The
latest post on Rigorous Intuition sparked in me the beginnings of paranoia (okay, the beginnings were already there) regarding a common fascination among the moneyed elite: population control. Now, even compassionate individuals have moments of, "we're wrecking the planet and it's industrialized society's fault" schadenfreude, but last time I looked around my dingy apartment living room at my motley collection of friends, we weren't in the position to do anything about industrialized society.
Some people are, and they're not all that quiet about it.
From the May 1990 issue of
WEST magazine comes this quote, given in an interview entitled, "
The Wizard of the Baca Grande":
"Each year the World Economic Forum convenes in Davos, Switzerland. Over a thousand CEOs, prime ministers, finance ministers, and leading academics gather in February to attend meetings and set the economic agendas for the year ahead.
What if a small group of these word leaders were to conclude that the principle risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? Will the rich countries agree to reduce their impact on the environment? Will they agree to save the earth?
The group's conclusion is 'no.' The rich countries won't do it. They won't change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?
This group of world leaders form a secret society to bring about a world collapse. It's February. They're all at Davos. These aren't terrorists - they're world leaders. They have positioned themselves in the world's commodity and stock markets. They've engineered, using their access to stock exchanges, and computers, and gold supplies, a panic. Then they prevent the markets from closing. They jam the gears. They have mercenaries who hold the rest of the world leaders at Davros as hostage. The markets can't close. The rich countries...?" and Strong makes a slight motion with his fingers as if he were flicking a cigarette butt out of the window.
I sat there spellbound. This is not any story-teller talking. This is Maurice Strong. He knows these world leaders. He is, in fact, co-chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum. He sits at the fulcrum of power. He is in a position to do it.
Why should we care about Maurice Strong? As the interviewer and Jeff Wells at Rigorous Intuition both rightly point out, it's because he's in a position to bring about some great economic calamity. What's his new job? Adivising Paul Wolfowitz in his new role as head of the World Bank. He's also a fervent advocate of environmental concerns:
[Strong is a]n environmentalist and patron of New Age beliefs and religious syncretism. He and his wife have been developing tens of thousands of acres in Colorado as a model "international spiritual community," called the Baca, of which the
Manitou Institute forms a part.
If it were only one man starting a spiritual and conservation-oriented community fated to be the center of civilization rising from the ashes of industrialized society's collapse, that would be one thing. As Jeff Wells says, caring about the environment is generally seen as a good thing (unless you're an environmental domestic terrorist group the government thinks is a greater threat than al-Qaeda, of course). When the subject becomes more frightening is when you add in the philosophical musings, and giant donations, of other moneyed and powerful men like Warren Buffet, the Rockefellers, Prince Philip, and Ted Turner.
Besides being a very successful investor, Warren has a social agenda. He considers overpopulation to be a serious threat to the future of the world. In fact the Buffet Foundation established by he and his wife has spent nearly 10 million dollars this year alone on "family planning causes and other population control efforts". Shocked! So was I and that's not the worst of it. The foundation is currently small; however the foundation is heir to the estimated $20 billion once Warren passes on.
...
The Buffett foundation is not alone. Established years ago, the Rockefeller foundation continues to expand its worldwide efforts through the Population Council, Planned Parenthood, and other organizations to promote and encourage abortions and birth control/contraceptives. The Ford and Rockefeller foundations used to work through the State Department's Agency for International Development. Today, they work through the United Nations Fund for Population Activities.
You may have heard recently of Ted Turner's $1 billion donation to the UN. It's expected that $30 million will be annually contributed by Turner to the UN foundation. Turner was recently quoted, "if everybody voluntarily had one child for 100 years we would go back to 2 billion people." Recently Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, has developed ties with Buffett and is spending money for teenage pregnancy studies. In fact Bill Gate's father was involved with Planned Parenthood in the sixties. Hewlett Packard's foundation is expected to contribute more to population control activities than all of the above.
A note about the link quoted from above; it is from a fundamental pro-life standpoint, so the full article contains some anti-abortion and anti-contraception language. Strange bedfellows, I know.
I'm pro-environmental activism, so the Manitou Foundation's seed banks and conservation work seem like good things to me. I'm pro-choice, pro-contraception, and pro-sexual education, and I'm far from a natalist. With that said, I have this nagging fear that if and when the collapse of industrialized society occurs (whether from peak oil, environmental degredation, a massive armed conflict, a meteor from outer space, a ravenous zombie attack, a global economic catastrophe, or a combination of all these things), I'm not going to be on the list to get in the door of the surviving spiritual communities. I really don't have Shirley MacLaine's connections.
With all the recent focus on the UN in light of the Bolton nomination, maybe we should start wondering what other key positions are held by men and women who just might not have the best interests of mankind or the planet at heart. After all, Maurice Strong recently stepped down from one UN position, and remains Special Advisor to the Secretary General and to the President of the World Bank. He is also a member of the Club of Rome. What's the Club of Rome? From the Rigorous Intuition comments:
The "environmental crisis" has been used by the power hungry to great effect since the Club of Rome scare tactics in the 60s:
"The first task is population control at home. How do we go about it? Many of my colleagues feel that some sort of compulsory birth regulation would be necessary to achieve such control. One plan often mentioned involves the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired population size."
- Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, p.135
That's a direct quote from one of the founders of the Club of Rome which Maurice has been a member of since its inception. The Population Bomb has been read by every policy maker for the last 30 years.
You don't want these guys "managing" anything - especially land and the environment - because they'd just as soon see us all dead; they've admitted as much, on the record, countless times.
Sometimes it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.