Messages, materials, and tactics of so-called “local citizen groups” from Virginia to California share strikingly similar language and logic. The Anti Agenda 21 movement is being organized and funded from afar. Some investigators point to the usual suspects who typically bankroll anti-progressive campaigns—but the money is hard to follow from the armchair where I sit. It is much easier to find—hard to miss, actually—the support and advocacy provided to anti-Agenda 21 campaigns by the John Birch Society . They distribute an “Agenda 21 Roll-back Manual” (for free) and you can buy 100 anti-Agenda 21 pamphlets for distribution at your government local meetings (for just $75, plus shipping and handling).
The motivations of the anti-Agenda 21 agitators are not clear. Is it a sinister attempt to further incapacitate government oversight of capitalist enterprises—in this case paralyze local control of the local economy? Or, is it a sincere effort to debate the balance between individual liberties and community obligations? Andrew Reinbach, in a bold Hufington Post blog, conjectures that the motives of the John Birch Society are more mundane—to attract attention and to fill its bank account.
I hope Anti-Agenda 21 advocates take a few moments to ponder whether (1) they are being manipulated and (2) whether they want to throw in with a group regularly associated with racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and communist-Freemason-Illuminati conspiracy theories. At least the John Birch Society does not shy from sharing its agenda: In response to the civil rights movements in the 1960s, for example, they sponsored a campaign opposing the use of federal officers to enforce civil rights laws.
If you are opposed to Agenda 21, make sure you know why.