It's high time for an update about ICLEI.   You know, the "sustainability" organization that both Whatcom County and City of Bellingham have been joined-to for some years.   ICLEI stands for "International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives," but it also soft-pedals itself as “Local Governments for Sustainability” and ICLEI USA.   That may sound wholesome, but we have good cause to think any relationship with 'em should end.

More than one local politician has attempted to brush aside and pooh-pooh concerns raised about ICLEI.   But let there be no doubt, ICLEI is not benign.  From inception ICLEI's goal has been to reshape and steer the world toward a global political superstructure of U.N. design by coaxing one city and county after another into its network.   The network has now become quite large.

WE've located and posted a pair of video interviews (below) of ICLEI founder, Jeb Brugmann.   He describes the long term plan plainly.

But first, see that ICLEI has adopted new “Oceania” branding for its Asian secretariat.   In  light of ICLEI's we're here for you strategy, the name rang a bell in a way that's creepy.   Ever read the book "1984" by George Orwell, or see one (or both) full length films based on the tale?   Yes, the book is fiction.   For all we know, this Oceania imaging is tongue-in-cheek.   Who knows?

Some insist that ICLEI's influence is distant and unrelated to local programs.  True?   Unfortunately, ICLEI is very "present."  Both Bellingham and Whatcom County adopted elaborate ICLEI climate-change ordinances that established goals for us, the public, without common knowledge.  Since those ordinances were adopted ICLEI has kept a hand in following-up on local "performance."  ICLEI's international standards have crept into our code and regulations.  WE reported that they want to go even farther now, to direct public and private affairs in our region (see its recent proposal at the Northwest Clean Air Agency site).  No, ICLEI isn't inactive.  It's heavily promoting food and transportation directives to members, and it always directs jurisdictions to the U.N.'s human habitat strategy for urban megaregions (we're in "Cascadia").   Does any part of that seem suitable here?

Here's another item, an ICLEI account of City of Bellingham councilman Jack Weiss accepting an award  from Brugmann himself, on behalf of Bellingham and Whatcom County.   This trophy was presented for the EPA-funded Community Energy Challenge that the Excavator revealed as not only a financial bust, but a major crony trip to the public trough.

Voicing concerns about ICLEI is not paranoid tinfoil-hat talk.

Brugmann is quite frank in this interview about the history and intent of ICLEI.   He would know, he's ICLEI’s founder.  In the interview he describes its strategy for achieving political globalization by way of planning policy.  He describes a 10-year campaign to establish “stakeholder” alliances, and promoting growth management through urbanism.   Brugmann warmly recalls coordinating with the U.N.'s Maurice Strong when Agenda 21 was launched.   [Strong is infamous for this faux pas, (quote):  "Licences to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child. "]    Watch his ICLEI Oceania videos:

Last year, on May 10, 2011 questions about ICLEI were raised at a Whatcom County council Finance Committee meeting.   Council member Ken Mann made a reference to ICLEI software (that's a bit of a mystery, but WE suggest we could live without it).   The minutes say,  “Crawford stated he would like the administration and Council to consider the membership when the 2013-2014 budget process begins.”

Okay, its  budget time.  If ICLEI membership funding hasn’t ended yet, that needs to happen.  Not only must membership end (that would require a resolution repeal), but other involvement and ties should be severed.   It doesn't matter if ICLEI offers affiliation and services "for free" (WE believe that's the current arrangement).  It's vision isn't ours.

Last year  Pete Kremen promised that ICLEI's membership fee wouldn't be paid, but apparently that made no difference.  Whatcom County remains on its list of members.   (Who knows where Jack Louws stands on ICLEI, if he's even aware of what it really is.)  City of Bellingham is still listed as an active member.  Who knows if the mayor or council have ever considered untangling from ICLEI, but it should.

Any legislation that makes performance commitments to a non-government organization, an international one, to steer citizens is simply wrong.  Council has the authority to repeal every ICLEI related resolution, ordinance, and official reference.

