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

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

Woodbury Day parade August 28, 2011


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

Amy Klobuchar at Woodbury Days Parade August 28, 2011


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

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

#420 – Dick Bernard: Speaking as a Liberal

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

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


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

Dick Bernard at the White House, January 16, 1980


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

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


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

#416 – Dick Bernard: The Downside of Belief.

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

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

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

#413 – Dick Bernard: V-Day. The Wisconsin Recall Elections

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5:30 a.m. August 9, 2011: Shortly, the polls open in Wisconsin, 15 miles or so from where I sit in eastern Minnesota. One of the people up for recall is the incumbent Republican Senator from just across the border so we have seen, at least, the TV ads. There is huge amount of outside money in these races.
The issues are unique to Wisconsin, but impact on us all.
Recalls are very difficult to win, especially when there are a lot of them at the same time.
Whatever results are announced later today will have meaning, and the meaning will be attached to them and heavily publicized by this or that political interest.
It will be an interesting evening tonight.
8:15 p.m. CDT. Apparently a huge turnout, but no predictions as of this point in time. Huge turnout means a huge amount of concern and a huge amount of on-the-ground organizing.
Stay tuned.
More, later.
5:15 a.m. CDT August 10. I have yet to read anything about yesterday’s election, but it appears that only two Wisconsin Senate seats turned Democrat from Republican in yesterday’s Recall election. Three were needed to retake control of the Wisconsin State Senate. Two more Senate Recall elections are next week, both seats held by Democrats. The Wisconsin Senate will remain Republican.
Everyone with an interest in politics will have an opinion.
Here’s mine, as a retired union organizer.
The outcome in Wisconsin does not surprise me.
It is no cause for celebration by the Republicans (though that is how it probably will be ‘spun’ – and everything is ‘spun’ these days).
There may even be a bit of collective wisdom at work across the border: recalls are a very unusual and rarely used process, and here were nine of them taking place at once in a single state. People all have their own reasons for voting, or not voting at all, so I won’t try to divine those notions. But what happened could well reflect a certain amount of common sense, as in “we made a mistake in November, 2010, but we’re not ready to compound our mistake by making another impulsive decision.” On the other hand, there have been formidable organizing efforts, and those are very helpful for future change.
People in Wisconsin probably didn’t really know the issues and the implications of sloppy political participation in the Fall of 2010. They do, now.
It’s just a thought.
As a Minnesotan, I didn’t “invest” much in the Wisconsin race. I sent $50 to the teacher’s union back in March, and I recall giving $24 to the Wisconsin Democratic party about the same time. Both were simple expressions of support in recognition of difficult times.
I didn’t drive the half hour to Wisconsin to help in organizing. From the beginning I saw Wisconsin as a local (state) issue best resolved by the residents of that state. I still feel that way.
I didn’t predict the outcome. (I didn’t notice many reporters predicting the outcome, though the turnout was heavy.)
In my judgment, Gov. Scott Walker and the new Republican majority did a huge amount of damage to working people in their first six months in office, particularly to public unions. But they did all of their damage before the elections were held, and even if all of the six recalls had been successful, and the two next week had failed, only the control of the Wisconsin Senate would have been changed. There were no challenges in the Republican House, and, of course, Gov. Walker is not open to challenge until January, 2012.
So, the status quo remains…or does it?
If there is such a thing as a warning shot across the bow of a political party in control of everything, yesterday’s results in nearby Wisconsin were such a warning: a very near miss.
The Republicans will make ‘victory’ talk. But there was little to feel victorious about yesterday.
Their future, in particular those who embrace the Tea Party philosophy, is very much in doubt…and they have already done most of the damage that they can do.
4:10 p.m. CDT August 10, 2011: Random thoughts through today. The Democrats “loss” to the Republicans in Wisconsin yesterday create far greater problems for the Republicans, and many opportunities for Democrats. There are many ‘for instances’, most of which are missed by the major media and by those licking their wounds after having their heart set on a clean ‘win’.
In the first place, through the rest of the Wisconsin biennium, the Republicans can not blame the Democrats for obstruction in the Senate. The Republicans control both houses and the governorship. Whatever record they generate from here on will, along with what they accomplished in the first eight months, be the record that they have to run on, and they’ll have to run in front of a much more informed and engaged population than in 2010.
In addition, the spotlight has been turned on the wealthy interests who bank-rolled the Republican success, the true interests of those rich and powerful folks and big business, and on the assorted ways in which these interests manipulated and used the common folks in groups like the Tea Party. It is all a bit like the Wizard of Oz being exposed for the fraud that he was.
So, rather than bemoaning the outcome, the best advice is to use this as a learning opportunity, and use the coming year to rebuild a true democracy in our states and nation. It can be done.

