Agenda 21: What to do?

Commentary by Lynn Kocal | Prairie Advocate News

Part 6 of a Series

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Agenda 21 is all around us. Since being enlightened on the subject, I see it being implemented in everything having to do with government, regional groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and even in our communities. My conclusion is that knowledge is power. Voting is important, but not enough. Taking time to attend meetings, holding people accountable and asking the right questions, along with informing others (even posting flyers) of what government is doing and forming coalitions that can’t be ignored is the best advice I can come up with at the moment. Also, asking your community and/or county for a “right to farm” ordinance and forming a “property protection” committee would also help keep Agenda 21 at bay.

We must keep in mind that we allowed this to happen. If we were more interested in doing the right things for one another, we might not be experiencing what we are today.

I’m a Christian and have prayed over this a good deal. How can I empower our readers? How can I be a part of informing people without engendering anger? I’m very torn over this because in my heart, I know that if we were good to one another, if we stopped to think before we acted, and realized that we are all branches from the same tree, meaning our Creator, things would be very different. If we truly trusted in God and followed His voice within us, only good could result. If we let go of our egos that defend our beliefs and simply loved one another, things would be different. We would not fall into the hands of the social planners because of our strength of character.

Why do we think that by imposing anyone’s will on another will make things better? What is good for one person is not necessarily good for another. The only way we can serve ourselves is by serving one another, and that doesn’t mean making someone follow rules that take from one and give to another.

The following is based on local news and things I’ve discovered about Agenda 21, but please keep in mind that it is the result of what we have become as human beings.

Most of Agenda 21 activities sound innocuous and well-intentioned. Certainly most people who promote them are good people who want to improve life for us all. The caveat is that it is always promoted as the “good for all,” subsuming individual rights for the community, called communitarianism. Bike paths, trails, parks, internet fiber – all sound good - with a price tag. Some things, like FEMA asking Pearl City to purchase a number of properties and maintain them in perpetuity because of flooding does not sound good and include a huge price tag.

Another example is wetlands preservation and other regulations being perpetrated on farmers. Almost any land can be defined as a wetland or be subject to other regulations. The decision is up to bureaucrats, yet farmers must accommodate.

The bike path in Morrison grabbed people’s frontage property and caused quite a stir. People stood up for their rights and changes were made, though it seems that some folks are still not happy. The historical district in Morrison is another item of contention. Some people think that due process wasn’t given them and their property rights.

There are many questioning the Northwest Illinois Development Alliance and how this public-private NGO is using public funds for the purchase and development of property. According to its 990 Tax Form, it is almost entirely funded with tax dollars, yet does little reporting of its activities as some taxpayers allege.

The Jo-Carroll Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA), in charge of developing the closed Savanna Army Depot, has been stymied at almost every turn in what may be an intentional effort to never allow private development.

I watched a video on YouTube about Agenda 21 and property rights
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG1mWX9p8Bs&feature=related ). Michael Coffman, Ph.D., an expert in forestry, played a key role in stopping the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity (Biodiversity Treaty) in the U.S. Senate an hour before the Senate was scheduled to vote on its ratification in 1994. This treaty would have essentially taken away Americans’ property rights. Get Coffman’s book, named below. It’s a great read and includes details of this miraculous story along with other remarkable accounts.

The most shocking thing in his presentation and what is most important to convey to our readers is the following, excerpted from his book, “Rescuing a Broken America; Why America is Deeply Divided and How We Can Heal it Constitutionally,” written in 2010.

In 1965, the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare funded a report entitled, “The Behavioral Science Teacher Education Program” (BSTEP). Published in 1970, BSTEP laid out the goal of this education process. BSTEP claimed, “We are getting closer to developing effective methods for shaping the future and are advancing in fundamental social and individual evolution.” This evolution was to be be done by “technological-scientific elite” planners and “long-range planning.”

Goals of the report are:

“Most people will tend to be *hedonistic, and a dominant elite will provide bread and circuses to keep social dissension and disruption at a minimum. A small elite will carry society’s burdens. The resulting impersonal manipulation of most people’s lifestyles will be softened by provisions for pleasure-seeking and guaranteed physical necessities.

