It may be confusing to understand how a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposal in Montana, the Missouri Headwaters Conservation Area (MHCA), has anything to do with Idaho. Rule one, understand that federal agencies share the same ideological bed with non-governmental organizations (NGO). Rule two, they all share the same objectives and mission. And Rule three, not only is there government money, actually your tax dollar supporting them, millions of dollars are pouring in from other sources with the same dogma. So the map of the proposed MHCA area extends north to Deer Lodge, east to Ennis, not quite reaching Wyoming, and south to the Montana-Idaho boarder that captures the tip of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) controlled Centennial Mountain range. As the fact sheet suggests, the objective is to acquire land, 250,00 acres of conservation easements, for the purposes of protecting wildlife habitat, open space, connectivity, and wildlife migratory corridors, but not property rights. Think of corridors as roads for wildlife that lead them to the next habitat area. In the imaginary world of environmentalists this is called connectivity, in that the corridor, or road, leads, or "connects" wildlife, to the next habitat. Isn't that brilliant? Those same individuals also believe humans are nothing but car wrecks in the path of these animals, preventing them from getting to their next habitat. Thus, the need to take land and control it for wildlife and nature. There are a couple of mother ships for NGOs, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) which is international, and the Network for Landscape Conservation (NLC). NLC partners with CLLC, the USFWS along with several other federal agencies, and other supporters. Other partners to both outfits are NGOs such as Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y), Wildlands Network, and Wild Montana. NLC also partners with the Heart of the Rockies Initiative (HORI), which is a group of land trusts in Idaho and western states and Canada. In turn, HORI collaborates with a conservation partnership called the High Divide Collaborative (HDC). HDC partners with government agencies including the USFWS, CLLC, Centennial Valley Association (CVA), several land trusts, and other NGOs. HDC works on a defined area called the High Divide. As can be seen by this map of the High Divide, the proposed MHCA is swallowed along with Idaho land, the whole area ripe for control by HORI and HDC. However, this pales in comparison to the larger land objective held by HORI according to this map. Remembering all of these organizations isn't crucial. Just understand that it is one big syndicate family that is bound and determined to undermine land use and property rights, and leads all the way to the United Nations affiliated International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that includes the USFWS and other federal agencies, the CLLC, and Y2Y. In fact, the CLLC President Gary Tabor works with the IUCN. These groups consider land as a garden for them to design, which includes restrictions on use. One funder for this agenda is the Wilburforce Foundation which granted $75,000 to Wild Montana in 2023 for use in the Y2Y program in Wilburforce priority areas, one of which is in the MHCA. Other donations included $250,00 in 2022 and 2023 to HORI. The CVA is "friends" with several of these groups (last page) and has received donations from HORI. One larger funder is the Wyss Campaign for Nature which has donated to Y2Y and the Idaho Conservation League.
USFWS claims the plan is to "acquire up to a proposed 250,000 acres of conservation easements, with no fee title acquisition, within the proposed 5.7-million-acre Conservation Area boundary", using federal Land and Water Conservation Fund money. It even has a "realty team" for this purpose. The USFWS can then plop that land right into the hands of their HORI land trust buddies. According to CVA (pg 4), following scoping a Land Protection Plan may be developed. Somehow this all concludes with the ability to continue using and working the land. To the average eye it just looks like the government is buying up more land for its possession and control. The land owner is still stuck with the taxes, however, because the land can no longer be developed its worth may decrease with resulting lower taxes for the landowner, and in turn less revenue for the county in which it resides. Conservation easements do come with restrictions, in some instances there can be continued, but regulated, use. The point of all of this information is to alert Idahoans to the larger plan that many forces are working within government to meet international organizational objectives, and that the MHCA proposal is really about a much larger land area than what is revealed. This taking of land is a very incremental process and before you know it the frog is boiled to death. As can be seen, there are major bucks flowing into this agenda, and it also disregards sovereign state boundaries. Idahoans, don't be deceived, the MHCA is a major threat to Idaho and your active involvement in opposition to this proposal is needed. Send an email to the USFWS at [email protected] by November 27, 2023 and voice your opposition to this proposal. Alert your county commissioners to the operations of these NGOs and the government, use local land use plans to prohibit these actions, and educate others on the dangers of conservation easements.
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It is often difficult to explain something that doesn't make sense in a way that it does make sense. Starting with the foundation of the insanity may be the place to start. It was previously revealed that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) adheres to international standards for conservation. Although "fragmentation" and "habitat" are frequently referenced in the Upper Snake East Travel Management Plan Draft Environmental Assessment in relation to multiple different types of species, the word connectivity isn't really prominent. One purpose of moving and decreasing the number of these trails is to repair fragmentation and restore land for connectivity. Habitat connectivity is the insane notion that because of human activity, roads, and development, habitat becomes fragmented. In other words, the land that maintains connectivity, corridors and stepping stones, is disrupted. In the graphic below, it is conceived that there must be a connection between patches in order to maintain connectivity. This habitat includes all ecological elements, including vegetation and wildlife. If damaged, that area must be restored in order to re-establish connectivity. Maintaining connectivity protects biodiversity, or so they say. The 2021 White House America the Beautiful initiative, which outlined its conservation goals, includes its 30x30 agenda, a plan to conserve 30% of land by 2030. Other than declaring more national monuments for banned use, it has taken two years until now to get going on this. However, it now appears the aggressive move is on for placing land into conservation. It is clear that using habitat connectivity is at the core of meeting the 30x30 goal.
In March 2023, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) put out a memo that outlined the new requirement that all public land use planning must include connectivity. Maybe the Chair should have checked with the BLM, as it had already instituted this policy in November, 2022. Somehow, the BLM sees "“wildlife and fish” as one of the resources expressly included in the definition of “multiple use” (Section 103(c)" in the Federal Land Management & Policy Act (FLPMA), and justifying its use for connectivity. BLM land must now be evaluated to determine "if existing land use plan decisions are (or are not) restoring, maintaining, improving, and/or conserving areas of habitat connectivity" and "incorporate areas of habitat connectivity". From that, the land use will be planned around habitat connectivity, which plays into where and why trails are being moved and reduced, as this policy includes "Travel management implementation". The Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) and Network for Landscape Conservation (NLC) are two organizations ready to jump on this as connectivity is their heart. As the name implies, the NLC is a network of environmental groups as well as government agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service. In February, 2023 it held a webinar that discussed "Insights into the new Global Biodiversity Framework" (GBF) that came out of COP 15, held in December, 2022. Also attending COP 15 were officials from the Biden, State, and USAID departments. Even though the U.S. is not a signatory of the Convention on Biological Diversity, it is an "observer" to support the GBF, its outcomes in America, and its 30x30 agenda. The CEQ Chair, the one who can't keep dates straight, was also present, lending her support and commitment to the GBF. The GBF also meets the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Along with CLLC celebrating this framework, both of these two organizations have had direct influence on government policies on integrating habitat and wildlife connectivity into federal planning and decisions. The White House Council on Environmental Quality issued guidelines that "incorporate the objectives in this guidance into agency actions". Travel Management Plans are one area where this connectivity agenda is being used. There are four GBF goals. Goal A focuses on "the integrity, connectivity and resilience of all ecosystems are maintained, enhanced, or restored". Within these 4 goals are 23 targets to be met by 2030. This is the core of 30x30, using biodiversity to take land for conservation as outlined in Target 2. The America the Beautiful 30x30 agenda originates from Target 3 which ensures the conservation of 30% of the land and inland waters. Target 4 calls for "management actions to halt human induced extinction of known threatened species and for the recovery and conservation of species". Target 14 ensures "the full integration of biodiversity and its multiple values into policies, regulations, planning and development processes" which are being implemented through the BLM. Following COP 15 in March 2023, the White House Council on Environmental Quality issued guidelines "for ecological connectivity and wildlife corridors" that "incorporate the objectives in this guidance into agency actions". Travel Management Plans are not the only area where this connectivity agenda will be used. In a NLC webinar, as attendees to COP 15, it was discussed how the GBF is part of the America the Beautiful 30x30 agenda, and as a U.S. observer, it will help to implement GBF objectives. Indigenous rights were also heavily emphasized. Not surprisingly, it was also revealed that about 2,000 corporations were present at COP 15 to develop markets for this agenda, Nature Action 100 being one of them. Like the proposed conservation leasing, public land is being monetized, not for our right to use the land, but to conserve it for the purposes of making money for the government. The Department of Interior (DOI) also held its own little party in March of this year, celebrating its conservation agenda, even with Biden in attendance, who gave kudos to Rep. Mike Simpson "to bring healthy and abundant salmon runs back to the Colorado [Columbia] River system." (This is in reference to Simpson wanting to remove dams. Parenthesis is to fix Biden's gaffe. His remarks begin at the 37" mark in the video). Nice to know we have an Idaho representative enmeshed with a president and not the people. Biden even referenced running roughshod over private land for this agenda. In the video of the DOI event, there were multiple Native American speakers and again, a very heavy emphasis on Indigenous rights. At the 11:25 mark, CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory, a COP 15 attendee, spoke. She mentioned the same, connecting habitat across private land, infusing equity and justice into the use of land, and was excited the president could do all of this by just using his pen. So, the upshot is that public land agencies will be integrating connectivity into all land planning, resulting in a reduction of land use for the protection of biodiversity, as outlined by organizations in which these agencies have made international agreements. Also on the horizon, these agencies are looking to monetize this work, making the land a money-making machine for them. Who then will control how the land is used? Be on the lookout for GBF implementation on BLM and other public land in your area. Land use planning is now about connectivity and eliminating the use of land. Understand your enemy. Watch the videos. These directives are not based on the law. It is nearly impossible to find any government agency that is not tied in with corporations, foreign governments, environmental and other radical non-profit groups, and despotic organizations such as the UN. The U.S. has not followed the Constitution for decades. Until this is realized by all, and choose to do something about it, we will fail in getting our country back. Sometimes the agendas come so rapidly it is difficult to keep them apart because at the core they all serve the same purpose.
