APC
Newswire
Produced by American Policy Center
Email: admin@americanpolicy.org Website: americanpolicy.org
Tom DeWeese, President
Kathleen Marquardt, Editor
Produced by American Policy Center
Email: admin@americanpolicy.org Website: americanpolicy.org
Tom DeWeese, President
Kathleen Marquardt, Editor
How Tyranny Maintains Power
By Tom DeWeese
By Tom DeWeese
Here’s a novel headline from the
annals of tyranny. “Robert Mugabe Pledges to Step Down If He Loses
Reelection in Zimbabwe.” Gosh, isn’t that the purpose of
elections – to do the will of the people. If you lose – you
leave office??? What a concept. But, of course, Mugabe has
no intention of leaving office.
According to reports, Zimbabweans are determined to remove the 89 year old dictator who has single-handedly destroyed the economy of what was once the bread basket of Africa. And to maintain that strong hold on the nation he has stolen numerous previous elections. So wary citizens are turning out in high numbers, standing guard over ballot boxes and even bringing their own pens to polling places because of rumors that the ink in state-provided pens contained disappearing ink that would enable ballot manipulation.
According to reports, Zimbabweans are determined to remove the 89 year old dictator who has single-handedly destroyed the economy of what was once the bread basket of Africa. And to maintain that strong hold on the nation he has stolen numerous previous elections. So wary citizens are turning out in high numbers, standing guard over ballot boxes and even bringing their own pens to polling places because of rumors that the ink in state-provided pens contained disappearing ink that would enable ballot manipulation.
This is the exact situation I personally witnessed when I was an election observer in Panama in 1989. That year, the people were determined to overthrow dictator Manuel Noriega. In the Panamanian election process, each candidate had their own ballot, Voters would select and gather the ballots they wanted for each candidate, put them in an envelope and put it in the ballot box. Noriega simply neglected to deliver the opposition ballots to the polling places. I witnessed thousand of people gathered at polling places, refusing to leave until the ballots were delivered. And I personally traveled with opposition candidates at they visited each polling place, pleading with people to stay put until the ballots could be delivered. I saw the people surge to these candidates, chanting and cheering, and staying put.
In the end, as professional-election-observer Jimmy Carter was dutifully telling CNN that all was going well with the election, not a single ballot was ever counted. Yet, the next day, the state run newspaper announced that Noriega had won by 55%. When Mugabe announces yet another “victory” in the Zimbabwe election, remember, he is a liar and a thief.
Stupid Human
Tricks:
the sad case of the Spotted Owl
By Tom DeWeese
the sad case of the Spotted Owl
By Tom DeWeese
Environmentalists are quick to lecture the rest of us
about the ways of nature. Don’t clean the dead trees off the
forest floor, it’s natural. Cattle and horses on the range
aren’t native, so let the Grizzles and wolves devour them,
it’s natural. Man isn’t part of the ecology, lock him
out of vast areas of land, it’s natural. It’s interesting to
note how the “natural” argument only applies when it is used
to impose the radical environmental agenda. Case in point,
the Northern Spotted
Owl.
Spotted owls, we were told a decade ago, were disappearing because big bad timber companies were cutting down “old growth” forests.” So the environmental movement rushed to the forests, hugged the trees and issued news releases to decry the evils of the logging industry. Save the owl. Save the trees. Kill the timber industry.
Of course, that was exactly the point. Kill the timber industry. As a result of the hysteria to save the “endangered” owls, U.S. timber sales were reduced by 80-90%, forcing saw mills to close, loggers to go broke, and whole towns which depended on the industry to literally disappear. The federal crackdown on the industry caused a shift in U.S. domestic lumber supplies to foreign soils. In short, American industry suffered in the name of protecting the spotted owl. Turns out is wasn’t true.
A decade and a half, and thousands of broken dreams later, comes this report from the federal government on the real reasons for the spotted owl’s endangerment: “Oops.”
According to a government draft plan produced during the Bush Administration to save the species, scientists are no longer saying the greatest threat to the Spotted Owl is logging activity. “The draft recovery plan recognizes the primary threat to northern spotted owls as competition with barred owls.” According to the report, barred owls are less selective about the habitat they use and the prey they feed upon and are out competing northern spotted owls for habitat and food, causing its decline.
