The Sustainable Development Cabal of the United Nations is Meeting Again

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.”  - Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the U.N. Earth Summit, 1992.

 

The U.N. Agenda 21 adopted in 1992 and signed by 178 countries has morphed into Agenda 2030 adopted in 2015 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and 169 “specific targets.” As Alex Newman described it, it is a recipe for “global socialism and corporatism/fascism” foisted upon the world by the United Nations. https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/22267-un-agenda-2030-a-recipe-for-global-socialism

My 2012 book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy,” explains the U.N. effort to rearrange the way we live, the way we do business, an effort to redistribute our wealth to all third world nations, friends and foes. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals can be found at this site which is labeled “post 2015” Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. Indoctrination into global socialism may be subtle and euphemistic, but the message of controlling everything is clear. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

SD is a U.N.-led effort to reduce consumption, force social equity (social justice), and preserve and restore biodiversity through economic, social, and environmental policies integration.

“Sustainablists” insist that every decision made in all societies must be made taking into account the impact on the environment. Global land use, global education, and global population control and reduction must be controlled and “harmonized.”

Social equity (social justice) is described as the right of all people “to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment.” This includes redistributing wealth and treating private property and national sovereignty as socially unjust while seeking universal health care as a right.

At the local and state levels one organization, Local Governments for Sustainability, previously named International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), has been responsible for introducing Public Private Partnerships (PPP), special agreements between government and corporations that receive tax breaks, grants, and eminent domain through government’s power to implement sustainable policies.

Tom DeWeese described these public-private partnerships as “government-sanctioned monopolies.” Tom DeWeese, President of American Policy Center, has been fighting property rights infringements by ICLEI and their visioning committees for years.

Local sustainable polices include Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects, STAR Sustainable Communities, Green Jobs, Green building codes, Going Green, Alternative Energy, Local Visioning, regional planning, historic preservation, conservation easements, development rights, sustainable farming, comprehensive planning, and growth management.

Outside facilitators that no locals have ever met or heard bring “consensus” to a local government and the pre-determined “visioning” of the “visioning committee” and its invisible “stakeholders” is being imposed on the local population that has not voted on nor had it been informed of the plan and of its outcome.

In addition to ICLEI that some local communities and cities pay dues to, there are other groups that aid in the implementation of world-wide Sustainable Development:  American Planning Council, the Renaissance Planning Group, International City/County Management Group, U.S. Mayors Conference, National Governors Association, National League of Cities, National Association of County Administrators, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and official U.S. government agencies.

Executive Order  #12852, issued by Bill Clinton in 1993, created the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to “harmonize” U.S. environmental policy with U.N. directives as outlined in U.N. Agenda 21,” and directed all federal government agencies to “reinvent government” with the help of state and local governments. https://clintonwhitehouse2.archives.gov/PCSD/Charter/

Each year U.N. Agenda 21 which has morphed into 2030 Agenda is imposed on the participating countries, including U.S., at the local, state, and federal level under the infamous Sustainable Development (SD).

Wealth redistribution is not the entire U.N. Agenda 2030. They want to control population size, to engineer where we live through high-rise mixed-use urban settlements and forced mass migration (Europeans are already experiencing a dose of this forced migration and so are Americans), eliminating borders, and nudging governments to seize control of the means of production, directly or through fascistic decrees. U.N. is telling us clearly, “We commit to making fundamental changes in the way that our societies produce and consume goods and services.”

Who is going to decide what is “sustainable patterns of consumption and production” and what will the consequences of non-compliance be?

Alex Newman described Agenda 2030 as a “the UN plot …aimed at ‘transforming’ the world. The program is a follow-up to the last 15-year UN plan, the defunct “Millennium Development Goals,” or MDGs. It also dovetails nicely with the deeply controversial UN Agenda 21, even including much of the same rhetoric and agenda. But the combined Agenda 2030 goals for achieving what is euphemistically called “sustainable development” represent previous UN plans on steroids — deeper, more radical, more draconian, and more expensive.” https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/22267-un-agenda-2030-a-recipe-for-global-socialism

The “principal UN body mandated to review implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” is the High Level Political Forum (HLPF). HLPF examines every year the progress made. This year’s meeting in New York on July 9-18 will discuss SDG 6 (clean water and safe sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 11 (inclusive and sustainable cities), SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG 15 (life on land), and SDG 17 (partnerships for the global goals).

The meeting, “Transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies,” is co-organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. (FAO), the Geneva Water Hub, the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, the United Nations University–Institute for Water, Environment and Health, and U.N.-Water, in partnership with the Permanent Mission of the Federal Government of Somalia to the U.N. Who knew that a country known for its pirates is now making policy for the rest of the world?

