#101 – Dick Bernard: Running for TJ; and building a base.

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My nephew, TJ Hedeen, died during liver transplant surgery on April 15, 2008.  He was 36.  He had a congenital liver defect.  He was a great guy, and left behind his wife, Mickey, and two stepsons, Bryant and Brace.

TJ, Bryant and Brace

TJ, Bryant and Brace


TJ’s death touched us all, but few as much as my son-in-law John Hagebock, a little older than TJ, who resolved to not  let TJ’s death be in vain.
John decided to make his contribution by drawing attention to organ donation programs, specifically Life Source.  #mce_temp_url# His first action was running the Twin Cities marathon on October 3, 2008.  It was his first marathon, and he finished the race.
John nearing the finish in the Twin Cities Marathon Oct 5, 2008

John nearing the finish in the Twin Cities Marathon Oct 5, 2008


The 2008 race was John’s warm-up.  He decided to do a reprise in 2009, but to up the ante a bit.  He began to quietly promote participation for TJ in the 2009 run, October 3.
By race day John had fresh running shirts advertising Life Source, and six more runners to “share the colors”.  He again ran the marathon; the other recruits were willing to do the ten mile segment.  Two of the six ended up injured, and couldn’t compete, but the other four finished the course.
John was a bit disappointed that he had only four new people on the course this year, but I’m really proud of what he accomplished.
He plans to do the same next year.
I suggested to him that a worthy objective would be to work with his new team to convince each of them to recruit two more runners for next year, and thus start a tradition of growth.
His program is off to a great start.
Congratulations, John.  Good running!  Good work!
There were doubtless many others in the thousands of runners who similarly were engaged in using the run as motivation for doing good for others.   Congratulations to them, as well.  They gave additional meaning to the race as well.
Again to readers, if you’re not familiar with organ donation programs, here’s a good chance to learn: #mce_temp_url#
Starting line Twin Cities 10 mile October 3, 2009

Starting line Twin Cities 10 mile October 3, 2009

#97 – Dick Bernard: Killing a civil society

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On the afternoon of November 4, 1995 – it was a Saturday – I was on the way to afternoon Mass at my then-Parish, St. Peter Claver in St. Paul MN.  Nearing the church, an announcement came over the car radio: Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had been shot.  I passed the word along to the Parish Priest Kevin McDonough, who blanched, and as I recall, I was allowed to announce to the congregation what I had just heard on the radio.
At the time of the announcement we weren’t certain of any details, including who had shot the Nobel Prize winner, or even if he had died.  By the time Mass was concluded we knew Rabin had been assassinated, and soon learned that his killer was a radical right-wing Israeli Jew, at the far fringe of those incensed that Rabin was working for a durable peace with Palestine.
As it happened, two and a half months later I was with a group that visited Rabin’s still-fresh grave in Jerusalem.  I still see it all.
This vignette comes to mind because of a September 29, 2009, column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.  The NYT column headline is “Where did “we” go“, and opens recalling Friedman’s visit with Rabin in Jerusalem shortly before the assassination.  He says, early on, “extreme right-wing settlers…were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin…They questioned his authority.  They accused him of treason.  They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shoulted death threats at rallies.  His political opponents winked at it all.”
Of course, the story ended with a righteous crazed zealot killing Rabin.  A single murderer, but endless accomplices who in effect encouraged the insane act.
Friedman goes on at length in his column to raise the parallels he sees in today’s United States of America.
We see hate speech being legitimized in our country, and outlandish behavior being sanctioned as simple political free speech.  All of this is duly reported (if not encouraged) by news media, legitimate and not so legitimate.  And unlike in Rabin’s day, the means of technology for disseminating hate and outrageous and deliberate lies is much more sophisticated than it was only 14 years ago.
One can only wonder what Rabin and others could have accomplished in Israel/Palestine had he lived.
The merchants of hate won, and everyone (including the hate merchants) lost.
If you can, read Friedman’s column.  For a limited time it is available on the web. Here’s the link: #mce_temp_url#
If you’re one who’s amused by, or admires, the politics of hate and deceit, get over it.  If you despise this kind of behavior, call ’em out whenever you witness it.
Change needs to happen person-to-person.

