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Glenn Beck’s Paranoid Fantasy Novel Could Become A Textbook In Ohio

The Republican distaste for science and fact is well-known and that they try to push this to dictate what is taught in schools says as much about the state of our schools as it does about the dinosaurs who refuse to step into the 21st century with the rest of us. We continue to see cases where creationism is being taught (to the detriment of the schools): in Louisiana, in Kansas, and in Mississippi we have seen right-wing ideologies treated as legitimate school curricula. If these incidents would remain limited to private schools it wouldn’t be a problem. That’s what private and parochial schools are for. But when this nonsense is introduced into the public system – which every citizen pays into – then we have a problem. Our country is governed by this piece of paper known as the Constitution and one of the very first things it says is that the government will not endorse any religion (aka the Establishment Clause). Public schools = government, ergo no sanction of religion. Any religion.

The latest school district to be caught in the crosshairs of the religious right is the Springboro Community City School District in Ohio. They are considering a “controversial issues policy,” which is really only a backdoor for the fundamentalists to getting their agenda into the public schools. They claim that this policy permits students to discuss “controversial” issues so that they “… think critically, learn to identify important issues, explore fully and fairly all sides of an issue, weigh carefully the values and factors involved, and develop techniques for formulating and evaluating positions.” That actually sounds like a good thing until you see what they consider to be controversial:

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religion (when not used in a historical or factual context), sex education, legalization of drugs, evolution/creation, pro-life/abortion, contraception/abstinence, conservatism/liberalism,politics, gun rights, global warming and climate change, UN Agenda 21 and sustainable development, and any other topic on which opposing points of view have been promulgated by responsible opinion and/or likely to arouse both support and opposition in the community.

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Many of the so-called controversial ideas on that list are actually nothing of the kind, except in the insular world of the evangelical right. Science and studies have shown that many of those are, in fact, incontrovertible. Evolution is an accepted fact, with 99.85% of American earth and life scientists agreeing that this is so. That is not controversial. Ninety-seven percent of scientists accept that climate change is real and that mankind’s activities are very likely the cause. That is not controversial. Dozens of studies show that abstinence-only education is a failure. That is not controversial. Other topics on the list are legitimately controversial and should be discussed by students: religion, drugs, gun rights, politics… these are things that high school kids should talk about as long as there is no agenda behind the materials provided.

But the most egregious example of what these ideological demagogues find to be controversial is Agenda 21. Simply stated, Agenda 21 encourages member nations to take environmental factors into consideration when developing their resources, land, transportation, etc. It is not a treaty. It is not legally binding. It just asks that we be environmentally aware and not go blasting away mountain tops, damming rivers and such without consideration for environmental concerns. Even The Heritage Foundation has examined Agenda 21 and concluded that it is not a threat

But that didn’t stop our buddy Glenn Beck from scribbling a hysterical tome based on the program . His book is the worst kind of manipulative tripe and is badly written, to boot. It is set in a dystopian world – this is the place Beck fantasizes about when he’s worked himself up into a paranoid lather over unseen enemies and imaginary threats to freedom as he… I’ll stop there. I don’t have enough brain bleach. Anyway, it’s infantile propaganda. But a public school district wants to treat it as fact and use it in a curriculum that isn’t Bad Modern Lit 101. If they want to talk about dystopian futures in class there are plenty of better books to do it with (Brave New World, 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale) that would provide more to discuss.

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Just a generation ago, this place was called America. Now, after the worldwide implementation of a UN-led program called Agenda 21, it’s simply known as “the Republic.” There is no president. No Congress. No Supreme Court. No freedom.

There are only the Authorities.

Citizens have two primary goals in the new Republic: to create clean energy and to create new human life. Those who cannot do either are of no use to society. This bleak and barren existence is all that eighteen-year-old Emmeline has ever known. She dutifully walks her energy board daily and accepts all male pairings assigned to her by the Authorities. Like most citizens, she keeps her head down and her eyes closed.

Until the day they come for her mother.

