#140 – Dick Bernard: 500 years

/in , , /by

Happy New Year, and new Decade!
2009 ends today. Much of this past year my personal endeavors have been around family history projects.
Since late summer, I’ve been tackling an immense task: trying to summarize 400 years of the recorded history of my average and ordinary French-Canadian families experience in North America. (My father was French-Canadian, his ancestry going back to the early 1600s in what is now known as Quebec.) I’m nearing completion of the project, which I’m entitling “The First 300 Years”, summarizing the most difficult to access part: the 300 years preceding my Dad’s birth December 22, 1907. (Quebec was established in July, 1608.)
Of course, those 400 years are just a moment in the existence of humanity; 400 years in France is modern history. But in North American and American history, 400 years is a long, long time.
Normally a family history project about an ordinary family is plagued by a lack of data. For me, I was plagued by so much data it was difficult to know where to start, and what to include or leave out. I finally broke that psychological log-jam, and I think the end result (which ultimately will be on the web, perhaps in February of 2010), will probably be about 150 pages of work.
I thought I had completed the project of summarizing those 300 years in mid-November, 2009, and, in fact, I printed the first copy in mid-November, and sent out the draft to 35 people during that same week.
During that very week in November, it happened that the television was carrying a series of commercials produced by a natural gas producing association, and a couple of times their ad featured a young Mom and her little girl invited, by her Mom, to blow out 100 candles, each symbolizing a year of natural gas left for we consumers. Of course, blowing out those 100 candles would be quite a chore for a little girl, and that was noted by the Mom.
The point of that commercial, and the other companion ads, was that there is at least 100 years worth of natural gas left in this country; suggesting this to be a long, long time. “Not to worry.” I watched the screen, which is next to our natural gas fireplace, and I thought of this little girl and her Mom in context with the 400 years I’d been reviewing for the prior few months, and the hundreds and thousands of years of earlier human history.
What a distinction.
My Dad was born 102 years ago…when he came on the scene there was scarcely any use of that resource, natural gas. In fact, his ancestors (and mine) in North America likely didn’t know there was such a resource until late in the 19th century, 250 years into their arrival in the New World.
Now the ad was saying that we had about 100 years left of that single resource, and directly implying that 100 years is a very long time.
I wanted to see that ad again, so that I could write exactly what the screen “Mom” was saying to her “daughter”, but it didn’t air again. Perhaps someone thought better of the idea of using that little girl as a prop for a resource that was rapidly disappearing. I don’t know.
Having looked at my family history from 1608-1907 – I’m 12th generation in North America; and knowing my family history from 1907 to the present; and knowing how we have become a society that lives for the moment, and really relies on fantasy views of the present and future reality, I wonder what’s ahead for us as a society in the next, very short, century.
That little girl in the commercial, and most likely her stage Mom, will own the results of our helter-skelter squandering of our earth.
Meanwhile, that natural gas fireplace by the television continues to bring warmth….
We can live in the past; we can pretend that today and tomorrow are all that matters; I hope we all look far more to the future consequences of present actions.
We can start by demanding that our lawmakers take a long-term and global view as they make policy that will affect the generations that follow us.
Then, we might have a Happy New Year.
And give those who follow some chance for many Happy New Years to come.

