"STRONG CITIES NETWORK" POLICE STATE~U.N. & AMERICAN CITIES JOIN FORCES TO CREATE GLOBAL POLICE FORCE INITIATIVE~CONGRESS & CONSTITUTION BYPASSED AGAIN

GLOBALIST COUP SUBVERTS

GOVERNMENTS' LAWS;

SILENCES FREE SPEECH, LOCAL CONTROL

UNDER GUISE OF PREVENTING TERRORISM

TURNING OUR LOCAL POLICE 

OVER TO A GLOBAL INITIATIVE 

WITHOUT CONGESSIONAL APPROVAL 

THEY WILL DECIDE FOR YOU? WILL YOU BOW TO THESE DICTATORS?

"The Strong Cities Network is run by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a London-based ‘think-and-do’ tank with a long-standing track record of working to prevent violent extremism across all forms."

SEE: http://strongcitiesnetwork.org/

SEE: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/

SEE: https://www.youtube.com/user/Institute4SD

SEE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Strategic_Dialogue

SEE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Weidenfeld,_Baron_Weidenfeld; QUOTE: "In January 2006 the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, originally founded as The Club of Three in the 1990s, was established with Weidenfeld as its president. This network-based policy organisation works with global leaders in the private and public sectors to challenge the long-range threats to international and communal peace and to enhance Europe's capacity to be a coherent and effective player."

De Blasio, (ABOVE) speaking at the UN, said New York joined Strong Cities because the group will target 'intolerance' and make the city safer.

(ABOVE) U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, LORETTA LYNCH 

(ABOVE) BOTH SPEAK AT THE UNITED NATIONS

ATTORNEY KRIS ANNE HALL:

US Attorney General, US Cities, Join UN to Create Global Police Force Intiative

Published on Sep 30, 2015

Yesterday, Loretta Lynch announced before the United Nations that the Attorney General's Office, in collaboration with several US Cities will for a global law enforcement initiative called the Strong Cities Network. This is the implementation of UN rules and laws on US soil bypassing Congress and circumventing the Constitution.

ATTORNEY KRIS ANNE HALL:

"A COMPLETE & TOTAL ATTACK 

ON WHO WE ARE"
STRONG CITIES NETWORK
SEE: http://strongcitiesnetwork.org/

QUOTE: "The Strong Cities Network will operate from the assumption that communities and local governments are both part of the solution to address violent extremism. The Strong Cities Network will be driven by a number of fundamental principles:

- A commitment from its members to address violent extremism in all of its forms.
- A recognition that violent extremism and prevention efforts should not be associated with any particular religion, nationality or ethnic group.
- A commitment from its members to work in partnership with local communities, on an inclusive, collaborative, and non-discriminatory basis and in compliance with international human rights standards."

Obama Administration Launches
UN's Global Stasi Network

Strong Cities Network NWO Global Police

Published on Oct 10, 2015

Who needs that old archaic Constitution and annoying Congress when you can tour the world on the taxpayer’s dime and trample their rights in the process, right Attorney General Loretta Lynch? No one except your band of cohorts were impressed when you went after a meaningless game as you tackled FIFA instead of throwing the bankers laundering the drug cartel’s billions under the jail. Kicking the proverbial soccer ball down the road.

Rather than present her case to the American people from any number of American establishments. Attorney General Lynch, basking in New World Order arrogance, bypassed the American people, bringing together a vile congregation to the Islamic High Council aka The United Nations. Speakers included the diligent socialist Mayor of New York Bill DeBlasio and Jordan’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein a Human Rights council that just made the xenophobic and brutal nation of Saudi Arabia a member to the Islamic High Council aka The United Nations.

This global police force was dreamed up by Professors from the Halls of Oxford and spearheaded by the New World Order Think Tank, the Institute of Strategic Dialogue. Now launched as of September 29, 2015 by our own traitorous government. It is described on the Strong Cities Network website as A global network of local authorities united in building resilience to prevent violent extremism. The Strong Cities Network will be spearheaded by an International Steering Committee of cities and local authorities selected from different regions across the globe.

Of course Muslim-Americans are complaining they will be targeted. But most Americans are well aware of who the real target is.

