Pet Shop Boys Community

Practice what you preach, sure. But U2 taking an extra tax hit does not save Africa either, and isn't that what he's preaching? He's using his celebrity to raise awareness for third world troubles. Personally I'm above needing a rock star to lecture me on what's wrong with the world, but there's a lot of idiots who do, and if there's positive momentum and growth as a result, then great. I'm also above worrying about their motivations, if he only cares about PR what do I care? Like I said, if positive things result, his ego shouldn't matter.

Anyways, would the Irish govt. essentially be getting more money if U2 didn't move to whatever country? I don't know much about the issue, but if that's it then who cares? I thought most in the western world were capitalists, and doesn't this make business sense? Disgusting corporations are involved in this type of stuff all the time, and just because we don't know their names or faces we develop a sort of passive attitude about it and become cynical. If anyone truly cares about this type of stuff they'd research and think for themselves and stop buying some companies products. But no, a rock star with a god complex puts himself on a limb and becomes an easy target. Don't pick and choose convenient targets I guess is the point, because the worst crimes are always being committed away from the media. Hating Bono is too easy, maybe ignorant.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090710/tp ... b2d2f.html

I love the bit about he hasn't been given a copy of the speech, that'll be his next crusade, every world leader will need to present his speech to Bonio for proof reading and amending where necessary

Is Ghana a tax haven then?

no, but it is the worlds leading exporter of aha tribute songs

Flaffer wrote:no, but it is the worlds leading exporter of aha tribute songs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/ju ... y-activism

Bono may be U2's self-appointed flak-catcher but he worries his activism opens his bandmates to criticism. "They're getting part of the kicking because they have me in the band. So I feel for them. I do." An example: nobody gives a damn about, say, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' accountancy practises, but U2's tax move was roundly slammed as rank hypocrisy.

Bono rubs his temples and sighs. "It's very difficult. The thing I probably regret is not talking about it more but we agreed in the band not to. Which is annoying. What bothered me was it's like you're hiding your money in some tax haven and people think of the Cayman Islands. And you're campaigning for Africa and transparency – of course that looked like hypocrisy. People whom I've annoyed, people who wished us to fail, they finally got what they thought must have been there in the first place. It was a hook to hang me on." He claps his hands forcefully and points. "'We got him!' You could, if you wanted, get … y'know … it could get you going. You look at it and say, 'Well what have you done?'" His flash of annoyance passes. "People are just trying to do the best they can. You can't do everything."

Robert Mugabe is just trying to do the best he can too.

It needs to be said again - Bono is a c***.

Fugitive1979 wrote:It needs to be said again - Bono is a c***.

I whole heartedly agree.

Paddymacall wrote:

Fugitive1979 wrote:It needs to be said again - Bono is a c***.

I whole heartedly agree.

And I'll third that - right so now that we've got that sorted out - who/what is next?

Peter (3 times a charm) Mandelson

You've got to hand it to Bono; he's always willing to go that extra yard in pursuit of c*ntdom.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009 ... conference

gonna have to vote Lib Dem now. What does charity have to do with spending cuts - methinkscaptainrobs needs to think before tweeting

Flaffer wrote:What does charity have to do with spending cuts

Charity begins in the ballot box. Spending cuts will invariably target the most vulnerable, the poor, the unemployed, non-Bullingdon Club members, and one-legged benefit-scrounging PSB Community Administrators, that type.

I'm looking forward to a new Tory government in Britain. It's about time certain sections of society (if it existed, eh?) got a good kicking - especially the minimum-wage-earning graspingly aspirational working class who will vote for them out of prejudice, mindless stupidity, or both. Tory governments are a necessary evil: they appeal to those who are only too happy watching their neighbours getting a good shoeing. It's always a marvelous moment when that shoe doesn't just kick-in the door next door, though...

Drico

I'm not a Tory but I hope they get a huge majority in the election so that I can watch the New Labour tosspots excreted from office at their counts all night long.

*waits for red letter day*

I'd agree with that if I thought that Britons would actually vote for a social democratic Labour Party that would rise from the ashes of New Labour. But they won't - and as a result it won't.

As a consequence, I'm hugely looking forward to the Tory evisceration of social services, the minimum wage, and all manner of essential infrastructural necessities that keep millions of heads above water. The only people who should be voting Tory are the filthy rich - those who can effortlessly afford the massive security systems, CCTV installations, 20-foot walls, and, er, moats, around their country estates and castles to keep the froth-mouthed plebeians at bay when the spending cuts and resultant deprivations create a new wave of nihilistic scumbaggery that will drown the myopic, grasping working class (and everyone else) who voted with the blue-rinsers out of misplaced spite.

Drico.