My Radio Interview with Dan Elmendorf on Redeemer Broadcasting

My friend Dan Elmendorf, who lives in nearby Olivebridge, runs Redeemer Broadcasting,  a Christian radio network that airs locally and in a couple of other states. The stations are FM WFSO Olivebridge, 88.3, Kingston, 105.3 Catskill, 101.1, Newburgh, 90.3 WNEQ, Taylortown, New Jersey 90.3, and WXMD California, Maryland 89.7.  

Dan interviewed me last Friday, and the interview aired today. The subject was the United Nations and its Agenda 21, which Olive residents know from the town plan battles of the past few years.  The link is http://www.redeemerbroadcasting.org/podcasts/apa_030715_Agenda_21--M_Langbert.mp3

Agenda 21--No

PO Box 130

West Shokan, NY 12494

July 19, 2013

Senator Chuck Schumer

322 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC  20510

Dear Senator Schumer:

Agenda 21 is a mistake, and I oppose it and Andrew Cuomo's Leaner and Greener Communities program.  The concept of sustainability is vacuous.  Like freedom and equality, it can mean anything, and it can be used to institute tyranny.  The Agenda 21 document is based on a fallacy:  rich countries are rich because they make poor countries poor.   I don't know what they taught you at Harvard, but if that belief is consistent with what you know, then Harvard made you ignorant.

People become rich for four reasons:   (1) the marginal value of their labor is high because they have skills that make them productive*,   (2) they work hard, (3) they save their money,  and (4) government provides a stable, limited support to their hard work and  saving and does not arbitrarily interfere, steal or redistribute their earnings.   In contrast, the UN claims that people become rich by stealing from the poor.

The US already has a sufficient level of government.  While coordination among governments is a worthy aim, there is no need for the UN to be involved, even if through a non-binding agreement, with economic regulation.  In fact, though, the implementation of the economic illiteracy in Agenda 21 has not been non-binding.  Through policies like Andrew Cuomo's Leaner and Greener Communities program, one of which is Engage Mid-Hudson, government is turning Agenda 21 into law.

Andrew Cuomo's program is based on deception.  The regional leaders have lied and claimed that there was consensus at the meetings, but there was no consensus.  I was present when the leaders of the Engage Mid-Hudson meeting suppressed those who vocally opposed the ideas that the document expresses.   Opponents were not allowed to be involved in the process.   The document is based on a ridiculous aim, 80% reduction in carbon emissions, that cannot be accomplished without major technological breakthroughs and that, if implemented, will create an unsustainable economy that will make New Yorkers poor.  Who wants to live in a country that will support the Leaner and Greener Communities program, a program that establishes regional soviets to implement ignorant, socialist economic strategies?  My ancestors came here to escape tyranny, not to recreate it.  

The UN has no place in the governance of the American economy, and the US should rescind its association with the Agenda 21 document.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

*William Lewis observed that the organization of work is a critical factor to national productivity levels.  The phrase "marginal value of labor" assumes that hardworking entrepreneurs have, over a period of time, invented work processes with escalating levels of output. Such improvement cannot be accomplished through government because it depends on the ability to fail, go bankrupt, end programs, and learn--processes that no government can implement.

Pennsylvania Town Rejects Agenda 21

Lynne Teger forwarded a February Lebanon Daily News (LDN) article about West Cornwall, Pennsylvania's rejection of Agenda 21.  West Cornwall is in southeastern Pennsylvania's Lebanon County. LDN says that the town passed a resolution opposing Agenda 21 and then withdrew from the state's regional plan.  As the article points out, Agenda 21 is a UN-based plan to globalize the world economy and redistribute wealth from more to less economically productive nations' citizens.  It aims to eliminate property rights by imposing taxes that one-percent property owners can easily afford but that those with constrained resources cannot. The United States signed it under George H. W. Bush, and the nation has funded its implementation ever since through the President's Council on Sustainability and, more recently, through a range of government agencies.