President Obama is desperately attempting to decrease the overwhelming amount of gun owners to create a level playing field in which the New World Order can thrive. But it was his own policies and arrogance that led to record numbers of Americans stockpiling guns and ammunition. Obama’s latest berserk executive order authority would impose new background-check requirements for buyers who purchase weapons from high-volume gun dealers. Under the proposed rule change, dealers who exceed a certain number of sales each year would be required to obtain a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and perform background checks on potential buyers.

I’m sure the average American citizen contends that this all sounds completely unreasonable, considering the irony of President Obama’s increasingly transparent Administration that has blatantly waged war on constitutionally protected whistle blowers, clandestinely grown ISIS, and quietly aided a flood into the United States of Anti-American Islamic Extremist terror cells. Good luck America, we’re all counting on ya.

Feds Taking Over U.S. Cities Under UN Orders

Published on Oct 7, 2015

On Wednesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced at the United Nations that her office would be working in several American cities to form what she called the Strong Cities Network (SCN), a law enforcement initiative that would encompass the globe. http://www.breitbart.com/big-governme...

TEXT OF LYNCH'S SPEECH AT U.N. FROM:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-loretta-e-lynch-announces-launch-strong-cities-network-united-nations

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch Announces the Launch of the Strong Cities Network at the United Nations General Assembly

New York, NY

United States

~

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Remarks as prepared for delivery

Thank you, Mayor [Bill] de Blasio, for those kind words; for your dedication to promoting equality and expanding opportunity; and for your service to the people of this great city – the city I call home.  I would also like to recognize High Commissioner for Human Rights [Prince Zeid Ra’ad] Al Hussein and the UN-Habitat program for their inspiring work and bold leadership as we work to create a future of sustainable peace, development and opportunity.  And I’d like to thank all of the mayors and other municipal leaders who are helping to ensure safe and prosperous futures for our communities and our world by serving on the Steering Committee of the Strong Cities Network.  It’s a pleasure to join such a distinguished group of world leaders on this historic occasion and it’s a privilege to represent the Obama Administration and the United States as we inaugurate this innovative, collaborative and critically important global effort.

We gather today at a crucial moment of challenge and opportunity for the security of our nations and the well-being of humankind.  Fourteen years ago, not far from where we stand today, terrorists carried out a vicious assault on democratic values and inclusive societies everywhere.  Their brutal attack claimed the lives of thousands of innocent victims – including citizens from 90 nations.  And in the years since that morning when terror rained from the sky, we have continued to see violent extremists emerge from within our own communities – from terrorists inspired by groups like ISIL to fanatics motivated by hatred against religious or ethnic factions.  Some aspire to travel overseas to train or to fight.  Others plot attacks on targets within their homelands.  But all are antithetical to the shared vision and common cause that joins us here today in this renowned international forum: commitment to collaboration; dedication to peace; and devotion to the cause of justice within our nations and throughout the world. 

It is clear that the challenge of building resilience against violent extremism – a challenge that spans vast oceans and borders while impacting our most tightly-knit cities and towns – requires a response that is both wide-ranging and highly focused.  National governments have a crucial role to play in ensuring the safety and security of the nations they serve – and here in the United States, it is our highest priority.  Neither the Justice Department I lead nor the administration in which I serve will ever back down from our commitment and our responsibility to safeguard our citizens and defend our homeland.  But as a lifelong prosecutor and as a former United States Attorney here in New York, I have also seen firsthand how local authorities can serve as the front lines of our defense against violent extremism.  As residents and experts in their communities, local leaders are often best positioned to pinpoint sources of unrest and discord; best equipped to identify signs of potential danger; and best able to recognize and accommodate community cultures, traditions, sensitivities and customs.  By creating a series of partnerships that draws on the knowledge and expertise of our local officials, we can create a more effective response to this virulent threat.

