More than two out of three Americans think that “government is out of control and threatening our basic liberties.” Fox News poll reported on 21 May 2013.
George Rebane
Last night we attended the Agenda21 talk at the Grass Valley Veterans Center given by anti-Agenda21 activist and author Rosa Koire. Her talk was sponsored by our local CABPRO and was attended by about two hundred people who arrived from places as far as Reno and the bay area. Ms Koire is a self-described liberal Democrat and ‘married’ lesbian who also happens to be an excellent and animated speaker, especially about Agenda21, a topic about which she is very well informed and quite passionate. (We also bought her recent book Behind the Green Mask: UN Agenda 21.)
RR readers are familiar with my Agenda21 views, they are a matter of record and available in the ‘Agenda21’ section of this website. Ms Koire emphasized that Agenda21 is a non-partisan issue. She went on to summarize the UN’s Agenda21 Sustainable Development initiative as “the action plan to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all information, all energy, and all human beings in the world. INVENTORY AND CONTROL”
In short, Agenda21 (first formulated in 1987) is the blueprint for the stage-wise achievement of a unified global government that rules the world within one standardized set of laws, regulations, and codes that will spread social justice uniformly over all lands and peoples. The project is not a conspiracy or some ‘tin hat’ mythology, but an open initiative that in 1992 was signed on to by 179 world leaders that included President George HW Bush.
The fundamental thesis underlying this plan is that humanity’s current mode of living on the planet – lifestyles, modes of commerce, capitalism, property ownership, energy consumption, regions of habitation, etc – are unsustainable and must be drastically altered during the 21st century.
Agenda21 gained traction in the US under President Clinton who created the President’s Council on Sustainable Development “for the sole purpose of getting it into every city, county, and state in the US through federal rules, regulations, and grants. This is a global plan but it is implemented locally.” And that is the most important part, Agenda21 is not designed to advance under one global banner or initiative. Instead, it is to progress bit by piece through local actions under easily marketable notions like ‘sustainability’ and ‘smart growth’ that are being written into local general plans, zonings, building codes, land use directives, etc across the country.
With such distributed and incremental local initiatives the goals of Agenda21 continue to be advanced without ever having to proclaim the end objective. This makes it almost impossible for local elected officials and planning commissions to connect the dots. Anyone appearing before such bodies to oppose the next property use denying or development inhibiting ordnance or code by pointing out how that would advance Agenda21 is simply dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ or right wingnut, with the local Left cheering on the electeds in their demonstrated wisdom and keen insight.
(Nevada County is a poster child for witnessing the advance of Agenda21 exactly through such mechanisms. Here our BoS not only cannot connect the dots, they don’t even see any dots to connect. Their current alternative is to spend $500K and release a newly commissioned platoon of code enforcers to harass county residents for code violations in the attempt to collect fines and fees to make up for a lagging tax base and looming unfunded pension liabilities.)
The intent of this post is not to present a comprehensive review of Agenda21, that is available in its entirety as Agenda 21: Earth Summit: The United Nations Programme of Action from Rio. Here you will read how humans will be reconfigured to live and work in smartly stacked and packed communities, individual 24/7 monitoring, restricted to travel on public (state controlled) transportation through narrow corridors, and inhibited from even setting foot in “wildlands” which will cover the overwhelming proportion of the earth’s land areas. All of this will be managed by new regional governments – replacing current local governments – that will uniformly execute centrally planned provisions under the overall control of a global government. A term of art for this configuration of governance is ‘communitarianism’, which in its target embodiment pretty well subsumes everything that Karl Marx envisioned for us.
The talk lasted about ninety minutes and was followed by a Q&A period during which Jo Ann and I took our leave. When getting into regional details Ms Koire pointed out a slew of NorCal organizations that follow The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide from ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives). ICLEI is the UN’s boots-on-the-ground organizational framework that manages thousands of local ICLEI chapters worldwide. There are over 500 of them in the US with California (where else?) claiming 100 of those. Some typical names of local organizations which actually get into the implementation phase of Agenda 21 are ‘Vision 2035’, ‘Your Town 2025’, ‘One Bay Area’, ‘Plan NY’, … .
Closer to home, Ms Koire pointed to the Sierra Business Council (headquartered in Truckee) under the leadership of Mr Steven Frisch (RR reader and commenter) as the leading promulgator of Agenda21 provisions in the Sierra. There are, of course, many more fine sounding organizations in these parts who are all concerned with smart growth, the environment, sustainable development, land trusts, etc and whose common denominator is to constructively remove the benefits of ownership by incrementally reducing the property rights of their current owners.
Ms Koire pointed out that in the Third Reich the Nazis did not bother to confiscate any lands or production capabilities from their original owners. Their approach was much simpler – they just told the owners exactly what they must do with and on their land, what things in what quantities would be produced in the factories, and what goods would be sold in which shops. Unfortunately, Agenda21 calls for a more draconian approach to the disposition of private property.
