New World Order in Conspiracy Theory free essay sample

This article is about the use of the term New World Order in conspiracy theory. For other uses, see New World Order (disambiguation). The reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States (1776). The Latin phrase novus ordo seclorum, appearing on the reverse side of the Great Seal since 1782 and on the back of the U. S one-dollar bill since 1935, means New Order of the Ages and only alludes to the beginning of an era where the United States of America is an independent nation-state, but is often improperly translated by conspiracy theorists as New World Order. l] In conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a bureaucratic collectivist one-world government. [2][3][4][5][6] The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, which replaces sovereign nation-states, and an all-embracing ideology, wh ich indoctrinates cosmopolitanism. Significant occurrences in politics and finance are speculated to be orchestrated by an extremely influential cabaloperating through many front organizations. Numerous historical and current events are seen as steps in an on-going plot to achieve world domination through secret political gatherings and decision-making Prior to the early 1990s, New World Order conspiracism was limited to two American countercultures, primarily the militantly anti-government right, and secondarily fundamentalist Christians concerned with end-time emergence of the Antichrist. 7] Skeptics, such as Michael Barkun andChip Berlet, have expressed concern that right-wing conspiracy theories about a New World Order have now not only been embraced by many left-wing conspiracy theorists but have seeped nto popular culture, thereby inaugurating an unrivaled period of people actively preparing for apocalypticmillenarian scenarios in the United States of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. These political scientists warn that this mass hysteria may not only fuel lone-wolf terrorism but have devastating effects on American political such as the far right wooing the far left into Joining a revolutionary Third Position movement capable of subverting the established political powers. [3][9] Contents [hide] * 1 History of the term * 2 Conspiracy theories * 2. 1 End Time * 2. 2 Freemasonry * 2. Illuminati * 2. 4 Protocols of the Elders of Zion 2. 5 Round Table * 2. 6 Open Conspiracy * 2. 7 New Age * 2. Fourth Reich * 2. 9 Alien Invasion * 2. 10 Brave New World * 3 Postulated implementations 3. 1 Gradualism * 3. 2 Coup d ©tat * 3. 3 Mass surveillance * 3. 4 Occultism * 3. 5 Population control * 3. 6 Mind control * 4 Alleged conspirators * 5 Criticism * 6 Literature * 7 In popular culture * 8 References I History of the term During the 20th century, many statesmen, such as Woodrow Wilson and Winston evidencing a dramatic change in world political thought and the balance of o wer after World War I andWorld War II. They all saw these periods as opportunities to implement idealistic or liberal proposals for global governance only in the sense of new collective efforts to identify, understand, or address worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individualnation-states to solve. These proposals led to the creation of international organizations, such as the United Nations and NATO, and international regimes, such as the Bretton Woods system and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which were calculated both to maintain a balance of power as ell as regularize cooperation between nations, in order to achieve a peaceful phase of capitalism. These creations in particular and internationalism in general, however, would always be criticized and opposed by the American Old Right on isolationist grounds and by the New Right on benevolent imperalist grounds. [10] In the aftermath of the two World Wars, progressives welcomed these new international organizations and regimes but argued they suffered from a democratic deficit and therefore were inadequate to not only prevent another global war but also foster global Justice. Thus, activists around he globe formed a world federalist movement bent on creating a real new world order. [11] In the 1940s, British writer and futurist H. G. Wells would go further by appropriating and redefining the term new world order as a synonym for the establishment of a scientifically-managed world state and socialist economy. 12] During the Red Scare of 1947-1957, conspiracy theorists of the American secular and Christian right increasingly embraced and mongered unfounded fears of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Jews being the driving force behind an international communist conspiracy. The threat ofworld communism in the form of a state theistic and bureaucratic collectivist world government, demonized as a Red Menace, therefore became the main focus of apocalyptic millenarian conspiracism. 13] In the 1960s, right-wing populist individuals and groups with a producerist worldview, such as members of the John Birch Society, disseminated a great deal of conspiracy theories claimi ng that the governments of both the United States and the Soviet Union were controlled by a cabal of corporate internationalists, greedy bankers and corrupt politicians intent on using the United Nations as the vehicle to create the One World Government. These unfounded fears would fuel the Bircher campaign for U. S. withdrawal from the U. N.. American writer Mary M. Davison, in her 1966 booklet The Profound Revolution, traced the alleged New World Order conspiracy to the creation of the U. S. Federal Reserve System in 1913 byinternational bankers, who she claimed later formed the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921 as the shadow government. At the time the booklet was published, international bankers would have been interpreted by many readers as a reference to a postulated international Jewish banking conspiracy masterminded by the Rothschilds. 