Dick Bernard: The Eighth Day

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Other related posts here.
from Fred: This Dutch film about The Donald is hilarious. Check it out. You need to have a Facebook account to open it. It is subtitled in English.
And this, via Joyce, is on a more serious side.
*
Friday was the eighth day of the new administration in Washington. The biblical seven days of creation come to mind…which literalists believe were 24 hours each; while the overwhelming majority, including my own Catholic Church, have long ago accepted reason and science over belief in the literal words of Genesis.
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Sign in Rochester MN Nov. 3, 2016


If you watch the news, you’ve gotten an eye, and ear, full this first week. It has been a bit like being struck by a tornado. You know you’ve been hit, and you’ll be seeing lots of damage, but you need to figure out what needs to be done, first.
The new god is in the white house, and has spent the week smiting those of us who didn’t come around to proper thinking. We’re losers, we lost. Get over it. But he doesn’t look very chipper…there is a certain lack of confidence and enthusiasm which shows, already. And it’s just the start of a four year sentence at hard labor.
Being President isn’t easy.
Rogues in the people’s government who might deviate from the official company line are being silenced (there will be lots of favorites, here’s one that just surfaced). Whole classes of people – and countries – are being singled out to be watched and and their immigrants excluded. But it’s not easy to manage 325,000,000 people, much less 7 billion.
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that we’re basically good, decent people: Spectator001
For the time being, “alternative facts” (and media) have become ascendant. The traditional media has become the enemy, and is spending its time trying to decide how best to deal with this. When a national administration adopts as “fact” what we used to see as humorous satire like the “newspaper” the Onion provided, and boatloads of people believe the fiction, society itself is at risk.
Yesterday we subscribed for the first time ever to the New York Times on-line. It is an investment, not a cost.
We have long subscribed to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, whose editorial policy for the last number of years has become what I would characterize as moderate right.
It is the newspaper delivered to our door every day, and will continue to be so. I used to be published there once in awhile in columns, or letters, sometimes letter of the day, but it has seemed foolish to even submit opinions there any more. I don’t fit their formula.
Granted, large, even small, newspapers have to be selective – they can’t publish everything. But if you watch them over time, through changes in ownership, as I have, they lean like trees in a wind though, unlike trees, they can pick which “wind” direction they prefer.
I can’t say for sure exactly how large a constituency this new bunch which has temporarily taken control of our country really represents.
Mostly, it would appear that one out of four of those who actually voted on Nov. 8 are the relatively hard core “base”, and most of them resonated to one or more of the over-the-top themes of the new rulers campaign rhetoric.
This new guy would slay abortion; he has decreed that not one single terrorist will cross our borders (apparently we have plenty of our own bad people in our own country, in our own white Christian skins.)
Henceforth the world, it seems, must become second fiddle to our own even more exceptional country. We will build that wall, and the Mexicans will pay…. And on and on and on.
Climate Change…? Belief trumps facts, it seems. Fossil Fuels? When will we learn?
Be watchful and very, very wary.
If my reading of the data is even close to correct, three of four of us are not on the same page as the new ruler and his minions, and the single person who admired his every promise is not very vocal (and is unsure about the wisdom of his or her vote).
Most of his followers voted for him because of his promise on their one single issue, or because they believed the false narrative about his opponent, and very few are in solidarity with him on every promise that he made to them in his blitzkrieg to the white house.
We can’t be silent, now, in our own ways, and in our own places.
The solution is every one of us, daily, in some way outside of our comfort zones. What we do matters, and it doesn’t have to be dramatic.
For me, ending this day, I suggest rereading WWII German Rev. Martin Niemoeller who after the war often said, in sometimes different specific ways:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
COMMENTS:
from Bob: Dick, thanks for writing and sharing your perspective. You are fresh air in this newly polluted country. Keep me on your mailing list.
I wish the media would be more to the point on some issues. Trump wants to “build a wall”. But in fact he is merely finishing a wall, started by Bush, 700 miles of it done, and parts done more than once. And no matter what the cost or who pays for it, it is as much a waste of money as any bomb dropped anywhere. It does not touch on the root causes for wanting a wall, it does not advance humanity, it speaks loudly of hate instead of friendship and cooperation amongst cultures.
And as for a trade deficit, that is not Mexico’s doing. It is the greed of Americans who are wealthy enough, or who easily borrow money so they can “own” three cars, four TV’s, cell phones, iPads, drink too much expensive liquor, and cry foul when the price of milk goes up 10 cents a gallon. Check out today’s Strib editorial by a reader explaining who is responsible for the trade deficit with Mexico.
from Sandy: [We are] headed for Mexcio Zijuatenjeo here for two weeks and I hope we can get back in the country because perhaps the wall will be built while we are gone (what an idiot he is and my dad would be so upset right now with Donald Trump in office.)
from Paul: Thanks, Dick. I especially appreciated the Spectator article. It gives me hope.

Barbara Gilbertson: "It was an amazing experience, the [Women's] March [on Washington, Jan. 21]".

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NOTE: Barbara, of the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis-St. Paul, is one of the two people I know who actually participated in the Women’s March Jan. 21, 2016. Barbara writes in response to my blog of January 24, 2016. In response to my request to reprint her response as a stand-alone post on my blog, she included this comment: “Funny about Moana. It’s the only Oscar nominee film we’ve seen this year. Loved it!”
Barbara Gilbertson:
It was an amazing experience, the March. Turned out I went to D.C. Bold choice for someone who doesn’t much like long bus rides, crowds, and some days even more than one person at a time.
I threw together a commentary for the Strib {Minneapolis Star Tribune]. It was weak sauce, and I don’t expect to see it published. but it helped me gather my thoughts. In much the same way as dissecting a movie after you’ve seen it before you go to the movie reviews to see whether you liked it.
The March was inclusive by every definition.
The March gave me experiential learning about intersectional feminism.
The March gave me a new framework for intersectionalism that extends beyond any given individual.
We had a boatload of intersectionalism at work in Washington, D.C.
I didn’t know anything but the diversity had crossed my radar until I got home.
The last two hours on our bus (#3, and named to honor Patty Wetterling) turned out to be the foundation for my 36-hour experience with the March and the Marchers. In the crowded confines of that bus, random access to a microphone (voluntary — some chose not to speak, but very few) emboldened those whose stories we had never heard to speak. Actually, more like summaries/overviews than stories. With deep dips to the core of the speaker. Powerful and often painful sharing. Knocked my big, knitted socks off. In fact, I suspect socks were flying all over the bus.
At age 74, I was the oldest woman on board. The youngest was 17. We were white, black, Asian, Hispanic. Male, female. Sexuality diverse. Experienced politically alongside neophytes. Extroverts and introverts. Telling true stuff about ourselves in the context of the March and the immediate aftermath…what we’d expected, what we got, what we thought we’d gotten but needed to digest. Some anger, some despair, buckets of tears and enough shared information to ramp everyone up at least one notch on the empathy scale.
Everywhere, all weekend long, The Big Question: What next? It was never answered to anyone’s satisfaction. Because no one knew/knows, exactly. But we started up a FB [Facebook] bus group (within three minutes of its being suggested…those college students are techie whizzes). We have been sharing extensively ever since we got home. The MN “chapter” of Women’s March on Washington is active. The national group is active as well. There are calendars of “do this today” ideas. There are hot issues surfacing almost hourly. With Trump in the Oval, how could it be otherwise?!
This is by no means an exclusive endeavor. Neither was the March. It was totally inclusive and, as it turned out, totally safe. Nothing bad happened. And it didn’t take long to know during the March/rally that someone always had your back, wherever you were, whatever you were doing. Not in a cosmically holy way, but in a very human being way. Small children. Babies. Moms and dads. Singles. Groups.
It’s only been 48 hours since this eagle landed. So frankly, I don’t pretend to know the answer to “What next?” But I’m absolutely confident there will be a “next.” Maybe a March. Maybe something different. The Blitzkrieg HQ’d in the Oval is intended to be upsetting and off-putting. And it’s working quite well. But what got started in DC (and St Paul, and Chicago, and LA, and Kenya, and little towns all around our country and the world) is not going away. It’s bigger and stronger than a hot, one-time idea.
I’ll keep you posted. But likely you and your compadres won’t be sitting around waiting for invitations or permission or, or, or to rise to this national crisis. So cross-posting seems like a marvelous idea, don’t you think?
POSTNOTE FROM DICK:: Check back in a few days to this or any blogpost at this site. Quite frequently, people submit comments which are both thoughtful and interesting. This blog is published usually about two to three times per week, on various topics. Guest submissions, like Barbara’s, are welcome. The main criteria are that they be constructive and respectful. Dick Bernard

Dick Bernard: The Women's March, en avant!*

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In my post on inauguration day Jan. 20, I said we planned to go to the Women’s March in St. Paul last Saturday. I’m getting over a cold, and the day was drizzly, and common sense prevailed: we took one of my daughters and two granddaughters to a movie, Moana, whose heroes (heroines? sheroes?) are a little girl and her grandmother. The kids suggested it. It was a great use of time. Put it on your list of films to see.
You need to be a hermit in a remote cave somewhere to not know what happened on Saturday, not only in Washington. The Women’s March link (above) makes suggestions for keeping Saturday alive past this week.
A number of people in my own network noted that they or someone they knew were at marches in places like Billings, Portland, Madison and on and on. Young women were especially well represented. We were sitting at a church gathering on Sunday and a retired woman we know said that my blogpost on Friday inspired her to go to the march in St. Paul.
A coffee friend, a male, noted the immense size of the St. Paul march in which he was a participant. There were so many marchers that it literally came to a standstill.
The event was worldwide.
Campaigns come and go. Like diets, successful campaigns take lots of determination and effort and stamina.
I hope Saturdays marches endure and, indeed, intensify. Again, the ideas are here. There are other activist suggestions, more broad based. You can access them here.
This single person, me, wonders where I fit into this conversation, ongoing.
Actually, another event yesterday helped bring some clarity. Some men in an oval office set about to slay the abortion dragon in a signing at the White House.
It caused me to think back to a years ago personal experience in 1965. You can read it here. They should put themselves in Barbara and my shoes, as we lived it at the time.
The White House edict will probably increase abortions rather than reduce them worldwide. So goes the ‘right to life’.
It is easy to pontificate about big issues, pretending that personal realities can be ignored through edicts issued by church and state. It is one thing to suggest ideals; another thing entirely to require them, under penalty of law.
There is need for a dialogue, not command.
I wonder what will happen. I plan to stay engaged, even if I couldn’t be at that march on Saturday.
* En Avant. Forward. Among other uses, the motto of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Related post Jan. 25, here.

Friday, January 20, 2017. Some Thoughts Towards A Better World

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Related posts: January 6, 10, 13, 24, 25, 28, Feb. 3, 9.
Today, an event is happening at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.
Some thoughts.
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(click to enlarge photos)

Participants at Third Thursday divided into small groups to take a quick look at one of the three treaties under discussion. This is one of the groups.


Last night I was at a meeting of 27 people, sponsored by Citizens for Global Solutions MN. I’m VP of the group, so I know the back story of this “Third Thursday” progam. The program was recommended before the Nov. 8 election; it turned out to be a very interesting discussion around three important United Nations documents: “The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women”; “The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child”; “UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities”. (the links cited are very lengthy point of source documents. We worked from summary documents provided by the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center. See photo below).

At such conversations, you rapidly learn about how complex seemingly simple things are; and in two hours we could barely scratch the surface.
After the meeting, I gave Dr. Joe Schwartzberg a ride home. We debriefed the evening, and the implications of what is ahead. Joe is an International Emeritus Professor at the University of Minnesota, and an acknowledged expert of the United Nations System. His recent book, “Transforming the United Nations System. Designs for a Workable World“, would, in itself, occupy several weeks of discussion in a book club setting. I know, I participated in such a group a couple of years ago.
Such is how it went for me the night before todays inauguration.
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We are a nation of very good people, generally. Look around you. Most recently, this fact was brought home to me in the January, 2017 issue of the Washington Spectator, a small publication to which I have long subscribed. You can read it here: Spectator001. We also live in a world chock-full of very good people. People in my group wonder what we can do now and later. Here is a guide. I’d suggest passing these along, and printing both out for future reference.
*
So, what to do today, being among the category of citizens some would call “losers”; and taunt “get over it”?
I looked on my always messy home office desk Wednesday night to see if there was something there which demonstrated my feelings at this point in our history. I found two items:
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Nobel Peace Prize Forum, Bloomington MN 2016, and button, Liberty and Justice for All, acquired at some time in the past.


Perhaps today would be a good day to relisten to one of the speeches given by Kailash Sadyarthi at last June’s Nobel Peace Prize Forum. You can access it here. You will note there are four separate talks available, including his keynote, plus other powerful talks from the same Forum. (Information about the 2017 Forum is here. They are always outstanding. If you can, attend.)
What will be today, will be. President Obama leaves office with a 62% approval rating; his successor enters with a 32% approval rating.
The first official acts by the new President will likely be as advertised: to begin the attempt to dismantle the Obama legacy: “Obamacare”, and on and on. It makes little sense, but what do I know?
I don’t know anyone who is going to DC for the inauguration.
I know two people, both women, one from Minnesota, one from New Mexico, who are going to Saturday’s Womans March. One, a grandmother, will be accompanied by her adult granddaughter. “Leaving early Friday morning for DC. On a bus. Turning around after the March/rally, and heading back home. My adult granddaughter is going with me, along with some friends. Gonna be wild and crazy heading east. Heading home, I expect lots of sleepy people. Me, for one.”
While I have soured a bit on the effectiveness of protests, we plan to join the St. Paul MN link – 10 a.m. at St. Paul College.
Those of us of the peace and justice persuasion possess an opportunity now. It is also a challenge. Too many of us have sat back and pretended that someone else would carry our message for us; and complained if it wasn’t carried exactly or as far as we had wished.
The ball is in our court now, in every place that we live, and in every group that we are a part of.
*
This is our country, too. And we are very big assets to this country’s quality of life. Let’s be witness to that.
I look around and without trying very hard I see hope. Two of many additional examples, just within the last day or so:
1. Tuesday came a long message from a young friend, Walid, who has set a course to make a difference. In part he said: “I really think hope is stronger than fear. There are a million reasons to justify killing, hate and crimes. As a refugee I tell you that I will have a better and more passionate crowd if I go out there and say I’m going to the middle east to fight, there are less passionate and more nay sayers when you say I’m going to the middle east to work for peace. Peace sounds too naive till it actually happens. The results of peace are far stronger than the results of hate. The process of creating peace is way harder and more complicated than the process of generating hate and wars.”
(NOTE: I have personally noted, too often, that even the peace and justice community seems sometimes to revel more in conflict than in seeking resolution, which requires compromise. It is something we need to own ourselves.)
2. Yesterday morning, my friend George, a retired teacher, among many accomplishments, stopped by the coffee shop and asked if he could have a couple of minutes. He made a proposal, too lengthy for this blog, but essentially described here*. He’s donated $500, I’ve put in $50…because he asked. And I’ve sent his proposal to 15 people who I thought would be particularly interested in it.
Succinctly, he learned of this project by a simple Facebook search to see if anyone was around who he remembered from an early teaching experience 48 years ago. He happened across this project, coordinated by one of his former students, who, like him, was also a former Peace Corps Volunteer.
That’s as simple as it gets, and we all are in proximity to similar opportunities frequently. We are all in many network.
There is lots of work to be done, and we can do it one small bit at a time.
* – A little more about the proposal. Ten kids need to raise $30,000. They are from the Greenway School district, which is, according to George, a series of tiny communities between Grand Rapids and Hibbing MN on the Minnesota Mesabi Iron Range. Their communities include such places as Taconite, Marble, Calumet, Pengilly, Trout Lake Township, Iron Range Township, Greenway Township, Lawrence Lake Township and Nashwauk Township. More than 53% of the 1,000 students in pre-K to 12th grade qualify for free or reduced lunch.
POSTNOTE:
I dropped Joe off at his home. We said good night. He waved good night; upstairs I saw his partner, Louise, wave as well. Great folks, great friends.
Back home, an e-mail came from Arthur Kanegis concerning his now complete film, “The World Is My Country” about “World Citizen #1”, Garry Davis. This is a film that everyone who cares about making a difference should watch for and promote. The website is here.
For those interested about todays center-of-attention:
1. 1999 Thoughts from conservative icon William F. Buckley, as reported in Red State.
2. Just Above Sunset for Jan. 19, 2017. Always a good summary of current events.
SATURDAY, JAN. 21Just Above Sunset summarizes comments on inauguration day.
COMMENTS:
from Kathy: Today I am caught between appreciating the “peaceful transfer of power” mentality, which I appreciate and respect and the urgent need to push back, speak out, etc. weird day…so sorry to see grace and wisdom lift off in the helicopter.
from Robert: Thanks for sending “my thoughts on inauguration day” and related thought-provoking items. You should have been a prof at UM leading philosophical seminars, etc., as you excel at such. America will survive Trump and cronies but will be damaged in many ways, large and small, as will the world. 2020 can’t come soon enough.
Best wishes for a winter filled with discussion with passion.
from Richard: Thanks for sharing. I agree with you 100, maybe even 110 %. I think, unfortunately, you and I, and many other geezers, dreamers, of our age and history, simply don’t get it. We completely misunderstand the modern world, the connectivity, the lack of interest in “facts”, or “truth”, and the fascination with entertainment, action, the fight, and the inability or interest in processing words.
Make your argument to me on pinterest, or youtube. If not, you are simply meaningless. [Some years ago, my teachers union] sent me to Yemen, with [a colleague], and then to Egypt. I was happy to survive, and after looking at classrooms of 160 kids in [a large Middle Eastern city], that don’t even exist anymore, I was never more humbled, and still feel that way. Our issues are small blips on the radar screen. Glad to know you are well, and still busy in retirement. I admire the commitment! Keep at it, but recreational travel is also a good idea.
Response from Dick: Great to hear from you, a “voice from the past”!
I do “have a life” beyond the blog, etc., and I understand completely your frustration about communicating across the generation and informed citizen gap, and today’s fascination with (really) nothingness as opposed to substance. Indeed, we came from a time in the relatively recent past where informed citizens and idealism seemed to be more acceptable than now (at least from the public information/disinformation frame). I have one former friend who keeps me well stocked with disinformation. I don’t block him, only so that I can see the subject lines – what the alt right is spreading via YouTube, etc. Horrible stuff.
Folks who know me well, now, would probably agree that I remain in the struggle and a main objective is to get young people (like we were, once) very actively engaged in their own future. After all, it is THEIR future.
There are lots of Walid’s out there. We just have to get them engaged, and get out of their way! (I am reminded of a retired Pastor friend, Verlyn S., who in the 1960s found himself as a minister to/with college students in varied college and university settings. This was in the turbulent years of Vietnam, etc.
Late in his life (he died a number of years ago), he received a distinguished achievement award, and I was in the audience when he gave his brief remarks. He said something I’ve never forgot, though I can only paraphrase from my memory: back in his young Pastor days, he wasn’t protest oriented, though he was a supportive pastor to the students of his faith. He said, from his recollection, that back then, like now, the vast majority of the students were mostly about the business of surviving college – just like today. Perhaps two percent (2%), he estimated, were activists, the protestors of the day. He said this to an audience who was getting discouraged. It didn’t then, and doesn’t now, take 100% to make a difference. As Margaret Mead so famously said years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”
From Christina, to her kids: I like Keillor’s thoughts on religion [link here]. I have shed more tears during this transition period than I want to even admit. I cried when Obama gave his farewell speech, I cried when he had the farewell ceremony for Joe Biden. I cried at the inauguration listening to Trump say things will now be different. It won’t be just talk but no action, thinking of all the things Obama has done. How Trump was able to walk into a much better place than what Obama walked into when he was inaugurated. I cried when the Obama’s left on the helicopter for Andrew’s air base. I cried when I saw the group that met them when they got there. I pray that God will Bless him for all he has done and I thank God that He Blessed us with 8 years of of his presidency.
from Emmett: On the plane ride home from Palm Desert, I was reading through information on the seven deadly sins that I had collected to support the notion that humans are a very unique life form when it comes to morality. Few of any of those sins relate to any other life form on earth. In any event, as I was reading through the material, the thought that was running through my head was: How can the people that support Trump and the GOP leadership consider themselves as religious conservatives? They represent the worst of humanity. We have Paul Ryan wanting to take away health care and funding for the needy. And then there is Mitch McConnell whose actions indicate a complete void in principles. And then Trump himself. I was visiting with a doctor from the VA this morning and he was telling me about an interview of Trump and his daughter. The daughter was asked what she and her father had in common and answered “Real Estate and Gold”. When asked the same question, his response was “Sex”. I had not seen that interview, but had seen one where he was talking about one of his granddaughters and commented something about hoping she will have nice breasts. They talk about draining the swamp, which they may eventually do, but first they have to collect enough scum from the swamp to fill those 3,000 to 4,000 government jobs to complete his administration. And when I was watching the Walid Issa film, I was thinking the same thing about Netanyahu as being as scummy as Trump.

August Wilson's "Fences"

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Sunday night we went to the Denzel Washington film interpreting August Wilson’s play “Fences”. The film is very powerful. Here is detail of showing places and times for your area.
Fences is one of ten August Wilson plays, representing the African-American experience in each of the ten decades of the 20th century. The play, like the film, largely takes place in the tiny back yard of a tiny apartment in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. One would presume the general setting is similar to where August Wilson grew up, at 1727 Bedford. The cast for Fences is all-star, and it would not surprise if the film is a candidate for one or more academy awards.
More about Fences, Wilson and his career can be read here.
It was serendipity that got me acquainted with August Wilson, and then his sister, and later his niece, Kimberley.
(click on photos to enlarge)

1727 Bedford, Pittsburgh PA, April, 1998


The photo above shows August Wilson’s boyhood home in 1998. The door can be seen in white at the rear of the building. Looking west, down the hill, the Pittsburgh downtown skyscrapers can be seen.
I took this and other photos on a rainy day.
My daughter Joni, and I, had the immense good fortune of getting the tour of August Wilson’s neighborhood with his sister, Freda.
Back in the late 1980s while living in Hibbing Minnesota I got a piece of junk mail from a new theatre in St. Paul, the Penumbra. Life then required many trips to St. Paul for meetings, and on one trip I went to some unremembered play at the theatre, and I liked it. In 1990, I attended Fences at the Penumbra. Penumbra was a small intimate theatre, and we were all near the stage. I remember this play, and it was powerful.
Along the way, I think I’ve seen all of Wilson’s ten plays (“The Pittsburgh Cycle”) at one time or another, almost all of them at the Penumbra.
It was awhile before I connected a few dots, and learned that I had met August Wilson “way back when”, about the time he moved to St. Paul.
It would have been about 1979 or so, and at the time I was volunteering on occasion at Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly, on Lake Street in south Minneapolis. This particular day I was there at the time of lunch, and the person who cooked the meal for us and sat at the same table as I and the others was August Wilson, though, of course, I (or he, for that matter) had no idea of the celebrity he was to become not many years later.
Wilson had taken the job of cook because it interfered least with his passion to write, and his first play was first given a test run and performed during his time there, at the Playwright’s Center not far away on Franklin Avenue. It was “Black Bart and the Sacred Hills”. Some of the then staff at Little Brothers were among those who attended that reading. Black Bart… does not appear in the anthology of his works, but was nonetheless a successful play by him.
I met August Wilson one more time in the late 1990s. It was at a fundraiser of some sort, and my impression of him was that he was not comfortable being there – a quiet man out of his element. A little later I was to attend a conference in Pittsburgh and was introduced to his sister who, in turn, treated my daughter Joni and I to a long and very fascinating tour of his and her Hill District, the setting of most of his plays.
I feel especially honored to have had the opportunity to get to know August Wilson and his world a tiny bit more than most.
I hope you can see Fences.

Daughter Joni and August Wilson’s sister, Freda, at 1717 Bedford, Pittsburgh PA Apr 1998


Freda in kitchen of the apartment at 1727 Bedford, Pittsburgh Apr 98.


Kimberley and Freda at Little Brothers, Minneapolis, Feb. 15, 2011


Dr. Kimberley C. Ellis can be found here; Freda Ellis passed away in Pittsburgh in 2015.
COMMENTS:
from Laura, who knew August in the Little Brothers days: Of course, I saw Fences(movie). I sat next to August on the opening of Fences, the play, at Penumbra. I cried during the movie. August definitely would have approved.
from Thad, who knew August well at Little Brothers: Thank you very much for the link to your blog. In fact, and you won’t believe this, I just saw “Fences” today. The film ended at 7:00 pm and here I am emailing you half an hours later. What a coincidence. Anyway, I was really moved and like you, feel really privileged to have known August for the time he worked at Little Brothers.

