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Should Canada Stay in the U.N.? (split fm Hamas invaded Israel 2023)

JLB50

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Perhaps this merits a thread of its own but the U.N. is becoming increasingly corrupt and irrelevant. I once believed that, despite its flaws, the U.N was basically an organization for the betterment of mankind, especially regarding issues like health and education worldwide. But right now I’m at the point where I’m wondering if Canada should even continue to be a member. While there has always been some corruption within that organization since its inception, the scale of its decline is mind boggling.

It appears that South Africa is gaining momentum in its move to take Israel to the ICJ on a charge of genocide against the Palestinian people. I’m definitely not a fan of Netanyahu nor of Israeli expansionism. I also realize that overlapping territorial claims by religious zealots on both sides has complicated things immeasurably. But what’s happening currently in the U.N. proves, at least in my mind, that it is being increasingly controlled by failed nations who are at the beck and call of China and Russia with a vested interest in creating dissent and fragmentation. Did we hear much of anything from South Africa when Syria was killing hundreds of thousands of its own people with many of them killed by poison gas (with considerable help from Vlad Putin)? Or the horrible genocide in Ruanda? The move to basically annihilate the Uyghur people in China? No, nada, nyet.

With climate change, pandemics, population shifts and the threat of world war looming more than it has in many decades, one would hope that the United Nations would at least be moving closer to its intended goal of becoming nations united against poverty, ignorance and injustice. ..a truly wonderful goal. Sadly, the reverse seems to be happening. And yet Justin Trudeau seems to be looking at the United Nations through rose-coloured glasses. The United Nations of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau is long gone and probably never really existed in the first place, due largely to the way it was set up. It was a dream, a beautiful dream, but one that failed to live up to its promise, much like the League of Nations. Reality is a bitch.
 
Perhaps this merits a thread of its own but the U.N. is becoming increasingly corrupt and irrelevant. I once believed that, despite its flaws, the U.N was basically an organization for the betterment of mankind peoplekind, especially regarding issues like health and education worldwide. But right now I’m at the point where I’m wondering if Canada should even continue to be a member. While there has always been some corruption within that organization since its inception, the scale of its decline is mind boggling.

It appears that South Africa is gaining momentum in its move to take Israel to the ICJ on a charge of genocide against the Palestinian people. I’m definitely not a fan of Netanyahu nor of Israeli expansionism. I also realize that overlapping territorial claims by religious zealots on both sides has complicated things immeasurably. But what’s happening currently in the U.N. proves, at least in my mind, that it is being increasingly controlled by failed nations who are at the beck and call of China and Russia with a vested interest in creating dissent and fragmentation. Did we hear much of anything from South Africa when Syria was killing hundreds of thousands of its own people with many of them killed by poison gas (with considerable help from Vlad Putin)? Or the horrible genocide in Ruanda? The move to basically annihilate the Uyghur people in China? No, nada, nyet.

With climate change, pandemics, population shifts and the threat of world war looming more than it has in many decades, one would hope that the United Nations would at least be moving closer to its intended goal of becoming nations united against poverty, ignorance and injustice. ..a truly wonderful goal. Sadly, the reverse seems to be happening. And yet Justin Trudeau seems to be looking at the United Nations through rose-coloured glasses. The United Nations of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau is long gone and probably never really existed in the first place, due largely to the way it was set up. It was a dream, a beautiful dream, but one that failed to live up to its promise, much like the League of Nations. Reality is a bitch.
its "Peoplekind", damnit... you need to woke up.
 
its "Peoplekind", damnit... you need to woke up.
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Perhaps this merits a thread of its own but the U.N. is becoming increasingly corrupt and irrelevant. I once believed that, despite its flaws, the U.N was basically an organization for the betterment of mankind, especially regarding issues like health and education worldwide. But right now I’m at the point where I’m wondering if Canada should even continue to be a member. While there has always been some corruption within that organization since its inception, the scale of its decline is mind boggling.
I haven't quite reached that point yet but I realized in 1993 that the UN was corrupt as all get out and has only gotten worse.
 
Are you allowed to wear a hat but no gloves while you restructure the reserves while sitting in a Bombardier-designed but Irving-built mobile gun system parked outside your airforce-booked 5* hotel wearing the latest redesigned uniform complete with a morale patch of a redundant HQ that is commanded by a GOFO up on charges?

