Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, the rent-seekers, money-hungry NGOs, grifters, post-normal “scientists”, con-men, Eurotrash, Ameritrash, and the usual camp followers are gearing up again for another monumental waste of money. This time, it’s for the upcoming extravagarbonza, the new Rio+20 Climate Carnival.
Figure 1. The logo of the Rio+20 Climate Carnival, featuring someone being drowned in waves of green nonsense.
The meeting features the usual dangerous bafflegab, which conceals wholesale theft under layers of rhetoric like this:
Integrate the three pillars of sustainable development and promote the implementation of Agenda 21 and related outcomes, consistent with the principles of universality, democracy, transparency, cost-effectiveness and accountability, keeping in mind the Rio Principles, in particular common but differentiated responsibilities. SOURCE
As is typical with this kind of mealy-mouthed official doublespeak, we need a translation to see who is getting fleeced, and how.
First, what are the “three pillars of sustainable development”? Turns out, no one knows. One source gives us this:
Figure 2. The “three pillars of sustainable development” … or not.
That all seems good, or at least as though it might possibly be vaguely meaningful … but another source gives us this:
Figure 3. The “three pillars of sustainable development” … or not.
In other words, it’s just feel-good bullpuckey, dressed up to look like something real. “Viable”? “Bearable”? Nonsense. This is post-normal “science” at its most pathetic. At the end of the day, nothing is sustainable, that’s just green-washing.
Next, they say that they want to “promote the implementation of Agenda 21″. Now, “Agenda 21” was what started all of this nonsense. It was adopted at the original Rio Conference in 1992, and is as dangerous now as it was then.
The danger is highlighted by the recent meeting of the UN Chief, Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon, with his UN aides brainstorming about Rio+20. They talk about “moving toward a fairer, greener, and more sustainable globalization”, a very frightening thought. They talk about strengthening the UN “to manage the process of globalization better,” another scary idea. I don’t want globalization of any kind, and if I did, I damn sure don’t want the UN involved in any way.
To return to Agenda 21, let me take up just one tiny portion of the Agenda. (In passing, I doubt that they could have invented a more Orwellian name for this plan to take over the world’s economy than “Agenda 21” … but I digress.) Here is Section 9.8.(d) of Agenda 21:
Cooperate in research to develop methodologies and identify threshold levels of atmospheric pollutants, as well as atmospheric levels of greenhouse gas concentrations, that would cause dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system and the environment as a whole, and the associated rates of change that would not allow ecosystems to adapt naturally;
There are several things of note about this part of Agenda 21. First, in 1992 we didn’t know (and still don’t know now) if GHGs can cause “dangerous anthropogenic interference” with the climate system or not. For that matter, we don’t know what “dangerous anthropogenic interference” is when it’s at home. But despite that, the goal was not to find out what the actual effect of GHGs might be.
Rather than figuring out if there was a danger, Agenda 21 instructed people to establish an imaginary level of “dangerous interference”.
The same is true about “rates of change”. We have no evidence that changes in climate can keep ecosystems from “adapt[ing] naturally”. Despite that, we are instructed to determine the levels that do just that, with no hint about what that might be or how to measure it.
Finally, you can see how early this was—GHGs were not listed as a “pollutant”. This is in stark distinction to the EPA’s ruling that CO2 is a pollutant … go figure.
Anyhow, that’s just a little bit of the garbage in Agenda 21. It has already caused huge problems, including the formation of the IPCC and the assumption of GHGs as the main (if not only) driver of global climate change when there is no clear evidence (even today) if that is actually the case—that’s what the debate is about.
To leave Agenda 21 and return to the first bit of translation, they say they want to rip people off “consistent with the principles of universality, democracy, transparency, cost-effectiveness and accountability”. What this means depends on the tide, the phase of the moon, and the desires of the person invoking it. Basically, it means whatever they want it to mean, unless it happens to favor development, business, or human beings, in which case it means the opposite.
Next, they pledge allegiance to the “Rio Principles“. The “Rio Principles” were an unprincipled declaration of how they planned to achieve their global redistribution of wealth. Among the un-principles are the “Precautionary Principle“, along with the usual feel-good clauses and paragraphs about how they planned to spend the money.
Finally, in a wonderful understatement, they back the idea of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” This is UN-speak at its finest. The “differentiated responsibilities” part means “the poorest in the rich countries have the responsibility of providing the money to pay to the richest in the poor countries, whose responsibility is to spend it on Mercedes sedans for Government Ministers.” Seriously. That’s what “common but differentiated responsibilities” means, except the part about the Mercedes, I added that because it’s the inevitable outcome.
So yes, no surprise, they have learned absolutely nothing in the last 20 years. How could they, when 20 years ago they claimed they already understood it all? They are doubling down on their stupidity, planning to restructure the global economy and have the industrialized world pay the whole tab. I mean, somebody has to line the pockets of the NGOs and the third-world despots, and who better than … you?
I’m not sure how we can fight this, but fight it we must. I see they are planning to use “social media” to try to whip up the faithful, so we can expect lots of that, fluff on Facebook and the like. In any case, Rio+20 is the usual, and still very dangerous, conflux of the useful idiots, greedy activists, pimps, prostitutes, and pseudo-scientists who have caused so much damage in the past.
Head them off at the pass, harass their flanks, destroy their supply-wagons, cut them off from their water supply, I don’t know what … but this madness has to stop. You cannot redistribute your way to wealth, and as Margaret Thatcher is rumored to have remarked, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
A word to the wise … it’s your money that they are planning to run out of, in the process of propping up some of the planet’s most despotic regimes in the name of “combatting climate change” …
Regards to all, keep fighting the good fight,
w.
Thatcher also said something interesting that’s applicable to all this, in response to a statement from someone allegedly concerned about income inequality, or gap. The left doesn’t care if the poor get poorer as long as the rich get less rich. Another excellent observation.
The more I see the more I realize that Orwell was A raging optimist.
The future we don’t want, indeed.
Very well written, Willis.
RTF
Eurotrash? Please clean up your rants a bit next time, nobody likes the un or the eu except those who get their money from them but there is no need to call people eurotrash.
[Reply: Corrected to add “Ameritrash”. It refers to a totalitarian subset, not to the entire population of either the EU or the U.S. ~dbs, mod.]
It is interesting how the tidal wave engulfing the person has a green leaf for a crest.
RTF
Let’s not “Sugar Coat” Willis. No need to go soft on these idiots.
Seriously, somebody needs to find a way for you to get on TV. I believe you could do more over the course of a few weeks invited on several networks to deflate what the greens are doing than anyone I know.
Here’s to hoping that happens!!!!!!!!!
Yes, Agenda 21 is the Governments + UN, multilaterals + NGOs version of Kyoto Protocol (mainly governments), more climate rent-seeking and robbery.
I question very much whether in this age of austerity, anyone will be paying any notice (let alone any money) to this wonderland of financial largesse dispensed by the wise and highly qualified to us mere mortals.
In the absence of any actual climate crisis, any manufactured crisis involving low levels of Toxin X and trace amounts of Contaminant Y will produce an Outline for Action Z involving more taxes misappropriated from real needs of poor people to alleviate the anxieties of the middle-classes will do.
Run! It’s a veritable tsunami of stupid.
RTF
Willis Eschenbach for President!
Whether you “want globalization of any kind” or not is irrelevant; it’s an unstoppable force (you will be assimilated). The challenge is to inspire a reverence for individual rights and freedoms globally instead of those ideals being crushed here and universally around the world under the weight of “collective rights” at the expense of the individual.
the word “eurotrash” is 100% right. Most of the Greenery has central European origins, form the late 80’s and early 90’s. The original Rio show was EU organized, along EU ideology, and an EU masterplan. Where “EU” of course is a euphemism for Central EU. If you look at the organizational chart of most Green NGO’s you will find Central Europe control (even though some names are English… all you have to do is look at their CV’s)
There has been initial early support form the US and the UK for Rio-1993, but each for transient political reasons.
Hot on the heels of Gleick’s Flake-Gate comes the RIo +20. The carnival of the cretins continues. I’m worried about a scarcity of pop-corn! Good stuff. Keep an eye on the proceedings.
Watch to see which US politicians show up at this. Then vote accordingly. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/02/24/obama-administration-sees-rio-20-summit-in-june-as-festival-global-greenness/
Read what Lisa Jackson (US EPA head) said about it :
Partial Excerpt
========================================================
Rio +2.0 in Palo Alto: EPA Chief Lisa Jackson Discusses Initiatives that Expand US Environmental Business Markets, Create Jobs and Build Healthier Cities
Release Date: 02/03/2012
Contact Information: Mary Simm, simms.mary@epa.gov
Thank you all so much for joining us here today. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to help kick off this important conference. The people in this room – and the people we work with who are involved in this effort – come from many different countries, many different professions, and many different perspectives. But we are all united by our desire to improve the world we live in – and not only the world we live in, but the world our children and grandchildren will live in as well. That is what brings us together.
The challenge ahead of us is unlike anything we have faced before – as individual nations or as one planet. For the first time in human history, we are beginning to see that everyday activities – the things we buy, the way we keep the lights on, the ways we travel –have an impact on the health of our entire planet. For the first time in human history, more people are living in cities and urban areas than are living in rural areas. And over the next 30 years, most of the anticipated population growth is expected to happen in our cities. And for the first time in human history, we have in our sights the possibility of fostering a truly global middle class, with billions of people enjoying a quality of life and opportunity their parents and grandparents never knew.
As a result of all this, the years ahead will stretch the limits of our energy, our water and our food supplies. We will require not just new power and water sources, but also the infrastructure to deliver reliable energy and clean water to billions more people. We will need affordable housing and adequate transportation for people and products, as well as systems to address concentrated urban waste and pollution in the air and water. And last but certainly not least, it will be essential to generate economic opportunities that ensure widespread global prosperity.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/082D936CAD94347185257999005E8F9D
These “sustainable living” advocates are just useless. Idiots with pretensions of knowledge. What they really want is your plastic bags (an especially loathsome thing to these idiots) and for your life to be as uncomfortable as possible while theirs mysteriously betters at public expense. Fortunately every city and town in America seems infested with some grifters, always husband and wife, that show up at every city council meeting browbeating the politicians into agena compliance.
