

It also raises an insane question: are Atlanta's Democratic mayor, Kasim Reed, and Republican attorney-general, Sam Olens, both agents of the United Nations determined to advance the cause of one-world government and outlaw private property? Before you laugh (well, okay, after you finish laughing), this is not a joke. Such concerns come not from the LaRouchey fringe, but from mainstream Georgia Republicans. Bill Heath, a Georgia state senator, warned earlier this month that advocates of Agenda 21—a turgid, vapid, self-satisfied and of course non-binding statement of principles on development adopted 20 years ago at the Rio Conference—want to "essentially conquer the world through limiting everything we do, incrementally taking our liberties away from us." Agenda 21 was rousingly condemned at the state Republican conference last month as "an encroachment on our sovereignty" (which it might be if it were enforceable, binding, or actually did anything). And a former candidate for governor now running for commissioner of Cobb County, just north of Atlanta, condemned plans to build a jogging and biking trail alongside a highway because, "That's Agenda 21. Bicycles and pedestrian traffic as an alternative form of transportation to the automobile." Hear that, hippies? Every time you walk or bike somewhere instead of driving your car, U Thant wins.

Anti-Agenda 21 paranoia is not restricted to Georgia, either: it's national, stealthily advancing with the aid of a "cold-war mind-control technique known as Delphi", and if freedom-loving Americans do not take a stand against it now, then "they can come into New York City or wherever a raindrop falls and tell us what to do." The "they" in that sentence is, believe it or not, the Environmental Protection Agency: the forecast calls for thunderstorms today in New York; I trust a helpful reader will let me know if the first drop brings EPA agents rappelling out of helicopters. Over at WND a columnist warns that Agenda 21 may be non-binding now, but "few people understand it is standard operating procedure for the U.N. to issue a massive non-binding policy document to test the water and make adjustments to its plans before introducing the real, legally binding treaty." As an example, he cites (apparently with a straight face!) the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights leading to two 1966 UN covenants on human rights. We know how effective those covenants, whatever they are, have been, at binding the American government's behaviour, but that is apparently what we have to fear if we fail to oppose the spreading tyranny of bike paths.


(Photo credit: Alamy)