Just thought I'd get ahead of the curve on the inevitable thread derails...
 
I struggle with this issue. I see how the UN is abused and used as a bat to attack the west and Israel, having regimes with horrific human rights violations in charge of said committees, the list of flaws and grievances is to long to type out. However will we be better off leaving it? It certainly would not make the place better.

Personally I think we need to double the support of UN Watch, educate the Canadian Public on the abject failures of the organization and have them realize what it really is. At the same time, take part in it, trying to make it better. But, do not invest to much of our international political capital in it and focus on smaller organizations that mainly align with our and our allies goals.
 
The UN is increasingly coming into alignment with WEF and WHO. not just agreeing but actually pushing the doctrine. Israel is increasingly being subverted by the UN and the islamist nation members. Blue berets and peacekeeping/ making have given over to a UN army that pushes nation making agendas proffered by the UN. UNHCR has been subverted to Open Borders policies of WEF and Soros. Diplomatic vehicles, in New York owe *15.7 million.

All that to say, in my view, we should pull out of the UN, abandon the agreements on climate, arms, immigration, etc. We should not be ceding our sovereignty to their ridiculous, non binding articles and programs. If I were the US, I'd sell the building and send them packing.






* - According to a finance department spokesperson, Jacqueline Gold, diplomatic vehicles owe a total of $15.7m in parking fines. The agency “works with the US state department to collect unpaid parking tickets from diplomatic vehicles, which are generally exempt from booting/towing”, Gold said. The state department has said that it prevents the registration or renewal of diplomatic license plates for cars with multiple unpaid violations.
 
The UN (and its various committees) only do what its member states want it to do.
 
. . . one would hope that the United Nations would at least be moving closer to its intended goal of becoming nations united against poverty, ignorance and injustice. ..a truly wonderful goal. . . .

I look at the Charter, save for the first phrase of para 1 of article 1 (and even of that I sometimes take a jaundiced view) in much the same manner as the platitudes of "the cheque's in the mail" or "I won't c. . . . .". It's all the things one says to another to get them to agree to something that benefits the primary but not always the secondary in a relationship.

Article 1
The Purposes of the United Nations are:

  1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
  2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
  3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
  4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
The primaries of the UN are the permanent members of the Security Council; USA, UK, Soviet Union Russia, France and China - the lead nations who bore the brunt of the wars with Germany and Japan (though some question why France and China are included). They didn't want to have to do that again, either individually or collectively. But they also didn't want anyone fucking with effectively objecting to them taking action (military or otherwise) against foreign irritants; especially since a lot of those foreign irritants had recently been (or still were) their possessions. And they didn't want to be forced to involve themselves in petty squabbles of insignificant other countries unless it was in their national interest (or if there was a homegrown political purpose).

Surprise, surprise, the world changed in the near 80 years since the charter was first proposed. The cap in hand fealty of the pissant countries* to their former masters/saviours/paymasters is no longer a given.

But the UN is more than the GA and SC. Beside the "forum" for discussion of international harmony are the many funds, programmes, specialized agencies and related organizations. While some are questionable as to their effectiveness, many serve a purpose for making the wheels turn in the world. Sure, Canada could withdraw from the United Nations but what purpose would it serve? Would anyone notice?


*And to be clear Canada was/is one of those pissant countries - a high status pissant but still one.
 
I look at the Charter, save for the first phrase of para 1 of article 1 (and even of that I sometimes take a jaundiced view) in much the same manner as the platitudes of "the cheque's in the mail" or "I won't c. . . . .". It's all the things one says to another to get them to agree to something that benefits the primary but not always the secondary in a relationship.

Article 1
The Purposes of the United Nations are:

  1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
  2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
  3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
  4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
The primaries of the UN are the permanent members of the Security Council; USA, UK, Soviet Union Russia, France and China - the lead nations who bore the brunt of the wars with Germany and Japan (though some question why France and China are included). They didn't want to have to do that again, either individually or collectively. But they also didn't want anyone fucking with effectively objecting to them taking action (military or otherwise) against foreign irritants; especially since a lot of those foreign irritants had recently been (or still were) their possessions. And they didn't want to be forced to involve themselves in petty squabbles of insignificant other countries unless it was in their national interest (or if there was a homegrown political purpose).

