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Don't
Trust the Trusts
Bumper stickers around Grand Staircase Escalante warn against the Grand
Canyon Trust. I am an activist environmentalist and it just about took a
two-by-four to the head till I believed it.
Story
by Toni Thayer
I set out to get a little information, enough
to at least disprove the bumper sticker "Don't Trust the Trust!"
Instead, I was led into a worldwide web of names - separate, entangled,
and branched.
I
thought they were environmentalists, but they weren't. I was finally
investigating the Grand Canyon Trust's Board of Directors.
My boyfriend, Steve Gessig, badmouthed
the Trust during our first two years together, blaming them for his town's
demise. He grumbled about the enviros' connections to the World Bank and
United Nations and plans to eliminate American sovereignty.
I, however, am the avid environmental
activist and refused to believe his undocumented accusations. I had
firsthand experience with the Trust in Flagstaff, AZ.
For years, I worked with their staff on
joint projects and committees, attended their workshops, and met in their
offices. They were my friends.
Living in Escalante, Utah, Steve's
perspective was different, encircled by the United States' largest land
theft, the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.
The Trust spearheaded the designation
in 1996 with a mission to protect and restore the Colorado Plateau canyon
country. The Plateau is, basically, the Colorado River basin - beginning
in northern Utah, encompassing all of southern Utah and northern Arizona,
and extending into western Colorado and New Mexico.
The Colorado River is the giver of
life, both water and electricity, to the southwest and the downstream
metropolitan regions of Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego.
The Trust made promises back then:
"Other existing uses of these public lands are not affected by the
proclamation [of the monument], including hunting, fishing, hiking,
camping and livestock grazing."
They lied. The 1.9 million acres have
been shut down with access allowed in only a few areas. New federal
workers moving into town freely come and go, beyond the
"restricted" signs that keep locals from their families'
traditional sites.
New resource production has ceased even
though the area is rich in coal, oil, gas, uranium and timber. The world's
cleanest-burning coal is located in only two spots - the Monument and
Indonesia.
The Grand Staircase field is so vast it
can't be accurately valued. It has tentatively been estimated at $1.3
trillion.
The Trust doesn't want any cattle
grazing on the Plateau, an idea that's backed by federal government
intimidation and harassment of the ranchers. The ranchers are feeling the
pinch of the oppression, the drought, and their rising debt.
They're selling out and ending
centuries-old family cattle careers. Enviro groups are scooping up their
grazing permits. Rich second homeowners and large cattle corporations are
buying their lands.
A million tourists each year have
replaced the resource-based economies and 5,000 cows. They fly by all of
the beauty and zoom through the little towns, not spending much, mainly
wanting water and sewer services.
The 11,000 residents in two affected
counties carry the burden of providing infrastructure and services for the
increased load.
From tourist-haven Flagstaff, I know
tourism does not pay livable wages and that it causes major disparity
between the haves and have-nots.
I couldn't understand why the Trust
wanted tourism when enviros often cited studies showing its negative
impacts and lost community revenues.
It didn't make sense to take such a
clean, pristine and remote area, and market it to a million tourists. I
also knew that all profits stem from resource production. It was
hypocritical and outright wrong for Americans to consume most of the
world's resources and, at the same time, shut down our resource
production.
Then what? Go to other countries and
rape and pillage their landscapes to fulfill our hungry resource needs?
Rural, southern-Utah towns are reeling
from the never-ending limitations and changes put upon them by the
"citified" environmental groups. They have few jobs, if any.
Houses are put on the market as older generations descended from the
Mormon settlers die and their offspring move to the cities for work.
In Flagstaff, no one knew much about
the Trust's board, but everyone knew that current president, Geoff
Barnard, brought his extremely rich contacts when he came to town in 1995.
Some said the board changed then, from members who truly cared about the
Colorado Plateau to ones who brought their big assets to the table.
It turned into a "think tank"
with interests other than the environment. I decided to get the answers
myself and I sat down at my internet browser and entered board name after
board name looking for key words. Amazingly, there they were with each and
every search - international, global, worldwide, United Nations, World
Bank.
