The U.N. Security Council isn’t terribly democratic. It is weighted toward Europe and the U.S.A. Shouldn’t it have a representative composition of the people of the world? Wouldn’t Chile, India and Egypt better reflect opinion from the majority populous of the world rather than exclusively those with nukes and high tech military? Isn’t the opinion of the world’s poor majority important too? The Security Council has three N.A.T.O. members plus China and Russia as permanent members; so it is easy for the Council to churn out pro-N.A.T.O. propaganda. Can a N.A.T.O. vs. Russia and China council secure peace when the members are belligerants? The lesson to learn may be that getting more nuclear weapons is the way to get a permanent seat on the council. Perhaps North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and India belong there as much as Britain and France, or will. When they have enough nukes if that’s what counts.
The armistice ending the First World War gave unfavorable terms to Germany. The Allies had a great military and economic advantage and used it to lever concessions. Historians have remarked that the terms that ended W.W.1. were a large part of the cause for the Second World War. Germany sought to recover its lost lands (including Ruhr Valley land) and more. A generation interval between the first and second World Wars passed as did a generation pass before the unfavorable terms given to Russia at the conclusion of the Cold War led to the start of the Russian war on Ukraine to recover lost land. President Clinton leading an asymmetrically militarily advantaged west firmed up the downsizing omentance parameters for making nations out of the evil empire.
The lesson learned by the greatest generation that giving good terms to the defeated was lost by boomer leadership. If the Security Council wasn’t sometimes a mouthpiece for rich western nations maybe the prospects for the development of World War Three presently would not be so great. It may not be that Democrats made vast left-wing conspiracies great again; it could be deep blundering ignorance of history (except for carpet bagging) and precedence that brought crap policy to the top of the party tank recurrently to overflow boundaries of good sense. Socialist-corporatists of left Eurasia versus capitalistic nationalists on the right may stike enough sparks to ignite unprecedented conflict scaled up substantially from the war that left 60 million people dead.
A Muslim nation that is also African, like Egypt ,would be useful addition to the security council to express opinion of a substantial portion of the world’s people. These days the word democracy is bandied about by rich nations as if plutocracy wasn’t equally descriptive of their govertnment form with wealth being concentrated in the U.S.A. equaling that of the gilded age. The economic ideas of rich nations tend to reflect 18th century Adam Smith capitalism -ideas that have been adapted to preclude elimination of poverty through a though rich nations can easily afford it. Democracy has been made to mean that it cannot eliminate poverty without being socialist, and that is a condemning fiction the U.N. ought not acquiesse in.
Authoritarianism arises when any sort of powerful insider group represses a majority or even significant minority of the population economically and for limits free expression of political speech. Authoritarianism can exist within democracy, socialism, communism, fascism, monarchy etc. as it identifies people to be repressed by overt, covert, official and unofficial social and political power. Banning representation of the majority of world population from membership on the U.N. Security council is repressive. It is an example of the rule of force held over from colonial era mentalities regarding non-whites being below the capacity of whites for civil governance.
In Being and Nothingness Jean Paul Sartre remarked that the fundamental relation of the listener to radio broadcasts is impotence. Listeners are mute receivers of propaganda and political spin of the rich and empowered. Internet blogging and print-on-demand publishing are free for all the people and not exclusive like broadcasting( social media search engine listings are indirectly manipulated to censor select writers unfortunately).
The U.N. Security Council should have proportional representation of the world population so billions of the people of the planet aren’t in effect mute listeners of propaganda and political narratives of the rich with powerful technological tools. Radio broadcasts are no longer as powerful as they were at shaping human politics. Blogging has cut down the height of the stilts, however radio continues to be like networked sniper towers of Nazis targeting p.o.w.s with different political opinions and ideas for economic competition. The Security Council shouldn’t remain a broadcast sniper tower for the rich minority to the poor majority of the planet to reinforce their decisions about what wars are right or wriong. Maybe the poor if on the security council would have condemned U.S. and N.A.T.O. financing of the Ukraine war- we shall never know...of course the rich could bribe the poor to vote their way- it’s happened before in similar circumstances.
Much of human social interaction stems from first-person point-of-view dialectics. Jean Paul Sartre recognized the phenomenon and implicitly developed its themes in the expositions Being and Nothingness and The Critique of Dialectical Reason. The philosopher described various relations of point of view an individual may have toward himself, toward others and collectively; sharing the point of view or perspective in common with others. Familiar terms from Sartre’s development like being-for-oneself, being-for-others and being-in-itself arise in Being and Nothingness with the perspectives elaborated in the context of society in his next tome The Critique of Dialectical Reason.
