(3) Our National Insanity

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For your weekend:
Just Above Sunset for Friday: The Conspiracy To Destroy Our Freedom: here

Mueller and Trump: Born to wealth, raised to lead. Then, sharply different choices. from The Washington Post
here.

More thoughts from readers about prior posts Feb 14-17, 2018:
from Jeff: I might agree on the Kent State-Parkland correlation. One would think Sandy Hook would have provoked more outrage, even Las Vegas. But Kent State happened to the motivated participants, and Parkland has done that too.

3.9 million children born in 2000. That’s a lot of votes. If they vote.

Governor of MN: I wonder if people want the same old same old. I think the race is ripe for a better alternative and could shape up if these 2 [Walz and Pawlenty] are the candidates to be pretty boring to manypeople.

Pawlenty is a suburban Republican but given his short run for President, he knows what to say to the 60% of the GOP voters
who have drank the koolaid. But for some reason I think he will look to thread the needle on this.

I saw a post on Australia’s laws on semi auto and auto guns. It belies the stupidity of simply calling for a ban on “assault” weapons. Need to be smarter and focused. Take little steps… raise the age, tighten background checks, and outlaw magazines with more than 10 cartridges. Then focus on culturally changing the tone among gun owners. Real hunters respect their prey and care about them, they typically hunt as the laws call for and want one clean shot. They aren’t interested in slamming 10 or 15 shells into a buck 100 yards away.

And you know rural folks in Ndak like I do, some of them keep loaded rifles in their pickups out in the country. Do I worry about them? Not really. But you have to make them feel comfortable by turning the talk to semi auto guns being only used for killing innocent kids and people.

More from Jeff: For all the detractors of our public schools, and I don’t know if this school in parkland is like the Edina district or something, but these kids who are being seen on TV are well spoken, logical and morally strong.

huzzah

from Peter: A few remarks inspired by your careful postings…

I’ve been working on a book about the shift that is most easily understood as the displacement of the Information markets by the Audience markets.

Audience is (for example) FaceBook’s stock-in-trade, so like all “social” media, their aim is to own the space in which humanity communicates. This is complicated by the fact that users are constantly tweaked with endorphin-rewards for staying in the game — for continuing to peek through FB’s proprietary window.

All media, print and electronic, have had to abandon information-based content in favor of attention-capturing content. So nothing works the way we expect it to work, hence the chaos. McLuhan was a genius, and probably predicted this as well, I don’t know. I can’t have been the only one to notice.

The forty-fifth President got elected because of this change. He just happened to be an expert in the technologies of aggregated attention — what I’m calling Audience — in a time when a unit of Audience will out-sell information a million to one. That he is also in the last stages of attention-addiction is just bad luck for us. He will continue say and do more and more horrid things to sustain an increasing craving for all the attention available. He doesn’t care at all about the consequences, the more damage the better for his pathological purpose. And with the penetration of our social networks reaching almost everybody breathing, what is the upper limit? He has already waved nuclear weapons around recklessly, and even that will lose effectiveness soon enough. He must be restrained, or he may single-handedly end us all.

I’ve written about the frequent bloody massacres in this context. Enhanced by the supremacy of attention as the gateway to fame and fortune, this is civilian bleed-through from our many foreign aggressions.

Until we address the (temporary?) dysfunction of our social connection, our fellow-feeling, our sense of community beyond the crude algorithmic assignments our artifacts have made for us, we will remain helpless passengers in a clown car on an increasing slope, without any brakes. No matter what we do about the hardware.

As for the so-called “mental health” approach, there is an un-examined question about psychotropic prescription drugs and their impact on suicidality and psychopathy, but there is too much Pharma money involved for that conversation to go anywhere useful, especially in the Attention Age paradigm that is their natural habitat now. “Never box a boxer.”

What are we ordinary citizens of Earth to do, then? I suggest (and this is the book-in-progress) that the key is in taking on management of our personal attention, and disallowing the random capture of our endocrine systems. Look at everything with the question of “Who would want me to be excited about this, and why?”

It is exactly like dealing with appeals for your cash. Your attention is now the coin-of-the-realm.

I once asked Kurt Vonnegut: “Are things really going off the rails like they seem to be?” He got that little twinkle and said: “Not for anyone I know…” I puzzled over that for some time, and I think he was saying that it is important to distinguish your own personal, hands-on experience from the churning stories in which we are all immersed, and husband your energies for what is on your own desk.

from Bob: Thanks Dick. Just saw the Valentine post. Oh to be back in simpler times. Dropping off my Valentine by horse and buggy, what a concept. You gotta really feel the sentiment. Unlike my childhood when we made a decorated shoe box and were forced to give a valentine to every kid, even the ones you did not like or were afraid of.

Well we survived anyway.

But the generation of innocence is way behind us. The current gun talk must also take a look at how we as a society have changed, become more aggressive, Bullying, sexual misconduct, isolated with our world expanding devices, and with parenting skills missing that would help children/teens, needing attention to be guided toward positive outcomes.
Children have been abandoned, by two parents working full time, by lack of close (proximity and love) extended family.

Teen homeless stats are frightening and counter to the Great Society but consistent with the decades of failure of trickle down economics.

We need to create a new awareness that it is OK to speak up as a concerned relative or neighbor. We need to accept “better safe than sorry”.

Changing gun laws including banning non military possession of assault weapons (the very word “assault” is pretty good evidence for this argument), is only a step.

Helping people who need help, opening the nation’s hearts to compassion, sharing, helping, speaking out, and taking our convictions to the polling places, these all are part of the equation.

Carry on with your wonderful posts.

from Carol: The Supreme Court Ruling on the 2nd Amendment Did NOT Grant an Unlimited Right to Own Guns (read here)

On pp. 54 and 55, the majority opinion, written by conservative bastion Justice Antonin Scalia, states: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…”. It is “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

“Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on … laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller (an earlier case) said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time”. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ ”

The court even recognizes a long-standing judicial precedent “…to consider… prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons.”

from Bruce: For the most part I think collectively we are missing the mark on mass shootings that are increasing as time moves on. Have you considered that the rise of these shootings is inversely related to the demise of the antiwar/peace movement. As the militarization of the American society grows, the peace movement declines. Its almost nonexistent. It seems to me that this relationship needs to happen for the country to be at war for over 15 years with no end in sight. A country and people that are ok with and thereby supporting the needles killing of innocent civilians in our wars, which are mostly children, shouldn’t be surprise, saddened, or angry that innocent school children in America are slaughtered every few weeks. The knee jerk reaction to this slaughter is to call for more & better gun laws or more concerns over mental health. That has been going since the 1999 Columbine massacre. Also since 1999 our wars have grown in numbers and violence, and so have our mass shootings. The solution is obvious for me. We need to demilitarize America. In order to do that we need a reinvigorated peace movement. As the movement grows our wars will subside. So will the senseless shooting of our school kids with or without new gun laws.

from Carol, about the killers as Democrats Facebook Post: Please, oh PUH-LEESE, send this to your “friend,” from me.

I gave up on cutting-pasting at some point, but he can read for himself. (Thank goodness for places like snopes and factcheck. Now if people would only READ them…)

https://www.snopes.com/democrat-shooters-list/

This list has evolved since it first started circulating in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. The earliest iteration of this list we could uncover only contained five items…

It has always been rife with errors…

This list is not comprehensive. It does not include all of the shootings that have occurred in the United States, nor the political affiliations of every shooter. It ignores shootings committed by Republicans, as well as those with no political party affiliation… In other words, one could make a similar list naming nothing but Republican or politically unaffiliated shooters…

In addition to the logical problems of this meme, much of the information is also inaccurate.

