Resilient Communities and our Supervisors

September 5, 2013
Tom Dawson

Tom Dawson

OPINION By TOM DAWSON

On June 21, 2013, the Central Coast Resilient Communities Symposium was held in Santa Barbara. Local officials, key government staff and selected business and non-profit executives in the Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Opispo counties were invited. It was sponsored by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, commonly known as ICLEI.

Several months ago, some citizens attending a San Luis Opispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG) meeting asked about our political connection to ICLEI and were assured that, although SLOCOG had purchased and used their software in 2008, they no longer had a membership with ICLEI.

Yet, just two months ago, two of our county supervisors and Mayor Jan Marx signed an agreement at the symposium in Santa Barbara.

Their actions didn’t seem merely ceremonial but a significant statement of their goals for SLO County… for all of us! So I decided to research ICLEI and found that it was launched in 1990 at the World Congress of Local Governments for A Sustainable Future and was instrumental in the development of United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. (Research it yourself and you will see that these two organizations use the same language.) ICLEI even drafted Chapter 28 of the Sustainable Development workbook.

So what’s so bad about ICLEI? A closer look at their goals and objectives will answer that. ICLEI communicates with local special interests to translate international policy into local and regional legislation. It’s objectives presuppose the notion that legislation is the only method of improving the conditions or problems of the world. This notion denigrates the intelligence and ingenuity of local individuals (like you and me) and our ability to address problems of our own lives and property. We are marginalized and placed under increasing oversight of government planners.

So I am legitimately concerned that, on one hand, we’re fed a denial of any influence of or involvement with ICLEI, and on the other hand, two supervisors and our mayor signed an agreement to promote its goals and objectives in our county.

As I consider a global organization like ICLEI intrusively analyzing our local problems and deciding the best solutions for us, I wonder, “How will their policies change the unique character of our rural communitites?”

We moved to SLO county because we wanted to own property and have space to raise our family, plant gardens and orchards, raise animals and work on personal projects. ICLEI’s main objectives include moving people off the rural, open land areas and into higher density housing in towns and villages, concentrated around transportation hubs with trains and buses. Private property and cars will go away or be heavily restricted, as well as other aspects of our lives listed by Maurice Strong, author of Sustainable Development: “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.”

Although Sustainable Development is promoted as a war on pollution, it is increasingly clear that the “environmental crises” are simply the means to promote a political agenda — the restructuring of the governmental systems in all nations so the people of the world will be subjects of a global collective. Many of ICLEI’s proposed implementation strategies require the surrender of our unalienable rights.

Speaking of rights, Harvey Ruvin, Vice Chair of ICLEI, has stated, “Individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective” in the implementation of Sustainable Development, whose premise is that individual human wants, needs and desires are to be conformed to the views and dictates of the community (Communitarianism).

This is in agreement with Gro Brundtland, another founder of Sustainable Development who states,”The World Socialist Party is part of the Global Socialist Movement that believes capitalism cannot meet the needs of the majority of the people in the world, however ‘progressive’ it might become. To meet these needs, capitialism must be replaced by socialism.”

As we continue to allow Sustainable Development, Smart Growth and other ICLEI doctrine to become our county’s doctrine, these stated principles become inextricably woven into our local government, thereby supplanting our American Constitutional free enterprise system. By the way, the United Nations votes against the United States 70% – 90% of the time! The UN and ICLEI are no friends of America.

 


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You people need to sit back and look at how we are being treated/used, the gooberment doesn’t want us to do anything,look at all the rules and regulations that keep getting passed on to us,no trucks and tractors older than a certain year can be used,so that means if your to stay in business you’ll need to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to comply with this crap, no nukes or gas fired electric plants,so we take thousands of acres out of farm production and put glass panels there to make electric for only a100,000 homes,when Morro Bay can do that in 1/2 hr. Worthless laws on the books are designed to take your money for no good reason,food is expensive,read trucks and tractors,fuel is out of sight, no reason for 4 dollar gas or diesel. When some of us have to shut down because we can’t afford a new truck at 1500,000 $ how do you think the we the people are to survive when taxes are not paid. Let me get on another rant, the do gooders buying private property and turning it over to state parks or fish and wildlife,that property is taken out of tax rolls,then they waste years trying to work up a management plan, mean while thats land is tsken out of cattle/farm production because one of the tree huggers found a so called endangered plant,if it was so endangered how did it survive all these years when cattle grazed the property. No I’m not paranoid I just have my eyes open.


Your eyes may be open, but your brain is on vacation.


