the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Oct 2, 2017
On September 19th, Trump addressed the United Nations. Along with his nationalist and militaristic threats came criticism of the U.N. itself. “The United Nations was founded on truly noble goals,” said Trump, but “in recent years the United Nations has not reached its full potential, because of bureaucracy and mismanagement.”
The U.N. was not actually founded for “noble aims.” It was created at the end of World War II by the victorious powers to assure their hegemony over the entire world. And the U.S. has used the U.N. to justify its military occupations and interventions as the defense of international law. This was the story in the Korean War, in Iraq during the 1991 war, and on many other occasions.
The U.N. has never functioned democratically, but instead reflects the real relationship of forces among the imperialist powers. The permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the U.S., Russia, France, Britain and China, each has the right to veto any decision which runs counter to its interests.
The U.N. was set up to help those big powers deal with the crises created by the imperialist order and by an economy dominated by giant corporations with no interest but maximizing their profit. It has been, since its beginning, an instrument to maintain some semblance of world stability. The leaders of the imperialist powers, including Trump, don’t intend to throw it away.