Live 8

Comments

[Lisa]

Wonder if we can get them to come to Vancouver..... Think big!

[RickinVa]

Mike,

I believe you (and your readers) would be interested in this.

I was impressed, surprised, taken aback.

Would love to know what some of you think about what Geldof had to say...

[Mike]

Good score on the link, Rick. I'm going to post it over on 3Click. From what is transcribed there it sounds like it was a great discussion. Some frank review of successes to date, and how much is left to do. Sounds like Sir Bob did a good job of trying to break down partisan walls and get some stuff done.

What do you think about what he had to say? If I recall you were less than enthusiastic about the program originally. Any change there?

(Just sitting here watching the one.org TV spot on an American station. Way to go.)

Thanks again.

[RickinVa]

What do you think about what he had to say? If I recall you were less than enthusiastic about the program originally. Any change there?

Mike, I was certainly skeptical, based on history. But Geldof was impressive. The indepundit (Citizen Smash) said it best and sums it up for me:

Overall, I’m happy to report that much of my skepticism was unwarranted. In case you haven’t noticed, Geldof hasn’t produced much music in the past 20 years. Instead, he’s devoted his life to fighting hunger and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it shows – Sir Bob really knows his stuff.

But Mike, I do want to address this statement:

Sounds like Sir Bob did a good job of trying to break down partisan walls and get some stuff done.

Sir Bob made some statements that I thought to be rather partisan (and think you'd have thought the same if say someone of my political persuasion had been quoted saying the same things):

And while he is clearly trying to reach out to a wide spectrum of people, he didn’t pull any punches when it came to criticizing those who waste, embezzle, or squander public money (at one point, he casually mentioned that both Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy and French President Jacques Chirac would be in jail for corruption if they weren’t leaders of their respective nations).

...

As Captain Ed noted, Todd Zywicki of The Volokh Conspiracy stole my first question, which was for Geldof to define “Trade Justice.” (in the context of American political activism, “justice” is often used as a shibboleth for Marxism). I was quite surprised by Geldof’s response, which called for more free trade, rather than protectionism. Indeed, Geldof used as an example of harmful protectionism the subsidies that the U.S. government pays to cotton farmers in the Mississippi Delta, which have had the unfortunate result of putting many African cotton farmers out of business – he even quoted Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations, in his answer.

Captain Ed followed up with a question about how to keep aid money out of the pockets of tyrants, like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Geldof answered bluntly, “Robert Mugabe will not be included,” and compared Mugabe to Fidel Castro. He went on to elaborate on his work on the multi-national Commission for Africa, which concluded that foreign aid must be tied to concrete progress on fighting corruption, and progress towards democracy and liberalized economies.

...

got in the last question, which ended up being more of a request. I pointed out that there is a great deal of cynicism about humanitarian aid being mostly wasted, giving an example of persihable food rotting in warehouses in Sri Lanka after the tsunami disaster. I asked if the Live8 organization could provide us with some concrete examples of how direct aid was helping people on the ground in Africa. Geldof replied that Bush’s increased AIDS funding had saved over 200,000 lives last year.

Praising Bush, criticizing Chirac, Berlusconi, and Castro, promoting free trade, democracy and the fight against corruption... I guess partisan is as partisan sees...

:)