In the Empire State, Andrew Cuomo, emperor of economic destruction, has funded 10 regional councils or soviets to implement Agenda 21-based plans.  The regional soviets are Emperor Andrew's first goose-step toward attacking local democracy.  Given the abject failure of the emperor's economic policies, it stands to reason that  His Majesty Il Duce now pursues fascistic environmental policies.  

One of the tactics that proponents of Agenda 21 use is to forestall intelligent conversation by claiming that Agenda 21 does not exist or that it is a "tin foil hat" conspiracy theory.  Such proponents usually have not read the document and have not thought through the implications of global redistribution of wealth and soviet government.

Agenda 21 is no more a conspiracy theory than is the World Trade Organization, NATO, or the UN itself; you can read it here.   Under town plans like the Woodstock, Saugerties, and Olive, New York comprehensive plans, people who live in rural or suburban areas with constrained cash flows or limited means will be the first to see their lifestyles curtailed.  In exchange for escalating taxes and ever-increasing environmental regulation and control, the towns will build cramped urban housing in mixed-use areas. 

Engage Mid-Hudson: Bad for You, Bad for Me

 I sent this email to David Church, Orange County (New York) commissioner of planning, and Thomas Madden, planner for the Town of Greenburgh.  Church and Madden led an Agenda-21-inspired regional planning charade called "Engage Mid-Hudson." The plan is packed with lies and superstition.  Church and Madden are front men for Andrew Cuomo and Barack Obama, who are pushing for regional plans that aim to destroy Americans' living standards through ill-considered environmental regulation.  Cutting carbon emissions by some predetermined amount is based on ignorant, junk science advocated in places like The New York Times by badly educated "environmental scientists" who are ill equipped to evaluate the limits of their own training.  Ms. Muller is the public relations officer for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which funded 10 regional organizations with $10 million each to draft half-baked regional environmental plans. The Engage Mid-Hudson plan is here.

Dear Messrs. Church and Madden and Ms. Muller:

I am writing an article for The Lincoln Eagle, an 18,000-circulation monthly paper in Kingston, NY, concerning Engage Mid-Hudson’s regional green plan (executive summary attached) that was released in May.  I have a few questions for you.  Please address these concerns either in writing or by telephone:

(1)    “(The plan) was developed through a consensus-building process. “  At the initial meeting there were a number of protestors who voiced concerns about the plan. The plan does not address their concerns. At one point in the initial meeting you threatened to evict those who were disagreeing, although you rescinded that threat.  You did not appoint any who disagreed to officer positions, reserving your organization’s formal appointments  for connected retired IBM employees like Herb Oringel and other corporate-and-government insiders.  Although you ultimately were cordial in the initial meeting, the plan is misleading because it does not mention the sharp disagreement that was made evident to you and that you have failed to address.  This is also evident on your group’s website, which asks for reactions to the plan but does not permit a negative reaction. 

There is no consensus, and your plan’s claim that there is is a falsehood.  In particular Lynn Teger’s group Citizens for the Protection of Property Rights in the Mid Hudson Region was excluded from the process. If you wish to contact Ms. Teger, she can be reached at teger.lynn@gmail.com . If you do not wish to contact her for her group’s input, I would appreciate an explanation as to your selective choices as to who got to be invited to your charade.  IBMers, yes. Property rights activists, no.  There is no consensus because major opponents of your “non-binding”  plan were excluded.

(2)    You claim that carbon emissions cause global warming.  Yet, here is a graph of 5 million years of climate change, and current temperatures are well below those of five million years ago, when there were no human carbon emissions.  How is it possible that the climate is now cooler than it was before humans existed if climate warming  is anthropogenic?  If you do not know the answer, please explain why you claim to know the sources of climate change in your report, but really you, your consulting firm, Francis Murray, Andrew Cuomo,  climate scientists, and the environmental movement are ignorant about it.

(3)    You make the claim that you aim to “reduce the region’s overall contribution to climate change.” Please produce empirical evidence of any kind that specifically shows that the Catskills and Hudson Valley region make any significant contribution to climate change.  On what factual evidence other than hearsay from your consulting firm and the ignorant parties previously noted do you base this claim?

