Tom DeWeese: Growing Drive to Destroy the Beef Industry
by Tom DeWeese
APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2019/06/10/growing-drive-to-destroy-the-beef-industry/ |
Category Archives: Agenda 21
Kathleen Marquardt: FORM-BASED CODES: REPLACING THE EVERYDAY AMERICAN CITY WITH THE ‘IDEAL COMMUNIST CITY’
by Kathleen Marquardt
Form-Based Code /fôrm-bāsed kōd/ noun
A form-based code is a land development regulation that fosters predictable built results and a high-quality public realm by using physical form (rather than separation of uses) as the organizing principle for the code. A form-based code is a regulation, not a mere guideline, adopted into city, town, or county law. A form-based code offers a powerful alternative to conventional zoning regulation.
Several years ago, I wrote a series of articles for News with Views, explaining Sustainable Development. Today two of them are popping up regularly in the media. Back when I wrote these two articles, people would not believe that all this planning and organizing could have been dreamed up by the Power Elite, let along set down as part of the blueprint for Agenda 21.
Read that definition above of Form-based Code again. Note: “a regulation, not a mere guideline for every city, town, or county”. And “a powerful alternative to conventional zoning regulation”. You be it is. The only good I can see from this is that we can get rid of 90% of the staff on our planning commissions – everything will be spelled out for us by the Power Elite. There will be no exceptions.
Today, A Southern California county put the finishing touches on a first-of-its-kind wildlife corridor Tuesday that will protect important pathways for animals to pass between critical habitats and into Los Padres National Forest. This is part of the Wildlands Project. “The main aim is to provide restrictions on development to provide adequate pathways for wildlife to pass through rural and semirural parts of Ventura County. Guidelines under the new zoning ordinance include restrictions on outdoor lighting, fencing and other development that could hinder animals. Waterways will also gain a 200-foot buffer to protect animals from human incursion.” (boldface mine.) Straight out of the Wildlands Project.
- Then there is this from Tom DeWeese: Chicago, Illinois: So-called “affordable housing” advocates have filed a federal complaint against the longtime tradition of allowing City Aldermen veto power over most development proposals in their wards, charging that it promotes discrimination by keeping low-income minorities from moving into affluent white neighborhoods. Essentially the complaint seeks to remove the Aldermen’s ability to represent their own constituents.
- Baltimore, Maryland: The NAACP filed a suit against the city charging that Section 8 public housing causes ghettos because they are all put into the same areas of town. They won the suit and now the city must spend millions of dollars to move such housing into more affluent neighborhoods. In addition, landlords are no longer permitted to ask potential tenants if they can afford the rent on their properties.
- Oregon: Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives Tina Kotek (D-Portland) is drafting legislation that would end single-family zoning in cities of 10,000 or more. She claims there is a housing shortage crisis and that economic and racial segregation are caused by zoning restrictions.
Where does this come from?
AGENDA 21: THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
PART 6
By Kathleen Marquardt
June 27, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
Part 6 The Transect
“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” “Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” -George Orwell, author and Fabian Socialist
In my article, “Incrementalism, Regionalism and Revolution,” I briefly touched on planning and quoted from author, Jo Hindman. She will again help me explain what is happening vis a vis Urban Renewal and metro-planning. From her book, Blame Metro, we read, “Much is written about the incognito warfare on United States soil which public officials and their accomplices are waging to wrest private property from landowners. The strategy is to make property ownership so unbearable by harassment through building inspections, remodeling orders, fines and jailings, that owners give up in despair and sell to land redevelopers at cut-rate prices. Positive municipal codes are the weapons in the warfare.”[1]
Note, Hindman wrote that in 1966, yet it fully applies to today’s attacks on private property; many of the same strategies are being used, they just “changed the names to protect the guilty.”
Hindman writes, “‘Strengthening county government’ is a hackneyed Metro phrase indicating that the Metro take-over has begun. . .. Planning assistance subsidized by Federal money leads small cities and counties into direct obedience under a regional master plan. Land use rights are literally stolen (ital. mine) from landowners when zoning is applied to land.”[2]
In 1949, the Communitarian forebears of today’s planners wrote the original plans that were designed to free us of our property under the National Housing Act. Back then it was the American Society of Planning Officials,[3]the American Institute of Planners, and the National Planning Association. Today it is the American Planning Association (APA), which was formed in 1978 by combining the American Institute of Planners and the Society of Planning Officials. As you can see by their footnote, the APA brags that they were meddling in our private affairs since 1909, in fact here are the exact words, “On May 21-22, 1909, 43 planners met in Washington, D.C., at the first National Planning Conference. This event is considered to be the birth of the planning movement in America.” A sad day for the American Republic.
Mimicking today’s ICLEI V.P. Harvey Ruvin, the 60s’ American Institute of Planners “makes no bones about its socialist stance regarding land; its constitution states AIP’s ‘particular sphere of activity shall be the planning of the unified development of urban communities and their environs and of states, regions, and the nation as expressed through determination of the comprehensive arrangement of land uses and land occupancy and the regulation thereof.[4] . . .The present-day crew of planners, drawing no line between public and private property, believe that land-use control should be vested in government and that public planners should have sole right to control the use of all land.”[5]
That is not just similar to what is going on today; that is exactly what is happening. Why? Because the sons, daughters and cronies of the puppeteers that were pulling the strings back in the beginning and middle of the 20th Century are pulling the strings of today’s planners. We just have a new generation of the same treacherous, thieving scheme updated with new-fangled, high-tech sounding names for the same old land (and people) control mechanisms.
THE TRANSECT
A 2002 APA Journal article gives the original meaning of transect as: a cut or path through part of the environment showing a range of different habitats. Biologists and ecologists use transects to study the many symbiotic elements that contribute to habitats where certain plants and animals thrive.
Planners took that technique, one that was designed for studying flora and fauna, and tweaked it to apply to humans. I would say the tweak was more a wrenching, actually it is more in the line of suspending critical thinking to superimpose the artificial and nonsensical process of the transect on humans and their mobilization.
Under the biological study, a transect shows where certain flora and fauna thrive, exist somewhat readily, or barely subsist in the different habitats from (get description i.e., arctic to tropical). With great literary(?) license, planners take the definition of biologic transect and, like Oliver Stone, rewrites history, these planners are rewriting biology; they want to play an active role in the phylogeny of homo sapiens, in fact they want to devolve it. One of the problems here is that their fairy tale is being used to take property rights (and thus liberty) from man and make him a slave. Laws should not be based upon make-believe. Yet this country, no the entire world, is being redesigned using Communitarians’ far-fetched, pseudo-utopian desires to sate the global elites’ desire to control the entire globe.
Look at their definition of transect for people and land planning: “Human beings also thrive in different habitats. Some people prefer urban centers and would suffer in a rural place, while others thrive in the rural or suburban zones. Before the automobile, American development patterns were walkable, and transects within towns and city neighborhoods revealed areas that were less urban and more urban in character. This urbanism could be analyzed as natural transects are analyzed.”[Link]
To compare humans in differing habitats with flora or fauna is preposterous hubris, and especially because the planners are using apples and oranges: “some people prefer urban centers and would suffer in a rural place,” does not mean the same thing as the biology transect means. The suffering would be a mental fabrication and would be such that to call it suffering in the same sense as plants or animals outside their natural habitat is absurd.
The planners also extol the virtues of the time before the automobile, “American development patterns were walkable, and transects within towns and city neighborhoods revealed areas that were less urban and more urban in character. This urbanism could be analyzed as natural transects are analyzed.” As if what we have today is “unnatural.” What these planners keep forgetting (and want us to forget also) is that we humans are part of nature and thus what we are and what we do is natural. Unlike other animals, we humans have a moral and cognitive brain. Our brain is what provides us with the necessary tools we need to survive and prosper, and one of those tools is the automobile.
So we have a convoluted, computer-modeled construct of what the entire ecosystem of the world should be and is called the Transect. But as with everything else in this New World Order NewSpeak, that really isn’t the truth. No, they did not sit down with the details of biological transect and translate it via computer modeling to a human/development version. What they did was take The Ideal Communist City[6] and figured out how to sell it to the American public by superimposing it over their Transect model.
The APA describes the Transect as “a geographical cross-section of a region used to reveal a sequence of environments. For human environments, this cross-section can be used to identify urban character, a continuum that ranges from rural to urban. In transect planning, this range of environments is the basis for organizing the components of the built world: building, lot, land use, street, and all of the other physical elements of the human habitat.[7] Pay close attention to that last sentence, “the basis for organizing the components of the built world.” In my understanding of English, that means telling us where each component of our lives goes; we don’t get to choose where we build our homes unless they in the area designated by planners. I am not misreading that because that same sentence continues, “building, lot, land use, street, and all of the other physical elements of the human habitat(ital. mine).” Sounds fairly simple to me, we will be told what and where we may build or even if we may build, and how we will live in that habitat.
