#532 – Dick Bernard: The Coleen Rowley and Dick Bernard "Debate" Finally Takes Place – About the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Coleen Rowley’s post on HuffPost, yesterday, (link below) is the reason for this blogpost.
Almost exactly a year ago, someone suggested Coleen Rowley and I have a debate on issues relating to peace and President Obama. I agreed.
I actually saved the last of a chain of e-memos about this, dated March 30, 2011. Actually, I think the course towards having a debate started some time earlier in that same month, probably by someone else, in one of those endless online threads that go nowhere, but, no matter…. (The saved memo ended with some talk about “cognitive dissonance”.) A short while later one of the proponents for (and possible organizers of) the debate got angry at me and asked to be taken off my e-mail list (though I still get frequent e-mails from him – so is how it goes on the inter-net.)
Nothing ever happened because the supposed organizers of such a debate never got around to following through on the idea.
It was not the responsibility of either Coleen or myself to set this thing up – place, publicity, etc., etc., etc.
At any rate, I’m no longer interested in a “debate”.
At the same time, it appears Ms Rowley and I have engaged in our grand debate in a most unusual way, and it was at the same time direct and not direct at all.
Here’s how.
It happened at the just completed Nobel Peace Prize Forum and all of the “documentation” is already public record.
Last Saturday, March 3, we apparently were in the same hall at the same time when former S. African President F. W. deKlerk gave his Laureate address to a packed house. That address is archived on-line at the Forum website, and anyone can watch it at anytime, in its entirety. Here is the entree point. The talk was the one given on Saturday morning March 3, 2012. It was viewable live around the world.
Later the same day, at 12:30-1:15 in the Augsburg College Chapel, Coleen and I happened to sit within a few feet of each other, on either side of the main aisle, as Dr. Geir Lundestad, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute – the agency that chooses the Nobel Laureate each year – described the sometimes controversial history of the Nobel Peace Prize. This was one of many workshops, and was not filmed, to my knowledge, though I noticed Coleen was capturing some or all of it on her phone camera.
(Full disclosure: I’ve met Dr. Lundestad in previous years, and heard him speak; and I’ve known Coleen Rowley for five years or more. I know them both more through their work, than as personal friends.)
At the end of the same day, Saturday, March 3, at the closing of the Forum, I and hundreds of others heard Naomi Tutu, daughter of Desmond Tutu, give the Call to Action. It was a powerful address, and it is the last presentation on-line. I don’t know if Coleen was there or not. In her remarks, I recall Ms Tutu mentioning two panels that she had been part of earlier in the day, each on the same topic with the same participants. She observed that she and the other panel members spoke different thoughts from one panel to the next, and while not going into any specifics, Ms Tutu found that quite interesting. Coleen went to the first workshop; I had considered going to the second, but chose another option instead. Had I participated in the second workshop, I might have heard something different from the panelists than what Coleen heard an hour or two earlier.
On the other hand, I had seen and heard deKlerk twice on the previous day, once in the presence of hundreds of school children at the Festival portion, and at a reception in the evening. I gather that Coleen was at neither.
So, our “debate”?
Coleen has a much larger “platform” than I, and appeared on it yesterday, in a 1725 word Huffington Post commentary, accessible here.
I, on the other hand, reported on deKlerk and Lundestad, with mention of Naomi Tutu, in all or part of blog postings on March 2, 3, 4 and 5, accessible here, here, here and here.
This is the closest Coleen and I will come to debating this or any issue. But it does represent a start.

Maybe one or two or three of you will take the bait and start your own conversations with people you don’t normally talk with….
They’re surely necessary.
POSTNOTE: As I was writing the above, I began to think back over my entire work career when Committees were a not-always-desirable feature of daily life. You name it, there was a Committee about it. And the Nobel Peace Prize is selected by a Committee.
We all know the jokes about the results of committee work, but as I know from experience, committees are necessary, most always do their best, and in the end present their best possible results to the rest. Sometimes there is near-unanimity in accepting the results; most always somebody, sometime most everybody NOT on the committee, will be critical of something or other, maybe everything, that the committee has tried to do.
Committee results are overturned, but for good reason there is great hesitation in doing so. It is difficult enough to form a good committee.
Here we have a Nobel Peace Prize Committee which for over 100 years and through literally generations of different members has tried to do its best to select someone who in its judgement best represents the Will (will) of the founder of the Prize, Alfred Nobel.
And we have people who for their own reasons are rushing to judgement to criticize the results of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee as if it is some sinister person with dark motives.
I don’t wonder why the Peace Prize Committee keeps its deliberations secret for many years.

