American Policy Center » 2004 » July
- Bush Administration Sells Out Property Rights
- ‘Sustainable Development’ is the Evil You Face
- Sustainable Development 101
- 5th Annual Freedom21 Conference Highlights Struggle to Protect Freedom
- BIG Property Rights Vote in the Senate! National Heritage Areas MUST BE STOPPED!
- I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Throw Up
July 29, 2004
By Peyton Knight
During his 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush repeatedly promised the nation that “Help is on the way.” Property rights victims, especially those in Midwestern and Western states, cheered the President’s message and came out in droves to support him on Election Day. Finally, there would be an end to the reckless Clinton regime that treated landowners like second-class citizens and barriers to radical green utopia. Or would there?
The Endangered Species Act is still thriving as the number one tool of federal agencies and green extremists to pry landowners from their property. Government land grabs continue unabated. Private property rights protections are nowhere to be found. And the green dream of a National Heritage Area program has seen its most momentum in a decade.
It’s been four years since Bush took office and property rights advocates are still waiting for that promised help. In fact, forget help. It would be nice if the White House would just stop working against us. March 30 of this year provides a perfect snapshot of Bush’s neglect and utter disregard for traditional property rights and those suffering under the tyranny of federal land-use policies. That day, Property Rights Foundation of America President Carol LaGrasse traveled from New York to Washington to testify against the creation of a National Heritage Area (NHA) program. LaGrasse explained to the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks that NHAs are “designed to gradually accomplish federal land use control.” She noted that “The Heritage Area program also has the goal of transferring private land to government.” Indeed, National Heritage Areas spell disaster for property owners.
That very same day, the Bush administration decided to openly promote a National Heritage Area program and pull the rug out from under LaGrasse and property rights advocates nationwide. The U.S. Department of Interior issued a press release stating “the Bush administration is proposing legislation to establish a National Heritage Area program.” To add insult to injury, National Park Service Deputy Director Randy Jones stated in the release: “These areas also must work closely with all partners in the region, including federal land-management agencies.”
This is the “help” we were promised? More land-use restrictions and federal control over property? Property rights and limited government advocates have successfully fought the creation of a dreaded National Heritage Area program for over a decade! We successfully beat it back during eight painful years of Bill Clinton. Now the Bush administration wants to sell us out to the National Park Service and green special interests.
Of course, we are going to continue to fight the National Heritage Area monster in spite of the obstacle in the White House. As of this writing, the American Policy Center is scheduled to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Parks on behalf of property rights advocates in staunch opposition the NHA program. APC is leading the fight against National Heritage Areas and testified twice before Congress on the issue last year.
Unfortunately, the best “help” we can hope for from White House is just to be quiet and let us fight alone. But now that the Bush administration has taken up arms with the enemies of property rights, that isn’t likely to happen.
Peyton Knight is executive director of the American Policy Center.
On July 23, 2004, Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, addressed the fifth annual Freedom 21 Conference in Reno, Nevada. The following is his address on the agenda, the threat, and the defeat of “Sustainable Development.”
By Tom DeWeese
My friends, we come here today from many walks of life. A wide variety of reasons got each of us started on the road to activism.
Some of us started simply because we noticed something funny about our child’s curriculum in school. Some of us were outraged by government trying to take away our guns. A good many of us suddenly found government agents and members of private groups plotting to take away our land. Some have had their livestock confiscated. Some have found themselves facing jail just for doing what their fathers and grandfathers have done on the same land for decades.
Some of us just wanted to be allowed to go to church, pray to God and celebrate Christmas without being fined for it. A few of us would even like to be able to go to a restaurant and order food we like – even if it is greasy, fattening and full of carbs and calories.
All of us just want to live in an America where our rights and pursuit of happiness is protected. And so we fight. And now we’ve found ourselves here today in a room with hundreds of others in the same boat.
I have one thing to tell you. You are not going to win. Because the other side has cut us up into little pieces. They’ve divided us and conquered us.
They’ve succeeded because you think your fight is against gun control. Because you think your fight is against bad schools. Because you think your fight is against the Endangered Species Act and roadless programs, and wetlands regulations, and water rights and Heritage Areas. Because you think your fight is against Democrats and not Republicans. Because you think it’s a fight between evil liberals and good guy conservatives.
You’re wrong. Your fight is against a well-planned, well orchestrated agenda for the complete transformation of America. And unless you learn that fact now, today… and unless you fully educate yourselves to every aspect of that agenda and fight it on the proper terms… then you cannot win!
I’m here to tell you that every one of these issues you are facing is interrelated. There is an agenda being implemented before your very eyes. It’s called Sustainable Development.
And I will tell you now, if you want to keep your guns, your property, your children and your God… if you love liberty… Then Sustainable Development is your enemy!
So what is Sustainable Development? Imagine an America in which a specific “ruling principle” is created to decide proper societal conduct for every citizen.
That principle would be used to consider everything you eat, what you wear, the kind of homes you live in, the method of transportation used to get to work, the way you dispose of waste, perhaps the number of children you may have, even your education and employment decisions.
Sustainable Development is that “ruling principle” for the implementation of what former Vice President Al Gore said we must all suffer through in order to purify our nation from the horrors of the Twentieth Century’s industrial revolution.
In his book, “Earth in the Balance,” Gore called it a “wrenching transformation of society.” Those are pretty powerful words that should concern anyone who values liberty. It’s a warning that the rules are changing. That a new power elite is taking control.
Perhaps you are beginning to notice such changes as you go about your daily routine, but haven’t understood where those changes, and the ideas behind them, are coming from. But Sustainable Development is a very difficult concept to grasp. It’s written in an almost foreign language – designed to mislead and refrain from alarming you.
