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the service industries needed to back them up.

But beyond that, and probably most galling to the authors and Cape Wind project, not one senator or congressman nor one town, on the Cape, has endorsed the project. This, of course, is written off with the implication that they have all been bought by the wealthy. However, the writers will not come right out and say it. Why? Because these public officials represent the views of those that elected them, the towns themselves and the People of Cape Cod and the Islands.

Are there wealthy people on the Cape? Yes. And perhaps even more galling than the politicians not in favor of Cape Wind, those people have been willing to fund a not for profit organization, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, that opposes the project.

Ask yourself, when was the last time any local community won in opposition to a developer without the funding to do it? Can't think of one? That is not surprising. Developers count on their ability to out-spend any opposition. But this time they ran into a group of committed people who have put millions of dollars into trying to stop them. Fair is fair.

In contrast we have another project proposed by the developers of Cape Wind, the Chelsea Diesel Power Plant (a fossil fuel burning polluting power plant proposed by that same clean green power group, how ironic but how telling) where the local opposition is simply being railroaded by the developer because they have no real funding to stop it.

When did NIMBY become a bad word?

How can anyone oppose anything without being labeled NIMBY, as a bad thing? Funny how spin works, it takes a virtue, protecting your own and turns it into a vice, selfishness. And it attempts to boil down valid opposition into sound bites of the ridiculous.

An editorial under Cheers & Jeers, in the Cape Cod Times, May 18, 2007, talks about the complexity of the issues:

Intellectual laziness
"When we hear Sen. Edward Kennedy's well-reasoned arguments against the Cape Wind farm reduced to the aesthetics issue, we ask ourselves: What is it about society today that more and more people are reducing complex issues to the simplest possible terms?

Other promoters of the wind farm are minimalizing this complex public policy debate, with a million different arguments both pro and con, to a simple case of NIMBYism.

Kennedy, who has promoted Nantucket Sound as a national marine sanctuary since at least 1980, is advocating for a comprehensive national policy on the siting of offshore wind farms.

Do people no longer have the time to understand the complicated details, nuances, gray areas that play a part in nearly every important topic of our day?"

But back to the democratic process and the idea that we should not question, much less object and oppose, if we dare, an industrial wind power plant in our back or should I say, front yard.

Hijacking the democratic process to sell a product.

Wendy Williams writes: "We need a serious and responsible conversation about the future of energy in America. As we have it, we cannot allow the public discussion to be hijacked by those with hidden agendas. There's simply too much at stake."

This writer couldn't agree with her more but, ironically, her book attempts to hijack public discussion with her hidden agenda, to promote Cape Wind.

If the authors of "Cape Wind" truly want a serious and responsible conversation about the future of energy in America they will have to listen to all sides, take them into account, present them in an honest and unbiased fashion and stop attempting to silence valid public concerns with ridicule and spin.

That is democratic.

Learn more about this author, Dona Tracy.
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