Monday, August 08, 2022

U2 What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law


Roasting Bono these days is like shooting fish in a barrel. No one cares about U2 anymore and Bono's tireless bootlicking of the rich, powerful and demonic has absolutely shredded his credibility with every sentient being on the planet. Bono doesn't even rise to the level of laughingstock any longer; he's just a total cringe factory now.


But in the interest of the historical record it's worth looking at exactly how such a meager talent became a worldwide superstar. It tells us a lot about how the System works. 

Spoiler alert: it works exactly like you suspect it does in the bleakest moments of your deepest paranoid despair.


Aside from serenading Azov Battalion Nazis a few months back, Bono is cuddle-buddies with some of the most evil, most power-mad lunatics that the bowels of the earth have ever spewed forth. 

Here's just a small sample of the skin-suited devils who Bono breaks bread with:







It seems even Bono's own drummer is nauseated by the singer's blood-drenched boyfriends. I must say that unlike Bono, Mullen and The Edge still come across as moderately decent fellows. I don't know about the other one, on account of no one cares about him.


FRONTS + FRAUDS = FOUNDATIONS

Like his pals, Bono is a liar, fraudster and a brain-scaldingly shameless hypocrite. In case you think this is all just some random blogger getting salty, read this:
The so-called “Paradise Papers,” which belonged to an offshore tax haven, showed that Bono had formed a company with two Irish businessmen based in the low-tax island of Malta and bought part of a shopping mall in Lithuania, thus eluding the international taxmen. 

In 2011, Bono, 57, who, according to CNN has an estimated net worth of $590 million, further angered his countrymen when he espoused the values of Ireland’s 12.5 percent corporate tax breaks. He went on the record to claim that these breaks for multi-billion dollar companies had brought Ireland the “only prosperity we’ve ever known.” He had a point, but as the locals noted, Bono wasn’t even giving the country a meager 12.5 percent any longer.

Over the years, it has often been shown that what Bono says and what he does are two different things. In 2007, U2 moved part of its multi-million dollar song catalogue from Ireland to Amsterdam just as their homeland ended a tax exemption on music royalties, to take advantage of the Netherlands’ low to non-existent tax rates for musicians. 
Fine — except in the ensuing years Bono (and his charity One) earned kudos for insisting countries, corporations and people pay taxes in pursuit of a fairer society. 
Most - if not all - of these foundations are corrupt and most are undeniably evil. It's all a malicious lie, meant to facilitate money laundering, tax piracy, child sex trafficking and much, much worse.

And as you should expect by now, Bono's ONE Foundation is as evil and fraudulent as all the rest:


Bono is not only greedy, evil and hypocritical, he's totally inept at being greedy, evil and hypocritical. This is the hell of selling your soul - Ol' Scratch always gives you the shit-end of the stick. Nothing he loves better than building a narcissistic sucker up then tearing him down. 

As the saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute. And no one sucks harder than Bono.

STUMBLING INTO STARDOM

To figure out how we got here and why a man as terminally cringe as Bono is a superstar, let's look at the accidents of history that got us to this miserable point to begin with. From The Secret History of Rock 'n Roll:

The biggest beneficiary of The Police’s breakup were U2. The Dublin band were the pet project of Island Records head Chris Blackwell, who needed to patch the giant hole in his wallet left by Bob Marley’s passing. U2’s early singles are total amateur-hour trash by any objective standard, but Blackwell rightly thought they had superstar potential. 


U2 were slow-starters for Blackwell, so much so that his board wanted him to drop the band after (their second LP) October tanked. He didn’t, and instead sank a ton of money in selling the band’s third album War, which was essentially just “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day” and a shit-ton of filler of varying degrees of quality... but you can sell even the shittiest album if you have two strong singles, and War went gold. 


Other labels were grooming bands such as INXS and The Fixx to fill that “safe and acceptable modern rock band” niche The Police had created and abandoned, but Blackwell continued to believe in U2, even after War’s underperformance...


