Some Friendly Advice For GreenMyParents
by Brian GarstCoinciding with Earth Day, a group of teenagers launched a new program called GreenMyParents, which seeks to “help young people teach their peers and parents how to work together to help the economy, earn money at home, and save the planet through simple, everyday actions.” Looking for ways to help their families save money while protecting the environment are laudable goals, but I have some concerns. I don’t want to insult these kids by assuming that they are just puppets of any other organization, but they should be aware of the fact that many will seek to use their organization to advance their agenda.
These kids should be commended for designing a program that relies on persuasion and free choice. All too often, environmental groups have sought to circumvent public opinion and free choice by appealing to governmental force. Mandates on personal behavior and restrictions on liberty are not how people should seek to affect change in a democratic society. I hope they will stay focused on their model of persuasion and stay away from politicized issues like cap-and-trade.
While wading into the issue of personal choices, I also hope they will stop and consider some of the trade-offs adults have to make. It is easy to condemn their parents for wasteful behavior while they are still too young to have to be responsible for things like safeguarding a family. For instance, in a write-up by the New York Times, it was suggested that the group would advise “washing in cold water, walking or biking to school/work and kicking the bottled-water habit,” as ways to save money and help the environment. Walking or biking to school might save both money and reduce pollution, but it also exposes children to greater risk of violence or kidnapping. These are the types of things that responsible adults have to consider.
It is no secret that the environmental movement has been c0-opted by disaffected leftists who, despite that end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, still seek a means to overthrow capitalism. While this is not characteristic of all environmental groups or the people involved with them, such views are prevalent enough that it is likely such individuals will attempt to also co-opt GreenMyParents.
A group which reaches out to children provides those with an agenda an irresistible opportunity to subvert normal political debate by controlling the information received by the next generation. They understand that children are both more impressionable and less informed than those who have been around longer, and so they can circumvent pesky battles over public opinion – regarding things like personal liberty, economic freedom, and how to weigh environmental concerns in typical cost-benefit analyses of everyday choices – by controlling the information that reaches children. The founders of GreenMyParents should be extra careful not to let their organization be used in this fashion.
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388 Comments
It is child abuse. And nothing but child abuse.
Intentionally hide history. Intentionally distort reality. Intentionally teach lies.
It is one thing to try that on an adult. To do that to a young growing eager mind is not only sick. It's dangerous. It is CHILD ABUSE.
All of this reminds me of "Bernie Madoff ", a huge Ponzi scheme being played on all of
U.S.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpucONE7WWk
"It's The Economy Stupid"
God Bless America
The USSR practiced it successfully for about 60 years – but they had to have closed borders, controlled media, and KGB informants to make it work……………
Coincidentally, passports to trvel outside the US have become more expensive, the media has become a moutpiece for liberalism, and Cass Sunstein is advocating that the government use informants to infiltrate chat rooms, blog sites, and real world political organizations…..
Just a coincidence, surely……
“help young people teach their peers and parents how to work together to help the economy, earn money at home, and save the planet through simple, everyday actions.”
Economically illiterate liberal imbeciles wouldn't have the slightest idea how to start a business, are incapable of filing their taxes properly [looking at you little Timmy Geithner] and detest capitalism, but they're going to attempt use brainwashed children to guilt their parents into a caveman lifestyle. Liberals should be concerned with teaching kids how to read, write, math, science, history, instead of this leftwing green bullshyt.
Liberals truly are mental defectives. There should be a restraining order keeping all liberals away from children.
They can't brainwash the parents, so they'll settle for brainwashing the kids. The Left's tactics are despicable.
It's no accident that our schools are filled with liberal activist teachers. They know very well how impressionable young minds are. Wasn't it Hitler who said “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”
You hit the nail on the head, Satan.
"It's The Economy Stupid"
God Bless America
[...] Read the rest. [...]
and my daughter-in-law in PA is a HS Lit teacher/liberal who still thinks dear leader is the greatest thing since sliced bread…
Good ole Al (the wh@re) Gore is taking a new tac by going directly to school age kids and explicitly telling them that they need to explain global warming to their parents to "help them understand".
I saw a minute or two of the video and it is purely disgusting what they are doing to our kids. Yet you hear all the liberal groups pillorying advertisers who sell snack food and other 'un-approved' products, while at the same time polluting their minds at school and from groups like this.
All you misguided passionate lefty losers stay the F awasy from the kids. If you can't make your arguements to grown-ups, you don't have an arguement to make so STFU
We need to flood the school system with Conservative minded teachers and steer those minds right back where they should be – on learning Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Of course the liberals don't want kids to learn these things so that they can become productive members of society. They want to teach kids how to be dependent on a government for everything including how to THINK! Every parent who cares should be at their child's school demanding to know what their children are being taught.