Only five of the 22 directors resided
within their Colorado Plateau scope of interest. The remaining 17 were
from all corners of the U.S. - New York City, Fort Worth, Aspen, Phoenix,
Tucson, Albuquerque.
Tons of information surfaced. Business
and industrial achievements popped to the forefront, not environmental
endeavors.
There were major news and magazine
articles, partnerships and deals, foundation and nonprofit boards,
published books and papers, committees and meetings.
These were not your everyday leaders
either. Their companies were the oldest, largest, and first in our nation.
They were worldwide market leaders, global, the West's leading authority,
the Best in America, and nationally recognized experts and attorneys.
The more I looked, the more I found.
There's more, more, more... United Nations' committees, World Bank
conferences, international seminars, international inventions, economic
development, zoning boards, intergovernmental panels, international
eco-tourism development, and Indian gaming.
I began noticing that some of the
Trust's officers and directors also served on the national boards of other
big enviro groups - The Nature Conservancy (TNC), The Wilderness Society,
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, World Wildlife Fund, Defenders of
Wildlife.
A few of them swapped positions amongst
themselves and from group to group. My investigation into the national
boards of the largest enviro groups confirmed investigative author Ron
Arnold's findings of similar global, corporate interests and their
foundation funding to many enviro groups.
TNC seemed to be a major player in the
Trust with president Geoff Barnard working for them for 23 years, office
sharing in Flagstaff, and numerous crossover board members and paid staff.
Barnard's wife represented TNC when they moved to Flagstaff.
Rumor has it that Jim Babbitt found
Barnard and brought him to the Trust. Most environmentalists are against
monster corporate entities, but here they were, sitting on the board of
our most "trusted" environmental group.
Little ol' Flagstaff had some real
heavy hitters in its midst. I knew this was no ordinary board with its
highly influential members and well-thought-out structure.
It was a secret hidden in plain sight.
We just never thought to look. A few weeks into my research, I learned
that the Trust had rejected a proposal from EcoResults to restore riparian
areas on the Plateau with cows and the cattle stomp.
EcoResults <www.ecoresults.org>,
as previously reported by this magazine, uses "rural land stewards -
ranchers and farmers" and a twist on holistic management to bring
back barren land. Local ranchers have produced "some of the
healthiest riparian areas in the U.S." and have a multitude of
endangered and threatened species moving onto their restored lands. I
thought this was the perfect solution to the grazing problem.
President Barnard thought differently,
saying they couldn't be expected to change their minds about cows
overnight. This seemed logical enough on the surface, but the Trust had
known about Dan Dagget's restoration techniques for seven years since they
funded the printing of his book, "Beyond the Rangeland
Conflict."
Okay, I admit it, I was wrong. I
thought they were environmentalists, but they surely aren't. I thought
they were my buddies, but I've been used and betrayed.
Environmentalists need to realize who
their partners are, and land-rights people should know that "worker
bee" enviros are unaware of their leaders' true characters.
My eyes have been opened, but I've got
to ask, "Have yours?" My research didn't stop at industrial
wolves disguised as enviro sheep. It goes much, much deeper, way down to
the bottom of the Rockefeller "think tanks."
This is only one small piece of a much
larger pie. Webster's defines a legal conspiracy as "an agreement
between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal
purpose through illegal action."
It's been coming together for quite
some time. It's right before our eyes. We need only look. American leaders
have talked about it for decades, authors have exposed it, and the
information is readily available.
Implementation is accelerating, and we
are feeling many of its effects - terrorized citizens stripped of their
constitutional rights, economy tumbling out of control, seizure of public
lands, killer droughts and forest fires, torrential rains, desperately
hungry wildlife, distressed and dying forests.
The Trust's board members led me
straight into the conspiracy. The Rockefeller "think tanks" have
different names, but they all have the same board and membership
structure.
Each works towards the ultimate goal of
One World Order, fulfilling their particular piece of the total pie. It's
a pyramid effect, with the top groups planning strategies for their
assigned geographical areas and setting timelines for completion.