Pillars? you call them pillars? They look like ellipses to me. I’ll drop a note to Josh, we need a Mad magazine Poiuyt (hey, I remember how to spell it!), otherwise known as the tree pronged blivet. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blivet
[Ellipses provided: . .. … …. ….. …… Robt]
In 1976, as a young man of 24, I attended the World Symposium on Humanity in Vancouver, BC. The keynote speaker was none other than respected futurist Buckminster Fuller. In his address he said he had walked around the symposium for 3 days, listening to people say something to the effect “we have to tear the system down man,” (something I continue to hear 32 years later from well meaning leftists/warmists/globalists everywhere). He sadly shook his head and instructed the audience (and I paraphrase), “The key is not to tear the top down, but, to reach down and pull the bottom up.” In other words, pull everyone out of poverty, despair, filth, homelessness, hunger, thirst, and elevate their standard of living. If you want to help the world, become successful and make a difference. You could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium. He had just smacked a lot of the attendees in the back of their consciousness. I started the applause.
Bucky’s simple “revelation”, above all other points in speeches I have heard over the course of my lifetime, has stuck with me, and I quote it often.
Now, listening to the self-indulgent Agenda 21-ists who have moved into my community, and who come up, nearly daily, with their hair-brained, feel-good, “sustainable” schemes, based primarily on their pessimistic, cup is empty outlook on life, and, who would hypocritically forestall development in the 3rd world to offset their own carbon based lifestyles, while ignoring the plight of those less fortunate than themselves, I think of Bucky and shake my own head. Fortunately it appears the tide (at least here) has just turned the corner in the direction of common sense.
What’s that old saying…oh right…”If you’re not a socialist by the time you’re 18 you have no heart. If you’re still a socialist by the time you’re 30 you have no brain.” Let’s hope the collective world we live in is effectively 29 at the moment and getting smarter.
Curiousgeorge says:
February 26, 2012 at 7:58 am
“Watch to see which US politicians show up at this. Then vote accordingly. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/02/24/obama-administration-sees-rio-20-summit-in-june-as-festival-global-greenness/”
from the article:
“It would not require a negotiated resolution on behalf of the U.N. community. “ It could be, say, a beverage company that promises to cut water usage over the next ten years.”
Some Russian, Polish and Finnish beverage companies already do that to my knowledge. They use biofuel as a substitute. Their products have an energy content equivalent to about 28% to 56% of the energy content of gasoline.
Club of Rome / Agenda 21 / UN
See what you can dig up willis
The three pillars they really meant are your land, your money, your freedom. The only way out is to remove ourselves from the UN.
There is a good write up of Agenda 21at Jun science site.
EPA’s Jackson is trying to kill any industry in Clingerland and give it to the Chinese..
I’ve enjoyed Willis’ writing on WUWT many times and admire his skill as a writer. In this piece he has touched on what I consider to be the issue that people need to focus on. The issue that people could focus on if they weren’t stupefied by watching sh*te on TV, reading sh*te in newspapers and believing that globalisation is good and the “trickle down” effect is real.
The politicians say: “We need to compete in a global economy”. How many times have we heard that? I would have thought that a country as large as the USA would be able to do quite well on its own – it’s a big place, internal market and all that.
The ultimate aim of globalisation is to create a global ruling elite who control the laws and money of the world, while the rest of humanity is reduced to serf/slave status.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6057734.stm (from 2006)
It’s a race to the bottom for the non-elite 21st century global populace; forget about the middle class – there won’t be one, you’ll have to live like they live in China or India, but those countries won’t be known as such by then – they’ll just be “regions”.
Willis is bang on the money with this post, IMHO.
The UN, like a deadly octopus with its IPCC, Environment Program, WHO, UNHCR, Blue Helmets, etc. tentacles, needs to be stopped. Something that was (if we believe the fable) meant to ensure world peace has turned into a monster. Actually if you research where the UN came from you’ll find MONEY behind it.
I do urge people to research the genesis of the UN and who was behind that; it’s an interesting history, at least. Also, research UN troops and the roasting of children – seriously, just websearch those terms – it’s shocking.
Defund the UN. Retain sovereignty. Say no to the UN, World Bank, IMF, EU. We can all still be friends, without a new world order.
Head them off at the pass, harass their flanks, destroy their supply-wagons, cut them off from their water supply, I don’t know what … but this madness has to stop.
Perhaps assembling lists by country of anyone enjoying the carnival at taxpayer expense. Chiefly politicians and civil servants. I’m sure they would be delighted to publicly justify whatever schemes they had signed us all up to upon their return.
(Judging from the first carnival, mandatory drug testing is probably a good idea too)
MC says:
February 26, 2012 at 7:33 am
Let’s not “Sugar Coat” Willis. No need to go soft on these idiots.
================
Yeah, that’s Willis… Always beating around the bush. Ya never know what he really thinks. (wink)
You need only to go to 8.13 and read from there to see why this whole thing is so dangerous.
Whose laws? By what measure?
“8.13. Laws and regulations suited to country-specific conditions are among the most important instruments for transforming environment and development policies into action, not only through “command and control” methods, but also as a normative framework for economic planning and market instruments. Yet, although the volume of legal texts in this field is steadily increasing, much of the law-making in many countries seems to be ad hoc and piecemeal, or has not been endowed with the necessary institutional machinery and authority for enforcement and timely adjustment.”
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_08.shtml
I still think the Warmists are not that stupid (surely), I still think it’s dressed up Govt policy response to peak oil. In the Daily Telegraph regarding the ‘effect of rising oil prices will dwarf the Greek problem’ comes this. It seems peak oil and Wamist Agenda is a match made in heave and virtually indistinguishable.
‘…..While there’s lots of hype about tar sands and shale fuels, these new technologies often expend more energy than they create, while causing horrendous environmental and water-supply problems. Conventionally-produced crude will remain absolutely critical, and demand for it will spiral, until mankind bans the internal combustion engine, outlaws ammonium-based fertilisers, dismantles the global pharmaceutical industry and learns to live without plastic. I can’t see that happening anytime soon…
Far from it. I imagine much the same was said about the “pompous clowns” parading the streets of Bavarian cities once upon a time.
Should the UN ever acquire a funding source independent of national governments (oh..I don’t know .. carbon taxes) then you will quickly discover how much of a joke they really are.
Take a close look at Agenda 21 and associated material and then take a look at what is going on in your local area (councils, schools …). Trust me, they are anything but “useless. Idiots with pretensions of knowledge”.
[Formatting fixed: w.]
‘………In 2001, the world consumed 76.6m barrels of oil a day. Last year, just a decade on, global oil use was a hefty 89.1m barrels daily, 16pc higher. In 2011, the world economy was sluggish, with global GDP growth of 3.8pc, down from 5.2pc the year before. Yet world oil use still rose almost 1pc in 2011, with crude averaging $111 a barrel, more than 40pc up on 2010…’
Lisa Jackson EPA chief
“A truly global middle class”. This middle class is not what we are familiar with, but a mindless class totally dependant on the government for it’s existence. A truly scary world.
These liberals always seem to come up with some “feel-good” plans that more often than not are poorly conceived and usually go awry. I feel helpless just watching what is happening.
As always – a well-written article from Willis Eschenbach.
Now then, climate scientist Tim Ball and journalist Alan Caruba have been sounding similar warnings for a long time i.e. the goings on in “The Club of Rome” etcetera.
Eurotrash? – I prefer to call them the “International Social Democrats” (try shortening that one in a European language, say German), who have just replaced both the Greek and the Italian prime ministers with their own men. – Scientists have been used before to speak up in favor of impossibilities i.e. the Übermench
Please Willis, don’t include prostitutes with that gang of thieves; they are much better than that.
The radicals are out in force, chipping and hacking away at our freedom. A main goal is to cut energy use dramatically, and thus transform society toward the leftist Eden. But they’ll start with whatever they can get, they’ll squeeze and squeeze, as dim headache inducing mercury laden lightbulbs were mandated, and now the EU has mandated cuts in vacuum power across Europe. This sucks, or it doesn’t, actually. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/7996383/Europe-to-cut-power-of-vacuum-cleaners-to-save-energy.html
Going to Rio. They aren’t so concerned about taking jet planes there, polluting the environment, when they could just sit at home and have a webinar on their computers saving the ‘carbon footprint’ from the travel.
Also, Copacabana, and Ipanema, i.e., the 5 miles of beaches in Rio with girl wearing next to nothing on them, has nothing, absolutely nothing, with the choice of venue. /sarc/
It’s ALL about saving the planet.
Can anyone else see through that besides me?
Under the umbrella of UN Agenda 21, immessurable damage has been caused to the poor of the world. Untold billions have been sucked out of economies and lined the pockets of the few. This will continue for some time but like the Euro, it is doomed to fail because it is unworkable. Look what the Euro has done to Europe in only ten years. The same fate will befall Agenda 21 for the same basic reasons. History will record this folly as some sort of mass demagoguery or even a virus.The 50 year plague was formented in Agenda 21 and rapidly spread thoughout Europe.
Only when some of those afflicted began to loose their self control, did the virus sart to loose it’s virulance but it took many years. One of the first scientists to succumb was a hydrologist called Peter Gleick.
Keep up the good work Willis, it is much appreciated by very very many.
Willis– Agenda 21 is simply Robin Hood in reverse on acid on a global scale.
If you think about it, the Robin Hood of lore took money from the local government and returned it back to the citizens of the realm… Funny how the original story’s moral has been perverted to mean wealth redistribution.
Anyway, Agenda 21 was originally planned to be financed by carbon trading with Wall Street making $ billions and the UN/central governments receiving trillions to redistribute to 3rd World dictators to, as you said, buy Mercedes and better weapons to “keep the peace” (aka keep their piece).
The elimination of personal property is also an essential tenet of Agenda 21 with the state taking ownership of all wealth and basically deciding ye ol’ “from each, according to his abilities, and to each, according to his needs”.
Pretty scary stuff when looking at what happened to the last superpower that tried pulling that off…
Anyway, you’re right. AGENDA 21 is the most nefarious global scheme ever attempted. The problem is that when you try to explain to people the particulars of Agenda 21, they think you should be fitted with a straight jacket and have your tinfoil hat surgically removed…
It’s like a Catch 22. It’s so crazy, it couldn’t be true and if you take Agenda 21 seriously, you’re crazy…
That’s why Agenda 21 should be renamed Agenda 22.
Anyway, the best way to defeat Agenda 21 is to expose CAGW theory for the fraud that it is, thereby removing equally absurd carbon trading system that is essential to finance it.
Agenda 21 is a real and current threat to our national sovereignty. The UN and American progressives believe they can implement this without firing a shot. Then again, thinking through the consequences of their actions has never been their strong-suit, like the climate models, it’s just not that easy.