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This particular school board has been on this precipice before, having backed off from plans to teach creationism in 2011. Now, they are facing not only this challenge from the ACLU, but similar complaints from parents, as well. Parents, teachers and students packed a board meeting on Friday to register their displeasure and to point out that this sort of ideological sneakiness detracts from the actual job of educating students. The board has decided to deal with the issue next month. Let’s hope they do what’s right for the students and not bow to pressure from the religious right. http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/05/28/glenn-becks-paranoid-fantasy-n
ovel-could-become-a-textbook-in-ohio/#ixzz2UbWbxDLY]

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The premise of Agenda 21 lies in a set of principles, outlined in an actual early 1990s United Nations document of the same title, emphasizing the importance of environmental sustainability in plans for global economic development. In the book’s paranoid imagination, however, such precepts become an Orwellian prescription for a future gone terribly awry. Agenda 21’s dystopian vision resembles the remains of a fatal three-way collision between The Matrix, Soylent Green, and Atlas Shrugged.

While the story told by Agenda 21 is purely fictional, a very real agenda emerges. The author, and her facilitator Glenn Beck (as well as ultraconservative entities like the Scaife Foundations and the Koch Brothers who fund the larger anti-environmental disinformation campaign within which this latest propaganda effort is embedded) would have you believe that policies aimed at preserving our environment are the true threat to our future. The author imagines a society where human beings are trapped in concrete cells separated from the planet’s natural fauna, flora, and water, and even their children (who are taken away from them at birth). They consume “nourishment cubes” in place of more recognizable food items. Adopting measures to preserve the health of the planet has somehow led to a world in which human beings have become more isolated from their natural environment. No satisfactory explanation for this paradox is ever provided.

The implausible premises don’t end there. The author (and Beck) suggest that support for environmental policies was a diabolical plot to create a socialist world government that now rules the planet (chillingly referred to as “The Republic”).

The book would also have you buy into the canard that principles of environmental sustainability are somehow in conflict with religious faith. The future envisioned in Agenda 21 is one where individuals are disallowed from open practice of religion. But in reality, some of the most passionate advocates for action to avert dangerous climate change are faith-based organizations such as Interfaith Power and Light who see protecting the environment as part of humankind’s covenant to serve as stewards of the Earth and preservers of creation.

And what about the book’s treatment of matters of science? I’m usually willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of a good fictional narrative. But the conceit that human beings might in some dystopian future be imprisoned as beasts of burden and raised and kept alive purely for the energy that can be harvested from them goes too far. Such a scenario problematically neglects the laws of thermodynamics. It makes little if any sense, after all, to employ a primary energy source (be it the incoming radiation from the Sun, the heat escaping from Earth’s core, or the energy released from the burning of fossil fuels) to manufacture proteins or raise crops, only to feed an army of macrofauna (i.e. human beings), only in turn to harness the energy they produce. If it is only energy that is being sought, such a chain of energy conversion processes is inefficient to the point of absurdity. The only sensible option would be to exploit the primary energy source itself.

I did my best to ignore the implausibility of this plot device when it first reared its head in The Matrix. But it is far less tolerable when used as a foundation for a misguided anti-environmental narrative. We are forced to accept, without explanation, how decades into the future no effort has been made to take advantage of far more plentiful and efficient renewable energy sources like wind and solar energy (which, by some estimates, could provide 70% of our energy needs in the U.S. in less than two decades). Not only have renewable energy technologies apparently not benefited from the increased efficiencies expected after decades of further research and development, they appear to have vanished altogether!

Bad science is hardly the greatest sin in Agenda 21. The real problem is its transparent agenda to sow distrust and cynicism in good faith efforts to protect our environment. The great works of dystopian fiction yield lucid, cautionary tales of the potential dangers that may lurk in our future—be they nuclear holocaust, environmental catastrophe, or the subjugation by machine overlords—if we make imprudent choices in the present. The very worst of the genre, however, do the opposite; they obscure an actual looming threat (e.g. human-caused climate change) by instead drawing our attention away to a false, manufactured one. Nothing could be more dangerous or misguided than a screed like Agenda 21 that attempts to do just that. http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2012-12/what-does-climate-sc
ientist-think-glenn-becks-environmental-conspiracy-novel

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