"Why exactly would a jurisdiction need ICLEI ties and commitments?"  That question needs to be asked.  Governments can be good neighbors with high standards without entering into agreements with "worldwide" non-government organizations.  How did this ever pass review?   It doesn't matter now.

WE think the most untenable part of this is that our local governments have aligned and committed to an international organization that aspires to establish an overarching political structure, with the desire to change us and direct public policy through the adoption of its policies and guidance.   ICLEI holds "world congresses" that front for the U.N.   That may not have been revealed to officials when they became involved, but it's definitely known now.

We are a self-directed sovereign nation.   Government on all levels is accountable solely to us, we the people.   The supreme law of the land is literally ours.   Each representative swears a personal allegiance to us when they take their solemn oath to uphold the Constitution.   Our governments must disconnect from this organization that seeks to coordinate plans for the world.   WE think others that knock on the door making similar offers to make public policy for us should be sent packing too.  When they sing sweetly "... Every deed, every thought, tis for thee"  it's pretty obvious:   No, they're not. 

WE can't help but wonder, what gives with all the food crisis talk lately, scaring the devil out of people?  Well it all goes hand-in-hand with peak oil and global warming/climate change of course.

Religious fanatic, or environmental extremist? What's the difference?

Right here, today ...  "Climate Change & the Future of Food"?    Adaptation Strategies? Like what?   Check out the invite:

Notes and Links:  MRC is the Marine Resources Committee of Whatcom County;  here's the link to Whatcom Conservation District.  WE understand that Whatcom County Public Works will be there, as well.   Planners, planners, and more planners.   'Wonder if council is aware of what these agencies are doing.   Readers need to know that WWIN, Whatcom Watersheds Information Network, is a private organization with a persona that makes it look like it's an official "agency" but like so many others it's not (they seek to advise anyone who will listen, sharing their view of what's best for everyone else).

There's way to much "volunteer visioning" going on these days, do you think?   There's been one "workshop" or "community meeting" after another, most entirely one-sided, pre-programmed consensus affairs principally run by advocates and proponents.   WE dredged and it seems that this event's organizers Kilanowski and Jimerson are doubling up, tied to both WSU "Carbon Masters" and WWIN (like WSU's Blake).   Special interests galore, most funded by tax dollars and grants.  Think there would be any spin at an event like this?   Nothing but.

Commentary:

All Hail the Nanny State! You know, all this wouldn't bother me so much if it was left to the earnest but crazy guy on the street corner, holding the "repent!" sign.  It's his job, and his first amendment right to convince me to repent, and it's my job and my right to decide if I need what he's selling, or not.  The non-establishment clause of the first amendment prevents him from co-opting government into forcing me to join his religion -- at least the Judeo-Christian ones, it seems. Increasingly today though, we have social justice and environmental prophets who are seemingly immune from the non-establishment clause,  digging their tendrils ever deeper into my personal affairs. They have all the trappings of a faith-based religion, except the name. 

They wrap themselves in the garb of science, but all they have done is trade traditional vestments for a lab coat, with none of the objective scientific rigor. Put your money where your mouth is! Do what it takes to give me reliably reproducible science. Maybe then I'll join your cause -- not your religion. But attempts to coerce me by the force of government is only going to make me, and more people than you may realize, resentful and reactionary. Just gimme some truth!    Signed, Publius

Science realists, conservation challengers, climate change skeptics, anyone who dares to suggest that greenhouse gas emission goals are a load of hot air ...  not getting with the program?  No pressure.     (HAPPY HALLOWEEN)

(Not for the faint-hearted, or under-18 crowd)

FYI - this, believe it or not, was produced and released some time ago in Europe as an effort named 10:10 Global.org.   It was intended to bring humor to the eco-activist cause, but it created such an uproar it's been pulled (blocked) repeatedly.   It disappears [KABOOM!] from YouTube due to (no pressure!) "political correctness."   But it keeps popping back up.