#530 – Dick Bernard: The Nobel Peace Prize as a controversial issue

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Full disclosure: When Barack Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize I was pleased and not at all surprised. From the moment he took office, the tone of U.S. relations with the rest of the world began to change, and changed rapidly. I was a new blogger when he spoke in Egypt in June, 2009, and as blogs are something of a permanent record, here is what I said at the time he spoke in Egypt. Here, is my opinion when it was announced President Obama had received the Nobel Peace Prize in November, 2009.
I believe most of us who supported Mr. Obama’s election share my pleasure at his selection. But not all were happy, and they protest aggressively.
The issue was formally addressed at the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Augsburg College.
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On February 14, Valentine’s Day, I was one of those invited to a preview of the upcoming Nobel Peace Prize Forum. We were all given a 12-page single spaced copy of the agenda and workshops for the Forum. It was an extraordinary schedule, chock full of descriptors of the plenaries and workshops (there were 90 in all; I attended 16, the maximum possible).
At the time, I didn’t notice the session scheduled for 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. on the final day. “Controversial Nobel Peace Prizes: Successes or Failures?” with Dr. Geir Lundestad, for 22 years Director of the Nobel Institute in Oslo, the agency charged with the responsibility of selecting the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate each year.
Had I noticed the agenda item, it wouldn’t have surprised. In the history of the Nobel Peace Prize, there have been numerous controversial awards. In fact, in March, 2011, Dr. Lundestad, at Augsburg, had given a 5-minute talk to several hundred students and adults about the controversy swirling around the 2009 Award to President Barack Obama, then in his first year in office. Dr. Lundestad’s explanation, then, is here.
I viewed that talk in person.
On February 25, a week before this years Forum, I started receiving copies of a “petition” requesting an investigation of supposed “Betrayal of the Nobel Peace Prize”.
I received from three people an identical document, all coming from people who would probably self-identify as progressive left, all criticizing the Obama selection. I knew there was criticism but was surprised it came up almost on the eve of the Forum. I was wondering whether/if some protest would develop (to my knowledge, none did.)
As I typically do with my own mailing list, I sent the item on, even though I disagreed with its premise. People have rights to their own opinions.
But the agenda item, which I had paid no attention to at first, now became more interesting, and when faced with an array of choices for the post-lunch workshop, it was an easy decision to join well over 100 people in the College chapel to hear Dr. Lundestad explain Nobel, Nobel’s Will, and the history of the Nobel Peace Prize, especially a number of controversial awards, the final one, the President Obama controversy.
When it came to President Obama, Dr. Lundestad essentially repeated the position stated at the 2011 event at Augsburg (film linked above).
The Nobel Committee, appointed by the Norwegian Parliament as an independent entity, is mostly women, he said, and is accustomed to controversy from any or all, and is willing to stand on principle. There are very large numbers of nominees (all kept confidential, including the selection process, for a period of 50 years), and the debates inside the committee can be vigorous.
That didn’t appear to have been the case with the selection of President Obama. Far more than anyone else, he met the criteria.
Of course the Committees choice doesn’t satisfy the critics, who feel Obama should give up the prize.
The talk, with ensuing questions and answers, went on for the full hour and 15 minutes. Dr. Lundestad, a historian, dealt with most every type of concern that has been raised over the years.
It appeared that within the audience in the hall, the overwhelming majority saw no problem with how the Nobel Committee operates, but were interested in the conversation.
A great deal of information about the Nobel Peace Prize is accessible here.
Take a look.
(click on photos to enlarge them)

Dr. Geir Lundestad, March 3, 2012, Augsburg College, Minneapolis


Portion of audience at Geir Lundestad presentation March 3, 2012


The posts written about this years Nobel Festival appear at March 1, 2 and 3, and begin here.
See also a followup post on March 5, here.

#526 – Paul Miller and Dick Bernard: Haiti, remembering eight years ago

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About this time of year in 2002, Paul Miller and I met each other at a meeting, and we learned we lived in the same community.
Paul was already active in the cause of Justice for Haiti, and over the coming months he began to urge me to visit the island Republic with him. It took a while. Though I was a geography major, I needed to re-learn where Haiti was, and a little about it.
Finally, Paul won me over, and on December 6, 2003, we landed in Port-au-Prince, just in time to see the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide begin to fall to a foreign state sponsored coup d’etat, which ended with President Aristide and his wife being spirited out of the country in the middle of the night, early Feb. 29, 2004, aboard a U.S. aircraft, with a final destination in the Central African Republic. (I guess, though I don’t recall it, that I’m the one who told Paul that Aristide had been taken out of the country.)
Our week, December 6-13, 2003, was an extraordinarily rich learning experience, which gave lots of direct context to assess the later reporting, which left out the positives we had experienced: our context simply didn’t fit the official U.S. narrative….
For those with an interest, there’s tons of information readily available from the Aristide government point of view. Don’t stop with the “official” U.S. narrative.
Following the photo (click on it to enlarge) are’s Paul’s thoughts, and following those, a link to my own reflections written late December, 2003, on our memorable week in Haiti, December 6-13, 2003.

Group visits with Michelle Karshan, President Aristede's foreign press liaison, Dec 11, 2003. From left: Jeff Nohner, Paul Miller, Rita Nohner, Michelle Karshan, Rita Nohner, Fisher, Dick Bernard


Paul Miller, February 29, 2012:
“Seems like yesterday, but also seems like a really long time ago
Haiti, 8 years later
I remember very well where I was when I learned that President Aristide had left Haiti in the early morning hours of February 29, 2004. It was my “where were you when you heard JFK was shot” moment, although I have that memory, too. It was at Caribou Coffee in Woodbury, Minnesota and my friend, who had traveled with me to Haiti in December of 2003, 3 months earlier, informed me that news reports were saying that Aristide had left Haiti. LEFT HAITI? No way, was my first thought. I did not think that Aristide would ever abdicate his presidential term in Haiti by his own choice after the 1991 coup against him and his 1994 return. Stunned and devastated would accurately describe how I received this most depressing news.
The facts would come to show that my instincts were right. President Aristide had no intention of leaving Haiti on that night or on any night during the remaining time of his presidency. Clearly he DID NOT leave that night of his own volition. You can choose to believe whatever you want to believe about US actions on this day and about US actions towards Haiti on any given day. However, if you choose to value the truth, then you will accept /learn that the facts show that Jean Bertrand Aristide was removed by US force/s and yet another coup d’etat took place in Haiti. The only real evidence offered of an alternative scenario are the self serving statements from those at the top of our government, chiefly George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and the sycophantic Colin Powell.
It’s not ancient history, like a lot of our nefarious actions towards Haiti. It was 8 years ago. Yesterday it was announced that President Aristide is being investigated for drug violations. Our hypocrisy really knows no bounds. What a coincidence that once again we are challenged to question Aristide’s integrity and ethics rather than to be reminded that there was a US sponsored coup that undermined Haiti’s hope for democracy and stability on this day, 8 short years ago.”
Dick Bernard reflections written late December, 2003: accessible here.

#524 – Dick Bernard: Birthdays and Memories.