Discussion topics will include:

-          “Vanishing Waters and Drying Lands: Impacts on Migration,” focusing on “migration, environment and climate change nexus” – (even though the global warming/climate change has been debunked for its faulty data and lack of scientific evidence)

Policy responses will be drafted in regards to water, land, and migration.

-          “Migration Governance in the GCC: Towards Inclusive, Safe and Resilient Societies” will be hosted by Philippines and Bahrain Permanent Mission at the U.N. and Migrant Forum of Asia (an NGO) and explore “Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration as it intersects with Sustainable Development Goals.”

-          Launch in January 2018 of the Global Plan of Action for Sustainable Energy Solutions in Situations of Displacement – “130 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance due to conflict, natural disasters, and other complex global challenges.”  This global plan is “non-binding” but represents “concrete recommendations” to give “safe access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy services for all displaced people by 2030.” The western and developed world will no doubt foot the bill for this new third world bureaucracy and its “harmonizing” philanthropy.

As is always the case, the United Nations third world SD cabal includes third world governments, business, “civil society leaders,” private sector, academia, and other never named “stakeholders” which usually translates as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), “non-profits” with a well-paid and well-traveled staff.

Assisting Member States to achieve the migration objectives of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs for a “dignified and humane migration,” the International Office for Migration (IOM) provided input to the 2018 HLPF. https://www.iom.int/news/migration-and-sustainable-development-goals-focus-2018-high-level-political-forum

U.N. Planned International Flood of Migrants

In case you were wondering about the planned invasion of Europe and other developed nations, including the United States, wonder no more. Today, The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations Migration Agency, funded partially and generously with your taxpayer dollars for 65 years, is holding an International Dialogue on Migration in New York, on April 18-19, with the theme, “Strengthening International Cooperation on and Governance of Migration towards the Adoption of a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration in 2018.”

I highlighted the words “regular, governance, Global Compact” to illustrate that this vaunted meeting of third world tin pot dictatorships aims to establish and control the global no-borders policy through an on-going flood of migrants to the west, destroying sovereignty and diluting nationality and citizenship. It is not about protecting migrants temporarily from tribal wars and conflict, it is about resettlement of huge populations and forcing multi-culturalism on those countries that resist and wish to maintain their “borders, language, and culture.”

There are millions of refugees around the world who are fleeing conflict in their nations and they must be helped in order to return them safely when the conflict is over. But the European invasion of mostly military age men from the Middle East contains only about 10 percent Syrians who are fleeing the seven-year civil war in Syria, the rest are economic opportunists on a “Hijrah” conquest in the senescent Europe, fast replaced by a fertile Muslim population.

U.N. plans to govern migration through a global compact, a sort of constitution for the rights of everyone to move across national borders unimpeded in another step towards spreading the wealth of a globalist commonwealth ruled by the few billionaire elites and their well-funded “civil society” lapdogs.

They are not shy or hiding the fact that their conference and efforts are part of U.N.’s Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the very Agenda the MSM keeps telling us that does not exist and those reporting on it are conspiracy theorists:

“It is an opportunity for States and all relevant migration actors to frame the core objectives for the global compact, and ground it in the existing normative structures and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

Seeing this global migration as a human right, “the IOM Director General William Lacy Swing said in opening remarks today, “The Global Compact presents a historical opportunity to achieve a world in which migrants move as a matter of genuine choice rather than a necessity; a world of opportunity to migrate through safe, orderly, and regular channels; and a world in which migration is well governed and is able to act as a positive force for individuals, societies, and the States.”

If you want to keep your country and borders safe from unvetted invasion, you want to limit the number of economic refugees and illegals flooding your country, causing violence, rapes, and murders, too bad; the United Nations will override your President who has promised a check on unvetted refugees and a wall on the southern border. The almighty United Nations bureaucrats from New York will override him and the American people’s wishes.

The “needs, capacities, and contributions of migrants” will supersede your national needs because their safety, dignity, and human rights are more important than yours.

The four core elements of this compact, as presented by Ambassador Swing are:

1.      Protecting the rights of migrants

2.      Facilitating safe, orderly, and regular migration

3.      Reducing the incidence and impacts of forced and irregular migration

4.      Addressing mobility consequences of natural and human-induced disasters

Louise Arbour, the Secretary General’s Special Representative for International Migration, pointed out that “It is up to all of us to embrace human mobility, and recognize that good migration governance requires a commitment to genuine cooperation. People in transit and destination countries should not be made to look at migrants as burdens, or even worse as threats to themselves or their way of life.”

