Dick Bernard: Three Opportunities At 100 Days of MAGA

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The end of April marks the 100th day of MAGA (“Make America Great Again”).

If you are even a tiny bit concerned about our future as a planet of people, here are three programs that are worth your time, more information accessible at GlobalSolutionsMN.org (Global Solutions Minnesota*) All information at home page of this website.

1. Tomorrow (Thursday) evening, April 20, at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, Minneapolis, Dr. Roger Prestwich speaks on “Brexit, the EU and rising European Nationalism.” 6:45 p.m. Free and open to the public.

(click to enlarge photos, double click for greater enlargement.)

2. Sunday afternoon, April 23, is the World Premiere of “The World Is My Country“, the amazing story of Garry Davis, World Citizen. Show time is 2:30. Best advice to be ticketed and at the theater no later than 2:10 p.m. St. Anthony Main Theatre, Minneapolis. More here (link to theatre box office in second paragraph). Box office 612-331-7563 Tickets required for this event.

Garry Davis (on screen from Vermont via Skype), Lynn Elling, film producer Arthur Kanegis and another guest share thoughts on the pursuit of world peace at St. Anthony Main Theater on January 6, 2013.

3. Monday evening, May 1, at Gandhi Mahal Restaurant, Minneapolis, Shawn Otto addresses “Science, Law and the Quest for Freedom in the Age of Trump.” Mr. Otto’s book, “The War on Science. Who’s waging it, why it matters and what we can do about it” has just won the 2017 Minnesota Book Award for non-fiction, general. Shawn Otto is well known and respected in the Science community. Reservations required for this limited seating dinner meeting. $25 per person, $15 for students. Reserve by contacting Dick Bernard, dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom, or by mail at Box 25384 Woodbury MN 55125, or 651-334-5744. This is the 5th annual of the re-initiation of World Law Day, which began in 1964, and went on for about 30 years in the Twin Cities. Each event is filled with opportunities for stimulating conversation.

Shawn Otto August 10, 2016

* – all these events are sponsored by Global Solutions Minnesota, an organization of which the writer of this post is vice-president. We wish we could claim foreknowledge in planning these events at what is ever more apparent, a crucial moment in history, but all three came together in the random way that such things happen.

We need to be well informed. These are excellent, in differing ways, for us to inform ourselves not only about problems, but solutions, and how we can impact as persons.

Absolutely, these will be excellent events, chock-full of good and especially timely information, led by presenters who are very knowledgeable.

If you can’t go to all three, how about sharing the wealth, and find someone else to cover the other two, then talk about what you learned afterwards!

For those with an interest in the preservation of a global community, peace and justice, these can seem like very dark days. Each of these sessions will stimulate participants who wish to be more knowledgeably involved.

Shack II – Good Friday at the Basilica of Saint Mary. “God” Among Us.

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SEE COMMENTS AT THE END OF THIS POST.

In my tradition, today is Easter. Whatever your tradition, this day, all best for a happy one!

(click to enlarge)

At the Stone War Memorial at the Minnesota State Capitol Mall, March 28, 2017. Each Minnesota County contributed a boulder on which part of a single war time letter was inscribed. This one is from Todd County Minnesota.

March 17 at this space, I posted about the film and movie, The Shack. You can revisit it here. At the beginning of that post, I very deliberately mentioned Columbine High School which became memorable April 20, 1999. At the end of that post I have now added my blogpost about The Shack written at the time I read the book in 2009, plus my Amazon review at that time. At the end of this post – postnote 1, below – is my unedited first rough draft thoughts about todays post, saved on March 19.

*

It’s been almost eight years since some friend told me about the book, “The Shack”, and now well over a month since I saw the film version in Littleton CO (see postnote 2 below). I have had some very interesting conversations about the book in the past month (including with myself!), and my antennae have been up to observe, as I say in the headline, “God Among Us”.

These are two repetitive thoughts this day:
1) Ours is an individualistic society, with a tendency to create God in our own image and to justify our own action. This is a real dilemma for organized hierarchical religion of all varieties, long accustomed to controlling the flock through one or another view of what God is, or is not.
2) We have great trouble dealing with forgiveness…of others, and of ourselves. The 1916 quotation on the boulder which leads this column merits long and very serious reflection and conversation.

*

Tenebrae on Good Friday evening at Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis – two days ago – seems to bring it all together for me at this moment in my history.

We were in a jam-packed church Friday night.

The stage for Good Friday had been set for me, personally, through a brief back-and-forth between two of us – long-time good friends – earlier in the day.

I’m a regular at Catholic Mass; my friend used to be. He has his reasons.

Some snips:
J: “Happy Easter from the Apostate. I haven’t been to a Good Friday service in ages… do they still pray for the conversion of the Jews?”
D: “Maybe we’ll go tonight and I’ll let you know…we visited Auschwitz, etc., in the spring of 2000, a mixed group of Jews and Catholics from Basilica and Temple Israel. About that time, the big story was the shakeup in the famous Oberammergau (sp?) Passion Play, where the big deal was the guilt of the Jews… But, I think, there is a relatively positive equilibrium at the moment….”

Seated, I leafed through the program booklet, and in the section, “Jesus Breathed His Last” on p.6, was this (click to enlarge):

Tenebrae Program booklet at Basilica of St. Mary Minneapolis MN Good Friday April 14, 2017

The powerful service continued, and at page 12 in the booklet, came a prelude: “Remarks (Please be seated.)”

Presider and Basilica Pastor John Bauer began brief remarks by talking about the tragic history of Jewish – Catholic relations, and the strong impetus to change those relationships particularly in the time beginning with Pope John Paul II.

Then he introduced the speaker, Rabbi Sim Glaser of neighboring Temple Israel in Minneapolis.

I have heard Rabbi Glaser before, and we did go to Auschwitz with Temple Israel members in 2000, so what I and the others were about to hear was not a surprise.

I would summarize Rabbi Glaser’s very powerful remarks in this way:
1) There are three major Abrahamic religions: Jews, Christians, Moslems.
2) Jerusalem is important to all these religions.
3) We all live together in this world, and we need to relearn how to communicate with each other, rather than continue isolation and division.

I usher at Basilica often. I am sure that many of these people who Rabbi Glaser was addressing from this Catholic pulpit had not been in Church for a long while. Some may have been surprised.

The Rabbi had been introduced to much applause; when he returned to the pew, seated among all of us, the applause was even greater and sustained. This at a service where the final words in the program are “All depart in complete silence“.

I thought of my earlier conversation with my apostate friend, and about “The Shack”, whose focus (at least to me) is the need for forgiveness, of others, of ourselves.

A few hours earlier, my friend and I had closed our e-mail conversation.
J: “Heck, I go [to Catholic Mass”] fairly often… at least 2 Sundays per month at least, at St Joan… and I don’t even consider myself either Christian or Catholic….”
D: “Actually, I like going to church. It’s a good calming place for me. We’re a large diverse place so there’s all sorts of folks who wander in, including me, I guess.”
J: “Yep, calming… agree!”

The Shack? A novel followed by a movie. By traditional standards, perhaps, a purveyor of bad theology.

But what I witnessed at Basilica of St. Mary on Good Friday 2017 was the very essence of what I had read about and saw in “The Shack”. It may not seem like it, but people are beginning to get it. Let’s leave it at that.

Happy Easter.

