A WEEKLY COMMENTARY
Year Twenty-One ... Number Thirty-Seven ... September 20, 1974
THE CONTRIVED EVOLUTION
OF REGIONAL GOVERNMENT
PART TWENTY
THE REGIONAL CONGLOMERATE
The Concept of Regionalism can become a quite confusing subject for study because of the many overlapping jurisdictions, bureaucratic rivalries, conflicts of interest between politicians at various levels of government, etc. A report by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), dated February 1974, admits:
"The assignment of governmental responsibility for urban functions is presently an unsystematic if not haphazard process. These patterns of functional assignment have resulted from national program initiatives; State decisions about whether to perform a service directly, indirectly or by mandating it to a lower governmental tier, or through the workings of its intergovernmental aid system; fiscal pressures ... and the historical and legal status of different types of local governments within a particular State. ... With respect to levels of government, the national government is the foremost direct provider of natural resource development and air and water transportation services. State governments are the major providers of higher education, highway, welfare and correctional services. Local governments remain the dominant actors in providing education, police, fire, sewerage, refuse collection, parks and recreation, and library services. The hospital function is evenly divided between State and local levels of government.
"However, these data do not adequately reflect the true assignment of functions since they do not take into account the impact of intergovernmental aid on these functions. When this factor is considered, the Federal government replaces the States as the major financier of welfare services and supplants local governments as the chief source of funds for housing and urban renewal, while State government becomes a more prominent financier of educational services .... "
It is when the Federal government moves in to replace State and local governments in the dispensing of services, that the situation becomes very complicated indeed. The various Federal departments and agencies then begin duplicating services, stepping on each others' figurative toes, and causing chaos generally.
Regionalism was supposed to alleviate the bureaucratic bedlam. And it was supposed to work like this at the national level:
However, the Ten Federal Regions that were created by Executive Order do not provide the total administrative control that is demanded by the Planners of the New Order! Even more weapons of control are required, and there are other factors to be considered:
"Administration of services to the people" is the stated purpose of the Ten Federal Regions. Into each of the Ten Councils that manage these Regions were placed appointed administrators representing each of the principal agencies of the Federal government that render services directly to the people: The Departments of Labor, HEW, HUD, Transportation; LEAA, OEO, EPA, with OMB in charge of the overall rulership of the people through its computerized control of Planning, Programming and Budgeting -- with the general policy-making being handed down through channels from the Office of the Chief Administrator via the Domestic Council.
The "control mechanism" in this case revolves around the Budget. An excellent example of how this control is maintained over every tiniest locality is illustrated by this article which appeared in the New York Times of Sept. 14, 1974:
"LOCAL GOVERNMENTS FACE DELAYS
"IN REVENUE-SHARING FUND SNARL
"Washington, Sept. 13 (AP) -- Some 6,000 state and local governments may face delays of three months or more in receiving millions of dollars in Federal revenue-sharing aid because they have not filed the proper forms. A Treasury Department official said that if the forms were not in by next Wednesday, the money would be delayed until early 1975. A spokesman for the Treasury Department's office of revenue-sharing said that the total amount involved were substantial (sic). Boston (scene of current school-busing controversy-Ed.) might have to wait until January at the earliest to receive $5-million it is entitled to receive next month ....
"The stumbling blocks are what Priscilla R. Crane, information officer for the government's revenue-sharing operation, describes as two, simple, one-page forms. One form, called a planned use report, describes how the revenue-sharing recipient plans to use the money .... The other form, called an actual use report, lists how the recipients spent the checks they received every three months between July last year and June this year .... "
These reports are important to the appointed controllers in Washington because, as has been previously explained: Local Politicoes and Sub-State Regional Administrators are permitted to prepare and effectuate their own local programs provided these programs fit into and complement the overall plans for the area and region, and provided the money budgeted by OMB was spent as promised and for the program as approved (the italicized words illustrate the application of the Programming, Planning, Budgeting System (PPBS) to the revenue-sharing scheme).
So much for the control and management of the people and their State and local governments through the control of "services to the people" via the Ten Regional Councils. But this is just one important part of the whole monstrosity known as the Concept of Regionalism. There are other regions, other councils, other methods of control.
For example: When the Ten Federal Regions were established by Executive Order for the "control of services to the people," there already existed Twelve Federal Reserve Bank Districts which had been established more than sixty years ago for "the control of money," or, as the Board of Directors said in an official publication: "to make possible a flow of credit and money that will foster orderly economic growth and a stable dollar" (the Feds certainly control credit and money but that bit about a "stable dollar" is no longer a joking matter).
Note that when the Ten Federal Regions were established to "control services to the people," those Twelve Federal Reserve Districts that had been established to "control money and credit" were neither altered nor abolished; instead, they continued to operate as usual.
The point we wish to make: Just as the "control of services" is essential to the Regional Concept of Governance, so is the "control of money," the "control of power and energy," the control of the development of natural resources, the control of waterways, birth control, the control of population density and the movement of people into new communities, etc., etc.
Here is where many other aspects of the Concept of Regionalism are involved, and in many instances whole new sets of Regions have been created. But they are not competitive, they are cooperative, they are all parts of the whole concept and they complement each other.
