle, Bobby, said once in a historic quote, "Life isn't fair."

SHRIVER: Yes, life's not fair, Larry, but if you see a big guy beating up a little guy and you're a big guy, you go off and knock the big guy off the little guy. That's not fair or unfair. That's just, you know, you're a bully, get off.

So, that's maybe where the Irish people and those who traveled over here in the 19th Century and those who were born in the 20th Century, you know, we are mad when we see people getting bullied and, you know, it's just not right. It's not American. I mean that's the cool thing.

And we were reading this poll the other day that the number one movie star, Larry, in America today is still John Wayne. He hasn't had a movie in the theaters, as you know, in 40 years. And why is that?

You know, people like, Americans like that guy who just goes out and stops injustice and does it, you know, doesn't wait for the government to do it. We just go out and stop it ourselves and that's what we're doing here with this RED stuff. We're going to (INAUDIBLE).

KING: Bono, can you see progress in Africa?

BONO: Oh, my goodness, yes.

KING: Yes.

BONO: I mean since 2002 when we started DATA, I think there's been another seven democracies. That's now 31 democracies in Africa. Everywhere you go in Africa, by the way, I just was there a few months ago, you find, you know, Chinese people in the bars, you know.

There's money to be made in Africa and people sense that there's a strategic value in Africa in the war against terror. You know, there's, you know, it's 40 percent Muslim. It's a giant continent and they like Americans. They like Irish people. And let's be with them in their moment of need.

And, you know, what Bobby was saying there about, you know, it's not American, well as an Irish person let me just tell you for a second what I think of America. You know, America's not just a country. It's an idea that strikes me and that idea is somehow bound up in the idea of equality.

It's in your Declaration. You know, in the Declaration of Independence there's a remarkable poetic track but, you know, down toward the end of it, it says, you know there are all these men signed on, committing treason I believe when they signed the Declaration...

KING: That's right.

BONO: ...but they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the idea of equality. Now, I'm not pledging my life or maybe may I say not even my sacred fortune but I'm certainly ready to pledge my honor to it and that seems an American idea. And right now these are dangerous times. For me it's very worrisome that people don't like America and I am offended when people don't like America.

KING: Hold it right there, Bono. Let me get -- I'm going to get a break and come right back with Bono and Bobby Shriver. This is a big day the start of Product RED. Don't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BONO: I don't know why I sang there. I just saw these people who really I'm sure hadn't a clue who I was probably being told, you know, when you do this, this is a Bono song, a U2 song and I just felt for them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Bono and our friend Oprah went shopping yesterday, a Product RED shopping spree. What was that like, Bono?

BONO: Well, she's...

SHRIVER: A good shopper.

BONO: She's a good shopper. And, you know, this is like, you know, it was like running around Piccadilly with the Queen of England, you know, being in Chicago with Oprah. And, you know, Oprah has followed through on her convictions and her concern for the continent of Africa has led to some great actions.

She was just excited that this wasn't the usual kind of worthy thing. We weren't weighed down here by worthiness. It was fun. It was a sexy side to RED going shopping and meeting people where they are in the malls, you know. She was great. She was really something. We love her.

KING: Bobby, do you think celebrities have a responsibility to do things like Bono does?

SHRIVER: I think all Americans, Larry, have a desire. I don't think it's -- and we grew up with that responsibility idea. But I found in my own life that it's a desire. It actually makes me feel better. And, I think Oprah and some of the other people who are working with us on these projects, Penelope Cruz, the great Spanish actress, people really want to feel that.

You see with Bono walking down the street here people come up to him and say, you know, "I want to help you," you know. They say, "Sign my record," but they also want to help because they know he and his movement of people in the One campaign and around the world are trying to do the right thing.

There's a tremendous desire in people to do the right thing. So, I more like to think of it that way than responsibility because that feels a little worthy and a little, you know, oh, whereas if you just do it, it's a joyful work to be able to do a good thing.

KING: Bono, do you still run into people who say, "Yes, we got problems at home though?"

BONO: Yes, you know, that's for sure but they're a different kind of problem and, you know, I've seen people cueing up to die outside of (INAUDIBLE), people cueing up to die, three in a bed. Recently, I saw six in a bed, people underneath the bed and just it's a different kind of problem.

This is their moment of need. This is a great royal people, the Africans. They're entrepreneurial people. They are being -- they're being -- it's a perfect storm has come against them of disease and poverty and I just think this is our moment to show what we're about.

You know, as I was saying earlier dangerous time we're living in, this is the moment where we should show the world why we have amassed all this wealth and power that this is the moment for showing what our innovation and technology and pharmaceuticals can do. We can really do this and we can change the world for millions of people who are living in squalor but maybe more importantly in these dangerous times we can change the way those people see us and that might be critical if not more important.

SHRIVER: Larry, can I just follow up on that?

KING: Sure.

SHRIVER: And show you the shoe, which looks like a very modern thing. This cloth is dyed by women in Mali with mud. It's not dye. Converse went down and bought this fabric from these people. They burst into tears when they realized how much fabric Converse was going to buy. These are for sale in shoe stores and in Gap.

And this shows you that people in Africa who are dying of HIV are not just sort of, you know, poverty stricken people who can't do anything. They're artistic people. They've been making this kind of genius stuff for 1,000 years. So, we learned from them and were moved by them, the cleverness.

And someone was asking me the other day, if we had Keith Harring (ph), the great New York painter, design these shoes and I said, "No, these are designed by women in Mali, who have been doing this for 1,000 years." And the people were like, "Whoa, really?" And, yes, there they are.

KING: Other companies involved include Giorgio Armani and Motorola, American Express, Myspace.com in the United Kingdom, Apple, lots more to talk about with the great Bono and Bobby Shriver. They're involved in this extraordinary campaign, Product RED, a groundbreaking initiative designed to bring new money into the global fund and help fight AIDs in Africa; back with Bono and Bobby right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Bono and Bobby Shriver, they're both in New York. This campaign, Bono, started in Great Britain, didn't it? How did it do there?

BONO: Yes, it's just getting going really there. There we have Amex, which is really great. We've got a RED credit card. Let me show it to you. You know, these credit cards usually tell people what you have, you know, whether it's black or gold.

This is -- we like to think this one is about who you are. And we think there's a movement, it's certainly clear in the UK where we call it conscious consumerism, where people are just -- they realize they have power in their pocket, that they can make these giant corporations do what they want by deciding where they're going to purchase.

And it's starting in the UK. It's only actually even in the UK now is -- we're just really getting going and just getting the full stock in and the Gap and Armani and Motorola. It's pretty exciting though.

KING: Bobby, how do we know I buy a pair of shoes, $30, how much of that $30 goes directly to help AIDS in Africa.

SHRIVER: That's a great question, Larry and the answer thank god is 100 percent. We never, that is, our organization never touches that money. It goes directly to the Global Fund, which is a bank in Switzerland that lends money to countries or grants money to countries against very strict criteria.

So people can feel the money is well handled. A very low overhead at the Global Fund and they invest in countries. The first $10 million that we earned in this has now been invested in Rwanda and Swaziland. And they're doing great things, buying the medicine. Two pills a day if you take these two pills, one in the morning and one at night, 40 cents, you stay alive. That's the thing people don't know. That's what we're using the money to buy.

KING: Sorry, Bono, go ahead.

BONO: Sorry, Larry. You're in this building in the Time Warner building we are and there's a canteen. There's people sitting around. While I've been in the canteens in Africa with AIDS activists. Now these are the heroes running up the burning building, these are the firemen running up the burning building.

And to discover that they don't have access to these drugs was a real shock to me. And I was there once when a course of drugs arrived that were for one person. And to hear these noble people come up with reasons why they shouldn't be the person who got the drugs, why somebody else should, you've got two children or you're younger, no, you're older, was a real moment for me.

And I thought, wow, the 21st century, we've got these drugs over here. They cost, thanks to Bill Clinton, they're down as little as 40 cents a day. And here's this -- here's just this huge hemorrhaging of human life. It just -- it's just bewildering really that we're not just getting the drugs to the people. We're trying, as I say, America's in the lead there. But it's still -- we're still losing the battle in the fight against aids. That's one of the reasons why we want to associate with winners, you know, people who are great at getting your attention, these big corporations.

KING: Doesn't Bobby, doesn't the Global Fund aid other things?

SHRIVER: Yes, it does. It funds tuberculosis and malaria, which are also giant killers, as you know Larry, of poor people. But we focused our stuff on AIDS because we think that this medicine and the delivery of it is really important.

KING: So product RED, Bobby, is AIDS only, right?

SHRIVER: Yes, sir.

KING: More with Bono and Bobby Shriver on Product RED. It's back next on LARRY KING LIVE, don't go away. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Bono and Bobby Shriver. Why, Bono, did you describe this as punk capitalism?

BONO: Well, there's a bit of punk rock about it because it's really up front and kind of in your face. And it's, you know, we have this thing, I grew up, I'm in a band, and I've had kind of a little -- I'm always looking a little bit sideways at big business and wondering, they're out for profits, blah, blah, blah.

Then you start to realize that there's some very smart people working these corporations and how would we get these really smart people to work for the world's poor? I mean, as well as getting the drugs to the people who really need them, these people now have Steve Jobs working for them, these people now have Trey Laird at Gap, who's just a brilliant marketing genius. These people have all the design team in Motorola.

KING: There was a time, Bono when people who preceded you, rock stars, disdained consumerism, wouldn't go talk to corporate America, didn't like the corporate idea. What changed?

BONO: Well, in my experience, some of the people who were so anti-the man weren't paying their road crew and wouldn't talk to people on the street.

So I don't care about what came before and you know, you should pick interesting enemies because they define you. Your enemies define you. And it's very easy to pick a fight with, you know, corporate America. And corporate America is responsible for a lot of blandness, as you walk down High Street.

But corporate America is also responsible for the iPod or the RED Razr. And so I try to look at things differently from my predecessors and I just want to, you know, I just want a fresh slate. I don't take that baggage. I've been given a great life because the music industry paid U2 very well. We were never ripped off.

So I don't have those stories that I can tell you where you know, we were taken advantage of. They didn't happen. Maybe that's embarrassing. Maybe I should make some up. But we had a great time here in America, U2. I believe in this country. And I believe it's very American to say, you know, that might be a high hill to climb, but it's worth it.

I mean, Bobby's uncle I guess it was, in 1963 said, JFK said, by the end of the decade, we're going to put a man on the moon. Now, they weren't polling, you know, what was upper most in the mind of the United States' electorate. He led and the world followed. And we in Ireland and all over the world looked and went, wow what was that these Americans are crazy. They can put a man on the moon.

And you know, this is -- that's the America I love. And I think we're not asking President Bush or Tony Blair or whoever it is, we're not asking them to put a man on the moon. In fact, we're asking to put mankind back on earth. We can be the generationing that ends extreme poverty. By that, I mean stupid poverty. You know what that is, Larry. There's always going to be poverty, but we don't have to put up with this abuse of our humanity. We really don't. This is the 21st century. This is America. This is LARRY KING LIVE.

KING: Bobby, according to America's research group, 23-to-28 percent of shoppers respond to campaigns that direct a part of the purchasing dollars to a cause. Do you consider that high?

SHRIVER: I consider it a number that's going to grow. And I just want to say, Larry, on the corporate America point, you know, we always considered ourselves as having clients.

So when we're trying to buy this medicine for people, basically, anywhere where people are not wildly unethical, we will go to get the money. I know when Bono first started working in Washington, people felt we shouldn't go see Senator Jesse Helms. They thought we at some certain point shouldn't go see certain other people, but we went to see them anyway because we thought they could help us.

So it's a very nice thing to say you won't deal with people if your client isn't dying, as Bono said, six to a bed. If your clients are dying six to a bed, you'd better go get the money and get them the medicine.

KING: Let me get a break and we'll be back with more of Bono and Bobby Shriver. Product RED, and it started today. Don't go away.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up at the top of the hour on "360," breaking news on the escalating crisis with North Korea. The Pentagon confirmation within the past few hours that radioactivity has been detected around the site. North Korea says it conducted a nuclear test. The story developing right now. We're just starting to see reaction from Washington, as well as around the world. We'll bring you the latest.

And details on another Republican scandal exploding on Capitol Hill today. The White House trying to distance itself from the repercussions. The question is, can they back away far enough before the November elections? All that at the top of the hour on "360" in 15 minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Bono, you performed in the New Orleans Superdome two weeks ago. What was that like?

BONO: That was pretty cool. The Edge got us all there and brought Green Day there. And he's got a thing called Music Rising, which is to get cash back into the hands of the musicians who lost their instruments in New Orleans. We had a real time of it. That was pretty amazing.

KING: Did you go down when Katrina, right after Katrina happened? BONO: No, I did not.

KING: What did you make of what you saw then this time?

BONO: You know, I saw a city, you know, rebuilding. I saw a city still angry at the bureaucracy that stops them really finishing that build. But also saw people really determined to come through, and that was inspiring.

KING: Bobby, what does the -- does the Foley scandal give you pause? You're always interested in politics with the family you're in.

SHRIVER: I -- I'm more interested, Larry, as you know in trying to do the right thing and start stuff up. I feel badly for everybody involved in a bad thing like that. So you know, I -- I'm interested in getting stuff done.

As you know, the Shrivers, my dad ran for president later in his life. But really we were always about trying to start stuff, the Peace Corps, Head Start, Special Olympics, you know and the RED campaign. You know, we're the starters of the family.

And so I feel bad for anybody involved in that thing and I hope that more good people will come into politics. I mean, the fact that people don't feel that they can go into elective office and make a difference is a concern to our country. We need the best people in public office. There's a lot at stake. They're the lives of these people in Africa at stake in public office, education in our country is at stake.

We're graduating 75,000 engineers in the United States this year and they're graduating two million in China. Of our 75,000, 40,000 are foreign born. So you know, if America's going to be what America was in the 20th century, if we're going to be that in the 21st century, we've got to get busy and we need leadership in public office and good people.

KING: How is your dad?

SHRIVER: He's cheerful. He has Alzheimer's. It's a struggle. But, the good news is that he's very cheerful. He and my mom still live in Potomac, Maryland, right outside of DC and my mom is still harassing my brother, who's running the Special Olympics and calls me up every day and says, you ought to get onto yourself, Bobby. Have you called that guy I told to you call yesterday? I mean, why didn't you do this? You ought to tell Bono, he should talk about that. And give me his number. I'm going to call him right now and give him some suggestions.

KING: How is your mom, by the way? We had a scare about her, didn't way?

SHRIVER: We did, yes, she did have a scare. She was out at Maria's conference and she hurt her knee. Last year when she was out there she had a stroke. I'll tell you a funny Oprah story. She had a thing about a year and a half ago and I drove her up to the hospital in Boston, checked her in there, and it was on the news there she was very sick.

And somehow or another, Oprah saw this. I don't know if I told you this and phoned me, found me in the Holiday Inn there. The phone rang at 1:00 in the morning. And she said, how are you doing? She goes, how's it going? I said, oh, how did you found me here? She goes, well I heard she was in this hospital and there are three hotels within a mile and I called you here and how are you doing?

And I said, well, she's da, da, da. Oprah said to me, I'm not asking you about how she's doing. She's going to live forever. I'm asking you how you're doing.

BONO: Well that's for sure.

KING: Bono...

SHRIVER: She's going to live forever.

KING: Bono, how did you and Bobby come together?

BONO: Well, you -- Eunice. I mean, this is really -- his mother is my favorite woman in the world outside of my family. You know, she is a real inspiration to me and I called her, I said, we're trying to doing this drop the debt campaign there in 1998, I think it was. I said will you help me? She said, you know, you should call Bobby. And I did, and I'm very glad I did.

But that whole family put their shoulder to the door on these issues. It's great to have these ideas. You know, I'm an artistic person. I'm a creative person. But if they're not executed, they don't amount to anything. And so I'm very proud to be on your show with my partner here, Bobby.

KING: We'll be back with our closing moments with Bono and Bobby Shriver right after these messages.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Bono and Bobby Shriver and our moments that are left, a couple of other things we'll be covering. Again, Product RED started today. It started in Gap stores. You could be in shopping malls all over America, look for product RED's products sold in various outlets. And when you do, all of that goes to fight AIDS in Africa.

Bobby, I told you this off the air and I'll say it on, I saw a movie today that's a remarkable movie called "Bobby" about your uncle, the late Robert Kennedy. It's the last day of his life, starts at 7:00 in the morning at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles and goes up to his untimely death late at night. Emilio Estevez wrote it and directed it. A whole bunch of stars in it. Have you seen it?

SHRIVER: Have I not. KING: You will be enthralled. You'll walk out of there with a tear in your eye and at the same time, proud of your family and of this country. It's an extraordinary movie. You knew about it, right, of course?

SHRIVER: I did indeed. I've actually spoken to Emilio about it once or twice, so I did know about it. And so I'm thrilled that you like it as much as you do, Larry.

And I hope just going back to my comment a moment ago, I know there are a lot of Robert Kennedys out in the United States now and I hope more of them run for office. I hope they don't get discouraged by the Foley scandal. We need that quality person. People want to vote for people like that. That's the saddest thing to me. People say to me it's so sad that this happened or that happened. And then they say and the saddest thing is I've never had a chance to vote for someone like that in my life.

So we need people, men and women in our country to run for office, to take part in the political process, to talk about AIDS in Africa, to understand what the issues are facing our country in the 21st century. They're big issues, critical importance. We need the smart and gutsy people like uncle Bobby. He was a tough customer, and he got tough stuff done. And that's what we need.

KING: Bono, how long is U2 going to be around? How long are you going to keep on, keeping on?

BONO: You know, that's where I want to be. I don't want to be here on Larry King talking about these issues. I want to be at home in a rehearsal room playing with this band that I've grown up with and writing songs no one's ever heard before, but are going to get out on the radio.

This is the biggest thrill in my life, and you know, I don't come on your shows talking about myself or promoting U2 or anyone's shows. I'm here because these issues are important. But they -- I wish somebody else was doing this stuff, and I want to be with my band. I'm actually sick of not being in U2. You know, it's a thrill to serve the world's poor, and an honor. But my actual gift is I wake up in the morning with melodies in my head and then I sing them. That's what I want to be doing and so I'm going to be with U2 as long as they'll have me in the band.

KING: I think they'll have you awhile.

BONO: Thank you.

KING: And Bono, I salute you and I thank you every much. And Bobby, you guys do great work. Anything we can do to help, just ask.

BONO: Go to the Gap, Larry, and buy these shoes. I want to see them next time I see you in Beverly Hills with these shoes on. All the CNN people want to see you talking on this RED Motorola phone.

KING: I'll be there tomorrow. Thank you Bono, thank you Bobby. Product RED, it began today, look for it everywhere. Bobby Shriver and Bono. "A.C. 360" is next. Thanks for joining us and good night.

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Sarajevo Interview-8/20/2006

2006-08-20T21:02:00.000-07:00

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2006-08-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

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Bono's Appearance on American Morning-6/29/2006-CNN

2006-06-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

Turning now to a story we've been talking about all morning, Bono, and his mission to help fight poverty and AIDS in Africa. We're going to have my exclusive interview with Bono in just a moment, but first a look at his work and legacy, too.(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN (voice-over): He's the frontman for one of the world's great rock bands. And the pointman for the Global Aid for Africa Campaign. Bono's interest in Africa dates back to the mid- '80s, and the Band Aid and Live Aid projects, all efforts to raise money and awareness of famine in Africa. Bono wanted to know more and wanted to help. He went to Africa and spent six eye-opening weeks working at an orphanage in Ethiopia. Since then, he's been tireless in his efforts to end poverty in Africa. He founded the group DATA, which stands for debt, AIDS, trade, Africa.
BONO, SINGER/ACTIVIST: I don't think what's happening in Africa, with AIDS in particular and just the poverty and despair there, is a cause. I think it's an emergency. And lots of people have causes, and I have. But 69,000 people die ever day -- not a cause, an emergency.
S. O'BRIEN: Last July, Bono and Bob Geldof staged Live 8, billed as the biggest rock concert ever with a powerful message for the world's most powerful leaders. Days after Live 8, members of the G8, the world's eight most industrialized countries, responded. They pledged to cancel the debt of the 18 poorest African nations, and to increase aid by $50 billion by 2010.Bono is the only person to be nominated for a Grammy, an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize.
S. O'BRIEN (on camera): It's been almost a year since those G8 promises. So what is the status? Bono joins us from Monaco this morning. It's nice to see you. Thanks for talking with us.DATA said it was going to...
BONO: Thanks. Thanks for having us on.
S. O'BRIEN: It's our pleasure.DATA said it would have this report to serve as a report card, but also a road map for the next years coming. So let's start with the report card part of it. Would you say it's been successful, it gets a stellar grade, or would you say that the G8's commitments get a failing grade at this point so far?
BONO: Well, there's good news and bad news, the DATA report shows. There's a couple of high grades to be given. Maybe we should start with those. I mean, just in the United States, you should be very proud that you have a truly historic AIDS initiative. It was an unfathomable, even a few years ago, to imagine that you could get, I think it's probably 600,000 people on anti-retroviral drugs in an 18-month period. On motorcycles and on bicycles, those drugs got out there, and I think you should be very proud about that.Though, that said, Congress in the last months have tried to block the president's request for his AIDS money for next year, and that, that's bewildering. You know, I was just in Africa a few weeks ago, and there's kids following me around like I'm a hero. They think I'm American. I don't explain where Ireland is. And I'm saying, you know, the reason she's following me around is because her mother, her father, her sister, her brother, all HIV-positive, all going to die, but these drugs are on their way from America.
S. O'BRIEN: What you're talking about...
BONO: And she thinks I'm a hero. The idea of going back to that kid and saying actually, the Congress cut the budget, sorry about that, is just obscene.
S. O'BRIEN: You're talking about this $3 billion that they're debating right now, and Congress is sort of saying, well, no, more like $600 million is what we're thinking about, which is a, you know, massive percentage cut there. Is the crux of the problem that the leaders of the G8 can pledge all they want, but at the end of the day, if you don't have public support and if you don't have congressional support, and then, frankly, if you don't have the president willing to put political capital on the line and push it through, it's just not going to happen.
BONO: Soledad, you're exactly right. And I think the cavalry here are going to turn out to be the American people. They're organizing in ways that are very inspiring, across the political spectrum, you know. There's two -- I think it's maybe 2.2 million Americans have joined the one campaign recently, one.org, because they're serious about this. They're soccer moms. They're student activists. They're NASCAR dads. They're hip-hop stars. I mean, it's not just rock stars and policy wonks that are on this. And I think it says something deep about the way Americans feel about America right now, which is, they do not like to see their flag disrespected in far- off places around the world. They're very proud of this AIDS initiative. They want to put kids in schools, because they know that Democracy is being taught in those schools.I was in a school in Abuja with Gordon Brown, the finance minister, the chancellor of (INAUDIBLE), the U.K. And next door to where we were sitting, there was a class being taught in Nigeria about democracy, complicated questions that the kids could easily answer.A thousand miles from there in northern Nigeria, there are madrassas where children are being taught to hate us.So I think that it's a missed opportunity not to keep the promises made in the G8 and get more kids to school. Because of the debt cancellation movement -- that's another thing I want to give a good mark on, debt cancellation. They did follow through on that, and when I was recently in Africa, 15 million more kids were going to school, because of the drop-the-debt movement. And all the people that got out on the streets there should, you know, should give themselves a high five. That was really something.But there's 40 million more African children that want to go to school who can't, and in these dangerous times it might be just smart to get them to school.So, unless we keep track of these promises and fulfill them, they won't go to school. So that's the kind of yin and yang of this DATA report.
S. O'BRIEN: There is a theory, Bono, as I'm sure you've heard before, that people will say, listen, what Africa really needs is something that money can't buy. Africa needs political growth and socioeconomic growth. And by -- sometimes by giving large chunks of money, what you really do is fund brutal dictators, who often, as we know from Africa's history, steal the money, take the money, and it never gets to the people who really, really need it. How do you make sure that doesn't happen?
BONO: That used to be true. The Cold War was fought on the African continent, and we in the West propped up some very dangerous dictators by giving them loans and throwing aid at them, because they were not communists. And we can't then point to the waste of those resources as just their fault.Anyway, that era is over. Now we only increase aid to countries where we can see that they're tackling corruption, where there's a clear and transparent process. If there's not, we pull out. In Ethiopia, things were looking great for a while, and then we couldn't see where the money was going, people pulled out. In Uganda, the Global Fund, this extraordinary organization that gets AIDS drugs to people and fights TB and malaria, they pulled out of Uganda because they couldn't see the -- where the money was going.It's a new era of aid, and I think Americans will become much more generous when they know that the money is being spent well. And I can assure you, with the Millennium Challenge corporation supported in Congress, that's what will happen.
S. O'BRIEN: Let's look ahead in the little time I have left with you. You say it's a report card and a road map. You point to a lot of nations that are behind, that aren't really on track to meet their goals, the U.S. included. What has to happen to make sure that in 2010 we're meeting that goal? What has to happen next?
BONO: I think the dawning of on the body politick that this strategic value in dealing with Africa's problems. It's a 40 percent Muslim country. A country like Nigeria is a big oil-producing country. And it would be awful to see Nigeria get into trouble. I think then just at the grassroots level, as we get into the 2008 election, I think politicians will be wise to pay attention to this movement, because it will be five million by then. And you know, that's like -- that's real political muscle.(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: If you want more information on Bono's campaign to help fight poverty, go to data.org, or one.org

Brian Williams: In Africa-5/23/2006-In Flight From Bamako, Mali, to Accra, Ghana

2006-05-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

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Brian Williams: A lot of people who watch our broadcast because of our older demographic are coming to you for the first time. How and when did this become apparent to you that you had to focus your attention and give your name to Africa?
Bono: I was telling you how I genuinely see myself as a traveling salesman. I think that's what I do. I sell songs door-to-door on tour. I sell ideas like debt relief, and like all salesmen, I'm a bit of an opportunist and I see Africa as great opportunity. And I don't just mean this in terms of doing business with Africa for America or Europe, which I do. I mean it's an opportunity for us in the West to show our values, because a lot people are not sure we have any — to show what we are made of, to see a continent in crisis and demonstrate what we can do. I see it as an opportunity for me to put this ridiculous thing called celebrity to some use. Celebrity is ridiculous and silly and it's mad that people like me are listened to — you know, rap stars and movie stars. You know, rather than nurses and farmhands and others. But it is currency. Celebrity is currency, so I wanted to use mine effectively. I think strategically, but the deep need to do it probably comes out of an experience — lots of experiences I had in a magical place called Ethiopia. Ethiopia is where they say the Garden of Eden was. Some even say the ark of the covenant is there. When Solomon came to see the queen of Sheba, the queen of Sheba was Ethiopian. This ancient, ancient country, proud people, noble people.
In the 1980s, the most sort of vicious war broke out and what often happens in a country like that with desertification and tricky agriculture, famine broke out. People watching this remember "We are the World." And now they won't be able to forget the song. It will get stuck in their head. It was another Irishman, Bob Geldof, who put together Live Aid. The original Live Aid back in the ’80s and after that, I went to Ethiopia where this famine was. I was 23, 24 before we started getting interested in what was going on in the wider world. Before, [I was] lost in myself as rock star, trying to make some cool rock music. Spiritually, I was always aware that there was inequality in the world and that we couldn't ignore them if we were to face God. So here comes famine in Ethiopia in 1985. I was very upset by the pictures, like everybody was. You remember that Cars song, "Who's Going to Drive You Home?" And I remember seeing pictures the day we played Live Aid of this child trying to stand to his feet and walk — just to walk — but the child was so badly stricken by famine, malnourished. The child couldn't walk. And there was this song, "Who's Going to Drive You Home Tonight?" — and it made the whole world cry and I was one of them. I got so caught up in the Live Aid and the "We are the World,” Band Aid, do you know it's Christmas, I decided I needed to see myself rather than just through pictures on the Nightly News. We went to work for months in Ethiopia. We were put in charge of an orphanage and it was an amazing thing. I was known as the girl with the beard. I had long hair and a beard and an earring, I think is what it was. But the sights I saw on that visit deeply just stuck on the back of my retina — waking up in northern Ethiopia and mist leaving the ground and watching people coming, walking all through the night, coming, thousands of them coming to a feeding station to beg for food — to beg for their lives — I knew that this problem was structural. Not just that these people were unfortunate, not just that there was war in their country, but there were deeper problems at the root of Africa's poverty, and I kind of made a mental note to study them and to discover what they were. I came home from Africa, as you will do tomorrow, and I'm going to get on with my life. Lost in being in a band. My family, my friends. Just forget. And it took the Jubilee 2000 movement to wake me up.
Jamie Drummond, he called me up and asked if I would come to work on the "Drop the Debt" campaign, and I said, I'm not as interested in this charity thing. He said this is about justice. This is not about charity. All this aid you gave in Live Aid, you made $250 million — we thought this was amazing. All this "We are the World," we might have made $800 million — an unthinkable amount, but it turns out Africa pays that back to us every month in debt.
Williams: When you say, "One," and when you say, "Red," they're just words to Americans. They mean a lot more to you. What do they mean?
Bono: Well, they're two different approaches to the same problem. Red is a sort of charitable response to the AIDS emergency through red products — red phones — Motorola putting out a red phone, American Express putting out a red card and, GAP doing T-shirts and Armani's involved. And the idea is that some of profits — in fact, a lot of profits made by those items — will go to global fund to fight AIDS.
Now, ONE is a different thing. If RED is a charity, ONE is about justice. ONE is the marching boots inside of what we do. ONE is people in the Midwest like Shane Moore, who's an evangelical soccer mom who is having a watch party for your program tonight — she's unbelievable. Also Green Day, Alicia Keyes. ONE is a big movement of people. It's like the civil rights movement was like in the ’60s, I suppose or the anti-apartheid movement in the ’70s and ’80s — people getting organized. Bill Gates, Tom Brady, NASCAR.
Inevitably, programs like this focus on somebody like me — an easy story to tell. Actually, it's much more and I do want to assure people who are watching this like, "Hey, Honey, there's Bono in Africa again. Everything's going to be all right." Thank God Africa is not dependent on me. The Irish rock star tip of the iceberg with some really exciting stuff happening on the ground, real campaigning. If you sign up with ONE.org, we'll text you every few weeks.
When President Bush's request to increase aid was slashed by the House of Representatives, the Senate got half a million e-mails. That's how people get busy. There's so many people involved in all different sectors of society. Bobby Shriver in L.A. Eunice Shriver, his mother. You know, the sister of JFK, she writes e-mails. It's a broad panoply of characters and influence but you put that together — the soccer moms, student activists, the church vote with corporate America, product RED campaign, now we're on high street, now we're on main street USA, things get interesting.
Williams: Where does your music fit into your life? What about your mates?
Bono: I love this work I do. It's a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That's where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head. I was working on one this morning. I scribble notes on Air India sick bags.
Williams: So this is coming soon to an iPod near you?
Bono: Can't read my own handwriting. It's called "Thank You for the Day." [sings] "There's no storm on the seas. You're just bent over in the breeze. There's no midnight, please. You're just on your knees. There's a harbor and a safe port, but what was is now not. There was no price to pay. Thank you for the day." So I don't know where that comes from, but it keeps coming! It interrupts you when you're trying to get your job done.
Williams: Yesterday I wrote on my blog that we all have the same reaction, we want to scoop up as many children as our arms can carry and take them on the plane home. How much has being a parent changed your world view?
Bono: Before I had kids, in Ethiopia in this camp/feeding station where I was working with Ali, a man came up to me with his boy, beautiful boy, proud of his son and begged me to take his son home and through the translator, he just repeated over and over, you take him with you. If he stays here he will surely die. The rules of camp are that you can't take people home, you can't adopt. That's why I so admire Angelina Jolie and Brad and what they're doing, because you do want to take them home. But at that point I couldn't, and I didn't. But somewhere I did take them home. And I'm working for that boy now. And I have kids of my own now and I have to remind myself that this feeling I have for my kids, these Africans have for their children and to be humiliated and humbled and have your dignity taken away, to beg for food, beg to be able to do business with us because we have these trade restrictions. I care about the coffee and cotton farmers of the U.S. I care about the farmers of Europe, but at the moment we prop up their industries so much — $4 billion every year to 30,000 cotton picking, cotton planting farmers in the United States. Do you know how much we give to Africa each year? The same amount. If you took away cotton subsidies, and I'm not suggesting that immediately, but if you did, you could double aid to Africa. By that, just allow everyone a fair fight. Then, you'd level the playing field. So the truth of it is that most people who get these subsidies are the big giant corporate farms — not the small farms of America. They have a lot in common with the small farmers of Africa. They need to be protected — so do the small farmers of Africa. These giant farms, this is just lazy minded and macro-economics.
Williams: How did you find President Bush as a man to do business with?
Bono: He's been very honest in his business dealings with me, as has Secretary of State Rice, and we did an awful lot of work. We have had fallings out on Millennium Challenge, which was a big announcement at the time — $10 billion, and it was very slow to get off the ground but there was a war, busy desks, but now getting up off ground and it's really important. It's about increased aid flows to countries that are tackling corruption, and when we see good governments — startup money for new democracies is what we call it. But the thing that really impressed me about this administration was they went against their own critics on the conservative side and decided that the AIDS emergency was the greatest crisis in 600 years and they had to respond. The United States, as a result, has taken the lead on AIDS. It hasn't taken the lead on a lot of other things, and it's low in terms of foreign assistance compared to everyone else who give, but on AIDS, they're doing an amazing job and I really have to credit that.
The strange thing for Europeans, you think president of the United States, he's the big cahoot, he's the boss. But actually he has to answer to the United States Congress. And the United States Congress has to answer to the people of the United States. So the truth is, it's taken leadership on both sides of the Senate and the House. We've had people from John Kerry to Rick Santorum fighting for us. And we need that. You know, we've had great heroes, from the big Pat Leahy, the Democrat. Brilliant, brilliant man. To [Rep. Jim] Kolbe fighting for us. So there's a lot of support for us. In the end, the support comes down to the American people. If this is important to the American people, it'll be important to Congress and to the president. And that's why I'm talking to you, and that's why you're here, I presume. Because this is the kind of America I love.
Williams: You seem to unabashedly use your name and celebrity, as you say, you can't change the fact that celebrities are out of whack in our world. But it gets you in Capitol Hill. It gets you in places like Ghana. And it doesn't seem to matter a whit to you that some of the villages we've been in, we don't hear a lot of U2 music.
Bono: I'm liking the anonymity, I mean, it's a thrill. People who know me say I start walking differently when I'm here. Because I guess, maybe, I think I'm free. I think I'm free of myself consciously of a rock star. Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking a little different because people are staring at you. I thought I was over that. I'm really over it when I'm here, because it doesn't exist.
Williams: But it gets you in the door.
Bono: It gets me in the door. But the thing that's going to bring this home is Americans deciding that's what America is about. That's why I'm a fan of America. America is not just a country, it's an idea, and real Americans are getting busy. Like that fella, John Rushkin in Rwanda building villages to prove a model. Like the fella from Boston who's laying fiber optic cable in Rwanda. Putting broadband in Rwanda. There are many people working on this.
Williams: And what's in it for America? If you succeed in Africa, what's in it for them?
Bono: See, I think it's cool to ask that question. What's in it for America. Because I think there's a lot in it for America. Strategically, making friends during wartime. I think that might be smart. Africa is a 40 percent Muslim country. There's extremists working to take advantage of that situation. I think that's smart. Doing business, OK, every bar you go to in the United States, at any big hotel, what do you find? Smart Americans, and Chinese people. This is a very good place to do business. Africans like to do business. And it's a huge growth rate. It's going to be a big business opportunity for America. Third thing, might be important for America, might be important for Europe, it is important to me, is we might actually find our own soul there, here. Something about serving the poor that you rediscover your reason to be. America, remember, is not just a country, it's an idea. And I'm just a fan of that. And I just believe that Americans don't wait for the right time to be great. This is a tipping point for Africa. It's right on the edge of becoming a success story. We just have to get them through this moment. America went through the Great Depression, Ireland went through the Great Famine, Europe lost a third of Europe to the Black Death. We've all been through this. We will remember who our friends are — the people who stand with us at a moment like this.
Williams: Bono to Africa has been a success?
Bono: It's not about Bono to Africa. I keep saying ONE campaign — Matt Damon, Rick Warren, Green Day, Alicia Keys, you know, there's a bigger movement. But when will we know? I'll accept that question. We will know when the good people of the United States don't see Bono on the “Nightly News” for a while.
Williams: So your goal is to stop being on television?
Bono: My goal, my job, is to put myself out of a job. So I can be in a rock band in all good conscience. And get on with my spoiled rotten rock star's life. I want to go down to the south of France and, you know, dive into the waters and drink a martini.
Williams: Rick Warren, the hugely popular pastor and author, is a good friend of yours and an ally. He speaks so highly of you. What is an Irish rock star doing partnering with pastor Rick Warren?
Bono: What's exciting about the ONE campaign and ONE.org is people you would never imagine hanging out with each other are hanging out with each other. Rick Warren, and forget U2, Green Day. Alicia Keyes and Bill Gates, you know rock stars and hip hop stars and NASCAR stars hanging out with soccer moms and church folk. And in truth, from the politicians' point of view, rock stars and student activists don't make them nervous. Soccer moms and church folks are who they pay attention to. Now when soccer moms and church folk start hanging out with Green Day and student activists, that makes everybody really nervous. And they have a right to be. Because this is a big, big grass-roots movement. There's 2 million people signed up to the ONE campaign. By the next election, by 2008, we think that's going to be 5 million Americans, which is about the size of the National Rifle Association.
Williams: And what do you wear to mark your membership in ONE?
Bono: This white band. Sometimes I think these things are kinda corny. But it's kinda cool to be corny for this. So I wear it proudly. And I was proud to see that some of our African friends where we stopped over for the cola nuts, were dying to get that. I think in the airport they were dying to get the wristbands.
© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