(4)    How much did you pay Ecology and Environment, Inc. to frame this plan?  The plan is a knock-off of other ICLEI-and-Agenda 21-based plans; a monkey could have copied it off other plans for free.  Please explain why 300 people who supposedly participated in this planning process came up with a model that already exists in hundreds of plans around the world.
 

(5)    In the 1930s, there were the dust bowl storms, which were worse than any storms occurring now.  Please provide me with evidence of this claim: “Critically, climate change can impact the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. The Mid-Hudson Region is already challenged by extreme weather events, particularly flooding, as evidenced in the recent hurricanes Irene and Sandy. “  Was Sandy the first hurricane or storm to affect the region? I think not.  In 1821 a hurricane made landfall in New York, flooding Manhattan to Canal Street. 

(6)    Your report lacks evidence of an understanding of cost-benefit tradeoffs.  Even if windstorms increase by 50%, is that a rationale to curtail living standards by 50%? Please clarify how you calculated the tradeoffs in the report’s many far-fetched, extreme claims, such as that there is a need to reduce automobile use or to force people in rural settings to move to urban ones.

(7)    You write that the region needs to “become radically less energy and fossil fuel intensive while strengthening the regional economy.” Please provide data or empirical evidence that the region needs to become less energy and fuel intensive.   There is no evidence that the regional economy can become stronger without fossil fuels. You implicitly make the claim that it is possible, but there is no empirical evidence that it is.  Please provide some.  You wild, unverified claims amount to superstition, not intelligent policy making.

(8)    The reduction in available farmland was caused by a massive building binge that was funded through sub-prime mortgage lending.  Earlier, the Federal Reserve Bank expanded the money supply over a century, in part to fund energy-intensive centralized agriculture, suburban development, and the automobile industry.  Could you please mention that Andrew Cuomo in 1993 had proposed expansion of home building to include sub-prime borrowers, which led to increased use of farmland for home building and ultimately harmed the financial industry? First, Cuomo advocated massive expansion of private home ownership.  Now he is attacking private home ownership.  Can you please reconcile these wild vacillations in the direction of Mr. Cuomo’s maelstrom?

(9)     You write that you aim to “foster economic development” and “make all growth smart growth.”  The term “smart growth" is vacuous and nonsensical.  Historically, economic growth occurs in the absence of government regulation.  I do not believe that you or your crew of IBM bureaucrats have the slightest idea as to how to foster economic growth.

The best way for New York to grow is to abolish Engage Mid-Hudson and fire three quarters of New York’s vampire government.  Would you please explain your track record in fostering economic development in a state that has lagged the national economic performance for decades? To be precise: What do you know about economic development?  Is Orange County successful in developing economically compared to North Dakota or other carbon energy-developing states?

(10) You make the claim that tourism can strengthen the area’s economy. Do you have any evidence that you know how to develop tourism?  You remind me of the film Roger and Me in which Flint, Michigan attempts to turn itself into a tourist mecca. They succeeded in further damaging their blighted economy--which was not as blighted as New York’s.

(11) Engage Mid-Hudson has no authority to pass legislation or regulation, yet you write in terms of targets. How can you implement targets if you have no authority?

Agenda 21 Materials

Tom Sipos of Hudson Valley Focus interviewed me this morning on WKIP Poughkeepsie talk radio.  The topic was Agenda 21.  Tom asked that I post some links to educational material concerning Agenda 21. Incredibly, there are people who believe that Agenda 21 is a conspiracy theory. As I mentioned on the air, that claim is the conspiracy theory.  Agenda 21 is as real as you and me.

