Tuesday, March 29, 2011

"STAKEHOLDERS" - THE NEW SYSTEM

Today's buzzword is "STAKEHOLDER." You are hearing this word in comprehensive planning from your local leadership all the way up to the federal government. So who are these "STAKEHOLDERS?"

Accordiing to the online dictionary

stakeholder
- 3 dictionary results
–noun
1.
the holder of the stakes of a wager.
2.
a person or group that has an investment, share, or interest in something, as a business or industry.
3.
Law . a person holding money or property to which two or more persons make rival claims.

Hmmmm... I think we can eliminate the #1 definition here because the subject I address is not Poker. But how about #2 and #3? #3 is not quite it because it refers to legal ownership. So, #2 it is. #2 defines who fits into schemes being presented by government officials who are "transforming" the nature of our Republic.

But lets' say you are just Joe Citizen and you see that "STAKEHOLDERS" are now on consulting boards who are making decisions on how your city is run. Excuse me? Joe Citizen used to be THE STAKEHOLDER in this process. It was Joe Citizen who elected persons to run his city. The persons elected were the decision makers. Now we find out that elected officials are conferring with "STAKEHOLDERS" to decide on all of the issues facing his city. Who are the STAKEHOLDERS?

Hint: If you don't like Facism and if you don't like crony capitalism, you are not going to like "STAKEHOLDER" government.

"Stakeholder councils are called by many names and are created for a variety of specific purposes. Whatever they are called, and whatever the stated purpose for which they are created, they all have several common characteristics, and all have a common objective: the implementation of some component of Agenda 21."Sovereignty.net

STAKEHOLDERS are the wealthy, influential leaders of corporate, business, and non-profit organizations in the community. So if Joe Citizen is not wealthy or influential by his association with one of those groups...well, Joe Citizen is no longer a STAKEHOLDER in his community. And because the STAKEHOLDERS are chosen by government officials to sit on the decision making boards, who do you think government officials are going to appoint? It isn't very likely that the government officials are going to appoint small government conservatives because government officials like big government and control. In fact, small government conservatives would not disenfranchise Joe Citizen by STAKEHOLDER COUNCILS anyway. (just google the words "stakeholder council in yourtown USA," and you will see what I mean.) So it is the Progressive Democrat / Republican politician who buys into this set up. As if Joe Citizen doesn't exist, he is out of the loop, out of the sphere of influence, and S___ out of luck.

The more public / private government deals with STAKEHOLDER COUNCILS arranged by politicians, the more Facist our government becomes and the less our citizens have to say about how our tax money is spent.

The Founders made every citizen a STAKEHOLDER in our government. The Socialists and Fascists on both the left and the right have removed the citizen from the process. So when you see the word STAKEHOLDER(s) in plans and articles about plans for your local government, remember you are not included. Our government is no longer supposed to be about you, Joe Citizen. Now it's supposed to be about who has the most money and influence in your community.

Oh, you say, that's the way it has always been anyway, so what's new under the sun? Well, not quite. Yes, wealth and position have always had influence. I don't deny it. But the voter was the trump card against that influence, preventing the steam-roller effect from running over the Joe Citizens of the country. Now we have a system in place that never makes it to the ballot box, but just implements policies based on STAKEHOLDER COUNCILS, the voter be damned.

What to do to stop this? Find candidates who understand the process has been corrupted and who will no longer rule by fiat on the basis of STAKEHOLDERS. Simple solution....not so simple to do. But if we don't stop this, the spiral of out of control government continues until our country is simply unrecognizable. It's almost there already....so get busy out there.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

TICKING TIME BOMB PRESIDENTS

What good are Presidents? Not much, if you ask me. From both Roosevelts to Wilson to Johnson to Nixon to Carter to Bush to Clinton to Bush to Obama...I've decided modern, corrupt, and Progressive Presidents are time bomb creators.

What made me think of this is Carter and the Community Reinvestment Act, the time bomb that set off a chain reaction, through decades of toxic loans and bad bank regulations, until....Wham, the 2008 banking crisis hits and our economy implodes. Supposed saviours step in to save the day with fiat money and big government handouts taking us further into the sewer of inflation and debt. One President set off that lethal time bomb and some thirty years later the entire country is in debt up to its eyeballs with little hope of ever getting past it. The sad fact is that the CRA, like Obama's Health Care Bill, is an un-Constitutional redistribution (stealing) of other people's money.

Bill Clinton set off his time bomb in 1992. His is called "The President's Council on Sustainable Development." (This one is based on the first Bush's signing into the United Nations Agenda 21 Treaty which our congress never ratified.) Cute sounding name for destruction of private property rights, redistributing populations, and forcing regulations on energy, property, water, land, minerals, roads, and just about anything else that breathes or moves....or exists. We are nearly 20 years after that time bomb was detonated and now we are seeing the drastic devastation it is causing to every area of the country. In spite of the 14 trillion dollars of debt we are facing, the grant and subsidy money just keeps flowing out of the federal government in order to herd people into certain areas and regulate every breath taken.

Then comes President Bush the second. He had five of them. First the Patriot Act, then came Homeland Security, then the Prescription Drug Bill, open borders with no security, and last but not least, the No Child Left Behind Act. You can throw in Iraq and Afghanistan, since we are still there for the foreseeable future. Now that the middle east is exploding, I can't see us pulling out of there any time soon. So far we are rid of none of these huge problems and programs.

Well, we can go back to FDR with Social Security. Wikipedia Since 1938 we've had the un-Constitutional, ponzi scheme, time bomb of Social Security ticking away, always threatening to explode, go broke, and break further the treasury of America.

And of course we have Wilson who set up the Federal Reserve and placed the solvency of the country into the hands of global financiers who rake in billions from doing our business. Inflation and yo yo economics, anyone??? Beuhler? Beuhler? See: The Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin

We can't leave out Nixon who bombed the gold reserve standard out of existence...and we are still paying the price for having printed dollars worth less by the minute. (Not to mention kissing up to the Chinese with a trade debacle that is now killing us.)

Oh, and there was Johnson with the war on poverty (read welfare state) and Medicare and Medicaid. Now there are some mean bombs...still ticking, still doing lots of economic damage, and still exploding away, day after day.