3] Claiming that the term New World Order is used by a secretive elite dedicated to the destruction of all national sovereignties, American producerist writer Gary Allen, in his 1971 bookNone Dare Call It Conspiracy, 1974 book Rockefeller: Campaigning for the New World Order and 1987 book Say No! to the New World Order, articulated the anti-globalist theme of much current right-wing main demonized scapegoat of the American far right shifted seamlessly fromcrypto- communists who plotted on behalf of the Red Menace to globalists who plot on behalf of the New World Order. The relatively painless nature of the shift was due to rowing right-wing opposition to the globalization of capitalism but also in part to the basic underlying apocalyptic millenarian paradigm, which fed the Cold War and the witch-hunts of the McCarthy period. [13] In his 11 September 1990 Toward a New World Order speech to a Joint session of the U. S. Congress, President George H. W. Bush described his objectives for post-cold-War global governance in cooperation with post-Soviet states: Until now, the world weve known has been a world divided† a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict and cold war. Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a world order in which the principles of Justice and fair play protect the weak against the strong A world where the United Nations, freed from cold war stalemate, is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations. The New York Times observed that progressives were calling the new world order a rationalization for American imperial ambitions in the Middle East, while conservatives rejected new security rrangements altogether and fulminated about any possibility of U. N. revival. [14] However, Chip Berlet, an Ame rican investigative reporter specializing in the study of right-wingmovements in the U. S. , writes: When President Bush announced his new foreign policy would help build a New World Order, his phrasing surged through the Christian and secular hard right like an electric shock, since the phrase had been used to represent the dreaded collectivist One World Government for decades. Some Christians saw Bush as signaling the End Times betrayal by a world leader. Secular anticommunists saw a bold attempt to smash US sovereignty and impose a tyrannical collectivist system run by the United Nations. 13] American televangelist Pat Robertson with his 1991 best-selling book The New World Order became the most prominent Christian popularizer of conspiracy theories about recent American history as a theater in which Wall Street, the Federal Reserve System, Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg Group, and Trilateral Commission control the flow of events from behind the scenes, nudging us constantly and covertly in the direction of world government for the Antichrist. ] Observers n ote that the galvanization of right-wing populist conspiracy theorists, such as Linda Thompson, Mark Koernke and Robert K. Spear, into militancy led to the rise of the militia movement, which spread its anti-government ideology through speeches at rallies and meetings, through books and videotapes sold at gun shows, through shortwave and satellite radio, and through fax networks and computer bulletin boards. 13] However, viral propaganda on the Internet is what most effectively contributed to their extremist political ideas about the New World Order finding their ay into the far left literature of some black nationalists, but also the previously apolitical literature of many Kennedy assassinologists, ufologists, lost land theorists, and, most recently, occultists. The worldwide appeal of these subcultures then transmitted New World Order conspiracism like a mind virus to a large new Europe, National-Anarchism, a radical right-wing ideology articulated by British post- Third-position activist Troy Southgate, called for a insurrection against, and secession from, the Zionist, capitalist New World Order. [1 National- anarchists see a convergence in the near-future between the decentralist eft and decentralist right rising to combat the political and economic centralization of the New World Order. 17] After the turn of the century, specifically during the financial crisis of 2007-2010, many politicians and pundits, such as Gordon Brown,[18] and Henry Kissinger,[19] used the term new world order in their advocacy for a Keynesian reform of the global financial system and their calls for a New Bretton Woods, which takes into account emerging markets such as Chinaand India. These declarations had the unintended consequence of providing fresh fodder for New World Order conspiracism, and culminated in former Clinton dministration adviser Dick Morris and conservative talk show host Sean Hannity arguing on his Fox News Channel program Hannity that conspiracy theorists were right. 20] Fox News in general, and its opinion show Glenn Beck in particular, have been repeatedly criticized by progressive media watchdog groups for not only mainstreaming the New World Order conspiracy theories of the radical right but possibly agitating its lone wolves into In 2009, American film directors Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel released New World Order, a critically- acclaimed documentary film which explores the world of conspiracy theorists, such s American radio host Alex Jones, who are committed to exposing and vigorously opposing what they perceive to be an emerging New World Order. 