Radiohead's Thom Yorke recently joined other music luminaries such as Bono from U2, to support one of the most pressing concerns of today, advocating for international financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank which are dominated by governments of the First World (especially the United States) to drop Third World debt. The IMF and World Bank have, through their onerous structural adjustment programs and loans for large-scale infrastucture projects  (which in my opinion have only facilitated First World TNC interests) have effectively burdened underdeveloped countries with debts that are unpayable anytime in the near future. To allow for debt repayment Third World governments are forced to exploit at an unsustainable level their environmental resources and exploit their own population as labour, destroying simultaneously local environments and disintegrating the social fabric of local communities. It was only recently, through some research, that I was fully aware of the impact these institutions have had on under-developed governments and nations, and along with multinational corporations, and bullshit free-trade-only-if-you're-the-US rounds of agreements like GATT, have effectively kept Third World nations in a subordinate and dependent status.  
Thank you for listening to my much justified rant. 

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Thom Yorke recently joined an MSN chat to talk about his involvement with Jubilee 2000 to Drop the Debt :    

Thom_Yorke: 
Hello  

DropTheDebt  
Thanks for coming online Thom, we have thousands of questions live and in advance so... 

DropTheDebt  
TylerC says:  
Hi Thom. I am a huge fan of your work, so this is a pretty big deal for me. Therefore, I will try to ask good questions. Personally, do you see Jubilee 2000 being a big success?  

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
Its a good start. We'll be able to see leaders quaking slightly next weekend in Cologne June 19th, I think!  

DropTheDebt  
How and why did you get involved with Jubilee 2000?  

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
First, I was reading a lot about 20th century politics, because I never did it at school. I read a book by Eric Osbourne, history book the final chapter is all about world debt. I read other pieces... first advert in newspaper I thought this is exciting.  

Then read editorial that Bono wrote and decided I should really get involved properly  

DropTheDebt  
email: Boss@  
Will you be going to the Drop The Debt March in Cologne for the G8 thing - if so will you be performing?  

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
No playing involved - no repeat of Live Aid. Only reason famous people involved because that's the way to get more cameras there. There will be 100,000 people in the human chain - not only us  

DropTheDebt  
Will Radiohead be on tour soon where are you guys going.?  

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
That's not relevant.  
 

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
:-)  

DropTheDebt  
vince says:  
Hi Thom When the next album?  
Host MSN says:  
Paranoid android says:  
Thom I have a question what is the title of your new album???  

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
That's not relevant :-0 :-0 :-)  
 

LOL -  

DropTheDebt  
winnie says:  
my question: apart from dropping the debt, what else do you think will be necessary for things to change in third world countries, and how can we help?  

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
To the relevant question...I think we need to change our economic relationship with the rest of the world from the master slave to something similar to democracy, which is what we're supposed to be living under :-) :-)  

DropTheDebt  
What do you expect to get out of the world leaders conference is there any real hope of getting them to do something?  

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
Apparently... yes. They might shake hands with some people, which will be nice. They may cancel the first 100 billion, which is a first step but when you read in the newspapers the next day that they've done everything we've asked patently it will not be true.  

It will only change if the people here go and find out about the campaign a bit of reading won't take long :-)  

Actually, you know the G8's trying to worm out of it by shaking our hands.  

DropTheDebt  
Don't the people who lend all this money to poor country have to be realistic - isn't it partly their fault I mean if you owe a bank a thousand quid then you should worry - if you owe them a million quid then they should worry ?  

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
I think it's very much the west's fault. I think if this is all a legacy of the cold war. Putting in place brutal and corrupt regimes to try and maintain a convert hold over large areas of the 3rd world.  

I think everyone should be worried because people are dying because of it  

DropTheDebt  
I just signed this petition - it's cool Radiohead are supporting it. Do you feel that Rock is becoming the conscience of the young like with Rock against Racism, Live Aid and now Drop The Debt - it used to be the "devils music" - do you feel sometimes your playing for the other side - I guess what I'm asking is has the stuff you've done for these issues has it effected you and your music?  

Host Thom_Yorke says:  
It's affected me very much, it's affected me very deeply because I think I spent the first few years of being in Radiohead not aware of outside issues like these. I had tunnel vision but as we travelled a lot it became very obvious that the wonderful west was not the wonderful west we thought it was... the trip to Mexico and Thailand made that bloody obvious