OBAMA SIGNS DEFENSE BILL,UNDERMINES OUR ANCIENT LEGAL PROTECTIONS

THE LAST STRAW, OBAMA SIGNS THE DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS BILL

Just hours before the New Year began, when the nation was on holiday, President Obama signed into law the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, a far-ranging, $662 billion bill that will bring changes in a number of areas.

Obama said he signed the bill with “serious reservations,” particularly over provisions that regulate detention, interrogation and prosecution of detainees.

Obama issued a signing statement, with this bill, practice he decried when his predecessor used them, but which he has used more than Bush in his first two years than Bush used in his eight years. See below where I comment on this practice.

The new law, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, provides more than $660 billion for military pay raises, weapon systems, military contracts and funding for the war in Afghanistan as well as certain provisons regarding how we treat US military detainees.

I predict that Obama will become as notorious as King John of England, in 1215, John, weakened by unpopular wars, high taxes and conflict with the Pope was forced to sign away his devine rights when he put his pen to the Magna Carta. In like manner, President Obama simillarly afflicted and weakened has given his reluctant assent to a law which will cost us billions weaken or abrogate the ancient protections of English civil law embodied in the same Magna Carta (and the Habeus Corpus Act of 1679) which John signed so long ago. History confirms what can happen when - as with King John- a weakened leader must curry favor with his detractors and face determined unprincipled political enemies. In the case of President Obama, who has not encountered a fight he would rather not engage in, and who has been faced with irresponsible adversaries --in the Republican party who are more interested in squeezing the president into a politically embarrassing corner than doing their best for the nation. Ahhh politics!!!

The law signed by Obama weakens the core principles which are embodied in our Bill of Rights and which were derived from ancient English law. The Magna Carta the "great document" of English law, originally drawn up in 1215 AD (and passed into law in 1225), remains one of the core precepts of Anglo-American jurisprudence. In Medieval England the English nobles forced a weakened King John to accept the fact that he did not have the authority to act arbitrarily against English subjects and could not mete out punishment except through established law of the land. That basic premise has remained a part of English law until today. And by the grace of the fact that we were once an English colony and subject to an English King that precept entered and remains a part of our system of laws.

In the late 14th century, two hundred years afster trhe after the Magna Carta was signed, the English also established what is known as the "Great Writ", or the right of Habeas Corpus (Latin: "you may have the body"). A "writ" is a legal manuver by which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention, ( a detention perhaps lacking sufficient cause or evidence). This remedy can be sought by the prisoner, or by another person coming to his or her aid. It has historically been an important legal instrument safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary action by the state. And is essentially a summons with the force of a court order. "It is addressed to a prison official, for example, and demands that a prisoner be taken before the court, and that the custodian of the person present proof of authority, allowing the court to determine whether the custodian has lawful authority to detain the person. If the custodian does not have authority to detain the prisoner, then he must be released from custody. The prisoner, or another person acting on his or her behalf, may petition the court, or a judge, for a writ of habeas corpus. One reason for the writ to be sought by a person other than the prisoner is that the detainee might be held incommunicado. See Wikipedia "habeus corpus"

The right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus has nonetheless long been celebrated as the most efficient safeguard of the liberty of the subject. The jurist Albert Venn Dicey wrote that the British Habeas Corpus Acts "declare no principle and define no rights, but they are for practical purposes worth a hundred constitutional articles guaranteeing individual liberty". See Wikipedia "Writ of Habeus Corpus".

Another two hundred year later, in 1679, the Great Writ was revised and formalized into English law during the reign of King Charles II as the Habeas Corpus Act 1679. The Act of the Parliament formally defined and strengthened the ancient writ, to insure that persons unlawfully detained could not be ordered to be prosecuted before a court of law. The Act of 1679 which is cited as one of the most important statutes in English constitutional history. Though amended, it remains on the statute book (in the UK) to this day.

One would think that our President, Barak Obama, as a renowned legal and Constitutional scholar, (and Noble Peace Prize winner), would have great respect for and a thorough knowledge of these ancient and hard-won legal precedents which form the basis of our own freedoms. Yet just a few hours before the new year..while on vacation in Hawaii, our scholar-President “reluctantly” signed the flawed 2012 Defense Appropriations Bill into law.

The bill has unprecedented and dangerous clauses which undermine and weaken--the very legal basis of our freedoms and protections from tyranny. This signing will be recalled as one of Obama’s most shameful acts, for which he will be remembered for long after he is gone from office. Why is this signing so egregious? For three reasons 1) Obama’s complete capitulation to the bloated “defense” establishment and their corporatist, Republican supporters. 2) It's massive cost spits in the face of those who are concerned about our deficit and our present strained economy. 3) And his use of a signing statement as a way to camouflage his political timidity and hide the true evil effects of the bill. Here are a few of the highlights.

This 2012 Defense Bill should have been vetoed. It has several dangerous provisons not the least of which is one that it would permit the president to incarcerate American citizens and throw away the key...no due process, no habeus corpus...no provision for the accused to be faced by his accuser. The bill requires that foreign fighters captured by the US be held in military custody, outside the reach of civilian law. (Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, not much of a historian or legal scholar himself though he ischairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, said the new law aimed to "offer a structure for holding those who would do us harm." McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) said the structure was one "both parties found preferable to the ad hoc course the White House has been on for nearly four years.") Obama--often referred to as a Constitutional scholar homself-- agreed with this provision. But his signing statement claimed he would "waive any military custody requirement if he decided that were the best course." But what does that mean? That just indicates his present disposition on this matter, it could change and so could the interpretation of those coming after him. But Obama, with a stroke of his pen, in Hawaii has overturned that long history of legal tradition for Americans. Does he not realize that--even if he were not to use these onerous provisions, some others would gladly implement them--they are there in the legislation--perhaps against their political enemies. Just take a look over your shoulder at the crowd in Iowa from which one of whom "may" become president. They are frightening. Can you imagine one of them as president in 2012 ! Then we will have Obama to blame for signing this bill.

In one provision which would have rightly barred the transfer of detainees to foreign countries--the notorious policy of sending detainees to black sites for interrogation and torture--a policy first used by George Bush--Obama used his signing statement to clainm thta he would ignore that provision since it "hinders the executive's ability to carry out its military, national security and foreign relation activities" i.e. his policy of rendition. A shameful statement for our President to make!

Internationally, the bill attempts to curb Iran’s nuclear enrichment program by outlining penalties against Iran’s central bank. The legislation also freezes some $700 million in assistance until Pakistan develops an acceptable strategy for dealing with improvised explosive devices. One positive element of the bill, but which does not justify its passage, orders the Defense Department to finance an independent assessment of overseas troop basing “in light of potential fiscal constraints and emerging national security requirements.”.

Other changes include reducing our half-a million man army by less than 3%, to a still bloated 547,000, while increasing the pay of active and reserve troops by nearly 2%. It also authorizes the Defense Department to conduct offensive operations in cyberspace. The stress our troops have been exposed to in the last decade is underscored by the incorporation in this bloated budget of some necessary mental health assessments for our troops. To be implemented before deployment and several months prior to deployment and a year and a half or longer before redeployment. The purpose is to identify post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal tendencies and other behavioral health conditions. Though these efforts may identify the truly debilitated, a more meaningful action would make less not more use of our military which is supposed to be a "defense" force not an imperial shock troop. Our people are not mentally or psychologically prepared for service in occupational forces of an imperial guard. We are a peace loving people who seek only to expand democratic policies. Were we to limit the deployment of our young men and women to only those instances when our nation's homeland was truly threatened and our military were deployed for legitimate reasons we would have fewer such cases of dementia.

The most recent case underscoring the stress we have placed on our military in the last years of aggressive military adventurism came to light in the first days of the new year when a deranged former Army specialist with several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, shot up a New Years eve party wounding four, then escaped to hide away in the forests of Mt Rainer National Park. There, blowing through a road block he cold bloodily shot and killed a young female National Park ranger the mother of three children. He escaped into the forest where he died in an ice choked winter stream of winter exposure--wearing only a T shirt, jeans and one sneaker. A sad story of what w can expect from the thousands of our troops suffering from stress and mental disorder. We asked them to fight in an unnecessary war. They know they were had. We will pay for the mess.