The government of the United States is fully invested in this collaborative approach and we have seen the value of empowering local communities by promoting initiatives they design and lead themselves.  Through our Model Regions program, federal officials have partnered with a wide array of local stakeholders – including government and public safety officers, social service providers, educators, businesses and nonprofits – to build and implement community resilience frameworks tailored to the unique needs of residents.  In Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, for example, government officials, private partners and civic leaders have come together to create a mentorship program for Somali youth; to build an “opportunity hub” that provides educational resources and job training; and to contribute to a program called Youthprise that is forging connections between community organizations, investors and young people.  At the same time, officials in the Greater Boston region are exploring the connection between criminal justice and public health by partnering with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services to tap their experience with violence prevention and intervention.  And in the Denver area, the United States Attorney’s Office has led a multifaceted community engagement and education effort involving all levels of government.  These initiatives and others like them were the subject of a convening just two weeks ago, organized by our Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, in conjunction with the Police Executive Research Forum, which brought together law enforcement executives and community partners from over a dozen cities to plan ways to translate these cutting-edge programs into new regions.

These efforts have shown us the power of harnessing local expertise and leveraging local leadership to create targeted and effective approaches to eradicating violent extremism in any community.  We have learned that open dialogue and consistent engagement with a wide range of constituents is essential to crafting strategies and forging partnerships that will address the full scope of the threats we face.  We have seen that communities must be empowered to take these steps themselves so that the prevention approaches they design are crafted for their unique situations.  And we have observed the need for a mechanism that will expand the most effective efforts to reach more people around the globe – a way to highlight the best local ideas so that they can be adapted for use in other communities.

Until now, we have lacked that mechanism.  We haven’t had the benefit of sustained or coordinated cooperation among the growing number of cities and municipalities that are confronting this ongoing challenge.  Communities have too often been left isolated and alone.  But through the Strong Cities Network that we have unveiled today, we are making the first systematic effort in history to bring together cities around the world to share experiences, to pool resources and to forge partnerships in order to build local cohesion and resilience on a global scale.  Today we tell every city, every town and every community that has lost the flower of its youth to a sea of hatred – you are not alone.  We stand together and we stand with you.

This is a truly groundbreaking endeavor.  By connecting municipal leaders, facilitating information-sharing and providing training and other assistance where appropriate, the Strong Cities Network will help to fashion a global response to a global issue, without losing sight of its inherently local roots.  It will offer city leaders a way to learn from one another about successful initiatives and productive programs.  It will provide a platform for discussing community policing and prevention strategies that safeguard the individual rights of citizens.  And it will support the practical delivery of community resilience programs in cities that are taking a new look at this evolving issue.

I want you to know that the Obama Administration is deeply committed to ensuring that the Strong Cities Network is as strong, vibrant and resilient as the cities it unites – because we know this model works.  Here in the United States, we have joined with local partners to bring down far-flung human trafficking rings, to strengthen trust in law enforcement, to thwart cybersecurity threats and to combat official and international corruption.  Our experience tells us that partnering with city-level officials and the communities they represent extends the reach and deepens the perspective of national governments and international alliances.  And connecting those localities to one another – as the Strong Cities Network is doing – is not only a powerful way to lift up our communities worldwide.  It also sends a message about who we are and what we aspire to be – as an alliance of nations and as a global community.  When the representatives of the Strong Cities Network join together for their first Annual Summit in Paris in Spring 2016, they will be making a strong and clear statement to their citizens and to the world: we stand united against violence, united against fear and united in the pursuit of a better and brighter future.

This work will not be easy.  There will be difficult days for us all.  But the spirit of collaboration I see before me today – the devotion to partnership and mutual support – gives me confidence in our effort and hope for the journey ahead.  Thank you, once again, for your outstanding service.  Thank you for your visionary leadership on a project without precedent.  And thank you for your commitment to the mission of our time.

At this time, I would like to turn things over to Sasha Havlicek, the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
___________________________________________________________

UN and Obama Launch Global War on “Ideologies”

BY ALEX NEWMAN

SEE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/north-america/item/21682-un-and-obama-launch-global-war-on-ideologies;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Under the guise of battling “violent extremists”generally and the Islamic State in particular — a terror group that top U.S. officials said was largely armed, trained, and funded by Obama's “anti-ISIS” coalition — the United Nations and the Obama administration unveiled a plan this week to wage a global war on “ideologies.” That war will include planetary efforts to stamp out all “anti-Muslim bigotry,” anti-immigrant sentiments, and much more, the UN and Obama explained. It was not immediately clear how a war on anti-Muslim bigotry would stop ISIS. However, based on the outlines of the extremism scheme released so far, there will be no serious efforts to address the growing extremism of the UN and its largely autocratic member regimes. Instead, the extremism plan will serve as a pretext to impose a broad range of extremist policies at the national and international level.   