*

POSTNOTE 1 – the early draft of this post, March 19, 2017: This post begins with two pages from an 1896 8th grade Geography book, used by my grandmother when she was in 8th grade – the final year she went to school at a Catholic school in Wisconsin, not far from Dubuque IA. It speaks for itself. (Click a second time and you can enlarge both).

The above was 131 years ago, in the United States of America, in a textbook sanctioned by my Church, the Catholic Church. It was the basis of instruction for 8th graders in a Catholic School.

We have changed, and I think very much for the better. But where we started was dismal, and for some what the standard should still be.

POSTNOTE 2: We saw the film, the Shack, literally across the street from “Cross Hill“, overlooking Columbine High School in Littleton CO. By sheer coincidence, I was visiting my family in Littleton five days after the massacre on April 20,1999. We joined the throng of people who slowly moved up that “hill” of construction remnants, to see the crosses that had been planted there by a man from another state for each of the victims killed that terrible day. It was incredibly moving.

It is long ago, now, so I don’t remember precisely, but in my memory, the day we reached the top, two of the crosses in that line had been cut down – the ones erected for the killers, the two students who had killed the others and then themselves. They, too, had perished, but denied standing as having also been killed.

In effect, they had been denied the right to be grieved – two more lost lives on an awful day.

My son and I walked up that same hill little over a month ago, and there is now a permanent monument – presently being reconstructed – remembering those killed 18 years ago.

But the killers seem to appear nowhere in todays monument, at least nowhere I can see. I can see the reasoning. At the same time, how long will it be till we can forgive, to echo that letter in the photo above, written in 1916, about the Civil War 60 years earlier.

In my opinion, unwillingness to forgive others, and ourselves, is the blind-side of forgiveness that affects every one of us. No one need qualify for forgiveness. To me, that seems to be the essence of this day, Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017.

Have a great day, and all which follow.

COMMENTS:
from Flo: Amen.

from Jermitt: Wonderful testimonial, wonderful historical story of your Grandmothers education and great lesson on forgiveness for everyone.

from Larry(wordchipper@gmail.com, with permission): Found your pieces on “The Shack” and Good Friday in your Roman Catholic Church to be thought stimulating. Will watch for the book and/or movie. I’ve bypassed the book several times but your article prompts me to maybe read it or at least look at the movie.

Regarding the Roman Church, I have my problems with this body and not just because I’m a lifelong ELCA Lutheran. I have many dear friends – like you – who are Catholics and when my wife and I have visited places like Mexico and Hawaii, we’ve attended mass at the most prominent landmark in any village, the Catholic cathedral. I find your church’s emphasis on string instruments and piano refreshing. I’m with Garrison Keillor on protesting against overly-enthusiastic organists. We have them in our church and, apparently, they’re also playing loudly in Mr. Keillor’s.

But my concerns today with your church have to do with their heavy-handed role in American politics. Although it raises my blood pressure, I listened to Catholic media, both radio and television, featuring endless praise for Donald Trump because of his stand on “abortion,” although his stance on anything, including abortion, is a bit suspect. The commentators on Catholic media sounded like they took their training from Fox News. Horribly one-sided. I called into one national program and reminded two of the on-air expounders, who were praising Republicans and blasting Democrats, that it was Democrats who put across the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, and fought for working class people, many of whom belonged to unions and were good Catholics. Also, because I’m “pro-choice,” does not mean I’m against life. I believe Republicans and Catholics ought to care as much about babies who are born – through health care, education, and so forth – as they are about getting between a doctor, his or her patient, and the patient’s God, or no religious belief. Our Republican legislators in North Dakota, many of whom are Catholics, cut health care programs for women and others but pass unconstitutional measures that waste tax dollars on wild goose chases that do nothing but please the Roman hierarchy.

Noting the personal morality record of Mr. Trump, multiple divorces, not paying subcontractors, and proposing to cut health care while investing more money with the Daddy Warbucks of the country, I just don’t get it why the Roman Church in the USA is so in love with Trump and expressed such hatred for Mrs. Clinton. They preached their right-wing philosophy so strongly during the Presidential campaign that, I believe, the should have lost their 501-3c tax exemption.

Response from Dick: Larry, it’s a rather daunting task to take on your response. I just googled the words “Catholic census” and the first link was a reputable one, Pew Research, that says there are over a billion Catholics worldwide, half of the Christians. The whole global population is over 7 billion. I usually hear that Minnesota has about 20% Catholics; the U.S. about 25%. That’s lots of folks, and I know from long experience that they aren’t all alike.

I was in college in the transition from the old to the new Church – 1958-61. Generalizing is dangeous, granted, but I think I can fairly say but “authority” took a hit in the post-Vatican II era. This was great for many Catholics; “the pits” for many as well. In one sense or other this battle is joined every day in one way or another.

Personally, I’m on what I’d call the social justice side of the debate within the church. I’m sure the authoritarian side would also say they’re for social justice, but they’re more into control, often played in the assorted debates that you cast concern about in your state (which is a state very familiar to me.)

I choose to stay within the Church. I don’t see it doing much good to drop out and start over in some other denomination. Those I would call “authoritarians” are not comfortable with the current Church, which is fine by me. The Catholic Church, like many Christian churches (and others, doubtless) has a very long history of authoritarianism, going all the way back to Constantine’s embrace of Christianity as essentially the state Church of the Roman Empire about 300 A.D. In general, where the ruler went, the people went. Some places, everybody was Lutheran; other places, something else. in the olden days sense, we’re sort of in the wild west.

I think I’ll leave it at that, except to emphasize once again Rabbi Glaser’s advice at my Catholic Church on Friday: we need to look at and talk with each other. That is risky, but the only way to break the current and very unhealthy stalemate. Just my opinion.

A LETTER: On April 17, I sent a letter to the Denver Post. I almost immediately got a call back that they were interested, and I expected it would be printed. Thus far (Apr 26) I haven’t seen it printed. So here it is:
Last month we were in Denver to visit family. I asked to visit “Cross Hill”, the place above Columbine dating back to just after April 20, 1999. March 11, 2017, we walked to the memorial.

April 25, 1999, I was in Littleton to visit the same family, who then and still, lives little more than a mile from Columbine. In a steady rain, four of us patiently trod up to those new crosses.

At the top were two fewer crosses than originally set in the ground. Those two were those raised for the killers, also students, who also perished that day. Those crosses were cut down.

I know the reasons those crosses came down.

Today I speak to the need, in my opinion, to recognize once again these two students whose personal demons led to the heinous results. They were victims too.

Forgiveness is difficult. Consider it, seriously.

#1250 – Dick Bernard: “The World Is My Country”, the Garry Davis story

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“When the people lead, the leaders will follow.”
York Langton*

Today begins the 2017 MSPIFF (Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival). The schedule promises “350+ films & events”.

I highly recommend one film among the many options: “The World is My Country“, which has its World Premiere at the St. Anthony Main theater in Minneapolis, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 23. In order to accommodate possible overflow crowds, the festival has scheduled three screenings. So if you want a seat at the World Premiere, get your tickets early. All necessary information is on the Festival site accessible here.

Along with the World Premiere of The World is My Country will be an eight minute short adapted from the Minnesota film: Man’s Next Giant Leap. The was made especially for this Premiere by Arthur Kanegis and his Associate Producer Melanie Bennett, who edited it mostly from a 30 minute film made back in the 1970’s. Take a look – you’ll be pretty amazed to see what our governor, mayors and other officials had to say about World Citizenship. The short can be viewed here. The Minnesota Declarations of World Citizenship can be viewed here: Minnesota Declarations002

The World is My Country is the remarkable story of up and coming ca 1940 Broadway star Garry Davis. It deserves a full house at each of its three showings. Garry Davis, then into his 90s and very engaging, tells his own life story in the film, which is richly laced with archival film from the 1940s forward. Among the many snips from history: the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rightss at the United Nations, in Paris, 1948.

