Last Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) unveiled the text of her Green New Deal, a resolution calling on Congress to create an actual bill to remake America in her climate alarmist democratic socialist image. Before that launch, Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional office posted answers to “frequently asked questions.” The office later removed the page, and a top adviser suggested it was a clever sting operation by Republicans. The FAQ page called for the eventual elimination of emissions from cows and air travel, and the provision of “economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.”
Some enterprising website entrepreneur put together a parody internet page, inviting Americans to mark themselves “unwilling to work” and sign up for Green New Deal benefits.
The site’s “About” section urges visitors to “Secure your spot today.”
“As per the goals outlined in the Green New Deal, every American will be provided with ‘economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work’,” the site explains.
“Questions have been asked about the process by which Americans can declare themselves unwilling to work and sign up for free economic security,” the section continues. “Fortunately, we think it should be as simple as declaring yourself as one of The Unwilling and then filling out the short application at the bottom to determine your new career and salary. For answers to specific questions, please refer to The FAQ.”
The site lays out a four-step program: “1. Enter your old job info; 2. Fill out a quick application; 3. ???; 4. Profit!”
Unwilling to work website screenshot.
The application proves just as hilarious. It requests “basic information” about an applicant’s old occupation and salary, along with the applicant’s gender identity. Options include Two-Spirit; Skoliosexual; Otherkin; and Other. Options for hobbies include “eating,” “drinking,” and “ghouls,” while options for skills include “Can balance a spoon on your nose” and “Can burp the ABCs.”
Unwilling to work website screenshot.
Unwilling to work website screenshot.
Unwilling to work website screenshot.
The FAQ page mocks Democrats and the Green New Deal, comparing the Democrats to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
When asked how to pay for the Green New Deal, the site explains that the rich will pay for it. When asked “Do we really need to charge the rich that much? Won’t they become poor if we tax more than 100% of their income? Isn’t that mathematically impossible?” the site responds, “If they become poor then they can just get a Green New Deal job like everyone else. #equality”
To those who would object on the grounds of math and science, the site references a video from 2016 in which a South African college student pushes for rejecting Western science in favor of African witchcraft.
Frequently asked questions include “What can I do in the meantime?” The answer: “Be sure to share this website with everyone you know. Loudly take to the streets to protest an unjust, male-dominated, bigoted society. Make it uncomfortable for everyday citizens to enjoy simple things like meals with family and friends. For sustenance, we suggest learning to code.”
For the question “Can I opt out of the Green New Deal?” the website has an answer: “You’re a racist.”
The best FAQ comes at the end, however. “Is this website serious?”
“This website is as serious as any activist who claims to support both the environment and our current standard of living but also wants to ban all forms of nuclear energy,” the site responds. Nuclear energy is the cleanest and most effective form of energy, but activists oppose it because it has an unjustly bad reputation. The Green New Deal FAQ page rejected nuclear energy.
Unwilling to work website screenshot.
The website also provides contact info: the address 123 Easy Street in Washington, D.C.; and the phone number (123)456-7890. The sponsorship? Brawndo, the fake energy drink from the 2011 film Idiocracy.
Unwilling to work website screenshot.
Ocasio-Cortez has disavowed the original FAQ page with the “unwilling to work” proposal. The post has been removed, but it remains available via archive and the text has been saved online, The Washington Examiner reported.
The document disappeared after Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) unveiled the “Green New Deal” resolution, which has attracted 67 Democratic co-sponsors in the House and many Democratic senators who are running for president in the 2020 primary.
On Saturday morning, Ocasio-Cortez Chief of Staff Saikat Chakrabarti tweeted that the FAQ page was posted by Ocasio-Cortez staff but done so in error. He called it “an early draft of a FAQ that was clearly unfinished and that doesn’t represent the GND resolution got published to the website by mistake (idea was to wait for launch, monitor q’s, and rewrite that FAQ before publishing.”
Mistakes happen when doing time launches like this coordinating multiple groups and collaborators. It's hard to have both a transparent and open process with many stakeholders while keeping all info locked down. But what’s in the resolution is the GND.
— Saikat Chakrabarti (@saikatc) February 9, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez herself admitted on Saturday that “there was also a draft version that got uploaded + taken down. There’s also draft versions floating out there.”
There are multiple doctored GND resolutions and FAQs floating around. There was also a draft version that got uploaded + taken down. There’s also draft versions floating out there.
Point is, the real one is our submitted resolution, H.Res. 109: https://t.co/ZlgWmNQn57
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 9, 2019
Even so, Robert Hockett, professor of law and finance at Cornell University, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the FAQ post was “some kind of document that somebody other than us has been circulating.” He said Ocasio-Cortez does not endorse the idea of subsidizing people “unwilling to work,” and does not want to ban airplane travel. He argued that she “tweeted it out to laugh at it.”
“It seems apparently some Republicans have put it out there,” Hockett insisted.
Indeed, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted out a doctored image of the FAQ page on Friday. Conservative commentator Mark Dice admitted he had created the fake image, which called for recycling urine to conserve water.
When your #GreenNewDeal legislation is so strong that the GOP has to resort to circulating false versions, but the real one nets 70 House cosponsors on Day 1 and all Dem presidential candidates sign on anyway https://t.co/BbHIn8cu0f
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 8, 2019
The urine recycling is indeed a false Green New Deal goal, but it seems Hockett and others were suggesting that the original FAQ page — which called for eventual bans on cows and airplanes, along with the “unwilling to work” subsidy — was fake. It certainly was not.
This “unwilling to work” parody page is the perfect conservative response to the very real FAQ page for the Green New Deal. Ocasio-Cortez may want to erase that page from the world’s memory, but the fact of the matter remains that her office put out a page calling for an eventual ban on cows and airplanes and a program to subsidize those “unwilling to work.”
Most of the 2020 Democratic candidates have rushed to embrace the Green New Deal. Mockery is not merely justified, but politically important. Americans must not forget that Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) endorsed such a ridiculous plan when the very real FAQ page was public knowledge.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member