“. . . The controlling elite will engage in power plays largely without involvement of most of the people. The society will be a leisurely one. People will study, play, and travel; some will be in various stages of the drug-induced experiences. Each individual will be saturated with ideas and information. Some will be self-selected; other kinds will be imposed overtly by those who assume responsibility for others’ actions. Relatively few individuals will be able to maintain control over their opinions. Most will be pawns of competing opinion molders.”

Not only did the U.S. Health, Education, and Welfare fund BSTEP, but so did the American Academy of Arts and Sciences—Commission of the Year 2000; American Academy of Political and Social Science; United Nations Future-Planning Operation in Geneva, Switzerland; World Future Society of Washington, D.C.; General Electric Company; The Air Force and Rand Corporation; The Hudson Institute, Ford Foundation’s Resources for the Future and Les Futuribles; University of Illinois; Southern Illinois University, Stanford University, Syracuse University; and IBM.

Way back in 1970, the plans were drawn to subvert our focus onto things other than what our government was doing. This study used our TAX DOLLARS against us, once again - just like the EPA, Department of Education and a plethora of agencies and NGOs who are currently executing without the consent of the governed as our Constitution directs.

Even without ratification of the Biodiversity Treaty or U.N. Agenda 21 treaties, many elements were implemented while we have enjoyed our hedonistic, self-centered pursuits. Presidential Executive Orders like the The White House Rural Council and the President’s Council on Sustainable Development have all contributed to the implementation of Agenda 21 protocols.

The Internet has caused fragmentation of opinion, divisiveness and diversion with games and social media, yet it also has a good side that allows us to communicate swiftly with one another and our elected representatives. We can now inundate our representatives with our opinions and remind them that they sit in that representative office at our pleasure.

Dr. Coffman also went over some very compelling history of where our Constitution comes from and the intentions behind it. Last week, The Prairie Advocate published the Declaration of Independence with hopes that our readers would read why the signers stated that they “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

In his aforementioned book, Dr. Coffman relates why we are losing the “American Dream” by discussing the differences between who Thomas Jefferson highly regarded as philosophers, John Locke and the refiner of Locke’s ideas, Sir William Blackstone and others, and the man behind the French Revolution, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Many other writers/philosophers compare the similarities, but there are contrasts which Jefferson and Thomas Paine denounced while in France during the revolution there, and which almost made Paine a victim of the guillotine during the French Revolution except for the heroic efforts by Jefferson to save his life.

These differences are why Europe is socialistic, a failure in regard to their economy, and why the United States became such a prosperous nation before the federal government became so powerful - just what our founders tried to avert in our Constitution.

The main difference between Locke and Rousseau is in the ownership of property. The following quotes are excerpted from Coffman’s book:

“Rousseau provided the foundational philosophy that spawned the bloody French Revolution and inspired the writings of Immanuel Kant, Georg W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx and many others. Most of Europe has been infected with the Rousseau model, including England.”

“Government’s purpose, according to Locke, is to join with others to ‘unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estate, which I call by the general name, property.’ According to Locke, the primary reason for government ‘is the preservation of their property.’ Most Americans today would be amazed to learn that the free right to own property represents the foundation upon which life and liberty depend.’”

“This fundamental principle became the cornerstone of the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the United States Constitution; ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness . . .’ This clause lays out the critical understanding that every citizen has ‘equal opportunity’ to succeed (or fail), not equal results.”

Once again, the government did not grant rights, which can be taken away. It stated what government could not do and made each citizen a free person that determined what government would do to secure rights granted individuals by natural law, not the other way around.

People like Maurice Strong, the instigator of U.N. Agenda 21, state that the goal of “global governance” would not subvert our Constitution, as “governance” is not the same as “government,” yet the definitions both refer to governing and are essentially identical. The European Union is an example of a mini “global governance” that has global significance and may well eventually take down all the monetary systems world-wide.

The goal of global governance starts with eliminating property rights, something which the U.N. proclaims is the cause for inequities in wealth. The United States is the focus of their aim to redistribute wealth world-wide by negating all property rights of the “little people” and putting it in the hands of “technocrats” and the “elite” who believe that might is right, giving them the authority to determine what is best for the rest of us.

Remember, our Founding Fathers were men of deep spiritual beliefs and they lived their lives to the best of their abilities in that time to serve one another by implementing liberty and property rights and giving people the option to be responsible for their choices. Things have changed, but we can change them back by changing ourselves. Then, through our intent, we can change our communities.

*definition, Hedonistic: the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence.