RESTORE OUR REPUBLIC by John P. Flannery

The Fourth of July is a pageant celebrating our independence from an Imperial nation that denied us self-rule, dignity and freedom.

It’s a time of marching bands, waving flags, capped with cloud-brushing, soaring multicolored flashes of fireworks, lighting the night sky, to the sound of oohs and aahs from crowds across the nation.

It evokes the language of the declaration hammered out in a hot Philadelphia Hall, striking and revising the words of Thomas Jefferson, setting forth who we believed we were as a nation aborning.

We must reflect upon the sentiments of that grand occasion, and how we may fulfill those worthy sentiments today when our independence is at risk from within and from without, by a foreign nation state, Russia, that usurped this nation’s independence when it interfered in our elections to install the current Chief Executive.

When we declared our independence, we said we believed that we are all “created equal.” We have struggled since to perfect that sentiment, but of late, persons of color, muslims and women are hardly treated as “equal.”

We should respect the notion that “prudence” does dictate that “governments long established,” as ours, “should not be changed for light and transient causes,” but we watch critical functions in the Executive Department compromised or destroyed by this Chief Executive with the support of the Republican Congress.

We are on notice that our nation has a cancer eating away at our historic legacy, at our freedoms, and our culture, by a self-serving chief executive and a congress dominated by his partisan acolytes, serving themselves while disregarding the will of the people.

Our declaration of independence declared, “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The government policy favoring the separation of migrant parents from their children defies the objection of the governed.

Our Chief Executive and Senate and House Republican leader are taking their time, as I write this, to pass legislation that is stalled because our Chief Executive wants a wall across our border, costing billions, that our Chief Executive said Mexico would fund. 

Our Declaration of Independence was an indictment of oppressive rule.

Our nation is oppressed by a Chief Executive who conducts himself as a thug.

The Declaration sanctioned Great Britain when the King had “refused his assent to laws…”

We have a Chief Executive who would be King who refuses to respect and enforce our laws especially those involving favors and emoluments from foreign nation states.

Like King George, we also have a Chief Executive who has forbidden “to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance.”  Among them are laws and regulations to sustain the health care of millions of Americans, the protections necessary for our air and water, to safeguard our public lands, to respect migrants seeking asylum, and to provide for the “general welfare.”

Like King George, we have a Chief Executive who “has obstructed the Administration of Justice …”  In regal fashion, claiming unprecedented power to do as he wishes, our Chief Executive fires those who dare to investigate or question his conduct.  Republican leaders won’t pass a bill to block any corrupt influence by our Chief Executive to fire the Special Counsel charged with investigating him.

This nation has always been concerned about civilian control of the military.  We have a Commander in Chief who abdicates this role.  Like King George, our Commander in Chief “has render[ed] the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.”

Our Chief Executive indulges in the kingly ambition our First President resisted.

What are we to do when the man who occupies the West Wing acts as a “Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant ..”

Is that person not, as we found King George, “unfit to be the Ruler of a free people?”

In our declaration of Independence, it was well said that “[A]ll experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

We must resist this Administration’s objective that appears calculated to destroy all that was good about this nation.

Our Declaration of Independence plainly stated that “whenever any form of Government becomes obstructive …it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it … to affect their safety and happiness.”

The Declaration further said “[W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing the same object, evinces a design to reduce [the governed] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.”

In this young Administration, we are far past that threshold.  Whether by indictment, resignation or impeachment, it must be done.

Our character as a nation, our cultural DNA, is of rugged independence, as lovers of freedom, with a can-do spirit, and an extended hand to help others on a journey, still underway, to secure for every person the rights that we declared paramount, the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

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PROTESTING CRUELTY AND INTOLERANCE by John P. Flannery

Maxine Waters was right about impeachment and right about speaking out against the agents of violence and intolerance.

How many defended her against the thug in chief's abuse. Is it because she's black? Or because she's a woman? Or because she says with such clarity what we all know but so many don't want to confront.