New York Times front page July 29, 2013. Garry Davis pictured in lower right.

I wrote about this film on April 8, and again after its work-in-progress preview, also at the St. Anthony Main, on January 6, 2013. (See here and here.)

Garry Davis? I didn’t know he existed until his name came up at a lunch in June, 2011. Filmmaker Arthur Kanegis was in town, and a friend of his invited four of us to lunch. It was there that Garry Davis came to life for me. A WWII bomber pilot, his brother already killed in WWII, Davis couldn’t justify killing by war as a solution to problems. In 1948, he gave up something precious to him, his U.S. citizenship. He said he did it as an act of love for the United States, following in the footsteps of our founding fathers who gave up being Virginians or Marylanders to be citizens of the United States of America. He declared himself a Citizen of the World, and ignited a movement promoting world citizenship beyond even his imagination. He took a huge risk he lived with the rest of his 93-year life.

From there, I’ll let the film tell the rest of the story.

I was enrolled, that day in June, 2011, and had a small opportunity to see the dream evolve, and now return to the screen for its World Premiere in Minneapolis.

In the fall of 2012, I received permission to show an early draft of the film to a group of high school students in St. Paul. How would they react to ancient history (WWII era film and characters)? Very well, it turned out. They liked what they saw.

About 100 of us participated in Work In Progress test of the first draft of his film in Minneapolis, at St. Anthony Main, in January 2013. The reaction was positive.

Again, I asked permission to show the preview to a group of retired teachers meeting in Orlando, and they liked what they saw. And on the same trip I showed the in-progress film to the Chair and Founder of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. He was very attentive and liked what he saw.

Time went on. Last summer, I attended a private showing of the film, now nearing completion. The process of making a film is tedious, I found, simply from occasional brushes with this one. To make a film is to take a big risk. Now it has earned its time “in the lights” for others to judge.

I do not hesitate to highly recommend this film, particularly to those who feel that there have to be better ways of doing relationships than raw power, threats, and the reality we all face of blowing each other up in one war after another. This is not a film about war; it is about living in peace with each other.

The key parts of the film focus on Garry Davis in his 20s and 30s, roughly the late 1940s through the 1960s. It’s an idealistic film, especially appropriate for young people, with an important place for positive idealism in todays world.

“The World is My Country” does not end with somebody dying (though the real Garry Davis died 6 months after that first preview I saw in 2013). Rather, its call is for solutions other than war or dominance.

Viewing this film is an investment, not a cost. It brings meaning to the timeless quotes of Margaret Mead – “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world indeed it is the only thing that ever has”; and Gandhi – “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

Applications for World Passports will be available for those interested at the film.

POSTNOTE:
Here is the first, last and only e-mail I was ever privileged to receive from Garry Davis, Jan. 7, 2013. He died 6 months later.

(click to enlarge)

Garry Davis (on screen from Vermont via Skype), Lynn Elling, film producer Arthur Kanegis and another guest share thoughts on the pursuit of world peace at St. Anthony Main Theater on January 6, 2013.

On taking risks (from a Church bulletin in Park Rapids MN 1982) (attributed to William Arthur Ward):

Attributed to William Arthur Ward

* POSTNOTE:
York Langton was a Minnesota Corporate Executive in wholesale business, and often used this quotation in talking about relationships in the 1960s.

“When the people lead, leaders will follow” is a common sense axiom in business. If people want a product, they buy it; if they don’t, they won’t. Fortunes are made by following this simple truism.

The same is true in political relationships. If people make unwise decisions in choosing their leaders at any level, they face consequences.

So, “when the people lead, leaders will follow” is an important one for all of us.

Dick Bernard: One month.

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Feb. 20: For a long and very good summary of the issues check this “weekly sift”, here.
*
Today ends the first month of the term of the 45th President of the United States. This means there are only 47 months – 98% of the term – to go.
In a one mile race, our country has finished about 100 feet. The next crucial election day is Nov. 6, 2018, about 19 months away.
We will not be living within a “four-minute mile” these coming months, and if the first month is at all a prelude, this will be a very, very long four years.
What does one write about when a consensus already is that a prudent person cannot believe anything that this President says, at any time, about anything? Certainly, on occasion this old man now and then in the White House occasionally tells the truth, sometimes even deliberately. But it is all but impossible to separate truth from fiction from his assorted declarations.
Best I can tell, lying has been the basis of his career “success”.
In my little corner of the world, I receive lots of “must reads”. One of them is here: by Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan spent most of his adult life, including now, as a political conservative.
People like me – liberals – are quite certainly despised by this President as losers, not even worthy of acknowledgment. Our issues are to be dismissed and ridiculed. We are ‘enemy aliens’. All one needs to note are his choices for Cabinet level positions, his closest political advisors and their orientations on issues. His truth is outing itself.
The temptation, even this early in what appears to be a very dark time in our history, is for the average citizen to say and do nothing, to stay “under the radar”, to keep from going mad ourselves.
Please don’t succumb to inaction.
The solution lies within each one of us, one small, positive, courageous action at a time, where we live. This has always been true. A favorite quotation of mine is this one from Margaret Mead: “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”
More here.
I hope we don’t give up; that instead we become and remain incessantly active, impacting on those who in turn can impact up the chain of power up the line.
To this end, former U.S. congressman Barney Frank recently authored some advice to citizens which is worth reading. (You can read it here, and it is also reprinted below.) Frank co-authored the endangered Dodd-Frank bill attempting to rein in, a bit, Wall Street and the high finance industry.
Earlier Posts about this Presidency beginning in 2017 here.
POSTNOTE: I was refining my always imperfect thoughts (above) early this morning, then I went back to bed. I awoke to a vivid dream, one of those one remembers, though the specific details are never quite as they appear while you’re sleeping.
Three of us were in some intense conversation about actions for change: myself, (born before WWII); an activist lady I know who’s about one generation younger than I, and a third participant, younger, of a millennial age (roughly 20s-40s).
Doubtless this blog generated part of the dream; perhaps it came from learning that Barney Frank’s column came from a very successful Millennial website; perhaps a Millenial-age speakers comment at a Thursday evening meeting I was asked to convene played into the dream, as did my own union history in my 20s and 30s in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s as well.
The dream ended with a realization that what people like myself bring to the table in the current year is the voice of experience; and we have to speak with that well-informed voice. But it is the people younger than us who are going to decide whether or not they are willing to learn from the successes and the failures of the past as they go into their own future.
The new U.S. President, who is younger than I, from early baby boom years, does not seem inclined to learn from, or value the past; nor do most of his “Make America Great Again” followers who represent his base and seem committed to the slogan on the bumper sticker I see now and again, “We’re spending our kids inheritance….”
It is, in reality, up to todays Millennials, who will rise or fall by their own actions now and in the future, to rise up, and really pay attention to future consequences of present actions.
I can only sound the alarm.
* * * * *
SOME POINTERS FROM BARNEY FRANK
received Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017 from Harold.
After 32 years in the House of Representatives, here is my advice on how people opposed to President Donald Trump’s assault on our basic values — a majority of those who voted last November — can best influence members of Congress.
Done the right way, communications from citizens can have a significant impact on legislators, even when they claim to be immune to “pressure.” (“Pressure,” in legislative jargon, is the expression of views with which legislators disagree, as opposed to “public opinion” — the term used for sentiments that reinforce their own.)
The key to doing it right is being clear about the goal, which is to persuade the Senator or Representative receiving the communication that how he or she votes on the issue in question will affect how the sender will vote the next time the legislator is on the ballot.
This means the following:
Make sure you’re registered to vote — lawmakers check.
Many office holders will check this, especially for people who write to them frequently. Elected officials pay as much attention to those who are not registered to vote as butchers do to the food preferences of vegetarians.
Lawmakers don’t care about people outside of their district.
You can only have an impact on legislators for or against whom you will have a chance to vote the next time they run. In almost all cases, this means only people in whose state or district you live. Senators or representatives whose names will not be on the ballot you cast are immune to your pressure. There is a small set of exceptions — representatives who want to run for a statewide office in the next election will be sensitives of voters throughout their states.
Your signature — physical or electronic — on a mass petition will mean little.
You are trying to persuade the recipient of your communication that you care enough about an issue for it to motivate your voting behavior. Simply agreeing to put your name on a list does not convey this. I have had several experiences of writing back to the signer of a petition to give my view on an issue only to be answered by someone who wondered why I thought he or she cared.
The communication must be individual. It can be an email, physical letter, a phone call or an office visit. It need not be elaborate or eloquent — it is an opinion to be counted, not an essay. But it will not have an impact unless it shows some individual initiative.
Know where your representative stands.
If you have contact with an organization that is working on this issue, try to learn if the recipient of your opinion has taken a position on it. When I received letters from people urging me to vote for a bill of which I was the prominent main sponsor, I was skeptical that the writer would be watching how I voted.
Communicate — even if you and your representative disagree.
On the other hand, even where you are represented by people whom you know oppose you on an issue, communicate anyway. Legislators do not simply vote yes or no on every issue. If enough people in a legislator’s voting constituency express strong opposition to a measure to which that legislator is ideologically or politically committed, it might lead him or her to ask the relevant leadership not to bring the bill up. Conflict avoidance is a cherished goal of many elected officials.
Say “thank you.”
If your Representative and Senators are committed to your causes, you should write or call to thank them — not frequently, but enough for them to feel reinforced.
Enlist the help of friends in other districts.
Your direct communication with legislators outside your voting area will have no impact. But you do have friends, relatives, associates etc. Find out who the potentially influenceable legislators are on issues of prime importance to you, think about people you may know in their constituencies, and ask those who share your views to communicate with those who represent them. On an extremely important issue, get out the list to who you mail holidays cards or important invitations and ask them to communicate with their legislators.
To repeat the essence of point 5, if a legislator who you might have expected to vote differently — e.g. a Republican who votes no on a Trump priority — votes as you have urged, send a thank you.
— Barney Frank, former Democratic representative for Massachusetts.