This is amusing, or ought to be.  There are those in the illiberal community who seem obsessed to know who and what makes the Excavator rock n roll.

Truth be told (that's always been the theme) a lot - a lot - of eyes are on local government, what constitutes just law, fair and open process, and checking science and facts. 

The rational public is the Excavator, dudes.   There are tens of us, hundreds ... along with tens of thousands across the nation.  The "silent majority" is silent no more, and it's shining a light on a lot that slithers.  WE are reading, we are researching, we are watching.  And we're saying "No."

Americans have the rare and undeniable constitutional right to speak freely.  And WE say, as we should:   Back out of managing private lives.  Get your meat hooks off our homes and hearths.  Our land and property are not public playthings - this is not a game of "Monopoly."  And stop the incessant indoctrination of our children with political and ecological religiosity.

Readers --  you're all "the Excavator."  Add your comments, below.

WE just received a disk of public records that’s a scorcher.  Having looked through quite a few of these files (there are hundreds - it's good that this came with a list of “finds”) it looks like the county has done its best to evade the reality that significant collateral damage will befall the local economy if the “Lake Whatcom Reconveyance” moves forward.  What’s worse, the files reveal the Park Department’s constant and direct involvement in politics.  A lot of effort seems to have gone into putting direct pressure on elected officials near and far.  Instead of being objective, government has exhibited nothing but cold disregard for casualties on this steady march toward a predetermined outcome.  The disk is loaded with emails that urge secrecy about flaws.  Reading like a pulp fiction novel, tens of emails revealed deal making, back slapping, and surprising hypocrisy about environmental protection.   Unelecteds and officials marched together to take one side, with a few key players leading an orchestrated campaign to drum up public support based on grandiose promises and emotion. 

WE wrote a post on May 17 about this. In short, the “DNR reconveyance” would move 8,700 acres of public land back from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to Whatcom County, to create what’s described as (drum roll) a breathtaking new park.  Or was that a massive new conservation area?  Or was that a “water preserve”?   Or was that a “forest preserve”?   The promotional scheme that’s been fronted by Parks, the Land Trust, and Conservation Northwest has been a chameleon, changing constantly to tug at whatever heartstrings would deliver a crowd.

Pressing (critical) question #1:  What’s driven this, really?   The need for a park or something else?  Answer: 
             Oct 11, 2011 - proponent Lisa McShane wrote:   “It was at the 2003 tour where Jeff May, DNR logger, said to several of us: "if the people don't want logging here why don't you just reconvey the lands?"

There it is, that said it all.  For all the lip service given by Whatcom County about sustainability and renewable resources, these people don’t want logging here, and they found the perfect way to do it.  Partner with parks.

WE searched this disk, and found no tangible plan for the “park,” only maps showing what should get handed over, and a paper trail of claims that said there could be a regional park.  WE found “recreation” mentioned on cue in numerous talking papers, letters to the state, and emails to reporters.  But there were no trail maps or other plans except a few budget estimates.  So we did extra due diligence and checked the Parks website, but found nothing but the same smoke and mirrors there.  If you can bear the 11.4 megabyte download, look through the adopted 2008 Parks, Rec and Open Space Plan.  You won’t find much except a few statements about “opportunity” and a few blips on maps referring to the already useful trails on working DNR forest land.  There was nothing in the way of a mention of this park in the 20 year or 6 year capital improvement plans except for trail improvements to the working DNR property as it stands.  But “park” is the required legal purpose necessary for the land exchange, so “recreation” and “passive recreation” were injected everywhere necessary - into public notices and glowing narratives - for show.   "Preserve park" is the current one-size-fits-all description.

What WE found instead of a tangible plan was a lot of email about making money.  Reading through these, maybe it should be called a “money park.”

