Could not have put it better myself.dennisrwood wrote:the UN should be shining a light on wherever there are human right's violations. but doesn't Libya head that department?
Viability of the UN
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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I get a little irritated when Americans bitch about the uselessness of the UN.
First of all, the UN has been the sole intrument in creating and upholding standards for international trade, broadcast, and copyright laws -- the stability of which our economy depends.
Secondly, if you want to bitch about the toothlessness of the UN in regards to Human Rights, and military matters, perhaps you would do well to research the dentist who removed those teeth - a quick google of the number of UN resolutions and condemnations of Israel for their treatment of the Palestinians, cross-referenced against the number of times the US has used their Veto on such votes should be instructive.
Finally, recent abuses in Iraq's oil for food program is disappointing, but a little research beyond Foxnews (CNN, BBC, NPR) would reveal that the percentage of oil revenue generated during the embargo that has ended up in UN pockets is a relatively tiny fraction of the widely reported totals. The rest was generated by oil trucked out of Iraq and sold to countries like Syria - presumably under the same US satellites that "found" all of the "evidence" of WMD the US presented to the UN, and therefore with US complicity.
Just because the Government and the Press are serving up the Kool Aid doesn't mean you have to drink it.
First of all, the UN has been the sole intrument in creating and upholding standards for international trade, broadcast, and copyright laws -- the stability of which our economy depends.
Secondly, if you want to bitch about the toothlessness of the UN in regards to Human Rights, and military matters, perhaps you would do well to research the dentist who removed those teeth - a quick google of the number of UN resolutions and condemnations of Israel for their treatment of the Palestinians, cross-referenced against the number of times the US has used their Veto on such votes should be instructive.
Finally, recent abuses in Iraq's oil for food program is disappointing, but a little research beyond Foxnews (CNN, BBC, NPR) would reveal that the percentage of oil revenue generated during the embargo that has ended up in UN pockets is a relatively tiny fraction of the widely reported totals. The rest was generated by oil trucked out of Iraq and sold to countries like Syria - presumably under the same US satellites that "found" all of the "evidence" of WMD the US presented to the UN, and therefore with US complicity.
Just because the Government and the Press are serving up the Kool Aid doesn't mean you have to drink it.
The oil-for-food scandal is more than disappointing, it's, well, scandalous.
And the US's protection of Israel has absolutely nothing to do with the examples I gave (Darfur and Rwanda).
I'll repeat what I said earlier....I'm no expert on the UN, I'm learning. And what I'm learning is that the UN was a great idea, but it's broken. I doubt it can be fixed.
And the US's protection of Israel has absolutely nothing to do with the examples I gave (Darfur and Rwanda).
I'll repeat what I said earlier....I'm no expert on the UN, I'm learning. And what I'm learning is that the UN was a great idea, but it's broken. I doubt it can be fixed.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
_____________
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
_____________
It does need to be fixed, but I don't think it can be effectively replaced at this point in history, and I don't think that we'd be better off without it.Cail wrote:The oil-for-food scandal is more than disappointing, it's, well, scandalous.
And the US's protection of Israel has absolutely nothing to do with the examples I gave (Darfur and Rwanda).
I'll repeat what I said earlier....I'm no expert on the UN, I'm learning. And what I'm learning is that the UN was a great idea, but it's broken. I doubt it can be fixed.
We've already weakened our NATO relationships to the point of collapse, and we've made our economy more dependent on trade than it ever has been. As the EU (and China, for that matter) gains in political and economic clout, we're going to NEED a strong UN. For that to happen, the US is going to start showing more support for the UN, not less.