Unfortunately, U2 repaid Blackwell’s undying faith with The Unforgettable Fire, which was every bit as filler-ridden as War but lacked a single with “Sunday’s” power. 

Still, everyone wanted a dose of that Synchronicity sunshine, so Island pushed “Pride (in the Name of Love)” with great gusto and gumption and squeaked it into the Top 40. Heavy airplay on rock radio eventually pushed the LP to platinum status the following year.


But just what an inferior replacement Bono was for Sting was made painfully clear in 1986 when The Police reformed for an Amnesty International benefit at Giants Stadium. 

Bono — looking like the biggest fucking dork ever to walk the earth — wandered confusedly onstage to duet with Sting on “Invisible Sun,” I guess on account of Bono was the self-appointed King of Ireland and the song’s theme required his blessing. 


Unfortunately, Bono just came across like the pasty kid picked last in gym class next to Sting’s lithesome alpha-ness. He was dressed like he was going to a Fields of the Nephilim LARP and flubbed the lyrics to the song, croaking a melange of random couplets Sting already delivered instead of the actual verses. 

A sneak preview of Bono cringe-monsoons to come, surely.  

Now, I still think The Edge is a great guitarist and Larry Mullen is a very good drummer. And U2 benefitted mightily from being paired with Steve Lillywhite and Brian Eno, two of the greatest producers in music history. Bono could even write a decent hook or two when he wasn't sitting around admiring himself.

But given the fact that Island Records didn't really get a solid return on their investment in U2 until The Joshua Tree - seven long years after they signed the band - might there be another explanation for why the Irish quartet didn't end up on the same scrapheap of obscurity that a lot of far-better bands working the same musical vein were tossed into?

Could it be someone gave U2 the cheat-codes to ingratiating themselves to the upper reaches of the record racket (and the Globalist power structure, for that matter)? 

That question inevitably brings us to, um, their, uh, early record covers....


STORIES FOR BOYS (LOVERS)



Yeah. U2's record covers. You know, the ones with the naked boys.
The model boy on the cover is Peter Rowen, the younger brother of Guggi, Bono's friend and a former member of the Virgin Prunes. Peter also appeared on the covers of Three, War, The Best of 1980–1990, the unreleased Even Better than the Early Stuff, Early Demos and many singles. The photographer, Hugo McGuiness, and the sleeve designer, Steve Averill (a friend of Clayton), went on to work on several more U2 album covers.  
For the American release and other international distributors, the album's cover image was changed, due to Island Records' fears that it could be perceived as pedophilic.

I'd say their fears were justified. Let's have a look, because this motif seemed to be a major thruline for this alleged Christian rock band.








Now, back in the 80s U2 were able to get away with what were literally softcore pedo-wank pinups for record covers because the world was a lot more naive and uninformed about this kind of thing. Look at E.T. or Flight of the Navigator for examples, if you can stomach it. Today, it all just comes off as sick, weird and sus.

Back then the band were very outspoken about their purported Christianity (Bono has never worshipped anyone but himself, of this I am certain) and offered up a bunch of nonsense about "youth and innocence" or whatever-the-fuck-lies, and mostly got away with it.

In hindsight, it seems crystal clear that this was -- at the very least-- U2's handlers signaling to the provable (and often convicted) child molesters who were running the music industry that U2 were down with the program. At least it does to me. 

Worse, the lyrics to "Twilight" are hard to read as anything but an, uh, inter-generational sexual encounter.

My body grows and grows
It frightens me, you know
The old man tried to walk me home
I thought he should have known

Twilight, lost my way
Twilight, can't find my way
In the shadow, boy meets man
In the shadow, boy meets man
In the shadow, boy meets man
In the shadow, boy meets man

And the fact that Bono was drinking buddies with the loathesome child molester Allen Ginsberg doesn't help. 

