#409 – Dick Bernard: 4 days to Default of the U.S. A highly recommended book to read (or re-read): The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein.

RELATED, the post for August 1, 2011, here.
For some years we’ve had week 30 at a time-share in the Breezy Point complex on Pelican Lake in north central Minnesota. It is ordinarily a quiet and relaxing week, away from computer and the normal hubbub of life. Excepting 2007, when the evening news on August 1 brought us news of the collapse of the I-35W Bridge into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, one can escape.
Relaxation was not as much an option this year.
We left home with the stark newspaper headlines on July 23 (click on photo to enlarge).

July 23, 2011 Minneapolis Star Tribune


The entire week was dominated by the not-funny circus in Washington D.C. which is near impossible to miss. We read about it in the daily paper, and saw the play-by-play on TV news.
I made one excellent choice this vacation week:

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein


I had purchased Shock Doctrine a long while ago – it was published in 2007 long before the name “Barack Obama” was much known outside of Illinois. I thought I knew what it was about, and it languished among the many unread books I own…until this week when I read every one of its heavily foot-noted 587 pages “up at the lake”.
The book covers LOTS of ground – at least 24 countries* in all, including the U.S. (Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 2005). Succinctly it is the life history of a particularly vicious brand of unfettered free market capitalism.
I read it with the background noise of the looming Default of the U.S. on our debts; the recently ended Shutdown of Minnesota due to a budget impasse; the pending recall elections in neighboring Wisconsin….
The more I read, the more I became convinced that what is happening right now in our own country is directly out of the Disaster Capitalism playbook. Given the experience in the other situations outlined, beginning with Chile (Allende/Pinochet) in 1973, there is no good end for the vast majority of Americans IF the current campaign in Disaster Capitalism succeeds here.

There are many reviews of this book, which was a New York Times bestseller, and it no doubt remains in print. I was particularly taken by this review by Paul B. Farrell, Dow Jones Business News, certainly not a left wing publication: “To more fully grasp this new economy, you must read what may be the most important book on economics in the twenty-first century…The Shock Doctrine is one of the best economic books of the twenty-first century because it reveals in one place the confluence of cultural forces, the restructuring of a world economy as growing populations fight over depleting natural resources, and the drifting away of America from representative democracy to a government controlled by multiple, competing, well-finances, and shadowy special interests.
Make no mistake, the cabal described in this book is real and still very powerful and United States based. Disaster Capitalism’s fingerprints are all over the present day political shenanigans in the United States, though the original architect is dead (2006), its major proponents are no longer in office and exposed, and the long-term results of its efforts have been proven to be destructive to the societies it has successfully infected.
But Disaster Capitalism’s power can be blunted by persons of good will who use Shock Doctrine to shine a light on a campaign whose only beneficiaries are the already super wealthy.
Do purchase the book. And help spread the word.
* – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Maldives, Nepal, Nicaragua, Poland, Salvador, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Thailand, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Uruguay,

#408 – Dick Bernard: 11 days to default in Washington DC. Communicating, publicly.

NOTE: I will be off-line until at least July 31: vacation and computer maintenance. This column is #20 in a series which began June 23. All previous posts are accessible here (all hi-lited dates have articles behind them).
“A peace is of the nature of a conquest:
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.”

