Category:

MEASURING HUMAN CAPITAL: FIVE QUESTIONS TO CHALLENGE CONTROL

8/15/2014

When you're reading these 5 questions and imagining what the 'answers' would be (if anyone answers you) be sure to stretch this to fit situations where you're in the Planning Department of your city, or in a Visioning meeting about changes to the center of your town, or at a Climate Action Plan meeting. Standardization is being blanketed across all elements of our interaction with local government. The following post does not just apply to education and control of students. Continuous assessment of behavior and use applies to energy, law enforcement, business management, land use, government projects, and health care.

Here's a recent post from Charlotte Iserbyt's blog page
http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.mx/2014/08/five-magic-questions.html

Five Magic Questions
Enable Parents to Debate the Issues

In 1996 Anita Hoge devised and distributed widely the following useful tool for parents’ groups to use in testimony before state legislatures and local school boards. The questions reveal the disturbing psychological aspect of assessment testing and curriculum being given to children. It is alarming when one considers that the State has defined the criteria upon which these affective standards will be scored, and assigned a passing or fail grade, and will prescribe remediation in order to get the child to measure up to State-defined par.

These questions are still current and pertinent to Common Core, etc. They serve as an excellent educational tool to equip parents with the right questions they can ask the next time disturbing things begin to happen to their children and their schools. The text of the pamphlet is reproduced below in its entirety:

FIVE MAGIC QUESTIONS
ENABLE PARENTS TO DEBATE THE ISSUES

Education regulations or laws state which standards or outcomes your child needs to meet to graduate. Many of the outcomes are vague and subjective. Look at the verbs. This shows why these outcomes are impossible to measure objectively. An example under a category like “Citizenship” states, “All students will negotiate and cooperate with others.” The Five Magic Questions parents can use to win the debate when outcomes reflect subjective or vague areas are:

1. How do you measure that outcome? If an outcome states that “all children must have ethical judgment, honesty, or integrity,” what exactly is going to be measured? How do you measure a bias in a child in order for him to graduate? Must children be diagnosed? Will they be graded by observation or pencil or paper tests? How will performance or behavior be addressed?

2. How is that outcome scored or what is the standard? What behavior is “Appropriate” and to what degree? For example, how much self-esteem is too much or not enough to graduate? Can government score the attitudes and values of its citizens?

3. Who decides what that standard will be? The state has extended their mandated graduation requirements or exit outcomes down to the individual child. This bypasses all local autonomy. What about locally elected school directors? Will they become obsolete? Are we talking about a state or government diploma?

4. How will my child be remediated? What are you going to do to my children to change them from here to there in their attitudes and values in order to graduate? How do you remediate ethical judgment, decision-making, interpersonal skills, environmental attitudes? What techniques will be used? What risks are involved? What justification does the state have to change my children’s attitudes?

5. What if parent and state disagree on the standard or how it is measured in the classroom? Who has the ultimate authority over the child? What about privacy? Can parents opt out of a graduation requirement of the state?

All children must meet the same fixed standard of “future citizen” or not graduate, go to college, or get a job. Your child is human capital. This is why the state wants control of the graduation requirement—and that is why local school boards must create policy to stop the state from exerting power over elected officials. Ask this question: Do you want equity in opportunity, or do you want equity in standards?

Watch Anita B. Hoge discuss "The End Game of Assessment" on YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc_G5GmigkY. This post is reproduced with some minor alteration from pp. 367-368 of the deliberate dumbing down of america.

May 3: Globalization of California conference/ May 10 Free&Equal Los Angeles

5/2/2014

Join me and other speakers and activists at tomorrow's Globalization of California conference on Treasure Island, San Francisco 10:00-5:30
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND INFORMATION

I'm excited to be a part of the Free & Equal
UNITED WE STAND Festival
Next Saturday, May 10 UCLA Pauley Pavilion
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND INFORMATION

SEE YOU THERE!