Let me put it in the simplest language I possibly can. The Atkins Diet is not sustainable. Now, why do I say that? Because on page 350 of the UN’s Global Biodiversity Assessment Report it says that the grazing of livestock, including cows, sheep, goats and horses is not sustainable. One reason for that concept is because Sustainablists contend that the animals pollute and damage the banks of streams.
Getting us to stop eating beef is a major effort needed to fully implement the Sustainable Agenda. Since they are cowards who fear your reaction to an outright banning of eating meat, they have to try to trick you into thinking that not eating meat is your idea. So they use scare tactics. For years they have told you that eating meat raises your cholesterol. Fat is bad for you. Meat causes heart attacks. With PeTA’s help they were succeeding in turning us all into little sissies eating salads.
Then along comes Dr. Atkins who shows us that a low carb beef diet will help you lose weight in a healthy way. Suddenly the nation has gone Atkins crazy. Beef sales are sky rocketing. The Sustainablists are in a tail spin. They’ve lost control of your eating habits.
Now watch what they are doing to get you back on track. Suddenly reports are being published in leading women’s magazines about Atkins being dangerous to your health. Lawsuits have begun to pop up against the diet.
Do you see how it works? That’s how the Sustainable Development agenda is implemented. Behavior modification based on fear. Freedom of choice is not part of Sustainable Development. And so I repeat, – the Atkins Diet is not sustainable.
Now, perhaps you’ll understand why there are Sustainable Development papers, guidelines and regulations to impose the ruling principle:
On our public education system – to prepare our children to live in a sustainable world.
On our economy – to create partnerships between business and government, making sure business becomes a tool to help implement the policies.
On the environment – leading to controls on private property and business.
On health care – the new drive against obesity is leading directly toward controls on what we eat.
On farming – Sustainable Development policies affect farmers’ ability to produce more crops by regulating or banning precious chemicals, biotechnology and genetic engineering in the name of environmental protection.
On our social and cultural environment – where political correctness is controlling policy hiring practices, immigration policy, multiculturalism, marriage laws, etc.
On our mobility – with emphasis on carpools and public transportation and away from the freedom of personal transportation.
And on public safety – where the rule of law and the court system is being challenged by new regulations that affect the right to privacy and unreasonable search and seizures.
It’s important to understand that these leading issues we face today are not just random concerns that find their way into the forefront of political debate. They are all interconnected to the policies of Sustainable Development.
And you must understand that Sustainable Development is the official policy of the government of the United States of America – and every state, city and small burg in the nation.
It is completely bi-partisan. It is being equally implemented by Republicans and Democrats. No matter the outcome of any election – the Sustainable Development agenda moves forward unabated.
What we are telling you here today, my friends, is that Sustainable Development isn’t just some land use policy. It is a complete transformation of American society; away from the rule of law; away from the ideals of property ownership, free enterprise, free travel and even free association.
Sustainable Development. It’s a life plan. Planned by someone else. Not you.
And Sustainable Development is not a myth, or a theory or a conspiracy – as I’ve heard some in our own movement call it.
Since the 1970’s literally hundreds of issue papers, charters, guidelines and treaties have been presented at scores of international meetings, each becoming a building block in the creation of what would eventually become Sustainable Development.
Finally in 1992 the UN’s Earth Summit in Brazil brought all of these ideas together in two major documents called “Agenda 21″ and the “Biodiversity Treaty.” Here the ideas were officially presented to world leaders that all government on every level, needed to be transformed into top-down control over housing, food production, energy, water, private property education, population control, gun control, transportation, social welfare, medical care, and literally every aspect of our lives.
To get the full picture, add to these the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, both of which create UN-mandates on abortion, child rearing and government interference on families.
In 1993 President Clinton created the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. From that Council came a flood of policy papers and recommendations to enforce it as government policy.
And the Clinton Administration didn’t need Congress to get into the act. All Cabinet officials had to do was change some wording of existing programs and reroute already-approved funding to begin to implement the agenda – without Congress and without debate. Former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown told a meeting of the President’s Council that he could implement 67% of the Sustainable Development agenda in his agency with no new legislation. Other agencies like Interior, EPA, HUD and more did the same thing. To help it all along, Clinton issued a blizzard of Executive Orders.
The American Heritage Rivers Initiative was born that way. So were roadless policies designed to stop logging in national forests. National parks have become core biosphere reserves designed to shut out any human activity. And the buffer zones around them are designed to shut off existing human activity, allowing the core to continually grow like a cancer tumor.
Any possible excuse to control human development or activities began to sprout up – from rails-to trails bikeways – to wet lands regulations – to historic preservation projects. Endangered species, real or made up, have been used to close down industry and steal private lands. Valuable natural resources have been locked away in national parks and preserves.
In this way an international agenda to transform the world into global governance under Sustainable Development policy took hold and became official policy of the United States of America.
Choose Liberty Over Sustainable Development
By Tom DeWeese
The red states from the 2000 election are made up of the desperate Americans who rushed to the polls hoping to get a breath of fresh air – a champion to turn these smothering policies around. But in four years, other than throwing a few bones on roadless areas, President Bush has yet to undo a single Clinton Executive Order on Sustainable Development. It is still the official policy of the United States government.
Every day more of the agenda is implemented. This is what you are fighting at home – no matter what the issue. Almost every community in America now has some sort of “visioning statement” designed to control development and property use, while dictating rules for business, transportation, water use, food production, and much more.
Our public schools have been transformed, away from academic institutions, becoming instead factories that pump out a worker class to fill the needs of a centrally-controlled sustainable economy.
Christianity has come under attack because it is the foundation of Western civilization, which is the root of the ideas of limited government and individual freedom. Those ideals must be crushed in the new Sustainable world where individual thought would turn the well-ordered society of Sustainable Development into chaos. And in such a world, you dare not have any armed citizens. As I said, it is all one crushing transformation stemming from Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development.
