THE NEW WORLD ORDER

New World Order (conspiracy theory)

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This article is about the use of the term New World Order in conspiracy theory. For other uses, see New World Order.

The reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States (1776). The Latin phrase "novus ordo seclorum", appearing on the reverse side of the Great Seal since 1782 and on the back of the U.S. one-dollar bill since 1935, translates to "New Order of the Ages"^[1] and alludes to the beginning of an era where the United States of America is an independent nation-state; conspiracy theorists claim this is an allusion to the "New World Order".^[2]

The New World Order or NWO is claimed to be an emerging clandestine totalitarian world government by various conspiracy theories.^{[3][4][5][6][7]}

The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government—which will replace sovereign nation-states—and an all-encompassing propaganda whose ideology hails the establishment of the New World Order as the culmination of history's progress. Many influential historical and contemporary figures have therefore been alleged to be part of a cabal that operates through many front organizations to orchestrate significant political and financial events, ranging from causing systemic crises to pushing through controversial policies, at both national and international levels, as steps in an ongoing plot to achieve world domination.^{[3][4][5][6][7]}

Before the early 1990s, New World Order conspiracism was limited to two American countercultures, primarily the militantly anti-government right and secondarily that part of fundamentalist Christianity concerned with the end-time emergence of the Antichrist.^[8] Skeptics, such as Michael Barkun and Chip Berlet, observed that right-wing populist conspiracy theories about a New World Order had not only been embraced by many seekers of stigmatized knowledge but had seeped into popular culture, thereby inaugurating a period during the late 20th and early 21st centuries in the United States where people are actively preparing for apocalyptic millenarian scenarios.^[4][6] Those political scientists are concerned that mass hysteria over New World Order conspiracy theories could eventually have devastating effects on American political life, ranging from escalating lone-wolf terrorism to the rise to power of authoritarian ultranationalist demagogues.^[4][6][9]

History of the term

General usage (Pre-Cold War)

During the 20th century, political figures such as Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill used the term "new world order" to refer to a new period of history characterised by a dramatic change in world political thought and in the global balance of power after World War I and World War II.^[10] The interwar and post-World War II period were seen as opportunities to implement idealistic proposals for global governance by collective efforts to address worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual nation-states to resolve, while nevertheless respecting the right of nations to self-determination. Such collective initiatives manifested in the formation of intergovernmental organizations 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 another global conflict. These cosmopolitan efforts to instill liberal internationalism were regularly criticized and opposed by American paleoconservative business nationalists from the 1930s on.^{[11][need quotation to verify]}

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.^[12]

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 socialist circles.^[13][14]

Usage as reference to a conspiracy (Cold War era)

During the Second Red Scare, both secular and religious 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 Jews as the alleged driving forces behind an "international communist conspiracy". The threat of "Godless communism", in the form of an atheistic, bureaucratic collectivist world government, demonized as the "Red Menace", became the focus of apocalyptic millenarian conspiracism. The Red Scare came to shape one of the core ideas of the political right in the United States, which is that liberals and progressives, with their welfare-state policies and international cooperation programs such as foreign aid and open borders, supposedly contribute to a gradual process of global collectivism that will inevitably lead to nations being replaced with a communistic/collectivist one-world government.^[15]

Right-wing populist advocacy groups with a 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 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-globalist conspiracism fueled the campaign for 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 in 1913 by international bankers, whom she claimed later formed the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921 as a shadow government. At the time the booklet was published, many readers would have interpreted "international bankers" as a reference to a postulated "international Jewish banking conspiracy" masterminded by the Rothschild family.^[15]

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 fall of communism in the early 1990s, the de facto subject of New World Order conspiracism shifted from crypto-communists, perceived to be plotting to establish an atheistic world communist government, to globalists, perceived to be plotting to generally implement a collectivist, unified world government ultimately controlled by an untouchable oligarchy of international bankers, corrupt politicians, and corporatists, or alternatively, the United Nations itself. The shift in perception was inspired by growing opposition to corporate internationalism on the American right in the 1990s.^[15]

In his speech, Toward a New World Order, delivered on 11 September 1990 during a joint session of the US Congress, President George H. W. Bush described his objectives for post-Cold War global governance in cooperation with post-Soviet states. He stated:

Until now, the world we've known has been a world divided—a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict and cold war. Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a 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.^[16]

The New York Times observed that progressives were denouncing this new world order as a rationalization of American imperial ambitions in the Middle East at the time, while conservatives rejected any new security arrangements altogether and fulminated about any possibility of a UN revival.^[17] 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 End Times, while more secular theorists approached it from an anti-communist and anti-collectivist standpoint and feared for a hegemony over all countries by the United Nations.^[4]

Post–Cold War usage

American televangelist Pat Robertson wrote the 1991 best-selling book The New World Order

American televangelist Pat Robertson, with his 1991 best-selling book 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, nudging people constantly and covertly in the direction of world government for the Antichrist.^[6]

It was observed that, throughout the 1990s, the galvanizing language used by conspiracy theorists such as Linda Thompson, Mark Koernke and Robert K. Spear led to militancy and the rise of the militia movement.^[18] The militia movement's anti-government ideology was (and is) spread through speeches at rallies and meetings, books and videotapes sold at gun shows, shortwave and satellite radio, fax networks and computer bulletin boards.^[15] It has been argued that it was overnight AM radio shows and propagandistic 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 assassinologists, ufologists, lost land theorists and – partially inspired by fears surrounding the "Satanic panic" – occultists. 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.^[6]

From the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, Hollywood conspiracy-thriller television shows and films also played a role in introducing a general audience to various fringe and esoteric theories related to New World Order conspiracism – which by that point had developed to include black helicopters, FEMA "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 and the 1998 film The X-Files: Fight the Future are often cited as notable examples.^[6]

Following the start of the 21st century, and specifically during the late-2000s financial crisis, many politicians and pundits, such as Gordon Brown^[19] and Henry Kissinger,^[20] used the term "new world order" in their advocacy for a comprehensive reform of the global financial system and their 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 Channel program Hannity that the "conspiracy theorists were right".^[21] Progressive media-watchdog groups have repeatedly criticized Fox News in general, and its now-defunct opinion show Glenn Beck in particular, for not only disseminating New World Order conspiracy theories to mainstream audiences, but possibly agitating so-called "lone wolf" extremism, particular from the radical right.^[22][23]

In 2009, American film directors Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel released New World Order, a critically acclaimed documentary film which explores the world of conspiracy theorists — such as American radio host Alex Jones – who consistently expose and vigorously oppose what they perceive as an emerging New World Order.^[24] 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 and Immortal Technique), illustrating how anti-elitist conspiracism can create unlikely political allies in efforts to oppose a political system.^[25]

Conspiracy theories

There are numerous systemic conspiracy theories through which the concept of a New World Order is viewed. The following is a list of the major ones in roughly chronological order:^[26]

End time

John Nelson Darby

Since the 19th century, many apocalyptic millennial Christian eschatologists, starting with John Nelson Darby, have predicted a globalist conspiracy to impose a tyrannical New World Order governing structure as the fulfillment of prophecies about the "end time" in the Bible, specifically in the Book of Ezekiel, the Book of Daniel, the Olivet discourse found in the Synoptic Gospels and the Book of Revelation.^[27] They claim that people who have made a deal with the Devil to gain wealth and power have become pawns in a supernatural chess game to move humanity into accepting a utopian world government that rests on the spiritual foundations of a syncretic-messianic world religion, which will later reveal itself to be a dystopian world empire that imposes the imperial cult of an “Unholy Trinity” of Satan, the Antichrist and the False Prophet. In many contemporary Christian conspiracy theories, the False Prophet will be either the last pope of the Catholic Church (groomed and installed by an Alta Vendita or Jesuit conspiracy), a guru from the New Age movement, or even the leader of an elite fundamentalist Christian organization like the Fellowship, while the Antichrist will be either the President of the European Union, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, or even the Caliph of a pan-Islamic state.^[6][27]

Some of the most vocal critics of end-time conspiracy theories come from within Christianity.^[15] In 1993, historian Bruce Barron wrote a stern rebuke of apocalyptic Christian conspiracism in the Christian Research Journal, when reviewing Robertson's 1991 book The New World Order.^[28] Another critique can be found in historian Gregory S. Camp's 1997 book Selling Fear: Conspiracy Theories and End-Times Paranoia.^[3] Religious studies scholar Richard T. Hughes argues that "New World Order" rhetoric libels the Christian faith, since the "New World Order" as defined by Christian conspiracy theorists has no basis in the Bible whatsoever. Furthermore, he argues that not only is this idea unbiblical, it is positively anti-biblical and fundamentally anti-Christian, because by misinterpreting key passages in the Book of Revelation, it turns a comforting message about the coming kingdom of God into one of fear, panic and despair in the face of an allegedly approaching one-world government.^[27] Progressive Christians, such as preacher-theologian Peter J. Gomes, caution Christian fundamentalists that a "spirit of fear" can distort scripture and history through dangerously combining biblical literalism, apocalyptic timetables, demonization and oppressive prejudices,^[29][30] while Camp warns of the "very real danger that Christians could pick up some extra spiritual baggage" by credulously embracing conspiracy theories.^[3] They therefore call on Christians who indulge in conspiracism to repent.^[31][32]

Freemasonry

Main article: Masonic conspiracy theories

Freemasonry is one of the world's oldest secular fraternal organizations and arose during late 16th–early 17th century Britain. Over the years a number of allegations and conspiracy theories have been directed towards Freemasonry, including the allegation that Freemasons have a hidden political agenda and are conspiring to bring about a New World Order, a world government organized according to Masonic principles or governed only by Freemasons.^[15]

The esoteric nature of Masonic symbolism and rites led to Freemasons first being accused of secretly practising Satanism in the late 18th century.^[15] The original allegation of a conspiracy within Freemasonry to subvert religions and governments in order to take over the world traces back to Scottish author John Robison, whose reactionary conspiracy theories crossed the Atlantic and influenced outbreaks of Protestant anti-Masonry in the United States during the 19th century.^[15] In the 1890s, French writer Léo Taxil wrote a series of pamphlets and books denouncing Freemasonry and charging their lodges with worshiping Lucifer as the Supreme Being and Great Architect of the Universe. Despite the fact that Taxil admitted that his claims were all a hoax, they were and still are believed and repeated by numerous conspiracy theorists and had a huge influence on subsequent anti-Masonic claims about Freemasonry.^[33]

Some conspiracy theorists eventually speculated that some Founding Fathers of the United States, such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, were having Masonic sacred geometric designs interwoven into American society, particularly in the Great Seal of the United States, the United States one-dollar bill, the architecture of National Mall landmarks and the streets and highways of Washington, D.C., as part of a master plan to create the first "Masonic government" as a model for the coming New World Order.^[6]

