THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 62, March 1, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
RUINING OUR YOUTH, OUR FUTURE
By Alan Caruba
THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT & THE POLITICAL INDOCTRINATION OF AMERICAN YOUTH: TURNING
AMERICA'S YOUNG PEOPLE INTO ENVIRONMENTALIST IDEOLOGUES & RADICAL POLITICAL ACTIVISTS -- TRAINING THE
YOUTH TO UNDERMINE HUMAN HEALTH & THE AMERICAN ECONOMY THROUGH OPPOSITION TO USE OF FOSSIL FUELS &
NUCLEAR FISSION AS ENERGY SOURCES
FULL STORY:
Those of us who grew up in the 1940s and 1950s almost universally look back on those days with great fondness. Born
into an era that saw the end of the Depression and living as children through World War II, we were nonetheless
somehow shielded from it by parents who took care to ensure that these calamities in the world did not take from us the
sheer joy of being young.
By 1945, America emerged from the war as one of the world’s recognized superpowers, plunging immediately into the Cold
War with the Soviet Union, a totalitarian regime that, like all Communists, promised a worker’s paradise and delivered a
new form of serfdom.
We grew up with school drills in the event of the “bomb” as America helped rebuild Europe, guarding it against the
Russians. While the grownups tended to these matters, we kids were treated to television shows free of the salaciousness
of too many of today’s programs.
One could not be a teenager in the 1950s and not be aware of the great concern regarding the infiltration of our
government by Communist spies and sympathizers. Decades later, thanks to the revelations of the Venona intercepts of
Soviet communications with those spies, we learned just how thorough the infiltration had been and how many
sympathizers worked at the highest levels of our government. U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, it turns out, was right.
In the end, by standing firm against the Soviet Union, the United States of America and its allies would see its end. Its
threat has been replaced by a resurgence of a particularly evil Islamic fanaticism and now, as there were then, those of a
Liberal frame of mind are telling us not to meet it on the field of battle, nor anywhere else it threatens Western Civilization.
For all their bad intentions, the Soviets were not bent on suicide and were subject to negotiation where mutual interests
existed. This is not the case of people who are convinced that their god requires them to subdue or kill “unbelievers.” The
Russians never hijacked commercial airliners to fly them into our skyscrapers or the Pentagon.
To be young in those decades following World War II was to grow up in one of the most dynamic periods of innovation
the American nation has known. As the economy boomed, it brought with it an astonishing burst of invention that
included the spread of television, air conditioning, fabulous chrome-plated automobiles, and all manner of home
appliances that are, of course, taken for granted today.
The 1960s, however, produced a spoiled, surly, arrogant, drug-obsessed, and unwashed element of youth spurred on by
the growing resistance to the Vietnam War and a belief that the work ethic of their parents and others of their generation
was for suckers. Even I marched against the Vietnam War, albeit wearing a suit and tie. This subset of the Turn On and
Tune Out youth would later dominate the faculties of colleges and universities.
The result has been a new generation who has been importuned since pre-school to view the Earth as an endangered
environment that threatens all mankind. They have grown up listening to the ravings of Al Gore and a legion of
organizations that subverted science because the real science does not support the delusion of global warming.
I think the environmentalist movement is an altered form of Communism, and one that has systematically deprived this
new generation of the fun of being young.
A case in point is a news release I received from the Student Environmental Action Coalition, “Nation’s Youth Battle Coal
Instead of Hangovers This Spring Break.” This is but one small example of how environmentalists brainwash our youth.
With the attack on our educational system that began in the 1960s to turn it into one massive instrument of Socialist
indoctrination, the youth who will participate in the effort to take on “Big Coal” clearly have no idea the role that coal
played in the Industrial Revolution or that it currently provides 52% of the electricity on which they and everyone else in
America depends.
Instead of heading toward some of America’s glorious beaches over Spring Break to indulge in just being young,
“hundreds of college students,” we’re told, will head for “Mountain Justice Spring Break in Virginia (March 1-9) and
Ohio (March 22-30), where they “will experience first hand the coal industry’s environmental and social degradation.”
They will be urged, “to stop U.S. coal expansion and begin building a clean and just energy future.”
They will be taught “how to fight new power plants” and learn “that coal hurts people and communities.” This is a perfect
Marxist expression and an example of the forces at work to destroy the American economy and the lifestyle these young
people take for granted.
The fact is, however, that, in 2007, the effort to deprive America of the electricity it needs resulted in plans for 59 new coal
plants being cancelled or shelved. Even the cleanest form of electrical power, nuclear generation, has been continually
resisted by environmentalists. That leaves gas-fired or hydroelectric plants as an alternative, and we have exhausted
locations for the latter.
Instead, these youth will be told about “clean” energy generation by wind or solar power. These are the most inefficient,
untrustworthy, and costly forms of energy that, together, represent barely one percent of all the electricity being provided
to the nation. Both of these “clean” forms of energy require existing backup of coal, gas, or nuclear plants because wind
and solar generation are incapable of providing consistent, dependable power.
Meanwhile, the United States has several hundreds of years of coal reserves that could power all the electricity we will
need. In China, in an effort to modernize, they are building a new coal-fired plant every week.
I feel sorry for the kids that will attend these training schools for the destruction of an essential element of the power
generation America needs now and will need more of in the future. They should be partying. They won’t be young
forever, and, if they are successful, they will be spending much of the future living with brownouts and blackouts.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Children & Youth -- Policy Issues
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2008
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity