Here Come The Hippies

This Wednesday the highly anticipated and controversial plans for the eco-sustainable city of Destiny will be unveiled at a luncheon at the Gaylord Palms. While the sales pitch on the Destiny web site does not promise "free-love", it does rekindle many socialist thoughts and ideas born on the hippie communes of the 60's. "One Planet, One Destiny", "More than a promise, It's a commitment to change the world", and "Living in Destiny can even cure your Lumbago" are just some of the promises that the developers of the project hope will not only get the project past the current residents of Osceola County, but start the "Green-Guilt" trek of hundreds of thousands of people they hope to bring into an area that is already suffering from the forgotten sales-pitches of the past. We hope the Osceola County Commissioners and the residents of our community will not blindly fall for the promises of a developers magic elixir.

The first thing to know about the Destiny Hippie Attraction is that much of the science they are relying on to justify an "eco-sustainable" commune is not proven. The science and studies behind such concepts as ethanol production have already been deemed as short term. Ethanol is only bridge fuel additive to help transition American away from fossil fuels. This means that the long term business model of ethanol production is not "sustainable". This past year we have also seen the toll that food and non-food crops used as fuel can have on the world's economy, so there are many leading scientists that are already calling for an end to the production of food and non-food crops destined for gas tanks. This leads the WayneWho staff to wonder if even the first promise of an energy producing community will ever even be a reality at the Destiny Commune? Part of their website also talks about the community being energy independent. Does that mean that KUA, Progress Energy, and/or Florida Light and Power will not have them on their grid to supply electric to the commune? We know that many of the old 60's communes did not use electricity, but many of the residents on them did not even bath. Are these the types of neighbors we can expect?

The big problem we see with this project is that they are holding the Osceola County residents hostage with the promise of jobs that may or may not ever come. Our residents are being forced to swallow 250,000 more residents in hopes that one of us may have a shot at getting an imaginary job for imaginary companies that do not exist. The real trick is that the residents of Osceola County will never really have a shot at any of the jobs on the Destiny Commune if the true visions of the experiment are realized. To be "eco-sustainable", the socialist dream of every person has their place must be attained. Jobs that are created in Destiny, by the projects own definition, will be for those who live there. Hence the self-contained sustainable vision.

While the WayneWho staff has enjoyed discussing many of the good times we had in the 60's, we realize that the vision of those days are not ones that need to be revisited with taxpayers money. Just like the song says, "the sign said long-haired freaky people need not apply."