Lessons From Bono On How To Be Good

This is one the uplifting piece I have read this year - How To Do Good

It was uplifting not because of a sole hero changing the world. It's about working tirelessly - plowing through bull shit, human ego, human arrogance, money et al. Working tirelessly not for self but to do good for others. 

This is how change happens. This is the wisdom the younger generation needs to learn and avoid embracing ideologically driven worldview. Otherwise soon you will forget what you started fighting for. 

Quick summary of what we are dealing with here:

• Bono - famed U2 singer who could live a gala life but choose to help Africans. It's no surprise that he is a democrat but yet he chose to work with then (2002) Republican president Bush and his team. In the process, Bono alienated most of his liberal friends (reminds me of what happened to Christopher Hitches around the same time when he supported Iraq war)
• Condoleezza Rice - She herself black but needs someone like Bono (and much more) to convince her to help African people. So called pragmatism sprinkled with right wing tribalism blinded even Rice too. 
• President Bush - I started respecting him a couple of decades ago when I learned he had helped Africans  more than any other presidents (yeah, virtue signaling democrats). 
• The Good - What good are we talking here? Making cure for AIDS affordable to Africans since we already have a cure. Its sheer brutality to watch millions die just for the sake of money. 
• Warren Buffet - Beautiful advice from Buffet via his life long understanding of human nature. 
• Americans - Thanks to Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman's anchoring bias. It's sad the nationalism motivates every nationality, not just Americans. 
• Maximus and Me - I hate politicians and politics in democracy (other models are crap). But yet, I have the deepest respect for some politicians. I mean, one must be insane to put their body through the Cortisal roller coaster; no amount of money, fame and power is worth it except the passion for doing good. Thank you from Max and I for being a decent and good human. 

I have a confession to make. Until last week, I had never heard of FTX nor its founder. Obviously, I do know the technicalities of block chain and crypto. In a rare moment last week, I felt vindicated for focusing my awareness on things that matter more than crap such as FTX. The crazy thing is most sites I read regularly did cover FTX for years but yet the Max in me subconsciously avoided it. 

I love you Max!

Read the whole piece plus I have to read Bono's memoir Surrender. 

In his memoir, Surrender, Bono recalls a fraught conversation in 2002 with Condoleezza Rice, then National Security Adviser to President George W. Bush. The next day, the president was due to launch the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a $5 billion aid programme for poor countries with democratic governments. Bono had agreed to stand by his side as he did so. Now he was having second thoughts.

Bono’s charity, DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), had been lobbying the Bush administration to do something much more ambitious: to commit to funding universal access to AIDS drugs for Africans. AIDS patients in rich countries had access to these life-saving drugs, and in the West, AIDS was on its way to becoming a minor public health problem. No such drugs were available to Africans, and an epidemic was devastating the continent. In Botswana, 38% of adults were HIV positive. In Malawi, Bono had been shown around a hospital in which each bed was shared by three or four patients. Most of them were going to die. In South Africa, Prudence Mabele, one of the first women in the country to make her HIV status public, explained to Bono that in order to meet him she was missing the funeral of a family member who had died of AIDS. “I hope you are not wasting our time, Mr Bono,” she said. “Because some of us don’t have any to waste.”

Bono and his team went to the Bush White House with a plan and some trepidation. He was used to high-level meetings - this one came a few years after he lobbied G7 leaders to Drop the Debt - but the Clinton administration was a more natural partner than the current one. First, Bono managed to get Bush’s Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill onside, despite O’Neill’s deep scepticism about all aid programs. He then persuaded Jesse Helms, a powerful senator, to support the initiative, despite the fact that Helm had called AIDS a plague from God (he repented). Over a series of meetings with Condoleezza Rice, Bono convinced her not only that America had to act, but that his program represented an effective use of funds.

The president had still not made a public commitment, however, even after meeting Bono in the Oval Office. Now, Bono worried that if he showed up at the MCA launch he would be lending his celebrity aura to Bush for nothing in return. AIDS activists and others had already accused him of giving a warmongering Republican president cover for inaction. He risked looking like a puppet of the powerful.

When Bono told Rice about his fears, she made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that if he didn’t turn up the next day, that was the end of his access to the White House. You’ll just have to trust us on AIDS, she told him. Bono swallowed his doubts, took a risk, and turned up at the press conference. The activists shook their heads. Even George Soros told him, “You have sold out for a plate of lentils”. Bono thought they might be right, but he kept going. While he waited on the White House, he toured the American Midwest with U2, building support for AIDS relief in Republican heartlands. He went on Oprah to talk about it.

Digression: to be reminded of what a talented communicator Bono is, watch his Oprah interview. It’s a masterclass. He has an amazing ability to deliver his messages in crystalline phrases which go arrowing to his audience’s heart. When Oprah asks him why he cares about Africa, he makes the question personal by talking about Ireland’s historic experience of famine. Aware that his audience includes millions of churchgoers, he recalls witnessing poverty in Ethiopia and realising that although he could give money, something bigger was required: “God is not looking for alms, he’s looking for action.” He also uses a more businesslike register, of priorities and practicality: “You can’t fix every problem, but the ones that we can, we’ve got to.” He frames the core question as a simple choice: millions of people in Africa are going to die of AIDS, we have the drugs to prevent that - so why wouldn’t we?

In Surrender, Bono recounts advice from Warren Buffett: “Don’t appeal to the conscience of America. Appeal to its greatness. That’s how to get the job done.” The Oprah appearance took place a year after 9/11. Bono talks about much he loves America and how shocking it was for Americans to learn that others hate it. If American drugs save African lives, he says, it will be harder for extremists to turn Africans against us. His best answer comes when Oprah asks the hardest question: there are millions of women watching, worrying about what to put on the table for dinner this evening - what does all this have to do with them? Bono smiles and says, “You don’t have to explain to a mother that the life of a child in Africa has the same value as her child. You might have to explain that to men, but not to women.” The audience erupts with delight (including the men).

Bono was working the problem from both ends, seducing the masses and the elites at the same time, in TV studios, on arena stages, in the Oval Office and in back-offices. His entanglement with elites represented a significant risk to his reputation. He was constantly in danger of making himself very unpopular with fellow activists and with some of the public, not to mention his own bandmates.

This risk paid off. Early in 2003, President Bush made an announcement: $15 billion for AIDS relief. Until Covid-19, it was the largest ever public health intervention against a single disease, and it went overseas. Prudence Mabele’s time had not been wasted.

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Bono’s style of activism is very unfashionable. Today’s generation of activists believe that brokering deals between elites is irrelevant and corrupting, a diversion from the work of “systemic change”. It is better to make a lot of noise in the media, raising the collective consciousness, inciting enough anger that politicians have no choice but to give in and do something. Do what, though? The answer is often left vague.