Op-ed: FALL SHOW by John P. Flannery

A Fallen Vermont Maple Leaf

The orange gold of an autumn maple leaf by itself is something to behold, to watch anew with surprise and delight. 

When a tree is fully clothed with these leaves seen in sunny stark contrast with spectral shifts of red and yellow leaves as well as lingering greens from other deciduous trees, this natural palette is so brilliant we can’t help ourselves, we seek it out, travel along tree-lined roads, sit on our back porches, looking and watching, to celebrate this recurring spectacle of nature.

We watch when the transformed leaves lose their hold, as daylight grows briefer, and the leaves’ chlorophyll recedes, unmasking their strikingly bright pigments, and the leaves fly float fall in downward angled paths to rest as a fixed quilt covering our lawns, roads and the forest floor.

John Keats called this time of year a time of “mellow fruitfulness.”

I’ve had an opportunity traveling through the upper latitudes in New England this past week to get an early preview of what’s coming our way.

You have to ask how man can be so enthusiastic about the beauty of trees while so indifferent to their care and preservation.

George Perkins Marsh, of Woodstock, Vermont, born on the ides of March 1801, noticed as a young man what it meant when land was de-forested, to sell the felled timber as lumber, to burn the logs to make ash (potash), and to level forests to make grazing pastures for the myriad flocks of Merino sheep that populated his home state.

This caused the waters to flow across the lands erratically, and to carry off the top soil, undermining the soil’s fertility and the agriculture that depended on the soil.  The destruction of watersheds with their entangling web of roots couldn’t hold the rain that fell from the heavens.  This made floods and, ironically, droughts and dry springs as well, what you have when there’s nothing to retain the flowing waters.  Silt ran off the land into lakes and rivers compromising and destroying fish, clogging their gills, decreasing their resistance to disease, impairing the ability of trout and bass to feed upon what they can’t see. 

Concerned about what deforestation meant to New England, Mr. Marsh became concerned about what it meant to the United States.

Marsh was a man so well read he almost lost his eye sight reading and, unlike many, he could remember virtually everything he ever read; but he walked the woods to occupy himself when he couldn’t safely read. 

Over his lifetime, he studied other civilizations and concluded that they had failed because they abused the natural environment on which their own prosperity depended.

One factor above all that concerned him was how earlier civilizations cut their woodlands too aggressively, bringing down on them great misfortune such as he’d experienced in his home state.

He concluded in his book, “Man and Nature,” that “Man … is to be regarded as essentially a destructive power.”

But he didn’t write in vain.  In New York State in the 1870s and 1880s a forest reserve was created to protect the watershed of the Erie Canal and the Hudson.  In 1885, 700,000 acres were set aside in the Adirondacks as a State Park. 

Our national forests arise out of the view that our woodlands are important for us to conserve and protect.  But despite this sentiment, we don’t do enough, as we continue to clear to develop like we’ve learned nothing at all.  In fact, each year worldwide, we clear an area of trees as large as the nation-state of Greece.

We prove Marsh right that man is a “destructive power” that must be controlled and restrained.

Too many refuse to recognize our interdependence with and upon nature.

Too many protest that man dominates nature and not the other way around but, as Marsh observed, “man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow.”

What man can do when he acknowledges the destruction he’s caused is be responsible to restore what he destroyed. 

Trees are the source of life-giving air and all our talk about the legacy we wish to leave our children is so much blather if we are not protecting our trees and the water sheds that sustain them.

Anyhow, it’s something we might think about when we watch the colors change this year – that this is a nature show we don’t want to close.

Fall colors at Bretton Woods, NH

Op-ed - SAVING THE WORLD by John P. Flannery

Nobel prize-winning physicist Jack Steinberger, 92,  and John Flannery

How can we expect the United States to save the world when it’s not able to remain open to do its business?

When you have to pay your bills past due and owing, do you get to negotiate and say, well I'll pay if you, Mr Landlord, change your policies and, oh, reduce my rent?  Not very likely!  You live in the real world rather than the tea-induced fantasy factory that’s stymied the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, and put our nation at risk.

In this dystopian context, we have to ask what our government is doing that’s really important, is it doing anything to “save the world,” whether it’s anticipating what we do when we’ve exhausted our fossil fuels as an energy source or how we protect against the annihilating force of a targeted nuclear weapon.

I had the opportunity to listen and talk with Nobel prize-winning physicist, Jack Steinberger, 92, about “saving the world,” although his characterization was more modest, like his manner.

Jack won the Nobel Prize in 1988 “for the neutrino beam method and the double structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino.”  In other words, he’s real smart.