To continue from the APA article, “In transect planning, the essential task is to find the main qualities of immersive environments,[8] …. Once these are discovered, transect planning principles are applied to rectify the inappropriate intermixing of rural and urban elements — better known as sprawl. This is done by eliminating the ‘urbanizing of the rural’. . . or, equally damaging, the ‘ruralizing of the urban’.
into discrete categories. This approach is also dictated by the requirement that human habitats fit within the language of our current approach to land regulation (i.e., zoning).”[9]
The discrete categories of the transect continuum run from Rural Preserve, Rural Reserve, Sub-Urban, General Urban, Urban Center to Urban Core. Understand that the Rural Preserve is the Wildlands, the area humans will be forbidden to enter, and the Rural Reserve will be the connecting corridors to the Reserve area, i.e., corridors for fauna movement and human use will be highly restricted.
Remember, as I pointed out at the beginning of this article, the Communitarians, or global elites, introduced the zoning and planning systems used in this country. Now that they have gotten the American public inured to “planning,” they want to move us to the next step — where they plan every aspect of our lives through planning. To do so, they have to pretend that the original zones and plans came from us, the people, so they can say they need to throw the old ones out and introduce a whole new system. We are told, “The most important obstacle to overcome is the restrictive and incorrect zoning codes currently in force in most municipalities. Current codes do not allow New Urbanism to be built, but do allow sprawl. Adopting a TND ordinance and/or a system of ‘smart codes’ allows New Urbanism to be built easily without having to rewrite existing codes.”
If you go to the link above, you will see that New Urbanism (transect planning plus) deals with everything but property rights. (Actually property rights are verboten in this not-so-brave new world they are bringing us, so they ignore them because property rights will not exist in the not to distant future if we do not put a stop to this.) It is Sustainable Development written in capitals and boldface. And how do they plan on doing this? The most effective way to implement New Urbanism is to plan for it, and write it into zoning and development codes. This directs all future development into this form.
Note: “directs all future development into this form.”
The new planning codes they want: Smart Codes. What are they?
Footnotes:
1. Hindman, Jo, Blame Metro, Caxton Press, 1966, p. 21.
2. Ibid. p.80.
3. Within APA would be a professional institute — the American Institute of Certified Planners — that would be responsible for the national certification of professional planners. “Although AIP was incorporated in 1917 (as the American City Planning Institute, renamed the American Institute of Planners in 1939), and ASPO in 1934, we actually trace our roots further back to 1909 and the first National Conference on City Planning in Washington, D.C. From that and subsequent conferences, the organized planning movement emerged, first through our two predecessors and, since 1978, through APA.” (from APA website)
4. AIP Constitution (1960).
5. Hindman, Blame Metro, p.116.
6. Baburov, et al, The Ideal Communist City, i Press Series on the human environment, 1968.
7. “Transect Planning,” Duany, Andres and Emily Talen. APA Journal, Summer 2002, Vol. 68, No. 3, p.245.
8. a term borrowed from “the notion of virtual reality. . .. When these virtual environments are successful, they are said to be immersive — virtual models that function as if they were actual environments.”
9. Ibid, p.247.
AGENDA 21: THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
PART 7
The Smart Code
[Note: Part 6, “The Transect,” should be read before reading this article to get full understanding of SmartCode.]
One of the most fundamental requirements of a capitalist economic system—and one of the most misunderstood concepts—is a strong system of property rights. For decades social critics in the United States and throughout the Western world have complained that “property” rights too often take precedence over “human” rights, with the result that people are treated unequally and have unequal opportunities. Inequality exists in any society. But the purported conflict between property rights and human rights is a mirage. Property rights are human rights. –Arman Alchian
“The SmartCode is a form-based code that incorporates Smart Growth and New Urbanism principles. It is a unified development ordinance, addressing development at all scales of design, from regional planning on down to the building signage. It is based on the rural-to-urban transect rather than separated-use zoning, thereby able to integrate a full range of environmental techniques. Because the SmartCode envisions intentional outcomes based on known patterns of urban design, it is a more succinct and efficient document than most conventional codes.“ (To download SmartCode, go down to smartcode version 9.2 and click on it.)
The American Planning Association brags that their “definition emphasizes comprehensive planning that results in a unique sense of community and place, preservation of natural and cultural resources, of the expansion of transportation and housing choices beyond what we have now and we also emphasize the promotion of public health and healthy communities, which is an issue that has just begun to surface over the past two years.”[1]Understand that the “transportation and housing choices beyond what we have now” refer to walking, biking, rail and stack-em and pack-em housing. We have all those means of transportation now but we are not utilizing them as the APA and other Sustainable Development proponents would like because they are either expensive, impractical or unappealing to us. There is stack-em and pack-em housing already in large cities and in slum areas. Right now, most people chose what kind of housing they want and many chose single family homes in suburban (aka sprawl in Greenspeak) and rural areas — anathema to Smart Growth promoters. Also we want to retain our individual freedom which would negate being forced into communal housing with the associated communal living requirements of Smart Growth.
You may notice that they (Sustainablists, Commutarians) keep touting that people are moving from the rural and suburban areas into the cities at great rates “because they want the infrastructure and amenities available there.” I am not sure that people are moving into cities (yet) in any great numbers, but those groups, let’s call them Sustainablists, not only want to drive people into the cities (so they can be more easily controlled), and they are writing the planning to do just that. Looking at areas around the country, they are succeeding because they have established planning commissions in every city, town and county.
“The SmartCode is a form-based code, meaning it envisions and encourages a certain physical outcome — the form of the region, community, block, and/or building. Form-based codes are fundamentally different from conventional codes that are based primarily on use and statistics — none of which envision or require any particular physical outcome.”[2] Right, conventional codes, the codes used now, do not require all buildings, streets and towns to look alike.
“The SmartCode is a tool that guides the form of the built environment in order to create and protect development patterns that are compact, walkable, and mixed use. These traditional neighborhood patterns tend to be stimulating, safe, and ecologically sustainable. The SmartCode requires a mix of uses within walking distance of dwellings, so residents aren’t forced to drive everywhere. It supports a connected network to relieve traffic congestion. At the same time, it preserves open lands, as it operates at the scale of the region as well as the community.”[3] Go back and look closely at what was said: “. . . guides the form of the built environment, . . .” just as I said above, they are making all buildings the same.
And remember, in Part 6, The Transect, I quoted the the APA , “In transect planning, this range of environments is the basis for organizing the components of the built world: building, lot, land use, street, and all of the other physical elements of the human habitat. (emphasis mine)”[4]
Transfer of Development Rights (TDR)
“Local governments use TDR programs to mitigate the economic impact of land use regulations, specifically to compensate landowners for perceived partial takings (Johnston and Madison, 1997). This planning tool offers landowners a way to recapture some lost economic value when a property is downzoned[1] from residential use to agricultural use for preservation purposes.” Note the two phrases: “to compensate landowners for perceived partial takings” and “to recapture some lost economic value when a property is downzoned.” They are inferring that takings are a figment of the property owners’ imaginations and with the “recapture of some lost value” admitting that they are not going to compensate owners with the full value of their property.
Some of the things the SmartCode does:
- “It utilizes a type of zoning category that ranges systematically from the wilderness to the urban core.”[5]In other words, it encompasses the entire land mass.
• “It enables and qualifies Smart Growth community patterns that include Clustered Land Development (CLD), Traditional Neighborhood Development (TNDTM), Regional Center Development (RCD), and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).”[6]
• “It integrates the scale of planning concern from the regional through the community scale, on down to the individual lot and, if desired, its architectural elements.”[7] In other words, every aspect of development and they want to chose your appliances also.
• “It integrates methods of environmental protection, open space conservation and water quality control.
• “It integrates subdivision, public works and Transfer of Development Rights(TDR) standards.
• “It encourages specific outcomes through incentives, rather than through prohibitions.”[8] The intention is to make using SmartCode easy and standard codes difficult so that people are inclined to take the path of least resistance — not realizing what it means for property rights and individual freedom. “Encouraging specific outcomes” should scare the devil out of you. Why would they want specific outcomes for every person in America?
As I noted near the beginning of this article the APA brags that their “definition emphasizes comprehensive planning that results in a unique sense of community and place, preservation of natural and cultural resources, of the expansion of transportation and housing choices beyond what we have now and we also emphasize the promotion of public health and healthy communities, which is an issue that has just begun to surface. . . .” What the meaning is that humans will no longer own their own homes instead we will be herded into the “unique sense of community and place” which is the stack-em and pack-em Smart Growth communal habitats. The healthy communities are Commutarian, Sustainablist versions of healthy, but healthy for whom? Not for individuals who believe in free will, individual freedom and the right to private property. In these new “healthy communities” you will be told what is healthy and what is not and you will not be given the choice of deciding for yourself if you want to follow the leader. You think Bloomberg’s soda ban is draconian, just wait.
In Part 8 I will go deeper into SmartCode.