Changing people's views around the world and attacking their ideologies will be crucial to the agenda, the UN and Obama declared in various statements and press releases. Among the planetary programs to be implemented to supposedly battle ISIS and extremists generally are engaging “all of society” with tax-funded propaganda in favor of “international law” and the UN's dangerous, anti-American vision of “human rights.” And while ISIS and violent extremism may be the justification for the internationalist scheming now, there should be little doubt that the agenda will eventually expand, as the Obama administration and other governments have made abundantly clear amid various extremism initiatives peddled in recent years. Even mainstream Christians have been declared “religious extremists” by the Obama administration.

Some world rulers have already called for a global war on “non-violent extremism,” too. And previous calls by governments for a UN-led war on non-violent extremism — theories on terror attacks that differ from the government narrative, religious prophecies about the end times, and more — appear to have strongly influenced the latest “violent extremism” plan. “We must be clear: to defeat the ideology of extremism we need to deal with all forms of extremism — not just violent extremism,” said U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron at the UN last year, acknowledging that the machinations would not be entirely “compatible” with free speech and intellectual inquiry. “We shouldn’t stand by and just allow any form of non-violent extremism.” Governments and the UN must take action, he said.       

The latest iteration of the far-reaching global plan for a UN-led battle against “extremism” was laid out this week at the so-called “Leaders’ Summit on Countering Violent Extremism.” Hosted by Obama on the sidelines of this year's UN General Assembly meeting in New York, the summit was attended by representatives of more than 100 governments and dictators, over 20 “multilateral” outfits, and various tax-funded “civil society groups” and private sector “partners,” according to a UN press release. A widely ridiculed “youth summit” on extremism was also held. Both meetings followed a previous summit hosted by Obama earlier this year on countering “extremism” at which the White House touted all sorts of anti-Constitution and Big Government extremism — much of it to be imposed at the international level, all of it under the guise of fighting nebulous notions of non-Islamic extremism. It also came after a UN Security Council session hosted by Obama to undermine long-standing protections and further empower the UN on "extremism."

Speaking at the summit this week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made clear that the global outfit he leads, often ridiculed as the “dictators club” by critics, would spearhead and coordinate the worldwide war on ideologies that the UN and governments consider extreme. “Addressing this challenge goes to the heart of the mission of the United Nations, and it requires a unified response,” argued the UN chief, an advocate for what he called a “New World Order” at a meeting of Third World regimes last year demanding global wealth redistribution and other schemes. “Our objective must be to go beyond countering violent extremism to preventing it in the first place.” The UN boss also reportedly plans to present a “comprehensive Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism” early next year to the tyrant-dominated UN General Assembly.

Ban, whose extreme statements on various issues have sparked alarm around the world, outlined five “key priorities” in the emerging UN plan to wage war on ideologies. Those priorities, he said, include “the need to engage all of society; the need to make a special effort to reach young people; to build truly accountable institutions; respect for international law and human rights; and the importance of not being ruled by fear — or provoked by those who strive to exploit it.” The irony of exploiting fear to promote various UN agendas — a global-warming regime, a global war on extremism, planetary governance and central planning for “sustainable development,” and more — apparently escaped the secretary-general.   

His comments were still revealing about the nature of the extremism war to be waged with pro-“human rights” and pro-“international law” propaganda. The UN's vision of “human rights,” of course, is diametrically opposed to American constitutional tradition of unalienable, God-given rights. While America's Founders viewed as self-evident that government exists for the purpose of protecting the rights endowed upon each individual by their Creator, the UN claims its version of “rights” come from governments and international treaties, and can be regulated or abolished under virtually any pretext. Article 29 of the UN Declaration of (pseudo)-Human Rights even makes the vision explicit, saying the government-granted privileges outlined therein may “in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”

But Ban indicated that the UN and its extremist view of “human rights” — for more perspective on the UN's extremism, just consider the myriad mass-murdering dictators proudly sitting on the UN “Human Rights Council” — will be at the center of the global war on ideologies. “We have a major challenge before us — one that will not disappear overnight — but one that we can address concretely by forging societies of inclusion, ensuring lives of dignity, and pursuing this essential endeavor inspired at all times by the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” the UN boss explained. Already, the UN's vision of “human rights” has been repeatedly used by UN officials to attack the fundamental, constitutionally protected rights of Americans.  

