Tuesday Reads: Dark Ages America

The Georgia Guidestones — supposedly a roadmap for “Agenda 21”

Good Morning! Yesterday I read a (for me) mind-blowing article by Joshua Holland at Alternet about how right wing conspiracy theories are endangering the future of humanity. The main focus of the article is on Tea Party members and other right wing extremists who are obsessed with “Agenda 21,” a United Nations initiative begun at a conference on environmental sustainability in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and signed by hundreds of world leaders, including President George W. Bush. This was all completely new to me, so I looked around to see what I could find out about it. Here is the gist:

Agenda 21, the international plan of action to sustainable development, outlines key policies for achieving sustainable development that meets the needs of the poor and recognizes the limits of development to meet global needs. Agenda 21 has become the blueprint for sustainability and forms the basis for sustainable development strategies. It attempts to define a balance between production, consumption, population, development, and the Earth’s life-supporting capacity. It addresses poverty, excessive consumption, health and education, cities and agriculture; food and natural resource management and several more subjects.

Its 40 chapters are broken up into four sections:

1. Social and economic dimensions: developing countries; poverty; consumption patterns; population; health; human settlements; integrating environment and development.

2. Conservation and management of resources: atmosphere; land; forests; deserts; mountains; agriculture; biodiversity; biotechnology; oceans; fresh water; toxic chemicals; hazardous, radioactive and solid waste and sewage.

3. Strengthening the role of major groups: women; children and youth; indigenous peoples; non-governmental organizations; local authorities; workers; business and industry; farmers; scientists and technologists.

4. Means of implementation: finance; technology transfer; science; education; capacity-building; international institutions; legal measures; information.

The full report (300+ pages) is here (PDF).

Apparently, fears about U.N. Agenda 21 are the basis for Michele Bachmann’s campaign against energy efficient light bulbs and for Bachmann’s and other right wingers’ drive to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency. Here’s Bachmann, quoted in an article by Tim Murphy in Mother Jones:

“This is their agenda—I know it’s hard to believe, it’s hard to fathom, but this is ‘Mission Accomplished’ for them,” she said of congressional Democrats. “They want Americans to take transit and move to the inner cities. They want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, [and] take light rail to their government jobs. That’s their vision for America.”

And here is Murphy’s explanation for the light bulb obsession:

Although she didn’t say it right then, Bachmann likely had something specific in mind: Agenda 21, a two-decade-old United Nations agreement that has taken on a life of its own on the far-right. The agreement, forged in 1992, nominally committed signatories to a set of shared values designed to mitigate the environmental impact of human development. Member countries agreed to a range of sustainability goals, from preserving the ozone layer to ensuring that forests are managed so they’ll be around for future generations. (The United States is a signatory, but the treaty has not been ratified by the Senate.)

But to some conservatives, Agenda 21 became something far more nefarious—a gateway to a global government built on a radical doctrine of secular environmentalism.

As these conservatives saw it, the agreement paved the way for the entire planet to be controlled by a central bureaucracy: Humans would be cleared out of vast swaths of settled areas—like the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for example—and instructed to live in “hobbit homes” in designated “human habitation zones” (two terms embraced by tea party activists). Public transportation would be the only kind of transportation, and governments would force contraception on their citizens to control the population level. A human life would be considered no more significant than, say, that of a manatee. “Sustainability,” the idea at the heart of the agreement, became a gateway to dystopia.

Can you believe it? If you google “Agenda 21,” you’ll find scads of crazy stuff about it all over the internet. Bachmann recently answered questions about Agenda 21 in New Hampshire. She explained that Al Gore, who is apparently the Antichrist to the Agenda 21 freaks, was {gasp!} at the conference in Rio back in 1992.

Al Gore was there at the Rio Conference and the whole goal is really about global control.
It’s essentially a one world government view where there’s political body and the United States would have to subsume our sovereignty into a global body, but more than that, we would also have to give away our wealth.

So the wealth of the United States would be redistributed to other countries.
As a matter of a fact, that’s what the Durban Conference was about in South Africa this weekend, also about redistribution of American money.

These people truly live in a different reality than you and I. Unfortunately, they want to make their reality our reality too.

Ron Paul is also a hero to the Agenda 21 freaks. Here’s an announcement at the Connecticut Ron Paul for President website.

Agenda 21 is Coming to your Neighborhood!

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

By now, most Americans have heard the terms “sustainable development” and “smart growth” but are largely unaware of UN Agenda 21. While many people support the United Nations for its peacemaking efforts, Agenda 21 is a whole life plan that 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.

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Getting back to the article in Alternet that I began with, Joshua Holland writes:

The important thing to understand about Agenda 21 is that there is absolutely nothing binding or compelling member countries to implement any part of it. It’s not a treaty — it is entirely voluntary and certainly doesn’t have any connection to local governments. Yet for the right, with its long John Birch Society undercurrent of paranoia about international institutions, Agenda 21 represents some kind of dark UN conspiracy to impose socialism on the “free world.” ….

Last year, during the Denver mayoral race, Tea Party candidate Dan Maes argued that a local bike-sharing program, a popular initiative among city residents, was a “very well-disguised” part of a plan by then-Denver mayor (and now Colorado governor) John Hickenlooper for “converting Denver into a United Nations community.” Alex Jones constantly hawks the conspiracy [Here’s one example from Jones’ website Infowars]. Glenn Beck warned it would lead to “centralized control over all of human life on planet Earth.” And in September, Newt Gingrich, hoping to burnish his wingnutty creds, told a group of Orlando Tea Partiers that, if elected, his first order of business would be “to cease all federal funding of any kind of activity that relates to United Nations Agenda 21.” (Currently, no federal funding of any kind is used for implementing Agenda 21.)