If that was not serious enough to cause the president to table the bill or outright veto it. There is more.

Let’s look at the economics---the price tag. It will cost six hundred and sixty billion dollars ($660,000,000,000) or two thirds of a trillion dollars, a figure which represents more than 4% of our GDP. That amount (annual military expenditure as a percent of GDP) is more than any other modern industrialized nation, (except for a few oil-rich Arab countries which we twist arms to buy our military hardware). In general terms, we spend by far more on our military than any other nation in the world. The next most militarized nation is China. But they spend a paltry 114 billion dollars on their forces, or less than one-fifth of our expenditure, or only less than 20 cents of every dollar we spend. In fact if we were to add up the actual military expeditures or all of our potential world “enemies” (let’s say:China, Russia, Iran) it would amount to only 174 billion r bout 26% or a bit more than one-fourth of what our expeditures are. Why do we do it? It can not be for simple“defense” as our Republican politicians like to claim. It makes no sense to spend so much out of proportion to the function we claim to be supporting. I prefer to see it as an ingrained tendency toward imperialism as well as a form of “social security” for the defense-industry consortium. Thus we can conclude that the expenditure is bloated in the extreme. Most observers conclude that we could probably slash that number in half and still be the top dog in the world.

On another count, let’s underscore the fact that 40% of the $660 billion price tag or more than a quarter of a trillion dollars ($ 264 billion) or nearly three hundred billion of that near-trillion dollars will have to be borrowed and paid for with interest by our children and grandchildren. For what? Will it make their future lives safer or better. I think not. We are mortgaging our children’s future incomes to swell the coffers of some corporatist in Washington. For those in the Republican Party, who would not lift a finger to continue aide to the unemployed, or help the ill and the elderly—if that expenditure would raise our deficit, this monstrous sum, about a third of our budget, is quite all right with them and the only complaints we hear from that quarter are that the sum is too little. At a time when we are laying off, teachers, librarians, policemen, and closing schools all over this nation, and the President and Congress are toying with which of the prime support strands of this country’s existing and notably skimpy social safety net (such as medicaid, medicare and social security) are to be cut, the President has the temerity to give the “defense” department carte blanche for more and better (?) bombs, planes, destroyers, drones and other hardware none of which will never figure into improvement of this nation’s dismayingly aged infrastructure, or to change its long term energy dependence on imports, increase domestic jobs—and provide impetus to our faltering economy. Why continue to support the bloated military-industrial complex up to just above the figure they demanded? Obama has no answer for us.

And finally, the signing of this bill "with reservations" was a misleading, politically cowardly, self-serving act. The Constitution gives the President the right and responsibility to veto a bill. That is what the Founders planned, that the President as the representative of the people would have the final review of a piece of legislation. If he found its provisions to be unwarranted or unwise, or dangerous, it his, the President's, responsibility to reject the bill by vetoing it. But President Obama shirked his duty to the people. If the President had reservations he should have had the courage to veto the bill. I'm really sorry to have to say this but the President acted like a wimp, he signs this flawed bill, then presents some smarmy reasons why he should not have signed it. That is not the leadership we need now--or at any time. Obama has besmirched his brand with this last act--the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Get the picture?

RJK

ONE REASON FOR HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT, OR LUDDITES CORRECT: NEW TECHNOLOGY KILLS JOBS

The Regency Era (1811-1820) in England is celebrated here and in the UK as a glittering period in British history, perhaps mostly as a consequence of Jane Austen's popular fiction and the BBC's elaborate, sumptuous TV productions. But in reality, beneath the ordered upperclass surface depicted in fiction was a more turbulent and complex world. Early in that period Britain was struggling with the madness of King George III (the British tyrant of our American Revolutionary War era). After he had slipped into the final stages of dementia, his dissolute, self-indulgent, extravagant son (later George IV) took over to become regent. George ushered in a period of grandiosity and of excess in style and substance. Like our own time, then, there existed a great disparity between rich and poor. The nation had been for many years enmeshed in constant warfare: with the French, the Americans, the Irish Rebellion, and the Napoleonic wars. As in our own time, at the war's end social and economic malaise infected the country. As well, like in our own post-war period, it was a time of technological advancement and social unrest associated with rapid industrial expansion. For example, a new loom invented in France in 1800, the Jacquard loom, was introduced in the first decade of that century which could mechanically reproduce patterns in lace and silk without the need of highly trained weavers. A few years later in 1804 gas lights were invented and first used. About the same time, the first steam locomotive was built. In 1809 Humphry Davy invented the first electric-arc light. And by 1810 an advanced mechanical printing press was developed by Koenig in Germany that would enormously speed up the publication of books. The introduction of these technologies into the economy caused labor disruptions, changes in employment-opportunity, as well as spikes of unemployment. In all these cases, as it is today, the goal for the manufacturer was to increase the amount of product produced and to reduce production costs, almost always these efforts were effected by reducing the amount of costly (and sometimes troublesome) human labor in the process. Nothing has changed, today we have the many of the same problems.

It was in Nottingham, England in this period (1811) of change and unrest, almost exactly two hundred years ago, that the owners of several thriving textile mills of that region, manufacturers of expensive lace and stockings, introduced a form of the new Jacquard loom as a means to increase productivity, reduce cost-- and enlarge their profits. This new loom could be operated easily by cheap, unskilled labor. The mill owners summarily fired the male skilled weavers they had employed and hired mostly children and unskilled women in their place, paying these new employees only a small fraction of the wages the men had earned. The impact on the economy of the local communities was disastrous. The disgruntled, unemployed mill workers joined together to stage protest marches, demonstrate and write and distribute pamphlets which encouraged others to join them. Dissatisfaction and unrest grew apace with the numbers of unemployed. In desperation, some turned to violence to protest their plight and that of their families made destitute by the new machines.


All across the British midlands the unemplyed lace workers formed gangs of homeless, angry groups, much like our 2011 "Occupy Wall Street" Movement. These early "occupy" demonstrators, known as Luddites, after a probable mythical leader-- Ned Ludd (possibly the shortened appellation of Edward Ludlam) a real person who had become notorious after having destroyed a stocking frame loom in a fit of rage earlier in this period. The Luddites directed their ire, not at the mills or the owners who had fired them, but instead, they focused their rage against the new technology--the new looms-- which they saw as the primary culprit, which had altered the circumstances of employment and eliminated their jobs. The Luddites gave speeches and wrote pamphlets calling for reprisals against the looms, encouraging workers to rise up and smash their looms. These publications were often signed by "King Ludd". They made raids on mills where they attacked and destroyed the new mechanical looms which they concluded had cost them their livelihood. In response the mill owners called upon the British government to put down the violence and unrest, which the governemnt did with dispatch and harsh determination. The police and army eventually rounded up hundreds of the Luddites. Many of these were tried and duly executed for crimes, while others were transported to Australia and other distant colonies of the Empire. The problem did not end, and the discontent did not abate. As the introduction of the new looms spread, unemployment grew in number and many continued out of work. In time other working-class movements of discontent erupted as the century continued-- eventually giving rise to the more successful British labor movement.

Luddites were seen in their day as "anti progressives". Their statements and pamphlets made clear that they were opposed to any new technologies that would reduce the need for labor and put people out of work. They claimed technology would eventually put all workers in the poor house, adding that technology would make the poor poorer and the rich richer.

The prevailing perception today is that the Luddites fears were unfounded. In fact most modern economists refer to the episode of unrest as an example of an economic misperception known as the "Luddite fallacy". Modern theory indicates that new technologies, rather than encouraging unemployment--stimulate growth. Labor saving technologies should increase production of goods, causing the prices of those goods to fall and demand for them to increase. Increased demand should encourage investment in new enterprises and increase employment.


But is that really the case? In modern times we have many examples of new technologies making jobs obsolete each in turn altering the labor market. In the last several decades we have seen the impact of the electronic revolution in the workplace and the explosion of the internet as a tool of business. Both of these phenomena have radically transformed the workplace. Many jobs were lost. I can recall in my own experience, radical changes in the workplace, in an office where a long row of secretaries once worked, the desks are now gone and the room is bare...perhaps the space is now converted to storage for paper stock. The work of that row of individuals has been taken over by sometimes more savvy, foolproof, smaller, and cheaper laptop and tablet computers. But where have the secretaries gone? Who employs them now? Many of them have retired, have joined the ranks of the unemployed, or are working at lower paying jobs.

