Blowing Smoke - Michael Wolraich [85]
According to Skousen, a religious Mormon, the global takeover by the conspiracy of the super-rich had in fact been prophesied two thousand years ago in the Bible:
Anyone familiar with the writings of John’s Apocalypse might have suspected that modern history would eventually contain the account of a gigantic complex of political and economic power which would cover the whole earth. John predicted that before the great epic of Messianic or Millennial peace, the human race would be subjected to a ruthless, world-wide conglomerate of dictatorial authority which would attempt to make all men subservient to it or be killed.7
Skousen’s “world-wide conglomerate” formed the basis of the popular new world order conspiracy theories, according to which a “shadow government” made up of Rothschilds, Rockefellers, the Illuminati, the Learned Elders of Zion, the Council on Foreign Relations, and assorted bad guys like George Soros’s plot to create a tyrannical one-world government and amass a very large fleet of black helicopters. Pat Robertson’s 1992 bestseller, The New World Order, is one of the most popular books of the genre. In 1994, a year before the Oklahoma City bombing, Oklahoma state legislators passed a resolution calling on the U.S. Congress “to cease any support for the establishment of ‘a new world order’ or any form of global government.”8 The concept also inspired the Syndicate, the secretive alien-collaborators of The X-Files series. Skousen’s role in germinating such conspiracy ideas is what David Frum meant when he called him a “legendary crank.”br
“The Goal Is Globalization”
And so Glenn Beck set about becoming a legendary crank himself. On his September 6, 2006, radio show, Beck favorably discussed Quigley’s book and Skousen’s The Naked Capitalist: “It’s the only explanation that I have heard of why our government isn’t doing—why they didn’t put more boots on the ground [in Iraq and Afghanistan], why we don’t protect our own borders here.”9 A few weeks later, he continued the theme in an interview with CNN colleague Lou Dobbs. Beck asked:
Was Carroll Quigley right on the shadow government, on the companies taking over and really controlling everything? Because it’s really the only thing that I can put my finger on to say, “Why aren’t we doing anything about illegal immigration?” We’re run by companies now, aren’t we?10
But Quigley never discussed a “shadow government.” The term comes from the Skousen-derived new world order conspiracy theories. Lou Dobbs was either unfamiliar with Quigley or chose to avoid the question, so Beck pressed on: “It’s not just corporate America. I mean, it’s global corporations. I think we’re being turned into MexAmeriCanada.”
MexAmeriCanada is Beck’s awkward name for the imminent union between Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Lou Dobbs, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), and his son Rand, the Republican Senate nominee from Kentucky, call it the North American Union.bs11 There are many variations of the North American Union conspiracy theory, but the experts agree on two points.
First, the conspirators plan to deliberately devalue the dollar in order to force Americans to accept a new common currency, called the Amero. (Like the euro, get it?) The conspirators include the Federal Reserve and numerous foreign entities. Ron Paul speaks vaguely of “an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments.” 12 Others name the Rothschilds. Many also suspect King Juan Carlos of Spain for no obvious reason.
Second, the powers that be are constructing a massive “NAFTA Superhighway” to ship goods from Mexico to Canada.13 According to Ron Paul’s congressional website, “Proponents