Henry VI Part Two Act IV Scene 2
Seen in the book “One Thousand White Women – The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus.
Sincere thanks to Kathy Garvey.
Thursday I went over to the Minnesota State Capitol. It was good to see it open. Some photos at the end.
I have long been of the opinion that the representations of political reality that we see and read in the traditional media are essentially worthless. Anyone whose daily work is in the public eye is well instructed on message management and looking and sounding politically correct and convincing. That person looking us in the eye through the television screen WILL stay on message. Contemporary politics is, simply, a war with different kinds of weapons.
In our society, “fair and balanced news” no longer has much meaning, even for the well intentioned. We seek validation of our own point of view, and we can find it.
There is a downside to this: If one’s source of information tells only one side of the story, there is no possibility of understanding what is real: that humans are people of differing opinions. One philosophy attempting to dominate and overwhelm others is ultimately doomed to failure.
Returning from the Capitol, one of the e-mails awaiting me was this one which I found quite fascinating. (There is a second part to this DVD, and the two in total are about 15 minutes in length. The show host would be considered on the progressive side of the political ledger, and the broadcast entity is sometimes accused of being of a liberal bent.) His comments speaks for themselves.
The group I saw at the State Capitol was one which had gotten my e-mail address in some way – I didn’t know of them otherwise. I was glad to hear from them, and happy to participate. They were serious and respectful. It will be interesting to see if they get some press notice in today’s newspapers. (They don’t have a feedback system, at least none that I can see at their website. This is a problem they hopefully will remedy.)
I am of the belief that the only effective way for ordinary people – people like myself – to have an impact is one person, one contact at a time. We are so overwhelmed with “information” that there is little left to learn. If we’re going to survive as a society, we need to talk with, even debate, each other, and really listen to other points of view. It isn’t easy – those people standing in a circle yesterday, to have effect, need to turn around and act outwards towards people outside the Capitol rotunda. The only way to do this is to practice honing the skill, be it letters to the editor, standing up in a small or large meeting, giving a presentation, etc….
As we go on a vacation, and this country of ours lurches towards default on our debts, I’m somewhat hopeful that the U.S. will avert economic catastrophe, and that we’ll learn something as a result of the current mess we’re in.
The teaching has to be up to us, not “them”.
A FEW PHOTOS FROM THE CAPITOL, THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2011 (click to enlarge).

Demonstration in the MN Capitol Rotunda July 21, 2011


Empty MN Senate Chamber July 21, 2011


Empty MN House of Representatives Chamber July 21, 2011


MN Governors Reception Room July 21, 2011


Speaker at Demonstration in Capitol Rotunda July 21, 2011

#407 – Dick Bernard: 12 days till U.S. Default on our debt. How terminally stupid can we be?

Please see NOTE at end of this post.

I have discovered as I trudge along this path of attempting political conversation that political conversation is virtually impossible, to be avoided like the plague.
People are stuck in believing what they want to believe, and nothing will shake them out of even looking at their individual notion of reality.
This tendency applies, unfortunately, to both left and right, though it is the far right that dominates the media.
Our collective attitude seems similar to what would happen if I ran into the middle of rush hour traffic this morning, steadfast in my reality that I am not going to be killed by some motorist who doesn’t notice that I’m there.
I can believe it is not going to happen, but the odds are overwhelmingly against me.
I will be as dead as the average roadkill.
Yesterday, the Minnesota legislature agreed to end the government shutdown. I thought the final compromise to be reasonable and necessary, and said so. Not settling would just continue the insanity on into the distant future. The composite bills were signed by the Governor. Here’s the newspaper report on the settlement.
The legislative leadership could have done the requisite bargaining back in May or even long before – the Governor signalled from the beginning of the session in January his willingness to compromise. He had numerous official compromise positions on the table, including an offer to mediation to help settle differences between the parties. To my knowledge the opposition stayed entrenched. They had some point to prove, which has now gone unproven (except protecting the wealthiest Minnesotans from a small amount more taxes.)
A key element of the Minnesota settlement is borrowing more money. A new crisis is guaranteed next legislative session.
(In the wings is an unsettled and very controversial proposal to get in the business of building a new professional football stadium. It is a demand of the Minnesota Vikings, backed by a threat that they’ll pack up and move away when their stadium lease expires in a year. That will not be a pleasant debate either. Prediction: the Vikings will get their stadium.)
Predictably, in the wake of the settlement both sides are righteously angry.
We have brought this on ourselves, of course. In our collective stupidity, we elected a Democratic Governor with lots of government experience and a clearly stated set of priorities, and a new Republican legislature dominated by people plenty of whom have never held state office before who had this or that score to settle and were diametrically opposed to the same Governor we had just elected on the same ballot.
It is as if the newbies could race into town, put their pet initiative on the floor, and get it passed in their first six months on the job.
They – We? – believed this nonsense.
So did the Republicans in Wisconsin, who believed that they could re-engineer government in the first few weeks they were in control of all branches of government.
We Minnesotans now have to watch the insane Wisconsin campaign ads on TV as the Recall election campaigns take place, including one a dozen miles from where I type this note. There is nothing smart about recall elections; there is also no particular option to recall other than to roll over and give up if a majority side believes it can steamroller the minority into permanent irrelevancy.
But the issue, now, is not what is happening in Wisconsin, or in Minnesota, but what is happening in Washington D.C.
There is a long but useful summary of what is happening in D.C. accessible here, and I hope you take the time to actually read it through.
The short summary as I see it:
1) the hated national debt is the difference between what the Congress chooses to spend, and what it chooses to pay (tax) for the debts it freely incurs. Only the House of Representatives can initiate spending bills. For almost all of the years since 1994, that House of Representatives has been Republican and it has run up huge debt, for which it now chooses to blame the Democrats, especially President Obama. An incredibly expensive (and stupid) war was “paid” off budget in the eight years post-9-11; Afghanistan is a tragic leftover of 9-11. For a while we lived in a time of false prosperity, on the national credit card. False prosperity is very satisfying, till the debt collector comes calling. Till now, the debt ceiling was simply and routinely raised.
2) A majority of the House of Representatives is unwilling to publicly acknowledge the reality in #1 above, and is holding everyone else hostage. And blaming an enemy – people like me – for the problems it freely created.
3) We Americans elected these people, who are ill-serving us. Polls routinely show that we despise Congress collectively. For some odd reason, we still elect the individuals who comprise Congress, and hold them in higher esteem. Our Congressperson is not like the others, apparently.
Maybe we’ll default on August 2, and the sun will rise, the birds sing, and the weather be pleasant on August 3 and on into the fall and winter.
Maybe not….