Footnotes:
1. American Institute of Certified Planners, Green Infrastructure, “Smart Growth Codes,” Transcript p5, January 21, 2004.
2.Center for Applied Transect Studies, SmartCode, p V.
3. Ibid
4. “Transect Planning,” Duany, Andres and Emily Talen. APA Journal, Summer 2002, Vol. 68, No. 3, p.245.
5. Center for Applied Transect Studies, SmartCode, p VIII
6. Ibid
7. Ibid
8. Ibid
AGENDA 21: THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
PART 8
By Kathleen Marquardt
October 2, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
Much is written about the international cold war, but little about the incognito warfare on United States soil which public officials and their accomplices are waging to wrest private property from landowners. Jo Hindman, 1972, Blame Metro, p31.
Objectives
10.5 The broad objective is to facilitate allocation of land to the uses that provide the greatest sustainable benefits and to promote the transition to a sustainable and integrated management of land resources. In doing so, environmental, social and economic issues should be taken into consideration. In more specific terms, the objectives are as follows:
(a) To review and develop policies to support the best possible use of land and the sustainable management of land resources by not later than 1996. Agenda 21, Earth Summit, p.85
Today (1995), some 70 years after (Herbert) Hoover‘s committee drafted the standard acts,[1] another, similar effort is taking place: the American Planning Association’s GrowingSmart project.[2]
In Part 6, I discussed the Transect which is a system to divide the land of our country (and the world) into the Wildlands devised by Arne Noss (deep ecologist) and Dave Foreman (radical environmentalist), but under deceptive, seductive names. You can read how a New Urbanism posted story titled “Transect applied to regional plans,” describes it:
“The Transect has six zones, moving from rural to urban. It begins with two that are entirely rural in character: Rural preserve (protected areas in perpetuity); and Rural reserve (areas of high environmental or scenic quality that are not currently preserved, but perhaps should be). The transition zone between countryside and town is called the Edge, which encompasses the most rural part of the neighborhood, and the countryside just beyond. The Edge is primarily single family homes. Although Edge is the most purely residential zone, it can have some mixed-use, such as civic buildings (schools are particularly appropriate for the Edge). Next is General, the largest zone in most neighborhoods. General is primarily residential, but more urban in character (somewhat higher density with a mix of housing types and a slightly greater mix of uses allowed).
At the urban end of the spectrum are two zones which are primarily mixed use: Center (this can be a small neighborhood center or a larger town center, the latter serving more than one neighborhood); and Core (serving the region — typically a central business district). Core is the most urban zone.” (ital. mine)
Michael Coffman’s Wildlands Map, calls the zones by different names (protected instead of rural preserved, corridors for rural reserve, etc) but the results are the same: people in cages and animals having the run of the country, with 50% of American land off limits to humans.
How is all this to be done? According to Agenda 21, by “Promoting application of appropriate tools for planning and management
10.8 Governments at the appropriate level, with the support of national and international organizations, should promote the improvement, further development and widespread application of planning and management tools that facilitate an integrated and sustainable approach to land and resources.” One of the tools, of course, is SmartCode.
SmartCode is defined in a pamphlet of 72 pages; there is no way all of it can summarize all of it in this article but I am going to give some highlights (?) (in ital) with page numbers so you can look them up with the accompanying information:
- The provisions of this Code, when in conflict, shall take precedence over those of other codes, ordinances, regulations and standards except the local health and safety codes. p2 In other words, this code is to be the law of the land, both literally and figuratively.
- INTENT
The Region a. that the region should retain its natural infrastructure and visual character derived from topography, woodlands, farmlands, riparian corridors and coastlines. b. that growth strategies should encourage Infill and redevelopment in parity with new communities. p2 In real terms, build in the cities (up when you can’t go out), but have the rest of the area as pristine as possible, no matter how many homes you have to raze.
The Community
- that neighborhoods and regional centers should be compact, pedestrian-oriented[3] and Mixed use.
- that neighborhoods and regional centers should be the preferred pattern of development and that Districts specializing in a single use should be the exception.
- that ordinary activities of daily living should occur within walking distance of most dwellings, allowing independence to those who do not drive.Think about how cities like Knoxville, Los Angeles, even Bethesda, MD, will have to be almost totally redeveloped to achieve this goal. The costs will be astronomical. (Consider also the psychological cost of everyone having to live identically to everyone else.)
- that the region should include a framework of transit, pedestrian, and bicycle systems that provide alternatives to the automobile.
The Block and the Building
- that civic buildings should be distinctive and appropriate to a role more important than the other buildings that constitute the fabric of the city.Reminiscent of Nazi German: government is the most important entity thus their buildings should reflect that sentiment.
- that the harmonious and orderly evolution of urban areas should be secured through form-based codes. p3 I recommend that you check out The Ideal Communist City by Alexei Gutnov et al. to see what is envisioned to replace our often beautiful, sometimes eclectic cities and towns; harmonious and orderly means cookie-cutter, stack-em and pack-em buildings with zero personality. Forget gingerbread, forget picture windows; even a Potempkin Village is out of the realm of our new reality.
- that the transect Zone descriptions on table 1 shall constitute the intent of this code with regard to the general character of each of these environments. p4.
TAKE NOTE
- twenty years after the approval of a regulating plan, each transect Zone, except the t1 natural and t2 rural Zones, shall be automatically rezoned to the successional (next higher) transect Zone, unless denied in public hearing by the legislative body. p 5. Read that closely; after 20 years of Sustainable Development there will be far few humans, thus the space set aside for their habitation can be reduced, eventually eliminating all areas of habitation except the infill growth sector (core); the other zones will eventually revert to t1 and t2, wildlands and corridors.
- regional plansshall integrate the largest practical geographic area, overlapping property lines as necessary and municipal boundaries if possible. p5. (led by unelected councils)..
- the areas to be designated preserved open sector (o-1) shall be mapped using the criteria listed in section 2.3. the outline of this sector is effectively the rural boundary line, which is permanent. (bold, mine) p6. It is only permanent vis a vis human encroachment; the line with be drawn ever outward as humans are removed.
- A system for the gradual transfer of Development rights (tDr) shall be established and administered for the purpose of transferring development rights from the reserved open sector (o-2) to the Growth sectors as set forth in section 2.4.3.
- the preserved open sector shall consist of open space that is protected from development in perpetuity.(bold, mine)
- the preserved open sector includes areas under envi-ronmental protection by law or regulation, as well as land acquired for conservation through purchase, by easement, or by past transfer of Development rights. p6
- the reserved open sector shall consist of open space thatshould be, but is not yet, protected from development. p7. (Like PacMan they will get to it eventually.)
- the reserved open sector is a transfer of Development rights (tDr) sending area, for the gradual sale of rights for development in the controlled Growth sector and the intended Growth sector. An owner who has purchased such development rights may exceed the allocated Densities of new communities as set forth in section 3.8 and table 14b. Areas from where development rights have been transferred shall be designated Preserved Open Sector.The Planning Office shall maintain a record of such transfers, updating the regional map accordingly. p7
- the restricted Growth sector shall be assigned to areas that have value as open space but nevertheless are subject to development, either because the zoning has already been granted or because there is no legally defensible reason, in the long term, to deny it.(bold, mine) Within the restricted Growth sector, clustered land Development (clD) shall be permitted by right. p7.
- lawn shall be permitted only by Warrant. p13.(This doesn’t mean you can plant a garden where your lawn once was.)
- the public Frontage shall include trees planted in a regularly-spaced Allee pattern of single or alternated species with shade canopies of a height that, at maturity, clears at least one story. p13. (Look at the plans, they dictate where trees are to be placed and which species are allowed.)
- Designations for Mandatory and/or recommended retail Frontage requiring or advising that a building provide a Shopfront at Sidewalk level along the entire length of its private Frontage. the shopfront shall be no less than 70% glazed in clear glass and shaded by an awning overlapping the Sidewalk as generally illustrated in Table 7 and specified in Article 5. The first floor shall be confined to retail use through the depth
There is so much more and you can download the entire SmartCode, go about halfway down the page linked here.
We Americans (and the rest of the world, yes, but right now I am most concerned about the fate of the once freest country every conceived by man) are being forced, incrementally, into slavery or death. So many good, well-meaning people say, “Don’t worry, when they come for my property I will meet them with my guns.” If only it were that simple.
Instead we are being moved out of our property through fees, taxes, regulations and zoning. By the time the powers-that-be decide it is time to bring out the guns, most of us will not be living that once-great American Dream with a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot. We will be in high-density, stack-em and pack-em housing sharing our meager food and water (if we have any) with too many other people as well as rats and other vermin.
This is probably our last chance to stop Agenda21 Sustainable Development and the global elites. We must do it at the local level, halting the regionalization before it becomes what it is intended: socialism, communism, whatever.
I watch my neighbors buying more and more toys and fancier cars, adding ever more elaborate detailing to their heavily-mortgaged homes and enjoying the mindless pleasures offered them by mainstream media. Ignorance might be bliss at this moment, but what will it be like when the financial collapse hits?
