"Invest in the Millenium. Plant Sequoias."

In 1973, Kentucky author Wendell Berry wrote "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front", a poem you can read in full here.   The Mad Farmer is comfortable with deep time, and outraged at our estrangement from the land and the processes that sustain life.  I always thought the line from his Manifesto that appears in the title of this post would make a great bumper sticker.  The poem continues:

Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Berry reminds us that "conserve" and "conservative" share the same roots.  For all his rejection of soulless capitalism and the alienation produced by our automated society, the Mad Farmer embodies the essence of American patriotism when he declares:

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.

So when Hank Paulson is attacked by some on the far Right as a radical environmentalist because he likes to fish, watch birds, and was Chair of The Nature Conservancy's Trustees, I wonder if they know how far they have strayed from their conservative roots.  Investing for the long term is something a nominee for US Treasury Secretary should understand, and the fact that Mr. Paulson also sees the need to preserve the ecological capital that makes all else possible should be greeted with approval by conservatives and liberals alike.  The tradition of Roosevelt, Baxter, and other conservative conservationists deserves a new day in the sun.  Nor is stewardship of the Earth inconsistent with Christianity, as some on the religious Right are now rediscovering and other people of faith have long held to be true.