Since the federal government no longer operates as three separate branches with the legislative branch assigned to creating laws, the Executive Branch and unconstitutional administrative rulemaking process now create laws that Americans are subjected to without any congressional involvement. Quite notorious are rules that are written under the Department of Interior (DOI). Given that the federal government now operates in bed with corporations and non-government organizations (NGO), many of the rules are created for the benefit of those groups and not us. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and its buddy corporations and environmental groups have been busy creating a new "rule" that will economically benefit the BLM, serve the ideology of environmental groups, and help the corporate world advance renewable energy projects. Not only are the Executive Branch and DOI handing over "public" land to corporations for renewable energy projects, but with BLM's full participation, this proposed rule also advances the White House 30x30 agenda, a goal of conserving 30% of land by 2030. It is the rewriting of a regulatory framework that will put public land under the 30x30 classification for land conservation. 30x30 isn't even a federal law passed by Congress, it is a dictate from the White House that meets an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) goal, a United Nations participant. That alone should negate any participation in 30x30, or through illegal rulings by the BLM. However, the DOI is an IUCN member through several of its agencies, so the same ideology is probably applied to the BLM. The DOI announced its "Plan to Guide the Balanced Management of Public Lands" in March, putting "conservation on equal footing with other uses". Other highlights include identifying "areas in need of restoration or conservation", and building "on...clean energy deployment". Its three-pronged justification is to "protect intact landscapes, restore degraded habitat, and make wise management decisions based on science and data” while incorporating "land health assessments" in BLM decisions on land use. This proposed rule was released in the Federal Register on April 3, and folks are urging a rapid deployment before a possible flip in Congress in 2024. Now, if this were such a wonderful idea, why are they scared? Just a quick summary of this rule provides the fluff. "Manage the land for multiple use and sustained yield by prioritizing the health and resilience of ecosystems"; "protect intact landscapes, restore degraded habitat"; "apply land health standards" (now there's a scary thought); "clarify that conservation is a “use” within the FLPMA’s multiple-use framework"; and "revise existing regulations to better meet FLPMA’s requirement that the BLM prioritize designating and protecting Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs)." By "clarifying" conservation as a use, the BLM is changing the law without Congressional involvement. The Federal Land and Policy Management Act, as amended in 2021, does not address the classification of land for conservation leasing, instead emphasizing that land is used for its resources. Page 2(c) defines multiple use. Effect on existing rights, page 79(a), makes it clear that nothing can terminate the rights to use the land. Pretending that leasing land for conservation serves the purpose of multiple use is only a distorted fantasy. Through the DOI, the White House is revising the FLPMA law without any congressional involvement. Once again, the rule of law is ignored by the White House. Buried deep in this rhetoric is a plan that should raise the hair on the back of the neck, "conservation leasing". DOI's definition of this is a "time-limited lease" allowing "interested organizations conduct restoration or mitigation activities...to facilitate development projects". It will also "prioritize the identification, evaluation and designation of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) through land use planning." All of this means non-use. PERC probably describes it best, "creating markets for conservation". With this rule, the DOI is advancing public land as a commodity. The BLM will make an unknown amount of money because corporations can pay "to restore a degraded ecosystems" to "offset environmentally harmful activities". Same with NGOs. Through NatureVest, the Nature Conservancy already has the program to exploit conservation for profit. Opposite of what the DOI claims, that multi-use will continue in spite of this conservation, if a wealthy environmental group or corporation dumps their money into one of these leases, use can be denied, as either will hold the ability to "preclude the parcel from...grazing during the extendable 10-year term. The leases might also block future leasing for uses deemed incompatible with the conservation work." It might become a mad bidding war between corporations and environmental groups to see who can buy up the most "leasing". However, perhaps unbeknownst to some, it has always been illegal for environmental groups to lease public land. This proposed rule removes that problem for them and really opens the door to their bank vault, tying up land across America. No wonder they love it. Perhaps quid pro quo? Companies have also been "requesting conservation leases". No doubt, the DOI is serving its NGO and corporate constituents well. To offset the damage from a renewable energy project, corporations will use the excuse to lease land either surrounding the project or in another area to offset that damage by restoring the leased land. In some instances, it is called "carbon offsetting", which really appears to be more of a money game than making a real difference. The insane idea behind this is that leased land would be saved for more public use because it would somehow be healthier. As the BLM goes about making its "health assessments" of the land, there is fairly good potential that more land will be identified as unhealthy and needing repair, then sucked up for conservation and non-use. With powerful and wealthy corporations and their rich NGO pals, the whole BLM landscape could be sucked up in restoration and mitigation projects through leasing. "Science" will surely be used to justify the land's need for restoration. If NGOs love it, it has to be bad. Temporary restrictions on use are part of the rule for restoration of degraded land. Keeping the land available for multiple use through this proposed rule is a lie. Temporary restrictions while degraded land is restored can extend up to ten years. How long does land take to restore itself, or is that up to some bureaucratic technocrat? The rule also states it "would not override valid existing rights or preclude other, subsequent authorizations so long as those subsequent authorizations are compatible with the conservation use.” So cattle grazing would have to fit this new narrative or else, and with the hatred of cattle, no compatibility would probably ever be recognized. So in between all of the malarkey of how wonderful this is to improve the land and make it available for everyone's great-great grandkids, it is really a twisted way of taking land away from public use and making money off corporations and NGOs. For corporations, the excuse can be to offset greenhouse gas emissions they create, or "funding renewable energy projects" can be considered a carbon offset. How handy is that for renewable energy corporations? The regulation calls for an assessment of all public land, its state of degradation, and need for restoration, which includes grazing land. For now, grazing is spared from this rule until the land can be assessed, but it is still a threat to the cattle industry and is in the 30x30 crosshairs for conservation leasing. At least U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) and U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) understand this rule violates the law and will kill multiple use as land that is leased out for conservation will not be available for use under the Multiple Use & Sustained Yield Act (MUSY). He, along with Senator Jim Risch, have introduced a bill to stop this proposed BLM rule. Of note, comments are being made by individuals who don't even live in states where BLM land exists, many of whom live in eastern states. They think the idea of the BLM conserving the land is great without really understanding the full impact of this proposed rule, let alone understanding it is a violation of the Congressional role to create laws. This is borne out by the significant numbers of canned support letters the NGOs tell them to use, just accepting what is spoon fed to them without taking the time to understand the issue. It seems most of these comments originate from The Wilderness Society. This is the ignorance we are up against and the herd mentality. Because the sheep are following orders, most of the comments support this rule. All comments can be browsed here. Comments on this proposed rule can be made on this link and submitted by June 20, 2023. To review the proposed rule, go to this link. Let the BLM know that this rule is illegal, that it only serves its corporate and NGO buddies, and will destroy the purpose of FLPMA for multiple-use. Unknowingly, Idaho is meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) outlined by Agenda 2030. There are 17 SDG to be met and incrementally governments throughout Idaho have been meeting each one. In a partnership with the United Nations (UN, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has been financing these transformations from what was once a Republic to a world now governed by corporate control. The Sustainable Development Solutions Network created a working paper in 2019 on the Six Transformations to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), requiring "actions by governments, civil society, science, and business". Notice the absence of the relationship between the government and its constituents who elect them. These actions are the "building-blocks of SDG achievement". Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, was one of the speakers at the WEF World Government Summit. Along with several foreigners, Sachs co-wrote the working paper. As noted in the paper, "...achieving the SDGs will require deep, structural changes across all sectors in society." The theory is that by overlapping SDGs two birds can be killed with one stone as, "Each Transformation describes a major change in the organisation (sic) of societal, political, and economic activities that transforms resource use, institutions, technologies, and social relations in order to achieve key SDG outcomes." Achieving the SDGs just isn't going fast enough for any of them. Maybe it is because more people are waking up to what they are doing and objecting. It is always very difficult to read through this hyperbole, the same words are used over, and over, and over again. Sustainable, equitable, investments, well being, quality of life, universal access, inclusive, conservation, biodiversity loss...ok, ok, enough of the blatherskite already. But it is deliberate to hide the specifics of what they are doing, the harm being brought into our communities, and how our freedom, and wealth, is being stripped. It is redefining the intent with acceptable fluff words, and many Idahoans have bought into it, having been successfully groomed.
The UN and WEF are well aware of the need for this grooming. "Large-scale societal change is often achieved first in the hearts and minds of the people, and only afterwards accepted in legislation and economic policies. Social movements, public activism and awareness campaigns should explain the ethics of sustainable development, promote grass-roots activism and community participation, shareholder activism and fair-trade consumer movements." Do- gooder non-governmental organizations (NGO) comprise the predators for this societal change, and most have either a direct or indirect relationship with the UN. So, what's the point here? The point is that each SDG is being successfully embedded into Idaho, often times very insidiously. It is time to take a look throughout Idaho and see how those SDGs are being implemented, goal by goal, that help create a "Civil Society", rather than retaining a Republic. The new Education Freedom Bill, which has garnered a fair amount of support and opposition, has passed the Senate Education Committee with a do pass recommendation. S1038 would essentially create an Education Savings Account (ESA) of roughly $6,000 per child, giving the parent more options in choosing an educational setting for their child, K-12th grade.
