#423 – Dick Bernard: Talking war (and peace)

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Monday was Senior Citizen day at the Minnesota State Fair and I made my way over to fulfill my annual ritual, now stretching back to the mid-1960s when I first arrived in the Twin Cities.
This year found me less engaged than in the past – no particular reason. Maybe next year I won’t be back. But…next year there will be that deep-fried cheese curd gene that will kick in, and I’ll be back for my annual fix. One basket of those critters is a great plenty. Thankfully, they haven’t raised the price, which means they’ve reduced the portion size. At my age I don’t need even a single small basket. But so it goes.
One of my ritual stops is at the Leinie Lodge Band Shell, and when I stopped there on Monday, the 34th Infantry (Red Bull) Division Band was about to conclude its gig before a full house, and they were just about to begin a medley of the anthems of the various branches of military service. The announcer asked that vets of those branches rise to be recognized when their anthem was played. First, a few Marines; then Navy; then Air Force; then Coast Guard; then my branch, the Army. Lots of folks stood up, mostly men, mostly old. It was a rather stirring and emotional time, recognizing the vets, one of which was me. (click on photo to enlarge)

Vets rising to be recognized at the State Fair August 29, 2011


I walked towards the exit to the encore: John Phillips Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever”.
On the bus back to the east ‘burbs, I struck up a conversation with an old guy who’s an Army vet, WWII. “Pacific or European Theater?”, I asked. “Pacific”, he responded. His unit had spent two weeks in Japan immediately after the Atom bombs had fallen in August, 1945. “Terrible there”, he said, and that was about it. I told him about Uncle Frank and the Arizona at Pearl Harbor, and about a whole family of military veterans, including me.
Today, President Obama was at the national American Legion Convention in Minneapolis. I’m a peace advocate who’s a long-time member of the American Legion. Stubbornness I guess. I also am a strong supporter of President Obama, doing all he can in a dismal political environment.
So it goes in the “land of the free and the home of the brave”. It’s hard to deny that “War is the Force that Gives Us Meaning” as so well articulated by Christopher Hedges in his book of the same name (the link is to a talk he gave at the University of California Santa Barbara a few years ago).
Peace hardly has a place at the table in the national conversation even though it has always been an underground topic of the human conversation. I just completed reading an outstanding book which was not about war and peace, but an amazing amount of conversation in this autobiographical love story* of photographer Alfred Stieglitz and artist Georgia O’Keefe was about feelings about World War I, the war raging when they met. But these were private conversations. The public conversation then was reverencing War and Soldiers and Right and Might in that spectacularly misnamed “war to end all wars”.
Indeed, there is hardly any place for public conversation about the virtues of peace. I have found that peace people, while representing the dominant feeling of people yearning peace, are marginalized and isolated. If your ethic is peace, it is impossible to intellectually engage with someone whose investment is in war.
I am part of a group seeking a monument to Peace in the city of War Monuments, Washington D.C. It is very slow going…though in the end, it will either be Peace or Perpetual War and Death.
Why not Peace? I have a theory.

Recently, as anyone watches the news is aware, there has been an overthrow of the Qadaffi government in Libya. There has not been, to my knowledge, a single American life lost in that war.
There are many pieces of conversation about whether that War is right or wrong, but I have particularly noticed the position, delivered through Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain, that the Libya campaign has been a “failure” for President Obama and the United States. No one says this out loud, but I think the reason such a war is deemed to be a failure is that there were no deaths to, in a perverse way, celebrate our fallen American heroes and stir up patriotism.
A foolish theory? I think not. To each their own opinion.
Talk Peace.
* – My Faraway One, edited by Sarah Greenough

#422 – Dick Bernard: Walking Woodbury Days with U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar

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I walked with U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar in the annual Woodbury Days parade yesterday. While I didn’t count, it seemed there were perhaps 30 of us, along with the Senator and her daughter, on the approximately two mile walk. Cathy, my wife, walked as well, as did Amy’s daughter. (click on photos to enlarge)