#412 – Dick Bernard: Will this crisis finally wake us up? I doubt it….

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Earlier today I sent to my own e-list the link to the Sunday August 7 Face the Nation.
I added this note:
“One of the most stupid comments I have ever heard was Sen. Lindsey Graham’s on Face the Nation yesterday. You can see it ‘below the fold’…. It was cynical, arrogant, hypocritical and worse.
Of course, it played well in sound-bite land.
Of course, it plays well with a certain audience.
These are sad days for this country…and it’s not Obama’s fault.
WE are the ones who need to do the heavy lifting. No more whining.”
Reader Will Shapira commented back, almost immediately:
“I think this all is very confusing and an abstraction at best to most people who believe it cannot affect them because they don’t understand it. That would generally include me.
You or someone else needs to explain to your readers how it could affect the common folk.”
I said I’d try.
We are a society whose eyes glaze over at headlines, much less essays. If we don’t understand something we tune it out. If it’s too hard to deal with, we generally refuse to deal with it. “Let’s go out and have a big sundae. It’s a nice afternoon. Going bankrupt is a problem for another day.”
But I digress:
Among other statements, Sen. Lindsey Graham said that “in any other private sector enterprise, he [Obama] would be fired.” He added “coach” as another profession from which the President would be fired.
OK. I’m in with “coach”.
There is, indeed, a ‘trickle down’ aspect to the tragedy of years of reckless spending accompanied by tax cuts for everyone, including ourselves. (The rich weren’t the only ones who got a good deal in the George W. Bush years of a Republican majority in both House and Senate.) The national credit card was out and running up a huge balance. We are on a national drunken binge. The culprits: unfunded wars and Medicare improvements, and, primarily, big tax cuts for the already wealthy. That trifecta is basically what got us to 2011. Oh, and we got those tax cuts too….
Team America was losing the game big time. And it all happened long before Obama’s watch.
Then comes Sen. Graham on Sunday, speaking for his Republican colleagues in carefully calibrated sound bites.
Let’s take his coach analogy.
Say someone is hired as a coach of a team, and a significant part of the team decides that it’s main objective is to get the coach fired – to make him fail – even before his first day.
In the real athletic world, that mutinous part of the team would be history, suspended at minimum. But in the United States political version, the mutinous rabble would be cheered on by the fans in the stands, hoping that their own team, the home team, would be clobbered, so that their new coach would be fired, and they could go back to the good old days, whose players and coach not only cost them the championship, but virtually bankrupted the operation. Those were the days when they got free popcorn, and all sorts of other bennies.
That’s what we’re playing with here. Team members who don’t think they’re part of the team. A crowd in the stands who doesn’t think they have any responsibility other than to watch: it’s the coaches fault. Fire the coach.
As previously stated, the key part of Graham’s quote is this: “…in any other private sector enterprise, he [Obama] would be fired.” Yah, right. Watch the mutinous division head become history in any private sector corporation that has hired a new CEO.
Of course, the U.S. is not a corporation, or a football team. Rather, we show ourselves in times like this to be a disorganized rabble.
Those who think they aren’t big enough to be impacted by, or impact on, this crisis had best think again, and think very, very hard.
We citizens may be small fish, but if the small fish start to die, the bigger fish further up the food chain will die as well, and sooner or later we’ll be all dead.
Maybe that’s what we want. For our sake, I hope not.
Update Aug. 8: Janet makes a relevant point: “Yes, but. But, we have been divided into 2 teams. Only 2 teams. Winner takes all.” Yes, but…until the present toxic days, our system seems to have been able to negotiate and compromise as though we were all interested in building a stronger union. There was rancor and division, yes, but there was negotiation and mutual respect. Those have been diminished to the point they have been all but destroyed.
Janet’s counterpoint to mine: “Good point. I have been thinking about this for years. When I say teams, I mean like athletic teams. America is very “team” oriented, whether it be school, college or professional sports, we want our team to win. Some will want to win at all costs and that is represented in extremity by the Tea Party. Unfortunately, they don’t understand that they are representing Koch Industries and other mega-corporations interests above their own. Koch funds Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Works, ALEC and a host of other organizations that want to destroy all laws and regulations that might affect them. Instead, those laws could apply to the rest of us or we could live like it was the Wild Wild West in a free for all.”

