G. Edward Griffin - The Fearful Master - PDF Archive

principle, a public statement of general good intentions. It has no other meaning. The
covenants, on the other hand, correspond to legislation and would, if ratified by the
member nations, become legally binding upon us. They would completely override and
replace our own Bill of Rights. It is not surprising, therefore, to discover that there is often
quite a substantial difference between the wording of the Declaration of Human Rights
and the draft covenants on human rights. The sweet-sounding, vague terminology of the
declaration has been replaced by far more precise and enforceable language in the
covenants. But in the case of the right to own property, the provision which appeared in
the declaration, vanished altogether in the covenant!
Dr. Charles Malik of Lebanon was the chairman of the United Nations Human Rights
Commission. Writing in the United Nations Bulletin of September 1, 1952, be said:
I think a study of our proceedings will reveal the amendments we
adopted to the old text under examination, responded, for the most part,
more to Soviet than to western promptings. . . . The concept of property
and its ownership is at the heart of the ideological conflict of the present
day. It was not only the Communist representatives who riddled this
concept with questions and doubts; a goodly portion of the non-
Communist world had itself succumbed to these doubts. A study of this
particular debate will reveal the extent to which the non-Communist
world has been communistically softened or frightened.
He further stated that a "quiet revolution" had occurred with the emphasis shifting "with a
vengeance" from personal liberty to "the adequate standard of living."
It was nine years later, after this trend had gone even further, that United States
Ambassador Adlai Stevenson said:
The United Nations-- as an idea and as an institution-- is an extension
of western ideas; of western belief in the worth and dignity of the
individual; of western ideology. It is based on a western parliamentary
tradition. Its roots are in the western ideal of representative government.
When one stops to consider the philosophical foundation of the UN, it is
easier to understand why Premier Khrushchev pounds the desk in
frustration. 4
That sound you just heard was George Washington and Thomas Jefferson turning over in
their graves.
In 1948 the United Nations subcommittee on information and of the press issued a
proposed international convention supposedly to protect the right "to seek, receive and
impart" information by word of mouth and by publication. It then proceeded to state that
government has the- right to impose "penalties, liabilities and restrictions" as well as the
"right of correction" whenever it felt that news had been reported falsely. 5 More recently
the Preamble of the United Nations Convention on Freedom of Information was altered to
contain this significant qualification: ". . . freedom of information and opinion accurate,
objective and comprehensive." 6 [Italics added.]
An excellent example of the kind of freedom of information the world could expect under
future United Nations management was provided at a meeting of "psychiatrists and
scientific authorities" held under the auspices of the UN World Health Organization (WHO)