Ask President Bush to Fight Poverty

Mercy Corps is one of the world's premier humanitarian aid organizations. Their work became more familiar to many people (including me) following the recent tsunami in Asia. Over 90% of your donations goes directly to aid (i.e. less than 10% goes to administrative costs, compared to organizations such as the Red Cross and United Way, which keep well over half of your donations for administrative housekeeping (yes it's a huge scam and I never give a penny to those so-called "charities")).

Anyway, Mercy Corps asks for literally 4 minutes of your time to help influence the world's leaders in ending world poverty:

Ask President Bush to Fight Poverty June 7, 2005 Through its agricultural and community mobilization projects benefiting 350,000 people, Mercy Corps promotes sustainable development in Eritrea, one of the world's poorest 10 countries according to per capita GDP. Photo: Nicole Demestihas/Mercy Corps Next month, President Bush will join the leaders of the world’s eight wealthiest nations for a three-day summit in Scotland. Mercy Corps, a partner of the ONE Campaign, is asking President Bush and other world leaders to reform trade rules, cancel debts owed by poor countries and devote an additional one percent of the federal budget to end extreme poverty. Poverty and debt are high on the agenda for the July 6-8 meeting of the Group of Eight (G8), where eight men – the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia - will have the power to save the lives of millions of people who live in extreme poverty. And you can help make this happen. President Bush needs to hear that Americans strongly support bold leadership on this issue. Nearly one million people have signed the ONE Declaration, calling on U.S. political leaders to devote an additional one percent of the federal budget to ending abject poverty around the globe. The letter urges President Bush to do the following at the G8 summit: Help the poorest people of the world fight poverty, AIDS and hunger at a cost equal to just one percent more of the U.S. budget on a clear timetable; Cancel 100 percent of the debts owed by the poorest countries; Reform trade rules so poor countries can earn sustainable incomes. Read the full text and sign the letter. Learn more about Mercy Corps and the ONE Campaign.

You'll never, ever see something like this on a right-wing web site. Progressives, let's help spread the word. Isn't that one reason we're blogging?