#92 – Peter Barus: "Out of the loop"

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From Moderator: Peter Barus is a great friend, going back a half dozen years or so.  When first I knew him, he was an out-east big city guy, a computer specialist, an excellent trainer and all around good guy.  Two or three years ago or so he and his spouse moved into the very rural northeast U.S., to a farm, and here begins his story….
I have been out of the loop for a couple of weeks or more.
And it strikes me now that this is more than burnout or just an upsurge in activity around here  I’ve really had a change in lifestyle.
I used to be plugged in all the time, writing back to everybody, reading everything that came in within minutes or hours of arrival.
What’s happened?  For one thing, I moved to a farm without electricity, with wood heat, and spent two years living as if I hadn’t.  This year, instead of paying over a thousand dollars for enough wood to stay alive til spring, I decided to go get it myself.  after all, this is a 186-acre forest.
There was a big ice storm last winter that knocked the tops out of about a quarter of the big trees at the edges of the fields and along the roadsides.  The plan was to clean up the mess where its close to home, like the cluster of maples that fell on the old tent platform just up the hill beyond the garden; then go out along the roadsides where the Town crew left major trees for us, before the less scrupulous among our neighbros scarfed it up.  And we had some big chunks out of the logging operation from last winter that a neighbor kindly hauled out of the swamp and left me several truckloads in the front yard.
Lots of people around here rent a splitter and spend about two weeks making their winter pile.  I like splitting by hand.  But first I had to go cut up the trunks and load them in the truck and bring them home.  Then I set up a big stump about waist-high and got out the old maul.  This is like the child of an ax and a sledge hammer.
I got to where I’ve been able to stack about five cords so far; seven is comfortable; a dozen would be nice, cause we can just carry it over into next year.
But it hurts!  My hands are all gnarly and knotted and other words that sound like “nnggg!”  All my joints ache.  I’m not complaining!  I’m strong as an ox now, at age 61.  But how many more seasons can I keep this up?
I think the secret is pacing.  A few strokes a day, rather than a crash-and-burn, all-out, heroic effort.
In between all this, clean the chimneys with the long handled brushes, finish re-shingling the roof, host a family reunion, etc.
We live in the previous centruy, or the one before that, now.  sleep when it gets dark, and up with the first hint of a sunrise.  Life here is a direct struggle with nature, and nature is changing fast too.  Weather like nobody’s seen before, changes in soil, habitats, flora and fauna.
Well, as I say, a change in lifestyle.  By the time I get to the Town Library and hook up to the local wi-fi, I ain’t got much to say, somehow.
But keep ’em coming.  I’ll get to it.
Love,
Peter

#89 – Dick Bernard: A salute to two veterans

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This morning, at the State Capitol Rotunda in St. Paul, I’m honored to read two brief tributes to WWII veterans which appear in the 2009 edition of the MN Blue Book, being released today.
I saw a flier on “Vote in Honor of a Veteran”  in the summer of 2008, and wrote the two tributes a year ago this month, forgetting I’d done them until recently when I was informed they’d be in Minnesota’s official book.  They are among quite a number of other tributes to veterans living and dead.  It will be an interesting morning.  10:30 a.m. at the State Capitol Rotunda if you happen to be in the area and interested.   (The event was originally scheduled in a smaller venue, but apparently there is a lot of public interest.)
The tributes are to my Dad’s cousin, Marvin Campbell, many years a resident  of Brainerd and Crookston, who passed on in 2006, and to another, an important mentor of mine, 88 year old Lynn Elling of Minneapolis.
MARVIN CAMPBELL
Marvin and Frank 7 14 35001
Pictured above are buddies Marvin Campbell and Frank Peter Bernard (my Dad’s brother), July 14, 1935.  Marvin idolized Frank.  At the time of the photo, Marvin was 16, and Frank had just turned 20.  Two months later, Frank reported for basic training in the Navy.  Six months later Frank reported for what turned out to be his permanent and last assignment: the USS Arizona.
The brief thumbnail of Marvin Campbell tells most of the rest of their veteran story.  #mce_temp_url#
Unfortunately, rough drafts of history (as mine was, last year) are sometimes hurriedly done, and thus have errors.  So it was with the piece I wrote which appears in the book.  Marvin Campbell was indeed a bank president, but much of his time as a bank president was in Brainerd MN.  He was active in the National Guard there, and proud of the recognition the Brainerd Guard gave to the casualties and survivors of the Bataan Death March in 1942, many of whom were from Brainerd.
LYNN ELLING
Lynn Elling had just completed his degree at the University of Minnesota when he was called up for Navy duty in 1943.  His time in the Navy was spent as a junior officer on LST 172 in the south Pacific.  (“LST” officially means Landing Ship Tank; but in Navy gallows humor, it meant Large Slow Target.)  They were the workhorses for the military, endlessly hauling materiels within the war zone, thus the gallows humor.

