Bob Geldof didn’t mince words about those in charge across the pond as he celebrated 40 years of Live Aid.
“The thuggery of Musk, and Vance and Trump, this confederacy of dunces, these abject fools,” he said at an event launching a set of BBC Live Aid shows late last week.
Geldof was bemoaning how rather than upping charity as the world flounders under several generational catastrophes, the response from the U.S. and others has been to “cut it off.”
“These ketamine-crazed narcissists swing their f**king hedge trimmers around their heads and say, this weekend, we’re feeding U.S. AID to the wood chipper,” he added of the end of the U.S. Agency for International Development. “Seriously, the strongest nation on Earth, the most powerful man on the planet, and the richest individual ever seen in the history of our world… cackle, over feeding U.S. help to the weakest, most vulnerable people in the world into the wood chipper. Ladies and gentlemen, there is something seriously f**ked about that.”
He flagged a recent New York Times opinion piece that questioned Musk’s claim that “no one” has died since American aid was slashed, pointing to the crisis in South Sudan, which has been struggling without U.S. Aid.
Forty years ago, Live Aid’s benefit concert and its catchy “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” tune was celebrated as a generator of millions to help poor people suffering from famine around the world. But in recent years, critiques of a white savior complex have crept in.
Geldof said the very notion of charity has become “an almost embarrassment.”
“We have to say it in inverted commas, in ironic quotes,” he added. “It sounds pious, but you pass by outside in [Central London’s] Piccadilly, someone in the street, and you don’t have to put your hand in your pocket, but to just not acknowledge it and register. Then I’m convinced that something deeply human inside of you withers and dies. That’s charity. I’m not embarrassed in the least by that word, but we can’t say it on radio anymore, television.”
A BBC-CNN co-production, Live Aid at 40, will launch on July 6 on the BBC and July 13 on CNN featuring exclusive interviews with Geldof, Bono and George Bush. Live Aid the Concert will also be shown on the BBC. The shows are produced by Zinc-backed Brook Lapping, Ronachan Films and Zinc Media.
The post On 40th Anniversary Of Live Aid, Bob Geldof Denounces “Thuggery” Of Trump, Vance, Musk As He Questions Why Charity Has Become “Almost An Embarrassment” appeared first on Deadline.
