The 98th monkey and YOU: CRITICAL MASS

A quick check of the internet will bring you to many hundreds of sites, and millions of pages on Agenda 21, ICLEI, communitarianism, and the impacts that we all see in our communities.

We are reaching critical mass.  The question, of course, is what do we do now?  You are doing it.  Reading, talking about it, blogging about it, tweeting, facebooking—getting the word out more and more.

The Hundredth Monkey story is a good one.  Lots of monkeys on an island, one learns how to open a particular kind of shell.  He shows a monkey, who shows a monkey etc.  Progress is slow on the shell-opening front.  Then, the 99th monkey learns it.  Suddenly, all the monkeys seem to know the trick.

We are at the 98th monkey.  Read our page: What you can do!  and do it!  Let’s turn back the tide and stop this in Sonoma County, Marin County, Los Angeles County, San Francisco …Portland, Seattle, Boise, Las Vegas, Phoenix.  Let’s stop Agenda 21 in Chicago, in New Orleans, Atlanta, Asheville, Richmond, Tampa, Raleigh.  Let’s block Agenda 21 in Dallas, Houston, Galveston, and Detroit, Nashville, New York, Pittsburgh.  Join us in kicking ICLEI out of Spokane, Cleveland, Georgetown and YOUR TOWN.

There is power in true grassroots activism.  Don’t be swayed by dogma.  You can be green and conserve energy and be a responsible world member without losing your rights and liberty.  Just because others have used the communitarian trick of ‘balancing your rights with the community good’ doesn’t mean that this makes sense.  A + B does not equal F and you are smart enough to see it.

BE THE 99TH MONKEY.  STOP AGENDA 21.  JOIN US.

WWW.DEMOCRATSAGAINSTUNAGENDA21.COM

Why Communitarianism threatens a free society

I have been reading articles by Amitai Etzioni, the professor at George Washington University, who is the director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies.  He founded the Communitarian Network, a non-profit ‘dedicated to the moral, social, and political foundations of society,’ and is the world’s leading proponent of communitarianism.

It doesn’t do you much good to criticize a theory without thorough research into it, so I’m doing my homework.

An article by Etzioni in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs entitled The Common Good and Rights, A Neo-Communitarian Approach (Winter/Spring 2009), is a concise argument for the central tenet of communitarianism: The common good must be a central part of our public morality, and human rights  and liberty must be subsumed into the service of all members of the society.  This is what he calls ‘balancing.’

Etzioni states that where there is no ‘community’ the people are disaffected, lonely, anti-social, alienated, and prone to finding artificial community such as gangs and militias.  Without community, in his view, there are no informal social controls that will serve to enforce the moral code and commitments of the residents. The antidote, he says, is to produce a community that uses censure, or pressure, to control behavior.

Here’s an example of what’s wrong with that concept.

Now, in an open society, such as the one we are now building, a gay person can live freely in many places.  An outsider just 25 years ago (and of course, still, in many places), a gay person is now able to form loving attachments without fear of job loss, loss of children, or shunning by society.  But if you take a look at the ‘community’ of Etzioni’s making, you’re looking at America in the 1950’s.  At a society that can shun you, shame you, reject you, attack you, and claim it’s for the common good.  And they truly believed that.  And many of them were good people.  And still are.  And if you define the common good as producing uniformity, and regulated, wholly expected results, then I suppose homosexuality is not in line with the common good.  But why would you want complete uniformity in your culture?  There is a perceived threat.  Whether it’s valid or not, the group can decide to reject and stigmatize a whole segment of the population.  For the common good.

Now, this is the kind of thing that was done in the name of religious prosecution.  Community morality.  How many have been persecuted or killed because they didn’t have the right religion?  This empowers mob rule.  Enforcement of morals outside of the law is not serving the Constitution of the United States.  Etzioni says that common moral beliefs make a community.  That sounds like a religion. Like environmentalism?  Has ‘green’ been hijacked and transformed to a secular religion?  Is it being used as an excuse and justification for restriction of individual rights?  Etzioni is defining the community as the planet.  The global village.  So, by extension,  just your use of the resources on the planet can endanger it, and make you a threat to the common good.

