As detailed in the report A Critical Analysis of Agenda 21 - United Nations Program of Action, Agenda 21 is a collectivist plan for world government, based on the concept of "sustainable development". The concept of sustainability and sustainable development was brought into the public debate in 1987 with the publication of the Our Common Future report. This report lists The Ford Foundation as a significant financial contributor. (For a more detailed explanation of the Our Common Future report, and how it relates to United Nations Agenda 21, read A Brief Examination of "Our Common Future": The Report That Gave Birth To Agenda 21)
Another direct connection of Agenda 21 to the Ford Foundation comes from the Foundation's open support of civil society organizations (CSO's) that advance "the sustainable development conventions associated with the 1992 Earth Summit", the event where Agenda 21 was introduced.
In an effort to make this analysis easy to follow, various aspects of Agenda 21 will be broken down into categories, the connection to the Ford Foundation of each of these categories will be discussed, and later a description will be given of how it is being implemented in the state of Connecticut.
World Government
Long before Agenda 21 was introduced, plans for world government have been discussed by various people, and organizations. In relation to the Ford Foundation, the idea of a world government was propagated by former associate director of the Ford Foundation, Robert Hutchins.
The views and influence of Robert Hutchins deserve their own in-depth analysis, especially when discussing the Ford Foundation connection to United Nations Agenda 21, but for the sake of brevity we will just briefly discuss his legacy. Robert Hutchins served in various influential positions in American society including President of the University of Chicago, associate director of the Ford Foundation, and chairman of the Fund for the Republic. Hutchins was a proponent of world government, and while serving as President of the University of Chicago, was the head of the Committee to Frame a World Constitution. This is how the Chicago Tribune, in 1948, described Hutchin's World Constitution:
"The 'declaration of duties and rights' of this world constitution, which is not called a 'bill of rights,' does not even mention freedom of speech or of the press, guaranteed in the 1st amendment to the United States Constitution, nor does it enumerate more than two of the 22 specific items of freedom, or limitations upon government, established in the first ten amendments which make up the American Bill of Rights.
Along with the 'duties,' which limit the 'rights' in the Hutchins committee's draft, is the declaration that all property, including private property, 'is the common property of the human race,' and that private property shall be subordinated to "the common good," which is to be established by the new 'world government'."In the book The Ford Foundation: The Men and the Millions
, author Dwight MacDonald discusses how some Americans threatened to boycott Ford cars because they considered the Ford Foundation to have a "liberalistic flavor", and viewed Robert Hutchins, and former President of the Ford Foundation, Paul Hoffman, as "wild-eyed One Worlders". MacDonald also discusses how some of the Ford Foundation trustees found various decisions by Hoffman to be objectionable:"Some of the trustees are also said to have objected to Hoffman's "controversial" personal activities, such as his enthusiasm for the United Nations and UNESCO, his support of ex-Senator Benton when the latter was sued by Senator McCarthy, and his politicking to win the Republican nomination for Eisenhower. " (pg. 149)
Communism
When looking into UN Agenda 21, a researcher will continuously come across a connection to Communism, and communist principles. As briefly discussed in the article Go To Work and Give The Government Your Children: The Feminist UN Agenda 21 Plan To "Empower" Women , people with dubious connections to Communism, such as Alger Hiss and Mikhail Gorbachev, have played major roles in the creation of the United Nations, and its various programs.
Tracing the Ford Foundation's questionable ties to Communism will lead back to the early 1950's, when the United States House of Representatives created a special committee to investigate tax-free foundations, after allegations that some of the major foundations were engaging in activities considered to be subversive to the United States. The committee uncovered surprising information, connecting groups like the Ford, and Rockefeller, Foundations with the funding of anti-American, and collectivist, organizations, and literature. For more information regarding the findings of this committee, I suggest reading the book Foundations: Their Power and Influence
by Rene Wormser. Wormser was actually a part of the congressional committee commissioned to investigate the great tax-exempt foundations, and wrote "Foundations" to document some of the findings of the committee.The chief investigator of the congressional committee investigating the tax exempt foundations was Norman Dodd. In an interview several years after the closing of the commission (video clip below), Dodd revealed incredible details of a conversation that he supposedly had with the then President of the Ford Foundation, Rowan Gaither. Dodd says that Gaither told him, among many other incredible revelations, that the directive of the Ford Foundation was to alter life in the United States, and merge it with the Soviet Union:
"We are here to operate in response to similar directives, the substance of which is that we shall use our grant-making power so to alter life in the United States, that it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union."