#133 – Dick Bernard: The Dust Bowl

/in , , , , /by

COMMENTS follow this post.
Last evening I watched most of a History Channel program on the horrors of the Dust Bowl of mid-America in the 1930s. Interspersed with film and commentary from the actual events, were recollections of survivors of the Dirty Thirties, as well as a fascinating effort by scientists to reenact in the present day what people living in farm houses back then would have actually experienced.
The present day experimenters could turn off the wind and dust making machines at will, and did. They could not tolerate what the residents in the 1930s either survived, or didn’t, when the horrible winds and dust storms and plagues of insects and rabbits and on and on destroyed much of the midwest, especially in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, but all throughout the northern plains as well.
My uncle, soon to be 85, remembered what he recalled as the worst year, 1934, in North Dakota. He was 9 years old. It was horrid. There was no escape.
To have gone through it was to be seared forever…or was it?
I was born in 1940, young enough to miss the worst years of the Depression, and to remember some things about the last years of World War II.
Memory or not, I was totally immersed in the attitudes generated by these life-altering times in American history.
The 30s and first half of the 1940s were times of self-sacrifice, and a need for working together. The nature of humans was no different then than now…the assorted attitudes that plague us now, plagued them then. The difference was that there was, for them, no real choice but to concentrate on survival. Prosperity for the masses was not an active dream. Surviving the dirty thirties, and then getting the war over with were the priorities. People had to pull together. Those who didn’t were noticed….
1945 brought the end of the war, and after almost 20 years of hardship, life began anew. The baby boom began. Today, one of my cousins is 63 – she was one of the first of millions of baby boom babies.
That boom was to last until the end of the 1960s.
An attitude began then that, I believe, has become our fatal flaw as a society.
Those who’d been through the Great Depression and World War II in sundry ways made a pledge to their kids and grandkids to protect them from all that was bad in those years. The boomers made a similar contract with their kids.
A consequence of this new contract, in my opinion, is to diminish the values that allowed America to survive the bad times: a collective will to sacrifice and to work together. Looking out for #1 became a primary value.
In the 1930s, it was not until a dust storm reached Washington D.C. in the later 1930s that the then-Congress began to enact crucial legislation for the dust bowl states. It was a classic “NIMBY” (“not in my backyard”) response to a huge problem. Until the problem was virtually unsolvable, the Congress was essentially an inert mass. The rains came almost before the actions of the People’s House in Washington. Even then, a sense of unity among the “united” states was tenuous.
In a lot of ways we are in a similar quandary today, only much, much worse in long-term implications.
We dodged a financial catastrophe by a whisker this year, and we’re now living as if there wasn’t – and won’t be – a problem later.
Many pretend that climate change is no longer an issue, because some pilfered e-mails allegedly prove it isn’t a huge future problem.
We dismiss a coming crisis as fossil fuels become ever more scarce…and expensive; we ignore water tables receding due to use for irrigation – water resources that cannot be replenished by putting a hose in the ground.
Too many of the same heroes who are extolled as part of the Greatest Generation are now saying that the benefits they have reaped, like Social Security and Medicare, are too expensive to provide for the generations following them. Ironically many of today’s generation seem to agree: it is every one for him or herself. The youngsters too young to decide – our children and grandchildren? Their problem.
We are back to the individualism that led to the ship sinking with the late 1920s financial catastrophe (my Dad’s parents experienced the bank closing at the same time as Grandpa’s employer shut its doors in 1927, two years before 1929.) Both my families were casualties of the Great Depression. It took a long while to recover, somewhat.
Only time will tell if I and people like me are “chicken littles” saying “the sky is falling”.
My guess is we have a pretty clear view of the future if societal attitudes do not dramatically change: not pleasant, indeed, grim. Indeed, even deep change now may be too late…but its worth a try.
Bob Barkley, Dec. 20, 09: In regard to your piece, “Dust Bowl,” it occurred to me today, as I was once again trying to make inroads with my right-leaning sister, that attitudes have context. They don’t occur in a vacuum. For example most Americans believe what they were taught about the nations history, but that version most of us were exposed to was seriously skewed. Consequently I sent my sister two books — both by Howard Zinn: The People’s History of the United States, and A Power Governments Cannot Suppress.
Your story regarding the dust bowl provides part of your context. I was raised well into my teens in Jersey City, NJ during the Boss Hague days. I was in a Republican household in a Democratic stronghold. And my Dad was a Lutheran minister in an overwhelmingly Catholic community. Those were two strong components of the context for my beliefs.
Until we know the context in which people think we will not understand their beliefs. Your rural upper Midwest context is foreign to me. This why we must listen deeply to really understand others. It’s hard but essential.
Dick’s response to Bob: Excellent. We’ve ‘talked’ a bit before about the Jersey City days. Don’t recall the exact context, but something I’d written or sent around jogged your memories of the tense years in Jersey City. I think the primary relevance of your comment is that we all need to ‘farm’ our own circles, since our group experiences are so unique…’city slickers’ out east have not a clue what farmers in the midwest are about, and vice versa.

#127 – Dick Bernard: Pearl Harbor. Once, we were young

/in , , , /by

Comments at the end of this post. Here is the Minneapolis Star Tribune story of the event. My uncle is mentioned in the story. I happened to be next to the reporter who was covering the story, and luckily had an extra copy of the 9 pages of archival materials I had just given Mr. Wentzlaff.
Sunday, December 7, 1941, my Dad’s brother, my uncle Frank, went down with the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Most every Pearl Harbor Day I witness Frank’s death – the explosion of the Arizona is an iconic photograph. Flags can be and often are flown at half-staff this day.
Today, I took the time to go over to the Veteran’s Service Building to meet one of the Arizona survivors. Ed Wentzlaff of Milaca is now 92, two years younger than my Uncle Frank would have been, and a most engaging man. We visited very briefly – he was in demand – and I gave him a packet of information about my Uncle and his time on the Arizona, including the 1938 Thanksgiving dinner menu for the Arizona, a dinner Ed may have had. He recognized the name of the ship commander, Rear Admiral I. C. Kidd who, he said, saved his life. Kidd perished that day, later awarded the Medal of Honor. Ed was taken to safety in Admiral Kidd’s boat.

