Posted on 05/31/2003 1:46:05 PM PDT by sauropod
Creeping tyranny
Posted: May 31, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Editor's note: The May edition of WND's acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine is devoted entirely to the United Nations and globalism, and includes an in-depth, groundbreaking report by Henry Lamb. The issue focuses on the critical decisions America faces in the near future, which will determine whether it stays a free and sovereign nation or submits to global governance under the authority of the U.N. Readers may subscribe to Whistleblower at WND's online store.
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
The term "sustainable development" has flooded both the media and public policy since it was introduced to the world in 1987, by the U.N.'s World Commission on Environment and Development. At the time, the term was defined to mean:
... to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Policy makers and wannabe policy makers struggle to interpret this meaningless definition. Nevertheless, there are currently more than 50 bills working their way through Congress to implement some facet of "sustainable development." Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., has introduced a constitutional amendment to guarantee all citizens "the right to a ... sustainable environment."
Stephen Viederman, president of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, writes in his article, "Knowledge for Sustainable Development": "It is not so much about what is, but what should be." The question arises: According to whose vision? Viederman continues to offer perhaps the most succinct and honest interpretation: "sustainability is a community's control of capital, in all of its forms – natural, human, human-created, social and cultural. ..."
This interpretation begs for a definition of "community." If community means the collection of individuals who have chosen to invest their capital in a particular place where they live, then we have had "sustainable development" since long before the term was ever coined. This, then, cannot be what Viederman means by community. "Community control" must mean something else. (Here note the similarity of Viederman's idea to Webster's definition of socialism: "The system of ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution by the community rather than by private individuals...").
The definition of "community control" is discussed extensively in Chapter 8 of Agenda 21. In particular, 8.3 says, "The overall objective is to improve or restructure the decision-making process. ..." This recommendation was amplified in the U.S. by the President's Council on Sustainable Development declaration: "We need a new collaborative decision process. ..."
Through the PCSD, during the 1990s, the federal government transformed the policy decision process into the "collaborative" process used throughout the U.N., and now, throughout all federal agencies and in most communities.
Before the "sustainable development" enlightenment, any citizen could request any elected official, or any elected government body, to consider any policy recommendation or initiative, at any public meeting. Before any government body, or government agency, implemented a new law or policy, every citizen had the right to speak his piece in favor, or in opposition to the proposal. Finally, the elected officials voted, in public, to adopt or reject each proposal. This is an untidy, inefficient, slow, and cumbersome process. It is participatory democracy, in which the governed express their desires and through which the governed hold their representatives directly accountable.
The enlightened process speeds things up and shields elected officials from accountability. It is, indeed, an ingenious win/win design for the advocates of change, and for the elected officials.
The enlightened process avoids the unruly public, and focuses on "stakeholders" to participate in the decision process. The initiators of the proposal decide who the stakeholders are, and choose those who are inclined to support the particular proposal to serve on some kind of "visioning" or "stakeholder" council. Note the similarity to the U.N. procedure that allows only NGOs (non-government organizations) that have been "accredited" by the U.N. to participate in their meetings.
These "selected" councils typically consist of government employees and NGO professionals and are often in place and functioning, long before the public is even aware of their existence or purpose. When they are presented to the community, their work has been mostly completed, they are often presented with great media fanfare for some grand and glorious purpose, and they often employ a few local dignitaries to provide the "Day-Glo" necessary to achieve credibility.
In recent years, organizations such as Alabama's Alliance for Citizens Rights, or Freedom 21 Santa Cruz, and many others, have learned what these selected councils are about and have demanded a seat at the table. Typically, while publicly welcoming their input, dissenters are often ridiculed, circumvented and ignored in the development of policy proposals whose objectives were determined long before the first meeting was ever held.
Policy proposals developed through this process, presented in the press as a wonderful road map to a sustainable future, are rarely challenged by elected officials, who don't want to be seen as bucking the trend toward sustainable development. Consequently, elected officials are bypassed, and power is conveyed to the various selected councils, which, effectively, control and operate the public policies of the community.
This is what Viederman means when he says "community control." This is the transformation that is taking place in communities all across the country, and the world. This is what Al Gore meant when he said in his 1992 book, "Earth in the Balance," that sustainable development will require a "wrenching transformation" of society. The transformation is from a free society, to a controlled society.
