Book Review: Globally Underwhelmed

Joseph A. Klein. Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom. Los Angeles: World Ahead Publishing, 2005.

Having served several times as a delegate at my county and state Republican assemblies, one of the resolutions frequently voted on is: “The United States should withdraw from the United Nations.”

No proposed resolution at my recent county assembly received a smaller vote than that question – 51%, less than the two-thirds needed to be ratified. The globalist-socialist United Nations does not poll very well in the United States generally, but an especially politically conservative group of Colorado Republican activists was basically split on the question of whether we should disassociate entirely from the internationalist body.

My biggest surprise in turning the pages of Global Deception was that author Joseph Klein would likely cast the same vote as I did: No.

That we both hold the position of not wanting to withdraw from the United Nations reflects no enthusiasm for the organization’s philosophy, agenda, or leadership. Just a simple, prudential assessment on my part that the United States should not disengage from the international community but rather continue to exert its moral influence to keep most of the UN’s ideas from coming to fruition.

I wasn’t sure if Klein really worries that Americans will wake up one day to find wacky UN policies and ideas governing our lives, or if he kept throwing out the litany of Leftist corruption and claptrap merely to shock and titillate.

Perhaps this reviewer is jaded, but I wasn’t exactly stunned to read about the graft and greed at all levels of UN leadership or the socialist worldview that imbues its utopian bureaucracy. That UN leaders would be happy to encroach on American sovereignty, impose international courts or taxes, and deprive American citizens of Second Amendment rights is not news to me.

However, the value of Global Deception is in its depth and detail. Klein has added a plethora of footnotes to substantiate the seemingly outrageous stories – outrageous to Americans who live in the everyday free world but not when considered from the historical and philosophical perspective of UN bureaucrats.

Mock them. Laugh at them. But don’t feed their globalist egos with paranoia.

The book is ill-equipped to persuade but more suited to reinforce existing views. Most Americans already distrust the UN, but many of them do not support actually withdrawing from the globalist body.

But dismissing Global Deception as right-wing “nationalistic rubbish” as another online reviewer has done only demonstrates his own myopia, since there is plenty of room to distinguish Klein from the rabidly reactionary, anti-UN types. More noteworthy is how out-of-touch the UN bureaucracy is with the American mainstream: you don’t have to believe in black helicopters to be a fan of Bush’s UN ambassador John Bolton.

Klein, who counts JFK’s solicitor general Archibald Cox as one of his mentors, seems determined to splash cold water on the old liberals who still might believe that today’s Kofi Annan-led UN is fulfilling the organization’s original ideals. (The UN has lost its way, Klein argues, nostalgically concluding that it can be restored to first principles, free of vitriolic anti-American socialism.) Yet at the same time, most of the tome’s red meat is cooked to conservative tastes.

And Klein’s frequent smart-aleck interjections rob the arguments of much of their potential effectiveness. I found many of the remarks distracting and off-putting. Finally, there were more than a few editing errors in the book that also tend to distract the reader. I hope they will be corrected in future editions.

All in all, reading this book from cover to cover probably will be a chore, unless you happen to be blissfully unaware of the globalist agenda and concomitant bureaucratic corruption. While gratitude is owed to Klein for unveiling facts that are often overlooked by the major media, discerning readers also will seek the added context of bureaucratic ineptitude and American political realities to inform their thinking.

This book was generously provided by World Ahead Publishing through the hard work of Stacy Harp at Active Christian Media. No remuneration was paid for this review.