More thoughts on the UN

Anyone who thinks rationally has to admit that Kofi Annan has failed in his duties. That hasn't stopped the left from swarming to his defense in an irrational attempt to save an obviously failed and dying organization. Wretchard writes about the craven attempts of a few US lawmakers, led by Dennis Kuchinich, to excuse Annan's behavior and assign blame to the US for the problems at the UN.

The one thing that struck me the most about what Wretchard wrote is this statement.

The implicit assumption underlying this discourse is that "we" -- and not you -- ask the questions. The United Nations and no one else sits in judgement. That's final: it is International Law. As Robert Kaplan pointed out in The Media and Medievalism, the most powerful tool of totalitarianism is to don the guise of righteousness and assume "the right to question and to demand answers, the right to judge and condemn, and the right to pardon and show mercy." It is in the end an attempt to usurp the wellsprings of legitimacy. Do you hold it to be self-evident that you have the right "to assume among the Powers of the Earth" a separate and equal station? That's being a rogue nation. Do you presume that "that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". That is not in the Koran. It is illegitimate and utterly intolerant to impose such a view upon anyone, even upon yourselves.

The Internet, through blogs and other means, is destroying the established order of the world. The power brokers who decide what will be told and what will not, who will win and who will lose, are losing their power to the truth, told by simple people the world over.

The media, politicians and rulers are no longer the gatekeepers for information. Many countries, such as North Korea and China, Russia, Iran, and others are struggling with this reality and desparately hanging on to power even as it ebbs away. The world we live in may not be recognizable in ten years. Twenty at the most. In that time, the information age will have destroyed the old ways and brought entirely new, unanticipated problems that we'll have to grabble with.