Agenda 21 is the product of a report issued in 1987 by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development. Its author was the vice-president of the World Socialist Party. The term was first introduced in 1992 at the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero in a document called UN Sustainable Development Agenda 21. Today it is simply referred to as Agenda 21, although many names are used to hide its true nature. Terms such as sustainable development, sustainable communities, green initiatives, which include manure management programs, smart meters, smart growth, social equity or social justice, are designed to cover the true intentions of this insidious program. Sustainable communities, because of its ability to incorporate so many aspects of Agenda 21, are the favored keywords used to explain, define and move the program forward. After all, what could be wrong with a sustainable community? Proponents insist that every societal decision be based on environmental impact, global land use, global education and global population control and reduction.

Agenda 21 gets its authority from 178 nations that adopted it as official UN policy in 1992. George H.W. Bush signed for the United States. By signing, each nation pledged to adopt the goals of Agenda 21. The agenda calls for sustainable development, the integration of economic, social and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity (social justice - a.k.a. spreading the wealth), and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity. In 1995, Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12858 to create the President’s Council on Sustainable Development in order to harmonize US environmental policy with UN directives as outlined in Agenda.

In June of this year, Barack Obama signed his 87th Executive Order, #13575, in furtherance of Agenda 21 and creating a White House Rural Council which, when fully implemented, will effectively take control of every aspect of rural America. Members of this new council include 25 government agencies, and some have affiliation with several Agenda 21 organizations, including George Soros’ Open Society.

Agenda 21 cites the root of the world’s problems to be Judeo-Christian religious traditions and can be summed up with these quotes:

“Agenda 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by every person on Earth... it calls for specific changes in the activities of all people... Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all humans, unlike anything the world has ever experienced.” Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet (Earthpress, 1993). (emphasis added in all quotes)

“No one fully understands how or even if sustainable development can be achieved; however, there is growing consensus that it must be accomplished at the local level if it is ever to be achieved on a global basis.” The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide, published by ICLEI, 1996.

“Land... cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore contributes to social injustice.” From the report from the 1976 UN’s Habitat I Conference.

“Individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective.” Harvey Ruvin, Vice-Chairman, ICLEI. The Wildlands Project.

“We must make this place an insecure and inhospitable place for Capitalists and their projects-we must reclaim the roads and plowed lands, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land.” Dave Foreman, Earth First.

The ultimate goal of the United Nations and Agenda 21 is global dominance over our economy and control of every aspect of our lives-especially American lives. Because of our standard of living, our work ethic, our ability to produce and manufacture, our wealth in terms of resources and manpower, our willingness to reach out and help other nations, and most of all our freedom - we, the American people are the target of the UN’s agenda of social justice or, better stated, redistribution of wealth. Our wealth.

In the UN’s quest for global dominance through sustainable communities and social justice, one needs to ask what might be un-sustainable. Here are some examples of what is considered unsustainable:

Grazing of livestock (cows, sheep, goats, horses); disturbance of the soil surface by large hoofed animals resulting in compaction of soil and reducing filtration; fencing of pastures or paddocks; use of chemical fertilizers; herbicides; modern farm production systems; paved roads; modern hunting; harvesting of timber; logging and private property. Include in this list ski runs, golf courses, ponds and fishing streams. Add the need to control non-hybrid seeds in everything from organic farms to backyard vegetable plots and the manure deposited by livestock. On closer inspection, the goal seems to be having the U.S. return to farming methods currently used in Third World countries.

The first arena in which to fight Agenda 21 is in our community. Ask yourself whether our county commissioners and local officials are already buying into aspects of Agenda 21. This is not conspiracy theory. It is fact. It is being implemented even as you read this. It is a policy that attempts to eliminate our sovereignty, our Constitution and our way of life and supplant them with the United Nation’s charter and world socialism. You already are the victims of smart meters, smart bulbs, new building codes and MMP - manure management programs, among others. Just look at the regulations from the EPA and the Department of Agriculture over the past two and a half years. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

It can happen here and it is happening here.