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Today is one of those Birth Days in my family circle.
It is unusual in that there are three today: Oldest son, Tom; spouse, Cathy; daughter-in-law Robin all begin a new year in their respective histories. Tom was born less than three weeks after the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan ‘shew’, February 9, 1964. So here, thanks to YouTube, is their appearance on that show. (I wrote a comment.)
Happy birthday to all. (You can see a brief cameo appearance of Tom in a Denver television spot about his wife, Jennifers, popular eatery, Simply Sloppy Joe’s here. More here.)
To this list of Feb 26ers, I could add my grandfather Bernard, who, were he alive today would be 140 (he lived to a ripe old age of 85 before passing on in 1957. I was 17 when he died, and I have lots of memories of him.) Born in rural Quebec in 1872, he grew up in a different world than we live in. His to-be mother-in-law, Clotilde Blondeau, later Collette, had come to what is now suburban Minneapolis (Dayton MN) as a young girl in the early 1850s, long before there were roads and railroads, and before Minnesota became a state. Blondeau’s were here nearly a decade before the Civil War and the beginning of Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency.
Time passes on, and the best we can do is the best we can do.
Birthdays are one of the two things we have in common. The other, death, comes unannounced. There is a certain ‘menu’ selected: sudden, lingering, on and on. I’m old enough to remember lots of these, some very recent; most of those recent deaths younger than I am; a tragic one learned about just this week.) Every one reminds us of good times and bad; relationships fine or complicated…death is really for the living, in the end. That’s what obituaries and funerals and memorial services are all about.
Recently I had a pleasant and unexpected reunion with a classmate from high school days, Duane Zwinger of Carrington, ND. He popped in at my coffee place unannounced and we had a couple of great visits. His daughter and family live, it turned out, two short blocks from my birthday-girl daughter-in-law Robin, son-in-law David and grandson Ben. (Their proximity is a reminder that today the whole world is our ‘neighborhood’.)

Duane and Dick, February, 2012


He and I had reconnected in 2008, on the occasion of the anniversary of my 50th year out of high school in Sykeston ND. He’s a year younger, and we re-met at the towns all-school reunion. We’d last seen each other in college days. I hauled out the little high school yearbook, and we read, and laughed about, the prophecy for my class Sykeston Sr Hist 1958001(there were nine graduating seniors; a tenth left school and joined the Air Force mid-year. Two have died.)
At that town reunion, several of we family members slept in one of the top floor classrooms of the no longer used Sykeston High School. It was a school several of us had attended, and my Dad was Superintendent and Mom taught elementary there. It was a nostalgia time.
The last morning, I wandered the halls of the old place, and decided to take photos of the senior class photos still hanging on the wall of the school. This was before I knew there was such a thing as Facebook, and probably before Facebook had perfected the technology of on-line photo albums.
But that was then. A couple of days ago I entered all of those class pictures – they began in 1944; the school began in 1913 – on Facebook.
Here they are, over 60 years worth, of people born from about 1926 to 1957. (If you’re unfamiliar with Facebook albums, you can click on any photo, it will be enlarged and you can do a ‘slide show’ on screen. Note arrow at right side of photo, and click on it.)
Happy Birthday all!
And here’s the Sykeston School Song! Sykeston School Song002
Best wishes.

#522 – Dick Bernard: After Ash Wednesday, 2012

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Wednesday noon we attended Ash Wednesday service at the local Catholic Church, and that afternoon I walked around with ashes on my forehead (“dirt” as the Priest described it), not making a particular statement with it. It’s the one time of the year when you can sort of figure out who might be Catholic.
Back home, the first e-mail I saw was the following from a colleague in Peace and Justice efforts.
As a lifelong Roman Catholic, I’m happy to oblige to help a little in passing this message along.
“Here is a statement published in the Feb 21, 2012 Philadelphia Inquirer that was written by my friend and former neighbor Paul Stubenbort. I think it should go viral. Paul had been a member of the Catholic ministry and withdrew over issues of conscience such as this.
Paul Stubenbort
Bensalem, Pa. 19020
Dear Editor:
Religious leaders in Philadelphia are opining that the U.S. Government is antireligion.
Archbishop Chaput claims that Obama’s healthcare stance is the most “aggressive attack on religious freedom in our country…in recent memory.”
This public discussion about freedom of religion and birth control is puzzling. I see no relation between the two. Most Catholics practice artificial birth control, or did, or will, and see no impropriety in it. Our church defines itself as “The People of God.” So most of the millions of the “People of God” practice birth control in this country. Only the Catholic Hierarchy finds something wrong with that. And its opposition to birth control is based, not on the scriptures, but on its own quaint reading of natural law, whereby every conjugal act has to be open to the procreation of children. To deny artificial birth control to societies that cannot even feed the people already here is morally irresponsible.
For the government to insist that all have access to birth control is socially responsible and morally defensible. The U.S. Government imposed its will on slaveholders in spite of slaveholders’ recourse to scripture to defend slavery. It likewise imposed its will on those who based their defense of polygamy on religious concepts. And just as the government intervened to stop evil, it has the right to intervene to promote good. The government has the right to legislate for the health and welfare of women, any religion notwithstanding. To accuse the government of being anti-religion in this question of birth control is more than foolish, it is political.
Paul Stubenbort
Roman Catholic
I routinely check to see if such a document is real, and appears as stated, and this one is real, and does appear in the Inquirer for February 21.
“Fair and balanced”, there is a long and passionate response against Stubenborts opinion in the same paper, which essentially mirrors the standard declaration of faith that (in this case, the Catholic hierarchies) religious freedom gives them the right to take away others freedom to believe differently….
Long and short, Roman Catholicism’s “feet in cement” position on contraception (and by extension its seamless notion of the sanctity of life from before conception to unnatural (Schiavo) death), is rooted in the decision of a single person, Pope Paul VI, in 1968, when he adopted the minority position of a Catholic Commission on the matter. Read any reasonably fair and balanced report of the genesis of that portion of Humanae Vitae, and you’ll find what I say is true. All the rest is argument, supporting or refuting the Pope.
This doctrine is not God or Jesus talking; rather it is Pope Paul VI, supported by the current political structure in Rome, and ignored by the vast majority of practicing Catholics.