Aside from its terribly adverse effect on the world’s environment, Jack says of our dependence on fossil fuel that it begs the question, what do we do when our fossil fuels run out?  Jack estimates that we have a depleting inventory of oil (lasting 30 years), gas (for about 35 years) and coal (for 60 years).  “How are we going to keep planes in the skies,” said Jack, “when these fuels are gone?”

Jack’s prescriptions are straightforward: 1. Reduce our birth rate, 2. Reduce our consumption, 3. Increase our energy efficiency, and 4. Explore the use of thermal solar energy. 

Thermal solar is Jack’s preferred response to the unsolved challenge, how we store energy from renewables in those times of the day or season when there’s no wind or sun to generate power.

“The Solar Energy Generating System (SEGS), working since 1985 in California, with a huge production capacity,” Jack says, “is one example of what works and is being used right now.” 

It’s a parabolic mirror that reflects the solar radiation to a focal point, where glass tubing containing fluid is heated, and this heat is stored for months at a time, providing not only peak power but also baseload power generation that can displace coal- and natural gas-fired power plants.

Parabolic Mirror – Solar Thermal

Jack was hopeful when he heard our newly minted President Barack Obama speak in Prague, on April 5, 2009, saying, “we must confront climate change by ending the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.”  

By September 2013, however, we are still waiting for initiatives that might accomplish this objective.

As recently as this past weekend, a self-described Cold War bomber pilot, writing in the Post, in a brilliant example of Orwellian newspeak, said “nuclear weapons are instruments of peace.” 

Jack was quite encouraged in in April 2009 when the President took a different tact, promising that he would confront “the spread of catastrophic weapons” that could erase the world “in a single flash of light” and committed his Administration “to seek[ing] the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Jack concurred, “I think there is absolutely no way but to get rid of them, and America is the one who must lead the way.”

When Obama gave a second speech in Berlin this past June, however, he said we have more nuclear weapons than we “need,” but then pushed further down the road any comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty and any fissile material cutoff treaty.  The Department of Defense released a report that now we must maintain a deterrent, rather than the President’s earlier promised commitment to disarmament, and we must use our nuclear arsenal to “deter” not only Russia but China as well.  One step forward, two more backward.  Nor is Congress any help.  Many object to any reduction in the nuclear arsenal.

“I can’t imagine using a nuclear weapon,” said Jack, “can’t imagine a war, so we have to solve this problem.  As long as we lead, others will follow.  But we are not leading.”

Perhaps it’s a lot to ask our government to “save the world” when it can’t guarantee that it’s open for 

business.  But saving the world is more than an aspiration; it’s about our very survival.

OP-ED - ANARCHY? by John P. Flannery

Henry David Thoreau

 

Henry David Thoreau said he heartily agreed with that Jeffersonian remark, “that government is best which governs least.”

He said, however, he’d go one better, believing “That government is best which governs not at all.”

Henry was, in truth and fact, a non-violent anarchist.

Some might think our current brand of green tea anarchists from mostly red states draw wisdom from Henry when enthusiastically shutting down the government – invoking the Affordable Care Act (ACA)(or Obamacare) as their pretext for what they’ve wanted to do ever since they’ve dominated the House Republican Caucus in the U.S. Congress and dictated what the Speaker may move to the floor for a vote.

But Henry’s no-government anarchism presumed a precondition, that would be satisfied “when men are prepared for it, [and then] that will be the kind of government which they will have.”

Henry understood what the Tea Party does not, that is, that we are not “prepared” for it given that men (and women), in and out of government, have proven themselves to be thieves and liars, the manipulative cunning and the ignorant, the greedy and sociopathic, egomaniacs, the gullible, intolerant bigots, short-sighted, cowards, indolent good-for-nothings, violent, power crazed, sexually uninhibited, drug addicts, and that’s merely skimming the surface of how truly “unprepared” man is.

John Adams explained it more simply, and less offensively, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Men (and women) are not angels.

Nor is our Congress made up of angels.

We have been witnessing a bipartisan congressional failure of will and oath that has shuttered the doors of government on the eve of our debt crisis.  This crisis is summarized in the question, “Does our government have the legal authority to borrow what is necessary to pay our bills?”  The answer is not for long.  The remedy is to increase our authorization to borrow before we default on our obligations.

 The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says clearly that -"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

But we have a Congress “questioning” a mandatory directive (“shall”) and compromising the “validity” of the bonds we have and those we need to issue by failing to authorize more debt.

This is debt the United States has already incurred including Social Security, Medicare, contracted obligations, and interest that is due and owing.

