En Avant: A Significant Film Work in Progress on the French presence in Minnesota

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , /by

UPDATE: May 29, 2013: Here’s a 5-minute preview of the film. Note that it may take a bit of time to download, and that a password is required to access: the password is: enavant2013
French film producer and director Christine Loys has released this up-to-date precis about her project: Précis 130513
*
An important film on the French presence in Minnesota, En Avant, is being prepared for production and at some point in the future will be released in France and in Minnesota.
At a special event at Alliance Francaise Minneapolis, on October 10, 2012, explorer and environmental advocate Will Steger of Ely, made brief introductory remarks before a discussion about the En Avant project.
(click on photos to enlarge)

Will Steger at En Avant introduction at Alliance Francaise Minneapolis MN October 10, 2012


Why Will? The answer lies in one of those serendipity things some people call coincidences, but which to me have more of an “unseen hand” aspect to them. Christine: “Will Steger was there as my special guest because he was the first person to introduce me to Minnesota.”
Most Minnesotans know that back in April, 1986, Richfield native Will Steger led an intrepid group of adventurers on a trip by dogsled to the North Pole.
The adventure was successful, and back at home, on a chilly May day, I was among those who gathered outside the Minnesota state capitol for the welcome home. Theirs was a thrilling accomplishment.
At the time, there had been a small piece of news about a rather astonishing meetup on the Polar icecap on the 1986 adventure. It is best described by Jon Bowermaster, with this recollection by Will Steger:
“As I skied the last half mile [of the Antarctic crossing in 1989] I could not erase from my mind a picture of another time, another cold place. It was April 1986, the middle of the frozen Arctic Ocean, when [French doctor] Jean-Louis [Etienne] and I first met. He stepped to the top of a ridge of jumbled sea ice, seemingly out of nowhere, and we embraced, like brothers, though we’d never even been introduced. Everything that we’d done these past years evolved from that fated moment, from that embrace. We had turned our dreams – about adventure and cooperation, about preservation and the environment – into realities. We had the confidence to take risks, and the scene splayed in front of us now was our reward, our affirmation.
The Soviets had marked our entryway with red flags and made a Finish line. A gathering of one hundred, speaking a dozen different languages, swarmed around us as we came down the flag bedecked chute. As I called my dogs to a stop one last time and stepped out of my skis, Jean-Louis walked toward me. I lifted Sam onto my shoulder and Jean-Louis – completing the circle begun those years ago in the middle of the Arctic Ocean – wrapped us both in a bear hug.”
Back in France, Christine Loys, a photo journalist who initially was a friend of Dr. Etienne when he made his solo trek, became part of the Transantarctica expedition whose co-leaders were Will Steger and Dr Jean-Louis Etienne.

Will Steger, Christine Loys, Jean-Louis Etienne, 2009 in Paris, after Will had given a talk on climate change at the U.S. Embassy


Some time later, Ms Loys made a trip to this mysterious place called Minnesota, and in her journey through our state was startled to see French name after French name…towns, lakes, etc.
She learned that the motto of Minnesota is in French, L’Etoile du Nord; and that the motto of Minneapolis is En Avant, meaning “Forward”.
The French knew much about Quebec, and the French antecedents of Louisiana, but very little about this apparently French-drenched place called Minnesota, and Christine went to work.
The idea for a movie about the French in Minnesota was born, from the earliest days of people like Fr. Hennepin, to the present world-known Guthrie Theatre, designed by the French architect Atelier Jean Nouvel, which overlooks the very falls of St. Anthony which Frenchman Fr. Louis Hennepin saw and named in 1680.
Ms Loys hard work continues as she returns to France for some months, with plans to return to the Minnesota in 2013.
We wish her well.

Panelists at Alliance Francaise October 10, 2012


Panelists from left to right: Pierce McNally, attorney; Jérôme Chateau, CEP Normande Genetics, former President of the French American Chamber of Commerce (FACC) and today Vice President of FACC; François Fouquerel, Dean of “Les Voyageurs” at Concordia Language Villages; Robert Durant, Treasury/Secretary at the tribal Counsel of White Earth; Bob Perrizo, artist, journalist, writer, historian
Also speaking was Barbara Johnson, President of the City Council of Minneapolis who made the introduction. She is a descent of the French. Her maiden name is Rainville.
Dick Bernard was invited to make some remarks representing the 2012 Franco-Fete committee, of which five members were in attendance at the gathering.
This is also posted also here.

#646 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #63. Your future is completely in your hands, now.

