After more than15 years of trying to warn Americans about the dangers of Sustainable Development, finally, many in the freedom movement are beginning to understand that it is the root of most of the issues we are fighting today. But it is a vast, complicated issue that is difficult to comprehend – even for those of us who have been studying it for so long. It is critical that all freedom-loving Americans grasp the true destructive force of evil that is Sustainable Development.

To that end, I am herein reprinting an interview I gave recently to the Internet news site “The Post & Email.” I know I have been focusing a lot of my articles on this issue lately, but I think this interview is one of the most comprehensive explanations I have yet given. But it is also very simple to understand. Please make copies of this issue of the DeWeese Report and pass them on to all. —- Tom DeWeese

The interview for The Post & Email:

P&E: Sustainable Development is a buzz-word that one hears used frequently in discussions of government policy the world over. But like most Americans, I had no idea what it meant.

Q: Where and when did this phrase originate?

TAD: The term “sustainable development” was born in the pages of “Our Common Future,” the official report of the 1987 United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, authored by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Vice President of the World Socialist Party. For the first time the environment was tied to the tried and true Socialist goals of international redistribution of wealth. Said the report, “Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality.”

The term appeared in full force in 1992; in a United Nations initiative called the U.N. Sustainable Development Agenda 21, or as it has become known around the world, simply Agenda 21. It was unveiled at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), ballyhooed as the Earth Summit. In fact, the Earth Summit was one of the provisions called for in the Brundtland report as a means of implementing Sustainable Development around the world. More than 178 nations adopted Agenda 21 as official policy. President George H.W. Bush was the signatory for the United States.

Q: What kind of political groups promote this internationally?

TAD: At the top of the heap is the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). Created in 1973 by the UN General Assembly, the UNEP is the catalyst through which the global environmental agenda is implemented. Virtually all of the international environmental programs and policy changes that have occurred globally in the past three decades are the result of UNEP efforts.
But the UNEP doesn’t operate on its own. Influencing it and helping to write policy are thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
NGOs are not just any private group hoping to influence policy. True NGOs are officially sanctioned by the United Nations. Such status was created by UN Resolution 1296 in 1948, giving NGOs official “Consultative” status to the UN. That means they can not only sit in on international meetings, but can actively participate in creating policy, right along side government representatives.
Today these NGOs have power nearly equal to member nations when it comes to writing UN policy. In fact, most UN policy is first debated and then written by the NGOs and presented to national government officials at international meetings for approval and ratification. The policies sometimes come in the form of international treaties or simply as policy guidelines. It is through this system that Sustainable Development has become international policy.

The three most powerful NGOs influencing UNEP policy are three international NGOs. They are the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the International Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN). These three groups have provided the philosophy, objectives and methodology for the international environmental agenda through a series of official reports and studies such as: World Conservation Strategy, published in 1980 by all three groups; Global Biodiversity Strategy, published in 1992; and Global Biodiversity Assessment, published in 1996.

These groups not only influence UNEP’s agenda, they also influence a staggering array of international and national NGOs around the world. Jay Hair, former head of the National Wildlife Federation, one of the U.S.’s largest environmental organizations, was once the president of the IUCN. Hair later turned up as co-chairman of the Presidents Council on Sustainable Development.

The IUCN, WWR, and WRI write the documents needed to implement the Sustainable Development agenda. These are provided to the WWF which maintains a network of national chapters around the world. These, in turn, influence, if not dominate NGO activities at the national level. It is at the national level where NGOs agitate and lobby national governments to implement those policies that are advanced by the UNEP. In this manner, the UN and its NGOs bring the world ever closer to global governance.

Q: What kinds of groups promote this in the U.S.A.?

TAD: In 1995, President Bill Clinton, in compliance with Agenda 21, created the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. With great fanfare the Council issued a comprehensive report containing all the guidelines on how our government was to be reinvented under sustainable development. Those guidelines were created to direct policy for every single federal agency, state government and local community government.

Many Americans ask how dangerous international policies can suddenly turn up in state and local government, all seemingly uniform to those in communities across the nation and around the globe.

The answer – meet ICLEI, a non-profit, private foundation, dedicated to helping your mayor implement all of his promises. Originally known as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), today the group simply calls itself “ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability.”

In 1992, ICLEI was one of the groups instrumental in creating Agenda 21. The group’s mission is to push local communities to regulate the environment – and it’s having tremendous success.

Currently there are 544 American cities in which ICLEI is being paid with tax dollars from city councils to implement and enforce Sustainable Development. ICLEI is there to assure that the mayors keep their promises and meet their goals. Climate change, of course, is the ICLEI mantra.

Rather than protecting the environment; their programs are about reinventing government with a specific political agenda. ICLEI and others are dedicated to controlling your locally elected public officials to quietly implement an all encompassing tyranny over every community in the nation.

Like a disease, ICLEI (or others of its kind) is entrenched in most American cities, dictating policy to your locally elected officials, controlling policy and making sure they do not listen to your protests.

In addition to ICLEI, groups like the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy and Audubon Society, NGOs which also helped write Sustainable Development policy have chapters in nearly every city. They know that Congress has written legislation providing grants for cities that implement Sustainablist policy. They agitate to get the cities to accept the grants. If a city rejects the plan, they then agitate to the public, telling them that their elected representatives have cost the city millions in “their” tax dollars. Finally, the NGOs usually get their way.