Obama, though, who chaired the UN summit this week, echoed Ban's rhetoric about the looming global jihad against ideologies, saying it was not enough to defeat ISIS on the battlefield and that a planetary propaganda campaign was essential. “We have to prevent it from radicalizing, recruiting and inspiring others to violence in the first place,” Obama declared as various “moderate” rebels his administration armed and trained then joined al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups. “And this means defeating their ideology. Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they’re defeated by better ideas — a more attractive and compelling vision.”

In the interest of defeating extreme ideologies with “better ideas,” Obama touted some of his administration's policies at the summit. Among others, he pointed to “efforts to discredit ISIL’s propaganda, especially online,” an apparent reference to his recently unveiled “Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications” led by Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamist Rashad Hussain. Obama, styling himself an expert on Islam, also boasted that the White House was “working to lift up the voices of Muslim scholars, clerics and others” who allegedly “stand up to ISIL and its warped interpretations of Islam.” Using tax funds and government to promote certain theological views on Islam while “discrediting” others would appear to be a brazen violation of the First Amendment. But the war on extremism, as the U.K.'s Cameron openly explained, will require some fundamental shifts away from Western traditions of freedom and limited government.   

Also needed to defeat extremism is much bigger government, as Obama and his top officials have explained repeatedly. At the UN summit this week, Obama claimed that the United States had “recognized the need” to “confront the economic and political grievances” — not enough jobs, not enough welfare, and more — that are supposedly exploited by extremists. “The real path to lasting stability and progress is not less democracy; I believe it is more democracy in terms of free speech, and freedom of religion, rule of law, strong civil societies,” Obama said before demanding an end to anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment. “All that has to play a part in countering violent extremism.”

Obama also made clear that the global campaign against extremism would need to involve everyone. “This cannot just be the work of government,” he said. “It is up to all of us. We have to commit ourselves to build diverse, tolerant, inclusive societies that reject anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant bigotry that creates the divisions, the fear and the resentments upon which extremists can prey.” It was not clear whether Obama believed ISIS would become less extreme if anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant bigotry were quashed. As Vice President Joe Biden explained publicly, though, ISIS is essentially the creation of Obama's “anti-ISIS” coalition, with its extreme views largely shared by a number of the White House's “anti-ISIS” allies among Sunni-Arab regimes.   

In a “fact sheet” published by the White House about its efforts, the administration outlined a dizzying array of taxpayer-funded programs allegedly aimed at extremism. Unsurprisingly, much of it involved more government extremism. “In order to enhance training for federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement, DHS and DOJ work cooperatively with its federal partners to update [Countering Violent Extremism] CVE-relevant training programs based on current threat assessments through programs such as the Uniformed Police Training Program, Criminal Investigator Training Program, Land Management Police Training Program, and the Rural Police Officer Training,” the White House said, suggesting that further nationalizing of law-enforcement would be needed.   

Not everyone was pleased, however. In a scathing attack on the CVE machinations, CATO Institute policy analyst Patrick Eddington, a former advisor for Democrat ex-Congressman Rush Holt (Cumulative Freedom Index Score: 27 percent), mostly blamed U.S. foreign policy for the rise of extremism. “Mindless American interventionism has been one of the greatest recruiting tools for Salafist groups like ISIS,” he said, adding that all of the terror war-inspired mass-surveillance gimmicks have largely failed to detect terror attacks, and that state-level “fusion centers” have instead been “targeting civil liberties groups that question their utility and the constitutionality of their operational methods.”