/3 Comments/in , , , , /by

The American people – of which you are one – decide their future on Tuesday, November 6.
The choice has never been more stark, at all levels, in all states.
If you are an ordinary person, as I am, and 98% or more of the American people are ordinary like me, you are well advised to vote your personal interest and vote straight ticket Democrat on Tuesday, November 6.
In my entire life, I have never been as partisan as I am right now.
I believe in a multi-party democracy; in the value of differences of opinion. I am as I’ve said publicly since I began this blog in 2009: a “moderate pragmatic Democrat….”
But today’s Republican party – indeed since at least 1995 – has become ever more radical, extreme, “take no prisoners”, win-at-any-cost. The objective is permanent control of government at all levels by a tiny fringe of amoral partisans. Their fantasy is no more permanently attainable than was Hitler’s Thousand-year Reich.
If you are looking for old-line moderate Republicans, you will be hard-pressed to find them in todays Republican party. They’ve been purged, or resigned, or relegated to minority status.
The Democrats are the party of moderation now, the reasonable party.
You’ll vote (or not vote at all). Maybe you’ve voted already.
Be careful. Your vote has consequences.
*
Tomorrow: What led to my decision to recommend a one-party vote this year?
Tuesday: We’re all responsible for this mess. What now?
(If you wonder what that #63 in the subject line means, simply put Election 2012 in the search box, click, and you’ll find a list of all the posts I’ve done on Election 2012, beginning 6 months ago. #1, March 18, 2012, is here.)
Check back Monday and Tuesday for #64 and #65.
Twice before, in 2011, I did extended series on political issues: 18 posts from Feb 17-March 20, 2011 on the Wisconsin Government shutdown; many posts from June 29 – August 8, 2011 on the Government shutdown crises both in Minnesota and the United States Government.
COMMENTS (note possible additional comments at the end of the blogpost itself):
From Bob in Ohio, Nov 4: What worries me most in this election is the level of general ignorance that pervades the electorate.
And I have little confidence in the voting system as we have learned all too well here in Ohio. The pressure on elected officials in the controlling party of the state to behave unethically to influence the elections is disgraceful.
I will be absolutely amazed if this election does not turn on some quirk in the system that most of us will not believe.
From Will, Minnesota, Nov. 4: The Republicans probably have the voting machines fixed in key states, Karl Rove is smarter than any Dems, any organization such as ACLU, CCR and we will enter the Second Dark Ages, for how long, who knows?

#641 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #59. Hurricane Sandy, the Regal Princess and the end-game of the 2012 U.S. Election

/0 Comments/in , , /by

A week from today the final voter will exit the polls somewhere in the United States and the 2012 election will be over except for the counting and the postmortems. Many of us have already voted. At this point few will change their minds.
We are barraged by messages of all sorts from all directions. The swill that passes for “information” in TV ads and independent expenditure mailers has been non-credible and unending, and will likely get worse.
We are buried in a flood of highly selective misinformation, from all sides on all issues. It is all designed to confuse and inflame and divide.
And Minnesota, where I write, is not even considered a “battleground state”. Oh, how it must be in those….
Last night I watched some of the incessant coverage of Hurricane Sandy, then hitting the east coast in conjunction with high tide. A day or two earlier, Sandy was described as “a truly massive storm on satellite. One of, if not the largest tropical cyclone to ever develop in the Atlantic basin” according to Accuweather.com. It had earlier devastated oft-beleaguered Haiti* for several days. As I write in early morning Oct 30, no one is sure of the extent of the damage this storm will inflict on the U.S.
Of course, the hurricane was about the only news last night, and that news was frequently interrupted by wave upon wave of political attack ads.
Some commentator talked about how we Americans put politics aside during times of crisis, such as during this storm. Nonetheless the ugly process of political destruction of the enemy other continued on its very profitable way. Indeed, someone else correctly noted that disasters are good times for business and the economy. What is wrecked has to be rebuilt. There is lots of money to be made….
In political campaigns, wreckage is the objective leading to a win; rebuilding is irrelevant. November 7 is day one to the next war two years out.
I got to thinking of we Americans – all of us – as passengers on a luxury liner. We’ve been on such a liner only one time, and that was on a Baltic cruise in June, 2003**. It was quite a vessel, the Regal Princess. (It now sails under another name out of another port in the Pacific).
(click to enlarge)

Princess Regal official photo 2003


You have to have money, either real or borrowed, to be on that kind of boat, and such vessels become little states of their owns: a Captain, crew, passengers…. Even in large vessels there is no room for disorder. They are communities.
What if we Americans were collectively sentenced to live on this luxury liner, endlessly sailing from place to place. And what if we had to confront ourselves daily, with our contemporary political system, where the constant emphasis was on taking control of the ship represented by the Captain and crew. Where one ‘sides’ priority prevailed, and the other side – the losers – were forced to comply with the winners wishes. The Captain, secure in the wheelhouse, set the course to wherever, whatever.
Oh, what a dismal vessel that luxury liner would be. The winner would win nothing whatsoever as the losers regrouped and sabotaged the winner. And maybe those losers would then win, putting a new Captain topside, with an entirely new crew.
But what would be won? Absolutely nothing. And how would the passengers benefit? Not at all.
Come to think of it, we are sentenced to life on this kind of luxury liner….
Next Tuesday night there will be election watch parties here and there. In the end, there will be the winners parties, and the losers parties.
The debris – and the hangovers – will be the same, whether at the winners or the losers party.
If we members of the wealthiest society ever known cannot figure out how to do Win-Win in politics, we are doomed to a truly dismal Lose-Lose future.
Vote wisely November 6.
My personal view: summarized here. Election 2012 in Search Box for a list of all the commentaries.
* – October 26, 2012: I am writing you to let you know of the situation in Haiti following Hurricane Sandy. I just returned from a trip to Port-au-Prince. The situation is devastating. The storm stayed for almost five days. The rain fell without ceasing. The wind was very strong. The streets are flooded. In some areas the water is waist deep. On my drive to and from Port-au-Prince, I saw many bridges that have fallen and are destroyed. I have seen streets that I pass everyday, now are rushing rivers. As much as this saddens me, I am not surprised. With the infrastructure we have, these results are to be expected. The departments that were affected the most were the South, South East, West, Nippes, and Grand Anse. It saddens me that school just began three weeks ago, and already there is another problem for the people of Haiti. There are many people who were still living in tents or in unsafe housing, and the hurricane took away what shelter they had. Hurricane Sandy has left many people displaced and with no place to turn to. Many families in Haiti already had a difficult time providing for their families. Now after the hurricane, it is more difficult to find food to eat, and people who give food cannot provide for everyone who needs it. I am asking for you to please continue to keep the people of Haiti in your prayers. It means so much to me, and to the Haitian people. Thank you so much for these prayers and for everything you have done for us already. It is appreciated so much. I cannot put into words how you have helped the people of Haiti.
Blessing to you,
Rev. Dr. Kesner Ajax
** – The highlight of that cruise was a visit to the magnificent Peterhof and Catherine Palaces outside St. Petersburg, Russia. The opulence was almost overwhelming. I couldn’t help but think of the peasants and artisans who built those luxurious places but never really shared in the wealth. Of course, nothing is ever permanent. Seated in our bus waiting to depart, we watched a couple of old beggar women. I was tempted to take a photograph, but it was too sad. It was an uncomfortable moment. History will continue to be the great leveler.
UPDATE October 31: It was gratifying to see Gov Christie of New Jersey and President Obama working together. It is how government should work.
Here are a couple of photos sent from NYC by my friend Michael Knox of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. Michael was stranded in the city near one of the most photographed problems caused by Sandy.

