MMA: Right-Wing Media Still Baselessly Fearmongering Over "One-World Government"

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107080017

History shows that right-wing media are not big fans of the United Nations. So it was no surprise, then, that the release this week of a U.N. survey prompted panic and fearmongering among some conservative media.

L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center, took to Fox & Friends today to call the report, "World Economic and Social Survey 2011: The Great Green Technological Transformation," "outrageous" and claimed it calls for "global socialism," "global governance," and a "one-world government." From the broadcast:

BOZELL: It's so outrageous. If the American people knew that the U.N. Secretary General has signed off on this report -- this is serious stuff. This is what they want. If the public knew what they want -- they're calling for a radically new economic system. They're calling for global governance. Folks, that's one-world government. I'm not a nut bag here. This is what they're calling for in this paper. It went from $600 billion two years ago to $1.9 trillion over -- per year for 40 years. $76 trillion. They want half of it to go to developing countries. That's a massive redistribution of wealth. This is global socialism. If the American people knew about it, the first thing they'd be asking themselves is what in the world are we doing making contributions to this socialist enterprise? The media coverage on this, absolutely nothing.

(snip)

This fearmongering over a "one-world government" seems to be a common response from the right-wing media any time the subject of the U.N. comes up. For example:

October 2009: Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh both applauded comments made by a British lord claiming that upcoming U.N. climate talks would lead to a "world government."

February 2011: Beck ranted about the White House Council for Community Solutions, claiming it was related to implementing a "New World Order ... a borderless world" which might be "run through ... the United Nations."

June 2011: During the final days of his Fox News show, Beck hyped the conspiracy theory that the U.N.'s Agenda 21, a plan for sustainable development, would implement "centralized control over all of human life on planet Earth." Fox Business host Eric Bolling picked up this torch a few weeks later on his show Follow the Money, claiming that Obama's Rural Council has objectives that sound "eerily similar to a U.N. plan called Agenda 21" and adding -- of course -- that the council is evidence of a coming "one-world order."

So when a conservative media figure goes on television to claim that a U.N. report means a "one-world government" is coming, it's hard to take it seriously.

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