If you think the United Nations is pretty impotent, consider this, from a brief biography of Malcolm Muggeridge:

Muggeridge had a poor opinion of the League of Nations: 'What was it but another Tower of Babel, climbing inanely into the sky?' When Hitler was actually invading Poland, he points out, the league was in session, discussing the codification of level-crossing signs.

Last Paragraph of J.D. Douglas' article:

Witold Gombrowicz said: 'If there is a writer who writes in terror of boring the reader, I am he!' No one who reads Muggeridge can doubt it.

The Christian Century, November 8th 1974.