I’m popping open the RSS reader less as of late, but today I caught that Matt logged a post thanking Clinton on his unsolicited evangelism of Kiva. Reading through Clinton’s recent interview on MSNBC I can’t help but feel an astounding glow about what’s going on.
Over 12 years ago I worked for Clinton in the West Wing. I didn’t think much of him then – I’m not sure why (perhaps its always easy to dislike politicians) – I was mostly excited about working with this evolving thing called ‘the web’ in the context and influence of the executive office. Still, it was immensely humbling to be in his presence. Of the two times I met him, I couldn’t get much more out that quick pitch for supporting overseas educational exchange programs. He listened, responded earnestly. You had some sort of feeling that you were in the presence of a gentle giant.
I’d say with every year since the passing of the last election, my respect for him has grown (and for Gore too, for that matter). Watching these men retire from their DC personas and redirect their fame and fund raising capacity to speed the snowball of work for global social change and bolster the realized potential of the tiny organizations with bright ideas in this space – well, it’s simply magical. It embraces a hope that were not just experiencing a fad or being exploited by clever marketers – the culture that is emerging is one that will care for the world and see through to solving of the problems with which we’ve been challenged.
More specifically, it is utterly mind blowing that this man who is, for all practical purposes, unaccessible to most of the population yet has seen the world and its macro-problems more completely that I ever will, completely understands the Kiva model down to the finest detail and endorses it as scalable and capable of fatally impacting the enormous problem of re-dispersing the world’s wealth. He respects my dearest friends and our labors more than I’ve ever extended the same to him. It just makes me stop and thank God for letting me be a tiny part of something so beautiful.
(Though only when the focus of issue is something not American, and certainly, not Chrisitan.) Not that I don’t appreciate the extreme views on either side – it’s these potentially offensive stongly-felt remarks and hasty analogies that bring out discussion working towards understanding on all sides. However, something in me was screaming to bring in views from the world “outside” (the campus) in hopes to combat some of the brainwashing fads of campus liberalism. Maybe I’ll find some time to write a letter to the editor in response to some of the discussion. After all, isn’t that one of the duties of an alumnus?