Your rights have been ‘balanced’ against the rights of the community as determined by some.  Whoever is the most dominant group.  Some group is going to be making these decisions.  How is the good of the community determined?  By the Delphi Technique?

Our constitution guarantees individual rights for a reason.  Because they are the first thing to go when a community takes on the role of the arbiter of behavior.

I do not feel comforted by the idea of community rule.  I have been at the receiving end of community attack.  Abuse.  Cruelty.  Why?  Because I dared to speak out about what was wrong.  Are these the people we want dictating what is for the good of the community?  The only way you can get to what Etzioni is talking about is to overthrow our entire system of law.  Our constitution and legal system are based on individual rights.

In Etzioni’s article he states:
“The neo-communitarian position seeks to understand as well as design society in light of the inevitable conflicts between rights, which privilege the person, and concerns for the common good, which privilege the community or society.”

Did you catch that? Design society in light of the inevitable conflicts between rights and the common good.

Re-Designing society. This is happening now.  In your town.  Right in your neighborhood association, your PTA, your city council, your place of worship, your local planning department, your schools.  This is not a remote, scholarly concept.  This is being imposed and enacted across the nation.

The overthrow of our legal system is in progress by the election of politicians  and judges who support communitarianism and Agenda 21.  For the common good.

You asked for it: What can I do about Agenda 21?

First take a deep breath and realize that you are not alone in this.  There are people all over your state, all over America, all over the world, who are with you.

If you’ve read our site, http://www.DemocratsAgainstUNAgenda21.com, and read the links you are probably feeling upset and concerned about your future and the future of your country.  Good.  There are a lot of issues that make it into the news but UN Agenda 21, communitarianism, and sustainable development/SmartGrowth doesn’t show up much.  So you’re shocked about it.  You may even be hoping that it’s nothing, that it will blow over, that you don’t have to do anything about it.  But this is real and your voice is needed.  

You may be looking for a leader.  Take a look in the mirror.  This is the real face of grassroots.  YOU.

To start, the best thing you can do is to read more and open your eyes to the workings of your town.  You’ve heard the slogan “Think Globally, Act Locally”?  Take that to heart, to the real heart of what you see.  Take your local paper.  Read it.  So many of us take the New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle but not our local paper.  It’s a rag, we say.  Who cares?  You should. Up above we said that UN Agenda 21, communitarianism and sustainable development/SmartGrowth don’t show up much in the paper, but they do, every day.  If you’re paying attention and reading intelligently.  Articles about redevelopment projects, bicycle boulevards, neighborhood summits, neighborhood elections, neighborhood revitalization projects, neighborhood stabilization projects, visioning, local boards, smart growth projects, low-income housing subsidies, transportation grants, green building retrofit programs, well monitoring, SMART electric and gas meters, and the people who object to them come out every day.  Connect with those people.  Tell them about UN Agenda 21.  Be a bridge.  

If you’re a sceptic, and you should be, keep reading and asking the questions.  Be a sharp researcher.  If you read about a group that is advocating for SmartGrowth, for instance, take a look at who’s in the group.  Google the names of the people running the organization.  Follow those links.  Who funds them?  What influence do they have on your community?  For instance, in our town, Santa Rosa, CA, there is a group that is trying to develop new neighborhood associations in conjunction with the City so that they can hand-pick neighborhood ‘leaders’ and shut out other voices.  It’s called the Neighborhood Alliance, a group founded by the local president of the UN-USA Association.  Didn’t know there was a local chapter of the United Nations in your town?  Neither did we.  What else?  The other founder is the director of advocacy for the California Lung Association.  A check of that group shows that they lobby the legislature for smart growth (that term means multi-story residential condos stacked on top of retail stores next to railway lines, proposed rail lines, or transit corridors; the preferred development style for Agenda 21).  Surprised?  We were.  That explained why the Board of the neighborhood association went nuts when my partner was elected neighborhood president.  They threatened her with a trial to remove her when they found out she and I had organized a group and sued to stop a local redevelopment project.  You get the point.  