Here are some useful educational links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WmG1txDsVs


http://www.williamsontngop.org/Fighting_Agenda_21/

http://www.republicanassemblies.org/rnc-adopts-resolution-exposing-agenda-21/

http://www.patriotupdate.com/articles/totalitarian-program-agenda-21-now-in-effect#.TocezvLmoXI.facebook http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzEEgtOFFlM 


http://www.freedomadvocates.org/research_center/ http://www.freedomadvocates.org/ 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZz1H6TWB5g&feature=related 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuJwQyZ2pHk&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRv6yOWEyTQ&feature=related  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEHWsdimVO4&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEzbQotyu9k&feature=related

http://mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2012/07/rosa-koire-speaks-to-town-of-olive-on.html

http://mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2011/09/hudson-valley-focus-interview-re-agenda.html

Http://mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-2nd-hudson-valley-focus-interview-re.html

Burn the UN Flag Day: October 13, 2013

Kenneth Christian Matteson posted this on Facebook Events.  He proposes October 13, 2013 to be Burn the UN Flag Day. Every day should be Burn the UN Flag Day.  Protestors should bring a few of these to the Kingston, NY planning board and burn them on the days when they discuss their plan.

The Enemy is Progressivism, Not Obama: Dinesh D'Souza's 2016

I just saw 2016: Obama.  Dinesh D'Souza is right: Obama is a traitor.  Nevertheless, the film's lack of historical perspective is troubling. D'Souza's ignoring history allows him to exaggerate Obama's importance.  Moreover, D'Souza colors his facts wrong.  For example, indebtedness that has arisen during Obama's administration is not new.  The president who threw the U.S. into a pattern of heavy indebtedness was D'Souza's former boss, Ronald Reagan.  Moreover, the bigger financial problem is the Republican-and-Democratic-supported bailout.

D'Souza claims that Obama is using debt to bankrupt us. He forgets that Reagan's supply-side economics was just a variation of Keynesian economics. D'Souza forgets that it was Nixon who took us off the gold standard and so permitted the past 40 years of Fed plundering; he forgets that it was George W. Bush, supported by both McCain and Obama, who initiated $29 trillion--more than twice the American economy--in Federal Reserve subsidies to banks. Obama's indebtedness is tiny in comparison to the Fed's 2008 and 2009 bailouts, which the Republicans as well as Obama conceptualized and continue to support.   

Traitors linked to Wall Street and the Council on Foreign Relations have been running America for a century. The Republicans have plenty to answer for, such as Prescott Bush's and other Brown Brothers Harriman associates' funding of Stalin and Hitler as Anthony Sutton outlines in his history of Skull and Bones.  Sutton describes how David Rockefeller met on a regular basis to trade ideas with a Soviet ambassador at a time when it was illegal to do business with the Soviets. The CFR favored trade with and subsidies to the Soviet Union at a time when billions were being spent to build defenses against them, and more than  50,000 Americans died in Vietnam.

In other words, the disloyal, internationalist pattern started with Woodrow Wilson, JP Morgan, and Bernard Baruch, and continued through David Rockefeller and the investment bankers of today.  Obama is a symptom of Federal Reserve-based capitalism, but D'Souza paints him as a radical new cause.  It was George H. W. Bush's administration that signed the anti-American, anti-colonialist UN Agenda 21. If anti-colonialism is new to the highest levels of American policy making, as D'Souza claims, why did Bush sign Agenda 21?   It is true that Obama is aggressively implementing Agenda 21, but if the Republicans oppose it, why did Bush adopt it? What did Bush mean by new world order, a phrase taken out of the history of Progressivism and Skull and Bones, and does Bush's new world order differ from Obama's in more than a few details?   

Since the beginning of Progressivism in the late 19th century, the Progressives have posed false dichotomies, aiming for a synthesis that differs from both thesis and anti-thesis. The roots of Progressivism were in the nineteenth century German universities where the first American Progressives, such as Daniel Coit Gilman, creator of the modern American university, were educated.  Left versus right, liberal versus conservative,  and Republican versus Democratic  serve to divert attention from the synthesis:  massive rents paid to special interests and Wall Street via the Fed's counterfeiting mechanism.  Both Democrats and Republicans have consistently excelled in paying them.  The political synthesis that will result from totalitarians like Obama and Romney is totalitarianism, but the way to fight it is to step outside the conflict and destroy its pretended universality, not to demonize Obama.  The kind of false dichotomy that D'Souza offers is part of the totalitarian trend.

The points that stick in my throat are Obama's apparent anti-Zionism, hostility to Israel, and hostility to the British.  An America that transfers tens of trillions of dollars to banks will not be of much help to Israel in any case.