Q: Did promoting of “Sustainable Development” begin as part of some grass roots movement, or was it promoted centrally by socialist or Marxist circles?

TAD: As stated above, these are not grassroots organizations. They are part of an international cartel of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that work together, particularly through the UN to write policy and influence its acceptance in local and national initiatives.

Q: What do these groups tell us “Sustainable Development” is for?

TAD: Here is the definition of a sustainable community from the 1996 Report of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development:

“Sustainable Communities encourage people to work together to create healthy communities where natural resources and historic resources are preserved, jobs are available, sprawl is contained, neighborhoods are secure, education is lifelong, transportation and health care are accessible, and all citizens have opportunities to improve the quality of their lives.”

Here is a more revealing quote: “Nature has an integral set of different values (cultural, spiritual and material) where humans are one strand in nature’s web and all living creatures are considered equal. Therefore the natural way is the right and human activities should be molded along nature’s rhythms.” from the UN’s Biodiversity Treaty presented at the 1992 UN Earth Summit.

This quote lays down the ground rules for the entire Sustainable Development agenda. It says humans are nothing special – just one strand in the nature of things or, put another way, humans are simply biological resources. Sustainablist policy is to oversee any issue in which man reacts with nature –which, of course, is literally everything. And because the environment always comes first, there must be great restrictions over private property ownership and control. This is necessary, Sustainablists say, because humans only defile nature. In fact, the report from the 1976 UN Habitat I conference said: “Land …cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore, contributes to social injustice.”

Q: What is it actually about, however?

TAD: Imagine an America in which a specific “ruling principle” is created to decide proper societal conduct for every citizen. That principle would be used to consider regulations guiding everything you eat, the kind of home you are allowed to live in, the method of transportation you use to get to work, what kind of work you may have, the way you dispose of waste, perhaps even the number of children you may have, as well as the quality and amount of education your children may receive. Sustainable development encompasses every aspect of our lives.

According to its authors, the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social, and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity.

The Sustainablists insist that society be transformed into feudal-like governance by making Nature the central organizing principle for our economy and society. As such, every societal decision would first be questioned as to how it might effect the environment. To achieve this, Sustainablist policy focuses on three components; land use, education, and population control and reduction.

The sustainable development logo used in most literature on the subject contains three connecting circles labeled Social Equity; Economic Prosperity; and Ecological Integrity (known commonly as the 3 Es).

Social Equity
Sustainable Development’s Social Equity plank is based on a demand for something called “social justice.” It should be noted that the first person to coin the phrase “social justice” was Karl Marx. Today, the phrase is used throughout Sustainablist literature. The Sustainablist system is based on the principle that individuals must give up selfish wants for the needs of the common good, or the “community.” How does this differ from Communism?

In the Sustainablist’s world, everyone has a right to a job with a good wage, a right to health care and a right to housing. To assure those rights, wealth must be redistributed. In the language of the Sustianablists, “Capital ownership is systematically deconcentrated and made directly available to every person.” That, they say, is Social Justice. That means there will be no single owner of property or business. All will be controlled by society for the common good.

This is the same policy behind the push to eliminate our nation’s borders to allow the “migration” of those from other nations into the United States to share our individually-created wealth and our taxpayers-paid government social programs. Say the Sustainablists, “Justice and efficiency go hand in hand.” Borders,” they say, “are unjust.”

Under the Sustainablist system, private property is an evil that is used simply to create wealth for a few. So, too, is business ownership. Instead, “every worker/person will be a direct capital owner.” Property and businesses are to be kept in the name of the owner, keeping them responsible for taxes and other expenses, however control is in the hands of the “community,” (read, government).

Under Sustainable Development individual human wants, needs, and desires are to be conformed to the views and dictates of social planners. Harvey Ruvin, Vice Chair of the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) said: “individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective” in the process of implementing Sustainable Development.

Economic Prosperity
Sustainable Development’s economic policy is based on one overriding premise: that the wealth of the world was made at the expense of the poor. It dictates that, if the conditions of the poor are to be improved, wealth must first be taken from the rich. Consequently, Sustainable Development’s economic policy is based not on private enterprise but on public/private partnerships.

In America’s free-market of the past, most businesses were started by individuals who saw a need for a product or service and they set out to fill it. Some businesses prospered to become huge corporations, some remained small “mom and pop” shops, others failed and dissolved. Most business owners were happy to be left alone to take their chances to run their businesses on their own, not encumbered by a multiplicity of government regulations. If they failed, most found a way to try again. In the beginning of the American Republic, government’s only involvement was to guarantee they had the opportunity to try.

However, in order to give themselves an advantage over competition, some businesses — particularly large corporations – now find a great advantage in dealing directly with government, actively lobbying for legislation that will inundate smaller companies with regulations that they cannot possibly comply with or even keep up with. This government/big corporation back-scratching has always been a dangerous practice because economic power should be a positive check on government power, and visa versa. If the two should ever become combined, control of such massive power can lead only to tyranny. One of the best examples of this was the Italian model in the first half of the Twentieth Century under Mussolini’s Fascism.

As a result, Sustainable Development policy is redefining free trade to mean centralized global trade “freely” crossing (or eliminating) national borders. It definitely does not mean people and companies trading freely with each other. Its real effect is to redistribute American manufacturing, wealth, and jobs out of our borders and to lock away American natural resources. After the regulations have been put in place, literally destroying whole industries, new “green” industries created with federal grants bring newfound wealth to the “partners.” This is what Sustainablists refer to as economic prosperity.