I guess I should bring up Reagan's war on drugs. That hasn't worked out too well either, over forty years later. Still tick, tick, ticking away, costing us money and not doing a whole lot of good considering Mexican drug traffickers are pouring the stuff over the border by the ton.

I am not a Presidential historian and at the moment I can't dredge up Eisenhour's and Kennedy's big bombs...although I do remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and the bimbo, Monroe, singing Happy Birthday. Eisenhour escapes me except for some rumor about a mistress, the military industrial complex, the interstate highway system (which is a good bomb), and the fact that he was a hero General in the big war.

Obama's bombs....
Now we have Obama with his role in instigating the middle east to go up in flames, losing any ally we had there, and making chummy with the Muslim Brotherhood crowd. How long is that time bomb going to go on......don't ask. We can only imagine. There is the Health Care Bill, the take over of the car companies, the refusal to allow us to drill for oil, his thumbs on and in the banking industry, the disgusting fascism with GE, the justice department that doesn't even know what justice is, two supreme court communist appointments, the continuation of Clinton's PCSD and Carter's CRA, a few dozen Czars who rule the country by fiat, tick, tick, tick.

So here it is, 2011, and we are scouring the countryside for who will be the next great President. Iowa is starting to heat up with fund-raisers and speeches. Bloggers and news media speculate and circulate bits and pieces of who is throwing in the towel and who is throwing their hat into the ring.

At this point, I am not happy becoming a cynic and being jaded over electing a next President. After all, I cannot wait to rid the scourge of a Communist who now occupies the White House. But, today, I decided to look back over these many years of Presidents and ask myself, "What good are they?" For crying out loud, they've all been domestic terrorists, time bombing the country with damage greater than any human being would have thought possible. They set off these horrific, destructive, nation killing programs and policies, and then they walk off into the billionaires club with kudos and security blankets for which we are paying them for life.

There has to be someone better out there. Please let there be someone who knows how to dismantle bombs. We definitely need a munitions expert who can clip the wires off of these things. Fast!

Otherwise.....KaBoom again and again. And again and again.
Goodnight moon.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

OUR UNELECTED GOVERNMENT

As you may have been reading in my latest posts, I've been seriously researching the subject of "Sustainable Development" as it reveals a government imposed creed, steeped in false ideology not approved by voters, and in doing so I've come upon the method of "governance" of the left. (Worse from the left, but in fairness, this method is also being employed by the right to some degrees.) By doing this research over the past few months and years, I have come to the conclusion that our government has been completely hijacked. To that you might be saying, "Duh." You noticed that, too?

The point though is, that while we have seen the consequences emerging into our lives, no one seems to realize how this happened and from whence it is coming. I'm not about to blame Saul Alinsky, or Cloward and Piven, though they deftly outlined the methods. I'm about to blame those elected officials who are so stupid as to comply with unelected organizations...for the sake of what? Money, power, awards, junkets, etc. Elected officials are doing things antithetical to their oaths of office and to their responsibilities to the voters. Why and how? (And yes, I blame the voters, too, for allowing this and electing all the wrong people to office.)

I just had the weird experience of viewing the movie, "Idiocracy." Just getting around to it. And as crass as it is, I have to say it hit a home run in describing the devolution of our blessed republic, albeit in a cartoonish sort of way. No, I didn't like the movie. But I got it. And it was smack on point, sad to say.

Representative government is supposed to represent the voters. While a republic is not a democracy, and should not be, the expectation is that the interest of the voters would be represented by their elected officials operating within the parameters of the Constitution. As the dumbing down of America has succeeded beyond Marx's wildest dreams over the last decades, we now have a government made up of dolts and idiots who have no concept of the consequences of their actions beyond their own selftish motives, and who don't care about parameters or our Constitutional guarantees. Is it any wonder that the public has lost confidence in government?

So where do I see evidence of this corrupt and unintelligent government? Oh, don't even ask that one. All over the place, is the answer.

Here is one "for instance:" American Thinker on Soros Behind the Libya Attacks "
There is one influential group that has been in the forefront of efforts to promote the idea that the international community is obligated to take measures (including military ones) to protect civilians. That group is the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect. Lo and behold! George Soros's Open Society Institute is one of the two foundations that bankroll this advocacy group (the other, the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation - a group that has, over the years, become known not just for its Genius Awards but also for its funding of left-leaning groups. It is headed by a former State Department official and we know how many of those diplomats think)."

What do you take from that? You can't ignore that our President has attacked Libya on a premise the George Soros foundation created, a foundation of unelected international socialist zealots. Obama's decision had nothing to do with America, but rather is using America for a goal outside of Americans' better interests. Just like Clinton implemented Sustainable Development on the basis of international environmental zealots out of the UN, Obama implements foreign policy and military actions on the basis of Soros, the UN, and global socialists. We are electing persons who then commence to govern with policies from unelected boards and commissions that we, as voters, don't want.

Starting at the top, we have a President who cares not one whit for our own Constitution, but would put our military on the line for his buddy Soros, the UN, and the international community? Every action this President has taken has been without respect to our own laws and Constitution. No surprise to me because I paid attention to who he was before his election. But evidently, our idiocracy did not. So now we are stuck with consequences destroying our country.

Maybe it all has started at the top. Top down idiocracy. I know the Sustainable Development insanity came from the top down, through Bill Clinton. He just went around our legislative process and implemented his damage anyway. This is now a method on steroids with Obama. Just as Bill Clinton put Jimmy Carter's CRA on steroids, Obama is putting Clinton's policies on steroids, only worse.

Our country is supposed to be "bottom up." Our citizens are supposed to be smart enough to rule themselves. Yet, mayors, governors, legislators, and presidents, for the past twenty years, have all ignored the common sense of the people in order to govern outside of our laws. We have, for all intents and purposes, a government that functions outside the law and without any concern for our American interests. We have a quasi government, doing business without our consent.

If you could see the list of associated non-profits and NGO's operating through just the United States Conference of Mayors, you would see that your mayor is not answerable to you, but is answering to the unelected boards and commissions attached thereto. (at that link, go to legislation and programs. The drop down menu gives you "standing committees." Under those headings you will see who your mayor is using for regulations and ruling your city. Hint: you aren't counted.)