We searched contemporary reports for each of the listed incidents in an attempt to uncover any mentions of political affiliations, motivations, or voting records. Many of these items can be traced back to poor reporting, articles that were later corrected, or fake news items. And although we encountered this meme (or a similar list) on a variety of web sites, none of these publications provided any documentation to back up these claims…

Here’s a look at what we found:

In 1865, a Democrat shot and killed Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States…

Shooter: John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth was a member of the Know-Nothing Party. However, some of his motivations for assassinating Lincoln (Booth was opposed to freeing the slaves) aligned with the Democratic Party at the time…

Although Booth’s motivations may have aligned with the Democratic party of 1865, they bear little resemblance to the party’s modern positions, which have changed dramatically over the past 152 years.

In 1881, a left wing radical Democrat shot James Garfield, President of the United States – who later died from the wound.

Shooter: Charles J. Guiteau

Guiteau gave what The Atlantic calls an “incoherent speech to a small group of black voters in New York City” in support of presidential candidate James Garfield. Guiteau then claimed that the speech … was the reason for Garfield’s election victory. The new administration, from Guiteau’s perspective, owed him an ambassadorship. When he was denied his request, Guiteau set out for revenge…

Guiteau was not a “left wing radical Democrat” — he was a supporter of the Republican Party.

In 1963, a radical left wing socialist shot and killed John F. Kennedy, President of the United States.

Shooter: Lee Harvey Oswald

Oswald was a Marxist and supported Fidel Castro and Cuba…

Oswald’s inclusion on this list is odd in that there is no claim that he is a Democrat.

In 1975, a left wing radical Democrat fired shots at Gerald Ford, President of the United States.

Shooters: Lynette Fromme and Sara Jane Moore

Two women in one month attempted to shoot Gerald Ford in 1975: Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a member of the Manson family, and Sara Jane Moore, a member of radical leftist circles in California and an FBI informant. Both women appear to have had mental health issues…

Although both women could rightly be described as radicals, we found no evidence to show that they were Democrats.

In 1983, a registered Democrat shot and wounded Ronald Reagan, President of the United States.

Shooter: John Hinckley Jr.

Another claim that seems to be supported only by speculation. John Hinckley Jr.’s assassination attempt in 1981 (not 1983 as suggested by this meme) was motivated not by politics, but by his desire to woo actress Jodie Foster…

Regardless, we contacted the History Colorado… We also contacted the Colorado State Archives, but they didn’t have a record of Hinckley’s purported political affiliation either.

In 1984, James Hubert, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 22 people in a McDonalds restaurant.

Shooter: James Huberty (not James Hubert)

Again, we found no record that Huberty was a Democrat, either in terms of his official voter registration or his political leanings. The book Dying on the Job: Murder and Mayhem in the American Workplace describes Huberty as a survivalist who was paranoid about government overreach…

https://www.snopes.com/was-florida-school-shooter-democrat/
Another name — that of Nikolas Cruz, the suspected gunman who murdered at least seventeen people at a school in Parkland, Florida in February 2018 — will likely get added to this list; almost immediately after law enforcement identified him, erroneous reports circulated claiming that he was a registered Democrat…

The rumor that Cruz was a registered Democrat received a push in popularity and some unearned credibility when it was reported by the Gateway Pundit blog:

It was just discovered that the full name of the shooter is “Nicolas de Jesus Cruz” and that he is a registered Democrat in the state of Flordia [sic]. It is becoming more clear that this individual was NOT, in fact, an actual Trump supporter, as is being reported by the media as the result of the image that shows Cruz wearing a MAGA hat.
This “discovery” was based on a voter registration record available via an unofficial Florida voter database. However, if any of the internet sleuths pushing this rumor had taken a moment to examine the document, they would have realized that this voter registration did not belong to the Florida shooter.

For one, this Florida voter was named Nicolas Cruz (note that Nicolas spelled with a “c”; the suspected shooter’s name is spelled with a “k.”) Cruz’s arrest record also noted that he was born in September 1998. This voter registration is for a person born in May 1998.

The Gateway Pundit later updated its article to concede that Cruz was not a registered Democrat after all, as “some sources” (the Gateway Pundit) reported.

from Mary: I really was inspired by [Joni’s] comments. Nice solid thinking. I am, however, appalled that anyone thinks there is sanity in training teachers how to manage a classroom in chaos, an unloaded gun in a locked drawer, and the likelihood of unintended collateral damage. The cynical side of me wonders if the NRA is behind this marketing ploy. My solution is so simple that it will never be implemented……stop selling assault weapons to anyone! Not even game hunters want their quarry shredded with unnecessary damage.

(2) Our National Insanity

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Once again, a gremlin in editing feature of my blog…So, once again, I need to do a chapter 2.

Two comments came soon after publication about the Newsweek article about Al Franken:
from Eric: I went to Newsweek to read the Franken piece you highlighted. They have taken it down because they couldn’t verify it. Cheers and keep up the good work toward a better world.

from Carol, from Newsweek: “Newsweek has retracted its story about a conservative botnet effort to force the resignation of Senator Al Franken.

The initial report was based on research conducted by Unhack The Vote, a group examining outside influence in U.S. elections and politics. It alleged that a “decidedly alt-right” botnet “weaponized” anti-Franken stories and amplified pressure on Franken to resign after allegations of sexual misconduct. Newsweek was unable to independently verify their claims after a further review of their work.

Newsweek regrets the error.”

Dick: I guess it just reemphasizes my point, that it is good to be skeptical about “facts”. At least Newsweek provided the correction, by removing the article.

from Claude: I liked your thoughtful blog, Dick. It’s easy to think that the new media (current and upcoming) are out of control because there are so many actors. “There is no pilot” to borrow a line from Laurie Anderson, poet/songwriter. Or to assume that the global corporations are learning on the fly to use the new media for planetary crowd control. The truth is more likely in the middle.

There is much to be learned on media by revisiting Marshall McLuhan who is my hero when it comes to media studies. Most people think he only focused on TV and therefore is out-of-date. But his ideas were born from looking back at the big picture which includes the invention of the phonetic alphabet, the printing press, telegraph (Marshall 1844 as the start of the Electric Age with the coming of the commercial telegraph), radio, TV, etc.

One of his prescient insights was his generalization (and warning) that every new medium gets the content it deserves. That’s why your insight that a tweet is a headline without content hit me like a brick.

I have a playlist of my “video collages” devoted specifically to Marshall McLuhan: here

In a couple of them [#42 and 43] I use the clip in which Marshall states “If unimpeded the logic of this sort of electric world is stasis.”

Thanks for all you do. Uploaded video collages are here.

Dick: Speaking as a former junior high school teacher in a large junior high school, there is no more stupid idea than arming teachers to take out potentially dangerous intruders. I recall a situation in the late 1960s when a 9th grade kid – a student – came to my school with a pistol. In those days, and in that situation, he was just a show-off in a crowded hallway between classes, and the administration dealt with it since he was near the office. He had the gun, and it was a crowded hallway. He could have been anywhere in the building. He was, as I say, just a showoff, a ninth grader. This was 50 years ago. I still remember the incident.

2:35 a.m. Overnight came this, from a long-time good and valued friend in another state. It speaks for itself.

(click twice to enlarge)

So…I’m a “Democrat” and thus a killer? That seems the implication. The enemy is me! I’m sure my friend will dispute this, but that is the narrative sold to the ‘flock’, terrified that they will lose their weaponry.