A Masonic Lodge room

Freemasons rebut these claims of a Masonic conspiracy. Freemasonry, which promotes rationalism, places no power in occult symbols themselves, and it is not a part of its principles to view the drawing of symbols, no matter how large, as an act of consolidating or controlling power.^[34] Furthermore, there is no published information establishing the Masonic membership of the men responsible for the design of the Great Seal.^[34][35] While conspiracy theorists assert that there are elements of Masonic influence on the Great Seal of the United States, and that these elements were intentionally or unintentionally used because the creators were familiar with the symbols,^[36] in fact, the all-seeing Eye of Providence and the unfinished pyramid were symbols used as much outside Masonic lodges as within them in the late 18th century, therefore the designers were drawing from common esoteric symbols.^[37] The Latin phrase "novus ordo seclorum", appearing on the reverse side of the Great Seal since 1782 and on the back of the one-dollar bill since 1935, translates to "New Order of the Ages",^[1] and alludes to the beginning of an era where the United States of America is an independent nation-state; it is often mistranslated by conspiracy theorists as "New World Order".^[2]

Although the European continental branch of Freemasonry has organizations that allow political discussion within their Masonic Lodges, Masonic researcher Trevor W. McKeown argues that the accusations ignore several facts. Firstly, the many Grand Lodges are independent and sovereign, meaning they act on their own and do not have a common agenda. The points of belief of the various lodges often differ. Secondly, famous individual Freemasons have always held views that span the political spectrum and show no particular pattern or preference. As such, the term "Masonic government" is erroneous; there is no consensus among Freemasons about what an ideal government would look like.^[38]

Illuminati

Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Illuminati, an 18th-century Bavarian liberal and secular secret society

The Order of the Illuminati was an Enlightenment-age secret society founded by university professor Adam Weishaupt on 1 May 1776, in Upper Bavaria, Germany. The movement consisted of advocates of freethought, secularism, liberalism, republicanism, and gender equality, recruited from the German Masonic Lodges, who sought to teach rationalism through mystery schools. In 1785, the order was infiltrated, broken up and suppressed by the government agents of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, in his preemptive campaign to neutralize the threat of secret societies ever becoming hotbeds of conspiracies to overthrow the Bavarian monarchy and its state religion, Roman Catholicism.^[39] There is no evidence that the Bavarian Illuminati survived its suppression in 1785.^[40]

In the late 18th century, reactionary conspiracy theorists, such as Scottish physicist John Robison and French Jesuit priest Augustin Barruel, began speculating that the Illuminati had survived their suppression and become the masterminds behind the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. The Illuminati were accused of being subversives who were attempting to secretly orchestrate a revolutionary wave in Europe and the rest of the world in order to spread the most radical ideas and movements of the Enlightenment—anti-clericalism, anti-monarchism, and anti-patriarchalism—and to create a world noocracy and cult of reason. During the 19th century, fear of an Illuminati conspiracy was a real concern of the European ruling classes, and their oppressive reactions to this unfounded fear provoked in 1848 the very revolutions they sought to prevent.^[40]

During the interwar period of the 20th century, fascist propagandists, such as British revisionist historian Nesta Helen Webster and American socialite Edith Starr Miller, not only popularized the myth of an Illuminati conspiracy but claimed that it was a subversive secret society which served the Jewish elites that supposedly propped up both finance capitalism and Soviet communism in order to divide and rule the world. American evangelist Gerald Burton Winrod and other conspiracy theorists within the fundamentalist Christian movement in the United States—which emerged in the 1910s as a backlash against the principles of Enlightenment secular humanism, modernism, and liberalism—became the main channel of dissemination of Illuminati conspiracy theories in the U.S.. Right-wing populists, such as members of the John Birch Society, subsequently began speculating that some collegiate fraternities (Skull and Bones), gentlemen's clubs (Bohemian Club), and think tanks (Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission) of the American upper class are front organizations of the Illuminati, which they accuse of plotting to create a New World Order through a one-world government.^[6]

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an antisemitic canard, originally published in Russian in 1903, alleging a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy to achieve world domination. The text purports to be the minutes of the secret meetings of a cabal of Jewish masterminds, which has co-opted Freemasonry and is plotting to rule the world on behalf of all Jews because they believe themselves to be the chosen people of God.^[41] The Protocols incorporate many of the core conspiracist themes outlined in the Robison and Barruel attacks on the Freemasons, and overlay them with antisemitic allegations about anti-Tsarist movements in Russia. The Protocols reflect themes similar to more general critiques of Enlightenment liberalism by conservative aristocrats who support monarchies and state religions. The interpretation intended by the publication of The Protocols is that if one peels away the layers of the Masonic conspiracy, past the Illuminati, one finds the rotten Jewish core.^[15]

Cover of a 1920 copy of The Jewish Peril

Numerous polemicists, such as Irish journalist Philip Graves in a 1921 article in The Times, and British academic Norman Cohn in his 1967 book Warrant for Genocide, have proven The Protocols to be both a hoax and a clear case of plagiarism. There is general agreement that Russian-French writer and political activist Matvei Golovinski fabricated the text for Okhrana, the secret police of the Russian Empire, as a work of counter-revolutionary propaganda prior to the 1905 Russian Revolution, by plagiarizing, almost word for word in some passages, from The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, a 19th-century satire against Napoleon III of France written by French political satirist and Legitimist militant Maurice Joly.^[42]

Responsible for feeding many antisemitic and anti-Masonic mass hysterias of the 20th century, The Protocols has been influential in the development of some conspiracy theories, including some New World Order theories, and appears repeatedly in certain contemporary conspiracy literature.^[6] For example, the authors of the 1982 controversial book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail concluded that The Protocols was the most persuasive piece of evidence for the existence and activities of the Priory of Sion. They speculated that this secret society was working behind the scenes to establish a theocratic "United States of Europe". Politically and religiously unified through the imperial cult of a Merovingian Great Monarch—supposedly descended from a Jesus bloodline—who occupies both the throne of Europe and the Holy See, this "Holy European Empire" would become the hyperpower of the 21st century.^[43] Although the Priory of Sion itself has been exhaustively debunked by journalists and scholars as a hoax,^[44] some apocalyptic millenarian Christian eschatologists who believe The Protocols is authentic became convinced that the Priory of Sion was a fulfillment of prophecies found in the Book of Revelation and further proof of an anti-Christian conspiracy of epic proportions signaling the imminence of a New World Order.^[45]

Skeptics argue that the current gambit of contemporary conspiracy theorists who use The Protocols is to claim that they "really" come from some group other than the Jews, such as fallen angels or alien invaders. Although it is hard to determine whether the conspiracy-minded actually believe this or are simply trying to sanitize a discredited text, skeptics argue that it does not make much difference, since they leave the actual, antisemitic text unchanged. The result is to give The Protocols credibility and circulation.^[8]

Round Table

During the second half of Britain's "imperial century" between 1815 and 1914, English-born South African businessman, mining magnate and politician Cecil Rhodes advocated the British Empire reannexing the United States of America and reforming itself into an "Imperial Federation" to bring about a hyperpower and lasting world peace. In his first will, written in 1877 at the age of 23, he expressed his wish to fund a secret society (known as the Society of the Elect) that would advance this goal:

To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity.^[46]

Magnate and colonist Cecil Rhodes advocated a secret society which would make Britain control the Earth

In 1890, thirteen years after "his now famous will," Rhodes elaborated on the same idea: establishment of "England everywhere," which would "ultimately lead to the cessation of all wars, and one language throughout the world." "The only thing feasible to carry out this idea is a secret society gradually absorbing the wealth of the world ["and human minds of the higher order"] to be devoted to such an object."^[47]

Rhodes also concentrated on the Rhodes Scholarship, which had British statesman Alfred Milner as one of its trustees. Established in 1902, the original goal of the trust fund was to foster peace among the great powers by creating a sense of fraternity and a shared world view among future British, American, and German leaders by having enabled them to study for free at the University of Oxford.^[46]

Milner and British official Lionel George Curtis were the architects of the Round Table movement, a network of organizations promoting closer union between Britain and its self-governing colonies. To this end, Curtis founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in June 1919 and, with his 1938 book The Commonwealth of God, began advocating for the creation of an imperial federation that eventually reannexes the U.S., which would be presented to Protestant churches as being the work of the Christian God to elicit their support.^[48] The Commonwealth of Nations was created in 1949 but it would only be a free association of independent states rather than the powerful imperial federation imagined by Rhodes, Milner and Curtis.

The Council on Foreign Relations began in 1917 with a group of New York academics who were asked by President Woodrow Wilson to offer options for the foreign policy of the United States in the interwar period. Originally envisioned as a group of American and British scholars and diplomats, some of whom belonging to the Round Table movement, it was a subsequent group of 108 New York financiers, manufacturers and international lawyers organized in June 1918 by Nobel Peace Prize recipient and U.S. secretary of state Elihu Root, that became the Council on Foreign Relations on 29 July 1921. The first of the council’s projects was a quarterly journal launched in September 1922, called Foreign Affairs.^[49] The Trilateral Commission was founded in July 1973, at the initiative of American banker David Rockefeller, who was chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations at that time. It is a private organization established to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan. The Trilateral Commission is widely seen as a counterpart to the Council on Foreign Relations.

In the 1960s, right-wing populist individuals and groups with a paleoconservative worldview, such as members of the John Birch Society, were the first to combine and spread a business nationalist critique of corporate internationalists networked through think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations with a grand conspiracy theory casting them as front organizations for the Round Table of the "Anglo-American Establishment", which are financed by an "international banking cabal" that has supposedly been plotting from the late 19th century on to impose an oligarchic new world order through a global financial system. Anti-globalist conspiracy theorists therefore fear that international bankers are planning to eventually subvert the independence of the U.S. by subordinating national sovereignty to a strengthened Bank for International Settlements.^[50]

The research findings of historian Carroll Quigley, author of the 1966 book Tragedy and Hope, are taken by both conspiracy theorists of the American Old Right (W. Cleon Skousen) and New Left (Carl Oglesby) to substantiate this view, even though Quigley argued that the Establishment is not involved in a plot to implement a one-world government but rather British and American benevolent imperialism driven by the mutual interests of economic elites in the United Kingdom and the United States. Quigley also argued that, although the Round Table still exists today, its position in influencing the policies of world leaders has been much reduced from its heyday during World War I and slowly waned after the end of World War II and the Suez Crisis. Today the Round Table is largely a ginger group, designed to consider and gradually influence the policies of the Commonwealth of Nations, but faces strong opposition. Furthermore, in American society after 1965, the problem, according to Quigley, was that no elite was in charge and acting responsibly.^[50]

Larry McDonald, the second president of the John Birch Society and a conservative Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives who represented the 7th congressional district of Georgia, wrote a foreword for Allen's 1976 book The Rockefeller File, wherein he claimed that the Rockefellers and their allies were driven by a desire to create a one-world government that combined "super-capitalism" with communism and would be fully under their control. He saw a conspiracy plot that was "international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent."^[51]

In his 2002 autobiography Memoirs, David Rockefeller wrote:

For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents ... to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.^[52]

Barkun argues that this statement is partly facetious (the claim of "conspiracy" and "treason") and partly serious—the desire to encourage trilateral cooperation among the U.S., Europe, and Japan, for example—an ideal that used to be a hallmark of the internationalist wing of the Republican Party (known as "Rockefeller Republicans" in honor of Nelson Rockefeller) when there was an internationalist wing. The statement, however, is taken at face value and widely cited by conspiracy theorists as proof that the Council on Foreign Relations uses its role as the brain trust of American presidents, senators and representatives to manipulate them into supporting a New World Order in the form of a one-world government.

