New World Order (conspiracy theory) Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==History of the term== {{Main|New world order (politics)}} ===General usage (pre-Cold War)=== During the 20th century, political figures such as [[Woodrow Wilson]] and [[Winston Churchill]] used the term "[[new world order (politics)|new world order]]" to refer to a new period of history characterized by a dramatic change in world political thought and in the [[balance of power in international relations|global balance of power]] after [[World War I]] and [[World War II]].<ref name="Knock2019">{{cite book|author=Thomas J. Knock|title=To End All Wars, New Edition: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_rluDwAAQBAJ|year=2019|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-19192-8}}</ref> The [[interwar period|interwar]] and [[Aftermath of World War II|post-World War II]] period were seen as opportunities to implement [[idealism (international relations)|idealistic]] proposals for [[global governance]] by collective efforts to address worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual [[nation state|nation-states]] to resolve, while nevertheless respecting the right of nations to [[self-determination]]. Such collective initiatives manifested in the formation of [[intergovernmental organization]]s such as the [[League of Nations]] in 1920, the [[United Nations]] (UN) in 1945, and the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] (NATO) in 1949, along with international regimes such as the [[Bretton Woods system]] and the [[General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]] (GATT), implemented to maintain a cooperative balance of power and facilitate reconciliation between nations to prevent the prospect of [[World War III|another global conflict]]. These [[Cosmopolitanism|cosmopolitan]] efforts to instill [[International relations theory#Liberalism|liberal internationalism]] were regularly criticized and opposed by American [[Paleoconservatism|paleoconservative]] [[business nationalism|business nationalists]] from the 1930s on.<ref name="Buchanan 1999">{{cite book|author= Buchanan, Patrick J.|title= A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny|publisher= Regnery Publishing, Inc.|date= 1999| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=stgGsu74ui4C |isbn= 978-1621571001}}</ref>{{qn|date=August 2016}} [[Progressivism|Progressives]] welcomed international organizations and regimes such as the United Nations in the aftermath of the two World Wars, but argued that these initiatives suffered from a [[democratic deficit]] and were therefore inadequate not only to prevent another [[world war]] but to foster [[global justice]], as the UN was chartered to be a free association of sovereign nation-states rather than a transition to democratic world government. Thus, cosmopolitan activists around the globe, perceiving the IGOs as too ineffectual for global change, formed a world federalist movement.<ref>{{cite web|last1= Hughes|first1= J.|title= Better Living Through World Government: Transnationalism as 21st Socialism|url= http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes1991worgov/|website= Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies|access-date= 10 July 2014|archive-date= 31 December 2013|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131231101826/http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes1991worgov/|url-status= dead}}</ref> British writer and futurist [[H. G. Wells]] went further than progressives in the 1940s, by appropriating and redefining the term "new world order" as a synonym for the establishment of a technocratic [[world state]] and of a [[planned economy]], garnering popularity in [[state socialism|state socialist]] circles.<ref name="Wells 1940">{{cite book|author= Wells, H. G.|title= The New World Order|publisher= Hesperides Press|date= 2006|isbn= 1-4067-2262-6|title-link= The New World Order (Wells)}}</ref><ref name="Wagar 1977">{{cite book|author= Wagar, W. Warren|title= H. G. Wells and the World State|publisher= Ayer Co Pub|date= 1977|isbn= 0-8369-5915-9|author-link= W. Warren Wagar}}</ref> ===Usage as reference to a conspiracy (Cold War era)=== During the [[Red Scare#Second Red Scare (1947–60)|Second Red Scare]], both secular and [[Christian right]] American agitators, largely influenced by the work of Canadian conspiracy theorist [[William Guy Carr]], increasingly embraced and spread dubious fears of [[Freemasons]], [[Illuminati]] and [[Jewish Bolshevism|Jews]] as the alleged driving forces behind an "[[comintern|international communist]] conspiracy." The threat of "Godless communism", in the form of an [[state atheism|atheistic]], [[bureaucratic collectivism|bureaucratic collectivist]] world