The UN, that last bastion of Imperialism. Real news from Japan

With the tragedy in Japan and the continuing body count in Christchurch continuing to rise it's not surprising that the UN has decided to impose itself on oil rich Libya and back the anti-Gaddhafi rebels and thus taking away press time from those issues. You can read about it here. Well suffice to say this should slow down the Libyans and could force them to negotiate a settlement, which will apparently allow a democratic regime (although neither side is in any way suggesting this, we just assume it must be so). With Russia and China not voting the US, UK and France passed this resolution and another chapter in colonialism is written. No, this is not a tinfoil hat conspiracy thing, the UN was created with the idea the the US, UK and USSR would impose peace on the world (read Churchill's history of WWII for all the relevant discussions). France and China were added by the UK and US respectively (Chiang Kai-shek's China of course). It was never meant to be anything but a place for these powers to dominate and stop another European war. Once the Cold War began the whole concept fell apart and you now have the mess that is the UN. Since then, it has been used time and time again to interfere in former colonies. It comes from an incredible sense of moral superiority that assumes that western values = good, progressive and righteous. It's the same sort of arrogance that first sent Portuguese missionaries to Brazil, Dutch traders to Indonesia and British naval ships to India. Our morals may have changed but out attitude towards imposing them on others remains the same. Now I am no fan of Gaddhafi, but this rebel group is taking over in a military coup with no democratic representation the same way Gaddhafi did. Claiming to speak for all Libyans does not make it so (note: Gaddhafi does the same thing). I just wish that western powers would finally learn from their mistakes and butt out of everyone else's business. It always creates more problems than it solves. Remember that Gaddhafi's coup was in response to a British imposed government in Libya, just as Al Qaeda were a US tool (though not creation) used and made very powerful to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Ahmedinejad in Iran and that government is the result of a revolution to remove a dictator imposed by the US and UK (who was put in place after a democratically elected Iranian government was overthrown by said powers because it was too friendly towards the USSR). I'll not bore you with more examples, but even a simple google search can teach you these things. Obama and Cameron can use google can't they?

In real news The US and France have asked their citizens to leave Japan amid fears of a meltdown of the nuclear plant in northern Honshu. This is a situation that does require attention and I hope people who have not already done so choose to donate now. I always like Red Cross but my buddy Geoff recommended directrelief.org. Don't know much about it but he's sure they are good. Also, all non-essential travel to Japan has been suspended. While the reactor going off is not expected to do much damage outside of the area that has already been evacuated it would leave a chunk of Japan uninhabitable and spread radiation to neighbouring countries or (hopefully) out to sea depending on the wind. While Chinese, Koreans and Russians will probably not be exposed to anything nearing fatal levels, it would still damage soil and pollute drinking water. It's a terrible situation that doesn't seem to be getting any better. Again, if you haven't done so already, please donate to help them out.