From Wikipedia:

Ginsberg was a supporter and member of the North American M**n/B** L*** Association (N**BLA), a ped****lia and ped***sty advocacy organization in the United States that works to abolish age of consent laws and legalize sexual relations between adults and children.

In 1994, Ginsberg appeared in a documentary on N**BLA called Chicken H**k: Men Who Love B**s (playing on the gay male slang term "Ch***enhawk"), in which he read a "graphic ode to youth." In her 2002 book Heartbreak, Andrea Dworkin claimed Ginsberg had ulterior motives for allying with N**BLA:

[I]n 1982, newspapers reported in huge headlines that the Supreme Court had ruled ch**d p**nogra*hy illegal. I was thrilled. I knew Allen would not be. I did think he was a civil libertarian. But, in fact, he was a pedophile. He did not belong to the North American M**/B** L*** Association out of some mad, abstract conviction that its voice had to be heard. He meant it." 

And then there's Songs of Innocence, the craptastic stinker that Apple forcibly downloaded into literally everyone's iTunes, whether they wanted it or not ... 


... that's just fucking gross. 

That's Larry Mullen and his son, incidentally. Maybe I spoke too soon about him. 

Yuck.

BY THE FRIENDS HE KEEPS


U2's little pin-up star was the brother of one of Bono's lifelong best friends, which is just inexplicably weird. At least it is until you find out who that friend is and what band he was in:
Lypton Village was a "youthful gang" created by Guggi (né Derek Rowen), Friday (né Fionan Hanvey), and Bono (né Paul Hewson) in the early 1970s. Resultantly, Virgin Prunes thus consisted of childhood friends of U2's Bono.  Known for their outrageous and controversial stage performances, led by theatrical singer/songwriter Friday, the band began playing small shows in Dublin, gaining them a cult audience. 


Continuing:
Sharing stages throughout Dublin and environs throughout the end of the 70’s, both groups experienced mixed reactions, with audiences becoming particularly polarised by the Prunes, one early review noting: 

“Prunes music now passes far beyond their first antic thrashabouts. There are moments when it sounds like a hybrid between the Pink Floyd and The Gang of Four but really that’s just an indicator to emphasize it possesses greater warmth and colour than the usual modern staccato manifestos. Their music won’t allow them membership of The Cold War….The Prunes motifs are ancient, perhaps Egyptian or obscure Asian or even Teen Masonic”

Dangerous Minds probably put it best when talking about The Virgin Prunes:
Another excuse that they’re still so unknown and underground after so many years have passed is that their work is simply not for everyone. Motherfuckers are evil sounding. If you don’t like an evil-sounding racket, get back to your Carpenter’s albums—quick—and just keep moving. These guys might damage you for life. 

If Satan himself had a band, they would try to sound like the Virgin Prunes. 
That last statement is borne out by even a passing glance at a Virgin Prunes performance. Strange company for a self-professed Christian to be keeping, don't you think?


Mind you, I'm generally inclined to give Goth bands a lot of leeway when it comes to theatrical villainy, but I've noticed something a bit unsettling about the Virgin Prunes. And that's all the lyrics that seem to be about raping and murdering children.

Like this:

Please little girl
I like the way you’re frightened,
It makes me feel secure

Please close your eyes
So you cannot see
Go to sleep
Dream of happy things
Devil looks at me
Spits into my eyes
Angels dead
Our love will last forever
Until the day it dies


And this:


Pretty little girl

Pretty little girls in the bathroom

Sitting on the carpet


Always the devil in me

He makes me feel like a man


I’m looking for something beautiful

I’m looking for a sign

Pretty little girl

Comes up to me to say

Jump up onto my back and I’ll carry you away

Violent and tragic

True life story


This one seems to be about a grown woman, which really doesn't come off much better:


Don’t look at me

But please stay with me

He didn’t wear his scarlet robe, 

for blood and wine are red

And blood and wine were on his hands, 

when they found him with the dead

The poor dead woman, 

whom he loved and murdered in her bed

Then there's the charmingly-titled "Beast (Seven Bastard Suck)"


Awaiting in the wings, he smells of second death
Calling out to all who’ll listen fearing none but one
He wallows in his filth and spits on God on high
And bitch she stands alone, the sun, the moon and sky
The seven bastard suck, the flesh and blood of man
A voice it speaks in black and tells of things to come…
Glory be to God on earth as it is on heaven…
Could this be hell? 
This could be hell with the devil in my head!

