Government Conspiracies: Agenda 21, Light Bulbs, and Smart Meters

Government Conspiracies

Agenda 21, Light Bulbs, and Smart Meters

A few weeks back I opened the local paper. I was sitting at work on my lunch break, and as I often do I turned to the Readers Tell Us column, a local section where readers can call in and leave their personal remarks on local and national issues. A individual had called in to complain about the current federal regulations restricting the sale and manufacture of incandescent light bulbs.  This is a complaint that has been made repeatedly by every one from presidential candidate Newt Gingrich to local Tea Party groupies. But this time the argument, or compliant, was not about having his personal liberties encroached by the new restrictions. The individual was insisting that his home heating bills had increased do to the removal of incandescent light bulbs from his home. He claimed that the bulbs had produced so much heat that their absence was causing a increase in his heating bills.

This sort of argument is becoming more and more commonplace. Today the New York Times printed an article featuring a number of arguments about how local plans to develop green spaces, reduce carbon footprints of local communities, and even smart meters where all products of a U.N. conspiracy to create a new world order.[1] In the past these concerns would have been brushed aside as non-sense. Today with the growing presence of local Tea Party Groups these sorts of arguments are having considerable impact on decision-making on the local level.

If we look to the Chicago-Sun Times we see how misguided such fears are.[2] To steal a quote Kateri Callahan president of the Alliance to Save Energy, stated:

 “There is a lot of misinformation… Retailers don’t have to take inventories of old bulbs off the shelves. The government is not going to come into homes to check. ... You’re still going to be able to buy incandescent bulbs. They’re just going to be 28 to 30 percent more efficient.”

So the gentlemen above may still not be placed at ease because more efficient bulbs mean less of the ambient heat that represents the primary source of wasted energy. Although the pro and cons of ‘light bulb home heating’ seem like something better left up to the Myth Busters we can rest assured that when big brother does invade our homes it wont be to check our desk lamps. For the time being make sure to check out this article and Wikipedia for a break down of the different kinds of bulbs:

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/tips-on-shopping-for-energy-efficient-bulbs/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

Newt and his Tea Party fans commonly cite the same UN resolution when defending their fears of a new world ‘lighting’ agenda. It is ominously titled ‘Agenda 21.’[3] Apparently no one at the UN has a degree in marketing, because naming your environmental initiatives in the same way B-movie directors name films is no way to win over the masses. Upon actually reading Agenda 21 you’ll find a very vague plan for reducing consumption and limiting development in rural areas. The plan for in acting this agenda is more carrot then stick. It involves offering developing countries special financing for local planning and developing. For big countries it means mostly education and out reach. If this is the new world order we’re to fear, then we truly have nothing to fear but fear it self.

That is simply what most of the Tea Party’s outrage boils down to, blind fear. Individuals who, do to a lack of education, old age, misinformation from media and politicians, or simple laziness, lack the ability to adapt to an ever-changing world. This is not new. It is a story as old as time. People fear change. Therefore people fear funny shaped light bulbs. What do you fear?

Cheers

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/activists-fight-green-projects-seeing-un-plot.html

[2] http://couriernews.suntimes.com/news/9906045-418/old-light-bulbs-fading-but-what-will-replace-them.html

[3] http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_00.shtml

Decorum

de·co·rum   [dih-kawr-uhm, -kohr-][1]  noun

1. dignified propriety of behavior, speech, dress, etc.

2. the quality or state of being decorous;  orderliness; regularity.

3. Usually, decorums. an observance or requirement of polite society.

Decorum is a word.

One found in any dictionary. For those unlike myself who know only of modern web based sources like the one I have made reference to below, that’s the big dusty tomb found at your local library or next to the desks of outmoded academics. Citing another one of the great monoliths of the digital age Wikipedia will inform you that decorum is word established in meaning by Lord Chesterfield. He was a statesman and man of letters who, at roughly the same time our country was being founded, was searching for a translation of the French les moeurs (‘Manners are to little, Morals are to much.’).[2]  

Decorum is just that, a word. It seems in our society that at present it has no greater context. It is seldom found in the sweat pant wearing masses of college students stumbling to and from class or the ranks of working class people shuffling back and forth irrespective of the hue of their collar. Its absence has for most of my adult life been only a minor annoyance. In till a Thursday night Republican debate when a active duty Marine serving in Afghanistan was publicly booed by a audience in response to raising an important question about the fate of himself and his fellow marines.

            The candidate on stage, Rick Santorum, gave a stumbling response about returning to the policies of ‘don’t ask don’t tell.’ But it is not the booing of the audience that was most defining it was the silence. Columnist Mel Mintz, The Baltimore Sun, has nailed it on the head in stating, “Here is the critical point: Not one of those contenders chose to act like a president and defend that Marine's question. Nor did they truly answer his question.”[3] Let us turn to another dusty old book next to my desk, Roberts Rules of Order.