GLOBALIZATION OF CALIFORNIA CONFERENCE--May 3 in San Francisco

4/9/2014

In meetings across California, unelected and unaccountable regulators are setting up networks of regional government that are usurping local control from you and your duly elected city, county, community and other local officials. These regional bodies are not acting in the “public good” but are reinventing a government that strips property rights away from legitimate property owners and instead gives them to a chosen few under the auspices of programs such as “sustainable development”, ”smart growth” and “public-private partnerships.”

Are you a property owner? Do you value local control of your communities by your duly elected officials? If so, then the time to act is NOW!

The Globalization of California Forum brings top recognized experts together (Michael Shaw, Patrick Wood, Rosa Koire, Debbie Bacigalupi, Heather Gass, Mike Munzing, Matt Grocott, Steve Brandau) to reveal the details and the necessary actions to put a stop to it! Space is limited, so get your ticket today!

The Globalization of California Forum
Saturday, May 3, 2014 – 10:00AM to 5:30PM
Treasure Island, San Francisco Bay
Doors open at 9:30AM for Check-in & Registration
Lunch and Information Packet included
Individual, Family and Group Tickets Available

eventbrite ticket

EXPOSING THE GLOBAL ROAD TO RUIN THROUGH EDUCATION

3/25/2014

Charlotte Iserbyt's ground breaking conference DVD set is now available. If you're wondering how education became a nightmare and what the future will bring grab your copy of this exceptionally interesting and thought-provoking multi-DVD set now. Charlotte has also made the full conference available on YouTube. Watch it.

Note from Charlotte: "SHARE! SHARE! SHARE!
Those of us involved in the production of Exposing the Global Road to Ruin through Education (ETGRTRTE) are calling on viewers, here and abroad, to make this YouTube version go VIRAL/GLOBAL.

We have stalled their efforts by at least 39 years! We MUST continue the opposition/resistance. Future generations (your children!) are counting on us.

One cannot win a war without identifying the enemy. One cannot win a war without ammunition.

The YouTube version of ETGRTRTE is your Tool Kit (ammunition) to win this war which is determined to destroy the cultural identify of ALL nations. Repeat ALL nations! The 1983 Phi Delta Kappan cartoon by Joel Pett, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, included in this disc set, captures some of the essence of what is taking place right now in ALL schools of the world. "

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt/3D Research Company
EXPOSING THE GLOBAL ROAD TO RUIN THROUGH EDUCATION
Available at Amazon.com by 3D Research Co.
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

The Gap Year ---- Pre-College Students and UN Agenda 21---Common Core

3/4/2014

The Gap Year. What is it? As most middle and upper class parents of high school students are discovering, The Gap Year is the year following graduation from high school when college is delayed for a year or more to 'help the student find his or her purpose.' Rather than wasting a year in college drinking, smoking dope, and drifting about without direction, the student is channeled into an international program to 'give back.' These programs are big business now (click here to see the USA Gap Year Fair) and are mainly designed to send 17-20 year-old white middle and upper class kids into third world countries like Guatemala and Uganda where they can use their 'skills' to teach the locals to develop their economy. That's the story parents and students hear.

Of course that's not the bottom line. The real purpose of The Gap Year is to separate students from their families and from their values and expectations, and help them develop a sense of shame and guilt for their privileged lifestyle that they'll (hopefully) retain for the rest of their lives. This is often referred to as Transformative Learning. They'll be indoctrinated with the religious philosophy of the Far East---give in, give up, accept what is, give back, serve others, renounce the self, trust emotions over facts, humility, live with less, donate, donate, donate, volunteer, volunteer, volunteer---and continue the process of working with a cohort in a collective in order to actualize the dreams of others. One of the major lessons students learn is that information is less important than feelings. Information can be found in a computer, but true value is found in the heart. Instead of developing and acquiring knowledge, the student is responding to emotional stimuli. The 'students' are given college credit for this through Antioch University Seattle. The college president's quote is straight out of UN Agenda 21: “Antioch University Seattle is not a traditional four-year university. Our roots are in service and advancing the causes of political, economic, and social equality.” The costs can range from $10,000 to $45,000 for the year depending on the program.