25] Conspiracy theories There are numerous systemic conspiracy theories through which the con cept of a New World Order is viewed. The following is a list of the major ones in relatively chronological order:[26] End Time For over 2,000 years, apocalyptic millenarian Christian theologians and laymen have feared a globalist conspiracy as the fulfillment of prophecies about the end time in the Bible, specifically in the Book of Ezekiel, the Book of Daniel, the Olivet iscourse found in the Synoptic Gospels, and the Book of Revelation. They assert that human and demonic agents of the Devil are involved in a primordial plot to deceive humanity into accepting a satanic world theocracy that has the Unholy Trinity † Satan, the Antichrist and the False Prophet † at the core of an imperial cult. In many contemporary Christian conspiracy theories, the False Prophet will either be the last pope of the Catholic Church (groomed and installed by an Alta Vendita or Jesuit conspiracy) or a guru from the New Age movement or even the leader of a fundamentalist Christian organization like The Fellowship, while the Antichrist will either be thepresident of the European Union or the secretary-general of the United Nations or even a supercomputer. [5] Some of the most vocal critics of end-time conspiracy theories come from within Christianity. [13] In 1993, American historian Bruce Barron wrote a stern rebuke of apocalyptic Christian conspiracism in the Christian Research Journal, when reviewing American televangelist Pat Robertsons 1991 book The New World Order. 27] Another critique can be found in and End-Times Paranoia,[2] which has been described as impressive both as a istorical and theological Camp warns of the very real danger that Christians could pick up some extra spiritual baggage by credulously embracing conspiracy theories. [2] Progressive Christians, such as American preacher- theologian Peter J. Gomes, argue that the Bible must be read carefully to avoid misusing the text to legitimize ideological prejudices in the dominant culture. 28]They caution conservative Christians that a sp irit of fear can distort scripture and history by dangerously combining biblical literalism, apocalyptic timetables, demonization, and oppressive prejudices, such s sexism, homophobia, classism, xenophobia, racism, and antisemitism. [29] They therefore call on Christians to repent for indulging in More broadly, preterist Christians argue that some or all of the biblical prophecies concerning the end time refer literally or metaphorically to events which already happened in the first century after Jesus birth. In their view, the end time concept refers to the end of the covenant between God and Israel, rather than the end of time, or the end of planet Earth. They argue that prophecies about the Rapture, the defiling of the Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, the Antichrist, he Number of the Beast, the Tribulation, the Second Coming, the Last Judgment, and the resurrection of the dead were fulfilled at or about the year 70 when the Roman general (and future Emperor) Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple of Jerusalem, putting a permanent stop to the daily animal sacrifices. According to Preterists, many passages in the New Testament indicate with apparent certainty that the second coming of Christ, and the end time predicted in the Bible were to take place within the lifetimes of Jesus disciples rather than millennia later: Matt. 10:23, Matt. 16:28, Matt. 24:34, Matt. 6:64, Rom. 13M 1-12, 1 cor. 7:29-31, 1 Cor. 10:11, Phil. 4:5, James 5:8-9, 1 Pet. 4:7, 1 Jn. 2:18. Ultimately, full Preterists argue that all Christians should reject apocalyptic eschatology and embrace realized eschatology. 32] Freemasonry Anti-Masonic conspiracy theorists believe that high-ranking Freemasons are involved in conspiracies to create an occult New World Order. They claim that some of the Founding Fathers of the United States, such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, had Masonic symbolism interwoven into American society, particularly in the Great Seal of the United States, the United States ne-dollar bill, the architecture of National Mall landmarks, and the streets and highways of Washington, D. C.. Conspiracy theorists speculate that American Freemasons used the power of the occult to bind their planning of a government in conformity with the plan of the Great Architect of the Universe because of their belief that the Masonic God has tasked the United States with the eventual establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth † a Masonic world theocracy with New Jerusalem as its capital city and the Third Temple as its holiest site. [33] Freemasons rebut these claims of Masonic conspiracy. They assert that Freemasonry, which promotes a balance between rationalism andmysticism through a system of degrees of initiation and the use of sacred geometry in art and architecture, view the drawing of symbols, no matter how large, as an act of consolidating or controlling power. [35] Furthermore, there is no published information establishing the Masonic membership of the men responsible for the design of the Great Seal or the street plan of Washington, D. C. [36] The Latin phrase novus ordo seclorum, appearing on the reverse side of the Great Seal since 1782 and on the back of the ne-dollar bill since 1935, means New Order of the Ages and only alludes to the beginning of an era where the United States is an independent nation-state, but is often improperly translated by conspiracy theorists as New World Order or New Secular Order . 