A recent exchange of correspondence will serve as an adequate explanation:
Merritt Newby, publisher of that excellent series of bulletins called the American Challenge, has on several occasions published a set of four different maps, or charts. One with which all readers of Don Bell Reports are probably familiar, delineates the World Government Plan which was drawn up and published originally by the World Association of Parliamentarians following the third annual conference of that Britishbased organization in 1953. Originally called the Parliamentarians for World Government. this group divided the world into eight Zones made up of 51 Regions. There would be a World Director, eight Zone Directors and 51 Regional Directors. The Regional Directors were to be aliens, as were the troops stationed throughout the world to enforce World Law. For instance, the United States and Canada would be divided into six Regions, each of which would be governed by an alien and policed by alien troops.
On the same page and below this World Map Mr. Newby placed the map of the United States as it has been divided into the Ten Federal Regions. On page 2 of Mr. Newby's paper was published the map which divides the United States into 22 different Regions according to the watersheds or river basins of the Continent, a map which received much publicity after exposure of the Potomac River Basin Compact.
And finally, on page 4, Mr. Newby published a map showing the "computerized population control" which will be used to resettle the people of the United States in order to prevent too much population density in any one area of the United States. Forced migration would be utilized to create 25 Regions with controlled populations in each Region.
At first glance, it would seem that since one map shows the United States divided into Ten Regions, another shows it divided into twenty-two Regions, a third shows it divided into twenty-five Regions, and a fourth shows the United States and Canada divided into only six Regions, there must be something wrong with the overall picture.
Mr. Newby was challenged on the veracity of his American Challenge, the writer saying in part: "You and others have told us the United States had been divided into ten Regions. Now you tell us it has been divided into twenty-two Regions. This does not seem to make sense at all. It has to be one or the other not both. This is very confusing to us Patriots. What Happened? I know you never change horses in the middle of the stream unless one of the horses drops dead or falls down and breaks a leg. Did the CFR change horses in the middle of the stream?"
Here is Merritt Newby's concise answer, slightly edited to provide even greater conciseness:
"Dear ...................
"Regional Government (the Ten Region Map) is the Ruling Government over all. Study the maps separately, noting the intents and purposes of each....:
"The Master Land Plan (the 22-region map) is to control the Land, Water, Natural Resources of America.
"The Population Map (the 25-region map) is a forced movement of the people into various sections of the Nation, etc.
"The Police Map (the world map) means exactly what it represents. You will be Policed!
"No horses have been changed. You have to watch Four Horses at the same time doing the same thing in a different way which, of course, is complete bondage and slavery."
We agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Newby's explanation. However, he has called attention to the four leading horses and there are others which also are "doing the same thing in a different way." There is the Federal Reserve and its Regions, the Public Power and Irrigation Districts, various Interstate Compacts, school districts that cross county 'and even State lines, etc., etc.
These are all a part of the Concept of Regional Government and are in complete opposition to the Representative Republic Concept which was the very foundation of the original American System of government.
A note of importance concerning the "Population Map" which is mentioned in previous paragraphs: This map came about as the direct result of a report on "Population and the American Future," which was prepared by The Commission on Population Growth and The American Future," submitted to the President of the United States on March 22, 1972, by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Chairman. Among other things, this Rockefeller Commission which was appointed by the President of the United States to make a study of population control, recommended:
"that state governments, either through existing planning agencies or through new agencies devoted to this purpose, give greater attention to the problems of population growth and distribution....
"that the federal government develop a set of national population distribution guidelines to serve as a framework for regional, state and local plans and development ....
"that the process of population movement be eased and guided ....
"that governments exercise greater control over land-use planning and development ....
"that a task force be designated under the leadership of the Office of Management and Budget to devise a program for the development of comprehensive immigration and emigration statistics ....
"the creation of an Office of Population Growth and Distribution within the Executive Office of the President .... "
This Rockefeller Commission also recognized "the importance of human sexuality" and recommended that sex education be available to all ... especially schools; that federal, state and local governments make available funds to support abortion services; that unwanted fertility be controlled, etc.
All such matters are included within the Concept of Regional Governance.
Land-Use Control is one of the chief reasons for the creation of the 22 River Basin Regions. The Ten Region "services to people control" does not deal explicitly with land, water and natural resources. This is where the River Basin Compact scheme becomes useful to the Planners.
It will be recalled that the Federal Land- Use Act was defeated in Congress. So, on August 27, 1974, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had placed in the Federal Register an Executive Order which does exactly what the twice-defeated Land- Use Control Law would have done. Under present procedure, an Executive Order automatically becomes "law" thirty days after its publication in the Federal Register; so, this Land-Use Law will have become effective by September 26.
EPA is, of course, one of the "service to the, people" agencies included within the Ten Regional Councils ... but in the case of Land Control, EPA prefers to work through the 22 Regions formed by Interstate River Basin Compacts. As an example: The New England River Basins Commission (one of 22 in the Nation) works with the State Departments of Environmental Protection, which are in turn controlled by the federal EPA. NERBC's annual report for 1972 says: "With anticipated enactment of National Land Use Policy proposals, the cost and complexity of state natural resources planning programs will have increased several orders of magnitude (one order of magnitude means ten times-Ed.)"
This River Basins Commission report uses the words "resource management" 70 times in an 80-paragraph text, uses the words "control" and "regulation" time after time. ... And one wonders how they were so sure in 1972 that federal Land Use Controls were to be established in 1974 despite Congressional rejection of the legislation?
But this is the Concept of Regionalism at work: If Congress won't cooperate, then an Executive Order will do the same thing in a different way. Not only at local, State and National levels, but on a world scale as well. For, in the final analysis, Regionalism is World Management and Control.
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