But so many of us fail to see that. We just focus on our one issue, refusing to see that we are fighting a massive power structure.
Do you think it’s just a coincidence that school curriculum makes no sense? If so, you’re looking at it all wrong. You still think the schools are supposed to teach your children academics. You think your job is just to fix some misguided policies. The fact is the public school system is working perfectly for what it was designed to do. And, if you understand the Sustainabilist agenda, it will all make perfect sense.
Do you think it’s just a coincidence that all of these environmental regulations have popped up to lock away the land? Read Agenda 21 and you will find that every issue your facing, from endangered species, to wetlands, to grazing policy to water policy to smart growth to the expansion of national parks are all described in detail. Read it and everything will be as clear as a road map. Ignore it and you will be rolled on your single issue.
If you don’t grasp the fact that you are dealing with an agenda that is driving all of these issues – and that they are not just single issues – then you cannot win! I am not saying change the issues you are involved in. Of course, keep fighting on your individual issues as you always have, but just know that there is an over–all agenda behind your adversaries.
Can you imagine what we could do if we all “got it”? If we all came to the realization that we are fighting the same foe, the same agenda? Divided we lose. United we can blow down their house of cards. Because that’s what it is, a house of cards built on lies and very bad policy.
Do you know that, as we sit here feeling down and somewhat hopeless, that the other side is terrified of you? They fear that you will finally understand their agenda and that you will unify and begin to fight back as an effective force rather than in a bunch of splinter groups.
Did you know that the web has been burning up with e-mails and memos about Freedom 21 meeting here this week in Reno, at the Nugget? You see, the Nugget was the site of a series of meetings in the nineties called the Wise Use Movement. Those meetings were the first attempts for property rights advocates, and ranchers, and the timber, mining industries to organize and fight back. Those meetings were what brought me and lots of other folks in this room into the fight.
The Sustainablists did everything possible to vilify us as violent reactionaries who just wanted to pave the Earth. They call us the “astro-turf crowd.” Now, here we are again with some of the original organizers of the Wise Use Movement on our program. That has set off the alarm bells in Sustainablist circles.
But now there are three times more of us and we’re not just ranchers and timber people. I believe that the inclusion of Niger Innis and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) is one of the most important developments in the past ten years for our movement. In addition, we’ve joined forces with Second Amendment advocates and academic education activists and many more.
Down at the politburo their heads are spinning. One of the groups which has been sending out hysterical briefing memos on Freedom 21 is the Anti-Defamation League, one of the most vicious groups in the nation. There are many more such groups involved, but I have personally seen those from the ADL, so I mention them. They view themselves as the keepers of moral thought and they view you as equal to the KKK.
Some of their lackeys may be among us today with the mission to report back to their handlers about what is said here at Freedom 21. Well here’s the message I want them to take back. Tell them that this week at Freedom 21 our movement has been reborn.
Tell them that property rights and multiple-use activists understand that the Sustainable Development agenda is the core of all of the individual land use issues facing us; property rights activists “get it” and choose liberty over Sustainable Development.
Tell them that education activists now understand that the true agenda isn’t just misguided education policies, but a transformation of the process to implement the Sustainablist agenda. Education activists “get it” and choose liberty over Sustainable Development.
Tell them that Christians understand that the assault on their religion is necessary to destroy Western Culture in order to replace it with Sustainablism. Christians “get it” and choose liberty over Sustainable Development.
Tell them that gun owners understand that the universal drive to disarm the nation is necessary in order to implement the Sustainablist agenda. Gun owners “get it” and choose liberty over Sustainable Development.
Tell them that Niger Innis and the Congress on Racial Equality understand that Sustainable Development is starving and killing blacks in Africa and around the world. CORE “gets it” and chooses liberty over Sustainable Development.
That’s the message I want the lackeys to take back to those who are working every waking hour to enforce their philosophy of death on free Americans.
Now, let me quickly give you one idea that we might use to effectively fight back and stop Sustainable Development. There is a flaw in their implementation system. The fact is Congress does not pass laws making regulations mandatory for implementation of the Sustainable Development agenda. That would be a violation of the 10th Amendment.
To get around it, Congress sets up a system of grants that come with strings. In order to get the money you have to “voluntarily” comply with the rules that go with it. The system has been set up with the help of groups like the Sierra Club, the National Education Association and Planned Parenthood, to name a few.
They all fully understand the game and its rules. And they have over 12,000 fellow organizations on the state and local level to agitate and enforce those rules by applying pressure to local community councilmen and commissioners. That’s how the Sustainable Development agenda is being implemented in every single community and school in the nation.
My friends, there are about 3,300 counties in this nation. I propose that as we continue to pressure Congress and State Houses on our chosen issues, that we spend a major part of our efforts to elect county commissioners and city councilmen. We have to find men and women of integrity who understand the Sustainablist agenda. They would have to be activists who could resist the pressure and not accept the federal Trojan Horse of grant money. If we could do this successfully in just 10 or even 5 counties in the country, the news would spread like wildfire and more would join us.
No, it won’t stop the Forest Service and the Park Service S.W.A.T. teams from invading your land, but it will begin to change the dynamics of the battle. Congress will respond. Whether you’re supporting a third party or doing it through one of the two major parties, we would build an unstoppable power base that would spread across the nation.
I can tell you now, that if we keep trying to pressure Congress as our only tactic or try to elect a President who will listen, we will fail.
To save liberty in America, Sustainable Development must be stopped. We have to start at the local level where our grassroots efforts are strongest. Where it’s easiest to win. We can find five county commissioners. We can get them elected one at a time. And then get more to join them. And we can begin to build a prairie fire across the nation.