Authorities, the broadcast media and individuals including yet not limited to government are on occasion like the parable of blind men and the elephant; they work with a world view of praxis in group and collective behavior. Instead of perceiving the elephant they manufacture it each with their own contribution to its being-in-time as praxis.
Wars are the product of praxis and various decisions. Economics and war are live human praxis, serialized praxis and ossified praxis combined. Existing physical infrastructure is ossified praxis. Monarchs and other elites have on occasion had the power to manufacture praxis for others. They would have options for seeking good-for-others or bad-for-others and of course good-for-themself or bad-for-themself in various proportions with the former options.
Individuals may be observers of others without the intention to affect others. Observation and self-awareness are primary perspectives. Collective perspectives can be common political narratives evolving like whale song over great distances pr nearby. Politicians sometimes have the opportunity to not buy in to a prevailing narrative praxis that has become serialized praxis. They can demure and select actions-for-others based on the benefit to themselves for increasing power for themselves or preferred groups. Wars are encouraged and reinforced rather than peace because peace is not valued as highly as successful war. Use-truth group perspectives tend to be biased in favor of preferred-narrative praxis. Consequences of failing to achieve goals are downplayed or set aside.
I am pro-American rather than pro-Russian or pro-Ukrainian. I have no idea why Democrats lined up so solidly behind Ukraine against Russian interests. Perhaps they hold Russians accountable for Soviet communism. Lenin wasn’t entirely an ethnic Russian, Trotsky was a Jew named Leon Bronstein and Stalin was Georgian. Most Russians were serfs that had communism forced upon them from above. It might have seemed preferable to being a serf. Maybe American blacks would have initially welcomed communism if it had freed them from slavery before the Civil War. Lenin turned toward mixed economic with a policy allowing modest free enterprise before he had three strokes and died in his unfinished career. Stalin cancelled that.
U.S. interests would have been far better served with Russia as a strong economic partner sharing global security with Europe and other nations. Planetary ecological priorities and a reduction of terrorism could have developed. As it stands I have no idea what rational or irrational end game strategy Democrats have concerning Russia and Ukraine. Maybe they see nothing more than winning the war for Ukraine with copious free finance flowing and absolute sanctions on Russia. That may not be realistic. The paradigm is of limited scope with blinders on.
Russia has many options and opportunities as an adversary to bring substantial non-nuclear harm to U.S. interests. President Putin is not the leader of Al Qaeda or Isis yet he could facilitate those and sundry organizations with material, financial and logistics support. President Putin can allow Muslim extremists free sanctuaries for training, he could trade nuclear weapons to Iran for various forms of war help. I have no idea was his strategy is, yet it will be a minor miracle if no direct harm through cut outs occurs in the U.S.A. One recalls the Czarnaev affair in Boston and the Las Vegas massacre and wonders how difficult it would be with the insecure U.S. borders for well trained hirelings to enter the nation and wreak havoc on U.S. economic infrastructure. Maybe Democrats are counting on regime change in Russia to finish their work, and they expect Joe Biden or Kamala Harris to get that done eventually.
An end game strategy for normalizing global political relations would now seem to stretch out over the horizon to twenty years at a time when critical economic and environmental changes and improvements should proceed that won’t in a divided world. In S.E. Alaska there were no freezing days this year. October is forecast to have just two at the end of the month, at night. The water temperature was 57 degrees. Tropical is 80 farhenheit isn’t it?
If the war progressed to Democrat satisfaction Russia would retreat to 1991 borders of the former Soviet Union and Putin would be charged with top leadership with war crimes. Presumably sanctions and hostility would continue until Mr. Putin was removed to the Hague. However the scenario seems improbable; Russia isn’t Serbia and Mr. Putin likely will let conservative Russian nationalists follow him when he leaves office- hence he may be secure twenty years or more in Russia and not evolve into a situation like Kurt Honecker’s fate at the end of the Cold War. Special forces probably won’t be able to fly in and arrest Mr. Putin in five years without very serious consequences.
Russia and China could cooperate more and corner the East Asian market thanks to western tutelage of China in business and manufacture. Russians aren’t slouches at science and weapons development; working with China and half time Indian partners in economics a major realignment could transpire unfavorable to western economic and environmental interests. The future is now murky,and convoluted. It is challenging to extrapolate scenarios for resolution of the conflict that have stability. Finding new policy determinations are equally challenging as Democrat policy has made sow’s ears of silk purses.
I believe it is important to have a balanced political perspective in the United nations if it is to exist. There should be proportionate political representation of world population on the security council instead of being a mouthpiece for N.A.T.O. members U.S.A. Britain and France if it is to reflect actual values of democracy or world population.
