cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18629062
According to the debate, they had their reasons. But still – when one hundred and eighty six nations say one thing, and two say another, you have to wonder about the two.
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When even the most reviled dictatorships in the world are voting in favour of the UN recognising food as a right, it sure does make the US look uniquely scummy.
Um. You know you can sell it, right?!
(/s just in case)
when one hundred and eighty six nations say one thing, and two say another, you have to wonder about the two.
Especially when those two are consistently on the wrong side of such votes.
UN resolution A/RES/75/169: Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
- US and Turkey are only votes against, Israel didn’t vote. (You’d think Israel might care more about Nazis but I guess not)
UN resolution A/78/L.5: Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba
- US and Israel are the only votes against ending the embargo.
I could go on, but this pattern holds across numerous issues. USA and Israel’s governments are fucking monsters.
(You’d think Israel might care more about Nazis but I guess not)
I think they care a lot about keeping the “other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”
(You’d think Israel might care more about Nazis but I guess not)
Birds of a feather… and all that.
Another lie: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3949735 Israel was in favour, the us and Ukraine were against and quite a list abstained
you know this is public information, right?
That’s A/76/460, which the person you’re replying to did not mention, and which had the abstains and votes against because of the political context, aka being proposed by russia while they were leading an offensive war under the pretense of denazification. You know that’s public information too, right?
Bother to look further than the first thing you click on next time plz
Are we the baddies?
(I still can’t post images to lemmy.blahaj.zone)
But you can to imgur, grab the direct image URL and then embed it as such:
And to make a button:
[](on-click destination URL)Example:
In this case the image is just 0.9kB, so to save an unnecessary request to Imgur, I used data URI with base64. You can’t do this with larger images due to comment size limitations. Just imagine a normal URL in there.
Thank you. I would like to avoid getting an imagur account.
That just may mean less engagement in Lemmy from this Lemming.
You can upload to imgur without an account.
Use a different instance?
I specifically mentioned Imgur as it doesn’t need an account for that matter, but you can use any image host you’d like.
The whole images database debacle with Lemmy is kind of a big deal, and I have never seen an announcement about it, but I’m on team turning it off on a small instance like blahaj.zone. It’s too much data and this instance is too small to afford that kind of server space. Plus, unless things have changed, there is basically no real server panel for controlling the image database and admins basically have to manage it manually. Which is something that is pretty daunting for some admins.
So yeah, fuck the image support, use imgur, if you’re a blahaj user.
Or use pixelfed.
Well it does mean I’m restricted to text even on c/196
Which might justify why I break the rule now.
Yeah okay but consider: hosting images costs Ada money, and that’s good.
Yes
deleted by creator
Let’s vote right to exist next!
Fucking hell this is the strongest argument I’ve seen thus far that I need to get out of the US. What the hell.
The only issue is to where. I think better to stay but position yourself in a situation were you can make an impact even if a small one.
Edit: I had an earlier vote about a similar resolution, see tacticalsugar’s reply to me for the correct one
Israel abstained, America was the only no vote. Which is still stupid, obviously, but… marginally less so
Ahh my mistake, thank you
No problem! That UN site was a nightmare to navigate, it took me an hour just to find the 2021 voting record, and I only knew it existed because someone else mentioned it in another thread.
I guess. For Israel…
This Committee is meeting at a time when the international community is confronting one of the most serious food-security emergencies in modern history. Hunger is on the rise for the third year in a row, after a decade of progress. And now, for communities already experiencing poverty and hunger, the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately affecting lives by harming how people provide for themselves and feed their families – both today and long after the pandemic subsides. More than 35 million people in South Sudan, Somalia, the Lake Chad Basin, and Yemen are facing severe food insecurity exacerbated by the global pandemic, and in the case of Yemen, potential famine. The United States remains fully engaged and committed to addressing these complex crises.