Does anyone else have the feeling we’ll be hearing from FIOA just before Rio+20?
Quite simply, the United Nations has proven itself to be fundamentally useless, and in the thrall of a numeretical majority of its 192 or so rag-tag members. It needs to be shut down now, together with the failed European Union.
Willis, lets call this what this really is: Global communism with the UN and its minions as leaders. I don’t these people think they are communists, but their ideas certainly are. Redistribution of wealth is communism. The UN wants to force “sustainability”, and the only way to do that is to control business and industry. That also is communism. To control the people, those who support AGW want to suppress dissenting views, either overtly or covertly. Communism requires control of ideas too. The only thing missing is to remove religion and a global currency. I would be willing to bet the UN is working on both of those.
extravagarbonza
extravagant
garbage
ponzi
bonanza
very good willis.
Alex says:
February 26, 2012 at 7:26 am
They’re just the European version of Ameritrash. Rather than remove the former, I’ve added the latter to the head post for balance.
w.
DirkH says:
February 26, 2012 at 8:16 am
I’m not following this. How do you use biofuel to cut water usage? You have a citation for this?
w.
Robert of Ottawa says:
February 26, 2012 at 9:25 am
You are 100% correct, they are likely the only ones on the whole list who, when you give them money, actually give you something of value in return.
w.
“Some Russian, Polish and Finnish beverage companies already do that to my knowledge. They use biofuel as a substitute. Their products have an energy content equivalent to about 28% to 56% of the energy content of gasoline.
Willis asks
I’m not following this. How do you use biofuel to cut water usage? You have a citation for this?
Jim Says
I interpreted this as alcohol content.
Keep up the fine work Willis.
Regarding the UN, as George Carlin said: “it’s a club – and you ain’t in it”.
Wholesale theft is putting it mildly; one definition of universality is unbound.
Their principles (universality, democracy, transparency, cost-effectiveness and accountability, keeping in mind the Rio Principles, in particular common but differentiated responsibilities)
are intended to dominate sovereign nations.
Definition of the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities in part.
Differential responsibility therefore aims to promote substantive equality between developing and developed States within a regime, rather than mere formal equality.
A particularly important aspect of the principle is international assistance, including financial aid and technology transfer.
And that is unbound theft of not only finance and technology but freedom.
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 26, 2012 at 10:13 am
DirkH says:
February 26, 2012 at 8:16 am
… “It would not require a negotiated resolution on behalf of the U.N. community. “ It could be, say, a beverage company that promises to cut water usage over the next ten years.”
Some Russian, Polish and Finnish beverage companies already do that to my knowledge. They use biofuel as a substitute. Their products have an energy content equivalent to about 28% to 56% of the energy content of gasoline.
I’m not following this. How do you use biofuel to cut water usage? You have a citation for this?
==============================================================
Replace water with yeast metabolites. In vodka, aquvavit, schnapps, …. 😉
Jimash says:
February 26, 2012 at 10:23 am (Edit)
Makes sense for me, replace the water with ethanol, I missed the humor entirely. Very good, I obviously need another cuppa …
w.
Well said. I’m with you Willis. We shouldn’t let these fraudsters/scammers etc off with anything. I’m all for going for the jugular.
I live in Vancouver the land of the brainwashed and if I bring this subject up the arm waving becomes so violent you could loose an eye.So I will refer them to this site http://green-agenda.com/ or tell them to google Agenda 21 map.
By the way, I wonder how much they spent on the logo…
It never ceases to amaze me how brazen this “industry” has become. They have no shame whatosever about chosing a venue like Rio. Not only is it a long flight from North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, Rio is also one of the most expensive cities in the world to visit. I know this because I travel to Rio several times each year on business. Why do they pick Rio? Because it’s a beautiful amazing city and the taxpayers are footing the bill. Rio is called Cidade Marveloso (the Marvelous City) for good reason. The bloodsucking leeches that attend these conferences really know how to enjoy themselves on their junkets.
Welcome to the new world order and say hello to those with a common purpose to effect nothing less than a global social and political and cultural revolution. This new world order designed and enacted in secret, crafted by a select few and it was all based on the ‘great lie’, they just had to base their new world order on a pack of lies didnt they? Hey, they said, lets remake the world anew and lets make it a better place and lets begin the road to this new Eden with a great big whopping pack of lies.
They always have to start with a ‘great lie’ and I can only suppose these wise men thought that they had good intentions so a lie however big would not be a bad thing, the ends justified the means they believed as they launched themselves down the very same road that all despots and dictators had started off on so many times before, just had to take the very road that has led to so much pain and misery to ordinary people.
And it always ends the same way, the road to hell paved with so many good intentions and still there are those who would start out on that same road. And from the great lie came more lies and to cover up the lies came the dirty tricks and the employment of the dregs and villains and Charlatans and carpet baggers, then came the extortion and the corruption and the bullying and mountains of lies and contradictory lies to become the cesspit we see today.
These agents of the new world order could have just told the truth from the start, could have determined that the path to this new Eden would be forged with honesty and truth and integrity, but that is a hard path to start upon let alone to follow, its uphill all the way and takes a great deal longer. So they chose what appeared to be the easiest downhill fastest route, you know the one they all take and it leads straight to the gates of hell. Why they took this road will occupy scholars for decades to come.
Start with a lie and all the subsequent efforts to build on this quicksand will come to nothing, any structure so built will crumble and fall crushing all those inside. Start with the truth and on that solid ground will stand a building to last the ages. Well the lies are falling apart, the liars are desperate, their rickety house is falling down around their ears, thus was it ever so and until we truly change thus will it ever be.
So instead of a powerful and efficient vac that does the job required in a few minutes with one pass we get the EU model which after hours of scrubbing to no avail forces you to give up and buy another carpet. There has to be a lesson here for US readers.
([Formatting fixed: w.] – Thanks)
Willis, I’ll recommend Polish Potato biofuel as superior to grain based biofuel.
That said, down here in Dixie, however, we are also fond of Corn based biofuel. 😉 There’s a reason we call it White Lightnin’ . 🙂
“I’m not sure how we can fight this, but fight it we must. I see they are planning to use “social media” to try to whip up the faithful, so we can expect lots of that, fluff on Facebook and the like. In any case, Rio+20 is the usual, and still very dangerous, conflux of the useful idiots, greedy activists, pimps, prostitutes, and pseudo-scientists who have caused so much damage in the past.”
It looks like you’re fighting it with name-calling. Not usually effective, but good luck.
That logo looks very Death Star like…
John West writes,
“Willis Eschenbach for President!”
I don’t know whether the American people are ready for Willis in the White House, but I would like to see him come in as a dark horse candidate under one condition: the Democrats nominate Peter Gleick, and Peter adopts “I LIKE GLEICK” as his campaign slogan, distributing tens of millions of buttons printed with the phrase, and loudly proclaiming at every campaign stop that he has such a wave of bipartisan support that he will win every state except Utah.
Now that would be one campaign for the history books. Seeing the the liberal history and political science professors being forced to write it up and insert it into their textbooks would be a refreshing turnaround.
RTF
Agenda 21 says:
… principles of universality, democracy, transparency, cost-effectiveness and accountability …
————————————————————————————————————————
Translation:
… world government by stealth with no democracy, transparency nor accountability—-at least not for/to the governed.
Someone mentioned Dr. Tim ball
http://drtimball.com/2012/peter-gleicks-actions-exposes-end-justifies-means-mentality-poses-problem-for-un-agenda-21/
http://drtimball.com/2012/ipcc-climate-science-failure-requires-someone-to-blame/
We will forever need to make things out of metals.
How will green people melt the steel with no CO2 ?
Windmills ? Solar Panels ? Minihydro power ? Manure methane ?
Never.
Nature knows best, the sun is a nuclear furnace.
Get Serious and start building Thorium reactors.
It’s one of the few “CO2 free” options that will provide enough power for our needs…
electric ovens could do the trick.
Steel also needs lots of water and produces greenhouse steam. That is not avoidable. Condensers could help if steam is an issue.
The “sustainable ideas” are mostly wimpy useless dead end scams.
And after all that hardship, in the future, CO2 might be found to be blameless.
Stupid is everywhere… Smart is harder and harder to find.
We need more Smart.
Thorium is Smart.
Go Thorium !
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
February 26, 2012 at 9:26 am
Can anyone else see through that besides me?
——————————————
I will stand with you sir.
Clipe says at 12:12 pm
Dr. Tim (capital b) Ball.
Local governments for sustainability:
http://www.iclei.org/
Just click on ‘members”and see if your local shire/government is linked to this, it’s under the arm of the UN-EP.
XKCD on sustainability:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sustainable.png
The word sustainable is unsustainable.
John A says:
February 26, 2012 at 7:43 am
I question very much whether in this age of austerity, anyone will be paying any notice (let alone any money) to this wonderland of financial largesse dispensed by the wise and highly qualified to us mere mortals.
Why do you think you are living in an age of austerity? It is so you will not pay attention.
And that is precisely the point – they don’t want anyone paying attention they just want to pass rules/regulations/executive orders and agreement to UN mandates while people are not looking.
I agree with Johnnythelowery to the extent that the leaders are not generally stupid (and I have argued as much a number of times). But many of the followers are very stupid. Peter Gleick is a follower. So are most of the people who are attending the event that has the “tsunami of stupid” in the logo. The “stupid” is represented by the green leaf, as has been suggested by Willis in his caption.
RTF
Jimmy Haigh says:
February 26, 2012 at 10:44 am
Dunno … but I had great fun reworking it to what you see above. Had to match the font and the color on the “don’t” that I added, it was a kick to get it all just right.
w.
Boris says:
February 26, 2012 at 11:34 am
I think of it as “accurate appellation” rather than “name-calling”, and if I could figure out a better way to fight it, I would. Do you have any useful suggestions, or are you just picking nits?
w.
Boris says:
February 26, 2012 at 11:34 am
It looks like you’re fighting it with name-calling. Not usually effective, but good luck.
Then try thinking of your very own unsustainable ‘brothers and sisters’ more as “Parasitic Totalitarian Regressives et Associated Leeches” and see if that rings a bell. When are y’all Robbinghoods ever going to produce anything that you want to “redistribute”?….What, no wealth creation?
I like this, “common but differentiated responsibilities.” Much more contemporary, bureacrateze-ish and textable than stuffy old Karl’s, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
So get cracking, folks, work harder, live leaner, turn out your pockets, bust your piggybanks, get your kids to sell cookies and send it all over to the needs experts at the UN.
