Roper: VPIRG showcases widespread mental health damage they’ve inflicted on young Vermonters

By Rob Roper

On March 17 the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) held a rally at the State House in favor of passing the UnAffordable Heat Act, S.5, employing a tactic they often use — exploiting young children. What was so striking about this display was how it exposed just how dangerous it is for kids’ mental health to weaponize and politicize children and our public education system to satisfy the agenda of adult activists and politicians.

The event featured middle and high school students taking the podium to read off talking points that, let’s be honest, these kids neither wrote nor really understand.

One high school student said, according to VT Digger, “The Affordable Heat Act is a big step toward (a safe) future. We needed this bill passed last year when our governor vetoed it, and we need it now, even more.” Who thinks this child has actually read the 38-page bill, can explain how it works, and could, if asked, articulate a reasoned argument for why we “need it now”?

A fourteen-year-old girl is quoted as saying, “I should be at school today.” True statement! And VPIRG should be asked to justify why they think it’s okay to pull these kids away from their education when test scores have been dropping across Vermont for the past decade. Maybe the steady stream of stunts like this are part of the reason why.

“But,” the young lady continued, “instead I’m here alongside my fellow students continuing to demand real, impactful climate action.” Of course, S.5, would not have any real or impactful influence on future climate trends, so it’s not clear why she would be in support of this bill – except that she’d been told to be so and, like a trained seal, got tossed a fish (or whatever the 14-year-old-girl’s equivalent of a herring is) for doing so.

Another student railed, “Black, Indigenous and communities of color and low-income communities already have limited access to education, jobs, housing, healthy food and transportation. A changing climate will exacerbate these crises.” I guess VPIRG neglected to tell this child the part where Vermont’s Director of Racial Equity testified that S.5 “does not meet the mark” in terms of satisfying equity concerns. Or that BIPOC communities are protesting the classification of biomass as renewable in S.5 because pollution from the biomass plants disproportionately impact health outcomes in their Burlington neighborhoods. If that’s really this kid’s priority, they should be protesting S.5, not rallying for it. And, opposing VPIRG’s support of biomass electricity generation, not standing with them. But again, and sadly, these kids are just being used and manipulated.

The real tragic part of this display was the multiple confessions of mental health impact that are the result of being exposed to VPIRG’s and other similar organizations’ constant, pervasive, doomsday propaganda that is, let’s be clear, purposely designed to scare the living crap out of our children — every day — precisely to twist them into a mental state that can be manipulated by groups like VPIRG into acting as political cannon fodder in in adult PR battles.

A now high school student recalled, “I remember having panic attacks over the state of the climate before I even left elementary school.” Panic attacks in elementary school due to exposure to this messaging! And VT Digger reported, “While the youth activists were quick to admit the emotional toll the climate crisis has taken on them, referencing feelings of climate anxiety and doom that have at times felt insurmountable, they stood at the Statehouse calling for change.”

Is it any wonder that incidents of suicide, self-harm, substance abuse, and mental illness are up across the board for our young people? And that academic performance is down? This is at best the result of negligence on the part of adults, and at worst the result of calculated cruelty based on selfishness.

If mental health is health, and mental healthcare is healthcare, then exposing young people’s brains to materials that knowingly harm mental health should be illegal — and prosecutable. We don’t allow, for example, cigarette companies to target youth with their advertising campaigns because we know picking up the habit will cause physical harm and potential illness for those who fall for the sales pitch. Exposing young people to perpetual fear campaigns — especially when they are captive audiences in public schools — knowing as we do that it leads to adverse mental health outcomes, should be equally banned. Maybe there’s a class action suit in there somewhere. I certainly hope so.

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Gillfoto

23 thoughts on “Roper: VPIRG showcases widespread mental health damage they’ve inflicted on young Vermonters

  1. This is Subversion 101:

    The highest art form of war is to take over a country without firing a shot. They infiltrate the education system (could it be more obvious?), the police force, the religious backbone of a country, the family, the judicial system, etc. etc.

    The educational system is paramount, when the “indoctrinate” an entire generation (20 years) it’s pretty easy to take over a country, we’ve got 40 years of this crap. It’s self-perpetuating at that point, the outside forces don’t’ need to do anything.

    Then when a national “incident” occurs they come into save the day. It’s all headed toward a color revolution or martial law, whereby the “overthrowers, the ones causing all the problems” have to come in to save the day.

    Our Educational system?
    Our Health care system?
    Our Police force?
    Our Drug epidemic?
    Covid-19?
    January 6th?

    China has been cleverly doing this in many countries, they buy up ports, make extravagant resorts, buy massive quantities of farm land, Buy food production……don’t think they forgot about he opium wars, don’t be fooled about the drugs, the fentanyl and new zombie drug being piped through Mexico from China……China was brought to their knees with opium….and so Vermont and our country is experiencing the same. It’s not a “coincidence”.

    Our State of Vermont?????????

    It’s not Democrat vs Republican….that is the trap they want you to fall for. The world is going to end has been the fear every dicator has controlled a country since the beginning of civilization. But we don’t have an educational system that teaches history and our religious organizations have been subverted too, the two major players in Vermont being the Catholic Church and United Methodist Church.

    It’s a well-orchestrated plan, it’s well orchestrated warfare. Your neighbor is not your enemy, but that’s what they want you to believe.

