#96 – Dick Bernard: "…above average"?

Likely since Garrison Keillor’s fertile imagination invented Lake Wobegon in the 1970s, he’s had the mantra: “where all the women are strong, the men are good looking and the children are above-average.”
On has to wonder where those “above average” children end up….
Today’s paper reveals that my local Congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, is to be Miss November on a national conservative groups 2010 calendar.  Presumably plenty of people will pay $25 for the calendar.  I won’t be among them.
Cong. Bachmann  has a talent for getting her pretty face on television…and now calendars…and for getting soundbites quoted, and being an on-air guest on all manner of right-wing talk shows.  But beyond that gift, I often wonder what is behind the facade, and the latest honor she receives has caused me to remember some other sound bites from previous conversations.
For instance:
More than once I heard a guy who frequently testified on this or that matter before U.S. Congressional Committees note how little collective brainpower he witnessed on the other side of the table.   There was very little there, there, he observed.  Of course he flattered the people with the good hair-do’s and mellifluous voices – that was his job – but beneath the facade he saw little or nothing.
In an unguarded moment, once, a veteran and highly respected Catholic Priest made essentially the same comment about the collective Catholic hierarchy (those who are Bishops and on up the ladder).   They are not intellectual giants, he suggested; rather, they have figured out how to move up the hierarchical ladder.
And more than once I’ve heard retirees or other refugees from major corporations comment on the relative lack of ability the big-shots far up their food chain possess – at least in so far as monitoring major corporate decision making is concerned.  Their ability was to achieve the pinnacle of power, by whatever means necessary.  But their vision rarely was beyond the next quarter profit and loss statement.  We saw plenty of evidence of this stupidity during the last 12 months (and, unfortunately, seeming to continue) in the virtual collapse of the U.S. economic and industrial titans.  Even after the bail-out, disturbing reports suggest they haven’t learned anything of value.
So, where did these “above average” children Garrison Keillor go, or have they never existed?
That we’re led by too many bumble-heads is pretty obvious (Rep. Bachmann is also a new bobble-head figure).
If we the public end up in a disaster, which is again likely, be it economic, climate, or the like, it is because we seem to insist on mediocrity in our leaders.  We actually vote for these dunces, or if we don’t vote for them, we defer to them because they seem more powerful than we are.
We vote for people to represent us who look or sound good but often are know-nothings; then once they are elected, we go back into our hole and assume no responsibility for keeping them informed or honest.
Too many of us dismiss science or a rational look at future consequences of our actions, preferring to believe fantasies.  (Scientists have known for years of the problems ahead with climate change, but until Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, there was hardly a public listening…and of course the bobble-heads then ridiculed Al Gore, and continue with their fantasy views of a future filled with climate and weather like we’ve always known…or dismissing the future as someone elses problem.)
We buy stuff we don’t need based on fantasy of advertising…like lemmings to the ocean and certain death, we believe the pitches and the clever word and image-smithing.
We seem to delight in cleverly told lies which manipulate us; and we celebrate division and conflict, when such values are more negative than positive.
We cannot eliminate stupidity in our elected, religious and corporate leaders.
But the big majority of us who are average and above-average can certainly do a great deal to temper the stupidity which surrounds us.
To accomplish this goal, however, takes much more than complaining about it.
What have YOU done, lately?
What will YOU do, today, tomorrow, next week?

#95 – Dick Bernard: Elmer L., Politics and People

This is the third post of three on this topic.  The previous posts are Sep 26 and 28.
Sometimes there are valuable lessons to be learned from unexpected persons or from groups that have,deservedly or not, been labelled in a negative manner.  I thought of such a possibility on Saturday.
The first thing I noticed, walking up to the meeting on Saturday, September 26, was a series of posters, Burma Shave style, beside the walkway.  Coming closer, I noted that they were posters of all of Minnesota’s past Governors, from the first through the current.  They were especially pertinent for this event, which featured all known Democratic candidates for Governor of Minnesota.
One of them I noticed especially was that of my friend, Elmer L. Andersen, Minnesota Governor, 1961-63, who lost a second term to Democrat Karl Rolvaag in, until the 2008-09 Franken-Coleman election contest, the most protracted electoral recount in Minnesota history.

