My First Post: The United Nations, Agenda 21, Sustainable Development, and the brand new Sustainable

Flagged for later and thank you for your time OP.

I'm going to check it out in full later.

I'm not even sure what your point is on India and Kenya, when I specifically mentioned those places to note extreme developing situations that have a long way to go. Hence, much investment and development work is occurring there. Moreover, I've authored reports on India and Bangladesh, so I'm well aware of various indicators such as nutrition. The way you are writing is again, assuming for some reason that those of us who work in this profession aren't aware of the evidence. It's quite the opposite, we have to face these issues every day and read all of these reports. And, many of us have spent substantial time in the field. I worked in Bangladesh last year for example, specifically on agriculture, food security, nutrition, and economic development.

Also, what is your implication regarding Agenda 21. I did note it in another thread briefly because the poster had made a post about Agenda 21 if I remember correctly. Given I work on such issues, why would I not respond?

originally posted by: smurfy

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14

The indicator of $1.25 or 2.00 a day comes from the most poor countries, and what it takes in those to have basic caloric intake, clothes on your back etc. It's basically so one is not starving, in let's say Kenya or India.
There are a billion people living right now off that much. The goal is to reduce that so that less people are living off of subsistence levels.

I wasn't responding to you, but thank you for the reply, however this is from India media,

" The report of the UN World Food Programme is quite unflattering. More than 27 per cent of the world’s undernourished population lives in India, of whom 43 per cent....."
I left out all the rest you can Google it. Kenya ain't so good either, Google that.
I suppose you suppose a lot of things, because you ain't the boss. Funny thing is, I only mentioned Agenda 21 for the first time just the day before here in another thread.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Great info here, thanks for doing this thread. I always found the Agenda 21 conspiracy theories to be extremely silly... however that doesn't mean I don't have criticisms for the UN. I feel that though it does do much good work there are major atrocities it fails to address. I also feel that they have become as susceptible to bribery (lobbying) by corporate and extremely wealthy individuals as the US government has.

What are your thoughts on that?

originally posted by: xuenchen
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

I'm not seeing any actual "results".

What am I missing?

Allow me to reply later with a fuller response. There is tons of evidence and progress. If you want, simply google "progress on the millennium development goals." You will see that on some indicators and goals, a lot of progress has been made. In others, a lot more work needs to be done. It also varies widely by country.

A single example of where a lot of progress has been made is universal primary education.

An example of goals/indicators that have shown wide country-level variation is chronic malnutrition . For example, some countries such as China have made amazing progress in both raising the standard of living (lowering absolute poverty) and also decreasing malnutrition. In India, Bangladesh, and many sub-Saharan Africa countries, chronic malnutrition or "stunting" still has not moved much. In India it is in the 40 percent range for children under-five and a whopping 52 percent in Bangladesh! This is referred to as the "South Asia Enigma," that despite massive economic growth in places like India, some targets like malnutrition have made little progress.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Great info here, thanks for doing this thread. I always found the Agenda 21 conspiracy theories to be extremely silly... however that doesn't mean I don't have criticisms for the UN. I feel that though it does do much good work there are major atrocities it fails to address. I also feel that they have become as susceptible to bribery (lobbying) by corporate and extremely wealthy individuals as the US government has.

What are your thoughts on that?

There are lots of valid critiques of the UN, just like there are of the US government or some other huge organization.

First, I am with you that as far as conflicts, war, international justice, the UN has a spotty record. There a lot of reasons for this. One, the problem is that it is still largely funded by the relative superpowers. Second, the same powers are what we call the permanent-five: Russia, U.S., U.K, France, and China. After WWII these were the victors and hence they installed themselves as a powerful body within the UN. ON the UN Security Council, they alone have permanent status and veto power, while other countries rotate on a two year basis. Both Russia and the US veto resolutions all of the time that arguably are necessary. For example, Russia vetoed or resisted stronger actions on Syria. The US, however, holds the record for the most vetoes. This is wrong and needs to change. Also, contrary to the claim that the UN Is trying to take country sovereignty away, the the very reason that the UN has limited power to stop conflicts or hold countries accountable is precisely because the UN Charter preserves national sovereignty strongly. This is why the UN is not granted a lot of "teeth" or power to bring to heel countries, including the US, even when countries are engaged in questionable actions.