Eddington, however, apparently relying on discredited propaganda from the ultra-leftist Southern Poverty Law Center equating statist extremists such as National Socialists (neo-Nazis) with peaceful liberty-oriented groups, also suggested the extremism scheming should focus more on “right-wing American political extremists.” However, as the Obama administration has made abundantly clear, “right-wing” forces have been in the crosshairs all along, with multiple official reports purporting to link terrorism and extremism to the views of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of mainstream Americans: returning veterans, liberty lovers, pro-life activists, states' rights proponents, constitutionalists, libertarians, Ron Paul supporters, and more. Meanwhile, “ISIS” supposedly produced a highly suspicious video advocating Austrian economics, sound money, and more, potentially putting opponents of the debt-backed fiat-currency regime in the “extremism” crosshairs as well. Even Catholics, evangelical Christians, and orthodox Jews were listed as “religious extremists” alongside al-Qaeda and Hamas in a U.S. Defense Department training scheme for U.S. troops.   

What the extremism plan means for the dueling “anti-ISIS” coalitions in Syria — the one led by Obama, which has been funding and arming ISIS, and the new one announced recently by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin — was not immediately clear. What is becoming perfectly clear, though, is that the globalist war on extremism is more about justifying extreme government and UN policies than dealing with actual extremism. If the UN and Obama were interested in truly addressing extremism, they might start among the UN's member regimes — communist and Islamist dictators, genocidal maniacs, and more. UN extremism would be a good place to start, too, as wouldObama's support for jihadists in Syria. Unfortunately for humanity, though, that sort of extremism, which actually poses a genuine threat to people everywhere, will continue marching onward unless and until the American people demand an end to it.

________________________________________________________________


THE ROGUES GALLERY OF ELITE

"BILDERBERG"GLOBALISTS 

USING THEIR MONEY AND POWER

TO DESTROY OUR CONSTITUTION IN CONCERT WITH OBAMA & SOCIALIST MAYORS:

SEE: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/trustees/; 


ISD BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Lord Weidenfeld-President



Michael Lewis-Chairman



Sir Ronald Grierson



Stuart C. Fiertz (Club of Three Treasurer)



Professor Peter Baldwin (no picture)

Professor Dr. h.c. Roland Berger (no picture)




Dr. Mathias Doepfner



Francis Finlay



General the Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank



Andre Hoffmann (no picture)




Baroness Helena Kennedy



Pierre Keller (no picture)

Baroness Patricia Rawlings (no picture)




Lord Simon of Highbury



Lord Turner of Ecchinswell



_____________________________________________________________


THE COLLECTIVIST ASSAULT 

ON WHO & WHAT THEY DEEM INTOLERANT, HATEFUL, TERRORIZING

THE ATTACK ON FUNDAMENTAL, SEPARATIST CHRISTIANITY TAKES SHAPE; SILENCING DISSENT & DISCRIMINATION EVEN WHEN GROUNDED IN TRUTH

FROM: http://www1.nyc.gov//office-of-the-mayor/news/661-15/transcript-mayor-de-blasio-delivers-remarks-launch-strong-cities-network

Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks at Launch of Strong Cities Network


September 29, 2015

Mayor Bill de Blasio: First of all, I can assure I fully have received your message, and I thank you for your characterization of our city. You managed to do it in a very diplomatic fashion, so I commend you. I want to thank you for the way you framed this discussion because I think you’ve gotten to the heart of the matter – to focus on our strengths, and that our true strengths are strengths of inclusion, and of serving people and reaching people. I want to speak about that for just a few minutes, but it’s something that we in New York City value intensely as our ideal [inaudible] of what an inclusive society can achieve – how we’ve overcome so many issues of the past by evermore inclusive approach.

I want to thank you all of you for being a part of this discussion. I want to welcome you as mayor of New York City. This is a time of year where we’re honored to host the United Nations, and host leaders from around the world, and to recognize the power that these gatherings bring and I want to say to my fellow mayors. We are in the vanguard of change around the world as the High Commissioner indicated. And we should hold ourselves to a high standard. We’re able to do things locally that in many ways can set the pace for our national governments, and for the international community.

So, really, there should be nowhere better at inclusion and understanding diversity and openness, no part of our world should be better at that than our cities. So we have a special obligation to achieve those ideals and to show our people that we’re relentlessly working on them.

I want to thank, as well someone key to this process – Sasha Havlicek, the CEO for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. She’s been a key player, really Strong Cities Network to life, thank you Sasha, for your [inaudible] leadership. We thank you for all you’ve done to bring today together.