Perhaps Louise Arbour should pay close attention to the mayhem and violence caused by Angela Merkel’s flood of “rapefugees” in Europe who have destroyed cities and entire areas, raping, threatening, destroying property, harming the local population, and altering their way of life forever, while politicians and the main stream media are ignoring reality and covering up the often savage violence.

Arbour said, “Instead, we need collectively to strengthen the narrative – one which has the virtue of truth – that recognizes human mobility and diversity as a contribution to evolving societies and strong economies.”

The U.N. bureaucrats are not explaining why the male refugees cannot stay in their own countries, fight their tribal wars, end them with a lasting peace, and make their societies evolve and economies strong?

I am not sure on what virtual reality realm Louise Arbour’s version of truth resides, but the lying narrative keeps pushing diversity as a contributing factor of society and strong economies when in reality these migrants become wards of welfare as soon as they enter any country they plan to occupy and they never intend to work. Diversity and multiculturalism in Europe have proven to be utter failures; society has devolved into basket cases of areas that the police avoid at all costs.

As listed by IOM, the conference will be addressed by representatives of “governments, civil society, academia, and the private sector.” Among the speakers are:

-          Amina J. Mohammed, U.N. Deputy Secretary General

-          Peter Thomson, President of the U.N. General Assembly

-          Louise Arbour,  Secretary General ‘s Special Representative for International Migration

-          Ahmed Hussein, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada

-          Permanent Representatives of Switzerland and Mexico

This conference will be followed by the second Global Compact on Migration which will take place on July 18-19 in Geneva, “culminating in the stocktaking preparatory meeting in Mexico in December.” http://www.iom.int/idm-2017-global-compact-migration

The United Nations Agenda 2030 of Sustainable Development is not going away and its goals are relatively close to completion, now to include the forced flood of international migrants around the globe and the obliteration of national borders and sovereignty.

Global Bankruptcy, Sustainable Development, and Propaganda

Ever so caring for the fate of humanity, Pope Francis’ duties have now extended from world climatologist, population control, and critic of free market economics, to expert on global bankruptcy. He said, “The goods of the Earth are meant for everyone, and however much someone may parade his property, it has a social mortgage.”

The Catholic principle of “social mortgage” is the idea that the public has a “legitimate and necessary claim on private wealth and property.”

We are so lucky that we have such a capable Pope who not only tends to the souls of his flock but also to the pockets of the rich and of the downtrodden who are in serious need of wealth redistribution and social justice.

If we don’t allow countries to go bankrupt, we are definitely a heartless bunch.  Just giving them foreign aid and technical expertise to build their own prosperous economy is no longer enough. In the meantime, Christians are being killed and persecuted around the globe by their Muslim brethren but I digress.

The AP reported that Pope Francis said the following when asked to comment about the Greek debt debacle, “If a company can declare bankruptcy, why can’t a country do so and we go to the aid of others?” Because so many countries struggle with debt, he called for an international bankruptcy process as a solution. I am not sure if he mentioned all the theft and misallocation of donated funds or how loans have been used or misused.

The Catholic Church’s consultant to the Vatican, Eric LeCompte, head of the religious development organization called Jubilee USA Network, said that “Pope Francis knows that heavy debt loads cause poverty and inequality. The Pope’s statement is a logical extension of the Catholic Church’s strong support of debt relief for struggling countries.”

The Pope is not alone in poverty and debt eradication calls. United Nations voted 124-11 in September 2014 to develop a global bankruptcy process. The Pope is just promoting their plans. IMF studies revealed that debt is a cause of inequality. It will develop a proposal this fall as “nearly 50 countries face worrying levels of debt according to World Bank statistics.”

“A bankruptcy process is critical if we want less poverty and if we want to prevent financial crisis,” said LeCompte, consultant to a recent United Nations Conference on Trade and Development road map utilized in the U.N. bankruptcy process. “Bankruptcy means less inequality and more global stability."

Since our American students’ college loans cannot be bankrupted even though most of them cannot find jobs in their fields in this out-of-control national-debt-strapped economy to enable them to pay back their loans, should we not start a bankruptcy loan forgiveness at home before taxpayers are somehow saddled with the debt of the third world? If suddenly international banks that made loans to various countries, are in need themselves of bailouts because they are deemed “too big to fail,” will taxpayers be required to rescue them?

At the same time, the U.N. is preparing the future of education through a renewed propaganda indoctrination assault of our children into Green Global Citizens. U.N. Secretary Bank Ki Moon and UNESCO’s chief Irina Bokova declared that globalized schools around the world need to re-shape our children’s values in order to create “sustainable global citizens.”