Elmer L. Andersen, with Karl Rolvaag in background

Elmer L. Andersen, with Karl Rolvaag in background


I believe Elmer L. could teach something to today’s Progressives and others wishing to learn the practice of constructive politics.  But first, a little about the man.
Elmer L. Andersen was an old-school progressive Republican.  From the first time he voted, in the early 1930s, he voted Republican.  Beginning in the late 1930s he became active in the Republican party, getting to know people like Harold Stassen, and in 1949 be began a number of terms in the state Senate and then the Governors office.  He recounts his political adventures in his autobiography, A Man’s Reach (published in 2000).  His philosophy is laid out in two excellent books: Views from the Publisher’s Desk (1997), columns he wrote as a newspaperman; and I Trust to be Believed,  a collection of his speeches published the year of his death in 2004, at age 94.  All are worth reading.
He and many of his Republican cronies were moderate, progressive, even liberal.  In fact, he called himself a liberal Republican.  He was a trailblazer for many ideas today’s Progressives might claim as their own.
There was plenty of political jousting and partisanship in his good old days.  But there seems a qualitative difference between then and now.  Then, warriors fought – and worked out deals; today, all efforts are made to polarize and divide.  The difference was dramatized for me in April, 1999 when old-time Democrat warrior Willard Munger gave an award to his friend Republican Elmer Andersen.   They had common cause on the environment, and other things, and it was obvious that they deeply respected each other.
Willard Munger (l) and Elmer Andersen (c) April 22, 1999 at an environmental awards ceremony.

Willard Munger (l) and Elmer Andersen (c) April 22, 1999 at an environmental awards ceremony.


Along with other moderate and progressive Republicans Elmer Andersen was effectively purged from the party he helped build during the radical right wing takeover which began in the 1980s.  While he never said so, directly, it is likely that he voted Democrat in his last elections.  He didn’t desert his party, his party deserted he and his many moderate Republican colleagues.  Quiet efforts are being made to reclaim the Republican Party, but it is a difficult struggle.  The right-wing radicals remain in charge.
I’ve never been Republican, and Elmer L. never declared as a Democrat.  In his last years he probably worked quietly to help bring moderation back to his party.  But it was and is a daunting task.  Polarity is still the name of the game.
Today’s Progressives probably have good reason to study how Elmer L. Andersen did politics back in the days before high technology, rank partisanship and purchased elections.  He was, it is clear, a savvy political organizer, and a master of Tip O’Neill’s mantra “all politics is local”.  Politics, then, was “boots on the ground”, as it will have to be for people who don’t have loads of money to buy today’s elections.*
Elmer loved knowledge, and his profession was selling, and he knew how to work with people of all sorts. That he served only a single term as Governor does not detract from his reputation, at least from my perspective.  He was a class act.  If nothing else, consider reading the middle third of his book, A Man’s Reach.  There he talks about the practice of politics.  One could do worse than practice what he taught through his actions.
Since Progressives often seem to characterize Democrats as little more than luke-warm Republicans, perhaps a companion event to September 26, inviting all possible Republican and other candidates to answer the same question in public, might be worthy of consideration.  Just a thought….
Elmer L. Andersen Oct 12, 1995

Elmer L. Andersen Oct 12, 1995


* – I have articulated a political organizing idea on micro-organizing which I call “Each one reach two” which I write about within 13 Essays at  #mce_temp_url# .  Especially note Essays #1,2 and 13 which were posted in September, 2008, and September, 2009.