New York City after the hurricane passed by.


Another view. Both photos by Michael Knox

Virgil Benoit: a personal retrospective by Dick Bernard

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

click to enlarge photos

Virgil Benoit Dec 19, 2011, at Cafe Aster, Minneapolis. First in-person meeting with Virgil about Franco-Fete 2012


The eleven of us who were the Twin Cities Franco-Fete Committee* on site Sep 28-30 are preparing to debrief this years event on November 15. This seems a good time to recognize the man whose vision and determination and passion led to Twin Cities Franco-Fete in the first place: Dr. Virgil Benoit of Red Lake Falls MN and the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks and IF Midwest.
Readers who were at the event know that Virgil had a serious automobile accident three days before Franco-Fete began, Tuesday night Sep 25.
As I write, Virgil is recuperating at home. My evidence is occasional e-mail messages, and a response he just filed to the base blog post about Franco-Fete! This is no epitaph or eulogy, in other words. It is a small tribute from someone who’s learned much about his French-Canadian culture through years of contact, mostly indirect with Dr. Benoit.
We all have our stories. Here, very briefly is mine, as pieced together from assorted documents I retain here at home.
I first “met” Dr. Benoit in the Les Francais d’Amerique/French in America calendar for the year 1985. There were to be sixteen more of these calendars, the last for 2002, which were a joint project of Virgil Benoit and Marie-Reine Mikesell of Chicago, all printed in Grand Forks. I have the calendars through 2001 – a precious possession (why didn’t I get 2002?!). The color photographs from the collection were posted and remain on the internet here.
While we lived far apart, geographically, I seemed often to be somewhere within his sphere.
The first time in person was probably L’Heritage Tranquille conference in November, 1985, at the new Riverplace development just below Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Minneapolis. He did the keynote at that conference, and a group of us had come down from Hibbing for it. Later, I learned he had essentially organized the conference for Concordia Language Villages, and I still have the book, L’Heritage Tranquille, which was sold at the conference. Here’s what Leonard Inskip of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had to say: L’Heritage Tranquille 001
The next year, 1986, some of us from Hibbing went over to Red Lake Falls for a fall event, Le Festival Rural, which was in the town hall of the community. It was a stimulating day of immersion in things French-Canadian, including guests from St. Boniface MB. Lorraine deMillo of Hibbing had told us about the event and later wrote a summary about it for the newsletter I edited, Chez Nous: Virgil Benoit:Midwest Fr001
Time went on, and I recall seeing him at Alliance Francaise events in Minneapolis. I was at an event, Espaces du Francophone, of which he was part, which includes a photo of him at the time (1989):Espaces Francophone 1989001
At one point he came down for the St. Paul Winter Carnival and I introduced him to a couple of elderly Nun friends, French-Canadian, at Bethany Convent at the College of St. Catherine. It was a rich moment for Sr. Ann Thomasine Sampson and Sr. Ellen Murphy. They with Virgil in his buffalo coat.

Virgil and Michael Rainville with the Buffalo Coat January 20, 2012


Le Festival Rural at some point moved to rural Red Lake Falls to Huot Crossing on the Red Lake River, where the Old Crossing Treaty 1863001 transferred the rich land of Red River from the Indians to the whites. It was the last major event of the 1862 “Indian Wars” whose 150th anniversary is being commemorated this year. I traveled north for a few of these events, now called Chautauqua, all organized by Virgil Benoit.

Virgil Benoit "up north" spring 2008 photo by Anne Dunn


About 2007, Virgil had the introductory event for IF Midwest at the University of North Dakota. I was able to make it to all of the subsequent events: first in Grand Forks; thence a tour including my ancestral home parish at Oakwood, places like Pembina, Bathgate, Leroy and Belcourt; in 2010 in Bismarck, 2011 in Fargo, and now setting root in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis St. Paul.
Let’s leave it at that.
A hardy Merci Beaucoup to Dr. Benoit for celebrating a rich culture: the French-Canadians (or whatever we happen to call ourselves) of the Midwest!