Ed Wentzlaff, USS Arizona survivor, December 7, 2009

Ed Wentzlaff, USS Arizona survivor, December 7, 2009


Uncle Frank was 26 years old on that fateful December day in 1941. He had been on the Arizona since January of 1935, and in a letter to my Dad, dated November 7, 1941, he talked about a “little girl up in Washington”, probably Bremerton, who he apparently planned to marry.
Ed was to be discharged from the Navy the next day….
The Navy had been good for Frank. It was a job in the 1930s, and not a bad job at that. Three squares, a bunk, and opportunities to see exotic places, like Honolulu. I doubt that being killed in the line of duty was much on his mind on December 6 or before.
Frank Bernard, at right, and his cousin and buddy, Marvin Campbell, July 14, 1935. Soon thereafter Frank entered the U.S. Navy.

Frank Bernard, at right, and his cousin and buddy, Marvin Campbell, July 14, 1935. Soon thereafter Frank entered the U.S. Navy.


Frank and over a thousand others died December 7, and many, including on the USS Arizona, survived.
Marvin Campbell, who idolized his cousin, Frank, was already in the Army December 7, 1941, ending the war as a Colonel, at least for a short time, in charge of a prefecture of Japan. He came home and was a successful businessman and a respected community leader.
Ed has his own story, as do they all, those who died, and those who didn’t. Ed is the third Arizona survivor I’ve been privileged to meet over the years. They each had their stories.
There is no other moral to this story, only to remember and share the story…. You may interpret as you wish.
Comments:
Florence Hedeen: “…[We] were shopping downtown today [Dec. 7] when we entered a store where the TV showed the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I told the manager that my Uncle Frank went down with the Arizona. He quickly offered to turn off the TV, but I said it’s history and we need to remember it. I never knew Uncle Frank, but I’m quite sure that he, like many others who didn’t face the draft, entered the military for the opportunities it offered, not to fight and die. War never ends because there are no winners, only opponents who want to even the score – now and forever, it seems!”
Mel and Lee Berning: “We seem to forget that day in the mist of time and only bring up the terrible events that ended that terrible war. As a first hand witness to several A-tests I hope that we can put a permanent lid on the use of such devices. I hope that the world will never see those sights again and that some misguided political minded nations do not resort to that force.”

#119 – Dick Bernard: Armistice Day, Veterans Day, Remembrance Day

/in , , /by

Yesterday my Uncle Vince and I were driving down a country road* near his farm, and and out of the blue he said, “tomorrow must be Armistice Day, right?”
Right, indeed. I was surprised to hear him call it Armistice Day, since in the U.S. it’s been called Veteran’s Day since 1954, when an act of Congress changed Armistice to Veterans Day.
So, today, in England they are remembering Armistice Day, November 11, 2009 (now called Remembrance Day); here in the States we have Veterans Day. As a veteran, today I get a free meal from a restaurant chain if I show up with my dog tags. And so it goes…. (I’ll be there, at the restaurant.)
Uncle Vince was born a bit more than six years after the event that led to the establishment of Armistice Day: the ending of hostilities for the “War to End All Wars”, WW I, November 11, 1918.
There was reason to celebrate the end of that deadly conflagration.
My mother, 9 years old at the time, recalled in her recollections of growing up on that same farm we were driving to yesterday: “[My sister] Florence was born [November 3] the year World War I ended. The hired girl and I were out in the snow chasing chickens into the coop so they wouldn’t freeze when there was a great long train whistle from the Grand Rapids [ND] railroad track [four miles away]. In the house there was a long, long telephone ringing to signify the end of World War I
By far my most memorable November 11 experience was at London’s Gatwick Airport, November 11, 2001.
We were waiting for boarding call to begin our trip home from a most enjoyable visit to London, a visit which included, a day or two prior, seeing the meticulously planted rows of tiny crosses on the lawn of Westminster Cathedral. These crosses symbolized the losses of war suffered by the English in their assorted wars, including those from being bombed during WWII.
At 11 a.m. on November 11, 2001, at Gatwick Airport, an announcement came, asking for two minutes of silence from all of us, remembering….
The bustling airport went completely silent. I don’t recall so much as a baby’s cry. It was intensely moving.
Today, at the First Shot Memorial on the State Capitol grounds in St. Paul, a group of Veterans for Peace gathered around the gun on the USS Ward that fired the first shot during the attack of Pearl Harbor in WW II. At precisely 11 a.m. a military veteran slowly rang a small bell 11 times, remembering 11-11-1918, and our appeal for enduring peace.
A block or so away another group gathered at the MN Vietnam Memorial, and remembered Veterans Day, 2009, in their own way.
A memory of today I will hold was of the guy who arrived at the events at the same time as I did. He was dressed in combat fatigues, and carrying what appeared to be a wooden, but realistic, combat weapon. I moved to the right, to the USS Ward Memorial; he moved to the left, to the Vietnam Memorial. All we had at our commemoration was a small bell…rung 11 times.
Who is right in these seeming clashing commemorations, or are both right? It’s more than an academic question. In my mind, one commemoration looks back to War, remembering our veterans, as opposed to the veterans on the opposing side – who are, after all, equally the victims of War; the other, Armistice (Remembrance) Day, emphasizes Peace. There is a huge difference in the emphasis, in my opinion.
The “War to End All Wars” 1914-18 simply spawned an even more deadly World War II, and on and on we go.
I’d like us to choose the route to peace. We can do it.
* – The country road Vince and I were on is the same road that is pictured on the home page of this blog. The only difference, yesterday, was that the surroundings are “November brown”,
For another view on Armistice/Veterans/Remembrance Day, see Annelee Woodstroms post at this blog for 11-9-09.
Sunday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune carried an excellent commentary by Lori Sturdevant bring the recollections of two WWII veterans, one of whom is my good friend Lynn Elling. Do take a look . Look at the anonymous comments there, following the column. They illustrate the above distinction.