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I’m no stranger to the “guns” conversation. Put “guns” in my search box (above right), and you’ll see reference to 66 posts that have the word. If you read every one of them, you’ll not one time any advocacy for getting rid of guns in this society, though I have never owned a firearm, and don’t intend to, and years ago qualified as expert with the M-1 in the U.S. Army. What I call for is sane management of guns, more than the tiny ‘bandaids’ proposed.

The insanity of this whole converstion is that I think it is far more likely that Guns are a liability than an asset for those who use them – or threaten to use them – as self-ordained militia. Prisons are full of people who murdered someone with a gun. Most of them probably felt the victim had it coming….

With respect to the instant issue, I think that the Parkland high school shootings may end up being for the gun lobby and its supporters the same as the Kent State killings in 1970 escalated the end of the Vietnam War. Yes, 1970 is a long time ago. But back then the young had finally had it with they or their friends being cannon fodder in Vietnam.

To my old friends, from my generation, this battle has to be for the youth who are most affected. Our day is past. Support, yes. Dominate, no. To the youth, this is my test for you: how are you going to manage your own future concerning weapons and other aspects of your future? It is a serious question. Another question to think about: how does the serious proposal to make universal the right of gun owners to transport their states gun rights into someone else’s state. That is frightfully near passage in the Congress.

With no military weaponry easily available to a teenager on Valentine’s Day, 2018, there would be no 17 dead being mourned now in Florida.

The same can go for other deadly events where other weapons of destruction were the players, such as the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. An army of gun-toting defenders against violence at Murrah Building would have had no chance.

We are a violent society. It is time that we deal with ourselves.

COMMENTS:
From Norm (Norm is a long-time DFL (Democratic) activist in Minnesota.) News story this morning regarding Tim Walz’s decision to support some gun control efforts that the NRA does not support. Walz is a member of the NRA and has received support from that organization in the past, support that may now be in jeopardy.

Obviously, contrary to some of the claims made by some folks residing under our big tent, NRA membership does not mean that a member supports all of its official public policy positions. In fact, there have been indications that the “rank and file” NRA members generally support more controls such as background checks and so on.

The news article claims that the “change in position” by Walz on the matter will put him at odds with Minnesota gun owners which may or may not be true.

In any event, his new position on the matter may change the dynamics of the race for governor in Minnesota both in the DFL contest for party endorsement as well as for the support of the Republican candidate for the office, Tim Pawlenty.

You can be sure that once Pawlenty enters the fray, he will wrap himself in the Second Amendment which the Supreme Court of the US has affirmed as meaning the right of all citizens to bear arms for protection and so on at any time and not just in the time of war.

As such, the argument as to what the Second Amendment means has been settled.

On the other hand, if the claims are true that most NRA members favor some additional controls on the purchase and ownership of guns, then Walz may benefit by speaking out on the matter as he has just done.

Of course, as you well know, his change of position as well as any more tragedies like the recent one in Florida will significantly increase the sale and registration, i.e. permits to carry, throughout the US which may not work in Walz’s favor.

Big doings (as one of my uncle would also refer to as local events in my home town) this weekend in the NRA sponsored conference of conservatives that will be attended by the narcisstic draft dodger and his VP as well as I am sure other prominent Republican legislators to reassure their supporters that all is well and that no one is going to take away their guns.

I am sure that the spin will be on the Second Amendment and the right of citizens to defend themselves with a suggestion or two regarding arming school teachers and/or placing guards in the schools. They will probably also throw in something about preventing mentally ill folks from purchasing and owning guns…which would seem to be almost an impossible thing to legislate let alone prevent.

I mean, do mentally ill folks walk around with a scarlet M on their foreheads or a wrist band noting that they are mentally ill?

They will emphasize that they are only concerned about public safety, of course!

Thoughts?

Our National Insanity

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Published as the students from Marjory Stoneman Johnson are speaking in Tallahassee FL.

Previous related posts: Feb. 14, Feb 15, Feb. 17 (two posts)

Today is one week out from the massacre at Parkland, Florida.

In the last 48 hours came two items that especially drew my attention. There are many, many more such items, granted, but I’d recommend these two:

1. The Washington Post (WaPo), on Monday morning, simply listed the names of those killed in mass shootings in the United States since Columbine, April 20, 1999. I hope you read it, here.

But only one week after the carnage in Parkland, FL, on Valentine’s Day, we seem generally back to our “normal”: A kind of national insanity, hopelessness. Outrage replaced by resignation…except for a few very brave souls.

2. Then there’s the plague of misinformation: Newsweek Online, scroll down to the article “The social media psy op that took down Al Franken“. These days it is hard work to decide what to believe. Is everything “fake news”. No longer is it a foolish question. Can I even trust “Newsweek”?

Newsweek. I subscribed to Newsweek for many years, at minimum through 2004 (I have hard evidence of such here in my home office). But Newsweek the magazine no longer even exists. Thankfully there’s a wiki article about Newsweeks changes in recent years.

WaPo, too, has gone through major changes in ownership. Washington Post is a part of the Amazon empire.

Then there are local entities, like the Minneapolis Star Tribune, to which we have long subscribed, but which I rarely read these days. It is a shell of its former self, and the most recent years ownership reflects a different ideological slant from years ago, when I was first subscribing.

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And how about your social media choices? As we are learning through the Russia indictments (and the Franken gambit, above referenced), social media is a major problem. We are living in the “wild west”, open to being duped. No one can blame anyone else for their personal gullibility. We need to be our own gatekeepers, when responsible gatekeepers are few and far between.

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How to be an “informed citizen”?

It is one thing for a “tweet” to reflect the tweeters own “truth”, which may or may not have a shred of truth within. A tweet is a headline with no content, no substance. Gullible consumers can take that tweet, etc., and create their own fantasy reality.

As a society, today we are in very, very dangerous territory. We are susceptible to addiction to deliberately false misinformation.

Informed and engaged are ever more essential. Like most everyone, it is easy for me to become almost paralyzed by the blizzard of information (and, especially) mis-information swirling around. There is no more important task, now, than to stay on the court.

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I come from an era where there was a reasonably safe presumption that your “mainstream” print media gave a reasonably decent shot at “fair and balanced”, or at least was basically truthful (in the religious sense – lying was once a big deal).

I recall touring Harry and Bess Truman home in Independence MO with my Dad, in 1983. The guide pointed out the kitchen table where Harry read – if I recall correctly – 5 newspapers every day, including the local Independence publication.

There was a television in the living room. Harry died in 1972, Bess in 1982, and the best guess is that neither spent much time in front of the tube whose programming was, then, very unsophisticated compared with today.

(If you’re in the Twin Cities make it a point to see “1968” at the Minnesota History Center. It will give you a window into communication and events of that watershed year in our history as a nation. You have 11 months, still to see it. It is very worthwhile as a thought-provoking place.)

I didn’t see television until my junior year in high school, 1956, and then it was a single channel with awful reception on only during the daytime and early evening.

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As for today, watch very carefully your own choice of “news” tomorrow. I don’t care your ideology. Watch it carefully. If you’re one of those who still get newspapers, note what you read. Note what it includes, and by extension what it excludes.

If your major source of news is other media, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or similar, notice what you choose to open. What do you know about the source of that news, if anything? What do your choices say about you?

Not all of you are on Facebook. Daughter Joni’s post on Thursday (here) has received a lot of attention. Yesterday, came another Facebook post from Joni, referencing something which had moved and inspired me many years ago.