Virgil Benoit with Francine Roche and her niece from Montreal, July 17, 2012, also at Cafe Aster


More about Franco-Fete here; more about French-Canadians in the Midwest here.
* (in alphabetical order): Dick Bernard, Bob Dedrick, Mike Durand, Jerry Foley, Pierre Girard, Mark Labine, Fr. Jules Omalanga, Jane Peck, Marie Trepanier, Jon Tremblay, Mary Ellen Weller

#640 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #58. The Local Election for State Legislature in SD District 53 and 53A&B

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

There is a clear choice in this years election: essentially we are choosing between a moderate Win-Win Democrat philosophy where all matter; or an increasingly extreme Republican faction where Winning is all that matters.
“Exhibit A” are the two constitutional amendments on which we’re voting. Both were ramrodded through the 2012 Republican dominated legislature, ignoring Democrat ideas and avoiding the Governor. Those amendments are, in my opinion, the face of the contrast between the two parties this November.
I’ve lived at the same address in Woodbury since October of 2000. My home is now in a new Senate and House District due to census redistricting. I’m now in Senate District 53A. Representing my District 2011-13 are Ted Lillie and Andrea Kieffer. Lillie is running to continue as Senator; Kieffer is now in neighboring 53B.
The Democrat candidates:
I am supporting Susan Kent for Senate and JoAnn Ward for House of Representatives.
Yes, I’m Democrat, but it isn’t all that simple. Kent, Ward, and Ann Marie Metzger in 53B, have a very strong sense of this community and commitment to our public schools and children. And they know business. They are multi-dimensional candidates, important in a multi-dimensional community such as ours. I would class them all, as I did Senator Kathy Saltzman and Rep. Marsha Swails, 2007-2011, as “Win-Win” candidates. To borrow a phrase from Paul Wellstone, who died ten years ago today, “we all do better when we all do better“.
I’ve known JoAnn Ward since the late 1990s when, as a school volunteer, she helped a great deal in organizing a Community Conversation About Public Schools for South Washington County ISD 833. That program was organized and funded by the National Education Association (NEA) and I was assigned to help pull it together.
JoAnn Ward was a great help as a volunteer with the School District. The conversation was a success (there need to be more such conversations.) I was delighted when I learned JoAnn Ward was running.
Recently, former ISD 833 Superintendent Tom Nelson wrote an endorsement of Susan Kent for State Senate.
While I didn’t know him personally, I do know that Supt Nelson had a long and very distinguished career as a school administrator, including time as Commissioner of Education for the State of Minnesota. His is a sterling endorsement.
While she’s not running in my part of the District, I believe Ann Marie Metzger is more than equal to the task of fairly and competently representing all of the citizens of 53B.
When I wanted to meet with her, even though I was not part of her legislative district, she took the time to actually meet with me. That impressed me. When elected, she will be ‘on the court’ for all of us.
The Republican candidates:
In my dozen years here I have gotten to know pretty well eight local candidates for state legislature. Four of these served during my time here, five ran or are running as incumbents, six are Democrat, two Republican.
From career experience, I know the process and the reality of legislating very well. It is hard work to fairly represent all points of view, and requires working together. It’s called “win-win”.
During 2010-12, when Ted Lillie and Andrea Kieffer represented my district (they’re still my legislators till January), I elected to attempt to engage constructively with both of them, even though I had strongly supported their incumbent opponents, Sen. Kathy Saltzman and Rep. Marsha Swails. My engagement was mostly handwritten letters – I know how busy it is at the legislature, and didn’t park on their doorstep. They ran primarily as candidates favoring business, so I didn’t feel much possibility of impacting on them, but I could watch and see how or if they responded at all.
Rep Kieffer was pretty good about communicating; Sen Lillie was very bad. I noted that he picked up the title of “Majority Whip”, which gave him additional power (and responsibility) in the Republican caucus. He was a leader in that caucus.
I believe Kieffer and Lillie’s signature issue – indeed that of the entire Republican majority in House and Senate, are the two constitutional amendments we are asked to vote on November 6. These amendments were ram-rodded through by the Republicans, passing on essentially party-line votes and passed specifically to avoid the Governor. Both amendments deserve to be defeated. Amending the constitution is no way to make partisan policy.
Rep. Kieffer early on pledged formally to “support all efforts to institute a requirement to show photo I.D. to access a ballot in any election for public office in the State”. I was surprised to find her unwilling to commit how she would vote on the initiative at the recent League of Women Voters Forum. Indeed, none of the Republican candidates revealed how they would vote on this, their own, initiative (the Democrats all said they’d vote no.)
The Mailers about Local Candidates
Of course, there are other kinds of communication, and I want to comment on the flood of political issue junk mail we’ve received this fall.
When the first political mailer came to our mailbox quite a while back, I decided to keep them all and see what would transpire.
Yesterday, October 24, I took out the stack. It is most interesting.
There were 31 of these easily identified mailers (which does not count 6 mailings from and in behalf of 4 candidates for office. So far no mailings have been received from two local candidates in their own behalf.
Four mailings have come from the state Republican Party (all four Anti-Susan Kent and Anti-Union.)
Two mailings have come from the state Democratic Party (both Pro-Susan Kent and Anti-Sen Lillie.)
The remaining 25 are from assorted “independent expenditure” groups which by their text are all pro-Republican, anti-Democrat and anti-Union.
The current Republican position seems basically this: there are winners and there are losers. And judging from the mailers and the Republican legislators positioning, the main, indeed sole, priority is what’s good for “business”*, and “unions”* are apparently viewed as competition and must be reined in or eliminated. It has worked in the cutthroat and vicious world that is contemporary attack politics, but it isn’t good for the greater society.
It is important to note that of the 31 outside fliers that ended up in our mailbox, 29 came from the Republican side. And none has come from Sen. Lillie himself, who apparently has plenty of friends with money for advertising in his behalf.
The sources of those mailers are worth looking into. In order of number of mailers attributed to them, here they are: Minnesota Future; Freedom Club; Pro Jobs Majority; Coalition of MN Businesses; Housing First. You may not be able to learn much about who is behind them; but their fruits have been in your mailboxes.
Freedom Club, with a Champlin MN PO box and no website I can find, deserves special scrutiny. It is the group which bankrolled the huge Lillie billboard just east of 3M. It exists mostly in Federal Election Commission Reports (FEC) and occasional news articles about it. It appears to be a closed-membership cooperative of a very few individuals, 90% or more men. We likely will not know its true expenditures until the FEC reports at the end of January, 2013. The last report deadline was September 30, so any subsequent expenditures are hidden for the next three months.
Similarly, Minnesota Future is not at all transparent. It seems much like a “trojan horse” group, initially founded on a premise that got some interesting endorsers (still on its website), but whose agenda in this election is very different.
Vote for the reasonable candidates who really care about our entire community November 7: Susan Kent for Senate; JoAnn Ward and Ann Marie Metzger for House of Representatives.
And after this election lobby for major changes in the way that elections are funded. Our democracy is imperiled.
* – “Business” and “Union” are generic terms that are best not judged generically. The political posturing, especially from the contemporary Republicans, is that “business” is all that matters; and that “unions” should cease to exist. Neither business nor union are monoliths, and should not be considered as such.