In a 13 November 2007 interview with Canadian journalist Benjamin Fulford, Rockefeller countered that he felt no need for a world government and wished for the governments of the world to work together and collaborate. He also stated that it seemed neither likely nor desirable to have only one elected government rule the whole world. He criticized accusations of him being "ruler of the world" as nonsensical.^[53]

Some American social critics, such as Laurence H. Shoup, argue that the Council on Foreign Relations is an "imperial brain trust" which has, for decades, played a central behind-the-scenes role in shaping U.S. foreign policy choices for the post-World War II international order and the Cold War by determining what options show up on the agenda and what options do not even make it to the table;^[54] others, such as G. William Domhoff, argue that it is in fact a mere policy discussion forum^[55] which provides the business input to U.S. foreign policy planning.^{[citation needed]} Domhoff argues that "[i]t has nearly 3,000 members, far too many for secret plans to be kept within the group. All the council does is sponsor discussion groups, debates and speakers. As far as being secretive, it issues annual reports and allows access to its historical archives." However, all these critics agree^{[citation needed]} that "[h]istorical studies of the CFR show that it has a very different role in the overall power structure than what is claimed by conspiracy theorists."^[55]

The Open Conspiracy

H. G. Wells wrote the books The Open Conspiracy and The New World Order

In his 1928 book The Open Conspiracy British writer and futurist H. G. Wells promoted cosmopolitanism and offered blueprints for a world revolution and world brain to establish a technocratic world state and planned economy.^[56] Wells warned, however, in his 1940 book The New World Order that:

... when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people ... will hate the new world order, be rendered unhappy by the frustration of their passions and ambitions through its advent and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people.^[13]

Wells's books were influential in giving a second meaning to the term "new world order", which would only be used by state socialist supporters and anti-communist opponents for generations to come. However, despite the popularity and notoriety of his ideas, Wells failed to exert a deeper and more lasting influence because he was unable to concentrate his energies on a direct appeal to intelligentsias who would, ultimately, have to coordinate the Wellsian new world order.^[57]

New Age

British neo-Theosophical occultist Alice Bailey, one of the founders of the so-called New Age movement, prophesied in 1940 the eventual victory of the Allies of World War II over the Axis powers (which occurred in 1945) and the establishment by the Allies of a political and religious New World Order. She saw a federal world government as the culmination of Wells' Open Conspiracy but favorably argued that it would be synarchist because it was guided by the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom, intent on preparing humanity for the mystical second coming of Christ, and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. According to Bailey, a group of ascended masters called the Great White Brotherhood works on the "inner planes" to oversee the transition to the New World Order but, for now, the members of this Spiritual Hierarchy are only known to a few occult scientists, with whom they communicate telepathically, but as the need for their personal involvement in the plan increases, there will be an "Externalization of the Hierarchy" and everyone will know of their presence on Earth.^[58]

New Age author Alice Bailey's writings have been condemned by Christian right conspiracy theorists

Bailey's writings, along with American writer Marilyn Ferguson's 1980 book The Aquarian Conspiracy, contributed to conspiracy theorists of the Christian right viewing the New Age movement as the "false religion" that would supersede Christianity in a New World Order.^[59] Skeptics argue that the term "New Age movement" is a misnomer, generally used by conspiracy theorists as a catch-all rubric for any new religious movement that is not fundamentalist Christian. By this logic, anything that is not Christian is by definition actively and willfully anti-Christian.^[60]

Paradoxically, since the first decade of the 21st century, New World Order conspiracism is increasingly being embraced and propagandized by New Age occultists, who are people bored by rationalism and drawn to stigmatized knowledge—such as alternative medicine, astrology, quantum mysticism, spiritualism, and theosophy.^[6] Thus, New Age conspiracy theorists, such as the makers of documentary films like Esoteric Agenda, claim that globalists who plot on behalf of the New World Order are simply misusing occultism for Machiavellian ends, such as adopting 21 December 2012 as the exact date for the establishment of the New World Order for the purpose of taking advantage of the growing 2012 phenomenon, which has its origins in the fringe Mayanist theories of New Age writers José Argüelles, Terence McKenna, and Daniel Pinchbeck.

Skeptics argue that the connection of conspiracy theorists and occultists follows from their common fallacious premises. First, any widely accepted belief must necessarily be false. Second, stigmatized knowledge—what the Establishment spurns—must be true. The result is a large, self-referential network in which, for example, some UFO religionists promote anti-Jewish phobias while some antisemites practice Peruvian shamanism.^[6]

Fourth Reich

American writer Jim Marrs claimed that former Nazis and their sympathizers have been continuing Nazi policies worldwide, especially in the United States

Conspiracy theorists often use the term "Fourth Reich" simply as a pejorative synonym for the "New World Order" to imply that its state ideology and government will be similar to Germany's Third Reich.^{[citation needed]}

Conspiracy theorists, such as American writer Jim Marrs, claim that some ex-Nazis, who survived the fall of the Greater German Reich, along with sympathizers in the United States and elsewhere, given haven by organizations like ODESSA and Die Spinne, have been working behind the scenes since the end of World War II to enact at least some principles of Nazism (e.g., militarism, imperialism, widespread spying on citizens, corporatism, the use of propaganda to manufacture a national consensus) into culture, government, and business worldwide, but primarily in the U.S. They cite the influence of ex-Nazi scientists brought in under Operation Paperclip to help advance aerospace manufacturing in the U.S. with technological principles from Nazi UFOs, and the acquisition and creation of conglomerates by ex-Nazis and their sympathizers after the war, in both Europe and the U.S.^[61]

This neo-Nazi conspiracy is said to be animated by an "Iron Dream" in which the American Empire, having thwarted the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy and overthrown its Zionist Occupation Government, gradually establishes a Fourth Reich formerly known as the "Western Imperium"—a pan-Aryan world empire modeled after Adolf Hitler's New Order—which reverses the "decline of the West" and ushers a golden age of white supremacy.^[62]

Skeptics argue that conspiracy theorists grossly overestimate the influence of ex-Nazis and neo-Nazis on American society, and point out that political repression at home and imperialism abroad have a long history in the United States that predates the 20th century. Some political scientists, such as Sheldon Wolin, have expressed concern that the twin forces of democratic deficit and superpower status have paved the way in the U.S. for the emergence of an inverted totalitarianism which contradicts many principles of Nazism.^[63]

Alien invasion

Since the late 1970s, extraterrestrials from other habitable planets or parallel dimensions (such as "Greys") and intraterrestrials from Hollow Earth (such as "Reptilians") have been included in the New World Order conspiracy, in more or less dominant roles, as in the theories put forward by American writers Stan Deyo and Milton William Cooper, and British writer David Icke.^[6][64][65]

British writer David Icke claims that shapeshifting aliens called Reptilians control the Earth

The common theme in these conspiracy theories is that aliens have been among us for decades, centuries or millennia, but a government cover-up enforced by "Men in Black" has shielded the public from knowledge of a secret alien invasion. Motivated by speciesism and imperialism, these aliens have been and are secretly manipulating developments and changes in human society in order to more efficiently control and exploit human beings. In some theories, alien infiltrators have shapeshifted into human form and move freely throughout human society, even to the point of taking control of command positions in governmental, corporate, and religious institutions, and are now in the final stages of their plan to take over the world.^[65] A mythical covert government agency of the United States code-named Majestic 12 is often imagined being the shadow government which collaborates with the alien occupation and permits alien abductions, in exchange for assistance in the development and testing of military "flying saucers" at Area 51, in order for United States armed forces to achieve full-spectrum dominance.^[6]

Skeptics, who adhere to the psychosocial hypothesis for unidentified flying objects, argue that the convergence of New World Order conspiracy theory and UFO conspiracy theory is a product of not only the era's widespread mistrust of governments and the popularity of the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs but of the far right and ufologists actually joining forces. Barkun notes that the only positive side to this development is that, if conspirators plotting to rule the world are believed to be aliens, traditional human scapegoats (Freemasons, Illuminati, Jews, etc.) are downgraded or exonerated.^[6]

Brave New World

Antiscience and neo-Luddite conspiracy theorists emphasize technology forecasting in their New World Order conspiracy theories. They speculate that the global power elite are reactionary modernists pursuing a transhumanist agenda to develop and use human enhancement technologies in order to become a "posthuman ruling caste", while change accelerates toward a technological singularity—a theorized future point of discontinuity when events will accelerate at such a pace that normal unenhanced humans will be unable to predict or even understand the rapid changes occurring in the world around them. Conspiracy theorists fear the outcome will either be the emergence of a Brave New World-like dystopia—a "Brave New World Order"—or the extinction of the human species.^[66]

Democratic transhumanists, such as American sociologist James Hughes, counter that many influential members of the United States Establishment are bioconservatives strongly opposed to human enhancement, as demonstrated by President Bush's Council on Bioethics's proposed international treaty prohibiting human cloning and germline engineering. Furthermore, he argues that conspiracy theorists underestimate how fringe the transhumanist movement really is.^[67]

Postulated implementations

Just as there are several overlapping or conflicting theories among conspiracists about the nature of the New World Order, so are there several beliefs about how its architects and planners will implement it:

Gradualism

Conspiracy theorists generally speculate that the New World Order is being implemented gradually, citing the formation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System in 1913; the League of Nations in 1919; the International Monetary Fund in 1944; the United Nations in 1945; the World Bank in 1945; the World Health Organization in 1948; the European Union and the euro currency in 1993; the World Trade Organization in 1998; the African Union in 2002; and the Union of South American Nations in 2008 as major milestones.^[6]

An increasingly popular conspiracy theory among American right-wing populists is that the hypothetical North American Union and the amero currency, proposed by the Council on Foreign Relations and its counterparts in Mexico and Canada, will be the next milestone in the implementation of the New World Order. The theory holds that a group of shadowy and mostly nameless international elites are planning to replace the federal government of the United States with a transnational government. Therefore, conspiracy theorists believe the borders between Mexico, Canada and the United States are in the process of being erased, covertly, by a group of globalists whose ultimate goal is to replace national governments in Washington, D.C., Ottawa and Mexico City with a European-style political union and a bloated E.U.-style bureaucracy.^[68]