Grand Rapids Economic Club Speech-5/4/2006-Grand Rapids, Michigan

2006-05-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

Listen

Enough Rope-Andrew Denton Interview-3/14/2006-Australia

2006-03-14T12:25:00.000-08:00

He goes by many names, 'Mr MacPhisto', 'The Fly', 'The Mirror Ball Man'. The White House has a new name - 'The Pest'. The world knows him simply as Bono.
ANDREW DENTON: Welcome to a very special edition of ENOUGH ROPE, Bono.
BONO: Thanks very much, thanks for having me.
ANDREW DENTON: Last week you had to announce the postponement of the 'Vertigo' tour, why was that?
BONO: Well I can't really get into the details of why. A family member was very ill and there was a lot of distress and angst and the good news is I think I can announce tonight we are coming back. Looks like November. That's a great relief to me. I didn't want to leave Australia without having that hammered down. We're about that much away from being able to give you the dates. Maybe tomorrow.
ANDREW DENTON: It's a big thing to postpone a tour like this, isn't it?
BONO: It's only happened once before and oddly enough it was in Sydney in Australia in the late '80s, we had to postpone three dates. It makes you feel ill. It's against everything. It's really - it's hard to describe how awful it feels. We've a very close relationship with our fan base thing. It's quite a thing the U2 thing. I'm amazed actually that people have been so kind to us on the websites and people really don't care. They just care is everything going to be OK. For those who have to travel and change travel arrangements we're really, really deeply sorry. Although the airlines have been really cool about all of this. So it looks good.
ANDREW DENTON: From your point of view of course this is the end of an almost year-long world tour and now you're going to have to crank it up in November hopefully.
BONO: It will be better.
ANDREW DENTON: Better?
BONO: Oh yeah, because it will be the only time we get a chance to play these songs for a long time. It will be extraordinary and the member of the band whose life has been turned upside down by this recent news, he will be on fire as opposed to having a cloud hanging over them. They'll be amazing shows.
ANDREW DENTON: On stage you've described it as sometimes it's like the sky splits open and God pours out. On a good night is it that good?
BONO: On a good night. Playing outdoors is an amazing thing if it goes off. Where else are you going to get 70,000 people to agree on anything? If it's shite, and it can be, I don't think there's a worse place to be in the world. You can't see the band. We have tried with the staging of our shows to always make it wherever you are in the house there's something special going on. I think we broke some ground there in the early '90s with the B stage which you see with the Rolling Stones or others using this multimedia stuff we did on Zoo TV and creating club gigs in the middle of stages like we do on the Vertigo tour.
ANDREW DENTON: Talking once to Ron Wood from the Rolling Stones, he said the funniest thing he had seen happen on stage was Keith Richards slipping on a frankfurter in Frankfurt.
BONO: That's very good.
ANDREW DENTON: It was, it made me laugh. Do funny things happen on stage with you guys?
BONO: I do remember we toured the world with a 40-foot lemon spaceship which was a fanciful idea in the mid '90s. We did have this mothership and it was always in a way meant to go wrong. We were hoping it would. There was a fantastic moment on the opening night as the spaceship opened and we descended from the spaceship down the stairs into very dense dry ice and smoke, where Edge couldn't find his effects pedal. I was down in the smoke with him and he was crawling around in the smoke looking for his fuzz box.
ANDREW DENTON: Difficult moment to recover from.
BONO: Very 'Spinal Tap'. That was part of the fun. It was to be outsized and outrageous and all the other outs.
ANDREW DENTON: Is it true that you actually got caught inside that device at one point?
BONO: Yeah, we had a kind of a lemon failure routine whereas if it got stuck an emergency thing would go out over the audience, 'Lemon failure, lemon breakdown', but there was a drinks cabinet in there, it wasn't too bad.
ANDREW DENTON: Can we talk about the politics of politics, this is the other half of your life which is your activism. You've met many world leaders. Which one do you think is most deserving of that title?
BONO: Of a world leader? I've actually ended up with a lot more respect for politicians than I ever imagined. I mean, they work much harder than I thought I did and they're paid a lot less than I am. Some of them are awful characters and you can see all the trappings of power and why they're there, but most of them are just running to catch up with themselves. I've met so many that I kind of admire, and I know you spoke to Bill Clinton. He's an astonishing character. But one I've ended up thinking about a lot, I don't know why, is Mikhail Gorbachev. I got to know him, and it is the strangest kind of relationship to have with this man. We got on so well.I had a very preposterous moment happen to me where I had told him if he was in Dublin he should drop out. Sundays in our house is like a train station. People drop by. It's open house. We were sitting down at the kitchen table, I think it was our little boy John's birthday, there was a bunch of people around. There was a knock at the door and I had not told Ali that the president might be calling. So she just answers the door and there's Mikhail Gorbachev, once with his finger on the nuclear arsenal, standing with a four-foot teddy almost bigger than him. My wife, Ali, does a lot of work in Russia and Chernobyl and around so this was a really big moment. She was like, "Wow, please come in," and we sat down and drank a lot of whiskey together. He really opened himself up to me.
ANDREW DENTON: Who did you find?
BONO: I just found a really mesmeric man. I asked him about having his finger on all those powers and he said, "All my life I have thought about this and how stupid it was," I think it was called MAD - mutually assured destruction. He said, "I knew always that I would never, ever use that power". I asked him was he religious. He told me his parents were and that he had brought up with some Catholic influence in his life and then finally I said, "Do you believe in God?" He said, "No, but I believe in the universe." And it was just amazing - it was the way he said it, I knew he had thought long and hard about it. There was a lot of Irish whiskey involved too. It was more like (slurs) , "Do you believe in God?"
ANDREW DENTON: Being Russian he could probably drink you under the table?
BONO: I know he can.
ANDREW DENTON: You know what a deliberate construct it is to be a rock star, how much more of a construct do you have to have lead your country, to be a Gorbachev or a Bush?
BONO: I don't know. I just thought, there's this man who really personally dismantled the Berlin Wall and pulled back the Iron Curtain, and maybe the reason I think about Gorbachev a lot and his constructions is because as I grew up in the '70s and '80s in Europe, the Iron Curtain was always going to be there. There was never a thought that one day it wouldn't. And so I use that in my own mind to think about things that we accept as givens.
ANDREW DENTON: Did George Bush surprise you when you met him?
BONO: Yeah, yeah I liked him a lot more than I thought I would. All I'm thinking when I'm meeting him is how I'm going to explain to the band.
ANDREW DENTON: And how did you?
BONO: Well, he's very funny and that took me aback.
ANDREW DENTON: What's George Bush patter?
BONO: I thought he looked rather enviously at my glasses. So I slagged him off about his dress sense. But I rode in one of those ridiculously long motorcades once and he was waving to the people on the street and I said to him, "You're pretty popular around here aren't you then, Mr President?" He said, "Wasn't always so, when I first came to this town, people used to wave at me with one finger." So, he's funny.
ANDREW DENTON: How did you explain it to the band?
BONO: I'm still explaining it to the band.
ANDREW DENTON: How did you break the news?
BONO: The best way I can explain it is that over two initiatives George Bush has signed a cheque worth over 25 billion dollars for issues that I'm working on, which is really serious. 15 billion dollars on an AIDS initiative. Three years ago, four years ago, the idea that a conservative administration of the United States would pay 15 billion dollars to get anti-retro viral drugs to Africans was a preposterous idea. People laughed at me openly, Democrats and Republicans alike. He delivered for me, and Condoleezza Rice who is the person who worked that, she deserves a lot of respect for that. We've had disagreements too. I get agitated when the money isn't coming fast enough. Occasionally he'll tell me to turn it down. "I'm the President, let me finish my sentence. " Stuff like that.
ANDREW DENTON: What you share in common, of course, is faith.
BONO: Right.
ANDREW DENTON: You come from opposite ends of the world but you share faith. Is religion the way to get George Bush to listen?
BONO: He's not simplistic. People think there's a lot of fundamentalists running America. That is not true, that is a cliché. There is I think one fundamentalist in the Administration, that was John Ashcroft and he's gone. I think Bush is a Methodist. I think he has a very deep, yes, faith but he's not from what I can see a raving loony party member - we all know what they are.
ANDREW DENTON: The end of times people.
BONO: It's not that. But I do think yeah, it's being away from me to explain myself to the conservative right, because I just won't let them away with it. The religiosity of the United States is hugely questioned by Europe - and for good reasons. Europeans know that they pay more per person to what the Americans refer to as "the least of these", the poorest of the poor. So you can't get away with this Baroque sort of biblical language and not follow through on it. I just won't let them follow through on it. I explain AIDS to these very intense religious people as the leprosy of our age. I challenge them on their faith. I didn't really have to go that route with Bush, although I did talk in and around that.
ANDREW DENTON: The US has many critics around the world, but you believe this is America's moment, don't you?
BONO: Meaning?
ANDREW DENTON: This is America's time, if America wanted to step up to the plate?
BONO: Yeah. I think it's all - I don't think it's about America. This is a real moment in time where it is possible, if we want to, to be the first generation that says no to extreme poverty. And by extreme poverty we mean stupid poverty, kids dying for lack of food in their belly in the 21st century, or 3000 Africans, mostly children, dying everyday from mosquito bite. That is ridiculous and history has a way of looking, as I said earlier, has a way of making things that looked acceptable once appear ridiculous now. This is that moment. Other ages they had, you could pull back apartheid or it was the fight for equality and civil rights in the United States that defined the '60s and '70s. This is our shot at greatness. Other ages had a chance to put a man on the moon. I spoke to Bush about that, and just said, "Look, that was a great demonstration of financial prowess and intellectual genius really, putting a man on the moon. We're not asking you to put a man on the moon here, Mr President. It will cost less to the bring mankind back to earth so to speak and be that generation. We want to have our beaches and our barbies. We want to go to our rock shows, and no-one has a greater life like a spoiled rock star like myself. But I can't really enjoy it the way I'd like to knowing that there's this haemorrhaging of human life which could be stopped and isn't being stopped.And I think, you know, in a way we shouldn't be blaming the politicians. Really, we have to give them permission to spend what is in the end our money. In Australia's case and in Europe, everywhere, we're asking for 0.7 per cent of GDP. That's what it will take to stop this. That's less than 1 per cent. I don't know an Australian that I've met in the last week that isn't up for that. It's 0.7. Now you're at 0.28 now and there's talk of increasing by 2010, I would say if you get to 0.5 by 2010 you could be very proud as a nation.There's a white paper coming I think on April 26, we're optimistic about that, but push and push and push. Because you may think, "Well, it's just Australia, Australia's one piece of the puzzle." Wrong, everyone looks at everywhere else. I know this. I've been in Gleneagles with Bob running around the golf course in the G8 meeting. Everyone wants to know what everyone else is doing. Even if the Australians weren't in Gleneagles, the Canadians are looking at the Australians.This is a critical moment. If you go to 0.5 by 2010 I think that's like 11 million people would have access to clean water, 18,000 deaths avoided to AIDS and TB. I mean, these are real lives, real numbers. What an opportunity to be able to do that. Look, everyone knows how I feel about Australia. But you have to give the politicians, whoever's in power, permission to do this.
ANDREW DENTON: Have you spoken to John Howard about this?
BONO: I haven't and I'd like to when we get back.
ANDREW DENTON: Will you have that opportunity, if he'll have you? Have you asked?
BONO: I haven't yet.
ANDREW DENTON: How is that set up? Your people meet his people and it happens?
BONO: Kind of like how we met.
ANDREW DENTON: That was in a bed, we can't talk about that.
BONO: That's right. You do get the feeling right in Australia that there's just - this is a new model. Something going on down here, a new society being dreamt up. And you're doing really well. It's an amazing - even just coming here having not played for years, you can see there's a prosperity, the way people walk. It's a confidence. With that, should be the opportunity to lead the world outside of this hemisphere, to actually just take some moral high ground. You can afford to now. I don't want to be a boring asshole
ANDREW DENTON: You say this to every country you visit.
BONO: The only other country I think has the chance in leadership in terms of creating a new model as Australia would be Canada. I would argue similarly with the Canadians.
ANDREW DENTON: You talk about Gleneagles, and that seemed like a great moment where there was a commitment to help the world's poorest nations, but six months on the World Bank and the IMF still hadn't actually cancelled any debt. You talked in December you were gutted that the World Trade Organisation hadn't taken the opportunity to create fairer trading conditions for the world's poorest nations. Can politicians be trusted?
BONO: On the debt stuff we are getting there. It's astonishing. I don't allow myself sometimes to stop, or ourselves to think about these things. But there'll certainly be about in this present round we'll get to about 50 countries who will have a complete brand new start out of this initiative. And that is really incredible and I've seen what that money can go. Like in Uganda nearly three times the amount of children are going to school. That's what that means . 'Cause debt cancelling is kind of an un-sexy concept. It's hard to describe, but that's what it means. So they're coming through on that. On the AIDS front as I told you, there's movement. Now we're still losing the war on AIDS, but there has been breakthroughs.
ANDREW DENTON: The easy dismissal of you and Bob Geldof and others is that you're celebrity activists or whatever it is. I don't think a lot of people understand the hard yards you've had to do to learn your subject and to sell the argument. Can you give us an insight into those early days when you had to study and then you had to work Capitol Hill and the corridors of power?
BONO: Well I hate losing - its probably venal or something, but I hate losing. That's why I'm attracted to people who win. Right now we're working on an AIDS emergency thing in the commercials. We're getting Nike, Armani and American Express involved. These are people who are winners, they're better than I am at getting the public's attention. But to answer your question, the first fence we could fall at was just not knowing the subject. So I enrolled in Harvard University essentially albeit physically enrolled under a professor there called Geoffery Sachs and I went to him.I wanted to know before we took on this fight that we could win it, that it was possible to win. He took me through the numbers and that was helpful. I went to visit a lot of conservative economists because I wanted to know the downside of the argument. I then went to visit the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. There was a man there called Les Gelp. It had a dramatic atmosphere because he'd lost his voice. And he said, "I'm going to give you the names of 46 people who can stop you. I hope you have some time on your hands." And he gave me the names of bankers, I mean media barons, and I pretty much worked through the list from Nelson Rockefeller to Robert Ruben, who was the Treasury Secretary in the United States, to Paul Volcker the legendary Reaganomics head of the Fed. I just went to everyone. Of course they'd have meetings with me out of curiosity.
ANDREW DENTON: They've seen the guy walk in in the glasses, the rock star. I assume they're not planning to give you a huge amount of time.
BONO: No. Paul Volcker this is the guy now, cold war warrior, old trickle down economy, all the things I hate. He doesn't know how he feels about me. He says to me - giant, six foot four inches, talks like the Penguin out of Batman. "So, where are you from?" I said "Ireland". "Do you fish?" And I go, "No, I don't fish." He says, "You stick to fishing". I hated this idea. I hated it in '68. I hated it in '72. I hated it. I hate it now. What's new? I said, "Well, people are looking for a really good idea for the millennium, and maybe this might be the hook we can hang it on. That's the difference. And he sat down and we got into the numbers.He took to me. Actually the first meeting he didn't, though I nobbled his PA to get some Japanese names on my way out and he kind of caught me and he quite liked that. This man really helped in the background and ended up at a U2 show. You can't imagine Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and we put him in the dressing room with the fun-loving criminals by mistake. Let me say there was a smoky atmosphere. He went to make a speech at the World Bank or something the next day where he said - and he tells the story - I went in there and I could smell something. And I want you all to know today, I inhaled.
ANDREW DENTON: I wonder if the fun-loving criminals...
BONO: These are probably not stories for your audience, but you'll enjoy them at least. There were hundreds of them. Jesse Helms, the old Cold Warrior who, as I was leaving his office - and he was almost in tears at the end of the meeting asking could he give me a blessing, a formal blessing, as in the Jewish - it was a big thing. He got up and he - this is somebody Edge really tried to stop getting into the venue when he eventually came to a U2 show because he had personally dismantled the national endowment for the arts and Edge has married into a very American arts family. He was furious. But he came after the show, he said, "It was amazing, hands in the air, they were blowing like a field of corn." We've had the most preposterous and extraordinary people turn up as a result of this work.
ANDREW DENTON: I don't know whether most rock bands would think you've done the right thing having Paul Volcker and Jesse Helms as groupies. Most are looking for the attractive brunette.
BONO: Well, we are too. Maybe they are too. Maybe that's why they're coming.
ANDREW DENTON: You're a persuasive advocate and you know how quickly the media spotlight moves from one issue to another. How do you make debt relief and fairer trade rules the default position for world governments if someone like you isn't there to scream and shout?
BONO: Yeah, well, as we were saying earlier celebrity is at an oppressive level and it's a pretty ridiculous thing if we're honest, but it is currency and I want to spend mine well. We're good at - we have a spotlight on us, might as well use it. But actually, I think what's happened with myself and Bob is a little different. We have managed to - like those cartoons I see on children's television - shape change and we've managed to get both sides of the barricade. I mean, it's much more glamorous to be on a barricade with a handkerchief over your nose and a Molotov cocktail. That sells albums. Having a bowler hat and a brief case and being in the back rooms of power whispering your arguments is not so sexy, but it is really effective. But I think it's only effective when there's people at the barricades too.So you really need a movement. Our access comes from our celebrity, but our power comes from the movement that we do not command, but certainly represent. They are to politicians, they're the swing vote. They're aged 18 to 36. They know your name, they know your number and everything about you, because they're terrified of you. You haven't decided at that age where you're going to vote. We're access to you is the way politicians see it. I say when I'm in the United States, I say, "We've two million people now signed onto the one campaign to make poverty history. We will have five million by the next election", and that's I think a conservative estimate. We will have five million, which is bigger than the National Rifle Association. Do you know how much money they spend a year the NRA on 300 million dollars a year is spent protecting that position. Now we won't have 300 million dollars a year, but we will have sportsmen, hip-hop stars, writers, TV presenters who'll give their time for nothing. What I'm saying is we're getting to some force measure there.
ANDREW DENTON: You mention them and talk about the currency of celebrity. We live in an age where Sharon Stone is on an official visit to the Middle East and Michael Douglas is a UN peace messenger. Is that currency being devalued? The currency of celebrity?
BONO: Could it be? Let it be. What I'm saying is we're about to move, myself and Bob and others are moving away from the need to live off this ridiculous thing called celebrity. We're actually starting to get access because we represent a lot of people. That's a different kind of power.
ANDREW DENTON: Criticism made of what you and Bob have done, not what you've done but the way people perceive it, they go to the event, the revolution is just a T-shirt Billy Bragg has said. They think something has been done, but still the hard work goes on in the back rooms. You talk about signing up three million people or five million people to the one movement. Ultimately though, are people good at writing cheques but not necessarily cashing them?
BONO: Politicians love to write cheques and it is hard to get them to cash them. But again I answer you the same. It's about the movement. The movement are there. They're much more important than people like me. And they're made up of all kinds of people. We've got - it's a big tent is what Bill Clinton said to me. "That is a big tent. You've got rock stars, soccer mums, religious folks." Actually, in some ways the politicians are much more scared of the soccer mums and the religious folks than they are the student activists and the rock stars, but when we all start hanging out together, they're terrified and that's probably the single idea that we brought to the table, was let's not divide countries in half along party lines. This was always the subject of the left. It's no longer that and that's something I'm proud of. We're working across party lines and that's where our power comes and that's the way we'll get them to cash the cheques.If Australia decides that 0.7 is the decent thing to do - less than one per cent and it wants to lead the world and actually meet the world on these terms, if you decide it, the politicians at the next election will agree with you.
ANDREW DENTON: You're charm personified, who have you met that you couldn't crack?
BONO: Robert Ruben was very hard, the genius Finance Minister under Clinton, the first one before Larry Summers. He was against debt cancellation because he was a student of Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, who when pressured not to repay debt to England, to the Empire, because they had just broken free of it, he said, "No, no, we'll pay them everything we're owed and establish credit worthiness that way."He was hard, but he also helped me when he left office. There's a thing we're about to get involved in it's just starting to announce it which I could talk to you about for two seconds. It's called the Red Campaign. It's for the AIDS emergency. It's for people who are involved in commerce and fashion, people who maybe they're - it's not about putting on your marching boots and going to Gleneagles but it's about getting AIDS drugs to Africans who need it. Robert Ruben was sitting in a meeting just like this with me. And he said, "You know I didn't run with the debt cancellation thing, but you got your way there, congratulations. Your real problem is the United States, Europe, whenever else, people don't understand one, the nature of the problem and two, they don't understand that the problem can be solved. In order for you to achieve your end you're going to need to go after this like a major, major corporation would go after its advertising and marketing. Like a cigarette company would."So we had then, they've got access to multimillions of dollars which we don't have. So I then cooked up this idea of a Red campaign, just to get into the marketing budgets of major corporations, so we signed on Amex, there's a red card. Every time you use this red American Express card - there's red phones, you'll be even more sick of me at the end of the year. But hopefully you won't be sick of this Red campaign. And that came from Robert Ruben.
ANDREW DENTON: You talk about AIDS, something that you're very strong about. You said that one of the most significant meetings in your life was with Pope John Paul II and the Vatican's policy on condoms of course has been one of the reasons AIDS has been allowed to spread. Did you talk with him about that?
BONO: No, we went to meet with Pope John Paul on debt forgiveness, which they were very good at. The language in Pope John Paul's communiqué on debt was really amazing. Incendiary stuff, actually. But it was interesting, an Irish person a lot of people have strong feelings about the Pope and Ireland, for and against, particularly women because of his attitude towards condoms. Of course in Africa condoms are a necessity.But the truth of it is I have learnt a respect for conservatives that I wasn't expecting to have. Don't ask them, don't ask nuns to give out condoms. Let's get other people to give out the condoms. They can do something else. The sort of the basis of - the agreed-upon basis for assistance to the AIDS emergency in Africa is ABC - abstinence, be faithful, condoms. Everyone knows that, including the nuns. They just don't do the C bit.My friends on the left get very upset, and are right to, when that language is enforced, and so in the United States you had Brazil saying to President Bush we don't want your money because of language on prostitution and condoms. But I said to President Bush, "I did some research before I met you and I have discovered that the largest purchaser of condoms on the planet earth is the United States Government. He looked at me and said, "Don't tell anyone that." 'Cause actually it's OK, nuns don't have to give out condoms. Somebody else can do it.
ANDREW DENTON: As a man of faith, when you look at Africa, what's your concept of a working God?
BONO: Look on the God thing I have to be really careful because I'm not a very good advertisement and so I don't want to sit there and say, "I'm a man of faith," Yes, I am, I just can't. I recently read in one of St Paul's letters where it describes all of the fruits of the spirit, and I had none of them.
ANDREW DENTON: You fulfil a Christian ideal.
BONO: No, I don't think so. All the commandments I've broken and the ones I haven't I've probably wanted to. But that said, I do have a faith and it is challenged on a daily basis by what I see in Africa. Yes, and yet more than that I have a sense that really people are the problem. We're the problem, really. God gets a lot of bad press. The tsunami was very eloquent in a way, the response. There's a natural disaster, this awful misnomer, Mother Nature, it's just dreadful. But in Africa you have an avoidable catastrophe of tsunami proportions every week. So we have the technology, we have the resources, we have the resources if we have the will.So I've gone through my shouting at God, I've gone through my angry phase but I finally end up looking at my own indolence and fighting with it, an indifference. Because I have it, too. And I feel that I'm not alone in this. I feel there's a generation of people. I kind of realised this isn't something we can really blame God for. This is about us, really. So that's where I am on it.
ANDREW DENTON: Of course your long-time friend and collaborator Bob Geldof, what kind of a man is he in your life?
BONO: Well he occupies a position really that no other occupies, because he lit the torch paper for me, and not just political activism in the sense of what is achievable, but in so many ways how a singer can change shape into different areas of taking care of business as Elvis used to have that thing, taking care of business. I think he probably thinks his creative life is in one corner and then he has all this other stuff that he does. He's really wrong. What Bob needs to know is his life is the creative life. It's not just the music. He has made his whole life the work. The way he is in that family - we were talking about the Pope earlier - I just remember standing there with the Pope and I'd swapped my glasses for a pair of rosary beads which I'm wearing now. The crooked cross, Michelangelo designed it. I had my rosary that the Pope had given me. "That's really great." Bob's there, "Can I have another three, I've got four kids." He really is remarkable.People say it's good cop, bad cop but actually both of us are very tough, it's by whatever means necessary. I think we're both into ultimate fighting. The only difference is that I accept the rules of ultimate fighting, which is you can't poke someone in the eye or bite them, and Bob doesn't. I have seen him try to bite prime ministers and I've had to call him off Tony Blair. Literally spital coming out, invective coming out, and Tony reaching over to me saying, "I believe you've a greatest hits coming", just to get a break from Geldof.
ANDREW DENTON: Do you have a secret signal with Bob if he goes over, just a sort of a...
BONO: There is no off with him at all. I think he is the poet of - he's a poet of expletives at the very least, but of the lingua franca as he calls it. He is our greatest poet. If media and music is the lingua franca, as he calls it, then he is our greatest poet.
ANDREW DENTON: A man you love?
BONO: I love him.
ANDREW DENTON: You were asked recently why you never took off the glasses and you said, "It would give too much away." The eyes are the window to the soul, Bono, what is it that you don't want us to know?
BONO: Oh, there's a lot.
ANDREW DENTON: Do tell?
BONO: There's many reasons for the glasses, posing I'm sure right up there, privacy, and other more medical. I do like having one step of a remove, actually. I don't think when I'm singing I hold anything back and I don't think when I'm writing I hold anything back. But I think I'm allowed to hold something back in this kind of a set-up. As honest a man as you are and as honest as I'm trying to be, there is a natural insincerity in the set-up and I'm trying to be much better at it. But just one step removed.
ANDREW DENTON: It's a good answer. When Bruce Springsteen inducted you into the Hall of Fame last year he marvelled at the fact the band had been together 25 years and what he called the ticking time bomb that's at the centre of every band that you'd harnessed it that it hadn't exploded. When the four of you are in the room together trying to make the next thing happen, what stops the bomb going off?
BONO: We have this huge desire amongst us, the four of us, to not be crap. I think that's really it. Because we have this amazing life. We really have got an incredible life. The deal is - we feel it's like a deal with us and our audience. They don't mind us having, being able to take a break wherever we want, renting some fancy house on the harbour at Sydney. Have all of that, where you send your kids to school. Have a great life, just don't be crap. That's kind of the deal. We always think when we go in to make an album, "Is this going to be the one we're going to be crap?" Suddenly there's three crap albums in a row. Two crap albums and you're out. That's our vibe.
ANDREW DENTON: As the biggest rock band in the world with extraordinary shows and have you ever asked yourselves, "Are we turning into wankers?"
BONO: I didn't have to ask the questions. At any given moment one of us is being a wanker, and it's usually probably me.
ANDREW DENTON: Didn't you say you got into the back of your own car?
BONO: Yeah, coming home from tour it's like re-entering earth's atmosphere and yes, on occasions I have tried to pay at my local restaurant with a room key that's a month old or stepped into the back of my own car which is really sad. I used to think when I was a kid, "We'll never change," what a stupid idea. You should change. As much as you fight off being a rock star. It's just like, run with it. I'm kind of amazed we're getting away with it. I don't think we were sort of designed to be rock stars. If you look at us as people we're not really, we're just not that kind of people and yet we are I suppose rock stars which I find bizarre.
ANDREW DENTON: If you want to lend it, I'm happy to take it over.
BONO: No, I think you've got a slightly different thing coming. You've got the revolution around the corner kind of vibe.
ANDREW DENTON: You walk a fine line between politics and showbiz. It's not always easy. The 'Zoo' tour in '93 when you used to take live broadcasts from the besieged cities of Sarajevo. A woman said, "I wonder what you're going to do for Sarajevo, I don't think you'll do anything at all."
BONO: She said worse than that. She said, "You know we're going to die" and she said, "really the best thing would be that you hurry it up." It was a remarkable thing. There was really no proper response to the siege of Sarajevo for a long time. We were there just using what we had to give access to these people to tell their stories and sometimes it was very hard to continue a rock show after that, yes. And I know it really offended a lot of people.
ANDREW DENTON: I think Larry said did he not, if he had to be in the band 20 years just to play that gig, it would have been worth it?
BONO: That was astonishing. Again you probably won't run on TV, but sitting in the President's apartment which was in a block of flats with a bicycle parked outside. We took our shoes off, we went in to meet this war-time president who was a scholar. He told us the story of the burning library, one of the great libraries of civilisation was in Sarajevo with ancient Islamic, Jewish, Christian books. It was deliberately targeted by the usurpers and the people in the siege. They burned down this library. He told us this amazing story. For days, even a week later, after this bombing, words from these sacred manuscripts were falling still through the sky. People walking around Sarajevo with these priceless words falling on them like rain. Amazing story.
ANDREW DENTON: That's fantastic.
BONO: Yeah. A symbol of tolerance. Sarajevo the reason they wanted to break the spirit is in a way pertinent to what's going on today because this was a city where all the different ethnic groups lived together quite well. That's why they tried to break it. It was a symbol of co-existence.
ANDREW DENTON: You front the biggest band in the world. You're heavily involved in global politics and activism. Major responsibilities, where do you find time to be a meaningful parent?
BONO: I have - we're very gypsy-like our family. And my kids travel so well. In fact, this last year of touring we've never been as close as a family. We got a tutor for the oldest kids. Their school work went up. They've gone home and the headmaster said they're school work has gone up. They love the adventure of being on the road. I see professional people and people who work in factories who have to get up very early at seven in the morning, leave the house and come home at 9 o'clock at night. They're the people who have the most difficult times to get time with their family. I'm lucky. I'm at home in the morning, I'm on the phone, the kids are there. I really do have a great life in that sense. Now I think mostly Ali has organised this. I wouldn't want to take too much credit for it. But I have an amazing family life and it's elastic and it's a little hectic and a little chaotic, but it's full of laughter and full of - they're great kids.
ANDREW DENTON: You've been as a band 25 years, you've been through all the rites of passage together, marriage, births of children, deaths of parents. Without wishing to go into exactly what's happening now, one of the band members is in pain, how are you there to help each other?
BONO: Our music does come out of community. It's a very tight community and so if one of us is going through it, we're all going through it. He will be out the other side of it. They will be out the other side of it. And God willing it will be a very positive outcome and we work through it. We've all been through different ups and downs and you've got to give yourself freedom within a band to get out of each other's way as well as to get in somebody's face at the right time. Sometimes you have to know when not to. This is one of those moments.
ANDREW DENTON: I'd like to close with a quote from one of your favourite poets. Brendan Kennelly, "If you want to serve the age, betray it," what does that mean to you?
BONO: Well, he is an extraordinary poet. The book of Judas is an amazing epic poem. There is these amazing Jewish sheep herders standing in front of a pharaoh. He says, "You say you're equal to me." Yes, that's what it says in the book . Eventually they're accepted as equal, but not women, or not blacks. And it's a pain in the arse, equality, but right now where we're at with it. is if we believed that these people's lives were equal in value to ours, we would not be letting them die like this. This is not an argument for giving money to corrupt leadership or redecorating presidential palaces. Let's be tough, and vigorous and demanding of our aid. But let's increase it and let's be that generation that can say to our kids, "We stopped that".And just another one on the Jewish thing while I'm there. I met this incredible man in the United States Congress Tom Lantos and he was a survivor of concentration camps and he told me that years later it wasn't the mistreatment in the camps and the brutality that used to haunt him, but the thing that haunted him were the blank stares of the faces as they were being loaded onto the trains. And I knew this is a very heavy thing to bring up. I don't bring it up this lightly, but is there some analogy here. He said, "Oh no, it's worse than that, because we know where these trains are going. We are letting children die for lack of medicines you can get in any corner shop." And so I asked him could I use this analogy and he said "Yes", and that's what our generation has got to do. We've got to go down and lie across the tracks.
ANDREW DENTON: It's easy to talk, great to sing, but I really respect the fact you give time. Bono, thank you.
BONO: Thank you.