Double click to enlarge the screen shot. Here’s the pdf: Joni on Risk003

As best I can discover, this inspirational saying is attributed to William Arthur Ward.

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Always informative: Just Above Sunset for today: “On Being Oblivious to Humiliation“. Consider subscribing. The price is right: free.

POSTNOTE: As I’ve previously noted (Feb. 15), I was more than a far-away spectator of Columbine High School, April 20, 1999. Little did we know, then, the future. Yes, there were outrages before: the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City by white anti-government types April 19, 1995, comes immediately to mind.

Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Johnson HS has much more potential for long term action than the earlier Columbine. For one thing, communication means are now universal. Columbine was before iPhones (2007); as well as the other technologies previously mentioned (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter).

Columbine could reasonably be viewed as an aberration at the time. No longer.

I applaud the kids who are getting in action. And everyone else who has the courage to speak out.

(2) “Editors Update” notes” for February 17:

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Once again the ‘gremlin’ said ‘no’ to some important updates to the previous post, dated also today (see updates below). This is the fourth post in this “thread”: Feb. 14, 15 and earlier today. When I contemplated the Valentine’s Day post, and the Ash Wednesday connection with it, I could not have conceived of what has happened since then. The temptation is paralysis. But this is a time for action, not passivity. And we all need to work as individuals and together for positive change.

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UPDATES to earlier Feb. 17 post
See also February 15 post, “Guns, again” here; and “#MeToo” for Feb. 14 here.

This time of year, in 2001, we heard about a public preview of a new movie, Bowling for Columbine, at a large Presbyterian church in St. Paul. We stood in line, got seats, film producer Michael Moore was there, and talked about the film. The place was packed; they did a second showing that night. The film was released in 2002. Of course, the film garnered controversy. It is worth seeing again, or for the first time.

A year ago, March, 2017, I once again walked up Cross Hill above Columbine High School. There is now a permanent memorial to those who died in 1999. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Denver Post after we returned home: Columbine – Denver Post. They considered publishing it (they contacted me) but to my knowledge it never appeared in the paper.

POSTNOTES:
If you missed the preview week of “The World Is My Country”, and now wish you’d seen it, here’s another opportunity, till February 21. Password: wbw2018 (lowercase)

Today’s Just Above Sunset, The Hammer Drops. The Mueller Indictments of the Russians. Here are the actual indictments as printed.

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SOME ASSORTED COMMENTS:

from Fred: Your daughter’s comments are telling. I hope they get broad circulation.

It is interesting to me, [my friend] Dave as well, that we taught in a “high crime” area in a large metro area for many years. We saw horrible crimes take the lives of our students: the February 1994 gang firebombing of a house across the street from our school that killed five children, including two of our students, and the murder, by their disturbed mother, of six children, again including two of our students, quickly come to mind. Shooting were not common but the a neighborhood grocery clerk, a block from school, was shot and killed in a robbery. Same goes for an SA clerk four blocks north of our building.

Crime was a fact of life at our school and something that we dealt with successfully as a faculty, neighborhood and student body. My use of the word “successfully” refers to the determination of all involved to keep the kids safe and productive while inside the school. We had security in the school—front door monitors, sign-ins, police on duty for night meeting, etc.—from the early ’90s on. Unwelcome outsiders caused problems but not often. Nevertheless, I remember an armed robbery in the parking lot and a few stolen cars from the lot (including mine) over the years.

But we never needed to consider what your daughter contemplates on a daily basis: a well-armed intruder bent on killing. I see columnist Max Boot, no liberal snowflake he, commenting about an American “suicide pact” with the NRA and the gun lobby. I fear that the pact is yet unbroken, but am hopeful that the growing outrage in the nation will finally coalesce and produce change.

from Jeff: Gov. Scott of Florida called for the FBI Director’s resignation because of a field office mistake (NYTimes Feb. 16), to which a letter writer responded: “Please do a full piece setting out all of Florida’s gun laws, especially those enacted under Rick Scott’s “leadership”. Eg. at 18 you can buy an AR-15 but not a hand gun; you can buy a gun without photo ID but you can’t vote with out it; you don’t need a license or permit to buy or sell a gun; you don’t have to register a gun; police can only act if there’s an immediate “mental health crises” at the time of interaction between the “suspect” and the police. Compare the list with the rules and requirements of dog ownership.”

from David: You would think that America valued it’s children, its future, more than anything. Not true. America has decided that children, whether they are in a Florida school or on the mean streets of Chicago, are merely collateral damage in the sacred fight to preserve “Second Amendment Rights.” Politicians have climbed into bed with the NRA ghouls and seem to be able to wash the blood off their hands with “thoughts and prayers.” The public seems to have become numb to whatever latest slaughter turns up on the nightly news. We mumble something to the effect that “someone” should do something but then change the channel and move on. Dead children at Sandy Hook? Dead children in Florida? Dead children on Plymouth Avenue? Someone should do something about this. Meanwhile, I’ve got the Olympics to watch.

from Fred: Well said. I think the general cultural temperature is rising these days thanks, in large part to our leader, AKA The Great Uniter. The center grows restless and sullen, the left angrier, and the right ever more defensive. Raft loads of bad news washes up on the shores of Fortress Maralago. The Emperor has no clothes and even some of his rabid followers are taking notice.

from Carol: Al Hoffman, a big GOP donor in Florida, has notified the Governor and other Rs in the state that he will not be writing any more donation checks until a ban on assault weapons is in place.

from Kathy: Hopefully the young people’s uprising will be big enough to get background checks and not more assault weapons into legislation. Our generation sure has not been able to get it done.

Communicating. Parkland. Littleton.

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Associated Press photo front page Minneapolis Star Tribune February 14, 2018

Friday came this powerful Facebook post from my daughter, a suburban Middle School Principal.

“Every single day I walk into my school as the principal, it crosses my mind. “Will today be the day it happens here?”

Every single day I wonder about the student we suspended that said horrible things as they were escorted out of the building.

Every single day I think about the non-custodial parent desperate to see her/his children.

Every single day I think about the phone calls advising me of another “ugly divorce” or a domestic abuse incident. “It was a tough night. Can you let his teachers know he might be a little off today?” the parent asks.

Every single day I think about the multiple entrances to the building that I check to make sure they latched properly when the last staff member or student entered in the morning.

Every single day I think about all the places someone could hide and lay in wait.

Every single day I think about all those people who use “because it’s my right…” to acquire arsenals of weapons “because they can” in America.

And every single day I think about how easily the children can access those weapons because “By God, it’s my right to own these weapons.”

Every. Single. Day.

Your “right” to own guns is NOT more important the safety of my students and my staff and my own children and their teachers. If you get angry about gun control conversations and want to resort to “because it’s my right”, you need to check yourself. If you resort to “We need better mental health services or awareness” but don’t want to engage in a conversation about gun control in America or affordable health care for all, you need to check yourself. It’s not either/or. It’s both/and (& and & and & and…)

Every single day before you assert “Because it’s my right…”, I ask that you put yourself in the shoes of every parent who has buried a child as the result of gun violence. I ask that you put yourself in the shoes of the parents whose child’s body lay where they died inside that Florida high school all night because they were part of the crime scene. I ask you to show some respect and compassion and put those innocent lives in front of your “right”to own a gun. And I ask you to do this…Every. Single. Day.”

It took courage for Joni to say what she did, yesterday. Joni has that courage…. Violence in our civilized society is controversial, and even acceptable.