The Sustainable Development “partnerships” include some corporations both domestic and multinational. They in turn are partnered with the politicians who use their legislative and administrative powers to raid the treasury to fund and enforce the scheme.

Of course, as the new elite stomp out the need for competition through government power, the real loser is the consumer, who no longer counts in market decisions. Government grants are now being used by industry to create mandated green products like wind and solar power. Products are put on the market at little risk to the industry, leaving consumers a more limited selection from which to choose. True free markets are eliminated in favor of controlled economies which dictate the availability and quality of products.

Ecological Integrity
Under Sustainable Development there can be no concern over individual rights, wants, or needs – as we must all sacrifice for the sake of the environment. The UN’s Commission on Global Governance said in its 1998 report: “Human activity…combined with unprecedented increases in human numbers…are impinging on the planet’s basic life support system. Action must be taken now to control the human activities that produce these risks.” Harvey Ruvin, Vice Chair of the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) said, “Individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective.”

Under Sustainable Development there can be no limited government, as advocated by our Founding Fathers, because, we are told, the real or perceived environmental crisis is too great. Maurice Strong, Chairman of the 1992 UN Earth Summit said: “A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally-damaging consumption patterns. The shift will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.”

Q: What parts of our lives is it targeting; it is really all encompassing?

TAD: There are Sustainable Development papers, guidelines and regulations to impose the ruling principle:

On our public education system – to prepare our children to live in a sustainable world.

On our economy – to create partnerships between business and government, making sure business becomes a tool to help implement the policies.

On the environment – leading to controls on private property and business.

On health care – the new drive against obesity is leading directly toward controls on what we eat. The current debate on “rationed” health care is right out of the Sustainable play book as it considers older people ad the sick to be no longer valuable resources.

On farming – Sustainable Development policies affect farmer’s ability to produce more crops by regulating precious chemicals, biotechnology, and genetic engineering in the name of environmental protection. To fully understand the folly of sustainable farming, there are now agriculture courses in colleges and Ag symposiums on sustainable farming that feature the use of Oxen as replacements for non-sustainable tractors. Need I say more?

On our social and cultural environment – where political correctness is controlling policy-hiring practices, immigration policy, multiculturalism, marriage laws, and even what we can say. “Globally-acceptable truth” dictates the science and knowledge we are allowed to pursue.

On our mobility – with emphasis on carpools and public transportation. $4 per gallon gas is purely sustainable development policies designed to ban the drilling of more oil in order to create shortages and drive up the price to get us our of our cars and into public transportation.

And on public safety – where the rule of law and the court system are being challenged by new laws and regulations that affect the right to privacy and unreasonable search and seizures. REAL ID and the creation of a total surveillance society assures we are bring properly sustainable in our daily lives.

It is important to understand that these leading issues we face today are not just random concerns that accidentally find their way into the forefront of political debate. They are all interconnected to the policies of Sustainable Development and the restructuring of our way of life.

To quote a special Sustainable Development document prepared by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): “A new ecologically balanced economics will drive the pursuit of Community Sustainability within modern society’s all-encompassing urban-rural industrial civilization…. This global marketplace is destined to recast the meanings of industry, work, play, health, agriculture, communications, learning and much more.”

Sustainable Development calls for changing the very infrastructure of the nation, away from private ownership and control of property to nothing short of central planning of the entire economy – often referred to as top-down control.

Sustainable Development policy is built on something called the “precautionary principle.” That means that any activities that might threaten human health or the environment should be stopped — even if no clear cause and effect relationship has been established – and even if the potential threat is largely theoretical.

Q: Is this concept essential to care for the environment?

TAD: In reality, Sustainable Development has very little to do with protecting the environment. It has much more to do with redistributing wealth. The basis for Sustainablist policy is global warming. The excuse is that we must cut back on our carbon foot print. Yet, the Kyoto Accord, if fully implemented, would have done nothing to reduce carbon emissions, simply because it allowed some of the most industrialized nations like China, India and Brazil to be exempt. Cap and Trade does the same thing. How is the environment helped if there is no reduction of the pollutants they say causes the crisis? In fact, Sustainable Development has nothing to do with it. Instead, its policies specifically succeed in locking away American resources, like timber, oil and minerals, forcing us to import them from other countries. How does that help the environment? Again, it is about redistributing American dollars to other countries, reducing our power and independence. That forces us to rely on the global economy, leading to stronger global governance.

Q: Is there a rational basis for “sustainable development”, I mean are natural resources that in danger of being destroyed or consumed out of existence?

TAD: Scientific research shows that there is no shortage of natural resources. The United States appears to have more oil than anywhere else in the world. But it is locked away. Science is beginning to speak out quite forcefully about the lack of evidence of man-made global warming. It simply doesn’t exist. America has more trees today than in the last 200 years, simply because we no longer have to maintain massive fields for horses – because of the invention of the car. There is no shortage of land and there is no over population crisis. In fact, all of the people in the world could today live in an area the size of Texas, with a density equal to living in Paris, France.