#520 – Dick Bernard: A Million Copies

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Sometimes, something is just too good to wait.
This morning I had the opportunity to re-union in St. Paul with Marion Brady.
Marion and I were long time members of a quality education e-list maintained by the National Education Association (NEA). We “met” on-line in the mid-1990s, and had only seen each other in person one time, when I stopped by his home literally across the river from Cape Canaveral in January, 2003.
Though it had a long run, the e-list passed on, as such lists do, but we continued to visit from time to time on-line.
Here’s we two today: Marion is the guy on the right (click to enlarge).

Dick Bernard, Marion Brady February 18, 2012, St. Paul MN


Our hosts, Wayne Jennings and Joan Sorenson, served a great breakfast, and we had a great conversation, one of those that makes time race by. Both Wayne and Joan were long-time innovative educators in Minnesota History of Ed Reform in MN. Wayne founded in 1987, and till 2000 owned, a Minnesota organization, Designs for Learning, long involved in facilitating institutional change in education.
We covered lots of ground in our time together.
Marion had been up to speak to a convention of an organization called MN Association of Alternative Programs. Wayne is ex-officio on the Board of MAAPMN.
I’ve been a fan of Marion’s work for many years. Though he’s retired far longer than I, he really never quit teaching and learning and writing. And his ideas make a great deal of sense. His on-line presence is here. He’s the absolute model of persistence – promoting his philosophy to whoever will listen, and achieving some success. He just keeps going, going and going….
For some years, Marion has written columns for the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet section. Ordinarily, he passes them along to me.
All of his columns for the Post, and many others, are accessible here.
It was a comment about one of those columns that caught my ear near the end of our visit.
I had mentioned the Answer Sheet, and he was telling me about a recent column he had written, December 5, 2011, that had gotten such an unbelievable response that the section editor had requested permission to interview the unnamed source to make sure that she wasn’t defending a piece of creative fiction.
Succinctly, Marion’s topic was what most would consider to be somewhat boring – testing of student proficiency.
This particular column, he was told, had gone viral, and there had been 1.1 million hits in the first 48 hours. Yes, a MILLION.
By now you’re curious, doubtless, so here is the specific column, with a link provided to the editors note about the results of her efforts to verify its contents.
For those of us who toil pretty anonymously in the vineyard of opinion, this column by Marion Brady is an object lesson in the value of persistence. Some day when you least expect it, you get noticed, and noticed, and noticed some more.
Of course, you don’t win the race unless you show up and run in it, but it happens more often than we imagine.
Earlier we had gotten around to talking about a landmark settlement achieved by a largely unknown group of women called the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL) in the late 1970s.
Joan and I discovered we had both worked with what was called the Minnesota “WEAL Agreement” (WEAL Agree MN Nov 77001 )which has had a long term huge impact on practices to hire women as school administrators and social studies teachers in Minnesota public schools.
The agreement was an attempt to implement Title IX – affirmative action for women – in public education. A shero in common was Margaret Holden, then local president of WEAL.
What is common today was a very, very hard slog back then.
Joan mentioned the famous Margaret Mead quotation about the impact of small numbers of people: “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
I had just given them my card, which refers to that quote at the top of my website page, and suggested they take a look there, AMillionCopies.info, where that very quotation has been sitting quietly for the last four years – just waiting for today.
Congratulations, Marion, and Joan, and Wayne, and all who plug along.

Dr. Wayne Jennings, Joan Sorenson, Marion Brady February 18, 2012


“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

#517 – Dick Bernard: Why I don't quit the Catholic Church

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Each time I express an irritation with the Catholic Church, a few friends will write, in assorted ways, “why not just leave?”
I always answer in assorted versions of “you can’t change an organization from the outside. You have to slog away within the system.” Plus, except for the hierarchy, whose clear obsession is temporal power, the “Catholic Church” as an institution has never done dirt to me, and has been an immense contributor on many levels to social justice in this country and in the world. Its representatives in the form of Priests, Nuns, Parish Workers, etc., might vary in talents and abilities, but by and large they really, really care about the essential Jesus mission as expressed in the beatitudes. I can’t leave that for some greener pasture that may not be any greener.
So I slog on.
Yesterday, at the exact same Mass where we got “The Letter” and “The Notice”, there was a second collection for retired Catholic Religious. This is an annual collection, and this year there wasn’t a speaker, rather a flier, in Spanish and English, in each pew. The flier speaks for itself: Abp religious retirement001
There is a particular sentence I noted: “… worked for years for small stipends. Their sacrifices now leave a substantial gap in retirement funding.”
The translation from English to English is simple: the Nuns who built the Roman Catholic social service system took vows of “poverty, chastity and obedience”, and when it came to retirement time, many of their orders had almost nothing to sustain their retirees, at about the same time as vocations were dwindling to the present status which is almost nothing. So appeals which tug at the heartstrings come out each year. While I don’t know the exact relationship, I do know that orders of Nuns could be very aggravating to the hierarchical structure. They were not easily manipulated.
The rules were not as severe for Priests, but, in my viewing, the same attitude of service and social justice tended to apply to them as well. I remember many truly wonderful Priests.
I wrote out my check for $50 yesterday. It should have been more, but it was probably well above average….
In the old days it was a source of pride for a family to produce a Nun or a Priest or in some cases a Bishop.
Some of these folks were legendary.
If you look at photos of the Civil Rights marches in the 1960s, Priests and Nuns were conspicuous by their presence, and if you looked behind the scenes, the local Bishops were telling them to stay where they were supposed to be, and that was not on the protest line.
I recently did a blog post about a Priest ordained in 1973 who said his informal mentors were Priests active in the rights movements.
And those Catholic hospitals? It was groups of Nuns, basically. Ditto for Catholic womens colleges, and Catholic schools.
Sister Rose did her damndest to teach me how to play piano in 5th grade in Sykeston ND. She failed. But not long afterwards, Ms. Stone, classically trained in a prestigious conservatory ‘out east’, tried again, and she failed, spectacularly. It wasn’t the teacher, it was the student!
I can NEVER repay those nuns who took my first wife into their Grand Forks ND hospital for two months in early 1964 when we had NOTHING. We were a charity case. They took us in….
So these Bishops and the rest who are the moldy fruit on top of the Church cabinet, can try to leverage their temporal power and attempt to pass their beliefs on in political skirmishes and laws and constitutional amendments. But I’m going to stick with the struggle in the place where they can be made most uncomfortable. They can ignore people like me, they can threaten us, but they can’t get rid of us…unless we leave.
I know there are other people within the institution who are outspoken in their own ways. We don’t all agree on exactly what to do, but we’re in agreement that the status quo with these Bishops is not the best we can do.
So, here I am.
(click on photo to enlarge)