Attending the U.N. World Education Forum in South Korea, 100 education ministers, U.N. plutocrats, globalists, Marxist educators, environmentalists, lobbyists, and “stakeholders” outlined the public relations media blitz of the “roadmap for global education” through 2030 via the Incheon Declaration. http://en.unesco.org/world-education-forum-2015/incheon-declaration

The U.N. Foundation, media “partners” and other NGOs unveiled their propaganda campaign for the next fifteen years to promote the “sustainable development” master plan for humanity and the globe, the lynchpin of the 1992 U.N. Agenda 21. Dubbed the “world’s largest advertising campaign,” the U.N. effort will “train” and “subsidize” so-called journalists to favorably report on the one world government global control, under the guise of “sustainable development,” of every facet of our economy and of our lives.

While visiting the United States in September, in addition to supporting the climate change industry, the Pope will likely attack the “American Idea,” the God-given individual rights outlined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. We know so because the senior Vatican and U.N. adviser, Jeffrey Sachs, wrote in a Catholic publication that “the path to happiness lies not solely or mainly through the defense of rights but through the exercise of virtues, most notably justice and charity.” http://www.aim.org/aim-column/liberal-academic-says-americas-founding-document-outmoded/

The indoctrination into the global citizenship will be facilitated by our Department of Education agenda of “cradle to government-approved career.” Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan unveiled the plan for government boarding schools for “just certain kids we should have 24/7,” building “community centers” with more offerings of “after school programming” and the opportunity to shape the brain full of mush of potential social justice drones.

And topping the list of communist indoctrination, millions of dollars of tax money will be used to brain wash kids into non-existent “white privilege,” a race-based ruse to excuse any lack of personal responsibility, motivation, and work ethic among the lazy, incapable, and the sloth.

The San Francisco-based Pacific Education Group, “claims black students shouldn’t be subject to ‘white values’ such as industriousness, punctuality, and civilized classroom behavior and that they should be held to different standards than whites.” Never mind that teachers report chaos in the classrooms where these new “visionary” and outrageous standards of behavior have been adopted. Such race-based standards are racist by definition. But then again, achievement based on merit is overrated. Why not have 144 valedictorians among 400 high school graduates?

While in South America, Pope Francis made the call for “a new economic and ecological world order where the goods of the Earth are shared by everyone, not just exploited by the rich.” The question remains, who will divide these goods of the earth and how will it be done if not by supply and demand? And who will be the producers with so many takers waiting in the wings?

 

Further reading:

www.liberato.us

Sovereign Debt Workouts: Going Forward Roadmap and Guide (The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development)
IMF's April 2013 paper on debt restructuring
United Nations General Assembly Resolution on a legal bankruptcy framework

Cuts in Social Security, Confiscation, or Wealth Redistribution?

The Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, gave a speech on Tuesday, April 14, 2015, in which he proposed, among other things, raising the retirement age from 67 to 69. He stated that, “We should remember that Social Security at its core should be retirement insurance. I’m suggesting that Americans pay into the system throughout the course of their life, knowing that it will be there, if they need it, to support them in their later years, so seniors will not grow old in back-breaking poverty. But, if you are fortunate enough not to need it, you will have paid into a system that will continue to help Americans, neighbors, friends, who need it the most…. It is fair, and it is what we must continue to do. We can only do that by changing Social Security.” http://www.wsj.com/articles/christie-to-call-for-raising-age-for-social-security-cutting-benefit-for-some-seniors-1429018212

According to our government’s website, “The Social Security Act was signed by FDR on 8/14/35. Taxes were collected for the first time in January 1937 and the first one-time, lump-sum payments were made that same month. Regular ongoing monthly benefits started in January 1940.” It is important to note that it is a TAX, not an insurance premium, and it is not an insurance program.

Is this a communistic issue of “fairness” or is it an issue of out-of-control welfare and government spending? Perhaps we should remind the governor that the Social Security Act of 1935 was just a retirement program that only paid benefits to the primary worker. According to their website, “a 1939 change in the law added survivors’ benefits and benefits for the retiree’s spouse and children. In 1956 disability benefits were added….The original law contained the first national unemployment compensation program, aid to states for various health and welfare programs, and the Aid to Dependent Children program.”