We have misty-eyed members of the U.S. Congress who take a knee praising our U.S. Constitution as the most amazing legal document ever written, who insist it be read aloud in the People’s Congress, who swear to uphold every jot and tittle of its “glorified” composition, handed down from blessed authority on high, to hear them invoke this document, but, when it matters, they blatantly defy its express terms and fail to authorize our government’s ability to pay its bills on time.

Where is Guido when we need him?

Some have argued, with some merit, that the President should usurp what has been the role of the U.S. Congress and increase the debt limit himself, presuming, under the Fourteenth Amendment, that it is a power the Executive shares with the U.S. Congress, and assuming its self- executing, meaning it requires no legislation for him to do so.  It would be unprecedented but constitutional.

Plainly, we’re going to have to reconsider our haughty view of the financial chaos we mocked in Greece and Italy as we’ve found another way to be truly “exceptional” – and it’s not praiseworthy.

If vengeance for congress breaching its constitutional obligation is the best we can do, then we should consider impeaching the Speaker of the House who refused to allow a vote that would avoid this governmental disaster – lest he lose his “phony baloney job” as Speaker (to borrow from comedian, Mel Brooks).  

We must re-evaluate every member of Congress next year – and add to our electoral reform package a re-districting of every secure seat nationwide without regard to party – eliminating safe seats in districts gerrymandered for perpetual incumbency - as the job security of our unresponsive elected representatives has made the nation unsecure.

To sum it up, Adams is right - No angels here. 

Thoreau is also right, we are not “prepared” to do away with government. 

But we have some offensive members in government who must go.

OP-ED: “LIMITED” WAR IN SYRIA – REALLY? by John P. Flannery

Syrian dead – from nerve gas?

Right now we have elected officials in the U.S. Congress from both parties denouncing any military involvement in Syria.  

The public is against us getting involved in this brutal civil war.

President Barack Obama, however, wants to travel a different road.

The President’s avowed reason to force a “limited” aerial attack against Syria, notwithstanding the congressional and public resistance, is because the Syrian government in a civil war that has tallied more than 100,000 dead has recently used chemical weapons killing a thousand or more innocent women and children.

President Obama’s advisers believe the President shall suffer “a credibility gap” if he doesn’t act, to “punish” Syria for using chemical weapons since the President told Syria a year ago, “not to do it – or else.” 

There is no international treaty or law against killing women and children in war.

But we say we care if it happens with chemical weapons.

We have no problem if either side in Syria blows up women and children with bombs and bullets.

If the Syrian government uses chemical weapons, however, we are prepared to advantage the insurgent forces against the incumbent Syrian government in a civil war.

We have a different “credibility gap” on this score given that the United States lodged no objection, and made no aerial attacks, when Saddam Hussein used nerve gas (sarin) and mustard gas against Iran in the 1980s. 

Hussein unleashed mustard gas in Halabja, Iraq against Kurdish rebels toward the end of the Iran-Iraq war, killing 5,000 civilians.

The United States didn’t then invoke the Geneva protocol of 1925 that prohibited the use of nerve gas and deadly agents.

We are also plainly indifferent to how hypocritical it looks when we accuse others of using nerve gas and stockpile this weapon ourselves.

Some pundits and political officials are encouraged that the President asked Congress to weigh in on whether we should attack Syria or not.

Congress in my lifetime has rarely resisted any act of aggression that any President ever proposed.  It will be remarkable if they resist this one.

Whatever the soft fleshy backbone of Congress, the President should erase his impetuous challenge of about a year ago, warning Syria not to cross a line and use chemical weapons.

The President must know that a military punch in Syria's face shall likely change nothing for the better, is bound to make matters worse, and may have the disastrous effect of convincing the world leaders of nation-states including Iran that our “limited” attack is not so limited and is the opening salvo in a regional or world war.  

Incidentally, we once advertised Iraq as a “limited” war.  That Iraq was hardly “limited” disfavors the likelihood we can be believed that this proposed Syrian attack shall be “limited.”

Is it our purpose to demonstrate that the United States can commit terrorism on a grander scale than anyone else in this dysfunctional school yard?

Are we really going to act first, and think about the consequences afterwards?  

There appears to be a sinister microbe that infects every inhabitant of the White House, without regard to party or whatever threshold ideology they claim to hold when they cross over into the oval office.  This infection prompts our Presidents to war because the extraordinary power as commander in chief is the one power that coequal branches can hardly restrain. 

If President Obama doesn't dial back his bellicose threats for a “limited” assault, and do so soon, we all may reap the whirlwind.  If the next domestic terrorist attack in the United states is sarin, then we won’t have to scratch our collective heads wondering whence and why we were so viciously attacked ourselves.