I reference a speech by Hudson institute fellow and Columbia University Law professor Anne Bayefsky delivered at the UN conference for confronting anti-semitism. I include the entire text of the speech as I think she makes her point quite eloquently.Plissken wrote:a quick google of the number of UN resolutions and condemnations of Israel for their treatment of the Palestinians, cross-referenced against the number of times the US has used their Veto on such votes should be instructive.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you at this first U.N. conference on anti-Semitism, which is being convened six decades after the organization's creation. My thanks to the U.N. organizers and in particular Shashi Tharoor [the undersecretary-general for communications and public information] for their initiative and to the secretary-general for his willingness to engage.
This meeting occurs at a point when the relationship between Jews and the United Nations is at an all-time low. The U.N. took root in the ashes of the Jewish people, and according to its charter was to flower on the strength of a commitment to tolerance and equality for all men and women and of nations large and small. Today, however, the U.N. provides a platform for those who cast the victims of the Nazis as the Nazi counterparts of the 21st century. The U.N. has become the leading global purveyor of anti-Semitism--intolerance and inequality against the Jewish people and its state.
Not only have many of the U.N. members most responsible for this state of affairs rendered their own countries Judenrein, they have succeeded in almost entirely expunging concern about Jew-hatred from the U.N. docket. From 1965, when anti-Semitism was deliberately excluded from a treaty on racial discrimination, to last fall, when a proposal for a General Assembly resolution on anti-Semitism was withdrawn after Ireland capitulated to Arab and Muslim opposition, mention of anti-Semitism has continually ground the wheels of U.N.-led multilateralism to a halt.
There has never been a U.N. resolution specifically on anti-Semitism or a single report to a U.N. body dedicated to discrimination against Jews, in contrast to annual resolutions and reports focusing on the defamation of Islam and discrimination against Muslims and Arabs. Instead there was Durban--the 2001 U.N. World Conference "Against Racism," which was a breeding ground and global soapbox for anti-Semites. When it was over U.N. officials and member states turned the Durban Declaration into the centerpiece of the U.N.'s antiracism agenda--allowing Durban follow-up resolutions to become a continuing battlefield over U.N. concern with anti-Semitism.
Not atypical is the public dialogue in the U.N.'s top human rights body--the Commission on Human Rights--where this past April the Pakistani ambassador, speaking on behalf of the 56 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, unashamedly disputed that anti-Semitism was about Jews.
For Jews, however, ignorance is not an option. Anti-Semitism is about intolerance and discrimination directed at Jews--both individually and collectively. It concerns both individual human rights and the group right to self-determination--realized in the state of Israel.
What does discrimination against the Jewish state mean? It means refusing to admit only Israel to the vital negotiating sessions of regional groups held daily during U.N. Commission on Human Rights meetings. It means devoting six of the 10 emergency sessions ever held by the General Assembly to Israel. It means transforming the 10th emergency session into a permanent tribunal--which has now been reconvened 12 times since 1997. By contrast, no emergency session was ever held on the Rwandan genocide, estimated to have killed a million people, or the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands in the former Yugoslavia, or the death of millions over the past two decades of atrocities in Sudan. That's discrimination.
The record of the Secretariat is more of the same. In November 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a report on Israel's security fence, detailing the purported harm to Palestinians without describing one terrorist act against Israelis which preceded the fence's construction. Recently, the secretary-general strongly condemned Israel for destroying homes in southern Gaza without mentioning the arms-smuggling tunnels operating beneath them. When Israel successfully targeted Hamas terrorist Abdel Aziz Rantissi with no civilian casualties, the secretary-general denounced Israel for an "extrajudicial" killing. But when faced with the 2004 report of the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions detailing the murder of more than 3,000 Brazilian civilians shot at close range by police, Mr. Annan chose silence. That's discrimination.
At the U.N., the language of human rights is hijacked not only to discriminate but to demonize the Jewish target. More than one quarter of the resolutions condemning a state's human rights violations adopted by the commission over 40 years have been directed at Israel. But there has never been a single resolution about the decades-long repression of the civil and political rights of 1.3 billion people in China, or the million female migrant workers in Saudi Arabia kept as virtual slaves, or the virulent racism which has brought 600,000 people to the brink of starvation in Zimbabwe. Every year, U.N. bodies are required to produce at least 25 reports on alleged human rights violations by Israel, but not one on an Iranian criminal justice system which mandates punishments like crucifixion, stoning and cross-amputation of right hand and left foot. This is not legitimate critique of states with equal or worse human rights records. It is demonization of the Jewish state.