Giving up the self to serve is a philosophy that is not alien to the West, of course. People in religious orders are taught that the self is there only to serve. Fine. Presumably they're accepted into these religious orders after a time in the novitiate proves they're suitable. This is the sort of philosophy (Kant, Hegel, Martin Luther) that made it possible for the Nazis to motivate Germans to dedicate themselves to their Fuhrer. All for the greater good. All for the common good.

Whatever. High school kids are vulnerable and may be leaving their parents for the first time. They're going to Guatemala and Uganda and India to see squalor and try to 'alleviate it'. They'll be 'teaching' micro-finance to villagers or serving 5,000 Sikhs at a festival for their educational year abroad. Rather than acquiring knowledge, these students will be at their most vulnerable, in stressed conditions of poverty and danger, and will be taking responsibility for the life conditions of others. Is their instruction going to focus on the obvious question: Where is all the aid money going when it's sent to these countries? Instead of seeing that major local and international corruption and corporatization has impoverished whole nations, the message will be that one planet, one family, one future is the philosophy that will save the world from greedy people like your parents.

Here's a posting on the Facebook page of one of The Gap Year purveyors:
There is an expectation in China that a teacher will take responsibility not only for a student's academic progress but also for their development as a person. When did we lose sight of this in our culture?

WHAT? These for-profit partners in UN Agenda 21 are training young adults to be change agents.

LEAPNOW – our primary purpose is nothing less than transformation and ... that explores the essential question: “How can I be a proactive agent of change?

Here's a quote from LeapNow.org (LEAPYEAR2) that you'll appreciate:

Learn to hold a transformative learning container for others to deepen your own transformation

The purpose of The Gap Year is to cement the relationship of the vulnerable student with a collective, to use a sort of shock treatment to break the student's connection to her family and culture, and to further the goals of UN Agenda 21: one world without borders, regulations, restrictions, or limitations for mega-corporations.

The Gap Year is an opportunity to use social manipulation and behavioral modification to mold the New Man, the Sustainable Man for the New Age: obedient, passive, convinced of his non-evident brilliance and goodness, humble and willing to work for nothing, and dependent on the approval of the collective.

UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development crafts the new consciousness of the New Man.
RESIST.

COMMON CORE: THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

1/4/2014

The big picture of globalization/one world government is dependent on the inventory and control of all aspects of your life. Knowing that the 'fourth pillar' of UN Agenda 21 is culture (click here to read my blog post) you'll recognize that public education, in order to change perception and behavior, is essential to the implementation of the action plan for the 21st century. In order to ensure the standardization of perception and behavior throughout the world it is necessary to change the educational system. Education is the base for all cultural change simply because it is compulsory for all children (in most nations) and the opportunity for shaping their thoughts and actions spans their most formative years. The trend toward "Life Long Education" continues to enforce collective thinking and the substitution of emotion for reason.

The following video is an Alex Jones/Charlotte Iserbyt interview discussing Common Core, it's history, and the true consequences of standardized, uniform 'education' managed by unelected boards and financed with your tax dollars.

Charlotte announces the release of her phenomenal conference DVD set available on Amazon here. I was honored to be a small part of this historic collection of riveting presentations exposing the dark truths of the educational system. From process to philosophy to results, this dynamic conference examines what is behind The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.

Please grab a copy of the Global Road to Ruin Through Education Conference and watch it with friends and family.

WHY IT ALL SEEMS CRAZY: SECOND ORDER CHANGES

5/19/2013

Read the following carefully. It is the blueprint for the disintegration of established systems, and you are seeing it all around you, now. This article is specifically about the educational system but it applies to every aspect of our cultural, political, economic, and environmental systems. Second order changes are in progress right now, and that is why nothing seems to make sense.

From Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, author of The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

THE 1990–91 (WINTER) ISSUE OF OUTCOMES, an educational journal devoted to discussion of Outcome-Based Education and the problems associated with its implementation (teachers’, administrators’ and community resistance) published a remarkable article entitled “Paradigm Change: More Magic than Logic” by John C. Hillary.
The reader should remember that the manipulation of classroom teachers and administrators discussed in this article is standard operating procedure in most schools undergoing “restructuring.”

Excerpts from Hillary’s article in Outcomes follow:
The deeper changes that frustrate leaders and threaten followers are planned second-order changes.... These changes intentionally challenge widely shared assumptions, disintegrate the context of “organization” and, in general, reframe the social system. This, in turn, generates widespread ambiguity, discontinuity, anxiety, frustration, confusion, paranoia, cynicism and anger as well as temporary dysfunction. Such trauma often builds to the point that leaders abandon their efforts.

The most disruptive changes—second order changes—on the other hand, call into question the entire context of organization. Such multidimensional changes not only challenge the content of each domain but also disrupt the alignment among them. Paradigm change is therefore not only traumatic in and of itself, but also challenges other attributes and disintegrates the relationship among all domains. The eventual outcome of such change is “transformed” or “renewed” organization.

The new vision for schooling suggested by contemporary educators represents a significant “second order” challenge to school organization.
The leader of planned second order change will be regarded as out of context by the organization. If he thinks and behaves in accord with a vision that
requires second order changes, he has no choice but to violate or challenge the established culture, mission/purpose, and paradigm of the organization.
From the existing frame of reference, such behavior will be seen as illogical. Powerful and pervasive psycho-social forces will bear down on the renegade in a relentless organizational effort to bring him back into alignment. Unless the leader succeeds in progressively bending the pervasive frame, persistence is increasingly risky.

During second order change, the organization must face and hopefully pass through a period of widespread psychological ambiguity, social disconnectedness and general confusion....The requisite disintegration of the existing culture, mission/purpose, and paradigm disrupts the organization’s frame of reference. During this time, there is little or no clear and consistent context to guide the thinking and behavior of members. In social systems, this condition produces dysfunction, anxiety, frustration, disequilibrium, and systemic chaos.

The instigator of second order change must consistently behave in ways that will not make sense when framed by the existing context. With time and leadership, the organization environment must move from initially and
naturally selecting against the innovation to selecting for the innovation.

The extinction of the old way of doing business is the desired outcome. Hence and with time, the risk should gradually shift away from the innovator and toward those who persist in holding on to “the way it’s always been.”

SMELLS LIKE MANDATORY VOLUNTEERING

3/14/2013

As I've said, it doesn't come with flashing lights announcing itself as UN Agenda 21. Here's a program from a small town in Northern California that enlists 'grandparents' to mingle with the homeless in the downtown area. While this might just seem like a nice small town idea this is the kind of thing that morphs into Asset Based Community Development and mandatory volunteering. What? You're not working? You're retired? And you're not volunteering? Deadwood! Communitarianism: all for the common good.

http://yubanet.com/regional/Grandparents-Take-to-the-Streets.php#.UUH6oBz29ps

GRANDPARENTS TAKE TO THE STREETS
By: Elisa Parker, Reinette Senum

NEVADA CITY, Calif. February 14, 2013 - Grandmothers and Grandfathers are hitting the streets of Nevada City. A campaign called The Grandmother Pledge was launched election day 2012 by See Jane Do's, Elisa Parker, former Nevada City Councilwoman and Mayor, Reinette Senum, also Chair of the Nevada City Sustainability Team, and Katherine Doolittle, The Grandmother Pledge Volunteer Coordinator.

The initial launch of The Grandmother Pledge was celebrated by 60 participants on the Boardwalk on Commercial Street, calling for the need to have Grandparents frequent the historic downtown and interact with homeless individuals, the disenfranchised, and many of our youth.

A 90-minute Introduction to The Grandparent Pledge Workshop has been designed to give a comprehensive overview of the groundbreaking program. Participants interested in a deeper understanding of challenges on the streets of Nevada City and available solutions are invited to attend this free 90-minute workshop, Saturday, February 23rd, 11am at Nevada City Hall Chambers.

