Activist Post
The gradual emergence of Agenda 21 from concept to implementation can be seen either as world society waking up to environmental priorities with the need to enforce sustainable development, or as a project in social engineering and an infringement on private property rights.
Agenda 21 was first introduced to the international arena at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. 178 governments voted at Rio to adopt the program. It has since been adopted by over 200 countries.
Lately we’ve seen signs of implementation of Agenda 21 in the USA and elsewhere. It was reported in 2010 that approximately 1500 families in Miami, Florida were losing their homes due to a directive from Miami-Dade’s Department of Environmental Resource Management (DERM) which classified nearly 8.5 square miles in Florida as protected wetlands.(1) Whatever the reasoning within DERM - if the restored wetlands would act as a buffer zone to ease future flooding fears - such directives were a change of procedure in the USA which amongst other things has infringed on private property rights - a foundation stone of the US Constitution (Fifth Amendment) and a principal guarantor for people’s liberty. The due process of law has been challenged as well. Code officials have been given extensive powers never before seen and which some have termed, “Gestapo!”(2)
Currently, the Chinese government is attempting to move approximately 250,000,000 people from rural areas into urban areas. With construction of large apartment blocks happening now at a frantic pace, they hope to complete this task in twelve to fifteen years.(3) Maybe the Chinese experience can be seen as a forerunner to the latest global environmental dictates. China’s long history of authoritarian rule probably says a lot for the early introduction of living restrictions in that country (One-Child Policy, 1978) and similarly says a lot for the way American values have been undermined in recent times that resistance in America to programs like Agenda 21 has been very weak.
The most controversial aspect of Agenda 21 must be the Wildlands Project. The map accompanying this, otherwise known as the US biodiversity map, or the population control map of the USA, has large areas designated for little or no human use. Adjacent to these areas are buffer zones where human use is highly regulated. It can’t be overestimated the amount of land this represents and the restrictions on human freedom that will follow from this if the proposals are fully implemented.(4)
(There are also areas designated military reservations which for many people gives the lie to the supposed imperative and urgency for governments to protect the planet by implementing these sustainable development measures. As we all know, the military-industrial-complex is the most wasteful and polluting of industries, and to be talking about sustainable development whilst at the same time taking for granted that humanity will retain its military capabilities, tells us a lot about the architects behind Agenda 21, if nothing else.)
The big question is whether or not Agenda 21 was formulated as a genuine attempt to solve global environmental problems or whether it's a program to enslave humanity, but disguised as an all-encompassing environmental action plan. Certainly, the fear of climate change and the potential harm to our planet that rising temperatures could inflict has been used to bring in, amongst other things, carbon taxes which is just another tax on top of all the other taxes we pay adding to the ever increasingly tax burden on the majority of people minus the mega-rich and corporations, of course (who manage to dodge paying their fair share of taxes). Or possibly, Agenda 21 was initially envisioned and formulated sincerely, but was hijacked by the New World Order brigade who saw Agenda 21 as a means to accelerate their agenda to enslave humanity.(5)
A quick perusal at the early originators of Agenda 21 may give some answers to these questions or at least raise an eyebrow or two. John Anthony, a renowned expert on the topic of United Nation’s Agenda 21, sees the origins of Agenda 21 coming from two significant players in global affairs - Gro Brundtland and Maurice Strong.(6) Both are veteran Bilderberg attendees. Okay, if Bilderberg is just a friendly discussion forum then we needn’t dwell any longer on this. Yet many people see a greater significance in the choice of these two global players. Brundtland was Vice President of Socialist International whose aim is to replace capitalism with socialism. Former oilman, Maurice Strong, had hardly the environmental credentials to justify his being given the directorship of the United Nation’s Environment Programme (UNEP). Strong was CEO of American Water Development Incorporated (AWDI), a corporation with a history of dodgy business credentials involving massive environmental degradation. Strong and Brundtland were instrumental in formulating the 1987 report, Our Common Future - one of the precursors to Agenda 21.
Another alarm bell surrounding Agenda 21 is the decision by the Monsanto Company in 2013 to join the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) which many believe is a global front group for Agenda 21 and according to Greenpeace, is among the key players responsible for slowing the progress of nations around the world in tackling climate change effectively. Ethan A. Huff goes even further by saying that Agenda 21 is a “United Nations (UN) scheme to surreptitiously seize property rights from people worldwide and pack the world's populations into tiny micro-cities controlled by a centralized government.”(7)
So here we have two Bilderberg members instrumental in the early stages of Agenda 21’s formulation. We have an Agenda 21 endorsement by one of the world’s leading bogeymen corporations, Monsanto. And finally a view of the United Nations as working to bring about the New World Order.