Lynn Elling on LST 172 1944

Lynn Elling on LST 172 1944


The tribute to Lynn is at  #mce_temp_url# .  The millioncopies website referenced there includes a longer description of Lynn and his work which I wrote a couple of years ago.  Do take a look.  #mce_temp_url#
It may seem odd that someone like me who is pro-Peace (and anti-War as a solution to problems) will write tributes to veterans.  It’s not at all odd to me.  I am a veteran myself, from a family full of military veterans.  Service mattered.  We thought (and we probably were) generally working to protect our country.  In recent years, the orientation seems to have changed.
We work towards Peace in the ways available to us, and at the times we see wrong, and work to right it (to borrow a quotation from Ted Kennedy, at his brother Robert;s funeral in 1968).
In particular, Lynn Elling’s work for Peace lives on in the organization World Citizen, of which I am currently Vice-President.  Do visit #mce_temp_url#

#87 – Dick Bernard: Stomping on ACORN

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Wednesday’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune carried a long front-page article about a U.S. Senate action “to prohibit the Department of Housing and Urban Development from giving federal housing money to [ACORN #mce_temp_url# ]… because of some “ACORN workers, who appeared to blithely encourage postitution and tax evasion…[through] amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to ACORN offices….”   The vote was 83-7, meaning 7 voted “no” and 9 did not vote.
ACORN is a national organizations  which conservative activists love to hate.Its website (noted above) has the other side of the story, worth noting.
Because ACORN likely has tens of thousands local activists, the odds of a problem here or there is 100% certain.  (I worked an entire career for a very large teacher union, and periodically every teacher, and, of course, by extension their union, would be ‘indicted’ because some teacher did something stupid, and the union had represented the member to at least assure that his/her due process rights were protected.  It was an ugly game played to discredit (and punish) the whole, based on the sin of the few.  So it is with the ACORN flap….
I wrote a letter to the editor of the “STrib”, and a portion of the letter was published in today’s edition, as follows:
“Apparently the Senate has administered a “that’ll show’em” blow at ACORN, condemning the whole for the sins of the few.
Oh, for the justice that might require the sanctimonious judgmental blowhards who promoted this action to be individually called to account for the sins of their collegial “birds of a feather”, or of their supporters back home.”
In the same edition which carried my letter, another headline trumpeted “Governor ends state funding for ACORN”.  In the body of the article, it was revealed that the group has not received any money from the state since May of 2008, and “had received a total of $109,000 since 1996.”    That was about $10,000 per year from 5,000,000 or so Minnesotans – less than a pittance, two tenths of a single penny per Minnesotan per year.  That’ll show ’em!
Governor Pawlenty is running actively as a Republican candidate for U.S. President in 2012.  His base has adopted ACORN as the enemy du jour.
The portion of my letter which was not printed in the newspaper continues:
“Ah, the dream…
Succinctly, we’re witnessing bullying behavior in all of its obnoxious forms, the taking down of ACORN only the most recent.
As we should know by now, backing down in the face of a bully only assures an escalation in the bullying behavior.  Who’ll be next?”
I’m sending my entire letter to the editor to my Senators and Congresswoman and the Governor along with a handwritten note.  
You can never satisfy a bully; but a bully can and should be called out on his (or her) bad behavior. Deep down, they’re really cowards….
And I’ll send a check to ACORN, too.
SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE:  Some months ago I participated in a most interesting on-line seminar on managing fear.  It remains accessible at #mce_temp_url# .  The power point specifically references the relationship of bullying to personal fear.