1] Lastly, Freemasons argue that, despite the symbolic importance of the Temple of Solomon in their mythology, they have no interest in rebuilding it, especially since it is obvious that any attempt to interfere with the present condition of things [on the Temple Mount] would in all probability bring about the greatest eligious war the world has ever known . [37] More broadly, Freemasons assert that a long-standing rule within regular Freemasonry is a prohibition on the discussion of politics in aMasonic Lodge and the participation of lodges or Masonic bodies in political pursuits. Freemasonry has no politics, but it teaches its members to be of high moral character and active citizens. The accusation that Freemasonry has a hidden agenda to establish a Masonic government ignores several facts. While agreeing on certain Masonic Landmarks, the many independent and sovereign Grand Lodges act as such, and do not agree on many other points of belief and practice. Also, as can be seen from a survey of famous Freemasons, individual Freemasons hold beliefs that span the spectrum of politics. The term Masonic government has no meaning since individual Freemasons hold many different opinions on what constitutes a good government, and Freemasonry as a body has no opinion on the topic. [38] Ultimately, Freemasons argue that even if it were proven that influential individuals have used and are using Masonic Lodges to engage in crypto-politics, uch as was the case with the illegal Italian Lodge Propaganda Due, this would represent a cooptation of Freemasonry rather than evidence of its hidden agenda. 39] Illuminati The Order of the Illuminati was an Enlightenment-age secret society founded on 1 May 1776, in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria), by Adam Weishaupt, who was the first lay professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt. The movement consisted of advocates of freethought, secularism, liberalism, republicanism and gender equality, recruited in the Masonic Lodges of Germany, who sought to teach rationalism through mystery schools. In 1785, the order was infiltrated, broken up and suppressed by the government agents of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, in his preemptive campaign to neutralize the threat of secret societies ever becoming hotbeds of conspiracies to overthrow the Bavarian monarchy and its state religion,Roman Catholicism. [40] In the late 18th century, reactionary conspiracy theorists, such as Scottish physicist John Robison and French Jesuit priest Augustin Barruel, began speculating that the Illuminati survived their suppression and became the masterminds behind the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. The Illuminati were accused of being subversives who were attempting to secretly orchestrate a world revolution in order to globalize the most radical ideals of the the 19th century, fear of an Illuminati conspiracy was a real concern of European ruling classes, and their oppressive reactions to this unfounded fear provoked in 1848 the very revolutions they sought to prevent. 41] During the interwar period of the 20th century, fascist propagandists, such as British revisionist historian Nesta Helen Webster and American socialite Edith Starr Miller, not only popularized the myth of an Illuminati conspiracy but claimed that it was a subversive ecret society which serves the Jewish elites that supposedly propped up both finance capitalismand Soviet communism in order to divide and rule the world. American evangelist Gerald Burton Winrod and other conspiracy theorists within the fundamentalist Christian movement in the United States, which emerged in the 1910s as a backlash against the principles of Enlightenment secular humanism, modernism, and liberalism, became the main channel of dissemination of Illuminati conspiracy theories in America. Right-wing populists subsequently began speculating that some collegiate fraternities, gentlemens clubs and think tanks of he American upper class are front organizations of the Illuminati, which they accuse of plotting to create a New World Order through a one-world government. 5] Skeptics argue that evidence would suggest that the Bavarian Illuminati was nothing more than a curious historical footnote since there is no evidence that the Illuminati survived its suppression in 1785. [41] Protocols of the Elders of Zion The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an antisemitic canard, originally published in Russian in 1903, alleging a Judeo-M asonic conspiracy to achieve world domination. The text purports to be the minutes of the secret meetings of a cabal of Jewish masterminds, which has coopted Freemasonry and is plotting to rule the world on behalf of all Jews because they believe themselves to be the chosen people of God. [42] The Protocols incorporate many of the core conspiracist themes outlined in the Robison and Barruel attacks on the Freemasons, and overlay them with antisemitic allegations about anti-Tsarist movements in Russia. The Protocols reflect themes similar to more general critiques of Enlightenment liberalism byconservatives who support monarchies and state religions. The interpretation intended by the publication of The Protocols is that if one peels away the layers of the Masonic conspiracy, past the Illuminati, one finds the rotten Jewish core. [13] The Protocols has been proven by polemicists, such as Irish Journalist Philip Graves in a 1921 The Times article, and British academic Norman Cohn in his 1967 book Warrant for Genocide, to be both a hoax and a clear case of plagiarism. There is general agreement that Russian-French writer and political activist Matvei Golovinski fabricated the text for Okhrana, the secret police of the Russian Empire, as work of counter-revolutionary propaganda prior to the 1905 Russian Revolution, by plagiarizing it, almost word for word in some passages, from The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, a 19th century satire against Napoleon Ill of France written by French political satirist and Legitimist militant Maurice Joly. 43] Responsible for feeding many antisemitic and anti-Masonic mass hysterias of the 20th century, The Protocols is widely considered to be influential in the development of conspiracy theories related to a New World Order (such as the notion of a Zionist Occupation Government), and reappears repeatedly in contemporary conspiracy and the Holy Grail concluded that The Protocols was the most persuasive piece of evidence for the existence and activities of the Priory of Sion. They speculated that this secret society was working behind the scenes to establish a theocratic United States of Europe. Politically and religiously unified through the imperial cult of a Merovingian sacred king † supposedly descended from a Jesus bloodline † who occupies both the throne of Europe and the Holy See, this Holy European Empire would become the hyperpower of the 21st century. 4] Although the Priory of Sion, itself, has been exhaustively debunked by Journalists and scholars as a hoax, [45] fringe Christian eschatologistsconcerned with the emergence of a New World Order became convinced that the Priory of Sion was a fulfillment of prophecies found in the Book of Revelation and further proof of an anti-Christian conspiracy of epic proportions. [46] Skeptics argue that the current gambit of contemporary conspiracy theorists who use The Protocols is to claim that they really come from some group other than the Jews such asalien invaders or fallen angels. Although it is hard to determine whether the conspiracy-minded actually believe this or are simply trying to sanitize a discredited text, skeptics argue that it doesnt make much difference, since they leave the actual, antisemitic text unchanged. The result is to give The Protocols credibility and circulation when it deserves neither. [7] Round Table English-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician Cecil Rhodes advocated the British Empire reannexing the United States of America and reforming itself into an Imperial Federation to bring about a hyperpower and lasting world peace. In his first will, of 1877, written at the age of 23, he expressed his wish to fund a secret society (known as theSociety of the Elect) that would advance this goal: To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity. 7] In his later wills, a more mature Rhodes abandoned the idea and instead concentrated on what became the Rhodes Scholarship, which had British statesman Alfred Milner as one of its trustees. Established in 1902, the original goal of the trust fund was to foster peace among the great powers by creating a sense of fraternity and a shared world view among future British, American, and German leader s by having enabled them to study for free at the University of Oxford. 47] Milner and British official Lionel George Curtis were the architects of the Round Table movement, a network of organizations promoting closer he Royal Institute of International Affairs in June 1919 and, with his 1938 book The Commonwealth of God, began advocating for the creation of an imperial federation that eventually reannexes the U. S. , which would be presented to Protestant churches as being the work of the Christian God to elicit their support. 48] TheCommonwealth of Nations was created in 1949 but it would only be a free association of independent states rather than the powerful imperial federation imagined by Rhodes, Milner and Curtis. The Council on Foreign Relations began in 1917 with a group of New York academics who were asked by President Woodrow Wilson to offer options for the foreign policy of the United States in the interwar period. Originally envisioned as a group of American and British scholars and diplomats, some of whom belonging to the Round Table movement, it was a subsequent group of 108 New York financiers, manufacturers and international lawyers organized in June 1918 by Nobel Peace Prize recipient and U. S. secretary of state, Elihu Root, that became the Council on Foreign Relations on 29 July 1921. The first of the councils projects was a quarterly Journal launched in September 1922, called Foreign Affairs. 9] TheTrilateral Commission was founded in July 1973, at the initiative of American banker David Rockefeller, who was chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations at that time. It is a private organization established to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan. The Trilateral Commission is widely seen as a counterpart to the Council on Foreign Relations. Conspiracy theorists believe that the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission are globalist think tanks that serve as front organizations for the Round Table of the Anglo-American Establishment, which they believe is an international banking cabal that has been plotting from 1900 on to rule the world. Conspiracists therefore fear that the international bankers of financial capitalism are planning to eventually subvert the independence of the U. S. by subordinating national sovereignty to a strengthened Bank for International Settlements. 50] The research findings of historian Carroll Quigley, author of the 1966 book Tragedy and Hope, are taken by both conspiracy theorists of the American Old Right (Cleon Skousen) and New Left (Carl Oglesby) to substantiate this view, even though he argued that the Establishment is not involved in a plot to implement a one-world government but rather British and Americanbenevolent imperialism driven by the mutual interests of econom ic elites in the United Kingdom and the United States. Quigley also argued that, although the Round Table still exists today, its position in influencing the policies of world leaders has been much reduced from its heyday during World War I and slowly waned after the end of World War II and the Suez Crisis. Today the Round Table is largely a ginger group, designed to consider and gradually influence he policies of the Commonwealth of Nations, but faces strong opposition. Furthermore, in American society after 1965, the problem, according to Quigley, was that no elite was in charge and acting responsibly. [50] Larry McDonald, the 2nd president of the John Birch Society and a conservative Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives who represented the 7th congressional district of Georgia, wrote a forward for Allens 1976 book The Rockefeller File, wherein he stated: The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world