#1203: The Time of Donald J. Trump begins one week from today.

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Donald Trump becomes U.S. President on January 20. I’ll recognize that he is President, but in the 14 inaugurations since I turned 21 (then, the voting age), this one will pass me by minimally noticed. I’ve come to know Trump far too well for over a year: from his own mouth and Twitter; I’ve learned about his “base”, from his choice of issues and slogans at his rallies, and from trash e-mails from his most ardent supporters. I have learned about his future direction, from noting who he has selected for his inner circle. I don’t think he can change.
One shouldn’t set aside the shameful way the Republicans (and Trump) dealt with Hillary Clinton for years and years. They were terrified of her. I hope she doesn’t back away. And the same Republicans did everything in their power to damage the legacy of President Obama. In that, they also failed, regardless of what they do to try to slash and burn his accomplishments, like the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).
Following is my opinion, and I emphasize, it is only my opinion. But I don’t think I’m alone.

Germany, 1954


Wednesday, I happened by the television which, at the moment I came by, was the hearing for Rex Tillerson as Trumps Secretary of State designee.
Tillerson has an appropriate high level executive look and bearing, of course. “When he talks, you listen”. He had just received a “softball” question from a Senator along the lines of “how many countries have you visited?” Tillerson wasn’t sure – perhaps about 40, he said. Then he was asked about how people he had met in these countries perceived American foreign policy. He was diplomatic, of course, but the suggestion was that the people he talked to wanted change.
It was an innocuous vignette, but it drew me in. There are about 193 countries in the world, and there are over 7 billion people. Tillerson certainly had talked to some people who had opinions, as have we all, but who were these people, and what would that prove? He has a particular area of expertise. There is not a single decision ever made by any person in high level decision making in government that has not been wrong in some observers mind. It is a reality of the public leadership.
More interesting to me is that Tillerson’s entire working career has been with what is now ExxonMobil, and I recall he was recommended for the job by, among a few others, Richard Cheney, former U.S. vice-president and before that U.S. Government official and Halliburton chief executive.
One might recall that Halliburton did very well during the good old days of the Iraq War. Cheney was a central and crucial part of the team promoting and prosecuting that disastrous war which still involves us.
Behind the easy questions and the unchallenged answers lies much more to the story of not only Tillerson, but every other Trump appointment to his Cabinet. It is a club of, by and for the already rich. The “swamp” is just being refilled.
I went about my other work of the day.
*
About the same time as the Tillerson hearing, the network cut in to the Trump news conference at Trump Tower in New York City. I wasn’t watching that, but later reports spoke for themselves. The media, and the people who watch them, face a real dilemma in these coming long, long weeks and years: Trump is money in the bank for them. He’s a draw, and that is what networks want: viewers, aka generators of advertising revenue.
On the other hand, as evidenced by that first press conference, he is trashing selectively media who are critical of him, broadcasting the label “fake news” – which is red meat for his base. At the same time, he has benefited by “fake news”. It has become hard to discern what to believe….
By now, everybody who pays any attention at all to Trumps routine has to know that the prudent person cannot believe a single word he says, regardless of how fervent he is in declaring its truthfulness; nor how often or loudly he repeats it. Parts of what he says might be true, most likely not. He gives meaning to the phrase “caveat emptor”, “let the buyer beware”. And he is not yet even in office of President.
Serial lying and out and out bullying has served Trump well. And coupled with being a charismatic pitchman, comfortable with the media and a media celebrity elite, about to become the most powerful person in the world, and caring only about himself and his ego, this makes for a potentially lethal combination…for us all.
People best beware of being sucked in. This is not a time to be disconnected.
It will be interesting to see how the media in general deal with the contradictory objectives: making money, and responsible reporting.
*
Speaking only for myself, my specific on going concern is this:
In my fairly long life, I have never seen such a scurrilous, dishonest, down and dirty campaign against a person, as I saw waged against Hillary Clinton. This was waged for years against Hillary Clinton, personally, and in fact continues.
Similarly, a war was declared on President Barack Obama as he became President of the United States, with Republican efforts to block his success. In spite of all of this, the Obama administration was successful. You would never hear such a word from the Republicans.
I see no need to be respectful of those who engage in reprehensible behavior. You expect campaigns to be hard-fought, but not the scorched earth we have experienced for the past many years.
Personally:
1) I have no interest in validating Trumps daily declarations by being part of his audience. Personally, I am sick and tired of the daily dose of Trump, and my limited television viewing, almost all of ‘news’, is decreasing, and I am letting my news anchors of choice know this. I almost never have been surveyed; I have to write a real letter as a real person to another real person. It needs to be done. I have done this in the past. These letters are read.
2) The crucial actors in this continuing circus will be the members of Congress, both Senate and House. It is not enough to be silent. If there are any ways to give witness, such as the pending million women march in your area, go for it, and let your congressperson and senator, and, for that matter, your state legislators and Governor as well. The “nice person” who is your own local congressperson or whatever has a record which deserves scrutiny between now and the next election. He/She most cares about reelection.

