The UN http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/ en Copyright 2008 Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:50:59 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss A Brief Pause in the UN Story By Dick Bachert Needless to say, this edition is tardy. It is tardy because I've agonized over what I might write about this subject that I haven't already shared with you. If you know anything about the UN or have been a regular visitor here, you may appreciate how target-rich an environment it is for those who cherish their freedoms and national sovereignty. And, by that measure, you may also resent as deeply as I do that for nearly a century, some of our alleged "leaders" have sought to diminish those freedoms and destroy that national sovereignty by attempting to chuck them into the maw of the Manhattan macerator known as the United Nations. With some exceptions - the "Police Actions" in Korea and Vietnam among them - in their good sense and grasp of our traditions, the American people appear to have, so far, frustrated those efforts. But that may be changing as the population of this country is consciously being altered for some short-term political advantage or, more sinisterly, for the longer-term goal of merging the United States into some cockamamie "New World Order" where all will be "equal." Can you say "Animal Farm?" Not content with the huge voluntary American wealth redistribution program - euphemistically called "foreign aid," there is serious discussion among many members of the UN to impose a "world tax" on the wealthier nations for distribution among the poorer member nations. Needless to say, the members praising the idea are the poorer members. Can you say "FORCED international wealth redistribution?" If you have studied the various political systems established throughout history, you know that many of those poorer nations are poor due to their failure to adopt systems which reward enterprise and hard work, political corruption and tyranny or tribalism incited wars which prevent a level of order compatible with coherent commerce and the creation of wealth at an individual level. (And, before you head for that "Reply" button, there have been many examples of colonial exploitation. You must also admit that after those colonial powers withdrew, progress stifling tribalism, factionalism or religious hatreds boiled back up in many of those areas and bubble today.) And if you don't understand that the system of private property and free enterprise responsible for OUR 240 year success here could be lost, you have not been paying attention to the words of a disturbing number of the candidates - of BOTH parties - in the upcoming 2008 election. If you visit here and find that I am far too negative and have the wrong take on the United Nations, I sincerely invite you to write me with examples of POSITIVE news about the UN. In the meantime, I'll simply continue to do what I can to detail the machinations of an organization more and more Americans who have even a rudimentary grasp of the history of the United States have come to see as a real threat to liberty not just here but around the world: The United Nations. Stay tuned for more. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/11/a_brief_pause_in_the_un_story.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/11/a_brief_pause_in_the_un_story.html Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:50:59 -0500 AL AND THE CONSPIRACY By Dick Bachert One beautiful Fall night in 1980, I took an old friend to a lovely Stone Mountain home to hear Larry McDonald deliver his close to 2 hour program on what many have come to believe is an ongoing “conspiracy” to alter life in America and the “Free World” to something other than that intended by many of our Founding Fathers. There were about 50 of us in the spacious and comfortable basement recreation room. Larry began his customary comprehensive and concise recap of a very complicated and convoluted topic shortly before 7:30. He wrapped up for Q&A around 9:15. Although I had wanted to remain and chat with Larry and the others, Al, who sat virtually motionless next to me for the entire presentation, insisted we leave immediately. Since he was my guest and I drove, we left. We’d been in the car for 3 or 4 minutes and Al had still not spoken but stared straight ahead. I glanced over each time we passed a street light and THOUGHT I saw him begin to physically shake and clutch the door handle. Sensing that there might be something wrong, I asked him “Al, are you alright?” After a slight hesitation, a low, quivering voice I’d never before heard issued from this normally jolly friend of over a decade: “Dick, don’t EVER invite me to anything like that again!” His response to my “Why?” was “I CAN’T DEAL WITH IT.” Al and I remained friends. He resumed his uncomplicated life of running his printing business, spending week ends at his lake house on his pontoon boat and enjoying increased quantities of adult libations, for which increase I earnestly hoped Larry and I weren’t responsible. I continued to slug it out with the beast. You see, I had CHILDREN – and now grandchildren -- who will almost certainly NOT live in the America I knew growing up. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/08/al_and_the_conspiracy.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/08/al_and_the_conspiracy.html Wed, 29 Aug 2007 06:36:43 -0500 Reality Check: Review of Recent Renovations at the UN Dick Bachert As the UN wraps up its $5 MILLION remodel of the Secretary General’s personal “crib,” come now the Turtle Bay Banditos to inform a breathless world that their planned $1.9 BILLION renovation of their socialist sanctuary is, surprise, surprise – a MINIMUM of $145 MILLION over budget. Total for their DISCLOSED renovations of their various properties: A paltry $2,053,000,000! The U.S. shoulders around 25% of the annual tribute to this gaggle of self-aggrandizing One-World groupies. Let’s break down those numbers for the cost to the tax slaves – er – taxpayers of the United States: $5 million remodel of Ban Ki-Moon’s digs (while he was put up in the Waldorf at nightly rates from between $380.00 to $4,000.00!): $1.25 million; $1.9 billion rehab of their headquarters: $475 million; $148 million PRELIMINARY cost overrun of rehab: $37 million. Total cost to American taxpayers: $51,325,000! Parenthetically, were we to add in the cost of the score of thousands of unpaid parking and other traffic citations and damage to the vehicles of lesser ranked denizens of NYC, it could easily run into several hundred millions. In a rare display of organizational efficiency, the humanistic honchos at the UN have announced that the rehab will literally be carried out from top to bottom, a few floors at a time. This is, of course, to assure that the huge quantities of excreted egocentrism, bloated bureaucracy, putrefied products of pontification, rotted remnants of radical socialism and other foul substances accreted there in the 55 years they have infested the building do not overwhelm the renovation workers’ ability to haul them away and safely dispose of them in an EPA approved toxic waste landfill. They’ll probably truck it to Washington where it won’t even be noticed. I have several money-saving suggestions for the potentates at the UN and the One-World American politicians who could, if they really understood the concept of “national sovereignty,” end this miserably failed 55 year long exercise in economic and psychic self-flagellation by shutting down the funding pipeline from Washington: 1. Urge the UN to seek other quarters – preferably in one of the Third World hellholes they are so fond of throwing in the developed world’s face while encouraging and supporting the local tyrant-du-jour and the failed economics which make them Third World hellholes in the first place; 2. Their relocated headquarters should be in some of those large tents of the sort American troops called home in such UN sponsored and run operations such as in Korea and elsewhere and in which American boys and girls are now living in that God-forsaken desert. There are, I’m sure, several large warehouses filled with these things and THIS taxpayer would be happy to DONATE them; 3. I suggest that the UN use those resources they planned to spend on prettying up their palatial pigpen to purchase grain, milk and other items and send them to the millions of men, women and children starving as a result of the UN’s tacit – and not so tacit – support of despots and corrupt economic systems causing that starvation and suffering. My guess is that the UN props up those tyrants so THEIR corruption and theft will look fairly routine by comparison. For those of you who feel I’ve been unduly harsh on the utopian East River egomaniacs, please remember that the cockamamie goal of the United Nations is -- and has been from its inception – to organize, plan and rule the formerly sovereign nations of the world as some sort of over-arching “One World” government body. Govern the world? They’ve had 55 years to get their act together -- and can’t even properly manage a building renovation. I thank God every day that – except for advancing socialism and tyranny around the globe -- this bureaucratic behemoth has so far failed at virtually everything. Here’s a question for you to ask YOUR congress critter at that next Town Hall Meeting: “With increasing calls from citizens and some political leaders that we consign it to its well-deserved place in the dustbin of history alongside the League of Nations and with America facing potentially catastrophic economic crises in the next decade, why in the world do we continue to supply finite funds and resources to the United Nations?” I believe it was former NY Mayor Ed Koch who once declared that he would be pleased to one day go to the dock and join the throngs of American citizens waving goodbye to the United Nations. Ed, on that happy day, I would even put aside my long-standing pledge to NEVER visit NYC ever again just so I might stand there and wave with you. And I might even use ALL my fingers! ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/07/reality_check_review_of_recent.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/07/reality_check_review_of_recent.html Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:36:12 -0500 The Role of the United Nation in the Destruction of the Middle Class – Part II (of II) By Dick Bachert This is the conclusion of Taylor Caldwell’s prophetic essay originally entitled “The Middle Class Must Not Fail or All is Lost.” As Miss Caldwell graphically pointed out in Part 1, throughout recorded history, the ruling elites have created various cleverly named organizations and governmental entities to lure, cajole or – if necessary – coerce the masses into their proposed utopian corral. I would append to this concluding section of her powerful essay on liberty a short tale illustrative of how the process works. It also speaks volumes about how most of us are viewed by those who would be our masters.