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.
Rectitudine Sto. Sauropod
18th Century North America was a sustainable environment, however it relied on slavery.
The term "Sustainable Development" is an oxymoron.
Another sustainable society was England during the time of William the Bastard to the rise of the Tudors.
BTW, the troops are tired and want to come home, I support them.
You do know that the NWO is just another name for global domination by US don't you?
U.S. Army Officer Commissioning Oath
"I, (state your name), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of Second Lieutenant, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of The United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God. "
I took the long way around but sometimes those enemies might even be in DC.
Oh well, a bump is a bump is a bump!
Also, Ronald Bailey of Reason Magazine had some terrific reports from last year's U.N. sponsored "World Summit on Sustainable Development". You can either click on the WSSD Keyword, or search on exact phrase Ronald Bailey Live from WSSD. (In the later case you'll need to also select "Archive" rather than "Quick" search.) There were also good articles about the WSSD from Tech Central Online that I posted.
I'll post some specific links here later when I have time.
REASON * April 1999
Precautionary Tale
The latest environmentalist concept--the Precautionary Principle--seeks to stop innovation before it happens. Very bad idea.
I have on tape (somewhere) a Bill Moyers special from Jo'burg where some Indian delegate complained mightily about the flush toilet (if memory serves).
It turned out to be a bit of a mistake to hold it in South Africa, where the little brown people were able to express their own opinion about what the elitist lefties were planning for them:
"Profit Beats Poverty" (Ronald Bailey Live from WSSD)
Johannesburg—"Profit Beats Poverty," "Say No to Eco-Imperialism," "Free Trade Is Fair Trade," and "People or Pandas?" were just a few of the placards carried by 300 or so protesters at the Sandton Convention Center, where delegates from 190 countries are meeting at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)...The protesters included farmers from India who had forced their government to let them grow genetically improved pest-resistant cotton, members of the Farmers Association of Africa, and local informal peddlers who are members of the Union of Gauteng Street Hawkers. The demonstrators delivered a memorandum to a representative of the President of the Summit, demanding, among other things, that poor farmers and traders be given the freedom to buy or sell their goods to whomever they wish, freedom to grow any crop of their choice and freedom of access to the best available technologies. They also demanded that the United States, Japan and the European Union open their markets to goods produced in poor developing countries.
Protester Barun Mitra from the Liberty Institute in New Delhi announced a special "Bullshit Award" for the many environmentalist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which he claimed "are trying to sustain poverty." Winners included Greenpeace International and the Third World Network—with a special mention of India's "own divinity of poverty," Vandana Shiva, the strident eco-activist who once opposed American food aid to 10 million Indians left homeless after a typhoon because the food contained genetically improved corn and soybeans. The award consisted of a wooden placard displaying nicely laminated heaps of dung.
I see two huge problems here. First, we can't predict next winter's weather but we're supposed to be able to divine the needs of future generations well enough to make today's decisions? Were that the case, humans of the 16th century (had they the ability) would have rid the earth of oil as it was a nuisance to agrarian life.
This is typical collectivist rhetoric. They continually claim to speak for others. First, they spoke for the peasant against the monarch. That was all well and good until the peasants figured out the cure was worse than the disease. Their search for new constituents led them to speak for "the children," "the environment," "endangered species," anything that could not later embarrass them as had the peasants. Now they have latched on to "future generations," the perfect constituency. Always voiceless. Immune from the most potent attack against environmentalists: that they hate humans. If they can somehow get sustainable development some traction, communism will flower anew.
The second problem is the solution those advancing sustainable development propose. Socialism has proven time and again an ability to create more needs than it fills. Future generations of a socialists world will certainly face more needs that future world is unable to satisfy than will future generations of a capitalist world. That means those alive today must be even more constrained in anticipation of those greater needs of future generations.
What constraints did Malthus favor as he contemplated mass starvation in a world whose population exceeded it's ability to produce food. Of course, Malthus didn't forsee the impending "green revolution" in agriculture and that all his handwringing would be for naught.
One thing is certain. Future generations won't be solving their problems with today's knowledge base.
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