Oh, come on, Mr. Dawson…good ideas are good ideas. The UN recommends energy efficient building practices, something we also do in the US. Does that make the UN our puppet masters? Get real. You folks are endlessly looking for conspiracy theories. Because you are just plain paranoid.


GT ..Why even try to explain things to such concrete minds ?

They won’t change. they are the intracrable ENEMY.

They are too stupid to understand.


Stop trying to persuade these numbskulls, and realize that you have to eradicate them.


desire to eliminate evil : first impulse of evil


And You GalaxyTraveler sound just like someone who makes his living with a government paycheck!


He sounds like a certain South County Supervisor to me.


No, he’s an Alinskite… “the ends justify the means” – i.e. “Hey, it’s a good idea, who cares how it comes about”


Very ignorant and very dangerous.


Socialism is coming socialism is coming socialism is coming- quick dig a hole in your back yard for a bunker and arm yourself to the teeth. Talk about myopic. Get off the ranch much Mr. Dawson?


It’s easy to see in SLO town. Ask a downtown merchant if they are allowed to leave their doors open when either the heater or AC is on. Sure for us frugal types, leaving a door open with the air on is anathema to our shrewdness; however, if one bought the energy and equipment, then it is their a/c to waste.


Agenda 21 changes this, and right here in SLO town, we see it in action: businesses (who have bought and paid for the energy) are not “allowed” to do with it as they see fit. I.E. CLOSE THEM DOORS when the air is on!


It’s the small things like this; the Chinese water-torture of Freedom & Liberty where sniveling cowards gain ground. If your ideology is so abhorrent to people that you have to LIE and MISLEAD, then maybe you should take a closer look at it, yourself.


ICLEI, a.k.a – United Nations Agenda 21, Sustainable Development, Smart City, Future Earth, etc. etc. Agenda 21 seeks to control populations through zoning and seizure of private property, strip national sovereignty, reduce the world population, even control our consumption of water, meat and electricity (smart meters), just to name a few. All, said to be in the name of the “environment.”


Please, go find another planet to exploit.


As usual, an excellent rebuttal.


The problem is these people tell us they are protecting us,what they are doing is securing their position at the slop trough and we pay through the nose for this privilage,we need to start voting these people out of office.


I tried. I voted for the ONLY mayoral candidate who spoke out openly against all this – while providing proof (city-signed documents, etc). Unfortunately, this candidate was residentially-challenged and people’s prejudices got the best of him.


Next time you see someone run for office, ask them about their position on Agenda 21. If they please ignorance, or worse support it, then you’ll know that is not a candidate for you… unless some form of Marxism is your goal and you’re really into mass murder (as all Marxist-based governments seem to be).


Residentially challenged ?


That’s really funny.


You have no problem throwing around ‘progresssive’, ‘liberal’, ‘socialist’, and ‘democrat’ in the same vein as communist;

so I have no problem calling you a fascist.


You ARE a fascist.

You think you’re not, but you are.


Ho Hum …just another Teabagger with the freedom to express his anti-civilizationalist attitudes.


Today’s version of the Johnny Carson dimwitted yokel editorial responder “Floyd R. Turbo”.


…and as if on queue, the “opposition” replying in their usual, concise manner. No doubt bringing the conversation to their level.


You should have noted that Gibson and Hill signed the agreement as County Supervisors rather than as just a county resident. Ditto for Marx. It’s obvious all three of them don’t give a rats behind what the rest of us think. And after the last several years of CNN reporting their malfeasance, obviously it doesn’t matter. They can have their way with this county and there isn’t a thing any of the rest of us can do about it.

If it wasn’t for the likes of Gibson, Hill and Marx, organizations like COLAB never would have gotten the traction necessary to organize.

Thank you for this post.


We all better start voting Libertarian or there won’t be much left.


i encourage this, as all of you Randian ‘individualiasts’ would soon be shooting each other over scraps of food for survival.


Yes, because Liberty and Freedom didn’t work out so well for this nation over the last 200+ years (prior to progressivism cancerously infecting us). Gotcha.


This will be very interesting to see which local politicians jump on boards for this and which ones will want to protect OUR rights.


Sadly, it will be NONE of our rights – unless those rights align themselves with the State. Most people who “desire” to be in government often view government as an organism that needs care, feeding and nurturing – even if it harms actual people (this can be written off as benefit for the many outweighing the benefit of the few). To them it is noble to view the State as the highest point achievable by humanity. Thus, humanity’s rights are only those that the State deems necessary.


What the State giveth, the State can taketh away. Why else do State-centric governments need to diminish religion and spirituality? They are not just competition, they reveal the falsehood of idolizing the State; uncover them for what they are: saturnalian sycophants.