Economists theorize that during the early years of the industrial revolution, the fears expressed by the Luddites..that new machines were going to make their labor obsolete and drive them to the poor house were indeed a fallacy. They concluded that since machines could compete effectively with human labor their insertion into the labor equation debased the value of human work. Luddites envisioned that technology would eventually devalue human labor--making the poor poorer (that was all the poor had to bargain with--their labor) and the rich richer. And the the progress of technology over the last two hundred years can be cited to support that thesis that these fears of technology and machines were unfounded and fallacious. Economists would have (were they around) assuaged their fears..explaining that as technologies developed and jobs were lost, new jobs would be created in other developing fields. Their theory might be explained this way--In the case of the stocking mills--the new technology would increase production of stockings which would cause the price of stockings to fall. More and cheaper product would permit more people the ability to afford to buy stockings. New outlets would open which sold these products. These new enterprises would need more employees. One might even envision that the existing lace and stocking mills making more product and greater profits would expand production. Expansion would entail hiring more help, perhaps to construct new space and set up new looms, and such activities would require labor and new jobs, etc, etc. In other words, in the early years of the industrial revolution and on into modern times technology created new jobs in the same or new industries at a faster rate than old jobs were being made obsolete. That was the theory....and it proved to be valid for a long time perhaps two hundred years. But two centuries of innovation and job losses have squeezed human labor into a smaller and smaller space. Can we continue this process ad infinitum?



Is it necessary to state that over the last two hundred years, technology and machines have grown more and more sophisticated? Most of the former hand-made products or goods produced by operators using machines are now made by totally by machine. The retreat of human labor into areas where machines could not (it seemed) intrude has finally ended. With only few exceptions, in the workplace today machines can do almost anything humans can do. Almost all the heavy lifting, back-breaking-labor-saving and rote work, and repetitive tasks that humans once did are now commonly completed by machines. Then too, technological advancement has proceeded over the last two-hundred yeas at an exponential rate, while the appearance of new job opportunities arise more slowly, described better as a linear rate. Thus, today jobs are being made obsolete faster than new jobs arise to replace old ones. Now rather than just eliminating heavy labor, or rote and repetitive tasks, new machines are smart. The can learn and in a sense think-not quite as well as humans--but on many tasks--they exceed human endeavor-and for one important reason, in certain tasks they make fewer mistakes.

In recent times, economic theorists note that while technology grows at an exponential rate, consumer demand--perhaps confined by population increases- grows more in a linear fashion. Thus at some point new technology will not produce the fall in prices and increased demand which tends to encourage further investment and growth of employment. We appear to have reached that point where the Luddite were right--machines are replacing humans in jobs so rapidly that they may make paupers of us all (and soon too those who cringe in the intellectual woodwork). Alas it seems clear today that the rich who own the technology and the machines will continue to amass wealth.



So the Luddites of 200 years ago, might have had it right. New technology --the machines--are taking over, pauperizing our working classes and concentrating wealth in the hands of the corporatists and oligarchs.




Get the picture?




RJK

"I MISUNDERESTIMATED": George Bush on the Iraq War

The Iraq War formally ended yesterday (December 15, 2011) with a whimper. There was no fanfare. Our leaders have no "stomach" to face up to the necessary reevaluations or objective analysis of the war as an abject, monumental mistake--or the effects of a "misunderestimate" by George Bush. The announcement of the war's end by President Obama, stirred not the holiday shoppers away from their seasonal pursuit of bargains, or disuaded the pundits, bloggers and talking heads from continuing to focus their attention on the lack-luster hopefuls in the Republican race for the presidential nomination. Rather than the Iraq war the attention of the pundits these last few days has been devoted to the erratic and unstable Newt Gringrich (in some places now being referredd to as "Newtzilla Gingrich") , who in spite of his inflammatory rhetoric (like encouraging preemptive war with Iran, and denigrating Palestinans as a people) is ahead in the Republican state polls. This fact rightly worries the GOP establishment.

The scarcity of Iraq war coverage is understandable. No one wants to talk much about past failures. But here again our national press corps and media fail basic Journalism 101. These very same journalists and print-encrusted institutions who mostly fell into obedient line with the warmongers and neocons during the run-up to the war, stumbled embarrassingly into into jingoism and yellow journalism during the war, and now that it is over, they fail their journalistic duties again by largely ignoring the unpalatable history of this war, eschewing a critique of its failures on many fronts.

Last night, observing the final Republican “debate” before the upcoming Iowa caucuses, I heard not one word about the Iraq War, our sacrifices there, or its formal ending on that very day. Instead, unbelievably, there was considerable saber rattling by the candidates for a new war with Iran—over that nation's purported nuclear ambitions. It is difficult to fathom what short memories our citizenry have and how blatantly some of our political leaders pander to fears and biases of minorities in their audiences. (Regarding this matter--Dr. Ron Paul stood out as the only rational and honest voice on the stage.)

Thus ends George Bush’s war, its rationale based on lies and innuendo, which cost taxpayers a trillion dollars up front (and an estimated two-trillion more over the decades to come). Over its nine-year course, Bush and his minions sacrificed the lives of 4500 young Americans, were responsible for the maiming of another thirty thousand, and caused the deaths of well more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians (by actual body count, but standard statistical studies have concluded that the war related loss of life was closer to half a million) and made refugees of some two to four million. And for what purpose? Iraq was not involved in the 9-11 attacks and had no weapons of mass destruction. But the war was not only an unmitigated first-order disaster to Iraq, fulfilling America's initial war aims to bomb that nation “back into the stone age”. (Today, as a result of those military efforts and failures and corruption in reconstruction, Baghdad, continues in squalor nine years after the invasion, with a limping, fractured infrastructure and with insufficient potable water and only a few hours each day of electrical service.)

But if the war was a terrible descent into an abbatoir and charnel house-hell for Iraqis, its outcome has been little better for the USA. This awful nine-year conflict bookends one of the ugliest and dark periods of American history. The war era exposed us as a nation which could forget its best motives and history to become barbaric invaders and occupiers, flouters of international law, torturers, “trigger-happy cowboys” and for some of our top leaders--the epithet "international criminal" has been properly scrawled under postings of their visages.

In its economic impact at home, George Bush's "war-on-the-cuff" has been scored as one of the three main causes of our 2007 financial collapse and the Great Recession which followed—a calamity which continues to plague us today. The war exposed us as a superpower with extraordinary technical and military strengths, but with little depth and sophistication. Having only superficial understanding of the region, and with pathetic little knowledge of the people, their language, and their religion or culture our President audaciously attacked a sovereign nation. At the head of the world's most lavishly supplied and costly military (we spend more on our armed forces than all the other world nations combined!) we swept a pathetic enemy before us like desert rats and quickly and easily occupied Baghdad. But once there our bumbling attempts at imperial occupation led to chaos and disaster.

On all fronts the war failed. The lightly concealed real objectives of the war were to carve out a petroleum rich nation for our oil companies to exploit. As well, our military display was meant to demonstrate our overarching military power, perhaps to dissuade potential terrorists, or to put fear into our regional "enemies" Iran, Russia and China. But as the war wore on, with displays of grandiosity (our "embassy" the size of a small city state in Europe) and exposes of torture and brutality at Abu Ghrahib as well as revelations of incompetence in the face of a stubborn and determined insurgent population, the war became the quagmire some had predicted. The conflict, instead of publicizing our strengths, revealed our incompetence, arrogance and the limits of our military power.

Our President's war on Iraq sullied our national reputation, and aroused much of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims against us and our erstwhile allies in the region. Futhermore the war encouraged the nuclear arms race. In the face of our awsome attack on Iraq what world leader could not have noticed the strrategic advantages of a nuclear arsenal? Could they ignore the fact of our ability to invade and dominate a non-nuclear Iraq, while nuclear armed North Korea only experienced attempts at harsh diplomacy from us.