#86 – Dick Bernard: Two sides of "entitlement"

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Saturday, during President Obama’s time in Minneapolis, a friend of mine did a little experiment with the protestors outside.
Bruce explains it best: “At the Obama rally on Saturday, I approached several anti-reformers as a panhandler asking for a handout to help me pay my lapsing health insurance premiums,  Some told me to ask the people standing in line to see Obama.  Some said get on Medicaid (ironically, a government program).  Some stuck their hands in their pockets and asked me how much I needed and gave me $5 and $10.  I had the money in my hand and gave it back saying “I can’t take your money, you are a good person, and you put your money where your mouth is.”  Many of the anti-reformers are caring and generous people who truly believe what they are against, a government incursion on their freedom and liberty.  They should be taken for real, as people with substantive concerns.  The problem is how we bridge this gap and ease the fear of our fellow human beings so they can help ease ours.”
There is a lot of wisdom in what Bruce has to say.  At the same time, it reminded me of the simple distinction between “charity” and “justice”.  The people who gave the money to Bruce knew what he looked like and could judge him worthy or not for their money (charity).  (Bruce is a professional man ‘by day’ and would likely not be able to disguise his ‘responsible’ appearance and actions.  He probably looked like he “deserved” help.)
On the other hand, these same benefactors would likely not want their money to go to someone whose name they don’t know, in some place far away (even the next town), because they can’t personally judge the recipient who might be given the money.  He or she or might use the money, they say, for something they don’t approve. Their giving lacks justice.  Justice, it seems to me, is by its very nature less judgmental.  
Bruce’s comment reminds me of the frequent times when I see a handbill asking to help the family of someone whose house burned down, or one of whose members has a serious injury or disease, and no insurance to cover the costs.  In such circumstances, there is often a community outpouring of compassion and concern and even money, and spaghetti dinners become an important community event to help the afflicted.  But I wonder about what happens after the spaghetti dinner…people may toss a twenty in the kettle once; how about $20 a month for years till the debt is paid?
This is where “society” (a synonym is “government” in my opinion)  has to come in, to spread the risk.  The protestors want a very constricted view of what society is.  At least that’s my opinion.
But there is another side to this as well, not quite as comfortable to contend with.  And I’ll pick on someone who I’ll call “Jan” who runs in the circles that I do.
For awhile, Jan came to meetings of a group that I was part of.  She had no shortage of opinions and complaints.
Our $8 dues (per year) was pretty steep, she felt, but she thought that we should send our newsletters by mail to those who didn’t have e-mail, or take them to the libraries so that people like her could read them close to home.
We tend to empathize with the Jan’s of the world, but sometimes they really challenge our understanding.
Probably the last time I saw her at a meeting, was almost a year ago, after she had done her usual litany of complaints.  She told us she was buying a bus ticket – a couple of hundred dollars – to go to DC for the Presidential inauguration week activities.  As I listened, it didn’t sound like she felt it to be too pricey for her budget.
I couldn’t help think of that too pricey $8 dues she’d complained about, (and never did pay).
We can look outward; but as we look outward, we need to look inward as well.
Thanks, Bruce.
UPDATE from Bruce, after he read the above:
“At first I was disappointed with the compassionate response of those who gave money to me.  I wanted to see them as evil without compassion.  The first responses I received were what I expected, “get in line with the Obama people”.  That made more sense to me.  But after getting the hand in the pocket response a few times, it dawned on me that some of the anti-reformers are serious caring people.  Another side note, the women anti-reformers were the most militant and dismissive of my panhandling.”

