| | Earlier I said that Angelina Jolie expects that U.S. tax dollars go to the Third World because throwing money at the problem will ostensibly fight the AIDS epidemic when the biggest contributor to all of Africa's problems -- statism -- goes completely unaddressed by her.
However, it turns out that Ms. Jolie actually expects U.S. tax dollars to "fight" poverty in general:
The spotlight is nothing new to Angelina Jolie. Now, the tabloid favorite is working to deflect the attention that follows her every move to a part of the world that is often forgotten -- Africa.
"Africa is beautiful, marvelous, smart people, strong people, strong country and has a potential to be so much," Jolie told "Good Morning America" in advance of the release of a new MTV documentary chronicling her trip to a village in Kenya with Dr. Jeffrey Sachs of the U.N. Millennium Project. ...
Wednesday's MTV premiere of "The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa" coincides with the opening of the U.N. Special Summit on Millennium Development Goals. In 2000, almost 200 world leaders vowed to work toward reducing extreme poverty, disease and hunger by 2015.
"This is not emergency relief," said Sachs, director of the U.N. Millennium Project. "This is an opportunity to solve poverty once and for all. It's not charity. It's an investment, an investment that could help make the world a safer place."
In Sauri, a group of small villages in Kenya, support from the U.N. provides bed nets to keep away mosquitoes carrying malaria, fertilizer to grow crops, school lunches so every child is assured one meal a day, school equipment, and anti-retroviral drugs for every person living with AIDS.
Jolie was in Sauri the first day a computer was delivered to the school.
"The first time they saw the computer, they weren't that excited," Jolie said. "Then I realized, of course they're not, because to them it was a weird box. So they've gone to the Internet from zero to 60." [ I hope they have enough electricity to keep that computer running. Otherwise, what's the point? --S.H.] . . .
Jolie has been a U.N. goodwill ambassador since 2001, and has traveled to 15 countries. For Jolie, the pictures of devastation following Hurricane Katrina were all too familiar.
"We should look at what you've been watching on the news last week. This is what's happening around the world," she said. "This is what's happening to the people that are the most vulnerable, are poor. The people that are thought of maybe too late are the poor. Hopefully, it [Katrina] will make people that much more, you know, question what's going on with our government, what we're taking care of, what we're not taking care of in our own country and around the world."
Note that Angelina Jolie wasn't asking people to donate private funds to help Africa or the Hurricane Katrina victims; she was demanding that the U.S. government do it with tax dollars.
Now, when it comes to the U.N., some of the money actually does come out of Angelina Jolie's pocket, as she donated $3 million to it. However, a significant portion of the U.N. is still paying for these handouts -- personal computers and "free" lunches -- with tax money.
This is from an interview that CNN did with her and Dr. Sachs:
JOLIE: Like most people, I was just shocked.
BRYANT (voice-over): Angelina Jolie, like so many others, could not believe what she was seeing as New Orleans seemed like a scene from a third world country after the devastation of Katrina. And as a U.N. ambassador since 2001, Angelina Jolie has seen those third world countries firsthand.
JOLIE: I have friends there. A close friend of mine, her best friend is there. It's very personal for a time.
But really, it's just -- you look at that and you think -- I`ve seen refugees -- refugee camps around the world, and I know what this looks like.
On a global scale, this is what's happening and this is what we`re talking about. That -- that when you see the people that really were hit the worst, that were kind of in many ways abandoned, and they were the poorest of the poor. They didn`t have -- they weren`t thought of ahead of time. You know, this is what happens. And when things explode, these are the people that are the most vulnerable.
BRYANT: The most vulnerable and poorest people in the world of what Jolie and U.N. special advisor Dr. Jeffrey Sachs got to see when they traveled to Western Kenya in Africa. An emotional yet inspirational journey captured on tape for an MTV documentary called "The Diary of Angelina Jolie and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa."
Back from Africa, Jolie was frustrated by the initial lack of response to Katrina, as so many others were.
JOLIE: I sent a letter to my representative, the president, and asked people to do the same to push for a better federal response. We have to also demand that our government does what it should do so we can get our aid to the people and we can really help. And we can really -- but they`ve got to do their job and do it properly, so that money really gets to the people.
BRYANT: And just like Jolie, Dr. Sachs, arguably the world's leading expert on poverty, was appalled at what he saw.
DR. JEFFREY SACHS, U.N. ADVISOR: Now after this devastation in Katrina, we're going to be spending $100 billion, $200 billion, because we didn't take some precautions. You know, they say in Washington well, they never thought that the levees might break. Come on.
JOLIE: They knew. They very clearly knew.
SACHS: So it's a matter of looking ahead a little bit, because if you want to do something right and do it less expensively, don't wait for the terrorism. Don't wait for the collapse of these countries. Don't wait for mass refugee movements. Think a little bit.
BRYANT: Both Dr. Sachs and Angelina Jolie are in New York this week just as leaders from all over the world gather for the 60th United Nations General Assembly and a special summit on poverty.
(on camera) If you have the floor what would you want to say to all the countries?
JOLIE: Oh, my God. I'd like to go back to what the United Nations was supposed to be, why I love it, why I still believe in it, why I think it`s an extraordinary thing, and what we need more than ever today is really unity and real teamwork.
I traveled to Africa with Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, the world's leading expert on expert poverty. We went to Africa to see how Jeff`s vision and leadership have produced some incredibly hopeful results.
The new crops have allowed all the farmers to donate a little bit of food to the school.
BRYANT (voice-over): On their journey, the two witnessed how the challenges of hunger and disease in Africa are being overcome. They visit Sorry (ph), a cluster of villages in Western Kenya.
SACHS: This is an opportunity, traveling with Angelina, to see how our generation could really be the ones to conquer extreme poverty.
By now, I hope we've established that Angeilna Jolie's call for the U.S. military to act like the world's policeman is not sufficient to making her Ragnar Danneskjold's friend. Her perpetuation of the global welfare state makes her his enemy.
In this video, John Stossel says what Angelina Jolie needs to hear. Sad Sachs is not amused.
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