Anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof calls on society’s humanity to resist Trump, Musk
For the past 40 years Bob Geldof has dedicated his life to feeding the world’s poorest people, but all that good work is at risk of falling apart with Trump’s resurgence.
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Rock star and anti-poverty campaigner Sir Bob Geldof has called on the next generation of activists to resist attacks on the starving, homeless and disenfranchised by politicians who idolise Trump and his associates.
“If you’re not greedy, if you’re not transactional, they don’t want to know you so Australia better watch out,” he said.
“You have got what he needs, so there is a deal to be done, but don’t become America’s b---h, or kowtow to the emperor’s new court.”
Geldof made the comments ahead of his appearance at the Toowoomba Hospital’s Tilly’s and Focus HR Legends at their Game fundraiser on Wednesday.
The annual event has become one of the Garden City’s premier social events, attracting the likes of Henry Winkler and Layne Beachley.
Geldof rose to fame with the Boomtown Rats in the ‘70s but shifted his attention to fighting poverty in the ‘80s.
In 1984 he organised Band Aid, a British supergroup that raised $150m for food aid in Ethiopia which at the time was in the depths of a crushing famine.
This work morphed into the LiveAid, a series of concerts that continued to break fundraising records.
Geldof said he was enraged to see all that hard work undone by the Trump administration when it slashed 90 per cent of USAID’s $60bn budget and laid off thousands of federal workers.
“I’ve discovered the same energy and anger that I had when I was 13, that sounds pathetic for a man of my age but I loathe these people and what they are doing in total ignorance,” he said.
“When you have … Musk flinging his f---ing hedge trimmer around his head with glee, destroying people’s jobs, he has no understanding what that means.
“He is the richest man in history and he is laughing and cackling while he takes away people’s jobs who have done nothing but manage the state.
“The consequence of that is they can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t afford health care. They can’t send their children to school. They can’t pay their power and energy bills.
“Two weeks ago, Musk nailed this when he said the weakness of Western civilisation is empathy.
“No Elon, it’s the direct opposite. Empathy is the glue of society. We care for each other even at a distance or it does not function. It is the emotional core of democracy. It is how we guarantee our individual freedoms, but they are interested in the opposite of that.
“These people must be resisted, it will be some smart 16-year-olds on the web who decide, for the loss, that it is time to boycott Musk.
“They will say, ‘it doesn’t affect me so I am going to f--k with it. I’m not going to buy a Tesla, I am not going to go up in a stupid rocket, I don’t use X so why don’t I start f--king with it.’
“Musk can’t beat that.
“You start boycotting, you get your mates to join, you convince your parents and suddenly Musk’s stock price crashes.
“They need to know there are consequences beyond the four million who are estimated to die in Africa when the strongest nation, the most powerful man, and the richest man in the history of the Earth, declare war on the weakest, most vulnerable people of our planet.”
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Originally published as Anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof calls on society’s humanity to resist Trump, Musk
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