What have I learned along the way? I've learned that from the mayor of your city, all the way up to the President of the United States, our government is no longer an elected republican form of government. It is a false front for unelected players now ruling America.

See:
American Spectator report on Angelo Codevilla's Ruling Class
Excerpt:
The Agenda: Power

"Our ruling class's agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof. Like left-wing parties always and everywhere, it is a "machine," that is, based on providing tangible rewards to its members. Such parties often provide rank-and-file activists with modest livelihoods and enhance mightily the upper levels' wealth. Because this is so, whatever else such parties might accomplish, they must feed the machine by transferring money or jobs or privileges -- civic as well as economic -- to the party's clients, directly or indirectly. This, incidentally, is close to Aristotle's view of democracy. Hence our ruling class's standard approach to any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government -- meaning of those who run it, meaning themselves, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc. Hence more power for the ruling class has been our ruling class's solution not just for economic downturns and social ills but also for hurricanes and tornadoes, global cooling and global warming. A priori, one might wonder whether enriching and empowering individuals of a certain kind can make Americans kinder and gentler, much less control the weather. But there can be no doubt that such power and money makes Americans ever more dependent on those who wield it."

Ten questions with Angelo Codevilla on the Ruling Class

This post may be just a reminder to some, or a regurgitation of same same to others. Maybe it's just a lament from my broken heart over America. But at the least, I hope it shows you that this is not just about the federal government, but it is about us, individually and locally. And what are we going to do about the problem?

Just a few suggestions: Stop taking grants and subsidies. Stop allowing your local government to align itself with unelected organizations. Stop your city council and county commissioners from implementing policies without your permission or referendum. Ask questions about where the policies are originating. Find out who is behind the latest regulation, the latest tax, the latest fees, the latest edicts. That is just a start.

With love from me to you...


Monday, March 21, 2011

THE PROPAGANDA WAR CONTINUES - BY GOOGLE BY GOLLY

Sharing an article from American Thinker by Russell Cook on just how our friend Mr. Google is going to get everyone's mind right on Global Warming. Folks, are you as sick as I am of liars getting rich off of manipulating and lying??? Anyway, good article at the link below exposing the scam. But what about the poor schnooks and young students who are getting sucked down the pipes with this insanity??? Keep speaking out and telling the truth, friends!

GOOGLE DUMBS DOWN THE PUBLIC EVEN MORE

Excerpt:
"SolveClimateNews.com blessed us with an article telling how Google "has brought together a team of 21 climate researchers to improve the way the science of global warming is communicated using new media". This, no doubt in response to widespread reports of a Gallup poll showing ever-decreasing concern by the public about global warming, which must also explain why the GOP-controlled US House is moving forward with actions to thwart greenhouse gas regulations. Ignorance run amok, thus Google's experts are here to save the day.

If only that were the case. The enormous irony here is the very service Google itself provides: people can do their own fact checking on the so-called global warming crisis and all facets related to it."

Friday, March 18, 2011

RECOMMENDED READING

Since I'm down for a few days recuperating from surgery, I'm sharing here one of my favorite sources with you....
One of the best blogs on climate is Watts Up With That, created by Anthony Watts. He has the science (which is sometimes over my head), and he has the best articles explaining why global warming and CO2 are not the buggabears that the globalist socialists want you to think they are. Given Obama's energy starvation diet for the United States, Watts' site is a breath of fresh air, speaking truth to power. His site is full of valuable insight and discussions...go have a read!!

From Watts Up With That - Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
"The best way to protect the poor from the ravages of the climate is to make them middle-class, and that takes energy. The fact that we are depriving the world’s poor of energy now, in order to save them from a hypothesized and ill-supported possible calamity fifty years from now, is a monstrous aberration of basic justice that history will rightly condemn."

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

THE SUSTAINABLE DEATH OF AMERICA

Every day in every way we hear how we are working to be “Sustainable.” But do you know why this word, “sustainable,” is showing up in everything in your life? Why is it used in every government regulation, every talking point on development, every initiative, and every working plan adopted by leadership at all levels of American life today? It sounds so cozy, so comforting, so reassuring. It’s the latest craze, the latest buzzword, the latest word to explain how everything the government is doing is supposedly good for you. It goes with “green,” “livable,” “preservation,” “conservation,” “open areas,” “recreation,” “eco-tourism,” etal. So hip. So now. So happening. So rad. So cool. So… necessary?

It is amazing what words can do to create a perception. People can be convinced of anything if the right words are used to do the convincing. Words can make you feel good. Words, when used for propaganda, are very powerful. And that is why you are hearing the cozy words; sustainable, green, conservation, preservation, livable, easements, visioning, partners, smart growth, equity, consensus, etc.


Your vote has not been requested. You are not included into the decision making process. There was no debate. Sustainable Development is being implemented without the consent of the governed. Plans, such as Gastonia 2020, were adopted without citizens’ understanding of it. (similar plans have been distributed by regionalists for Agenda 21 and adopted in nearly every town in America.) Partnerships between government, businesses, and nonprofit organizations have been created without your consent. Taxes are being taken from you to support these partnerships, creating a binding contract with them that you did not sign onto. Rules, created by central planners in the United Nations and our Federal government, did not include your permission. You are being wooed with comforting words to make it all seem O.K., all the while your liberties are being taken from you at breakneck speed and under the radar. You are being disenfranchised of your ability to decide on matters of land rights, light bulbs, and so much more.

When the U.N. treaty on Agenda 21 was presented to congress, Congress voted it down. To get around the will of the people, in 1992, Bill Clinton created the “President’s Council on Sustainable Development.” By executive order he commanded Federal agencies to start handing out grant money to states and localities to implement Agenda 21 in spite of Congress. Government grant money is taken from our taxes. As the country grows more bankrupt due to government policies, states and localities are begging for those grants. The grants are “string babies.” With each grant come restrictions on freedoms. You want the money? You do what the United Nations prescribes in a 40 chapter document, Agenda 21, a plan to rule the entire planet. Sound crazy? Look it up. http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/


The race for the money is on. Everybody wants grants. Not a thought is given to the strings attached. Cities and counties and states are adopting plans and writing grant applications as fast as a bullet train, competing to see who can give up the most rights and land for the most money. The sweet sound of “sustainability” is ringing throughout the land, while the sweet land of liberty is being trashed with every grant agreement. Those who swore to uphold our Constitution are selling their souls, using our money, to take every right our Constitution guarantees, for government land acquisition like Mayor Stultz’s Emerald Necklace, and the Carolina Thread Trail. The American dream is being sold out from under the American people on the basis of “sustainability,” and our local leadership is participating in order to get money (grants) and awards for cooperation. You have not been told the truth.