Dick Bernard: Killer or Healer? A Decision We All Need to Make

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Sunday’s homily at Basilica of St. Mary was a powerful commentary on a portion of the Gospel of Matthew: “You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with brother will be liable to judgment.” (full text MT 5:20-22A, 2728, 33-34A, 37).
Fr. Harry, a retired Priest of the Diocese and frequent celebrant and gifted homilist at Basilica, wove his message not around physical killing, but the more common, now almost ubiquitous and unfortunately acceptable practice of “killing” others by actions other than a gun or similar. He talked of a couple of old guys, once friends, who hadn’t talked to each other for decades, though they worked in the same building, who were more or less forced into contact by the marriage of their respective granddaughter and grandson…and in the process of renewal of their long interrupted relationship couldn’t even remember what caused the fracture in the first place….
So it goes.
Driving home, for some reason, I got to thinking of a homily I had heard in a Port-au-Prince Haiti Catholic Church on December 7, 2003. Six of us were in our first full day in Haiti*. The congregation of the church was financially very poor, but vibrant. The Priest, Gerard Jean-Juste**, was a charismatic preacher, and this particular day, he knew he had a target for his message in we six visitors from the United States, an hour or so flight away.
(click to enlarge)

Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste and parishioners at Ste. Clare Parish Port-au-Prince Haiti December 7, 2003 (Dick Bernard)


Fr. Jean-Juste saying Mass at Ste. Claire Dec 7 2003 (photo by Dick Bernard)


He didn’t look at us – we really hadn’t met him at this point, but he knew we were there – but his message about the role of our wealthy society in the U.S. – to be the “killers” or “healers” of this desperately poor country – struck home. He supported the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide; and by the sundry means available to it, the U.S. was in the process of “killing” this president whose constituency was the poor. Rather than helping (“healing”) the poor. We were making it all but impossible for Haiti to compete in any way with their very wealthy neighbor, our own country. Democracy in Haiti was competition, and could not be tolerated. With “friends” like us, who needed enemies?
While there weren’t dead bodies in the street – at least not a great number of them – nonetheless, they may as well have been: farmers who had grown rice were forced out of business by U.S. undercutting Haitian farmer prices, and then dominating the rice market…things like that.
I got to thinking of a recent visit to our towns bookstore. I was looking for a book of meditations for a friend whose wife had recently died. Walking down an aisle, I was stopped short by a sign, which so struck me I went back to the car to bring in my camera and click this photo:

Book Display December, 2017


I googled the author and found quite an array of books, almost all dark topics: about killing Patton, …Kennedy, …Lincoln, …Jesus; similar about the attempted killing of Reagan; in effect, the killing of Hitler and the Nazis, and per the picture, killing “The Rising Sun” in WWII; the Next Nuclear War….
Clearly, killing was O’Reilly’s selling point for his books. There is a polarity in this country in which many enshrine the idea of killing an enemy: a political opponent, “al Qaeda”, on and on. We sort of enjoy killing. It is politically very useful to have an enemy to kill.
Similarly, I am sure, there is a “healing” niche as well, with a completely different audience….
A friend of mine, a migrant from another country, here for many years, but not yet a citizen, described us well, recently. The U.S., he said, is a polarized country, where we largely exist in “bubbles”, like those two old guys that had no relationship whatever for many years, until some unplanned event brought them together again.
I’m on the “healer” side of this polarity. At the same time, I say we have to find ways to constructively communicate with the other side as well.
“Killing”, whether physically or by character assassination, is no solution. In assorted way, the assassins described in the books ended up dying themselves, either individually (like Lincoln’s assassin) or on a larger scale (Nazi Germany).
“Killer” or “Healer”? I’ll take “healer” any time.
TUESDAY, VALENTINE’S DAY: a shining moment when “healing” held sway.
* – More about the trip, if you wish, here.
** – Jean-Juste was on the “wrong” side in the battle with the U.S. Less than 3 months after our meeting him, he was imprisoned, then deposed to the United States, where he ultimately died, effectively in exile. President Aristide was deposed and taken out of his country by the United States. It was a sad lesson for me, on my first visit to Haiti.