"It's important to have inter-generational involvement because of what the grandparents can learn from the young and what the young can learn from the grandparents," said workshop presenter, Janice O'Brien, Vice President of Sierra Roots, a local homeless advocacy group. "It's about creating a wholeness of communication between the generations. It's necessary.

Really? Necessary?
Like MANDATORY?
This is how it starts.

BEHIND THE GREEN MASK CONFERENCE this summer

3/15/2011

This summer, the Post Sustainability Institute in collaboration with the Santa Rosa Neighborhood Coalition and Democrats Against UN Agenda 21 dot com will be hosting the Behind the Green Mask Conference in Santa Rosa, CA.

With leaders and activists speaking on topics ranging from UN Agenda 21 to Redevelopment Reform to Exposing New Urbanism to SMART METERS, to Recognizing Communitarianism, the conference will be a forum for those in Northern California and beyond to share information and learn more. This is a non-partisan event.

Contact us for details.

And they call US conspiracy nuts?

3/2/2011

We were just thinking about the Total Information Awareness Act (TIA) from the early 2000's and wondered what happened with all of those DARPA (Defense Dept) programs that sounded like something out of a bizarre 1984 fantasy or a Men in Black movie. By the way, did you know that the Defense Department DOES hire Hollywood screenwriters to come up with scenarios for them? Yep, they do.

Well, anyway, we wondered if TIA was REALLY dead since Congress said that they were not going to fund the surveillance of US citizens within our own borders. You remember, don't you? One of the programs was going to allow people to BET on the potential for war in different locales. We're not making this up. When Congress realized it wasn't a joke they quashed it. The logo for TIA is particularly creepy; it shows that eye on the pyramid that's on the back of the dollar bill beaming yellow light at the entire planet---the all seeing eyeball.

We didn't do too much research, just took a look at Wikipedia. And found that some of those programs are still being funded. Now, total information is vital to Agenda 21/Sustainable Development. Really, it's all about information. What you do, what you think, how to identify you, what you write, what you read, where you live, who you know, how you earn money and where you keep it, meetings you attend, conversations you have, your attitude, your hopes, your fears. Facial recognition software. Software that recognizes you even if you are completely covered from head to toe. Remote surveillance with drones the size and shape of a hummingbird. Audio surveillance. Infiltration of groups. Asset Based Community Development. Community Oriented Policing. Rails to Trails. Community Block Grants. Redevelopment. Neighborhood Stabilization. SMART METERS.

A vital part of Agenda 21 is PREVENTIVE measures to stop crime (thought crime?) before it happens. To actually intercede in communities and identify potential criminals and pay them a little visit BEFORE they commit a crime. OK, you might think to yourself that you like the idea of stopping criminals before they commit a crime.

What's a crime? Who decides? What is a crime against the community? Who is a criminal? What is terrorism? Who is a terrorist?

Here's a program that is being launched in communities across the country:
Sign up for Citizen On Patrol (COP) to become an active partner in your local law enforcement's fight against crime. COP allows your law enforcement agency to send you important crime information and alerts that will allow you to act as another pair of eyes on the street. (Kind of like the Chinese domestic spying during the Gang of Four era (1960's)---they used neighbors, like the Nazi's did---to spy on people on their block and report on their activities.)

UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development expands the definitions of criminality and terrorism. Countries that used the Communitarian ideology to determine criminality are Russia, China, Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany...do you see?

Are you a liberal identified person? Do you see the protection of the planet as something that you are willing to make sacrifices for? Fine. But have you thought about what those sacrifices will be? Do you feel the stress of money going into 'higher, tighter, and righter hands' as George Bush 1st stated? That was furthered by Clinton, and then Bush, and now Obama. All faces of the same Agenda.

Part of Agenda 21 is to limit your choices, restrict your money, exhaust you with overwork and commitments, destabilize your personal environment, subvert your education and discourage critical thinking; the list goes on.

