So you do not believe that the UN would like to see benificial changes?
The UN is sound in theory. The idea that we nead something like it is true. However there are many flaws in its system, many of which you so kindly listed ebove. Change does not happen over night, the first step was forming the UN the next is empowering it.
The UN was formed in 1945. In San Francisco, to be precise. The ideals expressed in its charter sing the sweetest song of world liberty, love, peace, enlightenment, and kindness that one could possibly imagine. In the interim, nearly one hundred eighty nations have signed on to those ideals and have pledged their time, talent, and treasure to bring liberty, love, peace, enlightenment, and kindness to all of their fellow nations.
Here we are some sixty years later and what is there to show for it besides a majestic building situated on one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the world, a gift from the Rockefeller family.
What there is to show is a modern day version of the Old Testament Tower of Babel. Even with the finest translation system and translators, while everone talks and talks, it would seem that with very few exceptions, everyone is interested in just two things; their own agenda, and bashing the US.
Since you didn't dispute any of the problems I laid before you, I must conclude that you are, at least, in general agreement.
I, for one, think that sixty years is more than enough time to do anything, if the will is there. If the will is not there, as I believe it is not, then the next sixty years will produce no more than the past.
If large powerfull countries threw themselves behind the UN that would in itself give it more power.
If one measures your comment in dollars, I present for you an excerpt from the 2004 UN Regular Budget. The formatting is a bit skewed, but the first number is dollars in millions and the second number is the percentage of the total budget they represent.
UN Regular Budget for 2004: US$ 1.483 Billion
Assessment Percentage
US 363 million 24.777
Japan 280 18.881
Germany 124 8.281
UK 88 5.934
France 87 5.866
Italy 70 4.720
Canada 40 2.697
Spain 36 2.248
China 29 1.955
Mexico 27 1.821
S. Korea 26 1.753
Netherlands 24 1.618
Australia 23 1.551
Brazil 22 1.483
Switzerland 17 1.146
In terms of actual accomplishment, I believe that other than the US, the major nations see any accomplishment of the UN as a zero sum exercise. To the extent that another benefits, they will be diminished.
At the end of World War II, with the exception of the US, all of the combatant nations were in deplorable condition. Those considered pre-war world powers were in shambles. The US spent many billions of dollars aiding friend and foe alike in their rebuilding efforts and asked little in return. The US became to be regarded as a symbol of wealth that doled out charity. The needy took all they could get, but like many who are impoverished, accept grudgingly and, forever after, embarrassingly resent the donor.
They resent the fact that while their cities, landmarks, and treasures were destroyed, the US, insulated by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, remained intact.
What better place to exhibit this contempt for the US than at the world forum known as the UN. Had the US adopted the mean, cold, cruel attitude of the USSR after World War II, I truly believe that it would have, and would now enjoy a much greater degree of world respect.
It is not the peoples of the world that hate the US, it is the governments. Possibly an additional bone stuck in their throats is the fervor with which their subjects ceaselessly stuggle to flee to the US. After all, if things are so rosy at home, why come here?
You are right in your evaluation of the oil is power effect. That is the reason while the world must be weened from its dependency on fossil fuels. Places like ANWR must not be opended and wars must cease to be faught over oil.
So long as socialist environmentalists force our continued dependence on foreign oil by their continued opposition to increasing nuclear derived electric power above the 20% now produced, nothing will change.