Ed Driscoll writes in The Weekly Standard about the proceeds of Live Aid's being funneled to prop up a dictator, thus perpetuating poverty.
The money allowed Mengistu to string out his war efforts for six more years. Between starvation and outright murder, the war cost more than 100,000 Ethiopian lives.DURING THE SHOW, The Who performed their '70s anthem, "We Won't Get Fooled Again." The Boomer and MTV generations frequently forget how often they get fooled again.
While Live Aid was spectacular television, it was just another in a series of Big Events from people who believed that throwing money at a problem eventually solves it. Eerily, it forecast how the left would interact with Iraq: Substitute Mengistu for Saddam Hussein and it's amazing how all the rest of the players stay the same--the BBC, the United Nations, and celebrities who believe that despots can be reasoned with to do the right thing. We won't get fooled again? Of course you will.
I'll still credit Bono with seeing more deeply into an issue than his typical Hollywood counterparts who think "they're starving? Let's send $30 and buy them brunch!"
Yet I still cannot take Mr-Cool-Eyewear seriously in the policy department. The cure for African AIDS? Well, the US pharmaceutical firms can just send over a bunch of drugs. Even his view of debt relief is simplistic. To Bono, all the debt is detritus from the Cold War to be thrown away like cement powder from the Berlin Wall.
Too much "relief" will always drive up the beta of a debt investment in a developing nation. Driving up the yield for a continent is not so benevolent.
I think they all got fooled again. The bright political mind in music was Sonny Bono (R-CA), not Bono (Voc - U2). But I'll give the latter credit for his not marrying Cher.