Put aside the groups that are slinging arrows at each other as to whether or not to support or oppose this bill, as both sides are being backed by more powerful groups on their positions. Throwing mud at each other serves no purpose and obfuscates the need for Idahoans to understand the bill. The true reason this bill even emerged is because of the sorry state our school system has become. Public schools have become a factory of indoctrination on social issues, dismissing of parental rights, and how students are even educated is a serious question. For parents who have chosen to either home school or even put their children in private school, those public school issues are serious enough for them to protect their children by removing them. It is very understandable why both sides want to maintain control, parents over their children, schools and teachers over the education system. Basically the bill takes the money that was going to the school and instead keeps it aside, called an Education Savings Account (ESA), for a parent who wants to use it for an alternative education, such as home schooling or private school. The money is held by the state, and through a digital platform parents and educators who want to be part of the system can apply. Either through the Treasurers office or independent contractor, the state would send the money to the educator designated by the parent. If the private school doesn't provide a certain type of education, say for a special need, the parent can obtain that from a public school source and the state will designate the money to the public school to cover the cost. There is some legitimate concern about the way this proposed system is run. While the bill provides for frequent monitoring to ensure the money is being spent appropriately by the parent, and return of the money to the state when no longer used for a private education, this back-and-forth management does cause some concern about the logistics. There are also the privacy concerns and ongoing threats of cyber attacks. If a fraud case by the parent or educator does happen it will be assigned to the Attorney General office which brings the question of burdening that office. Certain curriculum subjects are required but it isn't clear how that will be monitored, or whose responsibility it will be. It was stated that the parent will be accountable for their children being taught whereas it was also pointed out the public school system has accountability systems in place to ensure the child is being educated properly. It seems both accountability stances have issues and problems. There is an upfront cost to start this program and as the program could potentially grow the legislature would allocate the money for it each year, but there would be a cap that could not be exceeded. Similar programs in other states were used as examples of how a program such as this could save money and improve education outcomes. However, if the program was to expand it would also mean an expansion of the government role to administer it. One of the biggest concerns about having the state run a program such as this is the potential intrusion of government regulations, especially by the federal government, this having occurred in other states. As long as federal money is not used for this program there would be no influence with federal regulations. However, while there are protections within the bill that prevent this from happening, the question does remain, what happens with it in the future with other legislators? The bill can certainly be amended by future legislators and once that door to the government is opened, neither parents who home school or private schools will be protected from it. This is a serious and legitimate concern as a driving force behind creating this type of program has been the strangling effect federal government regulations have on public schools. Given the tyrannical federal government we are currently under, there is no reason to believe that this could not happen. Families who home school their children have concerns that they too will be forced into government regulations just as Idaho governs charter schools. Right now there are about "142 private schools serving 17,897 students in Idaho" with "6% of all K-12 students" educated in these settings. 65% are religiously affiliated and with the repeal of the Blaine Amendment, the objections to tax dollars going to a religion based school will be negated, along with the money actually being provided to the parent and their choice in using it for the child's education and not to a school. But there is a more looming threat to spending these dollars on private schools. One of the top rated private schools in Idaho is an International Baccalaureate World School (IB), along with three others that are part of the Idaho Public Charter School Commission. International Baccalaureate schools originate out of the United Nations International School (UNIS) organization, teaching kids from age 3-19. Do Idahoans want their tax dollar going to a United Nations program? While concern was expressed about private schools being run by religious organizations, there should be more concern about the corporate world running in with a network of schools. Corporations have already scored high profits from public education through technology. Aside from the previously mentioned charter schools, there is the possibility of for profit corporations moving in to build schools as happened in Michigan. There are quite a few charter schools in Idaho but it isn't known how many are connected to any profit making machines. But the potential is there. As happened in Michigan, it might bring in more regulatory action by the state if it does occur. That is the last thing that should happen in Idaho and protecting private schools from profit making corporations should be addressed. But that raises the dilemma, can the state deny a private school's right to be funded and run by a large or global corporation? In fact, the WEF is already eyeballing private education for an investment opportunity. It wants more access to early education and it might just be easier with more private schools and cumbersome government schools out of the way. Perhaps seeing the burden early childhood education may place on the public school system, the way to go is to build the infrastructure for it through corporate influence. This is a real risk, especially if government funding will make it more available for families to use. There are no easy answers, both sides of the argument have reasonable concerns even though some of the arguments aren't fully accurate on either side. However, the real problem is not being addressed, nothing is being done about the way in which the public school system has been manipulated into a poorly functioning entity, and rather than fix it, other options are being sought. Millions of dollars are being poured into this education system which hasn't fixed anything, it is only getting worse. All Idahoans are bearing the expense of its failure. Rather than trying to escape this failed system and build another one, why not get the federal government out of it and build a public school system in which Idaho can be proud, based on what Idaho parents want their children to be taught? Then maybe, both sides can be relieved, it will be a real choice of options, whether to home school, use a private school, or continue on with public school. This is an excellent article that explains the history of the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the players and institutions that were part of its development. It was posted in 2015 by The Transnational Institute (TNI) and written by Andrew Marshall. Because the article is loaded with so much information, and it is a lengthy article, links to information on the identified players were added for this posting. It is frightening how a select group of individuals, playing with each other, can create such chaos throughout the whole world. What is worse is that we are tolerating it. As can be seen in the article many governments around the world, including the U.S. government, are heavily engaged in this agenda so there is no reason to believe the government has any intention of listening to its constituents. Every one of these individuals are traitors to their countries.
Here is the WEF version of its history. World Economic Forum: a history and analysis The annual gathering in Davos has certainly cemented the power of a tiny global elite, but its real power has been as a spawning ground for neoliberalism's major advances - the rise of the financial sector, the spread of corporate trade agreements and the integration of emerging economic powers into the global economy. This article and its accompanying infographic have been jointly published by the Transnational Institute and Occupy.com. The annual meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, bring together thousands of the world’s top corporate executives, bankers and financiers with leading heads of state, finance and trade ministers, central bankers and policymakers from dozens of the world’s largest economies; the heads of all major international organizations including the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization, Bank for International Settlements, UN, OECD and others, as well as hundreds of academics, economists, political scientists, journalists, cultural elites and occasional celebrities. The WEF states that it is “committed to improving the state of the world through public-private cooperation,” collaborating with corporate, political, academic and other influential groups and sectors “to shape global, regional and industry agendas” and to “define challenges, solutions and actions.” Apart from the annual forum meeting in Davos, the WEF hosts regional and sometimes even country-specific meetings multiple times a year in Asia, Latin America, Africa and elsewhere. The Forum is host to dozens of different projects bringing together academics with corporate representatives and policy-makers to promote particular issues and positions on a wide array of subjects, from investment to the environment, employment, technology and inequality. From these projects and others, the Forum publishes dozens of reports annually, identifying key issues of importance, risks, opportunities, investments and reforms. The WEF has survived by adapting to the times. Following the surge of so-called anti-globalization protests in 1999, the Forum began to invite non-governmental organizations representing constituencies that were more frequently found in the streets protesting against meetings of the WTO, IMF and Group of Seven. In the 2000 meeting at Davos, the Forum invited leaders from 15 NGOs to debate the heads of the WTO and the President of Mexico on the subject of globalization. The participation of NGOs and non-profit organizations has increased over time, and not without reason. According to a poll conducted on behalf of the WEF just prior to the 2011 meeting, while global trust in bankers, governments and business was significantly low, NGOs had the highest rate of trust among the public. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last September, the founder and executive chairman of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, was asked about the prospects of “youth frustration over high levels of underemployment and unemployment” as expressed in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements, noting that the Forum was frequently criticized for promoting policies and ideologies that contribute to those very problems. Schwab replied that the Forum tries “to have everybody in the boat.” Davos, he explained, “is about heads of state and big corporations, but it’s also civil society – so all of the heads of the major NGOs are at the table in Davos.” In reaction to the Occupy Wall Street movement, Schwab said, “We also try... to put more emphasis on integrating the youth into what we are doing.” WEF's beginnings So, what exactly has the World Economic Forum been doing, and how did it emerge in the first place? It began in 1971 as the European Management Forum, inviting roughly 400 of Europe’s top CEOs to promote American forms of business management. Created by Klaus Schwab, a Swiss national who studied in the U.S. and who still heads the event today, the Forum changed its name in 1987 to the World Economic Forum after growing into an annual get together of global elites who promoted and profited off of the expansion of "global markets." It is the gathering place for the titans of corporate and financial power. Despite the globalizing economy, politics at the Forum have remained surprisingly national. The annual meetings are a means to promote social connections between key global power players and national leaders along with the plutocratic class of corporate and financial oligarchs. The WEF has been a consistent forum for advanced “networking” and deal-making between companies, occasional geopolitical announcements and agreements, and for the promotion of "global governance" in a world governed of global markets. Indeed, the World Economic