As we had hoped, our intervention did alter the local political situation--but not to our advantage . Without clearly thinking through the results of our invasion and occupation, we found our actions to be largely counter productive. For one, it enhanced the power of neighboring Iran by eliminating Iraq as a military counterpoise, creating a new regional problem for our leaders. For another, we appear to have opened economic opportunities for China which is today making oil deals in Iraq, and opening mineral mines in Afghanistan as we case our battle flags and prepare to leave. The fierce resistance of the Iraqis to American occupation and our inability to establish a pliant Iraqi "democracy" means we leave Iraq with no more leverage than what we had over the old Iraq. Rather than a demonstration of power, our failures in Iraq gave strength and encouragement to other Arab popular opposition groups in surrounding nations. The chaos in Iraq in no small way helped to stimulate and encourage the Arab Spring...a political movement which has to-date radically changed the political landscape (and not to our advantage) in a wide swath across the Arab world.

It is well this war is over. Without public condemnation, it seems that now only God may forgive those of our leaders with the blood of our nation's troops and of innocent civilians on their hands. If only it were true that we as a nation learned something from our mistakes and setbacks. Alas, listening last night to the Republican side of our quadrennial political discourse, it appears that we have understood little and digested less of our recent past in Iraq. Due to our unwillingness and/or inability to face up to our mistakes and failures, we are relegated to repeat them over and over again. I fear we have suffered much and profited nothing from our travails these last nine years.

Will we all have to live on in silence with the continuing fall-out of this monumental disaster? Have our young men and women who sacrificed their bodies and lives done so in vain? Have we wasted trillions of dollars and years of national effort? The answer to these questions is sadly, yes. But only if we continue to sweep the past under the rug and fail to honestly reevaluate our mistakes and their causes--and in no certain terms condemn those who so horribly lead us astray.



Get the picture?

MYSTERIOUS NUCLEAR CLOUD OVER CENTRAL EUROPE

JAPAN LIKELY TO BLAME


I read yesterday (November 12, 2011) of a strange but interesting low-level occurrence of radioactive Iodine 131 detected in several central European nations. Reports came from Poland, Austria, Czech Republic and today (November 13) Hungary was added to the list. The isotopes were detected in the air, were minimal and non-life threatening according to the various nation's atomic monitoring organizations. But the cause and origin remain unknown. One report tried to blame the occurrence on leakage from area hospitals, or even more unlikely, on the patients themselves who were treated with Iodine 131 and then exude these isotopes in their breath and body fluids! That sounded far out. Most recently, the origin was attributed to a Pakistan nuclear power plant at which a leak occurred on October 19th of this year (Though half life of Iodine 131 indicates such a leak would no longer be detectable). The plant was pointed at as the culprit. But some further research indicated that the radioactive hot water leak remained within the power plant. Even if it had escaped it would have, if anything, released radioactive tritium, but not Iodine. Iodine is released by a nuclear explosion, or the meltdown of the core of a nuclear power plant, such as what happened at Chernobyl, or more recently in March of this year, at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant in Japan.

The geographic location of the countries reporting Iodine 131 in their air, the general east to west drift of upper-air currents, as well as the pattern of the recent upper air jet streams suggest that Japan's Fukushima plant is the source of this pollution. Yes far away Japan. Today’s jet stream map does show a branch of the mid latitude jet with a distinct north to south branch in the upper air pattern. The minot branch moves south to curve down over Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. Though the half-life of radioactive iodine is about eight days...the speed of the upper air currents could account for the low level concentration and pattern over these central European nations. So please stop blaming the Pakistanis. Pakistan lies far to the east of where this is being reported and the major air currents move toward Pakistan not from it! The general pattern suggests the Japanese. Why is this not being reported in Europe by the IAEA? Hummmm?

The story also points out how far reaching and potentially disastrous a nuclear melt-dowm like Fukushima is. It’s a world-wide problem and will remain so for as long as those nuclear cores are exposed to the air. The plant needs to be encased in a concrete sarcophagus as soon as possible.

Get the picture!

OIL CONSUMPTION IN 1948

LIFE ON A BARREL A YEAR

We are all concerned with energy consumption these days. Not long ago, I wrote a response to those who would attempt to exploit oil resources in sensitive areas, and included data on how much oil we consume as a nation (See: “Drill Baby Drill”: rjkspeaks.blogspot.com, October 17, 2011). I noted there that each day, our nation consumes nearly 19 million barrels of oil! (See the CIA factbook to check that number at:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2174rank.html) In Drill Baby Drill, I state that if those 19 million oil barrels were aligned end to end, they would form a continuous line more than 10,400 miles long which would stretch from the North Pole to the tip of South America and then some. We burn it all up each day and blithely pump the waste products of combustion into the world-atmosphere as oxides of carbon and nitrogen. These substances have an effect on the world climate and they rightly have us and the rest of the world seriously worried.

In a recent edition, The Economist magazine (October 20, 2011) pointed out that a recent compilation of world temperature records, (by Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Group, led by Berkeley University physicist Richard Muller) seem to have put to rest much of the real and imagined controversy regarding this issue. The Economist's editors (not a left-progressive group) state that there is now little question concerning the validity of global warming. This latest compilation of terrestrial weather station data going back many years clearly indicates a slow rise in temperature over the decades with a sharp rise of 0.9 degrees C (nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit) in the last twenty years.

Elements within our government, as well as industry and business leaders have resisted acceptance of the fact of massive, fossil-fuel-induced climate change. These business and government elements wish to avoid the dire and difficult alternatives, i.e. the need to use less fossil fuels and decrease business activity (as they see it), or face a drastically altered world with increased crop failures, seasonal wildfires, more frequent violent tropical storms, intense winter cyclones, disaster floods, and widespread famine for the near-future. But now after this recent analysis it appears there is little doubt that to curb the warming trend and change the inflection of the rising temperature curve we will have to radically alter our oil consumption habits.

So how do we fare here in the US on this issue? Would great changes in our habits and consumption be required? Recent data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicate that US energy consumption from about the 1980s to 2006 remained fairly steady, with each US citizen, on average, consuming 336 million BTUs per person. ( Note: A British Thermal Unit (BTU) a traditional measure of energy defined as the amount of heat energy needed to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.) Three hundred thirty-six million BTUs is nearly five (5) times more than the world average energy consumption per person (recently tabulated at about 72 million BTUs). So here in the USA we can be considered to be the world’s energy hogs.

Our total energy consumption includes sources such as petroleum, coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, and some wind power. According to the EIA (for 2007) of all our energy sources, petroleum is the largest, comprising about 39% of the total. But for this present analysis we can best visualize our consumption if we focus on how we use petroleum. Let's consider the 19 million barrels of oil consumed in the USA each day, thus we use (19 x 365 days per year = 6935 million barrels) close to 7 billion barrels a year. Dividing that figure (7 billion bbl/year) by the US (2010) population of 308 million (7000m/308m = 22.7bbl/person/yr ) reveals that we use approximately 23 barrels of oil per/person/year.

To summarize, we can state that in recent times, (ignoring the other sources of energy we use) we as Americans, with a population of less than one-third of a billion, or about 20% of the world population (2011 world population seven (7) billion), use five times more oil energy than the world average. We each consume collectively an average of about 23 barrels of oil per day. With those figures, the USA (as the primary per capita consumer) should be in the forefront of moderating our usage of fossil fuel, if anything is to actually happen to improve world consumption of fossil fuels and slow world climate change. Unfortunately, here in the USA, our government in the grasp of the giant oil companies, we remain largely in the denial stage.

Reflecting on the fact that each of us use as much as 23 barrels of oil each year, I could not but help thinking six decades back to a childhood experience of living on my grandfather's small farm in rural Long Island where we used only one barrel of oil annually. I still have a vivid image of grandpa's single barrel of "kero" sitting in front of his old woodwork shed. That was the sole source of petroleum energy in his annual economy of those long ago days. (Also notable was that one barrel of kero was probably also a wholly domestic product--unlike today, when more than six out of each ten barrels of oil product are imported from abroad.)

So as an exercise in examining how much our consumption has changed over the years, I invite my readers to accompany me on a brief trip into the early part of the last century, when life was much simpler and at least in a rural environment a small family could survive quiet nicely on one barrel of petroleum-product over the entire year.