As Israelis are demonized at the U.N., so Palestinians and their cause are deified. Every year the U.N. marks Nov. 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People--the day the U.N. partitioned the British Palestine mandate and which Arabs often style as the onset of al nakba or the "catastrophe" of the creation of the state of Israel. In 2002, the anniversary of the vote that survivors of the concentration camps celebrated, was described by Secretary-General Annan as "a day of mourning and a day of grief."
In 2003 the representatives of over 100 member states stood along with the secretary-general, before a map predating the state of Israel, for a moment of silence "for all those who had given their lives for the Palestinian people"--which would include suicide bombers. Similarly, U.N. rapporteur John Dugard has described Palestinian terrorists as "tough" and their efforts as characterized by "determination, daring, and success." A commission resolution for the past three years has legitimized the Palestinian use of "all available means including armed struggle"--an absolution for terrorist methods which would never be applied to the self-determination claims of Chechens or Basques.
Although Palestinian self-determination is equally justified, the connection between demonizing Israelis and sanctifying Palestinians makes it clear that the core issue is not the stated cause of Palestinian suffering. For there are no U.N. resolutions deploring the practice of encouraging Palestinian children to glorify and emulate suicide bombers, or the use of the Palestinian population as human shields, or the refusal by the vast majority of Arab states to integrate Palestinian refugees into their societies and to offer them the benefits of citizenship. Palestinians are lionized at the U.N. because they are the perceived antidote to what U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi called the great poison of the Middle East--the existence and resilience of the Jewish state.
Of course, anti-Semitism takes other forms at the U.N. Over the past decade at the commission, Syria announced that yeshivas train rabbis to instill racist hatred in their pupils. Palestinian representatives claimed that Israelis can happily celebrate religious holidays like Yom Kippur only by shedding Palestinian blood, and accused Israel of injecting 300 Palestinian children with HIV-positive blood.
U.N.-led anti-Semitism moves from the demonization of Jews to the disqualification of Jewish victimhood: refusing to recognize Jewish suffering by virtue of their ethnic and national identity. In 2003 a General Assembly resolution concerned with the welfare of Israeli children failed (though one on Palestinian children passed handily) because it proved impossible to gain enough support for the word Israeli appearing before the word children. The mandate of the U.N. special rapporteur on the "Palestinian territories", set over a decade ago, is to investigate only "Israel's violations of . . . international law" and not to consider human-rights violations by Palestinians in Israel.
It follows in U.N. logic that nonvictims aren't really supposed to fight back. One after another concrete Israeli response to terrorism is denounced by the secretary-general and member states as illegal. But killing members of the command-and-control structure of a terrorist organization, when there is no disproportionate use of force, and arrest is impossible, is not illegal. Homes used by terrorists in the midst of combat are legitimate military targets. A nonviolent, temporary separation of parties to a conflict on disputed territory by a security fence, which is sensitive to minimizing hardships, is a legitimate response to Israel's international legal obligations to protect its citizens from crimes against humanity. In effect, the U.N. moves to pin the arms of Jewish targets behind their backs while the terrorists take aim.
The U.N.'s preferred imagery for this phenomenon is of a cycle of violence. It is claimed that the cycle must be broken--every time Israelis raises a hand. But just as the symbol of the cycle is chosen because it has no beginning, it is devastating to the cause of peace because it denies the possibility of an end. The Nuremberg Tribunal taught us that crimes are not committed by abstract entities.