Forum’s main purpose is to function as a socializing institution for the emerging global elite, globalization’s "Mafiocracy" of bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, technocrats and politicians. They promote common ideas, and serve common interests: their own. Writing in the Financial Times, Gideon Rachman noted that more than anything else, “the true significance of the World Economic Forum lies in the realm of ideas and ideology,” noting that it was where the world’s leaders gathered “to set aside their differences and to speak a common language... they restate their commitment to a single, global economy and to the capitalist values that underpin it.” This reflected the “globalization consensus” which was embraced not simply by the powerful Group of Seven nations, but by many of the prominent emerging markets such as China, Russia, India and Brazil. Indeed, the World Economic Forum’s main purpose is to function as a socializing institution for the emerging global elite, globalization’s "Mafiocracy" of bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, technocrats and politicians. They promote common ideas, and serve common interests: their own. Geopolitics and Global Governance The World Economic Forum has been shaped by – and has in turn, shaped – the course and changes in geopolitics, or "world order," over the past several decades. Created amidst the rise of West Germany and Japan as prominent economic powers competing with the United States, the oil shocks of the 1970s also produced immense new powers for the Arab oil dictatorships and the large global banks that recycled that oil money, loaning it to Third World countries. New forums for "global governance" began to emerge, such as the meetings of the Group of Seven: the heads of state, finance ministers and central bank governors of the seven leading industrial powers including the U.S., West Germany, Japan, UK, France, Italy and Canada, starting in 1975. When the debt crisis of the 1980s hit, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank achieved immense new powers over entire economies and regions, reshaping the structure of societies to promote “market economies” and advance the interests of domestic and international corporate and financial oligarchs. Between 1989 and 1991, the global power structure changed dramatically with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. With that came President George H.W. Bush’s announcement of a "New World Order" in which America claimed "victory" in the Cold War, and a unipolar world took shape under the hegemony of the United States. The ideological war between the West and the Soviet Union was declared victorious in favor of Western Capitalist Democracy. The "market system" was to become globalized as never before, especially under the presidency of Bill Clinton who led the U.S. during its largest ever economic expansion between 1993 and 2001. During this time, the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum became more important than ever, and the role of the WEF in establishing a "Davos Class" became widely acknowledged. At the 1990 meeting, the focus was on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union’s transition to “market-oriented economies.” Political leaders from Eastern Europe and Western Europe met in private meetings, with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl articulating his desire to reunify Germany and cement Germany’s growing power within the European Community and NATO. Helmut Kohl laid out his strategy for shaping the “security and economic structure of Europe” within a unified Germany. Kohl’s “grand design” for Europe envisioned a unified Germany as being “firmly anchored” in the expanding European Community, the main objective of which was to establish an "internal market" by 1992 and to advance toward an economic and monetary union, with potential to expand eastward. Kohl presented this as a peaceful way for German power to grow while assuaging fears of Eastern Europeans and others about the economically resurgent country at the heart of Europe. At the 1992 WEF meeting, the United States and reunified Germany encouraged “drastic steps to insure a liberalization of world trade,” and furthered efforts to support the growth of market economies in Eastern Europe. The German Economics Minister called for the Group of Seven to meet and restart global trade talks through the 105-nation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). At that same meeting, the Chinese delegation included Prime Minister Li Peng, who was the highest-level Chinese official to travel internationally since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Of great significance also was the attendance of Nelson Mandela, the new president of South Africa. When Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he declared the policy of the African National Congress (ANC) was to implement “the nationalization of the mines, banks and monopoly industries.” When Mandela attended the January 1992 meeting of the WEF just after becoming president, he changed his views and embraced “capitalism and globalization.” Mandela attended the meeting alongside the governor of the central bank of South Africa, Tito Mboweni, who explained that Mandela arrived with a speech written by ANC officials focusing on nationalization. As the week’s meetings continued, Mandela met with leaders from Communist Parties in China and Vietnam, who told him, “We are currently striving to privatize state enterprises and invite private enterprise into our economies. We are Communist Party governments, and you are a leader of a national liberation movement. Why are you talking about nationalization?” As a result, Mandela changed his views, telling the Davos crowd that he would open South Africa up as a market economy and encourage investment. South Africa subsequently became the continent’s fastest growing economy, though inequality today is greater than it was during apartheid. As Mandela explained to his official biographer, he came home from the 1992 WEF meeting and told other top officials that they had to choose: “We either keep nationalization and get no investment, or we modify our own attitude and get investment.” At the 1993 meeting, the main consensus that had emerged called for the U.S. to maintain its position as a global economic and military power, and for it to take the lead encouraging greater “co-operation” between powerful nations. The major fear among Davos participants was that while economies were becoming globalized, politics was turning inward and becoming “renationalized.” Later that year, Anthony Lake, Bill Clinton’s National Security Adviser, articulated the “Clinton Doctrine” for the world, explaining: “The successor to a doctrine of containment must be a strategy of enlargement – enlargement of the world’s free community of market democracies.” Lake explained that the United States “must combine our broad goals of fostering democracy and markets with our more traditional geostrategic interests.” No doubt, the Davos crowd welcomed such news. At the 1994 meeting, the director-general of GATT, Peter D. Sutherland, declared that world leaders needed to establish “a new high-level forum for international economic co-operation,” moving beyond the Group of Seven to become more inclusive of the major "emerging market" economies. Sutherland told the assembled plutocrats that “we cannot continue with the majority of the world’s people excluded from participation in global economic management.” Eventually, the organization Sutherland described was formed, as the Group of 20, bringing the leading 20 industrial and economic powers together in one setting. Formed in 1999, the G20 didn't become a major forum for global governance until the 2008 financial crisis. In 1995, the Financial Times noted that the new “buzzword” for international policymakers was “global governance,” articulating a desire and strategy for updating and expanding the institutions and efforts of international co-operation. The January 1995 World Economic Forum meeting was the venue for the presentation of an official UN report on global governance. President Clinton addressed the Davos crowd by satellite, stressing that he would continue to push for the construction of a new “economic architecture,” notably at meetings of the Group of Seven. The arrival of the Davos Class "[The Davos Men] “have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that are thankfully vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations." (Samuel Huntington) In 1997, the highly influential U.S. political scientist Samuel Huntington coined the term "Davos Man," which he described as a group of elite individuals who “have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that are thankfully vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations.” Samuel Huntington's thesis, summarized in the Financial Times article, outlined a world that “would be divided into spheres of influence,” within which “one or two core states would rule the roost.” Huntington noted that the “Davos culture people,” while extremely powerful, were only a tiny fraction of the world’s population, and the leaders of this faction “do not necessarily have a secure grip on power in their own societies.” The Financial Times, however, noted that while the "Davos culture people" did not constitute a “universal civilization” being such a tiny minority of the world’s population, “they could be the vanguard of one.” An article that year in The Economist came to the defense of the "Davos Man," declaring that he was replacing traditional diplomacy which was “more likely to bring peoples together than to force them apart,” noting that the WEF was “paid for by companies and run in their interests.” TNI fellow, Susan George in her book, Whose Crisis, whose future, went further than Huntington arguing that we were not just facing a group of elites, but a genuine social class who "run our major institutions, know exactly what they want, and are well organized." But she also noted that "they have weaknesses too. For they are wedded to an ideology that isn't working and they have virtually no ideas nor imagination to resolve this." Russian Oligarchs and the Rise of China In fact, at the previous year’s meeting in Davos, the World Economic Forum functioned precisely as the vanguard for seven Russian oligarchs to take control of Russia and shape its future. At the 1996 meeting of the WEF, the Russian delegation was made up largely of the country’s new oligarchs who had amassed great fortunes in the transition to a market economy. Their great worry was that Russian President Boris Yeltsin would lose his re-election later that year to the resurgence of the Communists. At the WEF meeting, seven Russian oligarchs, led by Boris Berezovsky, formed an alliance during private meetings, where they decided to fund Yeltsin’s re-election and work together to “reshape their country’s future.” This alliance (or cartel, as some may refer to it), was the key to Yeltsin’s re-election victory later that year, as they held weekly meetings with Yeltsin’s chief of staff, Anatoly Chubais, the architect of Russia’s privatization program that made them all so rich. Berezovsky explained that if the oligarchs did not work together to promote common ends, it would be impossible to have a transition to a market economy “automatically.” Instead, he explained, “We need to use all our power to realize this transformation.” As the Financial Times noted, the oligarchs “assembled a remarkable political machine to entrench and promote the market economy – as well as their own financial interests,” as the seven men collectively controlled roughly half the entire Russian economy. Russian politician Anatoly Chubais commented on this development and the role of the oligarchs, saying: “They steal and steal and steal. They are stealing absolutely everything and it is impossible to stop them... But let them steal and take their property. They will then become owners and decent administrators of this property.” In the 1990s, with the spread of global markets came the spread of major financial crises: in Mexico, across Africa, East Asia, Russia and then back to Latin America. At the WEF meeting in 1999, the key issue was “reform of the international financial system.” As the economic crises spread, the Group of Seven nations, and the Davos Class, told the countries in crisis that in order “to restore confidence [of the markets], they should adopt politically unpopular policies of radical structural reform,” promoting further liberalization and deregulation of markets to open themselves up to Western corporate and financial interests and 'investment.' The major emerging markets have been frequent participants in annual Davos meetings, providing a forum in which national elites may become acquainted with the global ruling class, with whom they then cooperate and do business. China started sending more high-level delegations to the WEF in the mid-1980s. During the 2009 meeting, two prominent speakers were President Putin of Russia and the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. Both leaders painted a picture of the crisis as emanating from the centers of finance and globalization in the United States and elsewhere, with the “blind pursuit of profit” and “the failure of financial supervision” – in Wen’s words – and bringing about what Putin described as a “perfect storm.” Both Wen and Putin, however, declared their intentions to work with the major industrial powers “on solving common economic problems.” In 2010, China’s presence at Davos was a significant one. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who attended the previous year, was not to return. In his stead, his chosen successor, Li Keqiang, attended. China’s economy was performing better than expected as its government was coming under increased pressure from major global corporations. Kristin Forbes, a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and an attendee at Davos, commented, “China is the West’s greatest hope and greatest fear... No one was quite ready for how fast China has emerged... Now everyone is trying to understand what sort of China they will be dealing with.” China sent its largest delegation to date to the World Economic Forum, with a total of 54 executives and government officials, many of whom were intending to “go shopping” for clients among the world’s elite. Li Keqiang, the future Chinese prime minister, told the Davos audience that China was going to shift from its previous focus on exports and turn to “boosting domestic demand,” which would “not only drive growth in China but also provide greater markets for the world.” Li explained that China would “allow the market to play a primary role in the allocation of resources.” In 2011, The New York Times declared that the World Economic Forum represented “the emergence of an international economic elite” that took place at the same time as unprecedented increases in inequality between the rich and poor, particularly in the powerful countries but also in the fast-emerging economies. Chrystia Freeland wrote that “the rise of government-connected plutocrats is not just a phenomenon in places like Russia, India and China,” but that the major Western bailouts reflected what the former chief economist at the IMF, Simon Johnson, referred to as a “quiet coup” by bankers in the United States and elsewhere. Davos and the Financial Oligarchy The power of global finance – and in particular, banks and oligarchs – has grown with each successive financial crisis. As the financial crisis tore through the world in 2008, the January 2009 meeting of the World Economic Forum featured less of the Wall Street titans and more top politicians. Klaus Schwab declared, “The pendulum has swung and power has moved back to governments,” adding that “this is the biggest economic crisis since Davos began.” Goldman Sachs, which in past years was “renowned for hosting one of the hottest parties at the World Economic Forum’s glittering annual meeting in Davos,” had cancelled its 2009 party. Nonetheless, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, decided to continue with his plans to host a Davos party. Goldman Sachs.. was “renowned for hosting one of the hottest parties at the World Economic Forum’s glittering annual meeting in Davos" In 2010, thousands of delegates assembled to discuss the "important’ issues of the day. And despite the reputation of banks and bankers being at all-time lows, top executives of the world’s largest financial institutions showed up in full force. The week before the meeting, President Obama called for the establishment of laws to deal with the "too big to fail" banks, and European leaders were responding to the anger of their domestic populations for having to pay for the massive bailouts of financial institutions during the financial crisis. Britain and France were discussing the prospect of taxing banker bonuses, and Mervyn King, then governor of the Bank of England, suggested the possibility of breaking up the big banks. Several panels at the WEF meeting were devoted to discussing the financial system and its possible regulation, as bankers like Josef Ackermann of Deutsche Bank suggested that they would agree to limited regulations (at least on "capital requirements"). More important, however, were plans for a series of private meetings of government representatives and bank chiefs, who would meet separately, and then together, in Davos. Roughly 235 bankers were to attend the summit – a 23% increase from the previous year. Global bankers and other corporate leaders were worried, and warned the major governments in attendance against the financial repercussions of pursuing “a populist crackdown” against banks and financial markets. French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke to the Forum’s guests about a need for a “revolution” in global financial regulation, and for “reform of the international monetary system.” The heads of roughly 30 of the world’s largest banks held a private meeting at Davos “to plot how to reassert their influence with regulators and governments,” noted a report on Bloomberg. The “private meeting” was a precursor to a later meeting at Davos involving top policymakers and regulators. Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, said of the assembled bankers, “We’re trying to figure out ways that we can be more engaged.” According to Moynihan, a good deal of the closed-door discussion “was about tactics, such as who the executives should approach and when.” The CEO of UBS, a major Swiss bank, commented that “it was a positive meeting, we’re in consensus.” The bankers said they were aware that some new rules were inevitable, but they wanted to encourage regulators and countries to coordinate the rules through the Group of 20, revived in 2009 as the premier forum for international cooperation and "global governance." Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank, suggested that “we should stop the bank bashing,” and affirmed that banks had a “noble role” to play in managing the economic recovery. Christine Lagarde, France's Finance Minister and current Managing Director of the IMF, encouraged a “dialogue” between governments and banks, saying, “That’s the only way we’re going to get out of it.” Later that week, the bankers met “behind closed doors with finance ministers, central bankers and regulators from major economies.” The key message at the time from finance ministers, regulators and central bankers was a political one: “They [the banks] should accept more stringent regulation, or face more draconian curbs from politicians responding to an angry public.” Guillermo Ortiz, who had just left his post as governor of the central bank of Mexico, said, “I think banks have misjudged the deep feelings of the public regarding the devastating effects of the crisis.” French President Sarkozy stated that “there is indecent behavior that will no longer be tolerated by public opinion in any country of the world,” and that bankers giving themselves excessive bonuses as they were “destroying jobs and wealth” was “morally indefensible.” As the 2011 Davos meeting began, Edelman, a major communications consultancy, released a report that revealed a poll conducted among 5,000 wealthy and educated individuals in 23 countries, considered to be “well-informed.” The results of the poll showed there to be a massive decline in trust for major institutions, with banks taking the biggest hit. Prior to the financial crisis in 2007, 71% of those polled expressed trust in banks compared with a new low of 25 percent in 2011. A home for a global elite Despite the lack of public trust in banks and financial institutions, Davos remains devoted to protecting and expanding the interests of the financial elite. In fact, the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum (its top governing body) includes many representatives of the world of finance and global financial governance. Among them, (as this infographic makes clear) are Mukesh Ambani, who sits on advisory boards to Citigroup, Bank of America and the National Bank of Kuwait; and Herman Gref, the CEO of Sberbank, a large Russian bank. Ernesto Zedillo, the former President of Mexico who is also a member of the board, currently serves as a director on the boards of Rolls Royce and JPMorgan Chase, international advisory boards to BP and Credit Suisse, an adviser to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and is a member of the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission as well as sitting on the board of one of the world's most influential economic think tanks, the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Also notable, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, is a member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum. Carney started his career working for Goldman Sachs for 13 years, after which he was appointed as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada. After a subsequent stint in Canada’s Ministry of Finance, Carney returned to the Bank of Canada as governor from 2008 to 2013, when he became the first non-Briton to be appointed as head of the Bank of England in its 330-year history. From 2011 to present, Carney has also been the Chairman of the Financial Stability Board, run out of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Apart from heading the FSB, Mark Carney is also a board member of the BIS, which serves as the central bank for the world’s major central banks. He is also a member of the Group of Thirty, a private and highly influential think tank and lobby group that brings together dozens of the most influential economists, central bankers, commercial bankers and finance ministers. Carney has also been a regular attendee at annual meetings of the Bilderberg Group, an even more-exclusive "invite only" global conference than the WEF. Though there are few women among the WEF’s membership – let alone its leadership – Christine Lagarde has made the list, while simultaneously serving as the managing director of the IMF. She previously served as the French finance minister throughout the course of the financial crisis. Lagarde also attends occasional Bilderberg meetings, and is one of the most powerful technocrats in the world. Min Zhu, the deputy managing director of the IMF, also sits on the WEF’s board. Further, the World Economic Forum has another governing body, the International Business Council, first established in 2002 and composed of 100 “highly respected and influential chief executives from all industries,” which “acts as an advisory body providing intellectual stewardship to the World Economic Forum and makes active contributions to the Annual Meeting agenda.” The membership of the WEF is divided into three categories: Regional Partners, Industry Partner Groups, and the most esteemed, the Strategic Partners. Membership fees paid by corporations and industry groups finance the Forum and its activities and provide the member company with extra access to meet delegates, hold private meetings and set the agenda. In 2015, the cost of an annual Strategic Partner status with the WEF had increased to nearly $700,000. Among the WEF’s current strategic partners are Bank of America, Barclays, BlackRock, BP, Chevron, Citi, Coca-Cola, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Dow Chemical, Facebook, GE, Goldman Sachs, Google, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, PepsiCo, Siemens, Total, and UBS, among others. Depending on its finances from these sources, as well as being governed by individuals from these and others institutions, it is no surprise that Davos promotes the interests of financial and corporate power above all else. This is further evident on matters related to trade. Davos and "Trade" Trade has been another consistent, major issue at Davos meetings – which is to say, the promotion of powerful corporate and financial interests has been central to the functions of the WEF. As the Wall Street Journal noted, “it is pretty much a tradition that trade ministers meet at Davos with an informal meeting.” At the 2013 meeting, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk explained at Davos that the Obama administration was “committed to reaching an agreement to smooth trade with the European Union,” saying in an interview that “we greatly value the trans-Atlantic relationship.” The week’s meetings suggested that there “were signs of progress toward a trade accord.” Thomas J. Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who was present at Davos, commented that “half a dozen senior leaders in Europe are ready to move forward.” In fact, at the previous Davos meeting in January 2012, high level U.S. and EU officials met behind closed doors with the Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), a major corporate grouping that promotes a U.S.