#637 – Dick Bernard: George McGovern. A Memory

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

George McGovern has died. He was 90 at the time of his death in Sioux Falls.
Permit me a memory of a great man and humanitarian.
October 21, 2005 – 7 years ago today, it was a Friday – at the Bell Museum Theater at the University of Minnesota, we went to see the film about George McGovern: “For One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern“. As I recounted below, in P&J #968 on October 23, 2005, we apparently sat very near him, and afterwards I stood in line to get an autographed copy of his book, described below. I still have that book. Here’s the cover and his autograph: G McGovern Ending Hunger001

Here’s what I wrote, after that evening:
I remember I voted for George McGovern in 1972 and before him Hubert Humphrey in 1968 – from the earliest I never felt any trust for Nixon.
But other than that, politics was for me, then, a pretty passive activity.
Friday night in a little less than three hours many of the blanks of that time period were filled in for me.
The new documentary, For One Bright Shining Moment, The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern, brought it all back.
We watched the documentary only a few seats away from George McGovern himself, who spoke and answered questions before and after the showing. We and several hundred others had One Bright Shining Moment in the soft-spoken but powerful presence of greatness. (What I heard him say is at the end of this P&J).
It was a peak moment for me.
The ‘60s and early 70s passed me by, politically, though I was voting age the whole time, and voted. Life happened for me, then, and was too great a distraction.
In the climactic political year of 1968 I was in my third years as a single parent of a youngster who had just turned four – his Mom had died in 1965. I knew that Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for a second term in ‘68; I knew of the chaos surrounding the Democratic convention in Chicago. Heroes fell early that year, and not only in Vietnam: Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy. I remember a short by-myself-in-my-’65-Volkswagen-bug geography tour through the east in August of ’68, driving through part of the wreckage that was post-riot Washington D.C. (map here)
In 1972, when Nixon steam-rollered George McGovern, winning 49 of 50 states in the greatest Presidential election rout in American history, I was in a brand new job doing something I had never done before: staff person for a large public employee union bargaining its first contract under my state’s first full-fledged collective bargaining law for public employees. A competing union wanted our status as exclusive representative and that and the companion contract negotiations were too big distractions. (We prevailed in that political campaign, and got our first contract that late summer.)
In between, before and after, Vietnam raged. For awhile in the late fall of 1969 one of my brothers stayed with us for awhile; he was a fighter bomber pilot in Vietnam whose plane had gone down in a mid-air refueling collision over Thailand, and he got lucky – his only damage some burns that had him in hospital and then on leave for some months.
May 4, 1970, the tragedy at Kent State happened. And so it went.
The film views the 60s through the lens of file footage, and through interviews with several people, most of whose names will be instantly recognizable to anyone old enough to remember that time in history.
I think McGovern was a candidate of real substance in the insane (to me) game of U.S. killer national and even state and local politics. Politics is not a game for the weak of ego. A WWII bomber pilot, McGovern’s passion was for an end to the Vietnam War…even when he was virtually a lone voice. He identified with the powerless more so than most in the political game. His Army of volunteers created a grassroots organization seldom seen in this country and reflected the best that is the U.S. His was a powerful campaign that in the end ‘flamed out’ for reasons which each can see (and many of my age remember) for themselves. Still, even in the end, 40% of the voters in this country voted for him. His is a political career that progressives ought to study carefully.
Hubert Humphrey does not get too kind a portrayal in the film, and maybe that’s the gentle criticism Mr. McGovern expressed about it before we saw it – though he wasn’t specific. But Humphrey was an extremely competitive man – you don’t get to even vice-president without a ‘killer instinct’ – and when one of you, there in the same auditorium, said you didn’t care for the small Humphrey-bashing aspect of the film I thought of a little quote of HHH which I included in last years Christmas letter.
McGovern remains a passionate person, and ending hunger in our time (we bought his book “The Third Freedom Ending Hunger in Our Time”) is at the top of his list. This is not a new passion for him. JFK had him as Special Assistant for a new Food for Peace program 1961-63.
Someone asked Mr. McGovern to comment on what he would do, today, if in the office of commander in chief.
As I recall it, he said he would do four things:
1) Get our troops our of Iraq
2) Re-deploy the National Guard and Reserves, and the vast resources spent on Iraq, to rebuild the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina
3) Reinstitute some form of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) of the 1930s.
4) Write a ‘one sentence bill’ (he called it) extending Medicare initially to every child six or under, thenceforth every year further expanding Medicare until everyone is covered.
Someone else inquired about the general task of Liberal message development. His answer was quite succinct. After saying that this country needs more than just one hugely dominant political party, he suggested that Conservatives, when confronting Liberals, be asked two simple questions: 1) what are some popular initiatives supported and advanced by Liberals which were opposed by Conservatives (things like Social Security and many other initiatives come to mind; 2) what are some Conservative successes that were supported by Liberals (things like the Interstate Highway System come to mind.) The succinct suggestion is that Conservatives come around, ultimately embracing things they originally tried to defeat; Liberals are more open to positive changes that impact people’s lives in a positive way. Liberal initiatives tend to benefit the greater number for the greater good. (Who coined the phrase, “if you want to live Republican, vote Democrat”)?
But that’s just my opinion of what he said.
Others may differ.
Go see the film.
PS: He offered a comment about a visit to Houston to visit the ‘refugees’ as he called them in the wake of Katrina. He recalled visiting with a man who had a wife and five children. He asked the man why he didn’t leave before the storm struck. The man said he didn’t have a car, and when the hurricane struck (which was, after all, at the end of the month) they had $6 to their name. If he had managed to get them out of town, they wouldn’t have been able to afford a place to stay, and all of the uncertainty led them to stay, so he boarded up his windows, hoping they could ride it out. McGovern said that was one of several similar stories he heard.
COMMENTS:
from Kathy: Also, McGovern wrote a book called Terry about the pain of his daughter Terry’s alcoholism.
Molly: Thanks, Dick. I forwarded it to a friend who spent most of her life in SD, and was also a devoted fan. This was perfect for a day I knew she’d be doing some grieving.
Mike: In 1992 Pat and I were in DC for the Clinton inauguration and we went to a post inauguration reception at one of the House Office Buildings. The MN House delegation were the hosts, but McGovern was there as well, greeting people with mutual acknowledgements of their help. Guests thanking McGovern for coalescing the progressives into a more powerful body, while the senator thanked them for their work to get Clinton elected.
I believe when our daughter Leah received her MBA in 1992 from St. Thomas, McGovern delivered the commencement address. Her in-laws (committed Republicans) attended and McGovern was probably the last person they would have wanted to hear speak.