But Holland argues that, although conspiracy theories like this may seem weird and silly to us, the people pushing them are succeeding in harassing and intimidating politicians and public officials; and thus these conspiratorial beliefs may make it impossible for us as a society to deal with environmental issues like global climate change.

Holland links to a June 2011 article in the Washington Post by Darryl Fears, a science correspondent, about efforts to deal with rising sea levels which uniquely threaten the Virginia Beach area. Then on December 17, Fears reported that local residents are fighting these efforts to deal with future flooding of the area.

The sea level is rising in Virginia Beach and the entire area known as Hampton Roads because of the warming climate, and the area also happens to be sinking for other geological reasons.

Within 50 years, a big part of Virginia Beach’s identity — its beach — could be lost if nothing is done, said [Clay] Bernick, the city’s environment and sustainability administrator. Large pieces of land could also be lost to the ocean in Norfolk within a few generations.

In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that, outside of greater New Orleans, Hampton Roads is at the greatest risk from sea-level rise for any area its size.

“It’s a significant threat,” Bernick said. “At this point, I wouldn’t put it in the category of fear, because it’s a long way off.” But he added: “You’ve got multiple factors with flashing lights saying, ‘Okay, guys, what are you going to do?’ ”

The residents’ opposition has focused on a central point: They don’t think climate change is accelerated by human activity, as most climate scientists conclude. When planners proposed to rezone land for use as a dike against rising water, these residents, or “new activists,” as [public planner Lewis L.] Lawrence calls them, saw a trick to take their property.

Here’s what some of the “activists” had to say:

“Environmentalists have always had an agenda to put nature above man,” said Donna Holt, leader of the Virginia Campaign for Liberty, a tea party affiliate with 7,000 members. “If they can find an end to their means, they don’t care how it happens. If they can do it under the guise of global warming and climate change, they will do it.” ….

When planners redesignated property as a future flood zone, activists said officials were acting on a hoax. They argued in meetings and on Web sites that local planners are unwitting agents of Agenda 21, a United Nations environmental action plan adopted in 1992 that the activists see as a shadowy global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States.

“My professional credentials have been challenged,” said Lawrence, who holds degrees in municipal planning and provides professional and technical planning advice to municipalities throughout the peninsula. He said he has heard whispers behind his back after meetings: “I’ve been brainwashed. I’ve been called a dupe for the U.N.”

These kinds of irrational public protests are happening in other places too. Here’s an article posted at Alex Jones website Prison Planet.

MISSOULA, MT – In a move that would have made Joseph Stalin jealous, the City Council of Missoula, Montana on Monday approved the use of local tax dollars to an organization out of state known as ICLEI (International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives).

The ICLEI board can be found directly under the treasonous United Nations Agenda 21. The council room was almost in uproar as over 50 voices that opposed the funding of dues to the UnConstitutional initiative fell on deaf progressive “public servants’” ears.

“I am concerned that (the) Missoula City Council may be moving in a direction that could ultimately affect my property rights, which are guaranteed to me by both the Montana Constitution and the Constitution of the United States,” Trish Auras said during the council’s Monday night meeting. “Before you agree to paying dues to ICLEI, I would like somebody on the council to assure me that my property rights will not be affected in any way. Can you do that? Anybody?”

Read it and weep. Our future is being determined by ignorant people who take the bible literally and disdain science. They are leading us back into a new dark age. All you have to do is listen to the Republican presidential candidates to realize this is no exaggeration.

There’s another aspect to this conspiracy theory that Joshua Holland doesn’t mention. If you’ve read much of Alex Jones’ propaganda or listened to Glenn Beck, you know that another right win obsession is population control. Jones claims that once the “New World Order,” or global government is established, the elites will kill off 90% of the world population in order to make the planet sustainable for the rich and powerful who will remain. This also ties in with the mysterious Georgia Guidestones, pictured at the beginning of this post. Here’s an excerpt from an article (also linked above) from Jones’ website Infowars: “Al Gore, Agenda 21 And Population Control.”

When you start doing deep research into Agenda 21, you will find that describing it as a “comprehensive plan” is an understatement. Virtually all forms of human activity impact the environment. The rabid “environmentalists” behind the green agenda intend to take all human activity and put it into a box called “sustainable development”.

One of the key elements of “sustainable development” is population control. The United Nations (along with radical “environmental” leaders such as Al Gore) actually believes that there are far too many people on earth….Al Gore made the following statement regarding population control….

“One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principle ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women. You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children have, the spacing of the children.

You have to lift child survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families and most important — you have to educate girls and empower women. And that’s the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.”

Do you notice how whenever global leaders talk about “empowering” women these days it always ends up with them having less children?

The article concludes with a reference to the Georgia Guidestones, pictured at the top of this post, and at left.

Most Americans don’t grasp it yet, but the truth is that the global elite are absolutely obsessed with population control. In fact, there is a growing consensus among the global elite that they need to get rid of 80 to 90 percent of us.

The number one commandment of the infamous Georgia Guidestones is this: “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.”

One of the biggest issues for the right is the dis-empowerment of women. They want to make sure that women cannot choose whether or not to have a child or how many children to have. They’d probably like to force women out of the workplace and back into the home. That also ties in with the obsession with fighting population control. Why is it that this anti-woman agenda is so often ignored by the media–even by alternative media writers like Joshua Holland?

This post is getting way too long, and it probably makes no sense. But that’s my offering for today–a sample of what right wing conspiratorial madness and fear of science is doing to us. Holland is right. It has the potential to wreck wreck what’s left of our country.