HOGS
An area in Arkansas was plagued by a particularly aggressive and voracious roving band of wild hogs for many years and, although the local residents were thoroughly disgusted over the destroyed crops, injured domestic livestock, etc., their attempts to destroy or capture the hogs had met with complete failure. One day a stranger stopped at the local hardware store, purchased some tools and grain, asked how to get to the last reported location of the porcine marauders and boasted that he would capture them and claim the large bounty the locals had offered. Those who heard his boast laughed as he went out the door and boarded his wagon. Two weeks later, the stranger arrived back in town with the entire herd trussed and squealing in the back of his wagon. Amazed and incredulous, the townspeople asked how he'd done it. He told this story: "I located a clearing near where I was told the hogs might be and set out a large pile of grain. At the same time, I began erecting a fence just beyond the edge of the clearing. "The hogs discovered the grain on the third day. At first, they sniffed around the edge of the clearing, nervously darting into the woods at the slightest sign or sound of danger. Then the younger, less experienced ones became bolder to the point of approaching the edge of the pile, grabbing a few kernels and dashing into the trees. "After several hours of this, the young hogs began feeding in earnest -- no longer darting away with those few kernels. Seeing this, the older hogs soon began shoving the young ones aside in what became a veritable feeding frenzy. The grain was soon gone. "They returned the next day at daybreak to a fresh, larger pile of grain. They displayed little fear as they walked right up to it. They returned the next day, and the next, and the day after that, all the while growing bolder and showing less and less fear. By the 10th day, they had completely stopped foraging in the surrounding fields. "All the while, I was building the fence -- a corral, really -- during the times when they were absent. Soon, however, I was able to work while they were feeding. "Yesterday morning, while they fed, I closed the gate. They didn't even try to escape. "I've been capturing critters this way for years and it always works. Why? Well I learned a long, long time ago that there isn't a creature on the face of the earth I cannot capture -- ONCE I HAVE IT DEPENDENT ON ME FOR ITS SUPPORT OR SURVIVAL! (The difference between those hogs and most of us is that we have been convinced that it is in our best interest to pay for the grain and fencing materials with our own labor and sweat. And some of us are actually assisting in construction of the fence – by supporting corrupt organizations. Organizations like the UNITED NATIONS.)
******************* NEVER AGAIN?
Do not believe for an instant that the world's conspiring elite in every nation have so much as a serious quarrel among them. They have just one object: control through tribute. Your slavery, through tribute, and mine. And they use wars for their purposes just as they use inequities, harassment, bullying, capriciousness, and extortion of their graduated income tax. The system of taxation with which they have yoked us is really forced tribute from the hard-working, and especially from the middle class, who are slowly being eliminated. Behind this attack are the self-styled elite, secure in their own power and riches. Most of them have huge fortunes which are tax-exempt. But every man and woman of us -- we of the middle class-- are taxed in our food and drink, in our comings and goings. The harder we work, the more tribute we have to pay for the elite are determined that never again will the middle class challenge them, and never again will we be able to save money and so rise to power, and never again will we protest the slavery they have planned for us. But many of us still dare to protest, and will continue to do so while God gives us breath. To be effective, we know we must direct our attacks on the real criminals, the wealthy and powerful secret elite of all the world -- the conspirators laboring night and day to enslave us. Even our own government is now their victim, for it is the conspiratorial elite who choose our rulers, nominate them, and remove them by assassination or smear. I have fought these enemies of liberty in every book I have written. But too few have listened to me, as too few have listened to others who have warned of these conspirators. The hour is late. Americans must soon listen and act -- or endure the black night of slavery that is worse than death.
* * * *
(From Grolier's Academic American encyclopedia) Caldwell, Taylor -------------------------------- Janet Miriam Taylor Holland Caldwell, b. Sept. 7, 1900, d. Aug. 30, 1985, was a popular American novelist who began her prolific career with Dynasty of Death (1938), a fictional biography about the fortunes of two powerful families of armament manufacturers over the course of 60 years. Many of her other novels followed this generational pattern, including The Captain and the Kings (1972; film, 1976) and Glory and the Lightning (1974). Caldwell, who also wrote under the pseudonym Max Reiner, also wrote The Devil's Advocate (1952), Dear and Glorious Physician (1959), and Answer as a Man (1981). Bibliography: Stearn, Jess, The Search for the Soul: TaylorCaldwell's Psychic Lives (1973). ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/06/the_role_of_the_united_nation.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/06/the_role_of_the_united_nation.html Sun, 17 Jun 2007 14:06:15 -0500 The Role of the United Nations in the Destruction of the Middle Class – Part I (of II) By Dick Bachert In past columns, I have cited sections from an essay by noted American author Taylor Caldwell. Entitled “The Middle Class Must Not Fail,” Caldwell lays out the history of – and the human drive behind – the ongoing movement of one segment of mankind to dominate and control those they consider their inferiors. It is vital for those of us on the receiving end of those activities to fully understand not only WHY it happens but HOW. We must explore the mechanisms these men construct and maintain for what can only be viewed as a way-point back to the master/servant relationship called slavery. It was H.L. Mencken who once correctly opined “The urge to save humanity is often a false front for the urge to rule.” A recent example of that is the UN’s funding of much of the suspect research behind the current MANMADE Global Warming “scare.” The earth may, indeed, be warming but many reputable scientists believe it to be less a function of increased carbon emissions than heightened solar activity over the past 15 years or so. A question the Global Warming scaremongers have yet to address is why astronomers report similar warming on earth’s neighboring planets – where, so far as we can tell, there are no humans. It is historically provable that a population frightened by some huge and/or external threat will readily yield their God-given rights to the state for a promise by the state (or the oligarchs who run the state) to “save” them. Read “Orwell’s “1984” for how THAT works. You will see that Caldwell prominently mentions TAXATION as one of the non-violent means by which we inferior dogs may be brought to heel. As you read this, keep in mind that one of the UN’s major pushes is for a WORLD TAX. I’d bet that combating Global Warming will be their battle cry! With all of that in mind, please spend some time reading – and understanding – the research borne wisdom of Taylor Caldwell. (And if you view this information as frivolous, unimportant or downright false, you will have – to paraphrase the old John Houseman TV commercial – acquired your chains the old-fashioned way: You will have EARNED them.)
The Middle Class Must Not Fail by Taylor Caldwell
With the rise of the Industrial Civilization in the world, about 200 years ago, there also arose a social body which we know as the middle class. Before that, most of the world suffered under a feudal system in which the people were truly slaves of their governments in all things. There was no strong buffer between them and their despotic rulers, no assurance of freedom to pursue commerce and to live decently, to keep the fruits of their labor and hold the paying of tribute at a minimum. The middle class made the dream of liberty a possibility, set limits on the government, fought for its constitutions, removed much of governmental privilege and tyranny, demanded that rulers obey the just laws as closely as the people, and enforced a general civic morality. Sound readers looked to the experience of Rome, the first to encourage a middle class, noting that Rome had been a strong and prosperous republic, with much public virtue, a large degree of freedom for every citizen, and a constitution (theTwelve Tables of Law) on which our own is based. After the fall of Rome, governments had everywhere destroyed the middle class, returned to despotism, and entered the Dark Ages. It had been centuries since a rising middle class resolved to keep government at a minimum and to force respect for the people and eschew tribute except for such absolute necessities as armed forces, street protection, and the guarantee of authority of contracts in commerce.