As North Carolina school superintendent, Jim Causby, said at a 1994 international model school conference, “We have actually been given a course in how not to tell the truth. You’ve had that course in public relations where you learn to put the best spin on things.” http://www.crossroad.to/text/articles/teotp1196.html


“…current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable. Maurice Strong, author of Agenda 21. http://soldierforliberty.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/maurice-strong-man-behind-agenda-21-part-2/



Resources:

http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/articles4/local_agenda_21.htm

http://www.nationalcenter.org/DossierStrong.html

http://www.freedom.org/board/articles/beckett-804.html

Thursday, March 10, 2011

WOULD YOU STILL HAVE YOUR JOB?



Just a thought. If your job performance reflected this kind of approval, would you still have your job? Granted we're stuck until 2012, but according to Rasmussen today, only 23% of voters strongly approve of Barack Obama's job per performance.

Maybe it's just me, but less than 50% for almost 18 mos. out of 24 would not get it in most lines of work. Or in anything else. Unless, of course, you are a government union employee. Then you can skate away with twice the salary and benefits as the rest of us who are working at maximum capacity to carry your load.

Is he a one term president? One term was
one term too many. Please let's move out of this nightmare as soon as possible.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

LAND AND MONEY GRAB - IT'S ALL ABOUT GREEN

It's so lovely to think about parks and recreation. Realizing that parks and recreation are luxuries, environmentalists have, over time, decided to take a much different approach to convince the public to spend tax money on parks, greenways, trails, open areas, e.g. Realizing that luxuries are usually thrown out the window when times are tough, environmentalists figured out that they had better make themselves, parks and recreation, seem necessary in order to get funding to further their cause. Now parks and greenways, trails and open areas, are deemed necessary for clean air, clean water, and healthy living.

Please. I love parks as much as the next guy. I like to go for walks with my family and my dog. I love the great outdoors, trees, water, nature, and wildlife. I am not for paving over the entire world with concrete. That sounds like I should be a number one fan of greenways and conservation agencies. But there is a rotten fish in the country that is smelling to high heaven on the American landscape. The rotten fish is Agenda 21. And Agenda 21 has latched onto every environmentalist group and every government agency in America for subversive purposes that have nothing to do with love of the environment.

You might say, so what? Isn't it great to preserve the environment anyway? What does it matter if a United Nations plan for global socialism is the underlying motive for environmentalism? Believe me. It matters.

The United Nations has unleashed environmental radicalism across the globe for at least the last 20 years. Environmentalism has become the perfect foil for controlling the world's populations. Environmental groups in the United States, after lobbying State and Federal government, agencies and politicians relentlessly for years, have gained nearly unlimited access to our tax money to implement Agenda 21 within the United States.

Agenda 21 is the parent document that encompasses many projects. Among these are: Sustainable Development, the Wildlands Project, Biosphere Programs, and more. Under the umbrella of Sustainable Development came Smart Growth, Urban Planning for Livable Communities, Eco-Tourism, Livable Cities, e.g. Under the Wildlands Project came Biosphere Preserves, World Heritage Sites, Lands Conservancies, Our Global Neighborhood, just to name four associated types of organizations. These groups are all intertwined and have been integrated into our federal agencies and our national policies. In short, our government has been collaborating with global, environmental, soviet style, restructuring of our land uses and our freedoms. None of the groups mentioned are elected by Americans. None are concerned with the parameters of our Constitution. All are using the United Nations criteria for the environment as a guideline to force the American public into submission. And worse, they have figured out a way around our election process to do it.

Yes, the ship has left the port....the train has left the station...the plane took off....the cow is out of the barn. So now what? We know now that Agenda 21 has been insidiously infused into our government. Unlike roads, bridges and other necessary infrastructure, funded through normal channels, Agenda 21 is being funded with our taxes under the radar without our consent. In other words, your community is not deciding to create a recreational greenway by appropriating local money out of the tax bin to do it. Instead, your local councils are going to any number of cooperating government agencies to steal federal and state money for grants to do these projects. That way, you think you are getting a "goodie" from the state and the feds, and you think you don't have to pay for it. At the same time, in case you haven't noticed, the states and the federal government are broke....so far broke that the debts are in the billions and trillions. Who do you think is going to pay those debts?? The U.N.? I don't think so..... And in this process, Americans are being shut out of controlling their own lands.

What we need to do now is expose it and rid ourselves of it. That means we need to vote out politicians who have willingly sold us down the river by allowing our tax dollars to be used to undermine our Constitution. We need to stop funding grants and tax deductions for greenways, trails, open areas, and other environmental initiatives within our communities. We need to get rid of every town and city plan that has adopted Smart Growth and Sustainable Development. Why? Because the plans are not drawn up or initiated by your local councils, mayors, or commissioners. All of this is drawn up by a global cabal that has designs on making American land off limits to American ownership.

So why are they doing this? Out of the kindness of their hearts, the love of wildlife, and the adoration of our land? No. Nothing to do with such altruistic motives. It's money. And it's resources. (notice they are targeting buffers around water..creeks, lakes, rivers, etc. ) Think about it. If you can assure that Americans do not have access to the land and the resources in and on that land, who controls the land and resources? The U.N.? The Federal and State governments? It certainly isn't American citizens. Do your local councils even care about that? Or do they just care about bringing home some bacon, grabbing grant money, and walking around like silly, trophy-winning, fools?

The United Nations is all about global power over sovereign nations. What better way to get that power than to control the lands in those sovereign nations? Very clever, don't you think? And all for the supposedly sublime love of the planet. We are stupid idiots to let this happen right in front of us.