#94 – Dick Bernard: A challenge to the Progressives

This is the second of three posts on this topic.  The others are Sep 26 and 29, 2009.
In #93, Saturday, September 26, I commented on an impressive gathering I had just attended.  In the room there was great energy and interest.
I’ve been to such meetings in the past.  People are all charged up, ready to go.  Unfortunately, the meeting ends, life goes on, energy dissipates, individuals get disappointed or disenchanted or disinterested and the collective energy sputters and ultimately fails.
This is an exploitable reality.  The existing power structure (whatever that structure happens to be) knows how to wait out the challengers.  It wins by simply appearing to ignore the ones out of power.  The tactic works, and the status quo and the power of inertia wins once again.  Savvy politicians know this well.  It is a challenge.
At the meeting, each candidate was given three minutes to answer a specific question which had been carefully prepared by the organizers.  Each person got the same question, and each heard the others responses.  The specific question is irrelevant.
I don’t know how the organizers chose the order of speakers, but in such a setting, the first speaker is at something of a disadvantage since it is he or she who needs to be the “pioneer” as it were.  He or she is plowing the new ground of gauging the energy of the audience, and trying out his or her arguments.
It seems, in this particular situation, that the speakers were called in the alphabetical order of their last name.  If I’m correct, what might be seen as an advantage – highest on the alphabet – might actually be a disadvantage.    It’s just how it is.
As I mentioned in the previous post, Saturday’s event was impeccably organized.  If nothing else, the prospective candidate can look at the organizing group as one to be watched and courted as the torturous route to election 2010 proceeds.  In politics, you need organized help.
After the session, in our small groups, we were asked to assess the politicians statements to us.  Each group had the same identical question to discuss, which is also irrelevant to this discussion.
The tendency in such discussions is to reflect primarily ones own personal reactions to the politicians statement: “did he or she say what I wanted to hear?” Among the 11 candidates, who spoke to ME, BEST.
Of course, the politicians know that the electoral reality is far different than simply speaking to me.  There will not be eleven candidates from one party running for Governor in November, 2010.  If past is prelude, there will be three candidates: one Republican, one Democrat, one of some other variety who can’t win but whose main impact will be as a spoiler for the Republican or the Democrat.
In my state, Minnesota, there are 67 Senate districts, each with a more or less equal share of our current population of about 5,000,000.  Each of these Senate districts is divided into two House districts.
What this means is that each candidate for statewide office ultimately has to speak to the interests of a majority of 5,000,000 “special interests”, a large majority of whom can potentially vote.  Each state Senator has a constituency of nearly 75,000 people; each member of the House of Representatives a group of over 37,000. What’s more, these constituents are of many very different minds, and ultimately getting over half of the actual voters to cast a ballot to vote for you is by no means a simple task.  In fact, it is brutal and expensive work.
So, it is one thing to sit, as I did on Saturday, in a large group, and note which candidate most resonated with my own personal vision for the state of Minnesota.
It is something entirely different for that same candidate to attempt to resonate with a majority of the people who will vote in the next election, and, worse, raise the necessary money to marshall an effective campaign.
Campaigning is hard, hard work.
Balancing ideals with political reality is difficult, but essential.  It is as important for the focused cause-oriented activists, as it is for the candidates themselves.
I felt some really good positive energy in that high school on Saturday.
I hope it continues.

#93 – Dick Bernard: A political afternoon.

This is the first of three posts on this topic.  The others are Sep 28 and 29, 2009.
This past summer I met a young organizer who made a presentation on health care policy.  She did an impressive job, I felt, and we shared e-mail addresses.
Time passed by, and a few weeks ago she sent a note about a kickoff program on “A Vision for a reNEWed Minnesota.”  This Saturday afternoon, September 26, would have discussion, and all of the potential candidates for the 2010 Governors race had been invited.  I had a mild amount of interest, and after a reminder or two, I decided to attend.
The program was a few hours ago, on a perfect day, weatherwise.  I drove to the high school not knowing what to expect.  Who’d want to be in a meeting on a day like this?  I soon found out.  The place was jam-packed with over 700 pleasant people, most of them young people or slightly older.  People my age were there, but we were in the small minority.  Young leaders ran the meeting, and facilitated the table groups.
The afternoon went splendidly.  Everything was on-time and on schedule, and all the content was relevant.
All the potential Democratic candidates for Governor were there – eleven in all – and they spoke for their allotted three minutes each, no more. Nobody even tried to push the rule.
I went to the meeting wondering if there was any youthful political energy left after 2008, and if people have become discouraged by the reality of politics in Washington and St. Paul.
I left the meeting reassured that there is a very strong movement in existence and continuing; that kids (as I define them) are becoming actively engaged in taking charge of their own future.  I hope I’m right.
Time will tell.
TakeActionMinnesota has my attention.
What the organization is about is at the website #mce_temp_url#.  reNEW is a project of TakeActionMinnesota, whose website is #mce_temp_url#.  Do take a look at both.  Let others know about this grass roots organization.

Saturday afternoon September 26, 2009 St. Paul

Saturday afternoon September 26, 2009 St. Paul


The prospective Democratic (DFL) candidates for Governor, in random order:
Thomas Bakk

Thomas Bakk


Chris Coleman

Chris Coleman


Susan Gaertner

Susan Gaertner


Margaret Anderson Kelliher

Margaret Anderson Kelliher


Matt Entenza

Matt Entenza


Mark Dayton

Mark Dayton


John Marty

John Marty


Tom Rukavina

Tom Rukavina


Paul Thissen

Paul Thissen


Steve Kelley

Steve Kelley


R. T.Rybak

R. T.Rybak

#92 – Peter Barus: "Out of the loop"