AN INTERNATIONAL ELITE
Those who for centuries had ruled their nations, from father to son, in total despotism, realized that they were threatened. Were they not the elite, by divine right? Were they not by birth and money entitled to rule a nation of docile slaves? Did the people not understand that they were truly inferior dogs who needed a strong hand to rule them, and should they not be meek before their government? Little wonder that the elite hated the middle class which challenged them in the name of God-given liberty. And little wonder that this hatred grew deeper as the middle class became stronger and imposed restrictions through which all the people, including the most humble, had the right to rule their own lives and keep the greater part of what they earned for themselves. Clearly, if the elite were to rule again, the middle class had to be destroyed. It had to be destroyed so despotism and the system of tribute could be returned, and grandeur and honor and immense riches for the elite -- assuring their monopoly rule of all the world. For you see, the elite of all nations, then as now, were not divided. They were one international class, and worked together and protected each other. But the middle class laughed and said "we will bind you with the chains of our Constitution, which you must obey also, lest we depose you, for we are now powerful and we are human beings and we wish to be free from your old despotism." The elite did not give up. While it profited from the Industrial Revolution which under liberty of enterprise freed the people from the feudal and despotic systems, and which gave a new birth to the middle class, it also hated the threat to its own authority. It did not wish to destroy the Industrial Revolution; it wished to use it for its exclusive purposes. In the early 19th century this elite looked for a way, once and for all, to regain its power and extort tribute from the people and so destroy the burgeoning middle class which stood in its way, and to subdue the populaces again to their proper role as slaves of government by the elite.
CONSPIRATORIAL ADVANCE
Through the "League of Just Men", elitist conspirators sought a fanatic to cloak the point of their purposes in slogans and cant. The man they hired was Karl Marx. Certainly Marx was no worker; he had never soiled his hands with labor. He hated the middle class, which he contemptuously called the bourgeoisie, for he considered himself superior in mentality and breeding to what he called "the gross merchants of commerce and exploitation." He did not attack the waiting despots, no indeed. They were of one mind with him. Rather he proposed in his books and pamphlets the return to government of the total power to exact tribute from the people in order that government might better direct every phase of the peoples' lives, as he asserted, "for their own welfare." The elite, in turn, would control the governments. Marx began to accuse the middle class of heinous crimes and aroused the workers against their benefactors. He labored to create envy and malice among the workers -- all aimed at the entrepreneurial middle class which had raised them from serfdom, restored their human dignity, and given them liberty for the first time in nearly 2,000 years. Karl Marx was made to order by the self-styled elite. They financed the propagation of his sedition all over Europe and in America. They bled France and Germany with it. They financed sedition in Russia. And the plan began to succeed. By 1910, the Scandinavian countries had already fallen to the socialism of Karl Marx. Only three nations stood between the elite and their ambitions -- the British Empire, Czarist Russia and the United States of America. Much is now made of supposed Czarist tyranny. But the fact is that the Czar of Russia had already granted his people a greater measure of freedom. A constitution had been established, and a parliamentary system. Russia, too, was well on her way to nourishing and encouraging a middle class.
HATE AND ENVY
The elitists were anxious to promote the Marxist notion of demanding tribute from the people, for only through forced tribute could freedom be destroyed and the people reduced again to forced labor for the benefit of the elite. Only thus could the middle class be eliminated. So, we have Karl Marx's infamous notion: "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability." That is a foundation for slavery and tribute. Marx and the elite had a juicy bait for the workers, who were deluded to envy and hate the middle class which had freed them. If the riches were taken away from the middle class, then the workers would become their equals. Marx called this redistribution of wealth. Not wealth from the elite, with their vast fortunes in every country of the world -- inherited fortunes which would not be taxed as income -- but wealth from the strong middle class, which would be robbed in the name of the people. Only "earned" income would be vulnerable to seizure. But in the way of all this happiness for the conspiring international elite, and the slavery of the people, stood the United States, the British Empire and Czarist Russia. They would have to be destroyed. Britain had only a small income tax, used for the armed forces, for roads, for the maintenance of law and order, and for the payment of a tiny body of bureaucrats. Over and over, in America, the elite tried to establish their federal income tax, but they did not succeed. The people were too vigilant, too jealous of their freedom, too proud, too respectful of themselves. They embraced the ancient proverb, "To work is to pray," and they guarded the fruits of their labors. No, America had no graduated income tax to drain the capital of the hard-working middle class, and so she became strong and rich and powerful, the envy of nations which exacted tribute and forced labor from their people. Attempts were made to exact such tribute from Americans during the Civil War and the war with Spain, but each time the Supreme Court declared that our Constitution prohibited it. As late as 1902, the graduated income tax was again declared unconstitutional, and the Chief Justice observed: "It is a method to enslave our people, and deprive them of their liberty and right to the fruit of their labors." The conspiratorial elite fumed. How best, now, to institute their system of tribute and slavery? The solution was WAR. During wartime, governments were better able to tax the people, harnessing their patriotism to maintain enlarged armed services. And so the elite began to prepare America for war, and conspirators of the French and German and Russian and English elite worked with them -- for the destruction of their own nationals and the elimination, once and for all, of the defiant middle class. The American elite, under advice of their brother conspirators in other nations, proposed an amendment to the American Constitution – a graduated income tax, just as Karl Marx had proposed. To support this elite were very busy, through their henchmen, the socialists and the populists, and through their secret communists, in arousing the envy of the workers against the middle class. They told the workers that they would never be taxed, "only the rich," and even then the highest rate would be only two to three percent. And the taxes would go to "our exploited workers," through all sorts of government benefits. The unthinking, the envious, the stupid, and the malicious thought this was wonderful. They supported the 16th Amendment -- the federal income tax -- and it was passed into law in 1913. Now the stage was set for war, the attack on the British Empire, Czarist Russia and the German Empire. The major thrust of the effort to destroy the freedom of the whole world, and reduce it to total control by the elite, had begun. The rest is sad contemporary history. Few in America heeded what Thomas Jefferson had said long ago, that when we are taxed on our earned incomes, in our food and drink, in our coming and going, in our property, we would face the return of slavery and the reestablishment of an all-powerful and despotic elite. So it is that we of the middle class are being destroyed through the exaction of tribute, resulting in an ever-increasing power and despotism of a central government controlled by a conspiratorial elite, and everlasting wars to subdue us and drive us to our knees.
