Opinion of the United Nations

[TheGlobalizer]

A pointless way of spending a lot of time, energy, and money to obtain very meager results.

I like the idea of countries getting together to talk in a quasi-neutral forum, but beyond that, the UN is a catastrophe, a trainwreck that never stops wrecking.

[TheGlobalizer]

A pointless way of spending a lot of time, energy, and money to obtain very meager results.

Again, the eradication of smallpox doesn't quite seem meager to me.

It does to me, when the purpose of the organization is to avoid international conflict.  That's like saying Obama isn't a terrible president because he made a half-court shot while shooting hoops one day.

[TheGlobalizer]

A pointless way of spending a lot of time, energy, and money to obtain very meager results.

Again, the eradication of smallpox doesn't quite seem meager to me.

It does to me, when the purpose of the organization is to avoid international conflict.  That's like saying Obama isn't a terrible president because he made a half-court shot while shooting hoops one day.

Is that the purpose, though?  Humanitarian aid and health programs like UNICEF and WHO have been part of the UN for quite some time.  I think there's a real divide in thread between people that judge the UN by the bulls**t puppet theater of the General Assembly and the people like me that judge the UN by what it actually does with UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, and so on.

Yes, that is the purpose.  If you want to include all of the UN agencies, I'd call it an expansive, overreaching bureaucracy with an imprimatur of legitimacy that allows it to achieve positive outcomes.  Fine, but I don't like mucking up the peacemaking function with charity, particularly as the charity part becomes more and more a global social justice function.  It threatens to undermine the inherent value of  the "bulls**t puppet theater".