#118 – Annelee Woodstrom: A Reflection for Peace on Armistice (Veterans) Day

/in , , , , /by

Note: Anneliese Solch, later to become Annelee Woodstrom, grew up in the small community of Mitterteich in Adolf Hitler’s Germany.  She was 7 years old when Hitler came to power in 1933, and was drawn to the exciting things that might be available to her if she became part of the Hitler Youth.  Her parents refused her request, and they never became Nazis or supporters of Hitler.  In the below segment from her book, “War Child: Growing up in Adolf Hitler’s Germany”, Annelee recounts a conversation with her Uncle Pepp, a “Main Street” businessman in Mitterteich.  (Mitterteich then and now was just a few miles from the border of present day Czech Republic, and after the War also a few miles inside West Germany.  It’s population was about 5,000.)
After the war, in 1947, Annelee married Kenny Woodstrom of Crookston MN, one of the soldiers who liberated her town.  They were married 51 years, till his death in 1998.  They, and Annelee, today, live in Ada MN.  #mce_temp_url#.
A previous post about Annelee is found at this blog at September 20, 2009.
Annelee Woodstrom, October 31, 2009: Veterans Day is coming up, and I certainly will remember it’s function.  Wouldn’t it be much better though if we could celebrate World Peace Day?  However, according to my Uncle Pepp, our wish for peace will probably never happen during our lifetime.  Uncle Pepp’s words and thoughts sadly are as applicable to our efforts for world peace as they were when I heard them from him in 1944.
From WAR CHILD: pages 122-23:
“As I arrived at the bakery, Aunt Nanni said, “Anneliese, if you are looking for Pepp, he is in his office  he will see you.”
I knocked softly.  Uncle Pepp opened the door and motioned to the big chair.
“What can I do for you?”
“Nothing.  I came to say good-bye.”
“So good-bye it is”, Uncle Pepp mumbled.
His voice and demeanor startled me.  “If you are busy, I’ll leave.”
He pointed at the chair again.  “You just sit there, and I will tell you when you can leave.”
Resting his chin in his hands, he looked at me, pondering.  “Everybody comes and tells me, ‘I am leaving.’
So you’ll be leaving too.  You should be home with your mother, but you are out there, getting bombed and shot at just like the men.  His gaze went past me.  “They went, but most of them didn’t come back.  The ones who did come home are crippled for life in one way of another.  Tell me for what?”
He nodded.  “Oh, yes, for the 1000 Year Reich.  What a Reich it is.  It started with a few crazy men and they’ve led and lied until everyone followed into abysmal destruction of humanity.  We hollered and screamed and went with them.  Now, we drown in our own blood.  How they have channged us.”
Uncle.  He didn’t hear me, and I didn’t dare to move as he went on.  “they didn’t change us, we did that ourselves.  Now, I expect they will hold everyone accountable.  He shook his head.  “All my life I tried to do right.  Then in one minute, I ruined it all.  Just because Karl joined the party and didn’t tell me, I pushed him into this damn war.  Now he is fighting in France, doing God knows what?  Killing, fighting, or running to save himself.  he shouldn’t have joined the Nazi Party without telling me and I should have signed.  Now nothing is the same.  How he and I have changed.
I had never seen Uncle Pepp like this.  I got up and gingerly placed my hand on his shoulder.  “It wasn’t your fault!  It is the war,” I said.  They would have taken Karl anyway.  Everybody has to go to war.  I bet that after this one there won’t be any more wars because there isn’t anyone left to fight.”
He laughed bitterly.  You would think so.  We learn a lot in a lifetime, but no one in the world learns about keeping peace.  Every time there is a war, they say it is for some cause and then we will have peace forever.  The human race is the dumbest species there is.  For thousands of years legions of people have fought and maimed each other for one cause or another.  They took land from their so-called enemy.  When you look around, you see that years later they gave it back.  Never mind the corpses underneath the land the young were told to conquer.”
Uncle Pepp’s eyes bored into mine.  “You think this war is the last war?  Anneliese, don’t mind my laughing.  Some day you may have a son who will get his draft notice to fight another war…again they’ll promise you.  This is the last of all wars.  On the other side there will be a mother who will have to send her son for the same reason  to stop war.  What we have not yet learned is the simple truth.  Wars lay the seed and breed another, more horrible war than the one before.”
Uncle Pepp came close to me.  “I always told your papa you should have been his first born, but I am glad you are not.  Maybe you will make it through this war.  You will, if you are lucky and have a say about it.”  He kissed me on the forehead.  “Now go, and do come back, you hear me?”
He walked away from me and sighed.  “Tell your mama Mrs. Beer heard last night that Otto died of his wounds in Russia.  It’s not official, but a soldier who was lucky enough to be transferred out sent word to them.  Now that’s her second son who didn’t make it home.  He waved, walked out and shut the door quietly.
I sat still, thinking about what Uncle Pepp had just said.  My heart ached for Uncle Pepp because I knew he hurt.  But I knew there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.  Just like the war going on all around us, I thought.  We couldn’t do anything about that either because if you did, you were shot anyway.
POST NOTE:  At the time of this conversation with her uncle Pepp, Anneliese was about 16 years of age and assigned to work as a telegrapher in the city of Regensburg.  Her father, who had refused to join the Nazi Party, had been drafted into the German Army.  He was home for a leave near the end of 1943, then was never heard from again.  His last child never knew his father.  They believe he died a prisoner in Russia, but this has never been confirmed.

