Thoughts on the Clinton Global Initiative

This is my first CGI event and obviously there were so many incredible people there doing extraordinary things, I wanted to talk about a few things that really moved me. Just as the day began, Jennifer Hanley, who does communications for President Clinton, was running down the hall to prepare some of his talking points, as he was about to announce pledges from people.

During that session, one of the people speaking was Al Gore, who I haven't seen in several months and as well as I thought I had gotten to know the former Vice President, I was completely blown away by the short, concise and passionate speech he made as he updated us on the issue of global warming and, of course, why it is the most important thing facing us in our lifetime.

I then played hooky and took a cab with Jeff Skoll, who own Participant Films, as he screened for us his new documentary Darfur Now. What an extraordinary documentary. Bound to have Oscar buzz. I got back to the conference just in time to see Angelina Jolie tell one of the most moving stories I think I've ever heard about two refugees that she met in Syria. One had been brutally burned and dumped in a trash can and the other was a ten year old boy, and how the two of these people somehow helped each other over a period of months. She was convinced that this little boy, who had spent so much time taking care of this horribly burnt man, who literally had maggots in his wounds, would someday be a doctor and that these people we call refugees are all people that are regular, hard-working people that have been stripped of everything.

The last thing I want to report back on is something the education minister of Afghanistan said. He was talking about how this year there was a terrorist attack on a school. When he arrived on the scene, two girls had been shot dead. He went to the hospital of a very badly wounded young girl, and as he comforted her, he said "Don't worry; we're going to take care of you." She said back "It's not me I'm worried about. Please, whatever you do, don't close the school down because of this."

My take-away from all of this was the enormous amount of violence in the world, but as much violence as there is, there's even more goodness and that's what this conference seems to be about; people actually taking action to do good.

Comments

[GH]

First, let's not forget who Bill Clinton was as president. "Never Again," following his complacency in Rwanda, meant that in 1998 forward - another 4 1/2 million would die next door in DR Congo. "Never Again," meant horrific acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing would occur in the Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. "Never Again," meant that the Taliban would take over in the mid90’s Afghanistan - killing an estimated 60,000 innocents and wiping clean any sense of "human rights." We sit on our hands, painfully silent, and not hate Bill Clinton for doing nothing. "Never Again," meant "Again and Again."

HIV/Aids in Africa - Unicef just said that the corner may be turning. Credit Bush, Bono, Gates, Annan, and the very late entrant to the party, Clinton -- but don't forget, it's mostly about correcting his legacy:

David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation, in 2002 piece titled “Too little, too late - How many times is Bill Clinton going to apologize to Africa?” addressed how disappointing Clinton was as president, and questioned if he would accomplish much in the afterlife:

“..When he [Clinton] had the chance -- and the power -- to address the devastation in Africa, he took a pass. Why didn’t he figure out the U.S. share for an anti-AIDS crusade and add it to his budget? It would surely be illuminating and instructive if he explained this. Might he claim that, as with the Rwanda genocide, he was not fully informed of the horror? A cynical guess might be this: AIDS in Africa, it doesn’t poll well.


Responding to Clinton’s profession of regret, a friend of mine … says that "from a religious perspective, contrition is positive and can be useful." Perhaps. I’m waiting to see how much time Clinton actually devotes to the AIDS nightmare in Africa. Will he spend his days delivering $250,000-a-pop speeches, or use them to cajole leaders of the industrialized nations to kick in more money? In and of itself, his contrition means little. It is easy to be sorry once you’re out of office.

[NABNYC]

One of the corporations which has made a "commitment" to Bill Clinton's group is Pepsico, which has committed to spending money in India for some purpose.

I thought that was so funny since both Pepsi and Coke have devastated so many areas of India by using up and/or poisoning the available water in a community, destroying the ability of private farmers to support themselves (creating an astonishing rnumber of farmer-suicides), and turning the formerly self-sufficient farm people into wage-slaves for soda bottling plants.

There are boycotts of Coke and Pepsi organized by many communities in India which have been taken up by some schools and groups in the U.S.

So to counter that, Pepsi is going to pay for some kids to get a vaccine, or some other such meaningless gesture. How about if Pepsi and Coke cleaned up the mess they made, paid the farmers for their losses, then moved on to some other country.

I applaud all the groups throughout the world who are frantically and desperately trying to hold back the ocean of poverty, disease, war, despair. The problem is that unless the underlying causes are addressed, we're talking rich people using PR money to buy band-aids.

For example, if these corporations want to help, why not give to Unicef? A group controlled (theoretically) by all the world? Why have private funds which allow Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and other wealthy Americans, to decide what really matters.

And maybe Bill Clinton should have set up a new group in advance called the "Help The Poor Iranians" fund, since his wife has now voted to authorize Cheney and his dummy George to attack Iran. They could begin already buying bandages, maybe building coffins for the Iranians who will be killed with Bill's wife's consent. Help those left without the wage-earner, those left homeless, without decent water, the refugees.

I don't buy the "aren't we nice" cover for one second.

[KenoshaMarge]

And the world also has those like fearlessfreep that cannot for one damn minute stop and say, yeah, that was a good thing to do. We are all very well aware that most, if not all of our politicians are corrupt in some way or another. Fine. But the CGI is a good thing that helps millions of people. For that, if nothing else, Bill Clinton deserves applause. Stop with the continual negative vibes man.

[FearlessFreep]

The world also has ex-presidents who butter up Wal-Mart and think the world will benefit.

[JoAnnCr]

I'm with you, FearlessFreep.

Perhaps Bill rubbing shoulders with "so many incredible people there doing extraordinary things" will make him start thinking beyond his own power.

I'm not holding my breath.

[truthisout]

Thank you Lawrence Bender...Herrington for your post..
Beyond the learned and shared individual consciousness, what are true, viable vehicles for action and change? We seemed to be bogged down in a political mire which has reached an acceptable norm.
Perhaps a more inspiring and hopeful display of collective global effort will be revealed in how international humanity shapes the results of the present situation in Myanmar

[Herrington]

Yes Mr. Bender, the world is full of good people, billions of them, who working under the initiative of private charity can help to clean up after the atrocities visited upon other nations by their own and our government. The issue never has been whether people believe in the good, the issue has been how do these good people allow the bad to direct the destinies of us all.

Here in America we are still afforded the nicety of dissent. In most of the world dissent is a matter of life and death. And we have not come so far that the prospect of losing our freedom of speech is not on a plausible horizon.

One wonders how, in the seeming victory over authoritarian nemeses that were the motives of gargantuan conflicts of the last century, we are still in fighting authoritarianism in our own land, and in micro national wars all over the globe. Have we or will we ever learn that the roots of conflict are in the worst of us and not in all of us? And how will we learn to tell when we are led to the edge of an abyss by those that cannot see the problem with falling?

Eons of charity has not changed the fact of it being needed because of the greed and ambition of a one in ten thousand. Nothing can change that other than a perfect universal understanding of what motivates a man to be willing to ruin the world for personal gain.

[matahari888]

Lawrence Bender...H­errington, Brilliant post...why the good has always to be the one who fix and help the evil...who just got away..thinking them self..why can't the good do more.........stop the evil..

[dadw5boys]

Maybe if the USA was not one of the TOP WEAPONS EXPORTERS there would not be so much violence around the world.
What if Governments stopped making small arms for sale to the world market?
Make it Illegal to export lethal weapons.

[locanicole]

What a brilliant idea...we also should take more time out of our day to teach our kids (elementary) about civics and ethics and that sometimes you do something just because it's the right thing to do, not because there is something in it for you...