This is another reason why my future children will not attend public school.
Vladimir Lenin had a similar quote……..
"Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever."
[...] Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this | // Posted by Editor at 11:03 AM Tagged with: "teaching parents?", Education, environmental regulation, environmentalism, environmentalists, government propaganda, Green Movement, GreenMyParents, indoctrination, our children [...]
"Walking or biking to school"
That's not even an option where we live. We live in a suburb of a suburb of a suburb of a larger city in WI. There are no sidewalks by the school. The elementary school is on a hill in the country, so walking Is NOT PERMITTED because it is on a state highway and it is dangerous for kids to walk there.
My other favorite is when politicians recommend using public transportation. Um, yeah, don't have that here. It's a 15 minute drive to the nearest store on roads that have 45-55 mph speed limits and really no shoulder. I have no choice to to drive everywhere. I can do things to limit the number of trips I make, but that is it.
•"Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it… All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 2
If I am ever blessed to be able to conceive after trying for 4+ years, my child will be taught from home too. I cannot stand all that leftist bull-turd.
They are being brainwashed to be the radicals of the future.
good for you goo, sacrifice anything you must to make it come true.
When my kid was in 2nd grade the teach gave him grief for having a paper lunch sack. I told him that paper was a renewable resource and the logger had a job and could feed his kids and all the people at the paper mills had jobs and could feed their kids. Then a farmer could plant more trees and he would have a job to feed his children. I then told him his teacher was young and maybe she would understand when she had to feed children on her own.
Al Wh@re is engaging in a form of environmental pedophilia, knowing how to appeal to kids vulnerabilities to spur them to do his bidding. I'd love to shove my carbon foot print up his hypocritical, pedophile anyus.
[...] Some Friendly Advice For GreenMyParents. Posted in: Uncategorized ← Condemned Utah killer will face firing squad Be [...]
I've been wanting to read that book again. I will have to find it at the second hand store down the street.
Aren't they precious, with their snaggle-toothed smiles & shiny clean hair. Perfect virgin raw
material for the scheming vermin who will brainwash them so thoroughly they will cry for the
'EARTH' when they see something they have been taught is abuse. Do you really want to live
with a teen-ager who has a hysterical tantrum every time she sees you break the 'green rules'?
See how they embrace the globe with perfect expressions of admiration in their eyes? This
is Gaia worship. The LEFTIST are teaching WORSHIP of the EARTH to our children & grand-
children right in the very classrooms they forbade them from praying in. Are we insane to per-
mit this to continue? Yes we are. The left harassed every speck of Judeo Christian symbol-
ism from our schools, over the past 40 years. Now they feel free to teach this EARTH WOR-
SHIP? And if you dare speak up, or Heaven forbid your child speak out against this worship,
they will be ostracized by their classmates & teachers. The Lefts effort is to replace the God
in the Heavens, with a God of Earth. This must be stopped, immediately. It is dangerous, for
the children, as well as their parents.
Green jobs. Pull weeds, mow the lawn. Recycle. Do dishes.
Most of the phony green entails putting the heat on parents to drive a mini car preferably a hybrid.
Most kids also have trashy rooms. That is a great place to learn conservation and enveronmental hygiene.
No reading, no writing, no arithmetic, lousy graduation rates, poor test scores, and now we have green indoctrination. The country has gone mad.
It worked for me,……however,……..I didn't look at it as "sacrifice"
more like an INVESTMENT there compone.
My father and I were talking about the public school system (I was homeschooled growing up) and I told him I was glad that I did not have to go through the public school system , and he told me that my brother and I were homeschooled because: "If anyone is going to indoctrinate my children, it will be me."
This is where the evironwackos are loosing. They want to force people to do these things. People should be allowed to do this on their own, that includes the kids. Also, these wackos don't see any dangers which is really bad. Oh and another thing. Since exactly how many of these wackos actually live green themselves? Or how about DC? Or Hollywood? The answer is none.
Always had pet dogs when we were young kids,….
and always got them when they were puppies,…………..
training them at that age was soooooo easy.
never had to train them to NOT bite the hand that fed them.
This "GreenMyParants" thing is sure to take a bite out Mommy and Daddy.
Sigh..same problem here because the discussions can get very heated but the bottom line is " I am the ignorant one" and my daughter (who is a PHD professor) thinks conservatives ruined this country. I wish I would've home schooled her too.