Surprise, surprise, the world changed in the near 80 years since the charter was first proposed. The cap in hand fealty of the pissant countries* to their former masters/saviours/paymasters is no longer a given.

But the UN is more than the GA and SC. Beside the "forum" for discussion of international harmony are the many funds, programmes, specialized agencies and related organizations. While some are questionable as to their effectiveness, many serve a purpose for making the wheels turn in the world. Sure, Canada could withdraw from the United Nations but what purpose would it serve? Would anyone notice?


*And to be clear Canada was/is one of those pissant countries - a high status pissant but still one.
Pissant or not, the U.N. IMHO is doing a piss poor job of being a viable world organization. I haven’t said they are not doing any good at all…he’ll, even Trudeau’s leadership occasionally does some things that I heartily approve of, much the same as Harper’s government has done a few good things. But the U.N. is in serious need of reform…I think the Security Council is an even bigger joke than the General Assembly. But the question is, can an organization like the U.N be reformed from within? Or is it better to tear it down and start anew? Kind of like whether it’s better to keep fixing up 24 Sussex or tear it down and put up a better structure.
 
But the UN is more than the GA and SC. Beside the "forum" for discussion of international harmony are the many funds, programmes, specialized agencies and related organizations. While some are questionable as to their effectiveness, many serve a purpose for making the wheels turn in the world. Sure, Canada could withdraw from the United Nations but what purpose would it serve? Would anyone notice?


.
how about saving money? In 2019 we contributed over 110 million to the UN. If you want to support the world with that much cash go for it but how about doing it ourselves? I doubt very much if more than 10 cents on the dollar actually contributes to improving any one's lives other than some very wealthy presidents for life. The Salvation Army, Catholic charities, MAF all hit over 80 cents on the dollar for value. Those children's aid groups are over 60% effective. Doctors without Borders could certainly use some of that cash as could those physicians who donate their time and skills doing repair surgery. More bang for the buck, and you don't have to smile and shake hands with the likes of Nicholas Maduro or Vlad. Putin.
 
Are you allowed to wear a hat but no gloves while you restructure the reserves while sitting in a Bombardier-designed but Irving-built mobile gun system parked outside your airforce-booked 5* hotel wearing the latest redesigned uniform complete with a morale patch of a redundant HQ that is commanded by a GOFO up on charges?

Just thought I'd get ahead of the curve on the inevitable thread derails...

Only if you're also an on call paramedic in a large city ;)
 
how about saving money? In 2019 we contributed over 110 million to the UN. If you want to support the world with that much cash go for it but how about doing it ourselves? I doubt very much if more than 10 cents on the dollar actually contributes to improving any one's lives other than some very wealthy presidents for life. The Salvation Army, Catholic charities, MAF all hit over 80 cents on the dollar for value. Those children's aid groups are over 60% effective. Doctors without Borders could certainly use some of that cash as could those physicians who donate their time and skills doing repair surgery. More bang for the buck, and you don't have to smile and shake hands with the likes of Nicholas Maduro or Vlad. Putin.
I’m no admirer of the UN, but I believe that leaving does more harm than good. The Western Democracies should be pitching a fit each time a tin pot regime gets on a committee, and during UNGA those some nations should be conducting IO campaigns about the abuses of some of the member nations.
 
Anything is only as good as you keep it, the UN included.

The West and liberal democracy sees the UN as a free forum to promote peace and prevent the breakdown of humanity; Chlina, Russia, Iran, some countries the Middle East and Africa see it as an IO opportunity.
 
I’m no admirer of the UN, but I believe that leaving does more harm than good. The Western Democracies should be pitching a fit each time a tin pot regime gets on a committee, and during UNGA those some nations should be conducting IO campaigns about the abuses of some of the member nations.
should, yes, but do they, no. Therefore, get out of Dodge
 
If you formed a neighbourhood association and invited the local dealers and other low-lifes in as equal members, you'd have the same kind of problem. Canada's membership isn't the problem.
 
I have always hated the UN since I first heard of it. Consider it a pretty bogus and useless organization overall. But, I think we should remain a part of it just for awareness sake. If we are not there then we do not know what all those low life players are up to and be able to try to influence things the right way. Of course it helps if Canada and it's leaders have some respect in the world.
 
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