Germany 1998


What’s Ahead with an Authoritarian President?
No one knows, of course, what Trump will actually do, which is especially worrisome to those who are “in the know” at the highest levels. No one knows, even the Republican leadership who embraced him, what he might do, or when, or even how. Perhaps he doesn’t know….
I think that recalling Nazi Germany is useful, just as a caution.
First, Americans in general are moderate, nice people. We know that. My most recent issue of the American Spectator (January, 2017) is highly worth the time to read in its entirety: Spectator001.
So were most of the Germans in the awful time after WWI, even in time of desperate poverty. People are people, universally.
My mother was 100% German, both grandfathers migrated from Germany to the U.S. in the 1860s, and I have German cousins who I have visited. A dear friend of mine was 7 years old when Hitler and the Nazis consolidated their power in 1933. She was 18 when the Germans surrendered in 1945, their country in ruins, millions dead and displaced, the dreams of a 1000 year Reich gone after a dozen years.
Beginning in the 1920s, it was Hitler’s aim to “Make [Germany] Great Again”, with all that entailed. In 1933, the Nazis took control of the government. The dream lasted perhaps ten years….
Years ago I got serious about my roots, both German and French. In the process of gathering data from anyone and everyone, a relative in Illinois sent some photos taken by another relative in Iowa who visited the home farm in Germany in 1954.
One of the photos is at the beginning of this blog.
This was nine years after the war, and judging by the other photos, it was obvious from the photos reconstruction had not been completed. This was not the prosperous Germany we see today. The visitor was taken around by horse drawn wagon. (The farm I saw in 1998 was very prosperous.)
The photo is of a shrine in the yard of the ancestral farm house. I asked about it when I visited the cousins in 1998, and I took the followup photo during my visit there (the one immediately above). The statue remains identical to this day, I believe.
I was told that four men of the farm had been drafted into the German Army in WWII, and the statue to the Blessed Virgin was raised as a prayer of sorts for their safety in the conflict.
They all came home, apparently intact and uninjured, but none of them had ever, according to my relative, said anything about their experience. It was a forbidden topic. They had all died, their stories buried with them.
My German friend, Anneliese, had a similar story with a different ending. Her father and mother refused to join the Nazi Party (which benefited those who became members), and he was drafted into the Army, and was last seen about Christmas in 1944. He worked on a road crew as an engineer, I believe, and they think he was killed in Russia, but are not sure, and the search continues for closure.
In effect, he received a death sentence for his resistance to the Nazis.
Can Nazi Germany happen here? These are different times, and as I’ve noted, we are a different society. In answer to my own question, I don’t think so…but never in my wildest imagination could I envision a crude egotistical dishonest billionaire becoming our President, either.
1933 Germans, while just coming out of deep poverty after WWI, were susceptible to the same
messages as 2016 Americans were: anger, resentment, identifiable enemy (in one case the Jews, in another Muslims, illegals….) And the resentment was fanned by a charismatic leader with a great pitch who promised he and they would “Make America [Germany] Great Again”.
There are similarities and differences between 1933 Germany and 2017 America, but the reality is that there is a far closer relationship than we care to revisit.
To start, it took lots of good Germans in the 1930s to get and keep the Nazis in power. In the beginning the Nazis were a nuisance; later, people self-silenced.
In the end, as Martin Niemoeller often said so famously, in sometimes different specific ways:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
The Thousand Year Reich was destroyed. We have the potential of doing the same to ourselves.
The temptation is to pretend that we aren’t vulnerable; or to say in many ways, “there’s nothing I can do anyway”, and then prove the point by doing nothing.
This is our country, and our future, and now is not the time to pretend that all will work out, that Donald Trump will change his stripes, and “Make America Great Again” (as if it isn’t already a great country.)
COMMENTS:
from Leila: I keep waiting for someone to stop this trainwreck.
from Bill: I am committed to a total boycott of all TV on 1/20/17. I will find something else productive to do instead.
from Jan: well stated and we cannot be silent in the days ahead!
from Joni: I shared to my wall with comments. Thank you for once again articulating so clearly and eloquently what my heart and head feel.
from Suzanne: Thank you for the post…..I will be in DC for the women’s march.
from Nancy: So, my question is why are we as a nation being forced to take Drumpf’s punishment? He has shown himself to be unfit for the office and the responsibilities. He shouldn’t be inaugurated.
from Annelee, Jan 15: (Anneliese is referenced above, and is the lady who grew up in Nazi Germany. Her comments are shared with her permission.)
Your blog today gives me and those who read you what was there all the time, but I and some us didn’t see it till now.
I have been thinking about TRUMP—and the more I think, the more he scares me. WHY?
GERMANY 1933 is coming to America—will the people notice?
Why was I so blind????
…Don’t shut [Trump] out, listen to all he says, does— [my] Papa and Uncle Pepp knew [about what was happening in our town in Germany] but most of the time they kept quiet—
…When you say the media?? He uses it so skillfully already: he said, “The media spreads false news, just like it was happening in NAZI Germany.”
People to this day fear Nazi Germany— His supporters surely gobble that up and remember the bad media.
It wasn’t the media that gave the story about Russia knowing negative things about [Trump]; it came from Britain.
Did he correct that he was wrong? Never!
I wish someone could have looked into the papers he had displayed [in envelopes at his news conference which] showed he is giving his business to his sons— I bet they were empty [envelopes].
The similarities of the 1933 promises Hitler made, look the same as what Trump is proposing.
Give the population some good times and then, when you have them convinced that you are the best— you can do what you want.
What frightens me the most is how he already blames and attacks the press. If our press is not free, the non-thinking population is sucked in and set for doom.
NOTE from Dick: I have known Annelee for 14 years, and she has spoke and written extensively about how it was to a young person in a small German town during the time of Hitler. When the Third Reich took root, it was dangerous to talk to the wrong people. Annelee (her name was changed when she came to America in 1947) is completing a third book on her 90 years of life experience in Germany and the U.S. In fact, I met her when I read a review of her first book in 2003. Her website is here.

#1202 – Dick Bernard: President Barack Obama

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POSTNOTE: Here is President Obama’s farewell address.
I remember, this evening, two events:
1. The day I first heard then Sen. Barack Obama speak at Target Center in Minneapolis MN, Feb 2, 2008
(click to enlarge)

Candidate Obama February 2, 2008, Minneapolis MN


Crowd welcoming Barack Obama at
Target Center Minneapolis MN Feb. 2, 2008


2. The day we heard Michelle Obama speak powerfully at Macalester College in St. Paul MN October 13, 2008. I specifically remember the call to the students “cell phones up!” – an organizing technique I did not know about. It was a powerful afternoon.

Michelle Obama at Macalester College St. Paul MN October 13, 2008


Tonight in Chicago President Obama will give his farewell address to the nation. I will watch it in its entirety.
It will speak for itself.
*
After the speech:
I wrote down a single quote near the end of a remarkable speech by the President of the United States: “the most important office in a democracy: citizen”
It is no secret to anyone who knows me: after seeing Barack Obama in Minneapolis in early February, 2008, a few days later, at the precinct caucus at Oak-Land Junior High School in Lake Elmo, I wrote “Hillary Clinton” as my own presidential preference for 2008. I thought she had more experience for the hardest job in the world.
But I was impressed with this U.S. Senator from Illinois.
In my opinion, President Obama under the light of history will go down as one of our greatest and most transformative presidents. He and his family are, and will continue to be, class acts.
Tonight he passed the baton to all of we citizens. The ball is in our court, as it has always been. We get what we choose by our own action…or inaction.
Organizers, which President Obama is, know that change is never easy. There are always bumps in the road. But progress continues so long as people have the courage to witness.