The perpetrators of anti-Semitism today are the preachers in mosques who exhort their followers to blow up Jews. They are the authors of Palestinian Authority textbooks that teach a new generation to hate Jews and admire their killers. They are the television producers and official benefactors in authoritarian regimes like Syria or Egypt who manufacture and distribute programming that depicts Jews as bloodthirsty world conspirators.
Listen, however, to the words of the secretary-general in response to two suicide bombings which took place in Jerusalem this year, killing 19 and wounding 110: "Once again, violence and terror have claimed innocent lives in the Middle East. Once again, I condemn those who resort to such methods." "The Secretary General condemns the suicide bombing Sunday in Jerusalem. The deliberate targeting of civilians is a heinous crime and cannot be justified by any cause." Refusing to name the perpetrators, Mr. Secretary-General, Teflon terrorism, is a green light to strike again.
Perhaps more than any other, the big lie that fuels anti-Semitism today is the U.N.-promoted claim that the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the occupation of Palestinian land. According to U.N. revisionism, the occupation materialized in a vacuum. In reality, Israel occupies land taken in a war which was forced upon it by neighbors who sought to destroy it. It is a state of occupation which Israelis themselves have repeatedly sought to end through negotiations over permanent borders. It is a state in which any abuses are closely monitored by Israel's independent judiciary. But ultimately, it is a situation which is the responsibility of the rejectionists of Jewish self-determination among Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim brethren--who have rendered the Palestinian civilian population hostage to their violent and anti-Semitic ambitions.
There are those who would still deny the existence of anti-Semitism at the U.N. by pointing to a range of motivations in U.N. corridors including commercial interests, regional politics, preventing scrutiny of human rights violations closer to home, or enhancement of individual careers. U.N. actors and supporters remain almost uniformly in denial of the nature of the pathogen coursing through these halls. They ignore the infection and applaud the host, forgetting that the cancer which kills the organism will take with it both the good and the bad.
The relative distribution of naiveté, cowardice, opportunism, and anti-Semitism, however, matters little to Noam and Matan Ohayon, ages 4 and 5, shot to death through their mother's body in their home in northern Israel while she tried to shield them from a gunman of Yasser Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The terrible consequences of these combined motivations mobilized and empowered within U.N. chambers are the same.
The inability of the U.N. to confront the corruption of its agenda dooms this organization's success as an essential agent of equality or dignity or democratization.
This conference may serve as a turning point. We will only know if concrete changes occur hereafter: a General Assembly resolution on anti-Semitism adopted, an annual report on anti-Semitism forthcoming, a focal point on anti-Semitism created, a rapporteur on anti-Semitism appointed.
But I challenge the secretary-general and his organization to go further--if they are serious about eradicating anti-Semitism:
Start putting a name to the terrorists that kill Jews because they are Jews.
Start condemning human-rights violators wherever they dwell--even if they live in Riyadh or Damascus.
Stop condemning the Jewish people for fighting back against their killers.
And the next time someone asks you or your colleagues to stand for a moment of silence to honor those who would destroy the state of Israel, say no.
Only then will the message be heard from these chambers that the U.N. will not tolerate anti-Semitism or its consequences against Jews and the Jewish people, whether its victims live in Tehran, Paris or Jerusalem.
This is why the US attempts to bring some semblance of sanity and even-handedness to the proceesings through the use of its veto.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. John Stuart Mill
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dennisrwood
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 4048
- Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 5:20 pm
Israel is at war with her own citizens. When the response to a suicide bomber is a helicopter strike on a village or two, the pose of the victim wears thin. Israel has invaded lands beyond her original borders, driven out the prople who lived on those lands, and "settled" it. She has committed Civil Rights violations against her own citizenry, based on race. The fact that Palestinians are also a Semitic people makes charges of anti-semitism in this matter not only ironic, but abhorrent.