NOTE: July 22 there will be a post at this space; then ‘radio silence’ until at least July 31 due to vacation and computer repair. My personal ‘tradition’ is that the computer, e-mail and all, does not follow me away from home. All best wherever you are.

#406 – Dick Bernard: Day 20 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 13 days till Default in Washington. Making Legislative Sausage in the dark or in the daylight?

UPDATE: The ink was not even dry on this post when it was announced that the Special Session was concluded. Later update with the information about who voted how. The Governor has signed the bill into law, and the transition back to work is beginning. This story will continue.
Tuesday I predicted a special session convening on Thursday. A few hours later, the Special Session of the Minnesota convened, and apparently is in progress as I write in the very early a.m. of Wednesday, July 20.
Such is how predictions tend to fare.
There has been the predictable kinds of news about the compromise to open the doors of government. There is much almost Biblical “weeping and gnashing of teeth” from both ideological sides in Minnesota: who “won” or “lost”, and what it is they actually won or lost. Weeping about what legislative must-haves were left out of the omnibus bill to be voted on, without amendments.
Posturing abounds, except at the very highest leadership levels – the folks who knew something needed to get done, imperfect as it is.
Such is probably the only reasonable outcome this ’round’ from the insane polarization that has become Minnesota politics.
The same process is well under way in Washington, only worse. Even there, the rhetorical quiver is about empty of arrows; the adults in the room know that something has to be done, and that their political enemy needs to save face.
Perhaps we, the people, will learn something, finally, about the costs of polarization. I can hope, though it’s a long shot.
Of the many interesting questions raised in the last few days is the question of process: do the acknowledged behind-closed-door meetings to hammer out a deal violate at minimum the spirit of the open-meeting laws?
Personally, I think that the only way this particular conflict could settle was the way it was: getting people of unlike minds together without interference from this special interest or that.
I strongly support open meetings, but there is a time and a place….
Closed meetings of public bodies are still common, and they are essential.
Recently I blogged about watching the July 5 meeting of the Dubuque IA City Council on television. The end of the program, and the Minutes of the meeting, indicated that the Council was going into closed session per Iowa law. I don’t know what they were discussing there in the ‘dark’. It could have been a personnel matter, or some pending legal issue. The Law acknowledged that they could do that. Likely the resulting vote, if any was taken, would have to be public. The discussion could be private.
Even more recently, the question of open meeting was raised here in my own tiny Homeowners Association Community. My spouse is “mayor” (Association President) of this town of 96 dwellings (she is tired of the job, but has done outstanding work over the years, in my opinion).
Recently the Association has been attempting to conclude a protracted and major legal dispute over a contracting issue, and came to the point of ‘fish-or-cut-bait’: to settle on a certain amount or continue on to court.
An offer was made, and the Association Board met privately about particulars before informing the residents.
Could there be a closed meeting on this issue affecting the entire community?
Yes, said the high-priced lawyer from the Downtown Canyons of Minneapolis who represents our Association. He cited the appropriate chapter and verse of Minnesota Statutes.
There is a time and a place for everything and, unfortunately for the advocates of totally open government, the settlement phase of a rancorous dispute is not reasonably in the public square through dueling opinions.
(I still won’t predict the specific ultimate outcome of the vote at the Minnesota Legislature – who votes how – but I will predict that the “yes” vote may well exceed 75%, even though such a vote of near unanimity is all but impossible to achieve. Stay tuned.
I make no predictions about the even more ridiculous and rancorous situation in Washington, especially in the U. S. House of Representatives.)