The reasons for the ever-growing poverty and horrible living conditions in some parts of the world, is because of bad governments which refuse to allow their people the ability to create their own wealth. Economists such as Hernando de Soto advocate that ownership of private property is the only way to eliminate poverty – exactly why America is so rich and prosperous. Instead, these countries steal the labor of their people, forcing them to live in hovels, making the water filthy and scorching the fields where nothing will grow. Then the governments look to other nations to bail them out and the environmentalists scream about population explosions and destruction of the environment. The UNs’ answer is aid, aid and more aid – taking from the producers – giving to those with nothing – forcing them to live in life-long bread lines. The UN and the “humanitarians” pat themselves on the back for such compassion – as the poor continue to suffer. Worse, Environmentalists work to stop development in Third World countries, saying the growing use of energy is not sustainable. They are much happier to have the poor live in their mud huts, walking five mile a day for their dirty water. Through their Public/Private Partnerships, many corporations and lending institutions now refuse to build development projects in such areas, claiming them to be unsustainable. They then give each other awards for their environmental stewardship.

Q: To what extent is the promotion of “Sustainable Development” fear-mongering?

TAD: Like its partner in crime Global Warming, Sustainable Development is nothing but fear mongering. During the Cold Warm, the Soviet Union tried to get us to accept Marxism. We refused, seeing how horrible it was. But, when the Iron Curtain fell, many of the same policies were proposed to the world wrapped in a neat green blanket. We were warned that we had to “protect the environment” or we our foothold in the universe – planet earth – would die and us with it. Suddenly, the West started throwing its liberties on the bon fire like a good old fashioned book burning.

Q: Are the promoters of “Sustainable Development” cynical in their view of humanity, and in technology and mankind’s capacity to meet challenges and solve them radically with science, rather than juridical strictures?

TAD: They basically take the attitude that man is not part of the ecology and is a danger to the earth. If only man could be eliminated, they say, the earth and the animals could have a chance. Think that is too outrageous? I’ll let them tell you in their own words:

“The native ecosystems and the collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans.” Reed Noss, a developer of the Wildlands Project

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrial nations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” Maurice Strong, Chairman, 1992 Earth Summit

“Endangered species is the wedge for imposing a new land ethic that compares land ownership to slaves and involves discarding that concept of property and trying to find a different understanding of the landscape.” Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior

“(We) will map the whole nation…determine development for the whole country, and regulate it all…” Thomas Lovejoy, scientific advisor to the Department of the Interior

“We reject the idea of private property” Peter Berle, National Audubon Society

“Among environmentalists sharing tow or three beers, the notion is quite common that if only some calamity could wipe out the human race, other species might once again have a chance.” Richard Conniff, Audubon Magazine

Q: So, in a word, would it be wrong to say that “Sustainable Development” is merely a code word for reorganizing society on the basis of socialist principles and a statist view of civil government?

TAD: In a word – No – it would not be wrong to say that. Al Gore, in his book Earth in the Balance, said we must go through a “wrenching transformation of society” in order to cleanse us of the Twentieth Century’s industrial revolution. Sustainable Development is that wrenching transformation. When it is over, if they succeed, our civilization may again be one of cave dwellers responding to superstitions instead of knowledge.

Q: What do we most have to fear from the advocates of “Sustainable Development”, if they are only interested in peaceful lobbying?

TAD: There is no “peaceful” lobbying. The Sustainablist are entrenched in our communities (ICLEI). They control Congress and state houses across the nation. Sustainable Development is the ruling principle in every city, town and county in the nation. They have organized business into partnerships where “going green” is the mantra of the day. They are banning products like incandescent light bulbs, so they can make more money from the new, dangerous, mercury filled “green bulbs.” They are using programs like the “Wildlands Project” to lock away land, destroying ranches and the timber industry, in turn destroying whole towns. In that way they are herding people into human habitat areas – massive cities. In those cities they are forcing homeowners to make their homes “sustainable,” forcing them to put on new roofs, new windows, new appliances – all so they comply with sustainable regulations. In Oakland, CA, such new sustainable rules will force homeowners to spend an average of $35,000 per home. Smart Growth polices are locking away land outside the city, putting a premium on land, forcing housing costs to skyrocket and forcing the need to control populations inside the designated area. Soon, if allowed to go on, we sill see government enforcing population control on the number of babies a family may have. Use your imagination as to how that will be done. Some Sustainablists advocate that the Earth can only sustain a population of about 250 million.

Meanwhile in rural communities, farmers and land owners are unable to make money from their lands because of taxes, global “free trade” pacts like NAFTA, and strict regulations that are killing their ability to survive. So they are signing things like conservation agreements and selling their development rights, thinking these things will save their land. What they don’t understand is that groups like the Nature Conservancy are getting rich and powerful trading and selling those Easements to their fellow environmental groups. The farmers, thinking they have preserved the land to hand down to their children find to their horror that they have nothing to hand down. They no longer own the land. And if they try to sell it, they find no buyers, because no one wants to buy something they can’t control.

Q: What are some of the code words which advocates of “Sustainable Development” use to make it appear a worthwhile cause?

TAD: Partnership building, Consensus, Urban Redevelopment, Community Development, Land use, Collaborative Approaches, Purchas of Development Rights (IPDR), “Maintaining a strong diversified local economy,” Preserve open space, Preserving our heritage, Heritage Corridors, Heritage Areas, Historic Preservation, Quality Growth, Smart Growth, Innovative new development, Tax-free Zones, Use of Eminent Domain, Regional Governments, Regional Planning Boards, Water Control Boards, Urban Forest, Non-governmental Organizations (NGO), Conservation Easements, Sustainable Farming, Comprehensive Planning, Visioning Process, Growth Management, Resource Use, Social Justice.