NME Meteor Awards-Introducing Bob Geldof-2/23/2006-via Satellite to Dublin, Ireland

2006-02-23T19:48:00.000-08:00

Presenter: “Now to introduce our next winner we have a special guest, live via satellite orbitting his own ego…”
Bono: “You see, different people have differing abilities to get across the drama, the tension, the percussive qualities of the word ‘fuck’. I’ve tried, but I’m but a student. I’m not fit to touch the hem of this master of the word ‘fuck’: my friend Bob.”“You see, from his lips it’s onomatopoeia, it’s a poetic device, it’s tragic comedy, it’s violence AND compassion. Bob Geldof has told me to fuck off perhaps hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. The same for Richard Curtis, the same for everybody in Make Poverty History.”“”Fuck fuck, fuck fuck. Fuck fuck fuck off,” he said. I’m so very pleased that upon asking Bob to do Live 8, we did not listen when he told us to fuck off. And I hope he is too. Because a cheque worth 50 billion dollars has been signed for the poorest people on the planet. Signed but not cashed. Every time somebody buys one of these Live 8 DVDs we’ll put pressure on the politicians to cash the cheque. Thank you very much for this award. And to my friend who is picking it up in all our honour:… Fuck. Off.”

National Prayer Breakfast-2-2-2006-Washington, D.C.

2006-02-02T19:29:00.000-08:00

Watch Listen
Thank you.
Mr. President, First Lady, King Abdullah, Other heads of State, Members of Congress, distinguished guests…
Please join me in praying that I don’t say something we’ll all regret.
That was for the FCC.
If you’re wondering what I’m doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I’m certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It’s certainly not because I’m a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I’m here because I’ve got a messianic complex.
Yes, it’s true. And for anyone who knows me, it’s hardly a revelation.
Well, I’m the first to admit that there’s something unnatural… something unseemly… about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in the South of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert… but this is really weird, isn’t it?
You know, one of the things I love about this country is its separation of church and state. Although I have to say: in inviting me here, both church and state have been separated from something else completely: their mind. .
Mr. President, are you sure about this?
It’s very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned—I’m Irish.
I’d like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I’d like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws… but of course, they don’t always. And I presume that, in a sense, is why you’re here.
I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here—Muslims, Jews, Christians—all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.
I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.
Yes, it’s odd, having a rock star here—but maybe it’s odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was… well, a little blurry, and hard to see.
I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land… and in this country, seeing God’s second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash… in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment…
I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.
Even though I was a believer. Perhaps because I was a believer.
I was cynical… not about God, but about God’s politics. (There you are, Jim.)
Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick—my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the Millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world’s poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord’s call—and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic’s point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.
‘Jubilee’—why ‘Jubilee’? What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lords favor?
I’d always read the Scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)…
‘If your brother becomes poor,’ the Scriptures say, ‘and cannot maintain himself… you shall maintain him… You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.’
It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he’s met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he’s a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn’t done much… yet. He hasn’t spoken in public before…
When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,’ he says, ‘because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.’ And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord’s favour, the year of Jubilee. (Luke 4:18) What he was really talking about was an era of grace—and we’re still in it.
So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate—in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn’t a bless-me club… it wasn’t a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions… making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.
But then my cynicism got another helping hand.
It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called A.I.D.S. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. The one’s that didn’t miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on children… Even fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.
Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself Judgmentalism is back!
But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.
Love was on the move.
Mercy was on the move.
God was on the move.
Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet… Conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS… Soccer moms and quarterbacks… hip-hop stars and country stars… This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!
Popes were seen wearing sunglasses!
Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!
Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit.
It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.
When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened—and acted. When churches starting organising, petitioning, and even—that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying… on AIDS and global health, governments listened—and acted.
I’m here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world.
Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.
Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.
I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. “If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places”
It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.] ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.
Here’s some good news for the President. After 9-11 we were told America would have no time for the World’s poor. America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it’s true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.
In fact, you have double aid to Africa . You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund—you and Congress—have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.
Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic. Be very, very proud.
But here’s the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There’s is much more to do. There’s a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.
And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice.
Let me repeat that: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice.
And that’s too bad.
Because you’re good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it.
But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.
6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality.
Because there's no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn’t accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the Tsunami. 150, 000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, “mother nature”. In Africa , 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it’s a completely avoidable catastrophe.
It’s annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren’t they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.
You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, “Equal?” A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, “Yeah, ‘equal,’ that’s what it says here in this book. We’re all made in the image of God.”
And eventually the Pharaoh says, “OK, I can accept that. I can accept the Jews—but not the blacks.”
“Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man.”
So on we go with our journey of equality.
On we go in the pursuit of justice.
We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more than two million Americans… left and right together… united in the belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.
We hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King—mother of a movement for equality, one that changed the world but is only just getting started. These issues are as alive as they ever were; they just change shape and cross the seas.
Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market… that’s a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents… That’s a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents… that’s a justice issue.
And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject.
That’s why I say there’s the law of the land… and then there is a higher standard. There’s the law of the land, and we can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, so the laws say it’s OK to protect our agriculture but it’s not OK for African farmers to do the same, to earn a living?
As the laws of man are written, that’s what they say.
God will not accept that.
Mine won’t, at least. Will yours?
[pause]
I close this morning on … very… thin… ice.
This is a dangerous idea I’ve put on the table: my God vs. your God, their God vs. our God… vs. no God. It is very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity.
And this is a town— Washington —that knows something of division.
But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington , is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the Scriptures call the least of these.
This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to any one faith.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.’ (Luke 6:30) Jesus says that.
‘Righteousness is this: that one should… give away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.’ The Koran says that. (2.177)
Thus sayeth the Lord: ‘Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.’ The jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again.
That is a powerful incentive: ‘The Lord will watch your back.’ Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.
A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it… I have a family, please look after them… I have this crazy idea…
And this wise man said: stop.
He said, stop asking God to bless what you’re doing.
Get involved in what God is doing—because it’s already blessed.
Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.
And that is what He’s calling us to do.
I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much some churchgoers tithe. Up to ten percent of the family budget. Well, how does that compare the federal budget, the budget for the entire American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the world? Less than one percent.
Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America :
I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing…. Which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional one percent of the federal budget tithed to the poor.
What is one percent?
One percent is not merely a number on a balance sheet.
One percent is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. One percent is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. One percent is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to you. One percent is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This one percent is digging waterholes to provide clean water.
One percent is a new partnership with Africa , not paternalism towards Africa , where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and white elephants of every description.
America gives less than one percent now. Were asking for an extra one percent to change the world. to transform millions of lives—but not just that and I say this to the military men now – to transform the way that they see us.
One percent is national security, enlightened economic self interest, and a better safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of deals and compromises, one percent is the best bargain around.
These goals—clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty—these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a Globalised World.
Now, I’m very lucky. I don’t have to sit on any budget committees. And I certainly don’t have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don’t have to make the tough choices.
But I can tell you this:
To give one percent more is right. It’s smart. And it’s blessed.
There is a continent— Africa —being consumed by flames.
I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did—or did not to—to put the fire out in Africa .
History, like God, is watching what we do.
Thank you. Thank you , America , and God bless you all.

FRONTLINE-12/9/2005

2005-12-09T13:27:00.000-08:00

Watch
This is a very depressing subject. Why do you spend so much time talking about it?
Anyone that's involved in development has discovered that all the good work that's been done in development has been undone by the AIDS emergency.
The first thing I decided to do was never say the word "AIDS" without putting the word "emergency" following it. ... Six and a half thousand Africans dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease is not a cause; it's an emergency. ...
Do you find it a difficult subject to deal with?
What I find difficult dealing with is wanting to talk to anyone about some of the sights that we have seen. Seeing people queuing up to die three to a bed, two on top and one underneath, of a preventable, treatable disease more than pisses me off. It makes me ashamed, and more importantly, it makes me put my anger to use.
I think in the history books, in 50 years' time and 100 years' time, this age of AIDS will have a very large chapter, and the way in which our civilization did or did not respond to it will be very telling of us and damning, and certainly for the last 20 years of the 20th century. Hopefully the story of the beginning of the 21st century will bring some light, and our activism will kick in in the next years, and perhaps there will be a vaccine, because one day, the age of AIDS will be over. I want that, and others who work on this want that, of course, sooner -- in the next 10 years if at all possible. ...
Why did you decide actually to focus on this particular issue, and then what did you do once you made the decision?
Well, we founded an organization called DATA -- Debt AIDS Trade Africa, so the acronym worked. We believe these are the three biggest issues facing Africa. The acronym worked both ways -- Democracy Accountability Transparency Africa as well.
But there is no doubt that we couldn't prevail in any way on debt and trade without dealing with AIDS. You can't run businesses if 10 percent of them are dying. It was an extraordinary statistic, actually, to discover when I was in South Africa the giant corporations, where they had 10 percent, 12 percent of their work force with a death sentence on their head. I mean, it's very hard to do business in that environment.
So those of us that believe in the future of the continent of Africa and see Africans as very noble, royal, entrepreneurial people, we have to make ourselves available there to get them through this phase so that their fate can be the same as South Asia and other countries that were emaciated by poverty but are now thriving.
Africa will thrive. There's aspects to the AIDS problem in Africa, as I'm sure you've discovered, that make the particular strain or clades, as they are called, in some areas of Africa, much more virulent. That's why through heterosexual sex you have this kind of evil flowering, this sort of almost exponential metastasizing of the disease, and through Southeast Africa in particular.
You reached out to the American evangelical community pretty actively. Why did you do that?
I was offended to discover that the religiosity of this country, which is one of the reasons why we are getting places in some ways on debt cancellation -- the churches got behind that -- was not available to the AIDS emergency. ...
I think [that] of evangelicals polled in 2000, only 6 percent felt it incumbent upon them to respond to the AIDS emergency. I was deeply offended by that, so I asked to meet with as many church leaders as I could, and used examples from the Scriptures. Isn't this the leprosy of the age?, I argued. Isn't this what the Christ spent his time with? Yet the church now is walking across the road and looking the other way, and does that not contradict the very central tenets of the Scriptures that you believe are literally true?

Part Two: Chapter Five Financing the Battle

I was amazed at the response, because a lot of people changed their mind, which was amazing. In fact, I would argue now that the evangelical community, particularly the young ones, especially in the Christian music scene, are some of the most active activists we have. So it's kind of thrown me for one, actually. I used to love giving hell about them, and I can't anymore.
There was, of course, an amazing incident [with] [former Sen.] Jesse Helms [R-N.C.], the great old cold warrior himself. After going through this with him and explaining that there was 2,103 verses of Scriptures pertaining to poverty, and that second to redemption, this is the second most important theme, and that sexual behavior, even misbehavior, doesn't seem to be there that much -- it's mentioned a couple of times in the Old Testament -- he was amazing, actually, because he not only was moved by this; he was moved to do something. And he had a press conference where he publicly repented for the way he thought about the AIDS virus. That really helped us with the evangelicals. ...
Do you get nervous talking to politicians in Washington?
I'm never nervous. ... They should be nervous because I'm representing people who they hold the power of life and death over, not me. I wouldn't want to be sitting there. I wouldn't want to be a lawmaker turning down an offer to increase foreign appropriations to deal with the biggest health crisis in 600 years, realizing that there are people who will die as a result of that. I wouldn't want to be that.
So no, I'm not nervous. They should be nervous. I represent young people who can't be in the room, and I try to do it with some grace. I try not to club my way through the argument. I try to speak it quietly and seriously and as delicately as I can, but I rely on the weight of the argument more than my own celebrity or my own, you know, even indignation to do the work.
Jesse Helms is a tough guy; that's well known. But he's also rigorous from his point of view, and our argument is rational and considered, even on the scriptural front, even with considerable backup. You know, Christ only speaks of judgment once, and oddly enough, it's in regard to the poor. I think it's Matthew 23. It's the famous lines: "I was naked and you clothed me. I was a prisoner and you visited me." And then they say to Christ: "What are you talking about? You weren't. I was sick, and you came to me." And he says: "No, I wasn't. But as much as you do this to the least of these, you do it unto me." And the implication is also in the reverse, if you don't do it.
So that's a very powerful piece of Scripture, and he was very moved. Even emotionally, he kind of welled up. As I was leaving the room, he said -- this big, tall, Southern old boy, this amazing character -- he just said, "I want to give you a blessing." He put his arms around me, and then he gave me his blessing. And I take blessings pretty seriously. I would have liked one from Frank Sinatra. I think I got one, actually, now that you mention it. But an older person who's been through so much in their life, coming indeed as he did from a completely different political point of view to myself, it was a very powerful moment for me.
I went out and of course told the assembled press what had happened, and they couldn't believe it. But if that was it, that wouldn't have been enough. He followed through. ...
Does your own faith motivate you in this?
I think the thing that really motivates me -- of course, it comes from an assembly of worldview, the way you see the world. It's shaped by lots of things, and yes, the Scriptures have certainly made an influence on me. I put Catholic guilt to work pretty good for a rich rock star.
But the thing in the end that really does motivate me is the stupidity of it, in a way. I think stupidity annoys me almost more than anything. I suppose that's it -- it's the missed opportunity.
Here you have -- particularly in Africa, which is 60 percent of the disease -- here you have 40 percent of the continent is Muslim. They are relatively friendly, but as my friend Terry George, the great writer and director of Hotel Rwanda, said, what if Nelson Mandela had turned into Osama bin Laden?
Maybe it's smart to just help people with these crushing problems. These drugs are great advertisements for us in the West, for our ingenuity, our technology, our innovation, particularly in the United States.
I said that to President Bush. I said, "Paint them red, white and blue if you want, but these drugs are the best advertisement you are going to get right now, and that might be important right now."
So above the moral imperatives comes the political imperative to some people. So fine, whatever brings you to the party.
How do you feel about aligning yourself so closely with some of the rhetoric of the Christian right?
I have learned to interface -- what I think would be the contemporary term -- with various different lexicons, and people speak very different languages. I've learned to speak in a lot of tongues, and I can live with the bellicose language of some fervent, fire-breathing Christians, sure. ...
It's not my language, but actually, I don't mind how people come to this, to the front line on this. People have different motivations. I surprise myself [about] how much I've learned from conservatives, not coming from that vein, even conservative Christians whose beliefs I don't share.
But convictions in the end, they can be dangerous, but a world without them is just kind of an awful kind of gray, amorphous mass. They are idealists, some of these people -- now, from my point of view, perhaps narrow-minded; from your point of view, perhaps narrow-minded idealists. But just widen that aperture, and there is a lot of potential there as opposed to the alternative, which is apathy. I think apathy offends me way more than the kind of fervent religiosity.
Talk about your meetings with President Bush in March 2002. ... Going into the Oval Office, what case did you make to him? We've got footage of you coming out, saying he called AIDS a genocide.
The first time I met President Bush was really to thank him for this $10 billion Millennium Challenge, new approach to AIDS, by rewarding countries that tackle corruption and have poverty-reduction programs in place. A very smart idea -- underfunded still, I might add. It doesn't have the impetus that it should have, but a very good idea. I was there to thank him for that.
But while I was thanking him, I wanted to impress upon him how important the AIDS emergency was in affecting the outcome of development. And he was very well informed about it. I was surprised that he knew as much as he did, because I wasn't there to talk about that. I mean, that wasn't on the schedule.
But he was very interested, and then he described it himself as a genocide. Now, I love the word "genocide," because as ugly a word as it is, it implies complicity, right? Genocide happens because of other people. It's not an accident. I think others in the White House were nervous that he used that word, but I of course used the word, and I'm still using it. I told him later, I said, "Thank you for that word." And he said, "Well, I just meant it in terms of scale, you know." I said, "Well, I like to use it, because it's a very emotive term." So he was helpful there.
To be fair to President Bush, after a series of meetings and after the conservative Christians got busy, … and after a lot of people right across the NGO [non-governmental organization] community also got busy, he really responded, and he responded in a way that no one could ever have imagined.
People laughed out loud in my face when I said a conservative administration is going to pay for antiretroviral drugs for Africans. They just said, "You are out of your mind." In fact, the head of USAID [United States Agency for International Development], Andrew Natsios, had made a comment about: "Listen, it's ridiculous. Africans don't have wristwatches." He's since taken back that comment. I shouldn't bring it up, but I always do. It shows the mind-set. …
So when President Bush in 2003 at the State of the Union announced a $15 billion commitment over five years to fight the AIDS emergency, a lot of people were very surprised and shocked. But I was not, because we had worked very closely on it with him, and I was very proud of our part in it as a small organization. But it didn't stop there, because you had to get the money spent, and it wasn't being spent fast enough.
So I had another meeting with President Bush where I had to complain to him about the speed, and I had said, "Look, in the State of the Union you had talked about getting the drugs on bicycles and motorcycles, and where are they?" It got quite heated, and he was like, "Hey, hold on, let me speak here." I was kind of ranting. Being an Irish rock star, you do rant. Afterwards people were saying, "Well, was that a row?" And it was a row, but it was a good old row. I mean, I was kind of impressed he had the passion to make the case.
What was the case? What did he say?
He was saying this is very difficult, and you do not want to do this wrong. He said: "We are doing this right. We are going to do this right, but I'm telling you we are going to do it." And I was going, "Well, let's see it then." …
So a year from that day, this last year, there are 400,000 Africans on antiretroviral drugs paid for by the United States across the Global Health Fund, PEPFAR [the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief], which is the United States' bilateral program. Last year there was none. That is an amazing achievement.
It was very nice for me to be able to go back to him this time and say: "Look, no ranting. You really delivered. We really appreciate it. Now we would like some more funding for the Global Health Fund, but congratulations." I think that's probably the best news he had that week.
Did you make the case that more money from PEPFAR should be or should have gone to the Global Fund [To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria]?
Oh, yeah. But in a way, we have been doing that all the time. He had it up to here with the Global Health Fund, because every person he talked to was hitting him with the Global Health Fund. [Republican Pennsylvania Sen.] Rick Santorum was hitting him on the Global Health Fund. But he delivered on the bilateral program, to be fair. …
You talked to him about the administration's position on protection, particularly abstinence?
There is a rumor around that the administration is against condom use, and it's actually not true. The abstinence, be faithful, condoms -- the ABC program -- is basically what the administration's position is.
But there are certain groups, be they Catholic groups or other groups, who will not, of course, be apart of C. Again, you can't expect Catholic missionaries to be selling condoms. We would like them to, but they are not going to, and you've got to respect that.
Because of this language, … there are people out there who feel that if they are anti-condom, they will get more cash to spend. It's simply not true, and I had to look at this very hard before my last meeting with the president. It turns out the largest purchaser of condoms on the planet Earth is the United States government. I'm not even sure the president knew that, and I'm not sure he would want to trumpet it out there, but it's actually the hard facts.
You've got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS. …
You mention treatment. With these treatment programs, there's a moral commitment. When you put somebody on treatment, you're essentially making a promise to them.
That's right.
Can you describe what you see, whether we as a society are aware of the commitment we're making with programs like PEPFAR? Will the money be there and the drugs be there down the line?
Yeah, I think it's an obscenity, the idea of taking people off drugs once you put them on them. I think if that happens, I think all the good that President Bush's historic AIDS initiative did will be completely undone. I told him that, and we have told the same to all these politicians in all the various countries. And it's true of the Global Health Fund. ...
I hope these leaders understand that when they make a commitment to a family, a man, woman, child with AIDS, that it's a long-term commitment, because if budget cuts bite too hard, you will have the most preposterous sight of people being taken off antiretroviral drugs. If that happens, it will blow up. It will set fire to any good any of us have been working towards, ... because of course, people will die. It's obvious. You can't take people off these medications. ...
How do you respond to people who say treatment programs are great, but both the Global Fund and PEPFAR place too much emphasis on treatment [as opposed to prevention]?
... The political message is on treatment, and therefore you're not taking all the steps that need to be taken to stop the pandemic.
Any medic will tell you that prevention and treatment are the equal parts of any approach to health.
It is extraordinary that in India and China, you have these sleeping monsters. You would think more time would be spent on making sure that the disease doesn't wake up in those two huge populaces, because 1 percent of a billion people, that's an awful lot of people. And 10 percent, the world has never seen the likes of it. So there has to be a change of behavior, and education has to be apart of it. There is just no way around this.
But I think in a funny way, the thing about the drugs is that just once you have them, you have to hand them out. I think it was [U.N. Millennium Project Director] Jeffrey Sachs, my good friend and mentor in so many ways on so many things, who wrote a piece for the Times about the bubonic plague in Europe in the Middle Ages, where a third of Europe was lost to the black death, as it was called then. He was trying to imagine the scenario where -- he just made it up -- where if China had a treatment for the bubonic plague but hadn't got it to Europe because it was expensive or difficult, how would China be treated in the history books?
That's us, or that was us. We may be just turning the corner now into a place of responsibility for having developed these drugs. And being able to make them in a very cost-efficient way, we have to get them to people.
As I said to you earlier, they won't just transform the lives and communities of the people who receive the drugs; they will also change the way those lives and communities see us, and that might be important. That might just be important at this time.
There is a lot of suspicion in the world about we in the West, our value system. In fact, do we have any values? To be sitting on these technologies and not getting them out to the wider world in this emergency, that would confirm their worst suspicions, I would have thought.
So how we respond to HIV/AIDS tells a lot about [us].
How we respond to the AIDS emergency will describe us for posterity is the truth. You see all the stuff about the Irish peace process. You see it on the nightly news, and it's great -- there's a lot of American Irish people -- but it's a postage stamp in history. This is a whole chapter, the age of AIDS, and we will be defined and described by how we do or don't respond to it.

