Slashdot Mirror
Bruce Sterling says: Marry the UN and the Net
An anonymous reader writes "SF writer Bruce Sterling is guest-posting on the global-eco-tech blog Worldchanging today and thinks we ought to marry the Internet and the United Nations. 'The UN has cumbersome rules, no popular participation, and can't get anything useful done about the darkly rising tide of stateless terror and military adventurism. The UN was invented to "unite nations" rather than people. The Internet unites people, but it's politically illegitimate. Vigilante lawfare outfits like RIAA and MPAA can torment users and ISPs at will. The dominant OS is a hole-riddled monopoly. Its business models collapsed in a welter of stock-kiting corruption. The Net is a lawless mess of cross-border spam and fraud. Logically, there ought to be some inventive way to cross-breed the grass-rootsy cheapness, energy and immediacy of the Net with the magisterial though cumbersome, crotchety, crooked and opaque United Nations.' It's obviously part tongue in cheek, but it does make you think."
Nice capitalization, plus it makes a whole lot of sense too...
Fer Chrissakes, Sudan, a government currently undergoing an organized campaign of genocide against its own citizenry ,sits at the head of the UN Human Rights Commission. And what does the General Assembly do about such a travesty? It steadfastly refuses to pass a resolution condemning antisemitism.
What the hell does it matter what the General Assembly does? Nothing passed by the General Assembly is binding. I agree that the UN is obsolete, but not because of the reasons you're stating. The UN is obsolote because all power rests in the hands of the Security Council, and the power there lies only in the hands of the countries that hold veto power (US, UK, France, China, Russia).
And to even suggest that the UN is 'anti-american' is so utterly ignorant. The US government is totally anti-UN. It doesn't recognize the ICC, ignores international law, and only takes a glance at the UN whenever it is politically expedient to do so. Of the veto-wielding nations on the Security Council, the US uses its veto power the most BY FAR.
As for the General Assembly, it has passed many resolutions that have done nothing because they can't be enforced. Virtually every year for the past couple of decades it has almost universally condemned Israel's refusal to follow international law in its occupation of Palestine, what has that accomplished?
All the international bodies that include the voices of the majority are ignored by the most powerful countries when they give anything but total agreement. Even the WTO, which the US uses to condemn others, almost universally condemned US sanctions against Cuba (only the US, Israel and one other country voted against), but the US couldn't care less about that vote since it didn't agree with its policy.
These international bodies are obsolete because they are totally at the mercy of the whims of the most powerful nations. If they were truly international bodies, where both the minor players with bad records (like Sudan) and the major players with bad records (all veto wielding nations) would be kept in check by all the other nations on the planet (there are 191 member countries including those mentioned).
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
When terrorists quit sawing off heads and gunning down children in the name of Allah and Islamic Nationalism, people will quit equating terrorism with Muslims.
Yes - bombing weddings in Afghanistan and Iraq is one example - putting up innocent people's names on "terrorist lists" (all nationalities) to ruin their economies is another.
The USA is the biggest threat to world peace - especially with 50% of its population brainwashed into thinking there really is some huge undefined threat that only applies to them and that they would be better of without the rest of the world.
it's in my head