The Greatest Story Never Told: UN Agenda 21 and YOU

Thanks, BJ, for the invitation to blog. First a bit about us, and then some info on UN Agenda 21.

We are registered Democrats, life-long, who have become aware of the United Nations Agenda 21 negative impacts on our local, regional, and national government.

We are civil rights advocates, pro-choice, and pro-gay marriage, who until recently considered ourselves ‘progressive Democrats.’ We are university educated, middle income professionals who seek to make common cause with others in the United States who share our concerns.

We are engaged in educating ourselves, our peers, and our country about UN Agenda 21, ICLEI, Sustainable Development, Smart Growth, Form-Based Zoning, Green Energy Mandates, Carbon Offsets, Cap and Trade, Redevelopment and other programs that restrict our land rights and civil rights. This vitally important information transcends party lines and illuminates much of what we have witnessed over the past two decades.

SOUNDS LIKE SCIENCE FICTION…OR SOME CONSPIRACY THEORY…BUT IT ISN’T.

Have you wondered where these terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘smart growth’ and ‘high density urban mixed use development’ came from? Doesn’t it seem like about 10 years ago you’d never heard of them and now everything seems to include these concepts? Is that just a coincidence? That every town and county and state and nation in the world would be changing their land use/planning codes and government policies to align themselves with…what?

First, before I get going, I want to say that yes, I know it’s a small world and it takes a village and we’re all one planet etc. I also know that we have a democracy and that as cumbersome as that can be sometimes (Donald Rumsfeld said that the Chinese have it easy; they don’t have to ask their people if they agree. And Bush Junior said that it would be great to have a dictator as long as he was the dictator), we have a three branch government and the Bill of Rights, Constitution, and self-determination. This is one of the reasons why people want to come to the US, right? We don’t have Tiananmen Square here, generally speaking (yes, I remember Kent State–not the same, and yes, an outrage.) So I’m not against making certain issues a priority, such as mindful energy use, alternative energy sponsorship, recycling/reuse, and sensitivity to all living creatures.

But then you have UN Agenda 21. What is it? We’d like to encourage you to read through our site, familiarize yourself with the following information, and follow the links, but please come back. We’ll give you a brief synopsis first.

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Considering its policies are woven into all the General Plans of the cities and counties, it’s important for people to know where these policies are coming from. While many people support the United Nations for its peacemaking efforts, hardly anyone knows that they have very specific land use policies that they would like to see implemented in every city, county, state and nation. The specific plan is called United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. By now, most Americans have heard of sustainable development but are largely unaware of Agenda 21.

In a nutshell, the plan calls for governments to take control of all land use and not leave any of the decision making in the hands of private property owners. It is assumed that people are not good stewards of their land and the government will do a better job if they are in control. Individual rights in general are to give way to the needs of communities as determined by the governing body. Moreover, people should be rounded up off the land and packed into human settlements, or islands of human habitation, close to employment centers and transportation. Another program, called the Wildlands Project spells out how most of the land is to be set aside for non-humans.

U.N. Agenda 21 cites the affluence of Americans as being a major problem which needs to be corrected. It calls for lowering the standard of living for Americans so that the people in poorer countries will have more, a redistribution of wealth. Although people around the world aspire to achieve the levels of prosperity we have in our country, and will risk their lives to get here, Americans are cast in a very negative light and need to be taken down to a condition closer to average in the world. Only then, they say, will there be social justice which is a cornerstone of the U.N. Agenda 21 plan.

Agenda 21 policies date back to the 70’s but it got its real start in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro when President Bush signed onto it. President Clinton signed it later and continued the program in the United States. A non-governmental organization called the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives, ICLEI, is tasked with carrying out the goals of Agenda 21. Over 500 cities in the U.S. are members; our town joined in 2007. The costs are paid by taxpayers.

It’s time that people educate themselves and read the document and related commentary. After that, get a copy of your city or county’s General Plan and read it. You will find all sorts of policies that are nearly identical to those in U.N. Agenda 21. Unfortunately, their policies have advanced largely unnoticed and we are now in the end game. People need to identify their elected officials who are promoting the U.N.’s policies and hold them accountable for their actions. Only when we’ve identified who the people are and what they are trying to do will we be able to evaluate whether or not we approve of the policies they are putting forward. Some people may think it’s appropriate for agencies outside the United States to set our policies and some people will not. The question is, aren’t Americans able to develop their own policies? Should we rely on an organization that consists of member nations that have different forms of governments, most of which do not value individual rights as much as we do? It’s time to bring U.N. Agenda 21 out in the open where we can have these debates and then set our own policies in accordance with our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
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Ok, you say, interesting, but I don’t see how that really affects me. Here are a few ways:

No matter where you live, I’ll bet that there have been hundreds of condos built in the center of your town recently. Over the last ten years there has been a ‘planning revolution’ across the US. Nearly everything that got approvals for development was designed the same way: ground floor retail with two stories of residential above. Mixed use. Very hard to finance for construction, and very hard to manage since it has to have a high density of people in order to justify the retail. A lot of it is empty and most of the ground floor retail is empty too. High bankruptcy rate.