Many think what is happening to America won't reach them. Think again. This nation is at risk, everything it stands for, or at least has stood for in the past.

If the law was followed and the truth told and people weren't being hurt daily by the crude disrespect of those working in the West Wing, maybe we could be less restrained.

If our elected representatives did anything, that would help. But change is only coming from the people. From protest, and from court cases. And because of the indifference of a large segment of the government, including many of our elected "allies," and how long it will take for elections to have any effect on our ever expanding national dystopia, drifting further and closer to fascism daily, we have to act in small and large ways.

So many clear thinkers speak to how a restaurant ownere should have conducted herself. Too few are bothered by what Ms. SS and Mr. T said after SS was asked to leave a small family restaurant.

These two malevolent monsters said what "they had to say" - and it was lying and mendacious. Hardly civil, most rude.

In Mr. T's case, it was a transparent effort to use the bully pulpit, and the expansive megaphone taken from the people in the electoral college, so that he could crush a small family business.

It must be encouraging to many that that restaurant now has three weeks of reservations. But not those critical of this quiet lady. You can't get in there for awhile. Could it be the food. No, it's because this woman had courage and she handled the situation like a lady, the lady she is.

What many are saying is don't stir things up, that it's ok for the thuggery of our government to persist and we should suffer these bad actors, endure the indignity, when they are among us, and act like what they say and do the rest of the time is just fine with us.

Some wonder how Germany happened. It happened because people did what many are advising we do now and here.

Listen to any speech Trump gives today, what is said at the press briefing today, and what any spokesperson for the Administration says tpday. Lies, hateful acts and corruption.

Everyone must open their eyes, and open their mouths, and speak their mind.

Jesus said if you are tepid I shall spit you forth from my mouth. You remember when he threw the money lenders out the temple. Jesus showed passion on every level.

Be like Jesus. Cut out these bromides, these excuses to do nothing, get some gumption, and fight for the american dream, object and protest, lest we never awake from this political nightmare.

Why do we find a woman at the head of a protest these days.

Don't American men have any balls? JPF

A DAD’S DUTY by John P. Flannery

            When younger, a child, your child, is the Gerber creation, a puffy cheeked, but still inarticulate goo-gooing charmer, consuming your every eager and cherishing attention without end or complaint.  And you wouldn’t have it otherwise.

There are the parental touches, for comfort, amusement, the cooing assurances, the baby talk, the light play, washing, dressing, cleaning, among the many acts that introduce your child to a world of sensation, of caring and of love.

            Anything less would be neglect, and we know random or failed attention to a child’s needs in any familial or institutional setting prompts, among other things, poor impulse control, social withdrawal, problems with coping and regulating emotions, low self-esteem, pathological behaviors including tics, tantrums, stealing, self-punishment, and poor intellectual functioning.

            Good parents, Dads and Moms, prepare their children for the world coming at them.

            And here’s the rub.  It is never over.  They are always our children no matter that they become adults.

            Children pass through us but never quite escape our concern.

We make them when they decide to mimic our good character but they can hardly hear or take seriously what we say if we don’t do what we say.

            My first neighborhood was in the South Bronx, not a great place, but we didn’t know any better, and took the bad with the good, spending our time, in the streets, playing stick ball, running the back alleys, and engaging in a fair ration of fist fights.

            My Dad was a plumber, electrician, and carpenter and had a sky blue Belvedere Plymouth blessed by a local parish priest.

            My Dad had no use for bullies and there were some adults who would manhandle kids, not that often, but it did happen.

            Coming home one day, my Dad was driving down the street looking for a parking spot and heard me shout, he saw a man grabbing me, yanking my arm.

            I heard the Plymouth screech and saw my Dad leave his car in the street, run between two parked cars, and tear down the sidewalk, shouting to this thug to “let my son go,” but he didn’t respond, kind of froze, and, in that still moment, my Dad grabbed him by the neck with his left hand, pushed him hard back against the brick building, and punched him straight in the face with a powerful right.