If you hear your locally–elected leaders using these terms, Sustainable Development is what they mean.

Q: To what extent has this concept of “Sustainable Development” already been incorporated in our Federal and State laws?

TAD: First of all, Sustainable Development is not a partisan issue. It is being implemented equally by both Republicans and Democrats.

Most of the Sustainable policy coming from the federal level has not been through legislation from Congress. Instead, it has come from Executive Order from the Administration. Under the Clinton Administration, nearly every department of the government moved to impose sustainable development by using existing programs and funding. Former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown stated that his department could impose 60% of the policies they wanted in his department without any new legislation. In that way, Clinton was able to enforce almost the entire Biodiversity Treaty, even though is has never been ratified by the Senate.

Meanwhile, the UN has worked directly with local communities to recruit mayors and county commissioners to create Sustainable policy on their own. The National Conference of Mayors is a major promoter of Sustainable Development. Of course, with ICLEI in over 500 cities, literally every single local and state government is now involved in putting these polices in place.

Q: Is there anything more you would like to add?

TAD: Understand, it is not environmental protection that is the culprit – it is the PROCESS of Sustainable Development. Communities have dealt with local problems for 200 years. Some use zoning, some don’t. But locally elected town councils and commissioners which meet and discuss problems with the citizens are how this nation was built and prospered. Today, under Sustainable Development, NGOs like ICLEI move in to establish non-elected boards, councils and regional government bodies. They answer to no one and they are run by zealots with their own political agenda imposing international laws and regulations. Local homeowners have no say in the process and in most cases are shut out. Sometimes they are literally thrown out of council meetings because they want to discuss how a regulation is going to affect their property or livelihood. Essentially, this process of a series of non-elected councils and boards enforcing policy is the perfect description of a soviet.

Today, those who are taking to the streets in TEA Party protests are focusing on federal issues like taxes and health care. They must learn that they can never restore the Republic if their local community is a little soviet. This is the root of our fight against Sustainable Development.

Those who are pessimistic and fear shadows behind every door tell us that there is no way to stop the Obama, Pelosi, Reid behemoth and fix America. I beg to differ and offer just two small, but significant, ideas that would drastically reduce the size of government power — literally overnight:

First, demand that every member of Congress must live under the laws they make. That will kill Obamacare. Force Congress to participate in Social Security. Abolish the Congressional retirement fund and move the money to the Social Security system. That will stop Congress from robbing it.  It will certainly lead to a fix of Social Security and an end to Medicare. Congress, of course, is now exempt from those programs. No pensions for Congress. It should be an honor to serve in Congress, not a career.

Second, anyone who files a lawsuit and loses must pay all court costs and attorney fees and will be subject to a counter suit. That will end frivolous suits designed for big damage claims. It will reduce health care, allowing doctors to stop carrying massive malpractice insurance. It will end the threat of the food police, who are using the courts to terrorize the food industry. Stopping the threat of lawsuits would do more to restore our Republic than any other effort. Why haven’t we done it – ask the lawyers who are blocking it.

It is becoming more and more obvious that the Democrat leadership, from Obama, to Pelosi to Reid, have absolutely no clue about the strength of the growing opposition to their big government agenda. They still think the TEA Party movement is the brainchild of the Republican Party and that TEA Party leaders are just paid Republican lackeys.

Even after the dramatic and shocking win by Scott Brown in Massachusetts, where Republicans number only 12 percent of registered voters, Democrats continue to make excuses about the inept campaign run by Coakley, saying her defeat had nothing to do with opposition to the Democrats; health care mess. That’s amazing, considering Brown rallied voters time and again by shouting, “I am the 41^st vote against health care,” resulting in a surge of supporters (especially independents).

Even today, the Democrats are in denial, determined to continue to work to impose Obama’s radical agenda, believing in their delusional world that the American people are going to give them a hero’s welcome for “sticking to their guns.”

How wrong they are. Beyond the Brown win, here are just a few details that indicate the upheaval that is building across the nation:

• Obama’s poll numbers have dropped faster and farther than any president in poll-taking history. Americans have expressed overwhelming opposition to his health care “reform” – only 24% think health care will get better under Obama’s plan, 54% believe it will get worse. Americans are firmly against the policy. Still, Obama and Reid continue to push it against our will. That is helping to build the revolution.

• A clear majority of the country is now opposed to almost all of the Obama program, including opposition to more stimulus packages, bailouts, deficits, and his “blame America first” foreign policy.  Yet Pelosi and Reid continue to move the agenda forward.  That is helping to build the revolution.

• Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia and head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, says new candidates to run for Republican seats are coming out of the woodwork. “We’ve got people calling from all over the country, saying, ‘I want to run. People are concerned about the direction of the country,” he said. Republican primary races are becoming crowded events, as excitement builds. And these new candidates aren’t professional politicians – they are true grassroots, everyday people who run businesses, farms, and households. The revolution is building among everyday Americans.

• In the past, it was almost impossible for regular folks without party connections and endorsements to raise money for political campaigns. Either they were approved by party leadership or they were tossed by the wayside. Not so today. Ron Paul’s campaign created the Internet “money bomb.” That’s how he was able to raise more money than any other Republican primary candidate last year. Today, that strategy is being used for congressional and gubernatorial candidates and it is making TEA Party-backed candidates much more viable and competitive, changing the face of campaigns, forcing the Republican Party to rethink who it is backing, causing a sea change in who may be elected to office. The revolution is growing across party lines.