-E.U. “free trade” agreement. The TABD was represented at the meeting by 21 top corporate executives, and was attended by U.S. Trade Representative Kirk, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, the European Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, other top technocrats, and Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs, Michael Froman (who is now the U.S. Trade Representative). The result of the meeting was the release of a report on a "Vision for the Future of EU-US Economic Relations," which called “to press for urgent action on a visionary and ambitious agenda.” The meeting also recommended the establishment of a "CEO Task Force" to work directly with the "High Level Working Group" of trade ministers and technocrats to chart a way forward. Just prior to the 2013 meeting in Davos, the TABD corporate group merged with another corporate network to form the Transatlantic Business Council (TBC), a group of top CEOs and chairmen of major corporations, representing roughly 70 major corporations. The purpose of the TBC was to hold “semi-annual meetings with U.S. Cabinet Secretaries and European Commissioners (in Davos and elsewhere).” At the Davos 2013 meeting, the TBC met behind closed doors with high level officials from the U.S. and EU. Michael Froman, who would replace Ron Kirk as the U.S. Trade Rep, spoke at the meeting, declaring that “the transatlantic economy is to become the global benchmark for standards in a globalized world.” The following month, the U.S. and EU "High Level Working Group" released its final report in which it recommended “a comprehensive trade and investment agreement” between the two regions. Two days after the publication of this report, President Obama issued a joint statement with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, in which they announced that “the United States and the European Union will each initiate the internal procedures necessary to launch negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership,” or TTIP. At the announcement, Kirk declared the sectors that will fall under the proposed agreement, stating that, “for us, everything is on the table, across all sectors, including the agricultural sector.” The World Economic Forum in a World of Unrest Perhaps most interestingly, the World Economic Forum has been consistently interested in the prospects of social unrest, protests and resistance movements, particularly those that directly confront the interests of corporate and financial power. This became particularly true following the mass protests in 1999 against the World Trade Organization, which disrupted the major trade talks taking place in Seattle and marked the ascendency of what Davos called the “anti-globalization movement.” These issues were foremost on the minds of the Davos Class as they met less than two months later in Switzerland for the annual WEF meeting in 2000. The New York Times noted that as President Clinton attempted to address the issue of restoring “confidence in trade and globalization” at the WEF, global leaders – particularly those assembled at Davos – were increasingly aware of the new reality that “popular impressions of globalization seem to have shifted” with growing numbers of people, including the protesters in Seattle, voicing criticism of the growing inequality between rich and poor, environmental degradation and financial instability. The head of the WTO declared that “globalism is the new ‘ism’ that everyone loves to hate... There is nothing that our critics will not blame on globalization and, yes, it is hurting us.” The guests included President Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, along with the leaders of South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia and Finland, among others. The head of the WTO and many of the world’s trade ministers were also set to attend, hoping to try to re-start negotiations, though protesters were also declaring their intention to disrupt the Forum’s meeting. With these worries in mind, the Swiss Army was deployed to protect the 2,000 members of the Davos Class from being confronted by protesters. As the World Economic Forum met again in January of 2001 in Davos, “unprecedented security measures” were taken to prevent “hooligans” from disrupting the meeting. On the other side of the world, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, roughly 10,000 activists were expected to converge for the newly-formed World Social Forum, a counter-forum to Davos that represented the interests of activist groups and the Third World. As the Davos Class met quietly behind closed doors, comforted by the concrete blocks and razor wire that surrounded the small town, police on the other side of the fence beat back protesters. In the wake of the financial crisis, the WEF meeting in 2009 drew hundreds of protesters to Davos and Geneva where they were met by riot police using tear gas and water cannons. Inside the Forum meeting, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde warned the assembled leaders, “We’re facing two major risks: one is social unrest and the second is protectionism.” She noted that the task before the Davos Class was “to restore confidence in the systems and confidence at large.” Protesters assembled outside held signs reading, “You are the Crisis.” The January 2012 WEF meeting took place following a year of tumultuous and violent upheavals across the Arab world, large anti-austerity movements across much of Europe, notably with the Indignados in Spain, and the Occupy Wall Street movement just months prior in the United States and across much of the world. As the meeting approached, the WEF announced in a report that the top two risks facing business leaders and policy makers were “severe income disparity and chronic fiscal imbalances.” The report warned that if these issues were not addressed it could result in a “dystopian future for much of humanity.” The Occupy Movement had taken the issue of inequality directly to Davos, and there was even a small Occupy protest camp constructed at Davos. As the Financial Times noted, “Until this year [2012] the issue of inequality never appeared on the risk list at all, let alone topped it.” At the heart of it was “the question of social stability,” with many Davos attendees wondering “where else unrest might appear.” Beth Brooke, the global vice chair of Ernst & Young, noted that “countries which have disappearing middle classes face risks – history shows that.” With citizens taking to city streets and protesting in public squares from Cairo to Athens and New York, the Financial Times noted that discontent was “rampant,” and that “the only consistent messages seem to be that leaders around the world are failing to deliver on their citizens’ expectations and that Facebook and Twitter allows crowds to coalesce in an instant to let them know it.” For the 40 government leaders assembling in Davos, “this is not a comforting picture.” In Europe, democratically elected leaders in Italy and Greece had been removed and replaced with economists and central bankers in a technocratic coup only months earlier, largely at the behest of Germany. Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), was perhaps “the most powerful leader in Europe,” though an Occupy movement had sprung up at the headquarters of the ECB in Frankfurt as well. During the Forum, Occupy protesters outside clashed with police. Stephen Roach, a member of the faculty at Yale University and a chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, wrote an article in the Financial Times describing his experiences as a panelist at the "Open Forum," held on the last day of the Davos gathering, in which citizens from the local community could participate along with students and Occupy protesters. The topic he discussed was “remodeling capitalism,” which, Roach wrote, “was a chance to open up this debate to the seething masses.” But the results were “disturbing” as “chaos erupted immediately” with chants from Occupy protesters denouncing the forum and calling for more to join them. Roach wrote that it was “unruly and unsettling” and he “started thinking more about an escape route than opening comments.” Once the discussions began, Roach found himself listening to the first panelist, a 24-year-old Occupy protester named Maria who expressed anger at “the system” and that there was a “need to construct a new one based on equality, dignity and respect.” Other panelists from the WEF included Ed Miliband from the UK, a UN Commissioner, a Czech academic and a minister from the Jordanian dictatorship. Roach noted that compared to Maria from Occupy, “the rest of us on the panel spoke a different language.” Having spent decades as a banker on Wall Street, Roach confessed that “it as unsettling to engage a hostile crowd whose main complaint is rooted in Occupy Wall Street,” explaining that he attempted to focus on his expertise as an economist, “speaking over hisses.” He explained that all of his "expert" insights on economics “hardly moved this crowd.” Maria from Occupy, Roach wrote, got the last word as she stated, “The aim of Occupy is to think for yourself. We don’t focus on solutions. We want to change the process of finding solutions.” As “the crowd roared its approval,” Roach “made a hasty exit through a secret door in the kitchen and out into the night.” Davos, he wrote, “will never again be the same for me. There can be no retreat in the battle for big ideas.” In October of 2013, The Economist reported that “from anti-austerity movements to middle-class revolts, in rich countries and in poor, social unrest has been on the rise around the world.” A World Economic Forum report from November 2013 warned of the dangers of a “lost generation” that would “be more prone to populist politics,” and that “we will see an escalation in social unrest.” Over the course of 2013, major financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, UBS, HSBC, AXA and others were issuing reports warning of the dangers of social unrest and rebellion. JPMorgan Chase, in its May 2013 report, stated that Europe’s “adjustment” to its new economic order was only “halfway done on average,” warning of major challenges ahead. The report complained about laws hindering the advancement of its agenda, such as “constitutional protection of labor rights... and the right to protest if unwelcome changes are made to the political status quo.” The 2014 meeting of the World Economic Forum drew more than 40 heads of state, including then-president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, as well as Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Brazilian Presient Dilma Rousseff, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and prominent central bankers such as Mario Draghi and Mark Carney also attended alongside IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and World Bank president Jim Yong Kim. As the meeting began, a major report by the World Economic Forum was published, declaring that the “single biggest risk to the world in 2014” was the widening “gap between rich and poor.” Thus, income inequality and “social unrest are the issue[s] most likely to have a big impact on the world economy in the next decade.” The report warned that the world was witnessing the “lost generation” of youth around the world who lack jobs and opportunities, which “could easily boil over into social upheaval,” citing recent examples in Brazil and Thailand. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is due to attend the annual Davos meeting this week. But just prior to that meeting, violent protests erupted in the streets of Brazil in opposition to austerity measures imposed by President Rousseff, recalling “the beginnings of the mass street demonstrations that rocked Brazil in June 2013.” One wonders whether Rousseff will be attending next year’s meeting of the WEF, or whether she will still even be president. Indeed, the growth and power of the Davos Class has grown with – and spurred – the development of global unrest, protests, resistance movements and revolution. As Davos welcomes the global plutocrats to 2015, no doubt they'll be reminded of the repercussions of the "market system" as populations around the world remind their leaders of the power of people. In a previous article the relationship between the Western States Center (WSC) and Jim Jones, founder of the Take Bake Idaho (TBI) group, was exposed. While the relationship between WSC members and other groups was touched upon, the extensive range of those relationships is disturbing. WSC is clearly part of a terrorist network of groups who are systematically targeting local governments for the purposes of radically changing how our Republic was originally intended to work. Terrorists operated differently in the late 1960's and 1970's through the use of violence. There is no distinction between these groups as far as being left or right wing, or based on race. They are just groups on violence. However, a new tactical approach has been adopted, changing to non-violence. Strategically, these groups are now using influence within government jurisdictions to spread division and transform the direction of that government. Such is the case of the Boise City Council. WSC has integrated itself into this local level of government to influence the direction of the city with specific political goals. Terrorism has been traditionally associated with violence, or "The use of violence or the threat