If you want to know more, there are a few more articles below. I could go on and on and on regarding this issue. While we are stewing about government unions, Islamic eruptions in the Middle East, gay marriage, abortion, government debt, murder and mayhem.....the country is being stolen out from under us.

Private Land Lockup by William Norman Grigg
Reed F. Noss, the radical “deep ecologist” who co-created the 1991 Wildlands Project proposal with Foreman, describes how the surface of North America would be covered by “an interconnected system of strictly protected areas (core reserves), surrounded by lands used for human activities compatible with conservation that put biodiversity first (buffer zones), and linked together in some way that provides for functional connectivity … across the landscape.” In both the “core” and “buffer” areas, Noss explains, “the collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans.”

Every environmental preserve — such as habitat for endangered species, national monuments, wilderness areas, or UN-designated World Heritage sites or Biosphere Reserves — is a potential Wildlands Project “core area.” Dave Foreman urges radical eco-activists on the ground to “identify existing protected areas” and have them designated core areas. They can then be connected to other core areas through “corridors” across the landscape.

Foreman also instructs eco-radicals to “look for gaps between wild lands or public lands” for future acquisition “by public agencies or by private groups like the Nature Conservancy.” Wildlands activist John Davis states that the whole purpose of this strategy is to keep “expanding wilderness until the matrix, not just the nexus, is wild” — in other words, until property owners, miners, ranchers, loggers, and others living and working in targeted areas have been driven off their lands and cattle-penned in urban reservations.

Writing in Science magazine, Charles C. Mann and Mark L. Plummer warn that as the Wildlands Project unfolds, “most roads would be closed; some would be ripped out of the landscape.” This is certainly what RMAP portends for owners of Washington forestlands. Eventually, continue Mann and Plummer, the project will require “nothing less than a transformation of America [into] an archipelago of human-inhabited islands surrounded by natural islands.” Environmental author Alston Chase bluntly warns that consummation of the Wildlands design will mean “the forced relocation of tens of millions of people … the removal of human habitation from up to half of the country’s land area.”



Judy Keeler Article-2003
"Has the environmental community become so intertwined with our elected officials, as well as our state and federal agencies, they are selling us out to a "higher order?"


Greensboro Misses Out On Greenway Grant
"GREENSBORO — Local leaders lamented the news Wednesday that Greensboro missed out on a $14.6 million federal grant that would have provided most of the money needed to complete the Downtown Greenway."
"Federal officials said they received more than 1,000 applications, totaling in excess of $19 billion."
From the same article, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood describes the idea that greenways and trails will transform how we travel to work...i.e. by foot, bike, and horse. Does that sound innovative or regressive to you?
“These are innovative, 21st century projects that will change the U.S. transportation landscape,” LaHood said in a prepared statement. “Many of these projects could not have been funded without this program.”

Project for Public Spaces This page provides a list of funding sources for greenway projects. You will see how many creative funding opportunities using tax money are out there. They do mention private donations, also, but remember even those are tax deductions reducing the tax coffers for other necessary government uses.

Biodiversity Movement in Pennsylvania This article was written 7 years ago...just to show you how deep the damage is and how long this has been going on.

Kansas City Action Plan This site just shows you how comprehensive the planning is in one city in America. Multiply that across the entire country. Ask yourself, how much of our money and resources are being used for recreation and open areas.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

THE DELPHI TECHNIQUE

One of the best things about writing this blog is learning so much through the research I've been doing. Over the past two years I have asking myself over and over again, "How in the world are so many people being manipulated into making completely irrational decisions and going in the most insane directions?" Some time ago I found one part of the answer called the Dunning-Kruger effect. You can read that one by clicking on the link in my sidebar on the right.

But today I learned a new part of the puzzle. I had seen a video some time ago of Charlotte Iserbyt explaining the "Deliberate Dumbing Down of America," which is the name of her book. She described the experience of conducting meetings with local school boards, having been taught a particular method, and how she manipulated outcomes, targeting those who would not comply with the foregone conclusions. She described manipulating the townspeople to comply with the prescribed solutions, even against their own normal principles. She, rightfully, along the way, realized how horrible this was and that she was being used as pawn in a larger scheme. So she became a whistle-blower and now has exposed the whole canard.

The method she was taught to use, I learned today, has a name. It is called the Delphi Technique. It was created by the Rand Corporation for the Dept. of Defense in the 1950's in order to be used as psychological warfare. It is a cunning design for creating the illusion of consensus where there is none. Amazing! You must read the article below to catch on to it. To me it explains most definitely how our local governments have been completely snookered into going along with Agenda 21 initiatives such as: Smart Growth, Sustainable Development, Livable Communities, Lands Conservancies, Greenways and more.

The Delphi Technique is most definitely the biggest part of the puzzle I was seeking. I am grateful to the writer of this article, Albert V. Burns, and wish to share the information with you. Let me know if you are seeing what I am seeing regarding this "community consensus" that doesn't exist and yet...policies are being implemented based on this false premise. I'd love to hear what you think.


The Delphi Technique Explained

The Delphi Technique - Let's Stop Being Manipulated

"More and more, we are seeing citizens being invited to “participate” in various forms of meetings, councils, or boards to “help determine” public policy in one field or another. They are supposedly being included to get ”input” from the public to help officials make final decisions on taxes, education, community growth or whatever the particular subject matter might be.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, surface appearances are often deceiving.

You, Mr. or Mrs. Citizen, decide to take part in one of these meetings.

Generally, you will find that there is already someone designated to lead or “facilitate” the meeting. Supposedly, the job of the facilitator is to be a neutral, non-directing helper to see that the meeting flows smoothly.

Actually, he or she is there for exactly the opposite reason: to see that the conclusions reached during the meeting are in accord with a plan already decided upon by those who called the meeting.

The process used to “facilitate” the meeting is called the Delphi Technique. This Delphi Technique was developed by the RAND Corporation for the U.S. Department of Defense back in the 1950s. It was originally intended for use as a psychological weapon during the cold war.

However, it was soon recognized that the steps of Delphi could be very valuable in manipulating ANY meeting toward a predetermined end.

