Agenda 21

APC Newswire

Produced by American Policy Center
Email: admin@americanpolicy.org  Website: americanpolicy.org
Tom DeWeese, President
Kathleen Marquardt, Editor
 

How local officials are using stealth to put
Agenda 21 and ICLEI into
every city, town and county of America
By Kathleen Marquardt and Tommy Helms
 

We all know that politicians play fast and loose with the truth -- when running for office to get our vote, once they get into office in order to stay there -- whenever it is expedient to do so.  The general public has become apathetic about politics and elections and one major reason is because of this.  They lie.  

This is about lying by our local officials here in Knoxville.  Might this not be considered just white lies and of really no consequence in today’s world of consumate political liars?  Read it then decide it for yourself.

What did she know and when did she know it?

In January of 2012, newly elected Mayor Rogero said that until a month before (i.e., December 2011) she had no idea of what Agenda 21 was. From “Meet the new boss: Mayor Madeline Rogero,”  Metro Pulse, January 4, 2012 we read:

But connoisseurs of right-wing conspiracy theories are fond of regarding Rogero as a secret operative for the United Nation’s ominous-sounding Agenda 21, which reputedly aims to force innocent suburbanites out of their houses. When we asked her directly if any of that were true, we watched her face closely for any tics that might belie her true status. It turns out she thinks it’s all pretty funny. “I had to look that up, about a month ago, when I saw that surfacing about ‘Agenda 21,’” she says, laughing. “I didn’t even know what it was. So no, I’m not a part of that.”

That story was written January 2012, but in an email sent October 2011, three months earlier, from Susanna Sutherland to rogero@comcast.net, and titled “Agenda21 Talking Points,” are these statements:

Bill said you were under Agenda 21/ICLEI fire and asked me to note talking points to you.  We went through this with the Governor’s campaign, and below is the text that created his standard response:

Dear X,
Thank you for sending the Agenda 21 letter and link to the City of Knoxville’s Energy & Sustainability meeting notes from 2007.  I do not support Agenda 21 and did not sign the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, in spite of receiving regional pressure to do so and being one of the few East Tennessee mayors who did not.  I am also not an ex-officio member of ICLEI’s board.
As stated in the notes link you sent, I am an ex-officio member of the City of Knoxville’s Energy & Sustainability Task Force, which works on identifying areas or efficiency improvements.  The City is a member of ICLEI because it provides valuable networking opportunities with other cities (Chattanooga, Nashville, Oak Ridge, Franklin, Atlanta) in our region who are also working to improve municipal efficiency in light of our increasing energy costs. . ..

Also attached is a Q&A sheet from ICLEI, which they generated after Knoxville and some other cities had similar political situations.  The PDF is a direct ICLEI response to Knoxville’s stress.  FYI, I don’t see the City renewing dues next year, due to the amount of defending we’ve had to do of the organization and amount to which they lean on us as a regional leader, weighed against the spare software/policies we get from them in return. . ..
Susanna

Did Rogero forget everything she knew about Agenda 21 sometime between October 2011 and January 2012?  By now some readers are regurgitating Hillary, “What difference at this point does it make?”  Do you mean, what difference that she lied, or is it what she lied about?  The fact that she lied just lets us know how far she will go to keep her agenda hidden; the bigger issue is that agenda.  That email has a number of damning things in it.

If it were only as simple as another lie from a politician.  According to Bill Haslam, Rogero was the person who “slipped” ICLEI in on his watch.  She very well may have done that, but does anyone really believe he didn’t know about it?  The above email makes it pretty convincing that Haslam knew a lot about Agenda 21 and its invasion into the local body politic (an email further down in this article is even more incriminating for Haslam).

Since becoming governor, Haslam had done nothing to make anyone really believe he is against Agenda 21 or for personal freedom (you can’t be for Agenda 21 and individual rights at the same time).  His actions should open the eyes of those who think Republicans are any better than Democrats as far as the globalist agenda is concerned.  In 2007, a City of Knoxville press release stated: Knoxville is a member of Local Governments for Sustainability, also known as ICLEI after a former name, and is using ICLEI's Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program as the framework for this project.  And the only resolution placed before him that he has failed to sign as Governor was the one written last year against Sustainable Development.  Thus our concluding that Haslam and Rogero’s politics are the same is easily understandable.

The Talking Points (initially for Haslam) in the email from Susanna Sutherland to Rogero (see above) has as the first talking point:

Thank you for sending on the Agenda 21 letter and link to the City of Knoxville’s Engery & Sustainability meeting notes from 2007.  I do not support Agenda 21 and did not sign the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement...  Further down it states: As stated in the notes link you sent, I am an ex-officio member of the City of Knoxville’s Energy & Sustainability Task Force, which works on identifying areas or efficiency improvements.  The City is a member of ICLEI because it provides valuable networking opportunities with other cities...

