"Do I look like a paranoid, crazy person?"
Mother Jones has maybe more than you wanted to know about the incandescent lightbulb obsession held so deeply by presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and her more teabaggie congressional cohorts.
Turns out it's part of a grand conspiracy theory about the dangers of sustainability. Because that's really all one big United Nations plot.
[...]Bachmann's crusade is about much more than energy-conserving bulbs: The Minnesota congresswoman is part of a movement that considers "sustainability" an existential threat to the United States, one with far-reaching consequences for education, transportation, and family values. If Bachmann is right, lightbulbs will soon be the least of our worries.
Bachmann's concerns may have been best articulated in an interview she gave to the American Family Association's OneNewsNow in 2008. As Republicans in Washington revolted over the rising costs of gas, the then-freshman congresswoman outlined the stakes:
"This is their agenda—I know it's hard to believe, it's hard to fathom, but this is 'Mission Accomplished' for them," she said of congressional Democrats. "They want Americans to take transit and move to the inner cities. They want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, [and] take light rail to their government jobs. That's their vision for America."
Although she didn't say it right then, Bachmann likely had something specific in mind: Agenda 21, a two-decade-old United Nations agreement that has taken on a life of its own on the far-right. The agreement, forged in 1992, nominally committed signatories to a set of shared values designed to mitigate the environmental impact of human development. Member countries agreed to a range of sustainability goals, from preserving the ozone layer to ensuring that forests are managed so they'll be around for future generations. (The United States is a signatory, but the treaty has not been ratified by the Senate.[...]
Last May, when American Policy Center held its annual Freedom in Action Conference in northern Virginia—a gathering dedicated exclusively to "connecting the dots" on "sustainable development and Agenda 21"—Bachmann recorded a welcome message. The congresswoman thanked attendees for their vigilance and sounded the alarm on the tyrannical nature of climate change legislation and the job-killing policies of the Environmental Protection Agency. And then, although she hadn't formally announced her candidacy for president, she all but asked them for their votes.
"We have to win the White House with a constitutional conservative for president who is committed to America as the indispensable nation," she told them. "I know we share those goals and that's why you're gathered here today, and I just want to encourage you: Keep fighting!"
Good ol' crazy, paranoid John Bircherism, updated for the 21st century. But firmly rooted in the 19th.