Do these things my friends; first understand that whatever issue you have chosen to fight for is actually part of the Sustainable Development scheme.
Arm yourselves with that knowledge, and then step-by-step work to elect local representatives who will resist the Sustainabilist agenda and its money. The money is the key. Take back your communities and in that way, step-by-step, take back America.
July 16, 2004
As the American Policy Center steps up its war against Sustainable Development and the UN’s Agenda 21, many readers have asked me to supply an overview of the issue. To answer that request, I have gone to the foremost expert in the nation on the subjects of Sustainable Development and Agenda 21—Henry Lamb.
Below is a series of articles written by Henry back in 1996. These are the articles that first taught me about Sustainable Development. The only update necessary is to point out that most of what Henry warned about has now taken place. Every single community in the nation is now developing “sustainablism.” Read them, as I did years ago, learn, and begin the fight to take back your communities.
-Tom DeWeese
Sustainable Communities—Vanquished Freedom
By Henry Lamb
“Sustainability” is a term that is just beginning to reach Joe A. Citizen; in the months and years ahead, it will dominate virtually every aspect of American life. Since the concept was first defined in the 1987 report by Gro Harlem Brundtland (Vice-president of the World Socialist Party), it has swelled into a tidal wave that is washing across the world and has now crashed onto American shores and will soon inundate every American Community.
The “sustainability” paradigm rests upon the firm belief, as expressed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), that: “Humanity’s collective imperative now is to shift modern society rapidly onto a sustainable path or have it dissolve of its own ecologically unsustainable doings.” The same document, prepared for the World Bank and for the United Nations Habitat II Conference in Istanbul, says that society has two choices. “One choice is to go as we go and do as we do.” Or, “We shift our consumption, extraction and harvesting patterns and technologies; reframe our ethical choices,” and reshape and redesign planned communities “within the dictates of natural ecology.”
The first choice, which to some may sound like freedom “to go as we go and do as we do,” is the unsustainable, unethical choice, according to HUD. The ethical choice is: “The vision for `Community Sustainability,’ defined as the condition of social, economic and ecological harmony that people require, deserve and must create where they live, if their lives and their inheritors’ lives are to be meaningful, wholesome and hopeful.” Joe A. Citizen, who now is pretty much free to go as he goes and do as he does, might be surprised to learn that HUD considers his life meaningless, unwholesome, and hopeless.
The HUD document, the report of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), as well as the United Nations documents that call for the drastic reorganization of society, all claim that: “By science’s consensus we have but decades to recast the ways we operate as a modern society with respect to earth’s natural ecological systems of support.” Instead of producing specific, peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support such claims, the “precautionary principle” is offered, which says that if a serious threat is thought to exist, action must be taken even in the face of scientific uncertainty.
Every alleged ecological calamity—global warming, population explosion, and biodiversity loss—is widely challenged throughout the scientific community. For every scientist on the calamity bandwagon, there is another scientist of equal stature to refute the allegations. At the very least, society should be aware that there is no scientific consensus to justify the dramatic changes that are planned. Proponents of sustainability label detractors as unethical, and continue the push to recast society into planned communities, managed through an evolving system of “good governance” that dilutes the authority of elected officials and elevates the power of NGOs (non-government organizations).
The objective of “sustainability” is to integrate economic, social, and environmental policies to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and to preserve and restore biodiversity. “Sustainable communities” is but one facet of a much broader sustainable agenda. It is the initiative that will touch most Americans first, and in fact, is already being advanced throughout communities across the country. The U.S. Forest Service has awarded $700,000 to the Chicago Region Biodiversity Council, a collaborative effort of 34 federal agencies and environmental groups, established to begin the process of making Chicagoland into a “sustainable community.”
Similar processes are underway, funded by government and private foundations, all across America. The PCSD recommends that tax money be used to provide incentives to communities that engage in collaborative community planning for sustainability, and that funding authorized under other federal programs be denied or delayed for communities that are slow to begin the collaborative process toward sustainability.
Originated by the United Nations, embraced by the Clinton-Gore administration, implemented by an army of coordinated NGOs, the tidal wave of “sustainability” is crashing across America. Most Americans have not seen the warnings and will not recognize the dangers until they are drowning in sustainability.
Sustainable Communities: Yours Could Be Next
If your community has a population of 50,000 or more, someone is working to create a “sustainability council,” or it has already been done. Smaller communities, your time will come—soon. The federal government, in collaboration with selected NGOs, is encouraging the creation of local “sustainability councils” which are to become the driving force in the reorganization of society. These councils may have a variety of names. Regardless of the name, however, their function is pre-planned, their procedures are pre-conceived, and the outcome of their work is pre-determined. Your community is about to be reorganized, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, so your life will be “meaningful, wholesome, and hopeful,” whether you like it or not.
The initiative in your community could come from any federal agency through a grant to a municipality or directly to an NGO. Or the initiative could be funded by a private foundation and coordinated by an NGO. By using a variety of start-up mechanisms and an assortment of names, the well-coordinated effort disguises the appearance of the massive federal/international social re-engineering project that is underway.
The council, by whatever name, will enlist the support of all relevant local, state, and federal government agencies, then add representatives from the academic community, carefully selected individuals from the business community, and the leaders of cooperating NGOs. This phase is usually completed before the community at large knows it has been done. Frequently, the first few meetings of the council will be attended only by invited guests, chosen from the membership lists of participating NGOs, or for some other strategic purpose. Sympathetic individuals in the media will have been provided background material and enlisted to support the effort. Most community residents will become aware of the effort through a 60-second TV news item or a brief story in the local newspaper. The story will make it appear that the entire community has come together to solve common problems and build a beautiful future.
