Conservatives Have Turned a New World Order Conspiracy Theory Into an Effective Tactic

[pampango]

How right-wing scaremongering about a U.N. global takeover has evolved into a surprisingly effective political strategy across the country.


The only thing standing between American freedoms and the United Nations is people in Colonial garb.

The specific target of the Missouri legislation may be well-known to heavy consumers of conservative media, but most Americans have probably never heard of it: Agenda 21, a nonbinding resolution that was signed by President George H.W. Bush and 177 other world leaders at the end of the United Nations’ 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The effort was hailed at the time as an important, albeit voluntary, action plan to promote sustainable development in the face of a rapidly expanding global population, but ultimately failed to become much more than a feel-good Democratic talking point back in the United States. In 2012 a full 85 percent of Americans didn’t know enough about the U.N. resolution to have an opinion on it, according to a poll commissioned by the American Planning Association that summer.

Not everyone forgot about it, however. Agenda 21 remained front and center for a subset of right-wing conservatives who warned that it was a harbinger of a looming new world order that would culminate with the seizure of land and guns, and an end to the American way of life. If that last part sounds like the plot of a dystopian novel written by Glenn Beck, well, that’s because it is.

While not the first to raise the anti-Agenda 21 flag, Glenn Beck has probably drawn the most attention to it. He repeatedly used his perch on Fox News early in the decade to warn of an impending one-world order. His magazine, the Blaze, put Agenda 21 on the cover of its January/February 2012 issue, calling the resolution a “global scheme that has the potential to wipe out freedoms of all U.S. citizens."

But what began as a far-fetched conspiracy theory has since transformed into an effective, almost methodical movement to block the type of “livability” initiatives that President Obama and his allies have made a priority. If you look past the black helicopters in the anti-Agenda 21 origin story, you’ll find a series of smart-growth-blocking victories at the state and local levels in nearly every corner of the country. The movement, fueled largely by groups like the John Birch Society and the American Policy Center, has found mounting success by targeting sustainable development efforts on multiple levels, from the individual projects themselves to the state policies that make them possible.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/agenda_21_how_right_wing_conservatives_have_used_an_nwo_conspiracy_theory.html

I used to think that the far-right's fixation on Agenda 21 was an almost humorous distraction that kept the wackos from focusing on more important matters. It turns out that the folks that fund this thing might just be getting what they want.