Political Quotes

“in our search for ways to eliminate the crushing poverty that afflicts billions of people around the world, experience has taught us to be humble. There is no single policy or program that can deal with the underlying causes and symptoms of poverty. But as the Hippocratic Oath reminds us, in the search for cures, ``First, do no harm.'' Right now, the burden of debt owed by the poorest nations of the world to the richest does harm not only to them, but to us. In our new global environment, countries whose peoples live in abject poverty are not just a moral challenge to those of us who are blessed with affluence. They can threaten the entire edifice of political and economic stability. New technologies that have brought so much good to the world have shrunk the gaps in time and distance that once allowed us the luxury of inattention. Now the very symbols of the technological superiority of our age, from the cell phone to the internet to jet airliners, have been transformed into weapons in the hands of those who are the declared enemies of our way of life. They allow stateless actors to reach out from the shadows, from weak and failed states, to attack us here at home. Poverty-stricken states are fertile ground for drug production and trafficking, feeding our own drug problems here. With the scourge of AIDS and other diseases loose in the world, we cannot afford the existence of more states that cannot feed, house, educate, or innoculate their citizens.…”