            We didn’t have a police officer on that street; it was the South Bronx.

            I don’t live in a place like that today.

            But you have to ask yourself, what would you do to keep safe your son or daughter under similar or worse circumstances?

            Children are being murdered and abused yearly in large numbers in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. 

Would you try to bring your son or daughter from such danger in Central America, overland, past gangs, and stifling poverty to seek asylum in America, believing that’s what our American law promises -- if your claim of danger is genuine?

Would you believe it was a bait and switch if, when you arrived at the American border, after making such a hopeful pilgrimage, that you were arrested for a misdemeanor, denied bail, and your children taken from you?

 We know when you separate a child from his or her parents, toxic stress is a likely effect, disrupting a child’s brain development.

Jesus once cursed lawyers who lay grievous burdens on others while not lifting a finger to lighten the load.  (Luke 11: 46).  But to burden children and family when no law requires this imposition is unforgivable.

We cannot celebrate ourselves as parents, on Father’s or Mother’s Day, if we do not welcome strangers, escaping grave danger, and resist confinement for those truly aggrieved and at risk, and separated from their children.

Scripture cautions, if this is how we treat the least of us, it is the same as abusing Jesus himself, the Son of God, and may expect no better than everlasting punishment.  (Matthew 25: 34-46).

Every Dad and Mom knows that, if we are to be judged by our own children, it’s what we say and do to make this right.

DRINKING WATER - WASTED, POLLUTED AND AT RISK by John P. Flannery

How long before the faucet dries up? (Photo by John P. Flannery)

We’ve all been taught that we are mostly made of water, how we need it to live, to drink, to clean, to grow anything we eat, to nourish the trees that produce the air we breathe, and yet our world right down to the county level where we live fails to protect this precious life resource – like we could survive without water.

300,000 men, women and children in West Virginia found that the water in their home faucets from the Elk River made them ill and smelled something like licorice.  It was the scent of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol.  A negligent coal mining company, Freedom Industries, earning 30 million dollars last year, had 13 tanks all sixty years old and one 35,000 gallon tank leaked 7,500 gallons of this chemical through cracks in the containment wall into the Elk River. Incidentally, the wastewater treatment plant’s intake pipe took in the tainted water even after it had notice of the chemical spill, and pumped it out to its customers.  Needless to say, the treatment had not removed the chemical waste.

In Virginia, on January 8, 2014, State Senator Charles W. Carrico, Sr. (R-40SD), perhaps eager to mimic West Virginia’s careless regulatory system, offered a bill, SB 217, in the General Assembly that, if it passes, shall increase the likelihood that we’ll have coal waste in our rivers polluting our drinking water.  Presently, the Director of the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy must provide a copy of any application by the coal industry for a permit to discharge sewage, and industrial waste from coal surface mining operations to the State Water Control Board.  When that happens, the Water Board may object if the discharge impermissibly pollutes our water.  Senator Carrico seeks to strike any notice the Water Board may receive and preclude any objection they might interpose.

70% of the earth is water but only 2.5% of that water is fresh water that we can use, and less than 1% of that fresh water is liquid – meaning not frozen.

The water that we drink comes from our rivers, lakes, reservoirs and, if you have a well, from under the ground in an aquifer if there is one close enough to the surface to reach by drilling.  The water we have is limited. 

If you want to think of how that is true, then consider how, if you are on a well, you’re sticking a straw into the same pool as your neighbor and his neighbor and so on.  The more straws, the more risk there’s not enough for “you all,” not if you draw water from the aquifer faster than it can recharge; then you have to ration, or do without. 

One good local example of this is Purcellville’s public water system.  In the summer, they put up warning signs to ration water use.  Unrestrained development increases the uncertainty there’s enough water for everyone.  Recently, the Town of Purcellville annexed a new development called Autumn Hill/Mayfair of 257 single family and town homes that presumably will suck up hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a year more in a public water and waste system that already rations water. 

