#494 – Dick Bernard: On New Years Eve, A look back to 1960

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“What are you doing New Years…New Years Eve?”
For us, our six year old grandson will be an overnight guest tonight. That makes for a reasonably predictable “New Years Eve”.
As for the year just finishing, and the year ahead: 2011 depends on the interpreter; 2012 is as yet unknown. They’re all important, these New Years. Collectively we’ll be fashioning that six year olds future in the days and years ahead. We’re all he and all of his cohort, everywhere, have to depend on.
My favorite blogger, Alan, writing from LA, summarizes the year now ending in today’s Just Above Sunset posting.
His columns are long, but always a worthwhile read.
Earlier this week I took a stab at what’s ahead by reflecting on a college newspaper column I came across from November 3, 1960.
What I wrote follows: (if you’re one of those who wants to ‘cut to the chase’ read the bold-faced sections.)

Watching the Election Returns, November, 1960, in the "Rec Room" at Valley City ND State Teachers College. (from the 1961 Viking Annual)


“A TIME TO THINK”
I’m old enough to live in the fog of the “old days”.
But there are lessons…and teachers…from that past – people who are most often ‘anonymous’ or ‘unknown’. Here’s one such lesson, from someone called “Mac”.
Over 50 years ago – it was September 23, 1960 – a headline of the Viking News at Valley City State Teachers College (STC) proclaimed “Bernard Chosen as Viking News Editor”.
That fellow, Bernard, was me. Somebody concluded that I’d do okay at the job. Newspaper adviser Mary Hagen Canine kept copies of the fourteen issues published ‘on my watch’, and somehow the issues and the memories they record have managed to survive until the present day.
When that first issue published in late September, 1960, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy were vying for President of the U.S.

NY Gov. Nelson Rockefeller had whistle-stopped Valley City in June. He was a possible Republican candidate. I went down to the City Park to hear him speak.
In that first Viking News, I wrote an editorial, part of which referred to a column on the same page called “Meditations” by “Mac”. Mac, I said, was “Charles Licha [who] attended STC several years ago”. He had returned “for his last quarter before graduation. He is married and is the father of five children, and presently holds the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army.”

November 3, 1960, right before the election, “Mac” wrote a long column including a section, “A Time to Think”, directed to we students, many of us not yet 21 and thus ineligible to vote.
The column would fit today as well as it did then:
In part: “Walking down the hall the other day, I was suddenly struck by the thought that here at STC, a wonderful thing is taking place. I’m speaking specifically about two tables that are placed in close proximity to the rec room door. As closely as I can determine, one of these tables is strictly Democrat while the other is strictly Republican…What party are you for? Which man do you think is the Best Man? What are your reasons for your choices? Even if all of you are not of voting age, every one of you should have an answer to these questions and others questions equally as important.
He continued, “just remember that a portion of this country is yours, just as surely as though you held title or deed to it! For that reason the selection of the Chief Executive and lesser dignitaries charged with the affairs of the nation and the individual states should be of immediate concern to you. An attitude that smacks of “My one vote makes no difference, “I won’t vote because I don’t like either man,” or “I just don’t have the time” is not only anti-patriotic and stupid, it’s anti-you, and a direct denial of your responsibilities.”
Capt. Licha died in 1975 at only 48. By 1965 he was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam (scroll down for photo). He had earlier served in WWII and Korea, and was career Army. Residual effects of Malaria contracted in WWII contributed to his death at a young age. The last few years of his career he taught ROTC at North Dakota State University in Fargo.
Compared with the rest of we collegians, he was a ‘senior citizen’ of 33 when he wrote his column.
He spoke much wisdom 51 years ago.
We his modern day contemporaries might well listen, reflect on his final piece of advice: to “vote intelligently and wisely” in 2012.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