• Senator Harry Reid is in the race of his life and could well be defeated this year. In at least seven states – Connecticut, Nevada (Harry Reid), Ohio, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, North Dakota and Colorado – the Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate is trailing the Republican. As a result, several Democrats have dropped out of the race, including Connecticut’s Senator Christopher Dodd and North Dakota’s Senator Byron Dorgan, leaving their seats up for grabs. In those states, Obama’s popularity has dropped below the percentage of votes he drew in 2008, and opposition to the health-care-reform bill is deep and wide. Feeling the heat of the revolution

• Cap and Trade is a dead issue and cannot be passed in this Congress. The Copenhagen Climate Change Summit was a disaster and nothing will come of it. Global Warming is dead as an issue and almost the entire Obama agenda is based on it. Radical environmentalists are falling under the revolution.

• If healthcare “reform” fails to pass Congress – Democrats will abandon Obama, viewing him as a danger to their futures — and his Administration will cease to be a force. The rats are the first to desert the ship in the revolution.

• There is good indication that healthcare, though passed by both houses, will still not pass the full congress, and if it does, it will be so watered down that it will have little meaning. Obama will still grasp it like a drowning man trying to hold onto anything and call it a victory. Futile symbolism in the revolution.

• If healthcare does pass, it will be the political death warrant for the bunch of them. First indication that the revolution has taken hold.

And still, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid laugh at the TEA Party movement. As Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then we win.” Keep laughing guys. The second American Revolution has begun.

The fraud of man-made climate change was exposed by hackers at the University of Anglica. Global average temperatures have not warmed for over a decade. The United Nations Climate Accords in Copenhagen (Cop15) failed to result in worldwide agreements, yet the beat goes on. Climate change policies will continue to operate covertly at the local level to develop socially engineered and controlled communities.

Many local officials are committing acts of treason. Local people like you have the power to stop them.

ICLEI* is an international council that corrupts government employees and local politics by infiltrating local governments world-wide in the name of “climate change.” ICLEI implements the global governance plan of the United Nations Agenda 21. Its objectives are to abolish private property and move us into controlled “human settlements” also known as Smart Growth cities. Its campaigns are executed by dangling grant money in front of dollar-desperate officials who trade our liberties away for an extra dime.

Local governments and regional authorities making ICLEI directed policy changes usually have titles for their big money grabbing, tax sucking, anti-liberty ideas. Be aware of PlaNYC 2030, ACTION Pajaro Valley, PLANit Tulsa, Sustainable Atlanta, Vision Long Island and Greenprint Denver, just to name a mere few.

ICLEI advocates a transformational government in accordance with the principles set out by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. This means that ICLEI negates the Declaration of Independence, violates the United States Constitution and the Constitutions of most states, and is also in violation of state criminal penal codes. ICLEI implementation is treasonous. We must hold our local elected officials accountable for allowing ICLEI into our local government! Elected representatives and government staff must be made aware of their transgression before criminal charges of treason can be brought against them.

Here are some things you can do first:

Is your town or county an ICLEI member? (To find out visit the website www.iclei.org and search under members.)

Once you have determined that your town is a member it is best to find as much documentation as possible. When your investigation starts, it might be best to look over documents via the internet and in local government headquarters. (A formal Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] or Public Records request at this beginning point might not be necessary.)

Be very broad with your questions about what you would like to view. Financials are general and may lead you to what you want. Ultimately you must find the officials who signed onto the ICLEI contract (there are typically two from each jurisdiction, often an elected official and someone from paid staff). Look for how much money is paid to ICLEI and other contracts involving climate change, Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs), partnerships, hired staff and consultants that advance Agenda 21 Sustainable Development projects and projects being conducted in the name of climate change including water grabs, land grabs, forest, fishery and resource extraction restrictions, eminent domain, open space designations, green businesses, high density public/private “affordable” housing projects, rails, trails, etc…

Take a small scanner and scan as you research. The city or county should provide a desk with an outlet nearby; if not ask to be set up so you can work effectively.

After your initial viewing, scrutinize the documents away from the offices. You may find that you need more than just documents. For example, emails or correspondence which need time for compilation by the city/county clerk.

This time a formal Public Records or FOIA request will be needed. Hand deliver it to the appropriate clerk or official. Make sure the clerk stamps the request at the desk while you wait. Make sure you retain a copy of this formal request from the clerk as complications can arise. You should receive the documents on an agreed upon date. Call or Fax to remind them that you will be there on the designated date.

*ICLEI – The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives aka Local Governments for Sustainability

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Freedom Advocates – www.freedomadvocates.org – Email: news@freedomadvocatesnews.org

This summer, legislators from several states met to discuss the steps needed to restore our Constitutional Republic. The federal government has ignored the many state sovereignty resolutions from 2009 notifying it to cease and desist its current and continued overreach. The group decided it was time to actively counter the tyranny emanating from Washington, D.C.

From those discussions it became clear three things needed to happen.

1. State Legislatures need to pass 10 key pieces of legislation “with teeth” to put the federal government back in its place.
2. The people must pass the legislation through the Initiative process if any piece of the legislative agenda fails.
3. County Sheriffs must reaffirm and uphold their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

With the advent of the Tea Party Movement, many people have been asking how exactly we can make the above reality. What follows is Part I of the outline of that plan regarding state legislation, the action steps any concerned citizen can take to see this legislation to fruition, and the brief history and justifications behind each.

