OK, are you ready for this? Meeting going on, a city council workshop on the city of Edmond's involvement in sustainable conservation efforts. The gathered citizens are convening to discuss their ideas about this and to discuss priorities. About 200 people are there. Saving money and energy, reducing waste: that's what this Edmond Sustainability Forum is all about. Water conservation, greenspace parks, energy efficient buildings, that sort of thing.
That was the intention, but one Robert Semands, an upstanding citizen of the fair city, protested the idea of forming small brain-storming groups. Instead he demanded that the origins of the sustainability movement be revealed. To "widespread applause," according to the report. It gets a little dicey from this point. Another guy says he wants the whole group to discuss this thing because he doesn't thing they are going to get anywhere with the "unknowing" leading the small groups. From the report:
Handouts titled “Why Edmond is concerned about U.N. Agenda 21/sustainable development” were handed to participants entering the Downtown Community Center.
The reading material states, “U.N. Agenda 21 is a 1,000-plus page, 40-chapter document spelling out how all activities on the planet, including in the USA, are to be brought under the control of the United Nations.”
Breaking into groups to discuss sustainability is about controlling what is said, one man in the audience said.
“We don’t even know what you’re talking about with Agenda 21,” [Sharon] Entz [community development manager] said. “This isn’t part of our conversation at all. It’s absolutely not. We’re not part of that; we’re not interested in that.”
Semands said the language of sustainability comes from Agenda 21 which is a U.N. agenda.
“Edmond did not sign off with any international agenda,” former Mayor Dan O’Neil said.
Newsome told The Edmond Sun that the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) is a sub-group of the United Nations. The reading material provided by the group protesting the forum compared ICLEI to a Marxist document. He said the city is implementing Agenda 21 plans that have never been ratified at the national level.
“We feel like we’ve been essentially ambushed by all this,” Semands told The Edmond Sun. “We just found out about it a few days ago. When they post meetings it’s kind of hard to find out about them.”
City of Edmond meetings are posted at www.edmondok.com.
“My concern is ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development,’ the words come from UN Agenda 21,” Semands said. He said former President George H. W. Bush signed the U.S. up for U.N. Agenda 21 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janerio in 1992.
“Bill Clinton with an executive order created a governmental infrastructure to push this stuff as far as they could push it from a government level,” Semands said.
Local homeowner John Springman said conservation is fine, but he’s concerned the ICLEI movement is tied to the U.N.
“Who is the U.N. and ICLEI to tell we the people in the U.S.A. what to do?” Springman asked.Who indeed? What does the UN have over the people of Edmond, OK? And, by God, they ain't gonna be telling them what to do. This was the heart of the problem. This meeting was an affront to the provincialism of these people and their inveterate intolerance of anything from any further away than Tulsa.
So what was the upshot of all this? Guess: they shut the meeting down. The organizers have to regroup. They are going to have another meeting in January where they will attempt to address the concerned citizens questions. Somehow I'm doubtful sustainability has got much of an immediate future in Edmond. Why? Because it's a hot button Tea Party issue. (See articles below.) And in the hands of these loonies, you better believe it's all a plot by some nefarious hidden foes to deprive Americans of their liberty.
I wish someone would deprive people like this of their liberty to make the world more burdensome for the sane.
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1 comment:
First of all, her name is Shannon, not Sharon, Entz.
I don't know what you're talking about, when you say "And in the hands of these loonies, you better believe it's all a plot by some nefarious hidden foes to deprive Americans of their liberty." No one wants to be controlled, nor deprived of his/her liberty.
Also, when you say "I wish someone would deprive people like this of their liberty to make the world more burdensome for the sane," I don't understand. This world needs less burden from the UN, Agenda 21, Sustainability, and anything like it. This nation will collapse with bologna agendas like this one.
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