Peering Behind the Anti-Bullying Agenda...

Two topics determine today's liberal tolerant attitude towards others: the respect of otherness, openness towards it, and the obsessive fear of harassment. The other is OK insofar as his presence is not intrusive, insofar as the other is not really other. Tolerance coincides with its opposite: my duty to be tolerant towards the other effectively means that I should not get too close to him, not to intrude into his/her space - in short, that I should respect his/her intolerance towards my over-proximity. This is what is more and more emerging as the central 'human right' in late-capitalist society: the right not to be harassed, i.e., to be kept at a safe distance from the others.

-Slavoj Zizek, "How to Read Lacan"

Patriot Alert!

From the Harford County Dagger and Harford Campaign for Liberty:

Most Americans are still unaware of Agenda 21 and its partner in crime, ICLEI. This shouldn’t be surprising as both organizations operate in stealth mode, knowing that the enlightened would resist their goals with vigor. Luckily, a handful of activists, most notable, Carroll County Commissioner, Richard Rothschild, have dragged these undercover menaces into the light of day. The RNC, Maryland Republican Committee, and the Harford Republican Central Committee have all adopted resolutions of condemnation. When will Harford County follow?

Let me offer some background. Agenda 21, also known as Agenda for the 21st Century or Sustainable Development is the 1992 soft treaty signed at the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It boasts 179 signatures, including that of President George Herbert Walker Bush. What are the terms of the treaty? Well, it’s a 200-page, 40 chapter document so a simple summary is anything but. However, in a nutshell

“Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.” http://www.sustainabledevelopment@un.org

That’s right. This treaty will be implemented by those acting in concert with the UN and will affect just about everything. Are you beginning to get an idea of the scope of this global power grab?

Agenda 21 is alive and well in Harford County thanks to our membership in an organization called ICLEI. ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) has since changed its name to Local Governments for Sustainability. This attempt to throw the hounds off the trail does nothing to change the fact that it is an international coalition, affiliated with the UN that exists to implement Local Agenda 21.

In an attempt to cloak the Agenda 21 monster, the claim is made that the treaty was never ratified and therefore has no teeth. Wrong!! Once in office, President Clinton put together the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. The task was to implement the sustainability goals set forth in Agenda 21. They took their charge seriously and and for the last 20 years the word “sustainable” and its various permutations have slithered into the accepted vernacular. Along with the word came the policies, sample legislative guidelines, restrictions, and regulations designed to bring the liberties we enjoy to an eventual end. But don’t take my word for it. In the words of Maurice Strong, UN Secretary General of the 1992 Earth Summit and Agenda 21 mastermind:

“It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states, however powerful. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation.” – Maurice Strong essay A Journey Down a Generation

“The Earth Summit will play an important role in reforming and strengthening the United Nations as the centerpiece of the emerging system of democratic global governance.” – Maurice Strong quoted in the September 1, 1997 edition of National Review magazine.

“Our concepts of ballot-box democracy may need to be modified to produce strong governments capable of making difficult decisions, particularly in terms of safeguarding the global environment ….” Facing Down Armageddon: Environment at a Crossroads,” – essay by Maurice Strong in World Policy Journal, Summer, 2009

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, the use of fossil fuels, electrical appliances, home and work-place air conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.” – Maurice Strong, opening speech at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit

Maurice Strong; Canadian oil billionaire, player in the oil for food scandal, current resident of Communist China and self proclaimed socialist seems to think that the UN and not our “ballot box democracy” needs to run the show. For the last three decades he and others have perverted a legitimate concern for the environment into a radical environmental nightmare. Their tools have been the useful and earnest dupes they employ under the guise of saving the planet. The next generation of indoctrinated dupes is poised to take up the cause thanks to state mandated environmental curricula such as we have in Maryland.

Sustainable development is defined by this group as “… development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This would be reasonable if care for Mother Earth really was the priority. But we know that many have adapted the universal concern for environmental stewardship to their own ends.