The Rolling Stone Interview by Jann Wenner-10/20/2005

2005-10-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

Podcast Listen (Part 1)
First off: Where do you get those sunglasses?
Bulgari. A lot of people think that, when they see a "B" on the side, that it's just my own megalomania. Only half the time it is. I'm the Imelda Marcos of sunglasses.
Why do you wear them all the time?
Very sensitive eyes to light. If somebody takes my photograph, I will see the flash for the rest of the day. My right eye swells up. I've a blockage there, so that my eyes go red a lot. So it's part vanity, it's part privacy and part sensitivity.
I. GROWING UP
What was your childhood in Dublin like?
I grew up in what you would call a lower-middle-class neighborhood. You don't have the equivalent in America. Upper working class? But a nice street and good people. And, yet, if I'm honest, a sense that violence was around the corner.
Home was a pretty regular three-bedroom house. The third bedroom, about the size of a cupboard, they called the "box room" -- which was my room. Mother departed the household early: died at the graveside of her own father. So I lost my grandfather and my mother in a few days, and then it became a house of men. And three, it turns out, quite macho men -- and all that goes with that. The aggression thing is something I'm still working at. That level of aggression, both outside and inside, is not normal or appropriate.
You're this bright, struggling teenager, and you're in this place that looks like it has very few possibilities for you. The general attitude toward you from your father -- and just the Irish attitude -- was "Who the fuck do you think you are? Get real." Is that correct?
Bob Hewson -- my father -- comes from the inner city of Dublin. A real Dublin man but loves the opera. Must be a little grandiose himself, OK? He is an autodidact, conversant in Shakespeare. His passion is music -- he's a great tenor. The great sadness of his life was that he didn't learn the piano. Oddly enough, kids not really encouraged to have big ideas, musically or otherwise. To dream was to be disappointed. Which, of course, explains my megalomania.
I was a bright kid, all right, early on. Then, in my teenage years, I went through a sort of awkward phase of thinking I was stupid. My schoolwork goes to shit; I can't concentrate. I started to believe the world outside. Music was my revenge on that.
I got the sense that it was kind of a dead-end situation.
Its blandness -- its very grayness -- is the thing you have to overcome. We had a street gang that was very vivid -- very surreal. We were fans of Monty Python. We'd put on performances in the city center of Dublin. I'd get on the bus with a stepladder and an electric drill. Mad shit. Humor became our weapon. Just stand there, quiet -- with the drill in my hand. Stupid teenage shit.
Just to provoke people? Performance art?
Performance art. We invented this world, which we called Lipton Village. We were teenagers when we came up with this, a way of fighting back against the prevailing bootboy mentality.
Were there a lot of fights?
Oh, yeah. The order of the day was often being beaten to within an inch of your life by roaming gangs from one of the other neighborhoods. When they asked where you were from, you had to guess right -- or suffer. The harder they hit us, the more strange and surreal the response.
You were like the freaky kids?
Yeah. Gavin Friday -- who's doing the music for the 50 Cent movie now -- was the most surreal-looking. He had an Eraserhead haircut; he wore dresses and bovver boots. I mean, myself and my other friend Guggi -- we're still very close friends -- were handy enough. We could defend ourselves. But even though some of us became pretty good at violence ourselves, others didn't. They got the shit kicked out of 'em. I thought that was kind of normal. I can remember incredible street battles. I remember one madser with an iron bar, just trying to bring it down on my skull as hard as he possibly could, and holding up a dustbin lid, which saved my life. Teenage kids have no sense of mortality -- yours or theirs.
So that was your teen rebellion?
I don't know if that was rebellion. That was a defense mechanism. We used to laugh at people drinking. We didn't drink. Because people who spilled out of the pubs on a Friday night and threw up on the laneway -- we thought we were better than them.
You were the smart-kid clique?
We were a collection of outsiders. We weren't all the clever clogs. If you had a good record collection, that helped. And if you didn't play soccer. That was part of it. Now, when you look back, there's an arrogance to it; it's like you're looking down, really . . .
At the jocks?
At the jocks, at the skinheads, at the bootboys. Maybe it's the same arrogance my father had, who's listening to opera and likes cricket. Because it separates him.
You wrote an extraordinary song about your father, "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own." When I spoke to Edge this week, he said that you're turning into your dad.
He was an amazing and very funny man. You had to be quick to live around him. But I don't think I'm like him. I have a very different relationship with my kids than he had with me. He didn't really have one with me. He generally thought that no one was as smart as him in the room. You know that Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue" where he gives the kid a girl's name, and the kid is beaten up at every stage in his life by macho guys, but in the end he becomes the toughest man.
You're the boy named Sue?
By not encouraging me to be a musician, even though that's all he ever wanted to be, he's made me one. By telling me never to have big dreams or else, that to dream is to be disappointed, he made me have big dreams. By telling me that the band would only last five minutes or ten minutes -- we're still here.
It seems there's some power in this relationship that's beyond the ordinary father-son story. You were probably one of the most difficult children to have around.
I must've been a bit difficult.
He was trying to raise two children without a mother. And here you are, unforgiving and unrelenting, showing up at all hours, in drag and with all kinds of weird people. I think it's amazing he put up with you and he didn't just throw you the fuck out. Do you ever feel guilty about how you treated him?
No, not until I fucking met you! He loved a row. Christmas Day at our house was just one long argument. We were shouting all the time -- my brother, me and then my uncles and aunts. He had a sense of moral indignation, that attitude of "You don't have to put up with this shit." He was very wise politically. He was from the left, but you know, he praised the guy on the right.
The more you talk about it, the more it sounds like you're describing yourself.
That is a very interesting way of looking at it, and I think there'll be a lot of people who might agree with you. I loved my dad. But we were combatants. Right until the end. Actually, his last words were an expletive. I was sleeping on a little mattress right beside him in the hospital. I woke up, and he made this big sound, this kind of roar, it woke me up. The nurse comes in and says, "You OK, Bob?" He kind of looks at her and whispers, "Would you fuck off and get me out of here? This place is like a prison. I want to go home." Last words: "Fuck off."
II. A MUSICAL EDUCATION
What were the first rock & roll records that you heard?
Age four. The Beatles -- "I Want to Hold Your Hand." I guess that's 1964. I remember watching the Beatles with my brother on St. Stephen's Day, the day after Christmas. The sense of a gang that they had about them, from just what I've been saying, you can tell that connected, as well as the melodic power, the haircuts and the sexuality. Which I was just probably processing.
Then performers like Tom Jones. I'd see Tom Jones on Saturday night on a variety show -- I must have been, like, eight years old -- and he's sweating, and he's an animal, and he's unrestrained. He's singing with abandon. He has a big black voice, in a white guy. And then, of course, Elvis.
I'm thinking, what is this? Because this is changing the temperature of the room. And people stopped talking.
When did you run across Elvis?
I might have heard the songs, but it was the Comeback Special, when he was standing up -- because he couldn't sit down to play. The thing was: He's not in control of this -- this is in control of him. The abandon was really attractive.
Who else had a big impact on you, musically, when you were that age?
Before I got to the Who, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, and those kinds of things -- I really remember John Lennon's Imagine. I guess I'm twelve; that's one of my first albums. That really set fire to me. It was like he was whispering in your ear -- his ideas of what's possible. Different ways of seeing the world. When I was fourteen and lost my mother, I went back to Plastic Ono Band.
Bob Dylan at the same time. Listened to his acoustic albums. Then starting to think about playing those acoustic songs. My brother had a Beatles songbook -- so trying to teach myself guitar, and him sort of helping.
And that song -- which is actually such a genius song, now that I think about it, you're embarrassed the day after you learned it -- "If I Had a Hammer." That's a tattoo, that song.
That was the first song you learned how to play?
"If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning/I'd hammer in the evening/All over this land/I'd hammer out justice/I'd hammer out freedom/Love between my brothers and my sisters/All over this land." Fantastic. A manifesto, right there.
You're still doing the same song.
[Laughs] Right.
And so all that stuff was going on in London in the Sixties: the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Kinks. What kind of influence was that on you?
The Who: About age fifteen, that starts really connecting. In amongst the din and the noise, the power chords and the rage, there's another voice. "Nobody knows what it's like behind blue eyes . . ." And the beginnings of what I would discover is one of the essential aspects for me -- and why I'm drawn to a piece of music -- which has something to do with the quest. The sense that there's another world to be explored. I got that from Pete Townshend; I got that from Bob Dylan.
"Imagine" is the first really powerful thing to you?
Imagine and Bob Dylan. "Blowin' in the Wind" -- all that stuff -- and the folksy thing. Which is, I suppose, what set me up for John Lennon.
Dylan set you up for John Lennon?
Because it's folk. If you're interested in folk, in words and whisperings, that quiet thing. I was in my room listening on headphones on a tape recorder. It's very intimate. It's like talking to somebody on the phone, like talking to John Lennon on the phone. I'm not exaggerating to say that. This music changed the shape of the room. It changed the shape of the world outside the room; the way you looked out the window and what you were looking at.
I remember John singing "Oh My Love." It's like a little hymn. It's certainly a prayer of some kind -- even if he was an atheist. "Oh, my love/For the first time in my life/My eyes can see/I see the wind/Oh, I see the trees/Everything is clear in our world." For me it was like he was talking about the veil lifting off, the scales falling from the eyes. Seeing out the window with a new clarity that love brings you. I remember that feeling.
Yoko came up to me when I was in my twenties, and she put her hand on me and she said, "You are John's son." What an amazing compliment!
About the band, you said, "We come from punk." What does that mean?
Now, it's 1976. I was in school. It was the obnoxious-teenager phase. Schoolwork's gone to shit, angry, living at home with two men. My friends are all gonna have big futures, 'cause they're very clever. I'm probably not gonna be able to concentrate enough to be that clever.
I've always had these melodies in my head. In quiet times -- at the local club, in a church hall -- if I'm beside a piano, I put my finger on a key. I figured that if I press a pedal under that -- boom -- this note can fill the whole hall. Reverb, you know. It turns this church into a cathedral. I hear a rhyme for the note in my head -- I really do. I can find another note that sounds good with it -- but I've had no way to express it.
Then a note appears from this kid twenty-nine years ago last Saturday. Like really a kid -- he's fourteen, and I'm sixteen. He wants to start a band. He plays the drums. So my friend Reggie Manuel says, "You have to go." He puts me on the back of his motorcycle, and he takes me out to this suburban house, where Larry Mullen lives. Larry is in this tiny kitchen, and he's got his drum kit set up. And there's a few other boys. There's Dave Evans -- a kinda brainy-looking kid -- who's fifteen. And his brother Dick -- even brainier-looking -- who's built his own guitar. He's a rocket scientist -- a card-carrying genius.
Larry starts playing the kit -- it's an amazing sound, just hit the cymbal. Edge hit a guitar chord which I'd never heard on electric guitar. I mean, it is the open road. Kids started coming from all around the place -- all girls. They know that Larry lives there. They're already screaming; they're already climbing up the door. He was completely used to this, we discover, and he's taking the hose to them already. Literally, the garden hose. And so that starts. Within a month I start going out with Ali. I mean, I had met her before, but I ask her out.
That was a good month.
Yes, a very good month. What's interesting is, in the months leading up to this, I was probably at the lowest ebb in my life. I was feeling just teenage angst. I didn't know if I wanted to continue living -- that kind of despair. I was praying to a God I didn't know was listening.
Were you influenced by punk rock then?
No, this has nothing to do with punk. This is September of '76. Punk has just started in London that summer. Adam [Clayton] goes to London the next summer. London was burning. And he comes back with the Stranglers, the Jam, the Clash. Oddly enough, though, in our very first rehearsals, we were talking about what music we should play. Everyone got to make suggestions. I wanted to play the Rolling Stones, from the High Tide and Green Grass era, and the Beach Boys. I was getting tired of the hard-rock thing.
Hard-rock being . . .
Big hair and extended guitar solos. I was saying, "Let's get back to this rock & roll thing." Then people said, "Oh, have you heard the Clash?" And then seeing the Jam on Top of the Pops in '76, just going, "They're our age! This is possible." Then the Radiators From Space -- our local punk band -- had a song called . . . "Telecaster" or something: "Gonna push my Telecaster through the television screen/'Cause I don't like what's going down." And it's a twelve-bar thing -- so you can play it.
How far into the band are you now?
It's just occasional rehearsing. We're playing the Eagles. We're playing the Moody Blues. But it turns out we're really crap at it. We actually aren't able to play other people's songs. The one Stones song we tried to play was "Jumpin' Jack Flash." It was really bad. So we started writing our own -- it was easier.
Were the Ramones the big punk influence on you? Or the Clash?
More Ramones than the Clash -- though we saw the Clash first, in '77, in Dublin, and it was extraordinary. There was an air of violence, the sense that somebody could die. But their music didn't connect with us the same way that the Ramones did.
What connected about the Ramones?
I didn't have the gravel or the gravitas of Joe Strummer. Joey Ramone sang like Dusty Springfield . . . It was a melodic voice like mine.
Was David Bowie a big influence?
Gigantic, the English Elvis. Bowie was much more responsible for the aesthetic of punk rock than he's been given credit for, like, in fact, most interesting things in the Seventies and Eighties. I put his pictures up in my bedroom. We played "Suffragette City" in that first wedding-band phase.
We started to listen to Patti Smith; Edge starts listening to Tom Verlaine. And, suddenly, those punk chords are just not the only alternative. Now we've got a different kinda language and we started finding different colors, other than the primary ones.
III. A SPIRITUAL LIFE
What role did religion play in your childhood?
I knew that we were different on our street because my mother was Protestant. And that she'd married a Catholic. At a time of strong sectarian feeling in the country, I knew that was special. We didn't go to the neighborhood schools -- we got on a bus. I picked up the courage they had to have had to follow through on their love.
Did you feel religious when you went to church?
Even then I prayed more outside of the church than inside. It gets back to the songs I was listening to; to me, they were prayers. "How many roads must a man walk down?" That wasn't a rhetorical question to me. It was addressed to God. It's a question I wanted to know the answer to, and I'm wondering, who do I ask that to? I'm not gonna ask a schoolteacher. When John Lennon sings, "Oh, my love/For the first time in my life/My eyes are wide open" -- these songs have an intimacy for me that's not just between people, I realize now, not just sexual intimacy. A spiritual intimacy.
Who is God to you at that point in your life?
I don't know. I would rarely be asking these questions inside the church. I see lovely nice people hanging out in a church. Occasionally, when I'm singing a hymn like . . . oh, if I can think of a good one . . . oh, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" or "Be Thou My Vision," something would stir inside of me. But, basically, religion left me cold.
Your early songs are about being confused, about trying to find spirituality at an age when most anybody else your age would be writing about girls and trouble.
Yeah. We sorta did it the other way around.
You skipped "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and you went right . . .
. . . Into the mystic. Van Morrison would be the inverse, in terms of the journey. It's this turbulent period at fifteen, sixteen, and the electrical storms that come at that age.
There was also my friend Guggi. His parents were not just Protestant, they were some obscure cult of Protestant. In America, it would be Pentecostal. His father was like a creature from the Old Testament. He spoke constantly of the Scriptures and had the sense that the end was nigh -- and to prepare for it.
You were living with his family?
Yes. I'd go to church with them too. Though myself and Guggi are laughing at the absurdity of some of this, the rhetoric is getting through to us. We don't realize it, but we're being immersed in the Holy Scriptures. That's what we took away from this: this rich language, these ancient tracts of wisdom.
So is that why you were writing such serious songs when you're nineteen?
Here's the strange bit: Most of the people that you grew up with in black music had a similar baptism of the spirit, right? The difference is that most of these performers felt they could not express their sexuality before God. They had to turn away. So rock & roll became backsliders' music. They were running away from God. But I never believed that. I never saw it as being a choice, an either/or thing.
You never saw rock & roll -- the so-called devil's music -- as incompatible with religion?
Look at the people who have formed my imagination. Bob Dylan. Nineteen seventy-six -- he's going through similar stuff. You buy Patti Smith: Horses -- "Jesus died for somebody's sins/But not mine . . ." And she turns Van Morrison's "Gloria" into liturgy. She's wrestling with these demons -- Catholicism in her case. Right the way through to Wave, where she's talking to the pope.
The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt. So the blues, on one hand -- running away; gospel, the Mighty Clouds of Joy -- running towards. And later you came to analyze it and figure it out.
The blues are like the Psalms of David. Here was this character, living in a cave, whose outbursts were as much criticism as praise. There's David singing, "Oh, God -- where are you when I need you?/You call yourself God?" And you go, this is the blues.
Both deal with the relationship with God. That's really it. I've since realized that anger with God is very valid. We wrote a song about that on the Pop album -- people were confused by it -- "Wake Up Dead Man": "Jesus, help me/I'm alone in this world/And a fucked-up world it is, too/Tell me, tell me the story /The one about eternity/And the way it's all gonna be/Wake up, dead man."
Soon after starting the band you joined a Bible-study group -- you and Larry and Edge -- called the Shalom. What brought that on?
We were doing street theater in Dublin, and we met some people who were madder than us. They were a kind of inner-city group living life like it was the first century A.D.
They were expectant of signs and wonders; lived a kind of early-church religion. It was a commune. People who had cash shared it. They were passionate, and they were funny, and they seemed to have no material desires. Their teaching of the Scriptures reminded me of those people whom I'd heard as a youngster with Guggi. I realize now, looking back, that it was just insatiable intellectual curiosity.
But it got a little too intense, as it always does; it became a bit of a holy huddle. And these people -- who are full of inspirational teaching and great ideas -- they pretended that our dress, the way we looked, didn't bother them. But very soon it appeared that was not the case. They started asking questions about the music we were listening to. Why are you wearing earrings? Why do you have a mohawk?
How did you end up leaving that?
I think we just went on tour.
And forgot to come back?
Well, we'd visit. If you were going to study the teaching, it demanded a rejection of the world. Even then we understood that you can't escape the world, wherever you go. Least of all in very intense religious meetings -- which can be more corrupt and more bent, in terms of the pressures they exert on people, than the outside forces.
What draws you so deeply to Martin Luther King?
So now -- cut to 1980. Irish rock group, who've been through the fire of a certain kind of revival, a Christian-type revival, go to America. Turn on the TV the night you arrive, and there's all these people talking from the Scriptures. But they're quite obviously raving lunatics.
Suddenly you go, what's this? And you change the channel. There's another one. You change the channel, and there's another secondhand-car salesman. You think, oh, my God. But their words sound so similar . . . to the words out of our mouths.
So what happens? You learn to shut up. You say, whoa, what's this going on? You go oddly still and quiet. If you talk like this around here, people will think you're one of those. And you realize that these are the traders -- as in t-r-a-d-e-r-s -- in the temple.
Until you get to the black church, and you see that they have similar ideas. But their religion seems to be involved in social justice; the fight for equality. And a Rolling Stone journalist, Jim Henke, who has believed in you more than anyone up to this point, hands you a book called Let the Trumpet Sound -- which is the biography of Dr. King. And it just changes your life.
Even though I'm a believer, I still find it really hard to be around other believers: They make me nervous, they make me twitch. I sorta watch my back. Except when I'm with the black church. I feel relaxed, feel at home; my kids -- I can take them there; there's singing, there's music.
What is your religious belief today? What is your concept of God?
If I could put it simply, I would say that I believe there's a force of love and logic in the world, a force of love and logic behind the universe. And I believe in the poetic genius of a creator who would choose to express such unfathomable power as a child born in "straw poverty"; i.e., the story of Christ makes sense to me.
How does it make sense?
As an artist, I see the poetry of it. It's so brilliant. That this scale of creation, and the unfathomable universe, should describe itself in such vulnerability, as a child. That is mind-blowing to me. I guess that would make me a Christian. Although I don't use the label, because it is so very hard to live up to. I feel like I'm the worst example of it, so I just kinda keep my mouth shut.
Do you pray or have any religious practices?
I try to take time out of every day, in prayer and meditation. I feel as at home in a Catholic cathedral as in a revival tent. I also have enormous respect for my friends who are atheists, most of whom are, and the courage it takes not to believe.
How big an influence is the Bible on your songwriting? How much do you draw on its imagery, its ideas?
It sustains me.
As a belief, or as a literary thing?
As a belief. These are hard subjects to talk about because you can sound like such a dickhead. I'm the sort of character who's got to have an anchor. I want to be around immovable objects. I want to build my house on a rock, because even if the waters are not high around the house, I'm going to bring back a storm. I have that in me. So it's sort of underpinning for me.
I don't read it as a historical book. I don't read it as, "Well, that's good advice." I let it speak to me in other ways. They call it the rhema. It's a hard word to translate from Greek, but it sort of means it changes in the moment you're in. It seems to do that for me.
You're saying it's a living thing?
It's a plumb line for me. In the Scriptures, it is self-described as a clear pool that you can see yourself in, to see where you're at, if you're still enough. I'm writing a poem at the moment called "The Pilgrim and His Lack of Progress." I'm not sure I'm the best advertisement for this stuff.
What do you think of the evangelical movement that we see in the United States now?
I'm wary of faith outside of actions. I'm wary of religiosity that ignores the wider world. In 2001, only seven percent of evangelicals polled felt it incumbent upon themselves to respond to the AIDS emergency. This appalled me. I asked for meetings with as many church leaders as would have them with me. I used my background in the Scriptures to speak to them about the so-called leprosy of our age and how I felt Christ would respond to it. And they had better get to it quickly, or they would be very much on the other side of what God was doing in the world.
Amazingly, they did respond. I couldn't believe it. It almost ruined it for me -- 'cause I love giving out about the church and Christianity. But they actually came through: Jesse Helms, you know, publicly repents for the way he thinks about AIDS.
I've started to see this community as a real resource in America. I have described them as "narrow-minded idealists." If you can widen the aperture of that idealism, these people want to change the world. They want their lives to have meaning. And it's one of the things that the Democratic Party has missed out on. You know, so much of the moral high ground in the past was Democratic: FDR, RFK, Cesar Chavez. Now I suppose it's Hillary's passion for cheaper medical care. And Teddy Kennedy, of course.
(Excerpted from RS 986, November 3, 2005)

NBC News' Meet The Press-6/26/2005

2005-08-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

MR. RUSSERT: Rock star and activist Bono from U2 talks about aid to Africa and corruption in Africa after this brief station break.
(Announcements)
MR. RUSSERT: And we are back on MEET THE PRESS. With us now from Dublin, Ireland, the lead singer of U2 and the co-founder of DATA: Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa. Here's Bono.
Welcome. This coming Saturday and a week from Wednesday, huge concerts around the world and then a final concert in Scotland called The Final Push. What is The Final Push all about?
BONO: Yeah. Well, the G8 is such a big thing here in Europe. I know it used to be in the United States. I mean, in Europe it's like the Super Bowl. You know, you have the eight most powerful men in the world meeting someplace, in this case on a golf course in Gleneagles, Scotland, and people are wondering, you know, what will come out of it and whether--is it just a talking shop? Or in this case, is there a chance for history?
Those of us that have been working on development issues in Africa, in particular, are holding out that this could be a historic breakthrough, a real sea change on issues facing the poorest of the poor. And there will be hundreds of thousands of people turning out, religious groups, student groups. Prime Minister Blair and--published the Commission for Africa, which is a new analysis of aid and effective aid and how to spend it, and the need, he says, and most of the world agrees, is about $50 billion. And we can really turn things around on that continent but we have to have agreement from everybody, especially the United States, if we're to get there.
MR. RUSSERT: You say from everybody. In fact, you gave an interview to Time magazine. "Question: Which of the G8 leaders do you think remains the toughest nut to crack? Bono: The most important and toughest nut is still President Bush. He feels he's already doubled and tripled aid to Africa, which he started from far too low a place. He can stand there and say he paid at the office already. He shouldn't because he'll be left out of the history books. But it's hard for him because of the expense of the war and the debts."
How much pressure do you think should be on President Bush at this time?
BONO: Well, I think he's done an incredible job, his administration, on AIDS. And 250,000 Africans are on antiviral drugs. They literally owe their lives to America. In one year that's being done. But it can't just be AIDS. It has to be the environment in which viruses like AIDS thrive, or malaria. I mean, 3,000 Africans die every day of a mosquito bite. Can you think about that, malaria? That's not acceptable in the 21st century and we can stop it. And water-borne illnesses--dirty water takes another 3,000 lives--children, mothers, sisters.
Yes, there's a lot of pressure on President Bush. 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. If he doesn't I fear that even the good work that he has started will be forgotten by history and that really makes me very, very sad, because I worked on a lot of this stuff, the AIDS initiative and the Millennium Challenge, and really want to see--I think he deserves his place in history here. I believe he has the heart for it, but his advisors are going to have to let him go to Gleneagles with something other than timid proposals and pilot programs and rhetoric. They're going to have to let him sign, you know, a proper check. 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.
MR. RUSSERT: There is a new television campaign sponsored by yourself and other organizations, which features former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela. Let's just watch a piece of that.
(Videotape of "The One Campaign Ad"):
MR. NELSON MANDELA (Former President of South Africa): We now need leadership, precision and political courage. They have an historical opportunity to open the door to hope and the possibility to offer better future for all.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: "Political courage." Those words seem to be a direct challenge to President Bush and the other leaders.
BONO: Yeah. Yeah, it is a challenge. It's just one of those moments. You know, you have the French and the Germans agreeing with the British. That already is extraordinary in these times, believe me, in Europe. The French, you know, have their colonial past in Africa, and they see themselves as an interface and are ready to step up to .7 percent GDP commitment by 2011. The British .7 commitment. And, you know, the United States is down at about .17, .2 is within sight. But really to get serious about this, the United States has to get up to .3, .4, .5. That's our wish here.
And we know it will take time to get there. We know you've got a deficit problem. We understand there's a war being fought. But, really, if we're to take this issue seriously, and we must, because in 50 years, you know, when they look back at this moment, they'll talk about the war against terror, they'll talk about the Internet, and they'll talk about what we did or didn't do about this continent bursting into flames. It is the most extraordinary thing to watch people dying three in a bed, two on top and one underneath, as I have seen in Malawi, in Lilongwe, Malawi. I mean, it is an astonishing thing. And it's avoidable. It's an avoidable catastrophe. You saw what happened with the tsunami. You see the outpouring, you see the dramatic pictures. Well, there's a tsunami happening every month in Africa, but it's an avoidable catastrophe. It is not a natural calamity.
MR. RUSSERT: One of your fellow organizers of the concert, Sir Bob Geldof, is quoted as saying that he wanted no ranting or raving at President Bush or Prime Minister Blair about the war. He was quoted of saying, "We want to bring Bush in, not run him away." Is that a stated goal of the meeting in Scotland with a million people on the street not to protest the war but to be in favor of increased aid to Africa?
BONO: Absolutely. This is the other war. This is a war that can be won so much more easily than the war against terror, and we wish the president and others luck in winning the war against terror. But this- -there will be a time when AIDS, you know, they'll find a vaccine, it will be over, malaria will be over. No, this is an issue that I think can unite Europe, can unite the world. And remember the rest of the world are very suspicious about the G8 countries, about the industrialized world. They're not sure, you know, if we have any values. They're not sure who we are. They meet us with our military, they meet us with our trade, our movies, our, you know, commodities. But they need to meet who we are on a deeper level. And that's where they meet us with foreign assistance.
And if it's spent well, if it's not used to redecorate presidential palaces and as it's not now. This is targeted, focused aid we're talking about now, only given to people who are tackling corruption. Then everyone's with them. Now, this is, I think, this will unite people. And I fear--and it's the reason I'm talking to you today--that, you know, because there's so much going of in America with the war in Iraq and stuff, that you might miss this opportunity. I love America. I believe in America. It offends me, it upsets me when the rest of the world thinks America is not doing enough. The president is right to say they're doing a quarter of all aid to Africa. He has doubled, even tripled if he follows through, aid to Africa. But they are about to double aid, the rest of Europe, to double aid, so that will leave America as one-eighth of all aid going to Africa if they don't match that. And that's not a place Americans want to be, one-eighth. And that will be Europe doing four times as much as America. You know, I want to encourage Americans just to give their president permission. I know he wants to do this, but his advisers must break with this kind of fiscal conservativity on this one issue. This is the moment to be generous right now. I'm sure of that.
MR. RUSSERT: The concerns that many in the administration have and many people across the country were reflected in this article in yesterday's New York Daily News. The headline: "Can music really save Africa? Concerts help but corruption hurts." And the article goes to say, Bono, "Many--in the West and in Africa--doubt that canceling debt and pouring billions more into Africa will do any good while the continent remains plagued by disease, civil war and corruption. Makeda Tsegaye, an Ethiopian activist based in Kenya, said writing off debts without demanding democratic reforms would be counterproductive. `A rare occasion of debt-relief is not going to solve the problem.' Corruption at the highest levels of many of Africa's governments has meant that much of the money given in aid ends up used as the personal slush funds for dictators. `It's always meant that--just making a deposit in the Swiss bank account of the leaders,' said Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute."
Enormous ramp in corruption and many of the countries that are on the list to be aided are on the State Department list of countries that violate human rights. How can you assure people in the United States that the money that will be given to Africa, the debt that will be forgiven, will not wind up in limousines and private jets, with dictators who abuse their own people?
BONO: This is the number-one problem facing Africa, corruption; not natural calamity, not the AIDS virus. This is the number-one issue and there's no way around it. That's what was so clever about President Bush's Millennium Challenge. It was start-up money for new democracies. It was giving increases of aid flows only to countries that are tackling corruption. That's what's so clever. It's--the implementation of the Millennium Challenge has not happened. It is in trouble. They recognize that. President Bush is embarrassed about that. They're trying to put it right. But the idea, the concept was a great one. Debt cancellation also has conditionalities built into it. People need to know this.
So no one is talking about aid in the old sense, the money down a rat hole thing. No one wants that. It makes matters worse, not better. This is new targeted aid. Now, there will be some countries where mercy is needed and aid has to go--certain levels of aid have to go. You can't hold people responsible, the populace responsible for their dictators. But in those instances, you just root the aid away from the governments and through the NGOs on the ground. That's the modern way.
MR. RUSSERT: There was an article in The Guardian in London suggesting that you and Mr. Geldof were being used by Prime Minister Blair and President Bush, and let me just read it and give you a chance to respond. "[Bono and Geldof] are lending legitimacy to power. From the point of view of men like Bush and Blair, the deal is straightforward. We let these hairy people share a platform with us, we make a few cost-free gestures, and in return, we receive their praise and capture their fans. The sanctity of our collaborators rubs off on us. If the trick works, the movements ranged against us will disperse, imagining that the world's problems have been solved."
Are you concerned about that?
BONO: As a hairy person, yes. I'm very concerned about that. It is the biggest risk that we take as activists, but I've been in the room with Condoleezza Rice. I've been in the room with President Bush and Tony Blair and Chirac and Schroeder and on the Democratic side, you know, with John Kerry and all over Congress. 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. And believe me, I've been in the heartland of America. I've been in every city just in the last year either with U2 or on speaking tours and churches and schools. And people want to believe that this can be the generation that says no to stupid poverty, you know, and it's an obscenity. And in a world of plenty, children are dying for lack of food in their belly. We can actually do something about this. It's not mistrusted Irish rock star nonsense. There's a critical path. Cleaver people than I have put price tags. There are mechanisms in place to prevent the money being wasted. We must do this. This is--our generation demands it. There's an audience out there that demands it, and if we blow it, I know that I'm going to be embarrassed and this is--yes--and there's a lot at stake here.
MR. RUSSERT: What do you believe will happen at the G8 meeting?
BONO: I think in the next week, if the U.S. looks deep into its soul and more importantly its wallet and says, "Look, if we want to win the war against terror, we have to win the war against poverty." I didn't say that by the way. Colin Powell said that, a military man, and if want to win the war against poverty or be seen at least to show global leadership here, we are going to have to put our hands in our pocket in ways that we don't want to, but this is the moment, this is the time, and we have the rest of the world waiting. They're already in agreement, as I said to you earlier, the French, the Germans, the Italians, and if America comes through and leads this, I promise President Bush, I promise the people of America 'cause these are hard choices to make. I understand that, but this will be something in 50 years' time, in 25 years' time people will be very proud to have been a part of.
MR. RUSSERT: Bono, aka Paul Hewson, we thank you very much for joining us and sharing your views on MEET THE PRESS.
BONO: Thank you very much, Tim. Thanks for having me on the program. God bless you.
MR. RUSSERT: And we'll be right back.