In the late 1940s, the growing fear of the infantile paralysis epidemic in NYC reached crescendo proportions, especially in Brooklyn, NY, where I lived. The prior summer, 1947, when I was seven years old, two of my school mates were struck down with polio and were whisked away from their families, to be treated and put into quarantine in a distant hospital and not to be seen again in the neighborhood. My mother was understandably anxious for my health as the summer of 1948 approached. She and my father quickly made the only arrangements she could, and so like the rich kids who lived north of 13th Avenue in Dyker Heights whose business-owner and professional parents sent them off to summer health-camps, just before the summer of 1948, I was sent to live in the country too. I spent the next few summers of my young childhood as a kind of happy refugee from the city.

My elderly grandparents, who spoke English fluently, but preferred to speak (even to me) in their native Italian, lived a simple country life on a small freehold in what was rural Long Island of that time. I concluded many years later after traveling in Europe that their lives during my stay in 1948 were closer to that of 19th century Europe, than America of mid-20th century. So life there for me was like going back some some fifty or sixty or more years into the past. Thus my observations are not typical of the ways of the 1940s, but more of an earlier age. Still my observations can add to one's appreciation of how simply all our ancestors once lived and how little they depended on the oil which has become today our lubricant, fuel and near-lifeblood. Later, as an adult, I came to realize how much that time away had affected my perceptions and my life. I often looked back with great respect and affection for my grandparents, who welcomed me and shared their lives with me. The experience gave me a perspective which few others my age had and it and afforded me the unique experience of a real-life window into earlier times.

Grandfather stored his yearly oil supply in a great, old, copper barrel, located at the end of the long, gravel, driveway. The 50 gallon round-bellied barrel lay on its side on a weathered, rough-wood frame in front of grandpa’s equally-weathered work shed. The barrel's greenish-tinged surface had a few dents here and there. Abrasions could be seen all along the the thick, rolled-metal rim, where the reddish copper metal shone through. The spigot, situated about ten inches off the ground, had a well-worn solid-brass handle and below it a curved copper spout. The marks of wear and dents suggested to even my young mind that the barrel was old and must have had a long, former life somewhere else and probably far away. Directly below the spigot a bare spot in the grass indicated that the spout must have dripped during use, causing a few drops of kerosene to splash to the ground. The spattering kerosene killed the grass in a near perfect circle leaving a persistent patch of barren, gravelly soil among the otherwise rank weeds and grass which grew luxuriously around the barrel-frame and along the rough stone foundation of the weather-beaten old shed.

To a young imaginative boy, the barrel's smooth, sun-warmed rounded surface suggested the wide back of a big dray horse, and sometimes, when I was alone, I would mount up my "horse" for a ride, thumping my heels into the hollow metal sides to goad my "barrel-horse" into an imaginary gallop and down grandpa's driveway. I never gave a thought to the substance within. Oil was of only minor if common use at that place and time. Grandpa was more concerned with the local fire-wood we collected from the orchard and the surrounding woods.
I certainly could not imagine the all-powerful, all-engrossing role that the smelly liquid in the belly of my play-horse would come to play in all our lives in the decades to come.

The small farm was basically self-sufficient--except for the kerosene we burned. Benzene (as grandpa called it) was used mostly as as the fuel for our lamps, and lanterns, but sometimes too, it served to thin paint, or to clean up after a painting job, or even as a degreaser. On occasion an old coffee cup-full was also used to start a stubborn wood fire in wet weather, or for what I liked to watch best -- to start a bonfire. Grandpa did have a small kerosene stove which he sometimes used to as a space heater in the house on very cold winter days, and in the spring he moved it to the chicken coop for the new hatchlings. But not much else. The barrel was filled only once or at most twice per year. Grandpa got along in 1948 with very little oil, or as he called it "benzene".


Looking back at our energy use in 1948, I calculate that my grandpa, myself and my grandmother, the three of us (ignoring the many guests including my parents who arrived for short stays during the summer) each consumed only a little more than one-third of a barrel of kerosene--mostly for lighting. The energy in each barrel of kerosene is, as is petroleum, rated at about 6 million BTUs. Thus, each of us in that year of 1948 consumed only 2 million BTUs of oil-product per year. That is only a small fraction (less than 1%)of what we use today (336 BTU) or even small compared to the the world average at 72 million BTUs per year.

LIFE ON TWO MILLION BTUs PER DAY

What was my life like in that place in 1948? Perhaps revisiting that time may broaden our understanding of how people lived on only one-third of a barrel of oil a year, rather than 23 barrels a year as we do today, and too, generate an appreciation of how dependent upon oil our lives have become in a time span of little more than six decades.

The pleasant, five-room bungalow, with a great open attic, had no indoor plumbing, no electricity and no heating or air conditioning, and no wood-fireplace. Our water-well was outside too. I recall that the interior was mostly cool and comfortable in summer and warm in winter. Although the attic where I slept was hot in a summer's mid-day, during the night at that time of the year its high roof and big windows kept it cool and comfortable. The overarching shade trees and a lovely apple tree which poked its branches up to my attic window must have helped to moderate its temperature too.

Fresh drinking water of the finest taste and purity was pumped up from deep underground in our back yard. A long-handled cast-iron lift-pump, gave access to fresh, icy cold, water from, as grandpa would proudly and often proclaim, "a hundred and twenty feet down". The pump was relatively new in 1948. Prior to its installation, grandfather had to depend mostly on the cistern's rain water, for washing and cleaning, but for good drinking water he had to tow his little frame wagon a half-mile up St. Johnland's Road to fill them at the artesian well located there. When guests with automobiles arrived, he would readily impose on them for this chore. Though I never witnessed it myself, I heard tell of my aunts and uncles strapping the water jugs to the running boards of their vehicles for the ride up to the free-flowing spring across from the pond.

All lighting was by candle or kerosene lamps. There were no street lights either. On an dark evening to visit the home of grandfather's boyhood friend, "Lo Zito" , grandpa, with me tagging along, carried a big kerosene lamp which swayed as we walked casting scary shadows in a great spreading a circle of yellow light all the way for the quarter mile distance in pitch-black darkness over sandy roads. Cooking and house-heating was accomplished with wood burned within a big, black, cast-iron kitchen stove. In the summer, and the warmer seasons of the year, a similar outdoor stove was put into operation outside the house under the big grape arbor.

Grandpa loved to garden and grow flowers and grandmother preserved fruit from their fruit trees and vegetables from their garden. The dried and split wood from the orchard trimmings and from the surrounding forest fueled the wood stove for all their fruit and vegetable canning and food-preservation activity. They both loved to read and listen to classical music and Italian opera. But with no electricity, reading occurred by cozying up under the yellow glare of the big kerosene lantern, and music appreciation with the aid of a wind-up gramophone.

The subsistence farm supplied us with meat, eggs and vegetables. Fresh brown eggs were a great staple, and each week grandpa killed a hen which edged past her prime egg-laying capacity. Some years they also raised a pig or two. An let me not forget the rabbits which were kept in a hutch attached to the back of the chicken coop. But the vast majority of our meals came fresh directly from the big garden in summer.

When we walked to town (the only way to get there), we often pulled grandfather's home-made wood-wagon upon which we piled our purchases. Sometimes, on the way back, if there was room, grandfather offered me a ride. On our way to town, we passed the local dairy farm where we might stop to purchase farm-fresh un-pasturized and un-homogenized milk. For this purpose we carried our own metal milk jug with a tight fitting metal cap which the dairyman filled for us. (Today that farm is long gone and its are fields filled with houses. But the big maple trees along the road remain, but each time I pass there I can still envision in my mind's eye the big old house with its barn and wide barnyard.) If the weather was warm on these trips to the dairy farm, we covered the milk-jug with a wet towel to help keep it cool on the walk back home. Arriving home, the filled milk jug was placed on the top of the ice block in the bottom of the ice-box, and there it kept sweet for a few days.