(click to enlarge)

Cross Hill above Columbine High School, April 1999, granddaughter Lindsay by the crosses, late April, 1999

A PERSONAL REMEMBERING: COLUMBINE

I think back 18 years:

April 20, 1999, I was returning to my office from a meeting in north suburban Minneapolis. A bulletin came over the car radio about a shooting at a school in Littleton Colorado.

There were no details. Just one of those news bulletins.

Littleton. That was where my son and family had lived since 1988. In April, 1999, their daughter, my granddaughter, was 12.

Soon, the word “Columbine” entered my vocabulary. Either by e-mail or phone – I forget which, now – I learned the shootings were at the high school, and that my family was okay. I looked Columbine up on the then-version of Mapquest, but that was of little help. It was mis-located. I was soon to learn that my family lived little more than a mile from Columbine High School.

They still do.

The horror began to unfold in the evening news of April 20. My son was pretty sure he’d seen the two killers in a local McDonald’s restaurant not long before the carnage began.

A couple of days later: another meeting, in another suburb. This time, with a group of about 20 of us in the Minnesota School Public Relations Association professional development group, almost all of us school PR people. Of course, we all knew about Columbine. Somebody mentioned how impossible a job it must be, now, for the Littleton school PR person (Columbine was part of Jefferson County CO public schools). I mentioned my relationship to Columbine. Instantly we realized what was, even then, a reality: every place, every person, is in some way or another stitched together. Columbine wasn’t them; it was us.

Mostly we talked by phone or in e-mails then. Facebook, the earliest innovation for instant communication, was 5 years in the future, then. YouTube 6 years away. Twitter 7 years…. How easy it is to forget. Joni’s Facebook this morning was not imaginable in 1999.

By circumstance, that week in 1999, I had my ticket for a planned rendezvous Apr 24-30 with a brother and sister in Zion and other parks in Utah. I had purchased the round-trip with a stop in Denver and a short visit with my Littleton family.

Saturday morning, May 1, in a gentle rain, we walked slowly up what come to be known as “Cross Hill” in Lambert Park, overlooking the high school. We were among hundreds of sombre visitors. It was nearly two weeks after the massacre, and you could still feel the intensity. At one point, Rev. Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral, along with camera crew, walked up the very muddy hill near where we were standing. Doubtless the video was for his Sunday service the next day.

Back home, National Teacher Day – I believe it was May 4 that year – I was scheduled to give a short talk to educators in the Anoka-Hennepin school district, where I had worked and lived years earlier.

I decided to wear the same clothes I had worn a few days earlier, walking up Cross Hill above Cross Hill in Littleton. I asked Joni, then a teacher, who had gone to school in Anoka years earlier, if she wanted had any recollections that I could share. Joni instantly remembered her second grade teacher, Clem Gronfors, who stood out for her many years earlier, and I mentioned him, and in the audience someone started to cry. She was a teacher, Sue, who was delivering “meals on wheels” to a now very elderly and ailing Clem.

Saturday, February 17, 2017: We probably all thought, those horrible weeks in 1999, that we had seen the worst, that we would not ever see something so horrible again.

How wrong we were.

We’ve all experienced simply the most recent example of an even more horrific Columbine, in Parkland Florida. Columbine was just the beginning. Over and over and over again. Denying an ugly reality. This seems what we have become.

How do we all respond from today forward?

The ball is in each of our courts…. This is no time to be a passive citizen.

POSTNOTES:
If you missed the preview week of “The World Is My Country”, and now wish you’d seen it, here’s another opportunity, till February 21. Password: wbw2018 (lowercase)

Today’s Just Above Sunset, The Hammer Drops. The Mueller Indictments of the Russians.

Guns, Again.

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A very sad iconic photo of the Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day massacre at the school in Florida: Florida school massacre001. (That’s the reason for the cross on the ladies forehead.)

If nothing else, take time today to visit these two websites: Giffords.org. That’s Gabby Giffords, then Arizona Congresswoman, shot doing the business of being Congresswomman Jan. 8, 2011. Paralyzed.

Then visit Brady Campaign. Jim Brady was Ronald Reagan’s Press Secretary, shot along with the President March 30, 1981, in Washington D.C. Paralyzed. Jim and Sarah, his wife, fought the good fight for years. They are both deceased. Their story is here.

I’m a long-time contributing member to both organizations.

Doubtless there are many other common sense organizations to stop the insanity of guns in our society. Find one, get involved.

Most important:

We have our own paralysis: variations of “I can’t do anything”.

I have the same feeling. It’s not that I haven’t engaged. I just put “guns” in the search engine for my blog and 63 references come up. But I fall into my own paralysis again and again.

The only sure thing about that paralyzed feeling is the certainty that if you can’t do anything, you’ll get the exact same result as the feeling: nothing.

Do something. And then keep doing something. There needs to be far more than a single eruption of concern and outrage today.

Cross Hill above Columbine High School, April 1999, granddaughter Lindsay by the crosses, late April, 1999

This year, April 20, is 19 years after Columbine High School. My then 14 year old granddaughter and her parents lived, and still live, little more than a mile from Columbine – essentially walking distance. She didn’t attend Columbine, but when I heard about the massacre (driving on the freeway in Brooklyn Park MN), I certainly paid very close attention. I was at the school, with the family, at the end of the week, at Cross Hill, still a monument, above the school. That is the photo, above.

The Crosses? Immediately after the killings, a man, I believe from Illinois, came west with crosses, one for each of the dead, including for the two students who killed the others. He placed the crosses on a hill of dirt probably from previous construction. They became their own controversy, and the two to the killers were cut down and removed. We were at Cross Hill one year ago in March. It is still there, but now a formal monument.

Today’s Just Above Sunset, if you wish. Scroll down to the para beginning “This was a bad Valentine’s Day at the White House” for the content about Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School, Valentine’s Day 2018.

COMMENTS:

from Jeff: Congress sends its hopes and prayers, but its too soon to talk about it. It really is very hard not to be cynical about this….they will talk about mental illness now, missing the point that the accessibility and ease of [getting] guns is the actual problem.

from Greg: This tells about the amazing lady after whom the school was named in Parkland Florida. She lived, really lived 108 years. Knowing about her will help us get through the next several days. here

from Carole: No question that we need universal access to medical care and services. Which means that we need a large percentage of the women running for office right now to succeed.

from a long-time Republican friend: Add to this the congressman that is working to get a reciprocity law past which will allow citizens of states that allow open-carry to come into our states and openly carry their weapons. We do need to overturn the congress and clear out all the right wing crazies. I’m pleased to see so many GOP congressman bailing out at the end of their term. Can’t close with my usual “Cheers”. Not much to cheer about today.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS TO YESTERDAYS “#MeToo”
Occasionally my edit feature “freezes” on me, and so it happened with yesterdays post. Here are some later comments received yesterday on that post.

from Mary: Thanks Dick for sharing your thoughts and the Valentines. My mom use to make the Valentine box for my class. I think from 1st to 4th grade. Needless to say it was always spectacular which was way the nuns always asked her to make it. I felt very proud of her.

from Darleen: Thanks for the Valentine’s thoughts / memories. I remember seeing my Mother’s cards which were very similar. I made some for my children and grandchildren this yr. Not as dramatic as those old ones, but modern scrap booking… Life was simpler back then — less meetings / clubs / expectations. There was time to run and play and sort out thoughts / beliefs / dreams.

from Lydia: Seeing the old Valentines was a bright moment on Valentine’s Day. Thank you!
While this is a day that’s almost entirely associated with romantic love, I’ve enjoyed using it as a way to appreciate friendships—a connection NOT nearly as appreciated in our society, as I wish it was—especially between men & women. In fact. many still seem to believe that deep friendship is NOT even possible between men & women–only a “prelude” to sex & romance—or those feelings being unrequited on one side or the other. I feel lucky that I’ve had close platonic men friends since high school.