President Obama, Chicago, January 10, 2017


Michelle and Malia Obama, Chicago, January 10, 2017


Biden and Obama on stage Chicago Jan. 10, 2017


RELATED POST: December 6. There will be other related posts at this space in coming days. Check back.
POSTNOTE: Overnite, from Just Above Sunset, here.
SOME BRIEF ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:
Those who know me well, know that I admire President Obama as being a classic community organizer. Of course, this trait of the president was derided, and is still not understood, by ideologues and purists of all stripes. To be an organizer is to be a wimp, ineffective….
More by accident than anything else, most of my work career would be defined as organizer. More or less, my assignments were to groups which were approximately 1,000 people, organized into subgroups, and having to deal with other outside groups.
I’d say I deserve at least journeyman status in organizing, from experience more than anything, but anyone who has ever been an organizer knows that you are dealing with a very imperfect whole, and you are constantly looking for ways to make small nicks in the existing status quo for each and every individual and subgroup within your jurisdiction. To attempt to ignore some constituency, however irrelevant it may seem, is dangerous. And you really have no “power” as such. This includes the President of the United States, whoever he (hopefully soon, she) might be, whether he’s an organizer or not.
An organizers job is reality based, and is truly a game of inches.
Idealists, on the other hand, of whatever stripe they might be, follow the “birds of a feather flock together” rule. If you associate only with the like-minded, your view of reality is impeded, and your influence minimized.
Sometimes, often, emotion intrudes, overwhelming reason or anything else that makes sense. The body politic, whether in some small committee in a church somewhere, or the United States of America, makes a stupid decision that they will come to regret. But at the time the decision is made, they are satisfied with their shortsightedness.
Perhaps President Trump will be a brilliant statesman and bring peace and prosperity to all.
It is not likely.
He doesn’t come from a collaborative background. Anyone who watches TV knows him very well, and his base of support also.
We shall see.
POSTNOTE: Here’s the talk given by VP Joe Biden Jan. 12, 2017 after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Meeting.

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The meeting, 4:16 p.m. Jan 2017


Saturday, I participated in a planning meeting of an organization I’ve been part of for 13 years. A dozen of us – half male, half female – spent six hours talking about the things that generally go into organizations of all sorts. If we look tired in the above photo, it’s because we are. It is hard work to plan. We all stuck with the task and the process.
It was, I felt, an excellent meeting.
What was unusual about this meeting, at least in my personal context of many years in organizations, is that the motivation came from the single youngest member of the group, under 30. The rest of us were considerably older.
Sitting around that table was a great deal of talent, and hard-work – people who have worked in different ways in different arenas for many years. Our common thread, including the name and the history of the organization are irrelevant to this post.
A main theme – at least for me – in the present day is the fact that the elders and the youngers communicate in very different ways. We’re in something of a “wild west”, still, in communications. So, for instance, our long time newsletter was always mailed to a mailing list, and never, ever included things like e-mail addresses and web links.
These days an organization does not long survive without recognizing and using technology.
So, we elders now have a newly designed website amenable to younger persons, and we include links in the newsletter. Even so, we’re behind the times…though we’re making progress. Our youthful leader has indicated more than once that websites themselves are of limited value to younger people, who identify and act on issues in ways even the technologically astute among we elders hardly understand.
This creates dilemmas.
In our group, we have a very proud history that goes back, as we say in our newsletter, 70 years this year. This institutional history is something unwise to be discarded.
On the other hand, if we don’t work hard to cross the canyon to the youth who have similar interests to our own, we are in deep trouble in the long term, and so are the youngers who can learn something from us.
I could generate a much longer list of things organizations like ours need to contend with in the present day.
We adjourned our meeting about 20 minutes or so after I took the photo which leads this blog.
We adjourned with a framework that we now can work from and develop over the coming months and years…if we choose to take the bait.
The task is daunting.
Each issue of our newsletter for many years has included a quotation on the mailing panel.
At Saturdays meeting we prepared for mailing the current newsletter, which includes a quote from 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai, which seems to fit the task ahead for all of us: “Every one of us can make a contribution. And quite often we are looking for the big things and forget that wherever we are we can make a contribution. Sometimes I tell myself, I may only be planting a tree here, but just imagine what’s happening if there are billions of people out there doing something. Just imagine the power of what we can do.”
I’m glad I attended yesterdays meeting. I wish us the stamina to follow Wangari Maathai’s advice.
COMMENTS:
from Chuck, Jan 8: I read your blog about the long meeting. I feel your pain. I’ve been through many like that. Guess what. Not much has changed….while everything has changed.
I’ve been focused in on the value of engineering. Be it a dam, a nuclear power plant, a house, a human body, a government…
And what I’ve only recently come to understand (thanks to a Nuclear Engineer with 30 years’ experience as a Government whistleblower – they can’t get rid of) is that EVERYTHING is made up of three things.
Systems, Structures, and Fundamental principles.
And, if somethings not working or fails catastrophically…it’s because some fundamental principles were not followed, or the system and/or structure was fundamentally flawed to begin with.
Regarding planning meetings in general.
1. Humans (meeting structures) are all fundamentally flawed. (we can believe anything, not do what we know we should do, limited in capacity to understand all the connections/consequences to our actions…)
2. Meetings (human systems) are usually flawed.
3. Plans (structures to implement systems so bigger systems and structures can work well) are usually made by humans who rarely follow them for any number of valid/invalid or good/ bad reasons.
4. You get fatter and older and sometimes wiser.
Right now I think planning is relatively useless because of the pace of change is accelerating…while the pace of human mind changing appears to be frozen. At least the pace of government change appears to be picking up…for better or worse.
Predicting which? Not gonna try…but I’m guessing for the worst…and hoping for the better.
One thing that does stay the same. Members of Congress want to look good to the majority of their voters and get reelected. Our role as citizens is to provide constant adult supervision.