One distinction between Israel's human rights abuses and the other, sometimes more abhorrent abuses listed in this speech is that Israel enjoys not only the tacit, but also the economic, diplomatic, and military support of the US. It is entirely likely that the reason that the UN continues to pass resolution after resolution regarding Israel is that they know that these resolutions will be vetoed, and thus, the UN will be held unaccountable. It is also likely that the UN expects Israel to, as a more modern and civilized country than the ones they point to as "worse" violators, acknowlege that changes need to be made.
With any country, civil rights violations are a great evil. With a country who has a history uniquely centered in some of the worst abuses in history, civil rights violations should be twice as nauseating.
One distinction between Israel's human rights abuses and the other, sometimes more abhorrent abuses listed in this speech is that Israel enjoys not only the tacit, but also the economic, diplomatic, and military support of the US. It is entirely likely that the reason that the UN continues to pass resolution after resolution regarding Israel is that they know that these resolutions will be vetoed, and thus, the UN will be held unaccountable. It is also likely that the UN expects Israel to, as a more modern and civilized country than the ones they point to as "worse" violators, acknowlege that changes need to be made.
With any country, civil rights violations are a great evil. With a country who has a history uniquely centered in some of the worst abuses in history, civil rights violations should be twice as nauseating.
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Gadget nee Jemcheeta
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 2040
- Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2004 2:05 pm
- Location: Cleveland
It makes me wonder if an entire people can display the same psychological tendencies of an abused child.
Yeah, I'm over here in america, far away from the cultures involved (besides my own of course) but it doesn't take much for me to question how ethical the idea of a suicide bomber in Israel provoking air to land rockets from a helicopter killing Palestinian leaders in their homes, while they sleep.
Yeah, I'm over here in america, far away from the cultures involved (besides my own of course) but it doesn't take much for me to question how ethical the idea of a suicide bomber in Israel provoking air to land rockets from a helicopter killing Palestinian leaders in their homes, while they sleep.
Start where you are,
use what you have,
do what you can.
use what you have,
do what you can.
Stuff like this kills me. You think that conservatives only watch Fox, and that Fox is sooooo evil. Well, I hate to break it to you, but Fox is pegging the number at about 10 billion, the BBC is putting it at 21 billion.Plissken wrote:Finally, recent abuses in Iraq's oil for food program is disappointing, but a little research beyond Foxnews (CNN, BBC, NPR) would reveal that the percentage of oil revenue generated during the embargo that has ended up in UN pockets is a relatively tiny fraction of the widely reported totals. The rest was generated by oil trucked out of Iraq and sold to countries like Syria - presumably under the same US satellites that "found" all of the "evidence" of WMD the US presented to the UN, and therefore with US complicity.
Here are the links:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4025057.stm
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141903,00.html
May I suggest that you actually watch Fox News? I'm not talking about O'Reilley, watch Special Report with Britt Hume. Then compare that with whatever else you watch/read/listen to. You'll be surprised.
And my news intake is quite well-balanced, thank you. Local news on the way to work, CNN's website at work, NPR or local news on the radio when I'm out on calls (well, when I'm not rockin' out), Special Report during dinner, followed by The Daily Show. I subscribe to Newsweek and The National Review. Sunday mornings I am glued to Meet the Press and Sunday Morning. Oh, and I watch Chris Matthews sporadically. My favorite commentators are George Will, Fred Barnes, and Mort Kondrake. I watch Real Time with Bill Maher even though Mr.Maher really needs to be institutionalized. My favorite color is blue, and I like long walks on the beach.
Seriously, actually watch Fox News, it's not what people are telling you it is.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
_____________
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
_____________
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Gadget nee Jemcheeta
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 2040
- Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2004 2:05 pm
- Location: Cleveland
Wait a minute here. Now don't pass out from shock, but I'm going to have to disagree with you Cail.
I'll wait for you to regain consciousness.
Ok, better?
Alright, I'll go on (heeheeehee)
Fox news is the most sensationalist programming that I've ever been exposed to. Even their musical background is shallow. Often they can go through their entire night broadcast and you might confuse it with a parody show, or a long commercial. DEFINATELY a long commercial. Are there certain specific commentators or segments that I'm simply not aware of?
