Volume 4, Number 1 -- February 28, 1999
BLOUNT COUNTY, ALABAMA FIGHTS BACK
In the Birmingham "visioning" sessions they faced hardly any opposition. Pleasant Grove gave them a bit of a problem --to the extent that they failed to pass their motion on the first try with the city council and had to wait for a second try when no one was looking. But all-in-all they have managed to push their "Local Agenda 21" initiative with very little resistance from the public and mostly cheers from the elected officials who see only dollar signs as they envision the greenback grants flowing out of Washington into local coffers. We wonder where they think those Washington greenbacks came from in the first place.
In the first of four scheduled "visioning" sessions for Blount County, held in Oneonta, the citizens who attended found themselves broken down into small groups and herded into separate rooms, each with its own "facilitator." Some of them were smart enough to figure out that they were being spoon-fed a set of proposals that they weren't very happy with and had no say in selecting. What they were being forced to talk about was not what they wanted to talk about.
The second meeting, in Blountsville, was a bit different. Instead of the sixty or seventy citizens who had shown up for the meeting in Oneonta, a hundred and fifty or more showed up. They refused to be herded into small rooms and facilitated into discussions they didn't want. They insisted on a general meeting open to everyone and they brought up issues they wanted to talk about -- like "no county-wide zoning." The facilitators were out of work at that meeting.
At the third meeting, in Susan Moore, even more Blount Countians showed up. This time the organizers were a little better prepared and had some local law enforcement on hand just-in-case. They urged everyone to go to one of the small group meetings, and some people did. It seemed obvious that the organizers had tried to get a number of their supporters to turn out for this meeting, but the opposition still far outnumbered them and the majority of those attending refused to be coerced into the smaller sessions. In a last-ditch effort, one of the organizers called the hold-outs into the gymnasium and held a large group meeting at which the participants were allowed to voice their concerns. The single main issue they vocalized about was an insistence that there be "no zoning."
By far the larger vote cast was for "no zoning." Perhaps the second largest vote cast was for an item that said "take your plan back to Birmingham!" There was little or no discussion on the ten issues the facilitators had posted on their boards.
The citizens of Blount County, Alabama are acting like American citizens are supposed to act. They are speaking up and telling the governing bodies that they work for the citizens who pay their salaries, not the other way around.
Perhaps it takes the rural mind-set to fully understand the kind of government our Founding Fathers gave us. After all, this nation was near ninety percent rural at the time it declared its independence from England and framed the government that made us the greatest nation on earth.
It's a bit difficult for city dwellers to fully understand what it means to rely on the land for your everyday sustenance, to till the soil and grow the crops or raise the animals that feed a nation and half the world. It isn't done by edicts from Washington or Montgomery or Oneonta. It isn't accomplished by following some plan laid out by some bureaucrat who never milked a cow nor walked behind a plow.
Men and women who live close to the soil understand God's give-and-take perhaps better than the rest of us. They are willing to take great risks if they are given the authority over their own actions and their own land. They are not willing to have some book educated bureaucrat theorize them out of business.
Perhaps most of the individuals involved in trying to move such plans as Region 2020 forward honestly believe they are working for the benefit of all concerned. If they do they are uninformed or deluded into overestimating their own importance.
The Pharisees had convinced themselves and most of the Jewish nation that they knew best how God wanted his world to run. God came down in the form of Jesus and accused them of totally perverting His laws. They crucified Him for it.
We now have a world organization, The United Nations, with leadership that believes it knows the best way to run God's world. That leadership does not recognize the God of the Bible, just as the Pharisees failed to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. It would have all religions merge into some universal religion and it would have humans regulated by some kind of homogenizing process that would make everyone equal to everyone else, sharing equally in mother earth's provisions...that is, everyone but that elite class into which they, the regulators, fall.
What those who are pushing for the programs like Region 2020 because they see them as means of improving economies and living conditions do not understand is that they are working to change the form of government under which we live.
Our founders gave us a representative republic, a form of government in which the people elect representatives who will govern at the pleasure of the electorate. When these representatives make laws or otherwise do things the people do not like they have the ballot box as a means or removing them from office .
Under the Public/Private Partnership form of government being set up by plans like Region 2020 the people lose their direct connection to the governing bodies. Bodies of appointed officials (bureaucracies) are given authority to make regulations governing whatever areas are covered in the contractual agreements between the elected officials and the regional planning boards. The members of these bodies are accountable only to the people who appointed them.
