Where is Bono to Save Us?
Where is Bono to save us? Communiqué from the Save the Children Collective
To the native and immigrant peoples of Northern America
To the peoples and governments of the world
To the international press
To rockstars and celebrities on this planet and other heavenly bodies
From the Southern shore of Lake Mendota, the Save the Children Collective (the recent merger of the historic Cow Pie Collective and Cheese Curd Coop) demands that Bono and all other celebrity activists attend the upcoming Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN, September 1-4.
President Bush is expected to address the RNC on September 1 — Labor Day — and presidential candidate John McCain is likely to be confirmed as that party’s choice candidate on the final day. Roughly two thousand delegates are expected, with another 40,000 attendees, families, and impartial journalists trampling St. Paul and Minneapolis like a herd of elephants like they have trampled over the economies and cultures of the world. But clearly, this is not sufficient for the perfect execution of the corporate orgy in the Xcel Center; 65,000 delegates — including 5,000 black-clad, scary anarchists — representing the people of the territory known as the United States have also been invited to the convention center, for a newly-invented polling procedure to be unveiled and carried out in the streets surrounding the capitalist cuddle puddle in the Xcel Center.
On the ballot are:
militaristic imperialism in Afganistan, Iraq, Palestine, Colombia, and Mexico;
aggression against the sovereign territories of Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan;
corrupt lending practices by corporate banks in this country, and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank globally;
militarization of our black and latino neighborhoods, racial profiling, police brutality, and inequalities in our prison system;
slow and negligent disaster responses in New Orleans, the Midwest, and throughout the world;
raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and local law enforcement which divide our communities and go against our family values;
attacks against unions and our basic rights to organize, and exploitation of labor world-wide;
violent attacks against our queer and trans friends, and the complicity or participation by police;
the continual rape of our environment, and disregard for our endangered animal friends;
deprivation of basic land rights, and rights to healthy food;
the endangerment of human life and the health of our Earth through denial of global warming;
raids and attacks against global and domestic activist communities under the guise of the Green Scare and the War on Terror;
and generally, patriarchy, heteronormativity, sexism, transphobia, racism, fascism, capitalism, jingoism, classism, and all other forms of domination and oppression which exist in our daily lives and the lives of people around the world.
But, without messianic figures, who have gained celebrity through the power of transcendent vocals or compelling film roles, our movements simply lack direction and leadership, and the wisdom to know what is best for impoverished and oppressed victims of imperialism and neoliberalism around the world. This should come as no surprise, because, as anarchists, we lack a corporatist, hierarchical organizational structure, and any sort of leadership or organization would go against our very nature. Without a Bono, or a Geldof, or a Sean Penn, we simply cannot be hip. Try as we might with our snazzy all-black get-ups, or our pink and blue spandex, it simply is not enough.
At this point, 26 days away from the convention, we would even settle for a Barack Obama appearance. His message of hope and change makes us teary-eyed, and believe that, by voting for him, and leaving our future solely in his hands with no further action on our part, yes we can! change the world.
In the 200 years of this occupied territory’s history — and that of modern anarchism too, we should add — there is one thing we have learned, above all others. It is that people cannot take their personal liberation into their own hands, and must depend on a savior to be freed. The 8-hour work day, women’s suffrage, the end of slavery, and the overthrow of Jim Crow were, of course, granted to us through the goodwill of the State and corporations, not through any effort or sacrifice on the part of common people. As we fight for human and animal liberation, an end to domination and exploitation, and ecological health and sustainability, our own individual and community resistance will be fruitless, as long as we lack a celebrity to personally profit off of the campaign, and guide us in the correct direction.
Therefore, the Save the Children Collective, and all other oppressed peoples around the planet, call on Bono and Obama to step forward and deliver us to salvation.
In love, anarchy, and mad riffs,
B3t0, October, and Zooropa
Save the Children Collective
savethechildrencollective@gmail.com
From Behind the Orange Curtain 
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