Bono Interview by Santi Millan-circa European Vertigo Tour

2005-08-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

Greg Kot: Bono Interview-5/12/2005

2005-05-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

Bono: Larry [Mullen] is going to kill me for doing this. But I want this on the record. Are you going to turn this thing on? Your vision of what rock is, and mine, is 180 degrees apart. Some of what is going around as a result of your article is not just unhelpful to our group and our relationship to our audience, but just really problematic for what in the broad sense you might call rock music. The things you think are wrong with it, and the things that I think are wrong with rock music, are polar opposite. And that's why I need to talk to you.
Kot: I understand. Let me tell you how the article came about. I should say that you're an important band for my generation. A band that led by example: This is how to do it, how to be a successful band without compromising your principles. But when the ticket sale went wrong this year, I got hundreds of e-mails from fans who felt you'd let them down, that their loyalty was betrayed.
Bono: Everybody in this band knows about that debacle, and regrets it. I think most fans understand what happened. Our eyes were not on that ball the way they normally would be. Our eyes were on trying to determine whether we would be going on tour at all. Whether we would be pulling out, even with tickets on sale. There are things that we can't discuss in the interview that were going on within the band that just took precedence. Most U2 fans knew what that was [serious health problems in the family of a band member]. I thought it was really disingenuous of them and you not to recognize that this is not normal behavior from this band. Complain, yeah. Something did go wrong. That was a mistake, and we tried to put it right.
Kot: That's what started it. The first I heard about the internal problems in the band was when Larry apologized about it at the Grammys. I tried for three weeks to get information from the band, to interview you. Yes, this was not normal behavior from U2. Instead, you steer me to the record company president and the tour promoter. You let these business guys answer for you.
Bono: I'm really sorry about that. It's our fault that didn't happen.
Kot: The ticket sale to me was just the tip of a larger issue, which is: Is the band losing sight of what it once was? The I-Pod ad, the Super Bowl halftime appearance, the Grammy Awards appearances — I didn't think U2 was about that sort of promotion.
Bono: That's not accurate. We did all the things that we would have done in promoting our first, or second or third albums. That's really an important point that I want to get across to you. There's this poverty of ambition, in terms of what rock people will do to promote their work. That's a critical issue to me. The excitement of punk rock, in the Irish and UK scene when we were coming up, was seeing our favorite band on "Top of the Pops," right next to the "enemy." That would be exciting. We did talk shows, TV shows, back then. It was proof that you believed enough in what you did that you would go out and do this stuff. It was the same with the Beatles. The great moments of rock 'n' roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto. I don't like that kind of thinking. I know some of it exists, and some of our best friends are part of it. It's not for me.Progressive rock was the enemy in 1976. And it still is. And it has many, many faces. This beast is lurking everywhere. It can describe itself as indie rock. It's the same [blanking] thing. It's misery. I have seen so many great minds struck down by it. … When you suggest we're betraying ourselves by doing TV shows and promotional stuff, to me the Super Bowl was our Ed Sullivan moment. It just came 25 years later. I didn't expect it. But it is one of the moments I'm most proud of in my life. It was amazing. I mean, we had to build the stage in six minutes. Just wild. And then you're on air. As usual we made it difficult for ourselves by wanting the crowd next to us, a security nightmare. As we're walking through the crowd, people are popping me on the head. I have a wire microphone, and one more slap and I'm off air. A very telling moment. I was terrified, but if you look at my face what do you see? A singer smirking. [Spreads arms, imitates smirk]. Which is what I always do in such moments.We want that stuff. That's when it's exciting. Even Nirvana. I used to love Kurt Cobain, when he was telling people we're a pop band. People would laugh, they thought of it as good old ironic Kurt. But he wasn't being ironic. He was a songwriter, he understands that when a guitar solo is playing the melody of the song, that's pop. That's what the Buzzcocks taught him, who learned it from the Beatles. That's what makes him a pop star, that's what makes it pop music. He wanted to be on MTV, he wanted to be stirring things up. He surprised us all with where he did come out from.
Kot: Why is the idea of associating a song with a product a good idea?
Bono: I accept that that is alarming. I really do. Our being on TV, I don't have a problem with that — we should be on TV. But OK, associating our music with a product. You've got to deal with the devil. Let's have a look. The devil here is a bunch of creative minds, more creative than a lot of people in rock bands. The lead singer is Steve Jobs. These men have helped design the most beautiful object art in music culture since the electric guitar. That's the iPod. The job of art is to chase ugliness away. Everywhere we look we see ugly cars, ugly buildings… [he pauses, and looks out the window at the Chicago skyline]… You're lucky here in Chicago on that front. But you see ugly objects in the work place. Everywhere. And these people are making beautiful objects.Selling out is doing something you don't really want to do for money. That's what selling out is. We asked to be in the ad. We could see where rock music is, fighting for relevance next to hip-hop. And I love hip-hop. It's the new black entrepreneur. It's about being out there, loud and proud about what you're doing. Selling it on the streetcorner if you have to. From penthouse to pavement. Advertising the new song in another song. Taking on the world. Meanwhile a bunch of white middle-class kids are practicing in daddy's garage saying [adopts fake Midwestern whine], "No, man, that is just so uncool." And, "Hey, Bert, get me a knife. I have to cut my ear off!" It's the bleeding ear brigade. They try to find some viruses, interesting neuroses, or bad habits, to make their round washed faces look grubby enough to be taken seriously by the indie press. Hip-hop looks at this, and says, "What is this [expletive]?" I got excited about hip hop production values, the extraordinary drama to their music. They're way ahead of anyone else in terms of working their way around the studio. Someone like Timbaland. They make pop music. As hard as it is, as ghetto as it is, hip-hop is pop music. It's the sound of music getting out of the ghetto, while rock is looking for a ghetto.We never wanted to be a garage band. We wanted to get as quick as we could out of the garage. The people who say they like the garage usually have two or three cars parked outside. Rock music is niche. There was a survey that said 70 percent of youth culture listens to hip-hop. There are lessons to be learned from that. I don't like all the values that go with it sometimes. But I do think we need to take up the challenge. Wherever you go, you hear hip-hop. We want people who aren't in our niche listening to our music. If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It's a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting. Rock music was most exciting when it was in the 45 [rpm single], when it was disciplined into a single. Whether it was the Sex Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, Nirvana, the Beatles, the Stones. When the wind starts blowing in the hair, and it meanders off, you can get some great [stuff], but it doesn't interest me as much. The 45 is the pure rock to me. That is why I wanted to be in a band.
Kot: I understand that, but I've seen some of my favorite songs corrupted because of that attitude. [Iggy Pop's] "Lust for Life is now a Jamaican vacation commercial. I don't know if I want to listen to that song anymore.
Bono: Do you watch TV that much?
Kot: No, but that song has lost something for me because it's associated with a commercial. I see [the Who's Pete] Townshend doing that with his stuff now. Those songs are now associated with a product, not something in my imagination. "Vertigo" is an iPod commercial, not a single on an album.
Bono: You don't like MTV? Videos can do the same thing with your imagination.
Kot: Those are commercials too. Most rock videos aren't very interesting to me.
Bono: Don't watch them. Sometimes I've seen a great song ruined by a bad video. Rarely. It doesn't bother me. If I love the song, I love the song. We looked at the iPod commercial as a rock video. We chose the director. We thought how are we going to get our single off in the days when rock music is niche? When it's unlikely to get a three-minute punk-rock song on top of the radio? So we piggy-backed this phenomenon to get ourselves to a new younger audience, and we succeeded. And it's exciting. I'm proud of the commercial, I'm proud of the association. We have turned down enormous sums of money to put our songs in a commercial, where we felt, to your point, where it might change the way people appreciated the song. We were offered $23 million for just the music to "Where the Streets Have No Name."
Kot: I might have to consider that [laughs].
Bono: We almost did. We sat down. I know from my work in Africa what $23 million could buy. It was very hard to walk away from $23 million. So we thought, "We'll give the money away." But if we tell people we're giving the money away, it sounds pompous. So we'll just give it away, and take the hit. That's what we agreed. But if a show is a little off, and there's a hole, that's the one song we can guarantee that God will walk through the room as soon as we play it. So the idea that when we played it, people would go, "That's the 'such-and-such' commercial," we couldn't live with it. Had it been a cool thing, or didn't have a bad association, or it was a different song, we might've done it. But we have to start thinking about new ways of getting our songs across, of communicating in this new world, with so many channels, with rock music becoming a niche. I hear so many songwriters describe their songs as their children, that they have to look after them. [Nonsense!] They're your parents, they tell you what to do. They tell you how to dress, how to behave when you're playing them. They tell you what the video looks like. If you listen to them, they manage you. And if you get it right, they pay for your retirement [laughs]. Because songs demand to be heard. "Vertigo," which you didn't like, is deceptively simple. That riff, you can think, "Aw yeah, another rock song." It doesn't become great the first time you hear it. It becomes great the thousandth time you hear it. And that's true of a lot of rock riffs. So we have to get the density of exposure for that to be a hit. And we knew that.Kot: You said the other day, "We've 'Kid A'd' ourselves to death." It was a funny line, but I'm disappointed to hear that. [A reference to Radiohead's 2001 progressive-rock album 'Kid A'].Bono: Radiohead just looked at the pop machine and the machinations of pop and just said, we don't have it in us, we don't have the energy, to have our way with that. I don't hear [Radiohead's] Thom Yorke singing on the radio. I want to hear Radiohead, extraordinary band that they are, on MTV. I want them setting fire to the imaginations of 16, 15, 14 year old kids. I was 14 when John Lennon set fire to my imagination. At that age, you're just [angry], and your moods swing, and it's an incredible time to be hit with something like that. I don't blame them [for not wanting to be on MTV]. But I think, what would my life be like without the Beatles? If the Beatles had just kept going on experimenting after "Sgt. Pepper," I'd be interested to hear it, of course …Our last two albums are essentially about the combo. We used the limitations of the combo. We had 10 years of experimentation. We decided to rope it in, and tie ourselves to only one thing. And that's the only discipline. Is it a great song? Is it fresh? Experimenting in rock is at its best when you dream from the perimeters and bring it back to the center. All my favorite innovators disappear into the woods and bring something back, and you get to hear the songs distilled from those experiments. I used "Kid A" as an example, because I love the album. We did our "Zooropa," we did our "Passengers," even our "Pop" experiment. There were great ideas on that album. "Discotheque," we viewed it as our response to Peter Gabriel experimenting. We wanted it to be our "Sledgehammer." Imagine if "Discotheque" was a No. 1 pop song? Now that record makes sense. We didn't have the discipline to screw the thing down, and turn it into a magic pop song. We didn't have the discipline to make "Mo Fo" into a loud concoction of rock 'n' roll, trance crossover. We learned from that album. We'd become progressive rock! Ahhh! It's on us!
Kot: You're killing me now. I thought those '90s albums were great. I didn't understand "Achtung Baby" right away. But after seeing the tour, I realized it was your best album. I still feel that way. And I loved "Zooropa" in that way, and "Passengers." I even liked "Pop." To me, you guys were showing us how it should be done. You were [screwing] with our heads and making great music. You were doing those weird ballads from "Pop" as an encore at Soldier Field [in 1997]. I loved that you were so far out on a limb with saw in hand, and you were trying things, pushing things. And now you never play songs from those albums anymore. What happened?Bono: There is still talk about the band going back in and fixing "Pop," actually going in… because the bones [of a great album] are there. Just to talk a little bit about our tours. We have ideas that we want to communicate [in a concert], not just a bunch of songs. If we get it right, it feels like one song. Pop Mart in the U.S., through you and a few others championing it, it was well-received, especially in Chicago. We actually did a few good shows and it really came together. On this tour we have a particular ambition, it moves from punk rock, past Vegas to a gospel show, and we're trying to… What band at our level would play 10 songs, seven from the new album and three from our first album? The reason we do that is because this album and our first album have very similar themes. The first is an ode to innocence, as it's being held onto. The latest is an ode to innocence, as it's been remembered, with the thought that you can get back to it. There's nothing in U2's catalogue that sounds remotely like "Vertigo." It's completely fresh. "Vertigo" is actually quite a gem, contrary to what you say, and it's very new. And there are beautiful little moments in there, but they're subtle. And then the amazing thing happens. we weren't going to play "Where the Streets Have No Name" on this tour. We want to be fresh. We're sitting with [U2 show designer] Willie Williams and constructing the show, and we still can't find a reason to play it.There's a section of the show where we talk about civil rights, because it's what's happening now. It's a great moment in American history when that sort of injustice was stopped in its tracks. This journey of equality is an interesting one. It started with Jewish farmers standing before the pharaoh with sheep [dung] on their shoes, and the pharaoh is laughing at them. "You people think you're equal to me? Get them out of here." There is the great line that everyone is equal under God for 15 minutes. We had this struggle for equality and it moves along, and it's annoying to people. The Jews become equal, but not black people or women. Finally we've accepted Jews and black and Catholics as equal, but only in these borders, not over there. Because if we really believed that all people are equal, we couldn't allow the hemorrhaging of life that is happening in Africa. The tsunami kills 120,000 people, and the world stops. But 120,000 people die every month in Africa from AIDS and malaria. Death by mosquito bite. A billion dollars could save a million lives. So why wouldn't we do that? Because really we don't care.The One campaign, I didn't want it named after one of our songs, and so Andre Harrell, a really creative man, came up with this idea of calling it Same As Us. I'm not a fan of testing, but it didn't test well, and you know why? Because people don't think they are. People don't think they are the same as us. They'll give them money, they don't want them to die. "But, hey, they aren't the same as us." So we took this notion, the journey of equality, and we start talking about it. This is our generation's challenge. So we thought about using flags as a backdrop during "Where the Streets Have no Name." I remember singing it the first night, it's not a very good lyric, though really great ideas are suggested in the lyric, the idea that you could go on a journey to that other place. It's like Jim Morrison's "Break on Through (to the Other Side)." Do you want to go to that other place? It puts the hair up on the back of my neck. Because we want to go to that other place. That lyric was written in a dusty field in northern Ethiopia. And I can finally make sense of it. And then we go into "One," and we could do a new arrangement of "One" as you might want us to, but you see, I'm only one member of this band, and Edge is three. And if he thinks an arrangement is perfect, why mess with it? He says, "I'm not jamming here. That's a guitar melody. I've written it. I can't improve on it." Adam and I are the jazz men in the band. But the Teutonic Larry Mullen and the Presbyterian Edge always demand, "No fat. Back to the original arrangement. We're not going to change the bass line just because we feel like it."
Kot: It helped when you put "Original of the Species" in the set last night. It made me want to hear what I missed on the record. That's what was lacking in the first show [at the United Center].
Bono: It's a classic, especially on the album. But we have to remix it for a single. We have to figure out how are we going to get that song on MTV? Those songs do not come around easy. The melodies of most songs are A-B, A-B, and this is A-B-C-D. The construction of it is unique. And I want you to want us to have that song out on the radio. Because it's about other bands [who value songwriting] coming though. It's not just us. Rap-metal nearly put the white race in jeopardy [as a creative force]. It's a travesty. Those [rap-metal] people should just take suicide pills and go away. What we have to offer, if we're lucky, are lyrics, some interesting arrangements, and beautiful melody. That's what rock music can do right now. To be relevant, to set the imagination off on a new generation coming up. Songs that up the ante. That's your chorus? Make it your verse, then write a better chorus. That's what it's going to take. Basic songwriting. I think what happened in the UK music scene is instructive. Oasis came around and they weeded out progressive rock-itis, and brought ambition back to songwriting, and got a band to promote itself. Radiohead proved how elastic a band could be with melody and guitar. They write extraordinary melodies. "OK Computer" is full of beautiful pop songs. I just want rock music to expand, and challenge people. If I know of an innovative way of putting those songs across when you write them, I'm going to do it. That's really why we are a rock band.
Kot: It sounds like "Pop" didn't work for you because it didn't sell. To my mind, it worked because it was a good, daring album. There's no shame in not selling.
Bono: It didn't communicate the way it was intended to. It's my daughter's favorite U2 album, and people are warming up to it now. But it was supposed to change the mood of that summer [1997]. An album changes the mood of a summer when you walk out of a pub and you have those songs in your head. And you hear them coming from a car, an open window. It changes the mood of the season. Instead it became a niche record. And I know you're a man who appreciates the niche. And I'm glad you appreciate that one, but that's not what it was intended to be. It's not about sales, we don't need the cash. It's about your ambition for the song. We don't have to make albums at all.One of the reasons I respect these men I've been in a band with for 25 years is that on a regular basis they turn down enormous sums of money for obstinate reasons, sometimes we don't even have a reason. … In this band, oftentimes I want a certain thing, I get another one. Even last night [at the concert], I went out and misfired. I didn't have the fire in my belly, and I thought well, I'll push it, and I'll get it. And I couldn't. And then something else happened, and it became very special. Something really happened. You have to accept what you're given, and make the most of it. With "Pop," I always think if we'd just had another month, we could have finished it. But we did a really bad thing. We let the manager book the tour, known in this camp as the worst decision U2 ever made, and we had to wrap up the album sooner than we wanted. You don't need an album to communicate for you to enjoy it, you don't need it to be trimmed of fat to enjoy it, because you're enjoying the ideas, the textures. But for me to enjoy it, I need it to do that [communicate on a wider level].
Kot: The last two albums look back. With "All That You Can't Leave Behind," I thought you made your retro record, you'd made your [version of the Stones' 1978 album] "Some Girls," an album that sums up all your best moves in a concise way. You're allowed to make that album, once. Now you've made "All That You Can't Leave Behind," and you're looking back and I think, Whoops, you really are turning into the Stones. I expected more, I expected you to break out of that box.
Bono: Hey, there are some amazing songs on [the Stones 1994 album] "Voodoo Lounge." But what you're missing is that each time [in history] has a mood. You think it's looking backward, I think it's looking forward. I think to be in a studio, tied to the four piece band set-up right now is a very modern thing to do. And to use that mystery and power to write songs, we did two records like that. This one goes even further than the last one in that direction. "Beautiful Day" returns to the garage, but it's got a drum machine on it! You get beauty like "Original of the Species" that you can play on a piano. Just put piano and voice on that song, and it's special. That's not retreat. That is progressive. That is progress.Kot: The strength of your band has always been that you build a case for your new music on the road. And it's my job to say when you don't.Bono: As a writer who cares deeply about music, you're right to give rock bands a kicking when they deserve it. And we have deserved it at times. But you also need to explain to us how rock can progress. … The value of writing is enormous. The new school of rock writing in the UK has been Q magazine, in which they take the music seriously but not the people who make it. I think that's an important distinction. With your writing, you can direct traffic. We need from writers some rage, and we need spleen, but we also need the pursuit of truth. And what I would like to leave you with, is that it's important to rock music to do that. I see it fighting for relevance. And I would like it if writers would step back and look at what we've done like you would hip hop, or you've come from Zanzibar, because there are loads of codified rules and regulations that are suffocating rock music right now.Great groups were broken up, like the Clash, because of ridiculous concepts like not selling out. The bass player in Hole took her own life. And when they asked her Dad what happened, he said, "She was under a great deal of stress, because she'd just signed to a major." It breaks my heart. It's the cultural revolution in China all over again: Let's rid rock music of thinkers, let's rid rock music of big ideas. I saw it destroy great groups like Echo and the Bunnymen, extraordinary talents who crashed and burned on these things. You tell me about the hundreds of e-mails you got, well I got them with every single turn this band has made. I got them when we made the "War" album. I got them when we made "Joshua Tree." I got them when we made "Achtung Baby." Of course we're gonna lose fans along the way who don't like what we're doing. But you need to understand what we're actually trying to do, and that's why we had to have this talk.Did you see the Kings of Leon? Great hooks, great tunes, melodies, savvy and smart. They're pop stars. They make sexy Southern music. There's a chance that things could happen in the next couple of years. There are young bands, great songwriters, and they should be pushed and encouraged [by the music press]. Jimi Hendrix was the trickster guitar player until [music writers] said, "No, that's Picasso!" And he said, "Picasso"? And he grew into the role [of the great guitarist]. The new breed are going to take over the world. But how are they going to get out of the ghetto? Answer: They make pop music, they make pop records.
Kot: I had to laugh, because at last night's show you said that "some really annoying people are standing up" for what they believe in, "and God bless them." That reminds me of you, including the annoying part.
Bono: [laughs] Yes, you're right.
Kot: But you do have the courage of your convictions. You don't care what people think of you for having those convictions. You sparked a week-long debate in this town about music, and what kind of social role it should play, and why people care about it, and why they should care about it.
Bono: Yeah, we love this city. We've always annoyed people. Around the time of "Zoo TV," we were in danger of being cool, but we fixed that [laughs]. Now there are loads of people who would love to murder me on a daily basis. Stirring it up, it's good. Our definition of art is putting your head above the parapet, and be ready for the custard pie. I happen to love the taste of it.

CBC INTERVIEW WITH BONO ON PAUL MARTIN AND CANADA’S AID POLICY by Anthony Germain-4/22/2005-CBC Studios, Ottawa, Ontario

2005-04-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

Listen in Real Audio
Anthony Germain: Bono, welcome to The House.
Bono: Good morning Anthony, how are you?
Anthony Germain: Good thank you. Now as you probably have studied in great
detail this week, Prime Minister Paul Martin delivered a much awaited plan about
Canada’s place in the world, and to the surprise of many people this plan does not
include a promise to reach a foreign aid goal of .07% of GDP. Now what do you think
about that?
Bono: Well I’m bewildered really. I’m disappointed. I’ve not given
up hope. I really I can’t believe that Paul Martin would want to hold up history, or indeed
would hold up history. I think it may not be clear to him just how much is at stake in
terms of the momentum elsewhere in the world on this issue. You know for those of us
and there’s lots of people involved in this process, it’s rare when you get all the ducks in
a row. And to have Germany come through the way they have this year, now this is a
European country with the same kind of fiscal discipline as Paul Martin. They are,
they’re very, and they’re tough customers.
Anthony Germain: Right.
Bono: And they have real trouble, and they’re still trying to integrate
East Germany. They have committed to .7
Anthony Germain: You know and the Brits did it as well, right?
Bono: The Brits have done it, the French have done it. But I
mentioned the Germans because the Canadians are more like them in terms of
particularly Paul Martin is, you know he guards Canada’s wallet very carefully. But I, you
know Canada is a surplus economy and I just, it would be so wrong to lose this
opportunity of this year of having a majority of the players at the G8 in Gleneagles,
Scotland this year. And we were looking for Canada to lead rather than be a laggard.
And I think, I think, I do think if Canadians respond and give their leader permission and
tell him that this is important to Canada. Canada, it looks good on Canada’s stuff, it’s
always, it’s one of the reasons why I’m and others are, I’m a fan. If you don’t follow
through and I’m still a fan, I like it here, I like looking out the window where I am here. I
like, I’m in Vancouver looking at the beautiful bay. I like the beer here. Bottom line, part
of Canada’s authority globally comes from the fact that it looks outside of itself and has
been progressive in these areas in the past.
Anthony Germain: Alright Bono, I know that you’ve been very busy, but I want
to actually let you hear what Paul Martin said during this announcement. It’s a bit long
but I think you’re going to want to hear it. Here it is.
(Tape of Paul Martin’s announcement)
I do not believe that Canada is in a position to make an
unalterable guarantee as to that it will hit that target by the year 2015. And until such
time as I have the full confidence it will do it I’m not prepared to see us do it. I just think,
but I am prepared to say that I believe in the target. I am prepared to see that I want to
see us increase our foreign aid, certainly at the 8% increase level that is occurring. I will
hope that we will be able to and I’m quite confident that we will be able to increase that
substantially. And I want us to work towards the 07 but I’m not prepared to make a
commitment that I’m not unalterably convinced that we will hit with the time period.
Anthony Germain: Now Bono when you were at the Liberal convention that I
saw you at in Toronto you said you were going to be, if I can quote you, a pain in his
ass, unquote. And I wonder when you hear that sort of language about believing in the
target but not wanting to set any date, do you plan on giving him a phone call?
Bono: Yes. I mean not just a phone call. I want to give Canada his
phone number. In fact I might even have it here, hold on a sec. If anyone is listening, I
would call Paul. It’s 613-992-4211. That’s the Prime Minister’s office, that’s the
switchboard. And this is important stuff. It’s not just about me being a nuisance. This is
about Canada’s identity in the world. When I hear him speak like that I hear him speak
as a finance minister, not a Prime Minister. I understand his commitment to these
principles. I like him enormously. I’ve sat with him, I’ve worked with him. I believe him
when he talks. And I know he believes this right now. But it’s, there are moments when
you have to look up from the number. That’s why you want to be in politics. That’s, this
is, what’s upsetting about this is it feels like business as usual.
And what we, the whole point of 2005 is that we are finally
waking up to that it’s an emergency, it’s a crisis. I’m not on, talking to you about my, you
know the latest cause or whatever. This is not a cause. Six and a half thousand Africans
dying every day of a preventible treatable disease like AIDS is not a cause, it’s an
emergency. The same amount dying of malaria, dying of a mosquito bite. And this is
real stuff, there are real lives, real mothers, real children, I met a lot of them. I’ve seen
people queuing up to die in a hospital in (Inaudible). I, you know it’s a shocking thing
people dying two on top of the bed, one underneath. And there’s moments when you
have to look up from the numbers. I implore this Prime Minister. I think he’s a good man
and I think this is the moment to be a real leader. Two months is a long time in politics.
If Canada gives its Prime Minister permission, if Canada makes its voice clear on this,
this is who you are. I think he can still be swayed. Oddly enough his Finance Minister,
Ralph Goodale, has signed up to this as part of the Africa commission, which Tony Blair
has headed up.
Anthony Germain: That’s right, yes.
Bono: So you know it’s just, this is, it’s a time for real leadership. I
understand there’s problems at home. I understand it’s hard to get time to focus on this.
But these arguments that you’ve heard him make in the speech I have also heard made
by Gordon Brown, I have also heard made by the German Finance Minister. I’ve, but
they’ve come through, because they realized this is our moment. You know there’s a
moment in history, this is really it.
Anthony Germain: Right. There’s, there was a moment at the end of your, one
of your visits to Canada and I might be confusing, but after you charmed all of the
journalists and everybody at the Air Canada Centre you were at a news conference and
I remember you saying very vividly and bluntly, someone asked you, don’t you feel like
you’re being exploited or taken advantage of by the Prime Minister? And I think your
answer if I can paraphrase it was, that’s alright so long as it produces results. Do you
think that this is producing the results that you wanted?
Bono: Well to be fair to the Prime Minister and to Canada, and he
has since we first met, doubled the contributions to the global fund on AIDS, TB and
malaria. They have, you are committed to doubling aid on Africa. And when he was
Finance Minister we did great work on debt which we may finish at this year. So there is
progress. All is not lost.... He has a position that not just I but others who know more
than I, believe is untenable. Which is that we cannot predict the income that far down
the line. So we can’t commit to it. This is wrong, this is tithing is really what we’re talking
about. And just because Canada’s in a surplus economy, just because things are doing
well, and they say well it’s going to, therefore we’re going to be giving much more than
we thought, that’s like renegotiating your deal with God downwards because you’ve
done well. There’s a blessing on this country, on Canada. And you know when you have
this kind of prosperity this is not the time to say oh well now we didn’t know it would
amount to this amount of money. This is not the moment to do that. And no, I don’t feel
exploited. I’m annoyed.
Anthony Germain: Yes, that much came through.
Bono: Okay, I’m annoyed. You know I wish I could tell you I don’t
like the fellow and, but I do.
Anthony Germain: Right, I know you do.
Bono: And you know I really do. But it’s a missed opportunity for
him too. You know this is something that he has shown leadership on this. As I say this
is part of you know Canada as a brand, this is part of your appeal. And so whether I’m
annoyed doesn’t, I’m sure doesn’t bother him. And it’s certainly, you know that’s not,
that’s not on his worry list right now.
Anthony Germain: No, you’re quite right there. A last question cause I know
you’ve got to go. You’re in Vancouver, you’re going to be doing other concerts in
Canada. You’d said that your concerts in Canada could be either a celebration of our
commitment to foreign aid or perhaps protest parties depending on what happened.
What’s your gut feeling about what these concerts are going to be like? Will they be
protests or celebrations?
Bono: Yes, I said party or protest. Look, I’m in a rock and roll band,
we’re going to kick up a storm either way. Deep down I actually really believe that
Canada is going to, and I believe it’s going to make their Prime Minister come around to
this. But by the way, I think he has it in his heart, I really do. I think he, it’s his head is
interfering with me. He has to look up from the numbers and I think if he spends more
time on it, if people go around and tell him to spend more time on it, this is a man who
will do the right thing and I believe, I believe there will be great, great, great events. And
it’s the time, what else are we going to be remembered for. I mean that’s the thing. Our
generation wants something to be remembered for. We’ve, other eras have pulled back
apartheid and the Iron Curtain or you know this is our moment. We want, it’s a
grandiose thought you know to make poverty history.
Anthony Germain: You know once some of the opposition leaders here what
you’ve had to say they might be calling you.
Bono: Well you know I want to, you know they can put their money
where their mouth is too. And it’s easy to say these things from the benches.
Anthony Germain: True.
Bono: Paul Martin is sitting, he’s at that place of power. And but I
don’t want people to think this is airy fairy or you know misty-eyed Irish nonsense. It is
possible, we have the know how, the technology, we have the resources to literally
halve global poverty by 2015. It’s a Canadian idea, the Pearson commitment. Lets go
for it, let’s just, lets be remembered for something other than the internet which is
wonderful. You know the war against terror. These are the things that will define our
time.
Anthony Germain: It’s amazing isn’t it that Paul Martin’s father was actually in
the cabinet, the Pearson cabinet you mentioned when this .7 commitment was made.
Bono: Yes, yes. No, I know that.
Anthony Germain: It takes a while.
Bono: I know it’s not easy, I know these are real numbers. I know
it’s difficult. He has to decide what to spend this money, not, you know not on. So let’s
tell him, let’s tell him how important this is to Canada. You know you’re a rich diverse
culture. You’re a giant country but you do not behave like an island. And that’s the
attraction for all of us that you’re seen for your size and your diversity, to know what’s
going on in the rest of the world. This is no time to just turn inward. I know there’s
problems here at home. But don’t lose, don’t lose your focus Prime Minister on how
history will remember this moment.
Anthony Germain: Well Bono it’s been a real pleasure. Welcome to Canada.
Have a great concert in Vancouver. Thank you very much.
Bono: Come and see us.
Anthony Germain: It’s a bit of a hike but I’d love to.
Bono: Okay. We’re going to be near you at some point in the next
year.
Anthony Germain: November. I’ll see you in Ottawa.
Bono: Thanks.
Anthony Germain: Alright, bye now.
Bono: Bye bye Anthony. Bye.

U2 Hall of Fame Induction Acceptence Speech-3-14-2005-New York City

2005-03-14T19:20:00.000-08:00

Bono: Born in the U.S.A. , my arse. That man was born on the north side of Dublin . Irish. His mother was Irish. The poetry, the gift of the gab, isn't it obvious? In fact, I think he's tall for an Irishman.
It's an Irish occasion this evening. Paddy Sledge, the O'Jays -- they're a tribe from the west of Ireland . This is a bit of an Irish wedding. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a bit of an Irish wedding -- beautiful girls, beautiful frocks, fights in the bathrooms, managers and clients again, lawyers with bloody noses. It's an Irish wedding. It's a great occasion.
I even like it when it gets dirty. I've seen it get really dirty over the years here -- that's what rock and roll is, the sound of revenge. So make your enemies interesting, I would say, ladies and gentleman. But not tonight. When I, when we look out we don't see any enemies, we just see friends. And this country has taken this band into its bosom all the way. (applause) It's an amazing thing.
Frank Barselona early on, he's a great friend. Chris Blackwell, what an incredible man he was to have looking after you. Can you imagine your second album -- the difficult second album -- it's about God? Everyone is tearing their hair out and Chris Blackwell says, "It's okay. There's Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, it's a tradition. We can get through it. And I think about what Frank Barselona said earlier about long-term vision because you know without the long term vision of Frank Barselona, Barbara Skydell and Chris Blackwell, there would be no U2 after that second album. It would have been cut. No "Sunday Bloody Sunday," no "Unforgettable Fire," no "One," no "Where the Streets Have No Name," no "With or Without You."
That's what I'd like you to take away from tonight. I would like to ask the music business to look at itself and ask itself some hard questions. Because there would be no U2 the way things are right now. That's a fact. Only friends out here. But still Rolling Stone puts us on the cover, thank you very much. MTV, VH1 still play our videos. College radio still believes in our band and makes our band believe in ourselves. It's an amazing place to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, feeling like this -- feeling like you've just made your first album. It's a great feeling, a very special feeling.
And I see around friends and people that we've worked with for a very long time -- and generally I don't do big Thank You speeches because they're boring and why stop a tradition of a lifetime? It's too many people in the room to thank, but I'd like to thank the really gorgeous women that work for us. Because they're fun to thank. Beautiful, gorgeous women of Principle Management. Ellen Darst, thank you very much. Sheila Roche, thank you very much. Anne Louise Kelly, thank you very much. Keryn Kaplan, thank you very much. Beautiful, sexy, sometimes Irish, sometimes American women, thank you. And lots of bodyguards around here. No bigger bodyguards than Jimmy and Doug. Jimmy Iovine and Doug Morris continue in the tradition of Chris Blackwell, which is pretty much letting us get away with anything we want. So I want to thank them very much. I'm trying to think of what else...The biggest bodyguard of all has to be our manager, Paul McGuinness. You see him right there. The reason no one in this band has slave scrawled across their face, thank you very much.
I'm going to go on and list three Kodak moments over twenty-five years I'd like to share with you. One -- it's 1976 -- Larry Mullen's kitchen. About the size of the drum riser he uses now. It's a bright red -- scarlet, really -- Japanese kit and he's sitting behind it in his kitchen. And he's playing and the ground shakes and the sky opens up -- and it still does, but now I know why. Cause Larry Mullen can't tell a lie. His brutal honesty is something that we need in this band.
Second Kodak moment. It is 1982. New Haven , I believe. Things are not going very well. There's a punk band onstage trying to play Bach. A fight breaks out. It's between the band. It's very very messy. Now you look at this guitar genius, you look at this Zen-like master that is the Edge, and you hear those brittle icy notes and you might be forgiven for forgetting that you cannot play like that unless you have a rage inside you. In fact, I had forgotten that on that particular night, and he tried to break my nose. And I learned a great, great lesson that night. You do not pick a fight with someone who for a living lives off hand-eye coordination. Dangerous, dangerous man, the Edge.
Third Kodak moment. 1987. Somewhere in the south. We'd been campaigning for Dr. King, for his birthday to become a national holiday. In Arizona , they are saying no. We're campaigning very hard for Dr. King. Some people don't like it. Some people get very annoyed. Some people want to kill us. Some people are taken very seriously by the FBI. They tell the singer that he shouldn't play the gig because tonight his life is at risk, and he must not go on stage. And the singer laughs. Of course we're playing the gig. Of course we go onstage, and I'm singing "Pride (In the Name of Love)" -- the third verse -- and I close my eyes. And you know, I'm excited about meeting my maker, but maybe not tonight. I don't really want to meet my maker tonight. I close my eyes and when I look up I see Adam Clayton standing in front of me, holding his bass as only Adam Clayton can hold his bass. There are people in this room who'd tell you they'd take a bullet for you, but Adam Clayton would have taken a bullet for me. I guess that's what its like to be in a truly great rock and roll band.

(Makes way for the Edge...)

Bono: He's got a BlackBerry. (Edge has his speech on a handheld.)