Grandfather made his own wine from grapes he grew on the big grape arbor attached to the house. These were dark blue and juicy New York Concord grapes, the vinifera varieties were not thought able to survive on Long Island at that time. He also ingeniously distilled brandy from the wine he produced. He roasted his own coffee, and ground the roasted beans in a hand grinder fresh when they were needed. (During the roasting process, one of my boyhood chores was to help keep the small stick-fire under his coffee roaster going by adding little dry twigs in a regular manner, while grandpa rotated the squeaky roaster handle. The cylinder-axle squealed and scraped rhythmically, punctuating the sound of the beans sloshing around nosily within the roaster . Every now and then, grandpa would remove a few hot, smoking bean from a small sliding door on the side-wall of the roaster to test for color and flavor. He would crush a bean between his fingers and bring it up to his nose for a sniff. The smell of roasting coffee beans was intoxicating to me then and the scent of roasting beans bring back to mind those days sitting in the shade of the grape arbor roasting green coffee beans with grandpa. He also made his own pasta and daily, grandmother baked her own crusty Italian-style bread. They put up jars and jars of tomatoes, pickles, peppers and other vegetables which lasted them all year long. Their lives were busy and well directed. There was no boredom or question of ‘what do I do next’.

As each day wound down, and night descended grandpa would go out to the big kerosene barrel and fill a small, metal, beaked-jug. With the fill-jug in hand, he made his rounds to each of the big kerosene lamps and lanterns in the house. He would top up the each oil reservoir if necessary. At each one, he removed the glass globe and rolled up the oil-soaked cloth-wick to trim off the burned section neatly with a small scissors he kept for that purpose. Each wick had to be cut perfectly square so it would burn evenly and brightly at night. Each globe was cleaned with crunched up newspaper too. If the flame burned properly, the glass globe stayed nice and clean from day to day. At night, reading at the kitchen table, or writing a letter home to mom and dad, I was cautioned to not turn the wick up too high, for it would make a smoky flame which blackened the inside of the globe.

There was no town garbage collection in those days. Trash from the house was separated into edible food-waste, compost, or burnable stuff. The food waste was fed to our dog, or the chickens, or dumped into the hog pen. The other materials were either composted, burned or buried. But then again in those pre-packaging days there was not much solid waste. Clear plastic, styrofoam, cellophane and such eith had not been invented yet or was not widely used. Everything that could be used for some other purpose was used again, and sometimes again, after that second use. As noted above our food scraps were separated into meat and vegetable and offered to either our great big, white Italian Spitz dog named“Beauty”, or tossed to the chicken flock. Since these jobs were mine I soon learned that chickens would eat almost anything. When a pig inhabited the small hog pen, it shared in the waste food and vegetable trimmings too. Anything not considered edible by man or beast, but was organic in nature was either tossed onto the manure pile to decompose or slipped into the kitchen wood stove to add to the heat that was boiling the water in the boiling pot.

There was no “food packaging” per se, so there was little waste of that sort. Old newspapers and a few cardboard boxes were the most common paper products. But the former were often used for packaging, where today we would use some form of plastic bag, while the latter was often saved up in a basket next to the stove to be used to start the wood-fire in the fire box. The few other packaging materials we did come across were often recycled or reused some way. For instance, the nice cloth sacks from the bags of chicken-feed were saved to be made into smaller sacks for storage, or cut and sewed into long sand-filled "sausage rolls" to block cold air seeping under the the back door in winter, or ripped and cut into patches to repair the knees of my worn overalls. Burlap was a common coarse fabric and we often saved such bags for our trips to the beach for bagging our mussels and clams. Jars and cans were kept for storage containers. Wire from the hay bales was carefully wound up and saved for other uses. String was rolled into balls. And even the "silver foil" in which grandpa's pipe tobacco came packaged was saved too.

Grandpa was quite a good tinsmith and would use old tin cans to create other new and useful things with the waste metal. He made a lovely and functional handle and latch for the shed out of a large tin can. He famously made a very fine coffee roaster from waste sheet metal and several large waste tin cans.

Manure and chicken droppings and the straw bedding from the chicken coop and the pig pen were piled behind the coop for composting. Corn husks and coarse plant stems and the remains of my garden weeding chores were placed on that pile too. I recall seeing grandfather out in the vegetable garden and around his especially-loved Cleome flower-beds early in the morning carrying his own extra-tall bedroom potty. He sometimes used night-soil (from the night-potty) on some of his favored flowers and even in the vegetable garden. In the latter place he would plow a special trench some distance away from the corn row, or the tomato row where he would sometimes use this fertilizer on plants he considered to have “special needs”.

There were only a few items that could not be burned for fuel, composted, or fed to the dogs, pigs or chickens. When something of this category had to be disposed of there was no other option but burial. Every now and again grandpa had to dig a hole to dispose of something he could not recycle. But it was not too often. As a teenager coming back to visit the old folks, I was saddened to be witness to the scene of our old ice box meeting that fate. This event occurred many years later when the house had been electrified and the old ice box had been replaced with a refrigerator. The ice-box held its own in its old spot for several years, serving as bug-and-vermin-proof container for flour and grains, but finally it had to be disposed of. Grandpa simply had a hole dug big and deep enough for the ice box dug and slid it down there. Of course he had one of my younger cousins remove all the wood-trim and usable screws and hardware first. I was sorry to see it go. But that was late in the 1950s and well after the time I consider here.

That old ice-box with it two heavy doors and wood trim was for obvious reasons used more in summer than in winter. In winter the screened-in back porch became the refrigerator and the ice-box was used to store other items (as noted above). In summer, it kept our fresh milk cold and sweet, a few pieces of cheese and a few other items such as perhaps a bucket of fresh blowfish grandpa and I caught off the "pier" on the Nissequogue, or some special cuts of meat that needed storage before being prepared to eat.

Ice for the ice-box was delivered to the farm in big rectangular blocks on a regular weekly basis. In summer, the ice man's arrival was a great attraction for me and my cousins and neighbor's kids. We gathered under the shade of the great maple tree in front of grandpa’s house on hearing the rumble of the ice truck coming up the road. Joe Lombardi, the ice-man, always chose a nice shady place to park his truck, where his delicate cold-cargo would be shaded from the sun’s direct rays. He chased us kids away from the back of the turck as he pulled back the heavy damp cloth covers and canvas that protected the great blocks of ice. Then, like a surgeon going to work, he reached for his ice pick held in a special holster on his belt and rapidly pricked out a line on the dark ice with fast deep punctures. At each strike of the point small ice chips flew into the air as the pick made holes with radiating cracks in the dark-blue ice. Some chips flew up into the air and some larger ones always fell at our feet on the sandy road. These we quickly picked up to squeeze in our warm hands so as to melt the ice into cool water that carried away adhering sand. Then we thrust the cold chunks of melting solid into our mouths, laughing and smiling with difficulty and delight.

With our mouth's full of ice, our eyes followed big Joe's flashing ice pick. The cracks in the ice connected up and soon the small block fell away--often releasing new chunks of fractured ice, which we quickly gathered up. The big burly man then scooted us out of the way again, as he reached for the two-handled ice tongs hanging on the back of the truck. He grasped grandpa's ice block with the tongs and rolled the glassy soild up on to his leather-padded shoulder. We followed him into the house, watching the drips of melt-water slither down the leather pad on his back. I followed him as he carried it through our back porch and into the kitchen. There he placed it in the ice-box which had been cleared and ready for it.

After Joe left, grandpa piled any remnant pieces of ice from last week's delivery on top of the new, sharp-edged, fresh block, and covered them both with a thick layer of newspaper. The paper slowed down the melting process. Then, he replaced the items that had to be kept very cold, placing them directly on top of the damp newspapers. The ice melted and absorbed heat from the food and milk. The dull-gray, tin-lined interior had a little hole at the bottom where melt-water was directed away, through a small rubber hose that passed through a small hole in the floor boards, where the melt-water dripped down into the sandy crawl-space under the house. The big, thick ice-box door was closed tight and kept that way. Nosey eight-year old-kids were not allowed to poke their heads in there.

Once,when the rubber ice-box drain became blocked, grandma asked me to crawl down there to clean the tip. For that purpose, I carried a long piece of straw (to clear the tube) and a nice beef bone to offer to Beauty (whose realm I was invading). I found the the hose-end laying in the little wet spot it created. Some gunk blocked the opening which I cleared away. Crawling back out I had to slip below, a dusty two-inch-diameter galvanized metal pipe which sloped from the floor above and entered into the ground near the cover of the concrete cistern. There too, was a two-inch vertical pipe which I recognized as the pipe which connected to the sink pump directly above. I knew about the cistern, but I had not seen this part of it before.

