Southern Poverty Law Center Blames Grassroots Activists For Lack Of Agenda 21 Popularity

Agenda 21 is losing public support due to an increase in grassroots efforts to curtail the United Nations program, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the UN Agenda 21 initiative is a voluntary and non-binding action plan which is reportedly focused only on sustainable development.

A total of 178 United Nations countries adopted the Agenda 21 plan in 1992. The global initiative is based upon a program which would in theory abolish poverty and protect “fragile environments” by “properly” managing cities. The United States is a signatory country to Agenda 21. Congressional approval was not required to become a signatory since the plan is non-binding. In America alone, more than 500 large and moderate-sized cities are members of an international sustainability organization that reportedly supports the implementation of Agenda 21.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) report entitled, “Agenda 21: The U.N., Sustainability and Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory” was recently released to the public. The SPLC contends that support and action on the initiative has slowed down across the country because grassroots activists have embarked on a campaign to thwart Agenda 21 nationwide.

An excerpt from the SPLC Agenda 21 report:

“At least three states — Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma — have considered laws, each of which passed one chamber of their legislatures, to halt the purportedly noxious effects of Agenda 21; Alabama went all the way, passing a 2012 law that was signed by Gov. Robert Bentley,” the report states. “Major political battles have broken out over it in Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Montana, Ohio and Texas. Even the Republican National Committee, in January 2012, denounced Agenda 21 as a destructive and insidious scheme to impose a socialist/communist redistribution of wealth.”

Rosa Koire is likely one of the most outspoken opponents of Agenda 21. She first became aware and concerned about the “communitarianism” or regionalist movement while working as a real estate appraiser. Koire retired at a fairly young age at least in part, to tour the country and educate others about what she wholeheartedly seems to view as a dangerous and liberty infringing movement which surpasses partisan politics. “It is assumed that people are not good stewards of their land and the government will do a better job if they are in control. Individual rights in general are to give way to the needs of communities as determined by the governing body. The plan is to restrict your choices, limit your funds, narrow your freedoms and take away your voice,” Koire said.

A detailed map of America created by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity shows exactly what the country would look like if the United Nations Agenda 21 plan takes hold in the United States. The Bundy ranch and Tommy Henderson Texas ranch battles with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have caused some to grow more concerned about the amount of land already owned by the federal government and a perceived push to utilize environmental laws to pressure residents away from rural growing and grazing areas.

Author Stanley Kurtz wrote Spreading The Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities. Kurtz believes that President Obama has plans to abolish the suburbs and “Manhattanize” America. While Agenda 21 is reportedly a sustainable communities initiative, some on both sides of the issue also view the plan as a race equity or social justice matter. Stanley Kurtz’s investigation into the Agenda 21 type push for biodiversity led to the discovery of connections between President Obama and key regionalist movement advocates. President Barack Obama was reportedly mentored by “pioneers” in the regionalist movement. The author claims that the president’s past associates in the regionalist movement are pushing him to put conditions on future federal aid projects that adhere to regional planning commission’s recommendations based upon the dictates of the Sustainable Communities Initiative.

During the Obama administration, the White House has allegedly “lent its prestige and facilities” to Building One America. The group is headed by Mike Kruglik. He was reportedly one of the “bosses” of then community organizer Obama. Greg Galluzzo and Jerry Kellman, the other two supervisors of Barack Obama during that era, are also touted high-profile regionalists. The three men are credited with establishing the Gamaliel Foundation, which has been deemed the most influential voice behind the regionalist equity movement. When Kruglik was at the White House for the Building One America conference, he reportedly met with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and senior Obama adviser Peter Rouse. Valerie Jarrett was also supposedly slated to attend but was pulled away for debt ceiling discussions. The Building One America conference was convened by the invitation of the White House, according to Kurtz. President Obama and Mike Kruglik were photographed together later inside the Oval Office.

John Powell, a law professor and director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, has also been a “strategic partner” for both the Gamaliel Foundation and Building One America. Powell, who reportedly feels that there is a significant amount of “structural racism” in America, is regarded as a national scholar on regional equity.

Building One America strategic partner John Powell had this to say about racism and the suburbs:
“In creating the suburbs it was explicit that the suburbs were for whites only. You had demands for civil rights, and you had the federal government essentially paying white people to leave the central city and to live in this new space – a white space – called the suburbs. The structure of that is still what we’re living with today. So much of the work of Jim Crow laws was maintaining social distance between blacks and whites. Now whites lived in the suburbs, and blacks and racialized others lived in the city. Social differences became redefined through these fragmented, racialized, metropolitan areas. Money was divested from the city, which were old neighborhoods where black were more likely to live, and suburbs were created.”

Powell goes on to claim that home buying in the suburbs “redefined the racial geographic spaces” in America in a fundamental manner – creating an association between “whiteness” with the suburbs and urban areas with people of color. The regional equity movement expert has also claimed that the creation of the suburbs drained resources from cities.

When asked his opinion about the development of housing in the suburbs, Powell had this to say:

“Jobs were moving out of the central cities. So we’re isolating people away from the tax base, from good schools, and from jobs, and really building ghettos for black people. Now, this was a federal program [Housing] but it was administered through local control, so each community had complete control over whether or not to build public housing, and how to build public housing. And it’s not surprising that many of the suburbs – in fact, most – said no, we do not want any public housing. We do not want those people out here. And the federal government said fine. Even though we’re the federal government, even though we have the right to exercise control over the federal purse, we will do it in a completely fragmented way that will give each community a veto over who can live there. And that’s still the way we operate the federal housing program.”

Do you think Agenda 21 is solely a sustainable communities initiative or also features, or could be used as a social justice plan? Does the United Nations Agenda 21 program infringe on individual or property rights?

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