Mind you, these lyrics were written by Bono's two closest friends, even to this day. It's patently obvious now that The Virgin Prunes had a huge - perhaps decisive - influence on Marilyn Manson. Which is all fine and good if you're a Goth. But a self-professed Christian? Weird. 

Also, telling.

SPEAKING OF BEASTS


The Virgin Prunes connection makes me wonder: could there be another inspiration lurking behind this imagery? 

Call me crazy, but the "Boy" can't help but remind me of The Book of the Law, with its "Crowned and Conquering Child." Aleister Crowley defined him as Ra-Hoor-Khuit, more commonly known as Harpocrates (Horus the Child). 

In light of young Rowan's appearance on the cover of the War LP, it's instructive to note that Crowley quoted Horus as saying "Now let it be first understood that I am a god of War and of Vengeance."


And sure enough, The Virgin Prunes would call on Horus (Heru in the Egyptian) in this 1983 performance video to grant him "the secret longings of my heart." 

Yeah, we know what the secret longings of your fucking heart are, Gavin. Sheesh.

Leaving aside Crowley's somewhat unique interpretation of the ancient myths, it should be remembered that Harpocrates was seen as the embodiment of the rising sun in the Egyptian mystery tradition. 

But there can't possibly be any explicit reference to Harpocrates in any U2 songs, can there? Sure, we have the boy and war, but that's taking things a step too far, surely.

Not so fast, Skippy. 

U2 cut a track during the Unforgettable Fire sessions called "The Three Sunrises," that began with this verse:

Spirit of the rising sun lift me up 
Hold me there and never let me fall 
Love me till I die, my heart won't wait 
Soon I will be down in this love song 

Now, I'm sure a lot of people would argue that this could be a reference to Jesus, but there's nothing in the lyrics to support that. 

Moreover, Harpocrates was worshipped as the "spirit of the rising sun" exactly as the lyric reads. 

So read this carefully:

In this love song, love song
Love song, love song
Sun shine on me
Bring it through to my heart
I would give you everything
I will give you my desire

Then re-read what Bono's lifelong closest friend had to say about that spirit. Then understand that this is "the spirit of the rising sun" for Crowley types:


Oh, Bono, Bono. What are you really up to?

Who knew evil 
could be so cringe?

Maybe this can clue us in:
Bono has aggressively promoted the movies of the occultist Kenneth Anger. When Bono was considering establishing ZooTV to rival MTV, he envisioned it “as a window for the world to see the films of Kenneth Anger” (Bill Flanagan, U2: At the End of the World, 1996, p. 477). 
Bono told Details magazine, “Part of America’s dilemma is its TV because as a mirror it’s a pretty distorted one. I mean, where can you see Kenneth Anger films in the United States?” 
Kenneth Anger? Now we're really stuck smack-dab in the middle of Crowley Country.

In 1987, 1997, or even 2007 that connection probably would seem incomprehensible. In light of what we know now about Bono, it seems inevitable.

"Love is the Temple, Love the Higher Law." 
- Bono, "One" 
"Love is the Law, Love Under Will.' 
- Aleister Crowley, Liber AL Legis

EPILOGUE: THE STRANGER


Then there's the U2 song, "Stranger in a Strange Land." Bono claimed the song was inspired by an encounter he had with a boy (later it was German soldiers) across the Berlin Wall, which is probably another lie. Not about the encounter in Berlin, but that he wrote that song about it.  