Woodbury Day parade August 28, 2011


Over the years I’ve walked in a goodly number of community parades, supporting one political candidate or another. It is the very least I can do: to give support.
Whoever you see in a parade is working, no question about that. Amy and her daughter had been at the State Fair before the Woodbury gig, and went back there afterwards. We love to hate our politicians, but when they need to somehow touch base with, in Amy’s case, 5 million constituents, campaigning is also very hard work.
This year, unlike any of the others, I wondered how the folks along the route would respond.
We are, after all, in a time of hostility towards “government”, particularly “Washington” kind of government, even more particularly “Congress”, of which Amy Klobuchar is one of 535 sitting members. I see blood-vessel exploding rants against “them” frequently, as if they aren’t selected by “us”. One does begin to wonder if the community, local or greater, is full of these out-of-sorts flame-throwing folks.
Home afterwards, checking e-mails, was yet another anti-Congress e-mail – this the one which essentially suggests that our country should be run by volunteers who get paid the minimum wage and serve only one term…. Amy Klobuchar is one of “them”, of course.
Another was this, more positive little poem, though (it seemed) pointed at our entire body politic, including the politicians:
“What’s this proclivity
For increased incivility?
Is this what evolution picks?
If so, the genome needs a fix.”
But as we walked our route on a pleasant Woodbury day, yesterday, there was no sign that I saw or heard that suggested that the crowd watching was at all surly; rather it was respectful and, in fact, interested.
We tended to get a bit behind, solely because Senator Klobuchar was doing what good politicians do: engaging with people on both sides of the street.

Amy Klobuchar at Woodbury Days Parade August 28, 2011


I sensed a respectful audience for this public servant doing a necessary ritual for politicians in this country yesterday. Doubtless there were people along that route who don’t like the Senator, perhaps some who went back to their computer, as I have, but to raise one complaint or other about her and/or her colleagues. Governing a deliberately politically polarized country is not easy.
But the America I saw along this one parade route in Woodbury yesterday was a respectful and welcoming one.
It was my privilege to be along in support.

Amy Klobuchar and her daughter at the end of the Woodbury Parade Route August 28, 2011

#421 – Dick Bernard: "Be SEEN, Be HEARD"

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One of my favorite volunteer duties is usher at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis MN. Through the doors of that magnificent place come people at all places in their faith journey, the welcoming and non-judgmental mantra of the Parish.
The Sunday just past I was working at the back (main) entrance to the Church, and I saw a plainly dressed gentleman standing in the back. He was wearing a purplish tee-shirt, on the back of which was written, in easily seen letters:
Be SEEN
Be HEARD
That powerful mantra got me curious. I moved a little closer, and in smaller letters I saw “NWCT”. That didn’t make any sense.
So I did what I should have done in the first place, and just asked the guy “what group is this?”
He was happy to explain. The shirt was for a twin cities community access cable television station, Northwest Community Television. I’d actually been in that station last October, and I was favorably impressed.
We talked further, and the gentleman said he does a program on that station called “Painting with Dave” (scroll down), and it plays on certain community television stations, particularly in the Twin Cities, and also, for some reason in Connecticut. In the Minneapolis area, the next program is August 27, for 30 minutes.
I’ll see if it plays out here, and check it out.
The moral of this story is very simple: it is hard to make an impact if you are not willing to be seen, and to be heard.
Thanks, Dave, for wearing that shirt!

#420 – Dick Bernard: Speaking as a Liberal

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Directly related posts: here and here.
Yesterday’s news has President Obama going on vacation for a few days. Of course, presidential vacation is not a vacation at all. But this does not prevent the Congressional critics, themselves on a one month vacation, from saying the President should be back in the White House creating jobs – the same accomplishment they are actively seeking to prevent. Helping the President get more jobs is not politically good for the opposition. And so the deadly games go on.
My favorite blogger wrote today about the Presidents vacation, and that President Obama’s selected vacation reading was the book “Nixonland” by Rick Pearlstein. (My vacation choice was Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” I recommend it very highly.)
I’ve been thinking a lot about this label “liberal”, which I am proud to affix to myself. To many, it is a cursed word, along with other swear words like “union”, and on and on. In fact, years ago, Newt Gingrich had a famous list of words. They were (and still are) very helpful for his disciples to use as they seek and achieve high office.
They are also destructive to a functioning society, as we are seeing every day.
So, what is a ‘liberal’ as compared to the polar opposite ‘other’? (I use ‘other’, because in my own experience, most liberals are conservative people*.)
All I have is personal experience, and with that there’s a story.
Three years ago I was on a bus tour exploring matters French-Canadian in northern North Dakota. We stopped at a now-empty Catholic Church in tiny Olga, ND, and our leader, Dr. Virgil Benoit of the University of North Dakota, talked powerfully to us about intercultural relationships, specifically Native Americans and French-Canadians.
On the long bus ride to Belcourt in the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, I was sitting across from Dr. Benoit, and at one point I asked him where his compassion came from. He related a specific experience at a Minnesota Indian Reservation, where, as a young PhD, a tribal elder spoke to him about priorities and social concerns. It made an indelible impression on him.
But then he turned the tables on me. “And what about you?”, he said.
I was taken aback, and struggled for an answer.
It really didn’t occur to me till later.
For me, the epiphany came in 1963-65 when my young wife and I struggled through two years of hell until she died of kidney disease in July, 1965 (she was buried on the very day the Medicare Act was signed by President Johnson). We were kids, then, and had no medical insurance. Stuff like this wasn’t supposed to happen to someone in their early 20s. I was on the brink of bankruptcy when North Dakota Public Welfare stepped forward and paid the bulk of the unpaid medical bills…and they had to stretch their rules to do that. (click on photos to enlarge)