(Norman Dodd discussing conversation with Ford Foundation President Rowan Gaither)
Merging the American capitalist system with the communist Soviet system appears to be exactly what the Ford Foundation has been working on for decades. For one example, it was revealed in the Reece Committee hearings how the Ford Foundation, along with the Rockefeller Foundation, were funding Communist scientists to come to America to study, during the Cold War. As Wormser writes in his book, published in 1958:
"A startling example of Ford Foundation Foreign Policy is its recent grant of $500,000 to allow Polish social scientists, architects, engineers, and writers to study in the United States and Western Europe, and for a few American and European scholars to study in Poland. The Rockefeller Foundation has joined this new procession and has announced a $475,000 grant to Poland 'for scientific research in agriculture and medicine.'" (Foundations, pg 269)In an article published in 2014, Marcin Kula, a historian and sociologist at Warsaw University in Poland, discusses how the the influence of the Ford Foundation's program in Communist Poland was "intended to close the gap between Polish sociologists and the Western social sciences, scholarships for study at universities in the United States being the primary means of achieving this." This Ford Foundation influence would have a lasting impact on Poland as it transformed from a communist centralized one-party system into a multi-party democracy. As Kula describes it:
"The fact that many Polish sociologists, amongst whom were Ford grantees, joined the ranks of the opposition that led to the transformation, points to the fact that the Ford Foundation’s scholarship program was effective. This policy proved sensible in a later example, concerning the Soviet Union, as well. Surely it was not a coincidence that among the first four Soviet grantees to travel to the United States in 1957, two became leading reformists, while one – Aleksander Jakowlew – is considered to be the brains behind Perestroika..."An organization funded into existence by the Ford Foundation, the Fund for the Republic, has also had a controversial history in terms of its connection to Communism, and promotion of collectivism. One example of this is when Arthur Dean resigned as director of the Fund for the Republic, after the President of the Fund, Robert Hutchins, hired a former communist, Amos Landman, who had a short time earlier "taken the Fifth" and refused to tell a Congressional committee whether he had been a Communist Party member or not, to the public relations staff.
Population Control
There are several United Nations related conferences and programs that deal with the topic of controlling the number of humans living on this planet, or population control. Those propagating the Agenda 21 program believe that the Earth has a set number of people that are capable of living on it, which they refer to as "Earth's carrying capacity" in the Agenda 21 document, and that something must be done to curb the growth in population.
An informative document to read, connecting The Ford Foundation to the concept of Population Control, is The Ford Foundation: Founder of Modern Population Control by Martin Morse Wooster. In this report, Wooster connects the Ford Foundation with the funding, and influence, of various population control organizations such as the Population Council and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, as well as being a main influence behind getting the United Nations to enthusiastically adopt and support programs of Population Control.
Performing a 'grant search' on the Ford Foundation website will reveal how the Ford Foundation continues to fund organizations like the Population Council, and Planned Parenthood.
The previously mentioned analysis "Go To Work and Give The Government Your Children: The Feminist UN Agenda 21 Plan To "Empower" Women" gives a more detailed explanation of how these population control organizations relate to the Agenda 21 program, as well as the connection to the Rockefeller Foundation. The Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation are involved in many joint-ventures, and have collaborated on countless programs and events.
Human Settlements in Connecticut
One concept that is constantly being propagated in Agenda 21 related literature is the idea that the high standard of living in industrialized nations is hurting the planet. The abundance of private motor vehicles, and the multitude of single family homes built away from dense population centers, are two aspects of American life that are criticized for being "unsustainable". Reducing the ownership of private motor vehicles, increasing the ridership of public transportation, and focusing multi-unit housing development along transit lines are the goals of various governments and organizations that have adopted the "sustainable development" philosophy. When tracing the origin of these government programs, and the funding of these organizations, large tax-free foundations, like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, will usually be involved.
Discussed in the analysis In Response To Michael Nicastro's Criticism of Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theorists are the polices, programs, and organizations pushing to reduce private motor vehicle ownership in Connecticut, as well as their connection to Agenda 21. One of the organizations discussed is the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. (TSTC).
The TSTC describes itself as a "non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to reducing car dependency in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut". As pointed out in the analysis Agenda 21 in Connecticut: The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, the TSTC is funded by many foundations with direct connections to Agenda 21, and uses their resources to influence local and state governments in Connecticut to pursue "sustainable development" projects and programs. One of the "campaign supporters" of the TSTC is the New York Community Trust, which received over $100,000 from the Ford Foundation in 2010. Another "campaign supporter" of the TSTC is the One Region Funders Group, which lists the Ford Foundation, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation as funders of their organization.
