Agenda 21

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Agenda 21 is a set of hopeful guidelines for environmental action and social justice established by the United Nations in 1992 at a conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[1] It sets out a variety of goals for public policy at all levels and for civic action by non-governmental organizations. These include fair trade practices, sustainable energy and urban development (i.e. more efficient zoning), and debt reduction for the developing world. Like most such sets of guidelines, it was happily agreed upon and happily ignored for many years, except for ne'er-do-wells like Sweden.[2]

Agenda 21 was frequently cited by conspiracy theorists, such as the John Birch Society, during the 1990s as a purported blueprint for implementing the New World Order and population control, then forgotten by them too.

In 2012, however, an "exposé" by former Fox News host Glenn Beck seized upon Agenda 21 as an attempt by radical Nazi communist internationalist homosexuals[3] to "put their fangs into our communities and suck all the blood out of it, we will not be able to survive."[4] This began an onslaught of paranoia that has continued ever since, with even such high-level American institutions as the Republican National Committee (RNC), the governing body of one of the two major American parties, officially condemning Agenda 21 as "a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control."[5] The general consensus among a certain segment of the American conservative movement seems to be that socialists and tree-huggers are using Agenda 21 as a template for an insidious contamination of all levels of society.[6]

The flaw with any vigorous opposition to Agenda 21 is that "the U.S. government and no state or local government is legally bound by the United Nations Agenda 21 treaty," as the RNC accurately asserts in their resolution.[5] Accordingly, it makes no sense to demand that it be repudiated: you can argue with it on the merits of what it recommends, but it's silly to savage a set of recommendations for merely daring to exist. It's tantamount to mounting a bombastic attack on the Food and Leisure section of your local paper just because you disagreed with a food critic's opinion of a restaurant: you might want a different columnist or different recommendations or even a different section editor, but attacking the section for its audacity in existing makes you seem like a raving lunatic.

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Agenda 21, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development
  2. Växjö, Sweden: A Model of Sustainability, BuildingGreen
  3. Yes, you read that right. Next time life is beating you up, try imagining what a "radical Nazi Communist internationalist homosexual" would sound like giving a speech. It won't solve all your problems, but you're guaranteed a good therapeutic laugh.
  4. Behind the Green Mask, Southern Poverty Law Center
  5. 5.0 5.1 "Winter Meeting 2012 Resolutions", Republican National Committee
  6. It actually provides a great litmus test on the wackiness of right-wing candidates.
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