Skeptics argue that the North American Union exists only as a proposal contained in one of a thousand academic and policy papers published each year that advocate all manner of idealistic but ultimately unrealistic approaches to social, economic and political problems. Most of these are passed around in their own circles and eventually filed away and forgotten by junior staffers in congressional offices. Some of these papers, however, become touchstones for the conspiracy-minded and form the basis of all kinds of unfounded xenophobic fears especially during times of economic anxiety.^[68]

For example, in March 2009, as a result of the late-2000s financial crisis, the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation pressed for urgent consideration of a new international reserve currency and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development proposed greatly expanding the I.M.F.'s special drawing rights. Conspiracy theorists fear these proposals are a call for the U.S. to adopt a single global currency for a New World Order.^[69][70]

Judging that both national governments and global institutions have proven ineffective in addressing worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual nation-states to solve, some political scientists critical of New World Order conspiracism, such as Mark C. Partridge, argue that regionalism will be the major force in the coming decades, pockets of power around regional centers: Western Europe around Brussels, the Western Hemisphere around Washington, D.C., East Asia around Beijing, and Eastern Europe around Moscow. As such, the E.U., the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the G-20 will likely become more influential as time progresses. The question then is not whether global governance is gradually emerging, but rather how will these regional powers interact with one another.^[71]

Coup d'état

The American militia movement claim that a coup d'état will be launched by a "Secret Team" in black helicopters

American right-wing populist conspiracy theorists, especially those who joined the militia movement in the United States, speculate that the New World Order will be implemented through a dramatic coup d'état by a "secret team", using black helicopters, in the U.S. and other nation-states to bring about a totalitarian world government controlled by the United Nations and enforced by troops of foreign U.N. peacekeepers. Following the Rex 84 and Operation Garden Plot plans, this military coup would involve the suspension of the Constitution, the imposition of martial law, and the appointment of military commanders to head state and local governments and to detain dissidents.^[72]

These conspiracy theorists, who are all strong believers in a right to keep and bear arms, are extremely fearful that the passing of any gun control legislation will be later followed by the abolishment of personal gun ownership and a campaign of gun confiscation, and that the refugee camps of emergency management agencies such as FEMA will be used for the internment of suspected subversives, making little effort to distinguish true threats to the New World Order from pacifist dissidents.^[23]

Before year 2000 some survivalists wrongly believed this process would be set in motion by the predicted Y2K problem causing societal collapse.^[73] Since many left-wing and right-wing conspiracy theorists believe that the 11 September attacks were a false flag operation carried out by the United States intelligence community, as part of a strategy of tension to justify political repression at home and preemptive war abroad, they have become convinced that a more catastrophic terrorist incident will be responsible for triggering Executive Directive 51 in order to complete the transition to a police state.^[74]

Skeptics argue that unfounded fears about an imminent or eventual gun ban, military coup, internment, or U.N. invasion and occupation are rooted in the siege mentality of the American militia movement but also an apocalyptic millenarianism which provides a basic narrative within the political right in the U.S., claiming that the idealized society (i.e., constitutional republic, Jeffersonian democracy, "Christian nation", "white nation") is thwarted by subversive conspiracies of liberal secular humanists who want "Big Government" and globalists who plot on behalf of the New World Order.^[15]

Mass surveillance

Claiming that corporations and government are planning to track every move of consumers and citizens with RFID as the latest step toward a 1984-like surveillance state, consumer privacy advocates, such as Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre,^[75] have become Christian conspiracy theorists who believe spychips must be resisted because they argue that modern database and communications technologies, coupled with point of sale data-capture equipment and sophisticated ID and authentication systems, now make it possible to require a biometrically associated number or mark to make purchases. They fear that the ability to implement such a system closely resembles the Number of the Beast prophesied in the Book of Revelation.^[6]Conspiracy theorists concerned with surveillance abuse believe that the New World Order is being implemented by the cult of intelligence at the core of the surveillance-industrial complex through mass surveillance and the use of Social Security numbers, the bar-coding of retail goods with Universal Product Code markings, and, most recently, RFID tagging by microchip implants.^[6]

In January 2002, the Information Awareness Office (IAO) was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying information technology to counter asymmetric threats to national security. Following public criticism that the development and deployment of these technologies could potentially lead to a mass surveillance system, the IAO was defunded by the United States Congress in 2003.^[76] The second source of controversy involved IAO’s original logo, which depicted the "all-seeing" Eye of Providence atop of a pyramid looking down over the globe, accompanied by the Latin phrase scientia est potentia (knowledge is power). Although DARPA eventually removed the logo from its website, it left a lasting impression on privacy advocates.^[77] It also inflamed conspiracy theorists,^[78] who misinterpret the "eye and pyramid" as the Masonic symbol of the Illuminati,^[35][79] an 18th-century secret society they speculate continues to exist and is plotting on behalf of a New World Order.^[39][40]

American historian Richard Landes, who specializes in the history of apocalypticism and was co-founder and director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, argues that new and emerging technologies often trigger alarmism among millenarians and even the introduction of Gutenberg's printing press in 1436 caused waves of apocalyptic thinking. The Year 2000 problem, bar codes and Social Security numbers all triggered end-time warnings which either proved to be false or simply were no longer taken seriously once the public became accustomed to these technological changes.^[80] Civil libertarians argue that the privatization of surveillance and the rise of the surveillance-industrial complex in the United States does raise legitimate concerns about the erosion of privacy.^[81] However, skeptics of mass surveillance conspiracism caution that such concerns should be disentangled from secular paranoia about Big Brother or religious hysteria about the Antichrist.^[6]

Occultism

Conspiracy theorists of the Christian right, starting with British revisionist historian Nesta Helen Webster, believe there is an ancient occult conspiracy—started by the first mystagogues of Gnosticism and perpetuated by their alleged esoteric successors, such as the Kabbalists, Cathars, Knights Templar, Hermeticists, Rosicrucians, Freemasons, and, ultimately, the Illuminati—which seeks to subvert the Judeo-Christian foundations of the Western world and implement the New World Order through a one-world religion that prepares the masses to embrace the imperial cult of the Antichrist.^[6] More broadly, they speculate that globalists who plot on behalf of a New World Order are directed by occult agencies of some sort: unknown superiors, spiritual hierarchies, demons, fallen angels or Lucifer. They believe that these conspirators use the power of occult sciences (numerology), symbols (Eye of Providence), rituals (Masonic degrees), monuments (National Mall landmarks), buildings (Manitoba Legislative Building^[82]) and facilities (Denver International Airport) to advance their plot to rule the world.^[6][83]

For example, in June 1979, an unknown benefactor under the pseudonym "R. C. Christian" had a huge granite megalith built in the U.S. state of Georgia, which acts like a compass, calendar, and clock. A message comprising ten guides is inscribed on the occult structure in many languages to serve as instructions for survivors of a doomsday event to establish a more enlightened and sustainable civilization than the one which was destroyed. The "Georgia Guidestones" have subsequently become a spiritual and political Rorschach test onto which any number of ideas can be imposed. Some New Agers and neo-pagans revere it as a ley-line power nexus while a few conspiracy theorists are convinced that they are engraved with the New World Order's anti-Christian "Ten Commandments." Should the Guidestones survive for centuries as their creators intended, many more meanings could arise, equally unrelated to the designer’s original intention.^[84]

Skeptics argue that the demonization of Western esotericism by conspiracy theorists is rooted in religious intolerance but also in the same moral panics that have fueled witch trials in the Early Modern period, and satanic ritual abuse allegations in the United States.^[6]

Population control

Conspiracy theorists believe that the New World Order will also be implemented through the use of human population control in order to more easily monitor and control the movement of individuals.^[6] The means range from stopping the growth of human societies through reproductive health and family planning programs, which promote abstinence, contraception and abortion, or intentionally reducing the bulk of the world population through genocides by mongering unnecessary wars, through plagues by engineering emergent viruses and tainting vaccines, and through environmental disasters by controlling the weather (HAARP, chemtrails), etc. Conspiracy theorists argue that globalists plotting on behalf of a New World Order are neo-Malthusians who engage in overpopulation and climate change alarmism in order to create public support for coercive population control and ultimately world government. Agenda 21 is condemned as "reconcentrating" people into urban areas and depopulating rural ones, even generating a dystopian novel by Glenn Beck where single-family homes are a distant memory.

Skeptics argue that fears of population control can be traced back to the traumatic legacy of the eugenics movement's "war against the weak" in the United States during the first decades of the 20th century but also the Second Red Scare in the U.S. during the late 1940s and 1950s, and to a lesser extent in the 1960s, when activists on the far right of American politics routinely opposed public health programs, notably water fluoridation, mass vaccination and mental health services, by asserting they were all part of a far-reaching plot to impose a socialist or communist regime.^[85] Their views were influenced by opposition to a number of major social and political changes that had happened in recent years: the growth of internationalism, particularly the United Nations and its programs; the introduction of social welfare provisions, particularly the various programs established by the New Deal; and government efforts to reduce inequalities in the social structure of the U.S.^[86] Opposition towards mass vaccinations in particular got significant attention in the late 2010s, so much so the World Health Organization listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten global health threats of 2019. By this time, people that refused or refused to allow their children to be vaccinated were known colloquially as "anti-vaxxers", though citing the New World Order conspiracy theory or resistance to a perceived population control agenda as a reason to refuse vaccination were few and far between.^[87][88]

Mind control

Social critics accuse governments, corporations, and the mass media of being involved in the manufacturing of a national consensus and, paradoxically, a culture of fear due to the potential for increased social control that a mistrustful and mutually fearing population might offer to those in power. The worst fear of some conspiracy theorists, however, is that the New World Order will be implemented through the use of mind control—a broad range of tactics able to subvert an individual's control of his or her own thinking, behavior, emotions, or decisions. These tactics are said to include everything from Manchurian candidate-style brainwashing of sleeper agents (Project MKULTRA, "Project Monarch") to engineering psychological operations (water fluoridation, subliminal advertising, "Silent Sound Spread Spectrum", MEDUSA) and parapsychological operations (Stargate Project) to influence the masses.^[89] The concept of wearing a tin foil hat for protection from such threats has become a popular stereotype and term of derision; the phrase serves as a byword for paranoia and is associated with conspiracy theorists.