government, [[demonization|demonized]] as the "Red Menace", became the focus of [[apocalypticism|apocalyptic]] [[millenarianism|millenarian]] [[conspiracism]]. The Red Scare came to shape one of the core ideas of the political right in the United States, which is that [[liberalism in the United States|liberals]] and [[progressivism in the United States|progressives]], with their [[welfare state|welfare-state]] policies and international cooperation programs such as [[United States foreign aid|foreign aid]], supposedly contribute to a gradual process of global [[Collectivism and individualism|collectivism]] that will inevitably lead to nations being replaced with a [[world communism|communistic/collectivist one-world government]].<ref name="Berlet 1999">{{cite journal|last1= Berlet|first1= Chip|title= Dances with Devils: How Apocalyptic and Millennialist Themes Influence Right Wing Scapegoating and Conspiracism|journal= The Public Eye|date= 15 April 1999|url= http://www.publiceye.org/apocalyptic/Dances_with_Devils_1.html|access-date= 2 April 2016}}</ref> [[James Warburg]], appearing before the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]] in 1950, famously stated: "We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest."<ref>{{cite book |title=Revision of the United Nations Charter: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Eighty-First Congress |author=Senate Report (Senate Foreign Relations Committee) |publisher=United States Government Printing Office |year=1950 |page=494}} [[s:James Warburg before the Subcommittee on Revision of the United Nations Charter#We shall have world government|Testimony on Wikisource]]</ref> [[Right-wing populist]] advocacy groups with a [[paleoconservatism|paleoconservative]] world-view, such as the [[John Birch Society]], disseminated a multitude of conspiracy theories in the 1960s claiming that the governments of both the United States and the [[Soviet Union]] were controlled by a [[cabal]] of [[neoliberalism|corporate internationalists]], "greedy" bankers and corrupt politicians who were intent on using the UN as the vehicle to create a "One World Government". This [[anti-globalization movement|anti-globalist]] conspiracism fueled the campaign for [[United States withdrawal from the United Nations|U.S. withdrawal from the UN]]. American writer [[Mary M. Davison]], in her 1966 booklet ''The Profound Revolution'', traced the alleged New World Order conspiracy to the establishment of the U.S. [[Federal Reserve System|Federal Reserve]] in 1913 by international bankers, whom she claimed later formed the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] in 1921 as a [[Shadow government (conspiracy)|shadow government]]. At the time the booklet was published, many readers would have interpreted "international bankers" as a reference to a postulated "international [[Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories|Jewish banking conspiracy]]" masterminded by the [[Rothschild family]].<ref name="Berlet 1999"/>{{additional citation needed|date=November 2021}} Arguing that the term "New World Order" is used by a secretive global elite dedicated to the eradication of the sovereignty of the world's nations, American writer [[Gary Allen]]—in his books ''None Dare Call It Conspiracy'' (1971), ''Rockefeller: Campaigning for the New World Order'' (1974), and '' Say "No!" to the New World Order'' (1987)—articulated the anti-globalist theme of contemporary [[right-wing]] conspiracism in the U.S. After the [[Revolutions of 1989|fall of communism]] in the early 1990s, the ''de facto'' subject of New World Order conspiracism shifted from [[crypto-communism|crypto-communists]], perceived to be plotting to establish an atheistic world communist government, to globalists, perceived to be plotting to implement a collectivist generally, unified world government ultimately controlled by an untouchable [[oligarchy]] of international bankers, corrupt politicians, and [[Corporatocracy|corporatists]], or the United Nations itself. The shift in perception was inspired by growing [[business nationalism|opposition to corporate internationalism]] on the American right in the 1990s.<ref name="Berlet 1999"/>{{additional citation needed|date=October 2021}} In his speech, ''[[s:Toward a New World Order|Toward a New World Order]]'', delivered on 11 September 1990 during a joint session of the [[United States Congress|US Congress]], President [[George H. W. Bush]] described [[New world order (politics)#Gulf War and Bush's formulation|his objectives for post-Cold War global governance]] in cooperation with [[post-Soviet states]]. He stated: {{quotation|Until now, the world we've known has been a world divided—a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict, and the cold war. Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the genuine prospect of new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a "world order" in which "the principles of justice and fair play ... protect the weak against the strong ..." A world where the United Nations, freed from cold war stalemate, is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations.<ref>(clip) {{cite web |url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byxeOG_pZ1o |title= George Bush Sr. New World Order Live Speech Sept 11 1991 |date= 3 December 2011 |publisher= YouTube |access-date= 14 January 2016}}</ref>}} ''[[The New York Times]]'' observed that progressives were denouncing this new world order as a rationalization of [[American imperialism|American imperial]] ambitions in the [[Middle East]] at the time. At the same time [[conservatism in the United States|conservatives]] rejected any new security arrangements altogether and fulminated about any possibility of a UN revival.<ref>{{cite news|last1= Judis|first1= John B.|title= George Bush, Meet Woodrow Wilson|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/20/opinion/george-bush-meet-woodrow-wilson.html|access-date= 10 July 2014|work= The New York Times|date= 20 November 1990}}</ref> [[Chip Berlet]], an American investigative reporter specializing in the study of right-wing movements in the U.S., wrote that the Christian and secular far-right were especially terrified by Bush's speech. Fundamentalist Christian groups interpreted Bush's words as signaling the [[Eschatology|End Times]]. At the same time, more secular theorists approached it from an anti-communist and anti-collectivist standpoint and feared for hegemony over all countries by the United Nations.<ref name="Berlet and Lyons 2000"/> ===Post-Cold War usage=== [[File:Pat Robertson Paparazzo Photography.jpg|thumb|upright|American televangelist [[Pat Robertson]] wrote the 1991 best-selling book ''[[The New World Order (Robertson)|The New World Order]]''.]] American [[televangelist]] [[Pat Robertson]], with his 1991 best-selling book ''[[The New World Order (Robertson)|The New World Order]]'', became the most prominent Christian disseminator of conspiracy theories about recent American history. He describes a scenario where [[Wall Street]], the Federal Reserve System, the Council on Foreign Relations, the [[Bilderberg Group]] and the [[Trilateral Commission]] control the flow of events from behind the scenes, constantly nudging people covertly in the direction of world government for the [[Antichrist]].<ref name="Barkun 2003" /> It has been observed that, throughout the 1990s, the galvanizing language used by conspiracy theorists such as [[Linda Thompson (attorney)|Linda Thompson]], [[Mark Koernke]] and [[Robert K. Spear]] led to militancy and the rise of the [[American militia movement]].<ref name="CAMO">Pitcavage, Mark; Institute for Intergovernmental Research: "Camouflage and Conspiracy. The Militia Movement From Ruby Ridge to Y2K". ''American Behavioral Scientist'', Vol. 44, No. 6, pp. 957–81, SAGE Publications, 2001.</ref> The militia movement's [[Anti-statism|anti-government]] ideology was spread through speeches at rallies and meetings, books and videotapes sold at [[gun show]]s, shortwave and satellite radio, fax networks, and computer bulletin boards.<ref name="Berlet 1999" /> It has been argued that it was overnight AM radio shows and propagandistic [[viral marketing|viral content]] on the [[internet]] that most effectively contributed to more extremist responses to the perceived threat of the New World Order. This led to the substantial growth of New World Order conspiracism, with it retroactively finding its way into the previously apolitical literature of numerous [[Kennedy assassinologist]]s, [[ufologist]]s, [[lost lands|lost land theorists]] and—partially inspired by fears surrounding the [[Satanic ritual abuse#As a moral panic|"Satanic panic"]]—[[occultist]]s. From the mid-1990s onward, the amorphous appeal of those subcultures transmitted New World Order conspiracism to a larger audience of seekers of [[stigmatized knowledge]], with the common characteristic of disillusionment of [[political efficacy]].<ref name="Barkun 2003" /> From the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, Hollywood [[conspiracy fiction|conspiracy-thriller]] television shows and films also played a role in introducing a general audience to various [[fringe theory|fringe]], esoteric theories related to New World Order conspiracism—which by that point had developed to include [[black helicopter]]s, [[Federal Emergency Management Agency|FEMA]] "[[FEMA camps conspiracy theory|concentration camps]]", etc.