The Wrenching Transformation of America
by Tom DeWeese (4/19/09)
A Speech by Tom DeWeese - Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve come a long way to get here and I have such a short time to be with you. So, let’s just get everything out on the table right now, shall we?
I believe the American people, and their every action, are being ruled, regulated, restricted, licensed, registered, directed, checked, inspected, measured, numbered, counted, rated, stamped, censured, authorized, admonished, refused, prevented, drilled, indoctrinated, monopolized, extorted, robbed, hoaxed, fined, harassed, disarmed, dishonored, fleeced, exploited, assessed, and taxed to the point of suffocation and desperation.
America is drowning in a sea of rules and regulations, particularly under the guise of “saving the environment.”
We all know something is very wrong and we are trying to fix it.
Many in America attempt to fight against one issue or another as they try to understand what is happening to their country. But most fail to see the whole picture and are being crushed under a well organized “divide and conquer” tactic that keeps them reeling from crisis to crisis.
Tonight, I’m going to try to give you at least a peek at the all-encompassing, gut wrenching national transformation that we face—and, hopefully, help to lift the veil of confusion.
To put things in perspective, here are some questions every American should ask their elected officials – especially those supporting “climate change” legislation.
If it is proven that climate change is not man-made, but natural, will you be relieved and excited to know that man is off the hook?
We’ve been terrorized into accepting that human society was on the brink of extinction because of man-made global warming. We’ve been warned that, unless we take drastic action to reverse it – then islands will disappear, whole cities will be destroyed and polar bears will drown.
So, if it’s not true, will you now help to remove all of the draconian regulations passed during the global warming hysteria? Will you help to restore our Republic with common sense and sound economics?
Their answers to these questions should be very illuminating as to the true agenda they seek to impose.
If they are supporting climate change legislation because of a genuine concern for the environment, then they should now be greatly relieved to know that true science is showing more and more evidence that there is no man-made global warming, and in fact, a natural cooling period has begun.
I have just returned from one of the most important Climate Change conferences ever held. Sponsored by the Heartland Institute, more than 700 scientists from all over the world came together to testify that man-made Global Warming does not exist.
Harvard scholar and climate scientist Willie Soon said it best in a recent article he titled, “It’s the Sun, stupid.”
Dr. Mark Campbell, professor of chemistry at the U.S. Navel Academy in Annapolis recently wrote, “The sky is not burning, and to claim that it is amounts to journalistic malpractice.”
Said U.S. Government atmospheric scientist Stanley B, Goldenberg, “It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.”
In the past year, more than 650 scientists from around the world have expressed their doubts. That’s 12 times the number of UN IPCC global warming alarmists.
Top that with the fact that more than 31,000 American scientists have signed a petition saying there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing disruption of the Earth’s climate.
Of course most of the hysteria has been fueled by Al Gore’s Oscar-winning, Nobel prize-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth,” which almost every American school student has been forced to watch endless times in their classroom.
Well, guess what, the government of Great Britain just ruled that the film cannot be shown in English classrooms unless it carries a disclaimer that says the film is full of mistakes and propaganda.
An overwhelming majority of scientist are now telling us that investigative research shows any warming actually stopped in 1999. And, in fact, they say the brief warming period we experienced in the past decade was completely natural, caused in part by storms on the sun, not CO2 emissions from SUVs.
The Sun storms have ended and now a cooling period has begun.
That’s it. Done. Crisis over. Man is not to blame. Hurray! The nation should be rejoicing.
No need for expensive green cars, mercury-filled light bulbs, special home building materials, expensive alternative energy, no bird-killing windmills, no special energy taxes, no extra government oversight committees, no more global climate change conferences – and no need for a Climate Czar. Carol Browner can go back into mothballs.
We can finally clean out the ten feet of fuel on the bottom of the forests and prevent the massive forest fires. We can reestablish the timber industry and all the jobs that were killed.
We can drill American oil and end our dependency on foreigners who hate us. In fact, that stable source of energy will help restore the Detroit auto industry and all of those jobs. And it will help us to stop funding terrorists. What’s not to like about drilling American oil?
We didn’t need a stimulus package after all – the economy will rebound on its own. We are free. The environment is not in crisis. Rejoice! Rejoice!
That silence you hear is the news media, which refuses to report what any skeptic has to say.
That silence you hear is the lack of effort on Capitol Hill to start to pull back from the climate change hysteria.
