2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNomination for nuttiest divorce from reality: the Agenda 21 Conspiracy
I've been seeing this thing crop up now and again, but paid it no mind. After getting into a debate with my conservative brother-in-law where he dropped the "Open your eyes and see what's going on in the world. UN Agenda 21 is coming to get ya!" line, I thought it would be best to look into this, so as not to be ignorant of some substantive important issue. What I found literally made me burst into laughter. Sustainable development? Public transportation? Bike lanes and urban green space? Sounds goo-I mean, horrifying. Horrifying, right.
Then, today the Agenda 21 thing reared its head again, when I saw that at the Georgia (my home state) State Capitol (seriously? The Capitol?), there was a presentation on the UN's Agenda 21, a non-binding resolution that hasn't been ratified by the Senate. Basically, it means bupkis. Basically, it pushes sustainable living, conservation of resources, pretty positive and environmentally friendly stuff.
To people like those idiots at the Georgia Capitol and my brother-in-law, though, it's a conspiracy to force Americans out of rural and suburban areas, and into urban "human habitation zones". WTF???
NC_Nurse
(11,646 posts)this one is just hilarious! Not only is it a completely silly premise, but the "agenda" is completely harmless - oh to encourage people to bike and live in sensible communities? uh, ok.
How is this supposed to harm the U.S.? It's happening anyway...guess they see the ranks of their rural white areas and burbs diminishing and before you know it...BAM scary brown people on bikes everywhere! AAAAAAAUUUGH!
Here in GA I guess they're just afraid they'll be forced to move to ATL. Horrors. hehe.
piechartking
(617 posts)Start handing out their looney powerpoints and accusing these poor low-level government officials (zoning board members and what not) of being part of some international UN conspiracy to force us all into the cities...and these people are talking about do we zone Industrial - 3, or 2? Maybe widen a sidewalk? I mean, I start giggling even while I'm typing this stuff...
NC_Nurse
(11,646 posts)mzteaze
(448 posts)pnwest
(3,266 posts)the presidents "Delphi" mind vontyol, too, right? And were utterly serious...
piechartking
(617 posts)and they had video, and some hand-out where they were comparing this to Stalin's collectivization efforts and Mao's Great Leap Forward. Incidentally, my wife and I recently watched a documentary about Mao and it featured a huge segment devoted to the Great Leap Forward, and I've read extensively on this time period where China essentially lost an entire generation with Mao's crazy bullshit, and to compare Agenda 21 to either of those is the height of hilarity.
I've downloaded the whole thing though (all 300+ pages) and will dutifully read through it (I'm an attorney, so it won't be so bad, don't feel sorry for me), just in case there's a section tucked away somewhere that reads something like: "The United Nations shall have absolute authority and discretion to commandeer and exercise control over the Treaty Nation's military forces, where the United Nations is of the opinion that such control is necessary and appropriate to implement any section of this Treaty." I'll cross my fingers...
UCmeNdc
(9,600 posts)Propaganda at its best. Agenda 21 sounds bad so the program must be bad.
union_maid
(3,502 posts)and start worrying about the FEMA re-education camps. We've had four years to get those ready.
piechartking
(617 posts)NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)that went to making special hybrid vans that they'll use to go around & collect everybody's guns, and then they'll still have enough gas afterwards to bring everybody to the re-education camps
sammytko
(2,480 posts)There are videos on YouTube with bill gates talking about this and it's totally taken out of context.
Some whacko was pushing this on a nice friendly forum I frequent.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)The United Nations Agenda 21 is being covertly pushed into local communities throughout the United States of America through the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) through local sustainable development policies such as Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects, and other Green or Alternative projects
The Republican National Committee recognizes the destructive and insidious nature of United Nations Agenda 21 and hereby exposes to the public and public policy makers the dangerous intent of the plan.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/15/523931/republican-party-officially-embraces-garbage-agenda-21-conspiracy-theories-as-its-national-platform/
And newly elected US Senator Ted Cruz from Texas (often put forward as 'the future of the party', on account of being Hispanic):
Agenda 21 is wrong, and it must be stopped.
...
The originator of this grand scheme is George Soros, who candidly supports socialism and believes that global development must progress through eliminating national sovereignty and private property. He has given millions to this project. But he is not the only one promoting this plan; in fact, the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) now consists of over 600 cities in the United States.
Agenda 21 attempts to abolish unsustainable environments, including golf courses, grazing pastures, and paved roads. It hopes to leave mother earths surface unscratched by mankind. Everyone wants clean water and clean air, but Agenda 21 dehumanizes individuals by removing the very thing that has defined Americans since the beginningour freedom.
Agenda 21 subverts liberty, our property rights, and our sovereignty. There is no doubt that the vast majority of Americans would reject this naked power grab by unelected bureaucrats. The real question is will we have Senators in Washington who will take the steps to stop this nonsense before it can do real damage to the American economy.
...
In the U.S. Senate, I intend to continue leading the fight, to stop Agenda 21 and any other globalist plan that tries to subvert the U.S. Constitution and the liberties we all cherish as Americans. We need fighters in the Senate, who will stand and defend We the People.
http://www.tedcruz.org/blog/2012/01/20/stop-agenda-21-the-constitution-should-be-our-only-%E2%80%9Cagenda-%E2%80%9D/
The up-and-coming Republican senator is an unhinged conspiracy theorist.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)Are people really that stupid / crazy?