Now, this city never could have achieved all it has achieved without a tremendous diversity, and acknowledgement and respect for diversity. Say, if New York City has had a secret formula, it is in that this [inaudible] very origins as the city of today, it has been a place that rewarded inclusion of people from all over the world, are way that wasn’t true in many other places. Something about being an open city, an inclusive city, actually grew the most positive energies of people from all over the world and allowed us to be what we are.

So, we don’t see diversity as a negative, or something to manage or overcome. We see diversity as a prerequisite to success, and we see it as a vital part of a working democracy. This is, I think, therefore, a fitting place to talk about the launch of the Strong Cities Network, and what it can be, and what it can achieve. This network is different; it is unlike any other effort that we’ve seen before to counter violent extremism because it recognizes the tools the High Commissioner spoke of, recognizes some of the most powerful impediments to violence are some of the most human, and grassroots dynamics within our reach – that creation of an atmosphere and a reality that they’re calling respect and inclusion. And that that formula is powerful in all parts of the world. This network recognizes that the first and most sacred calling of government is to protect our people, to protect their lives and well-being. And that to do that, we have to redouble our focus on those things that [inaudible] us the most – our respect for human rights, our respect for civil liberties, and our focus on learning from that which works, not [inaudible] all our ideas that are not put into practice, but from trying things on the ground at the grassroots, and learning together what actually works, what moves hearts and minds, what brings people closer together.

These are principles we can act on through the Strong Cities Network. I think so many of us, through the work we have done in our cities, we understand something fundamental – the most powerful way to counter violent extremism is to go to the core. The core is intolerance. When we address intolerance, when we undermine intolerance, in the process, we undermine extremism and violence. And so our job is to do something that we talk about in our foundational documents in the United States, that is to create a more perfect union – one of the most beautiful and powerful phrases in our first documents – this speaks to something broader. I think we all experience and understand creating that more perfect union, creating that city that everyone feels they belong in, that everyone sees opportunity through.

That sense of social cohesion comes from the facts on the ground, not just our words but our deeds and the way we govern – the way govern and show people that everyone has opportunity and meaning in the society. That is the pathway to cohesion – creating an atmosphere of respect and cohesion. We all have seen what happens when parts of our cities, parts of our populations don’t feel respected and they don’t see overt and consistent signs of respect. When there aren’t those lines of communication, people know. We all understand our constituents. We’ve all lived close to the people of our communities. People know when they’re being heard, and they know when they’re being excluded.

If we create an atmosphere of true respect and communication, it will cross religious lines, and cultural lines, and racial lines, and all other lines, and it will be [inaudible]. And that, in its very being, will help us to address discrimination and bigotry – those elements of our society that stand in the way of understanding. Our people will know if they’re truly included, if they feel they’re truly a part of the fabric of our cities and our nation.

Now, we know in the work of protecting people, law enforcement plays a crucial role. But I see an incredible opportunity in the Strong Cities Network that is going far beyond the work of law enforcement, going to some of the things that all of us know we can do better – the nurturing of our youth – in particular, youth leadership – positive leadership that can help to move other youth towards positive outcomes in our society; improving education; improving your economic opportunities; and of course, social and health services – the things that show people they’re cared for, the things that show people that there really is a future for them.
We grapple with these issues here in New York City. We are blessed as a city. We are strong in many, many ways, but we’ve had our share of problems. And we’ve had divisions over the decades that we’ve had to constantly stare in the face of and overcome. Even in recent years, we’ve had to make policy changes to address some of the pain and some of the separation of the past. That’s why, in terms of our approach to policing, we ended a policy that was broken and we ended the practice of stop and frisk, which was creating a rift between our police and our communities. We closed down a unit of our police force that had been known as the demographics unit. It was widely seen to focus particularly on our Muslim-American communities. It had become a wedge that didn’t need to be there. 

Two examples – one more associated with African-American and Latino communities, the other associated more with our Muslim-American communities – two examples of when government policies sadly and inadvertently created some distance between the people and their government, when in fact our mission is to constantly imbue in our people the sense that the government is at one with them. We’ve made those changes and we’ve seen already, just over the last two years, the positive effect of removing some of the negatives when you open up the possibility of greater closeness in the community.