From Moderator: Peter Barus is a great friend, going back a half dozen years or so.  When first I knew him, he was an out-east big city guy, a computer specialist, an excellent trainer and all around good guy.  Two or three years ago or so he and his spouse moved into the very rural northeast U.S., to a farm, and here begins his story….
I have been out of the loop for a couple of weeks or more.
And it strikes me now that this is more than burnout or just an upsurge in activity around here  I’ve really had a change in lifestyle.
I used to be plugged in all the time, writing back to everybody, reading everything that came in within minutes or hours of arrival.
What’s happened?  For one thing, I moved to a farm without electricity, with wood heat, and spent two years living as if I hadn’t.  This year, instead of paying over a thousand dollars for enough wood to stay alive til spring, I decided to go get it myself.  after all, this is a 186-acre forest.
There was a big ice storm last winter that knocked the tops out of about a quarter of the big trees at the edges of the fields and along the roadsides.  The plan was to clean up the mess where its close to home, like the cluster of maples that fell on the old tent platform just up the hill beyond the garden; then go out along the roadsides where the Town crew left major trees for us, before the less scrupulous among our neighbros scarfed it up.  And we had some big chunks out of the logging operation from last winter that a neighbor kindly hauled out of the swamp and left me several truckloads in the front yard.
Lots of people around here rent a splitter and spend about two weeks making their winter pile.  I like splitting by hand.  But first I had to go cut up the trunks and load them in the truck and bring them home.  Then I set up a big stump about waist-high and got out the old maul.  This is like the child of an ax and a sledge hammer.
I got to where I’ve been able to stack about five cords so far; seven is comfortable; a dozen would be nice, cause we can just carry it over into next year.
But it hurts!  My hands are all gnarly and knotted and other words that sound like “nnggg!”  All my joints ache.  I’m not complaining!  I’m strong as an ox now, at age 61.  But how many more seasons can I keep this up?
I think the secret is pacing.  A few strokes a day, rather than a crash-and-burn, all-out, heroic effort.
In between all this, clean the chimneys with the long handled brushes, finish re-shingling the roof, host a family reunion, etc.
We live in the previous centruy, or the one before that, now.  sleep when it gets dark, and up with the first hint of a sunrise.  Life here is a direct struggle with nature, and nature is changing fast too.  Weather like nobody’s seen before, changes in soil, habitats, flora and fauna.
Well, as I say, a change in lifestyle.  By the time I get to the Town Library and hook up to the local wi-fi, I ain’t got much to say, somehow.
But keep ’em coming.  I’ll get to it.
Love,
Peter

#91 – Dick Bernard: Photo-shoppe

Years ago, in some unremembered periodical, I recall seeing two seemingly identical black and white photos.  Both were of some stern looking Communists during Stalin’s time: all men wearing suits.  The casual observer would have seen no difference in the photos.  But the caption pointed the reader to a particular place in the photo.  In the first photo, a man occupied the space; in the second, that man had been disappeared.
Somebody with the Stalinist Russia version of Xacto knife had modified an official photo, simply removing some errant  comrade who had been purged, possibly liquidated for unremembered sins against the Party.  It was cheaper and more efficient to simply modify the photo, than to regather the group and take a new one.
It was my introduction to a primitive Photoshop.
I can remember many subsequent examples of the same tactic:
In the mid 90s, one of my colleagues at work retired, and there was the usual fete. His work colleague, a guy a bit more technologically savvy and interested than the rest of us, had purchased a home version of Photoshop or equivalent, and had placed Roger’s head atop a photo of a magnificent slam-dunking Michael Jordan’s body.  Roger was a fit guy, but no Michael Jordan.  The hatchet job was done pretty well, and the projected work of art got a lot of good laughs.  Welcome to the world of manipulating images.
The most dramatic example of the art of manipulating information through photos came, for me, during the early Iraq War in 2003.  It is the famous film footage of the statue of Saddam being toppled by supposed hordes of grateful Iraqis, happy that the dictators term had come to an end.  Most of us can remember this iconic piece of film footage: the supposed triumph of freedom over tyranny.  It was really nothing more than a military psychological operations tactic to manipulate both the Iraqis and ordinary Americans.
Fewer of us remember, because it takes some work and interest to find this out, that the particular piece of news film did not portray reality at all.  In a pretty obvious piece of collusion between media and government, the film shown on television focused tightly on the statue falling, and it was only later that it was found that there were only a handful of Iraqis actually at the site to watch Saddam take his fall from prominence.
Democracy had triumphed over evil.
But had it?  What difference was there between the excised communist in Stalin’s Russia; and a dishonest piece of photography in 2003 United States of America?
No difference, I would submit.
When it comes to technology, 2003 is long ago and far away, as we all know.  But many of us come from the old Kodak-moment days when you were stuck with what you got on that photo you took in Grandma’s back yard.  Most of us have gone digital now, but we are not familiar with the many and sundry ways that perfect lies can be concocted simply by manipulating images.
Most recently, the obvious lie of the photo of millions of people at the 9-12 event, was quickly replaced by less obvious lies which can be fashioned through not only the way pictures are taken these days, but which of these photos are used, and how the photographs are manipulated through means such as the ever more sophisticated photo-editing devices.  A skillful practitioner can make a crowd of hundreds look like tens of thousands….  CNN carried an interesting after-the-fact commentary on the manipulation of the event by Fox News  #mce_temp_url# .
In the past, a photographer was limited by how many photos he or she could take with the old Nikon; today’s digital technology potentially gives the “news” photographer tens of thousands of images to pick from, so today’s American version of commissars need to be well-trained in attempting to avoid embarrassment from not only unpleasant edits of their image, but covert and malicious photography as well.
We can’t go back to the past, but the prudent consumer is skeptical.
Caveat emptor.