Dick, Tom, Barbara Bernard about August, 1964, Valley City ND


The community which is government saved my and my sons future in hard times. I’ve never forgotten this; I never will. It could happen to anyone.
That, and other experiences, have made me ‘liberal’, and if that’s not okay, so be it.
In my observations over many years, it seems that there is some kind of a continuum that defines the difference between people like me, and those in the camp of the individualist, government be damned bunch.
Like all continuums, there are infinite gradations between one extreme and the other.
On one extreme are the communalists who argue that everything should be for the good of all. The Communists tried this, and it has never worked quite as the theory proposed. I suppose the Shakers were another variety; and the Amish a contemporary version.
On the other extreme, though, more akin to our most radical right wing types, is an even worse problem: in the extreme, all that matters is the individual. Theirs is a dog-eat-dog world and the strong survive, and the weak don’t. Get what you can while you can. Make the rules for the loser others. “Winner takes all”.
I’m off on the communalist side of this continuum, but far away from the extreme left that I describe.
There has always been this continuum, but the difference in the last 20 or 30 years has been the casting of one side as good, and the other evil. The side that considers my side to be evil has had the upper hand, and it is not healthy for them, for us, or for society at large. But it has been a winning formula for them, and only we can make them change their focus.
Then there’s the even more troubling “winning formula” of making a judgement of the whole, by a non-negotiable demand to resolve a part (i.e. unrestricted gun rights; an immediate end to the war in Afghanistan, and on, and on, and on.) Thinking larger is too hard, so we think small, or not at all. We just judge.
Where are you on these matters? At least think this through privately.
I’m proud to be “liberal”, and I think that, like a bird, there is a need for two ‘wings’, but wings that work together.

Dick Bernard at the White House, January 16, 1980


UPDATE: Saturday, August 20: I often describe myself as an Eisenhower kid: Dwight Eisenhower was President during virtually my entire high school and college years. I graduated from college less than a year after he left the presidency in January, 1961; and weeks after John Kennedy was elected to succeed him (I was too young to vote – 21 was voting age then).
Yes, I liked Ike, and still do. More than a few liberals I know do too. He was a moderate conservative. He’d be thrown out of todays Republican party.
My favorite blogger (see first paragraph above), was born in those days (1947), and remembers them in today’s column here. They are a little different than they are usually portrayed in those acidic “forwards” I get.

Sitting in Vice President Walter Mondale's chair, the west wing of the White House, January 16, 1980


