News Flash: Bicycling is Part of a United Nations Plot Against America

NEWS UPDATE: Photo: A futuristic Denver, CO; picture accidently leaked by the leadership cabal of the UN-based Bicycling-Urbanist Conspiracy.

Reporters at the North Mesa Mutts and New York Times have learned that indeed, the Bicycling-Urbanist Conspiracy is plotting to replace the national government with a UN-mandated governing agency. You want proof?

1. The President of the League of American Bicyclists is...British!

2. The League's powerful army of cycling instructors, actually well-trained UN political indoctrinators, all once wore blue jerseys, thus identifying them to each other and to the UN as members of the U.N.'s World Army. In an attempt to preserve their cover, the League recently changed to a less obvious uniform.

3. League President Andy Clarke's reasonable recent essay in the National Journal is clearly an attempt to disarm America while the Bicycling-Urbanist Conspiracy carries out its sinister plan.

4. Members of the both parties in the United States Senate are being duped into giving in to the New World Order.

Sigh...At one time this may have been silly (and still is) but unfortunately, times have changed and a fair number of our politicians (and apparently, one third of Denver Post reader who responded to their poll--see link below) are verging on bat-shit crazy. At least one politician, Dan Maes, the Republican candidate for Governor of Colorado, has equated the promotion of bicycling as transportation to a subversive takeover of the U.S. by One World Government.

"This (i.e., bicycling promotion in Denver) is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms...These aren't just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to..." Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes said. Mr. Maes just won the Republican primary and is off to the general election to oppose John Hickenlooper (Democrat, United Nations) and Tom Tancredo (American Constitution Party, Bedlam). Tancredo is best known for his comment that Barack Obama is more of a threat to the U.S. than al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, what about that UN conspiracy? The strategy of those on the Far Right is we need more scapegoats and conspiracy theories to blame for the national mess we are in (to be fair, there were plenty of left-threaded wingnut conspiracy theories when Pres. Bush was in office). Given recent friction between cyclists and motorists as gas hit four bucks a gallon, its no surprise that some are painting ongoing efforts to promote bicycle transportation as another destabilizing influence on American values to be confronted, along with gay marriage, "ObamaCare", carbon cap and trade, illegal immigration, etc. Strange to focus attention on bikes, but for the fact that cycling as transportation is often mixed in with social efforts to "replace car trips", cut CO2 emissions, and promote higher urban density. To someone who thinks this is all a Communist or Danish plot, a bicyclist in traffic is a handy, highly visible symbol, thus useful to Dan Maes as he courts his constituency, even though creating a diversified transportation system can make real-world dollars and sense to a community.

But really. Freedom is supposed to be an American value. As in, my freedom to decide to ride my bike to work today. Spare me the bigger picture once in a while while I smell the flowers.

There is a lot of scary stuff going on in the world. There always has been. Things looked grim on the day before the Battle of Midway. With the U.S. at the pinnacle of its power in the sixties, we were faced with the real possibility of nuclear Armageddon as the US and USSR aimed thousands of warheads at each other and nearly pushed the button over Soviet IRBMs reported to be in Cuba. People were encouraged to build fallout shelters. Anyone besides me remember actually doing those duck and cover drills?

So shit is always happening. Its just that people have short memories and face it, no one wants to "live in interesting times." We need to retain some sense of sanity, rationality, intelligence, and civility if we are going to deal with change in a constructive way.

Thanks and a tip of the Blue Helmet to Patrick O'Grady for the Denver Post link. Now back to signaling to those black helicopters and setting up the New World Order.