#84 – Dick Bernard: The 9-12ers

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UPDATE at end of this post
A family wedding occupied our time on Saturday September 12; absent that I probably would have stood in line to try to get into the local Target Center in Minneapolis to hear President Obama on Health Care Reform.  As expected, he filled the house with more than 17,000 local citizens.  Also as expected, there were protestors, but as one of them pointed out to a Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter: “We didn’t have a big turnout.  We were outnumbered.”
I also missed the big goings-on in Washington D.C. on Saturday where a gaggle of protestors gathered, ostensibly for national unity as it existed on 9-12-01; but which in actuality were a collection of very bitter and angry people bearing assorted grudges against government in general and President Obama in particular.
I was interested in the true impact of this Washington event: specifically, how many people would show up for it.  
The two local Sunday newspapers had fairly long articles about the D.C. protest, but surprisingly there were no crowd estimates included in either article.  Tonight on a television news program, it was stated that there were 50-75,000 people on the National Mall for the demonstration on Saturday.  Whatever the actual numbers they seem to have been nothing to brag about.
As national protests go, that was, I would say, a small turnout.
I often wonder to myself how truly large (or small) a constituency this purportedly pro-national unity but anti-government group is.  The only way I can assess this is by looking at my normal environment which seems to be, essentially, a fairly conservative one.
For example, we live in a subdivision of about 100 dwelling units, in a prosperous suburban city that traditionally votes heavily Republican…but for the last two elections has elected Democrats to represent it in the State Legislature and has almost given a majority vote to Democrat candidates for national offices.  We must be a fairly moderate place, in other words.
Personally, I don’t know anyone who would fit the profile of the angry people I saw on the National Mall.  In my community of 100 homes, I can think of two who might fit the profile at least a little, but they would never think of demonstrating or speaking publicly.  Of the rest, doubtless there are some very conservative people, but mostly we are just a little town whose residents generally work and relate well together.
Similarly within my other circles.  I know there are family members – a very small number of them – who might actively relate to those protestors, and might even wish they could have been there, but by no means are they any more than a small percentage of the whole.  
Similarly, the same could be said about the other circles I am part of.
The U.S. is are not a country of extremes or extremists, and thankfully those folks on the National Mall on Saturday, and the vocal angry people at town meetings during August represent a tiny fraction of the U.S. population.  
50-75,000 people on the National Mall does not impress me as much as the residents of my subdivision and my community and my family who by and large see our country as a community, with differences of opinion to be negotiated in a civil manner.  
Incivility has become a visible canker sore on our otherwise reasonably healthy body politic.  
We need to keep in mind that we are, generally, a decent and civil society.
UPDATE from Paul R Sep 15, 2009
I read your post regarding the 9-12 rally in Washington, DC, and the estimated crowd size.  Apparently, the realistic crowd estimate wasn’t big enough to satisfy inflated egos.  or, they are just getting so accustomed to lying they can’t help but lie about everything that comes along.  Huffington Post has a story about the spreading of a photo of a massive crowd at the Washington Mall.  Those spreading the photo claim it shows that the attendance at this rally was many times greater than the actual 50-70,000 or so.  The post is titled: “9/12 Tea Party Photo: False Image Spread By Anti-Reform Activists.”  #mce_temp_url#  The photo was actually taken at least 5 years ago of some other large crowd.  It is pathetic but just too typical of the lack of facts thrown around by the corporatist right wing fanatics out there.
Moderator September 16, 2009:  The photo referred to, and in the link, was hurriedly withdrawn from many right-wing websites, but the wildly inflated estimates of the number of people attending the protest continue to be circulated.  Caveat emptor.

#83 – Dick Bernard: "I loved her first…."