Skeptics argue that the paranoia behind a conspiracy theorist's obsession with mind control, population control, occultism, surveillance abuse, Big Business, Big Government, and globalization arises from a combination of two factors, when he or she: 1) holds strong individualist values and 2) lacks power. The first attribute refers to people who care deeply about an individual's right to make their own choices and direct their own lives without interference or obligations to a larger system (like the government), but combine this with a sense of powerlessness in one's own life, and one gets what some psychologists call "agency panic," intense anxiety about an apparent loss of autonomy to outside forces or regulators. When fervent individualists feel that they cannot exercise their independence, they experience a crisis and assume that larger forces are to blame for usurping this freedom.^[90][91]

Alleged conspirators

According to Domhoff, many people seem to believe that the United States is ruled from behind the scenes by a conspiratorial elite with secret desires, i.e., by a small secretive group that wants to change the government system or put the country under the control of a world government. In the past the conspirators were usually said to be crypto-communists who were intent upon bringing the United States under a common world government with the Soviet Union, but the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 undercut that theory. Domhoff notes that most conspiracy theorists changed their focus to the United Nations as the likely controlling force in a New World Order, an idea which is undermined by the powerlessness of the U.N. and the unwillingness of even moderates within the American Establishment to give it anything but a limited role.^[55]

Although skeptical of New World Order conspiracism, political scientist David Rothkopf argues, in the 2008 book Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making, that the world population of 6 billion people is governed by an elite of 6,000 individuals. Until the late 20th century, governments of the great powers provided most of the superclass, accompanied by a few heads of international movements (i.e., the Pope of the Catholic Church) and entrepreneurs (Rothschilds, Rockefellers). According to Rothkopf, in the early 21st century, economic clout—fueled by the explosive expansion of international trade, travel and communication—rules; the nation-state's power has diminished shrinking politicians to minority power broker status; leaders in international business, finance and the defense industry not only dominate the superclass, they move freely into high positions in their nations' governments and back to private life largely beyond the notice of elected legislatures (including the U.S. Congress), which remain abysmally ignorant of affairs beyond their borders. He asserts that the superclass' disproportionate influence over national policy is constructive but always self-interested, and that across the world, few object to corruption and oppressive governments provided they can do business in these countries.^[92]

Viewing the history of the world as the history of warfare between secret societies, conspiracy theorists go further than Rothkopf, and other scholars who have studied the global power elite, by claiming that established upper-class families with "old money" who founded and finance the Bilderberg Group, Bohemian Club, Club of Rome, Council on Foreign Relations, Rhodes Trust, Skull and Bones, Trilateral Commission, and similar think tanks and private clubs, are illuminated conspirators plotting to impose a totalitarian New World Order—the implementation of an authoritarian world government controlled by the United Nations and a global central bank, which maintains political power through the financialization of the economy, regulation and restriction of speech through the concentration of media ownership, mass surveillance, widespread use of state terrorism, and an all-encompassing propaganda that creates a cult of personality around a puppet world leader and ideologizes world government as the culmination of history's progress.^[6]

Marxists, who are skeptical of right-wing populist conspiracy theories, also accuse the global power elite of not having the best interests of all at heart, and many intergovernmental organizations of suffering from a democratic deficit, but they argue that the superclass are plutocrats only interested in brazenly imposing a neoliberal or neoconservative new world order—the implementation of global capitalism through economic and military coercion to protect the interests of transnational corporations—which systematically undermines the possibility of a socialist one-world government.^[93] Arguing that the world is in the middle of a transition from the American Empire to the rule of a global ruling class that has emerged from within the American Empire, they point out that right-wing populist conspiracy theorists, blinded by their anti-communism, fail to see is that what they demonize as the "New World Order" is, ironically, the highest stage of the very capitalist economic system they defend.^[93]

Criticism

Skeptics of New World Order conspiracy theories accuse its proponents of indulging in the furtive fallacy, a belief that significant facts of history are necessarily sinister; conspiracism, a world view that centrally places conspiracy theories in the unfolding of history, rather than social and economic forces; and fusion paranoia, a promiscuous absorption of fears from any source whatsoever.^[6]

Domhoff, a research professor in psychology and sociology who studies theories of power, wrote in 2005 an essay entitled There Are No Conspiracies. He says that for this theory to be true it required several "wealthy and highly educated people" to do things that don't "fit with what we know about power structures". Claims that this will happen goes back decades and have always been proved wrong.

Partridge, a contributing editor to the global affairs magazine Diplomatic Courier, wrote a 2008 article entitled One World Government: Conspiracy Theory or Inevitable Future? He says that if anything nationalism, which is the opposite of a global government, is rising. He also says that attempts at creating global governments or global agreements "have been categorical failures" and where "supranational governance exist they are noted for their bureaucracy and inefficiency."

Although some cultural critics see superconspiracy theories about a New World Order as "postmodern metanarratives" that may be politically empowering, a way of giving ordinary people a narrative structure with which to question what they see around them,^[94] skeptics argue that conspiracism leads people into cynicism, convoluted thinking, and a tendency to feel it is hopeless even as they denounce the alleged conspirators.^[95]

Alexander Zaitchik from the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote a report titled "'Patriot' Paranoia: A Look at the Top Ten Conspiracy Theories", in which he personally condemns such conspiracies as an effort of the radical right to undermine society.^[96]

Concerned that the improvisational millennialism of most conspiracy theories about a New World Order might motivate lone wolves to engage in leaderless resistance leading to domestic terrorist incidents like the Oklahoma City bombing,^[97] Barkun writes that "the danger lies less in such beliefs themselves ... than in the behavior they might stimulate or justify" and warns "should they believe that the prophesied evil day had in fact arrived, their behavior would become far more difficult to predict."

Warning of the threat to American democracy posed by right-wing populist movements led by demagogues who mobilize support for mob rule or even a fascist revolution by exploiting the fear of conspiracies, Berlet writes that "Right-wing populist movements can cause serious damage to a society because they often popularize xenophobia, authoritarianism, scapegoating, and conspiracism. This can lure mainstream politicians to adopt these themes to attract voters, legitimize acts of discrimination (or even violence), and open the door for revolutionary right-wing populist movements, such as fascism, to recruit from the reformist populist movements."

Hughes, a professor of religion, warns that no religious idea has greater potential for shaping global politics in profoundly negative ways than "the new world order". He writes in a February 2011 article entitled Revelation, Revolutions, and the Tyrannical New World Order that "the crucial piece of this puzzle is the identity of the Antichrist, the tyrannical figure who both leads and inspires the new world order". This has in turn been the Soviet Union and the Arab world. He says that inspires believers to "welcome war with the Islamic world" and opens the door to nuclear holocaust."

Criticisms of New World Order conspiracy theorists also come from within their own community. Despite believing themselves to be "freedom fighters", many right-wing populist conspiracy theorists hold views that are incompatible with their professed libertarianism, such as dominionism, white supremacism, and even eliminationism.^[15][98] This paradox has led Icke, who argues that Christian Patriots are the only Americans who understand the truth about the New World Order (which he believes is controlled by a race of reptilians known as the "Babylonian Brotherhood"), to reportedly tell a Christian Patriot group, "I don't know which I dislike more, the world controlled by the Brotherhood, or the one you want to replace it with."

See also

• Anti-globalization movement
• Criticisms of globalization
• Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory

References

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Further reading

The following is a list of non-self-published non-fiction books that discuss New World Order conspiracy theories.

• Carr, William Guy (1954). Pawns in the Game. Legion for the Survival of Freedom, an affiliate of the Institute for Historical Review. ISBN 0-911038-29-9.
• Still, William T. (1990). New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies. Huntington House Publishers. ISBN 0-910311-64-1.
• Cooper, Milton William (1991). Behold a Pale Horse. Light Technology Publications. ISBN 0-929385-22-5.
• Kah, Gary H. (1991). En Route to Global Occupation. Huntington House Publishers. ISBN 0-910311-97-8.
• Martin, Malachi (1991). Keys of This Blood: Pope John Paul II Versus Russia and the West for Control of the New World Order. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-74723-1.
• Robertson, Pat (1992). The New World Order. W Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8499-3394-3.
• Wardner, James (1994) [1993]. The Planned Destruction of America. Longwood Communications. ISBN 0-9632190-5-7.
• Keith, Jim (1995). Black Helicopters over America: Strikeforce for the New World Order. Illuminet Press. ISBN 1-881532-05-4.
• Cuddy, Dennis Laurence (1999) [1994]. Secret Records Revealed: The Men, The Money and The Methods Behind the New World Order. Hearthstone Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 1-57558-031-4.
• Marrs, Jim (2001) [2001]. Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-093184-1.
• Lina, Jüri (2004). Architects of Deception. Referent Publishing. ASIN B0017YZELI.

External links

Neue Weltordnung (Verschwörungstheorie)

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Die 13-stufige Pyramide und das allsehende Auge über dem Schriftzug „Novus ordo seclorum“ auf der Ein-Dollar-Note wird als Indiz einer Verschwörung mit dem Ziel interpretiert, eine „Neue Weltordnung“ zu etablieren.

Als Neue Weltordnung (englisch New World Order) wird in verschiedenen Verschwörungstheorien das angebliche Ziel von Eliten und Geheimgesellschaften bezeichnet, eine autoritäre, supranationale Weltregierung zu errichten. Solche Theorien wurden zu Beginn der 1990er Jahre in den Vereinigten Staaten populär. Verbreitet werden sie vor allem von christlich-fundamentalistischen, rechtsextremen und esoterischen Autoren. Ob die Verwendung des Begriffs in der globalisierungskritischen Linken ebenfalls als verschwörungstheoretisch einzustufen ist, ist umstritten.

Entstehung

Ende des Kalten Krieges

George H. W. Bush (1989)

Die weite Verbreitung der Vorstellung, die gesellschaftlichen Eliten würden insgeheim an einer „Neuen Weltordnung“ arbeiten, geht auf den politischen Diskurs der USA in den frühen 1990er Jahren zurück. Nach dem Ende des Kalten Krieges und dem Untergang der Sowjetunion war die Vorstellung verbreitet, nun breche ein neues Zeitalter an. Der amerikanische Politikwissenschaftler Francis Fukuyama stellte 1989 die These auf, das Ende der Geschichte sei gekommen: Der demokratische, marktwirtschaftlich verfasste Liberalismus habe endgültig gesiegt, es gebe keine globalen Gegensätze mehr, die eine Weiterentwicklung der Geschichte antreiben könnten. In ähnlichem Sinne äußerte sich der amerikanische Präsident George Bush während des Zweiten Golfkriegs. Am 29. Januar 1991 sagte er in seiner zweiten State of the Union Address vor beiden Häusern des Kongresses:

“What is at stake is more than one small country; it is a big idea: a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind – peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law. Such is a world worthy of our struggle and worthy of our children's future.”