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

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

On the Mississippi from riverfront Dubuque IA July 9, 2011


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

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

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

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

#398 – Dick Bernard: Day 8 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 25 days to D-Day in Washington D.C. Going to a Family Reunion

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At 7 a.m. I leave home in my trusty 2003 Toyota Corolla, enroute to a family reunion in the Dubuque Iowa area. I’ve decided to do the trip on the slower but much more scenic and interesting Mississippi River Road. Weather is supposed to be good, and this is always a beautiful trip. I’ll be traveling alone, which gives lots of thought time. I never travel with computer, so there will be a hiatus at this space. I return Sunday night.
I’ve done this route before, several times in fact. The Mississippi was rolling long before there were humans around this place, and its done its work carving and molding the beautiful countryside for eons before there were towns and roads and such.
Human encroachment, in the way the history of our planet is mentioned, hardly merits a nanosecond, if that. But in that nanosecond we’ve unalterably changed the landscape and the resources which feed our voracious appetite for things like the gasoline that will make it possible for me to make this trip in relative comfort.
My people have been in the Mississippi Valley since, most likely, the 1700s (the French-Canadian side); and the 1840s (the southwest Wisconsin German side). Some of them were already there, farming, when the Grand Excursion of 1854 gave well to do tourists their first view of the upper Mississippi Valley, ending at later to be St. Paul and Minneapolis and the settlement floodgates began to open. It was not until the late 1860s that railroad would actually reach the new twin cities of, then, St. Paul and St. Anthony/Minneapolis.
As I drive, I’ll likely be shielded from the current hubbub and insanity in Washington and St. Paul. I have a few favorite CDs along to keep me company, from Mozart to folks songs. Life is too short to seek out the local radio stations which too often feature national talk radio.
In Viroqua, if I’m lucky, I’ll have coffee with a good friend who went to prison during the white hot times of Vietnam War protesting in 1970, but that may be the only contact with politics as such. Family reunions are no place to get into arguments about national policy. In fact, I won’t invite these encroachments. Just me. Life is a bit too short. There are other times to do that.
Most likely, typical for me, I’ll catch up on the news through the local newspapers in places like LaCrosse, Prairie du Chien, Dubuque…. It is always interesting to get the local perspective, at least such as it is printed in the local journals. Also, typically, I won’t watch much television. I don’t do that at home, either, but even less on the road.
(Click on photos to enlarge them. The entire set, from early 1900s postcards, can be seen here.)

The bridge at Dubuque in the early 1900s - a postcard rendition


Julien Hotel, Dubuque, 1908 - postcard


1933 on the Mississippi at Davenport IA - a postcard


I’ll deliver a couple volumes of my family history to the Dubuque Public Library later today. The most recent one I just had printed a few days ago: 475 pages largely of letters and postcards written from Wisconsin farm to North Dakota farm between 1905-13 or so. A story and pictures introducing the postcard section of the book is here. The longer, and in my view more fascinating, section of the book is over 100 handwritten letters found in a container at the old deserted farm house in 2000, Mostly they were sister-to-sister, talking about ordinary rural life near Dubuque from April, 1905, to June, 1906. They are literate and they are fascinating, from a time when people actually put pencil to paper.