Nuns at a cookout in Sykeston, ca 1959


E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post wrote a good column on this topic today. It is accessible here. Thanks to Bruce who highlighted it in a comment on yesterdays post.

Lynn Elling, World War II and Korea Veteran, Businessman, World Citizen

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NOTE: This post originated in November, 2007, titled LYNN ELLING: A MILLION COPIES MADE: Visioning a New Declaration of World Citizenship, by Dick Bernard.  Originally published Nov. 5, 2007 at Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, of which Dick Bernard was then President, slightly revised February 3, 2011, and December 3, 2012, and has been updated by addition several times, most recently Nov. 22, 2020.  Mr. Elling died in Minneapolis MN, February 14, 2016.  

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I don’t know why Ed McCurdy chose the line “a million copies made” for his circa 1950 peace anthem, “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”.
Nor do I know why John Denver especially liked that song (a 1971 rendition performed by him on the U.S. Capitol steps is still available on YouTube.)
All I know is that I heard Lynn Elling lead us in singing that song back in the spring of 2007; and that the lyric “A million copies made” has stuck with me.
Who is this Lynn Elling?
And what does he have to do with peace and justice?
Plenty.
As a young LST (Landing Ship Tank #172) officer in WWII, Lynn Elling saw the horrors of War closeup in the South Pacific, at places like Tarawa. The history of LST 172 is here: Lynn Elling LST 172001,
Later he was recalled to service, and served in the Korean conflict, also on an LST.

Lynn Elling on USS LST 172 in the Pacific, 1944

Born in 1921 and a life long Minnesotan, after WWII Elling entered the insurance and financial planning business with Lincoln Life, becoming very successful in the profession. But early in his post-war career, he was discouraged and almost quit. Selling is very hard work. At a critical point in his early professional life, 1947, a workshop leader, Maxwell Maltz (Psycho Cybernetics) unlocked the door to Lynn’s future success. Maltz taught that if one could visualize a goal in technicolor, 3-dimension and stereophonic sound, the goal could be achieved. Elling listened, and followed Maltz’s advice, and it worked.
But Elling never forgot what he’d seen and experienced on that LST in the south Pacific in WWII.
Assorted experiences after WWII, including the service in the Korean conflict and visiting Hiroshima in 1954 and again in 1963, and opportunities to meet with and get to know people like Thor Heyerdahl (Kon Tiki), Norman Cousins, and many others, led to Lynn’s life long passion to build a culture of Peace and World Citizenship. Through leaders like MN Gov. Wendell R. Anderson, and mentors like Minneapolis business executive Stanley Platt, his wife Martha Platt, former Minnesota Governor Elmer L. Andersen and others, Elling was encouraged in his efforts.
His enduring monument is World Citizen, Inc.. World Citizen is a long-time member of Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP).
In the Fall of 1967, Stanley Platt and Lynn worked with then-Minneapolis Mayor Arthur Naftalin on a Declaration of World Citizenship, patterned on a then rapidly expanding program called “Mundialization” of cities particularly in Japan, France and Canada. Mayor Naftalin took the lead on the initiative, and on March 5, 1968, Minneapolis City Council and Hennepin County Board of Commissioners approved the resolution and the Declaration was signed by numerous parties. Here is a photo of a copy of the 1968 Declaration:

This was the first such declaration by a United States City. Signers of the Declaration and twenty-eight mayors from area communities attended the public declaration on Law Day, May 1, 1968.
Signers of the Declaration were: Chair, Henn. Co Board of Commissioners Robert Janes; Mayor of Minneapolis Arthur Naftalin; President Minneapolis City Council Daniel Cohen; Gov. Harold Levander; Oscar Knutson, Chief Justice Minnesota Supreme Court; Eli Kahn, President Minnesota Rabbinical Association; Congressman Don Fraser; Chairs of Minnesota Republican and DFL parties, George Thiss and Warren Spannaus; Aux. Bishop of Catholic Archdiocese James Shannon; Irene Janski, President of MN League of Women Voters; President MN United World Federalists, Sidney Feinberg, Minnesota State Bar Assoc; Harold Greenwood Jr, United Nations Association of Minnesota.
Former MN Governor Elmer L. Andersen spoke at the ceremony that day, very proud that the occasion marked “the first flying of the United Nations flag by Minneapolis and Hennepin County, [and] the first such declaration and UN flag flying by any major community in the United States. Thus this becomes a deeply significant occasion in our nation’s history. It represents a commitment to cooperation among nations for world peace, to belief in the common brotherhood of all men of all nations, and to aspirations for a world community of peace, freedom and justice under world law.“
In the same speech, he said “that we must look upon all the peoples of the world as one community, and we must find a way to operate under a body of world law to preserve peace.” (quotes from pages 151-52 of I Trust to be Believed, significant speeches by Elmer L. Andersen edited by Lori Sturdevant 2004). Text: Elmer Andersen I Trust..001

Elmer L. Andersen speech, City Hall, Minneapolis, May 1, 1968. Photo by Donna Elling

Gov. Elmer L. Andersen (center left) with Minneapolis Mayor Arthur Naftalin, May 1, 1968, Minneapolis City Hall. Photo by Donna Elling.

