#askU2 Question #18

#askU2 Why are @U2 fine with @RED sponsor @BankofAmerica given their criminal history of mortgage fraud harmed millions of Americans w/o conviction or restitution?

-Of course one of the architects of this evasion (apart from the DA who staged the show trial; as we know Cyrus Vance does care about his prosecutions, -um, -nope) was who Obama fell behind to assume the present chairmanship of the DNC, but let's not forget its biggest architect sits on ONE's Board of Directors, which is further delineated in #askwarren Question #8 (scroll to bottom). I'm sure having this individual on your Board of Directors is of quantum assistance in having zero concern whether your RED outfit is philanthrowashing a white collar crime operation who got away with precisely this sort of extra-judicial settlement, bilking millions of American mortgage holders out of the financial restitution and justice they deserved after being financially destroyed by outright mortgage fraud on the part of Bank of America and many others. BTW, NY DA Cyrus Vance is in jeopardy of losing his office due to pay to play, -with no concern whatsoever that he went after a very minor, and very innocent, bank to exclusion of the "too big to fail"s.

'Larry Summers had the power to punish Wall Street. Now he's slamming Obama's gentle treatment" - The Intercept

"The Untouchables: How the Obama administration protected Wall Street from prosecutions" - Glenn Greenwald

Substantiation: "Let’s start with one of RED’s seminal partners (that’s a cool $10 million from them right there ) - Bank of America. Bank of America is indelibly imprinted with the slogan “Too Crooked to Fail”. $10 million seems incredibly generous. $8 million of this was a grant outright, and $2 million was a match fund that would depend on how many people chose to download U2’s “Invisible” song for free in the first 24 hours it launched. (Someone b****-slapped @BofA on twitterabout how there should be no $2 million funding cap on this drive; they removed the cap and the result was they ended up matching the drive based on total downloads for a cool $3.1 Mil.) 

When you realize that this was launched for the Superbowl and a Superbowl slot would have cost them $4 million for a 30 second commercial slot, and U2 gave them a 4 plus minute slot launched during the Superbowl of impeccable marketing with their name on it for the cause of saving lives, surely, given their patronage was about the equivalent of purchasing papal indulgences in real lives, -surely it was the least they could have done! At that point it just becomes good marketing for Bank of America, which God knows they needed at that moment, after all, this is what they’d done to America. Nor were they going to pay for it, at least not to those they really hurt. Millions of American homeowners got shafted.

The point was, this settlement had just been announced for Bank of America in January. The philanthrowash could not have proven more timely. And compared to how they’d screwed over mortgage securities and compared to the fines levied on them for their crimes, the image makeover RED provided was practically nothing. The settlement for the millions of homeowners they’d destroyed was still in process, and God knows they needed to look charitable before that one came down the pipes. At the going rate, had they purchased the best PR money could buy in the attempt to redress their image on Superbowl Sunday, RED probably cost them less. This is not to impinge on RED's good deed. Rather it's pointing out just how little of a good deed it is for a very bad corporation, and how this was a brazen attempt to philanthrowash the biggest judical failure of Obama's tenure in their nigh total escape of any meaningful consequences (an architect of which sits comfortably on ONE's Board).

This Christmas Season Bank of America helped paint New York Times Square REDtm. This year, Bank of America are subject to the boycott campaign to divest of the banks loaning credit for the Dakota Access Pipeline. They're in for $350 million."

Source article: "How Bono's RED Became the Color of Philanthrowashing Done Right for the Dakota Access Pipeline" 

The degree of callousness it takes to enable and protect this sort of malfeasance from prosecution or consequence defies all comprehension. Enabling this result with a PR philanthrowash in the minds of the public is no less reprehensible. Is Bono in charge of his own mind or conscience, or merely a useful tool for philanthrowashing "too big to fail" bank criminality, whitewashing architected by a member of his very own ONE Board?