Just me getting salty again? Read this:

Not only is the title of this song identical to the science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein, but some of the lyrics reference the book.

"We asked him to smile for a photograph

Waited a while to see if we could make him laugh"

This is a direct reference to the lead character, Valentine Michael Smith, a human born and raised among extraterrestrials. When Smith arrives to Earth for the first time, he doesn’t understand the concept of laughter.

If Bono was a Heinlein fan in U2's early days, he wouldn't be alone. According to a retrospective in the LA Times:
...Heinlein’s following shows up in unexpected places: He’s the hero of numerous astronauts, Silicon Valley types and those seeking to privatize space travel. He isn’t just their favorite writer; he set them on their life’s course.  
He generated public enthusiasm for the space race, inspired the genre called “military science fiction.” Tom Clancy, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and countless libertarians are fans. A crater on Mars is named for him.
Strangely enough, some occultists see Stranger as being a thinly-disguised, Crowley-influenced narrative. 

As we’ve shown, the character of Valentine Michael Smith follows Crowley’s archetypal retelling of the Dionysus/Bacchus myth which later evolved into the Jesus motif. He also fulfills all but one of the prophecies of Liber Legis as the Thelemic messiah who follows, and is heir to, Crowley. (It is interesting to note that Parsons was once widely considered to be Crowley’s heir and, as mentioned above, his Babalon Working was designed to invoke yet another heir.)

And here we see Harpocrates, Crowley's Crowned and Conquering Child yet again:

The sole Liber Legis prophecy that Michael doesn’t answer is that he fails to crack the code in Liber Legis. What he does do is to open the New Aeon, the Age of the Magickal Child, by the revealing of the Martian language, which may be isomorphic. 

And the coup de gras:

We’re awfully close to understanding Heinlein’s motives now. We’ve proven the link of Thelema and Stranger, and the link between Heinlein and Thelema. The text of Stranger meets the criteria for allegory and is loaded with puzzles which clearly reference magickal and Thelemic themes. 

Historically, Heinlein was never a member of the OTO, although he certainly may have seen the Gnostic Mass as it was open to the public. Yet his description of the people and events in the nest are oddly reminiscent of life in secret Thelemic communities.

Indeed, according to Jack Parsons biographer George Pendle, Heinlein was quite close with Jack Parsons, the black magician whom Werner Von Braun claimed was the true father of the American space program. Parsons and Heinlein were members of a group of sci-fi writers and other assorted weirdos called the Manana Society, which met a Heinlein's home in Laurel Canyon. 

The free love/mystery cult in the novel "The Church of All Worlds" strongly recalls Parson's OTO scene in Pasadena,and was probably influenced by it. Considering that the messiah of the novel, Valentine Michael Smith*, is linked to the space program and Mars (Parsons' favorite character as a boy was John Carter of Mars), and is martyred at the novel's end, it seems that the book may very well have been an homage to Parsons himself, and not to Crowley as many have claimed.

Speaking of Crowley, British metal legends Iron Maiden (led by Thelemite Bruce Dickinson) also recorded a song called "Stranger in a Strange Land." 

Andy Summers wrote a song titled "Friends", as the B-side to The Police's 1980 hit "Don't Stand So Close to Me", that referenced the novel. Summers claimed that it "was about eating your friends, or 'grocking' them as [Stranger in a Strange Land] put it". 

People say that what you are is only what you eat
And my friends become a part of me, 
oh well it's then that life's complete
To know you is to eat you, 
the act of love supreme
Each one of us inside himself can appetize the dream

Oh, shut the fuck up, Andy. You sicko. 

Do note that "Don't Stand So Close to Me" is about a child molester as well. And come to think of it, Sting is a giant Globalist shitbag like Bono is.

Hmm, do you sense a pattern emerging here?