Lynn Elling speaks at May 1, 1968, ceremony at Minneapolis City Hall. In foreground, holding the Declaration, is Warren Spannaus, then Chair of the Minnesota DFL party, later Attorney General. Phot by Donna Elling.

Lynn’s passion for peace continued with another remarkable achievement in the spring of 1971 when 26 prominent leaders, including all notable Minnesota Republicans and Democrats, and then-UN Secretary General U Thant, signed a declaration of World Citizenship whose major proviso recognized “the sovereign right of our citizens to declare that their citizenship responsibilities extend beyond our state and nation. We hereby join with other concerned people of the world in a declaration that we share in this world responsibility and that our citizens are in this sense citizens of the world. We pledge our efforts as world citizens to the establishment of permanent peace based on just world law and to the use of world resources in the service of man and not for his destruction.”
Coming as it did during the darkest times of the Vietnam War, the 1971 bi-partisan Declaration is remarkable. Similar declarations were entered into in several other states and many communities.
See amillioncopies.info for more information about the entire declaration, which includes the signatures of all its very prominent signers.
In 1971, the Vietnam War raged on. It was difficult for most Americans to visualize an end to the deadly conflict. For those old enough to remember, the late 1960s and early 1970s was a time of deep division in this country. American youth were dying by the thousands in southeast Asia, as were millions of fellow world citizens in southeast Asian countries.

Here’s a Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial about the 1971 Minnesota Declaration:

Also accessible at the website is [the Elling led] 1972 film, “Man’s Next Giant Leap”, featuring John Denver and many then-notable Minnesota leaders, whose sole purpose was Peace Education for children and adults.
In 1972, Lynn and others founded World Citizen, Inc; in 1988, Peace Sites became integral to World Citizen. Peace Poles have been publicized by World Citizen for many years.
In 1996 Lynn Elling co-founded the Nobel Peace Prize Festival, later part of Nobel Peace Prize Forum, at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. The programs continued until 2018.
As so often happens, after a flurry of attention, the remarkable 1971 declaration literally ended up in a closet, its immense significance unnoticed by later generations.
Lynn Elling never forgot the 1971 declaration and in the spring of 2007 put it back on the table.
Today, of course, we are confronted by circumstances even more compelling and troubling than visited the U.S. and the world in 1971.
Today war is almost an abstract reality for many of us, something that seems to have no apparent negative consequences for us, mostly affecting people we’ll never see face-to-face, with fewer of ‘our own’ dying in places far away, no military draft facing young people, our war financed on a national credit card for our grandchildren to pay.
In a real sense we are playing a deadly video game. Additionally, we are beset with other potentially calamitous problems ignored at our peril. No longer can we pretend that our problems are confined to some other place far away, or even controllable by our own will. We are vulnerable in a way that we do not want to understand.
There has never been a greater need for world citizenship than there is today.
When Lynn secured his last signature on the 1971 declaration, achieving mastery in the space race was still a priority. Today, our very survival as human beings is rooted on what is happening on our own planet in all ways: human relationships, resource depletion, increasing inequities between peoples, climate change…the list goes on and on. Today’s priority must be right here on the sphere we call home – the earth. We are part of the global community; isolation and domination are no longer options.
Lynn Elling deserves immense credit and admiration for not only his accomplishment in 1971, but for reigniting the issue for today’s world.
Thanks, Lynn, for all you’ve done.
To all of you, stay tuned as we “retool and refuel” Lynn’s dream and take it, as he likes to say, “to the stratosphere”.