My question to Governor Christie would be, before we start talking confiscation of retirement benefits, shouldn’t the law be changed by legal venues? When did Social Security suddenly become an optional insurance program for which we can select to pay premiums or opt-out? As a matter of fact, Social Security is mandatory, people are forced by law to contribute into Social Security 6.2 percent and employers also contribute 6.2 percent per employee. Furthermore, Social Security benefits are taxed again. The premise of FDR’s law was that, if nanny government did not step in, Americans were too stupid or apathetic to invest their own money to help them survive in old age. http://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html

And who decides which Americans need it the most and what is the criteria? How far of a stretch will be before the smart government bureaucrats like Christie decide that your savings in the bank are not really useful to you, you must give them up to the needier and unfortunate who have made bad choices in life and wound up poor, downtrodden, and addicted to drugs. Taking it a bit further, how much of a stretch is it for the same omnipotent government to step in and decide for you that your home has too many empty bedrooms, or too much space and thus must be confiscated and occupied by poor illegal aliens who have lots of kids and are in need of space. After all, in the Marxist ideology, it is only fair and social justice to confiscate wealth and other people’s money and possessions in order to give to the community and especially to the communist party elites and apparatchiks. It has certainly happened in all the former Iron Curtain countries where everybody lost everything they owned to government confiscation, redistribution, and social engineering.

Governor Christie continued, “So, let’s ask ourselves the question, do we really believe that the wealthiest Americans need to take from younger, hard-working Americans, to receive what, for most of them, is a modest monthly Social Security check? I say no. And I propose a modest  means-test that only affects those  with non-Social Security income of over $80,000 a year and phase out Social Security payment entirely for those that have $200,000 a year in retirement income. Think about how much money you have to have.”

The argument is insulting and wrong. Who is to decide what I have to have? What if my needs change due to illness? Is $80,000 a year going to be enough? Nursing home care, in-home care, drugs, and medical care are very expensive. Inflation and economic policies have sky-rocketed the price of many goods and services. This arbitrary amount may not buy as much as it used to since the cost of living has escalated.

Social Security is a tax, it is no insurance and we pay taxes even on Social Security income. People are forced to take Medicare at 65 and pay expensive insurance plans for drugs, hospital, and doctors.

How about the Social Security lock box that has been robbed long time ago by politicians who spent our money with compunction? We were told that it is our money to have upon retirement at the age of 65. There is a reason why the Social Security Administration keeps accurate records of each individual’s contribution made throughout his/her employment life in order to determine the amount of annual benefit. That is an earned entitlement.

Go to a Social Security office in northern Virginia and it is overrun with illegal aliens who do not speak English. How long have these people, who are mostly young, have been paying into Social Security? What right do they have to draw Social Security benefits that were reserved and paid for by American citizens?

Christie makes the Marxist argument that people should draw benefits according to the slogan made popular by Karl Marx, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” the German version, “Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen,” expressing the idea that communism will make enough goods and services that would meet and fulfill everyone’s needs.

This is outrageous in itself. Anybody who lived under communism can attest to the fact that the economy was plagued by chronic shortages and people were deprived of basics, suffered daily, lost weight, were anemic, malnourished, even starved to death. People are also familiar with the Jamestown experiment in communism when everyone worked the land collectively but received an equal share of the crop. Some worked harder, some were slackers. The colony of settlers almost starved to death. The following year, they reverted to individual plots of land and production flourished.

Marx made famous the phrase, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” but he perhaps borrowed it from Louis Blanc who used it in 1839, an idea attributed to the Frenchman Etienne-Gabriel Morelly who wrote in 1755 a bizarre work, Code of Nature.
Under the heading, Sacred and Fundamental Laws that would tear out the roots of vice and of all the evils of society, Morelly wrote:

“I. Nothing in society will belong to anyone, either as a personal possession or as capital goods, except the things for which the person has immediate use, for either his needs, his pleasures, or his daily work.

II. Every citizen will be a public man, sustained by, supported by, and occupied at the public expense.

III. Every citizen will make his particular contribution to the activities of the community according to his capacity, his talent and his age; it is on this basis that his duties will be determined, in conformity with the distributive laws.” https://www.marxists.org/subject/utopian/morelly/code-nature.htm

What happens when a retiree passes on? His/her Social Security benefits revert back to the government if they are not married at the time. If a person were allowed to invest their money into private retirement funds, the money would revert back to the heirs and, even after paying inheritance tax, there will still be potential money left over.

Like Christie, we also “believe in the dignity of work,” but we must send young, able-bodied welfare recipients and illegal aliens to work for their unearned and generous benefits instead of sending them Social Security checks every month, while expecting those who paid into the system to have benefits reduced or confiscated altogether. If a well-off retiree chooses to donate his/her benefits, that is a different story. But forcing them to give up their benefits is Marxist confiscation and forced redistribution of wealth.

No matter how you look at what Governor Christie proposes in regards to entitlements, a progressive term that implies that anyone who receives any form of Social Security is entitled to it, regardless of whether they paid into Social Security or not, smacks of more wealth redistribution decided by greedy politicians who have already spent the supposed Social Security lockbox and threw away the key. If anything needs cutting or confiscating is the politicians’ power and insatiable desire to spend the taxpayers’ money.

 Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

 

 

 

Appeasement and Redistribution of Wealth

From Pope Pius XII, the much beloved, anti-communist and anti-Nazi Pope, to the current overtly socialist Pope Francis, the 266^th pontiff of the Catholic Church, the church has undergone a lot of changes.

In his recently penned 224-page document, The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium), Pope Francis criticized the following.

-          The current capitalist inequalities

(Were socialism and communism ever equal, inclusive, kind to the people, and fair? No, there were two classes, the haves, composed of communist party apparatchiks and the have-nots, composed of the proletariat.)

-          “The idolatry of money”

(Who pays for the salaries of priests and the maintenance of the churches around the world for its 1.5 billion Catholics? The Holy See is quite flush with cash and wealthy beyond belief if you consider thousands of priceless works of art, marble statues, gold and silver icons, urns, crucifixes, chalices, and marble cathedrals around the world. Should they not follow their own direction and distribute all this vast wealth to the poor?)

-          “The inequality that spawns violence”

(Were violence and wars around the world borne by economic inequality or were there other reasons such as religion, land disputes, drug cartels, plundering, and natural resources such as oil, gold, coal, diamonds, silver, and power and control conquests?)

-          “Trickle-down economics” as a theory that “expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.”

The Washington Post immediately included the papal criticism in its editorial and pointed out that Democrats and liberals have rejected the “trickle-down economics” theory and used the phrase derisively to define it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/pope-francis-denounces-trickle-down-economic-theories-in-critique-of-inequality/2013/11/26/e17ffe4e-56b6-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html

“The phrase has often been used derisively to describe a popular version of conservative economic philosophy that argues that allowing the wealthy to run their businesses unencumbered by regulation or taxation bears economic benefits that lead to more jobs and income for the rest of society. Liberals and Democratic officials have rejected the theory, saying it is contradicted by economic evidence.”

As a matter of fact, “trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” have been proven correct.

There is a good reason why the United States citizens have done so well economically as opposed to centralized, socialist, and communist countries where indescribable poverty is rampant while the ruling, tyrannical elite live luxuriously at the expense of the masses. Even the poorest of the poor in the United States live far better than the rest of the world because capitalism works.

The Latin American Pope from Buenos Aires lamented that the masses are still waiting for “social justice.” United States is one of the first countries in the world to donate and help the poor and others when tragedy strikes and Americans give generously of their wealth, time, and expertise.  “Social justice” is an entirely different manufactured creature.

According to Gen. Pacepa, the Soviet communist-led idea of “social justice” was infiltrated successfully by the KGB into Latin America’s Catholic Church as a religious movement called “liberation theology.” The goal was to “incite Latin America’s poor to rebel against the ‘institutionalized violence of poverty’ generated by the United States.” (Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, Disinformation, Washington, D. C., WND Books, Inc., 2013, chapter 15, p. 106)

What kind of “social justice” are the masses waiting for when pining for socialism and communism? They are waiting to vote again and again for the same individuals and the same socialist or communist governments that brought them to the brink of poverty and kept them perennially downtrodden. They are waiting for socialist governments to give them welfare and free minimal health care through Castro clinics while they stay home and procreate more dependents. They are waiting for the redistribution of wealth from productive citizens. They are enslaved to their governments who decide their daily lives yet they are told it is the United States’ fault.

Robert Spencer wrote an article around the Pope’s statement that “Authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”

The following is an excerpt from paragraph 253 of the papal document: …“We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition. I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries! Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.pdf

The Christian victims of jihad violence in Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria carried out daily by Muslims who use the Koran to explain the burning of churches and the killing of innocents certainly contradict his Holiness.

Based on prior history, we know neither appeasement nor reverse psychology works; on the contrary, appeasement creates war and more violence.

Robert Spencer explained that “The Bishop of Rome, by virtue of his position as successor of St. Peter, can, according to Catholic teaching, speak authoritatively about Catholic doctrine: he has the authority to delineate what is authentic Catholicism. This, however, is a statement about "authentic Islam." It would be interesting to know how he came to this conclusion, since the Pope of Rome has no counterpart within the Islamic world: there is no Muslim authority to which he can appeal in order to discover what ‘authentic Islam’ consists of, and many Muslim authorities would disagree with his statement that ‘authentic Islam’ is opposed to every form of violence." http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/11/pope-francis-authentic-islam-and-the-proper-reading-of-the-koran-are-opposed-to-every-form-of-violen.html

The Washington Post writer Reza Aslan stated in his November 30, 2013 column on faith, “If you don’t like the Pope, you won’t care much for Jesus.” That is because Jesus, he said, “is advocating a chilling new reality in which the rich will be made poor, the strong will become weak, and the powerful will be displaced by the powerless.” Following this redistributive logic, sloth should be rewarded while enterprise punished.