"THE URGE TO SAVE HUMANITY IS OFTEN A FALSE FRONT FOR THE URGE TO RULE!"H.L.Mencken
]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/05/the_role_of_the_united_nations.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/05/the_role_of_the_united_nations.html Fri, 04 May 2007 10:00:49 -0500 The UN Just Became MORE Racist (If That Was Possible) By Dick Bachert Although the web spans the world and this site is visited by folks from all over the globe, there was news from Atlanta which has wide international consequences. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has signed on to the Board of Directors of the United Nations. If you know the history of the UN, you will recall that former Atlanta Mayor -- and Franklin friend -- Andy Young was UN Ambassador under that other Georgian, President Jimmy Carter (for whom some of the farmers of south Georgia apologized to the rest of the nation on several huge billboards along I 75 – but that’s another story). OK, Bachert, help me understand what this means to me. During the 2006 election, new UN Board Member Franklin teamed up with “Ambassador” Young and Georgia Representative John Lewis to record the following radio spot for Fulton County (Atlanta) Commission candidate John Eaves. The spot aired multiple times on Atlanta area radio. Here’s ad copy as it aired (EMPHASIS MINE): (Dramatic music) This is Congressman John Lewis." "And I'm Mayor Shirley Franklin" "And I'm Andy Young" (John Lewis) "On November 7th we face the most dangerous situation we ever have. If you think fighting off dogs and water hoses in the sixties was bad, imagine if we sit idly by and let the right-wing Republicans take control of the Fulton County Commission." (Shirley Franklin) "The efforts of Martin and Coretta King, Hosea Williams, Maynard Jackson and many others will be lost. That's why we must stand up and we must turn out the vote for the Democrats on Election Day." (Andy Young) "And especially for John Eaves for Fulton County Commission Chairman. Unless you want them to turn back the clock on equal rights and human rights and economic opportunity for all of us, vote for John Eaves as Fulton County Chairman" (Lewis) "Your very life may depend on it." (John Eaves) "This message paid for by the committee to elect John Eaves." (To HEAR the ad, go here: These folks didn’t play the race CARD. They played the ENTIRE DECK! To date Young, Franklin and Lewis have refused to renounce the incredibly racist implications of that ad. And now Franklin will be helping to guide the activities of the United Nations. Is that where you want YOUR 25%+ tax “contribution” paying for? If not, I urge you to do what a number of us who understand where the UN has been headed since its illegitimate birth: Let Washington know that enough is enough and it’s time to get the US OUT of the UN and the UN OUT of the US! ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/02/the_un_just_became_more_racist.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/02/the_un_just_became_more_racist.html Sat, 17 Feb 2007 11:54:51 -0500 So WHY is the United States STILL in the United Nations? By Dick Bachert From a January 3rd story from the “United Kingdom Telegraph:” (Warning: BRITISH SPELLING AHEAD) “It wouldn't be the first time. If UN personnel have, as alleged, been molesting children in southern Sudan, they will be following in a long tradition of abuse. Around the world, UN officials have run smuggling and prostitution rings, stolen and sold supplies, and traded food for sex. Sometimes, the racket becomes institutionalised, as when UN contractors collaborated with Ba'athists on the oil-for-food boondoggle. More often, the organisation is greedy and self-serving, but stops short of outright corruption. We learnt this week, for example, that the UN has voted £2.5 million (THAT’S $5 MILLION U.S.!) to refurbish the secretary-general's residence in New York (Ban Ki-moon and his wife are being put up in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria in the meantime). “The reason that the UN so often behaves badly is, paradoxically, because so many people wish it well. Because the organisation embodies the loftiest of ideals – peace among nations – it tends to receive the automatic benefit of the doubt. We are so fond of the theoretical UN that we rarely drag our gaze down to the actual one. The UN has therefore fallen out of the habit of having to explain itself and, in consequence, become flabby, immobilist and often sleazy. “If that criticism sounds too harsh, consider its record since the end of the Cold War – the period in which it might have been expected to come into its own. In Bosnia, it was worse than useless. Uselessness would have meant doing nothing. Instead, the UN imposed an arms embargo that favoured one side over the other, herded the losers into notionally protected areas, disarmed them and then handed them over for execution. In Rwanda, when the UN commander on the ground informed his superiors that a mass slaughter was planned, and that he intended to forestall it by seizing the weapons caches, he was told to do no such thing.” (In my last column I failed to mention perhaps one the most conspicuous and costly screw-ups involving the U.S. and that was the UN run fiasco in Korea. DB) So sayeth one of the leading media outlets in the UK. And just before Christmas, we learned that the commission chaired by former Fed head, Paul Volcker (who is also a long-time member of the Rockefeller founded and dominated Council on Foreign Relations and an arch One-Worlder) will turn over all their investigative documentation surrounding the Oil for Food scandal to – drum roll here – the UNITED NATIONS! The fox is not just GUARDING the chicken coop -- he has taken up residence. (The Rockefellers DONATED the property at Turtle Bay to the UN. It is believed to be very near the site where 21 year-old American patriot Nathan Hale was hanged by the British after declaring “I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” In-our-face cabalistic humor? A little “joke” to site the sovereignty destroying UN near where a young patriot gave his life over 200 years ago trying to secure that very sovereignty? Almost certainly! It’s what these elitists do – because they CAN.) But the UN is now under a new and improved leader, South Korean’s Ban Ki-Moon, who has pledged to “clean up” the organization. Might I suggest that he begin his “clean up” by scrapping that $5 million remodel of the SG’s digs and move from that suite at the Waldorf Astoria. Your intrepid reporter CALLED the Waldorf on 1/4/07 and was told that those suites run from $380.00 per night for a 450 square foot “economy” suite all the way up to the Tower suites which, according to the gal to whom I spoke “…guarantee a view of Park Avenue…” for $4,000.00 per night based on a one week stay. My guess is that Ban and the gang are in the Tower. Pity we don’t have an equivalent of the Tower of London for them to use. Look, don’t get me wrong. We have no problem with individual nations -- with the full consent of their informed populations -- forming alliances, making trade agreements, treaties, etc. Nations of the world should talk to one another. We DO have a problem with attempts to force such arrangements by an overarching internationalist organization unaccountable to any population or national government. The end result of such activities is the destruction of national sovereignty, the death of liberty and a leveling of the nations of the world to the plane of the lowest common denominator. Gee, I think I’ve just explained the real goal of those who took us into the UN – see one of my previous columns for who THEY were -- and their modern soul-mates/counterparts (fellow conspirators?) who insist that we remain involved with what is now and will doubtless remain one of the most corrupt and dangerous institutions on the planet. I’ve done what I could and am proud to say that there are still a few faded and tattered signs affixed to trees and fence posts across Georgia put there 30 years ago by yours truly and a small group of friends. What do they say? “GET THE US OUT OF THE UN AND THE UN OUT OF THE US.” Look for them as you travel. When was the last time YOU told your congress critter – either in a letter or verbally at a Town Hall Meeting -- that that’s exactly what YOU want? ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/01/so_why_is_the_united_states_st.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2007/01/so_why_is_the_united_states_st.html Sat, 06 Jan 2007 22:42:28 -0500 New Leadership at the UN New Leadership at the UN By Dick Bachert There’s good news and there’s bad news. First the good news: The corrupt, nepotistic Kofi Annan (see “Oil for Food Program”) has stepped down after a decade as Secretary-General and the new S-G is Ban Ki-moon from the STILL America friendly nation of South Korea. The bad news: The United Nations continues to exist – note that I DID NOT use the term “function” – and suck up huge quantities of U.S. taxpayer funds (the U.S. pays 25% of the annual UN budget in an effort to bleed America dry while transfusing 3rd world tyrants and their Swiss bank accounts) and is STILL sited in New York City. In reporting the elevation of Mr. Ki-moon to the top job, the AP reported that he “…laid out an ambitious agenda as the next U.N. secretary-general, promising to become personally engaged in efforts to bring peace to the Mideast and Darfur and to clean up the world body. “ That, of course, begs the question “How did the UN get so DIRTY and who allowed it to become so?” If you read that first sentence, you know the answer. And, while we wish the new S-G all the luck in the world (he’ll certainly need it!), the UN has a largely miserable – non-existent? – record of resolving these all-too-frequent religious, tribal, sectarian and other conflicts. Consider the events in Mogadishu, Somalia in early October, 1993 when a team of U.S. Army Rangers took on a job the UN forces there either wouldn’t or couldn’t accomplish: Capture the local warlord and his henchmen in order to quell the violence. Admittedly, the job was made far more difficult by the refusal of then SecDef Les Aspin and the Clinton Administration to deploy the armor and C-130 gun ships the commanders on the ground felt were clearly needed. The administration feared that that all-important “world opinion” would consider it “overkill” by those mean American bullies. It was “overkill” all right: 18 Rangers died in the failed operation and many were seriously wounded. (Check out the film “Blackhawk Down” for a graphic and rather accurate portrayal of what ensued.) Our people had to literally BEG the UN officer – safely ensconced in the fortified soccer stadium – to send UN APCs out to rescue our folks. He did so – but reluctantly. As you read this column, Somalia is on the verge of again exploding. Guess the UN is still there in the stadium. So much for the effectiveness of the UN in Somalia. When rebel violence REerupted in Sierra Leone in 1995, the government there – or what then passed for a government – called in a private