Dick Bernard: Three weeks after inauguration day. Letters to Judd

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More on the topic of the 2017 Presidency here.
(click to enlarge)

The town in which we live, Woodbury MN, would be considered a prosperous suburban community just east of St. Paul. Sometimes I refer to it as “suburban 3M”, since 3Ms headquarters are nearby and many highly skilled employees live here. Politically, we’re probably a “purple” place: our State Senator and one of our two state legislators are Democrat and female; the other side of the district had a hard fought race between two women: one Democrat, one Republican. The Democrat (we call Democrats DFLer – Democratic Farmer Labor in Minnesota) is a young African-American professional woman; our town of 62,000 has a significant number of Muslims, primarily highly educated professional people.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was, yesterday, to see our local paper, the Woodbury Bulletin, carry a front page and very long column by Youssef Rddad on the WWII internship of the Japanese in America, with a headline “Does Trump order echo the past?”
Meanwhile, back in Washington…. A good daily summary I look forward to every day is found in Just Above Sunset, a retired guy in Los Angeles. The last number, overnight, is titled: “The Persistence of Nonsense“. [Feb. 11: the most recent posting, again overnite, is chilling and important, here. Avoiding reality is not a good option…for us.]
Here at home I had occasion to pull down one of the boxes of farm “junk” – part of the last remaining residue of my grandparents 110 year farm in rural North Dakota.
I was looking for the book about the 1997 Red River Valley Flood (which is here, somewhere), but instead, sitting on top, was a 64-page pamphlet, “Letters to Judd”, originally written in 1925 and, according to author Upton Sinclair, “reprinted in 1932 and 1933. I might have rewritten it, but I thought you would learn more by reading it as prophecy.”
It would count as “prophecy” for the first decades of the 2000s as well.
Upton Sinclair was a prolific author, a Socialist, once a candidate for Governor of California. You can read the entire 1933 pamphlet here.
The pamphlet I have is the 1933 edition, and five pages can be seen here: Letters to Judd002
Take the time to read the first couple of letters. I think you’ll want to continue to the end.
Grandpa Busch was about 53 – my oldest sons age – when he picked up the book in 1933. His area, North Dakota, was in the hard times of the Depression. He had lost, or was about to lose, part of his land.
I’ve gotten to know a lot about Grandpa and Grandma and their family over these past many years.
Grandpa came to the prairie in 1905 to be somebody. As so often happens to the little guys (and gals), greed of bigger shots than he put the brakes on his aspirations. The Non-Partisan League beckoned; later he was one of the first to join and become very active in the North Dakota Farmers Union.
But I think he was always on the conservative side, not happy with “loafers” who got government jobs in the CCC and WPA and such (even though a nephew was in the CCC). He was a gifted tinkerer, convinced that inventing stuff – he had patents – would sail his families boat, though it never did.
It would be great to have a conversation with Grandpa about “Letters to Judd” – how he came to learn about it; what he thought of it…. He lived on 34 more years, on the same farm, always a dreamer, a tinkerer.
Letters to Judd is about the battle between concepts: Capitalism versus Socialism. We are in a society where Capitalism has won, but have we…?
Read the pamphlet, think about what you’ve read, share it, have a conversation.
What part do you play in our future.
COMMENTS:
from Corky: Letters to Judd is interesting read. Economic analysis is interesting. I understand the plight of farmers much better now.
from C: How sad. We watched the movie Grapes of Wrath last night on [TV]. You couldn’t help but cry at what they went through. I kept thinking of our refugees. I know we shouldn’t live in fear, but I can’t help it. I fear what is happening in our country. Is this the coming of Hitler’s dictatorship time? I hear how, ” this and that” is being investigated and it gives me hope but it’s so slow in happening. It’s like I read where a president was told “Don’t piss in the pot we all have to eat out of”. The women in congress speak up but the only men that speak up are Democrats, Senators Tim Kaine, your [Mn Sen.] Franken, and Republican John McCain.
from Emmett: As I read through the material, I found that it paralleled the story of my family. My dad suffered from a hernia and wore a truss, as did Judd. Our house was also made of a couple of houses brought together, and then other additions were added later. Much of what is said sounds a lot like what my dad said. And much of what is said is still happening today (automation). The letter writers would be shocked by what is currently happening in this electronic world we live in. It is interesting as to how people can witness the same thing and yet process it in such different ways. All this makes me think about Mitt Romney and his comment about makers and takers. You have a work force making things and the wealthy executives of the company take the profits for themselves leaving little for the makers. Yet from Mitt Romney’s perspective, he was the maker by virtue of his investments, while the 47%, made up largely by poor underpaid makers were the takers in his mind. I was thinking that this should be sent to Trump. But I’m not sure he has the intellect to digest it all. All this makes you understand the passage of Glass-Steagall, to protect us from the wealth crooks that caused the Great Depression and the Bush Recession.
from Peter: Here is a letter I just sent to my extended family. I encourage everyone to follow the link and take effective action
Love
Peter
*******
Family,
It may have been awhile since you heard from me about other than births, deaths or marriages.
We are confronted with an administration that seems bent on harming as many as possible of the most vulnerable among us. Most of you saw this coming, and opposed it, but here we are.
Today immigration raids have begun in earnest, tearing apart families all over America. I had seen this under the previous administration, when I participated in a workshop in Boston with teenagers who often came home from school to find the front door missing and their parents gone. In Boston. In America. But this is now set to “surge”, according to ICE.
This can’t be accomplished by haranguing people who already agree with us, which is what happens when we blog or use the Book of Faces. One way that might have real impact, however, is to erode their corporate support, as outlined below. Because, although corporations are not democratic in any way, they exist because we put up with them, regardless of politics or law. And we don’t have to put up with them. They live under the Rule of Money, not the Rule of Law, and in that country [Money], we have considerable, innate power.
The history of the list, and those included on the list, is GrabYourWallet.org/about.
We are seeing a massive power-grab by the likes of Bannon, who is a dyed-in-the-wool white supremacist. He is now attacking Planned Parenthood, the golden goose of his hate-spewing career, now that he is running the White House. That person knows no limits, and believes in an an ultimate war between the few people he likes, and the rest of humanity. The President, as is obvious, is a loon who is easily steered by such manipulators, and will be discarded – a last great trumpian spectacle – when his puffery ceases sufficiently to distract the nation from the deep substantive changes his backers are making to our system of governance.
We are all needed now. Meanwhile, as Joni Mitchell sang:
“The gas leaks
The oil spills
And sex kills…”
Love,
Peter
PS- as with all links in emails, paste it in your browser, don’t click on it here!
from Fred: Here is [a] Kipling poem The Sons of Martha and the note my friend sent. If you want to see Upton Sinclair’s comment [on the poem] just google reviews of the poem*.
“I’ve seen this cited in a couple of places on the web as a key to (at least some of) the psychology of the 2016 election. It’s called “The Sons of Martha”. Biblical reference is Luke 10. Notes here.”
Rudyard Kipling (1907)
The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother, of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary’s Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.
They say to mountains “Be ye removèd.” They say to the lesser floods “Be dry.”
Under their rods are the rocks reprovèd – they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit – then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.
They finger Death at their gloves’ end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth like a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.
To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden – under the earthline their altars are –
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city’s drouth.
They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not preach that His Pity allows them to drop their job when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s ways may be long in the land.
Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat;
Lo, it is black already with the blood some Son of Martha spilled for that!
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.
And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessèd – they know the Angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessèd, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the feet – they hear the Word – they see how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and – the Lord He lays it on Martha’s Sons!
* – Upton Sinclair: from “The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.(Under this title the English poet has written a striking picture of the social chasm. He figures the world’s toilers as the “Sons of Martha,” who, because their mother “was rude to the Lord, her Guest,” are condemned forever to unrequited toil. “It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.” The poem goes on to tell of the ignorance and torment in which they live—while the Sons of Mary, who “have inherited that good part,” live in ease upon their toil.
“They sit at the Feet and they hear the Word—they know how truly the Promise runs.
“They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and—the Lord he lays it on Martha’s Sons.”
But it appears that for a long period of years Mr. Kipling has refused to permit this radical poem to be reprinted. Under the circumstances, all that the editor can do is to state that it may be found in the files of the New York Tribune and other newspapers throughout America having the service of the “Associated Sunday Magazines,” on April 28, 1907. The editor ventures to doubt if there exists a more dangerous social force than the man of genius who turns his divine gift to the crushing of the efforts of his fellowmen for justice)”

Dick Bernard: The 15th day after inauguration.

