Confronting the Ruling Elite

TRANSCEND VIDEOS, 21 Jun 2021

Chris Hedge interviews Richard Falk | RT – TRANSCEND Media Service

5 Jun 2021 – Richard Falk joins Chris Hedges for a new episode of “On Contact.” Falk has denounced what he calls “the global legalization of rogue behavior embedded in the UN Charter” which vests a right of veto in the five permanent members of the Security Council, the only organ within the UN system with the authority to reach binding decisions.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOQmwqa0zjY
Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Distinguished Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, UCSB, author, co-author or editor of 60 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs. In 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Falk to two three-year terms as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and associated with the local campus of the University of California, and for several years chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book is On Nuclear Weapons, Denuclearization, Demilitarization, and Disarmament (2019).

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. Until this month, he wrote a weekly column for the online magazine Truthdig. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America show On Contact.


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2 Responses to “Confronting the Ruling Elite”

  1. I very much enjoyed listening to the conversation between Richard Falk and Chris Hedges.

    What I don’t understand and wish Mr Falk could explain to me is:

    1) what else can we expect from the UN, and from the UN Security Council?
    2) UN is a ‘global’ institution. What’s wrong then with “the global legalization of rogue behavior”?
    3) How can the legalization of murder, we call ‘war’, be avoided when politicians’ duty is to promote the war
    industry?
    4) what else can politicians do (in partnership with the Media) other than ‘manipulate the truth’? how can they
    conceal their immoral, inhuman, inhumane and corrupt practices without lying?
    5) how can the Industrial Military Complex exist and produce $$$$$$s for politicians, as well as keep
    millions in employment without ‘UN’s five permanent members of the Security Council’ reaching ‘binding
    decisions’?
    6) how can the UN five permanent members of the Security Council (Russia, USA, UK, China, France) keep the
    ‘Global Death Industry’ alive (Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Canada, India, Pakistan,
    Australia, Israel, Turkey , New Zealand, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Poland, Romania and
    Hungary) without concocting, planning, organizing armed conflicts?
    7) how can the UN help the African Continent live in Peace, develop and prosper when they actually help 11
    African countries manufacture their own weapons (apart from the killing toys Europe, America, China, Russia,
    and Australia sell them?) In Africa alone, 16 billion units of military ammunition are produced every year.
    There are small arms and ammunition enough to shoot every man, woman and child on the planet twice.”
    8) what else can the UN General Secretary do other fulfill his obligations, for which he’s paid an excellent salary?
    Like any ‘secretary’, he has to obey instructions from those who pay his salary. If member countries wish to
    have a war, the General Secretary has to ensure war takes place.

    The job itself is so unacceptable and immoral, the General Secretary has no option other than do like his bosses: manipulate the truth. Can Mr Falk imagine himself as UN Secretary General, having to convince the entire planet he’s working to secure Peace and respect for Human Rights, whilst facilitating the killing of millions? what a nightmare of a job!

    To me, the terrible state of affairs, worldwide, lies in humanity’s gullibility and passivity; in accepting the idiotic idea that Armed Forces are necessary, for their defense and security. Nothing more absurd.

    Alberto

  2. The real UN or the Security Council is the persons working in the system. We shall have to set right the persons to set right the UN and the Security Council and Other Specialized Agencies of the UN, which are working for security and peace for all everywhere. And there is a possibility if the persons in the UN system is set right, the UN System will automatically will be set right. Therefore universal peace education, which is mother of justice and grandmother of peace that is integral manifestation of universally inherent five elements, viz. body, vitality, mind, intellect and spirit in everyone, is a must for all the persons in the UN system for better service to all mankind everywhere and free from any confrontation with any persons who are also perpetually educated in Universal Peace Education having the same five elements to be human, just and peaceful.

    This author also condemned the Security Council, which five members out of 15 have Vito powers to halt or issue any decisions. For more details, one may refer to the article of this author cited below:

    Grand Design for Universal Peace Education for Global Good Governance through the New UN.
    THE UNITED NATIONS, 9 Apr 2018
    Surya Nath Prasad, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
    https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/04/grand-design-for-universal-peace-education-for-global-good-governance-through-the-new-un/

    This author also submitted his answers to the United Nations Institute for Training and Research-UNITAR (Geneva, Switzerland) on July 14, 2000 for its question:

    How could the United Nations better fulfill their tasks in the field of Peace and Security? One may refer to the article of this author:

    Peace and Security through the United Nations
    THE UNITED NATIONS, 27 Oct 2014
    By Surya Nath Prasad, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/10/peace-and-security-through-the-united-nations/

    Some signatory nation States are the most violators of human rights as it is evident from the Report of Amnesty International. The Human Rights Organization’s Global Survey Report covers 142 countries and uncovers massive and ruthless violation of human rights in practically every part of the world. It unfolds a sordid tale of man’s inhumanity to man.

    Even UN peace keepers have been violators of human rights. The 34 page report, which was published by The Washington Post, accuses UN peace keepers from Morocco, Pakistan and Nepal of seeking to obstruct UN efforts to investigate a sexual abuse scandal that has damaged the UN’s standing in Congo. UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan said there was “clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place” in the United Nations’ Congo Mission, which began in 2000.

    A confidential report prepared by Prince Zeid Raad Al-Hussein – Jordan’s Ambassador to UN – dated November 08, 2004, says the exploitation “appears to be significant, widespread and ongoing”. Fifty countries represented in the UN’s Congo Mission. American Soldiers in Iraq, who were supposed to bring democracy and peace there, did inhuman deeds there.

    Then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the United States and the United Kingdom must “take a strong and firm stand to ensure that those kind of activities are not repeated, because it does do damage, as you can see from reactions in the region.

    Hence, the United Nations needs Universal Peace Education for better service to the sustainable peace and security for all everywhere.

    One may refer also for Universal Peace Education:

    The Chapter on “Universal Peace Education: Concept, Meaning and Practice” By Surya Nath Prasad, Ph.D. included in the book:
    Pour une éducation à la paix dans un monde violent (For Peace Education in a Violent World) Edited by Obrillant Damus, Christoph Wulf, Joseph P. Saint-Fleur, Denis Jeffrey Published by L’Harmattan, 2017: Paris, France
    https://translate.google.co.in/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp%3Fnavig%3Dcatalogue%26obj%3Dlivre%26no%3D58155&prev=search

    A Video at UCN News Channel on
    Universal Peace Education
    By Prof. Surya Nath Prasad
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS10fxIuvik