Watching The Malnourished Eat Itself...
It's almost fun watching the right wing pundits take pot shots at the UN and it's current troubles; one would think that globalization would run counter entirely to their economic and social policy. And fair enough, the current system sucks, like a Hoover set on high and left running for entirely too long on shag carpet. How did it get that way, though? Isn't the UN supposed to be the watchdog of the world? Aren't we supposed to help spread the whole world as a neighborhood concept? They have McDonald's in Japan, don't they?
The first bit of reasoning goes a little like this: the UN has no power. All of it's functions have to been carried out through member nations, and if one particularly powerful member nation decides they wish to go it alone, the UN can't stop them. They've got no power to inflict any real boycotts, and their resolutions should be considered more like suggestions. Let's face it: James Gardner was brought up on court martial charges and convicted, not brought before a war crimes tribunal by the world government. No one held anyone accountable for getting too out of control, there were no shades of, "Hey US, get ahold of your own troops!" Any military actions are donated by member nations as well; so whatever member nations agree with the resolution of the moment bring their own troops. Kind of like bringing your own beer.
Reason the second: if the UN has a way to police it's officals, such as independant counsel, it's failed. Miserably. I mean, by the time the Starr Report was written, everyone knew where Clinton had his cigar polished, when it happened, and you could even get the damn thing online if you wanted it bad enough. Nixon didn't get away with too much either. Oil for Food's been going on for YEARS, and no one's done anything about it until now. What the heck happened? Who was responsible for oversight here? Who was policing the UN whilst the UN was supposedly policing it's own members?
Third reason:...One country, one vote. Stupidest idea ever. You don't wonder why larger countries just plug their ears sometimes when the UN walks around trying to be the boss and go, 'la la la la la...not listening,' because some small grouping of countries with a struggling economy and no pouplation just unilateraly voted for something terribly unpouplar. If you cared to make this idea work, you should have a formula that includes pouplation and economy stats and assign representives from there. Or if you really must have one country, one vote, do what the US did...make it only one chamber of your legislature.
You'd think, with me criticising the system so, I'd be rabidly anti-United Nations. The thing is, I believe we live in a world that is getting smaller and that we cannot escape from it and delude ourselves that it does not exist anymore. I think there should be a motion to abolish the UN, yes, but if only we create something more equitable, and not sumbit to xenophobia. One of the problems that face us today that a world government can help is the fact that poverty is still rampant and many countries underscore the rich countries by providing cheap labor. There should be a standard established world-wide to try to form economic stability and eliminate exploitation. Corporations cannot be blamed for doing what they do, but we should not make it easy for them to provide jobs in places with no labor laws and no controls over pay.
We also need to address human rights issues and make a world standard of what is and is not acceptable. The UN needs to be fearless and relentless of any individual nations violating these basic principles of treating a human being like a human being. A dialogue about environmental issues needs to be opened, and there needs to be a watchdog within the UN to make sure it doesn't fall to corruption. It would take a complete overhaul of the current system to really progress in change. If we wished to make our mark on the world, recreating the UN into a real global government would a good start.
Empowering The Global Conciousness, the AWM/wolf dragon,
Sol