As to the bribery/corruption part, all orgs and people can become corrupt. I am sure that some person or group in the UN, just like a lot of other organizations, is engaging in some corrupt practice. However, I think too that you have to look at what and who composes the UN. For example, the SDG working group has like 500 people from not only every country but also myriad NGOs, private sector companies, science orgs, and so on. It would be profoundly difficult to buy out all of those people. And half of them don't even work for the UN. They just get funded by their own organizations to go to these negotiations and represent an issue.

originally posted by: xuenchen
a reply to: Astyanax

True Conservatives only "consume" what is necessary and without government interferences and totalitarian authoritarian big money agendas.

Many people believe the Left-Wing malarkey definitions that usually describe themselves.

And who are "true conservatives." Seriously, "sustainable development" and environmentalism precisely surrounds producing and consuming that which is necessary and does not "live beyond the means" of our planet. Real environmentalism IS conservative, in the sense that it "conserves" natural resources and "balances the natural checkbook."

With all due respect, I see a lot of the fake conservatives, especially Republican, very much resisting any conservation efforts, moves to make production/consumption sustainable, move away from fossil fuels, etc. It's the Republicans and their like that fight tooth and nail the entire concept of sustainability, climate change, and so on.

Ironically, on average liberals are the ones who are into "conserving" the environment. Here is where the conservatives switch places with liberals, with too many conservatives wanting policy based on abject exploitation of the environment and liberals wanting to conserve the environment. This makes the liberals the conservative ones in this regard.

If a "true conservative" extrapolates their values regarding economy and balanced budgets to the environment and ecosystems, after studying the science, they would have to become proponents of sustainability and environmentalism, for those have the same philosophy but extrapolated to the macro system.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

I agree that there needs to be a world-wide consensus on sustainability that certainly isn't my issue with the UN... in fact I would like to see the UN make it a focal point more than it has. Almost every conflict in the world forms its base from trying to control resources, culture and religion are just tools to accomplish getting the most resources for the least effort/cost. As you said the big guns control the dialogue of this, which I think allows just enough lip service to appear to care... leaving the UN itself a limp noodle.

The idea of the 'elites', 'tptb' wanting a one-world government is a logical fallacy... it's the last thing any player on that field wants, division serves much better for controlling resources.

a reply to: Kali74

Ore equals war.

The UN is a tool. "The United Nations Headquarters complex was constructed in stages with the core complex completed between 1948 and 1952. The Headquarters occupies a site beside the East River, on 17 acres (69,000 m2) of land purchased from the foremost New York real estate developer of the time, William Zeckendorf, Sr. Nelson Rockefeller arranged this purchase, after an initial offer to locate it on the Rockefeller family estate of Kykuit was rejected as being too isolated from Manhattan. The US$8.5 million (adjusted by inflation US$83.4 million) purchase was then funded by his father, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who donated it to the city.[6] Wallace Harrison, the personal architectural adviser for the Rockefeller family, and a prominent corporate architect, served as the Director of Planning for the United Nations Headquarters. His firm, Harrison and Abramovitz, oversaw the execution of the design."

Lol, what does that quote even mean. I spend most weeks precisely at that headquarters. Pretty normal people round them parts.

I am well acquainted with the Rockefeller conspiracies in general.

And truth be told, I live at Rockefeller built International House, right next to the Rockefeller funded Riverside Church. However, the dude really was a magnate of his time and he built a lot of things.

originally posted by: Kester
a reply to: Kali74

Ore equals war.

