That global village will be a more interesting place for some than for others, one would think. It will not be pie in the sky. It will be here. And if not now, it will be soon. Special “leaders” or “inspirers” or “instructors” will be all-powerful in that global village, making all the decisions about every human issue—economic and cultural as well as spiritual and religious. Above all, it will not be Christian or Jewish or Muslim.
For Pope John Paul, and for all who still remain genuine believers in the doctrine and revelation of Jesus, the rapid spread of New Age is less an illumination than a warning signal. John Paul denounces New Age doctrine, together with its materialist utopian principles and the mystical language in which they are presented.
Addressing the New Age concept of evolution of mankind and its institutions, the Pontiff insists that human development “is not a straightforward line, as it were, automatic and in itself limitless; as though, given certain conditions, the human race will be able to progress rapidly toward an undefined and limitless perfection of some kind or other.”
As to the “liberties” claimed in the name of New Age—abortion on demand, contraception, divorce, homosexual marriages and life-styles, test tube babies, totally statist education—John Paul condemns them as sinful and absolutely forbidden practices that cannot lead to the human happiness figured by New Agers in their global village.
New Age appeals notwithstanding, John Paul maintains that man is not perfected by his own material experience, and certainly not by welcoming Lucifer as a beloved figure. Man is a being redeemed by Christ’s blood and perfected only after physical death. There is no unity possible for men and women other than by an “exercise of the human and Christian solidarity to which the Church calls us all in the light of faith and of the Church’s tradition.”
No words could be more categorically Roman Catholic. Still, even as John Paul calls New Agers especially to the recognition of the age-old Catholic maxim that “outside the Church there is no salvation,” he recognizes in the steady growth of their numbers yet another circumstance that must be welcomed by Mikhail Gorbachev. New Agers may not forge formal alliances with Marxist-minded groups such as the WCC and SODEPAX. Nonetheless, New Age prepares the way for exactly the conditions Marxism itself has been unable to create.
The Marxist ideal has always met its stubbornest rejection at the hands of several large blocs of people—in many cases numbered in the millions—who remained stoutly attached to a religious ideal to be realized only in the afterlife. New Age, on the contrary, not only envisages the ideal of the global village in the here and now. It serves the classic Marxist ideal by corroding and dissipating those blocs of traditional resistance to the notion of total control of human life and activity by all-powerful “leaders” and “instructors.” Like many other “one world” groups, New Agers look forward to the elimination of existing political systems and national boundaries. They are prepared to welcome the subsequent blending of all nations and peoples into one planetary culture, with a single court of justice, a single police force, a single economic and educational system—all under a single government dominated by a superbureau of “enlightened ones.”
Allowing for the necessary change of language, that is very nearly the formula set out by Vladimir Lenin. Indeed, the primary difference between the Utopia of New Agers and that of Leninist Marxism lies in the stark fact that it was Lenin, not Meishu Sama, who devised and set in place the practical geopolitical structures needed for success. That global structural system rests now in the hands of a canny Soviet leader who believes he knows how to use any element, expected or not, that will work to the advantage of his own globalist ideal. On that score, the utopian sages of Findhorn Bay are no match for Moscow. Of that Pope John Paul is certain.
That all three—Humanists, Mega-Religionists, New Agers—are globalist in mind and geopolitical in intent seems absolutely clear. That all three are in fundamental opposition to John Paul, his claims as Vicar of Christ and his papal teaching about mankind’s destiny is equally sure and clear. Much more ominous for John Paul is the obvious coincidence of aims and organizational methods between Gorbachevism and these three Piggyback Globalist groups. They cannot of themselves move the economic, financial and political mountains blocking mankind’s path to their visionary global village. John Paul’s apprehension only increases according as he registers the disappearance of Roman Catholic faith among his clergy and people and their quite obvious assimilation to New Age ideals and goals.
For Gorbachevism, on the contrary, the Piggyback Globalists are a godsend. The aim is to promote homogeneity and unity between what was once the hermetically sealed Marxist society of the Soviet empire and the cultures of Western countries. Standing in the way of such an aim was organized Christian religion—notably, the institutional organization John Paul II heads.
Much like the “cheerful idiots” Dean Swift lampooned some centuries ago as manfully digging their own grave site, the Piggyback Globalists are excellent “front men” and “point men” for the advancing forces of Gorbachevism now claiming to desire unity and cooperation with all mankind. For on one capital point Gorbachevism and these Piggyback Globalists agree: The exclusively materialist and this-worldly nature of mankind is its essence and its destiny. John Paul and Gorbachev may be alone stalking on the geopolitical plane. But waiting for Gorbachev in John Paul’s backyard is a host of supporters of Gorbachevism.
