Friday, February 03, 2006

Bono, prayer, and justice

Bono calls on U.S. to give part of budget to poor
U2 frontman cites religious text at breakfast attended by Bush, top leaders

WASHINGTON - Quoting from Islamic, Jewish and Christian texts, rock star Bono called Thursday for the U.S. government to give an additional 1 percent of the federal budget to the world’s poor. Speaking to President Bush and members of Congress at the National Prayer Breakfast, the U2 front man said it’s unjust to keep poor people from selling their goods while singing the virtues of the free market, to hold children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents and to withhold medicines that would save lives.
“God will not accept that,” he said. “Mine won’t. Will yours?”

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4 comments:

Nick said...

click here for the video feed of it

Anonymous said...

So President Bush has praised Bono for being "a doer" - what a great opportunity now for the President to show himself to be the same kind of person and do something to alleviate the needless poverty and suffering we see around the world. And that opportunity is there for the leaders of the other G8 nations, too ...

Tutu tells Blair and Brown they've been 'mean' - 02/01/06 (from www.ekklesia.co.uk)

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused the UK of “meanness of spirit” in a letter to Gordon Brown asking him to return £1.7bn (3bn US dollars) that the UK will receive from Nigeria as its share of a deal by rich countries to write off much of Nigeria’s debts.

geoff and sherry said...

thanks Nick. we just watched the video...very inspiring.

David, it is a credit to people like Bono who manage to bite their tongue at the right moments so opportunities like this prayer breakfast arise. i am with you in the hope our leaders can rise to the challenge. and thanks for the link to the ekklesia article.

ryan k said...

Jodie and I watched this video and it was a just a great moment for us. This pitch was as good a sermon as I've heard for a while (I won't mention how many sermons I've heard lately). And what a great example this man was of not abusing his soap box, of giving the president credit for a good start. It made me want to find my bracelet again.