#486 -Dick Bernard: The 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

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It is not hard for me to remember Pearl Harbor Day. Seventy years ago my Dad’s brother, my Uncle Frank, near the end of his 6th year on the USS Arizona, lost his life aboard the ship. I’m old enough to have “met” him, in Long Beach CA, five months before he died. The caption on the photo, written by his mother, my grandmother Josephine, is succinct: “the first time we had our family together for seven years and also the last.” December 7, 1941 and the days following were chaotic. My Dad’s memories, as recorded years later, are in this single page: Bernard Frank Pearl Har001
Immediately came WWII for the U.S. Many kinfolk, including seven of his cousins from a single family in Winnipeg (one killed in action, some in U.S., others in Canadian forces), went off to war Collette boys Winnipeg001.
Last year I sent the Pearl Harbor museum all of the photos and records I have of Uncle Frank, and the photos have been posted ever since on Facebook. (The family photo referred to above is near the end of the album.)
WWII was very short for Uncle Frank. Then came the rest of it.
NOTE: I have written several posts about Uncle Frank. Here are links to the others: Dec. 7, 2009, Dec. 7, 2010, Dec. 9, 2010, Jan. 2,2011, Dec. 7, 2011, May 28, 2012.
Ah, “War”. A good friend and I recently engaged in a conversation about the complicated business called “War” and he asked this question: “What do you think are the rational lessons learned from WWII?”
It’s a fair question, and below are some thoughts on the topic from someone (myself), born on the edge of WW II (1940) who’s a military veteran from a family full of military veterans dating from at least the MN-ND Indian War of 1862-63 through, very recently, Afghanistan.
click on photo to enlarge

New Draftees into WWII, August, 1942, North Dakota


Here’s my informal list.
1. War begets more and ever worse future War. For example, the defeat, impoverishment and humiliation of the Germans at the end of WWI gave Hitler his base for seeking revenge.
2. The American isolationist attitude during Hitler’s rise was not helpful to containing the evil objectives of the Third Reich. This was both pacifist and (primarily) “me first” attitude in an unholy alliance: what was going on in Europe and the Far East during the 1930s was, supposedly, not our problem. By the time the U.S. engaged after December 7, 1941, the die was cast for a horrible, long war. Corollary: politically, spotlighting an ‘enemy’ is far better – and more deadly – than nurturing true ‘friends’.
3. War is much less about heroism than it is about fear and and the reality of death. There is a tendency to feel invincible when you’re young, but that disappears when your buddy beside you ends up dead and you’re at the mercy of the next projectile with your name on it. A very young cousin of mine, American citizen perhaps three years old, was killed in the liberation of Manila, in the supposed sanctuary of a church yard in early 1945. It will never be known whose shrapnel it was that hit her, in her mothers arms, that day. It matters not….
4. War casualties are far more than simply being killed or physically injured. PTSD and other kinds of mental illness is now a known outcome; displacement of non-combatants; homelessness, suicide, property loss and the like are also major (and largely uncounted) casualties from war.
5. Winning a war is illusory and short-term at best. Those who think they’ve won better begin preparing for the next war, which they may lose.
6. The Marshall Plan, following World War II, was a good outcome of War. But it would have been an infinitely better outcome of Peace not preceded by war.
7. War is great for business (but Peace would be even better). “Swords beaten into ploughshares” to tackle future threatening things like resource scarcity, climate change etc., would be great for business, and great for us all, but require changes that business is not inclined to make. The business rule of thumb which I believe prevails: we don’t want it until we can control it and make money off of it.
8. War enables new tyrants, each of whom thinks they’ve figured out how to avoid the mistakes of the previous vanquished victors of earlier wars.
9. The only really new developments of War post WWII are a) horrors of nuclear annihilation (the U.S. has a huge arsenal which is worthless unless we wish to annihilate ourselves); b) terrorism is a new tool, and we have far more home-grown domestic anti-government terrorists than evil others.

10. “They who live by the sword will die by the sword” is ever truer and deadlier. Mass annihilation is ever more possible. In the recent wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. human casualty count was relatively low. This was overshadowed by huge Iraqi casualties, and population destabilization and displacement, and massive debts incurred by the U.S. to wage war. We bred resentment, not friendship. While we were not brought to our knees physically, this time, we were nearly destroyed economically. Here is the U.S. physical casualty count from past wars, from The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2007. War Casualties U.S.001
Reasonable estimates of deaths from war in all countries in the the previous century approach 100,000,000. War is usually,in the end, a creature of convenience than of necessity – an easy but deadly way to attempt to solve problems. That is another rational learning, in my opinion….
With the greatest respect for all victims of war, I urge Peace.

#480 – Dick Bernard: Hon. Lloyd Axworthy on The Responsibility to Protect, et al

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UPDATE Nov. 29, 2011: A video of Dr. Axworthy’s talk is accessible here. (It will take a short while to load as it is a long presentation.)
How does one recap nearly 50 years of a career in public service presented in under two hours? How does one recap that two hours in 700 words (the more-or-less standard length of a newspaper opinion column)?
Of course, it’s impossible. (This post is well over twice those 700 words, but divided into two parts.)
I’d like to share at least the main takeaway points I caught in a very fulfilling afternoon with Canadian Dr. Lloyd Axworthy, speaking to a good crowd at the University of Minnesota Law School, and a later dinner involving Dr. Axworthy and more than 30 of us (many of whom were high school students). At the end of this post see more under “More of Dr. Axworthy’s Wisdom”.
The program descriptor spoke for itself: “the Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, is a former Foreign Minister of Canada and a former Canadian Representative to the United Nations, serving twice as President of the UN Security Council. He served 21 years in the Canadian Parliament and has held seven different cabinet posts in the Canadian government. Currently, he is President of the University of Winnipeg. He has gained distinction for his advocacy for the International Criminal Court, the Responsibility to Protect principle, and the abolition of land mines for which he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. He holds honorary doctorates from twelve universities. His book, Navigating a New World – Canada’s Global Future, was published in 2003.”

the Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, Nov. 22, 2011


(you may click on photos to enlarge them)
In his extensive public service, Dr. Axworthy saw much of the promise and peril of our contemporary national and global society, and saw much of that up close and personal as an envoy. Words like Rwanda, Congo, Bosnia, Kosovo, Eritrea, Ethiopia and such were not exotic abstractions to him. He had, as the saying goes, “been there, done that”. What seems easy is rarely if ever so….
My takeaway from the gatherings yesterday is that it is easy for folks like us to sit around in a coffee shop, or in an affinity group, and figure out all of the world’s problems – or at least the problems we have identified as most important. These days, for most of us it seems, the world revolves around our own particular thing, our own ‘truth’, from the profound to the trivial. We put leaders in impossible quandaries. In a complex society and world, there are no easy answers.
It is essential to have the big picture folks like Dr. Axworthy around, the visionary and diplomatic ones who can identify problems and work towards long-term solutions under oft-times impossible appearing circumstances. I’ve been around people like Dr. Axworthy before, and they always inspire awe. They truly are ‘been there and done that’ folks, at home with seemingly impossible situations while the rest of us, like me, can muse about how things ought to be.
Things do look simple when all you have to consider is your single issue, and debate its merits only among others who agree with you, using your own data as proof.
Who we elect as leaders is extremely important – it is not a task to be taken lightly. Then, once elected, the leaders task is not “light”.
After dinner, I posed a question about the current generation gap (at the dinner, many of us were high school students), and one comment Dr. Axworthy made stuck with me: essentially, in my day, and his (we seem to be almost exactly the same age) you were dependent on the book and the 50 minute lecture from somebody; in the contemporary generation, in seconds google will come up with a great number of items of apparently related information for the student…but the devil is truly in discerning which of these sources might be reasonably credible and which might be demonstrably false. This is a dilemma of the current age. We can deliberately fool ourselves by accepting only the truth that we believe; in the end analysis, we’ll be the fools if married to that notion of ‘truth’. Facts have a nasty way of coming home to roost.
The Canadian Consul-General to the Twin Cities, Martin Loken, also attended the evening meeting and addressed some current issues, particularly the rapid melting of the Arctic ice cap, the very serious implications of global climate change on the lives of indigenous peoples of the north, and the increasing potential for issues regarding ownership of the resources below the sea; even the implications of northern ports as they will ultimately relate to Minnesota and the Midwest.
As the Arctic opens year round – a consequence of global warming – one of the many outcomes will be the potential reality of a sea-to-sea corridor north to south through the American Midwest. The debate on the implications of this is already beginning. Take a look, sometime, at a globe, with the Arctic in the center of your view. View it without ice. See which countries border on it. Here is one such view, well worth the time to really internalize. It upends our traditional view of east and west. It is a view of the future.
Things like the Law of the Sea, which the U.S. has not yet ratified, will play a larger and larger role. We were urged to pay attention to this. Most countries have ratified the Law of the Sea, and those who have come to agreement are in a better position in upcoming negotiations over the status of the Arctic and other sea issues in this time of improved technology.
A link to a Will Steger program co-sponsored by the Canadians on the changing Arctic is worth a look, here.

