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The Green Tree has Red Roots: The Sustainability Scam on Campus
The Independent Institute ^ | 11/18/08 | Jonathan Bean

Posted on 11/20/2008 1:20:14 PM PST by GSWarrior

“Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks [Greens], even bringing gifts.”

On college campuses, the far Left rarely engages in open debate on the issues of the day. Why debate the other side when you can charge students to support the causes you embrace? The key is dressing your agenda with warm and fuzzy terms like “diversity,” “inclusion,” and—most recently—”Green” initiatives promoting “sustainability.” [Green in the generic sense, not the Green Party]

Troy fell to the ruse of a Trojan Horse and the analogy is apt in the case of “sustainability” and its “third circle” (”social justice”). In Europe, critics of the Green movement contend that “the Green tree has Red (socialist) roots.” Translation: Green has a helluva lot more to do with left-wing politics than it has to do with the environment.

Mandatory “green fees” extracted from students pay for more than tree planting, recycling and other noncontroversial initiatives. My university (Southern Illinois University-Carbondale) raises $300,000 a year from student “green fees.” If you don’t like what they do with the $$$, “tough.” The campus Green group cleverly set up the fee to be permanent (at least five years) and repealed only if both student governments approve a reversal.

Watch out! The Greens lobbied for money from students, and now are getting ready to slide fees by employees, create a salaried position for “Sustainability” and more! If you don’t believe me, read here. SIU is not an isolated example: Peter Wood’s article highlights the national sweep of this budding movement.

What do students and staff get for this money? Part of the Green agenda deals with energy conservation and environmental issues on campus. Dig deeper and see how the Greens ally universities with far Left activists—without full disclosure, except to a handful of individuals on the Eco Task Force.

On my campus, “Project Eco Dawgs” has already laid the groundwork by publishing a guide that embraces the Talloires Declaration by “university leaders” declaring the “environmental pollution and degradation, and the depletion of natural resources” . . . “are caused by inequitable and unsustainable production and consumption patterns that aggravate poverty in many regions of the world.” The Red faction of the Green movement has been preaching this vision of apocalypse for decades, while market capitalism has actually diminished poverty in “many regions of the world” (China, India, and other countries that abandoned the myth of a zero-sum society). There is an “inequitable production and consumption” of doom and gloom on college campuses.

Keep your eyes on the “Sustainability” menu: lots of Greenery, with a healthy offering of “labor rights,” “reproductive rights” (abortion), domestic violence, and assaults on “late capitalism.”

Since the Greens scammed students already, the rest of us must be alert to efforts to impose mandatory fees upon employees—particularly for causes with which many might not agree. If you support (or oppose) these causes, then send your money voluntarily to the organization of your choice.

Meanwhile, beware of Greens bearing old wine in new wineskins.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: education; green; greens; highereducation; indoctrination; junkscience; leftismoncampus; sustainability

1 posted on 11/20/2008 1:20:14 PM PST by GSWarrior
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To: GSWarrior
Peter Wood’s article highlights the national sweep of this budding movement.

Article link here

2 posted on 11/20/2008 1:25:15 PM PST by GSWarrior
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To: GSWarrior
“diversity,” “inclusion,” and—most recently—”Green”

Gay - homosexual.
Choice - Infant dismemberment.
Sharing - Legalized theft.
Taxes - forced government servitude.
Environmentalism - Absolute control over every entity that uses the environment to survive.

Calling something by it's real name is the shortest path to wisdom.

3 posted on 11/20/2008 1:27:30 PM PST by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: GSWarrior
Our next President will insure the success of this watermelon policy. (Green on the outside, Red on the inside. Most of todays kids don't know what Communism is...
4 posted on 11/20/2008 1:29:07 PM PST by Edgerunner (Second Amendment Spoken Here)
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To: GSWarrior

Bump for Later


5 posted on 11/20/2008 1:31:52 PM PST by gridlock (Bill Clinton will be offered the job as Obama's Secretary of State.)
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To: GSWarrior
The powers that be want us to be willing slaves afraid to depart from their “nurturing.”

Try to escape, and see what happens.

6 posted on 11/20/2008 1:32:15 PM PST by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: GSWarrior

INTREP


7 posted on 11/20/2008 1:35:34 PM PST by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America; the Islamization of Eurabia)
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To: Edgerunner

Most of todays kids don’t know what Communism is...

Because the name has been changed to protect the innocent.

Green, Save the whales, environmentalism, socialism, PETA, democracy, democratic party, choice, diversity, social justice, AARP, left wing, public schools, Universities, education system, Unions, particularly govt workers, and education, Gay rights, women’s rights Judicial system, many Non profits, the United States Senate, a majority of the supreme court. There are tens of thousands of organizations with millions of members, covering half of the clueless voting populace and I am not a conspiracy theorist.

PS, This is just for starters. I’m sure the list is much longer.


8 posted on 11/20/2008 1:49:51 PM PST by wita
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To: concerned about politics
Choice - Infant dismemberment.

Nowhere in any dictionary is "choice" defined as "infant dismemberment." You argue for precision and destroy it simultaneously. Splendid.

9 posted on 11/20/2008 1:51:25 PM PST by Misterioso ( "Socialism is an ideology. Capitalism is a natural phenomenon.")
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To: Misterioso
Nowhere in any dictionary is "choice" defined as "infant dismemberment." You argue for precision and destroy it simultaneously. Splendid.

You knew what I meant.

Choice is liberal speak for abortion. Abortion brings with it a negative emotion, so they had to chose something a little more emotionally pleasant so the masses would be lest apt to reject it.

Abortion brutally dismembers a human infant while it's still alive. Choice makes it all sound so "unargumentative"

10 posted on 11/20/2008 1:59:26 PM PST by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: GSWarrior
inequitable and unsustainable production and consumption patterns that aggravate poverty in many regions of the world

Leftists exploit the poor as cover to loot and destroy the rich. Envy is socially repugnant so they wear the perfume of charity. They are only interested in the poor as a narcissistic feed to their ego. If they don't get the worship they desire they quickly lose interest.

11 posted on 11/20/2008 2:28:26 PM PST by Reeses (Leftism is powered by the evil force of envy.)
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To: concerned about politics
"Calling something by it's real name is the shortest path to wisdom. " VS. "You knew what I meant."

Time for you to get on the path.

12 posted on 11/20/2008 2:41:22 PM PST by Misterioso ( "Socialism is an ideology. Capitalism is a natural phenomenon.")
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To: Edgerunner

The SDS of the 60’s has been revived, with the old Reds as mentors...just ask Ayers.


13 posted on 11/20/2008 3:30:23 PM PST by Kackikat (.It's NOT over until it's over and it's NOT over yet....The Trumpet will sound....)
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To: GSWarrior

I just got a newsletter from my Engineering School. The foreward from the dean read like a Green PR handout with all the codewords. It was filled with articles of student junkets to jungle towns, building bridges and other feelgood projects.

Engineering is a field that is based on efficient design that saves resources economically, not one that wastes money on inefficent methods that touch a liberal’s heartstrings. In a few years, the profession will be like the journalism field, filled with knotheads seeking their inner light, rather than wringing out waste from designs. Waste in any form is anti-Green. I wish that the dean wasn’t such a chinless critter.


14 posted on 11/20/2008 3:42:56 PM PST by qwertypie
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To: GSWarrior

I was just banned from commenting on Arianna’s blog for disclosing some of the recent facts about global warming.


15 posted on 11/20/2008 5:33:57 PM PST by donndublin
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