WE found emails estimating how much rent could be collected from cell tower leases (not one, four).  And there was a jaw-dropper about making money from wind turbines, with Convivium Renewable Energy saying there could be up to forty (!).   Huh?   What about the dramatic breast beating that there must be no roads or logging, to protect “our reservoir that provides drinking water for 90,000 people” ?   (It's a natural lake, mind you, not a water tank.)   And what about the urgent need to put a halt to activity on steep slopes that could result in (gasp) landslides?   Whether Convivium has moved on or not, the emails revealed a crass double-standard to exempt lucrative special interests from the DNR’s strict Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) once DNR and logging were out of the picture.   That was a total surprise.

Read clips from this email:  
             Oct 13, 2011 - David Wallin, WWU Huxley (who provided supporting "return to nature" reports) wrote to Park Director McFarland and Conservation Northwest’s Mitch Friedman:    “It seems that the reason this hasn't been done already on DNR lands is due to DNR's HCP.  DNR has taken the position that they are unwilling to even consider wind power on any of their west-side lands.  As I understand it, when the HCP was negotiated back in the 90s, they included lots of provisions to allow incidental environmental impacts from a variety of non-forestry related activities (gravel mining, cell phone towers, etc.) on DNR lands.  Unfortunately, no one thought to include wind power generation as an allowable non-forestry related activity.  DNR is concerned that if they try to re-open the HCP to modify it to now allow wind power, they could lose the entire HCP.  However, as I understand it, after reconveyance, the HCP would no longer be an obstacle to considering wind power.  Not sure if putting wind power on the land would compromise the reconveyance itself.  Can we have wind power in a park?  Apparently, we can have cell phone towers in a park so I don't see why we couldn't have wind power.”

            Then Mitch Friedman from Conservation Northwest writes back in the same thread:   “Very cool. Though we need to think through what it means to meet Hinkley's insistence that the HCP continue to apply to the reconveyed land. Maybe there's a way exempting the ridge tops?”

Did you get that?   The habitat conservation plan would be an obstacle?    While loggers would be put out of business because roads pollute and ridges may slide, special interests can do what they want.  It doesn't matter that foresters have been toeing the line and following the Landscape Plan.  After the land is transferred and logging is stopped, the county could write its own exemptions from the rules.   (Maybe we've got that wrong, you figure it out.)

WE saw a lot of emails penciling out how much money this “park” could make for the treasury, and silence about those being put out of work.   Council seemed concerned about the loss of taxes to some “junior taxing districts,” there was a lot of chatter about that.  (Remember that the council vote changed when a "gift" of $500,000 caused the Mt. Baker School District to switch its position to support?)   No numbers were found in these records about the loss of jobs in the woods, or impacts to all the businesses like Hardware Sales, General Chain Saw, Yeagers and  others that supply and repair forestry equipment, mill lumber, and so on.   That’s just wrong.

What else is on the disk?   There were some emails talking about the need to keep things quiet.  WE saw things like this: 
          Oct 8, 2011 from Conservation Northwest’s Friedman to Lisa McShane, Rand Jack at the land Trust, Parks director McFarlane and Con. NW’s Seth Cool:  “Heads up. This is confidential, so please do not share or let others know you have this. (We can’t ask DNR questions.) And yes, it sucks to have this land right before the hearing. But this slide will be in DNR’s presentation."
         DNR is downplaying its significance, saying its just a guess and that future decades play out differently. Nonetheless, it could be an opening for somebody to make trouble if they want to. Basically, value shifts from Common school to State Forest Transfer. WE don’t even know what the latter category is! (Maybe the new name for Forest Board?) Any thoughts on significance or what we might say to offset any concern?”

What was going on here WE can hardly guess.  But the intrigue continued:
             Oct 9, 2011 - Rand Jack at the Land Trust to Mitch Friedman and Seth Cool at Conservation Northwest, Lisa McShane, and Parks director McFarlane:   “I agree that we can't give up at this point, but I am not at all clear what we can do to neutralize the effect if the staff doesn't do so.  I think we need to try to find a way to force the DNR staff explain this.  Is there any way to go back through the channels that got this slide to us to try to bring this to a head before the meeting?  I suspect that Tom Westergreen* has this crisp, bright slide in his pocket and may even have made the slide.  If it does not derail the BNR, it will make getting this through the county council somewhere approaching impossible.  The whole premise of the intertrust exchange is like for like equity.  This slide devastates that premise in its most vulnerable spot.  Well before this slide, Pete has been afraid that BNR would reject the intertrust exchange and that  Tony Larson would hammer him for having wasted the money.”

Has this political kabuki been in the public interest?   People have asked, "Why wasn't something this big ever run through Planning?"  The more a person looks, the stranger it all seems.  WE said the records read like pulp fiction; they do.  WE couldn’t guess why groups like Conservation Northwest and the Land Trust would steer so many people so hard, and crush honest objection with such passion.

Then WE saw the golden egg - a draft conservation easement written (actually negotiated) just before the New Year that would give Whatcom Land Trust immense control of the whole 8,700 acres of this public land forever.  That was a bigger jolt than seeing no mention about lost forest jobs and business, that there was no tangible park plan, that so much focused on money, or that people would talk about about environmental exemptions for untold land uses, but still call this land a “park.”

Read the draft conservation easement yourself.   Any citizen can follow it.   Basically this (1) would apply to the whole reconveyance; (2) the county would have to maintain the land to the Trust’s satisfaction or it could be sued (bearing that cost), (3) the county - meaning the public - would have to pay all the expenses of upkeep and maintenance, and (4) did we mention the agreement would last forever?    Small wonder the proponents would do anything - absolutely anything - to see this reconveyance go through.

With that easement could the state - the DNR - or the people of this county ever see this public land productive again, under those terms?  Did the Board of Natural Resources know about the draft conservation easement?   That's entirely possible, given Public Land Commissioner Peter Goldmark's tight relationship to so many politicians and proponents.  It looks like Pete Kremen knew about this, it was run through county legal; Dan Pike, Kelli Linville and Clare Fogelsong (Bellingham environmental director) were negotiating those terms.  Did our council know?  We the People haven't had an inkling.

This post is so long (and there’s so much more to still to see) we’ll have to issue a Part II.   There are more questions to ask, that's for sure.

Below is a chart that shows just a fraction of the players who have been involved and how many have been connected in emails.   Whether a person considers himself a “liberty-type” or not, you’ve got to admit there’s been a lot more to this “reconveyance” business than  expected.   WE thought it was a shill and bad news, and still do.

*By all means, read this plea from Tom Westergreen.  Take an interest.  Write a note about your concerns to council right now (click here).    Then speak up and loudly at the public hearing on September 11 before the shoe drops, as it very well may.   These are powerful people, and they don't like anyone messing with their plans.

WE care about truth, and most readers know there's far too little clarity or application of the scientific method in government work.   Honest science demands that hypothesis (theory) must be tested and confirmed to correctly identify cause and effect, to respond reasonably when necessary.   What we face nowadays is a tsunami of regulations based more on zealous beliefs than fact-checked science.

San Juan County is a near neighbor with islands in the same chain as ours.   With a small population, they're only now facing the adoption of their first CAO, which means "critical areas ordinance."

Whatcom County has had a CAO since 2005,  revised in 2007.   Ours - WCC 16.16 "Critical Areas" (WCC means Whatcom County Code) - has always been plagued by lack of definition, and it's loaded with obtuse terminology and descriptions of "values" that are impossible to measure.   Of course, those weaknesses didn't stop its being adopted.

We share the pain of our San Juan neighbors who find themselves caught in the same web of pseudo-science and fog, often spun deliberately to achieve undefined ends for "reasons" that make no scientific sense at all.   The following post (one of a series) offers more than a little insight into a situation we face together in the constant struggle against the eco-activist spin machine. 