Dinner group November 22, 2011


Dr. Axworthy (at left) addresses group at dinner Nov. 22. To his left are Rich Kleber, co-president of United Nations Association (UNA) MN, Dr. Joseph Schwartzberg, president, Citizens for Global Solutions MN, and Stu Ackman, Board member, UNA MN


MORE OF DR. AXWORTHY’S WISDOM based on a few notes I took at his talks. My apologies in advance for any unintentional misinterpretations of his thoughts.
1. A good line about being a University President: “there are a lot of people under us, but nobody listens”. He also noted that Canadians likely think many times more often about developments in America, than Americans think about Canada. My thought on his: of course, these were both flashes of his abundant humor, but so true…in too many instances we own the leaders, who we elect after all, and thus can de-select for good or not-so-good reasons, but in America’s case, we have created a system that simply does not work, especially in the current day. What we do – or don’t do – has serious implications across our borders. On the latter note, simply from conversations with my Canadian cousins, two of whom are dual citizens, we – and they – have a great deal to gain from a positive relationship with our near north neighbor. Similarly we have a great deal to gain from other neighbors, near and far. But our notion of American exceptionalism gets in the way of our comment sense.
2. Dr. Axworthy mentioned several times Susan Sonntag’s book “Regarding the Pain of Others”. I’m going to check this book out.
3. “You can turn off the computer, but you can’t turn off the reality” and related comments on the importance of ideas: you need to believe in something you want to do. I picked up the notion that Dr. Axworthy saw great power in networks and coalitions, and that this power is potentially enhanced by the internet. He and several other Canadians became politically powerful and in his case he learned a great deal from door knocking when running for office…”you learn a great deal from the stories behind the doors”…. He reminded me of my great friend, Elmer L. Andersen, Minnesota legislator and Governor in the 1950s era. Andersen was already a well-to-do businessman, but he was also a scratch organizer non-pareil. Andersen loved people, and he reveled in ideas and the interplay of differing points of view. We are now in an American era where political direct and indirect lies are endemic, and personal contact of governed with their elected representatives limited almost entirely to sound bites on television or radio, that we are at risk of losing the very democracy we celebrate. The U.S. Congress has truly abyssmal approval ratings from the public. Unfortunately it truly reflects us.
4. Dr. Axworthy has walked the talk of Responsibility to Protect for years and credited the campaign to end land-mines for its impetus and success. (Relevant links in the 4th paragraph). One-hundred twenty countries have signed the treaty document and the results are clear: a reduction from over 100,000 to 15,000 mines per year. Dr. Axworthy made clear that there is evil in the world. It will never be totally eradicated. But campaigns such as Responsibility to Protect have and can do great things. He suggested a New Law of Humanity as opposed to simply a Law of Nations – where one can’t be a predator of his/her own people; and where there needs to be an effective multi-national force to restore order in occasional chaotic situations.
5. As a powerful politician and a well-seasoned diplomat, Dr. Axworthy made no claims that the UN was or ever will be perfect, or that things such as evil can ever be eliminated. His was a very practical view of making change. Towards the end of his talk he mentioned a new Northern Institute of Social Justice, in the the far north region in the Yukon. He was highly impressed with this program, through which indigenous peoples advocate for their own interests, particularly in the potentially devastating impacts of global climate change on their way of life through new policies of major governments, global business, etc. I have seen other examples of the effectiveness of local advocacy despite overwhelming odds. The success is in the public engagement through the many means available to all people. Dramatic change often comes slowly, one small step at a time.