South African group consisting of 100 men calling themselves Executive Outcomes. Some would call them “mercenaries.” You can decide for yourself based on the results they achieved. Though equipped with firearms, the rebels used machetes to hack to death men, women and children by the hundreds of thousands. From 1995 to 1997, these 100 men of Executive Outcomes organized and lead the friendly locals and held off rebel forces, stopping the inter-tribal killing of women and children for a cost of around $20 million a year. In 1997 the UN, INSISTING on assuming Executive Outcome’s role with 17,000 blue-helmeted troops and a budget of $100 million a year, ALLOWED THE KILLING TO RESUME AND FAILED IN EFFORTS TO HALT IT. Let’s recap: Between 1995 and 1997, a private “mercenary” army, Executive Outcomes, stemmed the violence with 100 men and a budget of $20 million a year. In 1997, the United Nations took over and with 17,000 blue helmets and a budget of $100 million a year, the VIOLENCE RESUMED! And the part you’re REALLY going to love is that, under the dues formula at the good old UN, U.S. taxpayers (that’s us, folks) coughed up $25 million a year for the UN to go in and not STOP the violence but WATCH the violence – probably from a fortified soccer stadium. But wait. THERE’S MORE! In a July, 2006 piece in “The Australian,” it was reported that many UN “peacekeepers” take R&R very seriously when they found that UN peacekeepers have abandoned at least 20 babies fathered with poverty-stricken Timorese women. A UN investigation (the fox investigating the deaths of all those chickens?) has also uncovered a culture of cover-up, in which babies born to peacekeepers and sex crimes committed by its personnel over seven years have been kept secret because of a "fear of shame and embarrassment". A report on the investigation recommends that a policy of zero tolerance of sexual misconduct be enforced on UN staff. The report reveals for the first time that babies born to UN peacekeepers have been abandoned without financial support. Their mothers have been stigmatized and in some cases ostracized by their communities. Efforts by the UN to organize assistance for the women have failed. If anyone reading this can update us on the outcome of this “investigation” and report any substantive punishment meted out to these runaway fathers, please send it along. Since my favorite facial skin color is NOT blue, I’ll not be holding my breath. Is the UN effective and do we get our money’s worth? You tell me. While we wish Mr. Ki-moon much luck, we suspect he will soon envy the captain of the Titanic. Or -- more appropriately -- our late friend Larry McDonald and the passengers and crew of Korean Air Lines 007 the night of September 1,1983. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/12/new_leadership_at_the_un.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/12/new_leadership_at_the_un.html Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:23:26 -0500 The United Nation: Gun-Grabber for The New World Order The United Nation: Gun-Grabber for The New World Order By Dick Bachert It is always my intention to create unique essays for the Madison Forum. That is what I HAD intended to do on this one -- until the mail brought Ron Paul's excellent "Freedom Report" and I read his concise and spot-on piece posted below. And since reinventing the wheel is such a waste of time, I've posted it verbatim. Dr. Paul, a pediatrician, served in the House for several terms in the 1970s and early 80s. He and fellow physician Larry McDonald had the highest conservative ratings in the House during that period. In 1984, Ron became disgusted with what he called the "silliness" and "unconstitutionality" of nearly all of the activities in Washington, he returned to his medical practice and family in Lake Jackson, Tx. In 1996, as he watched the country drift further and further into socialism and a America become a place he simply could not leave to his kids without standing up, he again offered for the House and was overwhelmingly elected for a second time. It was my distinct pleasure to meet and speak on the same program with Ron in the summer of 1983 at the Money and Miracles Seminar here in Atlanta. If you would be interested in reading Ron's essays on a wide variety of freedom issues, visit the site at http://www.house.gov/paul/. While I don't agree with Ron on every issue, I'm with him 99% of the time -- and that's a better rating than I achieve with my bride of 45 years. Let me preface Ron's remarks with a personal experience that I hope will reinforce his important message. Some time in the early 80s, I attended a speech by one Arkady Shevchenko, then the highest ranking Soviet official to defect to the West. He had been their top guy at the UN. He spoke, interestingly, at KENNESAW COLLEGE -- and we all know what Kennesaw is famous for! I’m proud to have played a role in helping Mayor Darvin Purdy get that legislation through a reluctant City Council. His talk dealt with the clear intent of the leadership of the old Soviet Union to somehow take America. He mentioned their ICBMs and the nuclear blackmail threat THEY posed. Then he broke from his prepared remarks and offered this: "The leaders of my country are as AFRAID OF YOUR 200 MILLION PRIVATE FIREARMS as they are of your ICBMs. NEVER GIVE UP YOUR GUNS." Frankly -- and, while he had to be careful as he was under FBI protection at the time, Shevchenko alluded to this in his remarks -- I'm as concerned about some domestic tyrant (say, a Hillary or Chuck Schumer) as I am about some foreign enemy. And it is THAT threat -- about which Ron's last seven words warn us -- which prompted the Founding Fathers to leave us the Second Amendment.
The BIG question is: WILL WE KEEP IT? ******************************************* Texas Straight Talk: The Worldwide Gun Control Movement Hon. Dr. Ron Paul Of Texas June 26, 2006
The United Nations is holding a conference beginning this week in New York that ironically coincides with our national 4th of July holiday. It’s ironic because those attending the conference want to do away with one of our most fundamental constitutional freedoms of the right to bear arms. The stated goal of the conference is to eliminate trading in small arms, but the real goal is to advance a worldwide gun control movement that ultimately supercedes national laws, including our own 2nd Amendment. Many UN observers believe the conference will set the stage in coming years for an international gun control treaty. Fortunately, U.S. gun owners have responded with an avalanche of letters to the American delegation to the conference, asking that none of our tax dollars be used to further UN anti-gun proposals. But we cannot discount the growing power of international law, whether through the UN, the World Trade Organization, or the NAFTA and CAFTA treaties. Gun rights advocates must understand that the forces behind globalism are hostile toward our Constitution and national sovereignty in general. Our 2nd Amendment means nothing to UN officials. Domestically, the gun control movement has lost momentum in recent years. The Democratic Party has been conspicuously silent on the issue in recent elections because they know it’s a political loser. In the midst of declining public support for new gun laws, more and more states have adopted concealed-carry programs. The September 11th terrorist attacks and last summer’s hurricanes only made matters worse for gun control proponents, as millions of Americans were starkly reminded that we cannot rely on government to protect us from criminals. So it makes sense that perhaps the biggest threat to gun rights in America today comes not from domestic lawmakers, but from abroad. For more than a decade the United Nations has waged a campaign to undermine Second Amendment rights in America. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on members of the Security Council to address the easy availability of small arms and light weapons, by which he means all privately owned firearms. In response, the Security Council released a report calling for a comprehensive program of worldwide gun control, a report that admonishes the U.S. and praises the restrictive gun laws of Red China and France! It’s no surprise that UN officials dislike what they view as our gun culture. After all, these are the people who placed a huge anti-gun statue on American soil at UN headquarters in New York. The statue depicts a pistol with the barrel tied into a knot, a not-too-subtle message aimed squarely at the U.S. They believe in global government, and armed people could stand in the way of their goals. They certainly don’t care about our Constitution or the Second Amendment. But the conflict between the UN position on private ownership of firearms and our Second Amendment cannot be reconciled. How can we as a nation justify our membership in an organization that is actively hostile to one of our most fundamental constitutional rights? What if the UN decided that free speech was too inflammatory and should be restricted? Would we discard the First Amendment to comply with the UN agenda? The UN claims to serve human freedom and dignity, but gun control often serves as a gateway to tyranny. Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control. Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/08/the_united_nation_gungrabber_f.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/08/the_united_nation_gungrabber_f.html Sat, 26 Aug 2006 13:27:13 -0500 The Men and Events Behind the Formation Of The UN The Men and Events Behind The Formation Of The UN By Dick Bachert While the name Alger Hiss may mean nothing to you, his legacy lives on through the United Nations. A Harvard trained lawyer and former clerk for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Alger Hiss was a U.S. State Department employees in the mid 1930s. Hiss was the assistant to Francis Sayre, son-in-law of one Woodrow Wilson (father of the League of Nations that quickly unraveled in the post WWI period). Hiss went on to become an assistant to U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stenttinius, Jr. and was later tapped as a special assistant to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs. In 1944, he moved on to become special assistant to the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs charged with making policy involving postwar plans for international organization. In that position, he was executive secretary at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference where plans were formulated for what would become the United Nations. Hiss attended the 1945 Yalta Conference between FDR, Churchill and Stalin. At Yalta, the “Big Three” nations ostensibly coordinated a strategy to defeat Germany, essentially drew what would become the map of postwar Europe (not incidentally consigning the bulk of central and eastern Europe to virtual slavery under Stalin’s Soviet tyranny and setting the stage for what came to be called the “Cold War”) and moved ahead with plans to establish what we now know as the United Nations. At Yalta, Hiss was