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Related Posts accessible here.
Sunday till Thursday, the end of January, the beginning of February, 2017, we were visiting a friend who has lived for over 50 years in a northern Minnesota town of under 2,000. We have been there before – we are friends for many years. It is always a pleasant visit.
Of course, we’re in the beginning of different political times, and this was a few days to notice things. For starters, I noticed a small photo of our friends “Gentleman Soldier” (below) who she had met in the aftermath of WWII in Germany, and later married, and lived and raised their family in rural America, for over 50 years, till he died in 1998.
I asked to borrow the 2×2 1/2″ photo, and scanned it. It is below (click to enlarge).

“Gentleman Soldier”, rural Germany, 1945.


It got me to thinking about those authoritarian days our friend and all Germans became accustomed to the 1930s, the days which ultimately left their country in ruins, and themselves, starving.
Back in the beginning, in the 1920s and 1930s, communication was primitive compared to today, not much difference between Germany and the U.S. There were newspapers, of course, and other printed material; there were telephones, but seldom used, and telegraph was more likely and reliable for emergency use. Radio was in its infancy (the first American radio news broadcast was about 1920).
Today, of course, all is different. Makes hardly any difference where you live, you have hundreds of choices of media.
We watched cable and regular news on the channels she preferred. We read the newspaper and the magazines she received, etc. It was just like at home. We could watch the beginning of the new administration in Washington just like anybody else. The new President couldn’t contain himself, with yet another reference to “fake” news (it seems to mean, that which does not flatter him).
Our friends rural community is like (apparently) most during this election time: basically conservative Republican. In the just completed election, the now-President won about 60% of her counties vote.
These would probably include the old guy (maybe my age or younger) who was railing away at the town bowling alley which doubles as the morning coffee hangout. He was raging against those present day immigrants and refugees taking free stuff that belonged to him. His friend didn’t seem to agree with him, but wasn’t about to argue.
The rural town dates back into the late 1800s, and was virtually 100% settled by immigrants from Norway and Sweden but, I guess, he thinks those immigrants were somehow different than today. My guess is the anti-immigrant guy comes from that immigrant stock.
Our friend shared last Sunday’s church bulletin from her church in town. She said the pastor was a veteran, two tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan. His words are well worth the time to read in their entirety: Pastors message Ja 29 17001 I wonder how the flock received his words. And how many other pastors are pondering how to approach the business of politics in this new American environment.
Our friend also shared what was obviously a hand-made Christmas card with a beautiful piece of art painted on a piece of cloth. It was from a friend with whom she had shared a deeply personal tragedy many years before.

Light in Darkness


Her friends Christmas letter was profound, in part saying:
“My birthday on November 8th began with chilled champagne and the expectation of emotional celebration It ended with the appalling realization that life as we know it will never be the same – in the worst ways. With each new nomination and each middle-of-the-night tweet, the darkness has become more real and more frightening.
The Gospel of John contains no stable scene – no manger, angels, shepherds. No Christmas pageant script. It’ short and to the point: in the beginning was the Word…the light shines in the darkness…the Word became flesh….
In the midst of our discouragement we also sense the fires within to be torchbearers. We will surround ourselves with people we respect who will inspire us and light the way for us to think and act outside our comfort zone. We will donate more time and money to the organizations that support the values we hold dear. We will treat the environment with care. We will contact our legislators. We will be advocates for the people who will undoubtedly suffer discrimination, fear, and injustice under this administration. We will do what we can to welcome the stranger and feed the hungry. We will be the intentional in showing kindness and compassion.
We will do our best to be reflections of the Light. The Light that shines in the darkness.
Let your light so shine.”
POSTNOTE: In the last 30 miles to our friends town last Sunday, I got to thinking: there were, after all, almost 66,000,000 of us who voted for the candidate who won the election, but lost the electoral vote. What if, what if, every one of us committed, each week, in the next year, to do a single action aiming to positive change in direction of our country?
That would come out to nearly three and one half billion (3,500,000,000) actions.
How about it?
And I must also share this commentary from page 47 of the January 30, 2017 Time magazine: Time Jan 30 2017001. It speaks for itself.

August Wilson's "Fences"

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Sunday night we went to the Denzel Washington film interpreting August Wilson’s play “Fences”. The film is very powerful. Here is detail of showing places and times for your area.
Fences is one of ten August Wilson plays, representing the African-American experience in each of the ten decades of the 20th century. The play, like the film, largely takes place in the tiny back yard of a tiny apartment in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. One would presume the general setting is similar to where August Wilson grew up, at 1727 Bedford. The cast for Fences is all-star, and it would not surprise if the film is a candidate for one or more academy awards.
More about Fences, Wilson and his career can be read here.
It was serendipity that got me acquainted with August Wilson, and then his sister, and later his niece, Kimberley.
(click on photos to enlarge)

1727 Bedford, Pittsburgh PA, April, 1998


The photo above shows August Wilson’s boyhood home in 1998. The door can be seen in white at the rear of the building. Looking west, down the hill, the Pittsburgh downtown skyscrapers can be seen.
I took this and other photos on a rainy day.
My daughter Joni, and I, had the immense good fortune of getting the tour of August Wilson’s neighborhood with his sister, Freda.
Back in the late 1980s while living in Hibbing Minnesota I got a piece of junk mail from a new theatre in St. Paul, the Penumbra. Life then required many trips to St. Paul for meetings, and on one trip I went to some unremembered play at the theatre, and I liked it. In 1990, I attended Fences at the Penumbra. Penumbra was a small intimate theatre, and we were all near the stage. I remember this play, and it was powerful.
Along the way, I think I’ve seen all of Wilson’s ten plays (“The Pittsburgh Cycle”) at one time or another, almost all of them at the Penumbra.
It was awhile before I connected a few dots, and learned that I had met August Wilson “way back when”, about the time he moved to St. Paul.
It would have been about 1979 or so, and at the time I was volunteering on occasion at Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly, on Lake Street in south Minneapolis. This particular day I was there at the time of lunch, and the person who cooked the meal for us and sat at the same table as I and the others was August Wilson, though, of course, I (or he, for that matter) had no idea of the celebrity he was to become not many years later.
Wilson had taken the job of cook because it interfered least with his passion to write, and his first play was first given a test run and performed during his time there, at the Playwright’s Center not far away on Franklin Avenue. It was “Black Bart and the Sacred Hills”. Some of the then staff at Little Brothers were among those who attended that reading. Black Bart… does not appear in the anthology of his works, but was nonetheless a successful play by him.
I met August Wilson one more time in the late 1990s. It was at a fundraiser of some sort, and my impression of him was that he was not comfortable being there – a quiet man out of his element. A little later I was to attend a conference in Pittsburgh and was introduced to his sister who, in turn, treated my daughter Joni and I to a long and very fascinating tour of his and her Hill District, the setting of most of his plays.
I feel especially honored to have had the opportunity to get to know August Wilson and his world a tiny bit more than most.
I hope you can see Fences.

