United Nations and Booker T. Washington High School Students attend fundraiser for the United Nations Foundation

Oklahoma Education? Or Indoctrination?

By Amanda Teegarden, Co-Founder of OFSA, OI & ET
October 27, 2005

If you are not familiar with the Oaks Country Club in west Tulsa, you have missed some beautiful scenery…rolling hills, a sweeping vista, golfing, a secluded location. It is a good place to meet without attracting a lot of attention.

On Tuesday, October 18, 2005, in this remote part of Tulsa, a fundraiser dinner quietly took place. It was an odd assortment of people – mostly senior citizen aged singles and couples, impressionable Booker T. Washington students, young college kids – about 72 people in all, including the people at the dais.

Even though our little group (OFSA) was not on the original invitation list, we thought we would try to attend. We had heard a brief hint of this event the night before, while listening to Oct. 17’s Tulsa School Board meeting, (channel 20), sort of describing a “BTW/UN student event for the next day” (Tuesday, the 18th) [Dinner Menu].

For those who do not know, Booker T. Washington is a UN Model School. John Waldron is the instructor [OI Note: BTW celebrates the United Nations, but did nothing to acknowledge 9/17/05, designated to be Constitution/Citizenship Day - OI has to ask.. Which side is BTW, TPS and others on? The UN's or the US's?]. After some phone calls, we found out what the event was and that for the price of a $30.00 dinner ticket, we could attend. Therefore, we did.

The dinner at the Oaks Country Club was arranged to benefit the United Nations Foundation, via the United Nations Association of Eastern Oklahoma. The guest speaker was one Gillian Sorensen.

Gillian’s bio reads something like this: “Senior Adviser and National Advocate at the United Nations Foundation. She has had a long career working with and for the UN. Since l993, she served as Special Adviser for Public Policy for Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then as Assistant Secretary General, head of the Office of External Relations for Secretary General Kofi Annan. She was responsible for outreach to civil society including NGO’s and worked closely with diplomats, academics, parliamentarians, religious leaders and others committed to peace, justice, development and human rights.” Source and hyperlink to:

At the country club, large UN flags greeted us, conspicuously, and outnumbered the US flags. Grandmotherly women checked us in, took our money, and gave us our programs.

Grandmothers and the UN? In Oklahoma?

It was like entering another world.

While OFSA Reps sat at a sponsors table waiting for their meal, the sponsor grumbled his dinner was taking too long for its arrival. Jokingly he stated, "The isolationists must have sabotaged the kitchen!"

Once the hobnobbing and meal were finished, the speaking began.

The Program:

• Dr. Richard (Dick) Ekdahl performed the welcome. Dick is the President of the United Nations Association of Eastern Oklahoma.
  
• Tearsa Storms, a TU student and model UN Team chairperson, spoke briefly on her wonderful experiences learning about how wonderful the UN was. She expressed her enthusiasm that Carver middle school students were getting involved.
  
• Phil Wood,Tulsa city auditor (apparently for life), who read Mayor LaFortune’s Proclamation that “Whereas, and whereas, etc. the United Nations is a key partner in fighting global terrorism’, ‘October 18, 2005 was proclaimed United Nations Day in Tulsa, Oklahoma’.
  
• Prof. Roger Randle, introduced Ms. Sorensen, enumerating her many accomplishments. (Please read Roger Randle’s bio)
  
• Ms. Sorensen walked to the podium and thanked “Herr Randle” (“HERR RANDLE?”) for his introduction, then proceeded with her 25-minute speech, entitled, “The United Nations and the United States: Controversy and Opportunity”
  

  What Gillian Sorensen said would have raised the hackles and dropped the jaws of most Americans, but not to this special group of supporters and sponsors.

  What follows is a summary of her 25-minute talk.

  Summary of Gillian Sorensen’s comments 10/18/05:

  • In her travels across the United States, she has found that many people have the wrong idea about the United Nations, and this is due to ‘disinformation over the internet” (Remember the news about the UN’s desire to take over the Internet?)
    
  • “The United Nations does not aspire to World Government” (For an analysis of global governance by Henry Lamb of Eco-Logic, January/February 1996, go to: Our Global Neighborhood; A Commission on Global Governance, a commission endorsed by the U.N. Secretary-General in 1995)
    
  • “The United Nations does not have a UN Army.” (See The New American, October 2005, pp. 28-29 for a contradiction to her statement.)
    
  • “Roosevelt learned from the League of Nations. The USA needs to be fully involved in the UN.”
    
  • “The UN Charter is still a powerful document, and it was largely drafted by Americans”
  • "The UN’s initial focus was Economic, Social, and Health issues."
    
  • "UN has since developed the Security Council for Peace."
    