In fact, for the entire decade and a half since the issue emerged on the political scene, the property rights and land use movements have been reporting the fact that the spotted owl is only a sub-species of Mexican spotted owls, which are not endangered at all. Some experts will say the only way to tell the difference between the two is by their accents. (OK, I’m kidding, but this ridiculous story needs some humor). It was no secret that the spotted owl didn’t need “old growth forests” to survive, since spotted owls were found living under bridges and in McDonald signs. What it needed was a good food source like any other species. Now we know it was undercut by another owl – a completely natural occurrence.
What was accomplished during the fifteen year fight besides the destruction of an entire industry? The establishment of a very radical and dangerous political agenda called the environmental movement. Its power is now so great that no politician dare oppose them. Yet, that power, we now know for certain, was built on a lie. Some in the movement have even candidly admitted that if they hadn’t had the spotted owl they would have invented something like it to drive their agenda. In fact they did invent it and the purpose was to destroy the timber industry and private property rights. They called it an environmental emergency.
Now the truth has come out. So, will the same federal government which rushed to impose harsh treatment of innocent property owners and industry now roll back those stifling regulations and let freedom breath? Of course not. Agendas are agendas, regardless of the facts.
So instead, after the nation spent millions of dollars to destroy an industry private property rights, still, the government plans to spend $200 million more on a “barred owl removal plan” in order to save the spotted owl.
And as usual, when a new government debacle is rolled out, there is always an emergency to drive the policy. Said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Because the range and numbers of barred owls are expanding rapidly, our effectiveness in addressing this threat depends on immediate action…”
Here’s an immediate action sane folks could recommend: Let the barred owls alone to do what comes natural to them. If the Spotted Owl can’t keep up – then good riddance. It’s been used to cause enough pain and obviously its time is up. It’s a natural process. Species come and go. We’ve got plenty of Mexican spotted owls to play with if we get homesick for them.
Of course, the final chapter is yet to be written. Soon, if the new “recovery plan” is successful, it won’t be long before the environmental movement has a new emergency – man’s wanton destruction of the barred owl. Creating false environmental disasters just comes natural for some people.
Spotted owls, we were told a decade ago, were disappearing because big bad timber companies were cutting down “old growth” forests.” So the environmental movement rushed to the forests, hugged the trees and issued news releases to decry the evils of the logging industry. Save the owl. Save the trees. Kill the timber industry.
Of course, that was exactly the point. Kill the timber industry. As a result of the hysteria to save the “endangered” owls, U.S. timber sales were reduced by 80-90%, forcing saw mills to close, loggers to go broke, and whole towns which depended on the industry to literally disappear. The federal crackdown on the industry caused a shift in U.S. domestic lumber supplies to foreign soils. In short, American industry suffered in the name of protecting the spotted owl. Turns out is wasn’t true.
A decade and a half, and thousands of broken dreams later, comes this report from the federal government on the real reasons for the spotted owl’s endangerment: “Oops.”
According to a government draft plan produced during the Bush Administration to save the species, scientists are no longer saying the greatest threat to the Spotted Owl is logging activity. “The draft recovery plan recognizes the primary threat to northern spotted owls as competition with barred owls.” According to the report, barred owls are less selective about the habitat they use and the prey they feed upon and are out competing northern spotted owls for habitat and food, causing its decline.
In fact, for the entire decade and a half since the issue emerged on the political scene, the property rights and land use movements have been reporting the fact that the spotted owl is only a sub-species of Mexican spotted owls, which are not endangered at all. Some experts will say the only way to tell the difference between the two is by their accents. (OK, I’m kidding, but this ridiculous story needs some humor). It was no secret that the spotted owl didn’t need “old growth forests” to survive, since spotted owls were found living under bridges and in McDonald signs. What it needed was a good food source like any other species. Now we know it was undercut by another owl – a completely natural occurrence.
What was accomplished during the fifteen year fight besides the destruction of an entire industry? The establishment of a very radical and dangerous political agenda called the environmental movement. Its power is now so great that no politician dare oppose them. Yet, that power, we now know for certain, was built on a lie. Some in the movement have even candidly admitted that if they hadn’t had the spotted owl they would have invented something like it to drive their agenda. In fact they did invent it and the purpose was to destroy the timber industry and private property rights. They called it an environmental emergency.
Now the truth has come out. So, will the same federal government which rushed to impose harsh treatment of innocent property owners and industry now roll back those stifling regulations and let freedom breath? Of course not. Agendas are agendas, regardless of the facts.
So instead, after the nation spent millions of dollars to destroy an industry private property rights, still, the government plans to spend $200 million more on a “barred owl removal plan” in order to save the spotted owl.