#405 – Dick Bernard: Day 18 of the Minnesota Government Shutdown; Day 15 to Default of the U.S. Government. A Crucial Time.

Demonstration at the State Capitol, St. Paul, June 30, 2011


Personally, I predict that the Minnesota Special Session will be towards the end of this week, probably on Thursday. Logically, the agreement between the Governor (Democrat) and the House and Senate Leadership (Republican) should pass. But this is not a logical time. At some early point approximately 200 Minnesota Senators and Representatives will take their vote. Until then, we’ll not know whose light is green (for) or red (against) the compromise.
Who are these folks deciding our collective fate? I went to the Minnesota Blue Book for 2011-2012 (free for the asking at the Secretary of State’s office).
The Minnesota State Legislature in 2011*.
MINNESOTA SENATE
Republican (IR)

23 – Freshman (first six months in office)
14 – Incumbent
37 – Total
62% of the Republican Senate majority are in their first year as lawmakers.
Democrat (DFL)
3 – Freshman
27 – Incumbent
30 – Total
MINNESOTA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Republican (IR)

30 – Freshman
45 – Incumbent
75 – Total
40% of House Republicans are Freshmen.
Democrat (DFL)
4 – Freshman
55 – Incumbent
59 – Total
* – These numbers show legislators listed in the book itself. I am aware of at least two Senators in the book who have left office, one due to death; the other to take another appointment. But the general data still stands.
53 of 112 Republican Legislators (47%) are Freshmen. It’s been indicated that some of these newcomers had never so much as even visited their State Capitol in which they now control the outcome of a $35.5 Billion budget affecting 5 million people.
There are doubtless plenty of people who think this new crop of lawmakers is just fine. “Good riddance to the old ‘tax and spenders’ “, they say. “Let’s run the state like a business….”

Ah yes, a business.
A short distance from where I type this post is the World Headquarters of 3M, one of Minnesota’s largest and most important multi-national corporations, over a century in business.

3M Headquarters from a nearby Maplewood MN neighborhood July 18, 2011


I wonder how 3M would fare if, all at once, most of its experienced top leadership was thrown out of office, and replaced by people who had a parochial view of 3M based on their own selfish interest.
My guess is that chaos would reign at that World Headquarters which I pass by several times each week.
While generalizations are always problematic, the ‘spontaneity’ that led to the 2010 election results, and what has happened since, would be intolerable and unacceptable in the corporate world.
A corporations goal is its collective success: if the corporation succeeds, everyone within it succeeds.
Our political system, on the contrary, State and National, increasingly appears as a system in mortal combat within itself: we have become a winner-take-all bunch destined to lose it all because of our attitude that only losers compromise.