The problem with action plans formulated by these international bodies is that they’ll inevitably lean towards corporate needs. The work of Thomas Ferguson, who champions the Investment theory of party competition whereby business elites play the leading part in political decision-making, may encapsulate many of the drawbacks of Agenda 21.(8) One suspects the Chinese are urbanizing at a rapid pace, for example, mainly to expand consumer numbers (in contrast to self-sufficient landowners) rather than in adherence to any UN initiative.
It’s a little unsettling reading the arguments against Agenda 21 and the counter-arguments. One could conclude that no one is really concerned for the natural environment - environmental concerns just being another arena for political movements to clash and as a platform for political evangelizing - which is the essence of an article by Stephanie Mencimer, which focuses on the shenanigans of the now fashionable Tea Party.(9)
What if everything’s been hijacked? Will sincere people have to take back what was once theirs? Will that be the task of humanity in the next fifty years - to reconfigure all our government bodies, institutions, and corporations, back to their pure, sincere beginnings? Or if we’re skeptical about them ever having worked on behalf of the 99%, then we’ll have to form our own movements. Bring on the Occupy Movement, Wearechange, etc.
Or think of it this way. Has our natural environment got to the stage were totalitarian management initiatives have to be implemented for us to have any chance of securing a future for our planet? The answer to that depends on how one views the future and what one expects from the future. As David Attenborough put it recently, "Quite simply, we will run out of food. People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can't sustain them."(10)More recently he said: “We are a plague on the Earth, it's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so... Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.”(11)
Maybe (or definitely) the main problem with Agenda 21 and other such global initiatives is that most people haven’t heard of them. Why is this? Is it because of a corporate media maintaining a relative silence to please the globalists? Or is it because people don’t care? - don’t care to educate themselves, to inform themselves, and don’t care about their natural environment. Maybe there’s a bit of both here. We get the government we deserve. Maybe we also get the natural environment we deserve. Sometimes when the carrot doesn’t work, the stick takes its place. With the overriding importance of maintaining a healthy natural environment, the stick may have to take prominence. A local supermarket in my area recently tried an initiative of “no plastic bags” on Saturdays. Most people responded by deciding to shop Sundays, and the supermarket became like a ghost-town on Saturdays. The ball’s in our court. What are we going to do with it?
Footnotes:
1.) 1,500 families losing land in Miami land grab, submitted by left the hurd, posted onto the Daily Paul website, 6th October 2010.
2.) Michael Snyder, Agenda 21 Is Being Rammed Down The Throats Of Local Communities All Over America Agenda, Infowars, 24th December 2012.
3.) Ian Johnson, China’s Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities, The New York Times, 15th June 2013.
4.) Wildlands Project, Simulated Reserve and Corridor System to Protect Biodiversity. As Mandated by the Convention on Biological Diversity, The Wildlands Project, UN and US Man and the Biosphere Program and Various UN, US Heritage Programs and NAFTA.
5.) Susanne Posel, Ecovillages: Selling Environmentally-Friendly Agenda 21 Enslavement, Occupy Corporatism, 6th February, 2013.
6.) John Anthony, Agenda 21 EXPLAINED, full version, video presentation, 28th November 2011.
7.) Ethan A. Huff, Monsanto further unveils its true evil nature by signing on to UN Agenda 21 'sustainability' scam, Natural News, 24th February 2013.
8.) Thomas Ferguson, Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems, American Politics and Political Economy Series, University of Chicago Press, 1995.
9.) Stephanie Mencimer, “We Don’t Need None of That Smart-Growth Communism”, Mother Jones, March/April, 2011 issue.
10.) Nick Harding, Sir David Attenborough: ‘This awful summer? We’ve only ourselves to blame...’, The Independent, 14th July 2012.
11.) Steve Nolan, …meanwhile, the man who’s OFF the telly says ‘curb population or nature will do it for us’: Wildlife legend Sir David warns that mankind is a ‘plague on the Earth’, The Daily Mail, 22nd January 2013.
This article has been entered into the Activist Post Writing Contest - EXPOSE Agenda 21. 1st place receives a $500 cash prize. 2nd place receives a $250 cash prize. Additional details and submission guidelines can be found here: http://www.activistpost.com/2013/05/writing-contest-expose-agenda-21.html
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