Bushbred
1) I always humors me when I hear people talk about a FAIRER UN, removing excess US/western influence etc.

Considering the vastly disproportionate levels of funding, manpower & technology etc supplied by the west, it is only fair it has greater influence.

He who pays the piper calls the tune!

2) I question whether US technology has failed.
Remember Postwar Japan, it went from a feudal militarist society to a modern (model) democratic society-under (largely) US occupation .
I wonder if we then had today’s troupe of reporters & trendy academics if it would have ever happened.
The west is today are too much dominated by short-termism
and a will to find fault with everything.

Relda,
An excellent post –we need to hear more from you.

Amen Horus.. Relda does have a good contribution.

Brushy.. the problem with the UN is not excessive US influence but 'VESTED' interest by all parties concerned. Lobby groups, ranging from the gay lobby (lets remove all discrimination) to the Japanese whaling industry (Lets pay tiny countries to vote FOR an open whaling policy).
So, the absence of the USA would mean the presence of another and all vying for a bigger slice of the world cake for their own tribal interests.

PatrickM your discussion seemed to suggest that the only thing wrong with the Soviet revolution was it being hijacked from the proletarian revolutionaries by 'totalitarian' elements. Well, "Welcome to the reason why no political 'ideology' no matter how ideal will ever work"

Thats why I continually make the statement that the problem is in the human heart.. 'sin' is how the Bible describes it, -Alienation from God.

Psalm 1 kind of says it all

" Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked"

History should have revealed to you already PatrickM that todays 'pure revolutionary' is tomorrows capitalist tyrant. Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If the underlying philosophy of Marxism is that God is not, then once the revolutionaries have the power, and realize they only have 'one life'..... does it not stand to reason and logic that they would then use that power to make what remaining life they have as enjoyable as possible ? Hence the fundamental flaw of atheistic political philosophies claiming a wider benevolent goal

Horus, Boaz and others,

Surely we can all agree on one point, there are powerful people in the world, people whose monetary and political influence far exceeds that of you or me. Is it such a stretch to believe that these people plot and scheme to maintain their positions of power?

If I were to rob a bank tomorrow, a good deal of money, manpower and skilled detective work would be used to apprehend me. A meticulous investigation would be conducted, all evidence would be considered and no theory would be deemed too outrageous. It is a shame that the same standard of investigation did not apply to the 9/11 attacks.

There are plotters and schemers, there are those with vested interests in the scheming, business, politicians, media conglomerates, and there are those who do not care either way, so long as they have shelter, food material goods and their football team is winning games.

Allegations of 9/11 conspiracies may be greeted with outrage and ridicule from middle class white guys like myself (that is how I first reacted). However, go and tell someone from the Block in Redfern that the US govt. was responsible for 9/11, they won’t be surprised, they are used to being screwed over by authorities and have learnt the hard way that the news media is little more that a script for the power players.

I have experienced this myself with 2 of my good friends. For the last few months I have discussed the overwhelming evidence against the Bush regime with one friend who was educated in a private school and earns a lot of money as an IT expert, its taken some time but he starting to think we could be on to something. My other friend, who grew up in Bogota, Colombia, has little education beyond year 10 and works as a carpet layer just said, ‘yeah, I just assumed it was something like that’

DB, your problem is that you rely far too much on a book written over 2,000 years ago which has little relevance to today's world.
I dont' rely on that book. Many muslims rely on their book, and Jews rely on the torah all of which are books of violence written by men.

Does it occur to people that in Darfur the hatred for the US doesn't exist on the same level because the US is not involved? Now we get to the other places.

The US props up Pakistan which produces the most terrorists in the world but the people hate the US. In Lebanon the US helped Israel plan the demolition based on the deranged notion that Hezbollah was actually doing something to Israel - the records show they had not.

In Palestine the US totally support Israel even though the whole world except the US and Israel and a few Pacific Islands have stated for 50 years that the 1948 borders are the legal borders of Israel and the occupied territories must be given back.

Then the US supported the Taliban, gave the Afghan people Bin Laden and then turned against them. In Iraq they forced the Iraqi people to accept Saddam Hussein then starved, bombed and tormented the civilians for 14 years before bombing them again.

The first car bomb in Iraq can be traced to 22 March 2003 when someone I knew, Paul Moran, was murdered.

Afghanistan had never seen a car bomb now they are regular.

Do you understand why these nations might just hate the US?

We are not talking about Western influence in the UN, Horus, but the problem of dictatorial American influence, which political scientists believe has been the problem with the UN ever since it was reformed from what was left of the League of Nations after WW2.

Little change has happened since. Indeed, just lately with the Israeli Lebanese problem, we might as well say that the UN has been under the command of Condoleeza Rice.

Questions similar to the above, is what caused the German philosopher Immanuel Kant to first bring up the idea of a Federation of Nations when Napoleon declared himself Emperor after breaking the Enlightenment code of Liberty Equality and Fraternity.

The idea of a Federation of Nations was Immanuel Kant’s lack of confidence in not only one person running the world, but even one person under God running the world, a weakness which had been proven so many times through history. Even the Federal body itself must not be chosen by one person, but by a group, as Kant intimated.

Humanity itself does have that physical weakness Kant wrote about, Horus, as was clearly shown in two different camera shots of Condoleeza Rice which I presented in my first OLO in the current programme. First the sombre disappointed look on her face, after failing over talks with Middle East Arab representatives, and in the second the look of joyful relief as she was greeted by the Israelis as she crossed over the border.

Those camera shots to any political philosopher do reveal not only too much cushiness between the US and Israel, but also the cause of much of the present Islamic terrorism and world tension

Don’t know where you study, Horus, because your argument that America should be virtually in command of the UN because she is by far the strongest nation, is like saying that our largest corporation, or even our wealthiest family should have the most say in Australia.

If you don’t mind me asking, mate, concerning the above problem, do you hold a degree in either politics or international relations?

The average standard of living of countries, from which Muslim terrorists (who strike the West) mainly come, has increased over the last 20 years yet terrorism has increased.

Hence there is no correlation between poverty and terrorism.

- Wealthy Arabs from Saudi Arabia and the UAE formed the majority of the 9/11 bombers.

- the al Qaeda leadership includes many professionals - engineers (eg bin Laden), doctors and others from the Arab world.

- I agree with Sage that oil rich Muslim countries have misspent their oil trillions.

- countries producing the most Muslim terrorist who hit the West may be Saudi Arabia and Iran. Would economic aid discussed by the G20 be useful for these countries?

Terrorist say they bomb not because of alleged poverty but as a suicidal protest against Western influence in Muslim countries and Western occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ankon's rich West vs poor Muslims argument has more to do with his "Bangladeshi-Muslim extraction" than the facts. Bangladesh is simply one of the poorer Muslim countries.

Applying dependency theory (rich West/poor Third Word) to terrorism (particularly homegrown terrorism) therefore doesn't make sense.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com