  2. Mental health damage inflicted by teachers onto children, aka woke-oriented brainwashing

    Vermont is a big spender on education/student, has mediocre results, should concentrate on the 3 Rs, for starters

  3. What ever happened to kids fighting the system. It use to be cool to NOT believe everything the adults told you. Now we have little sheep with sponge brains soaking up the propaganda their fed daily… Question Authority Kids especially when it comes from commies. Don’t be a Gretta Grinch who’s life revolves around a hoax… Plant Food is Good for the planet not bad.

    • In the ”50″s we were scared by global heat waves! c0ming soon
      We were going to bake !! ????

      • Yes Doug and nuke war that if you hid under your desk would save you. They baffled us with bullcrap even then…

      • Yes Doug and nuke war that if you hid under your desk would save you. They baffled us with bulldung even then…

  4. This is the fault of the parents for abandoning their children delegating parietal responsibility to the government.

  5. In 5th grade in mid 50’s we were told to expect global cooling – absolutly
    We must prepare to face FREEZing

  6. And VPIRG recruits good looking young people to fan out in the communities to hand out brochures and to collect donations. I have a friend who used to give money to the cute youngster who showed up every year at his door on a bicycle. I informed him of what VPIRG was all about and he quit the donations. These people are chameleons and manipulate young kids to sell their snake oil which provides millions for them to hire 15 or more lobbyists to stick it to us taxpayers. This should be illegal because of how they scare these kids to join them in the poison they sell to make the green industry wealthy and to take care of the loyal foot soldiers and conspirators who swallow their climate change elixir knowing that it’s nothing more than a scam industry. Man can not change the climate nor can they rule over Mother Nature.

    • Dano, VPIRG is disgusting. I lived semi rural and I got the VPIRG Bicycle warriors too. One year a kid gave his spiel. Enviro related junk. Over and over he used same phrase, “Studies Show” to justify the climate lies. So I asked him WHAT “studies” he had and who WHO did them. Blank stare. I pressed. He finally admitted that he had no idea, but this is what the VPIRG office people told him to say…”STUDIES SHOW”….all lies. The NEXT year, , a poor young girl came on bike. It had been drizzling and she had no rain coat. she had not had any lunch, biking around miles rf rural. Then it poured rain. we took her inside and fed her something and tea. She was wet. I told her it is TERRIBLE that she is sent out ALONE, rural areas and knock on doors blind who she knows NOTHING of who is in it. She could have screamed, raped you name.. and no one would know. When it stopped, I put her and bike in my truck and drove her to town and told her to quit VPIRG…she had tears…..and that if her parents knew what VPIRG was doing, risking to her such…they would be horrified, as I. VPIRG is below scum.

  7. I decided to close my account at community bank. The bank officer asked me why, and I told her I refuse to support a bank that supports the ‘green’ BS. She looked at me like I was nuts and spouted off something about carbon and how we need to get rid of fossil fuel, etc. I told her I conduct research, and it shut her up–at least through the remainder of the transaction.

    • Note the attitude of the bank officer here…representative of those aspiring to be the dominant cool kids. Their unquestioned allegiance to the carbon crisis orthodoxy leaves no room for the possibility that this might be an unsettled issue. They are the captives of successful propaganda which will brook no heretical discussion.

  8. VPIRG is a collection of mentally defective people who should be reeducated in a facility that has the capability to de-program them.

  9. and let’s not forget all the messaging targeted at convincing the white kids to hate themselves and to be ashamed of their ethnicity and ancestry…

  10. Who’d a’ thunk’ that….VPIRG is biased? Gee, VPIRG & Teachers & Union NEA, go hand-in-hand for the child indoctrination…I spotted a great paragraph in an Op-ed that also applies to VT educational standards…:

    “New York state has decided to permanently lower the math and reading proficiency standards due to the dramatic fall in test scores ….Public schools aren’t run for the benefit of children. If they were they would do a much better job of educating kids. The educational standards are far too low already, and lowering them is just one more concession to the adults who make a living off the system….If tests show the schools are failing? Change the test so the schools look better…Honestly, given public schools’ real mission–the creation of a cohort of cultural Marxists – I don’t understand why they bother with reading and math anymore. Why test at all, if they don’t care about whether students are learning…..just change everything to drag studies, climate activism, and gender transition and be done with it. Maybe riot studies too, since rioting is now a public health imperative.”

    • Excellent article. Electronic amplifiers use negative feedback inputs to precisely control the output.
      Positive feedback just slams the output to one extreme or the other. The concept is really simple to understand, when you learn about operational amplifiers. It’s the same in other dimensions of reality.
      I recommend the CO2 coalition as a great resource for reality based, scientific facts about carbon dioxide, a gas without which life would not exist.
      https://co2coalition.org/facts/

  11. You should give them credit for stepping up and speaking their minds. Good for them! Climate change might not affect us as much as it will affect them, and their children. I do agree with you, and am also skeptical on whether they actually read or can fully grasp S.5, as it certainly doesn’t hit the mark, but hey, they’re at least passionate about something!

  12. They may have been promised honorary degrees in Theology, like the doctorate St. Greta received from the University of Helsinki. Mass insanity knows no bounds.

  13. That’s what I thought, too. Poor kids, and hot shoes in Hell for whoever is exploiting them this way…and leading them into the sin of selfishness: “I’m having panic attacks over something imaginary, so I don’t care about actual panic among the sick, the poor, and the elderly.”

    Matthew 18:5-7: 5 “And whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. 6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of scandals. Such things are bound to occur, but woe to the one through whom they come.”

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