Countdown to CAOmageddon
 Flaw #9 – Gamesmanship
 from The Trojan Heron

August 11, 2011

Will you please tie my shoes? That was the question posed to several people during a research experiment on the "art" of persuasion. Here's what they found:

You start by asking for something outrageous; when that's turned down, you then ask for something reasonable. A boss may ask an employee to work weekends for a whole year, for example, and when that request gets turned down, the manager might ask for a report to be turned in by Friday. The outrageous request reframes the real request to make it sound reasonable.

And so it goes with buffers in the San Juan County CAO. During various forums, there has been talk of buffers as large as 800 feet. Then, the Planning Commission draft of the CAOs had buffers up to 260 feet. These "outrageous" requests were tweaked to something more "reasonable"... 230 feet. Nevertheless, we still hear the Friends wanting more from buffers. Janet Alderton ended her most recent CAO paean with the un-paean-like punchline:

But the numerous activities permitted in buffers by the proposed Critical Area Ordinance update interfere with buffer function and fail to protect our valuable Critical Areas.

In other words, consider yourselves lucky, peasants, that you're getting any use of your land at all. You should feel grateful! Never mind that no one can seem to adequately quantity or explain what "buffer function" actually means anyway.

The difficulty with all this reasonableness is that the purpose of buffers has been completely lost amidst the bazaar haggling over their size. We don't even know what we're haggling over anymore. What are buffers for? To reduce pollution? What pollution? Paraphrasing Jerry Maguire, show me the pollution. Show me the pollution!

Without de manifestis levels of pollution, there is no need for a remedy. Without a need for a remedy, there is no need for pollution-removing buffers, assuming buffers work as a primary pollutant remedy at all, and it's not clear that they do. It turns out that our own consultant, Dr. Adamus, wasn't even able to describe how buffers work exactly. He declined to explain, for example, the statistics in the Mayer paper, which formed the pollutant-removal basis for the buffer calculator he developed.

We can land a plutonium-powered rover on Mars using a crazy sky-crane contraption and nail the landing within a couple of miles of the target, but we can't get our highly-compensated wetland consultant to explain buffer statistics in the paper he used for our buffer design.

Does that sound reasonable?

UPDATE:  Aug 6, PM - WE just learned, thanks to the Bellingham Herald Politics Blog, that Bellingham City Council dropped this proposal during its afternoon session.    Of course this could pop back up (per eco-diva Lisa McShane's comment at the Herald blog.)   Keep an eye out.   It's a mighty wacky town.
 

Alert!   Bellingham residents should be aware of what its City Council is busying itself with today and tonight (here's the agenda).   WE see this anti Gateway Terminal item on the daytime committee agenda from 1:20 to 2:25 PM today, and this could possibly be voted  during the evening session at 7:00 PM at City Hall:

AB 19642
     4.  ** A RESOLUTION RELATED TO THE GATEWAY PACIFIC TERMINAL PROPOSAL SEEKING A NONBINDING ADVISORY VOTE IN THE NOVEMBER 6, 2012 GENERAL ELECTION.

It looks like Bellingham City Council wants to use their bully pulpit and the political process to promote what its left-wing loon constituency aches for - that Bellingham should badger and control what it has no real right to, the private sector.

Advisory votes have a very useful purpose when government asks the public to weigh-in about government business - taxes, services, etc.    But that's not what this advisory vote would be about.   The communitarian utopians want city government to domineer the private sector and even commandeer it, as they did with the "bag ban" that's just hit us.

The proponents of this advisory vote want to forge a hammer to pound on other governments and agencies.  A big "oppose the shipment of coal" vote would be used to badger the county ceaselessly.

Proponents want to block the legal transportation of goods over the rail system.  Today the left doesn't like coal.   Tomorrow some faction may not want strawberries or tee shirts from somewhere else moved through town.  WE think public mandates like this are a slippery slope.

