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The United States withdraws from UNESCO

state.gov

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Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#811

Post by Sabinus »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #481
eapressoandcats wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s reasonable to conclude that Israel is more willing to continue to commit atrocities against the Palestinians than the US was against the Japanese. Like, I genuinely think Netanyahu is perusing a “ Lebensraum” strategy with Palestine. This is evidenced by their support of right wing Israeli settlers in Palestinian territory. I’ve come to this realization as a Jewish person who was brought up on “Israel ha…

That's an odd point of view. With Operation Downfall, the Americans were planning literal genocide against the Japanese. If they hadn't surrendered after the atomic bombs, the projections were as high as 5-10 MILLION Japanese casualties (with several hundred thousand on the Allied side), precisely because Japanese policy had been to arm the citizenry with rakes and hoes if it came to that - i.e., the Japanese refusal…

> Operation Downfall, the Americans were planning literal genocide against the Japanese.

If you're at war and your opponent has lost but is foreign to the idea of surrender and fights to the last man, and you oblige him, you are pursuing war not genocide.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#812

Post by overfeed »

SllX wrote: post #771
rs186 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder if officials at UNESCO even cares about the decision. "Oh that again?" Probably already used to this.

They’re never happy about the loss of money. For UN institutions, the US usually contributes a theoretical cap of about 22% but in real terms I think it’s more like a quarter of their annual budget or a little over in some cases. When we’re not paying, that’s a lot of money that UNESCO isn’t getting.

Predictably, if/when China becomes the premier funder of UN organizations, there will be a lot of grousing about it by US politicians. The amount of soft-power being trashed is astounding

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#813

Post by geoka9 »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #517
Pet_Ant wrote: post #495

I feel like the US is becoming like China. Very economically important obviously, but will end up culturally irrelevant. It's hard to build up that much ill-will and still be considered glamorous. I can be wrong, and this isn't my personal judgement, but a genuine prediction.

China is bery culturally relevant and rising. But otherwise yeah I agree with you

> China is bery culturally relevant

Sure, every country is. But I think what the OP meant is that US cultural artifacts are (have been so far) much more in demand. I don't remember the last time I watched a Chinese movie or listened to a Chinese band... It could be because I'm in a western country, but I've also lived in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and American movies, music and literature were much more popular there, too.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#814

Post by DSingularity »

ActorNightly wrote: post #768
lbrito wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an ongoing genocide happening in the US?

There are other genocides happening in Myanmar and Sudan that nobody talks about. And as far as US, you had a distinct movement that was against Kamala specifically because she was pro Israel. I really don't understand the obsession with this particular conflict to the point where you feel like you are in the moral right by essentially punishing US people and making it worse for the people you care about (in terms of…

You don’t get why people would be upset that their politicians are green lighting a genocide? The Americans have blood on their hands when it comes to Gaza and the same cannot be said about other conflicts.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#815

Post by SllX »

overfeed wrote: post #812
SllX wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re never happy about the loss of money. For UN institutions, the US usually contributes a theoretical cap of about 22% but in real terms I think it’s more like a quarter of their annual budget or a little over in some cases. When we’re not paying, that’s a lot of money that UNESCO isn’t getting.

Predictably, if/when China becomes the premier funder of UN organizations, there will be a lot of grousing about it by US politicians. The amount of soft-power being trashed is astounding

We’re the ones seeking to cap our contributions. The formula currently doesn’t allow for any one country to pay more than 22% with America the only one actually paying that much, save for the institutions we’ve cut off. For UN peacekeeping we’re actually assessed at 27% but Congress capped that to 25% back in 1993.

https://betterworldcampaign.org/us-funding-for-the-un/un-bud...

If any other country wants to step in and fill the gap, I don’t think Congress will care.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#816

Post by bigcat12345678 »

kindkang2024 wrote: post #563
bigcat12345678 wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> To ask Palestine government to do anything meaningful, yes, they have done a lot Yes, but still not enough, or its people's survival will not depend on the kindness of others. In my opinion, it's not a competent government, at least based on its performance so far.

Wow!!! You are not contributing to this discussion whatsoever!

+1 for me to quit posting on hn

This type of word spinning is distasteful, and more importantly, it's a sign of significantly weaker mind capacity than past level I recall joined hn 10ish years ago.

The first thing you should be doing, is to read the link, fire up AI deep research with some neutrally toned question to gather information.

The reason hn drew me in, was people actually always aim for contributing to the discussion constructively. That's not the norm nowadays.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#817

Post by skybrian »

landl0rd wrote: post #799
skybrian wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that many people if divided up among many countries. These don't seem like reasons not to accept women and children from a war zone as refugees. Perhaps with some limits.

Exactly. It's not that many people and they still get into a ton of trouble. That seems like an excellent reason to either not accept them, or to enforce that they need to be dispersed widely enough to prevent forming a community and conducting violence in its name until they're back in palestine. Like we can even blame the way things are on the israelis, or at least majorly on them, but that doesn't change the calcu…

Have any European countries volunteered to take more refugees from Gaza? (I wouldn't expect such a thing from the Trump administration.)

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#818

Post by CWuestefeld »

Sabinus wrote: post #811
CWuestefeld wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an odd point of view. With Operation Downfall, the Americans were planning literal genocide against the Japanese. If they hadn't surrendered after the atomic bombs, the projections were as high as 5-10 MILLION Japanese casualties (with several hundred thousand on the Allied side), precisely because Japanese policy had been to arm the citizenry with rakes and hoes if it came to that - i.e., the Japanese refusal…

> Operation Downfall, the Americans were planning literal genocide against the Japanese. If you're at war and your opponent has lost but is foreign to the idea of surrender and fights to the last man, and you oblige him, you are pursuing war not genocide.

Can we apply this to the current conflict in Gaza?

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#819

Post by ashoeafoot »

overfeed wrote: post #812
SllX wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re never happy about the loss of money. For UN institutions, the US usually contributes a theoretical cap of about 22% but in real terms I think it’s more like a quarter of their annual budget or a little over in some cases. When we’re not paying, that’s a lot of money that UNESCO isn’t getting.

Predictably, if/when China becomes the premier funder of UN organizations, there will be a lot of grousing about it by US politicians. The amount of soft-power being trashed is astounding

Eh china finances a ton of members, who better vote in line as debtors should

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#820

Post by dismalaf »

kennywinker wrote: post #731
dismalaf wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ministry of health has published id numbers of the dead, which means you can do stats and tell if the data is fake. On top of that, so far (afaik since 2009 when hamas came to power) nobody has caught them in a lie. So they’ve a track record of telling the truth, and give us data that we can smell-test for fraud and it passes. If you comment that they give us this data, surely you have a link to said data?

Surely you have the ability to google and find out for yourself. I don’t know if the data is available to the public, or just to journalists - but numerous reputable outlets have reported on this.

> The ministry of health has published id numbers of the dead, which means you can do stats and tell if the data is fake.

> I don’t know if the data is available to the public, or just to journalists

Do you know what "published" means?

Hint, public and publish come from the same root word...

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