charged with leading the work on the UN. At one point in the negotiations, Stalin demanded that the Soviet Union be given 16 votes (one for each of the arbitrarily created Soviet sub-divisions placed under Stalin’s boot heel by the Yalta map). It is believed that Hiss led the opposition to that demand and ultimately brought about the compromise of 2 additional votes for the USSR (a total of 3). In the later McCarthy House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, his having allegedly engineering that compromise was presented as evidence that Hiss WAS NOT the Soviet agent many in Washington and the country believed him to be. Hiss’ activities at Yalta, and later, led many anti-Soviet hard-liners to believe that Hiss was, in fact, a Soviet agent and pointed to files ultimately made public concerning the VENONA project established to monitor encrypted Soviet message traffic with its agents (moles) in the West. Although Hiss denied it, based on similarities in travel patterns and other evidence, an agent code name “ALES” was believed by many in the intelligence community to be Hiss. Hiss personally hand-carried the draft of the UN charter to the 1945 organizational meeting in San Francisco and served as the secretary-general of the conference there. He later became full Director of the State Department’s Office of Special Political Affairs. Hiss left the State Department in 1946. His reward for his work on the utopian UN was to be named president of the equally utopian Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, lecturing through this period for the Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee. He remained at Carnegie until May 1949. In December of 1948, Hiss had been indicted on two counts of perjury. Since the statute of limitations on espionage had run out, perjury was the only charge available to prosecutors for a man many suspected had, indeed, committed espionage. The first trial ended in a hung jury. At the second trial, Hiss was convicted and the Supreme Court upheld the conviction. Hiss was sentenced to 5 years in prison. He died on November 15, 1996 after spending the interim period in an unsuccessful attempt to clear his name in the face of further proof of his guilt trickling into the public domain. The Yalta agreement set the stage for perhaps one of the bloodiest periods in world history. It is estimated by some historians that Stalin’s 1930s forced collectivization of agriculture led to the starvation deaths of 30 million Ukrainians and other Soviet citizens. His infamous pre and post-war purges sent millions more to Siberian forced labor camps. The lucky ones took a quick bullet to the brain in a prison corridor. While there is an argument that the USSR was a key instrument in the defeat of Hitler, the rigid state socialist system imposed by Stalin was a miserable failure, requiring the West – mainly America – to institute programs such as Lend Lease to prop them up materially. Under Lend Lease, thousands of tons of food and technologically advanced U.S. weaponry were shipped to the Soviets. As we’re STILL awaiting those lease payments, the program SHOULD have been called “Free Stuff to Prop Up Your Miserable Failed System of Communism So We Who Wish The Same System World-wide Can Point To Its Wonders to Sell It Everywhere.” One of the key provisions of the Yalta agreement to which the Big Three agreed was the forced repatriation back to the USSR of all Soviet citizens then located within the Soviet sector at the end of the war. In May and June 1945, tens of thousands of these refugees who had fled the USSR before and during the fighting were rounded up by the US Army and sent to collection points in Austria for transit back to the USSR. When the day arrived, US troops entered the detention barracks where -- in a number of documented cases -- they were greeted with the sight of people thrusting their heads through the windows, pressing their jugulars to the broken glass and cutting their throats, preferring to die there than to be sent back to Stalin’s tender mercies. Many of the Yugoslavian citizens returned were summarily shot within feet of the British soldiers who escorted them. This, then, is the bargain the West made with the devil called Stalin. I cite this bit of history with the USSR as an effort to drive home the historical FACT that nations – even those, like America, established on the principles of freedom and justice – often make deals with devils for what the leaders at the time view as proper and necessary and in the “national interest.” Read that last paragraph as many times as required for it to sink in and imagine what YOUR world might be like if the internationalist double-domes succeed in erasing national borders – such as is now under way even as we speak between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. In 1979, a family in East Berlin constructed a crude gas balloon and somehow made it over the Berlin Wall to the West. I did some radio commentaries about that and ended with the question “If America and what remain of the more-or-less free West fail – where will you fly YOUR balloon?” Think about all of that as we move into a discussion of more recent events involving the United Nations. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/08/the_men_and_events_behind.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/08/the_men_and_events_behind.html Fri, 11 Aug 2006 17:35:15 -0500 The Forgotten History of Money (Part III) The Forgotten History of Money By Dick Bachert (with a humble bow to my friend F.Tupper Saussy and his research in “The Miracle on Main Street”) Part 3 of 3 parts Some additional quotations to ponder: "All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from a want of honor or virtue so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation" (John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1787) "I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else, a legal tender." (Thomas Jefferson) "You have been doubtless been informed, from time to time, of the happy progress of our affairs. The principal difficulties seem in great measure to have been surmounted. Our revenues have been considerably more productive than it was imagined they would be. I mention this to show the spirit of enterprise that prevails." (George Washington in a letter to the Marquis de LaFayette, June 3, 1790 AFTER the United States Constitution prohibited un backed paper money at Article 1, Section 10) "Since the federal constitution has removed all danger of our having a paper tender, our trade is advanced fifty percent. Our monied people can trust their cash abroad, and have brought their coin into circulation." (December 16, 1789 edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette) "Our country, my dear sir, is fast progressing in its political importance and social happiness." (George Washington in a letter to the Marquis de LaFayette, March 19, 1791) "The United States enjoys a sense of prosperity and tranquility under the new government that could hardly have been hoped for." (George Washington in a letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham, July 19,1791) "Tranquility reigns among the people with that disposition towards the general government which is likely to preserve it. Our public credit stands on that high ground which three years ago would have been considered as a species of madness to have foretold." (George Washington in a letter to David Humphreys, July 20, 1791) "It is apparent from the whole context of the Constitution as well as the times which gave birth to it, that it was the purpose of the Convention to establish a currency consisting of the precious metals. These were adopted by a permanent rule excluding the use of a perishable medium of exchange, such as certain agricultural commodities recognized by the statutes of some States as tender for debts, or the still more pernicious expedient of PAPER CURRENCY." (Andrew Jackson, 8th Annual Message to Congress, December 5, 1836) Despite what you were taught in school, the historical record is crystal clear: America was to have been spared the destructive effects of an un backed paper money system. Most of the problems we face today can be traced to what Andrew Jackson called "the pernicious expedient of paper money". History teaches that an "artificial" money creates an "artificial" world where the price for some items...even our most popular welfare "program"...can be deferred to future generations (our $11 trillion national debt) or paid with a "money" created out of thin air which robs the value from the money we might be unfortunate enough to have in our pockets at that moment (inflation). And one thing you must remember about inflation is that it is not an "equal opportunity" destroyer: Those first in line to get their hands on the new money rolling off the presses (the modern friends of paper money) have a chance to spend it before it loses its value. The little people (that’s us, folks!) farthest down the line are the ones who feel the fullest effects of this destructive process. We have constructed an economic house of cards and ALL such constructions eventually fall. So will this one. If not in OUR lifetime, certainly in the lifetime of your children or grandchildren. Think about that as you struggle to “forget” what you’ve just read. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/07/the_forgotten_history_of_money_2.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/07/the_forgotten_history_of_money_2.html Tue, 25 Jul 2006 17:31:53 -0500 The Forgotten History of Money (Part II) The Forgotten History of Money By Dick Bachert (with a humble bow to my friend F.Tupper Saussy and his research in “The Miracle on Main Street”) Part 2 of 3 parts Historian George Bancroft later wrote: "James Madison left his testimony that "the pretext for a paper currency, and particularly for making the bills a tender, either for public or private debts, was cut off." This is the interpretation of the clause, made at the time of its adoption by all the statesmen of that age, not open to dispute because too clear for argument, and never disputed so long as any one man who took part in framing the constitution remained alive." ROGER SHERMAN (1721-1793) should be a name familiar to every American. As familiar as Washington, Madison, Jefferson and Adams. He is the only man to have signed all 4 documents surrounding the formation of the United States of America: The Continental Association of 1772, The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation and The United States Constitution. He was a Judge of the Superior Court in New Haven, Connecticut, serving that office with distinction from 1766 until 1788. He served as Treasurer of Yale University from 1765 to 1776. He was renowned for his high intelligence and unswerving honesty and was described by John Adams "as honest as an angel and as firm in the cause of American independence as Mount Atlas." He served in the U.S. Senate from 1791 until his death in 1793. Why is Roger Sherman’s name unfamiliar? HE WAS AN ENEMY OF PAPER MONEY!! In 1751, Roger