The choir warming to the idea of a one world government was joined recently by CFR-member and presidential professor of political science, Thomas G. Weiss. In his  presidential address at the 50th convention of the International Studies Association in mid February of this year, Weiss argued for world government and a world currency out of the current economic crisis. At the same time he discerns an increasing resistance on the part of the people to accept such a world government in any way, shape, or form.

In his speech titled “What Happened to the Idea of World Government”, Weiss outright rejects the idea of national sovereignty in favour of “overarching central authority” to set things straight. He then goes on to lament recent developments in the United States, where it has become less fashionable to speak of world government: a clear sign that the people are gradually beginning to develop an allergy for the new world order and its most vehement proponents:

“Once a staple of informed debate on international affairs- and as hard as it is to believe, especially in the United States- “world government” is a term no longer used in polite company, unless as my Graduate Center colleague Rob Jenkins states, “it is to dismiss those who advocate the idea as hopelessly naïve, or to demonize those suspected of secretly plotting the creation of a global leviathan.”

“My purpose this evening”, Weiss continues, “is to trace what happened to the idea of a world government and its replacement by “global governance” as well as the pluses and minuses of that development.”

The rest of his speech is occupied mainly by ideas long promoted by transnational elites: the UN is flawed in its current form and needs to be transformed into a monolithic giant with governing powers given by the member-states to break the spell of inaction. Nation-states will gradually be stripped from their sovereignty as they are morphed into this larger system, answering only to a global central authority. Glumly shaking his head, Weiss comments:

“When interdependence was less and actors were fewer and states could actually solve or attenuate most international problems, the idea of a world government was not far from the mainstream. Paradoxically, now when states visibly cannot address a growing number of threats from WMDs to climate change, from terrorism to the current financial crisis, world government is unimaginable.”

Here Weiss brings us good tidings from his transnational headquarters. He acknowledges that the journey towards world government is not going as well as planned, and the sleeping giant is unmistakably showing signs of wakening from his unperturbed slumber.

“The late Harold Jacobson’s 1984 Networks of Interdependence commented that the march toward a world government was woven into in the tapestries decorating the walls of the Palais des Nations in Geneva- now the UN’s European Office but once the headquarters of the League of Nations. Jake observed that they “picture the process of humanity combining into ever larger and more stable units for the purpose of governance- first the family, then the tribe, then the city-state, then the nation- a process which presumably would eventually culminate in the entire world being combined in one political unit.”

This concept of evolution from the small to the great to which man is supposed to be predestined is in fact a fallacy. It is the reasoning of tyrants, eager to convince an unsuspecting audience. History teaches us that expanding empires either crumble under their own weight, allowing smaller sovereign states to rise from its ruins; or they overstretch- in which case they are overrun by tribal communities demanding the tyrant’s head on a plate. Either way, the evolution of power is a continuous rollercoaster ride through history; it expands and shrinks like the tides upon the seashore. Weiss again buries his head in his hands in a theatrical gesture:

“Imagine a United States in which a serious conversation about the process depicted in that tapestry were possible. Could there really once have been a sizable group of prominent Americans from every walk of life, including politicians who passed resolutions in 30 of 48 state legislatures, who supported pooling American sovereignty with that of other countries?”

Weiss points to prominent idealists of the late 1940s en early 50s, who also desired a world government and advocated it with all means available to them:

“(…) prominent individuals associated with the world government idea included, at one time or another, Kurt Vonnegut, Walter Cronkite, H.G. Wells, Peter Ustinov, Supreme Court Justices William Douglas and Owen Roberts, Senator Estes Kefauver and Senator and future Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. And the list goes on.”

In all his musings about the inability of the UN to fulfil its original mission, namely to bring world government into being, the concept of freedom versus tyranny does not enter his mind for a second. Instead he continues hammering on the necessity of global government lest the world starve by the lack of it.

“Is it really so far-fetched to imagine the global advance of inter-governmental economic agreements along the lines that Europe has nurtured since the Second World War, including a global currency?”

The professor breaths a sigh of despair.

“It is unsettling to recall how feeble our academic expectations have become in comparison with earlier generations of analysts who did not shy away from elements of world government and robust intergovernmental organizations. At Bretton Woods, for example, John Maynard Keynes proposed a monetary fund with resources equivalent to 50% of world imports.”

In light of the unprecedented recent power grab by the Federal Reserve, pumping wealth into the very lifeblood of the new world order, Weiss’ attempt at describing world government as an oxygen starved entity, is somewhat premature. But he does have a point: as the general support of Ron Paul’s HR 1207 indicates, even the lemming like congress now has mustered enough support for the bill to move ahead to the Senate, not daring to ignore its constituents. The reason that advocacy for world government has now changed from an outright roar to a passing whisper, is nevertheless encouraging. For now the agenda has hit a snag and every move they make is under scrutiny by an increasingly critical public, watching them intently.

In conclusion of his long, wailing lament, Weiss places his hope in the Obama administration to realise the dream of the world’s central bankers and their mission of old:

“We need a big international vision from the Obama administration. (…) The new president excels in political imagination and his ability to address the need for meaningful change. He should draw on his considerable communications skills to help overcome what can only be described as the appalling public ignorance, including among members of Congress, about why the UN agglomeration works the way that it does.”

The “appalling public ignorance” Weiss is describing is actually a sign that the tide of tyranny is turning in favour of sovereignty worldwide. But with this comes a threat, one so terrifying that it defies understanding. Now that the push for a global feudal system seems to be stalling to the point of paralysis, the danger of a false flag attack or otherwise unprecedented crisis looms ominously on the horizon. Weiss:

“Will it take a calamity on the scale of World War Two to demonstrate the abject poverty of our current thinking?” Weiss asks threateningly. “Is such a disaster required to catalyze a transformation of the current feeble system of what many of us now call “global governance”- the patchwork of formal and informal arrangements among states, international agencies, and public-private partnerships- into something with at least some of the attributes of a world government?”