#634 – Dick Bernard: Supporting the Locked-out Minnesota Orchestra Musicians Union

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Tonight we go to a special concert given by the locked out Minnesota Orchestra. The details of the concert are here.
You likely still have an opportunity to attend this concert.
At the very least, become aware of the issues in this most important attempt to break the back of a proud union of outstanding musicians.
Last week I submitted the below op ed to the Minneapolis Star Tribune which was declined for publication.
Stand with the Orchestra, and with union workers everywhere.
To the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
I’ll be keeping the Oct. 11 column by Jon Campbell and Richard E. Davis about the financial woes of the Orchestra (Orchestra Makes a Stand). Later they made sure we Minnesota Orchestra subscribers had a chance to see the column, through an e-mail.
We’re small fry within the MnOrch family, but regulars. This year as most always a six-concert series and perhaps an occasional additional performance. We’re the half-dollar customer versus the $1000 contributor (translation: $500 a year versus a $1,000,000 benefactor.)
Some years ago a docent who’s a friend happened to notice my ticket, and remarked we must’ve been orchestra fans for a long time – we had a relatively low subscriber number. The revelation surprised me.
But we’ve sat in row four behind the podium at Orchestra Hall for a long time. We were in the hall when guest conductor Itzhak Perlman took his scary (but still graceful) tumble off the platform; when Eije Oue led the Orchestra in the Star Spangled Banner in September 2001.
We saw the memorial rose on the vacant chair of the violinist who had died of cancer….
And now we see this failed negotiations where the Big People with the Purse are saying “enough is enough”.
Good fiddlers are a dime a dozen, after all.
I spent an entire career in and around negotiations as part of a union, so I have a strong sense of what goes on when there’s a labor conflict.
Both sides own their version of truth, and as Campbell and Davis are doing, management holds the financial hammer and thus, they will presume, control.
It is not quite so easy.
I find myself not terribly interested in exchanging my season tickets for other kinds of programs – we’ve got the e-mail and the phone call.
$500 is serious money to us, but I’m willing to take the hit in support of the musicians union.
At minimum that $500 for tickets translated into another $500 from us for Minneapolis business: eating, parking and the like. Every dollar counts.
For the Orchestra itself, the problem with we small fry is much longer term.
I’ve had season tickets for quite a number of years. Once you lose loyalty of customers like me, it is not easy to rebuild it.
And it is we little people who will sustain this operation in the long term, not the big benefactors who are carefully watching the return on investment in the Orchestra endowment.
For obvious reasons, my heart is with the musicians union.
I know there are two sides to every story, and Mr. Campbell and Mr. Davis articulate only their own very biased side.
Find a way to settle.
Now.