Exactly what that future includes will not be revealed. Each of the reorganizational components will be revealed over time, only as necessary, to avoid the inevitable backlash from private citizens as they learn how their lives will be impacted. The work of the council is to devise whatever mechanisms may be necessary to achieve several objectives: reduce consumption—especially energy; restore biodiversity through an ecosystem management approach; stop urban sprawl; and convince local residents that they are “unethical” if they fail to support whatever it takes to achieve these objectives, through massive, coordinated re-education and propaganda campaigns.
Here is a picture of your community when it has been reorganized to become “sustainable,” taken from HUD’s report to the United Nations:
For this hopeful future we may envision an entirely fresh set of infrastructures that use fully automated, very light, elevated rail systems for daytime metro region travel and nighttime goods movement, such as have been conceptualized and being positioned for production at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; we will see all settlements linked up by extensive bike, recreation and agro-forestry “E-ways” (environment-ways) such as in Madison, Wisconsin; we will find healthy, productive soils where there is decline and erosion through the widespread use of remineralization from igneous and volcanic rock sources (much of it the surplus quarry fines or “rockdust,” from concrete and asphalt-type road construction or from reservoir silts); we will be growing foods, dietary supplements and herbs that make over our unsustainable reliance upon foods and medicines that have adverse soil, environmental, or health side-effects; less and less land will go for animal husbandry and more for grains, tubers, and legumes. Gradually, decent standards of equity will be in place for women, for children and for the disadvantaged; the “peace dividend” will be forced upon us as the insane costs of military armament become challenged globally.
The purpose of the “sustainability council” is to give the appearance that the reorganization of society is the result of local initiative and reflects local desires. The fact of the matter is that how you are to live in your own community has been determined in Gland, Switzerland, confirmed by the United Nations in Rio de Janeiro, embraced by Al Gore in Washington, and is now being imposed upon you in the name of “sustainability.”
Sustainable Communities in the Bioregion
The Sierra Club has proposed the reorganization of North America into 21 bioregions delineated by their ecological characteristics (Sierra, March/April, 1994). Each bioregion includes several states, counties, municipalities, and communities. The “sustainable communities” initiative is the first building-block toward the construction of bioregions and the total reorganization of America into a “sustainable” society as envisioned by the United Nations.
Sustainable communities must be seen in the context of the broader, published agenda, which limits privately owned property to no more than 25% of the total land area, removes human populations from at least 50% of the total land area, and requires that the remaining land be managed by government/NGO partnerships. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) suggests that the time frame for reorganizing sustainable societies can be no more than three decades. Others believe it will take 50 to 100 years. Whatever the time frame, the process has begun with the sustainable communities initiative.
Each community, regardless of size, will have its own “sustainability council.” A common characteristic of these councils is that they are dominated by individuals from government agencies charged with the implementation of the government’s sustainability agenda, supported by representatives from NGOs whose salaries are paid by grants from the federal government or by cooperating foundations. Local government officials, who are enticed by incentive grants from the feds, and local residents are typically outnumbered and outmaneuvered. The first function of the sustainability council is to complete the “visioning” process. This process produces a document that describes how the community should be organized to achieve the goals required to make the community sustainable. In the context of bioregions, individual communities cannot be left to design their own future. HUD says “there will be the linking up of networks of communities of varied sizes within quite varied and multiple regional contexts, such as `community constellations’ linked by compacts based upon common interests. Between communities will be rural landscapes—highly functional landscapes— based upon entirely fresh understandings of landscape ecology and its integral relationship to the sustainability of urbanization.”
Translated into plain English, this means that sustainability councils will coordinate their “visions” to achieve a regional or bioregional vision consistent with the ultimate outcome that has already been determined. To achieve the predetermined outcome, some smaller communities will have to be completely shut down. That process is already underway in the northwest and other parts of the country near federal forests and public lands. By banning logging on public lands, as the Sierra Club has proposed, residents of logging-dependent communities have no choice but to move out to find new sources of income. By denying grazing and mining permits, still more communities are evacuated and gobbled up by the wilderness required by the bioregional agenda.
It is the mid-size communities, suburbs, and bedroom communities that will feel the next crunch. These are the communities that are described as “urban sprawl” which is to be stopped. These are the communities that have devastated “greenfields” and are destroying ecosystems. Visions of sustainable communities will put an immediate stop to future geographical growth. The vision documents will also reveal a planned reduction or elimination of infrastructure support to communities outside the “approved” area of urbanization. Financing for activities outside the approved “greenlined” area will become impossible. Land use restrictions outside the approved area will tighten. Farming outside the approved “management” areas will become impossible, and people who choose to live outside the approved sustainability ethic will be ridiculed and made to feel inferior. People who do not get on the sustainability bandwagon can expect to be treated very much like the people who choose to smoke cigarettes.
The common thread that weaves the various councils together is the NGO. Coordinated by their national and international headquarters, and fueled by federal and foundation funding, NGOs will see that the various community vision documents mesh into a bioregional vision that is consistent with the global agenda.
When your community’s sustainability council is formed, look for a representative from the Sierra Club, whose International Vice President, Michelle Perrault, is a member of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, and whose Board member, Dave Foreman, is largely responsible for developing “The Wildlands Project,” the master plan for bioregions.
Sustainable Communities Means Managed Societies
“Sustainability”—sustainable communities, sustainable development, sustainable agriculture—is not simply a comprehensive approach to environmental protection. The recurring theme throughout the sustainability literature is the integration of “economic, equity, and environmental” policies. That grandiose language is translated by specific policy recommendations which use the environment as an excuse to manage the economy to achieve social equity. Throughout the literature, terms such as “harness market forces” describe proposals to impose consumption taxes on products that “management” deems to be unsustainable. Air conditioning, convenience foods, single-family housing, and cars are among the products already determined to be unsustainable. “Equity” means forcing those who produce an income to provide for those who do not. “Environmental protection” means constraining individual freedom to accommodate “management” to prevent the impending impoverishment of the planet.