And as usual, when a new government debacle is rolled out, there is always an emergency to drive the policy. Said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Because the range and numbers of barred owls are expanding rapidly, our effectiveness in addressing this threat depends on immediate action…”
Here’s an immediate action sane folks could recommend: Let the barred owls alone to do what comes natural to them. If the Spotted Owl can’t keep up – then good riddance. It’s been used to cause enough pain and obviously its time is up. It’s a natural process. Species come and go. We’ve got plenty of Mexican spotted owls to play with if we get homesick for them.
Of course, the final chapter is yet to be written. Soon, if the new “recovery plan” is successful, it won’t be long before the environmental movement has a new emergency – man’s wanton destruction of the barred owl. Creating false environmental disasters just comes natural for some people.
NewsWire Articles
PAUL KRUGMAN: Urban sprawl may be
killing Horatio Alger
Sun Herald | “The apparent inverse relationship between sprawl and social mobility obviously reinforces the case for "smart growth" urban strategies, which try to promote compact centers with access to public transit. But it also bears on a larger debate about what is happening to American society.” Krugman is at it again, attacking Constitutional values and promoting global governmental ones. Like global warming, urban sprawl is a term dreamed up to be a scare tactic. Global warming is supposed to make us afraid that we humans are killing the environment just by being alive and thus should reduce our carbon footprint to zero (of course that makes us dead). Urban sprawl is the buzzword that is supposed to make you hate the automobile, suburbia and private property and make you love smart growth -- stack-em and pack-em housing that crowds people into cities and overwhelms the infrastructure. Urban sprawl is nothing more than suburbia; those who want to kill suburbia promoted a major study a decade or so ago that was going to tell us that children raised in the suburbs would grow up to be mass murderers, that all wives were so bored with living in a nowhere land that they were subject to having affairs, and that husbands were boring brutes because they spent so many hours driving to and from work. The study showed that suburbia was a great place to live and grow up. Thus as with everything else in this brave new world, Krugman and his ilk have to promote Agenda 21 via made-up maladies such as urban sprawl. Anyway urban sprawl sounds so much nastier than suburbia, doesn’t it? [Click here to read more]
Boy Scouts of America introduce sustainability merit badge
Treehugger | “The Boy Scouts have always been strong on conservation and nature, but they have always been pretty conservative too. The concept of sustainability is controversial in much of the USA, particularly in states where the Boy Scouts are a big deal. So it was surprising to see the BSA introduce a sustainability badge at this time, and much more surprising when you read the requirements for getting the badge. . ..” The BSA has just gone over the cliff. They have done a lot of things to alienate themselves in the recent past but this is takes the cake. The Boy Scouts of America have just become greener than green; time to take your kids out of the scouts. So sad and so unnecessary. Shame on the scouts. [Click here to read more]
Multilateral Development Institutions Support a Robust Vision for Sustainable Development in Post-2015
World Bank | "The high-level panel recommends five transformative shifts in the approach to development: leaving no one behind; putting sustainable development at the core; transforming economies for jobs and inclusive growth; building peace and effective, open and accountable institutions; and forging a new global partnership."
In other words, taking Agenda 21 and presenting it again -- this time as if it were a brilliant new idea the global bankers pulled out of thin air -- presenting it as if it were going to transform the world into Utopia. And if you look back at the original designs of the three circles -- economy, environment, social -- of sustainable development, you would see where all three overlap the result is Utopia. How scary is that? [Click here to read more]
Detroit bonds drop, judge seeks to halt bankruptcy filing
Reuters | "The state court judge in Michigan's capital of Lansing ordered Orr to withdraw the bankruptcy petition because the state law that allowed Snyder to approve the bankruptcy violated the Michigan Constitution. The governor lacks the power to "diminish or impair pension benefits," according to the ruling by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina." Detroit is a fine example of what happens to a city under Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. All business was moved overseas, onerous restrictions and taxes were placed on the people who remained in the blighted city and nature and economic reality took their course. [Click here to read more]
Sun Herald | “The apparent inverse relationship between sprawl and social mobility obviously reinforces the case for "smart growth" urban strategies, which try to promote compact centers with access to public transit. But it also bears on a larger debate about what is happening to American society.” Krugman is at it again, attacking Constitutional values and promoting global governmental ones. Like global warming, urban sprawl is a term dreamed up to be a scare tactic. Global warming is supposed to make us afraid that we humans are killing the environment just by being alive and thus should reduce our carbon footprint to zero (of course that makes us dead). Urban sprawl is the buzzword that is supposed to make you hate the automobile, suburbia and private property and make you love smart growth -- stack-em and pack-em housing that crowds people into cities and overwhelms the infrastructure. Urban sprawl is nothing more than suburbia; those who want to kill suburbia promoted a major study a decade or so ago that was going to tell us that children raised in the suburbs would grow up to be mass murderers, that all wives were so bored with living in a nowhere land that they were subject to having affairs, and that husbands were boring brutes because they spent so many hours driving to and from work. The study showed that suburbia was a great place to live and grow up. Thus as with everything else in this brave new world, Krugman and his ilk have to promote Agenda 21 via made-up maladies such as urban sprawl. Anyway urban sprawl sounds so much nastier than suburbia, doesn’t it? [Click here to read more]