#471 – Dick Bernard: Armistice (Veterans) Day 2011

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UPDATE: A reader sends along this Eyewitness to History link from the actual day/place in 1918.
Today is a unique date: 11-11-11 (November 11, 2011).
It is also Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I, when at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, a moment was taken to recognize the hope that the end of the Great War, was also the beginning of Peace (hope always springs eternal.)
My mother, Esther, then 9 years old, remembered the day vividly: “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 [about 4-5 miles away, as the crow flies]. In the house there was a long, long telephone ringing to signify the end of World War I.” (page 122 of Pioneers: The Busch and Berning Family of LaMoure County ND).
WWI was very deadly and confusing: my grandparents and most of the neighbors in their home (Wisconsin) and settlement (ND) communities were German ancestry, first generation American, and spoke German. One of my grandfather Busch’s hired men was killed in the war, and Grandpa wanted to enlist. Mom’s younger sister Mary, born 1913, remembered “there was a lot of prejudice against Germany at that time so the language was kept quiet. Being called a “kraut” wasn’t the nicest thing to hear. Most of the neighbors had German ancestors. Most of them came to the U.S. to avoid compulsory military training.” (p.136)
Esther and Mary’s Great-Uncle Heinrich Busch in Dubuque, a successful businessman who with his parents and brother had migrated from Germany in the early 1870s, wrote a passionate letter, in German, home to his German relatives Nov. 5, 1923, saying in part “The American millionaires and the government had loaned the Allies so many millions that against the will of the common folk, [P]resident Wilson was pulled into the War. England had nine million for newspaper propaganda [for war] in American newspapers about the brutal German and that the German-Americans had come to suffer under it, they were held [arrested] for [being] unpatriotic and were required to come before the court for little things as if they were pro-German. The damned war was a revenge and a millionaire’s war and the common people had to bleed in this bloody gladiator battle…..” (page 271) He went on in the same letter to predict the rise of a regime like the then-unknown Hitler and Nazis because of Germany’s humiliation and economic suffering in defeat.
War was not a sound-bite. History did not begin with Pearl Harbor and WWII….
Armistice Day is still celebrated in Europe, especially.
In the United States, in 1954, the day was re-named Veteran’s Day.
Whether intentional or not, the original intention of Armistice Day has come to be diluted or eroded: rather than recognize Peace; the effort is to recognize Veterans of War.
I’m a Military Veteran myself, so I certainly have no quarrel with recognizing Veterans.
But today I’ll be at the First Shot Memorial on the Minnesota Capitol Grounds, recognizing Armistice Day with other Veterans for Peace. Part of the ceremony will be ringing a common bell, eleven times.
A block or so away the Veterans Day contingent will be gathering at the Vietnam War Memorial.
The same kinds of people; a differing emphasis….
Ten years ago today, November 11, 2001, we were waiting to board our plane from London, England, to Minneapolis.
At precisely 11 AM…well, here’s how I described it in an e-mail March 20, 2003: “One of the most powerful minutes of my life was at Gatwick airport in suburban London on November 11, 2001, when the entire airport became dead silent for one minute to commemorate Armistice Day, which is a far bigger deal in England than it is here. The announcer came on the PA, and asked for reflective silence. I have never “heard” anything so powerful. I didn’t think it was possible. Babies didn’t even cry.”
A year later at the Armistice Day observance of Veterans for Peace at Ft. Snelling Cemetery I related this story again for the assembled veterans.
Today, whether you’re observing Veterans Day, or Armistice Day, remember the original intent of the day.
Peace in our world.
UPDATE – Noon November 11, 2011
Some photos from the Armistice and Veterans Day commemorations on the State Capitol grounds. The ceremonies were about one block apart. I spent time at each. Factoring out the band and other official personnel at the Veterans Day observance, the number in attendance seemed about the same. At the Armistice Day observance, eleven peace doves were released after a bell was rung eleven times. At the Veterans Day observance there was the traditional 21 gun salute. (click to enlarge the photos)

Bell Ringing Ceremony


Some of the eleven doves of peace released at the ceremony.