[25may13 update] Mr
Steven Frisch, CEO of the Sierra Business Council, has offered to debate Ms
Rosa Koire. The proposal was aired in
the comment stream below (cf. 25
May 2013 at 08:59 AM below). Another
reader and KVMR’s news director, Mr Paul Emery has offered to carry the debate
live on radio. All good and well. My own growing curiosity about the debate
offer is what will be the contending notions that warrant a debate. Will they involve the reality of the A21’s
Rio proposals, the fact that so many countries have signed up, that ICLEIs have
been established to promote the A21 objectives (including training local
activists and sympathetic community leaders on how to make the most progress), …,
or?? Perhaps Mr Frisch will take the
position that the whole Agenda 21 thing is simply another rightwing “rural myth”
or a chimera to oppose the progressive agenda which has nothing to do with
Agenda 21.
Then there’s the viewpoint taken by Mr Emery that Ms
Koire is simply going around the country spraying audiences with her debatable “assumptions”. And that these need to be appropriately
countered to clear the air once and for all.
I don’t know, but it sure would be an interesting encounter that should
provide more light than heat. Should Ms
Koire accept and come back to Nevada County, Jo Ann and I would even invite her
to stay with us to minimize the cost of her visit.
[26may13 update] The following comment as posted below by Russ Steele is substantial and important contribution to the topic of this post. I have decided to include it as an update so that it becomes more visible part of the subject matter.
Nevada
County’s initial brush with Agenda 21 was the NH2020 initiative that
was managed by Sierra Business Council under the guidance of Izzy
Martin, then the BOS Chair and charter member of the Gang Four that were
promoting sustainable development, which was eventually written in to
the County land use plans and regulations. Not with an Agenda 21 sub
title, but with the full intent of implementing sustainable development.
And, we are living with the economic results today.
Sustainable Development entered the world officially in 1987 in a
report of the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development
entitled, “Our Common Future”. This commission was chaired by Gro Harlem
Brundtland, Prime minister of Norway and Vice-President of the World
Socialist Party.
The theme of this report was “meeting today’s need’s without
compromising future generations to meet their own needs”. If one is to
look, this mission statement has been incorporated into many government
and non-government organizations. You will find this them embedded in
their mission also, but it will be called “community planning”,
“comprehensive planning”, “growth management planning”, or “smart
growth”. I am sure your have heard those words tossed around in public
meeting in Nevada County.
Community planning, it is based on the creation of councils called
“visioning councils”. These councils are manipulated in such a way as to
arrive at a pre-determined outcome. The professional facilitators of
the meeting work hard to make sure all those involved are easily swayed
into being agreeable. The process utilizes group manipulation tactics.
Most people fear the thought of looking foolish in front of others and
tend to keep quiet.
I went to the Sierra Business Council Leadership Training program,
where we were taught how to control the out come of public meetings. How
to insure the group eventually agreed with the per-determined out come.
Out comes which could be reported in the press, presented at Supervisor
and City Council Meetings as the will of the community. We learned how
to handle vocal opposition, those unwilling to go along with the
pre-determined vision by using mockery to shut them up, or get them to
not return to future visioning sessions.
Sacramento Region went through this visioning process and developed a
“Blue Print” for the region, including surround counties of Yuba,
Sutter, Yolo, Sacramento, and Placer County. Nevada and El Dorado
County were excluded from the “Blue Print” region. Maybe because of the
strong conservative forces in these counties, that would see through the
visioning process and the predetermined outcomes.
Your can see the Full Preferred Blue Print here — http://www.sacregionblueprint.org/
The Sac Metro Transportation Blue Print for Sustainable Community is here — http://www.sacog.org/2035/
When your look at this Blue Print for Sustainable Community it is
clear the goal is to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by building
transit centric communities, with walking paths, bike trails and golf
cart paths linking to transit facilities, business and shopping centers.
This goes back to Greg’s point about AGW. The reason for reducing VMT
is to reduce CO2 emissions.
We were fortunate to have beat down NH2020, but it will come back in
other forms. Remember that when you are invited to a community vision
meeting. You will be being lead down a predetermined path to
sustainability under the influence of Agenda 21. No one will mention
Agenda 21, only the buzz words of sustainable development.
What can you do? Ask your Supervisor/City Council Person if he or she
has attended the SBC Leadership Training Program. Ask if they have
attended the ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental
Initiatives) training seminars, if they have funded Staff to attend the
SBC Training or ICLEI Training? Do the same at your City Council
Meeting.
And, last but not least, go to the vision meetings with a clear
understanding what they are up to and make your voices heard, there is
no place for Agenda 21 in Nevada County. We did it for NH2020 and we
can do it again!
Posted by:
Russ Steele |
25 May 2013 at 10:05 PM
[26may13 update2] As Mr Frisch reported in this post’s comment stream, he did contact Ms Koire with his debate proposal. Ms Koire emailed me her reply to Mr Frisch which I post here with her permission.
Hi
Steve,
It’s
too bad that you weren’t able to attend my very well-advertised speech or call
in to either of the local radio call-in shows that I did in advance. You
could have had your public exchange at that time. I have moved on to
another state now and am fully booked into 2014. Unfortunately, there
isn’t enough time for me to return to towns and cities that I’ve covered.
There
is nothing to debate. The truth and the proof is in the paper trail that
includes not only the United Nations reports and conferences, but
also the legislative history of our country and the
well-documented activities of the UN organizations, Non-Governmental
Organizations and associations and councils such as your own.
Rosa
Koire, ASA
Executive Director
Post Sustainability Institute
PostSustainabilityInstitute.org
DemocratsAgainstUNAgenda21.com
SantaRosaNeighborhoodCoalition.com
rebanesruminations.com 
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