Posted on 06/19/2003 9:37:13 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
When the dictator, Josef Stalin, first appeared at the brand-new United Nations accompanied by representatives of Soviet "labor unions," other delegates cried foul, asking, "How can there be labor unions in a government-run society?" Stalin explained, "Ah, but these are Non-Governmental Organizations," and the term "NGO" first came into the world's vocabulary.
Nowadays, most of us are likely to think of NGOs as large-scale charitable organizations who work all over the world providing medical care in disaster situations, food to famine sufferers or advocacy for political prisoners. One of the main reasons we even recognize the names of the well-known groups is that they often canvass door to door for donations to support their good works.
However, there is a growing number of less well-known NGOs who don't want to help the hungry feed themselves, rather, their aim is to "eradicate hunger." They don't want to help the poor become wealthy, rather, their goal is to "eliminate poverty." Do these distinctions sound picky? Well, they're not. Helping people means getting down to cases with the real people who are asking for help, finding out what they really need and helping them in ways that enable them to actually provide it for themselves. The much more abstract aims of "eliminating" hunger or poverty typically involve utopian plans that are to be imposed upon people "for their own good."
Consider the "elimination of poverty." This abstract notion breeds anotherthe "re-distribution of wealth." We see this in the United States when our own Congress takes more and more wealth (in the form of taxes) from those who create it and "re-distributes" it, in the form of entitlements, to those who don't create, or earn, it. This is bad enough when a democratic nation, essentially, "does it to itself" through government policy. The citizens have the option of changing policies through democratic means. But what happens when non-governmental organizations try the same thing?
Consider a recent, international case: the "Kyoto Protocol To The United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change." If you think it's about controlling climate change, read it again. If it were implemented, its real function would be the "re-distribution of wealth" from the industrialized, developed nations to the less-industrialized, less-developed nations who, under Kyoto, will basically be paid not to develop. The important thing to notice though, is the composition of the United Nations. Although seats in the U.N. General Assembly are ostensibly held by 185 "sovereign nations" from around the world, they are outnumbered more than two-to-one by about 500 seat-holding NGO's who can submit papers, call for votes, exercise influence by lobbying 'real' members, etc. The only thing they can't do is vote. An additional 3,000 NGOs hold, not seats, but "consultant" status at the U.N.
Who the heck are all those NGOs and what are they doing at the UN? Well, they are self-appointed groups vying for government-sized budgets and global power, claiming a pseudo-governmental legitimacy while side-stepping the accountability that is the essential requirement of legitimate government. In short, these burgeoning elements of the global New-Left are "hijacking democracy."
This is the title of an analytical synthesis of studies conducted over the last decade by Marguerite Peeters, subtitled "the power shift to the un-elected." Ms Peeters gave a brief overview of the trends indicated by her research at a recent conference at the American Enterprise Institute. She also told those assembled of a tentative meeting scheduled this fall for representatives of major NGO's, the European Union and the Democratic Party of the U.S. Do you know why Bill Clinton has hinted that he'd like to be Secretary-General of the UN? He would be the leader of the largest socialist organization in the world, while his wife... well, you know where her sights are aimed. We should "be afraid; be very afraid" of where this trend is taking us, but only if the fear mobilizes us to change its direction.
We should begin by learning more about the pervasive influence NGO's already have and would like to have on our lives. The American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society have collaborated on a new website, NGO Watch Check it out. It's time for us to use our own influence.
"Recent years have seen an unprecedented growth in the power and influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While it is true that many NGOs remain true to grassroots authenticity conjured up in images of protest and sacrifice, it is also true that non-governmental organizations are now serious business. NGO officials and their activities are widely cited in the media and relied upon in congressional testimony; corporations regularly consult with NGOs prior to major investments. Many groups have strayed beyond their original mandates and assumed quasi-governmental roles. Increasingly, non-governmental organizations are not just accredited observers at international organizations, they are full-fledged decision-makers." ~ NGO Watch.org
Sort of, if a socialist in the U.S. has a single brain cell, they'll see its actually worse then this. The democratic party is worse then the socialists, because they even fool the socialists to get what they want.
What the democratic party does, is take from the rich (based on who they say is rich) and keep it. They form government programs and spend on alot on there rich friends. The government programs don't even do a very good job of even giving entitlements. Once created, they are another layer of buracracy of government workers who now vote democrat to keep there jobs.
This is like robin hood stealing from the rich, keeping the money, and spending a few bits on bread to give to his friends to give to the poor (bastardized trickle down).
Before some freeper flames me, I am aware that Robin Hood in the real story didn't actually steal from the rich, he robbed the sherrifs men of ill gotten taxes and gave those tax monies back to those who had paid i.e. the poor.
Thanks for the post.
And they are smarter than you. When was the last time you sucked $ 15 billion out of the fed budget to treat AIDS in Africa? That's the size of NASA's budget. NGOs did that. Surrender or die.
Saddam's Cash
The Weekly Standard ^ | May 5, 2003 | Stephen F. Hayes
Scores of journalists (and NGOs) throughout the Arab world and Europe were on Saddam Hussein's payroll.
But if actions speak louder than words, then many of the international charitable organizations called NGOs (non-governmental organizations) here are less interested in doing good works than in moral posturing and haranguing the army that won a war most of them opposed.
~~~
Mark Steyn: Come on over the water's lovely
The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 06/01/03 | Mark SteynExcerpts:...vast numbers of bureaucrats are running around Iraq with unlimited budgets in search of a human catastrophe that doesn't exist......NGO armies in their brand new, gleaming white Chevy Suburbans and Land Rovers cruising the streets touting for business like drug pushers in search of junkies....there was plenty of food in town. Was it the water? I made a point of drinking the stuff everywhere I went in a spirited effort to pick up the dysentery and cholera supposedly running rampant. But I remain a disease-free zone. So what precisely is happening in Rutba that requires an Oxfam/ICRC summit? Well, the problem, as they see it, is that, sure, there's plenty of food available but "the prices are too high". That's why the World Food Programme and the other NGOs need to be brought in, to distribute more rations to more people.
...And perhaps that's why I found rather more hostility towards the WFP, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees et al than towards the military. ... the new imperial class are the NGOs. They shuttle across the globe, mingling with their own kind - other SUV users - and bringing with them the values of the mother country, or the mother bureaucracy. Like many imperialists, they're well-meaning: they see their charges as helpless and dependent, which happy condition has the benefit of justifying an ever-growing aid bureaucracy in perpetuity. It will be very destructive for Iraq if the tentativeness of the American administration in Baghdad allows the ambulance-chasers of the NGOs to sink their fangs into the country.
~~~
Amnesty International is concerned about the treatment of terrorist detainees in American custody. The hypocritical "human rights" outfit asserts that "the conditions of the detainees' . . . detention in Guantánamo Bay gave cause for serious concern." But Amnesty misses the biggest--and we mean biggest--cause for concern: These guys are porking out. (We mean that figuratively, of course; all food served at Guantanamo is strictly halal.) Writes Manny Howard in Slate:
Between April 2002 and March 2003, the Joint Task Force returned to Afghanistan 19 of the approximately 664 men (from 42 countries) who have been held in the detention camps. . . . During their 14-month stay, the detainees (nearly all of them) had each gained an average of 13 pounds.
Can an epidemic of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and other obesity-related ailments be far behind? Such a travesty of human rights is a heavy burden on the world's conscience.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/
Forget CEOs who actually run important companies that make useful things and employ people, who's checking the books of the NGOs? Exploiting the most vulnerable for $$$, defrauding the generous and spreading fear and hate by lying about the cause, by blaming America - is a 'crime against humanity'.
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