During the propaganda videos issued to promote Live Aid 2: Twenty Years On From The First One, we were presented with lots of images with Bono. This imagery was extremely powerful.
Starring himself and a whole host of people who appeared solely to boost their ‘caring profile’, Bono told us that ‘every time I and my mates click their fingers, an African child will die’. There was, of course, a simple solution to this: stop bloody doing it – don’t abuse your weird powers.
Aside from his world-saving duties, Bono likes to occasionally rock out with a little known Irish band called U2. Though named after some awful text speak, critics are saying the band could someday be big, if Bono himself were to shut up telling everyone off all the time and dictating to us, the lowly public, what we should do in life to save the universe.
Thankfully some people want to stop Bono bleating on and have launched a petition to stop him. We’re not sure how they intend to stop him, but hopefully it won’t be by freezing him. This would, of course, leave the possibility open for him to be thawed out in 3000 years. Imagine the unfortunate luck for the poor sods then. And would Bono be able to operate a flying car?
Let’s face it: if God wanted the planet to be saved, he would have enlisted the help of someone by now. That someone would most likely be Captain Planet. Remember that bluey-green git? He probably made an appearance at your school when you were little, though you probably missed him due to being sick from evil smoke fumes. Failing that, you watched him on TV doing battle against smog from Middlesbrough, greenhouses gases and those plastic rings from beer cans that fish stupidly get caught in.
It would seem, however, that the time hasn’t yet arrived for a green haired bloke to save the world from warming up and making sure polar bears don’t fall in to the sea, or get loose on the Lost island.
So why has Bono decided to do Captain Planet’s job for him a bit prematurely? Well the answer is simple: when our young Irish lad was watching Cap’s cartoon, he somehow fell over and bumped his head, which clearly triggered some sort of mental illness, making him take on impossible tasks and annoy thousands upon millions of people. ‘Bonoitis’, possibly.
According to the NME, the catchy sounding petition “Bono – retire from public life and we’ll donate a ton of money to fight AIDS” has been launched on thepoint.com. The aim and objectives of this crusade are as follows:
“To get Bono to retire from public life (so he’ll stop leading misguided counter-productive philanthropy efforts) and, simultaneously to make a huge donation to fight AIDS.”
Ace – that’s a win for everyone then. Bono gets to bugger off and do some crap records, while at the same time bundles of money get thrown to AIDS charities. But is everything that easy? Of course it isn’t. Despite raising a small amount of cash so far, which is sure to grow, the money will only be donated depending on the success of the campaign. We’re presuming that ‘success’ is nothing less then actual retirement from the public eye for Bono.
Hmm… if it’s that easy to start online petitions then exciting and crazy thoughts are going through our heads. We’ll donate our weekly lunch money total to anyone who can persuade Chris Morris to come in from the wilderness and make us laugh again. Because lets face it, people like Lenny Henry make us want to cry and burn down Premier Travel Inns.
Sign The Petition If You Want:
Make Bono History
Gavin says
There is no smog in Middlesbrough. I’ve lived there 42 years and have never seen any. Smog is created by fumes from cars and heat. Smog comes from vehicular and industrial emissions that are acted on in the atmosphere by sunlight to form secondary pollutants that also combine with the primary emissions to form smog. It has now been proven that the Middlesbrough air is cleaner than London, Newcastle, Sunderland and many other British cities, the main source of pollution in the air is now vehicle exhaust fumes, like most urban areas.
David Bryden says
I disagree that U2 can ever be big. They have insufficient musical talent.
pookie says
I’m a Christian……and I will be signing…..but only if Chris Moyles stays in the wilderness also.
evilcl0ne says
So that’s official, no smog in Middlesbrough nor folk with a sense of humour
David Bryden says
Gavin, I just went to Middlesbrough on the bus and released a piece of smog that I brought from London in my pocket. Nanner nanner!
Gilbert Wham says
There may not be any smog in Middlesborough (although you have not presented your sources for scrutiny), but the fact remains that it is fucking horrible there.