Daughter Joni and August Wilson’s sister, Freda, at 1717 Bedford, Pittsburgh PA Apr 1998


Freda in kitchen of the apartment at 1727 Bedford, Pittsburgh Apr 98.


Kimberley and Freda at Little Brothers, Minneapolis, Feb. 15, 2011


Dr. Kimberley C. Ellis can be found here; Freda Ellis passed away in Pittsburgh in 2015.
COMMENTS:
from Laura, who knew August in the Little Brothers days: Of course, I saw Fences(movie). I sat next to August on the opening of Fences, the play, at Penumbra. I cried during the movie. August definitely would have approved.
from Thad, who knew August well at Little Brothers: Thank you very much for the link to your blog. In fact, and you won’t believe this, I just saw “Fences” today. The film ended at 7:00 pm and here I am emailing you half an hours later. What a coincidence. Anyway, I was really moved and like you, feel really privileged to have known August for the time he worked at Little Brothers.

#1203: The Time of Donald J. Trump begins one week from today.

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Donald Trump becomes U.S. President on January 20. I’ll recognize that he is President, but in the 14 inaugurations since I turned 21 (then, the voting age), this one will pass me by minimally noticed. I’ve come to know Trump far too well for over a year: from his own mouth and Twitter; I’ve learned about his “base”, from his choice of issues and slogans at his rallies, and from trash e-mails from his most ardent supporters. I have learned about his future direction, from noting who he has selected for his inner circle. I don’t think he can change.
One shouldn’t set aside the shameful way the Republicans (and Trump) dealt with Hillary Clinton for years and years. They were terrified of her. I hope she doesn’t back away. And the same Republicans did everything in their power to damage the legacy of President Obama. In that, they also failed, regardless of what they do to try to slash and burn his accomplishments, like the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).
Following is my opinion, and I emphasize, it is only my opinion. But I don’t think I’m alone.

Germany, 1954


Wednesday, I happened by the television which, at the moment I came by, was the hearing for Rex Tillerson as Trumps Secretary of State designee.
Tillerson has an appropriate high level executive look and bearing, of course. “When he talks, you listen”. He had just received a “softball” question from a Senator along the lines of “how many countries have you visited?” Tillerson wasn’t sure – perhaps about 40, he said. Then he was asked about how people he had met in these countries perceived American foreign policy. He was diplomatic, of course, but the suggestion was that the people he talked to wanted change.
It was an innocuous vignette, but it drew me in. There are about 193 countries in the world, and there are over 7 billion people. Tillerson certainly had talked to some people who had opinions, as have we all, but who were these people, and what would that prove? He has a particular area of expertise. There is not a single decision ever made by any person in high level decision making in government that has not been wrong in some observers mind. It is a reality of the public leadership.
More interesting to me is that Tillerson’s entire working career has been with what is now ExxonMobil, and I recall he was recommended for the job by, among a few others, Richard Cheney, former U.S. vice-president and before that U.S. Government official and Halliburton chief executive.
One might recall that Halliburton did very well during the good old days of the Iraq War. Cheney was a central and crucial part of the team promoting and prosecuting that disastrous war which still involves us.
Behind the easy questions and the unchallenged answers lies much more to the story of not only Tillerson, but every other Trump appointment to his Cabinet. It is a club of, by and for the already rich. The “swamp” is just being refilled.
I went about my other work of the day.
*
About the same time as the Tillerson hearing, the network cut in to the Trump news conference at Trump Tower in New York City. I wasn’t watching that, but later reports spoke for themselves. The media, and the people who watch them, face a real dilemma in these coming long, long weeks and years: Trump is money in the bank for them. He’s a draw, and that is what networks want: viewers, aka generators of advertising revenue.
On the other hand, as evidenced by that first press conference, he is trashing selectively media who are critical of him, broadcasting the label “fake news” – which is red meat for his base. At the same time, he has benefited by “fake news”. It has become hard to discern what to believe….
By now, everybody who pays any attention at all to Trumps routine has to know that the prudent person cannot believe a single word he says, regardless of how fervent he is in declaring its truthfulness; nor how often or loudly he repeats it. Parts of what he says might be true, most likely not. He gives meaning to the phrase “caveat emptor”, “let the buyer beware”. And he is not yet even in office of President.
Serial lying and out and out bullying has served Trump well. And coupled with being a charismatic pitchman, comfortable with the media and a media celebrity elite, about to become the most powerful person in the world, and caring only about himself and his ego, this makes for a potentially lethal combination…for us all.
People best beware of being sucked in. This is not a time to be disconnected.
It will be interesting to see how the media in general deal with the contradictory objectives: making money, and responsible reporting.
*
Speaking only for myself, my specific on going concern is this:
In my fairly long life, I have never seen such a scurrilous, dishonest, down and dirty campaign against a person, as I saw waged against Hillary Clinton. This was waged for years against Hillary Clinton, personally, and in fact continues.
Similarly, a war was declared on President Barack Obama as he became President of the United States, with Republican efforts to block his success. In spite of all of this, the Obama administration was successful. You would never hear such a word from the Republicans.
I see no need to be respectful of those who engage in reprehensible behavior. You expect campaigns to be hard-fought, but not the scorched earth we have experienced for the past many years.
Personally:
1) I have no interest in validating Trumps daily declarations by being part of his audience. Personally, I am sick and tired of the daily dose of Trump, and my limited television viewing, almost all of ‘news’, is decreasing, and I am letting my news anchors of choice know this. I almost never have been surveyed; I have to write a real letter as a real person to another real person. It needs to be done. I have done this in the past. These letters are read.
2) The crucial actors in this continuing circus will be the members of Congress, both Senate and House. It is not enough to be silent. If there are any ways to give witness, such as the pending million women march in your area, go for it, and let your congressperson and senator, and, for that matter, your state legislators and Governor as well. The “nice person” who is your own local congressperson or whatever has a record which deserves scrutiny between now and the next election. He/She most cares about reelection.