of violence, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political goals." But what if a group chose to not use violence, instead using a non-violent form of terrorism to achieve its pursuit of political goals? Other issues such as financial can be used as a form of terrorism. Another WSC partner, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), not only inspires terrorism but is also historically linked to terrorism. While WSC makes the claim that white nationalists are threatening the foundation of democracy and "committed to seizing the power of the state", isn't WSC actually the one doing this by infiltrating governments in partnership with groups that are intent on dismantling our government foundation? Previously it was noted that Eric Ward, WSC Executive Director, is a member of several left wing organizations. Race Forward is connected to several other groups such as Government Alliance on Race & Equity (GARE) in which Idaho is a particular target for infiltration. As Chair of the Proteus Fund he is able to procure funding for social justice causes. This group has even wealthier partners to aid the effort, including the George Soros Open Society Foundations in which Mr. Ward has been a consultant. "Proteus has also developed strategies for persuading voters to tip the scale of public opinion in specific states and localities." Now this is being advanced in Boise through Mayor McLean. He was also previous Ford Foundation Program Officer, which has many causes that it funds, and includes influencing governments. Interestingly, as much rhetoric Mr. Ward spews about white nationalism, there is also black nationalism which he seems to ignore. Apparently, the FBI took some heat for "piecing a few incidents together to construct a movement" by black nationalists. Now isn't that what WSC is doing, taking a few isolated incidents of idiots spreading hate and blowing it way out of proportion and using it to justify bringing in its propaganda? Even the individual in recent New York subway attack has been identified as a black nationalist. Where is Mr. Ward speaking to this? In further emails obtained by Casey Whalen via a Boise City Council Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Boise has been identified by the WSC as a place to initiate its "pilot project" with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has ties. WSC has also brought in two more operatives for this project, Ben Unger and Ethan Krow. Unger has an extensive background in politics and Krow works for Stuart Collective. Stuart Collective "specializes in working with diverse, progressive PACs, organizations, and individuals to create change on bold statewide campaigns and legislation that have the potential to create massively positive political change." Its mission is "to connect, advise, and mentor people and organizations serious about creating radically positive political change." Besides WSC other partners include the SPLC, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Portland Public Schools (PPS), Senate Democratic Leadership Fund (SDLF), and Kate Our Governor referring to Kate Brown. This organization is being brought in to influence campaigns and legislation and Senior Strategist Ethan Krow will lead the way. Ben Unger has an extensive political background as former Oregon legislator, lobbyist, and co-founder of The Lab Strategies which is a "campaign and advocacy consulting firm" in which WSC just happens to be a client. However, there is also a tie in with local left-wing extremist groups. In the August 2, 2019 email list is Michael Satz. He is a City Club of Boise board member, at which Jim Jones has spoken, and is also the founding executive director for Idaho Project 97. These two organizations endorse ideology that is the same as WSC and Jim Jones, such as opposition to the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) and targeting legislators. The City Club of Boise also has corporate strength behind it that includes press manipulation through the Idaho Statesman, Idaho Public Television, and universities. Does Mayor McLean think Boise has such a white nationalism problem that it is necessary to spend tax dollars to bring in a huge network of left-wing extremist groups to address this nonexistent issue? Is that what she thinks of Boise citizens, as a bunch of bigoted, racist, white nationalists? On December 14, 2021 it was confirmed that Mayor McLean would be meeting with Ben Unger on December 17 to coordinate on this WSC/SPLC pilot project. In partnership with the WSC Boise Mayor McLean is bringing in a network of organizations whose sole purpose is influencing not only campaigns but elections as well, a clear undermining of how our government is operates through elected representation. Or is it that the majority of Boise voters want this type of progressive change? So here we have an organization that clearly has ties to other non-violent terrorist groups with a massive amount of funding behind them in order to infiltrate and influence political entities and persuade them to adopt and implement its specific political goals, while also using local left-wing extremist groups. That is how it is done now and the whole concept of representation is destroyed. None of these involved individuals or organizations hold any commitment to either the U.S. Constitution or the Idaho Constitution.
As noted in the previous article Jim Jones has been an active participant with WSC. Now why does Jones support organizations that are tied in with groups that function as underground terrorists wanting to undermine our Republic? Should he be considered a terrorist as well, invested in undermining our system the same as the WSC? What are his motivations for this? Every one of these candidates should also be seen as participants in a terrorist network. If this all sounds like dramatization, take one moment to consider the objectives of these organizations. Terrorists or terrorist group has specific political goals. These groups want a democracy, mob rule, not a Republic. And they are winning. Face it, what other Idaho organizations are this well connected or have the amount of money and corporations backing them? Issues of white nationalism, candidate inadequacies, or right-wing extremist organizations are only fronts for the real goal of undermining our government. That is the goal. Representation no longer exists, it is now just a majority of ideological fools who dominate the legislature, local governments, along with the media to promote it. The majority of Idahoans do not support any of this ideology, or do they? Idahoans are seen as illiterate, country bumpkins who aren't capable of making intelligent decisions by these groups but can rather be led around by the muzzle and told what to do and how to think using psychological manipulation of shame and guilt. They all party together, slap each other on the back with adulation, and laugh at us. Until Idahoans start fighting back using constitutional foundations they will continue to win. Operatives deep within Idaho are bringing division and hate to our communities. The Western States Center (WSC) is a left-wing extremist organization that wants to "create a world...free from bigotry and fear". Eric K. Ward is the Executive Director of the WSC, Senior Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), member of Political Research Associates, and Race Forward, His other exploits include Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies, what appears to be a now defunct left-wing organization called the Center for New Community, is an aspiring singer-songwriter to "advance inclusive democracy", and is involved with many other radical, and nefarious, organizations. Mr. Ward freely goes around making accusations, labeling others, and inciting hate, for which he receives a prize, while endeavoring to preserve, or construct, an "inclusive democracy", not understanding America is a Republic. This article identifies WSC as "an affiliate of the Southern Poverty Law Center" which "counts on WSC as a core program partner" and has been funded by several foundations with questionable motives. SPLC even has ties to the World Economic Forum. Several WSC board members also have ties to concerning organizations such as two with the SPLC, Chicago Abortion Fund, Center for New Community, and Basic Rights Oregon. In its 2019 990 tax form there are board members that served with the Ford Foundation, the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR), and one co-chair with the Astraea Lesbian Foundation For Justice. Two WSC members are already planted in Idaho and through groups. Beyond this, there is this eyebrow raising look at the creation of an Idaho group with similar agendas as the WSC. Take Back Idaho (TBI) is a committee formed in late 2021, and comprised of former Idaho Supreme Court Chief Justice Jim Jones, former Speaker of the House Bruce Newcomb, former Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, former Idaho Senator Bob Geddes, former Idaho Republican Party Executive Director Cheryl Miller, and a few others. TBI is "determined to take Idaho back from the grip of the IFF, its partner organizations, and their acolytes in the GOP legislative ranks." Hmmm. This TBI statement, "they will focus on educating Idahoans on how to identify and fight dangerous extremism and misinformation", will make TBI the laughingstock of the state by the end of this article. While examining these WSC and TBI similarities it is important to separate out one's own opinions and thoughts on the subject matter, instead focusing on the issue that TBI appears to be aligning with a radical and far left extremist organization with ties to even more radical groups. On February 26, 2022 both the WSC and TBI called for Janice McGeachin's resignation for her participation in the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), the WSC accusing her of embracing "white nationalism" and both labeling the AFPAC as a "White Nationalist Convention". This in spite of the WSC claim, "Western States Center is nonpartisan and does not support or oppose any candidate for elected public office" found at the bottom of the WSC page. Another target of both organizations is the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF). Jim Jones in particular has issues with the IFF. Again without regard to one's opinion about the IFF, it is alarming that both WSC in June, 2021 and TBI in December, 2021 released condemnation of this organization based on IFF concerns regarding Critical Race Theory being taught in the education system. However, in this Accuracy in Media video it is clear that haughty educators condone changing the name of what they are teaching in order to hide their deeds. Is this not the same as what the WSC and TBI are doing, conniving with each other behind the scenes? There is also the issue of Shahram Hadian. The affiliated WSC Southern Poverty Law Center has a particular disdain for him along with TBI leader Jim Jones. The similarities in these issues might not be good enough to warrant accusations that WSC and TBI are working together, perhaps further documentation is needed. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Casey Whalen exposed these nefarious activities between the City of Boise and WSC. Individual names have been redacted for their protection, leaving the involved agency name, and with links to those agencies at the end of each email. Since 2019 the WSC has been in contact with Boise City Council staff that began with a rape case by four Tanzania refugees. During that time, a 2/21/19 email involving several agencies discussed strategies to manipulate media information. It was also noted that Jim Jones was in the process of writing a letter with Capital Group to discourage legislators from attending a 2/27/19 event with Shahram Hadian. With his name on the 2/26/19 email list, and several additional agencies, Jones was given praise for his column, We don't need Shahram Hadian's inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric. In an August 2, 2019 email with even more involved agencies, Mr. Jones was invited to attend a WSC conference, it is unknown whether he did. However, one can see by the agenda that the subject matter extended far beyond its claim of just confronting white nationalism. The list of speakers included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), another WSC partner. The 12/26/21 email confirms that WSC made contact with the Boise Mayor and a document was provided as a tool for governments responding to political violence. It is important to focus strictly on the fact that a left-wing extremist organization is infiltrating a local government to impose its ideology upon the citizens, and the local government appears to buy into that idea. Out of approximately 230,510 citizens, this left-wing extremist organization is suggesting infested bigotry and hate exists throughout the Boise community. This is nothing more than a lie. WSC's created resource, Strengthening Local Government Against Bigoted and Anti-Democracy Movements, is for the purpose of infiltrating and influencing governments.
