Alternatives to the U.N.

Although news about the oil-for-food scandal continues to get buried in the newspapers, don't let that fool you. We still need a credible organization that can facilitate multi-lateral action on critical world issues. On top of the biggest financial scandal in history, in which world government officials and the UN itself profited directly from monies that were supposed to go to the Iraqi people for food and medicine, the UN elects Sudan to another 3-year term on the UN Human Rights Commission, despite the ethnic cleansing going on there.

While the U.S. has lost a good deal of credibility in the wake of torture allegations, Sudan's re-election is a much larger blow to the credibility of the UN. I say let's get rid of this bogus organization, stop funding it, and replace it with an alternative. There's been quite a bit reported lately about Bush's interest in creating an organization comprising the world's democracies. Here's a December editorial that sums it up nicely. Not that I believe that democracy is necessarily the common factor under which a new multi-national organization needs to unite, but it's the best idea I've seen yet.

Will Somebody Please Distribute This Film?

Disney is apparently blocking Miramax's ability to distribute Michael Moore's new film, Fahrenheit 9/11. First of all, I believe that Disney is well within its rights to do so. However, I do agree with Michael Moore that this shouldn't be happening in a free society.

When media conglomerates are allowed to own too many channels of distribution, its too easy for corporate interests to rule the roost. What you end up getting is de facto censorship because these conglomerates are unwilling to jeopardize their relationships with the government. So essentially, the corporations are acting as an extension of the government.

However, I wish that Michael Moore would stop acting as if he has a legal right to have his film distributed. He should do two things: 1) Try to cut a deal with another distributor, and 2) Attack the system that allows conglomerates to own too big a slice of the media pie.

Mr. Gloom and Doom

A few people who are close to me have mentioned that they've noticed a profound change in my mood and demeanor over the past few months. I'm walking around pissed off a lot, I appear depressed and I dwell on the negative. I can't argue with this.

At the same time, I can't imagine that a person who reads as much as I do about world affairs, follows major stories and offers up a bit of opinion on them would not be affected in some negative way about what's transpiring in the world. I'm seeing a huge trend toward lack of accountability, hypocrisy, corruption and lack of ethical thought in a lot of the things going on in the world. Can you blame me if I act a little depressed because of it?

Take the UN Oil for Food scandal, for instance. If what we've read so far is true, people we trust to do the right thing not only elevated their personal gain above their duty to do the right thing, but the people we trust to inform the public and elevate the issue to the public agenda are also either asleep at the wheel or have hidden motives for not doing what they should be doing right now.

Most of my friends haven't heard of the Oil for Food scandal. Most of what I tell them about allegations and facts that have emerged comes as a total surprise to them. You could argue that they're not reading the newspapers and whatnot, but you also have to admit that the mainstream news media have not given this the level of coverage it deserves. If the allegations are true, or even partly true, this could be the biggest financial scandal in the history of the world. And we're not talking about investors losing little Billy's college fund to crooked corporate executives here. We're talking about people's lives at stake because they weren't getting the food and medicine they were supposed to, while the people who were supposed to be safeguarding the money earmarked for this food and medicine were profiting personally by shirking their responsibilities.

Why does Enron dominate the news agenda and much wider-reaching scandal of a higher order of magnitude not warrant at least the same level of attention? Call me Mr. Gloom and Doom, but I think it's appropriate for me to be feeling a bit upset about this. And yes, it's going to continue to affect me until I see some changes that will bring about accountability and will affirm that we're not going to let this get swept under the rug.

WTF? Why Isn't Anybody Talking About This?

Go read this article and come back. Are you back? Good.

If there is indeed a paper trail that implicates UN officials and foreign heads of government (not to mention Scott Ritter), why the heck isn't everybody going apeshit over it? Here are some high-ranking UN and government officials lining their pockets with money that was meant to help the Iraqi people and the news stories from the mainstream news media amount to a fart in the wind? Has all of this been debunked somewhere and I've simply missed it?

This could be one of the biggest scandals in history and so far I've seen only a few blog posts, a couple stories in Australian newspapers and a couple editorials in the Washington Times. WTF?