„Es geht um mehr als nur um ein kleines Land; es ist eine große Idee: eine neue Weltordnung, wo unterschiedliche Nationen zusammenrücken im gemeinsamen Ziel, die universalen Hoffnungen der Menschheit zu erreichen – Frieden und Sicherheit, Freiheit und Rechtsstaatlichkeit. Dies ist eine Welt, die es wert ist, dass wir für sie kämpfen, und die es wert ist, die Zukunft unserer Kinder zu sein.“^[1]

Das Schlagwort von der „Neuen Weltordnung“ war eigentlich schon älter. Bereits zur Zeit des Ersten Weltkriegs hatte Präsident Woodrow Wilson mit seinen Vierzehn Punkten eine „neue Weltordnung“ ins Auge gefasst, in der ein Völkerbund effektiv kollektive Sicherheit gewährleisten sollte, H.G. Wells hatte 1940 ein Buch unter diesem Titel veröffentlicht, und Bush hatte die Formulierung in einer Rede am 11. September 1990 benutzt. Ab 1991 wurde sie von Evangelikalen und christlichen Fundamentalisten sowie von Anhängern der konspirationistischen politischen Rechten als Beweis aufgegriffen, dass die Regierung der Vereinigten Staaten selbst Teil einer Verschwörung mit dem Ziel wäre, die Freiheitsrechte ihrer Bürger abzuschaffen. Dies schien ihnen insofern plausibel, als Bush als Mitglied von Skull and Bones und als ehemaliger Direktor der CIA bereits wiederholt mit Geheimgesellschaften assoziiert worden war.^[2] In der rechtsradikalen John Birch Society hatte man schon seit ihrer Gründung 1958 immer wieder vor einer „Neuen Weltordnung“ unter kommunistischem Vorzeichen gewarnt.^[3] Mit dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion und dem Ende des Kalten Krieges schienen all diese Prognosen falsifiziert zu sein. Um ihr eingewurzeltes Denken in klar definierten Freund-Feind-Kategorien beibehalten zu können, wechselte die Verschwörungstheorie vom Antikommunismus, der den Feind hauptsächlich außerhalb der USA gesehen hatte, auf die Bekämpfung der eigenen Regierung über.^[4] Der amerikanische Kommunikationswissenschaftler Charles J. Stewart erklärt die Leichtigkeit dieses Themenwechsels damit, dass der Kommunismus für die John Birch Society bereits seit den 1960er Jahren Teil einer größeren Verschwörung gewesen sei, die angeblich für den Ausbau der Staatsgewalt („Big Government“), für Kollektivismus und Globalisierung arbeite. Insofern habe sie, ohne ihr zentrales Narrativ aufgeben zu müssen, den Zusammenbruch des internationalen Kommunismus als bloßen Taktikwechsel auf dem Weg zur angeblich weiterhin drohenden „one-world tyranny“ deuten können.^[5]

Dass die Vorstellung, es drohe eine „Neue Weltordnung“, zu Beginn der 1990er Jahre auch im amerikanischen evangelikalen und fundamentalistischen Protestantismus populär wurde, erklärt der amerikanische Politikwissenschaftler Michael Barkun mit den Schwierigkeiten, in die auch dessen Prognosen geraten waren: In dispensationalistischer Interpretation der eschatologischen Texte des Neuen Testaments hatten sie bisher stets die Zunahme internationaler Konflikte vorausgesagt, die sich bis zur Großen Trübsal und zur Weltherrschaft des Antichrist steigern würden. Erst die Wiederkunft Jesu Christi würde diese Schreckenszeit beenden. Im Fokus dieser Konflikte hatte man immer die Sowjetunion und Israel gesehen. Nun aber war die Sowjetunion kein Feind mehr und die Konflikte im Nahen Osten gingen nicht mehr um Israel, sondern den Irak. Die Verschwörungstheorie von der „Neuen Weltordnung“ bot sich an, dieses prophetische Vakuum zu füllen.^[6]

Wegen der verbreiteten Verschwörungstheorien kam das Schlagwort der „Neuen Weltordnung“ bei amerikanischen Politikern bald außer Gebrauch.^[7]

Pat Robertson: The New World Order[Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]

Pat Robertson (2006)

1991 veröffentlichte Pat Robertson (* 1930), Gründer der evangelikalen Christian Coalition of America, sein Werk The New World Order.^[8] Darin sieht er die christlichen USA im Zangengriff zweier Verschwörungen: Zum einen „Money Power“, die Hochfinanz, die – teils aus Habsucht, teils zur Vereinfachung der Verfahrenswege – seit Jahrzehnten eine Diktatur anstrebe: Zu diesem Ziel hätte sie 1865 Präsident Abraham Lincoln ermorden lassen, weil er angeblich Pläne einer zinsfreien Währung verfolgt habe, 1913 den 16. Zusatzartikel zur Verfassung der Vereinigten Staaten durchgesetzt, um eine Einkommensteuer erheben zu können, und im gleichen Jahr das Federal Reserve System errichtet. Die andere Verschwörung ziele auf die Moral der Amerikaner: Hier sieht Robertson Illuminaten, Freimaurer und Anhänger der New-Age-Bewegung am Werk, die „den christlichen Glauben vernichten“ und die Welt „unter die Herrschaft Luzifers“ zu bringen trachteten. Zu diesem Zweck werde von ihnen „eine Weltregierung, eine Weltarmee, eine Weltwirtschaft unter einer britischen Finanzoligarchie und ein Weltdiktator, dem ein Rat von zwölf Getreuen zur Seite steht“, angestrebt. All diese Pläne würden vom Council on Foreign Relations und der Trilateralen Kommission betrieben. Die Vereinigung Europas, der Kollaps des Kommunismus und der Golfkrieg, der das Image der UNO aufbessere, würden alle diesem antichristlichen Ziel dienen. Für die Zukunft prognostiziert Robertson eine Wirtschaftskrise, in der die USA genötigt würden, ihre Souveränität auf die UNO zu übertragen, die einen sozialistischen Weltpräsidenten installieren werde, der nach den Grundsätzen einer Humanitätsreligion statt des Christentums herrsche.^[9] Als Beleg für diese angeblich jahrhundertealte Doppelverschwörung verweist Robertson auf das Motto Novus ordo seclorum im Großen Siegel der Vereinigten Staaten, das er als new world order übersetzt.^[10] Robertson bewegte sich dabei in den Bahnen älterer Verdächtigungen gegen die Illuminaten und andere Geheimgesellschaften, machte diese über die engen Kreise, in denen dergleichen Verschwörungstheorien bis dahin rezipiert worden waren, auch im amerikanischen Mainstream bekannt. Sein Buch, das auch in seriösen Buchhandlungen und auf Flughäfen zu haben war, wurde mit mehreren hunderttausend verkauften Exemplaren ein Bestseller.^[11]

Verwendung[Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]

In der politischen Rechten[Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]

Die John Birch Society erklärte seit 1991, die Globalisierung und der weltweite Abbau von Handelsschranken durch GATT, NAFTA und andere Handelsverträge seien Schritte auf eine „Neue Weltordnung“ hin, in der amerikanische Truppen schließlich nur noch zur Unterdrückung jeglichen Widerstands gegen die globale Superregierung eingesetzt würden. Die Friedenstruppen der Vereinten Nationen seien eine Vorübung für diese künftige Praxis.^[12] Ihr Vorsitzender John McManus erklärte 1995:

“The goal is the breakdown of national sovereignty via economics. In the end, unless all of it will be stopped, the ‘new world order’ will emerge and freedom will be a mere memory.”

„Das Ziel ist der Zusammenbruch der nationalen Souveränität via die Wirtschaft. Am Ende wird, wenn das alles nicht gestoppt wird, die ‚neue Weltordnung‘ entstehen, und Freiheit wird nur noch eine Erinnerung sein.“^[13]

Bereits 1990 hatte der libertäre Publizist William T. Still (* 1948) eine Version der bekannten anti-illuminatischen Verschwörungstheorie veröffentlicht, nach der Adam Weishaupt die finanziellen Ressourcen für seine Pläne vom jüdischen Bankhaus Rothschild zur Verfügung gestellt bekommen habe, von den Freimaurern aber die Tarnung; dadurch sei es ihm gelungen die Französische Revolution ins Werk zu setzen; in der Gegenwart würden sich die Illuminaten eher internationaler Organisationen wie des Council on Foreign Relations bedienen.^[14]

Der christlich-fundamentalistische Prediger Texe Marrs (* 1944) glaubt ebenfalls, die Illuminaten würden eine „Neue Weltordnung“ anstreben, deutet diese aber nicht finanziell, sondern eschatologisch: Die Illuminaten seien der Antichrist, das Tier aus der Offenbarung des Johannes, und würden im Jahr 2000 ihre endzeitliche Herrschaft antreten.^[15] Auch der Autor John Coleman, angeblich ein ehemaliger Mitarbeiter des britischen MI6-Geheimdienstes, beschreibt die „Neue Weltordnung“ als Herrschaft des Antichristen.^[16] Er sieht eine „überarbeitete Form des internationalen Kommunismus und eine brutale und grausame Diktatur“ heraufziehen, hinter der ein „Komitee der 300“ stecke, das angeblich alle anderen Geheimgesellschaften und Verschwörungen kontrolliere, von Illuminaten, Freimaurern und Rosenkreuzern über die Bilderberg-Konferenz, Skull and Bones und die Thule-Gesellschaft bis hin zu Bolschewisten und Zionisten. Die Vorstellung von den „dreihundert Männern“, die angeblich die Welt kontrollieren, übernahm Coleman von Walter Rathenau, der 1909 in dem Zeitungsartikel Unser Nachwuchs Ähnliches formuliert hatte und seitdem immer wieder von Antisemiten als Kronzeuge für eine angebliche jüdische Weltherrschaft angeführt wird. Coleman erwähnt sehr oft Juden als Diener der satanischen Pläne des „Komitees der 300“: So soll Theodor W. Adorno in seinem Auftrag den Rock and Roll als Mittel der Bewusstseinskontrolle und der Massenbetäubung erfunden haben, der israelische Geheimdienst Mossad könne jedes Land über die jeweils dort ansässige jüdische Minderheit kontrollieren, die Rothschilds seien für zahlreiche Kriege verantwortlich, an denen sie obendrein gut verdienen würden, Henry Kissinger sei der „Hofjude“ des Komitees usw. Damit bedient sich Coleman antisemitischer Klischees wie der angeblich typisch jüdischen Plutokratie, des „jüdischen Bolschewismus“ und der Protokolle der Weisen von Zion, einer Fälschung von 1903, die vorgibt, die Pläne einer jüdischen Weltverschwörung wiederzugeben.^[17]

1991 entwickelte der rechtsextreme Radiomoderator Milton William Cooper (1943–2001) in seinem Buch Behold a pale horse eine „Superverschwörungstheorie“, in deren Mittelpunkt – neben den Illuminaten und den Bilderbergern – diesmal Außerirdische stehen, die angeblich seit der Regierungszeit Präsident Eisenhowers in geheimen Verbindungen mit der amerikanischen Regierung stünden. In ihrer „Neuen Weltordnung“ würde die Zahl der lebenden Menschen deutlich verringert, das Wirtschaftswachstum verlangsamt, Fleischkonsum verboten und eine Auswanderung ins All vorbereitet. Ohne diese drastischen Maßnahmen würde ein vollständiger Zusammenbruch der Zivilisation drohen, den Cooper für die Zeit kurz nach dem Jahr 2000 vorhersagte.^[18] Bei diesen Phantasien stützte sich Cooper teils auf Dokumente, die er bei seiner Tätigkeit im Geheimdienst eingesehen haben will, teils auf Alternative 3, eine satirische Fernsehsendung aus dem Jahr 1977, die von Ufologen aber für bare Münze genommen wurde. Außerdem führte er die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion als Beleg an, die aber in Wahrheit nicht eine Weltverschwörung von Juden, sondern von Illuminaten beweisen würden.^[19]

