Noticing the UN's dark side.

ITEM: In the Wichita Eagle of December 15, 2004, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas commented on the John Birch Society: "In college days, I was aware of them. They were the fringe, and beyond the fringe, who believed ... the United States should get out of the United Nations. Without buying into the paranoia and conspiracy theories, I am now a convert."

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: The John Birch Society, of which this magazine is an affiliate, has accurately warned against the threat of the UN for decades. That there is a problem with the United Nations has only recently dawned upon most American politicians and media outlets, but it's not new. John Birch founder Robert Welch noted at the founding of the John Birch Society in December 1958 that globalists intend "to induce the gradual surrender of American sovereignty, piece by piece and step by step, to various international organizations--of which the United Nations is the outstanding but far from the only example."

The John Birch Society has also led the drive to get the United States out of the United Nations since first formalizing a "Get US out!" campaign in 1962. Between 1975 and 1982 the John Birch Society delivered to Congress petitions with over 11 million signatures to get the United States out of the United Nations. THE NEW AMERICAN, launched in 1985, has also repeatedly exposed the UN threat and called for U.S. withdrawal.

The above statement by Cal Thomas, which eschews what he calls "paranoia and conspiracy theories," merely reflects a lack of knowledge of the intent of the UN--as stated by members of the UN and the UN's founders. The United Nations' conspiracy to forge itself into a world government has been a mostly open conspiracy for many decades. Had Thomas been more attentive to the stated goals of the UN, as THE NEW AMERICAN and Robert Welch have been, then perhaps he would have come to the same conclusion during his "college days."

Robert Welch made his astute judgments about the UN without the benefit of some of the more forthcoming declarations by United Nations officials in recent decades, such as the 1995 report by the UN-affiliated Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighborhood, which openly promoted the idea that the United Nations should serve as a progressively strengthened world government.

Welch was able to project how the UN would infringe upon America's independence and Americans' freedoms based upon the principles expounded by the United Nation's early founders. From the beginning, the United Nations has been a body aimed at the gradual elimination of national sovereignty and the marginalization of individual, God-given rights. For example, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) explained the underlying principles of the United Nations frankly in Toward World Understanding, an "education" pamphlet series published in the late 1940s: "Before the child enters school his mind has already been profoundly marked, and often injuriously, by earlier influences." UNESCO complained of parental influences in rearing children in patriotism and fretted that "as long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education in world-mindedness can produce only precarious results."

Through UN statements, Robert Welch could see the sovereignty-destroying path of the United Nations decades before even the most astute observers of the body within the Washington, D.C., beltway.

THE NEW AMERICAN also gave early warning to readers of the threat posed to national sovereignty by regional governmental bodies such as the European Union and NAFTA, which are affiliated with the UN. William F. Jasper wrote of the coming European Union as early as April 10, 1989: "Formally known as the European Community, the Common Market is the direct creation of individuals and organizations that have been involved in various utopian and conspiratorial schemes to establish a world government, a 'New World Order,' for the better part of this century." As early as December 28, 1992, THE NEW AMERICAN concluded: "NAFTA has not nearly as much to do with [the issues of] free trade or protectionism as it has to do with destroying national sovereignty."

Now that the European Union is taking its final steps to strip European countries of their independence and NAFTA is superseding U.S. laws, those insights are proving to be well founded.

The John Birch Society continues to diligently educate Americans on the dangers to the U.S. Constitution from the United Nations and its affiliates, and maintains the website www.getusout.org as a hub for activism to free the United States from the taint of the United Nations.

--THOMAS R. EDDLEM