Clinton's Commencement Address

Bill Clinton

Cornell University (May 29)

`Half the world is living on less than $2 a day, a billion people live on less than $1 a day, a billion people go to bed hungry every night, a billion and a half people never get a single clean glass of water in their lives, 10 million children die every year of completely preventable childhood diseases, one in four of all people who will perish on the Earth this year will die of AIDS, TB, malaria and infections related to diarrhea. Most of them are little children who never got a single clean glass of water in their lives.

"If you solve all these problems, does it mean there will be no terrorists? No. But it means there will be fewer people who will have a reason to hate, to resent, to feel left out and left behind. One hundred and thirty million children never go to school at all. We are sitting here at Cornell celebrating the fact that students from all over the world got great educations -- in a world in which 130 million kids never darken a schoolhouse door anywhere. It would cost us a tiny fraction of what we are spending on defense and homeland defense to put every kid in this world in school for six years. We ought to do it."

posted by Sarai @ 10:56 AM