Say No to Engage Mid Hudson July 30 6:00 PM Newburgh

This "Engage Mid Hudson" Agenda 21 organizing stuff in our own neighborhoods is serious stuff -  Wake up - this is not good - mert
The program was announced (supported) by Gov Cuomo in 2011 (who would have guessed that)  They hope to impliment Agenda 21 in Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullvan, Ulster, and Westchester Counties.  This first meeting is July 30, from 6:00PM to 8:30PM at SUNY Orange Newburgh Campus, in the Great Room, Kaplan Hall.  This is an attempt at a huge power grab and if it moves forward, it will totally affect you daily life, adversely.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mitchell Langbert <mlangbert@hvc.rr.com>
To: NYLibertyAlliance-list <NYLibertyAlliance-list@meetup.com>
Sent: Fri, Jul 20, 2012 11:48 pm
Subject: [NYLibertyAlliance] Engage Mid Hudson (Agenda 21 pseudo) Public Meeting July 30

(1)    The first meeting of Engage Mid-Hudson will be on Monday, July 30. Engage Mid-Hudson covers the Southern and Northern Westchester Energy Action Consortia up through Ulster County (and everything in between).   If you haven’t been following Engage Mid-Hudson, it is the latest manifestation of the regional push to implement UN Agenda 21 through non-governmental organizations that violate republican and constitutional principles by providing a carte blanche to exercise eminent domain and other authoritarian planning tactics that obviate republican standards and freedom.  Please bring your friends who favor private property rights, oppose eminent domain, and oppose authoritarianism.   I have linked below to a video of Rosa Koire’s recent talk in Olive and, as well, my recent interview on A-21 with Tom Sipos on Hudson Valley Focus. 

The idea would be to attend the meeting and, where possible, raise key issues like these:  property rights,  your preference for freedom and market processes over authoritarian and government-based ones, the failure of state-based solutions to improve the economy, improve equity, or help the environment,   your opposition to eminent domain, and your opposition to granting legislative power to non-governmental organizations (NGOs).    The view that no NGO should be permitted legislative, zoning, or eminent domain authority needs to be loudly voiced.  

These are not distant concerns. The purpose of Engage Mid-Hudson is to establish a vehicle that will usurp republican local government authority and establish eminent domain and zoning authority for Engage Mid-Hudson or a successor NGO. This will be used to implement radical environmental policies that will increase in severity over time.  

http://www.rocklandrecycles.com/docs/Engage_Mid-Hudson_Public_Meeting_Evite.pdf

(2)    Several people on the New York Liberty list wanted to discuss our strategy for discussing A-21 with Congressman Gibson. At his kick-off event he was interested enough to ask for information, and we thought we’d meet with him.  Please contact me if you want to work on preparing a presentation and setting up a meeting with him.

(3)    Links:

http://www.rocklandrecycles.com/docs/Engage_Mid-Hudson_Public_Meeting_Evite.pdf

http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2012/07/rosa-koire-speaks-to-town-of-olive-on.html

http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-2nd-hudson-valley-focus-interview-re.html

FOIL Requests Re Town of Olive Route 28 Scenic Bypass

PO Box 130

West Shokan, New York 12494

July 19, 2012

Ms. Sylvia Rozelle

Town Clerk

Town of Olive

PO Box 180

West Shokan, NY 12494

Dear Ms. Rozelle:

At a recent public meeting Town Board member Bruce Lamonda stated that he had revised the Town of Olive Plan. When I e-mailed him for a copy, he said that it is not available.  Either there is a revised plan or there isn't.  Please state which.  If there is a plan,  I would like to see it.  

Today I have heard allegations from another Town of Olive resident that the town has conducted secret meetings with the Department of Environmental Preservation and Department of Environmental Conservation and has offered to transfer zoning authority to them.  

Under the provisions of the New York Freedom of Information Law, Article 6 of the Public Officers Law, I hereby request a copy of records or portions thereof pertaining to (or containing the following):

The revised Town of Olive Comprehensive Plan to which Mr. Lamonda alluded.