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At my age, it’s a given that I’ve been to many weddings over the years.  Yesterdays was a bit more special than most, even though I had no direct involvement with it, other than attending and participating as a guest (the bride-to-be was my wife’s niece).
Sometime after the wedding and the dinner, somebody mentioned the song they knew had been selected for the Father-Bride dance.  It was, they said, a tear-jerker.  I wasn’t aware of it, and waited for the appropriate moment, when Jeff and Megan took the dance floor by themselves, and the song began.  I got it…what they meant by “tear-jerker”… especially in context with a Dad who clearly loved his daughter, and a daughter who clearly loved her Dad.
This morning I went to YouTube to see if I could find the exact same song I heard last night, and I think I did.  Here’s the link: #mce_temp_url#.
The song was wonderful, and a ‘tear-jerker’ for some, listening, as it was for me. Sadly, as you’ll note if you read the sidebar as you listen to the song on YouTube, some folks can’t leave well enough alone, and apparently choose to argue about, and probably ridicule, feelings like this song so clearly expresses.  It takes all kinds….
Truth be told, I don’t do weddings really well: I’m not much of a glad-hander or small-talk person.  It’s just me.
But there could be much worse ways to start the travel that is marriage than a tear-jerker like “I loved her first”.  And I am very glad I was there to experience the moment.
Best wishes to yesterday’s loving couple, and best wishes to all who either are venturing into marriage, or are somewhere on the not always simple journey that can be marriage.

Jeff and Megan Sep 12 09001Jeff and daughter Megan September 12, 2009

#80 – Dick Bernard: Eugenie Fellows, Au revoir to a classy lady

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At 6:09 p.m. September 9 came a brief e-mail: “My mother slipped away this morning, after a rally the last couple of days.  I was with her and she was not in pain, so it was not as difficult as it might have been.  She hated hospitals and did not want any more procedures.”  
Eugenie Fellows, who I got to know as Gene, passed away a few days after a bad fall at her home in rural FL.  She was a young-at-heart woman, born December 20, 1913; closing in on her 96th birthday.  Until her fall, she was an active lady.  She would respond to virtually every e-mail I sent, usually with a terse “interesting”, sometimes with a paragraph or sometimes more if the topic brought back some memory or other.  It could be said that she and I “talked” almost every day.
Her daughter, Joy Lominska, who sent me the e-mail with the sad news last evening, described her Mom well.  
Here’s a photo I took of Gene (as she called herself to me), in her yard in Florida, in January, 2003.  She was, then, a mere 89.
Eugenie Fellows January 2003001
I got to know Gene in some circuitous unremembered way in about 1995.  At the time I was editor of a small newsletter for people of French-Canadian descent, and somehow or other Eugenie found out about the newsletter, and me, and she sent an inquiry, which I later posted in the newsletter.  That began our long friendship, which began when she was a young 82!
Except for the single in-person visit in 2003, we communicated by e-mail and, sometimes, letter.  I hope her daughter takes a photo of her old computer for me.  It was a cantankerous old buzzard which she insisted on keeping.  Sometimes, she said, a paperclip worked wonders getting it running again.  She wasn’t able to read this blog: her machine had decided it had no time for the internet or attachments.  Computers can be that way.  On occasion, “interesting” would arrive here as “omyrtrdyomh”.   No matter.  Type and send….
Ironically, the last piece of mail she received from me was a recent printout of all the blog pieces I had done about Health Care reform.  She would have received it near the time she fell.
She never tired of telling about her life, especially specific memorable events.  
Her mother, Mena Hoiland, was Norwegian-American, her Dad, Emile Leriger de la Plante, was French-Canadian.  They married in Crookston MN, and during her growing up years lived in many places.  They were lifelong Socialists, as was she, and they were proud of socialism.  If they were like she was, they weren’t pushy about their political beliefs; neither were they ashamed of them.  
She never tired of mentioning marching with her parents in the parade celebrating the ratification of Women’s Suffrage in 1920.  At the time they lived in Milwaukee. She was six.  Somewhere in those years a house guest was Eugene V. Debs.
She enrolled at the University of Washington at age 16, but the Great Depression came along at the same time and interfered with her plans.  She returned to university when her daughter began school, earning a degree in Social Work and later a Masters Degree in urban planning, both at Ohio State.  She worked as a planner for many years.
Her beloved husband, Erwin, preceded her in death by about eight years.  One of their children preceded them in death.  Along with his professional work, Erwin was an author of commentaries on the human condition, and he was a good one.  She loaned me a book he had written.  (I returned it!)
Gene mentioned often her long-time activity as a member of the League of Women Voters, and she was also a long-time member of Womens International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).  A dominant memory when I visited her rural home was seeing bookshelves jam-packed with books.  She never stopped learning.   We walked the property and she pointed out this and that.  I sampled the fruit on the tree behind her in the photo: it looked benign, but it would give serious competition to a very tart lemon.   I’m guessing she was a bit amused at her visitors discovery.
Occasionally people come into to our lives who enrich us by their presence, even if at a distance.
Eugenie Hoiland LaPlante Fellows was such a person.
Au revoir, my friend.