Lynn Elling World Service Authority Passport Photo 1975

Lynn Elling World Service Authority Passport Photo 1975

UPDATE, May 7, 2016:
LYNN ELLING, Minneapolis MN, died February 14, 2016, a few days short of 95 years of age. You can read his obituary here. A followup feature obit was published in the Minneapolis paper on February 25, 2016, can be read here. See also Celebration May 1 2016001 of his life on May 1, 2016.
Mr. Elling was a giant for peace. My personal attempts to summarize his life can be read below. My knowledge of his work, very minimal at first, expanded with virtually every visit during the 9 years I was privileged to know him.
He was a remarkable missionary for Peace, born of his experience during and following World War II. (More here: Lynn U.S. Navy001)
On May 14, 2014, as part of an archival project focusing on Peace Elders in Minnesota, Ehtasham Anwar and Suhail Ahmed, both of Pakistan, did a 57 minute video of Mr. Elling recalling his years as a peace activist.
The unedited film can be viewed in its entiretyat AMillionCopies.info.  The occasional voices in the background are Ehtasham (doing the interview) and Dick Bernard.
My comment about the interview, as it appears at the YouTube site, is: “Mr. Elling was 93 at the time of this interview in Minneapolis, MN May 14, 2014. I was privileged to be part of the interview planning and process, and from time to time I’ll interject a comment or question in this film. The interviewer is Ehtasham Anwar, then a Fulbright/Humphrey Fellow at the University of Minnesota Law School Human Rights Center. This interview was part of a project to interview ten elders in the peace movement. Mr. Elling’s was the second interview in the series, which was completed in mid-June, 2014. This video is unedited – it is essentially raw video – thus no effort has been made to correct content. I knew Mr. Elling for seven years before this interview. His memory as shared in this video was basically very sound, based on my own knowledge of his work, and past events. Any errors can be excused. He was a man who “walked the talk” for his passion of peace. He died February 14, 2016, days short of his 95th birthday. He was promoting peace until his death.”
Mr. Elling identified particularly with several organizations which still exist in the Twin Cities:
* World Federalists, now Citizens for Global Solutions MN.
* United Nations Association. It was during his time with UNA that he produced the film “Man’s Next Giant Leap” in 1972. The film, which can be viewed here, features singer John Denver and many Twin Cities civic and community leaders.
Mr. Elling served at one time as President of both of the above local organizations.
* World Citizen, was an organization he founded in 1972, and in which he was active until his death. I would say World Citizen was always the organization of which he was most proud.
* He was one of the Charter Members of Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, founded 1995-96.
* In 1996, Lynn co-founded the Nobel Peace Prize Festival an annual event for years, and later was merged with the Nobel Peace Prize Forum.  He participated in these events until his final years.
* Mr. Elling was a Founding Member of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. He was been nominated for that organizations annual Peace Prize for 2016. The application letter is here: Lynn Elling nom Apr 2016001
* annually, Mr. Elling participated in the re-dedication of Jefferson High School in Bloomington MN as a Peace Site, and indeed at other places. His passion for peace sites was avid, from the time he first learned of the concept in 1982.
* Concordia Language Villages at Bemidji, at which he dedicated as a peace site in 1996, and annually participated in a rededication of that most impressive peace site.
* As a Naval officer in WWII who saw the horrors of war, Mr. Elling would share the ideals and aspirations of the Veterans for Peace.
* perhaps more than anyone else, Mr. Elling was instrumental in the flying of the United Nations flag at what is now the Hennepin County Government Center, May 1, 1968. The flag flew there, next to the United States flag, until March 27, 2012. Here is what Lynn wrote about the history of the flag in May, 1968: May 1 1968 UN Flag Mpls001.  Much more about this issue can be read here.
He is at Peace. His mission must continue.
Dick Bernard
dick.bernard@icloud.com
May 16, 2016
* * * * *
UPDATE December 11, 2013: Personal statement: Dick Bernard.
I initiated A Million Copies website in March, 2008. At the time, I had known Mr. Elling for only nine months. As time passes, he continues as a most remarkable and committed seeker of Peace in our world. For the interested reader, place the words Lynn Elling in the search box of this blog, and you will find many other posts which refer to him in one way or another. He walks the talk for Peace. I’m honored to know him. Here is a recent summary of his experience/work for peace over the last 80 years: Lynn Elling Timeline 1943-2013. The most recent post which relates specifically to Mr. Elling is about the U.S. Declaration of World Citizenship signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. You can read it here.
UPDATE June 20, 2012: Lynn’s spouse of 68 years, Donna Elling, passed away June 1, 2012. Here is a blog post about Donna and Lynn and their family, first posted on the day of her Memorial Service June 13, 2012.
UPDATE January 4, 2013: During the fall and early winter of 2012, I found more information particularly about the Minneapolis/Hennepin County Declaration of World Citizenship March 5, 1968. That information has been added to this post, including some photos of the May 1, 1968, dedication ceremony taken by Donna Elling.
I met Lynn Elling in June, 2007. In November of that year I wrote the below commentary for Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (original here), and in March, 2008, I rolled out the Million Copies website tribute to Lynn Elling and Professor Joe Schwartzberg, which remains essentially identical to when it was first published.
Both Mr. Elling and Dr. Schwartzberg remain with us, and both remain very, very active in their respective passions.
This seems to be a good time to update the original commentary about Lynn. (Changes to original text are minimal. The photographs are new additions.)
March 1-3, 2012 inaugurates the new Augsburg Nobel Peace Prize Forum, incorporating the long existing Nobel Peace Prize Festival, also at Augsburg, in which Lynn had a major co-founding role, and through the years has been a remaining powerful and crucial presence as both worker and fund-raiser for this major event.
Lynn and his spouse, Donna, still live in south Minneapolis. They celebrated 68 years of marriage last fall. Below are photos taken September 22, 2011, at their home; and in February, 1972.
(click on all photos to enlarge them)

Lynn and Donna Elling September 22, 2011

Lynn and Donna Elling World Service Authority Passport photo February 7, 1972

Lynn and Donna Elling World Service Authority Passport photo February 7, 1972

Lynn remains very active in working for an enduring peace, particularly with children’s programs such as Peace Sites, also here, and listing here: World Citiz Peace Sites001. And Peace Education.
Donna and Lynn, congratulations and best wishes to you both.
UPDATE April 17, 2013: Here is an abbreviated timeline of Lynn Elling’s efforts for World Peace: Lynn Elling Timeline001 It is much abbreviated.
*

Memorial Day 2013, Lynn Elling with family at their Lake Cabin, celebrate Donna's life and inter her ashes at the base of a favored tree.

Memorial Day 2013, Lynn Elling with family at their Lake Cabin, celebrate Donna’s life and inter her ashes at the base of a favored tree.

#510 – Dick Bernard: A Memory of a long-ago Ground Hog Day

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Today is a pea-soup fog day in my town, and the temperature is about 32 degrees, so any of the resident Woodbury groundhogs have no worries about sunburn, or freezing to death. They will not see their shadow, at least not from sunlight.
But the place for groundhogs today is Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Punxsutawney Phil has been on the job since 1887, telling us about the rest of winter. Here’s something about him, and what he predicted today….
There are, of course, other groundhogs, and twenty or so years ago my Dad, Henry Bernard, recalled a story of his Dad, circa 1912 at their home on Wakeman Avenue in Grafton, North Dakota.
“I must have been four or five [Dad was born Dec 22, 1907] when this incident occurred.
My father, Henry Bernard, was the chief engineer at the flour mill. During the summer the fellows caught a woodchuck (groundhog) and put him in a cage. He was named “Pete”. Pete gave a lot of amusement to visitors. His ability to peel and eat a banana was a source of awe to visitors. However, his ability to eat a soda cracker without losing any crumbs was remarkable.
Pete was kept in the cage until fall when he became very drowsy and slept almost all the time.
Dad decided that Pete was ready to hibernate and took him home and released him in the unfinished basement that we had. Pete got busy and dug a hole in the dirt wall., “stole” bananas, apples, carrots, etc., and took them inside the hole and sealed it from the inside.
Dad remembered the story about the groundhog and on February 2nd told mother to watch and if Pete came out to send the “boy” (that was me) over to the mill to tell him.
Sure enough Pete did come out, saw his shadow and went back into the hole for another six weeks. We must have had more winter.
Then he came out again but was sickly and died shortly after. The veterinarian said it was because he lacked certain things for his diet that he would have picked up if he has run wild. Dad had Pete mounted and kept him for many years. This story was often repeated and even I have repeated it many times since that time.”
Thanks Dad.

