Wednesday, October 29, 2008
 

By Henry Lamb

October 24 was U.N. day, celebrated by many as the birthday of the United Nations. In its 63 years of operation, it has spent untold billions of dollars in its quest to create global governance. Its goal is almost in its grasp. European leaders are pushing for a summit meeting with President Bush to create a new global "central bank" with the authority to control global monetary policy in much the same way U.S. monetary policy is controlled by the Federal Reserve.

The U.N. has failed miserably at most of its major projects. Its first task, to create a two-state solution in Palestine in 1948, was a disaster. Other projects have been even worse. The genocide in Rwanda, the oil-for-food scam with Saddam Hussein and the on-going sex abuse by U.N. Peacekeepers are but a few examples.

In recent years, however, the U.N. has been extremely effective in influencing U.S. domestic policy, more than people realize. Few people know that current U.S. land use policy is deeply rooted in and reflective of the policies set forth in a 1976 document adopted by the U.N.Conference on Human Settlements. U.S. wetland policy is the result of the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. U.S. law relating to endangered species is the direct result of the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The Human Rights Commissions of the 1960s were created to comply with a variety of Human Rights treaties adopted by the U.N.

Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights gave rise to the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which was expanded in 1995 to essentially require banks to make housing loans to unqualified people. This is the root cause of the current chaos in financial markets.

The concept of "Sustainable Development" came from a 1987 U.N. Conference on the Environment, headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland, former vice president of the International Socialist Party. The concept was codified in another U.N. policy document, Agenda 21, adopted in 1992 at another U.N. Conference on Environment and Development. This conference also produced the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity. These are only a few of the U.N. policy documents and international treaties that so heavily influence the laws, rules, regulations and policies that govern every U.S. citizen

Those who champion individual freedom, private property, and free markets find little to celebrate about the United Nations, and even less about global governance.

Too few people realize that many of the people and organizations that created the League of Nations in 1921 are the same people and organizations that created the United Nations in 1945. The League of Nations was created by Edward Mandel House's "Inquiry" and Woodrow Wilson's Democrat administration, with help from Alfred Milner's "Chatham House Group" in Europe. Republicans killed the League of Nations in the U.S. Senate. House's "Inquiry," met with Milner's "Chatham House Group" at the Majestic Hotel in Versailles in 1919, and decided to formalize their organizations. The Milner group became the Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs in Europe, and House's group became the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States.

Plans for a new United Nations were well under way even before the Second World War. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt appointed a committee to plan for a post-war world. Ten of the 14 members were members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Since Roosevelt, virtually every administration, both Democrat and Republican, has been filled with members of the Council on Foreign Relations. The vast majority of cabinet secretaries have been members of the CFR. These are the people who appoint the delegates to represent the United States at the various U.N. meetings.

It is little wonder that the U.N. has had such influence over domestic policy when the very people who make the policy at the U.N. are members of, or are appointed by members of, the Council on Foreign Relations, who work for the government and are empowered to implement the U.N. policies they create.

When Barack Obama spoke to his audience in Berlin, he declared that he was a citizen of the world, and that he, as president, would comply with the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. He has sponsored a bill to increase international aid to the tune of more than $800 billion, to comply with the recommendations set forth in the U.N. Millennium Declaration. There is every reason to believe that U.N. influence will continue and even expand in the years ahead. U.N. policies are socialist policies. As U.N. influence expands, freedom diminishes.

Perhaps October 24 should become a day of national protest – not celebration. Global governance pursued by the United Nations must first erase the principles of freedom enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Every U.N. policy adopted by the United States erases a little more freedom. Thanks to U.N. influence, there is not much freedom left to erase.