It's odd and ironic that this resolution would be proposed when city government just won a legal ruling to keep the bizarre and over-reaching CELDF "No-Coal Community Bill of Rights" initiative off the fall ballot.   The proposed ballot question would be framed with this very leading statement that lists the utopians' worst fears:

WE suggest you attend council TODAY/TONIGHT and follow the deliberations if you can.   Sorry about the short notice - WE just heard about this, ourselves.

WE can only imagine the sort of Orwellian GroupThink reaction followers of a blog like Get Whatcom Planning might suffer at the sight of a cartoon like this:   "Oh those @!*!! property rights freaks over  at the Whatcom Excavator!   Wolves and lambs?  Indeed."

The good folks down in San Juan County are in the fight of their lives (like our Skagit neighbors are) trying to hold onto what civil rights they can.   Ordinary citizens are facing one battle after another with domineering planning departments hellbent to dictate what citizens are "permitted" to do.   Dare to farm?  Submit a plan.  Grow a garden?  Submit a plan.   Operate a home business?   Better watch your P's and Q's.   It's hard to believe, but if whatever you want to do with your land wasn't an activity of record in your neighborhood in 1990 - forget it.   [The irony is, the eco-freak planner types consider this kind of retro-control "progressive."   What an oxymoronic handle.]

The proposed San Juan CAO ordinance declares the whole county either protected shoreline or a critical area.   And the BLM has thrown its nasty spider web over the islands.

Of course we're basically in the same boat - only here we're facing runaway claims about wetlands, shorelines and watersheds plus constant demands for more open space and "resource protection" of OUR property.  Futurewise is on a tear, pushing our elected officials into corners.  Parks, trails and habitat corridors are weaving the works together.   Pay your taxes and do what you're told.   Is this about "property rights"?  Heck no.

Property doesn't have rights, people do -- or should we say, people DID.    This cartoon isn't amusing - it's too accurate.    Honor is due to San Juan CAPR for trying to keep a sense of humor.

WE caught some pretty good commentary about this eye-popping federal report at "Rage Against the Kakistocracy," a local site with similar concerns about where our country is headed.

While the Excavator makes a point to focus on local issues, the inconvenient truth is that our own cities and county are in serious planning partnership with groups deeply devoted to globalism.   Virtually every program unfolding right now, like the Ag Plan which is now tied to the Natural Resources Marketplace, are driven by zealous dogma promoted in playbooks like this, and ICLEI's.

Despite disclaimers to the contrary in this report, it unabashedly reveals what our current government is working on.   Read on.

One World Government
from "Rage Against The Kakistocracy"
by Karl Uppiano, July 14, 2012

A couple of posts back, I said that President Obama was scheming against the interests of America and its citizens. To prove that I am not some tinfoil hat fringe lunatic (well, maybe I am, but not because of this), I provide this link to a document by the Obama regime (our government until we change it in November, God willing).

While you're waiting for the 2.24 megabyte PDF to download, I'll describe the highlights. The document is entitled, "Global Governance 2025: at a Critical Juncture". If the title doesn't give you chills, maybe the first paragraph of the Preface will:

     "The United States’ National Intelligence Council (NIC) and the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) have joined forces to produce this assessment of the long-term prospects for global governance frameworks. This exercise builds on the experience of the two institutions in identifying the key trends shaping the future international system. Since the mid 1990s, the NIC has produced four editions of its landmark Global Trends report. The most recent one, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, published in late 2008, noted that momentous change was ahead, with the gap between increasing disorder and weakening governance structures widening. The EUISS produced the first EU-level report on the factors affecting the evolution of the international system in 2006, The New Global Puzzle. What World for the EU in 2025? The report stressed that a multipolar system is emerging and that matching the new distribution of power with new rules and institutions will be critical to preserving international peace and stability."

The idea that peace and stability comes from global governance is as laughable as it is spooky. I suppose a centralized government that was sufficiently domineering could suppress human nature. Humans have always had their differences. That is why we have separate religions, separate states, separate political systems and so on. It is human nature to compete, to invent, to form groups that include some and exclude others. Our founders understood that any government that attempts to govern against natural law (including human nature) is bound to fail, as we saw with the old USSR, to name just one.

