Ubuntu? And do you want fries with that?

Here's yet another reason why I continue to love Bill Clinton, despite his Clintonesque-sized faults and foibles. Ubuntu. He's promoting Ubuntu. And I don't mean Linux-based software Ubuntu, which is what you'll find out about if you google Ubuntu. I mean the African concept of ubuntu. Bill said, "Society is important because of Ubuntu." In the BBC article in which I read about this, ubuntu was defined several different times, each capturing a different flavor of the concept.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu defined it best (at least in this article): "Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language . . . . It is to say 'My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours."

This is what Bill thinks. This is how he ran government. Taking care of people. Not losing sight of others in the face of yourself. I'm not saying he was a saint or anything. Obviously, he was far from it. But he tried to take care of people. (Just like he tried to get rid of bin Laden!)

Compare that to someone else's current President. How does he take care of people? He attempts to legislates and legalizes torture, abandoning any pretense at our moral leadership of the world. He lies about vital issues (I'm not going to put a link here--too many possiblities from which to choose!. He remakes the American economy to benefit the uber-wealthy. He runs a bloody war, initiated on a lie, that has turned a country upon itself, resulting in civil war.

Did you know that the current cost of the war in Iraq is $2 billion a week? $2 billion a week. If you've read Greg Mortenson's book "Three Cups of Tea", you'll be aware of a much better use for that money. Can you imagine the end of terrorism? I can imagine it, if we spent $2 billion a week on education and infrastructure in countries like Iraq and Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I bet Bill Clinton can imagine it, too.

Liz