Connect with others who are feeling that their property rights are being limited or taken away through excessive regulations.  Most people who do own property don’t own more than their own home, but if you do own a piece of improved or vacant land, whether it is rural, urban, suburban, commercial, residential, or industrial, you’ve been affected.  And you probably know it.  So do others in your situation.  Political parties are a diversion.  Don’t make that an issue.  You’ll find allies by watching the Planning Commission meetings on your local cable station, or by going down to the meetings yourself, listening for a few weeks, giving your card to those who are in a similar situation, and meeting them.  Tell them about UN Agenda 21.

You might get a shock, as we did sometimes, when you think you’re meeting with allies but find out that you’re mistaken.  Take the chance.  Spread the word.  

Yes, it takes some courage to point out actions being taken by your neighbors, by your town council, and by your community when you feel alone.  Try to get a small group together.  Here’s an example of a small group that has made a big difference.  Or maybe you’ll just have one other person. Go to your neighborhood visioning meetings.  Remember though, they use tactics like the Delphi Technique at local meetings to marginalize dissent.  You can learn very effective ways to monkey-wrench their tactics here.  Go to the City Council meetings and get used to speaking out.  It’s kind of scary at first but go for it.   It’s tremendously engaging to become involved locally.  It’s your town—Get Involved.  But don’t let them snow you.  Or use flattery to turn you.  Don’t be fooled.  

When you’re discussing UN Agenda 21 with people who are part of the sustainability movement think about their arguments.  Are they logical?  If they advocate for high density development in the center of your town, ask them: Why do you support vertical sprawl? Ask them: Did you know that low-income housing developments do not pay property tax?  Did you know that they do not contribute to paying for city services?  Ask them: Did you know that property taxes on new developments in an area that has been declared blighted contribute very little to the schools, hospitals, police and fire? The majority of their property tax is diverted to the Redevelopment Agency to pay off redevelopment bonds. If they bring up issues that raise questions for you, research the answers.  Use it as a learning opportunity.  

Here’s a way for your voice to be heard in every newspaper and magazine in the nation:  Go on their online sites and comment on articles related to UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development.  Most sites will allow anonymous posting, if you wish to be anonymous.  

Do you subscribe to a newsletter?  Write something for it.  Go ahead!  Do your best and don’t worry if you don’t get it all in there.  

Start a blog.  Just do it, it’s easy!  Weebly is a terrific web-building site.  It’s free and you can easily have a website and blog in about 5 minutes.  As you learn more, post it.  Link to others.  Get support by finding others, like us, who have awakened to UN Agenda 21 and Communitarianism.  

Do you have a community media center in your town?  At the college or high school there may be a local TV cable station with classes in how to do a local TV show.  It’s fun, you learn a lot, and you get your show on the air.  Try a ‘man on the street’ show.  Ask everyone you meet:  ‘Did you know that (your town) was a member of ICLEI?’ or ‘Did you know that sustainable development is a United Nations plan?’

There’s an election coming up.  Go to the forums.  Ask:  ‘What is your position on UN Agenda 21?’  Hold up a sign.  Find out if your town or county is a member of ICLEI.  Ask: ‘What is your position on ICLEI?  Will you commit to KICK ICLEI out of our community?’  

Don’t look for a hero, don’t expect someone to do it for you.  You are joining a huge worldwide genuine grassroots movement.  Being green is using energy efficient ways to conserve, and using intelligent means to preserve our lives on the earth.  You don’t have to lose your rights and give up living with a personal vehicle, a private home, modern conveniences, and good food.  We’ve been told by local groups that they don’t want electric vehicles to be successful because that will stop people from getting out of their cars and onto bikes.  That even if all electricity came from renewables that people having personal vehicles are ‘anti-social’ and that streets should be bike only or removed.  