#90 – Dick Bernard: Glenn Beck and the "Mythical marching millions"

Note responses section at end of this post.
Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in a clinic waiting room while one of my kids was having an eye appointment.
I happened to pick up the latest issue of Time magazine (Sep 17, 09), whose cover story  is the right-wing flamethrower (he and his large following would refer to himself quite differently) Glenn Beck of Fox News.
The three page article is very well worth reading, and reading carefully.  Here’s the link: #mce_temp_url#
For the few who’ve never heard of him, Beck is the hot commodity in the crowd which gathered in Washington DC on 9-12-09 to supposedly restore unity by sowing hatred and division against all things represented by President Obama (but without casting aspersions on people or policies of the previous administration which created or at minimum severely aggravated the problems the current administration now has to deal with).
In such a crowd, there is no need for consistency.  What’s right is right; what’s wrong is wrong.  Period.
Beck is a hot item, of that there is no doubt.  Within his constituency, he is very popular.  I seem to recall $23 million as his total anticipated revenue from his radio, television and publishing this year.
His weekly audience numbers in the several millions each day.  His market share might be 1 or 2% or so of the U.S. population.  He was compared, in the article, to others of similar ilk in our past history: Father Coughlin, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the “Know Nothings”, etc.  He is a gifted entertainer, able to emotionally move his audience.
In other words, he is a force to be reckoned with.
But there is another side to this story as well, part of it said in the article, part of it only implied.
In today’s incredibly fragmented media market, Beck has a relatively huge audience market share.  But it was pointed out in the article that a much greater viewership of comedian David Brenner in 1987 was judged to be so insignificant that his show was cancelled for lack of viewers.  In those pre-cable years, of course, there were few media outlets, and people couldn’t segregate themselves in “birds of a feather” ghettoes like we can today.
Beck simply looks to be larger than life, but in real terms Beck is not nearly as major a figure as he appears.
Even Beck’s large revenue stream belies the reality.  To quote the article, “extreme talk…like Beck, squeezes maximum profit from a relatively small, deeply invested audience.”  The $23 million doesn’t come from 23,000,000 givers of $1 each; a much smaller group pony up $50, $100 or maybe even more for his books, etc.
His audience, however, is a mass of people with different kinds of negative passions.  They are not a cohesive whole.  About all they share is what message makers have identified as a single common thread shared by many Americans: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”  Problem is, they’re “mad as hell” about assorted different things, and coordinating their outrage is a problem.  They’re just “mad as hell”.
Though relatively small, Beck’s is, however, a shrill and even dangerous audience.  They have learned from the likes of Beck that angry outbursts and generally outrageous behavior are effective.  Who enjoys being shouted at?
The dangerous part is that somewhere in the bowels of such a movement are the certifiably crazy people who will assassinate or blow up a building or in other ways create mayhem.
For this reason, and this reason alone, I think the Beck crowd needs to be taken very seriously, and confronted whenever and however people like ourselves have the opportunity.  We have much more power to moderate than we exercise.  We don’t need to be terrorized into silence.
I think we also have to look inwardly as well.  Like the Beck crowd, most advocates tend to associate only with like-minded people, and come to feel that there is only a single way of looking at a situation, and that the entire rest of the world is crazy.
Not so.
Do read the full article.  It’s now on the newstands or in your library.  Or the link is earlier in this post.

