The recently installed speed tables around the mall are too
high, the asphalt around is crumbling and deep pools of rain water are
gathering around them as there is no proper drainage. These were totally
unnecessary; on any given day traffic is backed up and very slow, nobody is
speeding. They were installed to make it more difficult for people to use their
cars to go shopping; the regional planners want residents to use the new metro
line and the bus lines already in existence. They want to “nudge” Americans out of their
cars.
The entire area is now extremely congested thanks to the
many high-rise, mixed-use apartments overbuilt to suffocating capacity. The construction
of the metro line eliminated more driving roads and businesses.
The EZPass lanes from the Beltway were reallocated without much
input from the American taxpayers and given to investors who now scalp drivers
during rush hour by as much as $30 per 8-mile commute one way. Because the
average commuter cannot afford such confiscatory rates, now the interstate is
even more congested. Before EZPass, when the lanes were HOV, anybody could use
the lanes for free during non-rush hours and during rush hour if they had 2-3
occupants per car. It seemed very equitable; these roads were built with taxpayer’s
money. The investing group claimed that they had spent a few billions in
improvements.
Bicycle paths are being built everywhere , downtowns are
closed to traffic completely, streets are narrowed to make driving more
inconvenient, parking lots are eliminated, parking garages charge exorbitant
fees, and high-rises are built without any parking spaces, all in an effort to
discourage Americans to own a car and eventually to force them into public
transportation.
New York boasts 400 miles of bike paths; they have
transformed Times Square into a pedestrian zone, “equity of space” as planners said,
where everyone can relax and spend quality time with each other rather than
alone in cars, driving all the time. What if one needs to rush somewhere?
Millennials are first in line to advocate for bike paths but
I don’t see any of them biking to work on the dangerous Beltway to and from
D.C.; they are usually alone in their Beamers.
I am familiar with the proletariat masses having no cars
during my years of living under a communist regime. We stayed close to home,
within a 40 mile radius by bus or train, or as far as we could bike, or our
feet could carry us. But the ruling elite had chauffeurs, elegant cars, and
planes at their disposal.
Progressives are telling us or forcing us to tighten our
carbon foot print belts, to use less water, less air conditioning, less electricity,
to eat less meat, drive tin can Smart Cars, and build tiny apartments, while
they live in mega mansions by the sea, sail in huge yachts, ride in limos, jet
around the world to resorts and climate change conferences, and own many
expensive cars running on fossil fuels.
Most people don’t know that all these changes are deliberate
and have been implemented for decades under the aegis of United Nations’ Agenda
21/2030 and sold to Americans as Sustainable Development, regionalism, and
Smart Growth/Green Growth, encompassing every facet of our lives.
Every state in the U.S., every nation on the planet that had
signed onto U.N. Agenda 21 in 1992 is now a victim of Sustainable Development,
the lynchpin of U.N. Agenda 21/2030, of social engineering, of regionalism, of urbanism,
and of the “nudge” out of cars and into public transportation, buses, light
rail, and long distance trains.
Regulations have been proven more restrictive and draconian
than legislation. The people’s behavior has been modified bit by bit to align
with the visions of the members of the Club of Rome who allegedly wrote U.N.
Agenda 21. Adults and children are conditioned
and controlled to adhere to the core desires of those who designed Agenda 21. The name Common Core Education and its Standards
were not chosen randomly, it was a step towards indoctrination into their
goals.
The American Planning Association with other professional
organizations have been instrumental in the deployment of U.N.’s Agenda 21/2030
through the voluntary design of architects and engineers who will do the
bidding of those who reward them with grants and money. Federal grants fund
local deployment of U.N.’s Agenda 21/2030.
As A.J. Cameron said, “Closing the gap on income inequality
is not about shifting money and resources from the wealthy to the needy, it is
about destroying the middle class to make everyone needy, except for those
forcing the insanity upon the masses. In the meantime, the predatory puppeteers
become wealthier and evermore powerful. Sustainability is a religion that is
more dangerous than Islam.”
Kathleen Marquardt, Vice President of the American Policy
Center, wrote recently about Austin’s ‘Complete Streets’ policy. “If Austin
planners have their way, they’ll impose a California-style ‘complete streets’
congestion-inducing nightmare. Complete streets policies seek to elevate
non-auto modes of travel by using already scarce funds to construct bike, bus,
and pedestrian facilities while reducing capacity and access for autos.”
Marquardt mentioned San Francisco’s Proposition A which passed in November 2016. “The $500 million bond
measure [aims] to impose a variety of traffic calming measures, which actually
do anything but calm traffic. Rather they induce traffic. The measure includes speed bumps, road diets,
traffic circles, intersection islands, train upgrades, expanding bus stops,
special boarding islands or ‘bulbs’ for buses (which undoubtedly take up road
space needed for efficient auto travel) and transit-only lanes.” http://americanpolicy.org/2017/04/18/social-engineering-crony-capitalism-regionalism-urbanism/
The most focused and resolute advocate for property rights, the
most important element of Sustainable Development, is the President of American
Policy Center, Tom DeWeese. For over twenty-five years he has been educating
groups around the country on the dangers of U.N. Agenda 21, now morphed into
Agenda 2030.