While Haslam says he does “not support Agenda 21” and did not sign the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement” yet Knoxville signed onto ICLEI under his regime and according to the founder of ICLEI they are inseparable:

The first decade of ICLEI’s existence has been almost entirely defined by two emblematic programs: the Cities for Climate Protection campaign (CCP) and the Local Agenda 21 (LA21). The general logic of the two initiatives has been crafted during the very first days of the social movement organization, during its founding congress where a well tested method and rationale has been applied.

Another source that shows the interconnectedness of the alphabet-soup of UN NGOs says:  The CCPC grew out of the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), and its forerunner was ICLEI’s Urban CO2 Reduction Project (1991–93).

But the biggie is in an email dated May 13, 2011, from Cyrus Bhedwar, Southeast Regional Director of ICLEI to Susanna Sutherland:

Susanna --

Thanks for your inquiry about the relationship of the great work you’re doing in Knoxville, your participation in the ICLEI network and Local Agenda 21.  I’ve attached a full response for your review.

By this we know that Agenda 21 has been in Knoxville during the Haslam regime.  No wonder he wouldn’t sign a resolution against it. 

What is the big secret she and he are hiding?  ICLEI and Agenda 21
To help you understand why the obfuscation and misdirection from our local politicians are so dangerous, you need to understand what they are imbedding into our local government.  International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, (ICLEI, now called local communities for sustainability) is an international (as it’s name implies) organization headquartered in Bonn, Germany.  ICLEI leaders wrote chapter 28 of the UN’s Agenda 21.  The first paragraph of Chapter 28 reads:

Because so many of the problems and solutions being addressed by Agenda 21 have their roots in local activities, the participation and cooperation of local authorities will be a determining factor in fulfilling its objectives.  Local authorities construct, operate and maintain economic, social and environmental infrastructure, oversee planning processes, establish local environmental policies and regulations, and assist in implementing national and subnational environmental policies.  As the level of governance closest to the people, they play a vital role in educating, mobilizing and responding to the public to promote sustainable development. If you want to address local issues, they should be addressed by local people with a sense of local economic, social and environmental needs.  Instead you have an international body that has written the plan for how every city, town and county in the world should look vis a vis transportation, housing, environment, education -- every aspect of our lives.  Every city plan has the exact same planning standards that are in every other city.  Local issues, needs, wants, even rights don’t come into play with

ICLEI and Agenda 21other than as touchy-feely buzzwords to draw in the unknowing citizens.
To understand what our local non-elected officials are doing to put this egregious plan into our government offices without our knowledge, read this from an email from an ICLEI official to Susanna Sutherland of the Office of Sustainability here in Knoxville:

I’ve been made aware of HB 3571 in the Tennessee General Assembly, which would make it illegal for all local governments to be a member of ICLEI.  Can we connect on the phone to discuss this?  I’m looking to get a better sense of whether this bill could actually pass, and if there is any organized opposition to it.  I’ve seen the package of related bills that would vastly restrict local planning efforts.

ICLEI is looking to take action to defend our organization -- and your right of free association to join a nonprofit organization.. . .  I’m sure you agree that this proposed legislation . . . represents a dangerous precedent in how it seeks to abolish common-sense sustainability initiatives and infringe upon the rights of local governments.

What action was ICLEI going to take?  Legal action?  To sue Tennessee for not wanting to take marching orders from an international organization that is working to deny us property rights?  Ms Sutherland is not being denied her right of “free association to join a nonprofit organization.”  She can join any she wants, but when she (and her superiors) have the city join an international association, that is unconstitutional; she does not have that right.  Neither did Rogero when she did it.  It all just slips under the tent and we the people end up losers.

That is why when Rogero is disingenuous about her knowledge of Agenda 21 it is important for the citizens of Knoxville to understand that she is not being truthful.  You can say, so what, all politicians lie.  Yes, the majority of them seem to.  But here is something that doesn’t make sense: they pretend they never heard of Agenda 21; or that it is ephemeral -- it has no teeth; that people who talk about it wear tin foil hats.  Why is it that those who are so much for Agenda 21, that are doing everything in their power to get it established into every department of government always deny that it exists?  If Agenda 21 is so great that we should all be doing everything we can to reduce our carbon foot prints to 1% (0 would be dead), why don’t they admit it?  Why do they hide it?  If it is all that great we will be jumping on the bandwagon with them.

The problem is Agenda 21 is so far from being great, it is a plan to control every aspect of our lives, to take away private property, to deny us our liberty, and to make us slaves.  That is why they don’t promote it; you wouldn’t buy it.  So the powers-that-be are sneaking it in through planning commissions, sustainability councils, even our schools -- while they are saying that they never heard of Agenda 21.
Even if you go no further in researching Agenda 21, you must admit that something smells when politicians are promoting something while at the same time they are denying they even know what it is.  We can no longer expect our elected officials to tell us what is going on, so we have to find out for ourselves.

Once you find out, you need to do something about it other than complain.  Griping is not going to save this country, our children and our grandchildren.  It is time to remove the culprits from office and elect those who honestly and openly will answer to the people.