#89 – Dick Bernard: A salute to two veterans

This morning, at the State Capitol Rotunda in St. Paul, I’m honored to read two brief tributes to WWII veterans which appear in the 2009 edition of the MN Blue Book, being released today.
I saw a flier on “Vote in Honor of a Veteran”  in the summer of 2008, and wrote the two tributes a year ago this month, forgetting I’d done them until recently when I was informed they’d be in Minnesota’s official book.  They are among quite a number of other tributes to veterans living and dead.  It will be an interesting morning.  10:30 a.m. at the State Capitol Rotunda if you happen to be in the area and interested.   (The event was originally scheduled in a smaller venue, but apparently there is a lot of public interest.)
The tributes are to my Dad’s cousin, Marvin Campbell, many years a resident  of Brainerd and Crookston, who passed on in 2006, and to another, an important mentor of mine, 88 year old Lynn Elling of Minneapolis.
MARVIN CAMPBELL
Marvin and Frank 7 14 35001
Pictured above are buddies Marvin Campbell and Frank Peter Bernard (my Dad’s brother), July 14, 1935.  Marvin idolized Frank.  At the time of the photo, Marvin was 16, and Frank had just turned 20.  Two months later, Frank reported for basic training in the Navy.  Six months later Frank reported for what turned out to be his permanent and last assignment: the USS Arizona.
The brief thumbnail of Marvin Campbell tells most of the rest of their veteran story.  #mce_temp_url#
Unfortunately, rough drafts of history (as mine was, last year) are sometimes hurriedly done, and thus have errors.  So it was with the piece I wrote which appears in the book.  Marvin Campbell was indeed a bank president, but much of his time as a bank president was in Brainerd MN.  He was active in the National Guard there, and proud of the recognition the Brainerd Guard gave to the casualties and survivors of the Bataan Death March in 1942, many of whom were from Brainerd.
LYNN ELLING
Lynn Elling had just completed his degree at the University of Minnesota when he was called up for Navy duty in 1943.  His time in the Navy was spent as a junior officer on LST 172 in the south Pacific.  (“LST” officially means Landing Ship Tank; but in Navy gallows humor, it meant Large Slow Target.)  They were the workhorses for the military, endlessly hauling materiels within the war zone, thus the gallows humor.

Lynn Elling on LST 172 1944

Lynn Elling on LST 172 1944


The tribute to Lynn is at  #mce_temp_url# .  The millioncopies website referenced there includes a longer description of Lynn and his work which I wrote a couple of years ago.  Do take a look.  #mce_temp_url#
It may seem odd that someone like me who is pro-Peace (and anti-War as a solution to problems) will write tributes to veterans.  It’s not at all odd to me.  I am a veteran myself, from a family full of military veterans.  Service mattered.  We thought (and we probably were) generally working to protect our country.  In recent years, the orientation seems to have changed.
We work towards Peace in the ways available to us, and at the times we see wrong, and work to right it (to borrow a quotation from Ted Kennedy, at his brother Robert;s funeral in 1968).
In particular, Lynn Elling’s work for Peace lives on in the organization World Citizen, of which I am currently Vice-President.  Do visit #mce_temp_url#

#88 – Dick Bernard: A Happy Birthday to Annelee, and a time to reflect on War

See comment at end of post
Annelee Woodstrom is 83 years young today, and what a remarkable 83 years it has been.  She’s one of my role models.  What a life.  What an example.
We saw her reading from her book “War Child, Growing Up in Adolf Hitler’s Germany” one week ago today.  We were among 75 people in a church conference room, all listening carefully.  You could “hear a pin drop”, literally.  Each time I hear her speak, her presentation is more compelling and powerful.