At the Veterans Day observance at the Vietnam Memorial, Capitol Ground


Statue between the Armistice and Veterans Day observances today, at St. Paul MN

#455 – Dick Bernard: A Decade of Difference. A concert celebrating ten years of the William J. Clinton Foundation.

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This entire program is accessible here. In all, the program is nearly four hours, but worth a watch.

#454 – Dick Bernard: My Contribution to the Peace and Justice Community

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Message to the assorted groups that make up the Peace and Justice community (of which I am a part): this is a time of opportunity to convey your message; but it is long past time to change tactics and strategies. Public attitudes have changed pretty dramatically, but our approach has not. We need to act on this.

Today, I attended the demonstration marking the 10th anniversary of the bombing of Afghanistan in October, 2001. A small contingent of demonstrators on diverse issues got an enthusiastic response from motorists on the very busy Lake Street near the light rail station at Hiawatha. The speakers were the usual. I passed on joining the short walk to South High School for the rally [UPDATE Oct 18: Here’s a three minute segment from the rally at South High].
I was glad I went to the demo. (click on photos to enlarge)
(Attendance at this demonstration might have been smaller than expected due to another Occupy Wall Street demonstration in downtown Minneapolis perhaps four miles away.)

Lake Street, Minneapolis MN October 15, 2011



Today’s demo reminded me of the first demonstration I participated in after 9-11. Quite likely it was on October 15, 2001, one week after we commenced the bombing of Afghanistan, with overwhelming support of the American people Afghanistan Oct 7 2001001. As the article shows, 94% of us were quite okay with this violent response, though within that 94% were many varying attitudes about the how’s or why’s of that bombing.
I was in the 6%.
I simply could not see any long term benefit arising from the bombing. It was a lonely spot to be in at the time. But only one of 20 Americans agreed with me.
Ten years ago I wasn’t directly involved in the peace and justice movement in any way. That October day in 2001 I heard about an early evening vigil on the steps of the Minnesota Capitol and wandered over there. The crowd was roughly the same size as today’s. I don’t recall seeing or hearing anyone I knew. Nor do I remember any of the messages, except for the raucous gaggle across the street who were bomb-the-hell-out-of-’em-get-revenge-now-bunch, brandishing flags like weapons, trying to shout out the speakers on the steps. Their ranks included young children. I was to see a lot of those angry-as-hell folks the next few years.
I came home and got actively involved in the Peace and Justice movement.
These days I’m more involved than ever, but chances are many of those activists across the street from where I took today’s photos think I’m a deserter.
Hardly.
These are insane times. Our worship of war and the war economy, along with greed, is killing us. We desperately need to retool: exactly the opposite of going from a peace to war economy in WWII, but with the same positive results: jobs, jobs, jobs; but fewer of the negative: deaths, deaths, deaths. But we don’t seem to be paying attention. Change is very hard….

But I’m not sure that demonstrations like today’s are a good use of valuable resources in bringing about change: our resources are much better spent in engaging with the public.
Today there were no anti, anti-war folks along that Minneapolis street. There were lots of honking cars.
Any survey worthy of the title today will support the idea that Americans are very tired of war. The October, 2001, attitude is long gone. The worry is about survival in this mean economy.
Standing nearby me today was Barry Riesch, Vietnam vet 1969, and a man I greatly admire. He has made Memorial Day and Armistice (Veterans) Day very special for many years. At the demonstration, I matched his sign with my Veterans for Peace cap – I’m a member of Vets for Peace. The cap which goes with me everywhere in my car.