T.E.D. Prize Acceptence Speech-2-24-2005-Undisclosed Location

2005-02-24T19:01:00.000-08:00

Watch
Chris Anderson, TED Curator: And now, live from a secret location outside the United States . we're delighted to welcome to the TED stage, the world's greatest rock and roll star. If this works, it will be truly a miracle of technology. Bono!
Bono: Wow- Well, as Alexander Graham Bell famously said on his first successful telephone call, "Hello. Is that Domino's Pizza?"
I just really want to thank you very much. As another famous man, Jerry Garcia, said, "What a strange long trip." He should have said, "What a strange long trip it's about to become." No drugs involved here. Congratulations to Edward Burtynsky, Robert Fischell. An honor to be standing here beside you... ... or not, as the case may be. Very cool technology. Fair play to Jim Young who I believe is there and Teleportec. They're making things possible that were once unimaginable. At this very moment, you are viewing my upper half. My lower half is appearing at a different conference. In a different country.
You can, it turns out, be in two places at once. But, still, I'm sorry I can't be with you in person. I'll explain at another time the very good reasons. A lot of names in the audience I know. Quincy , hello, Dean, Matt, Shashi, you just heard from, and Jamie and Seth, who just picked up the prize. The strangest name of all, TED. Strange name for a fairy godmother, and I'm gonna tell you my three wishes later. And, though I'm a rock star, I just want to assure you, Chris Anderson, that none of my wishes will include a hot tub. All right?
I'm an odd choice for a technology prize. Music, media, maybe, but technology, I don't know. I should probably point out that U2 did not invent the iPod. We only appear in the ads.
Money changed hands, I want you to know. And, yes, you deal in ones and zeros, we like that. Like most people these days, I am digitized, hypnotized by dreams you people realize, broken up into bits and bytes, ripped and zipped for you tonight, downloaded, pixilated until the battery is degraded. Rhymes, crimes, sharing files.
Listen, I want to say one thing: the music business should not fear you technologists. It should thank you. It will soon owe you.
I know that there's some stuff that has to be worked out. For music people, this takes some getting used to. There isn't a band out there that doesn't want its songs on everyone's stereo, and its melodies in everyone's head, but for free? That wasn't part of the deal now was it? And now, of course, we've all become hardnosed capitalists, and you have strung-out guitarists muttering about "intellectual property, dude."
Anyway, I'm digressing. I wasn't gonna talk to you about music. My friend, Roger McNamee, who I hope is there, can do that. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on at Elevation Partners, but what really turns me on about technology is not just the ability to get more songs on MP3 players. The revolution, this revolution is much bigger than that. I hope, I believe. What turns me on about the digital age, what excites me personally is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing.
See, it used to be that, if you wanted to make a record of a song, you needed a studio and a producer. Now you need a laptop. If you wanted to make a film, you needed a mass of massive equipment and a Hollywood budget. Now, you need a camera that fits in your palm and a couple of bucks for a blank DVD. Imagination has been decoupled from the old constraints, and that really, really excites me. I'm excited when I glimpse that kind of thinking writ large.
What I would like to see is idealism decoupled, idealism decoupled from all constraints: political, economic, technological, whatever. The geopolitical world has got a lot to learn from the digital world, from the ease with which you swept away obstacles that no one knew could even be budged, and that's actually what I'd like to talk about today.
First, though, I should probably explain why and how I got to this place. It's a journey that started 20 years ago. You may remember that song, "We Are the World," or "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Band Aid, Live Aid, another very tall, grizzled rock star, my friend, Sir Bob Geldof', issued a challenge to feed the world. It was a great moment, and it utterly changed my life.
That summer, my wife, Allie, and myself went to Ethiopia . We went on the quiet to see for ourselves what was going on. We lived in Ethiopia for a month working at an orphanage. The children had a name for me. They called me "The Girl with the Beard."
Don't ask. Anyway, we found Africa to be a magical place - big skies, big hearts, big shining continent, beautiful royal people. Anybody who ever gave anything to Africa got a lot more back. Ethiopia didn't just blow my mind, it opened my mind. Anyway, on our last day at this orphanage, a man handed me his baby and said, "Would you take my son with you?" And he knew in Ireland that his son would live, and that in Ethiopia , his son would die. It was the middle of that awful famine. Well, I turned him down, and it was a funny kind of sick feeling, but I turned him down, and it's a feeling I can't ever quite forget. And, in that moment, I started this journey. In that moment, I became the worst thing of all. I became a rock start with a cause . Except this isn't a cause, is it?
Six and a half thousand Africans dying every single day from AIDS, a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can get in any pharmacy. That's not a cause. That's an emergency. Eleven million AIDS orphans in Africa , 20 million by the end of the decade. That's not a cause. That's an emergency. Today, every day, 9,000 more Africans will catch HIV because of stigmatization and lack of education. That's not a cause. That's an emergency. So what we're talking about here is human rights - the right to live like a human. The right to live period. What we're facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.
The next thing I'd like to be clear about is what this problem is and what this problem isn't, because this is not all about charity. This is about justice. Really, this is not about charity. This is about justice. That's right. And that's too bad, because we're very good at charity. Americans, like Irish people, are good at it. Even the poorest neighborhoods give more than they can afford. We like to give, and we give a lot. Look at the response to the tsunami. It's inspiring.
But justice is a tougher standard than charity. You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. As you heard in the film, anywhere else, not here, not here, not in America , not in Europe . In fact a head of state that you're all familiar with admitted this to me, and it's really true. There is no chance this kind of hemorrhaging of human life would be accepted anywhere else other than Africa .
Africa is a continent in flames and, deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We're standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade, and that's what I'm trying to do tonight, really. That's why I'm speaking to you. I'm trying to call the fire brigade. I'm asking for your help.
I'm an Irish rock star in America . I love this country. I know my way around, but I really need help here. This stuff isn't even on the news. You see, it's not as dramatic as the tsunami. It's crazy, really, when you think about it. Does stuff have to look like an action movie these days to exist in the front of our brain? The slow extinguishing of countless lives is just not dramatic enough, it would appear. Catastrophes that we can avert are not as interesting as ones we could avert. Funny that.
Anyway, I believe that that kind of thinking offends the intellectual rigor in this room. Six and a half thousand people dying a day in Africa may be Africa 's crisis, but the fact that it's not on the nightly news, that we in Europe or you in America are not treating it like an emergency. I want to argue with you tonight that that's our crisis.
Okay, I'd like to hard cut now from the moral imperative to the strategic, 'cause this is not all about heart. We have to be smart here. I want to argue that, though Africa is not the frontline in the war against terror, it could be soon. Every week, religious extremists take another African village. They're attempting to bring order to chaos. Well, why aren't we?
Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn't it cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?
Well, the war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty, and I didn't say that. Colin Powell said that. Now when the military are telling us that this is a war that cannot be won by military might alone, maybe we should listen. There's an opportunity here, and it's real. It's not spin. It's not wishful thinking.
The problems facing the developing world afford us in the developed world a chance to redescribe ourselves to the world. We will not only transform other peoples' lives, but we will also transform the way those other lives see us, and that might be smart in these nervous, dangerous times.
Okay, I'd like to talk for a second about commerce. I know we've got some brainy corporate leaders in the room here. Don't you think, that on a purely commercial level, that anti-retroviral drugs are great advertisements for Western ingenuity and technology? Doesn't compassion look well on us? And let's cut the crap for a second. In certain quarters of the world, brand EU, brand USA is not at its shiniest. The neon sign is fizzing and cracking. Someone's put a brick through the window. The regional branch managers are getting nervous. Never before have we in the West been so scrutinized. Our values - do we have any? Our credibility. These things are under attack around the world. Brand USA could use some polishing, and I say that as a fan, you know... As a person who buys the products.
But think about it. More anti-retrovirals makes sense. But that's just the easy part - or ought to be. But equality for Africa - that's a big, expensive idea. You see, the scale of the suffering numbs us into a kind of indifference. What on earth can we all do about this? Well, much more than we think. We can't fix every problem, but the ones we can, I want to argue, we must. And because we can, we must.
This is the straight truth, the righteous truth. It is not a theory. The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa , and say this and mean it, "We do not have to stand for this." A whole continent written off, we do not have to stand for this. So-
And let me say this without a trace of irony, before I back it up to a bunch of ex-hippies, forget the '60s. We can change the world. I can't. You can't, as individuals. But WE can change the world. I really believe that the people in this room... look at the Gates Foundation. They've done incredible stuff, unbelievable stuff. But working together, we can actually change the world. We can turn the inevitable outcomes and transform the quality of life for millions of lives who look and feel rather like us when you're up close.
I'm sorry to laugh here, but you do look so different than you did in Haight-Ashbury in the '60s.
But I want to argue that this is the moment that you were designed for. It is the flowering of the seeds you planted in earlier, headier days. Ideas that you just stated in your youth, this is what excites me. This room was born for this moment is really what I want to say to you tonight. Most of you started out wanting to change the world, didn't you? Most of you did. The digital world. Well, now, partly because of you, it is possible to change the physical world. It's a fact. Economists confirm it, and they know much more than I do, so why then are we not pumping our fists into the air? Probably because when we admit we can do something about it, we've got to do something about it.
It is a pain in the arse. This equality business is actually a pain in the arse. But for the first time in history, we have the technology. We have the know how. We have the cash. We have the lifesaving drugs. Do we have will? Well, if we don't, you at this conference, I know, will know where to find it. And, you know, it was you people who dreamed up this century - you people along that stretch of coast. Fifty years ago, if someone asked who would end up defining the shape, the possibilities of the 21st century, people might have said, "Oh, the English. They're builders of empire, great engineers. Maybe the Germans, gods of efficiency, crunchers of numbers. Maybe the Japanese. They're wizards of microcircuitry." But it wasn't any of them. It was bearded, beaded, Birkenstock-wearing West Coasters.
Fans of Jimmy Hendrix. Yeah, followers of the Grateful Dead, and just down the road there, just down the road. People who spent most of the '60s in a purple, sometimes even herbal haze, you rewrote the rules for the rest of us, for the rest of the world. And I'm not just talking about the crazy ideas - the creativity that spilled out of the campuses and the concerts into Silicon Valley . I'm not just talking about imagination. I'm talking about action, because these hippies got organized. For some people, the '60s was only about dreaming. But for others, it was about turning idealism into action - action for civil rights, for women, for the environment, against the war. That's the kind of '60s I'm interested in. And I think it's taken on a whole new shape and meaning in the zeroes, in 2005.
I hope this is obvious, but I'm not a hippie, and I'm not really one for the warm, fuzzy feeling. I do not have flowers in my hair. Actually, I come from punk rock. The Clash wore big army boots, not sandals. But I know toughness when I see it. And for all the talk of peace and love on the West Coast, there was muscle to the movement that started out here.
You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It's very real. It's very strong, and it's very present in a crowd like you.
Last year at DATA, this organization I helped set up, and we launched a campaign to summon this spirit in the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty. We're calling it the ONE Campaign. It's based on our belief that the action of one person can change a lot, but the actions of many coming together as one can change the world. Well, we feel that now is the time to prove we're right. there are moments in history when civilization redefines itself. We believe this is one. We believe that this could be the time when the world finally decides that the wanton loss of life in Africa is just no longer acceptable. This could be the time that we finally get serious about changing the future for most people who live on planet earth. Momentum has been building - lurching a little - but it's building.
This year is a test for us all, especially the leaders of the G-8 nations, who really are on the line here with all the world and history watching. I have been, of late, disappointed with the Bush administration. They started out with such promise on Africa . They made some really great promises and, actually, have fulfilled a lot of them. But some of them, they haven't. They don't feel the push from the ground - it's the truth.... But there's much more push from the ground than you'd think if we got organized.
What I try to communicate, and you can help me if you agree, is that aid for Africa is just great value for money at a time when America really needs it. Putting it in the crassest possible terms, the investment reaps huge returns, not only in lives saved, but in goodwill, stability, and security that we will gain. So this is what I hope that you'll do, if I could be so bold, and not have it deducted from my number of wishes.
What I hope, what I hope is that beyond individual merciful acts, that you will tell the politicians to do right by Africa , by America , and by the world. Give them permission, if you like, to spend their political capital and your financial capital, your national purse, on saving the lives of millions of people. That's really what I would like you to do. Because we also need your intellectual capital, your ideas, your skills, your ingenuity. And you, at this conference, are in a unique position. Some of the technologies we've been talking about, you invented them, or at least revolutionized the way that they're used. Together, you have changed the zeitgeist from analog to digital and pushed the boundaries, and we'd like you to give us that energy, give us that kind of dreaming, that kind of doing.
As I say, there are two things on the line here. There's the continent, Africa , but there's also our sense of ourselves. People are starting to figure this out. Movements are springing up. Artists, politicians, pop stars, priests, CEOs, NGOs, mother's unions, student unions, a lot of people are getting together and working under this umbrella I told you about earlier, the ONE Campaign. I think they just have one idea in their mind, which is: Where you live in the world should not determine whether you live in the world.
History, like God, is watching what we do. When the history books get written, I think our age will be remembered for three things. Really, it's just three things that this whole age will be remembered for. The digital revolution, yes. The war against terror, yes. And what we did or did not do to put out the fires in Africa . Some say we can't afford to. I say we can't afford not to.
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Promoting the RED Campaign-1/27/2005 -Davos, Switzerland

2005-01-27T21:31:00.000-08:00

World Economic Council-Panel Discussion-1/27/2005-Davos, Switzerland

2005-01-27T13:21:00.000-08:00

Transcript, Audio, or Video Needed

Labour Party Conference-9/29/2004-Brighton, U.K.

2004-09-29T11:08:00.000-07:00

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Thank you. My name is Bono and I'm a rock star. Brighton - rock - star. Excuse me if I appear a little nervous. I'm not used to appearing before crowds of less than 80,000 people. I heard the word party - obviously got the wrong idea.
I've been here in Brighton before... March 13, 1983. That time I had the greatest rock band on the stage behind me, they looked a little different from you. I think I was climbing the PA stacks, waving a white flag… and yes, I had a mullet from the 80s.
We played a song called 'Out of Control', and yes sometimes I am!
It must have been at that point when a young Tony Blair stroked his chin and said, 'Someday, when I come to lead this great land, I must have this man address my party conference.'
Well, 20 years later, here we are. I've come because Prime Minister Blair asked me.
He might well regret it.
In the larger sense, I'm here as part of a journey that began in 1984-85, with BandAid and LiveAid.
Another very talll, grizzled rock star, my friend Sir Bob Geldof, issued a challenge to 'feed the world.'
It was a great moment, it changed my life.
That summer, my wife Ali and I went to Ethiopia,on the quiet, to see for ourselves what was going on. We lived there for a month, working at an orphanage. The locals knew me as 'Dr Good Morning'. The children called me 'The Girl with the Beard.' Don't ask.
But let me say this - Africa is a magical place. And anybody who ever gave anything there got a lot more back. A shining shining continent, with beautiful royal faces… Ethiopia not just blew my mind, it opened my mind.
On our last day at the orphanage a man handed me his baby and said: take him with you. He knew in Ireland his son would live; in Ethiopia his son would die. I turned him down.
In that moment, I started this journey. In that moment, I became the worst thing of all: a rock star with a cause.
Except this isn't a cause. 6,500 Africans dying a day of treatable, preventable disease-dying for want of medicines you and I can get at our local chemist-that's not a cause, that's an emergency.
That's why I'm here today.
You know, I could make the soft argument for action-or I could make the more muscular one.
The soft argument you've all heard before. People are dying over there, needlessly dying, at a ridiculous rate and for the stupidest of reasons: money.
They're dying because they don't have a pound a day to pay for the drugs that could save their lives.
Pound or Euro, they really don't care.
There are hard facts that make up the soft argument.
This soft, moral case I know you understand.
And if you're already converted, you don't need me preaching at you. Though I must admit enjoy it.
So let me make the other, more muscular argument.
I know you can take it.
You're Labour, aren't you?
You're tough. Keir Hardie was a tough guy, wasn't he? Down the pits at the age of 11.
Clement Attlee was tough, right: fought in the Great War, worked in the slums.
Blair, Brown, they're tough guys. The Labour Party has never been a garden party, has it. I mean the reddest of roses has thorns.
Let's get real here on a couple of things - let's get to some uncomfortable truths.
Let's be clear about what this problem is and what this problem isn't.
Firstly, this is not about charity, it's about justice.
Let me repeat that:
This is not about charity, this is about justice.
And that's too bad.
Because you're good at charity. The British, like the Irish, are good at it. Even the poorest neighbourhoods give more than they can afford.
We like to give, and we give a lot. But justice is a tougher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties,it doubts our concern,it questions our commitment.
Because there's no way we can look at Africa- a continent bursting into flames -and if we're honest conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Anywhere else. Certainly not here. In Europe. Or America. Or Australia, or Canada.
There's just no chance.
You see, deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out.
We've got watering cans; when what we really need are the fire brigades.
That's the first tough truth.
The second is that to fight AIDS, and its root cause, the extreme poverty in which it thrives, it's not just development policy. It's a security strategy.
The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty, I didn't say that, Colin Powell said that.And when a military man from the right starts talking like that maybe we should listen!
Because maybe, today, these are one and the same.
People get nervous when I talk like this. I get nervous when I talk like this. But in these distressing and disturbing times, surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them.
Can I just say that again?
Surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them.
Africa is not the frontline on the war against terror.But it could be soon.Justice is the surest way to get to peace.
So how are we doing, on this other war, that will affect so many many more lives than the war I read about every day.
Well, I'm going to tell you what I think, but you're probably better off asking an economist. An NGO. An African farmer.
In fact, anyone but a rock star. I mean, get yourself a source you can trust-one who, say when he hears the word 'drugs,' probably thinks 'life-saving,' rather than 'mind-altering.'
Let's just say that when the government sends a fact-finding mission somewhere in the world, there's probably a good reason they don't send a delegation of rock stars.
But actually, I can see through these goggles. I know progress when I see it. And I know forward momentum when I feel it.
And I do feel it.
There is a lot for Britain to get excited about.
And with that in mind, I want to say a few words about two remarkable men.
Like a lot of great partners, they didn't always get along as the years passed. They didn't always agree. They drifted apart. They did incredible things on their own, as individuals. But they did their best work as a pair. I love them both: John Lennon… and Paul McCartney.
I'm also fond of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They are kind of the John and Paul of the global development stage, in my opinion. But the point is, Lennon and McCartney changed my interior world - Blair and Brown can change the Real World.
And that's why I'm here.
You know as transcendent as I'd like to think a U2 show can be, it isn't life or death. This is. And I've met people whose lives will depend on the decisions taken by these two great men. They have great ideas. And the promises they have already made will save hundreds of thousands of lives -- if they follow through, and you don't let them forget who they are.
Don't let them forget who they are, promise me that, conference.
Growing up in Dublin in the Seventies, I didn't think much of politics, and I thought even less of politicians. I had no idea they worked as hard as they do. I had no idea what it takes to make good on your ideals.
Hillary Benn is doing a great job, with big shoes to fill. I'd like to thank Clare Short, for letting me in.
The Chancellor's spending review showed me this is a serious moment in time.
And the IFF, what a brilliant idea.
The Prime Minister's Africa Commission. This can be a radical landmark - like the Brandt report - certainly if Bob Geldof has his way, and it's hard not to give him his way. The Irish don't you love them. Anyway, what I'm telling you is 2005, when Britain takes the reins of the G-8 and EU, this is it. And if we don't get there in 2005 -- if we don't get there in 2005 -- I know where these people park their cars.
Listen, this is a real moment coming up, this could be real history, this could be something that your children, your childrens children, that our whole generation, will be remembered for at the beginning of the 21st century.
Putting right a relationship that has been so very wrong for so very long.
The North, the South, the Have Nots, the have yachts.
Britain is in a unique position here. I know you've got a chequered past. I'm Irish, let's not go there. Forget the plundering of Empire, I wont even bring it up….
You have real relationships in these places - real relationships-right across the developing world.
You could be the interface - there's a 21st century thought for you,- interface - as opposed to just-in-your-face -between the worlds of the haves and the-have-nothing-at alls.
But Empire aside, we have to accept that even people with short memories are not sure they like the look of us.
In certain quarters of the world, Brand UK, Brand EU not to mention Brand USA-are not their shiniest.
They're in real trouble.
The neon sign is fizzing and crackling a bit, isn't it?
The storefront's a little grubby. Our regional branch managers are getting nervous.
Let's cut the crap.
The problems facing the developing world afford us in the developed world a chance to redescribe ourselves in very dangerous times.
This is not just heart - it's smart.
Onerous debt burdens,decreasing aid levels,duplicitious trade rules,no wonder people are pissed off with us.
Listen, I know what this looks like, rock star standing up here, shouting imperatives others have to fulfill. But that's what we do, rock stars. Rock stars get to wave flags, shout at the barricades, and escape to the South of France. We're unaccountable.We behave accordingly. But not you. You can't. You can't do that.
See, we're actually counting on you.
Politicians have to make the fight, do the work, and get judged by the results.
The weight of expectation is a heavy burden. Hang it on a rock band and that's usually when they make a crap album.
The weight of history is so heavy. It's a huge responsibility to be the repository of people's dreams, to be their hope for the future.
So Tony… Gordon…I don't envy you.
Because there's a lot of work to do.
There is progress, but it's incremental. History never notices that, and the lives that are depending on it don't deserve the wait.
You know we made a promise to half poverty by the year 2015 - a big millennium promise - but we're not even going to make it by 2115.
It's not enough to describe Everest, we've got climb it and we've got to bring everyone else along. George,Jacques,Silvio,Gerhardt,Paul,Junichiro - they've all got to come up the hill.
Because this is the big year, 2005. All of you have to double aid, double it's effectiveness, and double trouble for corrupt leaders.
The G8 - people look at these meetings and wonder whether they ever achieve anything.
I stood in Cologne, with how many thousands of people. We got that announcement on debt cancellation which now means that three times as many children in Uganda are going to school.
Finish what you started in Cologne.Thank you for last weekend, Gordon.
And trade. Our badge of shame. We in the rich countries shuffle the poorest into a backroom, tie their hands and feet with our conditionalities and then use our subsidies to deliver the final blow.
We have to reform the CAP, and we have to let democratically elected governments -- not the IMF, not the World Bank, not the WTO, not the EU -- decide what policies work best.
We can't fix every problem, but the ones we can we must.
But it's going to cost you. Justice, equality, these ideas aren't cheap.
They're expensive - I know that.
And while I'm sure you care about education in Africa, I know you also care about schools at home. You care about AIDS clinics in Africa, but there's a hospital right down the road you're not sure you can get in.
These are hard choices.
And I'm probably the wrong person to ask you to make them.
And I know that on certain issues this room is already divided. I know many people - and I include myself - were very unhappy about the war in Iraq. Still are.But ending extreme poverty, disease and despair- this is one thing everybody can agree on.
These efforts can be a force not only for progress but for unity - not only in Labour but around the world.
Can you take this from a rockstar,'All You Need is Love' when all you need are groceries.
Now you know why Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are really excited that U2's got a new album coming out - why?
Because I'll be away on tour next year.
But even from a tour bus I can be a pain in the arse. That's my job. And I've got some very interesting friends, there's as many of them in mothers unions as trade unions.
It's not just purple Mohawks we've got going, it's blue rinses.
It's the Temperance League of Tunbridge Wells.
The Wigan Bowling Society.
The Chipping Camden Ladies Cricket Club.
OK, I made those up. But don't mess with us.
As I say, next year, 2005, Great Britain is on the door at the EU and G-8. So this is the time to unlock something really big. Excuses?Horseshit.
Earlier I described the deaths of 6,500 Africans a day from a preventable treatable disease like aids: I watched people queuing up to die, three in a bed in Malawi.
That's Africa's crisis. But the fact that we in Europe or America are not treating it like an emergency-and the fact that its not every day on the news, well that is our crisis.
And that's not horseshit, that's something much worse, I don't even know what that says about us.There will be books written.
Think about it. Think about who you are, who you've been, who you want to be.
I don't care if you are Old Labour or New Labour, what is your party about if it's not about this - if it's not about equality, about justice, the right to make a living, the right to go on living?
Simply agreeing with us is not enough.
If Britain can't turn its values into action against extreme, stupid poverty… if this rich country, with the reins in its hands, can't lead other countries along this path to equality, then the critics tomorrow will be right:
I am Tony Blair's apologist. The rock star pulled out of the hat at the Labour Party Conference.
I've more faith in the room than that. I've more faith in your leaders than that. I don't need to have. I'm an Irish rockstar. It looks much better on me to slag you off.
But let me say this again. For the last time.
We're serious, this is gigantic.This stuff is the real reason to be in politics, to go door to door, to organise and demonstrate and take bold action. It's every bit as noble as your grandparents fighting the Nazis.
This is not about 'doing our best.' It's win or lose. Life or death. Literally so.
If I could ask you to think a hundred years ahead, to imagine what we, and our times, will be remembered for, I would venture three things: the Internet,the war on terror,and the fate of the continent of Africa.
We are the first generation that can look extreme and stupid poverty in the eye, look across the water to Africa and elsewhere and say this and mean it: we have the cash,we have the drugs,we have the science -- but do we have the will?
Do we have the will to make poverty history?
Some say we can't afford to. I say we can't afford not to.

The O'Reilly Factor-9/1/2004-Fox News

2004-09-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

Watch
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Tonight, the lead singer of the rock group U2, the legendary Bono. He has used his fame in a political way, forming a group called DATA, which stands for Debt AIDS Trade Africa. The group tries to help that continent, which is desperately poor, as you know, and ravaged with the HIV virus. What most people don't know is that Bono has worked with both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. He joins us now.
So are you a non-partisan guy?
BONO: I'm a non-partisan guy.
O’REILLY: You don't root?
BONO: I don't root anymore. Yes, I’ve stopped rooting. I'm rooting for people that don't have a vote and for people whose faces we don't see.
O’REILLY: OK. So you're not going out with Springsteen to try to get Kerry elected, you’re not going to do that?
BONO: I'm not going to do that. I love Bruce Springsteen, but I’m not going to do that. I put all that behind me when I went to work for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. That’s what I have to do. It’s hard for an Irish rock star, though, sometimes to shut up.
(LAUGHTER)
O’REILLY: Well, you don't have to shut up, it’s just about you have to make your points in I think a broader way than saying, I like this guy, the other guy is the devil. I think that alienates people. And you need bipartisan support, and indeed you have bipartisan support in the United States, do you not?
BONO: Yes, yes -- no. We've worked very hard to have it. And it’s difficult. We found the one thing that both parties can agree on, which is that it’s important right now for America that the world sees the greatness of America through their AIDS medicines, through their Peace Corps, through the real America, I see the America I was a fan of.
That’s the America my father…
O’REILLY: Do you really believe America is a great country?
BONO: Yes, I do.
O’REILLY: Because a lot of Europeans do not.
BONO: Yes -- no, I mean, I'm like an annoying fan. I'm like the one that reads the liner notes on the CD. I’m the one that -- I read the Declaration of Independence before a speaking tour we did on AIDS in the Midwest. I've read the Constitution. I've read these poetic tracks. And I suppose, you know, I'm just going around trying to remind people that their country -- why it is great, and in case they forget, why it’s great. Because the United States that I love is like the Statue of Liberty with its arms open, give me your tired, your poor and huddled masses. It’s not the continent behaving like an island, which sometimes it behaves like.
O’REILLY: All right. Let’s get specific now. The United States gives more money to poor people than any other country, raw dollars -- not per capita, raw dollars we give, and we have given. We've freed billions of people all over the world. But we have now a problem in this country, in the United States. We're fighting a very intense war that takes an enormous amount of money to fight, just to protect ourselves from people who would kill us. So that the largesse of the country is skeptical.
They want the money to go where it's best needed. Now, Africa is your cause. That is what you are front and center on, correct? Africa?
BONO: Yes. I wouldn't call it a cause, though.
O'REILLY: Well, whatever you want to say.
BONO: It's an emergency. 69,000 Africans dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease.
O'REILLY: I've been to Africa as you. I'm not as widely traveled as you, but it is a corrupt continent, it's a continent in chaos. We can't deliver a lot of the systems that we send there. Money is stolen.
Now, when you have a situation like that, where governments don't really perform consistently, where there's just corruption everywhere, how can you cut through that?
BONO: It's funny, we worked with this administration on two things. Historic AIDS initiative, and a thing called the Millennium Challenge, which is a way of increasing aide flows to Africa, but only to countries that are tackling corruption. So really important, and not well described initiative.
O'REILLY: So like Uganda, which is really trying to do something, the money would flow there.
BONO: Yes.
O'REILLY: But in Sierra Leone, wouldn't go there.
BONO: Exactly.
O'REILLY: OK. I like that. Because that, at least, gives you a chance. You know, your friend, Bob Geldof you know.
BONO: Yes.
O'REILLY: Remember, he raised all that money with the Live Aid he did. Very little of it got to anybody.
BONO: Well, look, I've seen what it did. I've been to Africa, I've seen -- it did a lot. But the reason I got involved in this whole business that I'm in now is largely to do with Live Aide, and it engaged me and engaged my generation to realize that we actually -- we can't escape what's going on in Africa, and that we have to look at sometimes the structural problems of the poverty of Africa.
And it's true, Live Aide, we made -- I think $200 million on the English side. And we thought, wow, we've cracked it. What an amazing thing. And then we realize that Africa pays $200 million every week on old debts that it was lent by -- you know, for Cold War reasons, you know, during the Cold War to dodgy dictators, and we were still collecting those debts, even though it was two generations later.
O'REILLY: Yes. And all the money in Switzerland with Mobutu and all these guys. Now, let's talk a little AIDS.
BONO: But there was corruption there on our part. You don't understand that.
O'REILLY: I don't know if it was corruption.
BONO: Not just on their part.
O'REILLY: I don't think you guys understood what you were getting into in the Live Aid situation. Oh, you mean there was corruption on the USA's part?
BONO: No, it wasn't just the U.S., but Europe, all the rich countries lending this money willy-nilly and then demanding it back a generation later. It was just a mistake.
O'REILLY: Let's talk about AIDS, because this is a very controversial topic within the United States itself. Now, we've got the epidemic under control here, primarily by education and frightening people into safe sex and all of that. In Africa, the education is almost nil. And that there's a tradition of men, as you know, not having sex protected, because of some kind of macho thing involved in it.
Now, Americans are going to say, I don't want my tax dollars going over to a civilization or a society that no matter what you tell them, they're going to continue to do disruptive practices. How do you answer that?
BONO: Look, if you see a car crash, somebody's lying there in the middle of the road bleeding and it turns out they're a drunk driver, you're still going to call an ambulance. We can't make these judgments about entire civilizations. We try to re-educate people, we try to deal with the problem.
And by the way, not dealing with the problem with something like AIDS, which metastasized, which grows on a geometric level, is really foolhardy. Because it will be more expensive to deal with it later.
O'REILLY: Look, you can't force the truck drivers who are spreading AIDS all over Africa, because they visit the hookers and then they drive their truck from one to the other to the other. You can't force them to use condoms.
BONO: Let me tell you something -- just on truck drivers. Because we did this tour through the Midwest, because politicians in D.C. said Americans don't care about what's happening in Africa. They don't care what's happening with this AIDS stuff. We believe they were wrong.
We went all over, schools, you know, colleges, churches. I was in a truck stop, and there was this big, big guy, big truck driver, tattoos over his eye, you know, like a big, big guy. And he heard what we were talking about, and he interrupted us and he said did you say that 50 percent of all truck drivers are going blind, they've all got this death sentence of AIDS.
BONO: And I said yes, they had some stupid practices, but they're all going to die. He says I don't want to pass judgment on people, they made mistakes. He said if you need someone to drive trucks over there, you've got me.
O'REILLY: Well, Americans are very generous people. And I think it's the kids that are -- that's my focus, it's the important children.
BONO: But we can't even judge mentalism, and we're not wrong in the statements you've made to excuse our inaction. That's not going to fly...
O'REILLY: We have to take action that's...
BONO: God is not going to accept that as an answer and history is not going to accept that as an answer.
O'REILLY: True. But action has to be efficient and people in the United States, most of us, are struggling to make our own lives solvent, and to ask them to give more money to people who aren't going to help themselves is foolhardy. But I do agree we have to find a way. Why hasn't the United Nations -- why hasn't the United Nations taken a more aggressive posture in fighting the AIDS epidemic which they are cut out to do?
BONO: I don't think that's true. I mean, the Global Health Fund to fight T.B., AIDS and malaria was set up by Kofi Annan. And this administration is funding it, it's actually got bipartisans...
O'REILLY: Do you think you're doing a good job over there?
BONO: No one's doing a good enough job. Let me just say this. I have myself seen people queuing up to die, three in a bed, two on top, one underneath.
O'REILLY: Right.
BONO: People who don't want to even admit they have the virus, because it's such a stigma. They say they've got T.B. When you see people dying like that, you just -- these -- these -- you know, you put away all your -- you just want to reach out and do the right thing. We have these drugs, these anti-retroviral drugs are great advertisements for America...
O'REILLY: Now what do you want America to do?
BONO: Get the message because these are great advertisements for America products. For your technology, your ingenuity. Imagine China, when Europe was going through the Bubonic Plague and lost -- 1/3 of Europe died in the Middle Ages to the Black Death. Imagine, say, China had a treatment for the Black Death and hadn't because it was difficult or expensive. What would we think of China now?
O'REILLY: You want American drug companies then to send to Africa all the drugs they can possibly...
BONO: I'm not asking drug companies to behave like philanthropists. I'm saying we, our governments, United States and Europe, have to deal with this problem. If we don't, we will reap a very ill wind. This is -- it's not just being bleeding hearts here. The strategic implications. There's 10 million AIDS orphans in Africa right now. There will be 20 by the end of the decade. 12 right now. This is chaos. This is a consummating (ph) havoc, and the war against terror, which you talk about every night, is bound up in the war against poverty. I didn't say that. Colin Powell said that.
O'REILLY: I agree.
BONO: And we have to join the dots here.
O'REILLY: Let me ask you this. We liberated Iraq from a terrible dictator, Saddam Hussein. And the polls show that most Iraqis don't appreciate America's sacrifice in doing that. Do you think Africans would appreciate if Americans actually, you know, said, OK, we're going to suffer financially, we're going to do what you want. Do you think we'd be appreciated even if we did it?
BONO: I think it would turn around the way the United States is seen in the world right now. I think that's one thing as well as it just being this great -- this awful thing. This is a chance for the United States to redescribe itself to the rest of the world, show its greatness, and respond to what is the greatest health emergency in 600 years. I absolutely believe that. And the people who are watching this show, people all over America, they are more interested in this than the politicians in D.C. realize. I know this from...
O'REILLY: But they've been helpful to you, the politicians in D.C.
BONO: Yes, they have. But they're not talking. It's not on the news. It's not on the agenda here. It's the greatest health crisis in 600 years but it's not on the news.
O'REILLY: But it's not their fault when you've got the war on terror so intense and so -- look, if 9/11 didn't happen, you would have a much easier time with your crusade.
BONO: I disagree.
O'REILLY: Really?
BONO: Yes. I disagree. Two things happened on 9/11. There was -- the one that's reported, of course, is the attack on America. But the one that has not been reported, and reported with less disgust, is what happened in the aftermath, which was those pictures around the world of people jumping up and down, celebrating the Twin Towers turning to dust. One of the most disturbing -- they were the most disturbing images for me as a fan and a person who loves America.
A lot of people and this great country went. I don't care who you are, a politician, you stop that. How did this happen to us? How did this -- and this is the America that liberated Europe? Not just liberated Europe, we built Europe with the Marshall Plan which cost, by the way, 1 percent GDP over four years. That's when "Brand USA" was at its brightest.
Right now "Brand USA" has taken some blows and some knocks. And I'm saying there's an opportunity here. The Marshall Plan rebuilds Europe as a bulwark against Sovietism in the Cold War. It was smart. It wasn't just goodness of heart, which it also was. It was smart. And I'm saying in a hot war, here's a chance now to redescribe ourselves and be a bulwark against other militarism.
O'REILLY: And you believe that the world's negative opinion of America would change if America took the lead to save people in Africa?
BONO: One hundred percent. They are. America is taking the lead.
O'REILLY: But more aggressively.
BONO: I have to say this. President Bush has done it, John Kerry is big on AIDS. What we want here is to -- why is it not an emergency? How can three of these a week, three Madison Square Gardens a week, how can -- you know, a giant stadium every two weeks disappearing, you know, a preventable, treatable disease like AIDS, how can that not be an emergency?
O'REILLY: Because those people aren't in our eye line. Look at Darfur in the Sudan? I submit to you that in theory, you are correct. And I'm glad you're doing what your doing by the way. I admire you greatly for doing it. But I think, in practice, it becomes more complicated. And I think you're right. If the United States got out in front of this, started to introduce U.N. resolutions, that's the way to go. But the world really has to come together.
BONO: They will on this. See, this is a war -- this is winnable. There is actually -- it's really winnable. There's more lives at stake. It's a war against a tiny little virus, as Bill Frist says. But it's, in a way, it's the one we all agree on. This is the one where the United States.
O'REILLY: Yes, who's going to say, 'Yes, I want the African kids to die.' Nobody. It's just a matter of how engaged they're going to get. How much they're going to feel. Because we, again, have problems here that we have to take care of.
BONO: I understand that.
O'REILLY: Let me ask you a couple of questions. I understand the late Jesse Helms, the arch conservative, the late Jesse Helms of North Carolina was a very big booster of your cause, is that correct?
BONO: Yes. It's been amazing. I've been really surprised. You know, I came at this from -- you know, I grew up in a Labour household, you can imagine in the north side of Dublin. I have all my opinions. I have my opinions of conservatives, and they weren't all good. And then I met some conservatives that really turned me around on that. They were really just conservatives. They were people that will had their convictions that were different to mine, but they held them, you know, from a true place.
Then I met Jesse Helms, who you know, who people in (UNINTELLIGIBLE) wouldn't speak to me because I was meeting Jesse Helms. And he did an extraordinary thing. He did something no politician does. He publicly apologized for the way he had thought about the AIDS virus. He says, 'I've got it wrong.' And he got emotional about it, and he turned it around. And he made a lot of other people who were very judgmental about AIDS...
O'REILLY: Look at it in a different way.
BONO: ... look at it in a different way.
O'REILLY: And our pal John Kasich was a champion on the Hill when he was congressman from Ohio, is that correct?
BONO: Well, absolutely. I mean, I arrived in Washington, D.C. with Bobby Shriver, with a Kennedy, and I was trying to get this done. And somebody says, I think it was Arnold Schwarzenegger said, you might need some other folks to balance it up.
O'REILLY: Right. You got it in John.
BONO: I meet John Kasich and it helps. And look, it's very difficult to work both sides of the aisle. But I'm telling you, this is the one thing...
O'REILLY: That can bring everybody together.
BONO: It works for people.
O'REILLY: I like it, and I think it can be done. You're going to have to work hard to get it done. Is that a rosary around your neck there? Is that a rosary?
BONO: The pope gave me this, it's a Michelangelo designed. You know, when the pope could stand up and carry around this big cross, this is a little miniature of him. And myself and Geldof and Quincy Jones went to see him, and he swapped a pair of my sunglasses for a rosary.
O'REILLY: I've never seen the pope wear your sunglasses.
BONO: You know what, there was a lot of photographs taken at that moment, because he put them on.
O'REILLY: Well, look, I mean...
BONO: One day you might.
O'REILLY: You're certainly doing God's work. I mean, I admire you very much for what you're doing.
BONO: God must have a great sense of humor to have me on board.
O'REILLY: No. No. We need people like you to command a worldwide audience and to get people at least thinking about this. And then we need the politicians out here in the convention, in both conventions to come up with a strategy. I do agree that if America could take the lead, it would turn public opinion around and help us in the war on terror.
I’ll give you the last word on it.
BONO: It a really, really important time right now in the world. And I'm a fan of America, and my band comes here and we love it here. But it’s dangerous around the world. We travel around the world.
O’REILLY: Yes, it’s dangerous.
BONO: And my father grew up, and his generation grew up, and they thought they were American, they loved it so much. And I would just ask Americans to think back when was the brand brightest.? And I'll tell you when it was. As I said earlier, the Marshall Plan, it cost 1 percent of the GDP. Right now the United States is at 0.15 percent, and in the list of the richest countries and what they give to the poorest as a percentage, they are No. 22 in the list…
O’REILLY: OK. Well, we’ve…
BONO: Including private philanthropy, it makes it like No. 15. This is a great country, generous, generous, generous people. I think if they think the money is not going to be wasted, if it’s not going down a rathole, they're with us.
O’REILLY: All right, Bono.
BONO: Thank you.
O’REILLY: Thanks for coming in, a pleasure to meet you.
BONO: All right.

