Broadcast Bono? No You Don't!!

I just stood in line for 20 minutes waiting to get a ticket to see Bono's speech at Bridges Auditorium. It was a long wait as I walked through McKenna auditorium and heard several U-2 songs booming from the speakers.

During my wait in line, I thought about broadcasting Bono on YouTube and asked one of our deans if that would be acceptable. I had admittedly selfish reasons: a YouTube video is easier to break apart and analyze (and to link to!) than a speech in real-time. I didn't, but should have, asked about a transcript. I also asked about the questions that Dean of Students Jeff Huang solicited a few weeks ago. I sent one in about how ineffective Bono's Red campaign has been. Here's the major reason for my concern. MotherJones, a fellow blog, has also voiced how ineffective the campaign has been: a paltry $18 million has been raised. Accuracy in Media writer Cliff Kincaid has also questioned the effectiveness of Bono's approach. (You can be sure I'll blog about this issue more as we get closer to B-Day.)

I was informed that Bono and his organization also have selfish reasons: they won't let Claremont McKenna broadcast him, though they will allow them to simulcast his speech.

Could it be that Bono wants his organization to retain rights to his thoughts? Could it be that his collectivist impulses of narrowing the gap between poor and rich extend only as far as the rest of our pocketbooks?

It really makes me wonder whether or not Bono is as sincere as he says he is. If he cared as much as he claims to, why not shout it from the rooftops and let every single person hear about the plight of those he professes to help? And if that really were his aim, what better medium than YouTube to convey the message?

Maybe the real answer is that Bono doesn't want us to be able to analyze what he has to say and to critique him for his advocacy and failed policies. Maybe he wants us, like all the college students who will soon attend his speech, to fawn over his celebrity, over his status, and ignore his substance.

I'll be following up on this topic more as we get closer to B-Day. (How ironic that Bono comes to speak on the Eve of Halloween!) I wonder whether Bono's speech will be a trick or treat...

UPDATE: Bono's not only a crusader for the poor, he's also an architect committed to creating socially affordable appartments in a five-star, tallest tower in Ireland fiasco-to-be. Not a joke.

Crazy Cynthia McKinney Comes To Pitzer College

Colleges tend to have a fascination with bringing far-left speakers to campus.

Oftentimes, these speakers provide the entertainment by their very presence. Cynthia McKinney, who spoke at Pitzer on Thursday evening per invitation of the Intercollegiate Department of Black Studies of The Claremont Colleges, is one such speaker. I find myself asking how far Pitzer has sunk that it needs to bring thankfully former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and then I remember that it's Pitzer College and I just laugh and laugh. Does Pitzer ever expect to be taken seriously?

I wanted to attend Ms. McKinney's speech, if for no other reason than to ask her why she was in favor of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering and to thank her for running as a Green Party candidate in 2008 -- gotta love the Nader effect -- but I was horribly sick for these past few days and couldn't make it. What a tragedy.

Instead I'm just going to relentlessly poke fun at Pitzer's press release addressing the talk. As this post required some research, I hope you enjoy it. (Also, I got all of the sources from Lexis, so if you want to check me, shoot me an email and I can send over my sources. I just don't want to get sued.)

Pitzer's press release:

McKinney, an internationally renowned advocate for human rights, voting rights and holding government accountable, was elected as the first African-American congress woman from Georgia.

The truth:

• In 2002, right after the 9/11 attacks, Cynthia McKinney wanted to get blood money for her own campaign from none other than a Saudi Prize. When Mayor Rudolph Giuliani refused a multi-million dollar gift to the city from an Israel-bashing, 9/11-morally-similar-to-Palestine- Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal, McKinney issued an open letter backing the prince and asking him to give the money to black charities instead. As if that weren't bad enough, Cynthia McKinney was the headliner at a October 7, 2001 speech for CAIR, an Islamic group with known ties to terrorism. She also counts the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam Louis Farrakhan among her close friends.
  

• In 2006, Ms. McKinney assaulted a federal Capitol Hill police man who, not recognizing her, tried to stop her three times from entering the House of Representatives. McKinney, who refuses to wear her ID pin, cried racism. In the words of the August 12th Economist, she said that the officer was guilty of "inappropriate touching and stopping of me—a female, black progressive congresswoman." Of course, it later came out that Ms. McKinney had similar such altercations. Her attorney, in a prepared April 3 statement, said that "McKinney [was] McKinney is just a victim of being in Congress while black." She dropped the charade three days later and apologized to the entire House for her actions.

The question: Should she be held accountable for her assault? How about the Saudi blood money? How can someone who supports terrorist groups be called a supporter of human rights?

Pitzer Press Release:

During her second term in 2004, she worked on challenging and controversial issues, including a critique of the 9/11 Commission Report and advocated on behalf of the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

“I'm proud to speak truth to power and to serve as a voice for the voiceless,” Ms. McKinney said.

The truth:

• Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has suggested that the Bush administration had foreknowledge of the events of September 11th and has wondered whether members of the administration, including President George Bush himself, profited from the attacks. How can she be accused of speaking truth to power?
  

• She argued for gerrymandering along racial lines. How can she be said to be a voice for the voiceless when she failed to win her heavily gerrymandered district in 2006?
  

Cynthia McKinney has a long list of craziness. According to John Tabin of The American Spectator in the August 8, 2006 issue, that list includes

questioning Al Gore's "negro tolerance level" in 2000, suggesting in 2002 that a possible secret plot by the Bush Administration to make money by letting the 9/11 attacks happen would be worth investigating, and accepting donations from people under federal investigation for raising money for terrorist groups (refusing to return the money in a 2002 debate, she said her campaign wouldn't "racially profile our contributors").

The Economist pointed to her love of conspiracy theories. (The Economist, July 8, 2006) :

Ms McKinney is also known for her interest in conspiracy theories about the murders of Martin Luther King and the rapper Tupac Shakur, and about President George Bush's supposed foreknowledge of the attacks of September 11th 2001.

The National Review in April 24, 2006 highlighted her insanities:

[Representative McKinney] heaped praise on Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, insisted that the U.S. government was selling cocaine... and said that 9/11 victims were "needlessly murdered" thanks to Bush's conspiracy to allow the attacks. When she lost her primary battle in 2002, her father and political mentor spelled out the reason for her setback: "the J-E-W-S." Once reelected, in 2004, McKinney maintained a lower profile, concentrating on the most pressing issue facing black America. I'm speaking, of course, of the need to expose government involvement in the conspiracy to murder the gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur. Her legislative agenda includes H.R. 4968, better known as the "Tupac Shakur Records Release Act of 2006."

Tupac Shakur legislation? Now that's speaking "Truth To Power!"

The only good thing about the Pitzer talk is that McKinney is out of the House of Representatives and now just another common crazy (albeit one who gets a big honorarium).