May the Lord help us, we don’t seem to be doing the job.
Tom DeWeese: THE GROWING ASSAULT ON PRIVATE PROPERTY – ARE SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES “RACIST?”
by Tom DeWeese
One of the main indicators used by economists to measure the health of the nation’s economy is housing starts – the number of private homes being built around the nation. In 2018 housing starts fell in all four regions of the nation, representing the biggest drop since 2016.
While many economists point to issues such as higher material costs as a reason for the drop in housing starts, a much more ominous reason may be emerging. Across the nation, city councils and state legislatures are beginning to remove zoning protections for single-family neighborhoods, claiming they are racist discrimination designed to keep certain minorities out of such neighborhoods. In response to these charges some government officials are calling for the end of single-family homes in favor of multiple family apartments.
- Minneapolis, Minnesota: the city council is moving to remove zoning that protects single-family neighborhoods, instead planning to add apartment buildings in the mix. The mayor actually said such zoning was “devised as a legal way to keep black Americans and other minorities from moving into certain neighborhoods”. Racist, social injustice are the charges
- Chicago, Illinois: So-called “affordable housing” advocates have filed a federal complaint against the longtime tradition of allowing City Aldermen veto power over most development proposals in their wards, charging that it promotes discrimination by keeping low-income minorities from moving into affluent white neighborhoods. Essentially the complaint seeks to remove the Aldermen’s ability to represent their own constituents.
- Baltimore, Maryland: The NAACP filed a suit against the city charging that Section 8 public housing causes ghettos because they are all put into the same areas of town. They won the suit and now the city must spend millions of dollars to move such housing into more affluent neighborhoods. In addition, landlords are no longer permitted to ask potential tenants if they can afford the rent on their properties.
- Oregon: Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives Tina Kotek (D-Portland) is drafting legislation that would end single-family zoning in cities of 10,000 or more. She claims there is a housing shortage crisis and that economic and racial segregation are caused by zoning restrictions.
Such identical policies don’t just simultaneously spring up across the country by accident. There is a force behind it. The root of these actions are found in “fair housing” policies dictated by the federal Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD). The affected communities have all taken HUD grants. There is very specific language in those grants that suggest single family homes are a cause of discrimination. Specifically, through the HUD program called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), the agency is taking legal action against communities that use “discriminating zoning ordinances that discourage the development of affordable, multifamily housing…”. The suits are becoming a widely used enforcement tool for the agency.
To enforce its social engineering policies HUD demands the following from communities that have applied for or taken HUD grants:
- First, HUD forces the community to complete an “Assessment of Fair Housing” to identify all “contributing factors” to discrimination. These include a complete breakdown of race, income levels, religion, and national origin of every single person living there. They use this information to determine if the neighborhood meets a preset “balance,” determined by HUD.
- Second, HUD demands a detailed plan showing how the community intends to eliminate the “contributing factors” to this “imbalance.”
- Once the plan is prepared, then the community is required to sign an agreement to take no actions that are “materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing.”
Americans who have grown up experiencing private home ownership as the root to personal prosperity must quickly learn of the threat of the HUD/AFFH program. They must fully understand why cities like Chicago, Minneapolis and Baltimore and states like Oregon have suddenly announced actions to eliminate single-family home zoning. These cities have already taken the grant poison and must now comply. The ultimate government game is to reorganize our cities into massive urban areas where single-family neighborhoods are replaced by the Sustainable/Smart Growth model of “Stack and Pack,” wall-to-wall apartment buildings.
To the frustration of those Sustainablists determined to change our entire economic system, the legal protection of private property rights and ownership have proven to be a roadblock for implementation. New York Mayor William DeBlasio best expressed the frustration of those driving to control community development when he was quoted in New York Magazine saying, “What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it and what the rent will be.”
Most importantly, HUD and its social engineering advocates have sold these so-called sustainable policies using the well-worn excuse that such programs are simply to help lower income families to succeed. In fact, these programs are actually at the very root of why many of them are NOT succeeding.
The immediate result of eliminating single-family homes and in turn, destroying private property rights, is to degrade the property values of the homes so many have worked to build. It used to be called the American dream. Now it’s labeled racism, discrimination, and social injustice.
Eradicating poverty is the most popular excuse for the expansion of government power. Yet, it’s interesting to note that not a single government program, from the federal to the local level, offers any plan for eradicating poverty except the well-worn and unworkable scheme of wealth redistribution. After decades of following such a failed policy the only result is that we have more poor.
Today, as demonstrated in Oregon, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Chicago, we hear the claims that there is a “housing crisis” and so government must take a dramatic step to solve the very crisis is has created. As economist Thomas Sowell has said, “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
It is interesting to note that, as private property ownership shrinks under these misguided policies, so too does the nation’s wealth. Sustainable policies are at the root of nearly every local, state, and federal program. Each step diminishes individual freedom, personal and national prosperity, and the destruction of the hopes and dream of every American. The American Policy Center is determined to lead the fight to end this misnamed and disastrous ‘Sustainable’ course for our country.
TOM DEWEESE: Green New Deal Reveals the Naked Truth of Agenda 21
by Tom DeWeese
Sometimes if you fight hard enough and refuse to back down, no matter the odds, your truth is vindicated and prevails!
For twenty years I have been labeled a conspiracy theorist, scaremonger, extremist, dangerous, nut case. I’ve been denied access to stages, major news programs, and awarded tin foil hats. All because I have worked to expose Agenda 21 and its policy of sustainable development as a danger to our property rights, economic system, and culture of freedom.
From its inception in 1992 at the United Nation’s Earth Summit, 50,000 delegates, heads of state, diplomats and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) hailed Agenda 21 as the “comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society.” The 350-page, 40 chapter, Agenda 21 document was quite detailed and explicit in its purpose and goals. They warned us that the reorganization would be dictated through all-encompassing policies affecting every aspect of our lives, using environmental protection simply as the excuse to pull at our emotions and get us to voluntarily surrender our liberties.
Section I details “Social and Economic Dimensions” of the plan, including redistribution of wealth to eradicate poverty, maintain health through vaccinations and modern medicine, and population control.
To introduce the plan, the Earth Summit Chairman, Maurice Strong boldly proclaimed, “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.” Of course, according to the plan, if it’s not “sustainable” it must be stopped.
In support of the plan, David Brower of the Sierra Club (one of the NGO authors of the agenda) said, “Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license.” Leading environmental groups advocated that the Earth could only support a maximum of one billion people, leading famed Dr. Jacques Cousteau to declare, “In order to stabilize world populations, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.”
Section II provides the “Conservation and Management of Resources for Development” by outlining how environmental protection was to be the main weapon, including global protection of the atmosphere, land, mountains, oceans, and fresh waters – all under the control of the United Nations.
To achieve such global control to save the planet, it is necessary to eliminate national sovereignty and independent nations. Eliminating national borders quickly led to the excuse for openly allowing the “natural migration” of peoples. The UN Commission on Global Governance clearly outlined the goal for global control stating, “The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.” That pretty much explains why the supporters of such a goal go a little off the rails when a presidential candidate makes his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
The main weapon for the Agenda was the threat of Environmental Armageddon, particularly manifested through the charge of man-made global warming, later to conveniently become “climate change.” It didn’t matter if true science refused to cooperate in this scheme as actual global temperatures really are not rising and there continues to be no evidence of any man-made affect on the climate. Truth hasn’t been important to the scare mongers. Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation said, “We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” To further drive home their complete lack of concern for truth, Paul Watson of Green Peace declared, “It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
So in their zealotry to enforce the grand agenda, social justice became the “moral force” over the rule of law as free enterprise, private property, rural communities and individual consumption habits became the targets, labeled as racist and a social injustice. Such established institutions and free market economics were seen as obstructions to the plan, as were traditional family units, religion, and those who were able to live independently in rural areas.
Finally, Agenda 21 was summed up in supporting documents this way: “Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced. It requires a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals, and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.”
Of course, such harsh terms had to be hidden from the American people if the plan was to be successfully imposed. They called it a “suggestion” for “voluntary” action – just in case a nation or community wanted to do something positive for mankind! However, while using such innocent-sounding language, the Agenda 21 shock troops lost no time pushing it into government policy. In 1992, just after its introduction at the Earth Summit, Nancy Pelosi introduced a resolution of support for the plan into Congress. It’s interesting to note that she boldly called it a “comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society.” In 1993, new President, Bill Clinton ordered the establishment of the President’s Council for Sustainable Development, with the express purpose of enforcing the Agenda 21 blueprint into nearly every agency of the federal government to assure it became the law of the land. Then the American Planning Association issued a newsletter in 1994, supporting Agenda 21’s ideas as a “comprehensive blueprint” for local planning. So much for a voluntary idea!