That silence you hear is from the White House where President of Change, Barack Obama now has an EPA director, a Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) director and a full blown Climate Change Czar, all working to impose huge cut backs in energy use, with more taxes, and more rules and regulations that will bring an already damaged economy to its knees – all in the name of man-made Global Warming – which doesn’t exist.
…And that silence you hear is from global corporations which have bought into Al Gore’s lie and invested heavily in the promised green economy. In fact, their dollars are the only thing green about any of it. Their commercials are promoting the lies and changing our way of life. “Going Green” is the mantra of the day. None of them are about to change any of these policies, simply to accommodate a few inconvenient scientific facts.
n spite of all the evidence to the contrary, in spite of literally thousands of real scientists joining the ranks of the skeptics, Gore just told Congress that the Global Warming crisis is even worse than predicted. Obama, our newly crowned king said, “The science is settled.”
Why do they continue to promote a lie? Because global warming never was about protecting the environment. It’s nothing more than the excuse to enforce global governance on the planet by creating a new global economy based on the environment rather than on goods and services.
In fact, the most important debate in the history of the United States is about to begin – it’s the battle over a completely new economic system based on Climate Change called Cap and Trade.
It should be called Tax and Trade as it will force up the price of every item created or run by energy from gasoline to toothpaste to natural gas to hotel rooms, as we sit in our cold, dark homes.
Cap and Trade will throw out the old system of a free market based on goods and services and operate on the idea that CO2 is a pollutant. Instead of money, wealth will be determined by how many government-issued emission permits you own to allow you to operate your business.In short, it’s all about wealth redistribution. Your wealth into a green rat hole.
During the Cold War, communists tried to get us to surrender our liberties and way of life for the wisdom of Karl Marx. Americans didn’t buy it.
But now, they have taken the same clap trap and wrapped it all in a nice green blanket, scaring us with horror stories about the human destruction of the environment – and so we are now throwing our liberties on the bon fire like a good old fashioned book burning—all in the name of protecting the planet.
It sounds so friendly. So meaningful. So urgent. But, the devastation to our liberty and way of life is the same as if Lenin ordered it.
You know, we have a new language invading our government at all levels. Old words with new meanings fill government policy papers. The typical city council meeting discusses “community development,” “historic preservation,” and “partnerships” between the city and global corporations.
Civic leaders organize community meetings run by “facilitators,” as they outline a “vision” for the town, enforced by “consensus.” No need for debate when you have consensus!
People of great importance testify before congressional committees of the dire need for “social justice.”
Free trade, social justice, consensus, global truth, partnerships, preservation, stakeholders, land use, environmental protection, development, diversity, visioning, open space, heritage, comprehensive planning, critical thinking, and community service are all part of our new language.
What are they really talking about? What mental pictures come to mind when those words are used? George Orwell realized that those who control language and manipulate key phrases can control policy.
The language is being changed and manipulated to quietly implement a very destructive policy. One outlined in a UN soft-law document called Agenda 21, first revealed at the UN’s Earth Summit in 1992. The working name is Sustainable Development.
Rather than good management of resources, Sustainable Development has come to mean denied use and resources locked away from human hands. In short, it has become a code word for an entire economic and social agenda.
I have spent most of the past 12 years studying every facet of this new political agenda which is fast becoming a revolution—touching every aspect of our businesses, our public education system, our private property, our families and our individual lives.
Interestingly, it is not a Republican or Democrat issue. It’s not liberal or conservative. It is being implemented on a purely bipartisan basis.
It is now the official policy of the United States, put in force by literally every department of the government.
It is the official policy of every state government, and nearly every city, town and county in the nation.
But, I warn you, accepting the perception that Sustainable Development is simply good environmental stewardship is a serious and dangerous mistake.
So what is Sustainable Development? The Sustainablists insist that society be transformed into feudal-like governance by making nature the central organizing principle for our economy and society.
To achieve this, Sustainablist policy focuses on three components; global land use, global education, and global population control.
Keep in mind that America is the only country in the world based on the ideals of private property. But, private property is incompatible with the collectivist premise of Sustainable Development.
If you doubt that, then consider this quote from the report of the 1976 UN’s Habitat I conference which 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.”
It is a social injustice for some to have prosperity if others do not. It is a social injustice to keep our borders closed. It is a social injustice for some to be bosses and others to be merely workers.
Social justice is a major premise of Sustainable Development. Another word for social justice, by the way, is Socialism. Karl Marx was the first to coin the phrase “social justice.”