#109 – Dick Bernard: $1,420,000,000,000

/2 Comments/in , , , /by

The Saturday, October 17, 2009, Minneapolis Star Tribune had a front page headline: “Deficit Surges to New Record“.  The subhead helpfully fleshed out the number: “2009’s deficit soared to $1.42 trillion – more than three times the most red ink ever amassed in a single year.”  In the early part of the article – the part people read – it emphasized that this was the federal budget deficit, and it included a number I’ll comment on a bit later.
Indeed, $1.42 trillion – $1,420,000,000,000 – is a lot of red ink.
It’s also the mother’s milk of unfettered Capitalism….  Somebody, after all, got all that loose change.
And there are those inconvenient truths, like the fact that our cost of “War on a Word” since 2001 will exceed $1 trillion by the end of this fiscal year #mce_temp_url# – and much of that is off-budget and relies on borrowed money from places like China.  Another excellent resource: #mce_temp_url#.  War is an unproductive use of increasingly scarce resources.
The article got me to thinking back to when my parents bought their first house.  It was in 1947.  I was seven years old; my parents were 39 and 36 respectively.  We were living out in Sykeston ND.  There were already four of us kids, and #5 was to come the following year.
I was old enough to have vivid memories of this momentous purchase.

Bernard's North House, 1947

Bernard's North House, 1947


My Dad was a school teacher, and Mom was stay at home, and the first few years they rented.  But by 1947 it seemed like they had a relatively stable work situation, and the family size was such that they needed a house.
They bought a deserted farm house that had doubled for a grain bin somewhere out in the countryside, and moved it to the north end of tiny Sykeston, ND, perching it on a foundation over a minimal basement with dirt walls.  If memory serves, their investment was $700 total.
It was the sweat equity that brought the mouse-infested place back to life.  If you look closely at the photo above, you can see a very tired looking man sitting on the stoop of the then-front door.  That would be my Dad.  Basically behind and to the right of the photographer (my mother?) would be the outhouse…no sewer or running water in those years: they had to go down to the town pump for the water supply.  No bathroom.  Minimal baths….  No garage for the one already old car.
Life went on, and expectations increased for all Americans.
Time went on and someone came up with the idea that people could borrow money and get stuff that they wanted.  Business thought this was a fine idea.  Debt is good.  It helps to promote consumption, and consumption is good.  As business took over government, slow but sure, government debt was okay too.  Who better to own than the government, especially when you could blame the politicians?
So, we sit here with this huge federal debt.  The paper helpfully pointed out that it amounts to “more than $4,700 for every man, woman and child in the United States.”
A lot of money, yes.
But comparing it against the massive consumer debt held by persons with mortgages, car loans, etc., etc., etc., etc.  it’s really pretty small change.
The calculation for the big business types now has to be: how far can they leverage this debt until we all go busted.  Sooner or later the debt becomes intolerable, even for those with a lust for profit.  The peasants need to be able to pay the bills.  If they can’t, the bubble bursts.
As noted, there are many reasons for that big federal deficit.
A bit of prudence, like my parents had to exercise back in the 1940s, would go a long way today.
Don’t expect it from the money changers in the temple that is Wall Street.

