Gross, your faith in a powerless, inefficient non-governmental organization is laughable. Even when the UN does speak up, which it rarely does because it requires everyone to agree, it doesn't enforce its own word. Even the resolutions are enforced, the UN needs the United States to enforce for them. You wanted some examples Gross, here are a couple just on Iraq that have so far been unenforced:
Resolution 688:demands that Iraq cease at once repression of its own people. Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and tortured by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation and rape.
Resolutions 686 and 687:Demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. As of last year, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for -- more than 600 people.
One American is among them.
Resolution 687 : Requires that Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in the country. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran, Israel and Western governments.
I'm sure that Kofi Anan is a very well intentioned and nice guy, but his organization is powerless. It also acts in the interest of the wrong people. Do you think that dictators will appoint representatives who will work in the interest of their people, or the dictator? If you think that oil is influential to Bush, its influence is even greater in the United Nations. I don't need to get into details, but the United Nation has quite an appetite for passing resolutions about Israel but very little for helping the human rights of people in China or Sudan, or ending the Syrian occupation of Lebanan. I do not see how anyone can see the United Nations organization as legitimate, or worship it as you do Gross, when Sudan, where slavery is still legally practiced, is on the Human Rights Council!
Give me on example Paul of how the UN has not followed through on its word . . . cite at least resolution and tell exactly how they didn't follow up on their word. And if you can't do it (which you won't be able to - with out making up bull shit) apologize for insulting a wonderful organization as well as making shit up from your ass.
Andrew you shouldn't be so quick to brand me as a blind patriot. You have this steadfast devotion to an organization that while, yes has helped mitigate many global conflicts and helped neutralize a great deal of conflicts, has shown an inability to follow through on its word. Had the UN acquired some decent sized balls, and the courage to follow through on its word despite international opposition, then I would probably have qualms about US intervention. However, the UN for all of its accomplishments has shown a chronic ability to ignore those "pesky" resolutions that demand it make a choice that will make some nations unhappy. THE POINT IS, Those promises were made by a COALITION (as in more than just the United States) of nations dammit. And as a result, for supporting the passage of these, France, Russia, Germany, and any other nation who supported the resolutions to disarm Iraq, are summarily obliged to follow through on them, even when there is opposition. France in particular is not innocent, they have tremendous oil agreements in place with Iraq for its oil and would bring billions of dollars to France in the form of oil refining. And yet, the league of bleeding hearts and mindless protesters, continues to blame this problem on the US. Its time the world took its head out of its ass and realized that IRAQ is the one at fault for this escalation in conflict. Sadam Hussein knew what he was doing when he defied those 12 resolutions to disarm, and he has slipped through the cracks again and again. The global community seems oblivious to the fact that the US is simply enforcing the consequences of breaking the rules, Iraq and no one else, started this so called "blood thirsty American war" (this would qualify as sarcastic) when it first defied a resolution to disarm. Holding the US responsible for doing what the UN has shown a chronic inability to do, increases the level of mindless following. For someone so in touch with the world, I find it hilarious, that you somehow turn a blind eye to the millions of mindless "supports of peace" (the continuation of appeasement to a psycho (sadam) is more fitting) clogging the streets of the worlds cities, fighting for a maniacal madman (Sadam) and his sickening regime. You want blind following of a cause, hell, these zombies are delivering it to your door.
I am so fucking tired of people blaming America for all the world's ills. They see poor and sick people in Africa, whose fault is it? America naturally! Why are people starving in Asia? America again! Get some fucking perspective please! What if America dissappeared? What if it never existed? Your choice what the world would be ruled by, Naziism or Stalinism. Whenever the countries who claim they are against us need help, who do they turn to? America! Even today, Germany depends on 70,000 troops in their country for defense. When Europe had trouble in the Balkans during the 90s, they could not solve their own problems, they needed America to clean up the mess. The United States gives 60% of the world's food aid, yet I never hear anyone meantion any of that! If we withdrew from the rest of the world, stopped giving aid to everyone, and said, "the hell with you guys," do you honestly think France or Germany could run things? The world would fall apart in two minutes! I am at the point now where I would love to do that.