Claiming "bigoted and hateful groups have successfully targeted young-adults who are still developing their worldviews", it is really WSC and its minions who are targeting youth, having developed a toolkit to bring its distortions into classrooms. In fact, it was Eric Ward's wife, Jessica Acee, who co-authored the toolkit and has some alarming thoughts about education herself. First the adults are groomed, then children become the prey for indoctrination. How can adults be so obtuse? Historically tyrants have used the division of people into different classes, identifying one group as superior than another, to amass power. There seems to be a striking similarity with WSC actions, separating out those they label as white nationalists. This is a very ominous warning for those who choose to lie in bed with WSC. In spite of Rep. Rubel's claim that the legislature focused on "divisive social issues" this year, the truth is that via the WSC and its associated toady groups, they sow seeds of hate to breed division among families, friends, and neighbors. WSC is not fooling anyone. Its lack of transparency and deceit is well understood, These individuals are too cowardly to bring their lofty ideas to a community because they know the opposition they would face. Instead, they hide behind the skirts of government. WSC doesn't understand with their projection of anger, personal rage, and hate onto a community it is that hate which communities overwhelmingly reject. Many Idahoans are tired of these racist groups bringing their bigoted and hateful ideology into our state. Knowing that current and former elected officials are participating in this is an embarrassment and shameful. This information is a very light surface scratch on the deep pockets of hate being spread across our country, the money being poured into spreading that hate, and the decimation of our Republic. Representatives who focused on social issues did so rightly as Idaho is a primary target for these groups. Shame on you Jones, Geddes, Ysursa, Newcomb, and every person that supports TBI. Your group is engaged in a deep well of networks that are anti-American, intentionally dismantling our Republic, and are the ones bringing "dangerous extremism and misinformation" to our state. None of you represent Idaho citizens. Idahoans will continue to reject this ideology in spite of your advocating for more of this rhetoric. This is an article by Iain Davis titled, "What is the "Global Public-Private Partnership?" For convenience there is an audio version that can be listened to. The article discusses how public-private partnerships have altered the way in which our government is supposed to work through representation, basically government has taken on the role of representing corporations. This article is an excellent explanation of our current circumstances.
In the second article, Seizing Everything: The Theft of the Global Commons – Part 2, the discussion ends with how our economy is currently in the process of being transformed. Transforming the economy has always been the goal and now the Great Reset is achieving this goal of destroying capitalism to bring in stakeholder capitalism,which is basically centralized control over all production and consumption for equal distribution. For those not familiar, ESG stands for Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) that these large corporations adhere to. There are other corporate terms referenced and are discussed here. Meeting all of these these criteria and standards would be impossible for small businesses and will most likely put them out of business or force them into partnerships with global corporations. Also mentioned are the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures that judges corporate performance in meeting ESG criteria; International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) that approves ESG ratings for businesses; International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation (IFRS) that develop accounting and sustainability disclosure standards; and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) that is responsible for financial reporting-related technical matters of the IFRS Foundation. All corporate members and associated organizations are committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which does require the taking of and control over all resources with some managed through Natural Asset Companies (NAC). As this is a long article with an audio version and much information it may take some extra time to get through all of it. But what is stunning is how these characters have already taken financial control over the world. Below is an example in the article of how these partnerships work. Similar to Germans infiltrating American lines during WWII, private property owners are being targeted with renewed tactics to manipulate and bribe them into accepting and practicing conservation goals outlined in the current administration's non-authorized 30x30 plan. In fact, behind the scenes groups have been working on this for some time. As a Republic, we have a form of government where elected officials are responsible and accountable to listen to the constituents who elected them. It is time to stop the government infiltration by these groups, bring elected officials back into line, and use our Republic to incapacitate these new tactics. For several years non-governmental organizations (NGO) have recognized their failings in trying to flaunt their elite intelligence onto the masses, instead alienating them. The new tactic is "listening" to landowners, to engage them to join hands. In this report one such failure is discussed by blaming the "crazy people" for protecting their community, then deciding new messaging was needed by using people the community "trusts" to deliver the message. The hidden agenda doesn't change however. With 30x30 the objective is to now "Honor Private Property Rights", Support the Voluntary Stewardship Efforts of Private Landowners", and "Support Locally Led and Locally Designed Conservation Efforts". The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) is a free market environmentalism think tank with the absurd notion that it will protect property rights while working with governments and NGOs on policy. Hmmm, isn't protection of property rights in the Constitution and by law? What it really means is that they are targeting private property owners to engage, that is manipulate, bribe and in some cases threaten, to buy into their ludicrous plan for those owners to conserve their own land. As always, there will be an economic cost to either the property owner or the taxpayer. This ruse is really a manipulated variation on conservation easements that stop land development in perpetuity, while expanding the opportunity for the wealthy to make money. But, let's get down to the dirt. PERC and other NGOs developed a way in which to "listen" and empathize with private land owners, one such case was in Wyoming. The focus has shifted from safety issues to an "opportunity" issue for "conserving" beloved wildlife and land. In gaining that trust and acceptance, the perpetrators then have the opportunity to present their "free market" solutions. In reality, this is all a devised scam to engage land owners into the America the Beautiful 30x30 plan, expanding land protection to 30% by 2030. The addition of private property to this conservation total is the goal, while also stopping any development and landowners in migration corridors are a particular target. Right now Paradise Valley in Montana is the target but it is a framework that could certainly be used in Idaho. After citizens were carefully surveyed several recommendations were crafted for new messaging and buy in tactics. Landowner Coordination and Outreach
For hunters, there are also some "tools" that will help conservation, how is unclear. Transferable landowner hunting tags somehow helps conservation but there are catches. Landowners would be required to steward their land in a certain way to qualify for permits with those property conditions tied to the number of permits given, and the landowner would be required to align with State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAP). Imagine that, a private property owner managing their land under state program requirements. No freedom there folks. Transferable tags "lets landowners tap into the multi-billion-dollar U.S. hunting market". One more perk for private land conservation, giving landowners "permit vouchers, retaining authority to sell permits within state agencies." Here are all the goodies in a nutshell or the longer version. This change in Elk tag distribution hasn't gone over very well in Montana. In this video, National Wildlife Federation President & CEO Collin O'Mara; Nature Conservancy Chief External Affairs Officer Lynn Scarlett; ConservAmerica Brent Fewell; and PERC CEO Brian Yablonski discuss using private land for conservation to meet the 30x30 goal of 30% of land in conservation by 2030. In the discussion it is noted that private land owners are typically the best stewards of land and 2/3 of species rely on that habitat but the focus should be on how land is managed on a large scale, that is no recognition of jurisdictional boundaries. In one haughty opinion, if this land isn't counted towards conservation it "will lead to working lands not working". Do these people even listen to themselves? At least there was some honesty, it was acknowledged that there is concern that without conservation on private land there will be "more development and fragmentation". This is the strongest clue that these proposed conservation "tools" include some restricted use in perpetuity, similar to a conservation easement. Property owners must be lead to believe this is an opportunity and connect the environment with economics. A broad portfolio of "tools" are needed to entice landowners to participate such as habitat leasing, state tax benefits, and using state SWAP plans for species of greatest conservation need on private land. Ms. Scarlett spoke to investments in the carbon market, conserving land for sequestration, and working with investors for improved water quality. This coming from a woman who works for an outfit that buys land to forever put into non-use or sell to the government. Mr. Yablonski noted they want to "make sure landowners keep doing what they are doing" and "prevent land being switched over to development". Ahh, there it is, the truth. So again another clue that landowners engaging in this conservation ruse would lose rights to development. And in his opinion, NGOs should be allowed to bid on oil & gas leasing, not currently allowed, to prevent extraction of any resources and "they have the money to do that". However, there were several compelling statements in this video. Mr. Yablonski pronounced that private land put into conservation "will be key to making 30x30 a success" and "how those land owners are approached will be a huge deal". Ms. Scarlett boldly stated "We can design the conservation future." Mr. O'Mara identified the need to "get the next generation on board...as the baby boomers are dying out", and this is a "regional canvas" of land for conservation, again ignoring jurisdictional boundaries. He then admitted that the NWF was "involved in the discussions" on 30x30. The NWF is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature which also has the 30x30 plan. Maybe it is the IUCN playbook being used for this scam.
Currently there is no policy on these objectives as PERC is a think tank that sits back and creates these scams; however, a policy wouldn't be needed for these groups to take action on some of the recommendations. For landowners with large acreages this will be an incremental loss of land for development and use, potentially putting areas in Idaho perpetual state of conservation. Since these groups are unable to take land for migration corridors and other protections, it will be accomplished through private land ownership. The working group recommendation will be with private land owners only. But never believe that as partners, the government isn't actively working with NGOs and promoting their objectives. Being pulled into government plans is also another mechanism by which property rights will essentially be run by the government as in the case of SWAP. However, do form a working group of citizens, who live in the county. Create your own development plans for your area and what citizens want for these issues. Develop relationships with both county commissioners and council members, they are accountable to you, not NGOs or the state government. If these elected officials reject citizen input, start a campaign to remove them and find candidates who understand their responsibility to those who elected them. Do not engage with any surveys or enticements with economic goodies. Develop relationships with your state representatives and keep an eye on these issues possibly coming up for legislation. Let your representative know that all of these objectives are opposed. The bottom line is that Idaho citizens have always been the best stewards and experts over their land and wildlife, and will continue to do so because of their love of both. Yet these outsiders think they have to intervene in this expertise and change it into a money making scheme with strings attached. Property owners can share between themselves what they are doing for wildlife without any outside perks or requirements. Keep them out, let them know they will be opposed, and that their guidance and schemes are not wanted. Other videos by PERC can be found here. |
Concerned Idahoans:This website is non-partisan and is solely dedicated to removing the harmful controls placed on our state and nation through associated programs of Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, and the Great Reset. We invite all Idahoans to join us in this fight for freedom! Categories
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