“Management” is not the government. The government is simply the instrument for enforcing the dictates of management. Management is actually the NGOs, headed by the big three—the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN); the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF); and the World Resources Institute (WRI). These three NGOs have set the ideological agenda. They have created a world-wide network of affiliated NGOs, well-positioned and adequately funded to implement the agenda. And they are acquiring the legal status to manage national, state, and local governments, as well as the lives of individual citizens.
Sustainability councils, dominated by NGOs and public officials paid to implement the sustainability policy, are being formed in every community. These councils coordinate their activity with regional councils also dominated by NGOs. Ultimately, each bioregion is to have a bioregional council to coordinate, or manage, the activities within the bioregion. The function of governments within the bioregion will be simply to enforce the dictates of the council. Ultimate enforcement is to come from the United Nations.
Official documents now published by the UN call for the creation of a Petitions Council, and an Assembly of the People, both selected from representatives of accredited NGOs. The function of the Assembly of the People is to review resolutions of the General Assembly. The function of the Petitions Council is to review compliance petitions from bioregional councils and direct the petitions to the appropriate agency within the UN for enforcement. All of the environment—including private property—is to be placed under the “trusteeship” of the UN Trusteeship Council, consisting of no more than 23 individuals selected from accredited NGOs. The existing World Trade Organization as well as the proposed Economic Security Council, have unlimited authority to impose a wide range of sanctions—including military action by a standing UN army—against any nation deemed to be not in compliance with any treaty or UN dictate.
The Law of the Seas Treaty has already created the International Seabed Authority which has legal jurisdiction over all non-territorial waters. Anyone wishing to salvage a shipwreck or harvest ocean resources must obtain a permit and pay annual royalties. Application fees may be a quarter-million dollars or more, and unspecified royalties are authorized by the treaty. The United States has not ratified the treaty, but Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, told a Stanford University audience on April 9, that ratification of the Law of the Seas Treaty and the Biodiversity Treaty would be top priority items on the Clinton/Gore agenda for 1997.
The plan for a world-wide, managed society is in place, published extensively in the literature of the United Nations . The plan is so massive, so complex, so bizarre, that it is difficult to comprehend in its totality . The public has seen only small segments of the plan at any one time . The various world conferences over the past four years have drawn only limited publicity for a short time. The President’s Council on Sustainable Development has conducted its work in a public vacuum. And any negative discussion about the UN or about the environment is quickly denied and cast aside by the administration and the media as nothing more than the rantings of right-wing extremist wackos. All the while, day by day, the plan unfolds. In every community, a net is being deployed to surround every American. Over the next few years, expect the net to be slowly drawn around all individual freedoms, and tightened relentlessly until the managed activities of human beings produce the sustainability envisioned by the international managers.
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.
July 8, 2004
Freedom of religion, property rights, the United Nations, rights of gun owners, attacks on national sovereignty, on education, and the Constitution, will be among the issues featured during the fifth annual Freedom21 Conference to be held July 21-24 in Reno, Nevada.
“As Americans have demonstrated a steady preference for the protection of Constitutional freedoms since the days of Barry Goldwater’s bid for the presidency, culminating in the election of Ronald Reagan and Bush41 and Bush43, the rise of popular conservative talk radio personalities, it has been the efforts of the movement’s leaders that have galvanized public opinion,” says Henry Lamb of Sovereignty International, an organizer of the conference. “This annual event brings together those leaders for four days of discussion regarding the current status of these issues.”
On Wednesday, July 21, the conference will begin with an address by Judge Roy Moore whose monument featuring the Ten Commandments stirred a national discussion of freedom of religion in America. In his speech, “One Nation Under God” he will discuss what he regards as the unlawful intrusion of the federal government into state sovereignty.
David Rothbard, president of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, will lead a panel that will include Dr. Michael Coffman discussing the foundation for the choice between freedom and collectivism; Henry Lamb providing an overview of how international organizations and agencies work to influence domestic policy; Paul Driessen, author of “Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death”, will discuss why the expansion of freedom worldwide will prevent the death of millions due to environmental policies; Niger Innis, the national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), will discuss how opponents of freedom affects the poorest people in developing nations; Floy Lilley, a founding member of Sovereignty International, will discuss freedom’s potential worldwide; and Craig Rucker of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, will report on stories of victories for freedom.
On Thursday, July 22, Dr. Michael Coffman will review programs based on “The Wildlands Project, and Henry Lamb will review the UN’s “Agenda 21″ program, both of which attack property rights, the keystone of the American economy and the spread of capitalism. Under the rubric of “sustainable development”, the federal government is continuing to acquire more of the US landmass and similar efforts exist worldwide. In the afternoon, G.B. Oliver III, executive director of the Paraqon Foundation, will discuss how the ranching industry is affected by domestic and international policies and how land use restraints pose a threat to its ability to survive.
Joining Oliver will be Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, who will discuss continuing efforts to disarm Americans in the name of “sustainable development.” In the afternoon, former Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage and her husband, Wayne Hage, will share their experiences battling for his property through the courts. Decisions in this case may be precedent setting for other ranchers whose property rights have been “taken” by the federal government.
Congressman Ron Paul (R-14th District, Texas) will discuss efforts to erode the Constitution’s protections.
On Friday, July 23, the morning session will feature Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank, along with Michael Chapman of EdWatch and Michael Shaw, discussing how “sustainable development” is eroding property rights and representation of citizens through the creation of unelected “councils” and with the continuing effort to undermine the nation’s education system. Mr. Shaw is the founder of Freedom21 Santa Cruz (CA), the first local organization to oppose the UN’s Agenda21 program that advocates “sustainable development”, as a way to control and undermine economic growth in the United States and throughout the world.