University of Pennsylvania Commencement Speech-5/19/2004-Philadelphia, PA

2004-05-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

Because We Can, We Must

My name is Bono and I am a rock star. Don't get me too excited because I use four letter words when I get excited. I'd just like to say to the parents, your children are safe, your country is safe, the FCC has taught me a lesson and the only four letter word I'm going to use today is P-E-N-N. Come to think of it 'Bono' is a four-letter word. The whole business of obscenity--I don't think there's anything certainly more unseemly than the sight of a rock star in academic robes. It's a bit like when people put their King Charles spaniels in little tartan sweats and hats. It's not natural, and it doesn't make the dog any smarter.
It's true we were here before with U2 and I would like to thank them for giving me a great life, as well as you. I've got a great rock and roll band that normally stand in the back when I'm talking to thousands of people in a football stadium and they were here with me, I think it was seven years ago. Actually then I was with some other sartorial problems. I was wearing a mirror-ball suit at the time and I emerged from a forty-foot high revolving lemon. It was sort of a cross between a space ship, a disco and a plastic fruit.

I guess it was at that point when your Trustees decided to give me their highest honor. Doctor of Laws, wow! I know it's an honor, and it really is an honor, but are you sure? Doctor of Law, all I can think about is the laws I've broken. Laws of nature, laws of physics, laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and on a memorable night in the late seventies, I think it was Newton's law of motion...sickness. No, it's true, my resume reads like a rap sheet. I have to come clean; I've broken a lot of laws, and the ones I haven't I've certainly thought about. I have sinned in thought, word, and deed. God forgive me. Actually God forgave me, but why would you? I'm here getting a doctorate, getting respectable, getting in the good graces of the powers that be, I hope it sends you students a powerful message: Crime does pay.
So I humbly accept the honor, keeping in mind the words of a British playwright, John Mortimer it was, "No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense and relatively clean fingernails." Well at best I've got one of the two of those.
But no, I never went to college, I've slept in some strange places, but the library wasn't one of them. I studied rock and roll and I grew up in Dublin in the '70s, music was an alarm bell for me, it woke me up to the world. I was 17 when I first saw The Clash, and it just sounded like revolution. The Clash were like, "This is a public service announcement--with guitars." I was the kid in the crowd who took it at face value. Later I learned that a lot of the rebels were in it for the T-shirt. They'd wear the boots but they wouldn't march. They'd smash bottles on their heads but they wouldn't go to something more painful like a town hall meeting. By the way I felt like that myself until recently.
I didn't expect change to come so slow, so agonizingly slow. I didn't realize that the biggest obstacle to political and social progress wasn't the Free Masons, or the Establishment, or the boot heal of whatever you consider 'the Man' to be, it was something much more subtle. As the Provost just referred to, a combination of our own indifference and the Kafkaesque labyrinth of 'no's you encounter as people vanish down the corridors of bureaucracy.
So for better or worse that was my education. I came away with a clear sense of the difference music could make in my own life, in other peoples' lives if I did my job right. Which if you're a singer in a rock band means avoiding the obvious pitfalls like, say, a mullet hairdo. If anyone here doesn't know what a mullet is by the way your education's certainly not complete, I'd ask for your money back. For a lead singer like me, a mullet is, I would suggest, arguably more dangerous than a drug problem. Yes, I had a mullet in the '80s.
Now this is the point where the members of the faculty start smiling uncomfortably and thinking maybe they should have offered me the honorary bachelors degree instead of the full blown doctorate, (he should have been the bachelor's one, he's talking about mullets and stuff). If they're asking what on earth I'm doing here, I think it's a fair question. What am I doing here? More to the point: what are you doing here? Because if you don't mind me saying so this is a strange ending to an Ivy League education. Four years in these historic halls thinking great thoughts and now you're sitting in a stadium better suited for football listening to an Irish rock star give a speech that is so far mostly about himself. What are you doing here?
Actually I saw something in the paper last week about Kermit the Frog giving a commencement address somewhere. One of the students was complaining, "I worked my ass off for four years to be addressed by a sock?" You have worked your ass off for this. For four years you've been buying, trading, and selling, everything you've got in this marketplace of ideas. The intellectual hustle. Your pockets are full, even if your parents' are empty, and now you've got to figure out what to spend it on.
Well, the going rate for change is not cheap. Big ideas are expensive. The University has had its share of big ideas. Benjamin Franklin had a few, so did Justice Brennen and in my opinion so does Judith Rodin. What a gorgeous girl. They all knew that if you're gonna be good at your word if you're gonna live up to your ideals and your education, its' gonna cost you.
So my question I suppose is: What's the big idea? What's your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing outside of the walls of the University of Pennsylvania?
There's a truly great Irish poet his name is Brendan Kennelly, and he has this epic poem called the Book of Judas, and there's a line in that poem that never leaves my mind, it says: "If you want to serve the age, betray it." What does that mean to betray the age?
Well to me betraying the age means exposing its conceits, it's foibles; it's phony moral certitudes. It means telling the secrets of the age and facing harsher truths.
Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. Slavery was one of them and the people who best served that age were the ones who called it as it was--which was ungodly and inhuman. Ben Franklin called it what it was when he became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.
Segregation. There was another one. America sees this now but it took a civil rights movement to betray their age. And 50 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court betrayed the age May 17, 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education came down and put the lie to the idea that separate can ever really be equal. Amen to that.
Fast forward 50 years. May 17, 2004. What are the ideas right now worth betraying? What are the lies we tell ourselves now? What are the blind spots of our age? What's worth spending your post-Penn lives trying to do or undo? It might be something simple.
It might be something as simple as our deep down refusal to believe that every human life has equal worth. Could that be it? Could that be it? Each of you will probably have your own answer, but for me that is it. And for me the proving ground has been Africa.
Africa makes a mockery of what we say, at least what I say, about equality and questions our pieties and our commitments because there's no way to look at what's happening over there and it's effect on all of us and conclude that we actually consider Africans as our equals before God. There is no chance.
An amazing event happened here in Philadelphia in 1985--Live Aid--that whole We Are The World phenomenon the concert that happened here. Well after that concert I went to Ethiopia with my wife, Ali. We were there for a month and an extraordinary thing happened to me. We used to wake up in the morning and the mist would be lifting we'd see thousands and thousands of people who'd been walking all night to our food station were we were working. One man--I was standing outside talking to the translator--had this beautiful boy and he was saying to me in Amharic, I think it was, I said I can't understand what he's saying, and this nurse who spoke English and Amharic said to me, he's saying will you take his son. He's saying please take his son, he would be a great son for you. I was looking puzzled and he said, "You must take my son because if you don't take my son, my son will surely die. If you take him he will go back to Ireland and get an education." Probably like the ones we're talking about today. I had to say no, that was the rules there and I walked away from that man, I've never really walked away from it. But I think about that boy and that man and that's when I started this journey that's brought me here into this stadium.
Because at that moment I became the worst scourge on God's green earth, a rock star with a cause. Christ! Except it isn't the cause. Seven thousand Africans dying every day of preventable, treatable disease like AIDS? That's not a cause, that's an emergency. And when the disease gets out of control because most of the population live on less than one dollar a day? That's not a cause, that's an emergency. And when resentment builds because of unfair trade rules and the burden of unfair debt, that are debts by the way that keep Africans poor? That's not a cause, that's an emergency. So--We Are The World, Live Aid, start me off it was an extraordinary thing and really that event was about charity. But 20 years on I'm not that interested in charity. I'm interested in justice. There's a difference. Africa needs justice as much as it needs charity.
Equality for Africa is a big idea. It's a big expensive idea. I see the Wharton graduates now getting out the math on the back of their programs, numbers are intimidating aren't they, but not to you! But the scale of the suffering and the scope of the commitment they often numb us into a kind of indifference. Wishing for the end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa is like wishing that gravity didn't make things so damn heavy. We can wish it, but what the hell can we do about it?
Well, more than we think. We can't fix every problem--corruption, natural calamities are part of the picture here--but the ones we can we must. The debt burden, as I say, unfair trade, as I say, sharing our knowledge, the intellectual copyright for lifesaving drugs in a crisis, we can do that. And because we can, we must. Because we can, we must. Amen.
This is the straight truth, the righteous truth. It's not a theory, it's a fact. The fact is that this generation--yours, my generation--that can look at the poverty, we're the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this sort of stupid extreme poverty, where in the world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it's belly. We can be the first generation. It might take a while, but we can be that generation that says no to stupid poverty. It's a fact, the economists confirm it. It's an expensive fact but, cheaper than say the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from communism and fascism. And cheaper I would argue than fighting wave after wave of terrorism's new recruits. That's the economics department over there, very good.
It's a fact. So why aren't we pumping our fists in the air and cheering about it? Well probably because when we admit we can do something about it, we've got to do something about it. For the first time in history we have the know how, we have the cash, we have the lifesaving drugs, but do we have the will?
Yesterday, here in Philadelphia, at the Liberty Bell, I met a lot of Americans who do have the will. From arch-religious conservatives to young secular radicals, I just felt an incredible overpowering sense that this was possible. We're calling it the ONE campaign, to put an end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa. They believe we can do it, so do I.
I really, really do believe it. I just want you to know, I think this is obvious, but I'm not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing, I'm not a hippy, I do not have flowers in my hair, I come from punk rock, The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn't.
I know idealism is not playing on the radio right now, you don't see it on TV, irony is on heavy rotation, the knowingness, the smirk, the tired joke. I've tried them all out but I'll tell you this, outside this campus--and even inside it--idealism is under siege beset by materialism, narcissism and all the other isms of indifference. Baggism, Shaggism. Raggism. Notism, graduationism, chismism, I don't know. Where's John Lennon when you need him.
But I don't want to make you cop to idealism, not in front of your parents, or your younger siblings. But what about Americanism? Will you cop to that at least? It's not everywhere in fashion these days, Americanism. Not very big in Europe, truth be told. No less on Ivy League college campuses. But it all depends on your definition of Americanism.
Me, I'm in love with this country called America. I'm a huge fan of America, I'm one of those annoying fans, you know the ones that read the CD notes and follow you into bathrooms and ask you all kinds of annoying questions about why you didn't live up to thatŠ.
I'm that kind of fan. I read the Declaration of Independence and I've read the Constitution of the United States, and they are some liner notes, dude. As I said yesterday I made my pilgrimage to Independence Hall, and I love America because America is not just a country, it's an idea. You see my country, Ireland, is a great country, but it's not an idea. America is an idea, but it's an idea that brings with it some baggage, like power brings responsibility. It's an idea that brings with it equality, but equality even though it's the highest calling, is the hardest to reach. The idea that anything is possible, that's one of the reasons why I'm a fan of America. It's like hey, look there's the moon up there, lets take a walk on it, bring back a piece of it. That's the kind of America that I'm a fan of.
In 1771 your founder Mr. Franklin spent three months in Ireland and Scotland to look at the relationship they had with England to see if this could be a model for America, whether America should follow their example and remain a part of the British Empire.
Franklin was deeply, deeply distressed by what he saw. In Ireland he saw how England had put a stranglehold on Irish trade, how absentee English landlords exploited Irish tenant farmers and how those farmers in Franklin's words "lived in retched hovels of mud and straw, were clothed in rags and subsisted chiefly on potatoes." Not exactly the American dream...
So instead of Ireland becoming a model for America, America became a model for Ireland in our own struggle for independence.
When the potatoes ran out, millions of Irish men, women and children packed their bags got on a boat and showed up right here. And we're still doing it. We're not even starving anymore, loads of potatoes. In fact if there's any Irish out there, I've breaking news from Dublin, the potato famine is over you can come home now. But why are we still showing up? Because we love the idea of America.
We love the crackle and the hustle, we love the spirit that gives the finger to fate, the spirit that says there's no hurdle we can't clear and no problem we can't fix. (sound of helicopter) Oh, here comes the Brits, only joking. No problem we can't fix. So what's the problem that we want to apply all this energy and intellect to?
Every era has its defining struggle and the fate of Africa is one of ours. It's not the only one, but in the history books it's easily going to make the top five, what we did or what we did not do. It's a proving ground, as I said earlier, for the idea of equality. But whether it's this or something else, I hope you'll pick a fight and get in it. Get your boots dirty, get rough, steel your courage with a final drink there at Smoky Joe's, one last primal scream and go.
Sing the melody line you hear in your own head, remember, you don't owe anybody any explanations, you don't owe your parents any explanations, you don't owe your professors any explanations. You know I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out.
But it's not. The future is not fixed, it's fluid. You can build your own building, or hut or condo, whatever; this is the metaphor part of the speech by the way.
But my point is that the world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape. Now if I were a folksinger I'd immediately launch into "If I Had a Hammer" right now get you all singing and swaying. But as I say I come from punk rock, so I'd rather have the bloody hammer right here in my fist.
That's what this degree of yours is, a blunt instrument. So go forth and build something with it. Remember what John Adams said about Ben Franklin, "He does not hesitate at our boldest Measures but rather seems to think us too irresolute."
Well this is the time for bold measures. This is the country, and you are the generation. Thank you.

My Hometown of Philadelphia-5/16/2004-Philadelphia, PA

2004-05-16T21:44:00.000-07:00

A little more than a year ago, Agnes and I, and a motley crew rode around the heart of America in a bus, a big old bandwagon, trying to get people to get on board for the next step in the journey of equality - that next step is Africa.Africa. Beautiful shining continent, Africa.There was a weird, weird bunch of people on that bus. Chris Tucker was on this bus. Ashley Judd was on that bus. Students, soccer moms, smokers, non smokers, bankers, wankers.. all on the bus. And church folks on that bus, praise the Lord, rock stars, and people with their mouths more under control than I.Will Smith rang me before he came on and said 'I wanted to be on that bus and I will be on that bus in the future, say hello to my hometown of Philadelphia.' We're on the same bus because we share the same beliefs; that Africa, an entire continent is on fire and the people of America can put that fire out.We are touched by the work of so many people here and that trip that we took through the heart of America and the flood of activism inundated the White House with calls, petitions, emails and letters. I know a lot of you picked up the phone, picked up a pen and did a lot more than that, and a lot of you people are here. People like Jerry Flood, from the Catholic Bishops Conference, amazing people like that. People like Paul Davis, from Healthcap. They're extraordinary by the way, the paratroopers.Well, we spoke as one, we are... not... The same... and within months the US stepped forward with an historic AIDS initiative and that's no coincidence when people like us actually can get together and and raise our voice as one... We. Change. The. World.And you know it's a fact because if only when people speak as one like when we, when you people spoke as one to crush Jim Crow, you spoke as one for civil rights, you spoke as one to end apartheid, you are still raising your voice for access to treatment here in America, and people here in Philly are leading that fight. Governments have their say but change does not come unless people demand it, and today we are demanding it. We will join our voices once again to speak, march, and act up together as one. We're going to take the next step on the journey of equality... and what a pain in the arse equality turned out to be!Really, it just won't let us sit still, will it, and it won't let our leaders sit still either, and I'm proud to be a pain in their arse! In case the FCC are listening, arse is an Irish word! Thank you...Equality is demanding of us. It disturbs the status quo; it was once preposterous to think of a woman running a corporation or a Black man running a (sic) President. Preposterous, impossible.(laughter)I think it's preposterous to think that YOU! (points at a small child) could run a corporation by the way! Well one day, it will be preposterous to think that we can let so many perish for no good reason. History has a way of making ridiculous, ideas that were once acceptable; like apartheid, gone! It's an important moment and we're on the right side of history here, I do believe, and we're six months away from a presidential election, which could be decided by this state! Interested? That's the power of one state. We're two weeks away from an historic meeting of world leaders in Georgia... at this very moment. At this very moment Congress is debating how fully to fund the programs that will give life and hope to the people of Africa, at this very moment literally. The administration is deciding which AIDS drugs to buy with your tax dollars, either cheap generic versions to help as many people as possible, or the more expensive branded drugs which will not go as far. The future is being decided today. It's an important decision.So we're launching the One Campaign to unite America in the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty. We know that if we work together, we can win the fight, and together we must because African people are, guess what, are our equals in the eyes of God. They are our brothers and sisters. Our lives ARE interconnected and interdependent, and this is not just some warm fuzzy feeling kind of way. They actually are equal in the eyes of God and man, and let�s start treating people therefore equally.I must say it really, really annoys me, it just really annoys me when we put our brothers and sisters in Africa like Agnes here, and Dikembe, like they're standing there helpless, like they're dependent on the crumbs from our table, when you know what --these are not charity issues, this is a justice issue. Not letting these people trade with us, that's a justice issue, when we can flood their market with cheap products but they can't put their products on our shelves, that's a justice issue. Not a charity issue!Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents, from years and years ago during the Cold War when we gave a lot of crooks money, cos at least they weren't Communists; that is not a charity issue, that's a justice issue.And guess what, God our father in Heaven is PISSED OFF.One person. One petition. One phone call to Congress, one letter to the President, one email to friends -- it starts with one person, one action, and it starts growing, building momentum, multiplying its power, one by one.You know many people are here today? I counted it. I'm a rock star, I can count. Three million people are here because that's what these people and their various organizations represent all over America and all over the map. Three million people. I've never spoken to three million people before; this is a first time for me.How'm I doing? You know, you wouldn't wanna be a rock star if you weren't insecure, just want to make, be honest with you.It's a lot of volume. It's a *lot* of volume.And I'm excited about an idea today. I'm excited about the idea that we can be the generation that rids the world of the scourge of AIDS. We can be the generation that rids the world of extreme poverty. We literally can be that generation. That's extraordinary.Yep.. and we just have to work together, and that's not easy. I'm in a band, I'm married, I mean, working together, it's tricky! But you know the statistics... but I think it's important to just remind ourselves why we're here.6300 africans dying every day of AIDS. 500 africans getting infected every day, from AIDS. This is not a cause. We all have our causes...This is an emergency; let's treat it as such.I hate that cause thing.. "Hey Bono we love your cause man. We love that cause." You know, I have causes, we've all got our pet causes, some people, their pet IS their cause.... [laughter]There's things I care about in my community back in Dublin, Ireland, there's lots of things that you care about. This is not a cause. Seven thousand people, seven thousand African people dying every day for want of drugs you can get round the corner here, is not a cause, this is an emergency, and we're going to sort it out.So what are we asking? What are we asking Congress?Well over the next few years, Congress, we want to ask Congress to dedicate an extra one percent of the NFB to give to the poorest and most neglected on this earth, that's right. One percent. I'm not saying that that's enough, a lot of money. but one percent, to transform the lives of hundreds and thousands, indeed millions of people, I don't think is too high a price, and that's the 'ask' here today... and you know if the US does its fair share there's a knock-on effect, because others will follow.One percent more in the US budget will leverage tens of billions of dollars more from other wealthy countries..Other wealthy countries, like Ireland... why did you laugh when I said Ireland? [raises fists and grins]Don't pick a fight with the Irish! We may not invade you with tanks, but our poets are coming!I accept that this is complicated, it's not simple. We have to look at the conditions, the extreme poverty in which this AIDS emergency thrives. Your tax dollars will go further if we strengthen self-sufficiency, through deeper debt cancellation, fairer trade terms, tougher rules to fight corruption.This is important, this stuff prevents Africans from earning their own way out of poverty. We've got to get these obstacles out of Africa's way so they can fight back themselves. So it's not about charity, as I said, it's about justice.And I'd also like to argue in these tense dangerous times, this is not just heart money, it's smart money, okay? Think about it. I've said it to politicians, I've said it to Presidents... paint the drugs red, white and blue. They're great advertisements for the United States, for what the US can do... you know, for, your ingenuity, great, great opportunity for America to redescribe itself at this moment when your flag has been run through the dirt all over the southern hemisphere..Let's actually show, this is an extraordinary country, America. I'm a fan. I'm an annoying fan, and I'm gonna remind you why I love this country. This is the kind of reason I love this country --[gestures at crowd] when I see people moving, acting as one on an issue that doesn't even affect them, for people they haven't met, but love, that's why I love America.About 60 yrs. ago there was another continent in grave danger, that was my continent, Europe. Europe is strong today thanks in part to the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after the war. Well that's the kind of plan we need for Africa today. The Marshall plan was great for Europe but it was also great for America."Brand USA" never shone brighter than after the Second World War, when after having liberated Europe, you helped rebuild it. This was smart money, as well as heart money, the Marshall Plan. We need the same audacity, and the same imagination, and the same commitment, of a modern Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan built a bulwark against Sovietism in the Cold War; well today, for half the cost we can build a bulwark against all kinds of extremism, in our age, during the �hot war."These are nervous times, dangerous times as they say. Isn't it cheaper, isn't it smarter to defend ourselves with drugs and these kind of imaginative programs? To make friends, rather than have to pay for defending ourselves against enemies later on?Isn't this just the smart thing to do?I think it's a pretty good bargain. I think the people in DC understand it, the Millennium Challenge and the AIDS initiative, they've got support on both sides of the aisle. It's a great start. Right now is a pivotal moment -- it's an election year in America. We're not trying to get any particular person elected; we're trying to get our issues elected. Will the congress fully fund these vital programs? Will President Bush and Senator Kerry offer sufficiently ambitious plans to beat AIDS and extreme poverty? Will American voters demand that they do? History hangs on their answer. On our answer.And this of course, is where American history got started, Philadelphia. That's why we're here. Right here, this is where the Declaration of Independence was read out loud. This is where the Liberty Bell rang out. And I don't know about you, but I was born across the Atlantic almost a couple hundred years later, but my ears are still ringing from the sound of the Liberty Bell...You read the declaration and you realize America's not just a country, it's an idea. Ring the Liberty Bell, the idea of America, that anything is possible... Hey is that the moon up there? Wow let's get up there, take a walk, bring a piece back, you know? THAT America! That's the America I'm a fan of. America is an idea, not just a country, it's an idea.I come from Ireland and it's a very, very nice country, I recommend you all take a visit, but guess what, it's not an idea. America is an idea, it's about, it's about the idea that anything's possible -- but it's also about the idea that with great power comes great responsibility.It's about the idea that equality is the highest calling, but the hardest to reach. It's about the idea that one person can change the course of history, because these ideas are alive in America. I've heard them in truck stops, high schools, churches, they're as loud as the Liberty Bell. I'm going to ring the Liberty Bell again; we're taking another step in the journey of equality for a better safer world, for our brothers and sisters whom we don't know, but love. To the rhythm of African drummers playing here in Philadelphia sunshine...We're going to ring it for the generation that says NO to unfair trade laws! Ring the Liberty Bell, for a generation that says YES, take our lifesaving drugs at a discount! We're going to ring it for the generation that says NO to people starving in an age of plenty..! [drums started] We're going to ring it for the generation that says YES, Africans are equal to us! We're going to ring it for the generation that says Where you live in the world does not depend on *whether* you will live! We're going to ring it for the generation that says Because we can, we must, we will. Ring the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia once more. Thank you, God bless you.There's one... will you hold that for me, Michael [W. Smith] my good friend?...[Pulls out a cell phone]Let's give Senator Specter a call, shall we?There's a guy, talking about the power of one... here's a man with a vote on the US Congress(sic) that literally can decide whether people like Agnes in Africa right now will live or die, and I know he's interested in these issues but... lest he think this is a �fringe event�... let's just give him a call, shall we?[cell phone]Let's send some smoke signals, Philadelphia...It's an answering machine... This has happened to me before... Senator Specter.. This is Bono and a few friends...[Crowd whoops and cheers]More than a few friends..Senator, we know you take very seriously the American tax dollars that you control very carefully, and the budgetary process in Washington, and we would like to say that it's very very very very important to us, the lives of hundreds and thousands, indeed millions of Africans, who depend on your support in congress this week, and we would like to say..... **It's a short. I can call him back, but I think he might... [shrugs and smiles]Thank you, God bless you....