Strangely prophetic, yet at the same time it just goes to show that Obama and his methods are anything but new and different.
You can read it online here:
http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/1984/1984.ht...
I have been saying this since I was in high school, because I taught myself more from books and my own study than anything I was taught by the teachers. They will either attend private school, or they will be home schooled. It's that simple.
That's exactly right.
I pray that your desire will come true.
It's not even being conservative minded, it's having a balance, where none exists now. I don't care if they are liberal or conservative; teachers need to bring both sides of an argument to the table and let the students engage in critical thinking.
And when they grow up they will have green slime brains, and hate America and want to join the communist Obama party in Cuba..
The teacher was an unbelievable moron, that's all that was.
Just by the very fact they have a website these children are already politicized, and my bet is by their green parents. Next up I can shoot down every single one of their suggestions. No hot water? Hardly sanitary or healthy. Walk or ride a bike? Forget the kidnapping and predators, how about congested cities are a dangerous place to walk in? No bottled water? Bottled water makes water more portable and far healthier than soda, which in that turn also helps to combat the unhealthy obesity problem this country has. If I had to choose which I wanted people toting around with them, water would be a far better choice than a can of coke, even the diet variety is all chemicals.
No one ever stops to consider that things evolved into place for a reason. This also proves that the greenies would like to send everyone back to the Stone Age with the exception of themselves of course.
I agree! The biggest problems with our schools is our kids are far too politicized and sexualized by a bunch of idiots that should not be teaching.
Well said sir.
"It's the economy stupid"
God Bless America
Another opportunity to use their own rules against them. Since they worship Gaia, that makes it a religion…time for separation of church and state.
Bill Nye and Ed Begley are pretty green… Just saying… But it is pretty pathetic that they are about the only 2 you can even think of…
I don't see how it is any different than Girl Scouts of America or the Christian Youth Association.
Probably the work of Satan… you know, El Diablo.
Thank you so much! I will start it right away. I finished a beloved childhood book a couple days ago, "Summer of the Monkeys".
My kids did great in school Paul. Maybe the problem is you.
Oh please…..
Sounds they were raised to be part of the problem. Well done dad.
The USSR didn't practice anything "successfully" except for state terror, forced labor, and mass murder. I hope you were referring to something heinous, because I can't glean from your post what you are referring to exactly.
I liked the way Garst discusses this subject. It tactfully explains how 'information assymetry' (not in so many words) is the hallmark of propaganda and ideological subversion. Good article.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!! These chicago thugs will do anything and most certainly brainwash our kids. How about the creep in the whitehouse start by walking instead of firing up 2 or 3 jets – yes even if it is to California – it would take the bastards much longer and keep them off our backs once in awhile. We are so sick of seeing the jerk and listening to him – I think we should all cancel TV's – that would be a guaranteed way of not having to se him. VOTE THIS BUTTHEADS OUT!!!! Not only out of office but how about out of the country!!!
I celebrated earth day. Ripped my 2 cycle chainsaw through a couple of dead trees killed by the pine borer beetle (whatever the hell that is… probably exists because of the DDT ban). Then while the old stumps were burning out back, I laid down some serious insecticides to keep the white flies and the mealy bugs off my ornamentals so they would bloom all summer. Finally, the wife came home with a real nice piece of Mexican tuna caught free range in a net (maybe with a dolphin or two) and we lit a gigantic charcoal fire out back and had a nice BBQ and a cigar.
i think they should teach the kids what is right..
my thought exactly Lolo, time to turn the tables on them, raise some hell. I'm just
the person to do it, since I no longer give a rip what anyone thinks of my opinions.
Ah " reality sandwiches" now there's a fast food that does wonders for an offspring.
I too am the proud papa of four Republican voting children.
To bad Mickey's parents didn't give him one once in a while.
How many of you are sick of hearing this idiotic lefty claim that kids have much to teach their parents? These little crumbcrunchers, as well as their teen puppetmasters, havent the slightest CLUE about the state of the Earth. Those who have kids in high school know that "science" classes are now dumbed down and a mishmash of liberal green-weenie causes, NOT about the study of science itself. The "save the planet" bullbleep is designed only to frighten and control kids, and to pit them against their parents.
I think MystWlker was being sarcastic.
The USSR was successful at being unsuccessful. I have made similar remarks before. It seems reasonable.
With government subsidies to hide the cost of being "green" it's getting more difficult to offer up those reality sandwiches these days, because kids (and liberals) think the price tag on the store shelf is how much it cost.