#106 – Dick Bernard: "Capitalism: A Love Story" part II

/in , , , , /by

Part I of this post appeared on October 3.
We went to Michael Moore’s new film, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, on Thursday afternoon.  Friday morning I sent out to my own mailing list a short message about the movie, succinctly, “See it.  Not only to learn, but to be a public witness to the reach of this film.”
In response to this e-mail, a friend wrote “Although I haven’t seen it and probably won’t, however great Michael Moore’s indictment of Capitalism might be, it [it] lacks some methodology for changing our political and economic system, it’s just another way the plutocratic dictatorship that runs our country lets us discontents and malcontents blow off steam and makes at least some of us feel we actually are accomplishing something.”
“Capitalism: A Love Story” lasts about two hours.
When we were in the theatre for the first afternoon showing, there were about 30 or so of us.  We were very attentive.  There was lots of silence when we left the film.
At the end of the film, the screen went dark, and Michael Moore gave the viewers a little advice.
You have to see the film, or find out from someone else who saw the movie, what the advice was.  That’s how important I think it is for you to actually see the movie in person, if at all possible.
And, yes, the film does mention the P word, as it appears in a bankers group report about the new “Plutonomy”.  The topic of we the “peasants” – a business term – comes up too.
I’m glad I saw the film.
See it.
Then do something about it.

#104 – Dick Bernard: Health Care Reform. Lurching to a finish line.