Das Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City nach dem Anschlag (21. April 1995)

In der rechtsextremen amerikanischen Milizbewegung wurden diese Verschwörungstheorien zu einem zentralen Ideologem, mit dem die Legitimität der Regierung bestritten wird. Dabei wurde sie radikalisiert, antisemitisch aufgeladen und weitergesponnen. So sehen Anhänger der Milizen nun „die Juden“ als Hauptverschwörer hinter der „Neuen Weltordnung“ und beschimpfen die Bundesregierung als „Zionist Occupied Government“. Angeblich planten die Verschwörer, die Hälfte der Weltbevölkerung durch Kriege und Seuchen auszurotten, um die andere Hälfte zu versklaven. Kennzeichnungen an Highways werden als geheime Hinweise für Invasionstruppen gedeutet, die Federal Emergency Management Agency, eine Bundesbehörde für Katastrophenschutz, sei ein Deckmantel für geplante Konzentrationslager, in die „Patrioten“ eingeliefert würden, die der neuen Weltregierung den Gehorsam verweigerten, und die ungekennzeichneten „schwarzen Hubschrauber“, die wiederholt gesichtet worden seien, gehörten angeblich der UNO und bereiteten deren militärische Machtergreifung vor.^[20] 1996 verspottete der Generalsekretär der Vereinten Nationen Boutros Boutros-Ghali öffentlich den Mythos von den schwarzen Hubschraubern, als er bei seiner Rückkehr aus dem Urlaub erklärte, Ferien seien eigentlich langweilig:

„Es ist viel lustiger, hier [in New York] zu arbeiten, Reformen zu verhindern, in meinen schwarzen Hubschraubern zu fliegen und eine Weltsteuer einzuführen.“^[21]

Die missglückten Erstürmungen der Ruby Ridge im August 1992 und der Siedlung der Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, am 19. April 1993 durch Bundesbehörden sowie die Verschärfung der Waffengesetze etwa durch die Brady Bill 1994 wurden als Beweise für die Pläne der Regierung in Washington gewertet, die „Neue Weltordnung“ durchzusetzen, und verschafften den Milizen eine große Anhängerschaft. Die Ideologie, wonach sich die wahren, christlichen Patrioten gegen diese antichristliche, international gelenkte Verschwörung verteidigen müssten, stand auch hinter dem Terroranschlag von Oklahoma City 1995, den der Bombenleger Timothy McVeigh absichtlich auf den Jahrestag der Tragödie von Waco legte.^[22] Ein weiterer von der Verschwörungstheorie der „Neuen Weltordnung“ inspirierter Terroranschlag konnte im Jahr darauf verhindert werden: Sieben Mitglieder der West Virginia Mountaineer Militia hatten vor, das Gebäude der Criminal Justice Information Services Division des FBI in Clarksburg (West Virginia) zu sprengen, das sie für ein Befehlszentrum der „Neuen Weltordnung“ hielten. Sie wurden am 8. Oktober 1996 verhaftet.^[23]

Pat Buchanan (2004)

David Icke (2008)

Der paläokonservative Pat Buchanan (* 1938), der sich 1992 und 1996 vergeblich um eine Nominierung als Präsidentschaftskandidat der Republikanischen Partei beworben hatte, hielt die protektionistische Parole „America First“ gegen Bushs „Neue Weltordnung“.^[24] Dieser Begriff ist für ihn eine Chiffre für alles Negative in der amerikanischen Politik: Offene Grenzen, illegale Einwanderung, Waffengesetze, Homosexualität, Abtreibung usw. Multilaterale Abkommen wie NAFTA oder der Vertrag von Maastricht stellen seines Erachtens die „Architektur der Neuen Weltordnung“ dar.^[25] 1998 bezichtigte er das Council on Foreign Relations, die Trilaterale Kommission und die Bilderberger, sich der „tief un-amerikanischen“ Agenda von Freihandel, Abrüstung und Weltregierung verschrieben zu haben.^[26]

Der gleichfalls paläokonservative Radiomoderator Alex Jones (* 1974), der für die deutsche Ausgabe von Colemans antisemitischem Werk Das Komitee der 300 ein Interview beisteuerte,^[27] verbreitet in seinen Sendungen, auf DVDs und über Webseiten wie infowars.com die Verschwörungstheorie von der „Neuen Weltordnung“. Diese wird von ihm und den Gästen in seinen Sendungen als narrativer Rahmen genutzt, in den sie andere Verschwörungstheorien, etwa zu den Anschlägen vom 11. September 2001, einbetten. Die Anschläge auf die Zwillingstürme erscheinen so als Werk der Illuminati oder gieriger Geldbarone, die dadurch die „Neue Weltordnung“ herbeiführen oder aufrechterhalten wollten.^[28] Dem gleichen Ziel würden nach Jones' Behauptungen die Wahl Barack Obamas und die angeblich absichtsvoll herbeigeführte Finanzkrise von 2008 dienen.^[29] Wie einige andere Verschwörungstheoretiker auch schwankt Jones bei der Beantwortung der Frage, ob die Machtübernahme der Verschwörer unmittelbar bevorstehe oder bereits eingetreten sei.^[30]

In der Verschwörungstheorie des britischen Rechtsesoterikers David Icke (* 1952) sind es vampirische reptiloide Außerirdische aus dem Sternbild des Drachen, die die Menschheit in einer „Neuen Weltordnung“ versklaven wollen und zu diesem Zweck Satanismus und Kindesmissbrauch praktizieren. Icke stützt sich unter anderem auf Veröffentlichungen von Cooper und dem Prä-Astronautiker Zecharia Sitchin (1920–2010), persönliche Erfahrung und Channeling sowie ebenfalls auf die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion.^[31]

Unter Deutschlands Rechtsradikalen kursieren gleichfalls Verschwörungstheorien über eine „Neue Weltordnung“. In seinem Bestseller Geheimgesellschaften und ihre Macht im 20. Jahrhundert von 1993 unterstellt der Rechtsesoteriker Jan Udo Holey (* 1967) den Illuminati, die er als jüdisch geführte Teufelsanbeter darstellt, sie wollten die eine „Neue Weltordnung“ errichten. Zu diesem Zweck würden sie einen Dritten Weltkrieg vorbereiten. Holey zitiert wie Cooper und Icke ausgiebig die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion.^[32] Gegenwärtig polemisiert die NPD gegen „die ‚neue Weltordnung’ der US-Ostküste“ (eine Anspielung auf die vielen reichen Juden, die angeblich dort leben) und deren vermeintliche Weltherrschaftspläne.^[33]

In der politischen Linken[Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]

Noam Chomsky (2004)

Auch in der politischen Linken wurde das Schlagwort aufgegriffen. Der amerikanische Linguist und politische Aktivist Noam Chomsky (* 1928) schrieb 1992:

“The Gulf War has torn aside the veil covering the post Cold War era. It has revealed a world in which the United States enjoys unchallenged military supremacy and is prepared to exploit this advantage ruthlessly. The new world order (in which the New World gives the orders) has arrived.”

„Der Golfkrieg hat den Schleier von der Ära des Kalten Krieges weggerissen. Er hat eine Welt offenbart, in der die Vereinigten Staaten unangefochten die militärische Oberhoheit genießen und bereit sind, diesen Vorteil rücksichtslos auszunutzen. Die Neue Weltordnung (in der die Neue Welt die Order gibt) ist da.“^[34]

Allerdings wurde dieser Begriff schon von George W. Bush in seiner Rede vom 11. September 1990 explizit verwendet.

Auch in anderen Werken greift Chomsky den Begriff auf, so etwa in World Orders Old and New (1994), in dem er der westlichen Welt und insbesondere den USA Imperialismus und eine immer brutalere soziale Spaltung zwischen Arm und Reich vorwirft.^[35]

Über die Einordnung einer solchen Kritik an einer „Neuen Weltordnung“, verstanden als amerikanische Hegemonie und alternativlos sich darstellender Neoliberalismus, gibt es keinen Konsens. Der amerikanische Politologe Daniel Pipes beschreibt Chomskys Gegenwartsanalysen als „Verschwörungstheorie […], die der US-Regierung an praktisch sämtlichen Mißständen der Welt die Schuld gibt“, wobei diese als im Auftrag der Großindustrie handelnd imaginiert werde.^[36] Der britische Aktivist Milan Rai dagegen verteidigt Chomsky gegen diese Einordnung.^[37] Der britische Kulturwissenschaftler Alasdair Spark nimmt eine vermittelnde Stellung ein: Seines Erachtens verkürzt der Vorwurf Chomskys Argumentation, andererseits sieht er eine „totalisierende Tendenz“ in seinen politischen Schriften, in der keinerlei positive Aspekte an den USA mehr erkennbar blieben; auch seine Verarbeitung großer Mengen von Detailinformationen zu einem einzigen Narrativ sei eine typische Methode von Verschwörungstheoretikern. Spark verweist zudem auf die globalisierungskritischen Demonstrationen gegen die Ministerkonferenz der Wirtschafts- und Handelsminister der WTO in Seattle 1999, als sowohl Linke als auch Rechte wie zum Beispiel Pat Buchanan gegen die „Neue Weltordnung“ protestierten.^[38]

Literatur[Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]

• Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2. Auflage. University of California Press, Berkeley 2013, ISBN 978-0-520-27682-6, S. 39–79.
• Alasdair Spark: New World Order. In: Peter Knight (Hrsg.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. An Encyclopedia. ABC Clio, Santa Barbara/ Denver/ London 2003, ISBN 1-57607-812-4 Band 2, S. 536–539.