This resolution rightfully acknowledges the hardships millions of people are facing, and importantly calls on States to support the emergency humanitarian appeals of the UN. However, the resolution also contains many unbalanced, inaccurate, and unwise provisions the United States cannot support. This resolution does not articulate meaningful solutions for preventing hunger and malnutrition or avoiding their devastating consequences.
The United States is concerned that the concept of “food sovereignty” could justify protectionism or other restrictive import or export policies that will have negative consequences for food security, sustainability, and income growth. Improved access to local, regional, and global markets helps ensure food is available to the people who need it most and smooths price volatility. Food security depends on appropriate domestic action by governments, including regulatory and market reforms, that is consistent with international commitments.
We also do not accept any reading of this resolution or related documents that would suggest that States have particular extraterritorial obligations arising from any concept of a “right to food,” which we do not recognize and has no definition in international law.
For these reasons, we request a vote and we will vote against this resolution.
https://usun.usmission.gov/explanation-of-vote-on-a-resolution-on-the-right-to-food/
It all sounds like some very reasonable language, and yet no other countries raised the same objection, including not only countries we are not allied with and don’t generally seem to respect, but also countries we are allied with and do generally seem to respect.
I read it as “hey guys let’s all agree to do this thing, and then we can figure out the details” and US is the singular guy in the meeting who is like “nope, we can’t agree to do it until we’ve split every hair about exactly how it will be done.”
It doesn’t sound reasonable. Its argument is neoliberal economics at its worst:“we don’t want countries to be able to control their own domestic food markets because we want them to be forced to take our exports”, only counched in paternalistic We Know What’s Best For You rhetoric.
Oh I completely agree with that. I was essentially saying “it’s bad things presented with nice words” - I was just trying to be nice about how I said it. Sorry if that didn’t come across. 🙂
Sorry I misinterpreted you! :-)
All good!
correction to what I wrote below: turns out there was a new vote, in a meeting with a bunch of things voted on. The 2021 vote is on page 15 of the English pdf. You can find it using a PDF search: “right to food”.
The usa and Israel voted against, no members abstained.
the meeting with votes in the doc from 2021:
https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3984859
I just looked up the vote on the un website. This post is bs, only one country voted against.When North Korea votes for something like this, it’s almost as if it’s just meaningless bullshit.
North Korea’s famine during the 90s was due to western sanctions after everyone they used to buy food from left their economic bloc, not because they don’t believe people should have food.
Maybe they should start spending their missile program money on developing their nation’s agriculture rather than relying on food imports.
What and get invaded by the guys who fly nuclear-capable bombers right along their border and practice invading them every year?
Last time they got caught lacking, 20% of their population died, many of them burned alive in their apartments by napalm.
You mean that time when North Korea invaded South Korea? They weren’t “caught lacking” they started the war.
The US had been making preparations for war since the late 40s, including dividing the country in the first place and telling the Japanese in the south to stay in place until the US could replace them, massacring villages likely to side with the communists, and getting South Korea recognized as the sole government of all of Korea at the UN.
War was inevitable, they struck when it looked like they’d have their best shot.
If that happens they’ll probably have all food imports halted. If they can’t support themselves during peace time they sure can’t in war.
If Kim would like for people to stop practicing to take down his regime maybe he should be more quiet about attempting to develop ICBMs.
We’re talking about the same North Korea who regularly threatens to nuke their neighbor and has gone as far as shooting a missile over Japan? Something tells me they are the instigators.
Japan and South Korea are puppet states of America, America literally takes over South Korea’s army if the war starts again and is technically able to do so at will.
Even putting aside the puppet state argument, does that suddenly make it okay to threaten innocents with nukes?
Of course it doesn’t, that’s why it’s fucked up that the US has flown nuclear-capable planes directly along North Korea’s border most years for the last 40 or so.
And why was North Korea being sanctioned? The dictator didn’t prefer to have his subjects starve (that’s pretty rare for pragmatic reasons, although not unheard of) but he certainly didn’t prioritize feeding them.
why was North Korea being sanctioned
Do you want me to explain the entire Korean war to you?