Pope Pius XII, the anti-communist and anti-Nazi Pope, saved many Jews and ethnic groups from pogroms. He was the voice of the Catholic Church to protest against Hitler’s attack on the Jews, the Polish people, and on the prisoners in the concentration camps.

He even used Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s summer home, to shelter thousands of refugees.  In fact, “his personal bedroom was converted into a nursery and birthing area, and about forty babies were born there during the war.” The World Jewish Congress estimated that 860,000 Jews were saved by the Catholic Church and the work of Pope Pius XII. (Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, Disinformation, Washington, D.C., WND Books, Inc., 2013, p. 66, as quoted from the testimony of P. Guglielmo Hentrich before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Rome)

Would the current Pope Francis succeed in “nudging” the Catholic Church into the direction of Latin America’s brand of “social justice” complete with wealth redistribution?

 

 

 

The Progressive Global Sharing Economy

U.S. taxpayer, meet the newest liberal scheme to lighten your pocketbook of your hard-earned cash: the Global Sharing Economy. If you think this is not serious, consider the billions that you are already contributing to friends and foes across the globe in aid via United Nations and other myriad of nonprofits under the umbrella of our generous federal government.

This scheme is rather simple. You can tell how serious these progressives are by the length of their report, 170 pages. The London headquartered Share the World’s Resources (www.stwr.org)

is advocating for an international program of emergency relief to prevent poverty.  “We

We have already spent trillions of dollars in the war on poverty in the past fifty years and we are nowhere close to eradicating poverty, we have lost this war long time ago as populations have become accustomed to welfare and a lifestyle of welfare dependency and entitlements without any incentive for meaningful work and contribution to society.

“We also call for extensive reforms to the world economy to ensure a fairer sharing of wealth, power and resources within and between nations.”

Governments could raise over $2.8 trillion a year “to bolster the global sharing economy to prevent life-threatening deprivation, reverse austerity measures [in big spender countries like Europe] and mitigate the human impacts of climate change.”

This report published on December 6, 2012, is divided into three parts. Part one deals with “sharing economies” and “social welfare” via progressive taxation and redistribution of wealth.  Apparently social welfare systems are far from perfect and we must do more to achieve “social justice” and equitable distribution of wealth to developing nations.

I don’t know about you but I feel that Americans are quite generous and share a great deal of their wealth with the rest of the world while the world is highly unappreciative and demands more. In lock step with U.N. Agenda 21, the report recommends that we must “create a truly sustainable and equitable world.”

Part two deals with the “global emergency.” Lately, progressives have brought all their darling ideologies, schemes, and philosophies to the forefront by presenting them as a global emergency. When a real emergency happens, people might not be so quick to respond because liberals have cried wolf too many times.

“Humanity is in the grip of a global emergency.” We have so many “systemic” crises, they say, food, environment, climate change, extreme poverty, natural disasters. Apparently, the world has never before experienced the aforementioned.  The governments must act immediately by “progressive redistribution” of taxes on wealth, income, inheritance, corporate profits, and “even by setting minimum and maximum wage levels.” (pp. 27-28) 

I call this stealing my economic freedom and enslaving me to individuals I don’t even know, care to know, and whose lifestyles, religion, and ideologies I do not approve of,  nor am I willing to share my hard work with willingly. Call me selfish but I believe in personal responsibility.

Harping on climate change and ecological crises when the fake global warming scheme has been debunked is also strident and irritating when informed Americans know that huge fortunes are to be made by taxing carbon emissions and exchanging carbon credits in the developed world while the developing world is doubling up on their Co2 emissions.

Part three describes the ten policies that would finance this “global sharing economy” which in my opinion is a sorry excuse for stealing our wealth and property and enslaving us to another progressive wealth redistribution scheme.

First, the report emphasizes that “all unjust and unpayable developing country debt” should be cancelled. Who is going to decide which debt is unjust, what formula will be used, and what is unpayable debt?  Should the borrowers not have ascertained whether they could repay promissory notes before they signed the loan?