* – I have long thought that this true conservatism of ‘liberals’ (prudence, careful in use of money) is one reason why big business doesn’t want liberals in control of government. Government waste, after all, is very good for business, not bad. It may not be good for the community that is our country, but it is great for profit.
UPDATE August 21: A good friend commented on this post, yesterday.
Bob Schmitz: I too can pin point a number of epiphany moments that led me to embrace the label liberal and now Green Party values. A recent incident confirmed my beliefs. Last summer I was in Wishek, N.D. for a wedding. Wishek votes Republican. As I was walking down the street in a residential area of the city I could not help but admire this pleasant town, but I became most impressed with the finished look to the streets with their curb and gutters, and sidewalks throughout. As I got to the end of a block after having made this observation, I looked down at an inscription on the sidewalk. It said, “WPA – 1937” [Works Progress Administration], the year of my birth. I was very much a product of the depression and my family never really recovered until the late 50s or during the golden era of our economic revival from the 30s. It is to bad that revival came as a result of military Keynesianism [WWII]. When on his death bed a few years ago my 90 year old Dad started talking politics with us. He recalled the idle men sitting on the benches in downtown Arcadia, Iowa during the 30s, and spoke of FDR with such fondness. He started to cry when he talked about Roosevelt trying to help them and how some of these public works projects started under Roosevelt gave them work and restored some dignity. My grandfather lost his farm due to the depression but recovered with WWII, which put everyone to work, including my three uncles who participated in the war. They came back and all could buy a home through the GI bill. My wife’s brothers were able to become engineers, and wealthy, by attending the school of engineering at the U of M under the GI bill. Without the GI bill they would not have been able to attend college. They by the way are Republicans. I still recall the “bums” coming to our door as a small child and before the war cranked-up. These bums were traversing the country on the old Lincoln Highway looking for work and food. Mom would make them a sandwich or let them have something from the garden in return for raking some leaves or doing a small odd job, and we didn’t have a “pot nor window” [old saying about being poor – “not a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of”] .
I want to recommend a book: “There Is Power In A Union: The Epic Story Of Labor In America” by Philip Dray. This is a wonderful history of labor and reminds us that we are still fighting the same old battles. Right now I am reading about the Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1910, a horrifying tragedy which should be memorialized, just to keep the public reminded of the consequences of Adam Smith’s free-market economics when applied in an industrial age.
Dick’s response: There were, of course, ordinary people in the depression who hated Franklin Delano Roosevelt too. I know this included some of my relatives. The same kinds of reasons some despise liberals today.
Here is one of my Depression era stories (I was born in 1940). This story is set in rural Berlin ND, about 60 miles east of Wishek on Hwy 13.
Later, another from Bob: I know there were those who disagreed about FDR. There were great discussions in my family about politics and I do recall them talking about the plutocrats or small town business people who did not want to help the derelicts and cursed FDR. My maternal grandparent did ok but retained sympathy for those who did not, and seemed willing to chip in to help the neighbor who ran onto bad times. I believe he was a closet atheist as he resisted attempts by the local Methodist minister to get him into church. Grandpa Liechti, a Swiss, said his religion consisted in doing onto others as he wished them do onto him, and that’s all he needed to know. He simply threw a biblical quote back at them and left it there. My Dad’s parents were devout Catholics but also had a strong social conscience which I think came from their life’s experience. Grandpa Schmitz was an orphan dumped with a farm family who essentially used him, which was the social welfare system of that time. I recall vividly that Mom and Dad voted for Henry Wallace in 1948, the Progressive Party candidate. He was from Iowa and the former Sec of Ag. and I believe a Vice-President under Roosevelt. Dewey was supposed to have the election locked up but Truman upset him with a very narrow victory. Mom and Dad were told that they wasted their vote. I don’t think so.
Sometime I could go on about the mental health movement in which I had the good fortune to participate. I am referring to the successful effort to empty the old state hospitals at the end of the 50s and into the 60s. The current Republicans seem to want a movement back to those days. In those bygone days the Republicans of that time saw the merit in ending the old state hospital system and participated in that effort. Elmer Andersen was one of them.
As I read history the current trends seem less scary and are nothing new, but there is no guarantee that they could not morph into full blown fascism.

#419 – Dick Bernard: Going below the surface in political hate e-mails. And, by the way, it is the Congress, specifically the House of Representatives, that authorizes the expenditures…and the debt. And mostly, it's been Republican. And "we, the people" elect every one of these representatives every two years.