Hopefully are good friend FOIA releases the password, just before this sham of a conference starts. We can only hope.
The Rio + 20 logo was inspired by this:
http://www.inlandsocal.com/incoming/20111114-web_jack.jpg.ece/BINARY/w460x307/web_jack.jpg
…It’s all about “JACK”…
It’s Bokononism. We need some ice-9.
The bureaucratic mindset in action:
http://reason.com/blog/2012/02/23/the-great-gibson-guitar-raid-months-late
Gibson guitar company is going bankrupt, their employees are out of work, and there is nothing they can do about it. A taste of the future under a jackbooted world government.
Were I President, I would order the military to execute a surprise raid on the UN’s HQ at Turtle Bay, evacuate the UN personnel for one hour [no laptops allowed to be taken out], and remove every hard drive from every computer found. Copy and return.
I would then collate and organize the thousands of terabytes of anti-American propaganda, and post it on the web, along with all internal financial data found. The resulting explosion of anger from the American public would run the UN offshore, and remove the U.S. from membership. Win-win.
Then we could help the poor in those countries that need assistance, without meddling UN kleptocrats getting their large cut of the action – and the despotic, America-hating regimes getting the rest. The poor, as usual, aren’t helped by the UN, which has morphed into a true gangster kleptocracy with the theft of America and the West’s assets, savings, and future income as their primary goal.
George Washington warned his countrymen about foreign entanglements. Can anyone think of a worse example than the completely corrupt UN?
Willis, you are right – Rio started it all, but back then it all seemed so reasonable. “the lack of full scientific certainty should not preclude us from taking action to prevent a possible impact” (my paraphrase on the precautionary principle) in other words we’re not sure but we should take reasonable steps. But to my mind reasonable steps don’t include the insults, fraudulent claims, tyre slashing, minister jostling, political lying, economic suicide and plain illegal actions that have overtaken what was, and to my mind still is, a reasonable principle.
@ Smokey says:
February 26, 2012 at 2:22 pm
RE: Gibson
=====================================================
Thanks for the update and link. I have a woodworkers interest in this.
The Ramayana is an ancient and even today, extremely popular myth of the Indian people which contains great tales of derring-do by its heroes the sun god, Rama, and the monkey god, Hanuman. Like all myths, its stories are metaphors for deeper philosophical teachings, but it is the battle scene between the sun god Rama and the evil serpent Ravana that I want to highlight here.
During the first few hours of pitched battle, Rama is losing badly. This is because Ravana has more than a thousand heads, and every time one of Rama’s arrows slices off one of Ravana’s heads, another grows in its place. Rama is becoming exhausted and in danger of losing the battle. But eventually, he is given wise counsel by a shaman. The shaman tells Rama that he has to hit Ravana in his ‘nectar pot’, which is just below the navel. So when Rama fires his arrow in that direction, and it hits Ravana’s nectar pot, the thousand-headed serpent falls instantly dead to the ground.
In this metaphor, the thousand-headed serpent Ravana represents the United Nations programme, Agenda 21. The heads that keep growing back again are all the different planks of the implementation of this program ~ and they include geoengineering (chemtrails), HAARP, genetically modified foods, the man-made global warming scam, biological terrorism, atmospheric terrorism and financial terrorism.
All of these programs solely exist as various planks to support Agenda 21 and so it’s a complete waste of time arguing with each of them, individually. In any case, the UN will have an unending supply of talking heads to role out and tie up the real scientists with their mock science and ridiculous computer models. Similarly they will feel totally justified in continuing to try to convince ordinary people that geo-engineering (chemtrails) is needed to protect us from global warming (while pretending that they’re only seeking permission to spray and not actually doing so) and that genetically modified foods are needed to feed the “population explosion” when they have patently never given a toss about the world’s starving millions before, otherwise why inflict on them such restrictive trade barriers and march into their countries and strip them of all their assets?
Added to that, even the UN’s own conservative demographic models show that the world’s population will level off by 2050 (which means, it will probably level off way before that).
The sole purpose of Agenda 21 is to remove our property rights and to drive us back into a feudal system, which is a euphemism for slavery. Under Agenda 21, all the land would be owned by the United Nations and administered by its own appointed committees.
The official report of the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighborhood, calls for placing “the global commons” under the direct authority of the UN Trusteeship Council, and defines “global commons” to be:
“The atmosphere, outer space, the oceans beyond national jurisdiction and the related environment and life-support systems that contribute to the support of human life.”
Moreover, the UN Trusteeship Council is to be selected from “civil society” representatives. The Commission on Global Governance also calls for the creation of a new “Petitions Council” which would receive petitions from “Stakeholder Councils” in each nation for the purpose of directing the petitions to the correct UN agency for resolution and enforcement actions.
From The UN and Property Rights, © Copyright 1997 Henry Lamb
These ‘Stakeholder Councils”, by the way, are unelected NGOs, appointed by UN bodies, and they already exist in our local neighbourhoods. Our Global Neighbourhood is the usual oxymoronic twisted doublespeak that comes out of these committees and is propagated throughout the mainstream media by further unelected ‘opinion formers and leaders’ such as Common Purpose.
Read more here ~ Agenda 21: A blueprint for global serfdom and slavery. http://ishtarsgate.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/agenda-21-a-blueprint-for-global-serfdom-and-slavery/
This is from the 1976 meeting in Vancouver. http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/3566_45413_HS-733.pdf where it all began.Willis you may want to talk to Rosa Koire,she has had some success helping towns and cities around the U.S. in fighting against agenda 21.It now goes under the I.C.L.E.I. She has a very informative site. http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/
A taste from Willis’ link above, “Agenda 21”
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/dsd_sd21st/21_pdf/SD21_Study1_Synthesis.pdf
“Review of implementation of Agenda 21 and the Rio Principles.”
“Synthesis” report, since “a short and simple but all-encompassing summary seems to be missing.”
[But, thankfully, we here at “Stakeholder Forum” wanted more money to sustain ourselves and thus help save the world!]
“Study prepared by: Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future”
[“Stakeholders” who don’t produce anything they want to “redistribute” and need to be sustained, eh? What could possibly go wrong?]
Study implemented by the UN, funded by the EU, and supervised by the UN, “but can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.”
[No worries, proles. Just keep sustaining us Stakeholders and watch as our Utopia unfolds to further sustain us Stakeholders and thus save the EU and the World!]
Specifically under Agenda 21 we find from the Synthesis that its vaunted IPCC has produced a “global assessment”.
[Therefore, not only can humans control the climate-weather, as already ‘proven’…but if you proles sustain us Stakeholders in like manner, we can also direct your whole World for you toward our own ‘sustainable’ Utopia, just as our own Stakeholders’ IPCC has shown!]
But, “What happened to the Rio deal” to derail “this well-meaning deal” such that “some of the [Rio] principles have not succeeded in passing the test of inclusion in international and national law, or at least become the basis for accepted normal practices…critical to furthering sustainable development”?
Well, “Significantly developed countries did not curb their consumption patterns and failed to find sustainable development path built on sustainable production methods. As a result, pressure on the global environment continued to rise since 1992.”
[And, trust us, “mainstream” Climate Scientists have assured us all that climate change is happening and, likewise, the horrible results from inadequately Socializing the developed countries since 1992 are simply too graphic for us at the Stakeholder Forum to describe here in our “Synthesis”. But let us be clear: if you don’t continue to sustain us, we’re all gonna die!]
Smokey says:
February 26, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Oh, man, Smokey, don’t get me started on Gibson. I play an old ES-238 Gibson hollowbody, the whole story makes me nauseated.
w.
Goldie says:
February 26, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Thanks, Goldie. Don’t know if you noticed the link above to my piece “Climate, Caution, and Precaution“. The principle is good, it’s just widely and largely misunderstood.
w.
Earth Summit is doomed to fail, say leading ecologists
We can forget about fixing the planet’s ecosystems and climate until we have fixed government systems, a panel of leading international environmental scientists declared in London on Friday. The solution, they said, may not lie with governments at all.
snip
Key priorities
The top priorities, according to Watson, are ending the fossil-fuel era to curb climate change, and investing in limiting population by making contraception available to all.
But neither were likely to happen because, said Syukuro Manabe, a climate modeller at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “the political system is not motivated to worry about the future”.
The laureates said leadership was most likely to come from local government, NGOs and corporations, rather than national leaders or the UN. “Decision-makers should learn from and scale up grass-roots action and knowledge in areas like energy, food, water and natural resources,” the panel declared.
“We do believe that the political system can be reformed, and that there will be technical solutions. But time is not on our side,” Watson said.
http://tinyurl.com/77s7tso
Great writing, appreciate it Willis, as always. However, I didn’t see any mention of two important questions: will Peter Glieck be attending, and what is the weather forecast for Rio?
From times of the Greek culture it is known what a “fallacy” is: In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is usually an improper argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy#Straw_man
The biggest fallacy of all is Evil disguised as Good
Thus, all their purposes seem “good” but are not. They have conceived their “goals” so as to convince good hearted, and not necessarily well informed, people.
Being doubtful, as “doubt” is a principle for correct reasoning, or rather being cynical, we cannot plainly believe in those “good intentions” and it follows to question ourselves: why is it behind such an altruistic preoccupation for me or you?. Say: Are THEY really worried with your health as to promote that you do not eat “trash food” (btw, one their latest campaigns)?, I just can´t believe it! what is it there behind this?. Do they really care for the world?
As Lord Monckton has affirmed, here in WUWT, their ONLY PURPOSE is GLOBAL GOVERNANCE, nothing else and nothing less. But, what for?, power?, but….what for?, Simply: Money, then it follows that a small group of people want to control the majority of the world´s means of production, not for the sake of a particular country but for themselves.
Then whenever a person, a group of people, an institution, suddenly begins to be “preoccupied” by our welfare we must and should suspect of it. These are the most dangerous people.
I find it telling that of the 83 responses so far (this should be the 84th), I don’t see a single comment by William Connolley, R. Gates, A physicist, Exp, or others from the AGW Control Freaks crowd. (And Agenda 21 is exactly why I’ve added the “Control Freaks” moniker to their “AGW” TLA.)
Now why is that? Why are such notables missing from the discussion? Are they like vampires that are repelled by the silver cross of an open discussion about the UN’s IPCC and Agenda 21?