However, as we, the opponents started to gain some ground in exposing its true purpose and citizens began to storm city halls protesting local implementation, suddenly the once proud proponents lost their collective memories about Agenda 21. Never heard of it! “There are no blue-helmeted troops at city hall,” said one proponent, meaning policies being used to impose it were not UN driven, but just “local, local, local”. “Oh, you mean that innocuous 20 year-old document that has no enforcement capability? This isn’t that!” These were the excuses that rained down on us from the planners, NGOs and government agents as they scrambled to hide their true intentions.
I was attacked on the front page of the New York Times Sunday paper under the headline, “Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot.” The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) produced four separate reports on my efforts to stop it, calling our efforts an “Antigovernment Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory.” The Atlantic magazine ran a story entitled, “Is the UN Using Bike Paths to Achieve World Domination?” Attack articles appeared in the Washington Post, Esquire magazine, Wingnut Watch, Mother Jones, and Tree Hugger.com to name a few. All focused on labeling our opposition as tin-foil-hat-wearing nut jobs. Meanwhile, an alarmed American Planning Association (APA) created an “Agenda 21: Myths and Facts page on its web site to supposedly counter our claims. APA then organized a “Boot Camp” to retrain its planners to deal with us, using a “Glossary for the Public,” teaching them new ways to talk about planning. Said the opening line of the Glossary, “Given the heightened scrutiny of planners by some members of the public, what is said – or not said – is especially important in building support for planning.” The Glossary went on to list words not to use like “Public Visioning,” “Stakeholders,” “Density,” and “Smart Growth,” because such words make the “Critics see red”.
Local elected officials, backed by NGO groups and planners, began to deride local activists – sometimes denying them access to speak at public meetings, telling them that Agenda 21 conspiracy theory has “been debunked”. Most recently an irate city councilman answered a citizen who claimed local planning was part of Agenda 21 by saying “this is what’s “trending.” So, of course, if everyone is doing it is must be right!
Such has been our fight to stop this assault on our culture and Constitutional rights.
Over the years, since the introduction of Agenda 21 in 1992, the United Nations has created several companion updates to the original documents. This practice serves two purposes. One is to provide more detail on how the plan is to be implemented. The second is to excite its global activists with a new rallying cry. In 2000, the UN held the Millennium Summit, launching the Millennium Project featuring eight goals for global sustainability to be reached by 2015. Then, when those goals were not achieved, the UN held another summit in New York City in September of 2015, this time outlining 17 goals to be reached by 2030. This document became known as the 2030 Agenda, containing the exact same goals as were first outlined in Agenda 21in 1992, and then again in 2000, only with each new incarnation offering more explicit direction for completion.
Enter the Green New Deal, representing the boldest tactic yet. The origins and the purpose of the Green New Deal couldn’t be more transparent. The forces behind Agenda 21 and its goal of reorganizing human society have become both impatient and scared. Impatient that 27 years after Agenda 21 was introduced, and after hundreds of meetings, planning sessions, massive propaganda, and billions of dollars spent, the plan still is not fully in place. Scared because people around the world are starting to learn its true purpose and opposition is beginning to grow.
So the forces behind the Agenda have boldly thrown off their cloaking devices and their innocent sounding arguments that they just want to protect the environment and make a better life for us all. Instead, they are now openly revealing that their goal is socialism and global control, just as I’ve been warning about for these past twenty years. Now they are determined to take congressional action to finally make it the law of the land.
Take a good look, those of you who have heard my warnings about Agenda 21 over the years. Do you see the plan I have warned about being fully in place in this Green New Deal?
- I warned that Agenda 21 would control every aspect of our lives, including how and were we live, the jobs we have, the mode of transportation available to us, and even what we eat. The Green New Deal is a tax on everything we do, make, wear, eat, drink, drive, import, export and even breathe.
- In opposing Smart Growth plans in your local community, I said the main goal was to eliminate cars, to be replaced with bikes, walking, and light rail trains. The Green New Deal calls for the elimination of the internal combustion engine. Stay alert. The next step will be to put a ban on the sale of new combustion engines by a specific date and then limiting the number of new vehicles to be sold. Bans on commercial truck shipping will follow. Then they will turn to airplanes, reducing their use. Always higher and higher taxes will be used to get the public to “voluntarily” reduce their use of such personal transportation choices. That’s how it works, slowly but steadily towards the goal.
- I warned that under Smart Growth programs now taking over every city in the nation that single-family homes are a target for elimination, to be replaced by high-rise stack and pack apartments in the name of reducing energy use. That will include curfews on carbon heating systems, mandating they be turned off during certain hours. Heating oil devises will become illegal. Gradually, energy use of any kind will be continually reduced. The Green New Deal calls for government control of every single home, office and factory to tear down or retrofit them to comply with massive environmental energy regulations.
- I warned that Agenda 21 Sustainable policy sought to drive those in rural areas off the farms and into the cities where they could be better controlled. Those in the cities will be ordered to convert their gardens into food producers. Most recently I warned that the beef industry is a direct target for elimination. It will start with mandatory decreases in meat consumption until it disappears form our daily diet. The consumption of dairy will follow. Since the revelation of the Green New Deal the national debate is now over cattle emissions of methane and the drive to eliminate them from the planet. Controlling what we eat is a major part of the Green New Deal.
- I warned that part of the plan for Agenda 2030 was “Zero Economic Growth.” The Green New Deal calls for a massive welfare plan where no one earns more than anyone else. Incentive to get ahead is dead. New inventions would disrupt their plan for a well-organized, controlled society. So, where will jobs come from after we have banned most manufacturing, shut down most stores, stopped single-family home construction, closed the airline industry, and severely regulated farms and the entire food industry? This is their answer to the hated free markets and individual choice.
The Green New Deal will destroy the very concept of our Constitutional Republic, eliminating private property, locally elected representative government, free markets and individual freedom. All decisions in our lives will be made for us by the government – just to protect the environment of course. They haven’t forgotten how well that scheme works to keep the masses under control.
Though the label “Green New Deal” has been passing around globalist circles for a while, it’s interesting that its leaders have now handed it to a naïve, inexperienced little girl from New York who suddenly found herself rise from bartending to a national media sensation, almost over nigh. That doesn’t just happen and there is no miracle here. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a created product. They probably needed her inexperienced enthusiasm to deliver the Green New Deal because no established politician would touch it. Now that it’s been introduced and she is set up to take the heat, the gates have swung open allowing forty-five members of Congress to co-sponsor it in the House of Representatives as established Senator Ed. Markey (D-MA) has sponsored it in the Senate. That doesn’t just happen either. Nothing has been left to chance.
Behind the sudden excitement and rush to support it are three radical groups each having direct ties to George Soros, including the Sunrise Movement – which markets itself as an “army of young people” seeking to make climate change a major priority. Justice Democrats – which finds and recruits progressive candidates, and New Consensus – organized to change how we think about issues. Leaders of these groups have connections with other Soros-backed movements including Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street. According to The New Yorker magazine, the plan was written over a single weekend in December, 2018. Ocasio-Cortez was included in the effort, chosen to introduce it. This may be the single reason why she was able to appear out of nowhere to become the new darling of the radical left.
So there you have it — Agenda 21, the Millennium Project, Agenda 2030, the Green New Deal. Progress in the world of Progressives! They warned us from the beginning that their plan was the “comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society”. And so it is to be the total destruction of our way of life.
To all of those elected officials, local, state and federal, who have smirked at we who have tried to sound the alarm, look around you now, hot shots! You have denied, ignored, and yet, helped put these very plans into place. Are you prepared to accept what you have done? Will you allow your own homes and offices to be torn down – or will you be exempt as part of the elite or just useful idiots? Will you have to give up your car and ride your bike to work? Or is that just for we peasants?
Over these years you have listened to the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, ICLEI, the American Planning Association, and many more, as they assured you their plans were just environmental protection, just good policy for future generations. They have been lying to you to fulfill their own agenda! Well, now the truth is right in front of you. There is no question of who and what is behind this. And no doubt as to what the final result will be.
Now, our elected leaders have to ask real questions. As the Green New Deal is implemented, and all energy except worthless, unworkable wind and solar are put into place, are you ready for the energy curfews that you will be forced to impose, perhaps each night as the sun fades, forcing factories, restaurants, hospitals, and stores to close at dusk? How about all those folks forced to live in the stack and pack high-rises when the elevators don’t operate? What if they have an emergency?
How much energy will it take to rebuild those buildings that must be destroyed or retrofitted to maker them environmentally correct for your brave new world? Where will it come from after you have banned and destroyed all the workable sources of real energy? What are you counting on to provide you with food, shelter, and the ability to travel so you can continue to push this poison? Because – this is what’s trending — now! And how is it going to be financed when the entire economy crashes under its weight? Is it really the future you want for you, your family, and your constituents who elected you?