We’ve done positive things too – new things that [inaudible] existence that we believe in inclusion and respect. We’ve started something we’re very proud of in the IDNYC program. (SEE: http://www1.nyc.gov/site/idnyc/index.page). It’s a municipal identification card for all people who live in New York City, and crucially important – it does not discriminate based on whether an individual who lives here happens to have documentation by our national government. We recognize there’s almost half-a-million people in New York City who are “undocumented.” But in the eyes of New York City, they’re our fellow New Yorkers. They’re just as important, just as worthy of respect as anyone else. They have a right to an identification card that opens up many doors for them. And so far in this city of 8.5 million people, just this year alone – over half-a-million people have signed up for such an identification card because it means something to them to feel included. It’s not just a practical measure, it has that virtue as well. But it’s powerfully an example of belonging.

We also took a step – a simple but [inaudible] extraordinarily powerful step because some of our communities – and again, this shows the breadth of the thinking we can bring to the Strong Cities Network – some of our communities felt excluded because their children were not able to practice their religion fully and see their religious holidays recognized by our school system. And so, because we have a very large Asian-American community that’s represented in our school system, and a very large Muslim-American community that’s represented in our school system, as a matter of law, we changed our school calendar and recognized the two Eid holidays in the Muslim calendar and the Asian Lunar New Year holiday. An official act, which all of our school children take a day off from school the same way they would for Christian or Jewish holidays, sent a powerful message of inclusion and a very practical impact for people’s lives as well.

We know that our efforts to combat extremism must be seen as universal. Extremism – and I say this ironically, but it’s a true statement – extremism doesn’t discriminate. It comes in many forms. It comes from many different backgrounds and ideologies. Our mission should be to address extremism in all of its forms so that the possibility of reaching people at the grassroots is an antidote across all those communities and those forums. That sense of respect and inclusion works regardless of what type of extremism we’re addressing.

You know, today’s a day many people are focused on particular issues in this country. So, it’s pertinent to say in 1994, people were lost – lives were lost in the bombing of a Planned Parenthood facility in Massachusetts. That was one form of extremism. We saw a very powerful and tragic incident in [inaudible] recently where children were slaughtered in another form an extremism. We all felt deeply around the world – the tragedy in Paris after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office. And in a different way in this country, not so long ago – and something we still feel the pain of – the shootings in Charleston, South Carolina in a house of worship. Each of these forms of extremism were different, but they have so much in common that we need to address, and we will. And we know that for those who suffer as a result of extremism, they don’t parse and focus on the definition of what type of extremism took away their loved one, or their family member, or split their community apart. To them, there’s a sad [inaudible] that any violent extremism had the same result in their lives.

The Strong Cities Network will be a message to all families who have lost loved ones because of extremism that something is being done in a new and powerful way. We will be vigilant against all forms of violent extremism, whether it’s based in religious, or racial, or nationalistic, or ideological intolerance. That will be a power of this network. We will focus always where the need is greatest, and that sense of universality will strengthen this effort in so many ways.

Each of our cities faces different realities, and being in this network certainly allows for us to have the flexibility to address our realities and needs. At the same, we’re going to work for each other, be strengthened by each other. In the end, we know a lot about what it takes to build trust with our communities at the local level. We know how important it is to be honest about what’s standing in the way of that trust. But that very discussion of saying why – why are some of our people not feeling – why do they not feel connected? What are we missing? That is part of reaching a solution. We’re all interested in protecting our people while embracing all of our people, all of our communities, all of our neighborhoods – bringing government closer to the grassroots – it’s one of the best ways we can protect our people.

With that, I very much look forward to working with all of you in common cause. And I think this is the kind of effort that will lead to a safer and more just world. And now, it’s my profound pleasure and honor to introduce the next speaker. I have to say, as an American, I could not be more proud of our attorney general. What she’s done throughout her life has been dedicated to the protection of people of all kinds, of all backgrounds equally. And if you look at her work, she has devoted herself to the fight against inequality in so many ways, and upheld the most noble traditions of the justice department. All of you know the history of this nation over the last half-century, in particular of the justice department. [inaudible] of recognizing the discrimination we had to overcome, the intolerance we had to overcome in our nation. Well, now we have an attorney general who epitomizes that fight and has been so effective within it. It’s my honor to introduce the attorney general of the United States, Loretta Lynch.




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