Agenda 21, a Threat to America

In the recently concluded 107th General Assembly of the Tennessee Legislature, by large majorities in both chambers, House Joint Resolution 587 denouncing United Nations Agenda 21 on Sustainable Development was passed.

This resolution identifies and condemns Agenda 21 as a "comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering and global political control" that threatens the private ownership of property and national sovereignty.

Why are our Tennessee representatives so alarmed about Agenda 21? In 1992, Agenda 21 was unveiled during the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, commonly known as the Rio Earth Summit, where more than 170 nations adopted Agenda 21. Maurice Strong, secretary-general of the Rio Earth Summit, stated at the conference that "current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable."

Although Congress never authorized the implementation of Agenda 21, in 1993 President Bill Clinton established by executive order the President's Council on Sustainable Development for the purpose of implementing Agenda 21 in the United States.

Agenda 21 has two primary action plans — Smart Growth and the Wildlands Project.

Sometimes called "comprehensive planning" or "growth management," Smart Growth policies include transportation plans that reduce the freedom of mobility. The long-term goal essentially is to eliminate "unsustainable" single-family dwellings and force humanity into densely packed, rigidly controlled cities.

The Wildlands Project calls for the elimination or restriction of human activity on much of American land. Examples of how the Wildlands Project is being implemented include road closings and the adoption of U.N. Biosphere Reserves and World Heritage Sites. These areas are systematically being closed to recreational use and have habitat "protection" impositions placed on them.

Former Vice President Al Gore has said that sustainable growth entails a "wrenching transformation" of American society. Just how wrenching? Among the actions that are deemed unsustainable, contained in the U.N. Biodiversity Assessment Report issued in 1995, are the grazing of livestock, plowing the soil, fencing pastures, paving roads, building dams and power line construction.

Agenda 21 is being implemented at the local level through the use of so-called facilitated stakeholder councils, not by vote, and by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Smart Growth grants through the American Planning Association.

The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives communicates with local special interests to translate international policy objectives into local and regional legislation through manipulative "visioning" sessions.

School children are not being taught to be American citizens, but citizens of a global village. Today's public education system is designed to crush out children's vibrant eagerness to learn and mold them into easily controlled vassals of an all-powerful state.

Source: 6/30/12,  Douglas and Vicki Freeman live in Knoxville TN.