The UN is a tool. "The United Nations Headquarters complex was constructed in stages with the core complex completed between 1948 and 1952. The Headquarters occupies a site beside the East River, on 17 acres (69,000 m2) of land purchased from the foremost New York real estate developer of the time, William Zeckendorf, Sr. Nelson Rockefeller arranged this purchase, after an initial offer to locate it on the Rockefeller family estate of Kykuit was rejected as being too isolated from Manhattan. The US$8.5 million (adjusted by inflation US$83.4 million) purchase was then funded by his father, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who donated it to the city.[6] Wallace Harrison, the personal architectural adviser for the Rockefeller family, and a prominent corporate architect, served as the Director of Planning for the United Nations Headquarters. His firm, Harrison and Abramovitz, oversaw the execution of the design."

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

I agree that there needs to be a world-wide consensus on sustainability that certainly isn't my issue with the UN... in fact I would like to see the UN make it a focal point more than it has. Almost every conflict in the world forms its base from trying to control resources, culture and religion are just tools to accomplish getting the most resources for the least effort/cost. As you said the big guns control the dialogue of this, which I think allows just enough lip service to appear to care... leaving the UN itself a limp noodle.

The idea of the 'elites', 'tptb' wanting a one-world government is a logical fallacy... it's the last thing any player on that field wants, division serves much better for controlling resources.

Agree generally speaking. Actually, if it gives you any hope the UN really is moving mostly towards sustainable development, as these goals demonstrate.

The Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals represent the most substantial and comprehensive multi-national work the UN has done for decades, if not ever beyond the actual charter.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14
Nice OP... Glad to have you enlighten us with some 'boots on the ground' UN stuff...

I have never dug into Agenda 21 enough to to have a real opinion on it. The OP is full of nice 'pie in the sky' things we all would like to see happen. I read through the thread and haven't seen much discussion on what are in my opinion the biggest hurdles to getting this done..

Foremost, you use the figure of $1.25 per day per person to eliminate extreme poverty. In a hypothetical world ruled by a Socialist world body this extreme poverty wouldn't be a problem. The world creates enough food and wealth that nobody should starve to death right now or ever. The real underlying problem is the monetary system and how its wealth distribution benefits the few leaders of the established economies with no real incentive to help the poor. If you start giving away your profits to help the poor on another continent it won't bode well for your stock price. For most companies philanthropy is ranked far below profits in the business plan. Your description of Agenda 21 is basically a 180 from what the raw rules of capitalism say your should do with money (it should be used to increase profit).

When you combine the appetite(greed) for profits with the debt-backed currency the economy eventually gets to a point where the largest corporations in the world will be subsidizing most of the population for every basic need in order to maintain civility. Individuals will either be able to live comfortably off their 'investments' in these corporations or you will be a laborer that is forced through taxes to help subsidize the basic necessities for all the people who are living in less-than-wealthy conditions. The problem is the few in control of the monetary system can control the lives of billions with the tools they have.

To me it seems that they are playing into these elite hands when they nominalize the amount of dollars it takes to feed the poor. It takes 3 meals a day to feed them, not $1.25. If we could just allocate resources better rather than pushing money around to make things happen we could solve problems. Every time someone spends $1.25 to help the poor the currency-makers have already secretly taken their share. Each year the amount they take gets exponentially larger (compounding interest)... I guess it's just hard for me to believe what you claim Agenda 21 is trying to accomplish as anything more than a plan to make people become further indebted to the central banks because all we need is $1.25 of their product (debt money) per day to eliminate extreme poverty?

How can the UN reduce the infant mortality rate in the Unites States, which is among the highest in the developed world?

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14

You, or your friend, make a lot of claims that under scrutiny can be seen as false. Do tell me, how exactly does he plan to... let's read below...

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14
1.1 by 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day

1.2 by 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions

"Eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere". It does "sound too good to be true right"?... Normally when something "sounds too good to be true" it's because...