/in , , , /by

UPDATE OCTOBER 13, 2009:  It is my understanding that yesterday the insurance industry rolled out its really big guns and demanded that Health Care Reform legislation require everyone to buy insurance (thus further enriching the insurance companies which are a big part of the problem to begin with.  This shameless move is presumably motivated by a need – expressed by Wall Street – for even more profits at public (our) expense.  The “rest of the story”, revealed by the authors of the “research”, was that the industry left out crucial information in its release to Congress and the public that refuted its propaganda….
Original, October 9, 2009: At some point, probably sooner than later, the issue of Health Care Reform will finally come to a final vote in the U.S. House and Senate, and the resulting legislation sent to the President for his signature or veto.  All that remains is the exact wording after endless information (and an immense amount of misinformation) dispensed over the last many months.
The legislation we will see will be a significant improvement over what currently exists, but will fall far short of where we should be.  The new bill will probably protect the interests of those who don’t really have our interests at heart, specifically the insurance and for profit-medical sectors, but that will be the best that can be done, for now.
The ultimate goal of the minority political party, I have become convinced, is to pass as bad (for we citizens) a bill as possible so that the majority political party can be blamed for the results, and the President forced to either sign that bill or veto it, and then, however he decides, he and the majority party will be blamed for the less-than-perfect results in the 2010 elections.
Perversely, the ultimate legislative objective for some is failure for “we, the people”: failure which can then be politically exploited.  Intentionally defective public policy makes for great politics…and it’s very good for big business.
Unfortunately, “we, the people”, will get what many of us lobbied for (and against), when we railed against true reform because it was “socialism”**, or worried that it would benefit “illegals”, or would assure abortions*** paid on demand, and on and on and on – based on endless pieces of misinformation (lies) passed on to us from those whose motivation was considerably less than pure.
We will get what we deserve.  One can hope we’ll learn from our mistake, but that is not terribly likely.  “We the people” would rather exclude certain others, than include all.
I have followed this health care reform “debate” very carefully for many months now, and written about it frequently in this blog (beginning with July 24, 2009).  My personal story, from 1963-65, is at #mce_temp_url# (see #1).
Perhaps the best summary comment I’ve seen on the reality of the need for universal health insurance was published in the New York Times on October 4, in Roger Cohen’s column “The Public Imperative”.
In his column, Cohen said this: “I’m grateful to the wise Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic for pointing out that Friedrich Hayek, whose suspicion of the state was visceral, had this to say in [his book] “The Road to Serfdom”.
“Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the states helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.”
Hayek accepted and endorsed the notion of nationalized health care….
Andrew Sullivan is not a “liberal”.  Friedrich Hayek* most certainly wasn’t.  Hayek is almost a deity among conservative libertarians.
I read the 50th anniversary edition of “Road to Serfdom” six years ago.  Conservative economist (and apparent Hayek disciple) Milton Friedman wrote the introduction to the book.  I had been steered to Hayek’s book by an avowed neo-con friend, got it, and read the volume cover to cover.  As I told my friend, later, Hayek said many things I, as a liberal, could generally agree with.  I high-lited 52 specific sections of Hayek’s reasoning that intrigued me, an anti-war liberal.    (One of the 52 was the above quotation.)  The conversation with my neo-con friend ended….
So, now we’re at the brink of passing as defective a Health Care Reform bill as possible so that it can be used as an election issue in the coming year.  That is how public policy has come to be debated in this country.  As I say,we deserve what we get.
As for me, there’s plenty of reasons why I could say it’s a waste of my time to care much about this issue:  personally, we have excellent health and pharmaceutical insurance (at least at the moment), for ten years we’ve had the best long-term care insurance available (so we’re told), we have the correct cards (Medicare and Medicare supplement) so that we’re not turned away at the door of a clinic or a hospital.  And free flu shots….
On that latter point, I got my flu shot last week.  There was, indeed, no charge.
But how about that illegal who is capable of receiving and communicating that disease which we are all fearing this season?  What about him or her?  In our infinite wisdom, some of us don’t want that illegal to get that flu shot, or even try, or take the precautions necessary to stay well.  “Send them back where they came from” comes the chorus.  But not even that will protect us in this global society of ours.  By choosing who qualifies for health, we’re putting ourselves at risk.
Wherever you are in this debate, think this issue through, and do something constructive.  The key word is constructive.  Refuse to accept the lies about death panels, or getting rid of or damaging Medicare (which is a “socialist” program, by the way), or that reform will trigger a wholesale rush to abortions #mce_temp_url#, or on and on and on….  Health Care Reform is about the future of our society.
Everybody should be covered, automatically, no questions asked.
* * * * *
* Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian who spent most of his adult life in England, wrote “Road to Serfdom” in 1944, during, but nearing the the end of, WWII.  He seems to have been railing primarily against the evils of National Socialism (Nazis) and to a lesser degree Communists, so it is of little surprise to me that currently an attempt is made to tar people like me, as well as Democrats and President Obama, as Nazis, Communists, fascists, allies of Hitler and Stalin, and to tar the concept of “socialism” with the same broad brush….
Ironically, contemporary American Capitalism, in which big business dominates government policy (the Military-Industrial (and Congressional) complex that President Eisenhower so feared as he left office in January 1961 #mce_temp_url#, see section IV ) seems about as close to a parallel of WWII era German and Soviet Union government-business-industry alliance as we have ever seen in this country.  Contemporary American Capitalism is an excellent parallel for the radical socialism Hayek feared.  Capitalism essentially has taken over American socialism and replaced the public good with the primary value of profit.
Here’s what the 50th anniversary edition of “The Road to Serfdom” says about the author:  “F. A. Hayek (1899-1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, was a pioneer in monetary theory and the principal proponent of libertarianism in the twentieth century.  He taught at the University of London, the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg (Germany).”
* * – Some of the many kinds of “socialism” we Americans not only accept, but demand:
Social Security
Medicare/Medicaid
State Children’s health Insurance programs
Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
U.S. Postal Service
Roads and Highways
Regulation of Air Travel by FAA
U.S. Railway System
Public subways and metro systems
Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
Rest areas along major highways
Sidewalks
All Government-funded local/state projects
Public Water and Sewer Services
Public and State Universities and Colleges
Public Primary and Secondary Schools
Sesame Street
Publicly Funded anti-Drug Use Education for Children
Public Museums
Libraries
Public parks and Beaches
State and National Parks
Public Zoos
Unemployment Insurance
Municpal Garbage and Recycling Services
Treatment at any Hospital of Clinic that has ever received government funds (virtually all of them)
Medical Service and Medications created or derived from any government grant or research funding (pretty much all of them).
Innovations resulting from government programs like National Aeronautics and Space Administration
The publicly accessible internet.
Any program relating to foodstuffs, meats, produce and Crops: including regulation, research, product safety and the like.
Government buildings like the U.S. Capitol, Smithsonian, that are open to the public
Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson Memorials; Arlington and military cemeteries.
The Grand Canyon and National Parks
All government funds for any military purpose, including all expenditures for war (Defense budget is a huge share – probably over half – of the federal budget)
Without “socialist” programs the U.S. as we know it would collapse.  Public health insurance for all is no more “socialist” than public education or Medicare.
*** – Some personal reflections on abortion.  #mce_temp_url#