There’s this misunderstanding that the water above and below ground are unrelated and separate.  Some pour all manner of poison on their grass, rather than safer pest control methods, unconcerned that what we do above ground, affects our streams, and the waters that run underground in our aquifers. 

Others are unconcerned to maintain their septic systems that can discharge pathogens and present a public health hazard if not well maintained. 

Driveways, sidewalks, and pavement prevent rain water from soaking into the ground, so we have storm water runoff that picks up debris, chemicals, dirt and other pollutants that can find their way into rivers, ponds, streams.

We can put a man on the moon but we can’t keep our water clean here on earth.

SAVING FOR A “RAINY DAY?” – NOT REALLY! by John P. Flannery

Saving for a “rainy day” (Photo by John P. Flannery)

A recent poll said that 40% of our friends and neighbors have made their New Year’s resolution – to save more - in savings accounts, automatic transfers, savings bonds, and certificates of deposit.

We once did save at a decent rate.  Our national saving rate was 12.2% in November 1981.  But the rate fell like a stone starting in 1982 and went as low as less than 1% a number of times between 2000 and 2010.  Easy credit meant you didn’t have to save – so some wrongly thought.

The rate climbed back up when the 2008 recession hit, going from 1.3% in January 2008 to 4.2% in December of 2009. 

The latest report from the U.S. Department of Commerce, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, says our current rate of savings is an anemic 4.2%.  See http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/pi/pinewsrelease.htm .

The dilemma for families that want to save is that they likely owe in debt at a higher interest rate than what they can get saving their money.  From 1990 to 2008, the nation’s citizens were convinced, Benjamin Franklin’s advice to the contrary notwithstanding, that being a borrower was not so bad.  Unfortunately, if a nation’s citizens don’t save, then the nation has to borrow from other nation-states who do save.

If you haven’t checked lately, the return on a savings account is not that much more than if you just hid your money in a mattress.

Nevertheless, the best advice is to save for that rainy day – what we were taught in High School.

One economic theory on savings is to save while working to smooth consumption during retirement – that metaphorical “rainy day” that trumps almost all others.

What’s quite alarming is that a typical working age household has only $3,000 in retirement account assets.  Even a household near retirement, and that’s about 38 million people, who have no retirement account at all (no IRA, nor 401(k)), has saved only about $12,000.  The median savings for people with a retirement account is $100,000, but that larger sum won’t go that far for our graying population retiring at age 67.  The Center for Retirement Research (http://crr.bc.edu/ ) estimates that the gap in savings needed to retire and the savings in hand nationwide stands at $6.6 trillion.

Before anyone goes blaming folk for not saving, there’s a lot that can make you choose to spend and not save, an uneven ability to earn (in a changing market), worse than that, unemployment, disability, disease, the lost value of real property as an asset to leverage your resources (remember 2008 when many discovered a house does not always appreciate in value), an employer’s failure to make good on a pension retirement fund (promised and then withheld), not to mention the drive among some elected “hot shots” to cut federal and state retirement payouts (after the fact), reducing anticipated payouts in social security, as well as questionable cuts proposed for Medicare and Medicaid.

Nor is our government making saving easier.  You all know how the feds have discussed eliminating the mortgage interest deduction – as if it wasn’t enough that the bank crisis devalued the asset many relied on to “smooth” their glide path toward a secure retirement. 

The feds are now looking at cutting back on 401(k)s as a tax deduction to reduce the deficit (no thanks to the Simpson-Bowles bipartisan commission).

If retirement is the biggest and longest “rainy day” in our lives, we have to save more, but those of us in the middle class also have to protect the mortgage interest deduction, retirement accounts, federal and state retirement programs, social security, Medicare and Medicaid.

We also have to fight for our fair share in wages and salary of the profits we make possible for the so-called “job creators” who are long on excuses for making few new jobs and hording what they get in profits.