Annelee Woodstrom September 13, 2009

Annelee Woodstrom September 13, 2009


I met Annelee when I ordered a copy of her book in 2003.  I had read a column about the book in the Fargo (ND) Forum, and sent her a note.  We’ve been good friends ever since.
Annelee wrote the book when she was 77.  It is about to go into its third printing.  Last year, she wrote a followup, Empty Chairs, about 60 years in the United States, beginning as a war bride of an American GI from northwest MN.  Their marriage of 51 years ended with his death in 1998.  Empty Chairs has also been a success for Annelee.  She has a powerful story to tell. ( #mce_temp_url# for details about the books.  Both are well worth reading.)
Annelee was 7 years old when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933.  She lived in a town of about 6,000 people within walking distance of what is now the CzechRepublic.  There were two Jewish families in her town.  Both were forced to leave, both survived.  At the end of the war, Annelee was 18 and a telegrapher in Regensburg, and near the end of the war she and a friend walked 90 miles home: better to die at home than through the bombs, they felt.  They like other Germans were starving.  Earlier she had been under the carpet bombing of the allies and survived.  The detonation caused severe hearing loss.
What had seemed to be a glorious war for Germany, re-building national pride and securing additional land and resources, had an inglorious end for the Germans. There’s a lesson in that for us.
In the official public accounts of the winners (as in schoolbook history) of WWII, the war usually begins with 1938; the U.S. engagement begins with Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. WWII ends with the surrender of Germany in May, 1945; and with Japan in September of that year.  It was our heroic war, liberating good from evil.  When asked when the Germans saw the end was coming, Annelee readily says “1943”.  She was 16, then.
Annelee began her talk by recalling German history between the end of the “war to end all wars”, WWI, in 1918, and her birth in 1926.  This was a time of destitution for ordinary Germans, rarely seriously discussed.  The Nazis promised jobs and national pride and prosperity, and for a while produced on their pledge, especially for those who were loyal party members.  Her parents refused to become party members, and refused her requests to join the Hitler Youth, whose parades and splendid uniforms enthralled her as a young girl.
There is almost literally a black hole in information about the privation of ordinary Germans after WWI.  But it was this privation, and the resulting humiliation at the loss that probably were the major factors making ordinary Germans susceptible to Hitler and the Nazis propaganda.
Winners of wars write the always heroic official history; losers retain and pass down the memories and consequences of the loss.  There is always a “black hole” – a story not to be told.  Personal memory is powerful for the losers.  There is no surrender of memory.
Annelee to her great credit remembers, and chooses to share.
Happy Birthday, Annelee!
**
Annelee’s s story last Sunday reminded me of an earlier story I had read about Germany in the aftermath of WW I.
This story came in the form of a November 5, 1923, letter written by my great-uncle Herman Henry Busch of Dubuque Iowa to a nephew in Germany.  At the time, HH had lived in the United States for over 50 years and he was a prosperous land developer.  The original letter was in German, and I had it and several others translated for a family history I first wrote in 1993.
In relevant part, here’s what HH Busch said about the consequence of WWI five years after it had ended.  Bear in mind, he is writing from America, and at the time he writes has lived in the U.S. for over 50 years.
“The last letter [unavailable,  apparently written in pre-war or WWI times] I counseled [a cousin] to shake the [German] dust from his feet and come over [to the U.S.].  It was the time when the bishop from Lemberg was taken into captivity by the Russians.  He answered me that [Germany] had a good Kaiser and good times.  My warning was justified.
The American millionaires and the government had loaned the Allies so many millions that against the will of the common folk, President Wilson was pulled into the War.  England had nine million for newspaper propaganda (for war) in American newspapers about the brutal German and that the German-Americans had come to suffer under it, they were held for unpatriotic and were required to come before the court for little things as if they were pro-German[*].  The damned war was a revenge and a millionaire’s war and the common people had to bleed in this bloody gladiator battle.  Yes, until now the world still has no peace because of the revenge of France [**].
So now the Catholics of America have a nine day novena for peace, in our beautiful Marian church.  The novena ends on the feast of All-Saints Day. It would be desirable for the strong God of the warring armies to let justice reign here and give the whole world the peace so that, at Christmas, the world can experience peace and good will to all.  We Americans must now bear the war debt of fifty billion through taxes and it makes me happy that you [Germans] do not need help us pay the war debt.  The last occupation map that I saw had  [his home area between the Ruhr and Netherlands] Borken on the borderline, is Borken occupied?  Is Borken included in the occupied area or not?  Where do the garrison occupation lines run near you?  Was the harvest good?  Are many people in the area in misery?  What is your business?  Who lives in my old home now.  I forgot nothing of the beautiful hunting grounds of my youth.  If the hunt is still as good as then, it would be my utmost wish to make a hunt there in Soison.  Report also of your family. If Germany will become more divided through loss of the Rhinelands and the revolution of the socialists and communists [***] then there is still a  crisis to get through, and we very surely hope that the whole confusion is soon rectified and order comes.  If Germany had been able to overflow the American newspapers with propaganda during the war like England, then America would have been on Germany’s side instead of England’s and it would be in a completely different position now in the world.  One hears that the need in the cities is big and farmers fare the best….”  (page 271, Pioneers: The Busch and Berning Families of LaMoure County ND, 1991, 1993, 2005)
* – German-Americans, especially those who spoke German, were considered suspect in the U.S., much as the Japanese-Americans were considered suspect in WWII, and the Arab-Americans today.  The old patters continue unabated.   If we do the same things in the same ways we will always get the same results…but it is a very hard lesson to learn.
** – In another letter, HH recounts a story told by his grandparents about the early 1800s when Napoleon overran their homeland of Westfalia, and for a number of years they were governed by France.  No love was lost for France by this German.
*** – H. H. does not define “socialist” or “communist” in his letter, and no later record is known from later writings.  The Nazis did eliminate the communists as competition, and the more I learn about the Nazis, they were, rather than “socialist”, really a mother-lode for the capitalists of the day, both in their country and elsewhere.  They were really the very epitome of the “military-industrial complex” which President Eisenhower feared in his farewell address to the U.S. Congress in January, 1961, and which is now a troubling reality.  In his address, Eisenhower had actively considered adding reference to government to his phrase, but in the end did not.
In background, Annelee's family in 1943