Every industry under attack by this lunacy should now join our efforts to stop it. Cattlemen, farmers, airlines, the auto industry, realtors, tourist industry, and many more, all will be put out of business – all should now take bold action to immediately kill this plan before it kills your industry. Stomp it so deeply into the ground that no politician will ever dare think about resurrecting it.
For years I’ve watched politicians smirk, roll their eyes, and sigh whenever the words Agenda 21 were uttered. As George Orwell said, “The further a society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those who speak it”. Today I stand vindicated in my warnings of where Agenda 21 was truly headed, because it’s not longer me having to reveal the threat. They are telling you themselves. Here’s the naked truth – Socialism is for the stupid. The Green New Deal is pure Socialism. How far its perpetrators get in enforcing it depends entirely on how hard you are willing to fight for freedom. Kill it now or watch it die.
APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2019/02/25/green-new-deal-reveals-the-naked-truth-of-agenda-21/
Tom DeWeese: A Challenge to The American Planning Association
A Challenge to The American Planning Association-
“…it’s interesting to note that the American Planning Association is part of the Planners Network.”
by Tom DeWeese
In nearly every community of the nation the policy called Sustainable is the catch-all term for local planning programs, from water and energy controls to building codes and traffic planning. The term “sustainable” was first used in the 1987 report called “Our Common Future,’ issued by the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development (UNCED). The term appeared in full force in 1992 in a United Nations initiative called Agenda 21.
According to proponents, the official definition of Sustainable Development is “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In 1993, the UN further described its purpose, saying, “Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced.” The most often used phrase to describe Sustainable policy is that it’s a “comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society.”
These are strong pronouncements concerning our future. How could such ideas be imposed? Who could coordinate such an effort to reorganize our entire society? There are many private non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government agencies involved in creating and implementing the national sustainable policy program on the state and local levels. But there is one that seems to stand in the center of them all.
The American Planning Association (APA) is the premier planning group operating across the nation. It has a long history in the development process, thus is trusted by elected officials to be a responsible force as they spread the gospel of “common sense” community planning to assure healthy, happy neighborhoods from which all may benefit. Above all, the APA strenuously denies any connection to the United Nations or any silly conspiracy theories like the so-called Agenda 21! Everything the APA promotes, they assure us, is based on local input for local solutions to local development planning. Here is a solid group you can trust!
So, it’s interesting to note that the American Planning Association is part of the Planners Network. The network is officially run by a group called the Organization of Progressive Planners. According to the Network’s website, it’s “an association of professionals, activists, academics, and students involved in physical, social, economic, and environmental planning in urban and rural areas, who promote fundamental change in our political and economic systems.”
On a visit to the website PlannersNetwork.org, one will find in its Statement of Principles this quote: “We believe planning should be a tool for allocating resources…and eliminating the great inequalities of wealth and power in our society … because the free market has proven incapable of doing this.”
That statement is advocating redistribution of wealth, social justice and even aspects of psychological manipulation, also called social engineering. That, then, is what nearly every planning group in nearly every community advocate in their planning programs. It is clearly the official policy of the American Planning Association. Still the APA insists that its planning has nothing to do with Agenda 21, even though APA’s planning goals are the exact goals of Agenda 21, and its undated version called the 2030Agenda.
Tactics used by the American Planning Association
Okay, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. How do planning groups like the APA really control opinions and gain support for their planning ideas? How do they overcome the fears as they impose plans that destroy private property and change the entire structure of the community?
Here’s a recent example:
A few years ago, with great fanfare, the American Planning Association (APA) reported results of a survey the group had conducted, “Planning America: Perceptions and Priorities,” showing that the anti-Agenda 21 “crowd is slim.” Said the report, only 6% of those surveyed expressed opposition to Agenda 21, while 9% expressed support for Agenda 21 and 85%, “the vast majority of respondents, don’t know about Agenda 21/2030.”
Typically, APA is using the survey to formulate the image that opponents to Agenda 21/Sustainable Development are just a lunatic fringe with no standing and of no consequence in the “real” world. They continue to portray Agenda 21 as simply a 20- year-old idea, and just a suggestion that planners and local governments might consider.
However, a closer look at the full survey, plus additional APA reports reveal some interesting and, in some cases, astounding facts.
First the survey:
It was designed to show public support for “Planning.” This has become an obsession with the “planning community” because of the growing opposition to Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development.
According to the APA, the findings of the Survey reveal that: only one-third believe their communities are doing enough to address economic situations; it says that very few Americans believe that market forces alone (the free market) improve the economy or encourage job growth; 84 % feel that their community is getting worse or staying the same; community planning is seen as needed by a wide majority of all demographics.
Those are pretty astounding findings. It looks like these “honest” planners have their fingers on the pulse of the nation. Well, not so fast. Let’s look at the actual questions the APA asked to get these results.
For example, Finding #4: Community planning is seen as needed by a wide majority of all demographics (79% agree; 9% disagree; and 12% don’t know). Wow!
But here is the actual question that was asked: “Generally, do you agree or disagree that your community could benefit from a community plan as defined above?” The definition provided in order to answer the question was this: “Community planning is a process that seeks to engage all members of a community to create more prosperous, convenient, equitable, healthy and attractive places for present and future generations.”
Asking the question in that manner is akin to holding up a picture of a rent-a-wreck car, along side one of a Ferrari and asking which one would they want to drive. Give me the pretty one please – say 79%. In fact, in some actual planning meetings they do just that – hold up a picture of the downtown area depicting decaying, dreary buildings versus one of a shining, beautiful utopia, and they literally say, “which one do you want?” If the answer is (of course) the pretty one, then, YES, the community supports planning!
It’s obvious that the APA is playing word games with its surveys and definitions of planning. No wonder such an overwhelming majority answer in the affirmative to such questions. And, yes, maybe a lot of Americans don’t know what Agenda 21 really is. However, if the APA asked real questions that gave a solid clue as to the planning they actually have in mind, it’s fairly certain they would get a much different response – whether the person answering had ever heard of Agenda 21 or not.
For example, listed below are some sample questions that could help the APA take the real pulse of the community – if they wanted to be honest. I challenge the American Planning Association to ask
THESE questions in their next survey:
10 Real Questions Planners Should Ask the Public
1. How do the citizens feel about planning policy that forces them to move from their single- family homes with the garage for the car/s and a backyard for the kids to play with the neighbor kids? Do they want to live in a high-rise where they have to take their kids down 12 flights of stairs and walk to the designated play park? Do they still support such “Planning?”
2. How do the citizens feel about planning with a goal to eventually ban cars? This will be accomplished by planning programs that will narrow or eliminate roads, making it harder to drive cars, then eliminates parking spaces, then forces cars to “share the road” with bicycles and foot traffic as regulations are put in place to make it illegal to even pass this slower traffic? Do they still support such “Planning?”
3. How do the citizens feel about planning that enforces the creation of light- rail public transportation with a limited number of riders – yet cost overruns could triple or quadruple their taxes so much that it would literally be cheaper to buy each potential rider a brand new Rolls Royce, and even throw in a chauffeur for good measure? Do they want to live without a car that would take them wherever they want to go, be it the grocery or the beach, on their schedule instead of a government created train or bus schedule? Do they still support such “Planning?”
4. How do the citizens feel about planning with today’s mandatory smart meters that can overcharge users by 284%? What if such planning forced you to buy all new appliances which can be controlled and even turned off by the utility company without warning – all to enforce energy-use levels as required by arbitrary and unsubstantiated “planning standards,” Do they still support such “Planning?”
5. How do the citizens feel about planning that forces taxpayers to pay for plug-in stations for electric cars that hardly anyone wants or uses, for the specific purpose of eventually forcing people to buy electric cars? Do they still support such “Planning?”
6. How do the citizens feel about planning that creates non-elected boards, councils, and regional governments to enforce their UN-inspired policies, which actually diminish (if not eliminate) the power of the local officials they elected, severely reducing citizen input into policy? Do they still support such “Planning?”
7. How do the citizens feel about planning that forces all housing to conform to specific government design, including projects of multi-family buildings that are forced into their neighborhoods, resulting in the reduction of property values and freedom of choice as to where and how each may live? Do they still support such “Planning?”
8. How do the citizens feel about planning that enforces international building codes and international electrical and plumbing codes designed to require major retrofitting in existing and new buildings to comply, including enforcing every building to look alike, have the same setbacks and even the same trees and shrubs. The result is the creation of a one size fits all society, ignoring local needs and desires of the residents? Do they still support “Planning?”
9. How do the citizens feel about planning that forces rental property owners and landlords to take in tenants that can’t afford their properties, so that they are forced to accept far less income for their investment, which will mean they cannot afford to maintain the property and earn their living, thereby destroying the rental industry and reducing housing choices? Do they still support “Planning?”
10. How do the citizens feel about planning that uses the power of eminent domain to take property and destroy small, locally owned businesses from lower income and ethnic neighborhoods, forcing the former residents into federal housing programs where their only option is to rent rather than having the chance to build equity and personal wealth through home ownership in the American Dream? Do they still have compassion for such “Planning?”