Dear God you fucking moron . . . half of the countires in this world are in some form of military conflict and without the UN to contain these outbreaks, localized wars would turn into full scale world wide murderings and killings. Oh and Paul, you kind of forgot about the whole ICJ which is a very instrumental organ in working out minor issues between nations that would have one time or another result in war between nations. And that one part USA eventhough to true is completely wrong because the USA can choose to not pass anything, but it can't pass anything giving it and the other 4 permanent nations, yes too much, but still limited powers. Also for you to criticize is a wonderful example of the indocrinated Americans who only give a shit about America . . . the UN has been a neccary force of establishing and maintaining peace throughout our society. And very lastly you say that the UN is a "pussy" but at the very same time if the UN decided to start invading nations and breaking soveriengty it would no longer be an agent to promote peace, but another military alliance, and you would be complaining because you would view the UN as a possible threat to America as America is somewhat a subsidiary nation to another nations (eventhough not all together true). Basically you bitch and moan about the UN because you do not give a fuck about any nation in this world besides America and you are so blind to think that the whole world must be burdened 50 times over before America can sacrifice anything for the betterment of this world. I think I have said it before but if you mess with my man Kofi then you are going to have to mess with me as well!
I just want to say I 100% agree with what Hans said (as previous articles i have written on symbolism will show) and I want to say thatI have grown in the last year to stronly dislike america if you have not yet picked that up from my articles.
Recipe for UN...
1 Part General Assembly
1 Part Security Council
1 part USA
Note: keep French and Russian components in separate bowl to prevent rampant ineffectiveness...
Ok, this UN idea, oh so very flawed. While it is true that the UN has helped mitigate a number of global conflicts, the have become an organization with balls the size of peas. Heck they had a great idea, lets name Libya head of the Human rights council. They have sat on their ass watching Sadam Hussein defy its resolutions like they never existed. Something like 12 resolutions since the Gulf war have been passed to peaceably remove weapons from a man hell-bent on using them. Iraq has openly defied resolution after and watched the world play right into his hands. Now a worldwide league of bleeding hearts has come to the defense of this maniacal madman. I?m sick and tired of hearing about how America has no right to disarm him. We are simply the only nation on earth with the mental capacity to see through Sadam and the balls to enforce the conditions of the agreements that the Security Council, not just the united states, agreed to. Those include the complete dismantling of Sadam?s weapon program of which Baghdad has both conceded exist and refused to destroy. In further violation of UN resolutions he has begun to retrofit his rockets to go farther than ever before placing the entire middle east at risk. Iraq is a rogue, a volatile threat to not only the national security of the United States but to the stability and security of the Middle East. As for intense opposition, a great deal of Those Arab leaders and populations who so often blast the US, have documented their support for Sadam's overthrow, they've just managed to do it while the cameras were off, and they knew no one was listening. Then there?s this, we'll be killing innocent people. First of all, let's just overlook the thousands of Iraqi?s that Sadam has had killed, and his use of biological/chemical weapons on them. As for the war serving US national interests, even if that is the case, if that happens to be a side result of the enforcement of broken resolutions that were meant to end a threat to global stability, then its fine with me. This isn't a matter of liberal vs. conservative its a matter of enforcing the rules that seek to keep men like Sadam from becoming a threat. Sadam has had his turn at the wheel of diplomacy and made a laughing stock of efforts to peaceably disarm him, now its time to bring the battle to him.