If you’ve been identifying yourself as progressive ask what that means.  Ask yourself what it means.  Think about it.  In your mind, move into a condo.  Get rid of your car and ride a bike.  Take your time thinking about this.  Stop eating any food that was not produced locally (within 25 miles).  Limit your water usage to 10 gallons per day.  Pay a carbon tax for any trip you take.  Wash your clothes and bedding by hand and hang them up to dry (try this for a month).  Perform your hours of mandatory volunteer work.  What does it mean to be progressive?  Are you a liberal?  We can own the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, too.  It’s ours.  We’re a big country with a lot of room and a lot of resources.  We’re cleaning up our pollution, we’re reducing our energy use, we’re more efficient with our water.  We are a nation of rights.  Not republican or democrat rights.  National, civil, rights. 

Remember The Who?  ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ is a great tune by the great left radical, Pete Townshend.  Read the lyrics:
 
We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
And I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again

Change it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fall that’s all
But the world looks just the same
And history ain’t changed
‘Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
And I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no! 

I’ll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Speak out about UN Agenda 21.   Stop the loss of your rights

Transforming America: Sustainable Development

Take a look at this clear, consise, easy-to-read pamphlet on UN Agenda 21 by Michael Shaw. You’ll be glad you took the time to review it.

Transforming_America

I’m movin’ to Picayune…

I just read a newspaper article on-line that made me sit up and grin. Picture this: small town, supervisors’ meeting, 90 folks in attendance, consultant standing at the front making his pitch and delivering what the supervisors have paid him a small town fortune to come up with. Smart Growth. And guess what?
Those folks won’t have it. Their comments surprised me. They have done their homework and they learned about UN Agenda 21 and THEY DON’T WANT IT.

Take a look:
http://picayuneitem.com/local/x334298231/Smart-Growth-sees-controversy

The state of freedom

I was putting my mind in the way of freedom and what it meant in the 1600’s when Europeans (non-Spanish, who were already here) got in their ships and risked their lives to start again. Some of them were religious fanatics who were so narrow and restrictive that they’d been driven out of Holland or England. Some were convicts about to be hung at Newgate Prison in London and given the chance to save their necks in the colonies. Yes, the US was settled with convict labor, too. Others were merchants, farmers, traders, misfits, and indentured servants looking for a new life. And there were the aristocrats.

In the mid to late 1700’s the colonies resisted the crown’s rule and declared independence. Raising tobacco and cotton for England using slave labor had made the aristocrats of the new country wealthy. There was a desire to explore and take possession of the land. So the idea of freedom, the idea of independence and individuation fit well with the needs of the landed aristocracy to expand and exploit the new lands. Initially, those who crafted the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights intended those rights to apply to the landed gentry alone.

Later, the concept of Manifest Destiny encouraged those who were able to spread out and take the land. The idea that whatever you saw was yours, that the encouragement of the government was with you, and that the US Army would push out to the edge of the continent drove men to the West. At first the West was the Mississippi, and then beyond to the Pacific.

So what is my point? That our nation is different than any of the others, because it needed that concept of freedom and individualism in order to settle this enormous continent. That served this nation for 100 years. Until the mid to late 1800’s, when California became a state, and the transcontinental railroad was completed, this was imperative in the larger picture of expanding the settled US land area. This is cynical, perhaps, but nation-makers such as the philosopher-soldiers who designed the American system needed a ready militia, a nation that could govern itself with free speech and assembly, and a willing populace that would expand their territory and utilize the resources of this rich continent.

Freedom made sense. Fiscal sense. And it was an experiment in political philosophy that allowed men of privilege to grow interdependent markets while permitting intellectual discourse to shape a new political model.