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Directly Related post here; other related posts, here and here.
Yesterday, a valued relative of mine sent me one of those ubiquitous anti-Obama forwards. This one was full of dismal statistics about America suggesting that every problem was all Obama’s fault. I replied: “So what does this prove…? Is Obama THE government?” He responded: “Let’s say the situation was reversed and these same figures happened under George Bush and you sent me the same e-mail and I replied, “So what does this prove, Dick? Is Bush THE government?” I responded “But I didn’t send you the same e-mail…”
I included a few more sentences that probably won’t convince my correspondent (who claims he’s “independent”). So it goes. (Point of fact: in most of the Bush years, THE government: House, Senate and Presidency, was Republican.)
Out of curiosity, I checked my e-file against what I’ve received from this man. He’d sent me 20 of these kinds of forwards, the first on July 3. All of them had been forwarded to him by someone else, probably a friend.
In the same period I had sent one “political’ item to family members, written by myself, and clearly labeled POLITICAL in the Subject line. In that one I was commenting on Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann, then-candidates in Iowa whose records I know far too well – she’s my Congresswoman, and he was MN Governor.
My relative has been invited to read this post, and if he does, he may be surprised at how many of those things he’s sent on. Collectively, they support what I posted earlier here on June 27, 2011. He’s a foot-soldier enlisted to kill President Obama. He probably won’t like to hear that, but it’s true.
I’m one of what I believe is a small group of people who actually like getting this hate-mail circulating against the Government, Liberals, Democrats and Obama. It ‘comes in all shapes and sizes’, is sometimes subtle, sometimes very direct, but always, always, it aims to stimulate the base emotions of fear, loathing and anger, with no interest or concern about accuracy of fact. If the objective is to make the reader hate Government and all it represents, Democrats or Obama, it is not necessary to explain the piece. One just needs to get blood boiling with rage. Facts don’t matter at all. The intention is a mob mentality, mostly in people in my senior citizen age group. It is disgusting, but it is effective.
It reminds me of one particularly unfortunate situation I was proximate to a few years ago. The Middle School age daughter of good friends of ours was targeted by some of her female classmates with incessant hate e-mails. The parents and (I believe) the school administration did all they could do to stop this terror campaign, but nothing worked. Ultimately, the family sold their home and moved to a new town and their daughter had an opportunity to start over and be the honor student that she could be. (She’s now in University).
The gang of teen girls ‘won’, I guess…but what did they really ‘win’? Same question for the producers and distributors of the hate mail.
Last week, from two people in Illinois and Arizona who have no way of knowing each other, came identical copies of one of these hate-mails which was especially interesting. It was interesting in that, while its targets were people like me, it was most accurately and appropriately describing the current Republican and Tea Party Congress, especially the U.S. House of Representatives. For those with an interest, I’m reprinting most of the e-mail below, with annotations.
If you aren’t interested in detail, at least note this accurate quote from the particular e-mail (which proclaims itself to be “completely neutral”): “The Constitution [of the United States], which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes…House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.”
Note also, that in the e-mail there is not a single suggestion about who it is that selects those members of the House of Representatives – it is we, the electorate in those 435 Congressional districts around the U.S. They are Us. Your vote (or non-vote) can have dire consequences. WE are totally responsible for the mess in Washington.
Note, (and consider printing out), the single sheet that shows the general composition of the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate and Presidency since 1977. It is here: Congress 1977-2011001 I prepared this sheet for my own information in April, 2009, (with update for 2011-13 today) less than three months after President Obama was inaugurated. I prepared it because already then, the President was being accused of being a failure as President. The campaign has been incessant since then.
The e-mail from which the above quote has been extracted follows in total, with my additional comments bold-faced and in [brackets]. Most of what Reese writes about I, as a liberal, could easily agree with, regardless of what party is in power.
Minor word changes that do not seem to reflect Reese’s meaning are not noted here.
The analysis of the e-mail, at least the portion supposedly written by Charley Reese can be found here.
THE SUPPOSED CHARLEY REESE COMMENTS
“Be sure to read the Tax List at the end” [not included, as it has nothing to do with Charlie Reese]
This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat [agree]. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. Its a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering! [No idea who wrote this preamble, typical of such forwards]
545 vs. 300,000,000 People
by Charlie Reese
[Much of the column printed below is word-for-word from a 1985 version which did not appear in the Orlando Sentinel. There was a similar column in the 1995 Orlando Sentinel, but with differing wording. Reese did write both. In 1985 the Congress was Democrat and the President Republican. In 1995 and again in 2011, the Congress was Republican and the President Democrat.]

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
[In his 1995 version, Reese said this, which was left out of the 2011 forward: I exclude the vice president because constitutionally he has no power except to preside over the Senate and to vote only in the case of a tie.] I excluded [excused]the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913 Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
[in 1985 version but not in 2011: Don’t you see the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? ] Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. [In the forward, but not in 1985 column: Who is the speaker of the House now? He is the leader of the majority party. he and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.]
[ditto It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 who stand convicted — by resent facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.]
[ditto If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.]
[ditto If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.]
[ditto If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan…]
[ditto If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.]
[ditto There are no insoluble government problems.]
[ditto Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.]
Those 545 people, and they alone are responsible.
[in 2011, not in 1985:They, and they alone, have the power.]
They and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided they have the gumptin to manage their own employees…
[in 2011, not in 1985: We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!]
The rest of the 2011 forward, fully half of the document, has nothing at all to do with the real or alleged Charley Reese column so is not reprinted here.