Dubuque Carnegie Library in 1910 - from a postcard


In the course of these letters came the first telephone to the rural folk of Grant County Wisconsin. A description of an encounter of a horse carriage with an unexpected automobile is hilarious. The letters were oft-written by candlelight in the farmhouses of that day and occasionally brought news of tragedies too, such as the distraught young housewife in rural Kieler WI who in 1905 killed her four young children, ages 1 to 4, with a butcher knife, and then used the same instrument to kill herself. I’ll see if I can find their common grave – the name is Klaas – which is supposed to be in the churchyard at Kieler, near where a relative of mine lives. Oh, the stories.
Back at this space on Monday.
Have a great weekend.
NOTE: This is part of a continuing series of commentaries on the political problems we’re now facing in this state and nation. The first was published on June 23. Each hi-lited date on the calendar at upper right has a column behind it. By placing the cursor on the date, you can read the title of the particular column.

#397 – Dick Bernard: Day 7 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 26 days to D-Day in Washington D.C. "Compromise?"

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NOTE: This is part of a continuing series which began June 23. Point your cursor at any hi-lited date on the calendar and you will see the title of that days post.

I am a creature of habit. And much of my ‘habit’ involves gathering information, much of that political information.
It was said that Harry Truman, even in retirement, religiously read five newspapers every day. Most of his life was pre-television. I probably don’t come near to matching him in the information end, but I strive to keep up on the various ‘sides’ of issues of the day. It is an exhausting and very confusing task.
That being said, we are in insane times. I hope we survive.
From my personal perspective, two apparently wildly disparate views of the universe jumped out within the last day:
Yesterday, on the internet came a report on the cost of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan released by the Eisenhower Study Groups at Brown University. The Executive Summary is here. The headline says it all: “225,000 Killed, $3.2 – 4 Trillion”.
On the other pole is one letter in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune which the writer obviously wanted to be public information:
“I don’t care if my government is Democrat or Republican. I don’t care if it’s run by the Independence, Green, Patriot or Freedom parties. I want a government that will serve me with the things that will protect me and my freedom:
1. I want them to govern with as little of my money as they can.
2. I want my government workers to work hard at keeping their jobs, not rely on a union that will keep them no matter how bad a worker they are. They should earn the job.
3. I want the teachers to be the best teachers they can be, without relying on a union boss to keep their jobs for them. They should earn the right to keep the job.
4. I want my government to mind its own business around the world. Let those people be. Let them figure out how to govern themselves. You know — just like we did.

5. Don’t force policy on me that I don’t need. Health care? Ha. Fifty-five million U.S. citizens will not have health coverage. Boo-hoo. They don’t have it now and they get care for free. Nothing will change that.
And, finally: Stand for the flag, salute the flag. Know the national anthem; it won’t hurt you. And, America … do it in English.”
JUDITH SCHNARR, MINNEAPOLIS
I don’t know said Judith Schnarr, but it is pretty obvious that in her view of the world, it’s all about ME, including no Union to protect her interests, which apparently she doesn’t feel need protecting. She’s got her act all together, thank you very much.
The Eisenhower Study Group report, on the other hand, has much more of a WE vision. It matters to us, and to others, what we do….
There’s something else revealed in Ms Schnarr’s commentary: in essence, what’s mine is mine, and I can tell you what you deserve as well. Don’t tell me what to do, but I’ll certainly tell you. She reminds me of that guy in the Red Corvette in the Afton Parade on July 4. The guy with the angry look, and the “Don’t Tread on Me” banners. No kiddies looked for candy from his car, that’s for certain.
There’s just a single letter difference between those two very little words: ME versus WE.
I get the strong impression that this is the battleground between the parties in this state, and in Washington D.C.
How a balance will be found between the two poles is unknown. “Compromise” does not happen when one party or both are stuck firmly in cement.
If the road ahead is “my way or the highway” there’s a long very rough trip ahead, and we spectators are sitting in the bus that will sooner than later break down. By then, it will be too late….