The Cistern

When the house was built in the 1920s there was no source of water near-by. Later, as noted above, the deep water well was dug in the back yard near the screened in back-porch. [Potable water was available from an artesian well just off of St. Johnland Road, (across from Harrison Pond) about a half-mile from the house. In those days grandpa would pull his wagon down there and load it up with jugs of cold (52 degree F,) clean, fresh water. Guests who arrived by auto would be encouraged to add to the water supply by carting water jugs and filling them at the artesian well. I visited that old well in the 1960s and it was still pumping plenty of cold clear water.] So for those reasons a cistern to collect rain-water had been built under the house and a utility sink and a hand pump was installed in the kitchen and connected to the rain water cistern for cooking, cleaning dishes, washing up and sometimes for clothes-washing. (Major washing of clothes was carried on outside in a big tub with a brown soap and a wash board. The waste water from those operations was dumped on in the garden or in the orchard next to a deserving tree. And the clothes were all dried on a clothes line strung from one big tree to another. Clothes were kept in place with wooden clothes pins.) The squeaky hand pump in the kitchen had a straight line pipe directly into the rain-water cistern below the house from which it pumped water into the kitchen sink. But it required to be primed with water first before it would pump any fluids up. For that purpose, a jug of water always sat on the side board of the kitchen sink. You poured water into the well in the top of the pump, then worked the handle up and down until gradually you would hear the water rise in the pipe and pour out through the square end of the spout and spash noisily into the base of the metal sink. Then it would gurgle down the drain which connected to a pipe that carried the waste water out into a low-spot in the orhard. Where it soaked into the ground.

“This is cistern water. Don’t drink it," grandpa warned me. But being a curious eight-year-old, I had to try it. I knew it was rain water and I had tasted rain drops and melted snow. So I just assumed it was OK to drink. I pumped some up into an old jelly jar glass and looked at it. It was clear and clean. It smelled fine too. It was cold and tasted good to me. So I never heeded grandpa’s warning, and when no one was looking would drink the cistern water regularly if I was inside and thirsty. I never had any bad digestive effects to my knowledge. Of course, the deep well-water, which pumped cold water up from 120 feet deep was the best, especially in the summer. It was cold enough to frost up a glass jug. The pump was relatively easy to operate even for a small boy since the pump-handle was long and the 120 feet or so of rods were of a light wood. Every now and then grandfather's well-man came to service the pump and "pull the rods" so as to replace a small leather valve at the bottom of the length of rods.

Before the house was built, grandfather had to construct the cistern six feet deep and six or eight feet in diameter. From his own account he and his sons (my two uncles) hand-excavated the cistern and laid up the bricks. They lined the interior with concrete and built a tight fitting wood frame cover which sealed it from the outside, and only then was the house built over it. This pool-like container was connected to the roof gutters by the pipe I describe above. I discovered how it was operated one day when a summer thunderstorm forced us to seek shelter indoors.

Grandpa and I were out in the orchard, where I was helping him (or really just watching) as he prepared to graft two branches of one type of an apple tree onto another. The stock tree was a well-grown Red Delicious twelve-foot apple tree at the time and grandfather had cut off a three-inch diameter main branch at about eye level (his). The cut was neat and horizontal. He then split the stock branch in two with a small sharp metal wedge. He then took two small branches taken from a neighbor’s Golden Delicious tree. “This tree will have two types of apples,” he explained, as he sliced the base of each finger-thick branch into a very thin wedge, which would fit neatly into the split in the branch of the stock tree. He aligned the branches in the wedge so that their bark would match up with the bark of the stock tree. Then as he tied the whole branch around with twine and as he applied some thick substance to seal the stub of the branch the sky darkened and a breeze rustled the leaves along the ground.

“It’s going to rain, Poppy,” I said, looking skyward.

“Yes it is!" he said, gathering up his tools. "Let’s get into the house, perhaps it will rain enough to fill that cistern today.”

With the wind whipping the leaves on the apple trees to show their undersides we rushed toward the back porch. As we passed through the portal and the screen door slammed closed behind us, a great thunderclap boomed from the darkend sky, as if to emphasize the threat of rain. Big rain drops slammed into the sandy bare soil of our back yard, each forming a little impact crater with a tiny mud ball at its base. Outside, I watched our big white Italian Spitz, ‘Beauty’, hurridly raise himself up out of his warm sand-wallow. Looking up at the dark sky, he shook his long white fur clean of adhering sand, then he turned to enter his lair under the porch. His long chain dragged through the sand leaving behing a long furrow spotted with rain drops. Rain pattered loudly on the roof above us. Then, after a second thunder clap, the rain fell in buckets.

“Ahh, just what we needed, a good two inch rain storm to to refill our cistern,” said grandpa happily, walking over to the corner of the kitchen behind the wood stove.

“See up there?” he asked, pointing a dusty cob-webby corner behind the stove pipe.

I looked to where he pointed. Near the corner, partly hidden by the stove pipe, I could see a small, hand- carved wooden handle. The European-style letter “A” was inscribed on the wall on one side of the handle and on the other, was the letter “C”, where the point of the handle then rested.

“See, Robbie,” he said, "A" is for “aperto” and "C" for “chiuso”.

Just then, grandmother, called out from the sitting room, “Ottavio, e piove, ricorda! Faccia la cisterna!” as if to remind poppy of what he should do.

But Grandpa just waited. He turned to look out through the kitchen door, past the porch screens where it now appeared dark as dusk, and the rain continued to pelt down on the roof and pour over the full gutters in sheets.

Another call came from the sitting room. "Ottavio!"

“Aspetta” he answered, as he turned, and slowly slide a chair along the floor into the corner. He stood next to the chair, his head cocked, listening to the rain patter down on the roof, and gurgle along the gutters.

“Grandpa, why are you waiting so long, arent we wasting a lot of good rain water” I asked.

“We must wait, Robbie, 'Patzienza'. He added, with a patient smile, "We must first we let the hard rain wash over the roof and clean the gutters, only then can we open the valve to permit the clean water into the cistern.”

“Oh, I see!,” said I, as a vision of the summer roof with its burden of fallen leaves, moss, twigs, and probable bird droppings up there.

Finally, when grandpa thought the roof and gutters were clean, he stood on the chair and turned to handle to "A". I could hear the water gush into the cistern pipe.

"Come here Robbie," called grandpa, as he walked over to the sink. "Ascoltai a qua," he said, putting his hand on the handle of the cistern hand pump.

I leaned over the sink basin. From the primer-well at the top of hand-pump emanated the faint gurgling and splashing sound of rain water pouring down into the half-empty cistern.

Grandpa looked contnet. The cistern was filling, the vegetable garden and the orchard were being watered and all was well in his world.

And that’s how life went along in a time when only wood and a few gallons of kerosene supplied all our energy.

I am not suggesting here that we all go back to a 19th century life of burning wood and using one barrel of oil a year... but there remains much to learn from a review of that time, and the striking effectiveness, ingenuity and efficiency of our forefathers---who had to make do on much less, and found inventive ways to accomplish their goals. We must find a means to emulate their ingenuity and new ways to deal with our own--different--situation in a similar effective way.

We can do it!


Get the picture?`

OBAMA: IRAQ WAR OVER

BUT ITS ECONOMIC IMPACT AND THE EROSION OF USA MORAL AUTHORITY REMAINS TO HAUNT US

Yesterday, Mr. Obama notified us that the Bush war in Iraq was over and most of our troops will come home by December 31. Obama has been angling to “have his cake and eat it too” by keeping a substantial force in Iraq within our numerous military bases there (built at tremendous cost to our taxpayers) and still being able to state “our troops are leaving”! But he has been denied that political advantage. After a war in which (as President Bush promised) we bombed Iraq “back into the stone age”, at a cost of over four thousand American lives as well as the deaths, directly or indirectly of some 600,000 Iraqi civilians, and displaced or made homeless more than four million more Iraqis, it would be difficult to imagine that they would welcome us to stay on. (Even today, nine and one-half years after the invasion, and billions of US tax payer's dollars spent-- the level of electric service, availability of sewage treatment, and access to safe, fresh water sources remain below that of pre-invasion Saddam Hussein levels.) Recent polls clearly indicate that the vast majority of Iraqis are eager for us to depart. Furthermore, the present Maliki government would not sign a Status of Forces Agreement which would have guaranteed “immunity of our troops from prosecution under Iraqi law”. After the tragic Blackwater fiasco, and lack of judicial response to multiple cases of indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians by what some have described as "trigger-happy" American troops, it would be hard to see how they would agree to such a clause.