#508 – Dick Bernard: Remembering Saul Alinsky

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UPDATE see end of this post
Thanks to a column in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune I was reminded of long ago memories of Saul Alinsky.
No, I didn’t know him, but I certainly knew of him, and he had considerable influence on my early work as a teacher union organizer.
Yesterday was Saul Alinsky’s 100th birthday. I’d never really looked him up till today, and I was fascinated by what I found.
Alinsky died June 12, 1972. At the time of his death, I had been a union organizer for all of three months. In the fall of that same year I went to Washington for basic training in organizing, and without knowing he was dead, I got some excellent training in some of the Alinsky methodology.
I remember particularly the phrase, “personalize, polarize and publicize”. You couldn’t organize against a thing, so you organized against some person who was powerful, and could represent evil, and then you’d publicize the daylights out of that polarity. (If you see similar things happening today from the right wing, you’re right – they’ve been using Alinsky’s tactics for years…while they ridicule Alinsky.)
I also recall Alinsky’s success in getting some fairness for sanitation workers at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. Management was not much inclined to deal with these lowly workers, so a plan was hatched: workers occupied every stool and urinal in every restroom, and quickly got everyone’s attention. There was a settlement. (Was this a real incident? Someone let me know. It is a vivid memory.)
Alinsky’s clientele had no power, as power is traditionally described in this society. So his members had to be creative, and united.
In 1972, Minnesota teachers had just achieved the right to bargain collectively, and were just beginning to see the possibility of at least a little parity in the relationship between management and labor.
The first decade was an interesting one: those holding power had no particular interest in relinquishing any of that power; those who had had little power, had to learn by trial and error how to achieve power without completely upsetting the system for which they worked.
Abundant mistakes were made on both sides in those early years, but in time a certain equilibrium was reached, and it would be my guess that most managers with any sense would see that a union can be, if not set up as the enemy, a force for stability and for good within the work place. It is, after all, not in anyone’s best interest to have a chaotic system without fairness (though I am sure there are plenty who would love to go back to their imagined perfect world where all the rights reside with management.)
In Alinsky’s world, the powerless were the priority.
In today’s world, the powerful learned from Alinsky too, and are trying to use the same methods to take complete control once again. What the powerful may have to learn the hard way is that there is a cost to their success, and the cost accrues to them in the long run.
Labor, whether organized or not, needs to look with great caution on attempts to remove rights to organize and bargain collectively and get independent redress of grievances.
Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana are experiments in destroying unions; I know that there are similar wishes among some elements in Minnesota as well, and perhaps in other states.
Happy Birthday, Saul.
And give the working people the determination and courage to assert their rights to fairness in this increasingly unbalanced economic world that is the U.S.A.
UPDATE: Comment from Bob Barkley, Ohio:
Your thoughts regarding Saul Alinsky are right on target.
I was never trained in his methods but those of us in the teacher organizing of the 1960′s and 1970′s were disciples even if we didn’t know it. I started in 1966 had often quite unconsciously followed the Alinksy model over and over.
And quite ironically, I had it applied against me when I became “management” within our union.
Needless to say, it works. And it is the centerpiece of much that is done today by the very folks who criticize it so vehemently. The GOP right wing uses Alinsky methods to criticize Saul Alinsky. How ironic.
UPDATE Feb 22, 2012:
Yesterday friends and former colleagues John Borgen, Corky Marinkovich and I met for lunch. John showed us a package of old photos from MEA staff days. Here are the photos, through the magic of scanning and facebook. I have deliberately not labeled the photographs. The photos are undated, but the photo envelope says “copyright 1981” and the demeanor of the staff indicates it was a serious meeting, probably in the summer, before a very difficult fall in Minnesota. The setting was probably a staff union meeting.
There were, at that time, perhaps 40 professional staff in MEA. Likely most were at the meeting. For all the reasons everyone who has ever tried to photograph all people at a gathering, many are missed. I have not named the 22 people who can be identified on the photos. They are listed in alphabetical order here, for those of their colleagues who may have known them.
Thanks for the memories, John!
Darrell Baty
Pinky Bennett
Dick Bernard
Bob Black
John Borgen
Ken Bresin
Carl Erickson
Audrey Erskine
Sandy Fields
Curt Forbes
Wayne Hyland
George Jungermann
Chuck Kehrberg
Ed Leipold
Corky Marinkovich
Paul Moen
Dave Moracco
Charley Shaffer
Nancy Sinks
Doug Solseth
Stephanie Wolkin
Sue Zagrabelny
UPDATE March 7, 2012
Several of us attempted to reconstruct the remaining members of the staff at that time. Subject to error, here’s what we came up with:
Roger Barrett
Ken Berg
Don Berger
Judy Berglund
Ralph Chesebrough
Cheryl Furrer
Bob Larson
Chuck Lentz
John Martin
Peter Pafiolis
Kenn Pratt
Chuck Purfeerst
Bob Reed
Al Sollom
Hank Stankiewicz
Carol Sulovski (later Berg)
Mary Rose Watson
Larry Wicks
Duane Wilson (?)