It certainly appears that way–they’ve nothing to “contribute” to the conversation because this is a scathing expose` of what the “Global Warming” meme is truly all about. Scary stuff, Willis. But good stuff–we can’t fight an opponent we don’t understand, and this is an outstanding explanation of their nefarious scheme to elevate themselves at the expense (and you can take that word literally) of everybody else.
Gleick recently has admitted this is a war. And he is right–a war on individual freedoms, yours and mine. They’re traitors to the human race, these UN-sponsored AGW Control Freaks, and it is hard to stoop lower than that.
Jeesh, Smokey, you know how to get a guy to see red on a Sunday afternoon. Still, thanks for the heads-up on the Gibson case; I had no idea. At first I thought this is an elaborate spoof. I mean, what sort of an idiot would send armed agents to root around a factory and confiscate wood, of all things? Monty Python wouldn’t have made such nuttery up, it’s so bizzarro. Then I read a story about how even privately owned instruments could be confiscated under that regulatory provision, got all scared for my hand-made birchwood, maple and rosewood 1976 Norman dreadnaught (unvarnished) and had to spend about an hour of quality time with it to calm both of us down. Now I need an icepack for my fingertips.
Thanks for the format fix-up, Mr/Ms mod. Willis and Smokey got me all frazzled. We need more happy stories for Sunday evenings…like more warmies getting busted for fraud.
@ Peter Kovachev says:
February 26, 2012 at 5:16 pm
Jeesh, Smokey, you know how to get a guy to see red on a Sunday afternoon. Still, thanks for the heads-up on the Gibson case; I had no idea. At first I thought this is an elaborate spoof. I mean, what sort of an idiot would send armed agents to root around a factory and confiscate wood, of all things?
===================================================================
The Lacey Act, under which the EIA functions, applies to any imported wood owned by anyone. Not just factories such as Gibson, and not just musical instruments. It applies equally to the lone woodworker making a keepsake box for his mother, and the giant factories, including automobile mfg. who may use such woods as interior trim on their cars and trucks. Look it up. It’s very scary.
Man oh man these guys have really lost the plot:
“The official opening ceremony was conducted by the Dalai Lama and centered around a Viking long-ship that was constructed to celebrate the summit and sailed to Rio from Norway. The ship was appropriately named Gaia. A huge mural of a beauiful woman holding the earth within her hands adorned the entrance to the summit. Al Gore lead the US delegation where he was joined by 110 Heads of State, and representatives of more than 800 NGO’s.
Maurice Strong, Club of Rome member, devout Bahai, founder and first Secretary General of UNEP, has been the driving force behind the birth and imposition of Agenda 21. While he chaired the Earth Summit, outside his wife Hanne and 300 followers called the Wisdom-Keepers, continuously beat drums, chanted prayers to Gaia, and trended scared flames in order to “establish and hold the energy field” for the duration of the summit. You can view actual footage of these ceremonies on YouTube. During the opening speech Maurice Strong made the following statements”
See: http://green-agenda.com/agenda21.html
God help us if we have crazy people like this running the world “establish and hold the energy field” WTF is that??? They are in two words “ALL MAD”
Every religion has its sacred rites.
What Penrod might have been pleased to refer to as the “rixual”.
(I’d be less concerned and more amused but for the unfortunate penchant towards human sacrifice.)
Willis writes:
One could say that, but one could also – perhaps even more cynically – suggest they’ve learned quite well: Riding on the wings of their empty slogans gets them closer to where they want to go! IMHO, it worked for them 20 years ago; and, sad to say, I think it’s still working.
The record clearly shows that the most “palatable” of these empty slogans are elevated to the “dressing” of choice for the bureaucratic word-salads they cook up – knowing full-well that few will ever examine the actual “ingredients”. Kinda like IPCC press releases and its actual reports, come to think of it!
One of the UN-generated slogans I’ve encountered during the past year or so is “Putting nature on the balance sheet” … it sounds so harmless but, in effect, it’s the “dressing” for new, improved “financial mechanisms”.
Another is “green economy” … what’s not to like, eh? But how many people know that even at the highest echelons of the UN, there is no agreement on what this slogan/”dressing” even means!
If I may be permitted to suggest some of my own explorations of the profusion and proliferation of panels and papers generating and endorsing approved slogans in the run-up to Rio+20, readers might be interested in:
On the road to Rio: Sustainability swamps climate change
Of hypocrites, high-level panels and … sherpas and silos
A profusion of panels and pronouncements en route to Rio+20
I think it might also be worth asking: what can one conclude when a respected scientific organization, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), chooses “Flattening the World: Building a Global Knowledge Society” as the “theme” for its Annual Meeting ( and in its pre-meeting PR approvingly cites the IPCC as a “model”, as it did:
.
In light of the above, let us not forget that Pachauri’s 2009 “vision” for AR5 included:
And when one considers the very few degrees of separation between the organizational affiliations of luminaries such as Strong, Ehrlich, Suzuki and Hoggan, then the rational position of not subscribing to the ‘conspiracy theory of history’ becomes, well, increasingly unsustainable!
The mileage of others may vary, but my conclusion is that there is big, Big Trouble in River City. That’s Trouble with a capital T – and Big with a capital B.
Hilary Ostrov
I went to the Climate Works Foundation, which was mentioned in a post on the vast funding of greens, and there is a pdf called Design To Win.
Long, and in many ways familiar…but with 100s of millions of dollars talking, a little scary. This was done in 2007. There has been some blockage of their ambitions, but not much really. They give themselves until 2020 as their first stage….which is “Don’t Lose”. They want policy locked in by the end of that stage.
Well…it is only 2012. So far Obama has come up with 54 mpg CAFE standards and EPA is shutting down Coal. These are both thing that these foundations would strongly support. Then there’s Smart Grid.
Reading through the doc (or at least skimming it), it is filled with the half-baked nostrums of the eco-freaks. And, no, there’s not much mention of nuclear (it is too polarizing)
So the 100s of millions of dollars aren’t going into education for nuclear…oh, no…Wind, Solar, and Efficiency. Mass Transit, co-located homes/work and Bicycles they like.
Here’s my point, we have a minor victory in catching a perp that over-reached. We still have 100s of millions of Foundation $$$$$$…and public money arrayed to fundamentally change the world.
Curiousgeorge says:
February 26, 2012 at 6:03 pm
The Lacey Act, under which the EIA functions, applies to any imported wood owned by anyone….
jonathan frodsham says:
February 26, 2012 at 6:08 pm
….God help us if we have crazy people like this running the world “establish and hold the energy field” WTF is that??? They are in two words “ALL MAD”
=========================
Yeah, thanks guys; more cheerful stuff. As they used to say, “stop the world, I wanna get off.”
But since we can’t get off, the most pragmatic thing we can do is to work with what we have right here; a top-notch forum that’s gaining in readership by the day. So let’s cover the upcoming Rio+20 madness as best we can. We need to talk about what this twinkie-fest costs, who attends, how much of the dreaded CO2 will be farted out by the time it’s over, and how it’s vital for important people to spend, burn and waste, while we have to go blind with curley bulbs and reuse our old plastic shopping bags. We want pictures of the delegates zipping around in glossy cars, while homeless Rio kids stare and wave, of our betters getting drunk, pigging-out in restaurants and at dinners, dressing like peacocks. We need to post the nuttery they’ll speak and write, the wisdom they’ll impart to us, the unwashed peons. Not much, but better than zilch.
AdolfoGiurfa
Evil disguised as Good
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
Agenda 21 has been associated with an alleged plot to impose a New World Order.
One of the alleged objectives of this New World Order is to reduce the human population to less than 500 million. There is a considerable degree of vagueness about what happens to the other 6500 million.
Conspiracy theories are fun to read about, even though most are thoroughly incredible. However, the climategate emails suggest that a conspiracy by a relatively small number of people can succeed in their orchestrating the circumstances favourable to imposing a collectivist regime and transferring vast sums of wealth to an existing elite, who craft the rules to suit themselves.
The CAGW / CACC scare stories all are supported by flawed computer models; not observed reality.
It would be naive to assume that the government could not create and assess other computer models which allowed proper assessment of the role of CO2, rather than arbitrarily setting it to be the cause of the impending alleged catastrophe.
There must be some political gain for some of our rulers that they should proceed to wreck western economies, without prior due dilligence.
Curiousgeorge says:
February 26, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Sounds like it give goons the right to invade your home or office looking for “imported wood” and if any is found, they’ll rip it out for ya. If not, they have still imposed their willful invasion on a populace that’s supposed to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure.
From now on, my “Control Freaks” monikor is going to be extended to more than just the AGW crowd.
Agenda 21 is just using the CAGW excuse to promote their Malthusian vision. Once AGW is dead (soon, very soon) then they will latch onto something else. All the while ignoring real solutions like LFTR. They want a lot less people on the planet and of course it isn’t them that have to check out early. They will never quit. They will keep changing stripes until they get what they want. Keep your guard up folks. The AGW battle is close to being won by the skeptics but the war if far from over.
Cheers
Forgot to ask. Is Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley going to skydive in? I think he’s earned a warm vacation in Rio for a bit. In his spare time there he can set the facts out between pina coladas 🙂
We here in the US have been protected in the past from crap from the UN by the Senate and our Constitution but our current President has shown that he has no respect for the Constitution and our Congress has shown that it has no intention of trying to curb him. Obama LOVES the idea of Rio and I suspect that he’s going to implement some of the more extreme recommendations and to h*** with constraints on the Government.
Curiousgeorge says:
February 26, 2012 at 8:02 am
EPA’s Lisa “Action” Jackson:
The challenge ahead of us is unlike anything we have faced before – as individual nations or as one planet. For the first time in human history, we are beginning to see that everyday activities – the things we buy, the way we keep the lights on, the ways we travel –have an impact on the health of our entire planet. For the first time in human history, more people are living in cities and urban areas than are living in rural areas. And over the next 30 years, most of the anticipated population growth is expected to happen in our cities.
Umm, Lisa old chum, this kinda exposes you for your ignorance of these matters a bit. Herding us into the cities is part of the UN AGW control-freak agenda you praise. It’s what your ilk and all good redistributionists want, and you’re getting it. Being caged up in our cities is good for Gaia. Haven’t you heard the news? “Containing” humanity in dense cities is eco-friendly after all.
C’mon now Lisa, Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty, this city stuff has been part of the Sustainable Development B1 agenda Willis writes about for quite some time now. From one of my favorite and personally most-cited IPCC scribblings touting SD:
Cities are compact and designed for public and non-motorized transport, with suburban developments tightly controlled. Strong incentives for low-input, low-impact agriculture, along with maintenance of large areas of wilderness, contribute to high food prices with much lower levels of meat consumption than those in A1.
