Earlier this week, I attended Charlie Rose's conversation with world-renowned economist and author Jeffrey D. Sachs at the 92nd Street Y, and I came away from the event torn with alternating currents of outrage and hope -- precisely the reaction I think Dr. Sachs intended.
After riffing about the current domestic downturn in the economy -- for which he partly blamed Alan Greenspan's imprudence and lack of foresight -- Sachs got rolling on the need for governments to fulfill their promises to fight extreme poverty.
For someone unfamiliar with Dr. Sachs' work, the above description may make him sound like a humanitarian activist. While he does make a moral appeal -- human beings after all are dying needlessly and en masse in the third world -- his argument for aid and infrastructure is rooted in shared economic and geopolitical interests. In other words, building roads, bringing medical clinics and vaccines, supplying bed nets to protect against malaria, and providing nutrients to nourish the soil of intensely suffering regions in Africa, Asia, and Arabia will strengthen our economy and keep us safer from terrorism.
We have the resources and have made the promises to help these helplessly languishing regions get on that first rung of the ladder of development to pull themselves up and thrive. (Dr. Sachs referred to aid to India in the 1960s as a case-in-point of this kind of aid working wonders.)
As the richest country in the world, we need to follow though. We possess the tools to save so many lives and improve our own standing in the process.
Perhaps the most affecting moment of the evening came when Sachs said, "John McCain has said the Islamic extremism is the transcendent threat of our generation. [pause] If McCain becomes president he will make Islamic extremism the transcendent threat."
The logic here is that, while there are many miscreants out there that need to be rooted out, many would-be peaceful people resort to violent extremism when they are impoverished and hopeless. By engaging Muslim nations in perpetual war rather than helping them with infrastructure, we are fanning the flames of extremism, not defeating it.
This brought to mind the idea that helping poor Muslim countries -- like Greg Mortenson's work to build schools in Pakistan, documented in the bestseller Three Cups of Tea -- is our strongest tool to "fight" terrorism.
"You can't do it with force," Sachs said, with his own measure of vocal force. Then he repeated it to the silent, riveted auditorium.
I picked up a copy of Dr. Sachs' new book, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. His previous book, The End of Poverty: Economic Solutions for Our Time, is one of the most powerful reads I've encountered, and does not require prior expertise on economics.
Sachs has many allies and supporters, including Al Gore, Kofi Annan, and Bono. McCain's dogma is well-documented, but will the Democrat nominee embrace Sachs' humane and sensible proposals?
It's up to the voters and the media to insist.
Dan Brown is a teacher and the author of the memoir, "The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle."
Follow Dan Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danbrownteacher
If Sachs had any balls he would have said that if McCain becomes president, then McCain will become the transcendent threat to our generation. But, then again, if pigs could fly..........
more and profit less. Volunteerism for the good of society is what JFK spoke of in
asking us what we can do for our country, instead of what our country can do for us.
Barack Obama offers US a chance to rekindle that spirit as we begin deBushification.
We need to start by making sure our own children receive good care, nutrition and a
better education through High School. Those who cannot win scholarships or afford
college should enter three years of public service in either the new military, AKA the
Peace Corps, earning up to six years of advanced education tuition and assistance.
Other advanced countries should do the same, sending out their educated into the
third world, teaching and training the less fortunate to enter the world of modernity.
This group of young people would be trained as peace keepers, able to defend both
themselves and the villagers they work with assisted by military & intelligence pros.
ST2P.
"...he described the mess as "intentional" and pointed fingers at Alan Greenspan,..."
INTENTIONAL!
You actually had someone with 3 degrees from Harvard, come right out and say what most thinking folks on this site already believe, but can't prove, and this is not Headline News? And, more importantly, he is still walking around with all his limbs intact?
Yes, I disagree with some of his suggested methods for dealing with world poverty--he doesn't address many of the underlying causes that need to be eradicated. But, though it isn't quoted here today, that remark about how this economic downturn is, to his economist mind, an intentional event, enriching the few at the expense of the many--yet again, is one of the bravest things, or stupidest, you will read this year!
It should be HuffPo front page stuff!
that allows them to make significant advances during catastrophes.
Much like Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, times of crises are their
opportunities to reshape economies and governments to their own
fascist image through privatization, profiteering and promulgation.
ST2P