The electorate can vote out the elected officials who signed the contract, but that does not nullify the contract and future elected officials are equally bound by its conditions. We have created a government that is not subject to the vote of the people and is thereby at liberty to impose whatever restrictions, regulations, taxes, etc. it wishes to impose.
We have come full circle, back to good old King George and his parliament. Only this time it is worse. King George presided over a monarchy that had certain restrictions placed on it by a document called the Magna Carta. The bureaucracies created by the United Nations have been spawned by a communist philosophy that has no such restrictions placed upon it. Give most any bureaucrat a little power and even God had better move over.
A key element in that article was the comment in its penultimate paragraph: "Our officials must speak the truth and stand by their word, even if popular sentiment is against them." O' would that our Senate had heeded those words or that our media had voiced them to the Senate before they ruled on the Clinton impeachment. We suppose it all depends on whose truth one is wanting upheld.
One of the facilitators was heard to voice this comment when a member of our staff quoted to him some of the evidence of the UN origins for the Region 2020 initiative: "I hope you don't think the UN is that powerful."
We submit, it isn't what we think, it's what the evidence indicates.
Paragraph 18.59(a)(ii) of Agenda 21 reads:
"18.59 All States, according to their capacity and available resources, and through bilateral or multilateral cooperation, including the United Nations and other relevant organizations as appropriate, could implement the following activities:
"(a) Protection of water resources from depletion, pollution and degradation:
"(ii) Implementation of urban storm-water run-off and drainage programmes;"
Some of you may not know it, but all counties are paying a storm-water run-off fee. It comes out of your taxes. In Jefferson County there is a storm-water run-off item shown on your annual personal property tax statement. In the city of Greensboro, NC there is a fee listed on the individual quarterly water bill.
These, and other UN "dictated" measures are being implemented under the Clean Waters Act by bureaucratic regulation at the direction of the Clinton Administration.
One of the first things Clinton did after assuming the presidency was to form the President's Council on Sustainable Development. "Sustainable Development" is the keystone upon which Agenda 21 hangs. Paragraph 1.3 of Chapter One reads:
"Agenda 21 addresses the pressing problems of today and also aims at preparing the world for the challenges of the next century. It reflects a global consensus and political commitment at the highest level on development and environment cooperation. Its successful implementation is first and foremost the responsibility of Governments. National strategies, plans, policies and processes are crucial in achieving this. International cooperation should support and supplement such national efforts. In this context, the United Nations system has a key role to play. Other international, regional and subregional organizations are also called upon to contribute to this effort. The broadest public participation and the active involvement of the non-governmental organizations and other groups should also be encouraged."
The final sentence of Chapter One, Preamble, states:
"This process marks the beginning of a new global partnership for sustainable development."(emphasis added)
Whether one believes the UN is powerful enough to bring Region 2020 to Blount County is not the issue. If national governments are committed to honoring the principles outlined in Agenda 21, if national governments have adopted the philosophy of global governance, we are on the path laid out by the UN and the people should be told this. If that is the path the people want to follow, let them follow it with open eyes and full knowledge. We do not think the people would chose that path if they were given all the facts. That is what our organization is all about: trying to give the people the facts.
"If we divide the earth's productive surface by the 6 billion human inhabitants, each of us has 5.5 acres. The average Canadian uses 19 acres. Americans use 25 acres. The GLP [Global Living Project] team reduced their footprint to 3.2 acres each. If humans choose to live equitably among all species, leaving sufficient habitat for the 25 million other species on the planet, we are left with one wise acre each. This is the current challenge of the GLP."
The above quotation is from an e-mail sent out by IISP (The International Institute for Sustainable Development). It will give you some idea of the mind-set behind the sustainable development concept.
It is this kind of thinking that is responsible for the International Biosphere Reserves being created in this country and around the world. America contains far more than any other nation. If you have visited the Smoky Mountain National Park recently you know that it is now part of an International Biosphere. And whether you know it or not, the Statue of Liberty and Independence Hall are now World Heritage Sites under UN management. It is a bit hard for us to see how the world would consider the place where our Declaration of Independence was signed and our Constitution written a heritage site.
Maybe we are being a little selfish in thinking that those documents should remain a singular heritage for the nation they brought into being. We would love to see other nations emulate our actions there, but we prefer to retain that particular heritage for our own.
As a matter of fact, we would love to see our own lawmakers review that heritage and begin to honor that Constitution which they have sworn to uphold.
We believe the following links will be of much interest to anyone reading this:
Local Agenda 21 -- the UN Plan for Your Community by Berit Kjos