December 18, 2005

TRANSCENDING TRANSNATIONALISM:

Time names Bono, Bill and Melinda Gates Persons of Year (CNN, 12/18/05)

The good deeds of an activist rock legend and one of the world's richest men and his wife carried the day in 2005, as Time magazine on Sunday named U2 frontman Bono and philanthropic couple Bill and Melinda Gates as its "Persons of the Year."

The Left has long dreamed of transnational institutions and rules running the world, yet here are individuals, nevermind states, that matter more.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 18, 2005 4:19 PM
Comments

In a year that had the big revolutions with the people power involved (Iraq, Lebanon, Ukraine) as well as the tremendous work of the various military groups in the tsunami aid and Time chooses to give the award to these people! Words fail at a time like this. Whatever would the editors thinking!!!

Posted by: dick at December 18, 2005 5:30 PM

In a year that had the big revolutions with the people power involved (Iraq, Lebanon, Ukraine) as well as the tremendous work of the various military groups in the tsunami aid and Time chooses to give the award to these people! Words fail at a time like this. Whatever were the editors thinking!!!

Posted by: dick at December 18, 2005 5:32 PM

Of course they reward them. They are the super-rich. They can buy respectability, and demonstrate to the world that they're better you, despite their ill-gotten gains. And they're doing what they can to put a happy face on the transnationalist agenda, which is even better. (As opposed to the face that Kofi Anan and the mob in Hong Kong are putting on it.) This Man-of-the-Year crappola is little more than the high school clique voting for themselves.

What it does provide is easy evidence for historians in 2085 of just how shallow, superficial, self-absorbed and blissfully unaware of the wider world our culture became before things all went to hell.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at December 18, 2005 6:07 PM

Actually, I was surprised they didn't pick John Murtha.

That said, it would be interesting for someone to ask Bono if the US military is the greatest force for good in the modern world. He should be smart enough to say "yes".

Posted by: jim hamlen at December 18, 2005 7:57 PM

Sounds as if the Time editors were going for some free concert tickets next summer and some XBox 360s as last-second Christmas gifts with these picks. But at least it's better than the selections this year by the Nobel Prize committees.

Posted by: John at December 19, 2005 12:10 AM

Surprising that none of the three have bad mouthed Bush or the United States. Do we have a kinder, gentler Nobel Prize committee?

Posted by: erp at December 19, 2005 10:00 AM

Bono's gains may be mis-gotten, but they're definitely not ill-gotten...

The Gates use transnationalist organizations to achieve their uncontestably good works, but that's not exactly the same as Ted Turner's ringing endorsement of the current structures, organizations and agendas.

We'll always have transnational orgs, as long as there are multiple nations...
The key is to ensure that they're reflective of what Americans desire them to be and do.

That said, I agree with dick.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 19, 2005 2:29 PM
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