Money. There has been much bluster about outside money in Whatcom County’s 2013 election. The early, high profile, aggressive entrance of environmentalist big bucks from Washington Conservation Voters, and the more recent and quieter arrival of free market big bucks from proponents of the Gateway Pacific Terminal have raised eyebrows everywhere in Whatcom County.
Today I learned of a larger proposed influx of outside
money into Whatcom County, $300,000 from the Puget Sound Partnership to
“develop a stakeholder process”, facilitating the planning stage of
repairing flood control levees. $300,000 for a contractor/facilitator to do
something different than campaign against or for a bulk shipping terminal. A
larger sum. A very quiet entry. An agreement recommended to County Council for
approval. The second coming of the failed WIT / public planner driven process.
A mercenary gauntlet thrown down to mock and demoralize the volunteer
stakeholder process of the resurrected WRIA 1 Water Planning Unit.
Recently, I saw an interesting infogram. An iceberg was
floating in the water. Visible above the surface was a layer labelled “The Exciting
Green Marketplace”. The first layer below the water was labelled “Usable Social
and Environmental Disasters”. Below that was a layer with three community
ideals: 1) Social Equity 2) Public/Private Economic Partnerships, and 3)
Sustainable Ecology. Finally, at the bottom was the philosophical foundation layer:
eradicate individualism, capitalism and free markets, and implement
communitarian groupthink with big government control of everything.
Did you get that last mouthful? Did I lose you there? I
hope not.
What will happen in Whatcom County after this election?
What is going on under the cover of election noise? Tuesday, County Council is
scheduled to look at bill AB2013-335. It is proposed that Whatcom County enter
into an agreement to receive $300,000 via the Puget Sound Partnership, the
Washington State Governor’s flagship regional non-elected board tasked with “cleaning
up” Puget Sound, among other things. Puget Sound Partnership is a regional
board. How clean is clean? Who knows? How can voters hold the PSP board locally
accountable? Ensure cleanup or “flood control” standards that don’t shift at
the ratcheting whim of communitarian puppet masters.
Regionalism. In 2012, Stanley Kurtz published a book
entitled, “Spreading the Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing The Suburbs To Pay For
The Cities.” An in depth researcher of community organizer infiltrations, Kurtz
points out how unelected regional boards are the tool of choice to bring huge
social change all across America.
Kurtz also brings to light a new network for White House
community organizers. (Not a new network for UN based NGO Smart Growth
activists). Traditionally, socialist community organizers have worked closely
with liberal church groups to achieve their goals of inner city social upheaval.
Recently, however, the newly minted agency Building One America (formed by
leaders of the scandalized Gamaliel Foundation) has added a new social change
sector—public sector employees sympathetic to the progressive goals of
socialist community organizers. The Chicago-Alinsky molded friends of the Obama
White house are noisily linking into the network quietly developed by the UN
Smart Growth radicals. There will be more big government courting of local
public planners. Liberal churches are passe.
In other words, in addition to religious social
terrorists like Jeremiah Wright, the USA now will have public planner social
terrorists to deal with. (Something Whatcom County has been dealing with for
two decades—think multiple Resources lawsuits (Carl Weimer) and Futurewise and
its unofficial first review privileges at the County Planning Department. A key element of this movement is the
shifting of governance from local elected councils to regional, appointed
boards. Does this sound like Puget Sound Partnership? Kurtz’s book deals
primarily with urban/suburban community tax base mingling. A few months ago, in
a three part series of articles linked to in today’s news digest, Kurtz pointed
out another critical mass development.
Students at Harvard recently “pressured” the
administration to divest Harvard of the stocks of fossil fuel industry
corporations. The uber progressive Harvard administration cheerily complied.
Seattle mayor, Mike McGinn has also jumped on Bill McKibben’s bandwagon,
instructing the city of Seattle to avoid holding these stocks as of now. Gas
and oil stocks are hot commodities, and such actions will really do little to
harm these corporations at this point.
BUT—and this is important, a generation of college
students are practicing “killing”, imagining the death of industrialized
society—studying fossil fuel stock divestment on their i-pads, texting about it
on their i-phones, and dreaming about it while flitting about in their parents’
Toyota Prius cars—industrial enabled conveniences. At some point, “the mother
of all dialectic struggles” will begin, and the industrial complex will be carved
up and redistributed by a matured generation of millenials.
I finish with a nod to another recently released book,
“This Town”, by veteran DC reporter Mark Liebovich. “This Town” humorously and
cynically profiles the “Beltway Club”, bloated by both Republican and Democrat
lobbyists, making fabulously huge salaries in K Street offices on the backs of
tax payers. Has K Street come to Whatcom County in the form of PSP funded
facilitators? Is the end of local volunteer government at hand?
Am I cynical? Yes. Is there a path through all this? Yes.
“Let him that stole steal no more, but rather, let him work with his hands,
that he may have to give to him who has need.” Will you or I learn to work and
share from public planners whose environmentalist consultant/facilitator
friends feed off planning grants from Puget Sound Partnership? Probably not.
Could we learn to work under the tutelage of outside fossil fuel interests
running at an environmentally sound bulk shipping terminal at Cherry Point?
That would be more probable.
Even better, learn the ropes and start your own business.
Avoid the philosopher king urge to “kill the masters” that give us lights and
communications and wheels and wings. Question the establishment
environmentalists. And, learn to appeal regional board grant driven power grabs.
In the event of failed appeal, graciously hold your nose and work the bridges. Remember
the hidden hand. All hard work brings a benefit.
And, please vote. Vote for candidates who will
deprioritize the group think zoned high density urban globalist university talking
head enclaves. Vote for candidates who will support work ethic building clean
heavy industry and the sweat of the brow value added agricultural farmer (not
just farmerless Ag land). Vote for the choice to work local and live local—in
the whole county, not just in Bellingham. --JK
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