These are the realities of Sustainable Development planning programs, usually under the term Smart Growth. These policies are taking over local governments across the nation and the victims are mounting. Yet the planners ignore these results as they get fat off the federal grants that enforce the Sustainable plans.
Challenge the American Planning Association to stop whitewashing their plans into sounding like innocent, non-intrusive local ideas for community development. Ask the questions so that they reflect the real consequences of the plans, and then see if the 85% now are so eager to ignore the effects of Sustainable Development. The number one truth about the Sustainable policies that the APA imposes on every community is that none of it is LOCAL!
There is only one right approach for a community to come together to discuss and solve common problems: open discussion, honest debates and votes, and above all, a full concentration on the protection of private property rights as the ultimate decider.
This article is taken from information included in Tom DeWeese’s new book, “Sustainable, The WAR on Free Enterprise, Private Property, and Individuals.” Book details and ordering may be found at www.sustainabledevelopment.com
Tom DeWeese: Every Step Makes a Difference- A Really Great Month!
Every Step Makes a Difference- A Really Great Month! – “If this election has proven anything to us, it’s that those who have had power will stop at nothing to keep it.”
by Tom DeWeese
I founded the American Policy Center (APC) thirty years ago, back in 1986. I had goals to accomplish and dreams for success. Mostly I just wanted to make a difference in protecting our culture and our unique American form of government as a republic that protects the individual, the free market and the security of our homes.
Over the years, I’ve focused on issues including personal privacy, illegal immigration, public education, and of course the assault on our very way of life through the UN’s creation of Agenda 21. I know that APC has had an impact on these issues. But I never really knew just how to measure our reach or success. Have I been able to make the difference I had hoped for? Have I changed lives? Well, over the past few weeks I was finally able to get an idea of my reach and it came in several very surprising ways.
As the results came in that Donald Trump had won his surprise victory to the White House, I saw that, finally, we had a definite opportunity to make a real difference. Finally, we could change the national direction that has been barreling unchecked toward a federal dictatorship. It was equally crystal clear that, as with the Obama Administration, under a Hillary Clinton administration there would have been no hope of affecting presidential policy.
So, my first reaction to the Trump victory was to help get the right people into positions in the Administration where they could affect policy. I quickly sent out an APC Sledgehammer Action Alert asking supporters across the nation to write to the Trump team in support of two very able local officials. I nominated one to serve in the EPA and the other to serve as Secretary of HUD. I felt nothing was more important than to have these two agencies run by people who would stop the assault on private property and industry. In fact, I believe that if that was the only accomplishment of a Donald Trump presidency then that would be enough to assure a strong future for our nation.
To my surprise, after issuing the alert, I received many emails from supporters telling me they had sent in my name to be HUD Secretary. That was very unexpected. It’s a heady feeling to know people have such respect for you. Of course, Ben Carson is now up for the job. But this was only the beginning of what was to come.
Next, a very powerful political leader from South Carolina contacted me to say he had offered my name to the Trump team for a position in the Department of Interior. Wow, I thought, I had never even considered such a thing. Yet, wouldn’t it be great for them to appoint me as head of the BLM. I’d free the Bundys from jail. I’d begin a process to give lands back to the states and open even more areas that has been locked away from human use. Yes, that would be interesting. I then posted this news on Facebook and was overwhelmed by the number of comments I received by very excited people who certainly wanted to see me in such a position.
Just a few of days later I was to receive the biggest shock of all. Richard Viguerie—the long time Conservative leader and Washington, DC icon—posted an article in his daily online report “Conservative HQ,” listing what new HUD Secretary Carson would need to succeed in that post. As I read the article my head almost blew off. It proposed three people Carson should add to his team. My name was included on that very short, impressive list. Said the report: “Mr. DeWeese has been a fierce opponent of HUD’s overreach and perhaps more than anyone has been able to capture the emotional impact Americans feel when they are deprived of their property rights by AFFH and other HUD overreaches.” Mr. Viguerie’s HQ Report is read by approximately 100,000 people, many of them are major Conservative and political leaders from around the nation. To be recognized by such a powerhouse is certainly an honor.
My heady couple of weeks in the sun was about to get even better as I was invited to attend a special Climate Change briefing sponsored by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), to be held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building hearing room on Capital Hill. CEI heads up a group called the Cooler Heads Coalition, which is made up of groups and policy makers working to expose the global warming scam and fight policy to enforce it.
There were three speakers for the event, including Dr. Timothy Ball, a Canadian. He is an author of several books exposing the global warming hype. The featured speaker for the briefing was recently elected Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts. He has caused quite a stir in the Australian government as he has already established himself as an aggressive opponent to that country’s climate change policies.
I had never met or corresponded with either of these men. While I was talking to a few folks by the hearing room, a man walked up to me and in his Australian accent said, “You’re Tom DeWeese, aren’t you?” It was Senator Roberts. Somehow he recognized me and complimented my “outstanding work.” He said he had been reading my materials for years.
Read Tom DeWeese’s book, “Erase: A Political Thriller”
As the program opened, Dr. Ball began to speak, using his power point presentation. To my surprise he brought up a slide depicting the United Nation’s power structure clearly showing Agenda 21 as the center of the plans to enforce climate change policy and bring on global governance.
The reason that was such a surprise too me was the fact that, in the 20 years I have lead the fight against Agenda 21, I have been ignored and stonewalled by many leading conservative groups as they refused to even utter the words Agenda 21. Now, here in a Senate hearing room was a man they respected and had come to absorb his wisdom. And what was he saying? Exactly the message I had been trying to get them to hear all these years. After the program, I went up to thank Dr. Ball to talk about Agenda 21. I mentioned my struggle to reach some of these folks about Agenda 21. He said he understood. He said he didn’t believe the dire warnings about Agenda 21 at first either. Then he started to read my articles and that had led him to the truth. He said he knew my work well.
Next up was Senator Roberts to address the group. He was magnificent in his presentation. He hit all the right points on the global warming farce, backed by a genuine passion for the fight to stop it. But my biggest shock was about to be dropped on me. As he spoke, making his points, he suddenly said my name. In fact, not once, but three times! He told the crowd about how I was a leader in the fight, producing effective and important materials. To understand the significance of that fact, you must know the culture of Capital Hill. When someone of influence and respect, like Senator Roberts, starts pointing out your achievements, not once, but three times, it gets noticed! And it certainly was that day. Suddenly, after the program a lot of people wanted to say hello to me.
I tell these stories not to toot my horn, but to make a specific point. These two weeks of activity, being endorsed to serve in the new administration and recognized by strong leaders was vindication for the reach and impact that I and the American Policy Center have made. The excitement of so many supporters to accept that I might have an influence from inside the Trump Administration is a testament to APC’s never wavering battle to get the truth out. Senator Robert’s remarks simply confirmed to me that APC clearly has an international reach and is making a difference in world wide policy. It certainly tells me that the fight thus far has been worth it. People are listening to APC and me. Now, with this new administration we really do have a once in a lifetime opportunity to restore our precious Republic and stamp out the growing tyranny that has threatened it.
There is another lesson in this for all the local activists who work so hard in their own communities; those who sometimes get discouraged because they don’t win the fight. Please learn this truth – what you do has an impact, no matter how insignificant you think your efforts may be. Writing a letter to the editor or speaking out in a meeting just might be the spark that moves someone else to take major steps forward, like a random article that moves a future Senator in Australia to lead the effort to change his nation’s policy.
I don’t know if I will get a position in this Administration. To tell you the truth, all I want is an open line into some of the agencies I have been fighting all these years, especially HUD. If I can become a resource of ideas to Secretary Carson I couldn’t ask for more. I shall pursue that opportunity to make it reality.
However, all of us on the front lines in the battle to preserve property rights and stop government tyranny must recognize one vital fact. A Trump presidency will not solve these problems for us. We must continue to be in the trenches fighting. If this election has proven anything to us, it’s that those who have had power will stop at nothing to keep it. If we now go home and think all is solved, nothing will change.
Those Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and planning groups operating in every community in the nation are not going to give up their power and influence – and the money that goes with it. We are going to have to fight trench warfare to boot them out and restore local control over government. We must fight in the grass roots to force the federal government to act against these runaway agencies. We must teach elected officials of the dangers and how to stand up against such policy. And we must organize local activists to back them up when they do take a courageous stand.
That is the mission of the American Policy Center in this new Era of Trump.
APC: http://americanpolicy.org/2016/12/20/every-step-taken-makes-a-difference-a-really-great-month/
Kathleen Marquardt: The Big Picture
The Big Picture: Recent Globalist Actions with Huge Implications for a Free America – “…Technocracy as the sole global economic system while destroying capitalism and free enterprise. ”
by Kathleen Marquardt
Okay, so far, so good. We have elected a president who says he is going to Make America Great Again. One of his first steps was hiring Myron Ebell to head EPA transition. Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at Competitive Enterprise Institute, has been at this since back in the Wise Use days. If all of Trump’s choices are this good, we can be happy.
