Political Ulterior Motives

“The cleanest energy is energy not used at all.” The Democrats are overplaying their hand because the complete facts will simply not support claims the present is unnatural and the future disastrous. Denying facts is a sure sign of ulterior motives.

Why Did Global Warming Become a Moral Matter? The liberals always claimed that such behavior - allowing moral considerations to trump factual ones - was the ultimate evil. But apparently, even this "ultimate evil" becomes "acceptable strategy" if the cause is justified. This is "liberal moral relativism" taken to a whole new level.

But what ulterior motives? UW Madison Professor Joel Rogers is a leading intellectual in the progressive movement. A strong supporter of John Edwards last election, Rogers and his Bascom Hill think tank COWS plan political strategy for the socialist movement. Success depends on fusing unionism and environmentalism into a united voting block.

Unions See Greenbacks in 'Green' Future: According to studies by the Apollo Alliance, which has outlined a 10-point plan for energy independence and jumpstarting the renewables sector, dollars invested in clean energy create more jobs than those invested in traditional energy sources. Renewable energy is simply more labor intensive.

All that's needed are incentives at the federal level, and America will be well on its way toward what some call a "third industrial revolution." "This is like the transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy," says Robert Borosage, president of the Institute for America's Future, a progressive think tank.

The most optimistic point out that, because decentralization is inherent to renewable energy, an equitable distribution of wealth is built into the new energy paradigm. "The sun shines, the wind blows, there's biomass everywhere," says Jeremy Rifkin, author of "The Hydrogen Economy." And making heavy machinery such as wind turbines far from where it's to be used simply won't be cost-effective. Neither will transmitting energy over long distances. That means jobs will be more evenly distributed as well.

The real impetus for this market is most likely to come from top-down regulation on a national scale, a measure President Bush has so far rejected, but which many see as inevitable. "Everyone sees carbon regulation down the line," says Kate Gordon, a senior associate with the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Understand the take home message. Renewable energy is simply more labor intensive so if the industrial revolution can be reversed through top down government regulation, then there will be more unionizable jobs to control. This coming Wednesday, Rogers outlines his plan at the Wisconsin Historical Society in a talk called How Global Warming Can Save Democracy. The socialists are serious about winning control of the United States, so it is wise to seriously contest their plans.