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More than half also would support increasing the amount of dues that the United States pays
to the U.N. to "help pay for a U.N. space satellite system to detect and monitor such
problems as arms movements, crop failures, refugee settlements and global pollution."
And,
remarkably,
38
percent
of those
questioned
said
United Nations
resolutions
"should
rule
over
the
actions
and
laws of individual countries, where necessary
to
fulfill
essential
United Nations functions, including ruling over U.S. laws even when our laws are
different."
While we
recognize
that
pollsters
often
structure their
polling
questions
to
achieve
results
that
will
influence rather than accurately reflect public opinion, and these surveys may be exaggerating the rise of
pro-UN sentiments,
there
is
little doubt that the world organization
is experiencing a dramatic
turnaround
in citizen acceptance. In large
measure,
this
has resulted
from
the enormously effective
UN
drum-beating campaigns of the Establishment news media.
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and
Washington Post have
led
the way,
with an avalanche of
fawning editorials, news stories, and op-ed columns glorifying the alleged accomplishments and yet-to-
be-realized potential of the
UN. These pro-UN public relations pieces
have been reprinted
in
thousands
of newspapers and have also found their way into the mainstream of broadcast journalism.
Unfortunately, the religious media have followed along with their secular brethren in promoting this
unquestioning
faith
in the salvific capability of the United Nations. One of the
more egregious examples
of
this
misplaced
fervor
appeared
in
a
lengthy
January
19,
1992
editorial
in Our
Sunday
Visitor,
the
nation’s largest Catholic publication. Headlined "UNsurpassed," the piece declared: "If the John Birch
Society had its way and the United Nations had ceased to exist back in the 1950s, 1991 would have been
a far more dismal year." The editorialist then proceeded to praise the UN’s latest "accomplishments":
It
is
unlikely
that
international
support
for
the
liberation
of
Kuwait
and
the
dismantling
of
the
Iraqi
war
machine
would
have
been
so easily
marshaled
by
the
United
States.
Cambodia’s
warring
factions
would
most
likely
still
be warring.
Terry
Anderson
and
his
fellow
hostages
would
still
be languishing
in
Lebanon.
Croats and
Serbs
would
still
be
locked
in
their
death
grip
with
no
international
organization
pressing
for
a
cease-fire.
And
El Salvador would still be a vast cemetery slowly filling up with the victims of its fratricidal
opponents....
Now
in
its
fifth decade of existence,
the
U.N.
is
finally coming
into
its own,
thanks
in part
to the demise of the superpower standoff that hobbled the
international organization for
much
of
its
existence.
Nations
are
finding
the
mediation
efforts of U.N.
negotiators
preferable to either unilateral actions or a bloody status quo of unwinnable conflicts.
Similar
paeans
of
praise
can
be
found
in
leading
Protestant
periodicals.
New
Age
publications
which
have multiplied in number and influence in the past decade virtually worship the UN.
Readers
of
this
book
will
be
in
a far
better
position
to
benefit
from
our
presentation
in
the
pages
that
follow,
and
to
understand
unfolding
world
events,
if they
keep
in
mind
the two major principles
underlying
virtually
all
of
our
federal
government’s
foreign
and
domestic policies: "convergence"
and
"interdependence." The plan to bring about a convergence or merger of the U.S. and the USSR is not a
recent policy response to the supposed reforms of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. It first came to light officially
in
1953
when
public
concern
over
large
tax-exempt foundation
grants
to
communists
and
communist
causes
prompted Congress to investigate. Of
particular concern were the funding activities of
the