17
The Genuine Globalists: From Alabama to Zambia, Let’s Hear It for Cornflakes
The two groups that constitute the final category of self-styled globalists are perceived already by the world at large as having such managerial power over the sinews of our daily lives that they are watched by everybody. Television, radio and print reporters do their best to ferret out every morsel of information about their activities, and commentators do their best to tell us what it all means. They are perceived as Genuine Globalists, as serious about setting up international systems and structures as Lenin ever was.
Like the Provincial and Piggyback Globalists, these groups see themselves as the future. The difference is that much of the rest of the world sees them as the future, as well. And increasingly, as members of both groups begin to talk about their globalist aims as “geopolitical”—that is, in the same league of capability as Pope John Paul II and Mikhail Gorbachev—very little laughter is heard; and none of it comes from the Vatican.
Though the members of both of these groups are managers by profession, the differences between the two groups are significant enough that they are commonly given two different names.
One of them, referred to most frequently as the Internationalists, is made up primarily of political bureaucrats: individuals whose activities center around the tough business of forging legal agreements and pacts between nations and, increasingly, between blocs of nations.
The second group, the Transnationalists, are money men and company men who operate at a certain rarefied level. Their action plan in the globalist arena was set out most clearly by one of their most convinced practitioners, Montagu Norman, who served as Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1924. “The hegemony of world finance,” declared Norman, “should reign supreme over everyone, everywhere, as one whole supernational mechanism.” As far back as 1756, Meyer Amschel Rothschild had expressed this principle in a more frank and direct way: “Give me the power to control a nation’s money, and I care not who writes its laws.”
In Pope John Paul’s scheme of globalist situation rooms, the operational centers of Internationalists and Transnationalists are set side by side, with a wide and much-used swinging door connecting them. For, while he agrees that there are important differences between the two groups, they do share the same working model of the world. They both see each nation living in a global harmony that will result for us all from their tireless managerial efforts to fashion a truly interdependent oneworld community. And it is common for members of both groups to serve in one another
’s bailiwicks from time to time.
Because there is so much traffic back and forth between the groups, and because both groups operate globally as a matter of course, it is not surprising to John Paul that matters we normally think of in terms of global politics often move in a lockstep pattern with what we usually think of as financial and corporate interests.
It could not be otherwise, given the fact that a man such as George Shultz, for instance, is comfortable in the role of a Transnationalist, as onetime eminent executive of the Bechtel Group, Inc.; and just as comfortable in his Internationalist role as secretary of state during President Ronald Reagan’s two administrations. Or, to take another obvious example, a corporate Transnationalist of the stature of Armand Hammer regularly enters the Internationalist arena to undertake missions on behalf of the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union.
The crossover traffic between these groups works in both directions and at many levels. Richard Helms, an Internationalist in his role as the onetime valued head of the CIA, functions equally well as a facilitator and go-between for Transnationalist business ventures. J. Patrick Barrett, former CEO of Avis, became the New York State Republican chairman in 1989.
From Pope John Paul’s vantage point, the thing that seems to bind these two groups most closely in practical terms is that at heart, and philosophically speaking, both are sociopolitical Darwinists. Of course, the Pope doesn’t for a moment imagine that such activists as these are likely to take time out from their total immersion in world affairs to formulate their basic group philosophy in the same way that the Humanists have. There is no Internationalist or Transnationalist equivalent of Professor Paul Kurtz’s Humanist Manifesto II.
Still, in John Paul’s assessment, both of these globalist groups operate on the same fundamental assumptions about the meaning of human society today. Both agree on the face of it that the most important single trait that pervades the life of all nations is interdependence. And both agree that interdependence is a progressive function of evolutionary progress. Evolutionary, as in Darwin.
In practical terms, both of these groups operate on the same working assumption Charles Darwin arbitrarily adopted to rationalize his feelings about mankind’s physical origins and history. If it worked so well for Darwin, they almost seem to say, why not expand the idea of orderly progress through natural evolution to include such sociopolitical arrangements as corporations and nations? In this view, the most useful of Darwin’s concepts is that of human existence as essentially a struggle in which the weakest perish, the fittest survive and the strongest flourish.
When applied to sociopolitical arrangements, this Darwinist process seems almost to dictate the Internationalist and Transnationalist oneworld view of things. The continuing clash and contention in the world as it has been until now has resulted in a slow evolution of those who have survived from one stage of interdependent order to another. From time to time, natural “catastrophes” have intervened, forcing “nature” to take another path. But at each new stage, interdependence has become more important and more complex.
The greater the interdependence between groups, the higher the evolutionary stage, the more the balance achieved between interdependent groups results in the common good.
The view of the Internationalists and Transnationalists is that they are the ones who are equipped to bring mankind to the highest level of sociopolitical evolution. Their effort is to bring together into one harmonious whole all those separate parts of our world that have not yet “evolved” into a natural cohesion for the common good.