Some officials try to pretend that Sustainable Development is just a local effort to protect the environment—just your local leaders putting together a local vision for the community. Have you heard that one?
Then ask your local officials how it is possible that the exact language and tactics for implementation of Sustainable Development are being used in nearly every city around the globe from Lewiston, Maine to Singapore. Local indeed.
Sustainable Development is the process by which America is being reorganized around a central principle of state collectivism using the environment as bait.
The best way to understand what Sustainable Development actually is can be found by discovering what is NOT sustainable.
According to the UN’s Biodiversity Assessment Report, items for our everyday lives that are NOT sustainable include: Ski runs, grazing of livestock, plowing of soil, building fences, industry, single family homes, paved and tarred roads, logging activities, dams and reservoirs, power line construction, and economic systems that fail to set proper value on the environment (capitalism, free markets).
Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s Rio Earth Summit in 1992 said, “…Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air-conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.”
Are you starting to see the pattern behind Cap and Trade, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and all of those commercials you’re forced to watch about the righteousness of Going Green?
And one of the most destructive tools they use to force it on us is 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.
That makes it easy for any activist group to issue warnings by news release or questionable report and have those warnings quickly turned into public policy – just in case.
So how is this wrenching transformation being put into place?
There are four very specific routes being used.
In the rural areas it’s called the Wildlands Project.
In the cities it’s called smart growth.
In business it’s called Public/Private Partnerships.
And in government it’s called stakeholder councils and non-elected boards and regional government.
The Wildlands Project was the brainchild of Earth First’s Dave Foreman and it literally calls for the “re-wilding” of 50% of all the land in every state – back to the way it was before Christopher Columbus set foot on this land. It is a diabolical plan to herd humans off the rural lands and into human settlements. Crazy you say! Yes. Impossible? Not so fast.
From the demented mind of Foreman, the plan became the blueprint for the UN’s Biodiversity Treaty. So now the scheme is international in scope.
But how do you remove people from the land? One step at a time. Let’s begin with a biosphere reserve. A national park will do. A huge place where there is no human activity. How about Yellowstone National Park? Then you establish a buffer zone around the reserve. Inside the buffer only limited human activity is allowed. Slowly, you squeeze until you squash that human activity.
Once accomplished, you extend the area of the biosphere to the limits of the former buffer area – and then you create a new buffer zone around the now larger biosphere and start the process over again. In that way, the Biosphere Reserve acts like a cancer cell, ever expanding, until all human activity is stopped.
And there are many tools in place to stop human activity and grow the reserve.
Push back livestock’s access to river banks on ranches. 300 feet ought to do it. When the cattle can’t reach the stream, the rancher can’t water them—he goes out of business.
Lock away natural resources by creating national parks. It shuts down the mines—and they go out of business.
Invent a Spotted Owl shortage and pretend it can’t live in a forest where timber is cut. Shut off the forest. Then, when no trees are cut, there’s nothing to feed the mills and then there are no jobs, and—they go out of business.
Locking away land cuts the tax base. Eventually the town dies. Keep it up and there is nothing to keep the people on the land – so they head to the cities. The wilderness grows – just like Dave Foreman planned.
It comes in many names and many programs. Heritage areas, land management, wolf and bear reintroduction, rails to trails, conservation easements, open space, and many more.
Each of these programs is designed to make it just a little harder to live on the land – a little more expensive – a little more hopeless. Now tell me how they can deny that the process is herding people into human habitat areas?
Today, here in your area, one of the latest Wildlands scheme is called Yukon to Yellowstone or Y2Y—a 2000 mile no-man’s land corridor from the Arctic to Yellowstone.
The second path is called Smart Growth. After they herd you into the city, they have more plans for you in regimented and dense urban communities. They put a line around the city and tell you no growth can take place outside that line. Urban sprawl, they say disdainfully.
They refuse to build more roads as a ploy to get you out of your car into public transportation, restricting mobility. Those able to build apartment houses may find it impossible to provide parking – we don’t want any stinking cars!
Because there is a restriction on space inside the controlled city limits there is a shortage of houses, so prices go up. That means populations will have to be controlled, because now there is a shortage of land.
Third, inside the human habitat areas, government is controlled by an elite ruling class called stake holder councils.
These are mostly Non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, who, like thieves in the night, just show up to stake their claim to enforce their own private agendas.