Anyways, first of all to be able to "eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere" the UN would have to have power over the "sovereignty of individual nations". Otherwise, how can the UN proclaim that by 2030 it will "eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere" without interfering with EVERY nation's sovereignty? You can't guarantee something will happen that you have no control over. This means the UN, and world elites do plan to have ALL CONTROL by 2030... next...

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14
1.4 by 2030 ensure that all men and women, particularly the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership, and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services including microfinance

Again, more claims that "sound too good to be true"... So the UN plans, among many other things, to "ensure that ALL MEN AND WOMEN have equal rights and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services"... Once again, in order to "ensure" all of the above this means the UN will control ALL lands, and properties, as well as have a say on inheritance, how much natural resources each person can use, as well as what technology to use alongside assuring that everyone under their control has the same type of finances and services... That is exactly what socialism and communism does meanwhile claiming it has nothing to do with socialism or communism... I wonder how exactly does the UN plans to reach all these goals since to do so they must have ALL CONTROL...

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14
1.5 by 2030 build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations, and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters

Oh wow, so that means pretty much that the UN and the IPCC would have control over anything they claim that can cause climate change, since the IPCC itself claims the ongoing climate change is caused by "men and women"... What this means is... more control over the actions of men and women "to protect the environment".... So more control for "the good of the planet" meanwhile those people in power do whatever the heck they want, they pollute the Earth as much as they want but the little person, that's you and me, would be controlled on every aspect of our lives...

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14
1.a. ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular LDCs, to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions

1.b create sound policy frameworks, at national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies to support accelerated investments in poverty eradication actions

Proposed goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture
...

Again, do tell me, how the hell does your friend thinks they would reach those goals without interfering with national sovereignty of nations and without more control over every natural resource, controlling all land, controlling all economy, and in general control everything?...

Could you explain that?...

All I see is nothing but rhetoric camouflaged on pretty words to try to lure the average person to believe that to achive all of these things we all must give up our freedoms...

a reply to: SouthernForkway26

In a hypothetical world ruled by a Socialist world body this extreme poverty wouldn't be a problem.

Indeed. And what a shame that such a world could never come into being.

Socialism can't work. You know the reasons why; you mention them in your post. Greed, disagreement as to means and ends, the tendency of power and resources to concentrate in the hands of elites, which then use them to their own benefit and at the expense of others — these things, which have undermined any socialist programme ever undertaken, are an essential part of human nature. And human nature does not change.

Capitalism and liberal democracy acknowledge these realities and work with them. But capitalism is supposed to be restrained by the power of states, and states are, in democratic societies, supposedly controlled by their electorates. That system is now breaking down everywhere due to a Devil's bargain between statesmen and capitalists, a deal brokered by technology. No political genius has yet found a workable way of preventing that alliance.

Conservatism is a useless agenda. All it can offer are outmoded solutions, ones that have been amply proven not to work any more. Classic liberalism and socialism are both equally impotent. No currently existing political system or philosophy is capable of delivering welfare, freedom and justice.

Still, we must do what we can to ease the troubles of the world, no?

BTW, should I dig up an actual paper from the UN, or in this case the branch of the UN known as UNESCO, that explains how they plan to do all these things mentioned by the op?...

“The governments of Europe, the United States, and Japan are unlikely to negotiate a social-democratic pattern of globalization – unless their hands are forced by a popular movement or a catastrophe, such as another Great Depression or ecological disaster“

These governments would not accept a "social-democratic pattern of globalization" unless their hands are FORCED by a popular movement (Occupy and Anthropogenic Global Warming movements), another Great Depression (the current GLOBAL economic crisis), or an ecological disaster (Global Warming being blamed on humans)

Democratising Global Governance:

The Challenges of the World Social Forum

by

Francesca Beausang


ABSTRACT

This paper sums up the debate that took place during the two round tables organized by UNESCO within the first World Social Forum in Porto Alegre (25/30 January 2001). It starts with a discussion of national processes, by examining democracy and then governance at the national level. It first states a case for a "joint" governance based on a combination of stakeholder theory, which is derived from corporate governance, and of UNESCO's priorities in the field of governance. As an example, the paper investigates how governance can deviate from democracy in the East Asian model. Subsequently, the global dimension of the debate on democracy and governance is examined, first by identification of the characteristics and agents of democracy in the global setting, and then by allusion to the difficulties of transposing governance to the global level.

www.unesco.org...

