As I travel around the country I’m asked the same question: What can we do—is there a chance of winning?
I’m asked this question by women and men, by Republicans and Democrats, by Libertarians and Tea Party members, by young and old, by rural and urban residents. My answer is always the same. We can do a lot and yes, we will win.
Now, that’s a powerful statement and has to be backed up with tactics or it’s just empty rhetoric.
In addressing you who are in leadership and organizing positions, it’s necessary to discuss strategy. A good idea acted on at the wrong time is wasted. An action with no follow-up is lost. An assertion without a solid grounding in facts destroys credibility.
The shocking truth that we all deal with on a daily basis is that UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is the action plan to inventory and control all resources, both human and natural, all means of production, and all information in the world. Twenty years ago the Agenda for the 21st Century was agreed to by our government and then implemented through executive order in 1993. It hides in plain sight—masquerading as regional plans, climate action plans, as scenic byways, as smart meters, as domestic surveillance, as land trusts, as Outcome Based Education, as sustainable communities strategies, as public/private partnerships, as comprehensive or master or general plans. Because it is a stealth plan we are at a tremendous disadvantage in bringing it to the public’s awareness. We are smeared in the media and in our neighborhoods, called conspiracy theorists, and disregarded. We’re subjected to a disinformation campaign that is Delphi’ing the entire world.
What you and I know is that it takes courage to fight this, and that is against us, too. Because most people are afraid. We live in a culture of fear. Global warming, terrorism, food shortages, economic collapse—these are all part of UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development.
Yes, these are the times that try men’s souls. As I’ve said, it’s as if there has been a football game going on for the last 20 years and most of us didn’t know it. The other team has been making touchdowns while we’ve been in the locker room. But now we’re suited up, we’re out on the field, we’re up on the board. That game analogy is a good one because all over the US we’ve got teams forming and they don’t know what to do.
In reality, though, it’s not a game. This is war. The American Planning Association knows it. The American Bar Association knows it. The National Association of Counties knows it. The League of Cities knows it. Bank of America knows it. The Federal government knows it. We need to know it.
We are dealing with a bloodless coup. An administrative coup d’état implemented through regulatory means. UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is top-down. GLOBAL. REGIONAL. NEIGHBORHOOD. None of those tiers is elected. This is government by unelected boards and commissions managed through money and power. We need to have average citizens refusing to go along to get along with regional plans. We reject global governance. We need to re-occupy our government as free Americans and refuse to be divided with artificial distractions. Our liberty is at stake.
Now, there’s no question that this is daunting. So we need to use strategy to win.
I’d like to share some tactics that work.
ONE: Know what you’re talking about. This seems obvious but you’d be surprised that many well-meaning people fly on emotion. They use slogans instead of facts. This is a mistake. Educate yourself to the point that you can answer Who, What, Why, When, Where, and How on the big picture. For example, when you are challenged while informing your neighbors about UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development, and you’re told that ‘it’s a non-binding agreement that has no impact here in the US’ counter that. Counter it with the 1993 Executive Order that created the President’s Council on Sustainable Development solely in order to implement UN Agenda 21 in the US. Trace for your listeners that process that went directly from George Bush signing the agreement in 1992, to the 1993 PCSD, to all federal agencies changing their policies to conform to Sustainable Development principles, and then down into the states and local governments through Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook, federal grants, and private awards by partner organizations. From there, bring it right into your town’s comprehensive plan. Do this every time. Destroy that tin-foil hat smear once and for all.
It’s not enough to know this information; you have to get it out to the public. We are still at square one in terms of awareness. The best way to do this inexpensively, quickly, and comprehensively, is with flyers. One hundred two-sided flyers cost $10. In one hour you can reach at least 200 adults by putting flyers on doorsteps. You don’t waste time arguing, you can be anonymous, and you’ll have a huge impact. With six hundred dollars and ten people we blanketed a town of 170,000 with 7,000 strategically placed flyers. Flyers infuriate those controlling your town because they can’t be refuted without actually acknowledging that the flyers are out there. You make your case uninterrupted, with each household reading the information independently. We target single family homes, small businesses, rural areas, and wealthier areas, because these are the people who are targeted by UN Agenda 21. Take your city map and divide it up into sections. Assign those sections. Keep track of which streets have been covered. If you don’t have the people to do the walking then hire teenagers. You’d pay $50 to have someone mow your lawn or clean your house—pay them to walk flyers around your town. Our movement is mostly over the age of 55. We need to involve young people. We need to involve all races, creeds, and parties. We need critical mass. Our biggest weapon is getting the information out so that people immediately recognize Agenda 21 when they see it. Take flyers with you everywhere you go and drop them on tables, put them on bulletin boards, pass them out at sporting events. Make them clear, bold, simple, and official-looking.