Ironically, many of the newcomers set to shape up Minnesota and the U.S. were supported by Big Business PACs. Corporations are now, of course, “citizens”, with powerful rights and privileges thereof.
Now the controlling votes are in the hands of people vaulted into power by an unikely coalition of angry voters, and people who didn’t bother to vote at all in 2010.
It will be most interesting to see how the 89 DFL Legislators vote when the final agreement comes to the legislative table this week. The Governor has accepted some items which are as reprehensible to the Democrats, as some other items are to the Republicans.
A short distance behind is the even worse catastrophe facing the United States if it defaults on its debts.
Whatever the case, we’re stuck with the current status quo. We elected those deciding our fate.
It would be nice if the electorate learns a lesson from this crazy scenario.
I wish I could be more hopeful.
NOTE: I have written frequently on this topic at this space since June 23, 2011. Further posts will follow.

#404 – Dick Bernard: Day 17 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 16 Days till U.S. goes into Default. A crucial week ahead.

On an ordinary week I get a lot of e-mails, from all ‘sides’. This is my choice. I want to know what’s going on. It’s simple to scan and delete.
Everybody has an opinion. The Obama haters are ramping up their hatred of the President of the United States; Many Minnesotans are second-guessing the elements of the tentative agreement to settle what I call the “strike” the Minnesota Legislature elected to force when they ended their regular legislative session in late May, as required by Statute, without coming to an agreement that the Governor could sign.
At the national level, it is clear, now, that the heavy-hitters who control the money (and in many ways, the government) are now very worried that a default on our debt is possible, and that it will be catastrophic if it happens. But the loose cannons, particularly Freshman radicals in Congress, have set their feet in cement, which is rapidly hardening. “No way”, they say.
This is a critical week ahead.
Rhetoric has to meet Reality or we’ll all be in deep trouble.
There’s still plenty of fantasy.
On one side are the citizen populists from the Party of Tea who govern like they’re sitting in the local coffee shops (men) or wherever women gather for similar conversations. These are gatherings of friends. There are seldom arguments of substance. We all sit in these gatherings at one time or another. You know how shallow these can be. Add substance or disagreement to the conversation, and you’re out of the group.
A guy I see quite frequently at my own hangout, where I’ll be shortly, joked a few days ago that the shutdown is just fine: there’s no need for government, really. (He also joked, at least at the beginning, about the horrendous oil spill in the Gulf a year or two ago.)
I know him well enough to know that he should know better. But his apparent hatred of government and reverence for the pre-eminence of business apparently clouds his common sense.
I gently called him on his comment. He didn’t like it….
On the other side – my side, the side I have most natural affinity towards – people are blasting Obama as a sellout; and our Governor Dayton as violating his campaign promises, insisting on their own pet top priorities as essential to any settlement.
Get over it.
Ancient legend is that Roman Emperor Nero fiddled as Rome burned.
Whether the history is accurate or not, the analogy is apt for us. Too many of “we, the people” have done and are doing the exact same thing, now, and our own ’empire’ is at grave risk of collapse.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand” said Abraham Lincoln, famously, on June 16, 1858.
Lincoln’s issue was the danger of division over the slavery issue. He lost his election to the U.S. Senate that year, and came back to be elected as President in 1860.
We have elected our “house divided”, and it is, really, a reflection of each and every one of us. We have brought this mess upon ourselves. We are a bunch of individuals with our own non-negotiable priorities, where even the thought of compromise is reprehensible.
In Minnesota, the necessary compromise was apparently reached this past weekend (I’ll know more in a few minutes when I read the paper), and there will be a short special session this week to get a deal finally done.
In Washington, it’s not so certain. I only hope that the cement under the Republicans feet has not hardened to the point that they cannot extricate themselves. Obama has far more than done his part to reach a settlement the country can live with. He’s gone far enough.
Economic catastrophe awaits if a deal isn’t concluded.
The next days will tell the tale.
(Note: this is a continuing series which began June 23, and will continue as long as the state and national situation remain unsettled.)