How does the process take place? The techniques are well developed and well defined.

First, the person who will be leading the meeting, the facilitator or Change Agent must be a likable person with whom those participating in the meeting can agree or sympathize.

It is, therefore, the job of the facilitator to find a way to cause a split in the audience, to establish one or a few of the people as “bad guys” while the facilitator is perceived as the “good guy.”

Facilitators are trained to recognize potential opponents and how to make such people appear aggressive, foolish, extremist, etc. Once this is done, the facilitator establishes himself or herself as the “friend” of the rest of the audience.

The stage is now set for the rest of the agenda to take place.

At this point, the audience is generally broken up into “discussion—or ‘breakout’—groups” of seven or eight people each. Each of these groups is to be led by a subordinate facilitator.

Within each group, discussion takes place of issues, already decided upon by the leadership of the meeting. Here, too, the facilitator manipulates the discussion in the desired direction, isolating and demeaning opposing viewpoints.

Generally, participants are asked to write down their ideas and disagreements with the papers to be turned in and “compiled” for general discussion after the general meeting is reconvened.

This is the weak link in the chain, which you are not supposed to recognize. Who compiles the various notes into the final agenda for discussion? Ahhhh! Well, it is those who are running the meeting.

How do you know that the ideas on your notes were included in the final result? You Don’t! You may realize that your idea was not included and come to the conclusion that you were probably in the minority. Recognize that every other citizen member of this meeting has written his or her likes or dislikes on a similar sheet of paper and they, too, have no idea whether their ideas were “compiled” into the final result! You don’t even know if anyone’s ideas are part of the final “conclusions” presented to the reassembled group as the “consensus” of public opinion.

Rarely does anyone challenge the process, since each concludes that he or she was in the minority and different from all the others.

So, now, those who organized the meeting in the first place are able to tell the participants and the rest of the community that the conclusions, reached at the meeting, are the result of public participation.

Actually, the desired conclusions had been established, in the back room, long before the meeting ever took place. There are variations in the technique to fit special situations but, in general, the procedure outlined above takes place.

The natural question to ask here is: If the outcome was preordained before the meeting took place, why have the meeting? Herein lies the genius of this Delphi Technique.

It is imperative that the general public believe that this program is theirs! They thought it up! They took part in its development! Their input was recognized!

If people believe that the program is theirs, they will support it.

If they get the slightest hint that the program is being imposed upon them, they will resist.

This very effective technique is being used, over and over and over, to change our form of government from the representative republic, intended by the Founding Fathers, into a “participatory democracy." Now, citizens chosen at large are manipulated into accepting preset outcomes while they believe that the input they provided produced the outcomes which are now theirs! The reality is that the final outcome was already determined long before any public meetings took place, determined by individuals unknown to the public. Can you say “Conspiracy?”

These “Change Agents” or “Facilitators” can be beaten! They may be beaten using their own methods against them.

Because it is so important, I will repeat the suggestions I gave in the last previous column. One: Never, never lose your temper! Lose your temper and lose the battle, it is that simple! Smile, if it kills you to do so. Be courteous at all times. Speak in a normal tone of voice.

Two: Stay focused! Always write your question or statement down in advance to help you remember the exact manner in which your question or statement was made.

These agents are trained to twist things to make anyone not acceding to their agenda look silly or aggressive. Smile, wait till the change agent gets done speaking and then bring them back to your question. If they distort what you said, simply remind those in the group that what he or she is saying is not what you asked or said and then repeat, verbatim, from your notes the original objection.

Three: Be persistent! Wait through any harangues and then repeat the original question. (Go back and reread the previous column.)

Four: (I wish to thank a reader of the previous column for some EXCELLENT suggestions.) Don’t go alone! Get as many friends or relatives who think as you do, to go along with you to the meeting. Have each person ”armed” with questions or statements which all generally support your central viewpoint. Don’t sit together as a group! Spread out through the audience so that your group does not seem to be a group.

When the facilitator or change agent avoids answering your question and insists that he must move on so everyone may have a chance to speak, your own agents in the audience can then ask questions, worded differently, but still with the same meaning as yours. They can bring the discussion back to your original point.

They could even point out, in a friendly manner, that the agent did not really answer your question. The more the agent avoids your question, and the more your friends bring that to the attention of the group, the more the audience will shift in your favor.

To quote my informant: “Turn the technique back on them and isolate the change agent as the kook. I’ve done it and seen steam come out of the ears of those power brokers in the wings who are trying to shove something down the citizen’s throats. And it’s so much fun to watch the moderator squirm and lose his cool, all while trying to keep a smile on his face.”

Now that you understand how meetings are manipulated, let’s show them up for the charlatans which they are."

So....write to me and share your ideas. I wonder if anyone out there is seeing this happen around them in their local communities. Unfortunately, where I live, the leadership of our area has already been sucked down the pipes. Undoing this monstrosity called Sustainable Development is going to be an arduous, uphill battle.

Proof Positive: The Delphi Technique and Sustatinable Development

Anecdotal Evidence and Explanation from Idaho written by Anne Wilder Chamberlain

Saturday, March 5, 2011

UNDERSTANDING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - CONNECTIONS TO THE CAROLINA THREAD TRAIL

This article is also published at Pundit House

The following is a rebuttal article I have written and submitted to our local newspaper, hoping to offset the slick sales pitch being touted by the local executive of the Catawba Lands Conservancy regarding the Carolina Thread Trail. ( Due to space issues, the newspaper can only print a condensed version. Below is the entire article.)

The idea that we all love nature and do not wish to wreck the planet is a given. However, Sustainable Development NGO's and nonprofit conservancy organizations have created a lucrative and diabolical network across the entire nation by using our love of nature and the planet as a ruse to socially restructure our laws, our private property rights, and our Constitution. I am fighting this issue locally in Gastonia, North Carolina. Many others are fighting this issue in cities and towns across the country. I expect this article is not the last I will have to write on this subject. Have a read below:

The Carolina Thread Trail is but one arm of a larger group of nonprofit organizations that are systematically working with governments at all levels to gain control over private property. The "trail" of tax laws, money, anti-private property initiatives, and conspirators is long and convoluted. I hope to try to explain this tangled web of central planning and deceit as concisely as possible. However, if you are seriously interested in knowing how and why this intricate web of land grabbing has taken hold in America, you may research websites by searching terms such as: Agenda 21, history of Sustainable Development, history of the President's Council on Sustainable Development, the Wildlands Project, and many more. If you would like to know more on this, please contact me.