I’ll tell you how effective this is. We used flyers to inform town residents on a city plan for mandatory green retrofits and mandatory inspections on every building. Prior to our flyering, most citizens had not heard a word about it. We killed that plan. We used flyers to bring the public to previously unattended meetings on redevelopment where we then turned the tide and were then able to raise a half million dollars to fight our city in a lawsuit. We used flyers to inform the public that their tax dollars were going to pay for a private parking structure at the mall. We were effective. We won a lot of our battles. Here’s something else about flyering. It can be anonymous. I spoke in Cleveland, Tennessee a while ago, and someone in the audience decided to use flyers to notify residents of a redevelopment plan to take their homes by eminent domain. The mayor of the town was furious when newly-informed citizens started to object. At a city council meeting he asked for a vote of the council to order the police chief to investigate—to find out who had put out the flyer. The local Tea Party hired an attorney who has now sent a threatening letter to the city objecting to spending taxpayer dollars to investigate a legal action, an act of free speech. The city is in a heap of trouble now. This is a win for us.
Another part of this tactic is to identify someone in your group who is the spokesperson. This will be your calm, intelligent, well-groomed, articulate speaker who is the most solid on information. Always refer press to this person. Everyone wants to see their name in the paper but this is not the time for ego. Tell your group that any inquiries from the press must be referred to your spokesperson. And then stick to it.
Your spokesperson knows that the press, no matter how charming and friendly they seem, are intent on showing the Resistance in as unflattering a light as possible. The spokesperson is alert, sharp, and ready for the double-edged question, the sly insinuation, the misdirection of the discussion. If you’re the spokesperson and are asked: ‘Why do you object to zoning?’ you know that this loaded question means that the reporter will say that your group would support building anything anywhere—like a pig farm next to a church. You understand more about this than the reporter does, and you explain that you are not against zoning, but the city’s general plan changes land use without property owner notification. Whole areas of the city are being redesignated as transit oriented development/ or mixed use. The existing zoning must then be brought into compliance with the general plan. Result? Legal non-conforming uses and reduced property values. It literally makes existing zoning irrelevant. OK? What I just did is demolish a whole line of questioning.
When asked ‘What’s wrong with sustainability?’ You say “Do you know where that term came from? The United Nations 1987 report ‘Our Common Future’. Did you know that single family homes, private vehicles, appliances, meat eating and tillage are considered unsustainable?’ When you’re asked about UN Agenda 21 always link it to sustainable development and regional plans. One Bay Area IS Agenda 21. Public private partnerships, Smart Growth, the Wildlands, Communitarianism. Manufactured consensus for the ‘common good.’ All regional plans are the same and are Agenda 21.
Stay focused on your local issues. Who are the consultants, what are the programs, who are the players, where does the money come from and go to? What are the plan names, what other cities have the same plan, same consultant, same grants? Contact Resistance fighters in those cities and share information. Identify the organizations and corporations in the public private partnerships. Who are the board members? Are these the same people who will profit from the project? Expose this on your flyers. Look at addresses, law firms, spin-off groups and match them up. In my town I discovered that a number of non-profits were sharing the same suite of offices. I investigated the ownership of the building and the other tenants and found a tremendous amount of revealing connections. Read your local paper daily. It’s full of Agenda 21. The more you know, the better fighter you’ll be.
TWO: Turn the tables on your opposition. Don’t do the expected. Do the unexpected. When a coalition of groups anti-Delphi’d One Bay Area (SF) Delphi meetings the consultants were completely thrown off balance. Use timing. When you are strategizing in your group make sure that you know and trust all participants. If you’re working in coalition make a pact to keep your plans private unless you agree to consult with someone. No one should email or share your projects and timing with anyone. Don’t give your enemy an opportunity to block you before you get off the ground. Don’t release information until it is strategically right. Take action after studying the timing. Then follow up.
In Cotati, CA, and Williamsburg, VA, people who were not able to get our message into the mainstream media opened their own newspapers. Whether as individuals or as a group, explore media possibilities that are unconventional or go around mainstream media.