Einzelnachweise[Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]

1. ↑ Alasdair Spark: New World Order. In: Peter Knight (Hrsg.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. An Encyclopedia. Band 2, ABC Clio, Santa Barbara/ Denver/ London 2003, S. 536.
2. ↑ Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2. Auflage. University of California Press, Berkeley 2013, S. 40.
3. ↑ Siehe zum Beispiel Gary Allen: Say "No!" to the New World Order. Concord Press, Rossmoor, CA 1987.
4. ↑ Claus Leggewie: Fed up with the Feds. Neues über die amerikanische Paranoia. In: Kursbuch 124: Verschwörungstheorien (1996), S. 120; Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2. Auflage. University of California Press, S. 63 f.
5. ↑ Charles J. Stewart: The Master Conspiracy of the John Birch Society: From Communism to the New World Order. In: Western Journal of Communication 66, Heft 4 (2002), S. 423–447, das Zitat S. 437 nach einem Artikel in The New American vom 29. Januar 1990.
6. ↑ Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2. Auflage. University of California Press, S. 64.
7. ↑ Alasdair Spark: New World Order. In: Peter Knight (Hrsg.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. An Encyclopedia. ABC Clio, Santa Barbara/ Denver/ London 2003, Band 2, S. 536.
8. ↑ Pat Robertson: The New World Order. Word Publishing, Dallas 1991; deutsch: Geplante Neue Welt. One-Way-Verlag, Wuppertal 1993.
9. ↑ Daniel Pipes: Verschwörung. Faszination und Macht des Geheimen. Gerling Akademie Verlag, München 1998, S. 28 ff.; Martin Durham: Robertson, Pat. In: Peter Knight (Hrsg.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. An Encyclopedia. Band 2, ABC Clio, Santa Barbara/ Denver/ London 2003, S. 620 f.; Alasdair Spark: New World Order. In: ebd., Band 2, S. 536 f.; Roy Joseph: The New World Order. President Bush and the Post-Cold War Era. In: Martin J. Medhurst (Hrsg.): The Rhetorical Presidency of George H. W. Bush. Texas A&M University Press, College Station 2006, S. 97.
10. ↑ James Arnt Aune: The Econo-Rhetorical Presidency. In: ders. und Martin J. Medhurst (Hrsg.): Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric. Texas A&M University Press, College Station 2008, S. 62 f.
11. ↑ Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2. Auflage. University of California Press, S. 52.
12. ↑ Marlon Kuzmick: Council on Foreign Relations. In: Peter Knight (Hrsg.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. An Encyclopedia. Band 1, ABC Clio, Santa Barbara/ Denver/ London 2003, S. 210 f.
13. ↑ Mark Rupert: Ideologies of Globalization. Contending Visions of a New World Order Routledge, London 2002, S. 103.
14. ↑ William T. Still: New World Order. The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies. Huntington House, Lafayette 1990; Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2. Auflage. University of California Press, S. 52.
15. ↑ Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2. Auflage. University of California Press, S. 52.
16. ↑ John Coleman: The Conspirators Hierarchy. The Committee of 300. Amer West Pub & Dis 1992; deutsch unter dem Titel Das Komitee der 300. Die Hierarchie der Verschwörer. J.K. Fischer Verlag, Gelnhausen 2010.
17. ↑ Carl-Eric Linsler: Das Komitee der 300 (John Coleman, 1992). In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Band 6: Schriften und Periodika. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-025872-1, S. 409–412 (abgerufen über De Gruyter Online); zu Walter Rathenau und den „dreihundert Männern“ siehe Dieter Heimböckel: Walter Rathenau und die Literatur seiner Zeit. Studien zu Werk und Wirkung. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1996, S. 176.
18. ↑ Milton William Cooper: Behold a Pale Horse. Light Technology Publishing, Flagstaff, AZ 1991.
19. ↑ Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2. Auflage. University of California Press, S. 60 ff. und 92 f.
20. ↑ Alasdair Spark: Black Helicopters. In: Peter Knight (Hrsg.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. An Encyclopedia. ABC Clio, Santa Barbara/Denver/London 2003, Band 1, S. 124 ff.; ders: New World Order. ebd., Band 2, S. 537.
21. ↑ „It's much more fun to be at work here, blocking reform, flying my black helicopters, imposing global taxes“, New York Times vom 18. September 1996. Zitiert bei Daniel Pipes: Verschwörung. Faszination und Macht des Geheimen. Gerling Akademie Verlag, München 1998, S. 253.
22. ↑ Claus Leggewie: Fed up with the Feds. Neues über die amerikanische Paranoia. In: Kursbuch 124: Verschwörungstheorien. (1996), S. 121; Nigel James: Militias. In: Peter Knight (Hrsg.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. An Encyclopedia. Band 2, ABC Clio, Santa Barbara/ Denver/ London 2003, S. 468 f.
23. ↑ Daniel Pipes: Verschwörung. Faszination und Macht des Geheimen. Gerling Akademie Verlag, München 1998, S. 276.
24. ↑ Roy Joseph: The New World Order. President Bush and the Post-Cold War Era. In: Martin J. Medhurst (Hrsg.): The Rhetorical Presidency of George H. W. Bush. Texas A&M University Press, College Station 2006, S. 97.
25. ↑ Mark P. Worrell: The Veil of Piacular Subjectivity. Buchananism and the New World Order (Memento des Originals vom 3. April 2015 im Internet Archive)  Info: Der Archivlink wurde automatisch eingesetzt und noch nicht geprüft. Bitte prüfe Original- und Archivlink gemäß Anleitung und entferne dann diesen Hinweis.. In: Electronic Journal of Sociology. (1999), Zugriff am 11. März 2015.
26. ↑ Mark Rupert: Ideologies of Globalization. Contending Visions of a New World Order Routledge, London 2002, S. 114 f.
27. ↑ John Coleman: Das Komitee der 300. Die Hierarchie der Verschwörer. J.K. Fischer Verlag, Gelnhausen 2010.
28. ↑ Jovan Byford: Conspiracy Theories. A Critical Introduction. Palgrave MacMillan, New York 2011, S. 109.
29. ↑ Michael Butter: Verschwörung. In: Derselbe, Birte Christ und Patrick Keller (Hrsg.): 9/11. Kein Tag, der die Welt veränderte. Schöningh, Paderborn 2011, S. 148.
30. ↑ Michael Butter: Plots, Designs, and Schemes. American Conspiracy Theories from the Puritans to the Present. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-034693-0, S. 294 (abgerufen über De Gruyter Online).
31. ↑ Ulrike Heß-Meining: Right Wing Esotericism in Europe. In: Uwe Backes, Patrick Moreau (Hrsg.): The Extreme Right in Europe. Current Trends and Perspectives (= Schriften des Hannah-Arendt-Instituts. Band 46). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, S. 399 ff.; Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2. Auflage. University of California Press, S. 104–110.
32. ↑ Christian Pape: Geheimgesellschaften und ihre Macht im 20. Jahrhundert (Jan van Helsing, 1993). In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Band 6: Schriften und Periodika. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-025872-1, S. 226 (abgerufen über De Gruyter Online).
33. ↑ Britta Schellenberg: NPD-Publikationen. In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Band 6: Schriften und Periodika. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-025872-1, S. 506 (abgerufen über De Gruyter Online).
34. ↑ Noam Chomsky: Deterring Democracy. Verso Books 1991, zitiert nach Alasdair Spark: New World Order. In: Peter Knight (Hrsg.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. An Encyclopedia. Band 2, ABC Clio, Santa Barbara/ Denver/ London 2003, S. 537.
35. ↑ Noam Chomsky: World Orders Old and New. Columbia University Press, New York 1994.
36. ↑ Daniel Pipes: Verschwörung. Faszination und Macht des Geheimen. Gerling Akademie Verlag, München 1998, S. 250 f.
37. ↑ Milan Rai: Chomsky's Politics. Verso, London 1995.
38. ↑ Alasdair Spark: New World Order. In: Peter Knight (Hrsg.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. An Encyclopedia. Band 2, ABC Clio, Santa Barbara/ Denver/ London 2003, S. 539.

    Nowy porządek świata

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    Nowy porządek świata (łac. Novus Ordo Seclorum, ang. New World Order, skrótowo: NPŚ, ang. NWO) – teoria spiskowa wykorzystywana do opisu rzekomych przyczyn istotnych zmian w polityce międzynarodowej, według której „zakonspirowana elita globalnej władzy” dąży do objęcia władzy nad światem poprzez autorytarny rząd światowy, który ma zastąpić suwerenne państwa^[1][2][3].

    Teoria ta wykorzystuje jako pretekst:

    • program pokojowy prezydenta USA Thomasa Woodrowa Wilsona znany jako Czternaście punktów Wilsona ogłoszony w 1918 roku;
    • utworzenie Ligi Narodów i Organizacji Narodów Zjednoczonych;
    • zmianę układu sił politycznych na świecie (który ukształtował się jeszcze w latach 50. XX wieku), w wyniku rozpadu ZSRR i bloku wschodniego.

    Jednym z pretekstów stosowania tej teorii spiskowej po zakończeniu zimnej wojny było również określenie „nowy porządek świata” użyte przez Michaiła Gorbaczowa i George’a H.W. Busha oraz członków Klubu Bilderberg, Komisji Trójstronnej i Rady Stosunków Zagranicznych rządu USA, dla określenia zmian jakie nastąpiły wtedy na świecie.

    Przykłady tez teorii spiskowych dotyczących NWO

    
    

    Rewers Wielkiej Pieczęci Stanów Zjednoczonych. Rzymska liczba MDCCLXXVI (1776 – data Deklaracji Niepodległości Stanów Zjednoczonych) według zwolenników teorii spiskowych „nawiązuje do utworzenia w tym samym roku przez Adama Weishaupta zakonu Iluminatów”. Łacińska fraza novus ordo seclorum oznaczająca „nowy porządek wieków” widnieje na Wielkiej Pieczęci od 1782 roku i na tyle banknotu jednodolarowego od 1935 roku i nawiązuje do „początku nowej amerykańskiej ery” po ogłoszeniu Deklaracji Niepodległości. Przez zwolenników teorii spiskowych fraza ta jest mylnie tłumaczona jako „nowy porządek świata”^[4][5].

    Niektórzy twierdzą^[4], że świat jest zakulisowo sterowany przez grupę bądź grupy ludzi dążących do wprowadzenia „Nowego Porządku Świata”, który ma się rzekomo cechować utworzeniem jednej zależnej religii, praniem mózgu (projekt Monarch, następca MKULTRA), wszczepianiem innym ludziom chipów pod skórę, powszechnej inwigilacji za pomocą monitoringu i projektu Echelon oraz bezgotówkowym obrotem towarami. Tematyka New World Order została podjęta w filmach Duch epoki, Thrive, Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement, Historyczny wywiad z Aaronem Russo^[6] Alexa Jonesa, Ameryka: Od wolności do faszyzmu Aarona Russo czy też w książce Ręce precz od tej książki Jana van Helsinga.

    Zobacz też[edytuj | edytuj kod]

    • teoria spiskowa
    • fake news
    • dezinformacja
    • ogólna orientacja spiskowa
    • monologiczny system przekonań
    • Protokoły mędrców Syjonu

    Przypisy[edytuj | edytuj kod]

    1. ↑ Alexander Zaitchik: A look at the top ten conspiracy theories (ang.). The Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010-08-01.
    2. ↑ Paul S. Boyer: The Strange World of Conspiracy Theories (ang.). 2004-07-27.
    3. ↑ Mark Fenster: Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 2008. ISBN 0-8166-5494-8. (ang.)
    4. ↑ ^{Skocz do:a b} Camp, Gregory S.: Selling Fear: Conspiracy Theories and End-Times Paranoia. Commish Walsh, 1997.ASIN B000J0N8NC.
    5. ↑ Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary: Founded on Andrews’ Edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary: Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part Rewritten by Charlton T. Lewis, Ph.D. and Charles Short, LL.D. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1879.
    6. ↑ Historyczny wywiad z Aaronem Russo. [dostęp 2012-01-23].