Hmmm, what does it look like when an area is in the grip of a corrupt quasi-governmental community? What does it look like when Green is the color of money and green-washing passes for 'community involvement?' We've prepared a little story for you. A tale of a politician who has inserted himself into the space between the citizens and the government. It looked like he was selling influence between one agency and another, but then the story expanded and became more. Take a look, by clicking here.
The City of Santa Rosa along with the Neighborhood Alliance, and the Leadership Institute of Ecology and Economy (Tanya Narath is the executive director and also the chair of the city's Community Advisory Board) put on a "Neighborhood Summit" about a week ago. They were very excited about it. For some reason they decided that they want to 'empower' the neighborhoods and create more neighborhood associations. Yes, it's the 'strong neighborhood' mask.
From our experience with the Junior College Neighborhood Association (JCNA) this doesn't seem to be a good thing. The JCNA is run like a closed club and has a definite agenda: high density urban development, transit oriented development, pro-redevelopment, pro-bike to the point that they would endanger all street-users in order to push their ideology, and a zealotry that allows no dissent. Anyone who mistakenly tries to take part in the neighborhood association by running for office is viciously abused, maligned and removed if they win without the support of the hand-picked board. The bicycle coalition (itself being used by various parties) uses the neighborhood associations as quasi-governmental boards to push a pro-Agenda 21 message into the community. Jenny Bard, the defacto president of the JCNA, is employed as a spokesperson/advocate by the Lung Association, which advocates for these same positions on its website (see the following post). Ms. Bard has control over the only two JCNA bulletin boards in the area and refuses to allow anything that conflicts with these views to be posted in them, although they were paid for with community funds. Back to the 'Summit'. This two day event included an evening lecture by Jim Diers, who was in charge of creating neighborhood associations in Seattle. Mr. Diers now works for Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). That is new-speak for figuring out ways to use the skills of residents in an area for free, apparently, and touting it as a new method of managing communities with those who are completely non-governmental and not accountable to the voters. Changing the community without accountability and directing the change without looking like it's being done. Picking winners and losers. I looked up ABCD on wikipedia to see what it was. Since wikipedia noted that the article sounded like a press release I made a few changes to it. *** Asset-based community development: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article or section reads like a news release, or is otherwise written in an overly promotional tone. Please help by either rewrite this article from a neutral point of view or by moving to Wikinews. When appropriate, blatant advertising may be marked for speedy deletion with {{db-spam}}. (May 2010)Asset-based community development (ABCD) is a methodology that seeks to uncover and utilize the strengths within communities as a means for sustainable development. The basic tenet is that a capacities-focused approach is more likely to empower the community and therefore mobilize citizens to create positive and meaningful change from within. Instead of focusing on a community's needs, deficiencies and problems, the ABCD approach helps them become stronger and more self-reliant by discovering, mapping and mobilizing all their local assets. Few people realize how many assets any community has, for example:
The first step in the process of community development is to assess the resources of a community through a capacity inventory [1] or through another process of talking to the residents to determine what types of skills and experience are available to a community organization. The next step is to consult with the community and find out what improvements the residents would like to make. The final, and most challenging step, is to determine how the residents' skills can be leveraged into achieving those goals.[1] Using this model, the communities who hire ABCD speakers to influence their citizens are looking for an opportunity to create artificial community consensus. By creating farmed neighborhood associations they sideline actual community participants who often do not agree with the city policies. These artificial groups use the Delphi technique to block participation by real community members who raise points that are avoided by city-sponsored neighborhood groups. Under the guise of creating 'sustainable communities' neighborhood associations will be developed that are run by hand-picked city insiders who will rubberstamp city programs like redeveloping neighborhoods and redesigning streets. This visioning is supposedly community based but is not. They shut down any dissenting voices and marginalize, ridicule, attack, silence, and ignore those who do not agree. 'Mapping community assets' is a way of controlling and managing a group of people and directing them to use their skills in a pre-determined way to 'benefit' the community. Who decides what benefits the community? The hand-picked 'leaders'. By mapping a community are these groups determining who has something to offer the collective and who does not? What happens to those who do not contribute to the collective? How are they 'leveraged' into contributing? The Asset-Based Community Development Institute[2] is located at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Its founders, John Kretzmann and John L. McKnight, are the major proponents of this community development philosophy. I checked back regularly to see if my comments were still on the wikipedia site and, after a few weeks, they were removed. So I reposted them. This happened a couple of times, we went back and forth, and then they locked the entry so it can't be corrected. Why is this important? Because it's a seemingly innocuous group, with a 'positive' healthy message, that is actually a Smart Growth lobbying group. The group includes Michael Allen--Democratic Candidate for 7th Assembly District (California), under investigation for serious conflict of interest charges, and the Accountable Development Coalition, a communitarian group that demands payments from developers for not obstructing projects, and which inserts itself into the government process to crowd out actual community voices. The Sonoma County Asthma Coalition actually pressures for zoning changes, general plan development, and redevelopment to implement smart growth/sustainable development. This is UN Agenda 21 at work in a local community.
Some of the issues they lobby for:
Do you have a branch in your community? Have you taken a look at your local Lung Association? The following link takes you to the Sonoma County Asthma Coalition "Planning Healthy Communities" page. And, since you were wondering what the larger context is for this, take a look at the sponsors of a New Partners for Smart Growth conference---the purpose of which is to extol the virtues of sustainable Agenda 21 development. You'll find the National Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the National League of City Managers, Fannie Mae, the US Defense Department, the EPA, Bank of America, the US Department of Transportation...it goes on. We started this blog because when we were searching the web for info on Agenda 21 we found either UN sponsored pages or....right wing extremist stuff. Now, we were grateful that there were so many people who had become aware, and way before we had, but did they also have to be anti-gay, anti-choice, and in some cases, anti-semitic and seeing lizard people from outer space? Why? Why aren't we finding other so called progressive people who see what's going on?
