The teaching of sustainability in schools, author Holly Swanson told about 60 members of the Eureka Republican Women Federated Thursday afternoon, is by no means as innocent as it may appear.

“This is indoctrination, pure and simple,” she said. “It’s political indoctrination, and that’s not what our schools are for.”

Over lunch at the Red Lion Hotel in Eureka, Swanson expanded upon some of the ideas she’s set forth in a book called “Set Up and Sold Out: Find Out What Green Really Means.”

Behind the concept of an education in sustainability, she told the group, is the Green Party, whose political agenda and goals mirror those of communism and socialism. And to further those agendas and goals, she argued, the Greens, who recognize the groundwork laid through education in creating the next generation of citizens and voters, are teaching sustainability in every class, furthering the party’s tenets not for environmental purposes, but for political ones.

“They’re thinking of creating a group-think mentality. Followers,” she said. “It’s exactly what happened in Nazi Germany.”

She also likened Green Party members to Russian Communist leader Vladimir Lenin in their desire to spread their vision of the world through “systematically conditioning” or “brainwashing” the populace and teaching children “so (they) don’t think, they just do it.”

From kindergarten to higher education — where, she cautioned, “if you green the teachers, then you already have an inroad to green our children” — the same pointed curriculum is being taught in every class.

Citing examples from Green Party and Second Nature literature, as well as the Earth Charter, she outlined some of the ways she believes Greens intend to overturn the current system in favor of one that features a redistribution of wealth, abolition of property rights, disregard for religion and diminishment of the value of individual success, among other things.

She urged her listeners to get involved, to attend school board meetings, to speak with teachers and principals and provide educators with information to support their concerns.

“We cannot let this happen to our children,” she said. “Everything we believe in is on the line.”

She received a standing ovation.

Julie Williams, an advocate with the North Coast Association of Home Builders, assured Swanson that the association shared her sentiments; she encouraged those present to get involved in the update of the county’s General Plan, a document that contains, she warned, some of the same dangerous principles Swanson had discussed.

“The decisions are made by those that show up,” Swanson agreed. “Our children’s future, our country’s future and, literally, our own future is on the line.”

McKinleyville resident Dennis Mayo, the director of Open Beaches and Trails, observed that he had encountered the same agenda when he sought — and was denied — the opportunity to speak at local schools about snowy plovers and opening certain beaches.

“The earth is sacred,” he said, “... but so’s our personal liberties and our property rights.”

Humboldt County Green Party Chairperson Dana Silvernale attended Thursday’s lunch.

Afterward, she described herself as disturbed by Swanson’s interpretation of Greens’ goals.

“It seems to be a misunderstanding,” she said. “The Green Party goals are based in grass-roots democracy. Her idea of group control is just the antithesis of what our goals are.”

She added, “We are definitely not communists, and we have nothing in common with Lenin.”

Humboldt County Superintendent of Schools Garry Eagles was surprised, late Thursday afternoon, to hear about Swanson’s identification of a political agenda being promoted through the local school system.

“I don’t equate sustainability with the Green Party agenda,” he said. “And I’ve never entertained a conversation with a representative of the Green Party about furthering any sort of agenda. ... I know of no political agenda that’s out there in the schools.”

Sustainability, he observed, would be an appropriate topic for any science class, as would conservation.

He concluded, “I’m not so sure her assertions are well-founded; I’d like to see the evidence.”