Spencer Kent says
Someone at (RED) responded to this on the original site:
“This petition is full of misstatements about (RED) that the simplest Google search would uncover. (RED) has raised more than $109 million for the Global Fund in just two years – ALL of this money goes to AIDS programs in Africa, with NO overhead (or advertising money) taken out.
This money is funding AIDS programs in Ghana, Lesotho, Rwanda and Swaziland that have already helped put more than 80,000 people on lifesaving antiretroviral treatment and helped provide 369,000 pregnant women with counseling and services to reduce the risk of mother-to-child-transmission of HIV…
First, I want to state that the $100M figure you mention and the basic premise of your argument about the allocation of corporate marketing dollars are wrong.
(RED) has not spent any money on advertising. (RED) gets the corporations to spend a portion of their EXISTING marketing budgets on promoting (RED) products. In response to the notion of why companies don’t just donate their marketing budgets, the simple fact is that corporations are not in the business of donating marketing budgets. They are in the business of creating products, marketing them and delivering value for their shareholders. (RED) intersects that process and convinces them to channel some of this power to raise funds to buy AIDS medicine for people who otherwise couldn’t afford them. If these companies weren’t advertising (RED) products, they’d be advertising regular products that don’t generate money for the emergency of AIDS in Africa AND they definitely would not be donating those budgets.
The only part of a corporation that is the business of ‘donating’ is generally the corporate foundation. We purposefully do not go through the foundations for this partnership. We engage the business sectors because our goal is to create a sustainable flow of dollars to the fund, not a one-time handout. This goes back to basics of “WHY” (RED) was formed. (RED) was designed to create a SUSTAINABLE flow of private sector dollars to the Global Fund (www.theglobalfund.org). The Global Fund was created in 2002 and designed to be a public/private partnership i.e. to get money from governments and business. However, it is first four years it had raised $50B from government and just $5M from business (by approaching corporate foundations for support). We needed a new way to engage business in helping to address one of the worst healthcare crisis of our times. So, (RED) was created – with the basic concept of engaging business in a way that made good business sense and creating this sustainable flow of dollars for the Global Fund.
As for the money raised, over $60 million has been raised through the sale of (PRODUCT) RED goods and over $40 million was raised through the (RED) Sotheby’s auction. 260 million media impressions were also garnered through the publicity around the (RED) Auction and the fact that it was raising money to buy drugs that cost 40 cents per day for people who can’t afford that amount to stay alive. We are in the business of raising money and awareness and it seems to make sense to do both at the same time when we can. The auction would not have been possible if the (RED) brand did not exist. It was because of the brand awareness and the excitement around it in the marketplace that many of these artists were willing to participate and one of the reasons why there was so much support to produce an event of that magnitude. All of these things work hand in hand and help build momentum that will raise even more money over time. And, as (RED) grows and matures, you will see our model continue to do more new things that surprise and, at the end of the day, raises the most money possible for the Global Fund to help finance AIDS programs in Africa.
At the end of the day, (RED) is just one way for people to get involved. It does not replace charity, volunteerism, government participation and other avenues to help. It is all of these things working together that will help address the greatest social issues of our time – not each thing working separately and in isolation.”
It’s more than a little dishonest of Aaron to not update his spiel to say that he’s been corrected – (RED) hasn’t spent any money of advertising, it’s partners who advertise their products anyway that have spent a normal share of their ad spends proportionally on (RED) computers/skateboards/shoes, etc.
MicktheIceman says
Leave Bono alone. He’s great. And, as for Middlesborough, it’s a shithole!
INShock says
Really?? NO I MEAN, REALLY???? If you dont like the guy IGNORE HIM! Why would want to try and stop someone for being good??? Finally, we have a celebrity who isnt a just a dumb, selfish blonde, Bono is actually trying to use his fame for something good. I am not just saying this because I am a liberal (I hate liberals, mostly Al Gore), I am saying this because Bono stands for something good. SO, if you want to be a jerk be a jerk to someone else!