So what?

Most of your towns provided funding and/or infrastructure development for these private projects. They used Redevelopment Agency funds. Your money. Specifically, your property taxes. Notice how there’s very little money in your General Funds now, and most of that is going to pay Police and Fire? Your street lights are off, your parks are shaggy, your roads are pot-holed, your hospitals are closing. The money that should be used for these things is diverted into the Redevelopment Agency. It’s the only agency in government that can float a bond without a vote of the people. And they did that, and now you’re paying off those bonds for the next 45 years with your property taxes. Did you know that?

So, what does this have to do with Agenda 21?

Redevelopment is a tool used to further the Agenda 21 vision of remaking America’s cities. By declaring an area of town ‘blighted’ (and in some cities over 90% of the city area has been declared blighted) the property taxes in that area can be diverted away from the General Fund. This constriction of available funds will impoverish the cities, forcing them to offer less and less services, and reducing your standard of living. They’ll be telling you that it’s better, however, since they’ve put in nice street lights and colored paving. Smart Growth. They’ve had thousands of condos built in the redevelopment areas and are telling you that you are terrible for wanting your own yard, for wanting privacy, for not wanting to be dictated to by a Condo Homeowner’s Association Board, for being anti-social, for not going along to get along, for not moving into a cramped condo downtown where they can use your property taxes for paying off that huge bond debt. But it’s not working, and you don’t want to move in there. So they have to make you. Read on.

Human habitation, as it is referred to now, is restricted to lands within the Urban Growth Boundaries of the city. Only certain building designs are permitted. Rural property is more and more restricted in what uses can be on it. Although counties say that they support agricultural uses, eating locally produced food, farmer’s markets, etc, in fact there are so many regulations restricting water and land use (there are scenic corridors, inland rural corridors, baylands corridors, area plans, specific plans, redevelopment plans, huge fees, fines) that farmers are losing their lands altogether. The push is for people to get off of the land, come into the cities. To get out of the suburbs and into the cities. Out of their private homes and into condos. Out of their private cars and onto their bikes.

Bikes. What does that have to do with it? I like to ride my bike and so do you. So what? Bicycle advocacy groups are very powerful now. Advocacy. A fancy word for lobbying, influencing, and maybe strong-arming the public and politicians. What’s the conection with bike groups? National groups such as Complete Streets, Thunderhead Alliance, and others, have training programs teaching their members how to pressure for redevelopment, and training candidates for office. It’s not just about bike lanes, it’s about remaking cities and rural areas to the ‘sustainable model’. High density urban development without parking for cars is the goal. This means that whole towns need to be demolished and rebuilt in the image of sustainable development. Bike groups are being used as the ‘shock troops’ for this plan.

What plan? We’re losing our homes since this recession/depression began, and many of us could never afford those homes to begin with. We got cheap money, used whatever we had to squeak into those homes, and now some of us lost them. We were lured, indebted, and sunk. Whole neighborhoods are empty in some places. Some are being bulldozed. Cities cannot afford to extend services outside of their core areas. Slowly, people will not be able to afford single family homes. Will not be able to afford private cars. Will be more dependent. More restricted.

This plan is a whole life plan. It involves the educational system, the energy market, the transportation system, the governmental system, the health care system, food production, and more. The plan is to restrict your choices, limit your funds, narrow your freedoms, and take away your voice. One of the ways is by using the Delphi Technique to ‘manufacture consensus.’ Another is to infiltrate community groups or actually start neighborhood associations with hand-picked ‘leaders’. Another is to groom and train future candidates for local offices. Another is to sponsor non-governmental groups that go into schools and train children. Another is to offer grants and funding for programs that further the agenda. Another is to educate a new generation of land use planners to require New Urbanism. Another is to reduce factories, introduce energy measures that penalize manufacturing, and set energy consumption goals to pre-1985 levels. Another is to allow unregulated immigration in order to lower standards of living and drain local resources.

But first, the links: Here are some links to the groups and concepts that are discussed above:
United Nations Agenda 21
ICLEI
Wildlands Project
Delphi Technique   
Complete Streets
Thunderhead Alliance

AND A FANTASTIC WEBSITE THAT EXPLAINS REDEVELOPMENT WITH GREAT INFO, CARTOONS, AND CHARTS—VERY REVEALING
REDEVELOPMENT: THE UNKNOWN GOVERNMENT