A second morning session is devoted to developing an effective response and will include Jim Burling who has litigated many important cases that establish case law for property rights issues. Also on the program is Chuck Cushman, executive director of the American Land Rights Association, a leader in local, grassroots actions to advance the principles of freedom in local, state, and national policy.
In the afternoon of July 23, there will be reports from the field provided by Lori Waters, executive director of Eagle Forum’s Washington, DC office. She will discuss how Loudoun Country, Virginia, suffered the consequences of “sustainable development” and the battle to reverse its programs. Silvia Allen, founder of Arizona’s People for the West and now founding president of the Freedom for America League, will report on events before and after the devastating Rodeo/Chediski fire that burned 500,000 acres due to poor federal and state forest management practices. They will be joined by Clarice Ryan who will report on events and activities in Montana where she works with Montanans for Multiple Use and serves on the Bigfork land use advisory committee for the Flathead County Planning and Zoning Office.
On Saturday, July 24, the morning will feature reports from Washington, DC, and an organizational workshop. Kent Snyder, executive director of the Liberty Committee, a Congressional Caucus founded by Congressman Ron Paul, will discuss pending legislation affecting the Constitution and, therefore, the principles of freedom it establishes. Also participating will be Michael Shaw and Brent Duncan who will lead attendees in a workshop on organizational processes that can be used by any organization advancing the principles of freedom in public policy. A report by Kathy Benedetto will update attendees on the hearings affecting Klamath Falls whose farmers will adversely affected by the shutoff of water for irrigation based on the premise of endangered species. Constitution Party candidate for president, Michael Peroutka, will offer a presentation.
The afternoon of July 24 will be devoted to a presentation of the Freedom21 Platform and Action Plan. A banquet in the evening will be addressed by C.J. Hadley, editor and publisher of Range Magazine.
The Conference is sponsored by the Eagle Forum, American Policy Center, American Land Rights Association, League of Private Property Voters, Heartland Institute, Sovereignty International, Paragon Foundation, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and Environmental Conservation Organization.
The freedoms that Americans have fought for and have sacrificed their lives to protect are the heart and soul of Freedom21 and this conference will address them as few others do. This year’s conference is of particular importance as a new generation of Americans who fought to extend freedom to Iraq continue the nation’s promise to extend its benefits far from home to the citizens of that newly constituted sovereign nation. The conference, however, will demonstrate the need for a continued struggle to protect and presume those same freedoms for Americans in their own nation.
July 7, 2004
Action Alert! Action Alert!
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This is it — We must act NOW!
As early as July 13 of NEXT WEEK the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will vote on bill that SPELLS DOOM FOR PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS, LANDOWNERS, AND LOCAL ZONING.
Sen. Craig Thomas’ “National Heritage Partnership Act” (S. 2543) would create a federal National Heritage Areas program that threatens to swallow every community in the United States.
The National Heritage Partnership Act is a FEDERAL ZONING scheme perpetrated under the guise of preservation.
It will spur a FLOOD of National Heritage Areas, each of which will DEVOUR private property rights and local land use control.
Funding for National Heritage Areas is administered through the National Park Service to Green special interest groups. The Park Service and the Greens then team-up to preserve EVERYTHING within the Heritage Area that they deem fit! It says so right in the text of Thomas’ bill!
S. 2543 calls for the creation of “an inventory of the natural, historical, cultural, educational, scenic, and recreational resources of the National Heritage Area related to the national significance and themes of the National Heritage Area that should be PROTECTED.”
GOT THAT? That means EVERY SQUARE INCH of a National Heritage Area can be subject to the preservation whims of the federal government and their Green allies.
Private property rights are LOST.
Local control over zoning and land use is LOST.
The National Heritage Areas Policy Act is the latest attempt by the federal government to snuff-out property rights and purchase influence over local communities and their zoning practices. To read more about the dangers of National Heritage Areas go to: http://www.americanpolicy.org/prop/natl-landgrab.htm
S. 2543 MUST BE STOPPED! WE MUST ACT NOW!
PUT THE PRESSURE ON THE FOLLOWING LIST OF SENATORS TODAY, TOMORROW, FRIDAY, AND NEXT WEEK!
** Action to Take **
Contact the following members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and tell them to vote NO on the National Heritage Partnership Act. NOTE: This is not a partisan issue! Republicans AND Democrats need to hear from you! Tell them the National Heritage Partnership Act is simply a federal zoning and land use POWER GRAB that will destroy property rights and the ability of local communities to make their own land use decisions.
CONTACT THE FOLLOWING SENATORS TODAY, AND EVERYDAY THROUGH NEXT WEEK!
Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM): phone (202) 224-6621; fax (202) 228-3261; to e-mail go to: http://domenici.senate.gov/resources/contactform.cfm
Don Nickles (R-OK): phone (202) 224-5754; fax (202) 224-6008; to e-mail go to: http://nickles.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Email
Larry Craig (R-ID): phone (202) 224-2752; fax (202) 228-1067; to e-mail go to: http://craig.senate.gov/contact_email.htm#compose
Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO): phone (202)224-5852; fax (202)228-4609; to e-mail go to: http://campbell.senate.gov/email.htm
Craig Thomas (R-WY): phone (202) 224-6441; fax (202) 224-1724; to e-mail go to: http://thomas.senate.gov/html/body_email.html
Lamar Alexander (R-TN): phone (202) 224-4944; fax (202) 228-3398; to e-mail go to: http://alexander.senate.gov/contact/
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK): phone (202) 224-6665; fax (202) 224-5301; to e-mail go to: http://murkowski.senate.gov/contact.html
Jim Talent (R-MO): phone (202) 224-6154; fax (202) 228-1518; to e-mail go to: http://talent.senate.gov/Contact/default.cfm
Conrad Burns (R-MT): phone (202) 224-2644; fax (202) 224-8594; to e-mail go to: http://burns.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=
Home.Contact
Gordon Smith (R-OR): phone (202)224-3753; fax (202)228-3997; to e-mail go to: http://gsmith.senate.gov/webform.htm
Jim Bunning (R-KY): phone (202) 224-4343; fax (202) 228-1373; to e-mail go to: http://bunning.senate.gov/index.cfm?
