391–400 of 989 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Do you truly believe the US involvement in UNESCO was cruft? This is entirely because of Palestine.
[flagged]
America First continues to be Israel First.
1984: U.S. withdraws. 2003: U.S. rejoins. 2011: U.S. stops paying dues after Palestine joins. 2017: U.S. announces withdrawal (effective end of 2018). 2023: U.S. rejoins, pledges to repay dues. 2025: U.S announces withdrawal Seems to be a revolving door
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The online space (Reddit, HN, others) is so deeply embedded with groupthink that people have lost the ability to see other points of view or debate topics of interest. To me it's very clear why the government is leaving UNESCO (and over time the UN at large). The UN is dysfunctional and does not work. It used to be a source of soft power for the States, but hasn't been so for the better part of this century. Meanwhil…
You took out the comment about people howling about change. Why? That seemed the central thesis of your statement. I would argue that it's not practical to burn the current system down without a plan at all for the next system (like the ACA a few years ago. . .) My concern isn't change. My concern is the complete lack of concern for consequences. Like it or not, the US is and has been on the decline in terms of world…
The UN has no power, so dismantling it cannot leave a power vacuum. The US abandoning its overseas policies, that'd leave a power vacuum, because the US has power and projects it. But the UN has no power - it's some UN member states that have power.
Case in point: the general assembly demanded Russia withdraw all military forces from Ukraine. But what are they going to do about Russia ignoring that demand? Nothing, they're powerless.
The US is complicit in the intentional starvation of gaza’s people by israel. At least 15 people have starved to death in the last 24 hours, including an infant. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-gaza-war-hunger-childre... Ragequitting UNESCO over their recognition of palestine is a small part of the project of supporting the ethnic cleansing of gaza and the west bank.
Sweden and the US are “kinda cozy” (I would say at least, from an inside perspective on how Sweden seems to lean in to US interests including copyright enforcements and so forth). However Sweden was the first country to recognise Palestine. Is it possible that the pulling out of UNESCO is further in-line with Trumps “we want to focus on America” fluff, similar to the threats of pulling out of NATO and the actual pull…
And i’m not sure how your sweden example says anything about the US supporting israel’s genocide? Was there something you expected to happen when sweden recognized palestine?
The US is complicit in the intentional starvation of gaza’s people by israel. At least 15 people have starved to death in the last 24 hours, including an infant. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-gaza-war-hunger-childre... Ragequitting UNESCO over their recognition of palestine is a small part of the project of supporting the ethnic cleansing of gaza and the west bank.
Sweden and the US are “kinda cozy” (I would say at least, from an inside perspective on how Sweden seems to lean in to US interests including copyright enforcements and so forth). However Sweden was the first country to recognise Palestine. Is it possible that the pulling out of UNESCO is further in-line with Trumps “we want to focus on America” fluff, similar to the threats of pulling out of NATO and the actual pull…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US ran a $1.8T deficit in 2024. That's objectively scarce funds. Even if the UN doesn't drive a significant portion of the spending, they do not serve the people that are going into debt to fund it.
The US just signed a new law that will expand the deficit further. (I'll leave as an exercise to determine whether the increase from the law is > or A government that does not collect sufficient taxes to fund its priorities can somehow always claim that funds are scarce. But that's a) a choice and b) can be rectified any time by shifting priorities (see: military budget, for ex.) or collecting more revenue. It's fine…
If you're ok with increasing debt to fund UN (and thousand other things) then come out and say so.
BTW: I would love to hear which wars did UN stop?
It seems to me that recently US, not UN, stopped Houthis from bombing ships, stopped India-Pakistan conflict, derailed Iran's nuclear plans and is making progress on Israel-Palestine conflict.
All I hear from UN is pro-palestine, anti-israel virtue signaling and zero action or even a realistic plan to help end those conflicts.