The Ford Foundation also gave $1,000,000 to the Regional Plan Association (RPA) in 2014. In the previously mentioned article, In Response To Michael Nicastro's Criticism of Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theorists, it was explained how the RPA appears to be working to subvert the sovereignty of local governments, in an effort to transfer decision making power to non elected bureaucrats at larger, regional levels. To gain a greater understanding of how this blurring of conventional borders is an aspect of Agenda 21 read A Critical Analysis of Agenda 21 - United Nations Program of Action
Further evidence that shows the Ford Foundation involvement in this "anti-car" movement is their "Metropolitian Opportunity" program. The Ford Foundation website for the program says this:
"At the national level, we support research and advocacy that makes the case for prioritizing public transit funding over financing for roads and bridges."In the article Agenda 21: The Rockefellers Are Building Human Settlement Zones In Connecticut it is described how the Agenda 21 plan is to encourage the construction of "human settlement" zones, which are areas that focus housing, school, jobs, and "culture", along transit lines, like bus or rail. As discussed on their website, the Ford Foundation, also believes in this idea:
"To help low-income families in metropolitan areas move toward financial stability and security, we promote the development of homes that are linked to public transportation, good schools, secure employment, and help provide innovative finance tools to purchase and maintain them."In 2006, the Ford Foundation sponsored an event in conjunction with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Regional Plan Association (RPA) called America 2050: Towards a National Strategy for Prosperity, Equity and Sustainability: The Second Annual Policy Roundtable on Mega-Regional Development. According to the Introduction section of the text version of the event:
"The goal of the America 2050 initiative is to plan for the expected 40% increase in population in the U.S. before the year 2050 and to launch survey and research initiatives in the mega-regions, where most of the population and economic growth is expected to take place."As with Agenda 21, this America 2050 event envisions a future world where the majority of people are living in crowded cities, and relying on public transportation as their only form of transportation. With the amount of relevant information covered, this conference deserves its own in-depth analysis, but for the sake of brevity we will just briefly mention some of the more important associations and discussions of this event.
Two of the participants in this America 2050 event, Bruce Babbit and Scott Bernstein, were on United States President Bill Clinton's Presidents Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), created through executive order in 1993. As stated on the United Nations official website, "the PCSD was conceived to formulate recommendations for the implementation of Agenda 21."
According to the report from the America 2050 event, Babbit expressed interest in how the federal government can influence and control comprehensive land use planning in local towns and cities. According to the document:
"Mr. Babbitt introduced the idea of conditionality, a central theme of his book. In the context of receiving federal money, states can be motivated to plan at the local level if incentives are imbedded in the federal programs. Federal courts, he noted, have never restricted conditions set on federal money to states...While a unilateral federal approach to comprehensive land use planning is not part of our culture, targeted land use planning driven by conditionality and appropriations has proven successful. The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are strong examples. Emphasis should therefore be placed on motivating downward through the federal system and conditionality – that is the attachment of conditions to go along with federal funding on the state and local level."Another attendee of the event was a professor from the University of Michigan, Robert Fishman. Fishman apparently immediately let his collectivist bias, and his hatred for private property, be known from the beginning.
"Robert Fishman began by noting the difficulty of national planning in a market society and the national “cult of private property.”Quite interestingly, out of all the bad things happening in this world, "the most pressing evil," according to Fishman, is sprawl, or "the expansion of human populations away from central urban areas into low-density, monofunctional and usually car-dependent communities."
One last notable mention of a Ford Foundation influence in Connecticut is the funding of a program to expand the school day called the TIME Collaborative. The Ford Foundation website says that they are involved with funding five different states to "significantly expand and redesign their school calendars." Federal officials in the Obama administration have repeatedly spoke of their intentions to increase government involvement into the lives of children. As discussed in the previously mentioned analysis, Go To Work and Give The Government Your Children: The Feminist UN Agenda 21 Plan To "Empower" Women, Kathleen Sebelius, who served under Obama as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Arne Duncan, the US Secretary of Education, have both mentioned the administrations initiative to enhance programs of government involvement into the lives of children that "start at birth," including "home visiting." Important to note, Arne Duncan was at the announcement of the TIME collaborative, along with Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy, speaking in favor of the initiative. Also important to note is the connection between the organization collaborating with the Ford Foundation on this project, the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The NCTL says that they are "generously supported" by the Carnegie Corporation. The Carnegie Corporation deserves it's own in-depth analysis as it is an organization that has been extremely influential in the creation and design of the modern school system, as well as other major areas of society, but for the sake of brevity will be left for another time.
This has been just a brief look into the real forces and agendas that are driving much of American society. The Goodman Chronicle will continue to document the various Agenda 21 related organizations and programs throughout the state of Connecticut. For a greater understanding of the topics discussed, follow the links provided throughout the analysis.
Related Reports:
- Toll Roads, Gas Tax Increase, and Other Schemes That Connecticut Is Mulling Over To Force You Onto Public Transportation - January 29, 2015 (link)
- A Brief Examination of "Our Common Future": The Report That Gave Birth To Agenda 21 - November 19, 2014 (link)
- In Response To Michael Nicastro's Criticism of Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theorists - October 15, 2014 (link)
- Go To Work and Give The Government Your Children: The Feminist UN Agenda 21 Plan To "Empower" Women - August 22, 2014 (link)
- Agenda 21: The Rockefellers Are Building Human Settlement Zones In Connecticut - March 26, 2014 (link)
- A Critical Analysis of Agenda 21 - United Nations Program of Action - November 01, 2013 (link)
- Agenda 21 in Connecticut: The Tri-State Transportation Campaign - August 22, 2013 (link)
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