#403 – Dick Bernard: Day 15 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 20 days before Default Day in Washington. A Tentative Agreement

A few hours ago Minnesota’s Governor Mark Dayton, and the leaders of the Republican House and Senate reached a tentative agreement on bringing Minnesota back from Shutdown. Predictably, as is always true in these situations, there is a great plenty of glumness, and anger. Here’s how it was described in the independent MinnPost on-line newspaper.
Now comes the tension of actually getting a deal done: passed by the House and Senate and signed by the Governor. It ain’t over till its over.
Art IV Sec. 12 of the Minnesota Constitution seems to be the crucial rule now in play: “A special session of the legislature may be called by the governor on extraordinary occasions.” The governor, and only the governor, can call the special session. The Legislature had 120 legislative days (the constitutional maximum) to reach an agreement that would be acceptable to the Governor. They chose unilateralism.
Games can obviously played in a special session, but those who play such games will have hell to pay from the electorate in a years time. The spotlight now shines on every single legislator.
Those of us who have ever been in difficult negotiations – I have – have “been there, done that” with what faced the Governor and House and Senate leaders after 13 days of Minnesota Government Shutdown.
The parties in the room do not have the luxury of second-guessing or arm-chair quarterbacking or winning total victory over the enemy. They are forced to face reality.
There is something of a rule of thumb in such situations: a good settlement is one that nobody likes. So the partisans on both sides are bemoaning this still tentative deal for diverse and opposing reasons.
Personally, I hope the deal gets passed. The longer this crisis goes on, the worse it will get, and the more difficult it will be to settle.
I did not initially support Mark Dayton when he ran for Governor in 2010. I preferred the endorsed candidate of the DFL party. But I will now say with absolutely no equivocation that Governor Dayton is proving himself to be an outstanding Governor.
I am not as impressed with we citizens. “We, the people” freely elected that this mess would happen in the way we voted (or did not vote at all*) in 2010. In effect, we chose this deal we do not like, and likely will not like, by electing who we did. We chose this craziness at both state and national levels. We citizens need to take a very hard look at ourselves, individually and collectively.
The new and often radical Republicans who ran and won in MN in 2010, often by infinitesimal margins, now have established a record in their votes in their first legislative session. (The special session doesn’t count, in my opinion). Now they will need to answer for what they did, not what they promised in campaign ads when running for office.
* – Citizens not voting at all, or voting in ignorance of possible consequences, is the big story of the 2010 elections, in my opinion. We’re paying the price for our collective laziness.
Just for comparison, here’s the vote for MN Governor in 2010, and the vote for President in 2008, both from the MN Secretary of State. They speak for themselves: Governor 2010; President 2008. Estimated total voters in 2008 were 2, 920,214; Registered voters as of May 2, 2011, were 3,099,862.
(Here at Outside the Walls are numerous other posts about the Shutdown, and Default. They begin at June 23 on this site. Behind every high-lited calendar date is a post. Hover your cursor over each date to see the topic of the day. This series will continue till at least August 2.)

#402 – Dick Bernard: Day 14 of the Minnesota Shutdown, Day 19 to Default of the United States. A Chance Encounter With the City of Dubuque IA and a Glimpse of Hope

The Family Reunion over on Saturday, I settled into my motel room in Dubuque IA. I had just given myself a mini-tour of this small Mississippi river city which I have visited a number of times over the years, and I felt impressed with what I saw. It seemed transformed from the generally drab place I remembered in the past to a quite attractive present.
Something in Dubuque seemed to be working okay.