Briefly, Agenda 21, which debuted in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, is a United Nations action plan for worldwide environment and development. It is a comprehensive blueprint for actions to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by governments and organizations connected to the United Nations in every area where "humans affect the environment." (Funny, I can't think of a human life that does not have any affect on the environment, so that pretty much covers every living, breathing human being on the planet.) The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development created Agenda 21 with someone called Maurice Strong as the primary author. (Please research Maurice Strong, also.) Because Agenda 21 is an anti-private property rights agenda and would likely bring about resistance from Constitutional. freedom-loving Americans, the initiatives now carry lots of utopian sounding names such as: Smart Growth, Sustainable Development, Lands Conservancies, Greenways, Livable Communities, etc.

In 1992 the first President Bush signed onto the Rio Summit Environmental Treaty, incorporating Agenda 21, but our Congress never ratified that treaty. Not dissuaded by the power of Congress, the next President, Bill Clinton, decided to implement Agenda 21 by executive order, creating "The President's Council on Sustainable Development." "Sustainable Development" is the core philosophy of the Carolina Thread Trail and the Lands Conservancy, and the plethora of non-profit land taking organizations all over the country. This Presidential Council created the federal use of tax credits to implement Agenda 21 in America.

As the issue of eminent domain use for the Carolina Thread Trail came up recently, I conferred with several local people, commissioners and other interested parties, only to find out that few people are aware of the origins of "Sustainable Development" in America. The problematic issues with Sustainable Development and the Thread Trail are larger and more far reaching than just the eminent domain issue. Most have never heard of Agenda 21. Yet our daily lives are now impacted by decisions initiated by the United Nations that we, as citizens, have never voted into place. These decisions have been put into action by cooperation between levels of governments, non-governmental organizations (NGO's), non-profit organizations, and central planners. Local policy statements, such as Gastonia 2020, and local planning boards have adopted land use restrictions based on the United Nations' plan called Agenda 21. Groups such as the Carolina Thread Trail and the Lands Conservancy have been established to operate the initiatives of Agenda 21 by using tax subsidies to support them. There are now, at the latest count, over 1700 nonprofit lands conservancy groups operating within the United States. (In 1950 there were fewer than 50) At this writing, well over 4o% of all land in the United States is held by the Federal, State, and local governments, not including the restricted use lands in the conservancies and trusts.

Mr. Cable, the executive director of the Catawba Lands Conservancy, proudly points out that an area the size of Connecticut carved out of 15 counties is planned for the Carolina Thread Trail. Connecticut comprises 4,845 square miles. If you were to superimpose that amount of land onto our local area for instance, that would be an area from Charlotte across to Shelby, and from the South Carolina border north to the Virginia border vertically. North Carolina has 48,000 square miles. So, a swath of at least 10% of the entire state, as an example of size, would be "restricted use" controlled by the Carolina Thread Trail alone. The Carolina Thread Trail is planned in North and South Carolina. (This does not include the areas already controlled by federal, state, and local governments, the Lands Conservancy, the Land Trust Alliance, and all of the other non-profits who are in the business of restricting land use in our State.) I might ask the question, “ How much is enough?”

The Carolina Thread Trail organization and all of the Conservancy non-profits boast that conservation increases property values. This is a "maybe so, maybe not," argument. Conservation easements lower property values for property tax purposes. Land that is undeveloped has a lesser tax value than developed land. This means that localities will be increasing taxes on the rest of the population to make up the tax losses created by the conservation easements. This is a socialist redistribution policy where the rest of the population pays to support the tax breaks to landowners who are "contributing" their land to a "restricted use" contract in perpetuity. The opposite argument of the decrease in tax value is, as Mr. Cable states, is the idea that conservancies increase property values. The simple explanation of this is that taking land out of use, or “restricting use, by owners or future buyers, creates a scarcity of land. When you create a scarcity of any particular necessary thing, the price goes up. When land prices go up, the poor and the middle class have fewer opportunities to buy and use the land for their own needs. So Mr. Cable has a point that conservancies increase property values with regard to market prices. That can be a bad thing for future buyers and dampen the market severely. The land taken out of ownership use is, for all historical purposes, is now restricted forever by feudal landlords made up of non-profits and governments.

As for the word, "voluntary, that Mr. Cable keeps pointing out as one of the selling points of the Thread Trail, I would like to point out that the tax consequences of the taking of the lands is not voluntary on the part of the rest of the local population. As our taxes rise to support the taking of these lands, we are not voluntarily agreeing to support the landowners who are getting the tax breaks. Local government officials are making those decisions without referendum. The last referendum on the subject, in Gastonia, was rejected by the voters.

It is not surprising that some landowners want to take advantage of tax breaks. What is unconscionable is that our leadership is promoting this socialistic policy without public and press scrutiny and loud opposition. The decisions to create these policies are not in the interest of individual taxpayers or the public's knowledge of the consequences. In fact, the public generally has no knowledge of Agenda 21 or the Sustainable Development origins. Instead, the public is being fed a clever Madison Avenue sales pitch on "saving the environment," when in fact, what is happening is a transfer of property and wealth to a privileged few on a ruse of "saving the environment." In reality, citizens are being forced to support Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 without consent or knowledge.

