Common at Millennium Network event

He made us laugh, he almost made us cry, he made me want to give him money to do good things. Former President Bill Clinton is still a rock star when it comes to politics—and last night he put that talent to good use. He needn’t have brought a Chicago-bred hip-hopper along—though I’m very glad he did. Common turned in a charming, intimate performance for donors, VIPs and favored guests (tickets were $100 in advance, $150 at the door), but the high-point of the night had already passed. The people came for Bill Clinton and they got Bill Clinton—at perhaps his very best.

Last night, the former President hosted and spoke at a launch event at House of Blues (which he says gave his foundation a great deal) for his Millennium Network, which supports his Clinton Foundation—an organization which has programs addressing health care, AIDS and development around the world. The idea of the Network is to spark an interest in global change initiatives and philanthropy in young people, particularly young professionals. While the turnout for the event was healthy, it wasn’t wall-to-wall, allowing for a lot of pleasant socializing among single folks during the two-hours of open bar, tuna tartar and mingling before a passionate Clinton took up the microphone.

Clinton is a riveting speaker, warm, likable, but also clear, anecdotal and emotionally affecting—especially when talking about the health-care situation of Africans. When Clinton told the story of a Rwandan woman who forgave a man who confessed that he had murdered one of her sons and offered her his life, some audience members were literally on the brink of tears. Clinton sees possibilities and that’s why he’s exciting—he talked with an infectious enthusiasm about ordinary Americans’ overwhelming ($1 billion) response to the tsunami, Bush’s AIDS and malaria program, and his own foundation’s upcoming efforts in Haiti to increase that country’s fish production and provide households with solar-powered flashlights.

Clinton’s remarks were so dense and thoughtful that I’d like to transcribe the entire talk—but in the interest of timeliness, here are some excerpted remarks that struck a chord with me.

On identity
“If you are a Muslim who loves your culture and loves your heritage and hates terror, how far do you go before you, in the service of your convictions and your country, you wind up being face-to-face having to kill somebody that looks like you and is supposed to think like you and be like you. I am not justifying what that man did. It will never be justifiable but I understand why it broke him. The world is full of people wrestling with these competing identities.”

On his mission
“I’m trying to build a world where we share our benefits, share our responsibilities and we have a shared sense of community.”

The power of the Internet
“Because of the Internet, if we bind together people with one dollar to spend, if there are people that think like they do, they can move the world.”

On change
“Ordinary people have more power to change the world than ever before.”

On his Millennium Network
“I want to create a network of givers. I want everybody on every continent to see themselves as a citizen with the power to change lives.”

On the challenges of rich countries
“Rich countries, the real problem whenever they need to change, is rigidity. The very purpose for which some system was set up is just preserving the system. We’re spending $900 billion more on health care than if we just had any other country’s health system.”

On the challenges facing poor countries
“In poor countries, the problem is not corruption. Although it is a problem, where it exists. The big problem is the lack of capacity and structure so that people that are just smart as we are can have the same thing we had growing up. Everyone of you, even poor Americans, there is a fairly high level of predictability between the effort you exert in school, on the athletic field and in the music room and the result you get. You can’t imagine what it would be like to live in a world when there is absolutely no predictable consequence to anything you do.”

On the surge
“The surge worked in Iraq because we were helping them do what they wanted to do.”

On progress in Haiti
“They were willing to face the truth. They have a very graphic memorial. Only by facing the truth did they acquire the strength to let it go. It’s the only country in the world where once a month, on a Saturday, every single adult from the poorest to the richest in the country goes out and spends a day cleaning the streets to show they are a proud people and will not be ground down by their poverty.”