  • "Eleanor Roosevelt led the effort to include Human Rights."
  • During Ms. Sorensen’s, time at the UN, under Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Anan, “the environment became a major issue” (No kidding, really?)
  • “Then terrorism and all the issues that cross borders with no passports” (Catch phrase)
  • “Traffic in human beings, is an issue that goes over borders with no passports” (See?)
  • The United Nations is an ‘organizing place, a place to share information, to build alliances.” “Its’ members, or employees, are international civil servants, if you will.” “WWII era people are passing on, the ones who really understood the importance of the United Nations.” (Yes, how dangerous an organization it is)
  • “It is inconceivable that there would be a rift between members that would last more than a little while. However, recent events have changed that. The Iraq war is a point of contention.” (Here it comes, the Controversy).
  • “The USA went to war on its own and there are consequences to that.”
  • “Germany is currently training civil police for Iraq, Iraqi citizens.”
  • “It is important to work thru and in the United Nations. But if you’ve given the UN the back of the hand, (she demonstrated) then ask for help, this could lead to resentment.”
  • To lead by the power of persuasion requires that this country must do what it says it will do, it cannot do one thing and say another…we have to remember the prisoners at Abu Ghraib.” (If you have forgotten, she will remind you. This was difficult to sit through).
  • “We must be very careful what partnerships we make with dictators, like Saddam Hussein, and the Shah of Iran.”
  • There is a call for the United States to be the best possible place it can. The US chooses repeatedly to not sign treaties, even after helping draft them. This is referred to as “American Exceptionalism”. (Sounds OK to us).
  • “It took 38 years to sign the convention on genocide.”
  • “It is America’s best interest to join the family of mankind.” (Here is our Opportunity!)
  • “It is OK to compromise a little bit now and again.”
  • “I believe if the US dismisses our leadership role they (we) will rue the day. The European Union is ready to move into the leadership role. This leadership role will not be available for ever…some other group may move into that position.” (She actually said this).
  • She concluded by saying,“If we join the UN I believe we will be keeping faith with the Founders.” (As in ‘founding fathers’?)

  There followed a few questions, mostly softball, I asked this one: “Your presentation has been very enlightening. I do have a question, however, about one of the comments you made near the end, the one where you stated “If we join the UN I believe we will be keeping faith with the founding fathers”…what are you basing that on, and which of our founders would have encouraged the US to join the UN?”

  Many heads turned to see who had asked this, and after stumbling through an explanation of what ‘joining’ means (“fully commit, not partially commit”), and commenting on her awareness of being in a “red state”, she never addressed the question about which of our ‘founders’ would have encouraged our entering the UN.

  The folks at the tables were all of a sudden acting as children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. “Herr Randle” abruptly ended the question and answer session.

  The dinner was over.

  The donation envelopes went unmentioned.

  OFSA, Co-Founder Kate Price managed to get in one more question before leaving the dinner hall. Regarding the UN and the OAS (Organization of American States:) [OI Note: OAS has been asked by Tulsa Race Riot survivors to help them receive reparations from the 1921 Tulsa race riot]

  When the meeting was adjourned I approached Ms. Sorensen and thanked her for the informative speech she gave. Kate then proceeded to ask her a question concerning the Organization of American States (OAS).

  My question to her was the role the OAS plays in buffering the tension between the U.N. and the United States.

  Ms. Sorensen asked, "Do you know someone within the OAS?"

  I replied "No. I was only trying to learn more about the integration of the western hemisphere and would like to know the role the OAS will play in the future as more integration takes place."

  Ms. Sorensen responded by saying, "The OAS is not a part of the U.N. or the United States government however, the OAS will definitely play a large role similar to the role of that of the EU’s new political body in Brussels."

  I find this very alarming since the “new” political body over the EU does not necessarily recognize the laws of individual countries or the distinctive rights of the citizens of each country. To say that the U.N. is not trying to bring the world together in global governance is a lie as The Commission on Global Governance proves.

  As a sovereign nation, "We the People" of the United States of America, better watch the OAS and its human rights court as well as the United Nations or we may find ourselves, one day, answering to a foreign gavel.”

  The UN Day Sponsors were:

  Tulsa Global Alliance
  English Speaking Union
  Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa
  Friends of the Tulsa City-County Library
  The Tulsa Friends of the Czechs and Slovacs (sic)
  

  Supporters were:

  Roger and Sue Ames
  Mo and Helen Arnold
  Janet Bradley
  Sonny and Judy Branham
  Ann Mahoney Bryce
  Dick Ekdahl
  Pat and Peggy Keith
  Dobie and Sandra Langenkamp
  Gary and Lauren Liles
  Jerry and Marcia Lysinger
  Ulrich and Karen Melcher
  Robert T. Peake
  Karen Lee Schafer
  Iola Sear
  Emily and Phil Wood

  Dinner Committee was:

  Iola Sear, Chairman
  Bill and Janice Dunn
  Joyce Grane
  Emily Capehart