#418 – Dick Bernard: Watching President Obama

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Related posts here and here.
Monday I hoped to see Air Force One approach and land at Twin Cities International Airport. I got a late start, and missed any opportunity I may have had.
About 11:30 I went by the airport enroute to visit a friend of mine in a Twin Cities Nursing Home. When I got to Greg’s room, he was watching the President in Cannon Falls MN, and he and I watched the hour together. It was a special time.

President Obama at Cannon Falls MN August 15, 2011, thanks to Nancy Adams


Greg and I watched as the President talked about “Obamacare” (a term the President said he’s proud to own), and dealt effectively with the recent news that an Appeals Court had ruled that a federal requirement for people to pay for insurance they don’t want violates individual constitutional rights.
Greg may have had something to say about that topic, though we didn’t talk about it.
Greg and I volunteer together, so I don’t see him that often. I knew he’d been ill, but I thought he was getting better. He’s five years younger than I.
At church on Sunday I asked Greg’s son how his Dad was doing, and it was then I learned he was in the Nursing Home. It was a shock.
It turned out that Greg had been hospitalized with a treatable illness in May, and one thing led to another, and another, and another. Three months he’d been out of commission, and when I was visiting with him, he was again beginning to feel better, though he’d been bedridden so long that walking was a problem. He’d probably not return to be an usher captain – the position in which I knew him.
He and I didn’t need to talk about ‘opt out’ of mandatory medical insurance. We didn’t have to. He was living the reality that escapes others who think they can plan their illnesses.
As it happened, the last few days I’ve been surrounded by other random acts of disaster: Two days before the President arrived, my sister, properly crossing a street in New York City, was hit by a car which backed into her (it is an odd story). As I write, she’s awaiting surgery in a New York City hospital and in the long run should be okay.
Monday, a friend wrote about his wife, not yet 50, who ended up in emergency intensive care in a Rochester MN hospital due to kidney failure. She didn’t plan that.
And last night came a call from my Uncle that his 91 year old sister, my Aunt, had fallen in their apartment and had an emergency trip by ambulance to a rural North Dakota hospital. Luckily, she only cracked her collar bone. It could have been much worse.
So it goes when you’re in a position like the President of the United States (who I feel is doing an outstanding job under incredible obstacles).
Whether left or right, every opinion seems to be non-negotiable, and often completely opposite.
The House of Representatives (more on them in tomorrows post) is the only government entity that can provide funding to help increase employment, but will do nothing that can be perceived as a victory for the President.
People, including those who voted for him, seem to think their vote gave them the ability to order him around to their point of view.
It is “we, the people” who will make or break this country of ours.
I am not very optimistic that we have the vision and the ability to work together for positive change.
UPDATE August 21: A good friend commented on this yesterday. Comments and response included with his permission.
David Harris: Thanks for your continuing contributions, I enjoyed the recent blogs, even though I disagree that Obama is doing an outstanding job. I think it’s past time that he stopped compromising. I’m hoping he will have something of an epiphany on the fundamental nature of jobs and housing rather than attempting to boost the economy indirectly via programs that support banks and large corporations. I hope his actions are not based on concerns about being reelected. A lot of people pinned their hopes on him, and he is letting them down. In no way am I attempting to blame him for the incredibly obstructionist and short sighted actions of the Republicans, but I think he has been too focused on “top down” changes. Also, I’m very disappointed in his continued support of war as an instrument of policy.
Dick, in response: I doubt you and I will ever reach consensus on this, but here’s my position.
I think Obama has faced huge obstacles that few of us really appreciate. He needs to govern from the center, all the while beating off, in some fashion or other, the jackals that pass for the Republicans in Congress and Senate and State Houses. The politics is worse than I have ever experienced in my life, and I think he needs to be given a great deal of credit for accomplishing the great amount that he has.