If the allegations are true, copies of all correspondence, signed agreements, and other documents between the Town of Olive and the Department of Environmental Preservation or the Department of Environmental Conservation concerning transfer of zoning or other legislative authority.

I understand there is a fee of $.25 per page for duplication of the records requested.  If the fee exceeds $20, please contact me before duplicating the records.

As you know, the Freedom of Information Law requires that an agency respond to a request within five business days of receipt of a request. Therefore, I would appreciate a response as soon as possible and look forward to hearing from you shortly.

If for any reason any portion of my request is denied, please inform me of the reasons for the denial in writing and provide the name and address of the person or body to whom an appeal should be directed.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

845-657-846

mlangbert@hvc.rr.com

PO Box 130

203 Watson Hollow Road
West Shokan, NY 12494

July 19, 2012

Records Access Officer
NYS Department of Environmental Conservation
625 Broadway
Albany, New York 12233-0001

Re:      Freedom of Information Law Request for Records Regarding Central Catskills Collaborative and Scenic Byway Nomination Final Draft of Project Description

Dear Records Access Officer:

Under the provisions of the New York Freedom of Information Law, Article 6 of the Public Officers Law, I hereby request a copy of records or portions thereof pertaining to (or containing the following):

The Route 28 Corridor Byway Plan, either 130 or 230 pages depending on conflicting media reports, associated with the Route 28 Central Catskills Scenic Byway Nomination Final Draft of Project Description. 

A copy of any Town of Olive Plan your department has drafted or negotiated as part of the negotiations concerning the Byway Plan.

A copy of the Route 28 inventory associated with the Byway Plan

Copies of all correspondence between your department and the Catskill Watershed Corporation and your department and the Town of Olive concerning the 28 Corridor Byway Plan.

Minutes of meetings concerning the above-referenced plans, specifically including any discussions of  transfer of  zoning functions from Olive or other Route 28 towns to your department.

I understand there is a fee of $.25 per page for duplication of the records requested.  If the fee exceeds $200, please contact me before duplicating the records.

As you know, the Freedom of Information Law requires that an agency respond to a request within five business days of receipt of a request. Therefore, I would appreciate a response as soon as possible and look forward to hearing from you shortly.

If for any reason any portion of my request is denied, please inform me of the reasons for the denial in writing and provide the name and address of the person or body to whom an appeal should be directed.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

845-657-846

mlangbert@hvc.rr.com

PO Box 130

203 Watson Hollow Road
West Shokan, NY 12494

July 19, 2012

FOIL Records Access Officer
Department of Environmental Protection
59-17 Junction Boulevard, 19th Floor
Flushing, NY 11373

Re:      Freedom of Information Law Request for Records Regarding Central Catskills Collaborative and Scenic Byway Nomination Final Draft of Project Description

Dear Records Access Officer:

Under the provisions of the New York Freedom of Information Law, Article 6 of the Public Officers Law, I hereby request a copy of records or portions thereof pertaining to (or containing the following):

The Route 28 Corridor Byway Plan, either 130 or 230 pages depending on conflicting media reports, associated with the Route 28 Central Catskills Scenic Byway Nomination Final Draft of Project Description. 

A copy of any Town of Olive Plan your department has drafted or negotiated as part of the negotiations concerning the Byway Plan.

A copy of the Route 28 inventory associated with the Byway Plan

Copies of all correspondence between your department and the Catskill Watershed Corporation and your department and the Town of Olive concerning the 28 Corridor Byway Plan.

Minutes of meetings concerning the above-referenced plans, specifically including any discussions of  transfer of  zoning functions from Olive or other Route 28 towns to your department.

I understand there is a fee of $.25 per page for duplication of the records requested.  If the fee exceeds $200, please contact me before duplicating the records.

As you know, the Freedom of Information Law requires that an agency respond to a request within five business days of receipt of a request. Therefore, I would appreciate a response as soon as possible and look forward to hearing from you shortly.

If for any reason any portion of my request is denied, please inform me of the reasons for the denial in writing and provide the name and address of the person or body to whom an appeal should be directed.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

845-657-846

mlangbert@hvc.rr.com