Boy Scouts of America introduce sustainability merit badge
Treehugger | “The Boy Scouts have always been strong on conservation and nature, but they have always been pretty conservative too. The concept of sustainability is controversial in much of the USA, particularly in states where the Boy Scouts are a big deal. So it was surprising to see the BSA introduce a sustainability badge at this time, and much more surprising when you read the requirements for getting the badge. . ..” The BSA has just gone over the cliff. They have done a lot of things to alienate themselves in the recent past but this is takes the cake. The Boy Scouts of America have just become greener than green; time to take your kids out of the scouts. So sad and so unnecessary. Shame on the scouts. [Click here to read more]
Multilateral Development Institutions Support a Robust Vision for Sustainable Development in Post-2015
World Bank | "The high-level panel recommends five transformative shifts in the approach to development: leaving no one behind; putting sustainable development at the core; transforming economies for jobs and inclusive growth; building peace and effective, open and accountable institutions; and forging a new global partnership."
In other words, taking Agenda 21 and presenting it again -- this time as if it were a brilliant new idea the global bankers pulled out of thin air -- presenting it as if it were going to transform the world into Utopia. And if you look back at the original designs of the three circles -- economy, environment, social -- of sustainable development, you would see where all three overlap the result is Utopia. How scary is that? [Click here to read more]
Detroit bonds drop, judge seeks to halt bankruptcy filing
Reuters | "The state court judge in Michigan's capital of Lansing ordered Orr to withdraw the bankruptcy petition because the state law that allowed Snyder to approve the bankruptcy violated the Michigan Constitution. The governor lacks the power to "diminish or impair pension benefits," according to the ruling by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina." Detroit is a fine example of what happens to a city under Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. All business was moved overseas, onerous restrictions and taxes were placed on the people who remained in the blighted city and nature and economic reality took their course. [Click here to read more]
Featured
Item
Special Report: Sustainable Development and the Control of Energy (The growing battle over Smart Meters)
As the battle against the Smart Meters
grows across the nation, Americans need to understand the
issue, the dangers, the real reasons behind the government’s
drive to force them on angry and protesting homeowners,
violating their property rights and endangering their health
in the process.
Smart Meters are designed to provide government with detailed information of your energy use, your movements in your home, the way you use your personal private time, and even how many people are in your home at any given time. It is an unconstitutional invasion of your home by government, as set down in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The American Policy Center (APC), has produced a comprehensive special report entitled “Sustainable Development and the Control of Energy (The growing battle over Smart Meters).” This report details the real reasons behind the government’s enforcement of the Smart Meters, the health and privacy violations, and the political agenda behind it all. This special report is available free at www.americanpolicy.org. I urge every concerned American to get a copy.
Every American has a duty to preserve freedom by protesting and stopping the forced installation of these devises.
- Tom DeWeese
Click here to purchase this booklet
Special Report: Sustainable Development and the Control of Energy (The growing battle over Smart Meters)
As the battle against the Smart Meters
grows across the nation, Americans need to understand the
issue, the dangers, the real reasons behind the government’s
drive to force them on angry and protesting homeowners,
violating their property rights and endangering their health
in the process.Smart Meters are designed to provide government with detailed information of your energy use, your movements in your home, the way you use your personal private time, and even how many people are in your home at any given time. It is an unconstitutional invasion of your home by government, as set down in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The American Policy Center (APC), has produced a comprehensive special report entitled “Sustainable Development and the Control of Energy (The growing battle over Smart Meters).” This report details the real reasons behind the government’s enforcement of the Smart Meters, the health and privacy violations, and the political agenda behind it all. This special report is available free at www.americanpolicy.org. I urge every concerned American to get a copy.
Every American has a duty to preserve freedom by protesting and stopping the forced installation of these devises.
- Tom DeWeese
Click here to purchase this booklet
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