That’s the same page that offers my all-time IPCC greatest hit:
Massive income redistribution and presumably high taxation levels may adversely affect the economic efficiency and functioning of world markets.
It’s a great read actually. Offers plenty of insight into the AGW tainted agenda. Tis a shame for you your prescriptions are Jonestown Kool-Aid, cuz most of us aren’t going to be drinking it willingly. I think I and most others will prefer to stick with the good old Golden Economic Age A1, thanks. So y’all best prepare for a fight, and a good old-fashioned whuppin’ I might add. The ideology of the anti-human brigade will fail. The jig is up. Cheers!
The three pillars are listed here – http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/futurewewant.html – in the PreAmble Section I No. 5. They are economic, social, and environmental The drawings up top would be accurate; so now you have confirmation.
I prefer to see them as Air, Sea, and Land. Air being Cap and Trade, or some other ‘carbon tax’ scheme to ‘value’ the air. Air would be implemented through governmental legislation or regulatory fiat (see US EPA). Agenda 21 would be the Land component. A21 encourages stacking of people in urban centers, abhors urban sprawl, and of course wants central planning at local levels of all property (which coincidently is for collective use). Finally we get to Sea.
For the Sea we have the World Bank. Not what you think of when you think ocean overlord, right? Just the other day in Singapore at an Ocean Summit, the Bank put forth another initiative to ‘help’ with sustaining the ocean. A21 entices cities, counties, and states with cash, and who turns that down right when you’re running for office and enjoy wealth. The World Bank is coercing nations, through financing, which in turn allows for ‘managing’ water areas. This is the most sensible, and therefore the most dangerous. Who wants the waters to lose their ecosystems right? So their eventual intent will be price controls to control consumption; which will include both food, and water itself. *** SPECIAL NOTE*** The new awesomeness is “OCEAN HEALTH”.
Now this is a skeptic site – http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-world-bank-wants-control-high-seas
World Bank, news section, allows access to more links than I care to list, around Feb 22/23/24 are the ocean links – http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,enableDHL:TRUE~menuPK:51062075~pagePK:64001221~piPK:51161268~theSitePK:4607,00.html
All is revealed. The RIO+20 terminology is easily explained. The author is cited below (and not Lewis Carroll):
“…when I use a word it means exactly what I intend it to mean nothing more or nothing less”. –Humpty Dumpty to Alice, Lewis Carroll in “Through the Looking Glass”
We’re winning the war against the alarmists, but we’re going to lose the war. Even here in Alberta the government keeps talking about green house gases, I read about companies reducing energy to help reduce greenhouse gases. It’s everywhere! The MSM is in the pocket of the alarmists and as long as they don’t/can’t see the error of their ways we’ll never stop Obamas wet dream or the UN (Useless Nitwits) from achieving their goal. Let’s face it we’re the silent majority, no one listens to us but ourselves. I haven’t read a single story about Gleick or Fakegate or Climategate 2 etc. Unless the general population can get this information the warmists keep picking off more and more non-believers.
To me when I first heard about AGW and CO2 I immediately thought that it was impossible for CO2 to have any impact on the earths climate/temperature, many simply believe in AGW. If you say anything in public you’re almost accused of being a witch. If Obama wins the 2012 Presidency we’re doomed unless the GOP can win the congress AND senate!
Well said, Willis, and like most here I’m with you on this. If I ever see a ‘pillar of sustainable development’, I shall reach for the ‘shaped charge of democracy’ and take it out as quickly and cleanly as I can. I’ve mentioned centralising authoritarianism in earlier comments here, and the UN is the prime source of that poison.
“I’m not sure how we can fight this, but fight it we must.” – Spot on. As to how, we might start by as many as possible of us declaring, as loudly, as often and as publicly as possible, that if it isn’t democratically accountable to me, it has no authority over me – most people of good heart will get behind that, and quite right too. We also need to use the social – and other – media as widely as they do, otherwise Joe Public will be led to think that Agenda 21 is some sort of established plan which will inevitably happen because everybody accepts it. No. It is greenshirt fascism, and it must be treated the same as any other fascism.
There may not be too long, though. Check out the links on this page and tell me nothing’s happening. Something is definitely beginning to come into contact with the fan.
Eurotrash is the correct term. When you remember who had the idea for the European Project you can see how it got to where it is now. Two French communists whose names escape me but Wikipedia would know.
Indeed, this is a great example of our own state sponsored jackbooted thuggery acting as agents for a foreign power. It is the only thing that has woken up some of my lefty musician type friends from their endless slumber. Specifically, from your link:
WTF! Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)! Raiding an American institution like Gibson over fretboard wood. Give me a [self-sniping] break! That alone should wake up the rest of the American people from their daily stupor. And some people think that words like Eco-Nazi are beyond the pale. Just wait until they march into Galleria malls all over America searching for Ivory jewelry.
Smokey, you got my vote with just one condition. Let the buildings at U.N. Plaza be razed, the ground salted and the rubble bulldozed into the East River. Let’s not take any chances that it comes back again. ‘Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure‘.
Excellent point, this is exactly what he meant. Nothing but foreign entanglements can ever be expected from having a United Nations headquarters in NYC, complete with thousands of scofflaws with diplomatic immunity flaunting local laws. I’m not sure if anything has even changed from the Revolutionary War when it hosted enemy troops and thousands of loyalists.
To Willis, great article. The the UN and ‘Agenda 21’ (plus all their other fiascos) is a target rich environment indeed, and you would think it would be enough to unite our so-called right and left factions along with those of us that prefer to be classified as ‘Constitutionalists’. So far as I can tell, one of those idealogical factions continues to to willfully side with the enemy however. Let’s hope things change soon.
This link will help: (In it appears Lord Monckton):
http://youtu.be/ih1UPeEK9Ig
Science advisor maybe?
This is exactly right. The world is being knit every more closely together by the jet plane and satellite communication. Multi-national corporations operate as super-national entities. It is most likely inevitable that some kind of ‘global governance’ [gad! I hate to use that Algoric phrase!] will emerge over the next century or two.
The real challenge, as John West sagely notes, is to prevent the Agenda-21-style statists (Marxists in “sustainable” clothing) from commandeering the process of global unification, and instead to ensure that the Enlightenment values of the American Revolution, based on the dignity and freedom of the individual, win out over the multitudinous forms of tyranny that the statists, Marxists, watermelons, and such ilk are busily devising.
We will need an ‘Agenda AR’ and an army of Thomas Paines to raise the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag whenever the statist snake rears one of its many heads. The world trembles on the cusp of a great decision, for an over-arching world tyranny, or a world that celebrates the rights of the individual to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” By the 24th Century, will we have Star Trek’s noble Federation of Planets, expanding into new frontiers, or a stinking Gulag ruled by the high priests of a Marxist Sustainability Council? The struggle for one or the other will be long. But it begins here.
/Mr Lynn
Well, I’m for economic globalization and legal sovereignty.
Everybody gets richer and nobody steps on their toes.
What you call “Star Trek’s noble Federation of Planets” is Marxist, as is the very idea of a global state and government from which no one can choose to exempt themselves.
That “Federation” also, in its fictional representation, is ruled by the “high priests” of a council that has arrogated plenary power for itself. Try opposing its universal belief system that it attempts to enshrine, and you will find out how antithetical its existence is to freedom.
That fictional “Federation” was invented by our enemies, and was packaged in pretty packaging in the 1960’s so as to brainwash massive numbers of people to believe that it is good and necessary. One and a half generations later, the authors of this nightmare and their successors are still reaping massive political profits from the endeavor.
I, too, used to believe as you do. But thankfully, I woke up from the brainwashing. Usually, it requires someone close to you who is already awake to shake you up a little. It is a very, very powerful message. More powerful than AGW, and easily ten times as dangerous.
RTF
Well, maybe you know more about the fictional ‘Federation of Planets’ than I do. My source is only how I remember it from ST: The Next Generation. My impression was that it was a federation based on the American model, not a one based on a Soviet collective tyranny, hence my adjective ‘noble’. If the writers of that series intended something different, I am not aware of it.
But that is of no import. What is essential is that, rather than burying our heads in the sand as the world grows more unified, we make sure that in any future global (or planetary) union the individual remains supreme, that the American Revolution Agenda wins and is not trampled by tyranny and collectivism. We can’t just hunker down in our back yards and hope that the growing tentacles of bureaucratic oppression will ignore us forever.
/Mr Lynn
The American model was not intended to work on a unified global government. It doesn’t even, at its present scale, work as intended. It’s out of control and would be virtually unrecognizable to the founders. I believe that the American system simply cannot work as intended, at the scale at which it is being tried today. My personal opinion.
Here is the white paper from I.C.L.E.I last year,these guys are talking trillions of dollars to save the world from itself.Its not making me feel warm and fuzzy or safe at all. http://www.iclei.org/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Global/Publications/Report-Financing_Resilient_City-Final.pdf
The Alarmists live in a virtual world very much similar to the one depicted in the ScFi fantasy film Matrix. We could be having summertime blizzards in Texas and they wouldn’t budge one bit.
Gene Roddenberry was a very brilliant man who was given a very hard task and did extremely well at it. That task was this: sell the American people on Leninism by portraying it up-close and personal in its theoretical utopian form, while still convincing the vast majority that what was being portrayed was the very essence of American rugged individualism and exceptionalism.
To do this, Roddenberry had to have an intimate understanding of both the ideal (and thus impossible) conception of Leninist Marxism, and also an intimate understanding of the American psyche and the Lockian philosophy that gave rise to it. In other words, he had to be able to relate to both of these paradigms at a very intimate, personal level, as well as at the overarching “big picture” level. And then he had to produce a product where the two were so seamlessly welded together that even the most observant and educated had trouble telling where one left off and the other began.
The two series with which he was involved, the original and Next Generation, were without question, some of the most ingenious sociopolitical projects of the 20th century, if not the most. But to really understand them, one has to approach them as polemic works. If one approaches them as objective works of social science, one is doomed to failure. It was exactly this mistake — approaching secular-humanist art and philosophy as objective works of social science rather than the religiously charged polemics that they are — that caused Marx, and then Lenin, and then Mao, to be so tragically far from the truth about how countries are properly organized.