While on the home front, Americans, are ready to turn their attention to our own economic problems, as we suffer through the Great Recession of 2007. This change in direction of the nation's thinking is partly a reflection of the natural waning of September 11 anxieties after a decade of our leaders' fear-mongering. It is also a result of the realization that "something went radically wrong" in the last decade that needs change. (These feelings have been clearly manifested in two recent mass movements, the "Tea Party" uprising on the right and the "Occupy Wall Street" movement on the left.) For the more astute observers that "something" was to a large extent a result of President Bush's “unnecessary-wars-on-borrowed-money-policy”, coupled with his penchant for reducing taxes on the wealthy, and dangerous determination to expand banking deregulation.

Here in the USA, in these days of economic suffering we too are uniformly happy to see our troops withdraw and government reduce unnecessary expenditures abroad, and are ready to fore swear jingoism. Practicality seems to rule now. Few of us can see any advantage in the costly stationing of US troops in countries which pose no actual threat to us (except those of the right-wing radical fringe and the talking-head generals, who have a personal stake in these issues--and for that reason--rather than doting on their every word-- their judgement should be taken with a grain of salt). The sentiment for troop withdrawal is particularly acute for those who realize that these military costs are paid for by the US government borrowing forty cents on every dollar we spend. And recall that each pair of boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan costs us approximately one-million dollars each. Obama now claims that only a few hundred may remain to protect the massive “US Embassy” in Baghdad. That edifice, bigger than the Vatican City State, was built with no thought of cost or practical function, but with the idea that it would long-remain a "camouflaged" well-fortified outpost of US imperialism, and now with the withdrawl of December 2011 it seems, it will be remembered only as great monument to the stupidity and chicanery of Messrs Bush and Cheney--and the neocons and other Republicans and Democrats who facilitated their actions.

That the troops are coming home, we all "thank God for little mercies". But it is very sad that our President Obama, who spoke so eloquently against this war, failed to give this speech on the first day he took office. He would have saved many American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, and perhaps we would find ourselves better positioned strategically than we are in presently.

And for those Bush revisionists and "die hards" who continue to try to claim that the “Iraq war was worth it”. One must only take a look around us at the current economic, political and foreign-policy landscape to appreciate what a disaster the last nine and one-half years have been. Our nation, first ravaged by the 9-11 tragedy, then the disastrous eight years of the Bush presidency, was served poorly by the new Obama administration, which failed to correct the nation's errant course and simply let its wagon wheels fall into the deep errant ruts of the past administration, making no effort to move off in the right direction. Mr. Obama failed to use the massive mandate of the 2008 election to expose and/or punish those who got us into this financial, foreign policy and economic mess. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama chose to continue many of the very same failed policies, attacks on civil liberties, expansion of war powers acts, illegal renditions and targeted-assinations, expansion of wasteful wars, and misguided economic policies that compounded our problems rather than solved them. Only now, perhaps too late, to save his presidency he has changed course when his is at the nadir of his power.

Thus, we see that the events of the last decade have culminated in a cluster of problems for us: our national debt and deficit, the costs of the “three trillion dollar war” in Iraq, the failure of the financial sector, our persistent high unemployment rate, the nation's anxiety and unrest, and the political stalemate in Congress. As a result, we have exited from the miasma of this Iraq war as a diminished nation. Our reputation as a great nation has been sullied on all fronts. Our economy has suffered, our bonds downgraded, our dollar falling to levels not seen before relative to the Chinese yuan, our military is weakened and forced to come to terms with its limits in its geographic reach, as well as the now too obvious bounds of military force as the means to achieve our strategic and long term national goals. Finally, and sadly, even our once vaunted moral authority has suffered what appears a fatal blow.

Some may ask who cares about moral authority? Why should the nation be concerned with what the French or Germans or those third world nations think of us? The answer is that it does count, particularly in an unruly world, where, as has been so well demonstrated to us in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the aerial bomb, the foot-soldier, and the muzzle of a gun have only limited effectiveness. We must lead by example and gentle coercion of the majority. Our moral authority is the primary element of our leadership tool kit. For more than fifty years after WWII the US led the world as a model of justice and adherence to the rule of law, a model which should be emulated. Our efforts were successful in the post war world. Much of our culture of national morality was a direct outgrowth of the outstanding early model set for us by our founding fathers: Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and Monroe, and the documents they authored--our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Our model of justice, humanity, and law set us apart from other nations. In this regard we are truly exceptional. And those nations who emulated us have come to see great rewards for their efforts. In a globalized world our adherence to these laudable cultural tenets permit us to lead and modify world opinion. That was a time when our word counted. Our efforts permitted us to direct ourselves and others toward in ways which would eventually lead to a better, more just, more humane post-WWII world. But today we find ourselves on a precipice where one more step in the wrong direction would be fatal.

One example of how far we have fallen on this score came to public attention yesterday October 22, 2011 in the Washington Post when it became clear that our once unchallenged moral authority has fallen apace with our military set backs, and economic woes.

When the UK-based firm Hermitage Management Capital became embroiled in a charge of tax fraud and evasion in Russia, they hired Russian attorney Sergie Magnitzky to represent them. During Magnitsky's investigation he uncovered evidence that absolved the UK firm from guilt of tax evasion, and revealed, in fact, that Hermitage MC was the victim of fraud perpetrated by powerful Russian financial institutions. During the long litigation period Magnitsky was himself charged with colluding with Hermitage and arrested on trumped up charges. He was incarcerated in the infamous Butyrka prison in Moscow where he appears to have been pressured to abandon and recant the case he had developed. He refused. During his incarceration, he fell ill. Medical attention was limited, and as he continued to resist recanting his positions, he was moved to increasingly harsh confinement conditions where his affliction worsened and eventually died of his ailment. A Russian court ruled his death the result of purposeful negligence and the doctors who treated him and prison official were tried and punished with prison terms. The UK based Economist magazine reporting on this story called his case an example of torture. Other exposes followed and "the Magnitsky case" soon became a cause celebre in the UK and on the Continent.

After Magnitsky’s death the case received further wide publicity in the UK and Europe, where eventually the EU Parliament voted for the banning of entry into the EU of sixty Russian officials who were deemed responsible for the brave attorney’s death. The Canadian Parliament followed suit, resolving to deny visas and to freeze Canadian assets of this group of Russian individuals. Here in the US, Senator John McCain co-sponsored the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act in October 2010, which would forbid entry into the US of the sixty individuals named in court documents. Recently, it was revealed (see October 22, Washington Post) that the Obama Administration put into effect the legislation and added these sixty people to our “banned for entry” list.

The Russian response remained muted as the statutes voted on in both the European and Canadian parliaments went into effect, but when the US chimed in, they attacked us viciously. The Russian foreign minister Alexander Lukashevich lashed out in what the Washington Post called “ unusually strong terms: stating: “Such (US) moralizing-calls appear especially cynical against the background of the practical legalization of torture in the US, special prisons, kidnapping, and mistreatment of terrorism suspects, the indefinite detention of prisoners in Guantanamo, and uninvestigated murders of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

And so is this is the world-view of the USA, after the GW Bush-Obama administrations? Is this what is said sotto voce and behind our backs? I fear it is how we are perceived around the world today. When we speak out on moral issues that need and deserve our support, will we be ignored in the future? Such an outcome is both sad, unsettling, and unfortunate for us, as a sign of our decline, and a loss of moral leadership for the world as a whole.

Note: From Wash Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-retaliates-against-united-states/2011/10/22/gIQAxKac6L_story.html)






Get the picture?