On the Mississippi from riverfront Dubuque IA July 9, 2011


I was too tired to leave the motel room, and too awake to go to sleep so I turned on the television. I’m not a TV guy, but this was at least company. A stroll through the wasteland found me at HBO, where the selection of the moment was Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. The movie was a few minutes in, and I entered it where a wealthy broker was talking with a young broker in training about some investment deal apparently taking place someplace many times zones east of the Street. I wasn’t taking any notes – this was, after all, a movie – but the segment I had reached had a particular piece of dialogue which I generally remember: Broker to kid: “To me, $125 million is like a buck and a quarter.” He grabbed a handful of money, gave it to the kid and said something like “take this money and go out and stimulate the economy”. Next scene had the kid in a bar about to spend wildly, presumably on wine, women and song.
The movie didn’t interest me, so I started channel flipping and stopped for some reason at the local TV channel replay of the Dubuque City Council meeting of July 5, 2011.
I never watch this stuff at home, but for some reason the Mayor and Council drew me in, and I watched the entirety of the meeting till it went in closed session for some legal matters. It was fascinating. (The Minutes of the particular meeting can be accessed here. Select “View All” under City Council Meeting Minutes, and then select July 5, 2011). I entered when a citizen, unpracticed in public speaking but clear and eloquent in his own way, was complaining about enforcement of a local noise ordinance which resulted in some motorcyclists being ticketed. He was representing effectively a bunch of unseen bikers in the room with him, people who appreciated what he was doing in their behalf.
The Mayor and Council listened respectfully, and while they didn’t agree immediately with his request, they identified for he and the audience the process that would be followed to determine if some modification in policy could be made. I thought to myself: were I in his shoes, I would have felt I had been listened to, not dismissed. The situation must have been tense. The Mayor indicated he had had lunch with the bikers representatives earlier, to better understand the situation. Great move on his part: defusing the situation.
The meeting continued with the normal ‘this and that’ of city government. There was a fascinating report on an ongoing and obviously carefully planned program to work towards elimination of plastic bags in Dubuque stores. I got the impression that such a controversial plan had some potential for success.
It is said that the more local the government, the nastier and insane it can be: you can read examples of this most every day in community reporting because it is news. Quite certainly that Dubuque Mayor and Council could tell stories about their own city government. My whole career was working with people in organizations, and I have often said that if you have 100 people gathered anywhere, there are at least a couple who will cause a dilemma. Magnify this by thousands (towns and cities), millions (states), hundreds of millions (countries) and there’s plenty of differences to deal with.
But on this particular night, July 9, 2011, through the eyes of local community access television, I saw a city that seems to be working well. An hour or so earlier I’d seen the evidence as one simple tourist driving around the Mississippi River town.
And here I write, in a state that is shutdown due to paralysis at the State level (with a potential for settlement just announced 11 a.m. on Thu July 14); and in a country that is lurching towards catastrophe. What can I say? If they can get things done in Dubuque, why not on a larger scale?
Of course, there are answers to this question, but that’s for another time.

Thanks, Mayor and Council of Dubuque IA for giving me some hope.
As for our state, the big news (till the aforementioned announcement) is the possibility of running out of beer. And as for our nation, my favorite blogger filed a most interesting compilation about the Washington D.C. scene. You can access his 3000 or so words here.

#401 – Dick Bernard: Day 13 of Minnesota Shutdown; Day 20 till Default in Washington D.C. A Letter and a Public Appearance

We live in the lower-priced end of our suburb which pretty consistently ranks as one of the best places to live in the U.S. Monday we were at one of the busiest intersections in our town and saw a new sign next to a local liquor store:

In the Minneapolis paper today an interesting bulletin directly related to the Shutdown. This brought some on-line repartee between friends about beer riots ending the Shutdown, constructing an OK Corral for gunslingers, and on and on. Sometime you need to take a timeout for the sake of sanity.
In an understated way, at least to this point, we are well into the world of ‘crazy’ in Minnesota, with the situation in Washington and in neighboring Wisconsin not far behind. The voters – those who cast ballots, and those who didn’t bother to show up to vote in 2010 – have brought this on themselves.
But it is a hard sell to convince people that they are cause in this matter of political disaster. It is much easier to label “politicians”, or some amorphous “them”, or “liberals” or such as the problem. We will rue the day.
Quite by accident, this day, I scored a ‘twofer’.
A Letter to the Editor I had submitted a couple of weeks ago to the local paper will be published this day. It speaks of my local Senator and Representative, newly elected Freshmen Republicans, who have, best as I can tell at this point, been loyal supporters of the till-death without compromise shutdown ordained by their party leadership. Our Representative, a prim and pleasant suburban homemaker, distinguished herself mostly in this session by a liberalization of gun laws (probably without much personal enthusiasm, but it came out of her committee and I doubt she had much choice in whether to vote the issue up or down. I’ll think of her each time I see this gun shop in our high-class town.)
The war continues.
Earlier today I had the totally unexpected opportunity to be one of five speakers representing the DFL (Democratic Party) about the Minnesota shutdown at this point in time.
My remarks to four tv cameras and several journalists for public release are below and are not necessarily distinguished, but that isn’t what I noted about this exercise.
When given the opportunity I had to distill my thoughts into a very brief presentation (here DFLSCStatementJul132011), and in the process try to represent the totality of hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who in one way or another share my demographic (senior citizen) and political point of view (Democrat). Believe me it is not easy. Luckily, the timeline was so short that no one could or did look over my shoulder and insist on modifications or veto what I was going to say. It is me, trying to represent my demographic, which I think I know pretty well. I needed to try to distill how I saw the very large number of people I was representing. Afterwards I got some very sincere compliments. I got some silence, too, which probably meant ‘too soft’, or you shouldn’t have said THAT. Such is how it goes. (Update July 16: if interested in seeing my two seconds of fame, it’s here, about five minutes into Almanac on the local PBS affiliate.)
We are a bitterly polarized society, and unless we figure out how to work with rather than against each other our slide downhill is going to accelerate.
And, by the way, I have great respect for the President of the United States, and the Governor of Minnesota, trying to get people together in a most troubling time.