#103 – Bob Barkley: The Evils of Commerce

/in , , , /by

Everything that is discovered – whether an idea or a scene – that can earn a buck will be exploited and then ruined.  That is the way of commerce in the unregulated capitalistic scheme of things.  Only the people, through their government, can control this.  And when the commercial interests themselves control the government, hope is lost. We are getting very close to that point.
Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary defines commerce thusly: “A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.” I suspect the “E” in this formula is we the people.
It is extremely hard to be objective about a system that for the most part has served many of us quite well – and still does in many instances.  It is hard to have significant investments that are doing well and at the same time criticize that which seems to be working in one’s self-interest.
But failure to do so means being blind to the inevitable collapse of a system of greed and collusion amongst commercial interests.  As 18th century’s Scotsman Adam Smith observed, in reflecting upon the evils of monopolies, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or some contrivance to raise prices.” Then he added, “The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce (that arises from the merchant class) ought always to be listened to with great precaution.” Amen! As in health care maybe?
It is not that profit is wrong or that hard work and innovation should go un-rewarded.  It is that the “general welfare” (Check our Constitution’s Preamble.) and the nation’s founders all too familiar term, ‘the common good,’ are being ignored in such an unconstrained system.
As Scotsman Adam Smith apparently felt from his study of the Greeks, wisdom was the avoidance of excess in all things. Thus, it can be concluded that wise government does indeed guard against excesses – whether it be in poverty or profit.
All of the above paints many of us with a broad brush.  It implies that those who have invested their lives in the financial system, the insurance system, the health care system (At least in the US.), and in many well-intentioned (at least initially) endeavors are somehow evil.  That is not the case, but it speaks to the blinders our current system places on most of us.  We seek employment and well-being and for the most part no one chastises those in such businesses. But it’s the system stupid, as they say, and it is a system that must be roped in – soon and strongly – for I am convinced that it cannot prevail much longer and shouldn’t.
Most of us are in denial on this topic.  In Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be, author Walter Truett Anderson tells us, “Faced with information, the believer becomes either a constructivist or a fundamentalist; the former takes stories lightly, changes them, or abandons them entirely when it becomes necessary; the latter deals with troublesome information through psychological denial and/or political repression.” I believe we’re seeing both at play all the time regarding today’s commercial capitalist system. Anderson goes on to point out that all explanations of reality are tainted by this psychology.  In my words, we see what we wish to see and hear what we wish to hear based largely upon how it makes us feel about ourselves.
In that context, our ability to be rational requires that we step outside our context and look down on the picture.  It requires that we go to 20,000 feet and ponder what is beneath us – absent our direct relationship to it.  That is when the truth is both easier to see and to bear. And when I attempt to do that, the picture relative to our commercial system is not pretty – and yet it controls us ever more in our unrestrained ‘crapitalistic’ society.

#100 – Dick Bernard: Thoughts at a Century of Blogging

/1 Comment/in , , /by

Sure, “century” is grandiose, since I’m celebrating, here, the 100th blog entry in just short of 200 days as a more or less official part of a blogosphere.  (To be “official”, you just have to be foolish enough to get yourself a space on the ‘net, and then post something on your bulletin board.  I don’t know how people like me rate against the Facebook or similar crowd, but I like to think I have more substance.  Maybe so, maybe not.)
I’m here to tell you that there are easier ways to become notorious: make me Keith Olbermann’s “worst person in the world”, and I’ll be far up the food chain; or make me the predictable columnist in the local newspaper – which would probably require compromises I’d have to make.
But I don’t plan to stop at 100.  Today is just the beginning of the next chapter.
It’s hard to get respect when you’re just an ordinary Joe wasting a few ciphers on the internet.
My biggest “fan” so far is someone who I collectively and methodically designate as “spam”.  In this class I get all sorts of requests and offers, including in languages I don’t understand.  I was warned about this in advance.  It’s an easy process to dump them, but they’re irritating nonetheless.
Earlier this summer, I learned first hand how low on the food chain bloggers are.  I donated $25 to an organization in which I am active, a “Friend of…”.  I was one of about two dozen who ponied up the exact same amount.  I asked if my blog handle could be included, and my colleague, the one putting together, looked at the blog, pronounced it very good (actually even better than that), but declined to publish the web address cuz then it would have to be done for all the others, most of whom were elected lawmakers or candidates.  When the flier came out, for each of these, their office was listed….  I remained just a name.
Most of the 100 blog posts thus far have been mine, but not for lack of invitation to others.  At least 10 people have been willing to submit at least one posting.  It would be nice to have more, but as the saying goes, “you can’t push a rope”.  The offer remains.
With all the indignity connected with the project, I still consider it worth it.  Commiserating with a friend who’s submitted a couple of entries, we agreed that the process of writing is a good way to clarify our own thinking about this issue or that. And going public, regardless of how many people actually see the thought, you know that someone, somewhere will catch one or more of the columns.  (I’ve had at least one candidate for Governor call me about something he’d come across on my blog; someone I’d never heard of in California actually sent a non-spam comment.)
I know that a few people do regularly read the blog, and so it is worthwhile.
I think back to those good old days when the local blogster was somebody who printed a few handbills which had to be distributed hand-to-hand to a select audience.  Some major thinkers got their start that way.  They’re quoted (and often selectively mis-interpreted) all the time.
So I trudge on….
Thanks for reading.
Now, how about you as a writer, publicist or whatever?