I'll wait for you to regain consciousness.
Ok, better?
Alright, I'll go on (heeheeehee)
Fox news is the most sensationalist programming that I've ever been exposed to. Even their musical background is shallow. Often they can go through their entire night broadcast and you might confuse it with a parody show, or a long commercial. DEFINATELY a long commercial. Are there certain specific commentators or segments that I'm simply not aware of?
Start where you are,
use what you have,
do what you can.
use what you have,
do what you can.
.....wow, what happened? One minute I was helping to plot the evil conservative takeover of the world, the next thing I know, I'm lying on the floor... 
All news programming is sensational, from the local level, to the networks, to the cable news stations. I hate CNN (yet I love their website) for exactly your reason. There's bias in all news, Fox tends to wear it a bit more on their sleeve, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I've never tuned to Fox during the day, so I can't comment on that, and from 7PM on, it's prime-time infotainment. However, at 6PM (Eastern), Special Report with Brit Hume provides a good mix of reporting and commentary.
www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/200 ... s_head_on/
All news programming is sensational, from the local level, to the networks, to the cable news stations. I hate CNN (yet I love their website) for exactly your reason. There's bias in all news, Fox tends to wear it a bit more on their sleeve, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I've never tuned to Fox during the day, so I can't comment on that, and from 7PM on, it's prime-time infotainment. However, at 6PM (Eastern), Special Report with Brit Hume provides a good mix of reporting and commentary.
www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/200 ... s_head_on/
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
_____________
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
_____________
Cail, you know I generally respect your opinion - even though we don't always agree. One of the main reasons I post here is to get good arguments from the opposition, and that usually means you. My comment on getting a wider, more informed view of international news was a general comment, directed mostly at the "UN is useless and bad and we need to get rid of it" crowd, not at you. You are, as I read it, actually asking a question, not making (what I consider to be) ill-informed statements.
That said, I'm not sure that one hour of programming is a ringing endorsement for a 24-hour news channel. I do however, agree that Hume is probably the best example of "fair and balanced" that FOX has to offer. He's definitely the best newsman they have, although I don't consider that to be an endorsement for Fox either. (I'm watching Meet the Press right now, and watch Hume's show every Sunday morning.)
That said, I'm not sure that one hour of programming is a ringing endorsement for a 24-hour news channel. I do however, agree that Hume is probably the best example of "fair and balanced" that FOX has to offer. He's definitely the best newsman they have, although I don't consider that to be an endorsement for Fox either. (I'm watching Meet the Press right now, and watch Hume's show every Sunday morning.)
Gotcha.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
_____________
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
_____________
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Sheriff Lytton
- Giantfriend
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- Location: Somewhere else
As useless as the UN is, I'm not sure anyone's come up with any coherent ideas as regards replacing it. And just repeatedly mentioning the "Oil for Food" programme as the reason it should be disbanded is getting tiresome. There's plenty of other reasons to quote like the fact that the aid programmes have no chance of achieveing success due to underfunding or state interference, a subculture of corruption or even reports of UN peacekeepers standing watching people being slaughtered because they didn't have permission to fire/adequate weaponry/enough forces.
The problem with the UN it that while it was created with the best of intentions, it has to cater for the political interests of all of these nations with what is a cripplingly limited mandate. All it really represents is a lot of written ideals and standards which then fail to be put into practice or applied evenly to all member states.
I would dearly love for the UN to start kicking arses for all human rights violations, but if it were to do so it would effectively demonstrate its own futility to then world. If the UN were to expel all of the countries who defied UN policy on human rights then they could enjoy dominion over an area the size of Luxembourg.
It's pointless to pretend that the UN is any more or less self serving and corrupt than any other governmental organisation. If it worked then people wouldn't be getting tortured, displaced, killed, starved etc, etc, etc.