After all, what's wrong with being 'sustainable'? What's wrong with thinking of us as 'one world'? Aren't we one world, really? As one of us said recently, it's the tactics they use. Silencing dissent. Vicious verbal attacks. Slander. Taking over neighborhood associations. Taking over sections of a city. Using groups to create subgroups and more sub sub groups that then support each other and crowd out any real, actual community input. Frankly, I feel that my civil rights have been chilled. Frozen. Speaking out is not tolerated. In a sense, a 1984 sense, I am concerned that the only ones reading this will be those who are watching. Funny, we've been called property rights advocates like that's a bad thing. Private ownership of property is a fundamental cornerstone of our nation. Is it that so few people own property now and they feel envious and angry that others do? I noticed that ICLEI, if you search on it as an employer, shows that it employs about 220 people, median age 29, and 55% female. Are these young women paid a decent wage or are they only able to afford an apartment in one of the high density urban rental buildings next to a freeway? Why wouldn't they want to share the wealth? They don't have any. Recruitment for the splinter groups seems to focus on those who are misfits, extremists, zealots, and generally rigidly regimented and controllable by 'group leaders'. The environmental groups have morphed from those who like to hike and appreciate the outdoors to those with a social engineering agenda. There was a program put together by Sonoma County Conservation Action, a political environmental group which endorses candidates, a program called "Know Your Neighbor." A very nice young woman was in charge of it. She came to my door to talk to me about it. The goal was to have someone on every block who would know everyone and also know their political opinions so that they could be engaged when issues were coming up for a vote. NO KIDDING. Have you read 'LIfe and Death in Shanghai' by Nien Cheng ? A true account of Ms. Cheng's experiences living through the Gang of Four's control of Communist China in the 1960's. I read it and thought, I've witnessed some of this myself. Here. In Sonoma County. It's not easy to be a gay, pro-choice voice in this wilderness of mainly 'conservative' folks alerting citizens to 'sustainable development' and Agenda 21. But the thing that is important to note is that many of the issues that divide us can be put aside to focus on an over-arching human rights issue that has a direct and powerful impact on us as Americans. I have lived in Mexico, Guatemala, Hong Kong, and Thailand, and I prefer the civil rights freedoms we have in the United States to those in the other countries in which I lived. We have the right to speak out, the right to move freely, the right to read opposing viewpoints, the right to own our property, the right start a business and grow it...those and many other rights that are not enjoyed by those living in other countries. I want our rights to continue into the future. If I gain insight and information from those with whom I may disagree on certain aspects of our political and social landscape then I am glad to have some common ground to stand on with them. If you click below you'll find a great clearly-written pamphlet called Transforming America written by Michael Shaw. He's speaking out about UN Agenda 21, letting people around the country know about the growing restrictions on our property rights, enormous expansion of wilderness lands, plans for the creation of crowded residential centers in our cities, and what you can do.
I just read a newspaper article on-line that made me sit up and grin. Picture this: small town, supervisors' meeting, 90 folks in attendance, consultant standing at the front making his pitch and delivering what the supervisors have paid him a small town fortune to come up with. Smart Growth. And guess what?
Those folks won't have it. Their comments surprised me. They have done their homework and they learned about UN Agenda 21 and THEY DON'T WANT IT. Take a look: Picayune Says NO! A few days ago I was surfing the web and found a site that brought together many of our concerns, focused on women, and is attempting to be an allegiance of all political viewpoints. I emailed Betty Jean Kling, and here is her response: Thank You for finding me- - you have found an ally! Let me explain upfront why I am interested and why I may be of help to you as well. TMU also transcends party lines. We started over women’s rights because if we can get the majority to rise and come together we have a chance along with common sense patriot men to create a movement. Your ‘about us’ page tells me you folks fit with us! We too started out all registered Democrats fighting for Hillary and ended up right where you are learning first from what happened during the primaries right up to finding out about Agenda21. I lost a lot of Dems along the way when I picked up some Conservatives who wanted us to read the Constitution, Fed papers and Bill of Rights! The only help I have found in a long while has been from Independents and Conservatives the Dems won’t budge an inch if there is a conservative in sight. I am pro gay marriage, pro freedom of choice (personally pro-life) which means I believe it is my right and every woman’s right to make her own choice either way. I would not change the current law. I would like to see better contraception for both male/female. I am firmly against organized religion and do not believe the word Conservative mean religion. Conservative politics is about getting back to what this country was founded on as your pages say. Religious issues for example marriage and Birth control should never be part of civil law any more than we would allow Sharia Laws to come into our country. Mostly I would like to see us not divided by these religious issues because we have much bigger problems here. We need to figure out how to get people to stop using the labels liberal and conservative – Dem and Rep- I have coined a new name: RIDs Republican, Independent, Democrats. Can we work together? Unless we get the RIDs to work together and read these papers and rise – we are all doomed. You are the first Democrats I have seen so far talking like this except for my group, I would be ever so grateful if we could pool resources. Respectfully, BJ BettyJean Kling M.S, M. Ed Founder: The Majority United www.TheMajorityUnited.com www.FreeMeNow.wordpress BTR. The Majority United Radio Mon 10 pm & Wed 9:30 pm Eastern Call-in Number: ( 347 ) 838-8011 www.blogtalkradio.com/FreeMeNowhttp://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#!/group.php?gid=112870418738402 Free US Now- "A victim's first scream is for help; a victim's second scream is for justice." - Coral Anika Theill TMUIMAGINEEmpowering Women To Unite & Mobilize ! |
And the winner is...What is UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development? Archives
January 2021
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