I sent this opinion on to the LoMoMo and received this response from a locked out Orchestra member serving a PR function for the Union. Speaking in support has real meaning. Consider sending your own letter of support, today.
Dick,
You will get a another thank you from someone who is better at words than I…..but I wanted to let you know right away how wonderful your oped made me feel. I will send it to the entire Orchestra (we compile letters each week). You have been through so much with us…..thank you for your support. We are deeply grateful.
Ellen
on behalf of
The PR Committee
Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra
contact@minnesotaorchestramusicians.org

#630 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #51. "Taxes" and other words.

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

The best blogger on politics I know is a retired guy in Los Angeles. Alan, aka Just Above Sunset, offers very long commentaries six days a week, summarizing what other well informed people are saying about political issues of the day. His posts typically arrive in my e-box about 2 a.m. I always scan their contents, but don’t always read them in detail.
Today’s Just Above Sunset, “Just Words Alone”, fits like a glove the topic I have been forming in my mind for a long time, ” “Taxes” and other words”. If you dislike long pieces of writing, at least read his first five paragraphs, then perhaps half way down read the three paragraphs which start with “Maybe words alone don’t create reality after all….”
We have been captured by wordsmiths who have created a “reality” that isn’t at all “real”, and in a few weeks (if we haven’t already voted) we will make extremely important decisions based on what we have been told to believe. Fantasy replacing reality is a very dangerous way to make decisions.
For years I have known that people like Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, Frank Luntz, Newt Gingrich and others had decided to create certain words and phrases as representative of evil, and to then attach those words to despicable people like myself, who they have labeled as “liberal”, “Democrat”, “union”…. Such lists are easily available on the internet and have a long history.
So when a nice lady in my town, Kelly DeBrine, said she wanted an “open, honest chat on taxes” in the July 18, 2012, Woodbury Bulletin, and the editor of the Bulletin supported this chat, I decided to go to her meeting on July 31.
The room was packed, and Ms DeBrine and colleagues had a very orderly conversation involving what appeared to be about 50 of we citizens, divided into table groups of six or so, almost no one I’d ever met before.
We never really talked about Taxes on July 31, a frustration to many attendees. Rather we talked about our Priorities – what was it that we wanted from our community (which, by extension, would require expenditure of tax dollars.) (see postnote)
We met, mostly civilly, and departed.
There hasn’t been another such conversation.
But in preparing for that meeting, I decided to make a list of what I would call “synonyms” for “taxes”, since I have observed that Republicans hate the word “taxes”, and try to make only the Democrats responsible for such an outrageous term.
I created an interesting and doubtless only partial list of these synonyms for payment of services we expect from our government which somehow are or must be paid at least in part by government:
Penalty
License
Fine
Fee
Dues
Assessment
Surcharge
Premium
Tuition
Interest (on borrowed money; bonding)
“Borrowing” from other entities, as from school districts, as an alternative to state taxes
Accounting Shifts (from state to local; from one tax year to another, etc.)
Gambling revenue
Naming Rights for buildings
Mandating things but not funding them, while expecting results
Tax cuts and rebates
PROFITS….
Yes PROFITS.
I emphasize PROFIT as a form of tax, largely thanks to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts who upheld the Affordable Care Act this summer, saying that the proposed Penalties to people who refused to buy Health Insurance premiums were in fact legal Taxes. It was Roberts who decided to use the word “taxes”, which was immediately attached to Democrats.
But, the beneficiaries of this legal TAX are not only the persons who buy the insurance, but the insurance companies who hold the policies.
Thanks to a friend who’s a retired vice-president of a major state-wide health insurance provider, PROFIT is a big part of these Penalties. “Medicare operates on 1-2% administrative costs. Blue Cross plans operate on 10% and other insurance companies are upwards of that, sometimes approaching 30% and 40%. The Affordable Care Act reins in some of those outrageous insurance company profits.”
We won’t rein in WORDS as PROPAGANDA any time soon, and we have weeks to go till the bombardment of television advertising ceases, but we do have control of our own ability to discern fact from fiction.
We are well advised to do so.
For other related articles, put Election 2012 in the search box.
POSTNOTE October 15, 2012: Today on my daily walk I saw a new sign that reminded me of a real-world example of the issue of taxation and service. Here is a photo of the sign:
(click to enlarge)

Sign at Carver Park, Woodbury MN Octoer 15, 2012


I’ve walked the same route for all 12 of my years in Woodbury so I have awareness of all that happens there; all the changes.
At one point a couple of years ago a woman had approached me, asking that I petition the city to not construct a mountain bike path in the park area. She was sincere and serious in her concern. I saw no problem with the path, though I don’t bike, so I didn’t act on her request.
At the Tax meeting, I brought up this issue, as described above, and a younger man at the table said he was a mountain biker, and he initially had liked the idea of the bike trail, but he was more of a individual responsibility type and didn’t like the idea of taxes going for such a trail.
But he seemed conflicted on the issue.
I set it aside until I saw the above sign today. Here is a closeup of an important part of the sign:

At Carver Park, October 15, 2012


I’m guessing the local anti-tax mountain biker uses the trail in question, even though it is supported by tax dollars.
I wonder what he thinks.
Bottom line: even tax haters think taxes is okay so long as it isn’t called by that name, and it directly and personally benefits them.

#629 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #50. The Senate District 53 Candidate Forum in Woodbury October 9.