Sherman and his brother William sued James Battle for paying a debt to their shop in New Milford, Connecticut, in depreciating paper currency. Over a period of 15 months, Battle had charged "divers wares and merchandizes" amounting to 129 pounds of what Sherman assumed were pounds of Connecticut "Old Tenor", a stable currency whose value were well-preserved by taxation taking it out of circulation. But Battle assumed the debt was denominated in pounds of ever-depreciating Rhode Island currency, tendered in same, and the Shermans took a beating in the payment and sued for recovery of loss by depreciation. The Shermans lost when Battle argued that he was merely following the accepted custom of the day. In 1752, Sherman wrote his book "A Caveat Against Injustice or An Inquiry into the Evils of a Fluctuating Medium of Exchange" indicting UNBACKED PAPER MONEY. It was this experience that Sherman brought to the Constitutional Convention and prompted him to rise on August 28, 1787 and propose new, more restrictive wording to Article 1, Section 10. The standing version under consideration was worded this way: "No state shall coin money; nor grant letters of marquee and reprisal; nor enter into any Treaty, alliance, or confederation; nor grant any title of Nobility." (From Madison’s Notes of the Convention) "Judge Sherman and Mr. Wilson moved to insert the words “coin money” the words “nor emit bills of credit, nor make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts” making these prohibitions absolute, instead of making the measures allowable with the consent of the Legislature of the U.S. Mr. Sherman thought this FAVORABLE CRISIS FOR CRUSHING PAPER MONEY. If the consent of the Legislature could authorize emissions of it, the friends of paper money would make every exertion to get into the Legislature in order to license it." Mr. Sherman's and Mr. Wilson's motion was quickly agreed to and became the supreme law of the land – and remained so for nearly 100 years. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/07/the_forgotten_history_of_money_1.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/07/the_forgotten_history_of_money_1.html Sat, 15 Jul 2006 17:30:06 -0500 The Forgotten History of Money (Part I) The Forgotten History of Money By Dick Bachert (with a humble bow to my friend F.Tupper Saussy and his research in “The Miracle on Main Street”) Part 1 of a 3 part series I wrote this a number of years ago when things were NOT going well with the economy. Trust me: They WILL get ugly once again as man -- or certain men -- cannot resist playing God. We continue to violate the universal, immutable laws of economics at our great peril. Despite the apparent economic strength of the American economy, history proves that EVERY house of cards eventually comes down. And the higher the card house, the harder the fall when it finally comes. And when it does, the more freedoms we will voluntarily surrender to "restore order." It was the Founders' concern about this historically valid problem which prompted their attempt -- now ignored -- to keep American "money" sound and honest. Dick Bachert 1998 * * * * * * * * This is the fascinating story of the efforts by certain of the Founding Fathers to prevent the economic distress we find all about us today. It is also a sad story on the basis that modern, "sophisticated" Americans have abandoned the corrective institutional mechanism that remains in place to this day. As you read it, think about a world with many fewer S&L, banking and political scandals and economic problems now considered the norm. "Blood running in the streets. Mobs of rioters and demonstrators threatening banks and legislatures. Looting of shop and home. Strikes and unemployment. Trade and distribution paralyzed. Shortages of food. Bankruptcies everywhere. Court dockets overloaded. Kidnappings for heavy ransom. Sexual perversion, drunkenness, lawlessness rampant. The wheels of government are clogged, and we are descending into the vale of confusion and darkness. No day was ever more clouded than the present. We are fast verging on anarchy and confusion. (George Washington in a 1786 letter to James Madison, describing the effects of fiat paper money inflation then ravaging America in the pre-Constitutional period.) "The annihilation (of the paper money) was so complete that barber-shops were papered in jest with the bills; and sailors, on returning from cruises, being paid off in bundles of this worthless money, had suits made of it, and with characteristic lightheartedness, turned their loss into frolic by parading through the streets in decayed finery which in its better days had passed for thousands of dollars." (Contemporary writer, Breck, 1786) "Paper money polluted the equity of our laws, turned them into engines of oppression, corrupted the justice of our public administration, destroyed the fortunes of thousands who had confidence in it, enervated the trade and husbandry, and the manufactures of our country, and went far to destroy the morality of out people." (Peletiah Webster, 1786) At the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, there were many "Friends of Paper Money" present. On August 16, 1787, when the discussion arose on Article 1, Section 8, the proposed wording was this: "The Legislature of the United States shall have the power to...coin money...and emit bills of credit of the United States." A hot argument ensued on the power to emit bills of credit, which is another way of saying "printing paper money". Here are the actual words James Madison wrote describing the debate in his diary:
"Mr.G.Morris moved to strike out "and emit bills of credit." If the United States had credit, such bills would be unnecessary; if they had not, unjust and useless.
MADISON: Will it not be sufficient to prohibit the making them a tender? This will remove the temptation to emit them with unjust views. And promissory notes in that shape may in some emergencies be best.
MORRIS: Striking out the words will leave room still for notes of a responsible minister which will do the good without the mischief. The monied interest will oppose the plan of the Government, if paper emissions be not prohibited.
COL. MASON: Though he had a mortal hatred to paper money, yet as he could not foresee all emergencies, we was unwilling to tie the hands of the Legislature [Legislature = Congress].
MR. MERCER: (A friend to paper money) It was impolitic...to excite the opposition of all those who were friends to paper money.
MR. ELSEWORTH thought this was a favorable moment to shut and bar the door against paper money. The mischiefs of the various experiments which had been made, were now fresh in the public mind and had excited the disgust of all the respectable part of America. By withholding the power from the new Government, more friends of influence would be gained to it than by almost anything else...Give the Government credit, and other will offer. The power may do harm, never good.
MR. WILSON: It will have a most salutary influence on the credit of the United States to remove the possibility of paper money. This expedient can never succeed whilst its mischiefs are remembered, and as long as it can be resorted to, it will be a bar to other resources.
MR. READ thought the words, if not struck out, would be as alarming as the mark of the Beast in Revelation.
MR. LANGDON had rather reject the whole plan than retain the three words "and emit bills". The motion for striking out carried. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/07/the_forgotten_history_of_money.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/07/the_forgotten_history_of_money.html Sat, 08 Jul 2006 17:25:49 -0500 THE UNAMERICAN UN THE UNAMERICAN UN By Dick Bachert I used the term “conspiracy” in my last column. In this column, I’ll attempt to buttress my use of that word. How you feel about the existence of such activities will most likely depend on how deeply you understand American history and value her sovereignty as an independent nation. It will also depend on how strongly you embrace the freedoms envied – so far – by the rest of the world to the extent that over the decades, scores of thousands have died trying to get here. More significant to me are the hundreds of thousands more who died trying to preserve America the geographic place and, more importantly, America the IDEA. For those who still believe there is NOT something going on behind the scenes – with little or no reportage by the so-called mainstream media -- I offer the following: Educated at Harvard, Carroll Quigley became a professor at Georgetown University. Over the years, Quigley also became a confidant of a number of wealthy and high-ranking officials in government and the private sector. He had access to the workings of a number of otherwise unknown and unpublicized internationalist organizations the leadership and membership of which were composed of these men. Quigley fell out of favor with the leaders of those organizations over his desire to more broadly publicize their private, behind-the-scenes activities. In 1966, Quigley got his wish with the publication of his monumental – and I DO MEAN MONUMENTAL – tome “Tragedy and Hope.” Perhaps it’s just me but at 1,348 pages of very, very small type, with the exception of the revelations below, “Tragedy and Hope” makes the Atlanta White pages a more exciting read. On pages 949 and 950, Quigley “outs” his former pals: (Emphasis mine) (Citing)
The radical Right version of these events as written up by John T. Flynn, Freda Utley, and others, was even more remote from the truth than were Budenz's or Bentley's versions, although it had a tremendous impact on American opinion and American relations with other counties in the years 1947-1955. This radical Right fairy tale, which is now an accepted folk myth in many groups in America, pictured the recent history of the United States, in regard to domestic reform and in foreign affairs, as a well-organized plot by extreme Left-wing elements, operating from the White House itself and controlling all the chief avenues of publicity in the United States, to destroy the American way of life, based on private enterprise, laissez faire, and isolationism, in behalf of alien ideologies of Russian Socialism and British cosmopolitanism (or internationalism). This plot, if we are to believe the myth, worked through such avenues of publicity as The New York Times and the Herald Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post, the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine and had at its core the wild-eyed and bushy-haired theoreticians of Socialist Harvard and the London School of Economics. It was determined to bring the United States into World War II on the side of England (Roosevelt's first love) and Soviet Russia (his second love) in order to destroy every finer element of American life and, as part of this consciously planned scheme, invited Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, and destroyed Chiang Kai-shek, all the while undermining America's real strength by excessive spending and unbalanced budgets.
