ICLEI’s agenda

September 10, 2013

OPINION By TOM DAWSON

Why haven’t we heard about the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and the plans it has for us before now?

Working in cooperation with “partner” organizations, globalist politicians from ICLEI have been quietly put into key positions. What may be one of the best kept secrets of the last two decades is the way ICLEI and other non-governmental organizations have subtly infiltrated all local governments in the world with prepackaged planning material ready for local government consumption. (That makes it easy for staff to present without much original thinking.)

Although Congress did not approve them, these policies have been mandated into federal agencies by executive order. All this was done under the radar because opposition was anticipated.

J. Gary Lawrence, advisor to President Bill Clinton’s Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development, stated, “Participating in a U.N. advocated planning process would very likely bring out many who would actively work to defeat any elected official… undertaking Local Agenda 21. So we will call our process something else, such as ‘Comprehensive Planning’, ‘Growth Management’, or ‘Smart Growth’.” That is why we now hear more about “Climate Change” rather than “Global Warming”, and communities are now refered to as “resilient” rather than “sustainable.”

The names have changed but not to protect the innocent No, the fancy footwork is purposely devised to distract and deceive us. Although being sold as protecting the environment, these globalist scare tactics of finding (or creating) a crisis and then heroically presenting the solution have more to do with gaining control than caring for Mother Earth.

Maurice Strong, author of Sustainable Development and avowed socialist, promotes this attitude: “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”

Plainly stated, the overreaching plan is to use local governments to achieve control. Environmental issues are being used much as the Greeks used the Trojan Horse to seduce the citizens to unknowingly bring the enemy right inside their city.

Speaking of overreaching, I would like to address a philosophy that is being brought forth in the multitude of “rule and regulation” policies that county staff brings to the board of supervisors, and which have been given a stamp of approval by two of our county supervisors. Because supervisors Bruce Gibson and Adam Hill have signed an agreement to promote the goals and purposes of ICLEI, an organization directly tied to and implementing United Nations Sustainable Development policies, perhaps a comparison of how the U.N. and the U.S. view individual rights is in order.

The U.N. Declaration of Human Rights says that the purpose of government is to control the individual for the greater good of a global community. “Rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.” In short, it is the government that grants, restricts or withdraws your rights according to its needs. You and the product of your labor belong to the community.

In direct contrast, the U.S. Declaration of Independence states that the purpose of our government is to protect the natural or unalienable rights of each individual — “That all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The philosophy of our government is that you are born with rights and government exists to protect them. You and the product of your labor belong to you.

Which philosophy do you want you and your family to live under: control or protection?

The reason for this little history lesson is to make everyone aware that the Sustainable Development political agenda originated in the founding documents of the U.N. In order for progress to be made in implementing Sustainable Development in the U.S., unalienable rights, such as the right to private property, must be eroded, attacked and struck down altogether. The U.N. Sustainable Development Agenda 21 manual states that private property has to be removed from the hands of individuals because it concentrates too much wealth in the hands of a few. Therefore, property must be put into the hands of the collective.

Of course, one of the best ways to control land is by controlling its natural resources, of which water is clearly the most important.

An additional concern for me is how the political structure of America is being transformed. It seems that while we citizens were going about the business of life, making a living, raising our families, caring for our properties, and all the activities that keep us more than distracted, certain mechanisms have been quietly at work without public awareness.

Gone are the days when government was limited and where we, as individuals, were politically acknowledged to possess unalienable rights. Today, we see public expectations and legislative agendas being dominated by the ideology that individual human wants, needs and desires must conform to the views and dictates of the community. This philosophic approach to government is called communitarianism,and it means more of our rights having “to take a back seat to the collective” in the process of implementing Sustainable Development.

I have a question for supervisors Gibson and Hill: When you put your signatures on that ICLEI agreement, did you think the voters of your districts would happily allow you to make their individual rights less important than the rights of some undefined “collective”?

I seriously doubt it.