But we have two more months of executive orders from Obama and the onslaught of directives on Sustainable Development and other UN initiatives to take control of the world. Quito was the scene of the most recent SD attack, once again putting ICLEI in the driver’s seat. With Habitat III finished, what are cities’ next steps toward implementation?
The Habitat III conference wrapped up last month in Quito, Ecuador, where nations adopted the New Urban Agenda — a 20-year vision on sustainable urbanization. “The agenda sets an important precedent: For the first time, national governments fully embraced much of the language on local sustainable development that has been used by local and subnational governments for the past 20 years. ICLEI has defined three strategic actions that local governments can take, starting tomorrow.
Three actions
1. Establish local commitments.
“Equally important will be to start building the political capital and commitment necessary to push forward sustainable development policies. This can be done by creating campaigns and movements across the political spectrum in order to ensure continuity of action, regardless of changes in the leadership of administrations through elections. “Similarly, local authorities can immediately start developing multi-stakeholder partnerships with local businesses, civil society and academia.
2. Seek sustainable and innovative financing mechanisms.
“Local governments also can advocate for more and better financing opportunities. ICLEI’s Transformative Action Program (TAP) is one important way to connect potential funders and cities with high ambitions and low resources.
3. Raise awareness and advocate for support.
“City leaders can explain the SDGs to citizens and all stakeholders, including local and multinational business, aiming to mobilize them to participate in their implementation. They also will need to put pressure on national counterparts so that they put in place enabling frameworks and inclusive approaches in defining national strategies for SDGs implementation.
Finally, local leaders can seek to develop urban sustainability alliances engaging a variety of stakeholders. This would help giving momentum to concerted local action to implement the SDGs.”
[Read More]
********** FLASH: This came in as I finished putting this blog together:
EPA Chief Urges Staff To Finish Obama’s Agenda Before Trump Takes Over
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urged employees to finish out the last weeks of the Obama administration “running” to finish implementing what they can of the president’s environmental agenda. “As I’ve mentioned to you before, we’re running — not walking — through the finish line of President Obama’s presidency,” EPA Administrator Gina […]
Another venue for destroying American free-trade is the TPP. In early November, the Republicans were bragging that they had the votes to help Obama push it through. The big questions now are, did they hear the message from the people and are they going to listen? If so, they will back off a vote for the TPP, and maybe live (politically) to see another election.
Read Kathleen Marquardt’s Biography
Tom DeWeese: Six Issues That Are Agenda 21
Six Issues That Are Agenda 21 – “These seemingly unrelated policies, once implemented, help enforce the stated Agenda 21 goal of “reorganizing human society.”
by Tom DeWeese
Every day, in meetings at all levels of government, representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), planning groups, and federal agents surround elected representatives and insist that their policies have nothing to do with international agendas. They regularly publish reports and rail against anyone even mentioning the names Agenda 21 or the new Agenda 2030. “No, no, no,” they insist. “Those people are just crazy conspiracy theorists. Ours is just a local plan for our community.”
Elected Representatives are often confused. Issues and policies suddenly appear in front of them with sample, ready-made legislation. And then the unending pressure begins for them to pass it. There is confusion, uncertainty and there is the herd mentality to pass legislation. And it’s passed without knowledge of its origins, its purpose, and especially a lack of understanding of its consequences. “Just do it,” goes the mantra.
What most of these legislators fail to understand is the direct relationship much of this legislation has with a much larger agenda. Most legislation interconnects with other pieces and parts contained in other legislation. Like the children’s song goes…”the toe bone’s connected to the ankle bone…” And it’s done so well, wrapped in innocent-sounding, positive wrapping, so that most elected representatives will argue vigorously that they passed no such thing. And most of all, they will answer, Agenda 21, never heard of it. Just local. Just local. Just local.
Well, let me show you how it works and how the toe bone gets connected to the ankle bone ending up with the Frankenstein monster. Here are six issues that are rarely connected to Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development (especially when we are assured that Agenda 21 has nothing to do with local, state or federal government policy). However, these seemingly unrelated policies, once implemented, help enforce the stated Agenda 21 goal of “reorganizing human society.”
Read Tom DeWeese’s book, “Erase: A Political Thriller”
Issue 1: Global Warming/Climate Change. It has been so discredited in the true scientific community that proponents have become almost hysterical in their continued attempts to enforce Climate Change policy. Most recently the Justice Department is considering legal action against “deniers.” Why don’t they stop, even to question if their science is sound? They instead use great energy to attack any scientist who does dare ask questions or finds data contrary to the “official” line. Why is it so vitally important that they continue to promote something that clearly is, to say the least, questionable?
It’s because all of Agenda 21 policy is built on the premise that man is destroying the Earth. Climate Change is their “proof.” To eliminate that premise is to remove all credibility and purpose for their entire agenda. They are willing to go to any length, even lies, to keep the climate change foot on our throats. On the local level this translates into planning policy that controls energy use and the efforts to cut down on the use of cars, enforcement of the building of expensive light rail train systems and bike paths and installation of smart meters, etc. But don’t take my word for it. I’ll let them speak for themselves:
“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” Christine Stewart (Former Canadian Minister of the Environment)
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” Timothy Wirth (President, UN Foundation)
“It doesn’t matter what is true. It only matters what people believe is true.” Paul Watson (Co-Founder of Green Peace.)
APC: http://americanpolicy.org/2016/05/10/six-issues-agenda-21/
COP21: It’s All about Power
COP21: It’s All about Power
by Bill Lockwood
It’s all about power. It always has been. From the beginning American Constitutional ideals were cherished precisely because they unchained the God-given freedom that European power-brokers and monarchial governments had disallowed. The current shredding of the Constitution via Climate Change hysteria promoted by President Obama at the United Nations Climate Summit (COP21) in Paris and the resulting crystallization of World Government brings us back to the power of kings and queens. It never has been about climate or greenhouse gases, but control.
Genius of the Constitution
James Madison, the father of the Constitution, boiled down the entire genius of the Constitution in Federalist #45. “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state government are numerous and indefinite. The former [powers of the federal government] will be exercised principally on external objects as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with the last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.”
Federal government power was to remain restrained by defining its authority and listing its several powers. This grant by the people defined exactly the role it was to play. Article 1, Section 8 sets forward approximately 20, that is only TWENTY, powers delegated by the people to the federal government. Madison continues regarding the numerous and indefinite powers granted to state governments. “The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and prosperity of the state.”
State government power, as oppose to the federal government oversight, was to care for the concerns of individuals and families and communities. Why? For the simple fact that one might be able to affect a change at local levels much more simply than at a federal level. This is the essence of freedom. Are there concerns about education? About energy? About banking? About the marketplace? About jobs and salary? These are to be local concerns. Handled at a state and county level. James Wilson, a Constitutional delegate from Pennsylvania, member of the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and one who ranked as the “foremost in legal and political knowledge …acquainted with man, … and all the political institutions of the world in detail” observed this regarding FREE GOVERNMENTS:
“When you examine all its parts, they will invariably be found to preserve that essential mark of free governments …” — What is that MARK of ALL FREE GOVERNMENTS? Having examined all governments of the world, what did Wilson say was that insignia of freedom? “ … a chain of connection with the people.” A chain of connection with the people is the key to retaining freedom. Conversely, allowing power and control to gravitate to the federal level results in the loss of freedom—let alone empowering an international body of unelected bureaucrats which will manage the economies amongst nations–all in the name of “saving the planet from pollution and greenhouse gases,” as proposed by Obama at COP21. This is a certain recipe for rampant tyranny.
President Obama’s supporters love to cheer him on by reminding us that he is a “Constitutional lawyer.” Nonsense. He has only studied “case law” and that as a means by which he can overturn Constitutional freedoms. He only knows enough to get our nation into trouble. The blueprint for World Government ruled by unelected socialist, Marxist, and Muslim elites is now in its final stages and the Paris Summit is all about that.
Maurice Strong
As this article is being composed, news comes of the death of Maurice Strong, the globalist who is most responsible for empowering the “deadly agreement” called UN Sustainable Development Agenda 21, having served as the UN Secretary General during 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. One hundred sovereign nations signed it.
It reads like a dream-come-true to all the Stalins, Mao’s, and Hitler’s of the world. Note particularly the portions which herein have been bolded. Can any clearer statement of grasping for power be composed? “Agenda 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by every person on Earth…It calls for specific changes in the activities of all people…Effective execution of AGENDA 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced—a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.” (Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save our Planet)
In an article written by Antonio Scorza this week is included this personal reflection from Maurice Strong. It mirrors the “Strategy to Save the Planet.” A map for an all-powerful one-world-government.Strong opined, “The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental co-operation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of global environmental security.” Most pundits are getting it wrong. Obama is not more interested in the Environment than the personal safety of Americans. He burns more jet fuel than any of us. His agenda is POWER.