A New Fifth Column

LHI EDITORIAL NOTE: It is clear that the American public has been duped and made fools of by a very sophisticated  and deliberate campaign from the left. It is unfortunate that it has occurred  in an area of such significance to our economy, standard of living, and national security.

The stealth attack on our educational system, religions, family units, and education showed varying degrees of success. When the Soviet Union collapsed by its own weight, the focus of the left’s attacks on the free market system shifted from an all out frontal attack (which Americans repelled) to an indirect attack. It is not a coincidence that a huge growth in environmental activism began following the fall of the USSR, and the Hollywood crowd and a big portion of our youth (the most emotionally needy, least scientifically savvy, and least self disciplined) simply fell into lock-step and joined in the assault on their own country. This article details this issue in a very articulate manner.

— C. Grady Drago, Chairman of Lincoln Heritage Institute

(P.S.: Phil Brennan, mentioned in the following article, is a Trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and Editor of Wednesday on the Web.)

It is this reporter’s opinion that my good friend, Phil Brennan – veteran journalist and one-time columnist for the National Review – has once again laid it on the line. He claims the ruinous hikes in the cost of gasoline and heating oil are deliberately created scarcities of abundant energy sources. He calls it “the work of a new Fifth Column.”

I recall that, back in the ’30s and ’40s, people who aided and abetted the enemy were known as Fifth Columnists. It was a term coined during the Spanish Civil War, when rebel sympathizers in Madrid worked against their Soviet-backed enemy from within.

Brennan claims that for many years the United States has been the target of another brand of Fifth Columnists. Clothed in the mantle of citizens concerned for the environment, they have played havoc with the economy of our nation and the freedoms of the American people. Their sinister motives and behind-the-scenes manipulations have been well hidden.

Phil Brennan labels this Fifth Column rich and powerful. One of them, the Sierra Club (with 600,000 members), receives political contributions reaching into the millions; and a Sierra Club attack on a congressman’s environmental voting record can be a kiss of death. When the Sierra Club talks, Congress listens – and acts!

Thanks to the environmental Fifth Column, the United States has been unable to take advantage of its own crude oil supplies. Abundant supplies of crude oil in the United States and Alaska remain untapped thanks to the environmentalists.

Crude oil must be refined before it can become gasoline or fuel oil; but thanks to the Fifth Column, which has managed to have Congress and local governments impose crippling regulations on their construction, we have not built a refinery in over 30 years.

The environmentalist lobbies and their liberal allies keep chanting about the need for development of new sources of energy; but they have, at the same time, done everything in their power to prevent the use of an alternative technology long available – nuclear energy.

Nuclear power is the answer. Nuclear power is spurned because of the scare tactics of the environmentalist Fifth Column – the imaginary dangers posed by nuclear power plants.

Since 1979, no new nuclear facilities not already under order have been built. We had the magic wand to solve the energy crisis – and we failed to wave it.

Two events contributed to this: the explosion of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl in the Ukraine and the incident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

The environmental Fifth Columnists exploited both incidents, ignoring the facts: in Chernobyl, the plant lacked protections built into our U.S. power plants; and at Three Mile Island, there was only a small release of radioactivity that harmed not a single human being.

No one was hurt. But for those opposed to nuclear power, it provided a dream come true.

According to Tom Bethell, writing in the American Spectator, the U.S. has not given up on nuclear power. Bethell points out that there are 83 ships equipped with 105 reactors sailing the seas today without a single accident.

How did the environmentalists – the Fifth Columnists – accomplish their objective? Simply by scaring the wits out of the American people. It’s because nuclear power has had one great vulnerability: Many people find it difficult to distinguish between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

This is easily disposed of by those who understand the nature of both, but difficult and complicated to explain. This provides a perfect stage for demagogues to exploit public fears even though they are irrational.

Bethell provides a thorough explanation of the difference between nuclear power and nukes. The Fifth Columnists of the environmental movement know all this; but it has not stopped them from creating a frightening scenario based on their desire to deceive the nuclear uninformed and who, as Bethell says, “would not know a nuclear reactor from a coffee grinder.”

As Phil Brennan concludes, the next time you stand at the pump and watch your hard-earned dollars go gushing into your car’s fuel tank, remember who did this to you.

The Fifth Column imprisons you and our fellow Americans in a web of destructive regulations, preventing us from using our best source of energy. They are slowly strangling our economy.

Karl Marx could not have planned it better.

Thank you, Phil Brennan; thank you, Tom Bethell, for informing us of the work of this new Fifth Column.