In debate a member must confine himself to the question before the assembly, and avoid personalities… It is not allowable to arraign the motives of a member, but the nature or consequences of a measure may be condemned in strong terms. It is not the man, but the measure, that is the subject of debate.[4]

It is just that, the debate being held concerns the Constitution of the United States and the laws and offices it support. Not this Marine. Not this man who risks his life to defend those laws and protect the very freedom of public debate it self. Even the previous incidents where audiences applauded increasing numbers of executions or the out cries to allow individuals with out health insurance to be denied life saving care had so insulted public decorum.

            This is only one example of the absence of decorum in politics. It is not reasonable to assume that politicians such as Santorum, and others like Sarah Palin who studied communications and journalism in college, do not understand the importance or need for decorum. Then why do they allow such behavior to continue? Why do they continue to use and endorse violent and hateful rhetoric directed not towards the political measures before them but towards individuals they oppose? Perhaps if we did in the House of Commons and placed them a swords length from their advisories, drew a long red line between them, and forced them to confront their opponents face to face they would hold more dear their shared humanity. Although even the statement I just made is in itself a form of reactionary hyperbole, and it too is worthy of scorn.

            Lets take for example the use of the word treason.

treason   [tree-zuhn]  noun

1. the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.

2. a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.

3. the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.

Rick Perry is quoted saying, “Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous — or treasonous in my opinion.” Is printing money an act of over throwing the government or the President? I doubt this; I even more seriously question the idea of putting a man to death for executing the laws of the United States of America. But treason is word not only found in political speeches, it is found on the signs held by and slogans shouted by thousands of Tea Party ‘Patriots.’ They call for any number of congressional leaders, or even the president, to be charged with the high crime of treason. More disturbing time and time again they use small children to carry those signs. Teaching grade school boys and girls to cry out for the execution of the men and women that you and I have elected. In fairness decorum is not only lacking here but also with the thousands of Union protestors like those who stormed the Wisconsin Capital building causing over $270 million in damages.[5]

            Let us return though to our Marine. He is just that ‘our’ Marine, he is as of right now fighting on some foreign field of battlefield. Their I feel we can be sure amongst the violence of war decorum is at most times meaningless. It should not be here. So let me take a strike at the issue at question, the one that those candidates where unable conjure the necessary composure to respond to from amongst their talking points. In Greece outside the city Thebes stands a stone lion. The lion is a monument to the 300 men of the lead division of the Thebes’ army, who in the Battle of Chaeronea 338 BC fought to the death defending their homeland. Every one of them fought and died with his male lover at his side. And when Philip the II of Macedonia and his son Alexander the Great ventured across that dissolute battlefield they found the bodies of those 300 men heaped upon one another. Philip was so moved by their courage that he erected that monument in the honor of those men who had but moments before been his enemy.

            If decorum is no longer held sacred, and treason is to be found in the actions of all men then I will keep my own words of outrage to myself. Instead I direct those in the audience and the candidates on that stage to words of King Philip II,

‘Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.’

Hopefully, this to in itself, will not be too much a breech of decorum…

Cheers

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[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/decorum

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decorum

[3] http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-09-26/news/bs-ed-dont-ask-letter-20110923_1_gop-debate-gop-nomination-gays

[4] Art. 5 Sect. 36

[5] http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/05/13/wisconsin-capitol-repair-costs/

My Generation

What dose it mean to be alive today? Alive in the 20th century. It's strange to think back over the generations. Generation X. The Baby Boomers. The Greatest Generation. What on earth will become of our generation? Volunteerism is on the raise so we are certainly do not fit the stereotype of Generation X. We are no larger then other generations and we certainly can not define our selves in terms of wars won or lost by any right. So how are we to understand our place in History?

Have we found our Kerouac yet in the writings of Stephen Chbosky, J. M. Coetzee, Naomi Klein, Ian McEwan, or Lawrence Lessig? It's strange to think that one writer could even capture a whole generation. We are certainly a generation, like so many before us, grouping for truth. Whether we find it in the things we own, the people we meet, or symbols which float around us we all desire it and are all bewildered by the complexity of it.

When it comes to politics we go every direction at once. Some hold on to the moral majority of their fathers, the liberalism of their mothers, or simply drive towards a chaos while trying to tear down the parties of old. What is horrifying though is that for all the talk, all the activism, all the volunteerism, all the praying, all the screaming, shouting, and marching so few of us arrive at the polls. We have driven our selves from the political equation. No man or woman can be faulted for who they chose to support. No matter what anyone says voting is never a sin. The real sin is not voting. If the truth is supposed set us free, voting is the insurance policy that backs up truth. We see, a I noted before, that as voting among women has declined the wage gap has increased. Those who show up it seems do create the law.

We find our selves in a interesting position. As poverty, AIDS, the veteran administration, globalization, and petty greed fill the streets of our cities and the deserted roads of the country side we have decision to make. As a generation we must chose a side. Not one of political affiliation, not one of loyalty to a party or an economic system but simply whether we will stand up for or brothers and sisters or allow them to perish in the face of intolerance and hate. The question echoes in the streets of Buenos Aires, it is sweeping through the fields of Mpumalanga, and marching in the streets of cities all over the world.

It should be clear that our generation will be defined by the globalisation which started before we where born. We will be rembered for what we did or didn't do accordingly. Their is no one left to blame but our selves. No where to turn but each other.