I think I'd have to wait and get the details first. The accusations you make, to me (and i freely admit i could be reading you wrong) sound like you are assuming that this is a way to brainwash kids into liberal environmental thinking – which as a guy who is not a conservative and is a environmentalist – know is not real environmentalism.
conservatives, especially fiscal conservatives, are just as capable of being environmentalist – which this could potentially coincide with.
either way, if it gives kids an excuse to ask their parents questions, I'm all for that. At least in this manner it helps the parents know when they have to teach good and rational (non liberal) environmental thought.
actually, as a guy who got his MBA in sustainability (duquesne university) I've been trained in this and i can easily say turgeson did exactly the right thing. Good reasonable environmentalism acknowledges that it is only a part of the equation. Making decisions based purely on environmental reasons is as bad as making decisions purely on financial.
Look at it this way, by not making a decision that will cost him more money he but help the environment, he saves up cash to make moves that will do both and as long as he keeps making solid financial decisions he can maintain the ability to remain doing so whenever possible.
Time to change hands moron. Your eyes are glassy.
When I was young, the only mention of "green" around our home was "mow that green grass" and "trim the green hedge" and "pull those green weeds out of the flower beds." Occasionally, if I had done a good job, I received some real green as a reward.
Thanks for that. I had to sign in to give you Thumbs Up.
Teaching teenagers how to nag and embarrass their parents.
Brilliant.
[...] » Some Friendly Advice For GreenMyParents – Big Government [...]
Creepy sex references are never a good call on a political blog Paul. But it's not just you. I see it a lot from righties.
…. my god what is going on…???
Good for you! Yes, true learning has always come from individual effort, not spoon feeding. I got my real education when I began home schooling. You know what? Most homeschooled children also desire to homeschool their children. This is going to become a problem to "the system" at some point. I pray that Americans will always have the freedom to homeschool without regulation. It's working well. Don't "fix" it.
[...] » Some Friendly Advice For GreenMyParents – Big Government [...]
Is the belief in science by a non-scientist a matter of faith? Does he have little more than faith in scientists and the idea that they don’t rely on faith? Sure, he may observe and utilise ‘highly technological devices’ such as a computer, but is he still not accepting through faith the principles on which he is told they work?
I agree. Very well-written! Thank you. I also learned from my dear departed father, and I still hear his voice. In a way I'm glad he isn't alive to see Obama because I think he would die of a broken heart.
If I had a kid trying to brainwash me, I would exercise my parental responsibility.
"…as long as you live in my house, it's my rules, your the kid I'm the parent. You want to keep your computer/playstation/phone, leave that greeny commie crap at school."
"But dad…"
"You want to save money, quit asking me for money to buy a new game, phone or the latest fashion statement."
Teaching kids to conserve energy and to recycle is child abuse? As long as these kids aren't being taught to support any political agenda, I don't see what the problem is.
I don't see how recycling equates to hating America and joining the communist party.
Great idea. Care to elaborate?
Right on the mark.
When I see stories like this, when I see videos of very young grade school children singing "Uumm, uumm, uumm, Barack Husein Obama, the hair on the back of my neck stands up, warning bells go off in my mind, my stomach sinks to new lows and tears fill my eyes.
I was born in 1959 and I remember my father extolling on a daily basis the dangers of Communism. I remember the stories he used to tell and the news reports filled with exposes of Russian children spying on their parents and turning their parents in to the Gestapo for holding beliefs contrary to the government. It frightened me then, my very bones are shaking now. For the moral of my father's laments was to compare and contrast the American way of life versus the totalitarian government way of life.
But, back then, I did not recognize the lessons for what they were. You see, my father was a drunk and a jerk. And as I grew older and began to realize that very fact, everything he said and believed came into question in my mind and I became a very loose liberal.
But, something happened on the way to the loony liberal farm. I grew up fast. I moved out, got married, had a child (and oh by the way, was working all that time) all before I turned 21. Having a child changes a person in ways that cannot be described or counted. Suddenly, I was not the center of the universe. Suddenly I was no longer a dependent, but the person who another was dependent upon. It was a profound change.
Fast forward to 9/11. I was asleep at the wheel of politics. I could not have cared less about what was going on in the country, let alone what was going on in the world. I was consumed with my family and my job. But that day changed my life. And while it was happening I had vague thoughts running through the back of my mind that I was changed forever, but I did not realize just how much.
To wrap this up, 9/11 was a wake up call for me. Just as it was for millions of Americans. It was the day I started to pay attention. It was the day that politics and religion and the things that I believed to be true were solidified. It was the day that the first faint whisperings of my father's words crept back into the forefront of my mind.
This last presidential election cycle and the politics of President Obama have turned the whisperings into mega-phone style calls. My father is screaming into my brain. All I can hear is "Danger Will Robinson, danger!"
My father left this world many years ago. His footprints are still here in my heart. I remember the lessons he taught me, even though I thought I wasn't listening.
I would give the world if I could quit my job in two years and home school my granddaughter. Our children are our future that is true. But if we do not know and understand history we ware doomed to repeat it. Do we really want to be the generation that precipitates the fall of Rome? Because that is where we are. We are on the verge of preserving freedom. Will we preserve it or will we let it die? That is the question.
Good for you. Should you plan to educate your children yourself I hope your husband will also be enthusiastic about doing so and realize how important it is for the husband to be involved in the childrens education.
I agree that this is worship or idolatry of the earth. While I pray to God that this nation will return to Him, I will also continue to pester my Congressional representatives for the dissolution of the national department of education. We must return education back to local accountability to the parents.
My student was not ostracized but was graded down by his left-wing environmentalist government teacher due to comments he made in class and having the audacity to point out erroneous or false statements the teacher was making. Thankfully he was able to change schools and find a conservative government teacher that actually taught the Constitution not anti-government rhetoric and could care less about making the kids properly recycle their papers in class, plastic, etc.
Thanks for your post, I'm going to study up on Gala worship.
If you live in a state wherein you can educate your children at home yourself it might be time to check into doing so. If your state is attempting to limit parent's or guardians in educating their own children then you might want to actively fight such legislation.
I once heard a mother say that she believed the home education movement would be the Noah's ark for this nation. It is indoctrination tactics like this from the left that lend credence to her statement.
Home education is tried and true. The beauty of it now is the plethora of methods, avenues and resources.
Good post. As to homeschooling you might want to check out Lisa Whelchel's book, "So You're Thinking of Homeschooling". She shows how fifteen different families, in fifteen different situations, accomplished the education of their children. Best of luck to you.
Just one more great reason for home schooling.
I'm still waiting for the MSM to blame Iceland's volcano eruption on plastic water bottles or something. Maybe if I just driven a couple thousand less miles with my Chevy Suburban SUV, this could have been avoided.
Poltiical correctness of any kind of merely a demonstration of arrogant self-righteousness egotism. When followed it always ends up bad. You can't turn a sows ear into a silk purse.
Of course you don't. That's because you're a moron.
This is on topic and is very funny. I found it as a comment elsewhere on this site but it belongs here.
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=XdSUkU...
Excellent response. I can only imagine the stammering and sputtering that would take place if your son had relayed this back to his teacher! In fact, I'll bet any of these "GreenMyParent" type brainwashers would be totally offended or indignant if a parent had the gall to have a child attempt to "teach" them!
Well said and well done sir. With four under 7 I will be proudly implementing these ideas as they are right in line with my upbringing.
Keep up the good work, it may be even tougher with your grandkids.
Bold talk from an anonymous typist.
Just statin' the facts.
This is god's way of preventing the spread of right wing hate. His will be done…
I have spent years watching schoolkids coming home and because of something a teacher said about smoking, say something to their parents that would break their hearts as they realized their kids thought they were evil for smoking. Fast forward tol the year that those kids were about 17 or so, and they would be smoking more than their parents did at 21!
I wonder what these kids are learning about the need for population control and how abortion is not that bad after all and that their parents are again misguided to think that this is wrong. I'm so glad that I don't have any school-age children now! I think that if I were a young girl today, I would not marry and have children, because as each year passes, it seems that they are less and less ours, and we're just raising little people to be indoctrinated into ideas that we are totally against. This is all like a bad movie!
It sure is abuse. I saw it for 40 years in the public schools..
You don't see what ELSE goes along with it, that's the problem. It's all UN, all the time. ONE channel, ONE campaign, ONE leader, blah blah blah.
Kyle, why not? Hitler did it…
But it's not even necessarily the teachers who most are brainwashed themselves…. it is the WHOLE SYSTEM turned upside down, starting in the 1980s with school 'reform' and Goals 2000. I can remember thinking, why are they asking me to do things that are WRONG? Everything that was wrong was suddenly right, and vice versa.
(Can't use red pen, can't teach writing phonics or spelling, etc…)
They now have gotten rid of tenure in some places so you won't be able to protect those teachers from being targeted and driven out. They find you, they attack you and then you're gone, all because you won't follow the 'agenda'. It was like the stories of the gulag, go with the group or else! Even to the point they would spy on who you ate lunch with.
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