In this effort, it is the task of the Internationalists to use their juridical skills to forge a high order of unity and harmony. The pacts and agreements among groups and nations that this group works out—and they have worked out quite a number—are practical instruments. They are real building blocks of institutions with global capabilities and wide-ranging interests. And these building blocks are backed up by the strength of each group or nation that signs on the dotted line.
The Transnationalists, meanwhile, see their task as the forging of unity and harmony not through juridical resources—such means can be useful, but are subject to restrictions and dangerous delays. The favored tool of Transnationalists is the greatest human strength of all, in their view. Hard cash.
· · ·
Admittedly, the sociopolitical interdependence sought by these two closely related and practical-minded groups does not rest on anything like Darwin’s Galápagos turtle. It rests on a three-legged creature of their own making: a real and living and evolving tripod that will carry us on its three legs into the globalist community of the near future.
The first leg of that tripod is international trade; and it is essential for the survival of interdependence itself.
The second leg of the tripod—an international system of payment—is essential to keep the first leg, trade, from collapsing.
Finally, physical security is essential as the third leg of the tripod, so that both trade and payment can be accomplished safely, and without any of those “catastrophes” that have diverted sociopolitical evolution from its true course in the past.
Avoiding catastrophes is more important now than ever before. For the Internationalists and Transnationalists have come far enough in their plans that the slow-boiling cauldron of our world rests on top of their evolving tripod. If a rough and unmerciful fate were to kick one of those legs out from under, the consequences would be so dire and universal that no Internationalist or Transnationalist would wish to contemplate the consequences for us all.
Not to worry, however. There may be a few bumps and rough spots ahead. But on the whole, so far so good.
The first leg of the tripod—the latter-day globalist version of international trade—got its start very soon after World War II. And until recently, it appeared to be doing splendidly, as it has so far been fashioned through the sensible cooperation of these two managerial groups.
For a full century before World War II, nations engaged in trade by means of networks of bilateral trade agreements and treaties of friendship, navigation and commerce.
Importantly, there had always been one power to serve as the solid underpinning of international trade, functioning as the marketplace of last resort, one power with enough military and naval strength, enough political clout and a strong enough sense of mission to provide the stability and economic stimulus necessary for world trade.
For a short while in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that one power was Great Britain, with its far-flung colonialist and commercial empire. But in the immediate aftermath of World War II, hegemony passed to the United States. And at the same time, a noticeable change—in effect, a liberalization and expansion—began to alter the direction of world trade. The widely felt need of so many nations at once to rebuild their shattered economies, and the new closeness of nations that had only recently been united in a common war effort, made multilateral trade the desirable and suitable option over the earlier bilateral network system.
Within two years of the end of World War II, two general arrangements were made under the hegemony of the United States. The first facilitated the building of the initial leg of the new tripod of interdependence—the new push to multilateral trade. And the second fostered the growth of the next leg—arrangements for multilateral payment for expanded trade.
The first of those two arrangements, and the more important, was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—or GATT. Negotiated in Switzerland in 1947 after a series of five international conferences, GATT consisted of an integrated set of bilateral trade agreements aimed at the abolition of quantitative trade restrictions and the reduction of tariff duties.
Successful even at the outset, GATT was amplified in 1949, 1951, 1956, 1961 and 1965. After less than twenty years, sixty-four contracting parties, accounting for four fifths of all world trade, had signed on the dotted line. At the end of 1990, the “Uruguay” round of GATT talks will involve 105 na
tions. Meanwhile, GATT negotiations have already covered scores of thousands of tradable commodities, including such “intellectual properties” as patents and trademarks.
Up to this point, GATT has been the organized method both of creating and of strengthening—of “evolving”—the first leg of the globalist tripod. But it has also served another function. It has been a powerful force in convincing the world at large that interdependence among nations is as natural as—well, as evolution; and as essential to our wellbeing as the winds that circle our common home.
Largely on the basis of GATT successes, in fact, it is now generally understood and accepted that any nation’s fitness to survive—and certainly its strength to flourish—requires that it engage vigorously in trade with other nations. Swiss Confederation President Jean-Pascal Delamuraz put the case for this globalist view of international trade as a basic ingredient for the survival of the fittest. “Isolationism,” said Delamuraz, “(whether by retreats into nationalism, or by uncontrolled ‘North-South’ confrontations) has been a calamity. In the future, it will be an infirmity.”
The nature of that infirmity is easily seen already, to take one of several possible examples, in Communist North Korea. Behind the severely ailing economy of that nation, as compared with the flourishing condition of South Korea, lies the refusal of dictator Kim II Sung to allow his doctrinaire centralized economic system to join in international trade with “capitalist jackals.”
Keys of This Blood Page 40