If you win, celebrate—send out flyers, do a press release; get it on local community media. But be ready with another action so that you don’t lose your people through inactivity. Break your struggle into pieces that can be won. If you lose turn the loss into a win. The San Carlos city council meeting is a perfect example of that. The city put their membership in ICLEI on the agenda and many of us spoke eloquently in favor of severing that membership. Vice Mayor (now Mayor) Matt Grocott gave a fantastic speech. Then the council members voted one by one to keep their membership in ICLEI. Although we lost that night, Steve Kemp filmed it and the whole country got to see the disgusting display of city officials ignoring the facts and their constituents. That is a win.
THREE: Identify spies. Use them. The opposition will go directly to your people and try to turn them against your group. With the use of flattery, board appointments, or subtle threats people can be turned. Infiltrators may enter as new members. They will often be the people who caution you not to act, who tell you that you’re wrong about the motives of the council members or city attorney or staff, or tell you to not to mention Agenda 21/Sustainable Development. They will be there at all strategy meetings. They may do nothing or they may take control. Test them by giving them false information—tell them that you plan to do an action and then change your plan. Watch to see how much opposition shows up at the event. Move these people out of your inner circle. Use them to transmit information to the opposition or drop them from your group.
FOUR: Recognize aptitude in your group and nurture it. But don’t confuse ego with aptitude. This is not a popularity contest or a way to gain personal power. We are in service to our country. There are no generals in this fight and no heroes. Help people to do their best. If you have researchers have them work on reading the local General Plan and Climate Action Plan. If you have analysts have them investigate the impacts of these plans. If you have artists then have them design a flyer or a poster to alert the public. If you have joggers or walkers have them put those flyers on porches. Have videographers in your group bring their equipment to every meeting and film it. Those of us with children and grandchildren should be encouraged to bring those young people to events where they will be thanked and invited to speak about their experiences of censorship and manipulation in school and social groups. Younger people use social media effectively. Ask them to help get this information out to their friends. Sponsor a cash prize for the best five minute video on UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development in your town and put notices up at the local schools. Have an awards banquet and a showing.
Encourage citizens to get involved and guide them to activism. If you have access to funds use them to fund outreach. I am often invited to speak to Tea Parties, Libertarians, and property rights groups, and they generally pay my expenses. But what about those universities and colleges that can’t pay our expenses? There are lots of young people there who are not being reached. Provide access by funding speakers.
FIVE: Publicize the names and acts of collaborators. Consequences. Who is supporting and financing UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development in your town? We researched our new neighborhood president and discovered that he was a former employee of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and had designed and headed up a program to partner the EPA with local communities to ‘rebuild democracy.’ Our city paid to have him go up and study Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods, a top-down Delphi-using agency. This is the kind of thing you want to broadcast. When a council member votes to support a $20 million bike bridge at the same time that there is no money to keep your streetlights on, make a flyer with a mug shot of that council person on it. Use this to defeat him at the next election. Consider targeted recalls. Show collaborators that there are consequences. We are working on a catalog of supporters of UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development including the American Lung Association, Siemens, Bank of America, IBM, and Google.
If you are volunteering for a group or making financial contributions, whether for a non-profit or a religious group, do some checking on it. For example, is your religious organization a member of Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation? This multi-denominational non-profit is officially recognized by the United Nations as an NGO and advocates for an end to commercial logging. Pull your financial support from any group that is supporting UN Agenda 21, ICLEI, smart growth and regional boards. Refuse to pay dues, refuse to volunteer, and put out a flyer informing members. Use that money you would have contributed to make flyers.
The flip side of this is to support elected officials who are on our side. I was just contacted by a councilman in Montana who was fighting participation in a federal grant program. He said it looked like UN Agenda 21 to him. He was right. But where were the citizens to support him and three other councilmembers when they voted to turn down federal money? They lost by one vote. How can those councilpersons say they’re representing their constituents when no one shows up?
Elected officials need to put out a newsletter–put out a call for the community to support them when they’re refusing federal grants. This is big, isn’t it? It could ruin a politician’s chances for re-election, so the support of the people is crucial. Elected officials must inform the public. Put on a town hall meeting to raise awareness and support.