They implement the strategies through
their numerous tentacles of lower subgroups that take action, track their
progress and report back to the higher groups.
Membership is by invitation only. They
supposedly want "the highest level unofficial group possible,"
but actually have extensive U.S. government-appointed and elected
officials.
The U.S. Departments of State, Defense,
Security and Treasury are well entrenched with multiple, high-ranking
secretaries, ambassadors, trade reps, and chairmen.
The remaining membership includes the
world's richest CEOs and financiers, union leaders, media, nongovernmental
organizations and educational facilities.
Harvard is the predominant university
involved. Just like the Trust, the directors hop back and forth from group
to group, and members are involved in many groups. One of the first
established was the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). It's the think
tank for U.S. strategies.
Marxist Edward Mandell House founded
the CFR in 1921, after eight years as President Woodrow Wilson's chief
advisor. House's dream was to socialize America from the inside out, by
taking control of both political parties, using them to implement the
socialist government, and by establishing a central state bank.
During Wilson's first year in office in
1913, the U.S. passed the Federal Reserve Act, establishing our central
bank as the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB). This took control of money
production and economy away from the U.S. Congress and gave it to an elite
group of private bankers.
William McDonough, FRB president, is a
Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral member. The Trilateral
Commission (TC) is a replica of the CFR in structure and membership
interests, but has strategies for broader geographical areas - the
Americas (U.S., Canada, Mexico), European Union, Pacific Asia.
The Trilateral countries' "growing
interdependence" from the 1970s is today "deepening into
globalization" with "the need for shared thinking and
leadership."
The Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie
Foundation provided the critical initial funding for the CFR. David
Rockefeller is listed as the founder, honorary chair and lifetime trustee
of both the CFR and Trilateral Commission.
Former or current elected Trilateral
members are Vice President Dick Cheney; U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein,
John D. Rockefeller IV, Charles Robb and William Roth Jr.; U.S.
Representatives Jim Leach, Charles Rangel and former Speaker of the House
Thomas Foley.
For some interesting reading, check out
one of their books, "The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and
America's Purpose" (CFR) or "21st Century Strategies of the
Trilateral Countries: in Concert or Conflict?" (TC).
The world's government is the United
Nations. Just a few months ago, Switzerland finally joined, the last
country to do so. The only other member "country" outstanding is
the Catholic Church. After it joins, all sought-after, prospective members
will have been enlisted.
Here's a few of their recent
happenings: China's Accession to the World Trade Organization: The Red
Work Begins; UN and Decolonization; International Conference on Financing
for Development; Millennium Development Goals, New Agenda for the
Development of Africa.
The world's central bank is, of course,
the World Bank with the International Monetary Fund (UN groups, both work
together and are really the same entity).
Developing countries borrow from
traditional banks due to deficits. When they can't meet their repayment
schedule, the WB/IMF steps in and pays off their debt. In turn, the
country must change its government to a democratic state (countries in
transition) and meet standards that are impossible to reach.
As government and economy collapse,
regional chaos ensues. The WB and UN step in to create peace and take
collateral for the unpaid debt.
One theory says our federal lands are
held by the WB for U.S. debt, but as yet this remains undocumented.
It's time to wake up and to wake up all
of those around you. We've run out of time for complacency. Do you care
about your kids' and grandkids' futures? Do you really approve of the plan
lying on the table? It's time to stand up, exercise our rights and demand
an America that works for Americans!
What happened to us-the land of the
free and the brave? Free and brave are interlocked. You can't have one
without the other. It's time to take it back.
This whole scenario and Americans'
sleepiness reminds me of the Jews and Hitler. Do you remember what
happened to the Jews who didn't act?
Toni Thayer is a researcher, writer,
political activist and consultant. Her website www.spirithelps.com has
information on public lands "and the state of the Earth."
Reprinted from Range Magazine - Winter
2003, with permission. Subscription information: 1-800-RANGE-4-U.
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