Do your own research. The internet is full of valuable information. Arm yourself with this information and then begin to fight back. Do it now, before it’s too late.

Sincerely,

Edna K. Paskoff

Montrose, PA

(Note: The following narrative is based on a telephone conversation.)

Call me, John. The name is fictitious, but my story is real.

It was March. The seasons were changing from the icy sleep of winter to the yearly resurrection of life. This month would also bring a change in my life but one that was anything but pleasant.

The day started as any other day, nothing unusual, until, that is, I turned on the faucet for my morning coffee. The water had an odor, a chemical smell. Taking a shower was more alarming. The water burned my eyes, made my skin feel uncomfortable, itchy.

Tests revealed my well water was contaminated with the extremely carcinogenic chemical, benzene. This chemical is highly volatile meaning that, like gasoline, it changes rapidly from a liquid to a gas. This causes the benzene to be doubly dangerous. Benzene pollutes the air as well as the water. In this case, the very air I was breathing and the water I was using for drinking and washing.

Nothing like this had ever happened to me. My water was always good. Good, until the drilling started. The connection between the two was painfully obvious.

The nearby drilling had brought a number of other changes. Wind carried fumes toward my house, irritating my eyes. The noise was overwhelming, not only from the machinery but also from the constant stream of traffic both of which were 24/7 operations. Even the nights were polluted with the glare of floodlights.

What to do? I called the drilling company, Ultra, for help. Ultra's response: The contamination is from natural seepages that are not related to drilling. We're not responsible. The burden of proof was on me. But how could I prove that it was the drilling since I never had my well water tested to establish a baseline for comparison?

Complicating matters, there are problems with water testing. What should it be tested for? Drillers use scores of chemicals, and patent their own fracking mixtures. They patent their mixtures not because they are superior to other products but to keep the contents secret. If one does not know what's in the fracking fluid, one doesn't know what to test for.

A comprehensive baseline testing designed to standup in court costs $1,000 and it was too late for that. Natural gas companies are required to test water wells within 1,000 feet of drilling sites. I was 1,300 feet away. Besides, trusting the drilling companies for an honest, third-party, and very expensive test would be inexcusably naive.

I thought about moving. But how? I would have to sell my house and property. But who would buy it? And for what price? My house was my anchor. I could not move.

Surely, the federal Safe Drinking Water Act would protect citizens. That's what it was written for. But no. A Bush/Chaney exemption shifted the onus of regulations to the states.

All right then. What about Pennsylvania's Environmental Protection Agency. No, again. They have neither the budget, personnel, expertise, or will, to formulate and enforce strict guidelines. Three years into drilling and the EPA is still holding hearings to establish drilling regs.

My next step was to seek help from my state senator and representative. Double no. They were neither aware of water problems nor sympathetic to my plight. Why? Think money.

The oil and gas industries have hundreds of lobbyists persuading congressman to write legislation favorable to their businesses. Last year they spent $250 million. One must assume they got something for their money. And what did that money buy? Take a look at the Minerals Management Service (MMS).

The MMS is a federal agency that oversees offshore drilling. But the agency had become so corrupt that oil companies literally filled out their own inspection reports in pencil. MMS inspectors would write over the penciling in ink and turn in the completed form. Were it not for the Deepwater Horizon oil rig accident in the Gulf and subsequent investigation none of this would have come to light.

As for the gross malfeasance of MMS, no one was ever indicted, but the agency did change its name. It's now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (that should help).

Is Pennsylvania’s EPA just as compromised as the MMS? If so, without a Deepwater-Horizon-type accident we'll never know.

So where do I go from here? Get “lawyered up,” as they say. But the drillers have their lawyers as well. My case could be in legal limbo for years. In the meantime, it's like living with my own Deepwater Horizon. I have my water trucked in and go on living where it has become unlivable.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA