By Judi McLeod
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Ten days after Sept. 11, 2001, former CNN owner Ted Turner was vacillating.
When the people of the country that allowed him his incredible wealth were picking up the pieces and america was in mourning, Turner did not even know which side he was on.
This shameful fact is something that Jane Fonda's ex-hubby unabashedly admitted to fellow americans in yesterday's Washington, D.C. speech to the National Press Club.
"There are a lot of things about this war that disturb me, one of them isthe attitudethat was well expressed by our president (when he said) "you're either with us or you're against us." and I had a problem with that because I really hadn't made my mind up yet. You know, what if you hadn't made your mind up yet? You know, what if you're thinking about it, doing some studying, doing some reading?"
The UN-mesmerized Turner doesn't spare a thought for those who did have their minds made up, or for the 2,996 innocents who lost their lives to terrorism on 9/11.
and Teddy Boy's timing, in admitting he hadn't made his mind up about being either with us or against us in the National Press Club speech, couldn't possibly have been any worse because his public admission coincided with North Korea's nuclear test.
While Turner wasn't sure about the president's direction, he was very sure about tyrant Kim Jong Il's.
after a personal visit to North Korea, Turner came back home to announce that North Korean officials were "absolutely sincere" in their intent to use nuclear power only for civilian purposes."
"I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere," Turner said in a Sept. 19, 2005 interview on CNN's Situation Room. "There's really no reason for them to cheat" and use nuclear power for weapons instead of generating electricity and other civilian uses."
"I looked them right in the eyes, and they looked like they meant the truth," he added. "I mean, you know, just because somebody's done something wrong in the past doesn't mean they can't do right in the future or the present. That happens all the time."
Turner likely got the royal North Korean tour from the same man at whose feet he once bowed, pressing on him a $1 billion donation for the United Nations. That man, Canadian Maurice Strong, was then UN Secretary General Kofi annan's handpicked special envoy in North Korea.
To Turner, "the next most dangerous thing (to nuclear proliferation) is probably global climate change or global warming, and then, right behind that are overpopulationwe need to get serious about family planningand trying to alleviate poverty, to get clean, renewable energy, probably with solar panels to the billion and a half people in the world who don't have access to electricity."
Turner shares a depopulation theory with his close comrades Strong, and Microsoft's Bill Gates.
But yesterday in the aftermath of the North Korean nuclear test, he was "very upset".
"Obviously, I don't like to see nuclear proliferation, and I'm very upset about" the test. "I just hope that the United Nations and the Security Council can come up with a peaceful way of resolving" the situation.
Turner, who created the United Nations Foundation to provide financial support for the UN, noted that the United Nations was able "to get this war between Israel and Lebanon and Hezbollah stopped," which was "a terrific accomplishment we can all be proud of."
Magnanimous in mood after his second $1 billion to the world's largest bureaucracy, flamboyant Turner also ladled out silver spoon advice to the little people for improving the world.
"Do what you can do," he advised. "I know when I'm walking around in Washington or New York on the street and I see a piece of trash, I'll pick it up and put it in a waste basket. If we all did that, we'd be living in a clean world."
This last platitude from a guy who erected an electric fence to keep elk and deer from gaining access to one of his buffalo ranges in Montana. (Canada Free Press cover story, May 7, 2002). The wildlife that weren't electrocuted outright died an agonizing death of starvation with food they couldn't get to beyond environmentalist Ted Turner's killing fence.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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