The function of legitimate government within the system will be simply to enforce the dictates of the councils.
The councils are unelected, but all powerful. They are controlled by a small minority in the community. They will make you ask permission for anything necessary to live in the community. They can dictate the kind of building materials you may use in your home – or whether you can build on your property at all.
Then, if they do grant a permit for building, they might not decide to let you acquire water and electricity for your new home – and they may or may not give you a reason for being turned down.
They can even dictate that you get the proper exercise – as determined by the government. San Francisco has built a new federal building – the greenest ever built. But the elevators will only stop on every third floor so riders are forced to use stairs – for their own health, of course.
These councils fit almost perfectly the definition of a State Soviet: a system of councils that report to an apex council and then implement a predetermined outcome. Soviets are the operating mechanism of a government-controlled economy.
The fourth path is Public/Private Partnerships. Today, many freedom organizations are presenting PPPs as free enterprise and a private answer for keeping taxes down by using business to make a better society.
In truth, many PPPs are nothing more than government-sanctioned monopolies in which a few businesses are granted special favors like tax breaks, the power of eminent domain, non-compete clauses and specific guarantees for return on their investments.
That means they can charge what they want and they can use the power of government to put competition out of business. That is not free enterprise. And it is these global corporations that are pushing the green agenda.
For example, using government to ban its own product, General Electric is forcing the mercury-laden green light bulb on you, costing 5 times the price of incandescent bulbs. Such is the reality of green industry.
PPPs are building the Trans Texas Corridor, using eminent domain to take more than 580,000 acres of private land - sanctioned by the partnership with the Texas government.
And PPPs are taking over highways and local water treatment plants in communities across the nation. It is not free enterprise, but a Mussolini-type fascism that will only lead to tyranny. And it’s all driven by the Agenda 21 blueprint of Sustainable Development.
Truly, Sustainable Development is designed to change our way of life. Local communities are now being targeted by international forces. Here’s how.
In June 2005, I reported on the UN’s efforts to recruit the nation’s mayors to directly impose Sustainable Development policy into our local communities. The mayors were invited to attend the UN’s World Environment Day conference in San Francisco.
The mayors weren’t there to simply discuss policy, they actually committed to an agenda with specific goals. As part of their participation, the mayors were pressed to commit to specific legislation and policy goals by signing a slate of UN accords. Two documents were presented for the mayors’ signature.
The first document was called the Green Cities Declaration, produced by the United Nations Environment Programme. This document was essentially a statement of principles which set the agenda for the mayors’ assigned tasks.
The Declaration is amazingly bold in that it details exactly how the UN intends to implement a very specific agenda in every town and city in the nation. The final line of the Declaration explained the UN’s goal very explicitly: Each year cities shall pick three actions to adopt as policies or laws.”
The second document signed by the mayors was called the “Urban Environment Accords.” The document includes exactly 21 specific actions (as in Agenda 21), for the mayors to take—controlled by a time table for implementation.
For example, under the topic of energy, action item number 1 called for the mayors to implement a policy to increase the use of “renewable” energy by 10% within seven years. Energy action item numbers 2 and 3 dealt with reducing energy consumption.
These action items are classic examples of the UN trying to go around the U.S. Congress and federal energy policy and force a backdoor implementation of the UN’s Kyoto Accord, which the U.S. has never ratified.
Perhaps the most egregious action item offered in the Urban Environmental Accords dealt with the topic of water. Action item number 19 called for adoption and implementation of a policy to reduce individual water consumption.
The UN document begins by stating: “Cities with potable water consumption greater than 100 liters per capita per day will adopt and implement policies to reduce consumption by 10% by 2015.” There is no scientific basis for the 100 liter figure other than to employ a very clever use of numbers to lower the bar and control the debate over water consumption.
You must be aware that 100 liters is equal to about 26 GALLONS per person, per day. According to the UN, each person should have less than 26 gallons each day to drink, bathe, flush toilets, wash clothes, water lawns, wash dishes, cook, take care of pets, and more.
Tom DeWeese
This speech was delivered in Kalispell, Montana and Spokane, Washington to County Republican Lincoln Day dinners in late March. The speech caused a firestorm in Spokane, resulting in a battle with the local city council over it’s partnership with ICLEI and radical environmental policy. One elected official said I had exposed too much – as he walked out on my presentation. The battle goes on today.
Tom DeWeese is the President of the American Policy Center and the Editor of The DeWeese Report.
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