The above paper is from 1991 from the UN (UNESCO is a branch of the UN in case you didn't know). It, and the meetings these globalists have been having call for a GLOBAL SOCIALIST/FASCIST GOVERNMENT derived from CORPORATE GOVERNANCE...

That is a socialist/fascist one World Government, and people like you will get your wish soon enough and see the truth...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Me thinks the psychosis is strong with you.

Use the psychosis, EU!!

How about the full context of that little quote you provided.

If the current global governance system is so flawed, how feasible is it to reform it? The 1970s witnessed a major campaign to achieve a New International Economic Order more favourable to the interests of the developing world, which ended up in failure following the debt crisis. Do new factors make a new order any more politically feasible today? According to Sandbrook, "the governments of Europe, the United States, and Japan are unlikely to negotiate a social-democratic pattern of globalization - unless their hands are forced by a popular movement or a catastrophe, such as another Great Depression or ecological disaster" (Sandbrook, 2000). Hence the central role of civil society in the possibility of changing global governance. "Popular movements will need to unite the new social movements - the environmental and development-oriented NGOs, human-rights associations, peace activists, consumer protection groups, anti-poverty alliances, students' associations - with the older movements, especially labour" (Sandbrook, 2000).

followed by:

Lipschutz (1996) has a very different conception of global civil society. He defines it as "a transnational system of rules, principles, norms, and practices, oriented around a very large number of often dissimilar actors, focused on sustainability and governance". On the basis of this concept, Lipschutz redefines the notion of governance: rather than the state or international institutions, for him, it is global civil society itself that can modify the underlying constitutive rule basis of modern civilization and develop new modes of local as well as transnational governance. It thereby lays the basis for broad institutional, social and political change. In that sense, governance becomes a quite different proposition than "global management". While global civil society can be complementary to the state in some ways (states and civil society interact dialectically, recreating and legitimating each other over and over), the state is engaged in government; civil society in governance.

In other words, Lipschutz sees the growth of institutions of governance at the civil society level of analysis, with concomitant implications for state and system. Subsumed within the system of global governance, he sees "institutionalised regulatory arrangements - some of which [he] calls "regimes" - and less formalized norms, rules, and procedures that pattern behaviour without the presence of written constitutions or material power".

For him, the strategies of global civil society must involve more the creation or transformation of systems of rule and rules, than the reform of big institutions and structures, which is bound to fail, as shown by Aureano. "The activities of global civil society are to help to change the ideational frameworks that support one set of constructions of social reality by replacing old intersubjective rationalities and ethics with new ones". In other terms, global civil society's role is to create new bodies of knowledge that are the basis for changes in beliefs and practices. This role of global civil society is undeniable and constitutes the essence of a renewed meaning of the word governance. However, to say that global civil society is the sole shaper of governance constitutes a mistake: the emphasis on global civil society should not displace states, in that the latter have a role in implementing change as well.

While global civil society can modify the set of ideational frameworks of states, it remains that the material embodiments of ideational frameworks will be significantly determined by states, so that global civil society should not be seen as divorced from the latter. Governance remains shared. Global civil society cannot be seen as a replacement for states nor institutions.

Link

It's actually difficult for me to imagine you're not a paid shill at this point. Either you are psychotic, and have a need to ignore relevant information, or you truly are paid to re-contextualize bits of information from many sources to create walls of texts that portray an image that is FAR, FAR from the truth.

It's just bizarre to see this coming from someone.

So what exactly is a stakeholder theory?

