UN Power Grab
Originally published at The Epoch TimesLast year, Dr. Anthony Fauci advocated that the United Nations be given the power to “rebuild the infrastructures of human existence.” Sounds audacious, right? Not to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. He’s all in.
The U.N. apparatchik’s ambition became clear with the release of his “Our Common Agenda,” an 85-page report (pdf) that describes Guterres’s vision for the U.N.’s future. It makes for alarming reading.
The text is written in the impenetrable bureaucratese favored by globalists and stuffed to the gills with utopian generalities. But by squinting one’s eyes — if they can be stopped from spinning in their sockets — it becomes clear that Guterres hopes to apply the same power techniques “temporarily” deployed during COVID-19 to enact other agendas globalists deem paramount.
Guterres engages the obligatory fearmongering required to accrue increased power. “We are at an inflection point in history,” he begins. “In our biggest shared test since the Second World War, humanity faces a stark and urgent choice: a breakdown or a breakthrough.”
Only the U.N. can save us! “The United Nations presence is global, its membership is universal and its activities span the breadth of human need. Its fundamental values are not the preserve of any region. Indeed, they are found in every culture and religion around the world: peace, justice, human dignity, equity, tolerance and, of course, solidarity. However, while the fundamental purposes and principles of the United Nations endure, the Organization must evolve in response to a changing world to become more networked, inclusive and effective.”
Translation: This is a power grab to give the U.N. in general — and the secretary-general, in specific — authority over the creation of national and international public policies.
How would this power be deployed? For starters, to forge an international taxing system. “Taxation is one of the most powerful tools of government,” Guterres writes, stating the obvious. “Taxation can also drive a sustainable and just transition as governments shift subsidies from activities that damage the environment to those that sustain and enrich it. … As discussions continue, the perspectives of all countries must be heeded, including the potential for asymmetrical impacts on countries at different stages of development.”
Translation: We will redistribute income to the developing world and use global warming as the pretext to create an international taxing power to bring the world’s economy under our control.
Guterres also goes after free speech. He huffs, “Now is the time to end the ‘infodemic’ plaguing our world by defending a common, empirically backed consensus around facts, science and knowledge. The ‘war on science’ must end. All policy and budget decisions should be backed by science and expertise, and I am calling for a global code of conduct that promotes integrity in public information.”
Translation: We will establish an informational monopoly that will disseminate officially approved “facts,” and suppress heterodox opinions.
You think I exaggerate? Decide for yourself (my emphasis): “While vigorously defending the right to freedom of expression everywhere, we must equally encourage societies to develop a common, empirically backed consensus on the public good of facts, science and knowledge. … A global code of conduct that promotes integrity in public information could be explored together with States, media outlets and regulatory bodies, facilitated by the United Nations. With recent concerns about trust and mistrust linked to technology and the digital space, it is also time to understand, better regulate and manage our digital commons as a global public good.”
I think we all know how that would work out.
Social justice will rule the day (again, my emphasis): “Racism, intolerance and discrimination continue to exist in all societies, as seen during the pandemic with scapegoating of groups blamed for the virus. As a start, the adoption of comprehensive laws against discrimination, including based on race or ethnicity, age, gender, religion, disability, and sexual orientation or gender identity, is long overdue. … Fuller use could be made of human rights mechanisms, including the universal periodic review, in this regard, and I support the update of the modalities of the universal periodic review by the Human Rights Council as part of the new guidelines.” And of course, he calls for the “repeal of all gender-discriminatory laws.”
Translation: The new international order will promote critical race theory, abortion rights, and the values of the transgender movement, while suppressing dissent from the reigning global moral order.
Yes, there will be mass migration. “People on the move [!] require special attention, support and protection. Measures to protect, assist and find solutions for the internally displaced, benefiting from the High-level Panel on Internal Displacement, are essential to leaving no one behind.” He demands that “the rights of all persons on the move” be upheld “regardless of status … through the inclusion of refugees and migrants in essential public services.”
Translation: Millions of people will be removed from the destitute southern hemisphere into the developed world—with full access to free social welfare services.
The report even pushes granting children the vote: “[T]o listen to and work with youth, governments are urged to promote political representation for youth, including young women and girls. This could entail lowering the voting age and the eligibility age for standing as a candidate for elected office, as well as strengthening youth participatory bodies.”
Translation: We will give children political power. Greta Thunberg will lead us!
The private sector will be engaged in the internationalist growth project: “The increasing role and influence of the private sector, and its centrality to achieving so many of the actions outlined in this report, will also be taken into account within the United Nations system. The business and human rights agenda is important in this regard. I also call for a broader range of businesses, from multinational corporations to small and medium-sized corporations, to participate in the Sustainable Development Goals and climate action, including through business models that align with efforts to rethink measures of progress and prosperity.”
Translation: A corporatocracy will reinforce formal international power structures by enforcing correct policies and punishing disapproved behaviors without resort to democratic processes. Or to put it another way, we will govern you through your employers and consumption habits.
Guterres even describes how the U.N. will deploy techniques of propaganda and social control to gain our acquiescence. In a different U.N. Secretary-General report, he described this as “behavioural science,” writing (my emphasis): “Behavioural science enables us to diagnose barriers preventing people from adopting a certain behaviour, understand enablers that help people achieve their aims, and design and measure the impact of interventions on the basis of these assessments and the premise of ethical choice and transparency all premised on commitments to human dignity, transparency and respect for ethical requirements.”
Translation: We will manipulate data, social media, and information dissemination to make you want to do what we want.
Right now, thankfully, this is all so much windbaggery. The U.N. does not have the legal or coercive power to compel the implementation of Guterres’s wish list.
But that should not make us sanguine. The leaders of national and international institutions — and our current federal government — are controlled by people with the same globalist ideology as the secretary-general. Bluntly stated, they want to lead an international technocracy that exercises top-down control over us all. Unless we stand strong defending national sovereignty and individual liberty — values that “the international community” scorns and which Guterres barely mentions — we could really end up in the collectivist soup.