Posted on 08/16/2003 9:21:39 AM PDT by 11B3
By Henry Lamb
A new mechanism of governance is emerging. Georgetown University calls it "The Third Sector." The United Nations calls it "Civil Society." The President's Council on Sustainable Development calls it "...a new, collaborative decision process." Whatever it's called, it is a process to formulate public policy by non-elected individuals, unencumbered by the legislative process.
The process was developed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and the United Nations. As the IUCN developed its land management policy proposals, a network of "civil society" organizations, called BIONET, was created to promote the policy proposal and to lobby U.N. delegates. As the IUCN developed its climate change policy proposals, a network of "civil society" organizations, called the Climate Action Network was created to promote the policy proposals and to lobby U.N. delegates.
The same process created the Women's Environment and Development Organization, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, the International Action Network on Small Arms, and many other "networks" of special interest groups, largely funded by the U.N. and sympathetic governments.
The process has been incredibly successful at the international level. It is rapidly becoming equally successful in the United States.
In 1995, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a "network" of special interest groups, banded together to urge UNESCO to declare Yellowstone National Park a World Heritage Site "In Danger." The designation required a willing Clinton-Gore administration to impose additional land use restrictions on private property beyond the park's boundary. Neither local, state, nor federal elected officials had any say in the matter.
Throughout the 1990s, the President's Council on Sustainable Development spawned hundreds of these "networks" to focus on specific issues, such as the Sierra Club's "Smart Growth" programs, and to work at the local and regional levels to generate visions of smart growth for nearly every community.
These special interest groups are often called "visioning" councils, or "stakeholder," or "watershed" councils. They are designed to appear to be representative of the affected community. Most often, however, they consist of individuals who are government employees or executives or staff of special interest groups, with only a token number of carefully selected elected officials and business leaders.
The process of consensus building to achieve "collaborative" decision making has been refined to an art. In a given community, the appropriate council is chosen and begins meeting to discuss the future of the community. When the council is fully formed, and a couple of "day-glow" big-wheels have been recruited, a public announcement explains how the wonderful "citizens'" vision will unfold.
At the public meetings, a paid facilitator leads the group to choose from several options in several categories - transportation, zoning, education, economic development - until a final set of proposals is developed, which is then presented to the governing body for adoption and implementation. Rarely do the elected officials have the necessary information, or the political will, to oppose this vision developed by the "citizens" of the community.
In reality, it is not a vision of the citizens of the community. Ordinary citizens are rarely even notified of the meetings. When they do show up to ask questions, they are often ridiculed, marginalized, and dismissed. When complete, virtually every one of these plans contain the elements recommended in Agenda 21, and by the President's Council on Sustainable Development.
Councils created to represent trans-boundary jurisdictions have even less input by ordinary citizens or elected officials. When a multi-jurisdictional plan is developed, and presented to the various jurisdictions, they either adopt it, or risk political ridicule, and even the loss of federal funds.
These special interest groups - The Third Sector - are deeply embedded in the policy-making process. The American Planning Association was funded by the government to produce model legislation for state governments. The Center for Civic Education has the exclusive authority to write the Civics curriculum for federally funded public schools. The Nature Conservancy, and similar groups, are used by government to buy private property, which is then resold to the government for a profit.
This new mechanism of governance has become so prevalent that Georgetown University has developed a special Ph. D. program to train special interest organization leaders to be even more effective. The great danger in this emerging new system of governance is the absence of accountability. If citizens don't like the policies developed by these special interest groups, who do they un-elect?
So at what point does something get beyond the talking phase regarding getting both the UN and the liberals removed from our system of government?
The voters need to hear this kind of information, so we can start a larger groundswell of public outrage, and so that getting out of the UN becomes an election issue.
Be very concerned.
Many year ago they were called "Hitler Youth"
These special interest groups are often called "visioning" councils, or "stakeholder," or "watershed" councils. They are designed to appear to be representative of the affected community. Most often, however, they consist of individuals who are government employees or executives or staff of special interest groups, with only a token number of carefully selected elected officials and business leaders.......
At the public meetings, a paid facilitator leads the group to choose from several options in several categories - transportation, zoning, education, economic development - until a final set of proposals is developed, which is then presented to the governing body for adoption and implementation. Rarely do the elected officials have the necessary information, or the political will, to oppose this vision developed by the "citizens" of the community.
In reality, it is not a vision of the citizens of the community. Ordinary citizens are rarely even notified of the meetings. When they do show up to ask questions, they are often ridiculed, marginalized, and dismissed.......
FMCDH
Their "consesus" technique to influence local governments to adopt their alleged community based support of Communist style land use policies exempts them from any responsibility for the failure or public dissatisfaction of their imposed policies.
We need more people like Henry Lamb to blow the whistle on these NGO's and the "consensus" methods they have perfected. The tax paying working people in the community are often too busy raising families and working to turn out at these meetings, let alone volunteer to serve on boards and committees.
In contrast, many of the leftist activists pushing these policies don't have productive jobs, rather they are in taxpayer funded organizations, or as I like to call them, social parasites.
Working people raising families don't always have the luxury of attending these type of community meetings. They are not just sitting at home, they are feeding the kids, doing the laundry and other things they weren't able to get to during the working day. Social parasites usually have the advantage in these situations, in that often they are retired pensioners, unemployed volunteers, or employees of taxpayer funded government organizations or foundations receiving taxpayer funds.
Although I have had a bad experience with concensus where one participant held the group hostage in making any decisions by refusing to agree to anything.
I'd wager that this participant was ridiculed and harrassed for standing firm on what they believed in. I congratulate the individual you refer to in your posting. The objective of the consensus technique is to break the will of such type people, and to marginalize them an anti-government extremists.
Here in PA, yes, they give all the participants an opportunity to say what they want, but the group moderator and writer already know what the outcome is to be, and you can see it. While they are equally polite to both sides (unlike environmentalist participants), they have trouble finding points from the opponents that merit putting in the board. They re-phrase their points in ways that change the meaning from opposition to support.
When the recommendations come out, they always have the same things - control growth, more government programs and employees, more public transportation, more trails, more government control over how things look. Occasionally, if they've have 4 or five people say that we need to get jobs that pay decently since manufacturing is gone, they'll through in a token "work with the business community to create jobs".
We've done Vision202; Overlay corridors for a new interstate; Greenways; Regional Planning and more. All that I've been to have the same background: the local environmental organization got a grant to help the community decide their future; their have their core members as moderators; over 50% of the participants are paid government staff; they list all the same reasons for concern and why we need to do this; and they all come up with the same lists of what needs to be done.
Sorry, in my experience it was not open and honest. I did several of these before I even knew what Agenda21 was. Once I went to the UN website and read about it, I recognized immediately what I has experienced. At least I was able to see at future meetings which points to argue most strongly against (for what good it does). I signed up for their mailing lists, but once they recognized my opposition they stopped sending me information about future meetings.I guess I value my 'freedomshed' as much as they value their 'viewshed'.
Glad it's truly participatory in your area though.
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