Itz News to Me

Roger Simon, who is a Hollywood writer by trade and ought to know, does the best job ever of explaining why fabulously wealthy celebrities often take up leftist causes which, by their very lifestyles, expose them to regular folk like you and me as complete and total hypocrites:

Much of this public liberalism of the excessive knee-jerk variety stems from a form of self-loathing. These same people do not want to be bastards – life just put them in that position. But, at the same time, they do not want anyone to take away what they have – the vast acclaim and fortune – even if deep down they wonder if they are worthy. What to do? What to do?

The solution is to create another self, a kind of mini-me, who goes out and loudly proclaims what a fine liberal humanistic person he or she is- a public projection to obfuscate the private self. Sometimes this results in actual good works, but usually it is basically blather (see Streisand’s website) or dopey showing off like Sean Penn putting in an appearance with Hugo Chavez.

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I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but yet another celebrity has gotten caught in his own hypocrisy. This time it’s Bono, lead singer of U2.

Bono has been spending the last few years running around the world chastising governments and their citizenry for not doing enough to deal with social problems. He thinks first-world countries are not spending enough to dig Third World countries out of holes that, in many cases, they have dug for themselves.

You could say it’s an admirable fight, but in order to spend more these countries need to tax their citizenry more. Where else are the revenues going to come from? And therein lies the rub.

Bono makes millions every year in royalties, but he doesn’t much care for actually paying taxes on his millions. So he and his band moved their music-publishing business from Ireland to Netherlands to take advantage of lower tax rates.

I’m all for punishing governments with high tax rates by moving businesses to lower tax rate jurisdictions. But then again, I’m not the one who is running around telling everyone else that they need to pay higher taxes.

Just something to keep in mind the next time he pays a visit to tell us how sad it is that we’re not doing enough for others in need…

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For years now we’ve been lectured by one celebrity after another telling us how we should all be driving hybrids, converting to alternative fuels, and otherwise conserving energy in every way possible. While all laudable goals, the spectre of being lectured by people who own multiple homes which are all way too big for them, heated swimming pools, private jets, limousines and generally extravagant lifestyles has been too much for most rational people to bear.

Now some of the biggest names in Hollywood are squirming after their wasteful habits were highlighted in the media.

Stars such as George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt, and Leonardo DiCaprio were all singled out for  publicly driving hybrid or alternative fuel cars while privately jetting around the globe - wasting many more thousands of gallons of fuel than they ever saved with their “green” cars.

The article concludes:

Defenders of celebrity greens argue that the attention they bring to eco-issues is worth the ideological confusion, but others are less convinced. “If they flew on regular airlines they might be forgiven,” said a contributor to TMZ. “But flying private jets makes them look like idiots.”

…and that’s putting it nicely…

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