We also have to question imperial wars abroad that compromise our nation’s ability to invest and grow at home.

In the bargain we shall not only save for our own retirements, we might just save the nation.

OUR TOXIC PUBLIC DIALOGUE by John P. Flannery

 

“Lethally Hilarious” – the “Wolf of Wall Street”

No one should admire the exploitation movie headlining Leonardo DiCaprio as “the Wolf of Wall Street” who holds a false fixed grin for three hours, selling us, inviting us to share the life of a greedy, sex-crazed sociopathic stockbroker, who dupes naïve middle class investors to buy worthless stocks so that DiCaprio’s character can live in a mansion, and have a helicopter, trophy wife, yacht, prostitutes galore, countless lines of coke, morphine, and endless quantities of Quaaludes.

One movie reviewer claimed the movie was “lethally hilarious.”

There’s nothing “hilarious” about porn, drug addiction, prostitution and marathon boiler rooms stealing from hard-working middle class “marks,” all the time glorifying the thugs in suits that laugh at their off-camera victims.  This movie is not “ordinary” movie fare; its aim is unrelenting painful excess that some mistake for the American dream. 

The lead FBI agent who pursues DiCaprio’s criminal character, is featured in one of the movie’s final scenes, a disparaging setting, riding anonymously home on the Manhattan IRT with other working “stiffs” – underscoring DiCaprio’s earlier accusation in the flick that the Agent led a sorry life riding the subway home to an ugly wife (whom DiCaprio didn’t know to describe) while DiCaprio stood high and mighty on the deck of his lily white yacht throwing greenbacks at the agent. 

When DiCaprio is arrested, he “rats” on his associates, and weasels his way out of prison in 22 months, the cost in custody of his corrupt “business,” to build his next fortune including the two books that he wrote in real life that “inspired” this “blockbuster” movie.

In this movie, there’s a Quaalude party that DiCaprio convenes at his mansion with his partner, played by Jonah Hill; they pop so many Quaaludes they nearly die. 

Terrence Winter, the film’s screen writer, says this scene is so funny, that “DiCaprio and Hill on drugs rival Laurel and Hardy.”   Talk about twisted.  Mr. Winter “spins” this dark and toxic drug fest pretending a near death drug experience is a thigh slapper in order to get us to buy a ticket to his show.

Jonah Hill admits, “I was disgusted by what I was doing!”  Among the gross acts Jonah “did” was to “pleasure himself” at a party amidst watching bystanders while he fixed his onanistic gaze on the woman who became DiCaprio’s trophy wife (after DiCaprio kicked his first wife to the curb).  DiCaprio is equally disgusting when he man-handles a flight attendant the way a disobedient Fido might. 

Martin Scorsese, the Director, admits, “People can take their identification with movies and novels to some alarming places.”  But Leonardo and Martin are not concerned whence their viewers go after the movie, whether “alarming” or not, as long as they go to the movie in the first place to justify the $90 million they spent making this flick.

Movies often lag the cultural context that movie makers believe makes their product saleable.

Martin and Leonardo appear to have read the nation accurately.

As a nation, we have become insensitive to schemers, personal affronts, invasions of the most personal privacy as our elected figures, pundits, shock jocks, among others, recklessly publish whatever comes into their head, including the most hurtful and unfounded accusations, entirely indifferent to good taste, accuracy, compassion or privacy. 

DiCaprio compared his movie to Roman Emperor Caligula’s reign.  Caligula inflicted pain and death, acted unjustly, looted the public treasury, and engaged in all manner of sexual misconduct.

DiCaprio said his movie was “a modern-day Caligula, the height of debauchery.”

Is the face of our nation truly mirrored in DiCaprio’s distasteful art - a nation at the height of debauchery?  Perhaps we fall short of the heights he claims.  But we’d do well to start by dialing back on our toxic dialogue or risk doing to our nation what Caligula did to his.