This myth, like all fables, does in fact have a modicum of truth. There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments.
I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies (notably to its belief that England was an Atlantic rather than a European Power and must be allied, or even federated, with the United States and must remain isolated from Europe, but in general my chief difference of opinion IS THAT IT WISHES TO REMAIN UNKNOWN (emphasis added) and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.
The Round Table Groups have already been mentioned in this book several times, notably in connection with the formation of the British Commonwealth in chapter 4 and in the discussion of appeasement in chapter 12 ("the Cliveden Set"). At the risk of some repetition, the story will be summarized here, because the' American branch of this organization (sometimes called the "Eastern Establishment”) has played a very significant role in the history of the United States in the last generation.
'The Round Table' Groups were semi-secret discussion and lobbying groups organized by Lionel Curtis, Philip H. Kerr (Lord Lothian), and (Sir) William S. Marris in 1908-1911. This was done on behalf of Lord Milner, the dominant Trustee of the Rhodes Trust in the two decades 1905-1925. The original purpose of these groups was to seek to federate the English-speaking world along lines laid down by Cecil Rhodes (I 853-1902) and William T. Stead (1849-1912), and the money for the organizational work came originally from the Rhodes Trust. By 1915Round Table groups existed in seven countries, including England, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and a rather loosely organized group in the United States (George Louis Beer, Walter Lippmann, Frank Aydelotte, Whitney Shepardson, Thomas W. Lamont, Jerome D. Greene, Erwin D. Canham of the Christian Science Monitor, and others). The attitudes of the various groups were coordinated by frequent visits and discussions and by a well-informed and totally anonymous quarterly magazine, The Round Table, whose first issue, largely written by Philip Kerr, appeared in November 1910.
(End of cite) “Tragedy & Hope,” Carroll Quigley, Macmillan Co, NY 1966 One of Quigley’s students was Bill Clinton who spoke these words in his acceptance speech at the 1992 Democrat National Convention:
“As a teenager, I heard John Kennedy’s summons to citizenship. And then, as a student at Georgetown, I heard that call clarified by a professor named Carroll Quigley, who said to us that America was the greatest Nation in history because our people believed in two things – that tomorrow can be better than today and that every one of us has a personal moral responsibility to make it so.”
In 1964, Clinton was one of two students out of a class of 100 to get an “A” in the course. While his old sidekicks at those Round Table groups and their spin-offs (Bilderbergers, CFR and Trilateral Commission among others) probably removed Quigley from their “A” party lists, the rest of us owe Quigley – who died in 1977 – a debt for those words! If you support the United Nations while at the same time feel your local, state and federal officials are increasingly “out of touch,” imagine how other-worldly things would become if the global elites who built and run the UN somehow maneuver the United States into some goofy one-world (there, I’ve said it!) government headquartered in Brussels or wherever. In the immortal words of that show business sage, Jimmy Durante, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Next time, we’ll get into the specific events and name some of the midwives present at the birth of the UN. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/07/the_unamerican_un.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/07/the_unamerican_un.html Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:17:06 -0500 ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS ORIGINS OF THE UNITED NATIONS By Dick Bachert WARNING!!! The term “conspiracy” is one someone in my position must – thanks to an unrelenting campaign by the so-called mainstream media (SCMSM) – use with great caution. (The participation of the SCMSM in all of this is the subject of another column.) What is a “conspiracy?” While many terms have been altered over time, this one remains as:
  • 1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
  • 2. A group of conspirators.
  • 3. Law an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
If you agree that the denial of God-given freedoms is a wrongful or subversive act, read on. If you do not agree, you will quickly dismiss what follows as a simplistic regurgitation of falsehoods your college professors debunked in those early history classes and go back to that New York Time crossword puzzle. That said, I must warn you that it is impossible to discuss the United Nations WITHOUT, in the same breath, also discussing conspiracy. Since the first caveman strolled from his den, spied his neighbor gnawing on a juicy T-Rex drumstick and smacked him on the head and took his lunch, men have been – off and on – making war with one another. Mostly on. I don’t think anyone knows precisely when some men, in an effort to unite the nations into some sort of man-made “Heaven on Earth,” began cobbling together various associations with that goal. The Old Testament may contain the first recorded account. It was called the Tower of Babel. It also tells us that God dealt with one of man’s earliest challenges to His order and authority by scattering the people and giving them different tongues to make it difficult or impossible for them to communicate and hatch plots for future challenges. History from that time to this is filled with stories of various national alliances and associations formed for defensive and other purposes – some good, some evil. For those who love their freedoms, most have been of the evil variety. With the exception of this now 24 decades long experiment in human liberty called “America” (the IDEA, not the PLACE), the vast majority of those who have walked the planet have lived as vassals, serfs or outright slaves of some king, emperor, potentate or despot or others who, by birth or some other arbitrary measure, considered themselves superior to their “lowlier” fellows. In such works as Taylor Caldwell’s “The Captains and The Kings,” we get a glimpse of how some of those aforementioned evil associations came into existence. These are associations of what the powerful and wealthy – for want of a better term – “elites” have formed to do the ONE thing they feel compelled to do at all costs: Preserve and extend their power and wealth. While they may squabble among themselves over relatively trivial matters, even make national wars where other men fight and die over such trifles, they frequently come together when they sense a common threat to their vaunted positions. The term “noblesse oblige” is defined as “the obligation of those of high rank to be honorable and generous (often used ironically) - the social force that binds you to your obligations and the courses of action demanded by that force; "we must instill a sense of duty in our children"; "every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty"- John D. Rockefeller Jr. I confess that the urge to help those in need is a perfectly legitimate and – dare I use the term? – Christian thing to do. Indeed, Scripture commands it. But the use of force of law and/or arms in so doing is NOT God ordained behavior. In a perverse variant of noblesse oblige, the OTHER thing many of these elites – at least those of the “utopian” mindset --feel irresistibly compelled to do is to “improve, even “perfect” mankind – by FORCE, if necessary. They are most frequently those of the “old money” variety with more time on their hands than those who are still grasping for that next rung on the economic and social ladder. While some of them are motivated by genuine altruistic impulses, many malignantly wish only to fashion a world in which THEIR position, power and wealth will never be threatened by those of “lower birth.” Caldwell wrote – in far better terms than I – of one of the mid-19th century manifestations of this effort, to wit:
“Through the "League of Just Men", elitist conspirators sought a fanatic to cloak the point of their purposes in slogans and cant. The man they hired was Karl Marx. Certainly Marx was no worker; he had never soiled his hands with labor. He hated the middle class, which he contemptuously called the bourgeoisie, for he considered himself superior in mentality and breeding to what he called ‘the gross merchants of commerce and exploitation.’ He did not attack the waiting despots, no indeed. They were of one mind with him. Rather he proposed in his books and pamphlets the return to government of the total power to exact tribute from the people in order that government might better direct every phase of the peoples' lives, as he asserted, ‘for their own welfare.’ The elite, in turn, would control the governments.” Taylor Caldwell “The Middle Class Must Not Fail or All is Lost”
During a discussion of totalitarian socialism, I once had a fellow ask me “Why would these folks desire a system where the state owns and controls everything?” My answer was that if YOU’RE the state, it’s a pretty good deal. The most recent precursor of the United Nations – Wilson’s so-called League of Nations -- was launched after the carnage of WWI, ostensibly as a way to prevent such wars in the future. There is compelling evidence that it was simply yet another golden opportunity for the utopian elites to fashion a world less threatening to their perpetuation in power. It would, however, be necessary to try to sell it to the masses of “common men” whose sons had been gassed, maimed and killed in Europe in Wilson’s “war to make the world safe for democracy.” As we all know, that attempt was unsuccessful and it took the carnage of WWII to bring what we know today as the United Nations into being. We’ll explore that in the next column. ]]> http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/06/origins_of_the_united_nations.html http://www.theun.madisonforum.org/2006/06/origins_of_the_united_nations.html Thu, 22 Jun 2006 17:12:35 -0500