Share the World Resources (STWR) claims that over $4 trillion dollars is owed by “low and middle-income countries” and $1.4 billion is spent every day repaying debts, I presume in interest and principal. Action must be undertaken for “international debt justice.” (p. 145)

Secondly, import tariffs must be protected because lowering import tariffs reduces the government revenues significantly and poor countries have a hard time servicing their budgets without trade taxes. (p. 159)

Thirdly, support for agribusiness should end. Large agribusinesses with their government subsidies of $374 billion a year hurt small and family-run farms that are often put into bankruptcy by cheap prices with which they cannot compete. (p. 103)

According to the STWR report, the culprit of world hunger is industrial agriculture. Economies of scale should move back to “environmentally sustainable practices, alongside more localized production and consumption” just like U.N. Agenda 21 dictates. If I read this well, they want us to return to agriculture as it was practiced 100 or so years ago when local food and survival where at the mercy of the weather and crop diseases.

We tried localized agriculture for food in countries like Afghanistan however, as soon as the U.N. specialists left, the farmers returned to their main agricultural staple, poppies. It was cheaper to plant poppies and harvest opium, the buyer of the crop came to the farmer, and the return for their labor was significantly higher than any food grown.

Fourth, financial speculation should be taxed, specifically hedge funds and investment banks because they are the culprits who destabilized the world economy. I agree that hedge funds and investment banks have taken unnecessary risks and there are upwards of $800 trillion of unfunded liabilities deriving from the speculation of hedge funds and investment banks.

“Global sharing” proponents believe that a financial transaction tax can yield around $246 billion a year in the European Union and $650 billion globally. Such a tax is a bad idea in my opinion since it would fleece small mom and pop investors and steal money from pensions, income, and savings.

Fifth, fossil fuel and biofuel subsidies should end immediately, raising $531 billion a year by 2020. “The burning of fossil fuels is the largest contributor to global warming, and it would be impossible to keep carbon emissions to safe levels if governments continue to subsidize fossil fuel production and consumption.”

Renewables would have to take the place of coal and oil to fuel the world’s developed economies – the industrial world would have to plunge back to 1800s levels in order to satisfy the global warming alarmists’ demands to replace “dirty energy” with clean energy.

None of the renewable energy would exist without heavy subsidies. Many providers around the world went bankrupt even with generous government subsidies. Renewable energy would not be able to replace the needs of energy for such large economies like ours.

The sixth recommendation is to “divert military spending.” Instead of spending money on the military and the war machine, the world should strengthen the United Nations peacekeeping efforts as a way to reduce conflict. I feel safer already knowing that United Nations would be responsible for my wellbeing and safety.

According to STWR, the world has spent $1.7 trillion on military expenditures in 2011, 12 times more than global spending on aid. Progressives believe that we have misguided priorities. I personally believe strongly in the Roman motto, “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” if you want peace, prepare for war. (p. 67)

Who really believes that climate change, poverty, and inequality are a greater source of conflict than the military posturing of totalitarian regimes like Iran and North Korea? Apparently liberals do and are trying their hardest to convince the brainwashed low information Americans.

The seventh recommendation is to “stop tax avoidance.” It is the fault of the global “super-rich elite” who hold up to $32 trillion of untaxed private wealth in tax heavens. “Clamping down on tax heavens and preventing corporate trade mispricing could raise more than $349 billion globally each year. A fairer redistribution of wealth and income is fast becoming the mantra for those seeking economic justice.” The global tax is the solution because the progressive voices of international tax justice demand it. (pp. 79-80)

The eighth recommendation is increasing international aid. What we generously give is squandered and therefore we must give more. “Advanced economies are redistributing so little of their national incomes.”  The aid is conditional, it is not enough, it is tied to preferential treatment, it is phantom because of high administrative costs, it is politically motivated, it has declined in food, and some countries have become dependent on aid. (p. 94)

The ninth recommendation is to redistribute IMF resources. IMF has the third largest holdings of gold reserves in the world and should sell it at market rates in order to help poor countries. Sharing the IMF assets is seen as a restoration and compensation for the IMF’s financial mismanagement over time. IMF should “leverage its significant financial resources for climate finance and poverty eradication in developing countries.” (p. 117)

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) which was established at Bretton Woods in 1944 had a different mission – it provided loans to member countries when they ran into serious financial difficulties. IMF insisted then that borrowers adopted contractionary fiscal and monetary policies.

IMF’s current mission is to “foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.”

The tenth recommendation of STWR is to tax carbon emissions in order to ”raise significant funding for international climate finance.” Although they acknowledge that there is no way to account for the environmental cost of emissions in the shipping and aviation industries, a universal tax on international transportation should be levied, including air travel, in addition to the carbon tax. The STWR report calculates that $108 billion in taxes could be raised from a national carbon tax, maritime and aviation taxes, and taxes on tickets for international flights. (p. 131)

It is clear that Share the World Resources is another glaring example of progressives forcing the world’s productive citizens to finance through confiscatory schemes a forced march towards communism across the globe in the name of social justice, social equity, and environmental justice.