Make no mistake: Roddenberry may have been delusional in his belief that global Marxism-Leninism was the best structure for society, and that secular humanism was the best religious and philosophical system to be offered to the people. But he was under no delusion about the enormous warts and drawbacks that came with these options. His efforts to paper over those by showing only very limited cross-sections and close-up shots of the society he was portraying are clear upon careful observation, and they are quite deliberate. They are no accident. They are not the result of a confused or ill-informed mind — rather, a very deceptive one.
The politics and sociology of the Star Trek Federation was based in large part on the Foundation series (just like Star Wars was); but while Asimov was more fair in his observation of flaws (how could he not be, being a Soviet refugee), Roddenberry was more openly cynical and propagandist in his approach. Asimov is hard for me to figure out; at times, he comes across to me as a type of globalist, while at times you get the sense he is using sarcasm to attack globalism. But to me, there is no strong trend that motivates me to clearly label him as pro- or anti-globalist. My best guess is that perhaps he believed that he needed to pay some undeserved respect to globalism in order to be widely published.
Roddenberry is much more straightforward in his views. But because his views were so controversial (at the time, at least), he had to go to great lengths to camouflage those views under multiple layers of prevarication and dissembly. The smart viewer will see his work as a view of his ideal for the world, but filmed through a kaleidoscopic lens that is being slowly turned as the scenes are shot. Thus, in order to really decode what you are seeing, you have to understand in what ways the lens is distorting the reality it is filming. Roddenberry, of course, wants his friends and supporters to see the reality, but his opponents not to see.
RTF
Follow the Rio+20 conference here http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/index.html
and the déclaration (draft 0 : http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/futurewewant.html)
On CC
Climate change (at this, it’s short but the text will dramatically inflate …
88. We reaffirm that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and express our deep concern that developing countries are particularly vulnerable to and are experiencing increased negative impacts from climate change, which is severely undermining food security and efforts to eradicate poverty, and also threatens the territorial integrity, viability and the very existence of small island developing states. We welcome the outcome of COP17 at Durban and look forward to the urgent implementation of all the agreements reached.
89. We encourage international initiatives and partnerships to address the interrelationship among water, energy, food and climate change in order to achieve synergies as well as to minimize conflicts among policy objectives, being particularly sensitive to impacts on vulnerable populations.
Willis, you’ll have work on commenting the final declaration ! : )
This smacks of serious over-analysis to me. Do you have documentation for this claim the Gene Roddenberry (and co-writers) were closet, or surreptitious, Marxist-Leninists?
Me, I’ve never “approached” Star Trek as either “polemics” or as “objective works of social science,” or as anything, really. I just appreciated them, as engaging works of entertainment. A long-time fan of science fiction, Star Trek (and later, the original Star Wars movie) were the only video works of the genre that really appealed to me, Star Trek especially because of its convincing characterizations and optimistic vision of “the final frontier”—and because nothing beats a good story.
I never had any doubt that liberal democratic values permeated the shows, some with obvious social messages (about the evils of racism, etc.) but to me Kirk’s and later Picard’s real values were those of ship’s commanders, qualities that might even be antithetical to today’s Left. To claim that these series were somehow intended to “sell the American people on Leninism by portraying it up-close and personal in its theoretical utopian form” seems absurdly far-fetched, even silly.
But as I said before, Star Trek doesn’t matter. What interests me more is your claim (February 27, 2012 at 10:02 am) that the principles which informed the American Experiment are not suited to the governance of large-scale entities. There is much more to be said, pro and con, about this essential issue, but this is not the forum for that discussion.
/Mr Lynn
I have put up a post at my blog for continued discussion of the matters you raise. I will comment there shortly.
RTF
As a non-American is it hard for me to get wound up defending the tall, tough and proud lone cowboy on the prairie as the pinnacle of human development. Many comments above are (political) models all the way down. Theories about other theories.
Willis, I am not entirely with you on this one for the reason that the world without the UN was a much bloodier place for patently obvious reasons: wars between major powers. It was formed to prevent them and has achieve that, but arguably not much else on the political front. On the health front it has been a blazing success. I have lived in bottom tier countries and without the WHO, it would have been far worse. We are as a global society, permanently elimination contagious diseases one by one. That is amazing!
It is common (including above) for people to think that they might live in some perfect world where international cooperation is not needed and anything that looks like ‘globalisation’ (a stupid word) means Marxist totalitarian management. Most of today’s contributors would be surprised if they would stop looking at their (political) models and start ‘by looking at the data’. The movementment towards ending millenia of war and bloody argument domination by force and coercion began long ago with the Law of The Sea. It was an agreement by nations (now basically all) that there are rules for what happens at sea (international territory).
These days we have many internation cooperative agreements for the allocation of radio frequencies, how the internet will communicate, protocols for aircraft flight and identification, and so on – hundreds of them. They are what makes modern efficient life including this blog possible.
These agreements and Laws show that it is quite possible to cooperate with each other globally without invoking some bogeyman each time we solve a long term problem. It strikes be as childish to see the admirable work of peacemakers and organisers demonised so much. As they say about climate, it is not that simple. Skeptics: don’t be so credulous about conspiracy theories. Be more….well, skeptical about trolls said to live under the bridges of international cooperation.
We need international cooperation on disease control, on responses to floods and droughts, on preventing national governments attacking their own populations using the national military. We can’t just say, ‘Too bad you chose to be born in an oppressive, insane country. Sure glad we live in America.” That is immoral. And morality does matter. Hand-washing followed by hand-wringing is not moral behaviour on a shrinking planet.
The planet is not a living, sentient being even it is might appear momentarily to be so from time to time. Even as an allegory it is weak. The USA as a paragon of political virtue also falls short. Island America (if it ever existed) is no more and it is not coming back. That is a shock to the system for lonesome cowboys who still want to play Home on the Range on a rosewood fretboard.
If you are gonna cut the Madagascan forests, you are gonna have to learn that the natives are not willing to trade their island for $24 worth of beads.
RockyRoad says:
February 26, 2012 at 5:04 pm
I find it telling that of the 83 responses so far (this should be the 84th), I don’t see a single comment by William Connolley, R. Gates, A physicist, Exp, or others from the AGW Control Freaks crowd. (And Agenda 21 is exactly why I’ve added the “Control Freaks” moniker to their “AGW” TLA.)
Now why is that? Why are such notables missing from the discussion? Are they like vampires that are repelled by the silver cross of an open discussion about the UN’s IPCC and Agenda 21?
———————————————————————————————————————–
Good call Rocky, Why indeed? Contrast their silence with the vocal defense of the Heartland Inst and WUWT sceptics when false accusations are made. Of course, these blackbeards are condemmed by their own words and actions, whereas the sceptics have far more honest blogs and institutions, the more so evident by the fact that false documents must be forged to inpune nefarious motives on the sceptics.
Johnnythelowery says:
February 26, 2012 at 9:13 am
Your assertions concerning the lack of fossile fuels, and the exorbitant expense of coal to liquid and shale oil are without evidence, and have been refuted on this blog many times.
Mr Lynn says:
February 27, 2012 at 6:09 am
=======================================
Thanks Mr Lynn
I concur with your remarks and have thought a little along these lines. Remember, the man that started the Arab Spring in Egypt just wanted the freedom to have a little merchant cart. As the world grows ever smaller, its bilions of people do indeed become more interdependent, and this in my view makes the understanding of what the US experiment of a constitutional government with limited powers and protected rights of the individual ever more important.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
February 27, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Find anywhere up there that I said that all that the UN does is useless or wrong, and you might have a point. But I said nothing of the sort.
My grandmother was one of the very first people who worked for the UN, in 1944-45. Both my mother and my father worked for the UN. So I have few illusions about the organization. Like many organizations, it started out to be about something, and ended up being about its own survival.
I am not as sanguine as you are regarding the success you claim for the UN in preventing wars. Here’s a list of the wars that the UN failed to prevent, a list that only goes from WWII up to 1989:
1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine
1948 Arab–Israeli War
1978 South Lebanon conflict
1982 Ethiopian–Somali Border War
1982 Lebanon War
1987 Sino-Indian skirmish
Agacher Strip War
Algerian War
Angolan Civil War
Angolan War of Independence
Bangladesh Liberation War
Basque conflict
Battle of Karameh
Bizerte crisis
Black September in Jordan
Cambodian Civil War
Cambodian–Vietnamese War
Chadian–Libyan conflict
Chola incident
Civil war in Afghanistan (1989–1992)
Civil war in Chad (1965–1979)
Civil war in Chad (1979-1982)
Colombian armed conflict (1964–present)
Communist Insurgency War
Congo Crisis
Costa Rican Civil War
Cuban Revolution
Dhofar Rebellion
Dirty War
Dominican Civil War
Eritrean War of Independence
Ethiopian Civil War
Falklands War
First Eritrean Civil War
First Indochina War
First Intifada
First Kurdish–Iraqi War
First Liberian Civil War
First Sudanese Civil War
Football War
Greek Civil War
Guatemalan Civil War
Guinea-Bissau War of Independence
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Ifni War
Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation
Indonesian invasion of East Timor
Indonesian National Revolution
Insurgency in Aceh
Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir
Insurgency in Laos
Insurgency in Northeast India
Insurgency in the Philippines
Internal conflict in Burma
Internal conflict in Peru
Invasion of Goa
Invasion of Grenada (1983)
Iran–Iraq War
Korean DMZ Conflict (1966-1969)
Korean War
Kuomintang Islamic Insurgency in China (1950–1958)
Kurdish Rebellion of 1983
Kurdish–Turkish conflict
Laotian Civil War
Lebanese Civil War
Libyan–Egyptian War
Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency
Malayan Emergency
Mau Mau Uprising
Mauritania–Senegal Border War
Mozambican Civil War
Nagorno-Karabakh War
Name of Conflict
Name of Conflict
Name of Conflict
Name of Conflict
Namibian War of Independence
Naxalite-Maoist insurgency
Ndogboyosoi War
Nigerian Civil War
North Vietnamese invasion of Laos
North Yemen Civil War
Ogaden War
Operation Entebbe
Operation Polo
Papua conflict
Paquisha War
Paraguayan Civil War
Pre-Korean War insurgency[3]
Retribution operations
Rhodesian Bush War
Romanian Revolution of 1989
Salvadoran Civil War
Samu Incident
Sand War
Second Eritrean Civil War
Second Kurdish–Iraqi War
Second Sudanese Civil War
Shaba I
Shaba II
Shifta War
Siachen conflict
Sino-Indian War
Sino-Soviet border conflict
Sino-Vietnamese conflicts 1979-1990
Sino-Vietnamese War
Six-Day War
South African Border War
South Lebanon conflict (1982–2000)
Soviet war in Afghanistan
Spring of Youth
Sri Lankan Civil War
Suez Crisis
Thai–Laotian Border War
The Troubles
Tuareg Rebellion (1962–1964)
Tunisian War of Independence
Turkish invasion of Cyprus
Uganda–Tanzania War
Ugandan Bush War
United States invasion of Panama
United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965-1966)
Vietnam War
War of Attrition
War over Water
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
Western Sahara War
Yom Kippur War
Zanzibar Revolution
That’s a hundred and thirty three, and there’s a quarter century uncounted … and how many wars can you point to that were defused by the UN? You can call that a huge success for the UN if you want … some of us might have a different view.