Yep. It made sense. So maybe it doesn’t make sense anymore to those who are now controlling our government. All lands have been ‘discovered,’ and there’s enough freedom left to come up with a new idea for the market. But the Agenda 21 message now is that there are too many of us, we use too many resources, even our exhalations are a danger to the earth. Carbon offsets must be purchased (and traded in new exchanges) in order to make amends for breathing. We’re accused of being ‘addicted’ to oil and pressured to renounce our independent mode of travel. We’re told our homes are too big, our footprint too big, we use too many light bulbs, and eat too much. We watch television programs that are almost exclusively modeled on ‘winners and losers’ to accustom us to judging and harden us to those who lose. We ourselves lose. We lose our jobs, our homes, our social structure, our culture, our identity. We’re physically unproductive and have to exercise to use our bodies. We’re disconnected from our food source and are totally dependent. We are intellectually lazy, under-educated, or overly narrow in our educations. We’re deeply in debt, told that we need to spend $100,000 for a degree (and even get multiple degrees to ‘stay relevant’), that we need to get in line, stay in step or we won’t pay those loans off. We are compromised. With unemployment at its highest in 25 years we want to be winners, not losers, and will go along to get along.

Martina Navratilova, the tennis star, is from the Czech Republic. Recently she spoke about living under communism as a child. She said, ‘if you weren’t a party member you got nothing. You couldn’t get food, schooling, housing or jobs. Unless you went along with the majority you were on the outside.’ Globalism. Nationalism. With a global market mentality there is no sense of loyalty or obligation to a particular country. Wherever the profits are is where the money goes. With nationalism, old-style, even robber barons like Carnegie and Mellon endowed libraries and universities. There was a sense of noblesse oblige that is absent now. It’s just not expeditious.

So what is the state of freedom now? Here, in America? Could Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman play their wildly rebellious and nervy jokes on Wall Street today? When I was in Washington DC a few years ago I walked the halls of Congress and cried. Really. Because carved into the walls, high up above the lintels, are statements made by our founding fathers. And I thought, if they made those statements today they’d be in jail.

Great Uterine Wall

Barbara

I have been thinking what’s it going to take for women to comprehend that we are the majority and we are in control of our destiny?

Why do we willingly divide into a minority, a minority that prevents us from moving forward with important issues that affect every female on the planet?

Over 100 years ago Susan B Anthony said and I am paraphrasing, that unless we settle the abortion issue it will continue to divide women.

 In 2010 it is and will continue to be used as a method of “divide and conquer”. I call it the “Great Uterine Wall”

Every election the GUW is erected and women voluntarily divide into Pro and Con and women go to battle with each over what is most definitely  a personal issue and what most definitely should not be a political issue.

Year after year women willingly allow their uterus to be used as a political pawn by allowing it to be the only end all, oh my God  issue that concerns us.

During an election the GUW goes up the right banner reads “They will force all women to have abortions so stick with us we will fight for your right.”

The left reads ” They will force all women to raise children so stick with us we will fight for your right”

So we divide into battle and they conquer and when the election is over the GUW comes down and women stand there and say WTF we are still underpaid, still under employed, domestic violence is escalating with no laws to protect us etc etc etc BUT hey I won the battle I  have the right to raise a child or not.

 Congratulations, all that dividing and battling  and women rights have advanced…NO Where.

When will women say enough of the uterus issue? We have been discussing who owns my uterus and my conscious for a hundred years. It is now official… my uterus and my conscious  belong to me and her uterus and her conscious  belong to her. So let’s stop with the same old same old battle. Let’s take down the GUW so women can all be free to move on together …because.. did you know while we’re  fighting the battle of “who owns my uterus and my conscious”

Women are being  murdered at alarming rates?

“Four women a day are murdered in this country for NO reason. Since we invaded Iraq in March 2003, more than 4,200 American soldiers have been killed. In that same time, there have been NINE THOUSAND woman-lynchings; more than twice as many women slaughtered than US casualties in Iraq.” D. Murphy

http://pumapac.org/forums/woman-lynching/

Do you get it now?

These are the names and the stories of women murdered during and since the 2008 election. 

 What’s that old saying?

“You won the battle BUT you’ve lost the war”

 You still want to divide?

Make Mine Freedom

Fascinating and to think that some still don’t get it!  Harding College put this out in 1948 – it seemed far out then and some still think it is – guess some never learn.