Dick Bernard in blue shirt at right at the State Capitol, July 13, 2011.

#400 – Dick Bernard: Day 12 of the Minnesota Shutdown; Day 21 to Default in Washington D.C. Whazzup in Minnesota?

One of the e-mails in my in-box on return from the family reunion in Iowa was this, from someone I’ve known for many years, who lives in a state far away from Minnesota: “I see the belt tightening as a positive but think I might not be in the majority…did you blog on this yet?? I was listening to Pawlenty this morning, more impressed with him than Bachmann.
To this, I responded as follows: “Pawlenty is a very major cause of the current Minnesota problem.
I had noticed that, in next door neighbor Iowa, the local Dubuque paper had no coverage (at least none I could find) of the Minnesota situation. Unique as we are, we aren’t on Iowa’s interest radar, apparently.
At coffee this morning, a good friend was commenting about his fairly new neighbor, who has been laid off by the state due to the shutdown. Later in the morning came an out of office reply from someone on a family list of mine: “Due to the shutdown of state government, I am away from work indefinitely. I will return to work when the Legislative funding for the continued operation of the Minnesota Department of _________ is enacted into law. For more information, please monitor news reports or see our website at www._____.state.mn.us.” I don’t know this individual personally, so I didn’t know who she worked for, until the e-mail.
These are the stories, one by one. So goes ‘death by a thousand cuts’…one neighbor, one relative, one working here, one there. That is what the shutdown looks like.
Overnight came this online newspaper article about the “non-essential” State Historical Society library by my good friend and former work colleague Judy Berglund, outlining another one of the cuts due to the inability to settle the issues. I’ve used the History Center Library many times over the years. I’m a dues paying member of the History Center, but it’s still closed.
Of course, these days of message control, it is not hard to assess blame, and assess it convincingly.
But it is hard to find credible sources of information…that are accepted as credible.
In the same in-box with three days worth of e-mails came this editorial from the Winona MN newspaper. Winona is a Mississippi River small city, and I drove by it both coming and going to Dubuque. I don’t know the papers political slant, or that of Winona itself. The fact that it was written locally did impress me. Not only do they get what’s going on, but they’re willing to take a stand on it, publicly, in their town.
Then, yesterday afternoon came a new video from the Governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton. It was apparently just freshly released as it had only 100 views. Here is the video, about three minutes and worth watching, especially if not from Minnesota. Dayton comes from wealth: think Dayton’s Department Stores, later Dayton-Hudson; later Marshall-Fields, then Macy’s too, and Target stores. Depending on point of view, he’s ridiculed; or as a highly principled and committed Governor. I subscribe to the latter view of our Governor.
I don’t know where this will all end up.
What I do know from a long career in negotiations is that “compromise” does not mean that one side must cave in. One side demanding and refusing to budge, is not compromise.
I hope Gov. Dayton sticks with important principles for us all.