August 12, 2002
The time seems ripe for the United Nations to centre out Canada for its policies on racism. Wishy-washy Bill Graham, after all, is Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister.
Before Canada, it was Australia.
That was two years ago, and Australian President John Howard is no Bill Graham.
Since his continent goes a long way to curb racism, he announced that UN observers had better have prima facie evidence of discrimination when they come calling, or stay out of Australia.
As Canada’s National Post stated in a recent editorial, "Canada is one of the world’s strongest democracies, with constitutional government firmly entrenched and a hair-trigger human rights apparatus that roars into action when the slightest hint of discrimination is alleged. We have no need to prostrate ourselves before the UN."
When UN officials call into question those countries with strong anti-discrimination policies, they call attention to the absurdity of the United Nations.
As the Post correctly points out. "The human rights abuses that require the UN’s attention aren’t in Australia or Canada, but are taking place in countries such as Zimbabwe, where farmers are being murdered and pillaged with impunity by mobs closely controlled by the government; or in Iran, where fundamentalist gangs enforce brutal summary justice on people who don’t share their rigid interpretation of Islam. But when was the last time the UN took decisive action against those regimes? UN functionaries prefer the path of least resistance: Rather than take dictators to task, they lambaste Anglo-American democracies such as Canada, which are more likely to meekly submit.
There is no doubt it is safer for UN observers to roam the Canadian prairies or the outback Down Under than it is to go hunting for racism in Iran.
by Henry Lamb
Tommy Thompson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, went to Barcelona earlier this week to speak to the U.N.'s 14th International Conference on AIDS.
He was booed and shouted down for 15 minutes by ActUp activist-idiots.
This could not have happened without U.N. approval. The U.N. carefully screens all applications for attendance, accredits those organizations it allows to participate and refuses to allow other organizations to enter. Moreover, security at these meetings is intense — inside the buildings as well as outside.
At the U.N. conference in Rome, at which the International Criminal Court was adopted in 1998, my organization, Sovereignty International, was not allowed to participate as a non-government organization. We sent a representative as a reporter. We tried to distribute some of our literature which expressed opposition to the ICC. It was immediately removed from the tables, and we were instructed not to try to further distribute our "unapproved" material.
At virtually every U.N. climate change meeting, for which our organization is accredited, our literature is systematically removed from display tables and our written comments to the delegates are systematically withheld.
The U.N. controls these meetings with an iron fist.
Two years ago, U.S. Ambassador Frank Loy, got a pie in the face, thrown by idiot activists.
At Durban, South Africa, U.S. delegates were ridiculed at a U.N. Conference on Human Rights, and they walked out. They did the right thing.
Tommy Thompson should have walked out of the conference in Spain. The U.S. should walk out of the entire U.N. fiasco.
The U.N. allows, if not encourages, these events because it wants to use the media attention to embarrass the U.S. into submission. The U.N. is not satisfied with the amount of money the U.S. is contributing to AIDS, or to anything else on the U.N. agenda.
Much of the money we do contribute through the U.N. never gets to the intended recipients, but goes to administrative uses, including paying for most of the delegates to attend these international conferences so they can ridicule the U.S. in front of the world media.
Enough, already. The United States should simply stop sending money to the U.N. Period. Not another penny should be spent on any agency within this organization until a congressional committee reviews the work of the agency and certifies that its work is consistent with the policies, principles and goals of the U.S.
Most of the work of the U.N. is not consistent with the policies and principles of the U.S. In fact, the U.N. operates on a socialist philosophy. The U.N.'s Agenda 21, the bible of "sustainable development," preaches a doctrine completely opposite of America's vision of individual freedom, free enterprise and limited government empowered by the consent of the governed.
It is high time that U.S. citizens recognize this reality and tell the government to stop flushing U.S. dollars down the U.N. sewer. The United States should ignore the U.N., beginning with the World Summit on Sustainable Development scheduled to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August. U.S. delegates should not give these global-governance activists the opportunity to use the media to ridicule the U.S. again.
The president should not even consider attending this event.
For more than 50 years, the U.S. has propped up the U.N. only to be slapped in the face by its proponents at every opportunity. It will only get worse.
The United States should not withdraw from the world; we should lead the world. Instead of wasting our money on U.N. programs, we should help those nations that want to discover the principles of freedom — nations that want to let their people learn how to enjoy the God-given rights they have been denied.
All people should be free to acquire knowledge — unfiltered by the state. All people should be free to express their opinions — without fear of prosecution by the state. All people should be free to control their own government — instead of being controlled by it.
The Johannesburg conference proposes to impose Agenda 21 on the world. The United States should be about sharing Freedom 21 with the world — advancing the principles of freedom in the 21st century.
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.
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