Here, best I can do is a podcast. It’s very well sourced though
The dictator didn’t prefer to have his subjects starve
This was the 90s, North Korea had just watched Russia experience a famine after the west had their way with them. The only thing the US would have accepted to lift sanctions would have been opening up North Korea to be eviscerated the same way the USSR was.
he certainly didn’t prioritize feeding them.
Sure, that’s why they stabilized the situation by increasing imports and building massive irrigation projects.
And now they eat poop fruit. Starvation sanctions are such monstrous means to an end; people should not have to resort to night soil because your government has beef with theirs.
I’m not sure how credible that is since any story about NK needs to be taken with a massive grain of salt. They stabilized their food situation in the 2000s so it’s unlikely they’d be eating poo.
Never mind the fact that food isn’t part of the sanctions and they are able to freely import it as needed
We’ve never actually restricted sale or transfer of food or agricultural products to north Korea. We’ve given them food assistance in the past and only stopped when they requested we do so.
The sanctions definitely have wide and severe negative consequences, but in general to food impact of sanctions is that cargo inspections and paperwork make it take longer to arrive.
Which is actually why the US voted against it basically it was to lodge a complaint against wasting UN resources on unenforceable feel good actions that don’t actually change anything.
Everyone being pissy and suggesting this is some moral reflection against America are basically the equivalent of people calling the one guy who voted against everyone getting free unicorns a party pooper because “even if we can’t actually do it why do ya gotta go against the vibe man‽”
I have news for you: The United States, with its trillions of dollars of economic power at its disposal, could vote for such a “feel good action” and then, on the other side of it, propose a UN resolution against North Korea for abusing it’s citizens.
Food scarcity is not a production problem. It is a political one. We can, in fact, completely secure everyone a full belly but we don’t because of $madeUpReason.
The US (and Israel) not backing the decision because it’s a “free unicorn” is absolutely absurd.
Hell the US distributes food throughout the world in the most remote places. Of all the countries that could do this by themselves is the US.
Food scarcity is not a production problem. It is a political one.
It’s not a production problem it’s a logistics problem. It’s the ultimate last mile problem. Distributing food across the globe to even remote villages shouldn’t be the goal, self sufficiency trumps reliance. Environmental impacts aside, if the US has a problem halting transport for weeks that would result in global starvation of all who rely on the deliveries.
Or maybe it’s because of all that food aid distribution that the US knows in particular why this is such a “free unicorn” move?
Where’s China’s matching contributions to food aid with all that just as good farm land that they’re able to harvest twice a year?
That’s the political bullshit getting in the way of this being anything but a free unicorn, the only country that gives as much to food aid as America is Ireland, and that’s because of a national trauma they’re still recovering from.
Right now major world powers are doing more to block food aid or even just regular food commerce, because that means Ukraine gets to have working ports and Russia no likey.
Get the fuck off your high horse about the one country that is already doing a lot because you don’t like them being a dick about calling out how everyone else either isn’t doing anything at all or actively making the problem worse for geopolitical goals.
The comparison is faulty : we are actually able to produce enough food to feed everyone on earth. The issue is the shitty economical paradigm. If this vote can lead to a change in the paradigm, then it’s free unicorns for everybody! But this probably won’t happen, sadly.
In the US response to the vote, the argument was essentially “this cannot lead to any substantial change and only serves to reafirm statements already agreed upon previously and notably in the universal declaration of human rights”.
Agree with the assertion or not, or think there’s some other motivation, but that’s the argument being made.
The UN doesn’t vote on single statements. If I have the right document, because there are several times the UN has voted in “everyone has a right to food”, it’s 53 statements.
Encourages all States to take steps, with a view to progressively achieving the full realization of the right to food, including steps to promote the conditions for everyone to be free from hunger and, as soon as possible, to enjoy fully the right to food, and to create and adopt national plans to combat hunger;
Isn’t quite the same as the title of the map, which is closer to what’s in the universal declaration of human rights which the US did sign.
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