What it boils down to is that all countries are run by people who sanction all manner of immoral commerce and violent activity they know they shouldn't. And the last thing they really want is an effective organisation to police them, so in that way you could argue the UN does just what's expected of it.
How about we just acknowledge the fact that people are getting starved, displaced, killed, tortured, etc, in and by an awful lot of nations and there's absolutely nothing we're ever going to be able to do about it, because the people doing it are going to make sure it stays that way ?
Once we've done that perhaps we could then keep the good parts of the UN like the whole aid programme and UNICEF. We could use all of the funds spent on employing beauracrats to pay lip service to policies that will be ignored to fund the people who can do something (but never quite enough) to clear the mess up afterwards.
Oh - and FOX News sucks. We can get it over here in the UK on digital satellite (Of course Sky TV and Fox News both scream "Rupert Murdoch" but that's another story) and it's one of the funniest things I've ever watched.
The problem with the UN it that while it was created with the best of intentions, it has to cater for the political interests of all of these nations with what is a cripplingly limited mandate. All it really represents is a lot of written ideals and standards which then fail to be put into practice or applied evenly to all member states.
I would dearly love for the UN to start kicking arses for all human rights violations, but if it were to do so it would effectively demonstrate its own futility to then world. If the UN were to expel all of the countries who defied UN policy on human rights then they could enjoy dominion over an area the size of Luxembourg.
It's pointless to pretend that the UN is any more or less self serving and corrupt than any other governmental organisation. If it worked then people wouldn't be getting tortured, displaced, killed, starved etc, etc, etc.
What it boils down to is that all countries are run by people who sanction all manner of immoral commerce and violent activity they know they shouldn't. And the last thing they really want is an effective organisation to police them, so in that way you could argue the UN does just what's expected of it.
How about we just acknowledge the fact that people are getting starved, displaced, killed, tortured, etc, in and by an awful lot of nations and there's absolutely nothing we're ever going to be able to do about it, because the people doing it are going to make sure it stays that way ?
Once we've done that perhaps we could then keep the good parts of the UN like the whole aid programme and UNICEF. We could use all of the funds spent on employing beauracrats to pay lip service to policies that will be ignored to fund the people who can do something (but never quite enough) to clear the mess up afterwards.
Oh - and FOX News sucks. We can get it over here in the UK on digital satellite (Of course Sky TV and Fox News both scream "Rupert Murdoch" but that's another story) and it's one of the funniest things I've ever watched.
"Nom"
Yet you yourself have just admitted that Israeli actions are in response to Palestinian aggression. If the Palestinians disarmed there would be peace if the Israelis laid down their weapons they would be driven into the sea. Do you doubt that this is the case?Plissken wrote:When the response to a suicide bomber is a helicopter strike on a village or two, the pose of the victim wears thin.
You certainly can’t be referring to the Six-Day War which was a defensive war.Plissken wrote:Israel has invaded lands beyond her original borders, driven out the prople who lived on those lands, and "settled" it.
So have many, many other middle eastern societies. Israel's abuses are minor in comparison but where is the UN's constant condemnations of these Arab countries?Plissken wrote:She has committed Civil Rights violations against her own citizenry, based on race.
Let’s look past the semantics of the argument and discuss the real issues. If “anti-semitic” bothers you we can substitute the term anti-Jewish or anti-Zionist and still address the same issues.Plissken wrote:The fact that Palestinians are also a Semitic people makes charges of anti-semitism in this matter not only ironic, but abhorrent.