#417 – Dick Bernard: Watching Elvis

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A timeout, away from the serious issues of the day.
This morning, President Obama comes to Minnesota for the start of a three day swing through mid-state America. He’ll touch down a few miles from where I type this post. Odds are he’ll be ending his swing at the Iowa park where we had a family reunion several weeks ago. My thoughts on his visit to our area later this week.
But first, a brief look back at another time in history.
Elvis Presley died in Memphis TN on August 16, 1977. He was 42. I was living in Anoka MN at the time, and the death of Elvis is one of those events imprinted on my memory. I was not an Elvis follower, but I liked his music, and still do. His death was a shock.
Four months later, my son and I, and my sister and her family, made a Christmas trip to visit my parents in south Texas. Our itinerary included Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans and, yes, a stop by Elvis’ Graceland at Memphis. We didn’t go in the already iconic grounds, but I took a snapshot ‘for the ages’. (Click to enlarge) It’s the only time I’ve been there.

Elvis Presley's Graceland, Memphis TN, December, 1977


Elvis was a ‘kid’ when he died – most of us know the story, and if we don’t it’s easy to find out. But for many of us he is a marker of the Baby Boom generation.
I got to thinking of him, recently, when we were at MNs Breezy Point Resort and watched one of the annual appearances of Chris Olson – “Elvis” – lakeside at Pelican Lake. Chris Olson does one great show, and for a couple of hours we were in the presence of Elvis Presley.

Chris Olson as Elvis Presley July 23, 2011


Elvis first attracted attention with this Edwin Howard column in the July 28, 1954 Memphis Press Scimitar. Elvis’ first recording, and many Elvis tunes, can easily be accessed at YouTube.
Elvis’ hit the national stage, and caught my attention, in 1956 when I was a Sophomore in high school in rural North Dakota. His hit was “Heartbreak Hotel”, which I most likely heard over a Fargo radio station.
In college I was a movie theater doorman and assistant manager (all-around flunky!) at the Omwick Theatre in Valley City ND. I was there during the run of two of his movies, GI Blues, and Blue Hawaii. He was an attraction.
I was surprised when Chris Olson announced that Elvis received only three Grammy’s in his performing life, and all were for gospel songs.
Watching Elvis at Breezy Point, we got in conversation with a nearby couple. The lady said she was 11 years old when she saw Elvis live in concert in St. Paul MN. It was one of the high points of her life, she said.
Back home, I looked up an account of that concert in St. Paul. It was just a few months before Elvis died at Graceland, and in a way it was a prophetic report of Elvis sad end. I’d guess the lady would be surprised at the review of that show she saw.
In our December, 1977, visit to Graceland (we didn’t get in the line, and go on the grounds to see the house itself), there is one photo I now wish I had taken.
It was of a trailer house type structure across the street from the entry where you could already purchase souvenirs of Elvis. We didn’t go in that trailer, either.
Thanks for the memories, Chris Olson.
You did a great show!

July 23, 2011


July 23, 2011

#416 – Dick Bernard: The Downside of Belief.

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune accompanied us enroute to our vacation on July 23. The front page headline said it all, “TERROR IN NORWAY“, recounting the heinous attack by a lone Norwegian which included over 90 deaths, mostly young people at a youth camp and in Oslo itself. I had read the entire article early that morning, and on page A4, in a sidebar, was a note that “A Twitter account for [the killer] also surfaced, with just one post from July 17, which was a quote from philosopher John Stuart Mill: “One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests.”
The gunman survived, and seemed rather proud of his accomplishment – often that is how an eruption of anger feels: “they got what they deserved”. He now has a lifetime, short or long, to consider the wisdom of his actions. Thankfully, most likely his role modelling will not encourage others.
Thankfully, the Norwegian responses, officially, and through the public, seems not to be to exact revenge and thus compound the problem.
I bring this incident up as we are a society that has become more and more prone to substitute a dangerous combination of belief and supposedly righteous anger for reason.
“I don’t believe that human behavior has anything to do with climate change”; “I don’t believe that our country is collapsing due to our own actions, personal and collective”….
“I just believe [whatever it is]. I don’t want to hear any other view.”
Of course, there are pesky things called “facts” which sooner or later come calling, interfering with those beliefs of ours:
The credit card gets maxed out and the clerk says “sorry”; after a lifetime of smoking, that pesky cough turns into something far worse; the job we thought we’d have as long as we wanted it disappears….
That law we didn’t think we’d need, and got rid of, becomes personally very important…after its been repealed.
The government itself, which represents stability, is cast as the enemy of the people, because government is bad, or so we’re convinced to believe.
We forget that that awful U.S. Congress that we all hate, or our State Legislature, is really a creature of our own making. We forget to consider that not one single one of those Congressmen or women would be in office were it not for our vote, whether informed, uninformed or not voting at all….
They are, in fact, representatives of us, individually and collectively.
We are, it seems, a bunch of people who have trouble thinking beyond the immediate; and we are notoriously unwilling to be accountable for our cause in the matter of the huge problems we have brought upon ourselves over the past years. We’d like to have the fantasy that what is bad will be fixed, and we don’t need to exert any effort or make any sacrifices to do the fixing.
The guy in Norway bought the argument that the enemy was “them” – people who weren’t Norwegian – and went on a killing spree where all of the victims, to the best of my knowledge, were his fellow countrymen. Rather than solving his fantasy problem, he simply damaged his own people.
Like our ‘armed and dangerous’ society, he felt he was a law unto himself.
The Norwegian (who purposely remains nameless in this post) may well be one of those isolated nut-cases that do these heinous things, but he and others like him are just visible indicators of our lack of a greater and longer term vision, and our own inhumanity towards each other.
Just a thought.