Then there's this, from Chapter 1:

     "Climate change has trespassed the boundaries of environmental politics to become the subject of the global political, economic, and security debate and a new focus of multilateral cooperation cutting across these and other domains."

...spoken with all the usual 'progressive' assertiveness that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a foregone conclusion. Despite the fact that the AGW hypothesis is not predictably reproducible (i.e., it's untestable, and therefore unscientific by definition) -- and despite mounting evidence to the contrary, it is essential to the 'progressive' agenda.

The biggest problem that I see with global government is a lack of diversity. Today, if I want to be oppressed, there are plenty of countries where I can go to be oppressed, especially in the Middle East. If I want to be free, there are plenty... no wait... The United States... no wait... not anymore -- although the US is still one of the freest nations in the world, which explains why we have an illegal immigration problem (as opposed to an illegal emigration problem, like the old Soviet Union and Cuba).

The last time I checked, the United States was a sovereign nation as defined by The Constitution. I do not appreciate presumptuous 'progressives' taking liberties with my liberty, and nullifying our constitutional sovereignty without the consent of the governed. And I'll be damned if I'll give my consent.

Skagit Citizens are taking action to oppose the "Envision Skagit 2060 Plan", which is funded with two grants from the Environmental Protection Agency with substantial in-kind contributions from SkagitCounty and its partners, according to an email received last Tuesday. 

It continues, 

Private property rights continue to be under assault across America.   Perhaps more alarming is the disappearance of private property altogether. This major shift away from a fundamental tenet of our nation - the right to own and use private property - is due, in part, to a plan that has been at work in the USA for the past twenty years. That plan is called Agenda 21.  

Skagit county has finished it's work on the Envision Skagit 2060 plan which will impose Agenda 21 style control over our communities.  

The email provides several links to expose and educate people about Agenda 21, and the anti-individual, watermelon movement. (Watermelons are green on the outside and red on the inside: collectivists, who use the environment to stampede otherwise skeptical citizens into forfeiting their individual rights for the collective, out of fear of sensationalized Chicken Little scenarios.)

The meeting took place June 21, 2012. Kate Martin reports on GoSkagit.com,

MOUNT VERNON — By the end of the century, fall flooding on the Skagit River will be more severe, catastrophic coastal flooding could happen every year and salmon could be further endangered by low summer runoff, a University of Washington climate scientist told a packed house Thursday morning.

University of Washington’s Alan Hamlet with the Climate Impacts Group explained how climate change is expected to affect the Skagit River. His talk focused on how greenhouse gases, like those created with the burning of fossil fuels, will cause Earth’s temperature to rise.

The story continues,

Several people challenged Hamlet during the question-and-answer period, including Don Easterbrook, a geology professor emeritus at Western Washington University and a renowned climate science skeptic. Easterbrook contested the numbers upon which the projections were based, including the amount of atmospheric water vapor, a greenhouse gas.

Hamlet said he was not convinced by Easterbrook’s arguments because the data he sees includes “very good measurements of the water content in the atmosphere.” Hamlet added that while specific temperature and sea level rise projections are often wrong, the general trend is an increase of both.

“What the climate models do give us is the trajectory, and they are so unambiguous about that trajectory going forward,” Hamlet said.

One man asked why Hamlet used what he called “optomistic projections.” The man said the carbon dioxide and methane levels in the atmosphere are increasing, not staying level.

WE think the kinds of governments that have the dictatorial power to force people from  technologies and behaviors of their own free choice to that of the government's choosing, consistently have much lower environmental quality than that of freer governments. Why would this change just because they're our dictators? 

Fads come and go, and fads are no more or less common among the people than they are among the anointed government elites. Furthermore, the free market doesn't require an act of congress to change direction if real problems are encountered.