If we found a way to encourage more NON-romantic friendships between men & women, I wonder if that would go some measure towards healing the attitudes that have made the #MeToo movement necessary. An inability to see women as anything EXCEPT an object of sexual desire or to respect women’s right of consent is certainly part of what fuels much (not all) sexual harassment.

Today, men and women are in situations that the past hasn’t prepared us for: some couples inevitable form out of work relationships—and there’s nothing wrong with that. My only caveat would be: it must be made clear that men have to take NO for an answer and NOT be persistent when a co-worker declines. When it’s a supervisor employee situation, frankly people should simply be expected to”act professional”–as it’s too easy to make it at least appear that “job pressure” is being applied. Women have to assert ourselves—but, NOT be punished for doing so. At the same time, I’d apply an Alcoholics Anonymous motto “Don’t sweat the small stuff!”: sexual jokes, a pat on the shoulder, compliments on one’s appearance—UNLESS they are particularly CRUDE & FREQUENT. Then, Human Resources should step in and the “offender” gets a CLEAR WARNING. (NOT fired for first complaints).

Of course, much of what’s been described by women in these last months of the #MeToo movement is far worse than what I’ve described. At times I’ve thought some of it was “small stuff”. With Sen. Al Franken, it sure SEEMED to be “small stuff” EVEN if I believe everything his first accuser—fellow USO performer 11 years ago—was a former lingerie & Playboy model turned into a Fox commentator. I just didn’t believe that a KISS was “traumatic” for her. It smelled by like a political hit-job & that (allegedly) progressive women who were Franken’s colleagues piled on REALLY disappointed me a lot.

There are CONCRETE things that should & must be done. Changing how CONGRESS itself addresses sexual harassment is a start. But, personally, as a survivor of sexual assault (actual rape), I’d like to see FULL FUNDING & a REQUIREMENT to test ALL the “rape kits”/DNA evidence gathering dust in police departments across the country. Whenever that backlog is addressed, perpetrators WITH MULTIPLE VICTIMS are identified and gotten off the streets.

No doubt, there are many more conversations that will come out of the #MeToo movement& they won’t be comfortable. Women have to be honest, men have to listen and we all have to see how we can create a more equitable environment. Starting with a FRIENDS FIRST attitude towards one another could help.

#MeToo. Time for honest conversations…lots of them.

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Happy Valentine’s Day.

Sometime before she began first grade in about 1913 my Aunt Lucina got a Valentine from a young friend, Stella, who lived on a farm a couple of miles down the road in Henrietta township North Dakota.

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Valentine

Her friends Mom helped make this card for her daughter. Most likely it was delivered in person by horse and buggy. A year or so earlier, rural telephone (“two longs and a short”) had entered the vocabulary of these country neighbors, but in those days the phone was “party line” for everybody, and not for casual use. Stella was apparently missing her young friend down the road, my Aunt Lucina.

Valentine’s Day has a very long history. You can read about it here; (do a quick scroll to “Modern Times” for the more contemporary history.

All of the following are Valentine cards from the Busch farm in ND, which I had borrowed from Uncle Vince and Aunt Edithe, and scanned years ago. They were in a box, and I wrote a bit about them a dozen years ago. My post says there were 19 Valentine’s in the box. I scanned the nine you see here.

The remaining illustrations in this post are all from that same box, that same scan, just waiting for the appropriate time to see the light of day, albeit on a computer screen in 2018.

Valentine

Valentine

Valentine

Valentine

Valentine 1911

Valentine 1913

Valentine 1913

Valentine

POSTNOTE, “#MeToo”:
The following are my scattered/random comments as we wade through the swamp of #MeToo. #MeToo is about relationships of one sort or another gone awry. It has overtaken most everything else in the national conversation the last few months, but if you think about it, the high profile #MeToo’s are very few and very rare.

What follows are some personal unpolished thoughts out loud, hopefully to encourage other thoughts out loud, but mostly to encourage people of different genders, ages, points of view, to discuss together, in person, the “#MeToo” issue. There will be squirming and defensiveness, but the conversations are worth having, far better than the insanity we’re going through today.

I have relevant experience with this, beyond simply being a human being.

As a teacher union staff person from 1972-2000, I and my colleagues had plenty of experience with the “sex” issues of those days: accusations similar to todays, most in the area of inappropriate contact between student and teacher; often front-page news. They were also rare, mostly men were accused (but not all), and mostly there was provable guilt to some degree (but not always). There came to be instant and severe punishment: almost automatic loss of the license to teach.

There was an over-reaction by society generally, and by the teacher community. Some saw individual incidents as opportunities to tar the entire teaching profession, particularly the Unions (including myself) whose duty was to represent our members. At the height, my own union adopted a “no touch” rule for members to avoid problems. It made sense at the time, but was also crazy (such as the female kindergarten teacher afraid to help tie a kindergarten boys shoes).

“Innocent until proven guilty” was not part of the conversation. I’d say it was impossible to get a fair trial that ended with exoneration, or rehabilitation. Once charged, you were presumed to be guilty.

How little we have learned EXCEPT that “sex” has become a very useful political tool….

Fast forward to today, very, very briefly: Full disclosure: two of my personal heroes, Al Franken and Garrison Keillor, have been felled by the recent rounds of #MeToo. Again, once accused, convicted. The “whole truth” unnecessary; all that matters, the result. If you like the outcome against one person, be aware, another person you like, including yourself, may be next on the chopping block.

For some reason I kept the Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018 Minneapolis Star Tribune, whose top of the front page headline was: “Most believe Franken’s accusers“, with subhead “But nearly half of voters say senator shouldn’t have stepped down.” This was a month after the first allegation against Franken was made, for something which occurred before he ran for U.S. Senate, an accusation accompanied by a single photograph suggesting…. Then came some other allegations, “anonymous”. Then the “court” of public opinion:

(click twice for additional enlargement)

We may as well dispense with hearings or courts or privacy: just take a poll and publicize it…the sample will render the verdict. This is a dangerous way to do things.

I did watch 60 Minutes Sunday night, the “#MeToo” topic was one of the segments. I’m sure you can still watch the segment on-line. Now we move, righteously, to kill sexual harassment. It is a wonderful idea. So was prohibition, and the move to eliminate abortions, or to keep slavery, or get rid of illegals…the lists of schemes to prohibit go on and on and on.

To #MeToo as an issue: I read, and I talk to people of other genders with possibly differing points of view…. “Sex” is a part of every one of our beings. It has a very long history. In our country, there is a fascination with sex, as practiced by someone else.

The objective must be to make things better, rather than to attempt to make things perfect.

Then there is our national moral and legal arbiter Donald Trump. While there is much talk about the sanctity of “due process”, including from me, there is no level playing field when it comes to Trump. It is hard to imagine that he will ever be found guilty of anything. He is a proven serial liar – nothing he says can be taken at face value, even in writing, most certainly not in court, and sexual harassment is generally a very personal deal, rarely public, subject to interpretation. He needs only to deny…and countersue.

Lots of people who should know better, say what he allegedly did happened long ago…we should get over it. (There is something of that mantra about Judge Roy Moore, whose incidents happened, they say, “40 years ago”.)

Trumps reputation as a very rich man is that he is one who can afford to, and does, counter-sue almost at every opportunity. If you have power and lots of money, you can buy much better “due process” justice than if you are poor or less powerful or one of those teachers I used to represent.

With Trump, we have what we deserve, and we’re probably stuck with it. Make it a learning opportunity.

A NEW FAVORITE BIBLE STORY comes via an evangelical guy who attends an every Saturday Bible Study one table away from me at coffee. There seems to be an intended public witness by the half dozen men who usually attend, all nice guys, and knowledgable.

Anyway, a few Saturdays ago one gentleman – likely a PhD and a very decent man from all indications – was saying he’d been at something or other and the speaker talked about the first two commands in the Bible: “have sex and eat“. It got a good laugh from the assembled Christians….

Comments are welcome, but probably this forum is not the best – engage with others where you live.

Happy Valentine’s Day. And Ash Wednesday, too.
dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom

COMMENTS:
From Norm: Those old valentines brought back many memories of my grade school days when we used to exchange them I school. As I recall, there was usually a box set-up in our home room that had been decorated by our creative peers with a slot on its top for us to insert the valentines that we had brought in.

The box would later be opened on or close to Valentine’s Day and its contents distributed with all of the be my valentine messages on them.

I can even recall a few valentines that had a small red sucker attached to them as well.

Thanks for bringing back those special memories, Dick.

from Jeff: I think you make a good point, and one often pointed out, that if you are able, you can buy more due process if you can afford it.

I think the #metoo is a good thing, but while he said she said isn’t always right, sometimes it is (Aziz Ansari)

The Process of Politics (Continued from Feb. 8)

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On occasion, my wordpress platform gets irritated and says “no more revisions”. Yesterdays “The Process of Politics” was an example. I don’t know why; it just dug in its heels and refused to allow me to insert these comments, which add to the conversation I began about the Precinct Caucus (the base of Minnesota political process) and politics generally. So, here are the comments, and yours are solicited: dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom.

Picture an eagle flying with only a single wing, or with simply a head…. photo by Dick Bernard, October, 2008, at dedication of gift by Mary Lou Nelson at Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

COMMENTS:
from Jeff: Was gone at meetings in St Cloud most of the day, so skipped this time. Glad to hear you went! I like the candidates I see… good candidate for the state rep here, she is an immigrant from Africa, looks very
Sharp, good story, and has good background… GOTV [Get out the Vote] as usual will be the crux, my district kind of takes in Western Burnsville and most of Savage… it tends to be a bit more conservative than rest of Burnsville.

from Norm: I attended my precinct caucus (Roseville-3) and had a very positive experience with it as well. There about 45 people who signed in and I think that most of them stayed for the entire session and not just until they had voted in the straw poll. We had 31-people interested in filling the 30 senate district convention delegate slots (2/24/18) and one of them….a late comer…volunteered to be an alternate. As such, there was no need to vote to select the delegates to the senate district convention.

On the other hand, a friend of mine was in the caucus of another precinct on the A side of SD42 who told me that 90 people signed in at his caucus with most of them staying for the entire session that went until 9:30. He told me that they had twice as many folks who wanted to be delegates as they had delegate slots allotted to them. He said that they all worked it out to the apparent satisfaction of everyone with folks dividing up amongst the delegate and alternate slots available.

As such, no voting was required nor was the use of the cumbersome and time consuming sub-caucus process.

On the other hand, I always find the names of the proposed sub-caucuses at senate district conventions to be interesting. Frequently, they appear to be nominated by a person who claims to be a life-long DFLer, i.e. my bias is that to some of them, life-long means since they registered for the convention but… who just never participated in the process but now wants to get involved. Further, he/she feels that persons with his/her background have been ignored by the DFL and it is sure as hell time for the party involved…and not just to send old party hacks to the convention.

I can see it now some of the caucuses that might be nominated based upon my long experience with the process, i.e. Left Handed Norwegians who Secretly Wear Suspenders and do not like lefse! or Right Handed Swedes who do not like egg coffee! or (fill in the blanks).

We had 6 or 7 resolutions introduced on a variety of issues including the one that I introduced on behalf of the Veteran’s Caucus relating to the requested replacement of 150-beds at the Minnesota Veterans Home in Minneapolis. That number of beds had apparently been lost due to the renovation and remodeling of the facility that included making lots of single and double bed rooms in areas that previously included rooms with several beds in them. It passed unanimously with little fanfare.

The caucus night for SD42 was very well organized and everything went very smooth that I was aware of. Some local candidates and/or office holders did come by as interrupters as they were referred to but no statewide candidates. [A candidate for Governor] was in the hallway when we left the caucus following its adjournment. [The couple] had just gotten there after first stopping at another senate district precinct caucus site where [the candidate] had talked to more than 20-precincts.

You are absolutely right that everyone can participate in the caucus/convention process but very few do no matter what is done to make them more attractive, if you will, including a failed effort a few cycles ago to hold them on a Saturday morning on the assumption that it would draw more people due to convenience. It did not do that and the turnout may well have been less than it had been on Tuesdays.

Well intentioned but no connection to the reality of the busy Saturdays that folks have, especially those with children involved in kids activities.

Given the large tent that we all like to say that we gather under…everyone is welcome…I have long since concluded that the much heralded concern over underrepresented groups is cute and all but has little value. I am convinced based upon my long experience with the caucus process and observations made of it is that folks make the decision to be underrepresented and there is not really much over time that can be done to make them think otherwise.

My individual concern with the caucus system when it is used as the vehicle for party endorsement especially for state wide offices is that thanks to grass roots organizing and whatever, it often produces a candidate who does not have a chance in hell of winning the primary let alone the general election. In addition, many candidates including Dayton on three successful occasions, have gone directly to the primary on the correct assumption that the folks making the endorsement decision through the caucus process do not represent the voters at large let alone the DFL voters at large. The primary always provides the opportunity for the voters to make a mid-course correction if they do not agree with what the endorsement process has placed on the ballot.

Response from Dick: Good comment. I’ll add it to the comments section on the blog. The flaws of the system will never be fully corrected. They are only replaced by other flaws, in my opinion. But it beats the alternative. I will be watching how the “youngsters” do in SD53A. I was impressed with all of them. They are who we were 40 years ago!

Reply from Norm: I agree.

I now enjoy watching the younger folks, i.e. do their thing, that is, us as you said 40-years ago, and see and hear how they do things.

On the other hand, regardless of the age of the participants, I continue to have strong concerns regarding the use of the caucus/convention process to endorse candidates for statewide office (it is very good for local legislative contests) as I think that it very seldom produces a candidate who can win the primary let alone the general election.

Further, given that we are all under a big tent with strong passionate beliefs about this or that, we often find it difficult to get behind the endorsed candidate, i.e. the candidate who wins the primary, because we are miffed or feel slighted that our candidate who “obviously was the best candidate available” did not receive the endorsement.

As Wellstone said, when all do well we all do well or something to that effect. [“We all do better when we all do better.” See 8th paragraph.]

We are a coalition based party, Dick, and, as such, that means that the tent holds the seeds for great success in elections and public policy development when we all pull together. Unfortunately, the big tent also holds the seeds for our destruction and not well during elections resulting in our having to sit on the sidelines whining ain’t it awful because we cannot get together following passionate debates and discussions regarding the merits of this candidate or that candidate during passionate endorsement contests.

So, some of us sit on our hands and stay home or vote for the other party.

The Process of Politics.