Germany 1998


What’s Ahead with an Authoritarian President?
No one knows, of course, what Trump will actually do, which is especially worrisome to those who are “in the know” at the highest levels. No one knows, even the Republican leadership who embraced him, what he might do, or when, or even how. Perhaps he doesn’t know….
I think that recalling Nazi Germany is useful, just as a caution.
First, Americans in general are moderate, nice people. We know that. My most recent issue of the American Spectator (January, 2017) is highly worth the time to read in its entirety: Spectator001.
So were most of the Germans in the awful time after WWI, even in time of desperate poverty. People are people, universally.
My mother was 100% German, both grandfathers migrated from Germany to the U.S. in the 1860s, and I have German cousins who I have visited. A dear friend of mine was 7 years old when Hitler and the Nazis consolidated their power in 1933. She was 18 when the Germans surrendered in 1945, their country in ruins, millions dead and displaced, the dreams of a 1000 year Reich gone after a dozen years.
Beginning in the 1920s, it was Hitler’s aim to “Make [Germany] Great Again”, with all that entailed. In 1933, the Nazis took control of the government. The dream lasted perhaps ten years….
Years ago I got serious about my roots, both German and French. In the process of gathering data from anyone and everyone, a relative in Illinois sent some photos taken by another relative in Iowa who visited the home farm in Germany in 1954.
One of the photos is at the beginning of this blog.
This was nine years after the war, and judging by the other photos, it was obvious from the photos reconstruction had not been completed. This was not the prosperous Germany we see today. The visitor was taken around by horse drawn wagon. (The farm I saw in 1998 was very prosperous.)
The photo is of a shrine in the yard of the ancestral farm house. I asked about it when I visited the cousins in 1998, and I took the followup photo during my visit there (the one immediately above). The statue remains identical to this day, I believe.
I was told that four men of the farm had been drafted into the German Army in WWII, and the statue to the Blessed Virgin was raised as a prayer of sorts for their safety in the conflict.
They all came home, apparently intact and uninjured, but none of them had ever, according to my relative, said anything about their experience. It was a forbidden topic. They had all died, their stories buried with them.
My German friend, Anneliese, had a similar story with a different ending. Her father and mother refused to join the Nazi Party (which benefited those who became members), and he was drafted into the Army, and was last seen about Christmas in 1944. He worked on a road crew as an engineer, I believe, and they think he was killed in Russia, but are not sure, and the search continues for closure.
In effect, he received a death sentence for his resistance to the Nazis.
Can Nazi Germany happen here? These are different times, and as I’ve noted, we are a different society. In answer to my own question, I don’t think so…but never in my wildest imagination could I envision a crude egotistical dishonest billionaire becoming our President, either.
1933 Germans, while just coming out of deep poverty after WWI, were susceptible to the same
messages as 2016 Americans were: anger, resentment, identifiable enemy (in one case the Jews, in another Muslims, illegals….) And the resentment was fanned by a charismatic leader with a great pitch who promised he and they would “Make America [Germany] Great Again”.
There are similarities and differences between 1933 Germany and 2017 America, but the reality is that there is a far closer relationship than we care to revisit.
To start, it took lots of good Germans in the 1930s to get and keep the Nazis in power. In the beginning the Nazis were a nuisance; later, people self-silenced.
In the end, as Martin Niemoeller often said so famously, in sometimes different specific ways:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
The Thousand Year Reich was destroyed. We have the potential of doing the same to ourselves.
The temptation is to pretend that we aren’t vulnerable; or to say in many ways, “there’s nothing I can do anyway”, and then prove the point by doing nothing.
This is our country, and our future, and now is not the time to pretend that all will work out, that Donald Trump will change his stripes, and “Make America Great Again” (as if it isn’t already a great country.)
COMMENTS:
from Leila: I keep waiting for someone to stop this trainwreck.
from Bill: I am committed to a total boycott of all TV on 1/20/17. I will find something else productive to do instead.
from Jan: well stated and we cannot be silent in the days ahead!
from Joni: I shared to my wall with comments. Thank you for once again articulating so clearly and eloquently what my heart and head feel.
from Suzanne: Thank you for the post…..I will be in DC for the women’s march.
from Nancy: So, my question is why are we as a nation being forced to take Drumpf’s punishment? He has shown himself to be unfit for the office and the responsibilities. He shouldn’t be inaugurated.
from Annelee, Jan 15: (Anneliese is referenced above, and is the lady who grew up in Nazi Germany. Her comments are shared with her permission.)
Your blog today gives me and those who read you what was there all the time, but I and some us didn’t see it till now.
I have been thinking about TRUMP—and the more I think, the more he scares me. WHY?
GERMANY 1933 is coming to America—will the people notice?
Why was I so blind????
…Don’t shut [Trump] out, listen to all he says, does— [my] Papa and Uncle Pepp knew [about what was happening in our town in Germany] but most of the time they kept quiet—
…When you say the media?? He uses it so skillfully already: he said, “The media spreads false news, just like it was happening in NAZI Germany.”
People to this day fear Nazi Germany— His supporters surely gobble that up and remember the bad media.
It wasn’t the media that gave the story about Russia knowing negative things about [Trump]; it came from Britain.
Did he correct that he was wrong? Never!
I wish someone could have looked into the papers he had displayed [in envelopes at his news conference which] showed he is giving his business to his sons— I bet they were empty [envelopes].
The similarities of the 1933 promises Hitler made, look the same as what Trump is proposing.
Give the population some good times and then, when you have them convinced that you are the best— you can do what you want.
What frightens me the most is how he already blames and attacks the press. If our press is not free, the non-thinking population is sucked in and set for doom.
NOTE from Dick: I have known Annelee for 14 years, and she has spoke and written extensively about how it was to a young person in a small German town during the time of Hitler. When the Third Reich took root, it was dangerous to talk to the wrong people. Annelee (her name was changed when she came to America in 1947) is completing a third book on her 90 years of life experience in Germany and the U.S. In fact, I met her when I read a review of her first book in 2003. Her website is here.

Dick Bernard: Meeting a Witch.

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First, a significant program which will be accessible worldwide for the next week, beginning tonight on the National Geographic Channel. Details here. This film, “Before the Flood”, is Leonardo DiCaprio’s documentary on Climate Change, on the National Geographic Channel tonight, and gives details on the many free access points for the film on the web for the next few days.
POSTNOTE Sunday evening Oct. 30: I have just watched this film. It is very thought provoking. Excellent.
The Witch
Saturday noon our friend, Don, and I went to the local Dairy Queen for lunch. Just inside the restaurant, we met a nice looking middle-aged lady all dressed up as a witch, tall pointed hat and all black clothing, about to leave.
I made a good-natured crack, and she responded, good-naturedly but with authority, “I am a witch”. There was a small amount of banter, and we were on our respective ways. She was a most pleasant person!
Around us were a few youngsters “practicing” for Monday night, All Souls Day, Halloween. There weren’t any hobgoblins, but the assorted costumes allowed that they were preparing for “trick or treats” a couple of days out (we used to say “money or eats”, too – I wonder….) Our neighborhood lately has been almost devoid of young gremlins, though my wife has stocked up for Monday night since there are a fair crop of new neighbors with kids, including a 7 year old next door. We might get some business.
The little interchange with the witch (I’ll take her word for it), caused me to think.
Witches tend to get a bad rap, which causes them to most often be quiet about their belief system. Our mindset, when “witch” is mentioned, is of people casting spells; the “wicked witch of the west”, “witches brew” and such.
(The witch we met yesterday did a more than reasonable “cackle”.)
There likely is a reputable witch web site that is “fair and balanced”. For the lazy researcher – me – the wikipedia entry seems helpful. You can read it here.
One day a year – tomorrow – the kids come around to stock up on unhealthy food bought by otherwise good parents.
No carrot sticks and celery on Halloween! Apples have a bad reputation…too easy to put sharp things in.
There are other events. A number of years ago I walked in the Mexican Dia de Muertos, “Day of the Dead” in south Minneapolis. It was very impressive. My guess is that it will happen this week as well.
This morning at Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis there will be the 22nd annual procession of the Icons, an annual event connected with All Souls Day, always impressive (at 9:30 and 11:30 Mass for any interested).
A few years ago, around Halloween, Nov. 5, 2001, we happened to be at a B&B overlooking a little park in London, England, and at night noticed parents and children were around in the park with little fires, having fun and celebrating something or other. Later I learned it was Guy Fawkes Night, celebrating the day that a militant English Catholic tried and failed to blow up Parliament in 1605.
I don’t know if I actually met a “witch” yesterday, but whoever she was, I’m grateful that she caused me to take a moment to reflect on the humanity of all of us, and the sometimes nonsensical things we do to validate ourselves over others; or just invalidate others….
There’s room for all kinds of people in our society, so long as we deal respectfully with each other.
Have an enjoyable Halloween!