#415 – Dick Bernard: The danger of an eccentric society.

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This morning two friends of mine were talking about why present day automobiles last so much longer and run so much better than those in earlier days.
There are many reasons, of course, but a primary one these two engineer-type folks identified was the present day near-perfect engineering of bearings used to keep automobile moving parts from wearing out. Older bearings might have appeared perfect to the untrained eye, but they had imperfections of various kinds that caused them to wear, and thus cause problems more quickly. A bearing even a tiny bit out of perfect balance or dimension is more likely to have problems. Most of the imperfections have been engineered out of today’s bearings.
During the day I kept thinking of that conversation about bearings, and how it applied to this eccentric (out of centric, unbalanced) nation of ours.
We have lost our bearings, to borrow the word for another purpose.
When one faction of a diverse society deems its philosophy to be the only acceptable philosophy, and tries in various ways to dominate and control the actions of all, the society goes out of balance, much like an unbalanced tub of a washing machine. The system begins to wear. The more unbalanced it becomes, the more likely it will be to crash and become completely dysfunctional, damaging not only the losers, but the winners as well.
Systems of all kinds need balance to survive and to thrive. History is full of examples, especially in the natural world. These are apparently easy to ignore if one thinks that they have found the perfect formula for taking control.
Down in Ames, Iowa, today, a bunch of Republican candidates for the U.S. Presidential nomination are engaged in a beauty contest, hoping to stay in the running for their party’s nomination, later. There is no perceptible balance there, of any kind. Each is trying to outdo the other as the premier conservative, far to the right of center. There are no moderates in the running in Ames. And probably the most conservative of all is not even there, hoping to gain strategic advantage over the others in months to come.
In the recent debate in Ames, every one of the candidates came down against even a 10:1 balance in spending cuts versus revenue increases in balancing the federal budget. Of course, they may have raised their hands only to go along with the rest of the herd, But it is their view, apparently, that no compromise is acceptable to Republican supporters. That it is “my way or no way”. This seems a guiding party narrative.
Ideologically pure positions such as the one just described are wildly out of balance, wildly eccentric, whether or not one has the votes to temporarily prevail.
Eccentric bearings ultimately wear out with mild to severe consequences.
So do washing machines whose load is constantly out of balance.
So do unbalanced countries where one side says, because they have a governing majority, or possess more of a particular kind of power*, “we can tell the rest of you what to do”.
“Majority rules” has its place, but not as currently practiced in the reigning arch-conservative and very radical wing of the Republican party in the United States.
We are a dreadfully unbalanced country at this point in our history, and we have been unbalanced for too many years.
We are paying a heavy price, and we are careening towards breakdown.
Will we stop the train before a bearing breaks and causes a fatal accident?
It’s up to us.
* – see the end of this link for a definition of some different kinds of “power”

#414 – Dick Bernard: the film, Tree of Life

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After a couple of recommendations, and some procrastination, we went to the new film “Tree of Life” this afternoon at the Lagoon Theatre in Minneapolis.
There are more than ample numbers of reviews of this film (click on the above links for Tree of Life for some of these reviews).
Personally, I would say this: if you are not interested in personally reflecting on what your life means or has meant or will mean, you will not want to attend this film.
If our personal experiences were any judge, the main character in the film will be yourself….
Whether male or female, give yourself a gift and take the time to see this film (it’s 2 1/2 hours).
Popcorn is an unnecessary distraction.
After the film, I asked how long it will be at the Lagoon. The ticket seller said “at least through August 18, and perhaps longer”.