#79 – Dick Bernard: President Obama speaks to the nation on Health Care

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Since anyone and everyone is predicting what Pres. Obama will say tonight, and what he means by what he says, I have my right to my own opinion, which is, I would say, as informed (and uninformed) as that of anyone else.  
I am deliberately posting this before Obama’s speech, rather than after.
As time has gone on, I am more and more of the opinion that what is happening now in the debate on Health Care Reform is very similar to what happened as the tide turned against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s early 1970s.  There came a tipping point in that conflict when public opinion turned against the war.  Nixon won a landslide victory in 1972; by 1975 the last frantic refugees lifted off from the U.S. embassy in Saigon; Nixon was already history.  The turn started earlier, but reached a crescendo quite rapidly.  The end wasn’t perfect, and the future wasn’t either, but for certain, change began to occur.  The past began to end…and lasted till we got mired in our next war – Iraq/Afghanistan.
If I’m correct, the current divisive atmosphere is a very good omen for the beginning of long term and very substantive change.  The Health Care Reform debate is being waged in the Congress, but far more importantly, it is being waged in the public square.  By no means is Health Care Reform “dead on arrival”; nor will it get stuck in cement after the first round of legislation is passed this fall.  
(On August 31, I was among those senior citizens who spent some time in the DFL (Democratic party) booth at the Minnesota State Fair.  I have done this before.  This time we were concerned about being attacked by irate people, to the extent that we had a training session before hand.  The training was a waste of time.  If anything, the people were more polite and serious minded than in previous similar events.  Sen. Al Franken was very politely received.  The people, I think, get it.)
I am not particularly concerned about what finally ends up in this first Health Care Reform bill.  There never was, and there will likely never be, a massive sea change in the general attitude of the body politic. So many of us, and so much of our economy, is wrapped up in the business of medicine that it would be unrealistic that revolutionary change would occur (though I think such a change would ultimately be for the betterment of all of us.  Who would miss those endless television ads for this or that pharmaceutical or treatment – the true cost of “competition”.)
A friend predicted earlier today that Obama would throw the progressives “off the bus” tonight.  
I am certain that, whatever he says, he will be interpreted as having gone too far, or not far enough, or this, or that, or the other.   Whether he throws progressives off the bus or not is going to be strictly an item of interpretation by the viewer, and we will have an opportunity to hear and see lots of comments about what it all means afterwards.  I will take every comment with a grain of salt, particularly if it comes from someone with a particular vested interest in the outcome of the debate.
Personally, I hope the advocates for revolutionary change prepare themselves for some realistic response, and rather than saying “we were sold out”, treat whatever positive changes which end up being made as the positive changes that they are, and then redouble their efforts for more and better changes down the road.
The debate is being waged, and we can thank the President of the United States for this.  
If we want “change we can believe in”, we now have an opportunity to help make it happen, one small and difficult step at a time.
To those tempted to throw the President “off the bus”, I don’t wish you well.