“We’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” Timothy Wirth, former President UN Foundation, former US Senator

So it’s more about economics, wealth redistribution, cap and trade, and eminent domain. For the guys at the top, concern for the environment is just the means to an end.

Maryland is steeped in environmental policy structured around faulty claims and emotionalism. Our current situation predates Governor O’Malley’s war on rural counties. Wasn’t it Governor Glendenning that gave us “Smart Growth”? Or was it?

“In the case of the U.S., our local authorities are engaged in planning processes consistent with LA21 (Local Agenda 21) but there is little interest in using the LA21 brand. Participating in a UN advocated planning process would very likely bring out many of the conspiracy-fixated groups and individuals in our society such as the National Rifle Association, citizen militias and some members of Congress… (They) would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined ‘the conspiracy’ by undertaking LA21. So, we call our processes something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth.” J. Gary Lawrence, Director of the Center for Sustainable Communities at the University of Washington, Member President’s Council on Sustainable Development

As you can see, the “Smart Growth” that we’ve come to know and love comes directly from policies created and promoted at the UN. Note how confidently he states that local officials have already bought in. He’s right!

So what do we do? We begin this battle in our own back yard by requesting that the County Executive release us from our association with ICLEI. You can sign a petition at http://www.harfordliberty.org that makes that request. Once you’ve done that please educate yourself further.

Visit

http://www.freedomadvocates.org

http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com.

http://www.americanpolicy.org

Don’t be a dupe.

Not convinced? Try reading this.

Maryland Plans to spend ~4% More in 2014

from the Washington Post

Maryland’s House of Delegates passed a $37 billion spending plan mostly along party lines Friday, with Republicans and Democrats sparring over whether the plan had set aside enough money to cushion the blow from looming federal cuts known as sequestration.

The plan now goes to the Senate. Although lawmakers there have signaled that they intend to tack on some changes to the way the state funds its pension system, they largely agree with the spending plan.

With less than a month remaining in the legislative session, that means the budget still largely resembles the $37.3 billion plan proposed by Gov. Martin O’Malley in January. It relies on projected economic growth of about 4 percent and higher revenue from an income tax hike approved last year on six-figure earners to fund a handful of new and long-standing priorities championed by O’Malley (D).

Chief among those priorities is education. The plan continues record funding for public schools, with total state support accounting for $6 billion of Maryland’s $15.8 billion general fund. Higher education would receive an additional $1.3 billion, keeping Maryland on a four-year path of limiting annual tuition increases to 3 percent at state colleges and universities.

The governor’s plan also assumes nearly $350 million in new federal spending in Maryland under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act to begin implementing an expansion of Medicaid coverage. In all, total Medicaid spending in the state would exceed $7 billion in the budget year beginning in July — a leading factor in an overall spending increase of 3.5 percent.

Among the new items in the budget: Maryland would give its more than 70,000 state employees 3 percent raises and fund merit bonuses for the first time since 2009. The state would also begin to restore money for an array of grant programs that were curtailed during the downturn. Police would receive money for training, and municipalities would see a bump in road funds. The House, however, cut an O’Malley proposal to divvy out millions in “innovation” grants to state agencies and local governments to rethink how to deliver services to residents.

On sequestration, the House agreed with O’Malley’s proposal to increase the state’s rainy day reserve by more than 15 percent, to $920 million. The House also increased the state’s ending year balance to about $200 million.

All told, Maryland would in theory have more than $1.1 billion at its disposal, though even in the depths of the recession, that state never touched its rainy day reserve to help preserve its top bond rating on Wall Street.

Federal cuts to Maryland programs could approach $200 million, according to state estimates. But the state could also lose income tax revenue from thousands of jobs that may be lost in the area and from more than 46,000 defense industry employees in the state who face furloughs that could cut 20 percent of their pay.

Republicans said the governor’s budget didn’t adequately account for ripple effects in the economy from sequestration.

Democrats praised the plan — and projections that spending and revenue would remain mostly in balance for the next five years, saying it showed that O’Malley and the legislature had prudently charted a course through the recession.