Our society. Damn, it's fucked up. Do I really need to go into detail? I think we can all agree on this. All right, nothing new, I know. But I have an explanation. I am of the firm belief that the vast majority of society's problems, if not, all of society's problems, are the result of symbolism. Yes, symbolism. Think about it: every man, woman, and child has their own ideas, own intuitions, own beliefs. These ideas are complex; they are built upon the thinker's life, experiences, and interactions with other ideas that this person has. So no idea is just something in and of itself, it is more of a nexus; an information center with connections to all sorts of other nexi (ideas). One can't define an idea by a singular definition. In order to fully understand the internal structures, implications, and connotations of an idea, one must also understand the other ideas and experiences surrounding it. However, people rarely, if ever, take the time and effort to wholisticly and completely explain their ideas. Nobody sits down with someone for 12 hours and gives a complete discourse on why they think "X" band is the best, or why "Y" book stinks. So in our society, we have all the little fragmented ideas floating around. None of them are complete (from the vantage of others, at least) and none of them completely represent the original intent behind them. Here's where the problem lies: when 2 crippled ideas that, in their complete form would have been perfectly compatible, meet we see dissonance arise. Because idea A is missing some valuable connotation, idea B cannot fully understand it, and thus cannot agree with it. Then human nature kicks in, expanding a philosophical disagreement into whatever the hell kind of disagreement it wants, usually a physical one. Symbolism. I was talking about symbolism. So symbolism provides a facade for these crippled ideas. Don't want to spend hours explaining why you support America? Wave a flag and be done with it! Don't want to give a lecture on why your favorite band is the best? Sew their patch onto your backpack and be done with it! Of course, in place of listening to you rationally explain your reasons for choosing, someone with a different opinion only has that little patch to go on. So naturally, they're going to disagree with you if they think some other band is better. Of course, they're not going to explain their reasoning either. So both of you are relying on the use of symbols to make your arguments, while the real meeting of ideas never takes place. Then it escalates, etc. Another example: someone feels pride (for whatever strange reason) in America after the Sept. 11 attacks. So instead of standing on their porch, giving an oration on every piece of belief and information that feeds into their ideas, they hang an American flag off the front of their house. Osama and his crew see this surge in blind nationalism, and, missing out on the connotations and purposes of the patriotic displays, decides to retaliate. The United States, not aware of the complete rationale and emotions behind anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East, decides to retaliate against their retaliation, ad nauseum. If symbolism had never been used, most of this argumentation would never have started.
Wow... so, that was a bit philosophical, I guess... but it explains where I'll be coming from in later posts. This is the main psychological idea that drives my philosophical and political arguments.
Anyone so arrogant and thinking them selves so much better than everyone else that they can "ride high" and waist so much fucking fuel honestly deserves to be beaten with bamboo rods until one of two things happen. They become more humble or they die. Pride is the route of all human evil. Anyone who thinks them self too good to for something ought not exist as far as I am concerned. There are few things worthy of death in my book, not murder, not rape, but pride. Pride is to hatred like no one would ever admit. Pride is why we have social classes. Pride is why individuals waist tens of thousands of dollars on ornate and valueless belongings while there are people elsewhere struggling to survive. Of course we would never go out of our way to help another because, hell, were Americans.
Running off on a wild tangent now, and yet somewhat still involved in the previous topic is my idea for a better social system. I believe that all information should be free. No more personal information, no more hidden info, no censorship, and no more fear of nudity. It would take about a decade to get used, although society probably would never truly adapt and then the government would collapse as all good governments do. As my father said when talking about Strom Thurman "Why doesn't he have the common decency just to curl up and die already" This too holds true for good governments when they get past their prime and start to over regulate and people like Al Gore start appearing wanting to force morals upon us through a fucking V Chip and the such. And this leads me back to my point, how can we force morals upon someone if morals are dependent on the family. In my family there has never been any real big thing wrong about nudity on television. We understand that it is a human body and that as such we all have the parts and we have seen them before. If you have never seen your self naked then something is obviously wrong with you. Well anyway getting back on topic I believe that all children should be taught to respect their parents by being beaten with rods until awed at their parents mere image, wait that's not my point but that works too. My real point is that I believe the working man, the man who pounds in the rail road ties and the man poring molten steel should be making the most money. Not the fucking record execs that sit on their mother fucking fat asses all day doing nothing but whine that their not getting money for selling nothing any more due to the realization by people that they are paying money for nothing. Instead people realize they can get this god damn nothing off the internet, and god damn it this leads me back to Palladium and I need to save this for my IWW paper. Well that's it for now
The government should lock up and arrest any person that decides to buy an SUV. I think that Jesse would agree with me on this particular subject in saying that any perosn would throw away money that they could be using to do incredible amounts of good in this world. But no they decide to spend their money on perpetuating or dependece on gas and thus the middle East, and also our natural rescources of our national parks. SUV drivers symbolize the wrongs of mankind and the reason that man will eventually fall . . . stupidity, ignorance, and elitism. The three ideals that every person who drives around a fucking Cadillac Escalade SUV - terrorists!