Livable, walkable communities have sprung up all over the
country, following the Smart Growth example of Portland, Oregon, a grand plan
that destroyed the neighborhood atmosphere, increased population density, increased
congestion, and escalated crime.
The Smart Growth plans have backfired, driving up prices
beyond the reach of most people. The young and low income people are now forced
to rent and the poor have no hope of ever buying a home and experiencing the
American dream of home ownership. In Portland, according to Tom DeWeese, after
decades of Smart Growth policies, more than 10,000 minority families were
driven out their homes and in the San Francisco Bay area minority families were
relocated against their will into “preferred development areas.”
Tom DeWeese is working on a book to define private property and
why it is so important to create personal wealth and freedom, the single best
way to eradicate poverty. “The book, with the working title, ‘Property Rights
Matter,’ will contain a detailed plan on how to restore property rights, from
the Great Plains to the inner city.” He is putting together a team of experts
to draft such a plan. His Property
Rights Network will make property rights a national issue in local, state, and
national elections. It will include organizations, individual activists, and elected
representatives who advocate for property rights.
Tom DeWeese focuses on “how we can roll back regulations
that prevent folks in the inner cities from not only owning and controlling
their property, but also destroy or prevent the establishment of local
businesses. Under Smart Growth programs inner city ethnic neighborhoods are
being bulldozed and replaced with expensive high rise ‘walkable’ communities
which the lower income folks cannot afford. So they are displaced into federal
housing project, stuck on the government’s plantation. They live a life of
intimidation in a world full of crime and hopelessness.” He plans to reach out
to small business associations to help bring about a non-government, free
enterprise solution to build a life of their own and to improve their own
neighborhoods.
DeWeese wrote, “Meanwhile, in the western states, where the
BLM is a reign of terror, I plan to use the network to focus a large spotlight
on it, demand that the states get back control of their land and stop calling
it public land.”
DeWeese announced that “the American Policy Center has
joined with 40 other organizations to urge President Trump to keep his campaign
promise to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement. He is now
under massive pressure to ignore that promise.” Such agreement made under the
Obama administration would be disastrous for our industry and our economy.
Under the excuse of stopping global warming and carbon
footprint, your water, gas, and electricity consumption are monitored and
controlled via smart meters. HOAs tell you what to do in your suburban home if
you were lucky to have been allowed to build in what the planners call “urban
sprawl.” In some areas, if you own land, you cannot build a single family home;
you must build a high-rise, mixed-use apartment complex with no parking spaces.
In Maryland, unless your land is close to a sewer system,
you cannot build a home with a septic tank; you have to build on approved
corridors.
In Miami, bike paths will become bike highways. If they run
close to your home and your favorite magnolia tree that is cut down without
your permission, too bad; the regional council who gave the grant is not
responsible for what happens to your home or your property. No one takes
responsibility but shadowy NGOs with
unchecked power, armed with grants, will
decide what will happen to your property.
“More government power leads to more government corruption,”
said Tom DeWeese. Protecting the environment and having clean air, water, and
soil, is important, but oppressing Americans in the name of environmental
protection and preventing manufactured global warming is a farce that aims to
control our living.
Speaking recently to a group in Virginia, Tom DeWeese
explained that the Convention of States advocates keep telling us that all
these Agenda 21 problems will be fixed and government overreach will be brought
under control if we just amend the Constitution one more time. But the shadow leftist
government wants to completely change our nation, not fix it, and to replace
the Constitution with their own version, a progressive constitution, an
environmental green constitution, and any leftist constitution that harmonizes
with international law. And all the George Soros funded organizations are busy
incorporating their agenda into the progressive U.S. Constitution waiting in
the wings to replace the old and archaic, out of touch U.S. Constitution. The “democracy”
the leftists keep bringing up is nothing but a means to grab political
power. We are not a democracy, we are a
constitutional republic. But if the left repeats a lie non-stop, the uninformed
masses believe it.
The Constitution provides no guidelines on how delegates for
a Convention of States are chosen, who does the selection, and how it will run.
The precedent has already been set when
the original Convention of States did not focus on the specific orders given by
their states; once delegates were locked inside the convention hall, the wishes
of the states were immediately ignored, and the chosen delegates became the
most powerful force in the country, with no “boss.” When they emerged, we had a
new Constitution.
DeWeese asked a rhetorical question, “Why are they trying to
redefine our Constitution? Because
everyone is ignoring the law, the left claims that we must have an amendment to
force them to do their jobs. What motivations would drive the Schumers, the
Pelosis, to say, oh, the Constitution is the law of the land, and we must
follow it.”
“Nameless, faceless bureaucrats, yielding power in the
backrooms is not freedom. The Constitution is not broken, it is the people we
have been put in charge, they are broken,” concluded DeWeese.
Sustainable Development is harmonization of our system of
government with the global government envisioned by billionaire elites. Private
property ownership is the reason why the United States has been the most
successful country on the planet. “Stand
up for property rights and we can stop Sustainable Development,” Agenda 21 , and
its sibling, Agenda 2030.