I have been a World Federalist for a long time. We had been taught how thirteen colonies of England (disunited in their religious origins but controlled by England) united for the purpose of forming their own country. This unique creation, complete with a Constitution and a three part government became the role model for nation building all over the world. That so few have been as successful as the United States is due to many factors, one of which is that there is still the division between the well born, the fortunate few and the vast numbers of the poor.

The United States of Europe is still forming along with the United Nations at the end of World War II.  Almost immediately those of us who were World Federalists thought we had gone to heaven. Democratic countries united to fight a war against totalitarianism and had created a permanent United Nations Organization (shortened to UN). At the same time expansion of the supposed Peoples’ Democracies of Russia and China threatened real Democracies.  Russia, the lead country under the USSR fell and began to try democracy in many separate nations that came out from under Communist rule. The Republics that were under the Communist thumb now had the chance to become independent. China still holds its people under strict totalitarian control although it trades with and is becoming a capitalist nation – most of their cheaply produced products are consumed here.

So, we have the specter of Communism receding and the rise of self-elected governments (helped along in this latest phase by the US warring on selected dictatorial targets) becoming almost the norm. There are still dictatorships, badly run governments and religious theocracies but they all have been welcomed into the United Nations which has not carried out the dream of the League of Nations born out of the catastrophe of World War I. The nations artificially created at the end of that war from the Ottoman Empire and the colonial nations that had lost are here today to complicate matters. Most of them have bundled together different religious groups and ethnic minorities who have warred with each other on and off again and chaos instead of democracy has become the norm.

The United Nations needs to be reformed. It is centered in the United States that basically ignores it and it is ignored in return.  The UN is filled with small nations that have ganged up on the old winners of World War II and peace on a world scale is sacrificed in continued civil war and rebellion. What has happened is that the U.S. has lost its influence while it retains its position as the preeminent World Power. It is lost in a morass created by democracy. We should belong to the UN (it is THE World Federal entity today) but the U.S. should become an equal member along with all the small nations who stall reform, stop religious wars and control the proliferation of nuclear power among them. Reform NOW!