But my point is not that the UN is uniformly bad. It isn’t. If nothing else, the world needs a place for the despots to rant and the diplomats to talk. But to pretend that a “democracy” comprised of oligarcies, monarchies, kleptocracies and tyrannies will be functional in the real world is … well, optimistic. We end up with Libya chairing the UN Human Rights Commission …
Sure, there are a few good parts, like the WHO and the FAO. On the other hand, some of the corners of the UN (like Agenda 21) are nothing but a flat ripoff by a bunch of bottom-feeding unelected bureaucrats.
w.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
February 27, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Thanks, Crispin. I was tracking with you just fine on disease control and floods and the like, until you said that Americans need to be the world police. You seem to think it is America’s responsibility to free the oppressed all around the planet. I couldn’t disagree more.
The problem is, you can’t set a slave free. They will just go back to their slavery. It’s happened dozens of times in history. You can only set a free man free … but free men set themselves free. We just tried your theory out in Iraq and Afghanistan … how long will they stay free when we have left? We tried it in Vietnam … how long did that last?
Your claim, that the US is responsible for the poor and downtrodden around the planet, puts me in mind of the old story about the Texan and the Mexican. The Mexican says “I’m really angry at America, you stole our land. All of Texas used to be part of Mexico.”
“Hold on,” says the Texan, “that was almost two centuries ago, and besides, you still have plenty of land.”
“Yes,” the Mexican says, “but you stole the best part. You took the land with all the paved roads and the electric wiring.”
The US cannot be police, and hand-holder, and paved-road builder, and electricity supplier to the world. If people want to get out of poverty and oppression, we can assist them a bit, but free men set themselves free … and they pave their own roads …
Oh, piss off, it’s obvious from your writing that you have no idea what a cowboy even is, much less what might be a shock to us. It might be a shock to you that some of us cowboys have a very subtle and nuanced view of the world, and we see your claim that the US should be the world policeman as a sick joke.
Heck, you live in the UK, how about you gather up your mates and YOU go free the oppressed of the world? I mean, you can’t just say ‘Too bad you chose to be born in an oppressive, insane country. Sure glad we live in the UK.’, Crispin says that’s immoral. I’d suggest you start out by freeing the oppressed folks in Iran … be sure to come back and tell us how that went.
Call me crazy, call me a cowboy, but I plan to continue to say “I’ll help where I can, but you’ve got to free yourselves.”
While you’re at it, since you’re so into the UN system, how about you take over paying a fifth of the UN budget, since that’s what the US currently pays?
Say what? You want the US to pay 22% of the UN budget, but not the UK?
Funny, that, how many people like you want to eat steak, but you want someone else to pick up the tab …
w.
Crispin, you spoke above about freeing the oppressed. The US has just done that WRT the “Arab Spring” uprising in Egypt. What has been the outcome?
Like I said, you can’t free slaves, and they may bite you if you try.
So you can advocate for the US or the UK or the UN to be the policeman to the world if you wish, but this cowboy thinks you’ve got your head up your … cow if you think that will buy you anything but trouble. As Mark Twain remarked,
w.
Regarding Star Trek and the Federation, what is worth remembering is that relativity rules. When the enemy was front and center, be it Klingon or Romulan, the Federation is viewed as our wonderful, home sweet home. When these enemies were not in plain sight the Federation took on a whole new appearance, often as the antagonists to the beloved Enterprise Captains, whether they were forcing Kirk to continually break prime directives or even sanctioning the impressment of Cmdr. Data. I don’t think that Roddenberry or his many writers can be pigeon-holed into portraying the Federation in a single fashion, if anything, they painted an all-too-accurate picture of ruling class bureaucracy, which in real life we tend to overlook in times of war and strife but we then re-focus on it in other times. One could argue that the fact that the series heroes, both Captains (particularly Kirk) were often breaking ‘FedGov’ rules is in itself a statement that the far-away government is not capable of managing day-to-day operations (hmmm, sound familiar?). Naturally you can count me in as being on the Captains’ side and adamantly anti-FedGov.
What I think is a better question is which of the two Captains is a better role model for our young people? … a hyper-confident, larger than life, womanizing, hard drinking, man’s man, or … a politically correct, Earl Grey tea sipping, flute playing, sissie girl.
Let me think.
Well, Kirk would have had Dr. Crusher in the beginning of season one.
😉
Off-topic to Agenda-21, but somewhat similar to the Gibson raid by USA jackboots is a story from Merry Old England …
I wonder where Norfolk ranks in their list. Anyway, that’s an excerpt, read the rest at the link. It can happen to anybody now.
Blade, thanks for your thoughts. The changes you describe in different episodes are examples of the “kaleidoscopic lens” I am talking about. You have seen the distortions of the lens and incorrectly assigned physical reality to them. They are simply distortions of the real image that the producers are attempting to subliminally feed you.
It often amazes me how people can understand lubliminal programming in advertising but have such difficulty seeing it in the arts and in science. It is everywhere. And this is so because it works very well. Anyway, at least you can see some of the distortions as a visible phenomenon; I guess most people cannot. The only thing now missing is to see that they are covering up an underlying reality, which is ideal Leninism. Almost no one alive today under the age of 60 even knows what that is, but apparently there is no shortage of people who think they know.
The founders of the UN were hard-core Leninists. Many of them made public statements about it. It is not a conspiracy theory. They are very open about their Leninism. If you are fortunate to look in the right places, you will see this. Star Trek is just one of many places. This is not conspiracy theory, it is simple observation of open conspiracy in progress.
For those who don’t know, the word “soviet” is simply the Russian word for “council”.
Willis is more or less on the right track with his last two comments. As usual, I wouldn’t have phrased it quite so, um, severely. But he’s on the right track. Thanks for chiming in, Willis.
RTF
I’m totally with you about the UN my brother. And I unfortunately know about Leninism as well as most of the other isms. What I personally despise the most is our own Democratic Socialism, but I digress. Yes, the UN is the evil empire in my estimation. Just the thought of allowing third world Marxist dictatorships a vote means all the enemy needs to do is round up every little communist paradise, no matter how small and give them membership to swamp the votes of the few remaining free nations. What they did to Taiwan and are doing to Israel makes my blood boil. But it is to be expected from these slime. It’s what they do. I would support an Amendment to forbid any involvement in these ‘Leagues’ and while we’re at it, change the treaty ratification requirement to 9/10ths or even unanimous. Hehe.
I take a more nuanced view of Star Trek in general. Yes, there were many sucky scripts reeking of political correctness over the years, particularly in ‘TNG’. When the original ‘TOS’ series first aired I immediately despised their concept of some future world government (based in San Francisco naturally 🙂 and the larger macro dream of a United Federation Of Planets. But what I did was I just chalked it up to their boundless pipe dreams and ignored it as a meaningless plot point. I think that most good Sci-Fi is saddled with such neo-slavery thinking, look at 2001 for just one example. I do remember Roddenberry getting hammered from both sides though, along with us criticizing the future world order, there were many fellow travelers that cried about the Klingons being a proxy for the Soviet bloc (and I’m pretty sure the Romulans probably were meant as proxies for Chinese communists). Such is life.
What is ironic though, and Hollywood never learns, is this: The person they usually mean to portray as the uncivilized American rabble rouser (i.e., Kirk) causing trouble with the new world order (i.e., Federation) and the ‘misunderstood’ Soviets (i.e., Klingons) always winds up being the hero in the public eye. Another classic example was All In The Family where Norman Lear went out of his way to stereotype Archie (and George) as racist miscreants of their respective colors, but both wound up being the lovable fan favorites. Poor meathead had every liberal possible attribute applied to his character and no-one could care less. That’s justice in my opinion. We always get the last laugh on the liberal slime.
So anyway, I just kind of see Star Trek in the same way. Whatever they intended as propaganda ultimately failed. Just give us the phasers, transporters and time-travel episodes and leave the leftist crap at the door. Make it so!
A very refreshing perspective. Thank you!
Good grief! Subliminal messages in Star Trek! What won’t they think of next?
Well, they didn’t turn me into a Marxist-Leninist, nor anyone else either, I expect. The PC messages in The Next Generation were not ‘subliminal’ at all; they were blatant; I ignored them in favor of Picard’s sterling character, and Deanna Troi’s ample curves.
As for the Klingons, Blake, they were not Soviets—not an apparatchik in sight; they were barbarians, plain and simple—nothing ‘subliminal’ about them, Richard.
Now back to your regularly-scheduled topic.
/Mr Lynn
I didn’t say that all the PC messages were subliminal, nor did I say the Klingons were the Soviets. Subliminally, the Klingons were intended to represent the U.S. If you’re going to be mad, at least understand what I am saying. I’ll give you the last word if you want it.
No, they were obvious. No need for sublimination (I know that’s not a word).
Right; that was Blake.
Do you profess post-modern literary ‘deconstruction’ at some university? I can’t think of any other reason someone would come up with such a ridiculous statement.
Me? I’m not mad; just bemused.
/Mr Lynn
BWAAAAA!!
No one cares about the science except the sceptics –
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/EcoReligion.htm
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/globalism/bilderbergers.htm
Some good news, at least:
Of course, they’re already being attacked for the vote.
w.
Stop and think about what you are saying: You don’t want globalization. That would mean no iPads and BMWs and oil! That’s right, no import or export! No borrowing money from China to fund the wars and comsumerism and education … No, wait, scratch the last one, we don’t need that one as you have so clearly demonstrated.
glob·al·i·za·tion: noun \ˌglō-bə-lə-ˈzā-shən\ : the act or process of globalizing : the state of being globalized; especially : the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets
WTF says:
March 21, 2012 at 11:45 pm
Countries had exports and imports for centuries before there was globalization, so clearly you are in mystery as to the meaning of “globalization”. Someone needs education here, but it’s not us …
w