Dick Bernard: The New Year, 2017, and the Millennium Canons

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Flag drawn by 5th grade student, early October 2001, in aftermath of 9-11-01


This morning I was preparing for a planning meeting, tomorrow, of an organization in which I’ve* long been an active Board member.
One of the preliminary papers to read was a “”Youth Statement”, produced by youth leaders” before 2004, “…to guide the organization’s leadership on how to outreach to younger members and activists.”
Four lines down, in the third paragraph, these “youth leaders”, unidentified in any way, but probably mostly “progressive” in ideology, declared “we do not trust government. We did not grow up with JFK, FDR and the New Deal. Instead, we grew up with the Vietnam War, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and a steady stream of campaign finance scandals. Government has taken advantage of our generation. And so, most of our generation is reluctant to buy into….”
Since the Vietnam era began in 1961, one presumes these “youth” were as old as their early 40s when the “Statement” was written, and are now 13 years older.
Their disconnect with “government” was disconcerting. Who, other than them, and all of us, was “government”? Who, other than them, and us, have created the mess they seem to disavow as their own? How could they officially buy into the notion that “government” was bad; that government was against them, rather than the reality that “government” is each one of them – the very essence of democratic governance?
A couple of days earlier, a friend had sent a Jan 3 Editorial from Bloomberg News titled “A patriotic response to populism”. I read it, and commented back “of course, they’re being “fair and balanced”, but one must never forget that the [anti-government Republican] guru, Grover Norquist, and his lieutenants like Karl Rove and Tom DeLay, had a deliberate strategy to make Americans become disgusted with their government. The collapse of the integrity of the congress was intentional, on the part of the Republicans, to make simpler a takeover of that very same government they despised.”
Today, Jan. 6, 2017, is in my mind the beginning of what we citizens have (it seems) asked for, indeed demanded.
The leaders of the American intelligence community go to Trump Tower today to report to Donald Trump on their findings about Russian meddling in our election; the incumbent President seems to have more confidence in Julian Assange and Vladimir Putin than in America’s own intelligence community. We will wait, today, for Trumps Tweet(s) about the meeting.
This seems to be the destination we willingly have arrived at: a declaration to “drain the swamp” seems to have translated, already, into refilling the exact same swamp with even worse characters.
Those “youth leaders” quoted above are, it would appear, representative of most of us.
We are going to have a very long couple of years, at minimum.
As for the “Millennium Canons” in the headline:
January 1, we were at Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall for a performance by the always magnificent Minnesota Orchestra.
The first piece on Sundays program was a piece called Milliennium Canons by Kevin Puts (b. 1972). The full Minnesota Orchestra did a great reading of the piece. Millennium Canons premiered June 19, 2001, to, the composer states “usher in a new millennium with fanfare, celebration and lyricism….”.** His composition succeeds. Our version was 7 minutes.
The Canons were a statement of celebration of the dawning of the new Millennium in 2000.
Less than three months after the premiere, came 9-11-01 and we have, ever since, in my opinion, descended into a “swamp” of our own making, in which we are still stuck. We are terrorized, fear ridden. The swamp is ourselves, no one else.
It is up to “we, the people” to recover our bearings, to become again, the re-creator of a government which too many of us have chosen to despise.
We are our government. Let us never forget that.
* – My personal ‘slant’ has been very public and well known since I began this blog in March 2009. Related to the recent American presidential election, see here.
**(The relevant program note is on page 19 (4th page of attachment), here: MN Orch Jan 1 2017001 Also included with the link is a neat essay on Resolutions in the program booklet by Kim Ode. The latter is the last page of the attachment.)
POSTNOTE: There is a great plenty of information available on the pre-inaugural “dance” in Washington. A favorite source for me, a condensation of the primary stories of the previous days news, is Just Above Sunset. The two most recent posts, “American Tribal Warfare”, and “Paranoid and Vindictive Men” relate directly to this post.
COMMENT
From Nancy: I’m disappointed that the main thing you took — the only thing you shared, at least — from the document is dissatisfaction that these former youth had checked out of what they “should” be tuned in to. Youth leaders [there] were expressing why it’s hard to pull in their peers. Their historical experience is their reality. These youth are sincerely trying to explain to older generations why their message [wasn’t] resonating widely with their generation. A message that they are deluded to think government isn’t them is not hearing them.
You said the youth were unidentified — they were identified as “youth leaders of the then-named… members and activists.” And I’m sure they would have been in their 20s, not 40s.
… Date [of the document] indicated as 1997, with two later essays added.
If we want to reach youth, we’ll have to listen to them, not judge their wrong thinking. I shared the document with that intent; sorry if that was misunderstood.
Dick Response to Nancy: I have long maintained that youth have to be their own future. Our generation seems intent on dismantling any safety net of entitlement they have – at least many of them – had to rely on. I also agree that we need to find ways to communicate across the chasm now existing (multiple ways of communicating; differing priorities….) The young people will pay the consequences if they stay unattached from their own future. (I see a lot of exceptions of course, and perhaps there are as many activist young people now as there were back in the activist days of the Vietnam War era. But they seem more individualist, now, than then.)
The youth quoted above really represent all of us, really (at least the working majority who seem to control the election.)
I had seen the statement I quoted before, but never the date of 1997.
Perhaps it is impossible to find a “ground zero” for the Republican anti-government strategy.
First I remember is Ronald Reagan’s very successful declaration that government IS the problem in the run-up to the 1980 election. He probably didn’t come up with the refined version of that himself. Grover Norquist, et al, have a long history, long pre-dating even 1997. He and others were real active College Young Republicans, I believe. (DeLay, Rove, Lee Atwater, too, I believe.)
First time I ever connected this particular set of dots was back in the late 1990s, when I first read a bio piece in the Washington Post, while at a meeting in Washington DC, about Karl Rove, George W. Bush, et al, the first time I read about the 2000 election to come; thence about Lee Atwater in Life magazine, when he was nearing death. I noticed him thanks to Rove and Atwater’s close association as Young Republicans. Best I understand, the Young Republicans were trained to be utterly ruthless – most anything went.
There has been a very long active campaign against government by the Republican party. At the moment the Republicans have won: in control of a government they declare is worthless.
That’s the way I see it. It’s part of the necessary conversation.
POSTNOTE, JAN. 7: After writing the above I looked at my file from 2000, on the Bush/Gore presidential race. Within were two articles which helped define my assertions, from the Washington Post on Karl Rove in the summer of 1999; and a Life magazine profile on Lee Atwater in February, 1991. Rove and Atwater were working together as Young Republicans at least from 1972 on, perfecting their tactics on the road.