Stakeholder theory is a theory of organizational management and business ethics that addresses morals and values in managing an organization. It was originally detailed by R. Edward Freeman in the book Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, and identifies and models the groups which are stakeholders of a corporation, and both describes and recommends methods by which management can give due regard to the interests of those groups. In short, it attempts to address the "Principle of Who or What Really Counts."[1]

In the traditional view of the firm, the shareholder view, the shareholders or stockholders are the owners of the company, and the firm has a binding fiduciary duty to put their needs first, to increase value for them. Stakeholder theory argues that there are other parties involved, including employees, customers, suppliers, financiers, communities, governmental bodies, political groups, trade associations, and trade unions. Even competitors are sometimes counted as stakeholders - their status being derived from their capacity to affect the firm and its stakeholders. The nature of what is a stakeholder is highly contested (Miles, 2012),[2] with hundreds of definitions existing in the academic literature (Miles, 2011).[3]

The stakeholder view of strategy integrates both a resource-based view and a market-based view, and adding a socio-political level. This view of the firm is used to define the specific stakeholders of a corporation (the normative theory (Donaldson) of stakeholder identification) as well as examine the conditions under which these parties should be treated as stakeholders (the descriptive theory of stakeholder salience)

Link

This is ABSOLUTELY NEEDED ASAP. The current corporate model is beneficial towards SHAREHOLDERS, not all these other parties.

This is a HUGE step forward. It's based on humanities global needs, not the ridiculous dystopian future you paint. You're just so confused and out of your element. Did you even bother to read the whole documents you linked? Or do you just sift out bits that match your warped views? How can you not notice the parts that completely discredit your views? How is this possible for someone? Your need to believe this junk is so high that you can't handle the cognitive dissonance which would result from taking all the information in, or is it that you are a paid shill. Which is it?

There is no reasoning in what you present. There is just things taken out of context, which when viewed by laymen who has not read the documents in full, with understanding of each term used, may think it means what you say it does. It's just so sad to think some people may be taken in by your delusions, or agenda, whichever it may be.

WHY?

originally posted by: pl3bscheese
It's actually difficult for me to imagine you're not a paid shill at this point. Either you are psychotic, and have a need to ignore relevant information, or you truly are paid to re-contextualize bits of information from many sources to create walls of texts that portray an image that is FAR, FAR from the truth.

I thought we weren't meant to call each other paid shills?

You do seem to be defeating yourself with the old, "You're just mad" insult. People who used to say that to me turned out to have very nasty skeletons in their closets.

This is one of the best things I have seen posted on ATS. I find myself coming to ATS for a little while and then leaving a while because at times ATS gets filled with stuff that is just too far out there. Yet this was totally worth reading. The UN has it`s hands full with the entire Agenda 21 and attempting to improve the lives of humans the world over. I think political economy is one of the biggest things that serves as a stumbling block for building a better world. Nations with the power to get what ever they want keep doing so at will regardless of how their actions effect people globally. America, along with several other nations, are not making things easier at all.

The UN does need a bit more teeth but the problem with that is how to structure the UN in a way which does not allow nations with a large amount of political economy end up running the entire show and exploiting the world even more than they do now.

a reply to: Astyanax

Every government and every economy in the last 10,000 years has failed.

Why should anybody think this new set-up would work ?

Sounds like another banker scam.

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14
Introduction

I have to say that contrary to the claims of the UN being a vehicle for the New World Order, or wanting to dissolve national sovereignty, or what have you, on a daily basis at the UN we are talking about how the UN really has no teeth and may never because the very UN Charter guarantees national sovereignty and most UN resolutions and or compacts are basically voluntary for each country.

We all know that the UN currently has no teeth, but wouldn't that be the point of the conspiracy theory...those insiders at the UN want to change this, so that they do have the teeth?

a reply to: xuenchen

They didn't fail. Politics is a kind of arms-race between the rulers and the ruled. No system of checks and balances is permanent. People always find ways to work the system, because that is human nature. Monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy, democracy, communism, socialism... they all work for a bit.

We need something new now.