There isn't a tin foil hat large enough for the people behind Americans for Prosperity-New Jersey, and after reading this blog entry on their website, we're thinking that a straight jacket or two might be needed.
AFP-NJ describes itself as "the nation’s premier grassroots organization committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity." The group's mission, according to its site, is to downsize government.
Sounds reasonable, until you read the group's June 13 press release, titled, "Left-Wing Radicals Harness the Power of Child Labor on `Global Wind Day'”.
The headline, sadly, is the least outlandish part of the release. To wit:
"Global environmentalists connected with the radical Party of European Socialists are indoctrinating and manipulating innocent children as props to advance their radical “renewable” energy schemes," according the release.
Worse, according to AFP-NJ, their research has revealed "a concentrated effort to indoctrinate small children into a cult-like movement to force taxpayers to provide massive subsidies for on land, and the even more costly, offshore wind mills".
Seriously? A vast left-wing conspiracy to promote clean, cheap energy? Look the facts are clear - wind power is cheap, clean, and we've got a lot of it in America. It's a great way to replace dirty fuels like coal and fracked gas - and it's a lot safer than nuclear power (which has its own illustrious history of 're-educating' our kids).
But AFP-NJ's crazy-talk gets better (translate more bizarre):
“These European eco-zealots are penetrating our grammar schools with a bizarre program of indoctrination that includes forcing little children to color in propaganda style coloring books while being taught that the world will end if windmills don’t come to the rescue,” stated AFP New Jersey state director Steve Lonegan.
“Meanwhile, these environmentalist radicals are receiving enormous funding from the project’s major benefactors: General Electric, Siemen’s, Lockheed Martin, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and Ernst & Young, the international corporations that stand to profit handsomely from these schemes.
“This is disturbing and really quite sick. What we are seeing is a bunch of very radical and extreme elements of the environmental movement attempting to brainwash kids and then use them as props and human shields in their quest to foist their European-style, anti-free-market, globalist ‘green’ agenda on the world.”
So, environmental groups that support wind power are radical socialists who use coloring books as propaganda to indocrinate (sic) small children so they can be used as human shields in their quest to take over the world, and the likes of GE, Lockheed Martin and Ernst and Young are funding the whole thing.
Why these mouth-breathing conspiracy theorists are worried about wind power is beyond our ability to explain, especially considering the vast reservoir of hot air apparently at their disposal. But we DO know that wind power has an important role to play in America's energy future. And to get there, we need to educate kids, our elected leaders, and even the Big Oil companies about the kind of energy future we can have if we're willing to quit bailing out Big Oil and their friends.