—theories which for decades previously were confined to largely right-wing subcultures. The 1993–2002 television series ''[[The X-Files]]'', the 1997 film ''[[Conspiracy Theory (film)|Conspiracy Theory]]'' and the 1998 film ''[[The X-Files (film)|The X-Files: Fight the Future]]'' are often cited as notable examples.<ref name="Barkun 2003" /> <!-- Please do not add further examples unless they are noted as such by a reliable source (e.g., author, review, article [no blogs], etc.). Otherwise, they will be removed; Wikipedia cannot designate something as having introduced the public to various fringe theories related to New World Order conspiracism if reliable sources have not already done so. --> Following the start of the 21st century, and specifically during the [[late-2000s financial crisis]], many politicians and pundits, such as [[Gordon Brown]]<ref>{{cite news|last1=Grice |first1=Andrew |title=This was the Bretton Woods of our times |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andrew-grice/andrew-grice-this-was-the-bretton-woods-of-our-times-1662231.html |access-date=10 July 2014 |work=The Independent |date=4 April 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090405105014/http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andrew-grice/andrew-grice-this-was-the-bretton-woods-of-our-times-1662231.html |archive-date=5 April 2009}}</ref> and [[Henry Kissinger]],<ref>{{cite news|last1=Kissinger|first1=Henry|title=The chance for a new world order|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/opinion/12iht-edkissinger.1.19281915.html|access-date=10 July 2014|work=The New York Times|date=12 January 2009|ref=Henry Kissinger}}</ref> used the term "[[new world order (politics)#Recent political usage|new world order]]" in their advocacy for a comprehensive reform of the [[global financial system]] and their [[International monetary systems#Calls for a "New Bretton Woods"|calls for a "New Bretton Woods"]] taking into account [[emerging markets]] such as China and India. These public declarations reinvigorated New World Order conspiracism, culminating in talk-show host [[Sean Hannity]] stating on his [[Fox News]] program ''[[Hannity]]'' that the "conspiracy theorists were right".<ref name=Hannity>{{cite book|last=Romero|first=George|title=The Rescue|date=2011|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fHZStF5WgTEC&pg=PA246|page=246|publisher=George Romero |isbn=978-1-4564-9962-4}}</ref> Progressive [[media watchdog|media-watchdog]] groups have repeatedly criticized [[Fox News]] in general, and its now-defunct opinion show ''[[Glenn Beck (TV program)|Glenn Beck]]'' in particular, for not only disseminating New World Order conspiracy theories to mainstream audiences, but possibly agitating so-called "[[lone wolf (terrorism)|lone wolf]]" extremism, particularly from the [[Radical right (United States)|radical right]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Krugman |first1=Paul |title=The Big Hate |journal=The New York Times |date=11 June 2009 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/opinion/12krugman.html |access-date=10 July 2014 |ref=Paul Krugman}}</ref><ref name="Anti-Defamation League">{{cite web|author=Anti-Defamation League |author-link=Anti-Defamation League|date=16 November 2009|url=http://www.adl.org/special_reports/rage-grows-in-America/default.asp|title=Rage Grows in America: Anti‑Government Conspiracies|work=ADL Special Reports|publisher=Anti-Defamation League|access-date=20 November 2009}}</ref> In 2009, American film directors [[Luke Meyer]] and [[Andrew Neel]] released ''[[New World Order (film)|New World Order]]'', a critically acclaimed documentary film which explores the world of conspiracy theorists—such as American radio host [[Alex Jones]]—who vigorously oppose what they perceive as an emerging New World Order.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Monfette|first1=Christopher|title=SXSW 09: New World Order Review|url=http://uk.ign.com/articles/2009/03/16/sxsw-09-new-world-order-review|access-date=10 July 2014|work=ign.com|date=16 March 2009}}</ref> The growing dissemination and popularity of conspiracy theories has also created an alliance between right-wing agitators and [[hip hop music]]'s left-wing rappers (such as [[KRS-One]], [[Professor Griff]] of [[Public Enemy (group)|Public Enemy]] and [[Immortal Technique]]), illustrating how [[anti-elitism|anti-elitist]] conspiracism can create unlikely political allies in efforts to oppose a political system.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Gosa|first1=Travis L.|title=Counterknowledge, racial paranoia, and the cultic milieu: Decoding hip hop conspiracy theory|journal=Poetics|date=June 2011|volume=39|issue=3 |doi=10.1016/j.poetic.2011.03.003|pages=187–204}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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