Comments on: If George Clooney really wants to be a “Messenger of Peace”…

By: WR Jonas

WR Jonas — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:53:32 +0000

Two great efforts. Claudias’ column and John Browns comment. I heartily agree with Mr.Brown. Let the UN perish of its own irrelevance.

By: johnbrown

johnbrown — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:43:54 +0000

During the fifty-odd years of my life, there have been a number of positive developments: The liberation of Europe and Asia from Soviet Communism; the removal of the apartheid regime in South Africa; the fall of dictatorships in large parts of Latin America, and the spread of successful food-production and disease eradication techniques. Of all of these events, the United Nations has played little or no part (with the exception of the WHO, but only in a limited capacity). (I should probably include the economic development which has added some twenty years to each human being’s expected lifespan, to which the UN has added nothing.)
On the negative side of the ledger are the genocides in Biafra, Rwanda, the Congo, the Balkans, Ethiopia, East Timor, Cambodia, the Sudan, and a few other places; the spread of AIDs; organized Islamofascism, and the recent resurgence of dictatorship in Russia and Asia. The United Nations has made efforts to prevent most of these things, with no success whatever; indeed, their ineffective interventions have furnished the nations of the world with an easy excuse to ignore such crises.
I have no trouble with the UN elevating Mr. Clooney to the post of messenger of peace, or lizard king, or whatever: it’s the only thing it can do, and may even keep it from intervening in affairs in the real world. But do we need to grant respectability to such activities? It would be easy for the United States to formally withdraw from the UN, while maintaining its ties with such internationanl bodies as the WHO that actually do accomplish something. There’s no reason to believe that such organizations as NATO or the EU would disappear; indeed, they would become stronger, as they pick up responsibilities which now belong to the UN (and so are not now being handled). As an added bonus, there would be less of a parking problem in Manhattan. Let’s get out of the damn thing, and let it die of the irrelevance
it so richly works for.

By: J.D. Silentio

J.D. Silentio — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:25:48 +0000

Claudia, as usual, you’re right on the mark. Clooney’s celebrity only serves to distract from the myriad obvious failures and allow the UN to escape scruitiny.

This reader wishes that the UN and US support of it would become an election issue. I highly doubt that the UN would last very long if it received half the scruitiny given to Presidential candidates for a solid week. But I won’t be holding my breath!

By: shockcorridor

shockcorridor — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:38:40 +0000

Sure MojoJojo, not like the UN has earned any of those “insults.”

By: tanstaafl

tanstaafl — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:21:11 +0000

Clooney’s appointment is in keeping with “The UN’s” succession of vapid and meaningless gestures.

I’d hoped Ban Ki-Moon could ratchet the place up a few notches, maybe undo some of the self-serving dithering (and probably outright corruption) of his predecessor.

I swore not to condemn Moon for his first year in office. It was very hard to bite my tongue (keyboard, actually) when Moon uttered his near brain dead observations on global warming.

But the gloves are off, and now I’m just for moving “The UN” to Antarctica.

By: william

william — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:47:47 +0000

It seems to me that artistic talent and political maturity are inversely proportional. Has anyone rented a Ronald Reagan film recently? Tom Cruise has made any number of really terrific films, but I think even George Clooney would agree that Reagan had better judgement than Cruise. The ability to make an entertaining movie is an enviable and lucrative skill, but like, say throwing a 90mph fastball, it has no carryover to the larger world of politics.

By: MojoJojo

MojoJojo — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:56:31 +0000

Why does the UN only promote leftist, blame America hacks?

Maybe because all of the right wing hacks would rather insult the UN rather than try to do good through it.

By: VRWC

VRWC — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:03:58 +0000

Let’s all remember this about Clooney; In 2005 he won an Oscar for some film he did attacking Joe McCarthy. His acceptance speech was all about how brave Hollywood, i.e. Clooney, was, essentially patting himself on the back for bravely attacking a Senator who had been dead for fifty years. Meanwhile, completely ignored was the murder by an islamofascist of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh for making a film critical of islam, the “religion of peace”. Clooney is a self aggrandizing tool.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:38:17 +0000

(UN) “Messenger of Peace”

This title is actually a Badge of Dishonor, much like the Nobel Peace Prize has become.

Clooney has a chance to distinguish himself by using his designation to be loudly critical of UN shortcomings and misdeeds in an effort to improve it. He should reject the easy road, bowing to the UN and becoming the standard fund-raising Famous Face the UN wants him to be and make a real difference by rocking the boat.

If he does so he will earn my respect and my movie attendance; if he takes the path of least resistance I wont change my current refusal to see one of his movies nor award my respect. I hope someone who knows him alerts him to this article and he reads it and the responses.

By: Don Meaker

Don Meaker — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 05:37:47 +0000

It is no accident that an association of Government Executive branches is supportive of Government Executive Power. Most governments only have, if that, a functioning Executive branch. The Judicial Branch is normally controlled by the Executive. Legislatures are holding grounds for the friends of the executive, until such a time that they are deemed reliable enough to get a position in the Executive or Judicial branches.

For a worthy iteration of what ever comes after the UN, there should be a branch with representation based on population, a branch with representation based on GDP, and a branch elected by the people of each nation. The second branch would block the “soak the rich” efforts. The first would block enslavement of large nations by the small. The third would be the only branch permitted to initiate laws.