Resources:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/un_agenda_21_coming_to_a_neigh.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21

http://sovereignty.net/p/sd/agenda21rpt.htm

http://www.rightsidenews.com/2011022312907/life-and-science/energy-and-environment/agenda-21-part-iii-maryland-county-abolishes-agenda-21-now-for-the-rest-of-the-country.html

http://www.vimeo.com/8821807

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=history+of+the+President%27s+Council+on+Sustainable+Development&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq= - q=history+of+the+President%27s+Council+on+Sustainable+Development&hl=en&sa=X&tbs=tl:1,tl_num:20&prmd=ivns&ei=jGRyTaj

http://www.redstate.com/barleycorn/2011/02/11/conservation-easements-the-evil-no-one-knows-cares-about/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_trust

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=history+of+land+conservancy+trusts+in+the+U.S.&aq=f&aqi=m1&aql=&oq= -

http://www.catawbalands.org/your-land-trust/conservation-vision-2030/

http://www.sheelahclarkson.com/land/

http://www.onencnaturally.org/pages/ConservationTaxCredit.html

ICLEI Special Report from Tom Deweese

Thursday, March 3, 2011

SUBSIDIES AND TAX BREAKS FOR BOONDOGGLES

Days like today, I wonder if most people have a clue about how much money is being stolen from them in taxes, today's taxes, and all of the future taxes to pay for the national and state debts. Learning about the electric car chargers being placed into our communities recently is reminding me of just how much of our government has been co-opted by environmentalist zealots. I mean "co-opted" because most people are unaware of the policies affecting their taxes that are being put into place. I say "zealots" because environmentalists cannot seem to put a price on unfounded scientific theories. To them, there is no limit to how much public money they will pour down the drain as long as they are getting paid for their supposed adoration of the earth. They have promoted themselves to sainthood, all the while lying and stealing to do their damage to the economic, energy, and freedom structures of our country.

If you have been reading my blog for the past two years, you know already that I am not a fan (pun intended) of wind farms. And I hope you realize from my last several posts that I am very much against using our taxes to manipulate the guaranteed property rights of our citizens. I understand using tax money for the necessary infrastructures to support our society. By that I mean enforcing non-pollution policies included along with the usual things you think of such as roads, bridges, utility access, et al. You see, I am not for polluting our resources out of existence, but I am also not an advocate for government ownership of the air, water, and land. Unfortunately, environmentalists are determined to force you and me to pay for the government appropriation of all things.

Using our tax money for boondoggles such as manufacturing smart cars, putting up electric car chargers, bought from GE as a kickback from Obama, all over our cities, and, in the case below, creating wind farms, is antithetical to the basic precepts as defined in our Constitution. In other words, manipulating tax laws to support an agenda that is obviously detrimental to our Constitution is abominable.

I don't think we can attack this problem one boondoggle at a time. What we need to do is attack the policies of subsidizing these things. We can't just go after the electric car subsidy, the car charger subsidy, the wind farm subsidy. We are going to have to elect politicians who agree that all of this is going to stop, no more subsidizing private industries with tax money. That includes ethanol among 50 thousand other subsidies. If the taxes being stolen for boondoggles were turned back to the private sector, the money would flow into the proper businesses by virtue of investing. Is that too much to ask?

From the Daily Beast on Government Subsidizing the Chevy Volt

"The media’s coverage of the electric-car sector demonstrates more than 100 years of gullibility. The gee-whiz factor of electric cars with their big batteries, small motors, and whisper-quiet locomotion appears to be so dazzling that reporters willingly give up their skepticism like star-struck groupies surrendering their panties.

That same lack of skepticism may explain why the Senate wants to throw hundreds of millions of additional dollars at electric cars without braking to consider the problems of physics and consumer demand. And those two factors are undoubtedly the biggest problems for the future of the electric-vehicle market. On a gravimetric basis, gasoline has 80 times the energy density of the best lithium-ion batteries. Of course, electric-car supporters will immediately retort that electric motors are about four times more efficient than internal combustion engines. Fine. Even with that four-fold advantage in efficiency, gasoline still has 20 times the energy density of batteries. And that is an essential advantage when it comes to automobiles, where weight, storage space, and of course range are critical considerations."


Read below to find some more information on the awesome insanity of government intrusion and theft to support wind farms:

From Anti Green Blogspot - also linked in my sidebar to the right

"Made in China turbines are shipped to the USA, trucked to their final destinations, and installed on huge concrete platforms; new backup gas generating plants are built; and hundreds of miles of new transmission lines are constructed. That means still more steel, copper, concrete, fuel and land. Moreover, the backup power plants generate more pollution and carbon dioxide than if they could simply run at full capacity, because as backups for turbines they must operate constantly but ramp up to full power, and back down, numerous times daily, in response to shifting wind speeds.

Wind farms require roads and 700-1000 ton concrete-and-rebar foundations, which affect water drainage patterns in farm country. The 300-500 foot tall turbines affect scenery, interfere with or prevent crop dusting over hundreds of acres, and kill countless birds and bats. Farmers who lease their land for wind turbines receive substantial royalty payments; neighbors are impacted, but receive no compensation.

Despite these ecological costs, wind farm projects are often fast-tracked through NEPA and other environmental review processes, and are exempted from endangered species and migratory bird laws that can result in multi-million-dollar fines for oil, gas and coal operators, for a fraction of the carnage.

Perhaps worst, all this is supported generously by renewable energy mandates, tax breaks, feed-in tariffs, “prioritized loading orders,” and other subsidies, courtesy of state and federal governments and taxpayers. In fact, wind power gets 90 times more in federal subsidies than do coal and natural gas, per megawatt-hour of electricity actually generated, according to US Energy Information Administration data. And wind-based electricity costs consumers several times more per kilowatt-hour than far more reliable electricity from coal, gas and nuclear power plants.
Simply put, the wind might be free, when it blows. But the rest of the “renewable, green, eco-friendly” wind energy system is anything but.

It might be far better all around to simply build the most efficient, lowest-polluting coal, gas and nuclear generating plants possible, let them run at full capacity 24/7/365 – and just skip the wind power.
"

So there it is. It is all the same insanity. Not one good reason to construct wind farms. Really. I can think of none. All of the arguments against. You can say the same for the electric car chargers popping up all over the place...no good reason for this. Yet our government is wasting our money, our time, our energy, our lives, our lands, all to produce another bad idea that has no place in our environment or our economy. Not to mention the Constitutional question of using our taxes for such damaging policies.

We must get a grip on the environmental policies that are ripping our economy and Constitution to shreds. Question (y)our legislators. Demand the cutting of environmental incentives and subsidies supporting boondoggles and environmental insanity. Turn the country back to reasonable, responsible ownership of land by citizens. And turn the country back to private investment. The public should not be forced to take the risks for stupidity.