HIV/AIDS Symposium-5-12-2004-Ottawa, Canada

2004-05-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

Listen in Real Audio

Canada Liberal Party Convention-11/14/2003-Toronto, Ontario

2003-11-14T18:58:00.000-08:00

My name is Bono and I am a rock star. And this is a lot more rock and roll than I thought. If you're wondering what I'm doing here, that's OK, because so am I. There's a lot of reasons why I shouldn't be here. There's only a few reasons why I should. Maybe I should start with why you shouldn't have me here. "Rock star with a conscience" - give me a break. That would do it for me. I mean, when celebrities open their mouths and they're not singing, I run, and I am one, OK. What else? I'm Irish. That counts… that counts for a lot in this country, but you know, I'm Irish. Thirdly, I'm not a supporter of the Liberal party, I'm not. I'm not a supporter of any political party. I like parties, though. Now, I'm not here to run for anything, but I'm not here to run away from anything either. I quite like being where I'm not supposed to. I know the job of a rock star is to do unconventional things, so… I am quite surprised to find myself at a convention. But I like it actually, I like it a lot. I feel quite welcome. Thank you. You, you have to forgive me if I'm a little shy, you know, I, I'm not used to speaking to crowds of less than 25,000, you know.
Let me see. I've been here before to Air Canada [Centre] in my other life for the people who gave me that life, Edge, Larry, Adam and 20,000 other people I can't quite remember their names, but they gave me that life too and they know who they are. Some of them are here, I think. I mean, it's not really that different, is it? It's a party, it's a party. So here I am, unidentified foreign object spotted a Liberal Party conference. A political convention. But you know what they say about politics, it makes for strange bedfellows. And how would you like to be the one that wakes up next to me? Well, in this case that guy is Paul Martin. You heard of him? This kid is great. I've got all his early albums. Later on, you know, he went to America and, you know, concept albums, the usual stuff. No, he's pretty cool. By pretty cool, I mean he didn't have a mullet in the 80's. He's pretty cool, Paul Martin. I'm here because, in truth, he and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien have been very, very kind to me. These two great men have been very kind to me. I might be the only thing they can agree on and I'm happy about that.
Here's some reasons why I think I should be here. First, I joined the Drop the Debt campaign to relieve the old debts owed by the world's poorest countries to the world's richest. Paul Martin took my phone calls, he let me in, he promised to help and he kept that promise. Yes sir. Jean Chrétien, he did the same. And it's not just about keeping a promise to me, it's about keeping a promise to the poorest, most vulnerable people on earth and I'm grateful to them both for that.
Paul Martin let me in. As I said, I'm Irish, we're not nearly as nice as Canadians and certainly not as well behaved. So, how am I going to return Mr. Martin's favour? Well, I'm going to become the biggest pain of his life. Paul Martin thinks he likes me, he doesn't know what he signed on for. More lobbying about debt, begging letters about people who should never have to beg, petitions about unfair trade, phone calls about money for the Global Health Fund. I already told him earlier today that if Canada puts in a fair share, and three times the current amount by the way, they'll embarrass the rest of the world into doing the same. This is what we want out of Canada . Oh no! No! I'm going to be the biggest pain in his ass. A year down the line, a year down the line he's going to regret tonight. I can imagine the staff meeting; whose idea was it to invite Bono? Anyway, so while he might come to regret it, I am here for Paul Martin. I am honoured and would like to thank him for inviting me. That's the first reason I'm here tonight.
The second reason I'm here is because I'm a fan of Canada . I met Canada …I met Canada through the holy voices of Leonard Cohen, Neal Young, The Band, Daniel Lanois. The Canadian voice is hard-wired in my heart. I'm a fan because a certain kind of idealism lives and still seems to be alive in this country. You're not an insular place. You've always looked outside yourself, beyond the line of the horizon, you're not so self-obsessed and this is coming from a rock star, so believe me, I know self-obsessed. I see it in the mirror, you know what I'm saying? I'm a fan who believes the advertising. You know, the annoying fan who believes the hype and the slogans. I believe the world needs more Canada . Why is that? More Canada , yep. God, I'm good at this, maybe I should run for office.
Anyway, why, why more Canada , why more Canada ? Well I'll tell you, that's the third reason I'm here, because…These are nervous times, they're dangerous times. Things are falling apart, really, for the unlucky many who have to survive on less than a dollar a day. But also for us, the lucky few. Because, whether we like it or not, our fate is bound up in their futures. It's Friday night…Well I don't want to go on and on with a load of depressing facts, but you know I can, so I am. Excuse my French. And don't worry, don't worry, Daniel Lanois will be on after me to pick you back up again, all right.
We need to understand what's going on here. Let's stop for a second to remind ourselves that six and a half thousand Africans died today from a preventable, treatable disease called AIDS. Six and a half thousand died yesterday and six and a half thousand will die tomorrow. Every day without a break for Christmas. That's more people than this whole room. This is not just a rock star's pet cause, this is an emergency and this is really why I'm here. Africa is a continent in flames. And, as we all know, fires tend to spread. Now I'm a singer, I'm better with stories than statistics, let me just quickly tell you one of those. I want to tell you about somebody I met, a man called Jonah. Striking, extraordinary looking man, strikingly fit. He told me that five years ago he weighed half his body weight. Five years ago he had TB and scars all over his body, a scratching, terrible skin rash. Five years ago his family had written him off actually for dead. But he managed to get onto a meds program and his life has been transformed, they call it the Lazarus effect. He's anti-retro viral. These extraordinary drugs brought him back to life, literally. We were excited, he was excited. Then he told me that his wife had died of AIDS, leaving him with two children. That made him feel even gladder to be alive. We were excited again. Then he told us that his new love, he had a new love in his life, she was also HIV/AIDS-positive. And I said well that's great and he said it's not great. He says she's not part of the meds program. So here was Jonah's dilemma. He said he could share his drugs with her and that they would both die slowly or he could give his drugs to her, knowing that his children would lose their last parent to AIDS. Or he said, I can keep the drugs and lose the love of my life. Well that's a decision no civilized world should ask Jonah to make, in my opinion. That's a decision we should not ask Jonah to make.
To me, this is all part of the journey of equality. 'Cause I'm really not here to talk about charity. I'm here to talk about justice and equality and whether we really believe in it or not. If we really deep down believed that Africans were equal to us, really deep down, we wouldn't allow this to happen. Canada is a country that's starting to do something about this. Some of you may know that there's a move to get cheap generic drugs from here to Africa . This is great news. If you follow through on this promise, other countries will have to follow you. This is great news. The director's now saying oh shit, he, he's going on and on, he's going on and on, bursting the balloons before we blow them up. Well, you know what I'm going to do here. You, got to be, I don't do this very often so shit, I mean… give, give a rock star a break. Yeah, let's move away from all the heavy bleeding liberal, stuff for a second and get to the really heavy heady intellectual stuff. It's Friday night.
In his Nobel address, the great Lester Pearson said that poverty and distress… the great Lester Pearson said that poverty and distress - especially with the awakening of the submerged millions of Asia and Africa - make the risks of war truly greater. And I would like to add to that the risks of terror. AIDS creates a vacuum. And in that vacuum breeds despair. Despair is the next-door neighbour of anger, anger is the next-door neighbour of violence. Afghanistan was a haven for terrorists because it was a collapsed state. Somebody recently told me, a senior White House official told me, 'we know there's another ten Afghanistans potentially in Africa .' You know what? It's cheaper to prevent the fires than to put them out. More than half a century ago in the wake of a World War that Canadians fought so hard to win, Canada understood that we would prevent the next World War only if we turned our enemies into allies and built a stable and secure world order. You did it. You helped prevent World War III and helped a lot of us in other parts of the world prosper in peace. Thank you. Today we need the same sort of vision for the developing world from Canada . That's gin and tonic, I'm a rock star, I'm allowed that.
The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty. I didn't say that, Colin Powell said that. He's a military man. When military men start talking like that we should listen to them. It's going to be complicated. We can't fix every problem, but the ones we can we must. Some of Africa 's problem are it's filled with corruption. Yes it's true, and bad leadership. But it's theirs and ours. Their corruption and our corruption. Their bad leadership and our bad leadership. Because we talk about free trade, but we refuse to let the poorest people put their products on our shelves, yet we flood their markets with ours. That's corruption. That's a corrupt relationship. The idea that we hold children to ransom for the debts of their great, great, great grandfathers, often loans pushed on them for Cold War reasons, that's a kind of corruption. That's unacceptable.
As I say, with Paul Martin's help we made progress on this, but we're still collecting these debts at the expense of people's lives. These debts should just be cancelled. If we can be sure that the money is spent well, where there's clear and transparent processes, let's please finish what we started and cancel the rest of the debts. This is something to be proud of.
Now, as regards the ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nothing-at-alls, I'm going to get a little technical with you, wonkish even. So, this, this is not for everybody. Take a pee, make a cup of tea, get a beer. This next bit's really for Paul Martin. You see, the richest countries in the world made a promise 25 years ago to give 0.7% of their GDP to the poorest of the poor. Yet throughout the 1990s, a period of unimaginable wealth and prosperity, as a percentage of national income we gave less and less and less. This is bad, this is true. Canada at the moment is at 0.29 of its GDP, its national income. That's about, what… for every dollar of national income it's a third of a percent or something like that. Your next door neighbour, mind you, is at 0.15%. This is not good. Europe on the other hand averages at about .33, what do you think of that? That's not good enough either. We've got to get to .7, we've got to reach the millennium development goals which are to halve global poverty by the year 2015. So, I've just been talking to Paul Martin, I feel confident he's going to make that journey.
OK, can any one country make a difference? Yes, Canada can. Canada already has. And Mr. Martin is the man to do it. If he shows the world the same commitment I saw during the Drop the Debt campaign, if he tackles AIDS with the same passion, like his father fought the fight against polio, if he carries the mantle of Pearson, Trudeau and Chrétien and if he joins hands with the groups that are leading this fight - the churches, the NGOs, the activists - then Canada, oh Canada will show the world the way forward. That's another reason why I'm here. Yes sir.
This is our moment. This is our moment in the history books. Our age will be remembered for only about three things, I promise you: the Internet, the war against terror and how we stood around with watering cans [while] a whole continent, Africa, burst into flames - or not. Look… I don't go around the world, OK, crashing party conventions, talking. I might talk to anyone who will listen. I haven't got more than three of these things in my calendar. I came here because I have a feeling Canada understands something that the rest of the world doesn't. Well, not yet anyway. The idea is interdependence. We're tied to each other, whether we like it or not. The Africans have a saying, they have a word for it, it's … I am because we are. You know, it's cheaper to stop people from hating you than it is to defend yourself against it. Nobody hates Canada . Tourists around the world, you know, they try to pass themselves off as Canadians so they get better treatment. You're so nice. I was nearly niced to death today in the airport. I mean, with those manners you hardly need an army. You know, if Canada wanted to take over the world, it would just say, you know, please, thank you, sorry. You know, could I have the Kremlin please? You know, China , thank you very much. Fucking embarrassing, thank you.
But it's not just that everybody likes Canada , everybody respects Canada , because something subtle is going on here. You've avoided a stigma that's attached to the rest of the West or the Northern Hemisphere or whatever it is that other parts of the world regard with such suspicion and, or worse.
But I tell you, I tell you what I would like history to record. I'd like history to record that a vast and unusual cast of characters got together to say enough of this madness. And not just rock stars and activists, but church people, soccer moms…they're the scary ones by the way. Politicians are used to rock stars and student activists but when we start hanging out with mothers' unions and the churches they're terrified. You ask Paul Martin's friend Gordon Brown. We sent him 150,000 postcards on the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt campaign. And I guess he didn't get to look at all of them, but they thought he should see one, they put it on his desk. It was from his mother. People are scared of mothers. I believe in mothers. I believe in women organizing around these issues. All the ladies in the house.
What's extraordinary about what we're going to do over the next few years is that people who don't even like each other are going to have to work [with] each other because this is that big and it's that serious. I was talking to a U.S. congressman recently. His name is Tom Lantose and he was a survivor of Auschwitz . And he was telling me about his memories as a child, being put on the train to the concentration camps and how the thing that haunted him the most later in his life was that the people who were watching them being put on the trains never asked where they were going. Religious people here tonight, are you ready to ask some hard questions? Atheists here tonight, are you ready to ask some hard questions? Mothers, students, workers, bosses… are you ready to stand in the way of that train, because we do know where this train is going. What we don't know is how many people are prepared to lie across the track. I'm one. I'm here because I believe Paul Martin is another. And, more importantly, I'm here because I believe Canada is ready to lie down across the tracks. Thank you very much. God bless you. Good night.

Central Park Interview-Irish TV-Date Unknown (Elevation Tour Era)

2001-06-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

Harvard Commencement Speech-6/12/2001-Cambridge, Massachusetts

2001-06-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that introduction. First, I should way a few words about who I am and what on earth I'm doing up here.
My name is Bono, and I am a rock star. I tell you this not as a boast but more as a kind of confession. Because in my view the only thing worse than a rock star is a rock star with a conscience, a celebrity with a cause -- oh, dear; oh, dear. But worse yet is a singer with a conscience, a placard-waving, knee-jerking, fellow-traveling activist with a Lexus and a swimming pool shaped like his head. I'm a singer. You know what a singer is. A singer is someone with a hole in his heart almost as big as the size of his ego. When you need 20,000 people screaming your name in order to feel good about your day, you know you're a singer.
I'm a singer. I'm a songwriter. I'm also a father four times over -- just last week. I am a friend to God, a sworn enemy of the saccharine and a believer in grace over karma. I talk too much when I'm drunk and sometimes even when I am not. I am not drunk right now. These are not sunglasses; these are protection. But I must tell you that I owe more than my spoiled lifestyle to rock music -- I owe my worldview. Music was like an alarm clock for me as a teenager and still keeps me awake from falling asleep in the comforts of my freedom.
Rock music to me is rebel music. But rebelling against what? In the 50's it was sexual mores and double standards. In the 60's it was the Vietnam War and racial and social inequality. What are we rebelling against now? If I am honest, I'm rebelling against my own indifference. I am rebelling against the idea that the world is the way the world is and there's not a damned thing I can do about it. So I'm trying to do a damned thing. But fighting my indifference is my own problem.
What's your problem? What's the hole in your heart. I need the noise, the applause. You needed the grades. Why are you hear in Harvard Square ? Why do you have to listen to me? What have you given up to get here? Is success your drug of choice? Or are you driven by another curiosity? Your potential. The potential of a given situation. Is missing the moment unacceptable to you? Is wasting inspiration a crime to you? It is for the musician. If this is where we find our lives rhyme, if this is our common ground, well, then, I can be inspired as well as humbled to be on this great campus because that's where I come from -- music.
But I've seen the other side of music -- the business. I've seen success as a drug of choice. I've seen great minds and prolific imaginations disappear up their own ass, strung-out on their own self-importance. I'm one of them. I've seen the misery of having it all your own way, the loneliness of sitting at a table where everybody works for you; the emptiness of arriving at Aspen on a Gulf stream to stay in your winter -- oh, hold on; that's a different speech.
You know what I'm talking about. But you've got to keep asking yourself, "Why are you doing this?" You've gotta keep checking your motives. Success for my group, U2, has been a lot easier to conjure than, say, relevance -- relevance in the world, relevance in the culture. That's difficult. And, of course, failure is not such a bad thing. It's not a word that many of you know. I'm sure its what you fear the most, actually. But from an artist's point of view, failure is going to get your best material.
Let me tell you a few things you haven't heard about me, even on the Internet. Let me tell you how I enrolled at Harvard and slept with an economic professor. That's right. I became a student at Harvard recently, and I came to work with Professor Jeffrey Sachs at CID [Center for International Development] to study the lack of development -- the lack of development in third-world economies due to the crushing weight of old debts those economies were carrying for generations.
You see it turns out that the normal rules of bankruptcy don't apply to sovereign states. It would be harder for you to get a student loan than it was for the likes of President Mobutu to stream billions of dollars into his Swiss bank account while his [Congolese] people starved on the side of the road. Two generations later, the Congolese are still paying. The debts of the fathers are now the debts of the sons and the daughters.
So here I was, representing a group that believed all such debts should be cancelled in the year 2000. We called it Jubilee 2000. A fresh start for a new millennium.
It was headed up by Anne Pettifor based out of London -- with huge support from Africa and the [unintelligible]. With Muhammad Ali, Sir Bob Geldof, and myself acting, at first, just as mouthpieces. It was taking off. But we were way behind in the U.S.
We had the melody line, so to speak. But in order to get it on the radio over here, we needed a lot of help. My friend Bobby Shriver suggested I knock on the good professor's door. And a funny thing happened. Jeffrey Sachs not only let me into his office, he let me into his Rolodex, his head, and his life for the last few years. So in a sense he let me into your life, here at Harvard. A student, Bono, again -- I was three weeks in a college before this, all right?
So then Sachs and I, with my friend Bobby Shriver, hit the road like some sort of surreal crossover act. A rock star, a Kennedy, a noted economist crisscrossing the globe like the Partridge Family on psychotropic drugs. We had the Pope acting as our kind of agent. We had the blessing of various rabbis, evangelists, mothers unions, trade unions and PTAs.It was a new level of "unhip" for me, but it was very cool. It was in that capacity that I slept with Jeff Sachs, each of us in our own seat on an economy flight to somewhere, passed out like a couple of drunks, but from sheer exhaustion. It was confusing for everyone. I looked up with one eye to see your hero, stubble in all the wrong places, his tie looking like a headband. An airhostess asked if he were a member of the Grateful Dead. (It's more of a mop-top situation today.)Anyway, I have enormous respect for Jeff Sachs, but it's really true what they say: "Students should never sleep with their professors." So while I'm handing out trade secrets, I also want to tell you that Larry Summers, your incoming President, the man whose signature is on every American dollar -- well, he too is a nutcase -- and a freak.U2 made it big out of Boston -- not New York , not LA. So I thought if anyone would know about our existence it would be a Treasury Secretary from Harvard. No. When I said I was from U2 he had a flashback from Cuba , 1962. How can I put this? And don't hold it against him -- Mr. Summers is, as former President Clinton confirmed to me last week in Dublin , "culturally challenged."But when I asked him to look up from "the numbers" to see what we were talking about, he did more than that. He did the hardest thing of all for an Economist; he saw through the numbers. And if it was hard for me to enlist Larry Summers in our efforts, imagine how hard it was for Larry Summers to get the rest of Washington to cough up the cash -- to really make a difference for the third of the world that lives on less than a dollar a day. Well he more than tried. He was passionate. He turned up in the offices of his adversaries. He turned up in restaurants with me, a rock star, to meet the concerns of his Republican counterparts...counterparts...contra-parts...?
There is a posh restaurant in Washington where they will not let us in now. Such was the heat of his debate -- blood on the walls, wine in the vinegar.If you're called up before the new President of Harvard and he gives you a hairy eyeball, drums his fingers, and generally acts disinterested, let me tell you it could be the beginning of a great adventure for you. (It's a good thing I got here before President Rudenstine hands over the -- uh, anyway....)
It is at this point I have to ask -- if your families haven't already -- why am I telling you these stories? It's certainly not because I'm running for role model. I'm telling you these stories because all the fun I had with Jeffrey Sachs and Larry Summers was in the service of something deadly serious. When people around the world hear about the burden of debt that crushes the poorest countries, when they hear that for every dollar of government aid we send to developing nations, nine dollars comes back to us in debt service payments -- did you hear that? For every one dollar in government aid we send to these nations, we receive nine in debt service payments -- when people hear that, they get angry.
In fact, they more than got angry. They took to the streets in what was without doubt the largest grass roots movement since the campaign to end apartheid. Politics, as you know, is normally the art of the possible but this was something more interesting. This was becoming the art of the impossible. We had priests going into pulpits; we had pop stars going into parliaments. The Pope put on my sunglasses for a photo session -- never released, by the way. The Vatican didn't have the same sense of humor as the Pontiff. But he was cool.
Yeah, we had the Pope putting on sun glasses; we had the religious right acting like student protesters. And finally, after a floor fight in the House of Representatives, we got the money -- 4-3-5 million. And more importantly -- 'cause this is starting to add up to a lot of money -- more importantly, this leveraged billions of dollars from other rich countries.
So, where did that money go? Well, so far, 23 of the poorest countries on the planet have managed to meet the sometimes over-stringent conditions to get their debt payments reduced -- and to spend the money on the people who need it most. In Uganda , twice as many kids are now going to school. That's good. In Mozambique , debt payments are down 42 percent, allowing health spending to increase by 14 million dollars. That's good -- 14 million dollars goes a long way in Mozambique .
...To make it more sort of real, just one little story about a remarkable man in rural Uganda -- Dr. Kabira. In 1999, measles -- a disease that's almost unheard of in the U.S. -- killed hundreds of kids in Dr. Kabira's district. Now, thanks to debt relief, he's got an additional $6,000 from the state, enough for him to employ two new nurses and buy two new bicycles, so that they can get around the district and immunize the children. Last year, measles was a killer. This year, Dr. Kabira saw less than ten cases. That's good.
I just wanted you to know what we pulled off with the help of Harvard -- with the help of people like Jeffrey Sachs, sitting right there. I'm not here to brag, or to take credit, or even to share it, actually. And not just to say "thanks." I think I've come here for another reason. think I've come here to ask you for your help because this is a big problem and we need some smart people working on it. I think that this will be the defining moment of our age. When the history books (that some of you will write) make records of this moment in time, we will be remembered for two things: the Internet, probably, and the everyday holocaust that is Africa : 25 million HIV positives who will leave behind 40 million AIDS orphans by 2010 in sub-Saharan Africa alone. This is the biggest health threat since the Bubonic Plague wiped out a third of Europe . And this is happening right now in our time.It's an unsustainable problem for Africa and, unless we hermetically seal the continent and close our conscience, it's an unsustainable problem for the world. But it's hard to make this a popular cause. It's hard to make it pop, you know? And I guess that's what my job is; 'cause pop is often, sadly often, the oxygen of politics.
Didn't John and Robert Kennedy come to Harvard? Isn't equality a son of a bitch to follow through on. Isn't "Love thy neighbour" in the global village so inconvenient? God writes us these lines, but we have to sing them -- take them to the top of the charts. But its not what the radio is playing, is it? I know. I know.
But we've got to follow through on our ideals or we betray something at the heart of who we are. Outside these gates, and even within them, the culture of idealism is under siege, beset by materialism and narcissism and all the other "isms" of indifference -- and their defense mechanisms: knowingness, the smirk, the joke. Worse still, idealism is being reduced to a marketing tool. They've got Martin Luther King selling phones now. Have you seen that? [unintelligible]Civil Rights in America and Europe are bound to human rights in the rest of the world. Human rights: the right to live like a human. But these thoughts are expensive; they're going to cost us. Are we ready to pay the price? Is America still a great idea as well as a great country?
When I was a kid in Dublin , I watched in awe as America put a man on the moon. We though, you know, this is "mad." Nothing is impossible in America . In America , they can do anything over there. Nothing was impossible -- only human nature. And it followed because it was led. Is that still true? Tell me it's true. It's true isn't it? And if it isn't, you of all people can make it true again.
Thank you.

Free Your Mind Award Acceptance Speech-11/12/1999-MTV European Music Awards

1999-11-12T20:20:00.000-08:00

It's the Devil giving God an award, is it? Thank you to Mick. Thank you so much. It's gonna make me worse, you know, it's just gonna make me worse. You think I'm bad now. You're giving me a platform and I wanna use it to tell you something that, to tell the world something I'm not sure they know, which is... When I'm driving in my car and a man comes on the radio and he's telling me more and more about some useless information supposed to drive my imagination I can get some satisfaction... I'm getting satisfaction! I'm here with my people, I'm here with my brethern, and they're funky people! This city, Dublin City... funky people! Hmm, so... Thank you to Adam, Larry, Edge for letting me be in their band. Paul... thank you to (I missed the name) who ruined my life introducing me to Jubilee 2000. Thank you so much. God bless you!

Bruce Springsteen Induction Speech-3/15/1999-New York City

1999-03-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

Watch Bono Give Speech (YouTube)
Bruce is a very unusual rock star, really, isn't he? I mean, he hasn't done the things most rock stars do. He got rich and famous, but never embarrassed himself with all that success, did he? No drug busts, no blood changes in Switzerland. Even more remarkable, no golfing! No bad hair period, even in the 80's. No wearing of dresses in videos. No embarrassing movie roles, no pet snakes, no monkeys. No exhibitions of his own paintings. No public brawling of setting himself on fire on the weekends.
Rock stars are supposed to make soap operas of their lives, aren't they? If they don't kill themselves first. Well, you can't be a big legend and not be dysfunctional. It's not allowed. You should at least have lost your looks. Everyone else has. Did you see them? It's like Madame Tussaud's back there.
Then there's Bruce Springsteen. Okay-- Oh! Handsome, handsome mother with those brooding brown eyes, eyes that could see through America. And a catastrophe of great songs, if you were another songwriter. Bruce has played every bar in the USA and every stadium. Credibility-- you couldn't have more unless you were dead. But Bruce Springsteen, you always knew, was not gonna die stupid. He didn't buy the mythology that screwed so many people. Instead, he created an alternative mythology, one where ordinary lives became extraordinary and heroic. Bruce Springsteen, you were familiar to us. But it's not an easy familiarity, is it? Even his band seems to stand taller when he walks in the room. It's complex. He's an American writer, and critic. It's like in "Badlands", he's Martin Sheen and Terrence Malick. To be so accessible and so private... there's a rubric. But then again, he is an Irish-Italian, with a Jewish-sounding last name. What more do you want?! Add one big African sax player, and no one in this room is gonna fuck with you!
In 1974, I was 14. Even I knew the '60s were over. It was the era of soft-rock and fusion. The Beatles were gone. Elvis was in Vegas. What was going on? Nothing was going on. Bruce Springsteen was coming on, saving music from the phonies, saving lyrics from the folkies, saving leather jackets from the Fonz. "Now the greasers, they tramp the streets and get busted for sleeping on the beaches all night. And them boys in their high heels, ah Sandy, their skins are so white. Oh, Sandy, love me tonight, and I promise I'll love you forever." In Dublin, Ireland I knew what he was talking about. Here was a dude that carried himself like Brando, and Dylan, and Elvis. If John Steinbeck could sing, if Van Morrison could ride a Harley Davidson It was something new, too. He was the first whiff of Scorsese, the first hint of Patti Smith, Elvis Costello and the Clash. He was the end of long hair, brown rice, and bell bottoms. He was the end of the 20-minute drum solo. It was goodnight, Haight-Ashbury, hello Asbury Park. C'mon!
America was staggering when Springsteen appeared. The president just resigned in disgrace, the U.S. had lost its first war. There was going to be no more oil in the ground. The days of cruising and big cars were supposed to be over. But Bruce Springsteen's vision was bigger than a Honda, it was bigger than a loss and defeat. hey had to be braver, not just bigger. He was singing, "Now you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore" because it took guts to be romantic now. Knowing you could lose didn't mean you still didn't take the ride. In fact, it made taking the ride all the more important.
Here was a new vision and a new community. More than a community. Because every great rock group is kind of like starting a religion... sort of. And Bruce surrounded himself with fellow believers. The E Street-- it was just a great rock group, or a street gang. It was a brotherhood. Zealots like Steve Van Zandt, the bishop Clarence Clemmons, the holy Roy Bittan, crusaders Danny Federici, Max Weinberg, Garry Tallent, and later, Nils Lofgren. And Jon Landau, Jon Landau, Jon Landau, Jon Landau. What do you call a man who makes his best friend his manager, his producer, his confessor? You call him the Boss. And Springsteen didn't just marry a gorgeous , redheaded woman from the Jersey shore. She could sing, she could write, and she could tell the Boss off. There's Patty right there.
For me and the rest of the U2ers, it wasn't just the way he described the world. It was the way he negotiated it. It was a map, a book of instructions on how to be in the business but not out of it. Generous is a word you could use to describe the way he treated us. Decency is another. But these words can box you in. I remember when Bruce was headlining Amnesty International's tour for prisoners of conscience, I remember thinking, "Wow, if there ever was a prisoner of conscience, it's Bruce Springsteen." Integrity can be a yoke, a pain... when your songs are taking you to a part of town where people don't expect to see you.
At some point I remember taking an elevator with gentleman Bruce, where he just started straight ahead of himself, and completely ignored me. I was crushed. Only when he walked into the doors as they were opening, did I realize the impossible was happening. My God, Bruce Springsteen, the Buddha of my youth, is plastered! Drunk as a skunk! Is this a farce I have to go back to the book of instructions, scratch the bit out about how you held yourself in public. By the way, that was a great relief.
Something was going on, though. As a fan I could see that my hero was beginning to rebel against his own public image. Things got even more interesting on Tunnel of Love , when he started to deface it. A remarkable bunch of tunes. Where our leader starts having a go at himself, and hypocrisy of his own heart, before anyone else could. But the tabloids could never break news on Bruce Springsteen. Because his fans-- he had already told us everything in the songs. We knew he was spinning. We could feel him free-falling. But it wasn't in chaos or entropy. It was in love.
They call him the Boss. Well, that's a bunch of crap. He's not the boss. He works FOR us. More than a boss, he's the owner, because more than anything else Bruce Springsteen owns America's heart. I'm proud to introduce to you Bruce Springsteen, member of the E Street band!

Bono: Why Are You Creative?-1999-Germany

1997-09-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

Need date/time/place, transcript.

The Frank Sinatra Lifetime Achievement Award Introduction Speech-2/17/1994

1994-02-17T20:25:00.000-08:00

Watch
Bono was asked to introduce Frank Sinatra when the vocal legend was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1994 Grammy Awards. This is the speech Bono delivered in honour of Sinatra, a speech Sinatra called "... probably the best introduction I've ever had.""....
Frank never did like Rock and Roll, And he's not crazy about guys wearing earrings either. But he doesn't hold it against me, and anyway, the feeling is not mutual. Rock and Roll people love Frank Sinatra because Frank has got what we want: swagger and attitude; he's big on attitude, Serious attitude, bad attitude. Frank's the Chairman of the Bad. Rock and Roll plays at being tough but this guy, well, he's the boss, The boss of bosses, The man, The big bang of pop I'm not gonna mess with him, are you?Who's this guy that every city in America wants to claim as their own?This painter who lives in the desert, this first-rate, first-take actorThis singer who makes other men poets, boxing clever with every wordTalking like America, Tough, straight-up, in headlinesComin' through with the big stick, the aside, the quiet complimentGood cop, bad cop, all in the same breathYou know his story 'cause it's your storyFrank walks like America -- cock-sureIt's 1945 and the U.S. Cavalry are trying to get their asses out of Europe, but they never really do. They're part of another kind of invasion AFR -- American Forces Radio (sic) Broadcasting a music that'll curl the stiff upper-lip of England and the rest of the worldPaving the way for Duke Ellington, the big band, Tommy DorseyAnd right out in front -- Frank SinatraHis voice as tight as a fist, opening at the end of a barNot on the beat, over it, playing with it, splitting it like a jazz man, like Miles Davis, Turning on the right phrase and the right songWhich is where he lives, where he lets go, where he reveals himselfHis songs are his home and he lets you in, But you know that to sing like that you've gotta have lost a couple of fights, To know tenderness and romance you've gotta have had your heart broken
People say that Frank hasn't talked to the press, they wanna know how he is, what's on his mind, But you know Sinatra's out there more nights than most punk bands, Selling his story through the songsTelling and articulate in the choice of those songsPrivate thoughts on a public address system, GenerousThis is the conundrum of Frank Sinatra, Left and right brain hardly talkingBoxer and painter, actor and singer, lover and father, bandman and lonerTrouble-shooter and troublemakerThe champ who would rather show you his scars than his medalsHe may be putty in Barbara's hands, But I'm not gonna mess with him, are you?Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to welcome a man heavier than the Empire State, more connected than the Twin Towers, as recognizable as the Statue of Liberty, and living proof that God is a Catholic!Will you welcome the King of New York City, Francis Albert Sinatra!...."

Bob Marley Induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-January 19, 1994-New York City

1994-01-19T20:37:00.000-08:00

I know claiming Bob Marley is Irish might be a little difficult here tonight, but bear with me. Jamaica and Ireland have a lot in common: Naomi Campbell, Chris Blackwell, Guinness, and a fondness for little green leaves- the weed. Religion. The philosophy of procrastination- don't put off 'til tomorrow what you can put off for the day after. Unless of course, it's freedom. We are both islands, we were both colonies. We share a common yoke: the struggle for identity, the struggle for independence, the vulnerable and uncertain future that's left behind when the jackboot of empire is finally retreated. The roots, the getting up, the standing up, and the hard bit: the staying up.
In such a struggle, the voice of Bob Marley was the voice of reason. These were love songs that you could admit listening to; the songs of hurt, hard but healing, tough going, songs of freedom, where that song meant something again, Redemption songs. A sexy revolution where Jah is Jehovah on street level. Not over His people, but with His people. Not just stylin', jammin'. Down the line of Judah. from Ethiopia, where it all began for the Rastaman.
I spent some time in Ethiopia with my wife, Ali, and everywhere we went we saw Bob Marley's face. There he was, dressed to hustle God. Let my people go. An ancient plea. Prayers catching fire in Mozambique, Nigeria, the Lebanon, Alabama, Detroit, New York, Notting Hill, Belfast. Dr. King in dreads. The Third and First World superstar. Mental slavery ends where imagination begins. Here was this new music, rocking out of the shantytowns, lolling, loping rhythms, telling it like it was, like it is, like it ever shall be. Skanking. Ska. Blue Beat. Rock Steady. Reggae. Dub. And now reggae. And all this from a man who drove three BMWs. BMW- Bob Marley and the Wailers, that was his excuse!
Rock and Roll loves it juvenalia, its caricatures, its cartoons. The protest singer, the pop star, the sex god, your mature Messiah types. We love the extremes, and we're expected to choose: the mud of the blues or the oxygen of gospel, the hellhounds on our trail or the band of angels. Well, Bob Marley didn't choose or walk down the middle. He raced to the edges, embracing all extremes, creating a oneness. One love. He wanted everything at the same time. Prophet. Soul rebel. Rastaman. Herbsman. Wildman. A natural, mystic man. lady's man. Island man. Family man. Rita's man. soccer man. Showman. Shaman. Human. Jamaican!
So the spirit of Bob and the spirit of Jah lives on, in his son Ziggy and his lover Rita Marley. I'm proud to welcome Bob Marley into the Hall of Fame. Amen!

Acceptance Speech For "Album of the Year" -March 22, 1988-New York City

1988-03-22T20:54:00.000-08:00

This is, uh, this is all very Celtic ( as he points to the stage set ). We appreciate it. It's actually is, um... it really is hard carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, and saving the whales, and uh, organizing summits between world leaders and that sort of thing. But we enjoy our work ( everyone laughs ). It's hard when 50 million people are watching not to take the opportunity to draw attention to the important things like South Africa and what's happening there; remarkable people like Desmond Tutu and what they have to put up with.
But tonight is maybe not the best night to do that so I'd like to talk about the music, soul music. That's what U2 wanted to make. It's not about being black or white, what instruments you play, or whether you use a drum machine or not. It's a decision to reveal or conceal and without it, people like Prince would be nothing more than a brilliant song and dance man that he is, but he's much more than that. People like Bruce Springsteen would be nothing more than a great storyteller, but he's much more than that. Without it, U2 would probably be better at using the Village Voice. That's a joke ( The Village Voice is a newspaper ). Sometimes they don't understand.
Without it U2 certainly wouldn't be here. But we are here and we wanna be here. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else than New York City tonight. Thank you.
We'd like to extend our thanks to our producer Brian Eno without whom we wouldn't have made that record. Thank you.

U2's 1st Canadian TV Interview-1981-Canada

1981-01-01T21:46:00.000-08:00