Dennis Cuddy -- Powerful Political Forces Always at War

FROM WORLD CITIZENSHIP TO WORLD GOVERNMENT

By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
March 10, 2004
NewsWithViews.com

There has been a lot in the news recently about the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation concerning education. Most of the controversy has been about academic accountability, but there is a lesser known part of the law that is also controversial.

It is rare in federal legislation for Congress to single out one organization for special treatment. However, in NCLB one reads that, "the Secretary (of Education) is authorized to award grants to, or enter into contracts with, the Center for Civic Education (CCE)," and that CCE's "We the People. ... The Citizen and the Constitution" "education program "authorized under this subsection shall be made available to public and private elementary and secondary schools."

CCE is an INGO (UN status International Nongovernmental Organization). And while there is no mention of our Second Amendment rights (except once in the bibliography) in "We the People," it does emphasize the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has 17 references to the environment and 42 references to diversity.

These references are in line with a recent NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) test, which also had 11 questions on job skills.

Why job skills? This would fit with the SCANS (Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) Report of some years ago that contained Task ID#7131631 "Milk Cows" that states: "The farmer then brings the first cows into the milking parlor and feeds them by attaching milkers." Whoever heard of feeding cows by attaching milkers to them? And this is the national commission which is supposed to tell the rest of us what to do!

World Citizens

Why is CCE's lack of emphasis upon America's national sovereignty while emphasizing a UN Declaration a cause of concern? It's because on Oct. 3, 2003, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige in Paris stated: "The United States is pleased to return to UNESCO. ... Our governments have entrusted us with the responsibility of preparing our children to become citizens of the world. ... UNESCO is a powerful forum for sharing our views, developing a common strategy, and implementing joint action."

The problem with the concept of "world citizens" is that the term "citizen" (as opposed to "inhabitant" or "resident") implies a legal obligation. If you are the "citizen" of a state, you must abide by its laws. Thus if you are a "citizen" of the world, you must abide by world law. It has long been the goal of proponents of world government to use world citizenship to further their ends. In the NEA Journal (October 1947), National Education Association (NEA) official William Carr wrote: "Teach those attitudes which will result, ultimately in the creation of a world citizenship and world government."

Late in 1945, Carr had been deputy secretary for the founding conference of UNESCO, whose first director-general Sir Julian Huxley wrote in UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy that "political unification in some sort of world government will be required."

The year after Huxley's book was published, UNESCO began a series of booklets titled Towards World Understanding, in vol. 5 of which one finds: "The success of the teacher in bringing up his pupils to be good citizens of the world. ... As long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education in world-mindedness can produce only precarious results. ... For the moment, it is sufficient to note that it is most frequently in the family that the children are infected with nationalism."

Losing Loyalty To Nation

In the Oct. 10, 1962 Congressional Record, Rep. John Ashbrook warned that UNESCO's "right attitudes" could "lead our youth down the path to collectivism and internationalism whereby they gradually lose their loyalty to home and nation. ... their first loyalty will be to world government." Nearly 3 decades later UNESCO, UNICEF, the UN Development Program and the World Bank sponsored the World Conference on Education for All, and referring to it in his Oct. 3, 2003 Paris speech Secretary of Education Paige stated: "Education for All is consistent with our recent education legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act."

Secretary Paige would, no doubt, say that he has no intention of advocating a subordination of American national sovereignty under a world government. However, his desire that our children become "citizens of the world," and his "developing a common strategy, and implementing joint action" with an organization like UNESCO, should cause all Americans great concern. Beginning in 1995, the UN began issuing "global citizen certificates" to children in the U.S. and elsewhere who requested them.

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Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education.

Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited seventeen books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.