Step 1: Reclaim State Sovereignty through Key Nullification Legislation

Our Constitutional Republic is founded on a system of checks and balances known as the “separation of powers.” Rarely, however, are the states considered part of this essential principle.

Enter the “doctrine of nullification.”

Nullification is based on the simple principle that the federal government cannot be the final arbiter of the extent and boundaries of its own power. This includes all branches of the federal government. In the law this is known as a “conflict of interest.”

Additionally, since the states created the federal government the federal government was an agent of the states; not the other way around. Thus, Thomas Jefferson believed that, by extension, the states had a natural right to nullify (render as of no effect) any laws they believed were unconstitutional.

In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 he wrote,

“co-States, recurring to their natural right…will concur in declaring these acts void, and of no force, and will each take measures of its own for providing that neither these acts, nor any others of the General Government not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shalt be exercised within their respective territories.”

Alexander Hamilton echoed this sentiment in Federalist #85 “We may safely rely on the disposition of the state legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.”

It is clear then that State Legislatures can stop the unconstitutional overreach of the Obama administration through nullification. Here is a list of proposed nullification legislation to introduce in all 50 States.

1. Nullification of Socialized Health Care
2. Nullification of National Cap and Trade
3. Federal Enumerated Powers Requirement (Blanket Nullification)
4. Establishment of a Federal Tax Escrow Account

If imposed, socialized health care and cap and trade will crush our economy. These programs are both unconstitutional, creating government powers beyond those enumerated by the Constitution. If those programs are nullified, it will give the individual states a fighting chance to detach from a federal budget in freefall and save the economies of the individual states.

Next, blanket nullification.

The Federal Government, particularly the House of Representatives, needs to abide by its own rules. In particular, House Rule XIII 3(d) specifically states that:

“Each report of a committee on a public bill or public joint resolution shall contain the following: (1) A statement citing the specific powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the law proposed by the bill or resolution.”

Needless to say, this rule is generally ignored. The idea behind blanket nullification is that if the Congress does not specify the enumerated power it is using according to its own rules, or the power specified is not one of the enumerated powers granted to Congress in the United States Constitution, then the “law” is automatically null and void.

Lastly, the federal government cannot survive without money. I know that seems obvious but many states are missing the opportunity to use money as an incentive for the federal government to return to its proper role. Most visibly, states help collect the federal portion of the gasoline tax. That money should be put into an escrow account at the state level and held there. The Escrow Account legislation includes a provision that all consumer, excise, and income taxes payable to the federal government would go through this account first. This would do two things. First, it would give states the ability to collect interest on that money to help offset revenue shortfalls. Second, it would allow states to hold that money as long as needed as an incentive for the federal government to return within the enumerated boundaries of its power.

Step 2:   Erect an impenetrable wall around the County Sheriff and the 2nd Amendment.

As recently stated in the famous Heller opinion by the United States Supreme Court, the right to bear arms “is an individual right protecting against both public and private violence” and “when the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized they are better able to resist tyranny.”

Thus, it is clear that the 2nd Amendment not only protects the right to self-defense but that right extends to defending oneself against tyranny. As with any historical attempt to establish a dictatorship weapons must be seized or severely regulated.

Here is a list of legislation to prevent this from happening, some of which has already been introduced in states around the country:

• Sheriff First
• Extension of the Castle Doctrine (right to protection)
• Prohibition of Gun and Ammunition Tracking
• Firearms Freedom Act

The county Sheriff is the senior law enforcement officer both in terms of rank and legal authority in a county. This comes from a tradition of over 1000 years of Anglo-Saxon common law. Anglo-Saxon communities were typically organized into “shires” consisting of approximately 1000 people.

The chief law enforcement officer of the shire was the “reeve” or “reef.” Hence, the modern combination of the two words, as we know them today, “shire reef” or “Sheriff.”

Consequently, the Sheriff’s pre-eminent legal authority is well established. This was confirmed in Printz v. United States.  Justice Scalia quotes James Madison who wrote in Federalist 39:

“In the latter, the local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority, than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere.”

Sheriff 1st legislation would formally declare that all federal agents and officers must give notice of, and seek permission before, any arrest, search, or seizure occurs. Thus, federal agents and officers seeking to enforce unconstitutional laws must go through the county Sheriff first.

Extending the castle doctrine to one’s person would go a long way toward eliminating the arbitrary “no carry” areas. Like Virginia Tech, it is these areas where guns for self-defense are most needed.

Many gun and ammunition tracking schemes have been, and are still being, attempted. The intended purpose of “reducing gun related” crime is never realized. Instead, law-abiding citizens are punished with regulatory burdens and fees. Quite simply we need transparency in government not in the people.

Montana started the firearms freedom act to rein in the federal government’s use of the Commerce Clause to regulate everything within the stream of commerce. The original intent of the Commerce Clause was to regulate commerce between states not within states as Professor Rob Natelson points out in his 2007 Montana Law Review article.

The Montana FFA simply returns to that original understanding regarding firearms made, sold, and kept within a state’s borders.

This list is by no means exhaustive. However, it does contain some immediate steps that can be taken toward freedom and restoring our God honoring Constitutional Republic. Hitler’s laws of January 30 and February 14, 1934, should serve as a stark reminder of what happens when state sovereignty is abolished.

