The Falling Star
Background
When Bill Clinton and Al Gore came into office in January of 1993, it was with a radical agenda that would have been impossible to fathom at the time. The most radical elements of environmentalism and technolust came together in the person of Al Gore. He was known as an Atari Democrat. Atari Democrats were a group of politicos who supposedly were concerned about the possibility of exodus of high technology companies to Asia. Atari was the Silicon Valley company that invented the first real computer game. It sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and the nation's capital when they announced they were leaving the U.S. for the cheaper production costs of Asia.
Fast forward to 1991, Senator Al Gore succeeded in getting the High Performance Computing Act passed which gave open access to the nation's telecommunications system (Internet) for institutional, retail commercial and consumer use. In 1992, Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance was published. It contained a chapter called Global Marshall Plan to save the world from complete and total environmental destruction due to human habitation on the planet.
"I propose the worldwide development of a Strategic Environment Initiative (SEI), a program that would discourage and phase out these older, inappropriate technologies and at the same time develop and disseminate a new generation of sophisticated and environmentally benign substitutes. As soon as possible, the SEI should be the subject of intensive international discussions, first among the industrial nations and then between them and the developing world". Earth in the Balance, P.319-320
Apparently, when a child of privilege grows up, there is no project too big and no imposition on "the little people" that is too much. What he was calling for was nothing less than rebuilding the world's infrastructure with high technology embedded under the marketing cover of "save the planet" environmentalism.
The "reinvention of government" project was announced to the public in March of 1993 but then at a 1994 Conference of the International Telecommunications Union in Brazil, the national project of "reinvention of government" through Internet-enabled efficiencies (management systems), turned into a global project with Al Gore's announcement of the global information infrastructure. This is not megalomania. It's not even gigalomania. It's teralomania!
"In this decade, at this conference, we now have at hand the technological breakthroughs and economic means to bring all the communities of the world together. We now can at last create a planetary information network that transmits messages and images with the speed of light from the largest city to the smallest village on every continent.
I am very proud to have the opportunity to address the first development conference of the ITU because President Clinton and I believe that an essential prerequisite to sustainable development, for all members of the human family, is the creation of this network of networks. To accomplish this purpose, legislators, regulators, and business people must do this: build and operate a Global Information Infrastructure. This GII will circle the globe with information superhighways on which all people can travel.
These highways -- or, more accurately, networks of distributed intelligence -- will allow us to share information, to connect, and to communicate as a global community. From these connections we will derive robust and sustainable economic progress, strong democracies, better solutions to global and local environmental challenges, improved health care, and -- ultimately -- a greater sense of shared stewardship of our small planet.
The Global Information Infrastructure will help educate our children and allow us to exchange ideas within a community and among nations. It will be a means by which families and friends will transcend the barriers of time and distance. It will make possible a global information marketplace, where consumers can buy or sell products.
It's a great plan as long as you can live on virtual groceries and pay your bills with virtual money earned on a virtual job in a virtual universe but alas, that is only possible in Al Gore's virtual imagination.
On March 3, 1993, the White House Office of Domestic Policy issued a press release that contained remarks made by Clinton to his Cabinet on February 10th that called for a literal revolution in government. Al Gore was given the assignment to lead the revolution...
"MR. GORE.... TEAR DOWN THOSE WALLS!"
"The people demand and deserve an active government on their side. But they don't want a government that wastes money, a government that costs more and does less. They voted for change. They wanted a literal revolution in the way government operates, and now, you and I must deliver."
On February 22, the Office of the White House Press Secretary released a report titled, Technology for America's Growth, A New Direction to Build Economic Strength. This report was an overview of the plans for the radical reinvention of America, centrally planned applying minimalist principles of radical environmentalism enforced through technology. Growth through reduction. Less is more. War is peace.
The project to survey the government systems was called the "National Performance Review". It was kicked off on March 3, 1993 and the "reinvention laboratories" were initiated on April 1, 1993 (Fool's Day) with a letter from Al Gore to the heads of all agencies and departments in which he said:
"... point is to pick a few places where we can immediately unshackle our workers so they can re-engineer their work processes to fully accomplish their missions -- places where we can fully delegate authority and responsibility, replace regulations with incentives, and measure our success by customer satisfaction."
In plain language, he was telling them to cease operating as a government, think as corporate Systems Analysts concerned only with operational efficiency to serve your customers. Their customers are the profit-making corporations and their non-profit, social engineering, pseudo grassroots, special interest groups. In other words, create an institution Of, By and For the Corporations and our Supreme Leaders will be the Technology Corporations and their Enviro-Psycho Non-Profit Partners.
On June 29, 1993, Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12852 creating the President's Council on Sustainable Development:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section 1. Establishment.
There is established the "President's Council on Sustainable Development" ("Council"). The Council shall consist of not more than 25 members to be appointed by the President from the public and private sectors and who represent industrial, environmental, governmental, and not-for-profit organizations with experience relating to matters of sustainable development. The President shall designate from among the Council members such official or officials to be chairperson, chairpersons, vice-chairpersons, or vice-chairpersons of the Council as he shall deem appropriate. The Council shall coordinate with and report to such officials of the executive branch as the President or the Director of the White House Office on Environmental Policy shall from time to time determine.Sec. 2. Functions
(a) The Council shall advise the President on matters involving sustainable development. "Sustainable development" is broadly defined as economic growth that will benefit present and future generations without detrimentally affecting the resources or biological systems of the planet....
In April of 1994, the President's Council on Sustainable Development issued a draft Vision Statement and Principles of Sustainable Development statement. One year later, a revised version of the Vision Statement was published. The precise language used is important for political buy-in and the statement becomes the marching orders for Systems Analysts and Designers. Because of that, the points from both statements are listed below with the earlier version in light gray if there was a significant difference.
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It's important to know who the people were besides Al Gore and Bill Clinton, who had the hubris to think they knew best how to redesign life in the United States - and in fact, life on the planet earth. The initial Task Forces for the Presidents Council on Sustainable Development included the following:
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