This is a ridiculous argument. The UN continually condemns Israel because they know the US will veto their wrong-headed resolutions thus rendering the UN unaccountable??!?!? What purpose does that serve and where are the condemnations of the Palestinians? And if the UN holds Israel to a higher standard than that is blatantly racist and one more reason for dissolution. Israel has offered concessions but has been rebuffed time and time again. IMHO, it is not clear whether the Palestinian's true goal is to establish a state or to destroy one.Plissken wrote:One distinction between Israel's human rights abuses and the other, sometimes more abhorrent abuses listed in this speech is that Israel enjoys not only the tacit, but also the economic, diplomatic, and military support of the US. It is entirely likely that the reason that the UN continues to pass resolution after resolution regarding Israel is that they know that these resolutions will be vetoed, and thus, the UN will be held unaccountable. It is also likely that the UN expects Israel to, as a more modern and civilized country than the ones they point to as "worse" violators, acknowlege that changes need to be made.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. John Stuart Mill
Israel invaded those lands, when they were attacked, and beat the attackers back. They inhabit those lands still as a buffer to their safety. Israel is not innocent by any means, but neither are the Palestinians, nor the Middle East Muslim countries surrounding Israel who are more than happy to perpetuate the struggle in their efforts to wipe out the Israeli jews. Those Countries who have made Peace agreements with Israeli Jews have been given their land back.
The US supports Israel, because no one else in the region will. Everyone else in the region supports the Palestinian peoples, at least to the same level.
Everyone in the country of Israel are victims, not just the Palestinians, Israeli Jews, nor Muslim Israelis.
(Note this post was made before I realized there was a third page)
The US supports Israel, because no one else in the region will. Everyone else in the region supports the Palestinian peoples, at least to the same level.
Everyone in the country of Israel are victims, not just the Palestinians, Israeli Jews, nor Muslim Israelis.
(Note this post was made before I realized there was a third page)
Most people think of anti-Jew when they hear anti-Semitic. Why do we have this word? Why is there no other anti-race, nationality? Is there another group that had no country of their own for some 2,000 years, and yet were still considered their own nationality? Who have been persecuted their whole existence? Anyone know?
--Andy
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur."
Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.
I believe in the One who says there is life after this.
Now tell me how much more open can my mind be?
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur."
Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.
I believe in the One who says there is life after this.
Now tell me how much more open can my mind be?
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Avatar
- Immanentizing The Eschaton
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Folks, you'll have to forgive me, I haven't taken the time I need to read through this thread properly, especially Brinn's post, (which looked as comprehensive as usual 
)
I will say though, that as long as anybody has a veto vote in the UN, there is almost no point. Regardless of the possibilities, they are hamstrung by the fact that any one of five readically different policies may scupper any plan before it can be implemented.
Part of the problem is that the UN should not be composed of politicians at all, nor should their actions be affected by political considerations.
They should act for the good of the world as a whole, as seen by qualified and experienced people. Not through the distorting lens of some politcial agenda.
Certainly reformation is vitally necessary, but first we must overcome the habit of nationalism when we consider the world's good. It should be what is good for everybody, not for some world-power.
Afterall, the name should say it all. United Nations.
--Avatar
)I will say though, that as long as anybody has a veto vote in the UN, there is almost no point. Regardless of the possibilities, they are hamstrung by the fact that any one of five readically different policies may scupper any plan before it can be implemented.
Part of the problem is that the UN should not be composed of politicians at all, nor should their actions be affected by political considerations.
They should act for the good of the world as a whole, as seen by qualified and experienced people. Not through the distorting lens of some politcial agenda.
Certainly reformation is vitally necessary, but first we must overcome the habit of nationalism when we consider the world's good. It should be what is good for everybody, not for some world-power.
Afterall, the name should say it all. United Nations.
--Avatar
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Sheriff Lytton
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And on the day that finally happens, Satan will be driving to work in a snowplough.Avatar wrote:They should act for the good of the world as a whole, as seen by qualified and experienced people. Not through the distorting lens of some politcial agenda.
Certainly reformation is vitally necessary, but first we must overcome the habit of nationalism when we consider the world's good. It should be what is good for everybody, not for some world-power.
Afterall, the name should say it all. United Nations.
--Avatar
Pity though, because it seems like a good idea to me.
"Nom"
