Bono is truly off his meds, or high on ‘something’…
U2 frontman and longtime global activist Bono took a swing at the Trump administration disbanding the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, blaming the cuts for a staggering 300,000 deaths.
And he was swiftly fact-checked by Rogan and Elon Musk in a takedown that lit up social media.
“This will f— you off,” Bono warned, claiming tens of thousands of tons of food are “rotting” in warehouses from Djibouti to Houston because of recent USAID cuts, and that the people who ran those warehouses have been fired.
Full article, HERE from Yahoo News.
His ‘data’ came from the hypotheticals from this study HERE. Now if you go look at their methodology, they seem to base it on WHO, UN, and various articles/models. I tried to ‘follow’ what they were doing, but it didn’t click for me…
So Bono took a ‘study’ that is nothing more than a ‘model’ of what ‘may’ happen and translated that into 300,000 deaths laid at Trump/Doge feet…
He seems to have cherry picked ‘which’ data he wanted to use. From Fox, HERE, is a fairly clear statement of what is going on and why.
I don’t think anybody actually believes that ALL of the USAid programs were good, and there is no question that the mission has ‘drifted’ from the original concept. That is one reason to realign it and put it under State, who has better controls and, IMHO, a better boots on the ground feel for what is necessary.
Now there was some truth in what he said, in that thousands of tons of food is missing/rotting in various places. We’ve mentioned before how you can go to the souks in the 3rd world and find US Aid food for sale, still in the original packages. It is also proven the warlords in Africa are known to wait until food/aid is delivered, then stealing it for their own use, leaving the natives to starve.
When the hurricane hit Puerto Rico a few years ago, the US Aid provided pallets of water, desperately needed by the locals. Two years later, that same water STILL sat in warehouses where it had been unloaded because there was never a distribution system set up to actually deliver it!
And who knows how much money has gone to organizations/people/countries that never got to the people it was supposed to help? I doubt we will ever know…
We’ve been given an amazing surplus of resources. If we haven’t always exercised wisdom in how we use those for the benefit of those in need, well, maybe we were doing the best we could.
But it hurts my heart to think that our gifts meant to relieve suffering were subverted into becoming the means for the wicked to extend their suppression.
Still, let us do good when we can, but learn what has gone wrong, so we can become wiser about how we provide for the needs of those who are struggling.
Much less the “aid” in Haiti that was (not) distributed under the Clinton Foundation because the associated “fees” were not forthcoming…
Hey Old NFO,
As far as the Puerto Rico AID went, it was found out that the Mayor of San Juan Hid the relief supplies and then fulleled the supplies to her supporters and went on social media to try to make Trump look bad, but she was *Narced* out. and also the people that did that hypothetical study that Bono used were hard core lefties and their model was “biased” and not based on reality. Clowns.
Like most “relief”, when it’s unsupervised, it’s stolen, or left to spoil in some warehouse. It’s true in third world nations, and after watching hundred of cases of water thrown into dumpsters locally after a hurricane, it’s prevalent in the United States. Even our supposed best charities slush huge amounts of money in grift and use it to pay exorbitant salaries.
Bono’s assessment is political posturing, exposes his ignorance, and perpetuates the fraud of liberal mental instability. Why the media covers his rants is beyond reason.
I’m reminded of the episode of Mash in which Winchester donated a bunch of chocolate to an orphanage for Christmas. His heart was in the right place, but his understanding of the situation was flawed.
Give a man a fish…
Some of the problems in this world are cultural and that is a hard fix. You teach them to fish, turn your back for a moment, and they’ve sold the rod, reel, line, and hook. I don’t know where I’m going with this other than to say, USAID may have been a nice concept, but it was doomed from the start to provide lasting change/development.
If it were true that we could kill that many people in the third world by cutting USAID in only a third of a year, then stopping foreign aid and keeping it stopped would be a key part of reducing carbon and preventing AGW.
The special carbon in climate science is effectively a proxy for human lives and for human well being.
Therefore, mass murder is an obvious remedy.
If we do not have evidence sufficient to carry out mass murder, we do not have evidence sufficient to implement any other controls based in climate modeling.
Anyway, allegedly the real purpose of USAID is as a CIA cut out, but the problem with that claim, is that arguably universities and federal security organizations have messed up enough with their thumbs on various scales, that it may make most sense to shut them down and do some years of restructuring.
I was born poor white in California in the late 50s and was last by 6 years. As each of us graduated HS we were shown the door. We all had worked from the time we could.
I graduated in 75 and found a job with the phone company to pay for life and college. I worked in the Black Slums of south central Los Angeles for the next 4 years. I learned most of these people were on Welfare and Food Stamps, but had much more in possessions then I grew up with. The area was dangerous and I was on a multiracial crew with a Black Boss and we all got attacked. The area and people has not changed in the many years.
I became conservative quickly and felt giving anything by the government was a waste. My parents had never taken anything from the government except my Dad went into the VA every 6 months because of WW2 injuries as a Marine to have his back straighten.
#1 Charitable country: USA $258 Billion, 1.44% of GDP. #12 Ireland $273 million, 0.23% of GDP. F off Bono.
Countries donation of foreign aid: #1 USA 9.8 billion, #2 EU at $2.1 billion. Ireland doesn’t make the top 10. F off Bono one more time. (2024)
I posted some of this data from Wikipedia on McThag’s blog. He wondered why Bono did not send some of his millions to make up the difference. Good question!
I suppose various high profile entertainers influence public opinion. My opinion is they should stay in their lane.
Want a role model? Dolly Parton
All- You raise interesting and true points! Thanks! And yes, I ignore most of the ‘high profile’ types too. They don’t help me do anything…
I’ve come to believe that feudalism is the default setting for humanity. With the exception of Western Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. Otherwise feudalism/tribalism seems to be default. Think of whole countries ran by Mafia Dons without the honor the Mafia is famous for, and armed with nuclear weapons. Hate to be a pessimist, but that’s my take.
Paul Hewson was, and remains, an idiot.
NRW- Good point!
TB- No quesiton!