SIX: Make being part of the Resistance fun. Use ridicule. These UN Agenda 21 plans are often ridiculous. Millions of tax dollars are going for studies. Our government is spending huge amounts of our money for things we don’t need or want but they can’t pay to pave our roads. The implementation of Agenda 21 costs a fortune. We haven’t even scratched the surface and we’re already bankrupt. High speed rail is an example. We’re going to spend billions to lay tracks from Fresno to Bakersfield? Comedy. How about a neighborhood association run by city-hired consultants because it’s too messy to hear what you really think? They did this in Seattle. Comedy. How about road diets that narrow the road and put bikes and cars in the same lane? They call this sharing the road. Ridiculously dangerous. Building high density transit oriented development subsidized with our tax dollars will indebt us for 40 years. Two generations of debt used to build apartments by the train tracks. Sustainable or ridiculous? Remember in the late 60’s Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman throwing dollar bills into the NY Stock Exchange? The traders went crazy running for the money. It was fabulous political theater. Be creative.
SEVEN: Be honorable. Work with other groups in coalition on your common goals. Keep your politics to yourself and focus on what you can agree on. What do we have in common? We object to Smart Meters, to domestic spying, to endless war, to economic devastation, to crushing school debt, to regionalization and globalization. We have compassion for those who think of themselves as environmentalists and are waking up to the manipulation. Make a commitment in front of your group, person by person, that you are dependable and serious in defending our freedom and that you will do the work. Show up when you say you will. Stay consistent in your message and in everything you do. Speak the truth, and be trustworthy. When you say you’re going to sue, do it. If you make a threat and don’t follow through no one will take you seriously in the future.
EIGHT: Understand what your people’s limits are. Remember streaking? Now imagine your group doing that. Not going to happen, right? People who don’t want to speak at a meeting should hold up signs in front of the cameras. It is best to speak because silent people are assumed to agree. Reading something is better than not speaking at all. Choose those events carefully. We don’t want to burn people out. If there is a popular issue in your town that you agree with, get out there and get in front of it. Get email addresses and grow your group.
NINE: People become active when their interests are threatened. Telling them that they are losing their sovereignty or their rights is not as effective as telling them that the city council is proposing to require a $750 energy inspection on every single building in the entire city, and that they’ll have to pay before they can sell their house or get a building permit. We stopped this with a flyer. Seven thousand flyers. Choose fights that the public actually cares about. Money out of their own pocket is the number one concern. Always think of the issue in terms that will get people up, angry, and active. Then direct them and grow your group.
Target those on council who support Smart Growth, regional plans, visioning projects, etc. We were able to change the balance of power on the Santa Rosa City Council by exposing the Agenda 21 faction that supported spending a million dollars to turn our neighborhood street into an obstacle course called a bike boulevard. Frame the issue in a way that will appeal to the public. When we wanted to stop the bike boulevard our slogan wasn’t “Stop the Bike Boulevard” it was “Restore Humboldt Street.” We won.
TEN: Real resistance is about power. This is a fight for the hearts and minds of the American people that will be won by engaging our fellow citizens in their own self-interest. It’s up to us to help them see what that means. We must refuse regional plans leading to global governance. Camping on the city hall lawn isn’t power. This is a method used to mass obedient troops that can be used later. Power is getting information to your fellow citizens so that they will not be Delphi’d. Power is revealing the gears behind the machine so that citizens will stand up and say HEY, that looks like Agenda 21 and we don’t want it. Power is encouraging people to use their reasoning and then to speak out. The word ‘encourage’ means ‘to give courage to.’ To ‘empower’ means to ‘assist those in the fight to see the power they have and then to encourage them to use it.’ This is our job.
Let’s do everything we can to relentlessly bring the awareness of UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development to critical mass. Freedom is non-partisan. There is joy in taking your power. Awareness is the first step in the Resistance.
We can do it.
Rosa Koire
Executive Director
Post Sustainability Institute
– See more at: http://democratsagainstunagenda21.com/developing-a-winning-strategy.html#sthash.T1UkYECa.dpuf
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We are fighting to stop the worst regional plan in the United States here in the SF Bay Area–its impacts will be felt all across the nation. We believe it will be the template for the rest of the country and have launched a legal challenge to stop it. Will you help us defeat this UN Agenda 21 plan by making a donation to the legal fund?
Thank you,
Rosa
Rosa Koire, ASA
Executive Director
Post Sustainability Institute
PostSustainabilityInstitute.org
DemocratsAgainstUNAgenda21.com
SantaRosaNeighborhoodCoalition.com