Geldof, Bono and the Live 8 wankathon. : Melbourne Indymedia

Geldof, Bono and the Live 8 wankathon.

George Papanastasiou
2/7/05

How self-indulgent it must feel, I thought, to put on a huge concert highlighting the plight of Africa’s poor, then slip away via private jet to a mansion somewhere in the French Riviera to un-cork a $2000 bottle of Moet in front of your own private beach.

Really, how deluded must one be to think that massive rock-concerts can trigger a paradigm shift in the entrenched system of global greed?

They won’t, and not because they can’t, but because these ‘Live’ concerts were never designed to do that.

Live 8, like Live Aid before it, will only help Bono, Geldof, Elton John, REM, Madonna, Sting, Mariah Carey, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Robbie Williams among others, feel good about themselves and their fantasy lifestyles.

I mean, who the hell elected Geldof, Bono or any of these other rock-buffoons to voice our concerns to the worlds ultra-powerful anyway?

I nearly choked this morning as I surveyed an interesting photo of Bono and Condoleezza Rice shaking hands, as if both were world leaders deciding the fate of the planet.

Let’s face it, Geldof & Bono may be well intentioned, but they're misguided to the point of hallucination. They don’t understand (or maybe they do) that their efforts only serve to justify their own excesses, the iniquitous practices of the worlds powerful and, for only a moment, the charity of a western middle class guilt-tripped into sympathising.

It translates into a terrible joke played out on the worlds poor.

What would really be brave is if both G & B confronted the world’s rulers and the international economic casino head-on, to highlight the issues that CAUSE global debt and poverty.

Until then, they should hold their drug-induced couture wankathons in their private homes, well away from the easily seduced citizens of the world and the many activists of the non-billionaire variety who struggle daily to overthrow the inherently unjust capitalist system. The same system keeping Africans destitute so rock-stars can have golden guitars.