Cerberus=7df805942859db8c64b97ab
306a49309&FuseAction=Contact.Email
Jon Kyl (R-AZ): phone (202) 224-4521; fax (202) 224-2207; to e-mail go to: http://kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM): phone (202) 224-5521; fax (202) 224-2852; to e-mail go to: http://bingaman.senate.gov/Contact_Me/
e-mail_form.htm
Daniel Akaka (D-HI): phone (202) 224-6361; fax (202) 224-2126; e-mail senator@akaka.senate.gov
Byron Dorgan (D-ND): phone (202) 224-2551; fax 202-224-1193; e-mail senator@dorgan.senate.gov
Bob Graham (D-FL): phone (202) 224-3041; fax (202) 224-2237; to e-mail go to: http://graham.senate.gov/email.html
Ron Wyden (D-OR): phone (202) 224-5244; fax (202) 228-2717; to e-mail go to: http://wyden.senate.gov/contact/
Tim Johnson (D-SD): phone (202) 224-5842; fax (202) 228-5765; to e-mail go to: http://johnson.senate.gov/ContactPage/emailform.htm
Mary Landrieu (D-LA): phone (202) 224-5824; fax (202) 224-9735; to e-mail go to: http://landrieu.senate.gov/newsite/webform.html
Evan Bayh (D-IN): phone (202) 224-5623; fax (202) 228-1377; to e-mail go to: http://bayh.senate.gov/LegForm.htm
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA): phone (202) 224-3841; fax (202) 228-3954; to e-mail go to: http://feinstein.senate.gov/email.html
Charles Schumer (D-NY): phone (202) 224-6542; fax (202) 228-3027; to e-mail go to: http://schumer.senate.gov/webform.html
Maria Cantwell (D-WA): phone (202) 224-3441; fax (202) 228-0514; to e-mail go to: http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/index.html
SPREAD THE WORD ON THIS UPCOMING THREAT TO PROPERTY RIGHTS!
REMEMBER: Proponents of National Heritage Areas are already applying MASSIVE pressure on these Senators, therefore, THEY MUST HEAR FROM YOU!
Tell everyone you know and storm Capitol Hill for your property rights!
Click here: 
to send this URGENT APC Action Alert to up to ten of your friends.
July 6, 2004
Tom DeWeese
I’m a baby boomer and that’s a curse. You see I’m stuck with the idiots from the sixties till my dying day as they whine and moan about injustice and mentally dwell forever in the days of tie-die shirts, incense, and free love.
The news media, now controlled by baby boomers, keep the myth alive that everyone from that era got high and protested in the streets disgorging their revolution to enforce a “new America.” They were revolting all right. The very sight of them turned my stomach.
The truth is that those who perpetrated the anti-war protests didn’t really care about the Vietnam War except for how it affected their draft status. They had no compassion for the pro-freedom forces in South Vietnam who were sacrificing everything to try and stop the takeover of their part of that country by a very brutal communist regime. As the protesters carried their Mao signs and chanted “Che, Che,” their purpose was to rip apart traditional America and rebuild it on the ideals of Mao and Che. What ideal was that? Communism.
The tragedy of the sixties was that so many young people simply didn’t understand that their chants and posters and the promised “new vision” were really in support of a communist America. Nor did they understand that their actions were helping the communists to sentence millions in Southeast Asia to the gulag. Worse, those baby boomers had no sense of the brutal reality of life under communism. Most still don’t.
Case in point is Country Joe McDonald. He and his group, “The Fish”, performed the song that became one of the anthems of the Woodstock Generation. It was called, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag.” Usually, Country Joe would start the song by shouting to the crowd, “Give me an F!” The other three letters of the cheer would follow as Country Joe would ask, “What’s that spell?” The crowd would respond by shouting the well-known profanity. Country Joe would then begin the catchy rag which asked “One, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn. Next stop is Vietnam.” It was all so, well, revolutionary.
Country Joe became a major voice in the “revolution.” So what was Joe fighting for? He did help force America to abandon an anticommunist ally; resulting in its becoming an enslaved nation. Is that what he wanted? Is that what he hoped would happen? Is he happy now? Apparently Country Joe doesn’t have a clue.
Recently he was invited to Hanoi to receive a World Peace Music Award. However, Country Joe says he won’t go because “as a hippie protest songwriter I could not exist in Vietnam.” Why on earth not? Isn’t Vietnam now exactly the communist paradise he and his buddy protesters wanted it to be? Apparently Joe misunderstood back in the sixties.
“Communism tends to be totalitarian, and I am not for that,” says the self-proclaimed revolutionary. Even worse, his complete ignorance of communism’s principles is shocking. “My parents were American Communists for some time, but they left the Party because of a lack of democratic positions by the Party,” he naïvely admitted.
Like a lot of the baby boomer generation, it seems that Country Joe McDonald just got a thrill from protesting. He had no idea what he was against or for. It was just a social event to go down to the local protest, carry a sign, and meet some “groovy chicks.”
The consequences of his actions? His nation suffered worldwide disgrace and millions of innocent Vietnamese remain enslaved to this day. Oh well, it was “kool.” The whole pathetic lot of ‘em make me want to barf!