In background, Annelee's family in 1943


Annelee’s father was ultimately drafted into the German Army in a construction engineering capacity.  Except for coming home around Christmas of 1943, he was never seen again.  They believe he died in a Russian prison perhaps after the war, but no one is absolutely sure.
H.H. Busch died in 1933, the year Hitler came to power, and the Great Depression was raging in the United States.  Except for the above letter, I have no further accounts by or about him.
UPDATE SEP 20, 2009 from Jim Fuller:
A key point in the piece is that the period between WWI and WWII is a “black hole” for most people, which means that they can have no real understanding of why the Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy rose so readily to power in their respective countries.
A painless way to gain considerable knowledge of that era, and have a great time in the process, is to read the novels of Alan Furst.  They are superb, and beautifully written stories of spies and emigre intrigue in Europe between the world wars, but they also are filled with factual detail that one rarely, if ever, finds in history books. Another excellent novel that provides great historical insight is Erich Maria Remarque’s “Black Obelisque.”  (Remarque was the author of “All quiet On the Western Front,” which in its early chapters also tells much about that between-wars period.

#87 – Dick Bernard: Stomping on ACORN

Wednesday’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune carried a long front-page article about a U.S. Senate action “to prohibit the Department of Housing and Urban Development from giving federal housing money to [ACORN #mce_temp_url# ]… because of some “ACORN workers, who appeared to blithely encourage postitution and tax evasion…[through] amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to ACORN offices….”   The vote was 83-7, meaning 7 voted “no” and 9 did not vote.
ACORN is a national organizations  which conservative activists love to hate.Its website (noted above) has the other side of the story, worth noting.
Because ACORN likely has tens of thousands local activists, the odds of a problem here or there is 100% certain.  (I worked an entire career for a very large teacher union, and periodically every teacher, and, of course, by extension their union, would be ‘indicted’ because some teacher did something stupid, and the union had represented the member to at least assure that his/her due process rights were protected.  It was an ugly game played to discredit (and punish) the whole, based on the sin of the few.  So it is with the ACORN flap….
I wrote a letter to the editor of the “STrib”, and a portion of the letter was published in today’s edition, as follows:
“Apparently the Senate has administered a “that’ll show’em” blow at ACORN, condemning the whole for the sins of the few.
Oh, for the justice that might require the sanctimonious judgmental blowhards who promoted this action to be individually called to account for the sins of their collegial “birds of a feather”, or of their supporters back home.
In the same edition which carried my letter, another headline trumpeted “Governor ends state funding for ACORN”.  In the body of the article, it was revealed that the group has not received any money from the state since May of 2008, and “had received a total of $109,000 since 1996.”    That was about $10,000 per year from 5,000,000 or so Minnesotans – less than a pittance, two tenths of a single penny per Minnesotan per year.  That’ll show ’em!
Governor Pawlenty is running actively as a Republican candidate for U.S. President in 2012.  His base has adopted ACORN as the enemy du jour.
The portion of my letter which was not printed in the newspaper continues:
“Ah, the dream…
Succinctly, we’re witnessing bullying behavior in all of its obnoxious forms, the taking down of ACORN only the most recent.
As we should know by now, backing down in the face of a bully only assures an escalation in the bullying behavior.  Who’ll be next?”
I’m sending my entire letter to the editor to my Senators and Congresswoman and the Governor along with a handwritten note.  
You can never satisfy a bully; but a bully can and should be called out on his (or her) bad behavior. Deep down, they’re really cowards….
And I’ll send a check to ACORN, too.
SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE:  Some months ago I participated in a most interesting on-line seminar on managing fear.  It remains accessible at #mce_temp_url# .  The power point specifically references the relationship of bullying to personal fear.