Extreme Poverty: It's Very, Very Bad

Years ago, Matt Miller introduced me to the concept of "Still True Today" -- the basic point being that a lot of the most important facts in the world rarely get reported because they don't constitute "news." The blogosphere, unfortunately, really hasn't done much to ameliorate this. I could, for example, write a post every single day about how hundreds of millions of people around the world are living in absolutely deplorable conditions and we ave the power to substantially ameliorate that. But I don't, because there's no peg.

This morning, though, I'm attending a ONE Campaign panel on just this, so I do have the opportunity. I don't have any real expertise or analysis to offer on the subject of aid per se, but from a blogging/activist point of view, I'll simply say that this is a topic where a quite broad range of elites are eager to see US policies changed -- it's a very bipartisan group. What's lacking is evidence of a mass constituency that particularly cares, which, I guess, is where the idea of netroots outreach comes in. At any rate, this is probably the most important issue there is.