Castro and Chavez
Love the UN’s UNESCO
Sunday, February 26, 2006
By John F. McManus
In 1994, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) acted on a suggestion given by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro that it confer an award in the name of Jose Marti, Cuba's national hero who died in 1895 during its war for independence from Spain.
The award for 2005, presented by Castro on February 3 before 200,000 in Havana’s Revolution Plaza, went to Marxist Hugo Chavez, the fiery anti-American leader of Venezuela. Chavez used the opportunity given him to solidify his alliance with Castro and to ratchet up his attack on the United States.
The lending of UNESCO’s name to an annual pro-communist celebration says plenty about this division of the UN, and about the UN itself. It also says something about President George W. Bush, who put the U.S. back into this UN agency in 2002, ending our 18-year absence. America had withdrawn in 1984 when President Reagan cited UNESCO’s blatant anti-Americanism and general hostility to freedom. But thanks to the current occupant of the White House, we are once again a UNESCO member, funding approximately 25 percent of its budget.
UNESCO was formed shortly after the birth of the United Nations in 1945. A U.S. Senate investigating panel reported in the early 1950s that its chief architects were communists Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. The organization’s founding director general, Julian Huxley, hardly hid its overall purpose when he stated upon accepting the appointment: “The general philosophy of UNESCO should be a scientific world humanism, global in extent.... It can stress the transfer of full sovereignty from separate nations to a world political organization.”
In 1955, Wisconsin Congressman Lawrence Smith described the organization as “a permanent international snake pit where Godless Communism is given a daily forum for hate, recrimination, psychological warfare against freedom, and unrelenting moral aggression against peace.” His words were given new meaning when UNESCO and Castro partnered in the creation of an annual UNESCO award.
According to its spokesmen, UNESCO strives to make the world a better place by helping nations in the educational, scientific, and cultural spheres. Its advocacy of abortion and population control speaks volumes about its contribution to science. In 1981, UNESCO launched a proposal that would give it power to license the world’s journalists — as clear an attack on press freedom as could be imagined.
The United States should never have joined UNESCO for the same reasons our nation should never have become entangled in its United Nations parent. America’s independence has always been threatened by participation in the UN and its subdivisions. Perhaps no clearer admission of this fact can be found than in an editorial appearing in the July 19, 1952 issue of the internationalist-favoring Saturday Review. It stated: “If UNESCO is attacked on the grounds that it is helping to prepare the world’s people for world government, then it is an error to burst forth with apologetic statements and denials.... When faced with such a charge, let us by all means affirm it from the housetops.”
We can only thank Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez for exposing the real purpose of UNESCO. However, Americans ought to be asking themselves why George W. Bush put the United States back in this “international snake pit.” Our nation should withdraw from it and from its sovereignty-targeting United Nations parent.
John F. McManus is President of The John Birch Society.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1935. At graduation from Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, he received a bachelor's degree in physics and a commission in the United States Marine Corps. After serving three years of active duty, he entered the field of electronics engineering, where he won an award from the U.S. Air Force for designing a component used in fighter aircraft.
Jack left the engineering field in 1966 to accept a full-time position with our organization. Working closely with Founder Robert Welch for many years, he was named the Society's Public Relations Director and its official spokesman. In 1991, he was appointed President.
The author of several books and numerous articles, Jack has represented the Society in hundreds of media appearances, spoken from JBS platforms in all 50 states, and written and produced several JBS films and videos. With his wife, Mary, Jack resides in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this
information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
|
