ONE volunteers aren’t the only people letting the next president know which foreign policy issues are priorities to them - former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s new book, Memo to the President Elect, outlines her vision also. Last week, I was lucky enough to get a chance to thank Dr. Albright for including “addressing the negative effects of globalization” as one of her top five foreign policy priorities for the next president and hand her information about ONE. She accepted it with a smile and said she already knew us though. Riding home on the L, I flipped directly to the relevant chapter in her new book, and was pleased to read this (page 137):

“Reducing poverty should be a central theme of your administration. This is smart politically, right morally, and makes sense economically…. Take advantage of the global antipoverty movement, which includes rock starts, billionaires, evangelists, students, and the producers of American Idol; don’t underestimate the power of enthusiasm – some jobs can best be done by people too inexperienced to know exactly how hard the jobs are.”

I’m proud to be counted in the “inexperienced” and will keep working to grow the antipoverty movement. I hope the next president joins us in the fight against extreme poverty and makes me unemployed.

-Annisa Wanat, ONE Regional Field Organizer, Chicago

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Madeleine Albright. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.