kazmerzack's blog

We should at least rename the United Nations

We should reorganize or, at least, rename the United Nations. The name implies unity. With the hegemonic world we live in now and the fact that the most powerful nation, the United States, bypasses international law doesn’t it make having international law a moot point? How can the world abide by an organization and a set of global rules when the most powerful nation in the world doesn’t adhere to them? To the United States the U.N. is just a tool for its foreign policy. John Bolton, the under-Secretary of State for International Organizations, the linchpin of the State Department ties to U.N. affairs during the Reagan administration once said, “There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that is the United States, when it suits our interest, and when others to go along….. When the United States leads, the United Nations will follow. When it suits our interest to do so, we will do so. When it does not suit our interests we will not� This is a bold, but true, statement if looking at the United Sates and their recent dealings with the U.N. It didn’t suit the U.S. interests to sign the Kyoto Protocol, nor sign onto the World Court so they signed neither. The U.S. didn’t wait until international support for the invasion of Iraq, so they didn’t.

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We should rename the United Nations. The name implies unity. With the hegemonic world we live in now and the fact that the United States bypasses international law, doesn’t it make having international law a moot point? How can the world abide by an organization and a set of global laws when the most powerful nation in the world doesn’t adhere to them? To the United States the UN is just a tool for its foreign policy.

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I wake up one morning and check my e-mail and I received on form one I did not recognize. It was from a barrister (lawyer) in Nigeria. He said he represented a client who had the same last name as mine.

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Short Tic-Tac Story

So I’m traveling with my best friend and we are in the train Station in Switzerland waiting for a train to Italy. We hadn’t slept and were just ready to rest on the train and we were travel weary as we were not even talking to one another for some reason. Basically wigged out. Now let me preface this by saying it was before the Euro was introduced so it was a nightmare changing and re-changing money from country to country. Now it wasn’t that big of deal but when changing from German Marks to French Francs but changing anything to the Italian Lira was a nightmare because the Lira was something like 7 billion Italian Lira = 5 Marks or 8 Francs. Well maybe not that much but a hell of a lot of Lira. Back to the story. We are at the train station and we only have a few Marks left and I wanted to get some candy so I found a machine that sells Tic-Tacs. The machine encased in clear glass with the Tic-Tac boxes layered on top of one another orange, white, orange, white and so on. I detest the white mint ones because if I want fresh breath I’ll brush my teeth, but I love the orange ones. About 6 inches above where the machine dispensed the candy the glass was tinted black so you couldn’t tell what color was coming out next. No problem I thought as I had just enough change for 2 boxes just in case I got a white one first. I put in my change and the first one, of course is white, oh well no more change after I put the last of it in and the next one was also white. I don’t know why but I lost it and threw the Tic-Tacs down the station and since it was Switzerland it was so pristine that once they hit the newly waxed marble-like floors they just took off about 50 yards until they came to a stop on a Swiss Policeman’s boot. He looked over at me and gave me a mean glare as someone came to ask him a question or something and he broke away from my guilty look and let me off the hook. I guess neutrality helped me in this instance. Needless to say had no candy on the train and it didn’t enhance my already cheery demeanor. Moral to the story: The Euro is a good thing.

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It’s August 23 and I’m sitting in my last class of the day on my first day of class at San Francisco State University since transferring from 4 community colleges to finish my prerequisites. Now I was, finally, starting my major which I chose as International Relations in hopes of being a diplomat.

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I don’t agree with much of what President Bush has done in his years in the oval office as in 2004 I didn’t vote for him in hopes of him being defeated, again. But no luck as he won, as I thought he would, as no standing president has lost while the United States was at war. Even though Bush has had his problems, especially with the invasion of Iraq and the bungling of Hurricane Katrina, the one main thing I believe he has done right and will probably be his legacy is laying the groundwork for democracy in the Middle East with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. But the last “country� Palestine and its recent election which ushered in Hamas begs the question: what happens when democracy ushers in an elected terrorist organization? Hamas is just that but won on the platform of building a better community within Palestine. The United States has said it will give a strict set of guidelines for them to continue to give Palestine aid. It will be an interesting time in the next few months to see how this plays out. Will the Hamas militia be integrated in the Palestinian guard, will they recognize Israel as a state, and how will the violence towards the Israelis be affected: increase or decrease, and will it help or hinder the ever so touchy peace process that has broken down so many times in the past? All questions that will be answered in the time to come. The powers that be in Washington were surprised, as everyone was, and I don’t think was to thrilled when Hamas won the election, can you imagine if the Taliban was elected after the war in Afghanistan and democracy was instilled? Democracy, in its true form is a representation of the people, but I don’t think Bush envisioned a terrorist organization winning an election when installing democracy is one method used to eradicate them.

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