In the coming few weeks I will publish the next part of the plan.

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Matthew Shea is a State Representative in Washington’s 4th District. He’s the author of HJM4009 for State Sovereignty.  Visit his website at http://houserepublicans.wa.gov/members/matt-shea/ .

If you felt a frisson of fear on news that the Senate had passed Obamacare the day before Christmas, then you now know what it was and is like to live in a dictatorship. The voice of the People was ignored in a demonstration of raw political power.

There was a time when Americans took Communism seriously. It challenged us in the form of the Soviet Union and we witnessed its takeover of China.

In Europe, uprisings against Soviet rule were crushed in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in the 1980s gave proof that only oppression can sustain this failed economic and political system. President Reagan gave voice to it when he called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”

The McCarthy hearings in the 1950s proved a setback for efforts to learn how thoroughly infiltrated the U.S. government had become by Communists, not because Sen. Joseph McCarthy was wrong, but because he proved a poor spokesperson for the cause. He was easily criticized for his bombast, but the declassification of the Venona papers, secret communications between Soviet spymasters and their agents, revealed he may well have underestimated the threat.

Later, the Russian Federation declassified former Soviet spy agency records that further confirmed that many Americans, dedicated Communists, were working to undermine our government.

The price America paid in part for the Great Depression of the 1930s was the undermining of faith in the Capitalist system among many Americans.

Unions arose, not just in response to worker grievances, but also because their leaders were frequently sympathetic to Communism. The FDR and subsequent administrations introduced Social Security and Medicare, tapping into the fears of those who had experienced the Depression with programs that vastly expanded the federal government, characterizing them as the ultimate “safety net.” Then Congress plundered the trusts that were supposed to fund both programs. Both programs are insolvent.

A recent study by Paul Hollander, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, was published by Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty & Prosperity. It is titled, “Reflections on Communism: Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.”

The celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall earlier this year was attended by many world leaders with the notable exception of President Barack Obama. For a man who has visited more foreign nations in his first year in office than any previous President, the decision to avoid this significant anniversary was taken as one more signal of his true political and economic agenda.

We know that he was greatly influenced by Marxists or people who viewed Communism sympathetically, not the least of which were his grandparents who introduced him to a mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Communist Party USA.

Obama wrote that he was drawn to Marxists among his teachers in college. He began his political career in the home of former Weatherman Bill Ayers. These days he is praised by Communists in Cuba and Venezuela. He sided with a Leftist former president of Honduras who tried to illegally alter its constitution. The Hondurans had the courage to cast him out.

The specter of Communist subversion of the U.S. Constitution is staring us in the eye with the so-called healthcare “reform” of Medicare; it includes all manner of provisions that are unconstitutional and would expand federal government control over one-sixth of the nation’s economy. The bribery and thuggish pressures and threats against Democrat Senators and Representatives to pass the bill reveal a political leadership more devoted to ideology than the will of the People.

Specifically, President Obama’s drive for a single payer system is the direct result of the influence of Dr. Quentin Young, a retired physician with a long history of commitment to Communism. In 1995, Dr. Quentin was among those who met in the Hyde Park home of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn to launch Obama’s political career.

As Prof. Hollander points out in his study, “Not only individual intellectuals but entire professional associations have expressed favorable attitudes toward communist systems” citing the Latin American Studies Association that has “repeatedly taken positions supportive of Castro’s Cuba and Sandinista Nicaragua.” In 1990, the Organization of American Historians defeated a motion that expressed regret that the organization “never protested the forced betrayal of the historian’s responsibility to truth imposed upon Soviet and East European historians by their political leaders.”

The recent United Nations’ Climate Change Conference refused to take notice of the revelations that the data on which the “global warming” theory is based was falsified by a handful of meteorologists and climatologists in an effort to impose a global governing system. The interim first Secretary General of the UN was Alger Hiss, an American and secret Soviet agent

It did not escape notice that Venezuela’s communist dictator, Hugo Chavez, received a rousing ovation when he spoke at the conference or that President Obama continues to repeat the lies surrounding the discredited “global warming” fraud.

Virtually the entire agenda of American environmental organizations has been focused on an attack on private property rights and denying Americans access to their vast reserves of energy in the form of coal, oil, and natural gas, thus undermining U.S. growth and prosperity.

Unlike Prof. Hollander who escaped Hungary following the crushing of the 1956 revolution by Soviet forces, “Western intellectuals who remain attracted to communist ideals never had the disillusioning experience of living in an actual communist or socialist society.”

Among them we must number much of the nation’s media that has been a party to political and environmental deceptions, and the Hollywood community that has produced many films to influence public opinion about the earlier efforts to address Communist activities and later Green issues with a very Red agenda.

The Medicare “reform” expands “socialism” in America, but it is an example of naked Communism at work. It is a bill put together behind closed doors and so extensive its control of the lives of Americans literally determines who lives and who dies. It will wreck the best healthcare system in the world albeit one that has its flaws.

It is authoritarianism at work, the kind we associate with regimes in Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and everywhere else Communism has been imposed on captive nations.

Healthcare “reform” is not about uninsured Americans. It is not “socialism.” It is Communism, effectively putting the entire nation’s healthcare system under state control. It must be defeated just as past generations of Americans knew the threat of Communism and devoted the nation’s treasure and even their lives to defeat it.

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Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.