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Tuesday was Precinct Caucus night in Minnesota. I attended mine. More on that below the Eagle. But first:

The response to the free preview week for new film, The World Is My Country, was gratifying. If you missed the film, or wish to watch it again, another week begins February 14 at World Beyond War. Look for details here, at February 14. Consider a financial donation to help complete the process for release of the film, here. People like ourselves make such projects possible.

(click to enlarge)

J. Drake Hamilton of Fresh Energy, Jan. 18, 2018

And if you have even the slightest interest in Climate Change, regardless of your personal position on the issue, you’ll find J. Drake Hamilton’s talk to 37 of us three weeks ago to be very informing (photo above). Her topic, Next Steps on Deep Climate Action: How can Minnesota Lead. You can watch it here. J. had recently attending the Climate Change followup conference to Paris’ COP23 in Bonn Germany, Nov 2017, and her report was very interesting. Her interest is in engaging with people of varying points of view. She is Science Policy Director at highly respected Fresh Energy.

Picture an eagle flying with only a single wing, or with simply a head…. photo by Dick Bernard, October, 2008, at dedication of gift by Mary Lou Nelson at Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

The Precinct Caucus

We in the United States live in a world of politics. Politics is something we love to hate. On the other hand, we are the people who make politics function…or not. Something of a personal mantra: we get what we deserve, local, state, national…. Nobody says we can’t get involved, but few do.

There were 21 of us in the caucus room for Precinct 5 on Tuesday night. Mostly we were within two miles of the high school where the meetings were held (a few came to sign in, and left, but were considered in attendance). We convened at 7 and we adjourned shortly after 8 p.m.

We seem to have been fairly typical in attendance: TV news reported about 30,000 attending the Democrat caucuses; perhaps 11,000 the Republican. The state results for Democrats and Republicans are here. There doubtless were smaller gatherings for other parties, but like most places, Democrats and Republicans end up being the only viable parties. There are about 4 million registered voters in Minnesota.

Simple math: with everyone welcome, and no one turned away, about 1% of eligible voters attended the Minnesota caucuses. 99% had better uses for their evening. From the ranks of the 1% will come the decision makers on candidates and party platforms for the months ahead. Lack of civic engagement is a self-imposed problem for the general electorate.

I don’t think Minnesota is atypical.

Along with routine mandatory business of a caucus, our main purposes on Tuesday were three: 1) to elect delegates to the March 10 Senate District Convention; 2) to consider policy resolutions for the party as proposed by those in attendance; 3) meet declared candidates for office who stopped by the room, and do a “straw poll” of who we preferred for Governor at this moment in time.

There were over 4,000 caucuses on Tuesday night, so we didn’t see any major candidates in our room.

I made a very brief statement in behalf of the gubernatorial candidate I am supporting, but by that point in the meeting the voting had already concluded. This was not a campaign stop.

I was gratified, and I said so to the group, that all three candidates for our open state legislator seat were young people (by my definition, people who appeared to be under 40 – two women and one man). We were a diverse bunch in our caucus room, as were the candidates who declared for office. I like that, a lot.

Everyone who wished will be able to attend the Senate District Convention as a delegate (March 10). Eight resolutions on a variety of issues were proposed and passed in our room, some with questions and very civil debate. They will all go forward to a committee that will sift and sort all proposed resolutions, as the process continues.

After the Senate District Conventions will come Congressional District, then Republican and Democrat State Conventions, as the 2018 election contests heat up.

The Practice of Politics:

Our precinct, like most, was like a friendly neighborhood gathering. We are “birds of a feather”, so to speak. But politics, even within political parties, is not bean-bag. There are three candidates for our seat in the Minnesota House. Only one of them will get the endorsement. Our “straw poll” for Governor listed five candidates. By the end of the State Convention only one will get the nod, and lest we forget, Gov. Dayton ran against the party endorsed candidate eight years ago…and won. Strange things can happen.

The practice of politics in a democracy has always been and probably will always be a matter of competition of ideas. We are in a new and much more dangerous era where competition (and bipartisan resolution) has been replaced by the practice of conquest and domination – winners and losers. We see it today, every day, in the national conversation. It is unhealthy, and destructive. Hopefully this unhealthy way of doing political business will collapse before our society does.

“Politics” and “Government” used to represent positive values in a democracy. This is no longer true. “Truth” is only what is necessary to win; and does not have to be true. Most recently, our President suggests that is is almost treasonous to not give him an ovation with each statement – a false validation. It is easy to feel crazy these days.

What we can do is to become well informed about all the candidates wishing to represent us; to support our preferred candidates with time, talent and money (very few people donate much to, especially, local candidates). If we dislike the scourge of big dark money in politics, the antidote has to be our own donations. We need to learn to be very skeptical of positioning against an opponent; similarly, sanctifying our own favorites. No one is as good, or bad, as they are portrayed. All successful candidates have to work with different constituencies with differing beliefs and priorities. In the long run, purists of every stripe are doomed to failure in a pluralistic society, as ours is.

There is no nirvana in politics. Neither does there need to be the disgusting nonsense we have been experiencing in this country in recent years.

There is much more to be said. Let’s start here!

The Precinct Caucus (and its variations)

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Tonight is Precinct Caucus night in Minnesota. Here’s the pertinent information from Minnesota Secretary of State’s office.

Picture an eagle flying with only a single wing, or with simply a head…. photo by Dick Bernard, October, 2008, at dedication of gift by Mary Lou Nelson at Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

Every state has some kind of analogous activity. The caucus is the beginning of the process to elect the people who represent us, and where issues important to us first surface as individuals present rough-cut statements of priority to the vote of their fellow citizens in the room. Typically, sadly, there are only a few of us rattling around in a classroom. Everyone will be able to qualify to be a a delegate at the next level, the Senate District Convention on March 10.

Even among those who show up, not everyone will take the bait. But at least they showed up.

In about ten months we all have an opportunity to vote on the results of those caucuses – for candidates for local, state and national offices, each running on issues on which they think a majority of those actually voting will support. Then, typically, we settle back to become part of the audience to the bright shining points of light evident in a place that works; or, alternatively, to observing a continuing political train wreck.

Tonight at my caucus, at minimum I expect to see two young people stopping by, introducing themselves as possible nominees for state legislature, running for the seat from which the incumbent, Joann Ward, is retiring. Joann has been outstanding in her three terms.

I’d like to introduce the two people I know of who’ll (probably somewhat nervously) show up in my caucus room tonight: see Greta Bjerkness, also on Facebook; and Tou Xiong001.

Greta has already called me on the phone; Tou (pronounced “two”, stopped by here on a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon to drop off his flier. Both made excellent impressions, and between now and March 10 will be very hard work for both (and possibly others) who seek citizen endorsement to represent tens of thousands of us in the state legislature.

In the meantime, other citizens, people I know, have been sending around positions on issues of one kind or another, both here in Minnesota, and even other states. At every caucus, resolutions on issues will be proposed by citizens. It does not take long to realize that whomever is elected, wherever, asks for the difficult job representing everyone.

But the most important job of all is that of each of us as citizens.

What we are is truly who we elect. And it behooves us to be active and well informed.

POSTNOTE: in Sunday’s blog I introduced an excellent book for citizens. Its simple title, Soul of the Citizen. It is short stories about making a difference.

“Soul of a Citizen“…the book is now 18 years old [but that makes] no difference at all. We all can make a difference. One of Loeb’s chapters was headed by this quote, from Dorothy Day: “People say, what is the sense of our small effort. They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time.”