STOP AGENDA 21/SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT by educating yourself and talking about it. Turn off the TV. Make this your hobby, your avocation. Have the courage to be a bit unpopular sometimes.

Oppose Agenda 21 in Madison, Wisconsin; Stop Agenda 21 in St. Louis, MO; Fight Agenda 21 in Seattle, WA; Expose Sustainable Development in Camden, NJ; Say NO to Smart Meters in Santa Cruz, CA; Oppose Sustainable Development in Los Angeles, CA---Stand up. Speak out. We're with you.

How to tell if you're a Good German...

12/17/2010

This post and the one after it are for all of us who think that we could never have participated in the Holocaust.

Programs that are being instituted in your village, town, city, county etc. right now, are programs that carry the stench of the future, and the past.

Asset Based Community Development (ABCD)
Community Oriented Policing (COPS)
Neighborhood Revitalization
Neighborhood Stabilization
Know Your Neighbor
Strong Neighborhoods
COPE

These programs are sponsored by your local government and are designed to find out everything possible about you. Why? Because you're being assessed and mapped. Your skills are being put on a map, searchable through GIS (global information system), so that you can 'contribute' to the well being of the community. Your assets---stored food, water, tools, weapons---are being recorded. Click on this paragraph to see the questionnaire.

These programs are being touted as something YOU want, that YOU asked for---at a visioning meeting, perhaps, where you were Delphi'd. They can't do this without your assistance...and your neighbor's, if you don't cooperate. What they don't tell you is that they also record your limitations, your handicaps, your resistance, your personal behavior, your private life, your habits. The skill-sharing is the candy-coating.

Now read this (from Wikipedia):
In Nazi Germany, a blocklieder (block warden) was the lowest official of the Nazi Party, responsible for the political supervision of a neighborhood or city block, and formed the link between the Nazis and the general population. He was charged with planning, spreading propaganda, and developing an acceptance to the policies of the Nazi party among the typically 40 to 60 households in his area. It was also the duty of the blocklieder to spy on the population and report any anti-Nazi activities to the local Gestapo office. This allowed for a Nazi terror state and was helped by keeping files on each household.

They're coming

9/21/2010

It's kind of an invasion of the body snatchers moment when you see the full face of Communitarianism coming at you, in your town.

That's the feeling I got when I saw the results of the Neighborhood Summit held just a month ago. See my 8/29 post. The plan is to start right up with Asset Based Community Development (ABCD). That's the smiley faced invader who knocks on your door and wants to know all about you 'for the community.' You'll be asked to answer a questionnaire about your talents so that you can then be 'volunteered' to do your part in the 'community'. This is called 'mapping'. Yes, you'll be entered into a data-base that is coded to your location, and identifies your responses as well as the observations of the 'interviewer'. These questionnaires are very detailed, extremely detailed, and break tasks down into many parts so that much will be known about you. The way you respond, your attitude, the condition of your home, who is in it with you, what books you have in your house, your comments, all will be recorded.
Why?
Because you'll be needed to do mandatory volunteering, or perhaps because you won't, or aren't able to do it, and that is important information.
Listen, my friend. This is serious. We truly are in a deeply dangerous time. Share this information with your friends, family, neighbors, in casual conversation. Spread the word. Asset based community development is here.
You are the asset.

What part of Mandatory Volunteering don't you understand?

8/29/2010

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:

Skills of its citizens, from youth to people with disabilities, from thriving professionals to starving artists
Dedication of its citizens associations — churches, culture groups, clubs, neighborhood associations
Resources of its formal institutions — businesses, schools, libraries, community colleges, hospitals, parks, social service agencies

By the late 1990s, communities around the country were mapping and using these resources in imaginative ways, bringing them out of the closet and into creative synergy with each other, with dramatic results. Asset-based community development has provided leaders and institutions in all sectors with an approach that is relatively cheap, effective and empowering, that avoids paternalism and dependence — an approach that can be supported by all parts of the political spectrum and initiated at any level of civic life.

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.