Tphord wrote:

"Poor countries are poor for demonstrable reasons, usually because of horribly massively oppressively corrupt leadership subjugating the general population."


Your comment is so ignorant of history that it almost needs to be completely ignored, but I'll bite.

How do you think these corrupt leaders rose to power? Were they educated by Western colonizers? Did they cut a deal with a multinational corporation to trade mineral/fossil fuel rights for power? Were they the leader of a political/military power who's opposition to communism made Western powers overlook their horrible human rights abuses? Or, were they elected freely only to go on and solidify power/change their countries constitution/eliminate their rivals? Did they leverage their country's few resources to the World Bank in exchange for loans they could never afford to pay back?

The reason why countries stay poor is because its far more expedient for richer, more powerful nations to subjugate less powerful and underdeveloped nations. We take for granted all the aspects of our well developed societies in the west; laws that people follow, courts that work, a system of health care, fair elections - but these institutions are still developing in the poorer countries Bono tries to help. That's why their called "Developing Nations."

Bono has every right to expect ask rich countries to chip in when "disasters" like the AIDS epidemic strike. After all, we profit from them on so many levels.

Food for thought.