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Last evening we attended the candidate forum for Senate District 53 at City Council Chambers in Woodbury. The event was expertly moderated by the League of Women Voters, and was televised by South Washington County Telecommunications Commission, and will likely be rebroadcast there between now and general election November 6. Check with SWCTC for details.
I don’t go to such events to become well-grounded in the candidates understanding and position on the issues. Only so much can be done with six candidates in one hour and many substantive questions, each limited to one minute answers.
Nonetheless I am glad we went.
Arriving home, there was an e-mail from a friend lamenting that she had forgotten about the Forum until it was too late. I responded “I thought everyone did pretty well (on both sides).”
In this case, “everyone” were candidates for Senate in SD 53 Susan Kent (DFL) and Ted Lillie (IR); candidates for HD 53A Pam Cunningham (IR) and JoAnn Ward (DFL); and candidates for HD 53B Andrea Kieffer (IR) and Ann Marie Metzger (DFL).
Five of the six candidates are female; two candidates are first term incumbents running for reelection, albeit in newly configured districts.
I didn’t expect any big surprises in this Forum, and there were none. I follow politics more closely than most and thus I’m more aware than most of the often huge gap between rhetoric and reality, especially when incumbents are defending their record without risking rebuttal by an equally well-informed colleague.
The battle-scarred veterans of the 2011-12 biennium at the legislature could, of course, defend their honor, and criticize the Governor and Democrats who were not there to give the other very substantial side of the story. It is to be expected. There is no priority for giving the two sides to the story, which there is, in abundance, in these “win-lose’ political hothouse days.
Mostly, I watched for sound bites and talking points and emphasis.
It should surprise no one that the DFL candidates (my partisan preference ‘side’) emphasized the needs of the middle class and support for labor; while the Republican candidates are tied to Business and Wealthy interests.
The Republican incumbents, Lillie and Kieffer, seemed to try to delicately dance away from their very real ownership of the two proposed Constitutional Amendments, even though they were architects of these proposals. Kieffer, in fact, was one of those who signed one of those ‘pledges’ to go for Voter ID. The DFL candidates were clear that they were in opposition. I don’t recall the Republican candidates saying how they, themselves, would vote.
(To me, these proposed Constitutional Amendments are the two defining issues of the difference between IR and DFL in this election. They are evidence of a breakdown in bipartisan problem solving.)
I was surprised by only one talking point that Rep. Kieffer actually decided to use in the gathering. It is the old Tea Party mantra: “we don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem”. It is an old and very tired saw. Tuesday night was only the second time I have actually heard it in person. The first time was in the Woodbury Post Office line two years ago. I wrote about it then, here.
Oh, if it were all so simple as to reduce government of our city, state and nation to simple words and catchy phrases….
I think about what passes for political discourse these days.
Personally, I hope we’re getting to the end of the days of politics of slogans without substance.
Before driving to City Hall for the Forum last night, I picked up our mail, which included two attack ads, one against JoAnn Ward and the other against Susan Kent. One was from the Republican Party and the other from one of those ubiquitous “independent expenditure” groups. We are still a month from election, and I have kept all of the campaign mail that has come to our mailbox. All but 2 of the 17 ‘lit pieces’ have been from the Republican side; all but 2 of those have been attack pieces against the Democrat. All relate to this single local legislative district.
While completing this post, I was interrupted by a independent expenditure phone message in favor of one of the Republican candidates.
There is apparently a lot of money floating around for such campaigning this year.
There must be reason for Republicans to worry.
Yes, I’m DFL, and proud of our three candidates in SD 53. You can read about them here.
Directly related: here.

#627 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #48. A short seminar on Minnesota Public Schools and Public Policy

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Recently, there seems a sudden reverence for public schools in Minnesota.
After years of using the schools and the local communities as a piggy bank to avoid political decision making requiring use of the word “tax” in the state political conversation, the architects of damaging schools are suddenly proclaiming that they are about the business of supposedly saving those very same schools by proclaiming that they are heroically restoring cuts they have been diligently making all these years…and the political opposition is standing in their way.
What is one to believe?
School finance, and indeed public schools themselves, is an exceedingly complex topic, and it is very easy to make mischief with data which hardly anyone, including parents, understands. Such is how it is when the schools are charged with daily care of one of every seven Minnesota residents of kindergarten through high school age.
School opens this morning, and not many pay much attention whether there are 20 in a class or 40, etc. School policy is low hanging fruit for critics. There are endless opportunities to criticize….
But it’s not as easy as “reforming” schools as political rhetoric. Not only is every student different, bringing different baggage from home, but there is great diversity in community needs and makeup.
It is unfair to compare, for example, isolated Angle Inlet, not directly accessible by road in extreme northern Minnesota, with the large urban school in the most troubled neighborhood. One can theoretically create an ‘average’ out of two extremes, but it would be an unfair comparison.
A year ago, in November, 2011, a senior group in Burnsville asked me if I would be willing to talk about the business of schools and school finance.
Though I worked in public schools for a full career, I had already been retired for eleven years.
I agreed to do the workshop, and with the help of a wonderful non-partisan parent organization, Parents United for Public Schools, MN State Department of Education and the MN House of Representatives Fiscal Analysis Department, I prepared a presentation which was well received. Recently a man, over 90, who had been at the workshop, said that he learned more about school finance in that hour and a half than he’d ever learned before.
Here is the summary handout, with definition of the basic information presented a year ago: Minnesota Public Schools001 It is, of course, a year old and thus outdated, but my understanding would be that overall there have only been relatively slight changes over the past twelve months. Anyone is welcome to update the information and interpret as they wish.
My efforts still make sense, and the link may help you the reader better understand some of the basics about Minnesota Public Education.
Those 800,000 kids in Minnesota Public Schools today are OUR future. We best pay attention to their needs.