Barry Riesch, Minneapolis, October 15, 2011


Barry and I know each other, though not well, and he had recently been to demonstrations in Washington DC on the issue of war. He’s been a guest columnist on this blog.
I sensed that he generally agrees with me that the Peace and Justice movements need to get much more involved in true dialogue with those who are searching for ways to become engaged, but are either tired or or not ready to go stand on street corners.
This is a time to personally engage with these uncertain folks who don’t like the status quo but are not ready to get rid of the military or whatever else idealists would want to have happen.
Earlier this summer I attended another demonstration in the rotunda of the state capitol in St. Paul, and made some observations about that group which I feel directly apply to all of us. The blog post is here. The specific comment is this: “I am of the belief that the only effective way for ordinary people – people like myself – to have an impact is one person, one contact at a time. We are so overwhelmed with “information” that there is little left to learn. If we’re going to survive as a society, we need to talk with, even debate, each other, and really listen to other points of view. It isn’t easy – those people standing in a circle yesterday, to have effect, need to turn around and act outwards towards people outside the Capitol rotunda. The only way to do this is to practice honing the skill, be it letters to the editor, standing up in a small or large meeting, giving a presentation, etc….”
As the group marched west on Lake Street yesterday (below photo), I would hope that they are marching into more direct public engagement and true dialogue.
Without such public engagement, there is little hope.

Marching down Lake Street, October 15, 2011

#444 – Dick Bernard: "Goldman-Sachs Rules the World"

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UPDATE: If you have not yet read Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, do it….

Tuesday I noted this item on Yahoo news. It includes a remarkable video, worth watching, which at most recent count had been viewed well over 600,000 times on YouTube. You can access the video within the article, or directly, here.
The article and the video speak abundantly clearly for themselves. The person being interviewed is apparently real, and his opinion is informed and apparently quite honest.
Essentially: big money views financial crises like our own, and now the Eurozone, very, very warmly. Crises are big opportunities to make lots of money.
I’m like the vast majority of people: I don’t have money to “play with” in the stock market.
I do have a pension fund, and a 401-k, that are managed by larger institutions, but other than giving them very general directions in the limited ways one has (“be careful”), I don’t watch the fund go up and down. If the markets were to truly crash, I would be in trouble, just like the vast majority of us.
But the Big Boys (and Girls, too), don’t look at financial crises the way I do.
I can offer a very tiny example from my own “real world”.
In the fall of 1987, there was a near catastrophic stock market crash in the United States. I remember it pretty vividly as I was driving from St. Paul to Duluth when the news of it broke so I could listen to it the entire trip. At the time I was a novice in selling securities – mutual funds – and while I was the tiniest of small part-time players, I at least knew the terminology, and I had access to a product – a mutual fund that I was learning about. I knew what they were talking about. But the 1987 was near panic: in relative terms worse than anything that’s happened in U.S. recent history, other than the fall of 2008.
In October, 1987, I had a small savings account in my bank – perhaps $2000. It was making 5% interest – an amount that seems stratospheric today, but then was pretty normal.
I also had a single $50 share of a major public utility. It was a gift, and with the gift came the opportunity to directly buy additional shares in the utility without going through a broker and paying fees.
In a moment of risk-taking – uncharacteristic for me – I withdrew the money in the savings account, and spent part of it on a mutual fund; later I invested the rest in the public utility shares.
Later, in the manner of the times, the utility bought an interest in an automobile auction firm – an uncharacteristic move for a conservative utility – but it made a wise choice. I know how its shares did.
In my small time way, the investments were the best financial decisions I ever made. I had, as the jargon goes, “bought low”, and later I “sold high”. And the results were very impressive. My measly 5% in the bank would have yielded next to nothing compared with much, much higher returns in the market. And utility stocks are generally considered pretty conservative.
I learned that a panic response to a crisis is not very productive. Best not to be stampeded into making some decision one might later regret.
The big players understand this concept; we small-fry don’t. The “too big to fail” near-collapse of the entire U.S. banking system at the end of the Bush administration was a boon to the wealthy bankers, not a crisis at all. I think the rescue was an essential act for we citizens, but the real beneficiaries were the Biggest of the Big Shots in Finance. The same could be said for the later rescue of Big Industry, like General Motors. Necessary, but cynical.
I believe, as the better informed world apparently does as well, that Rastani (the guy in the video) is talking straight.
It may make you mad to see how we small-fry are fodder for the Big Players in Money, but it is useful to see how panic is useful in the short term to the cynical players in the market.
I can only hope that there is some sanity somewhere in the Goldman-Sachs and other towers in the World Markets in New York, London and other places. But these Big Players are, it seems, addicted to the most extreme of Risk-Reward.
In the end the entire money system may well collapse, but at the very last gasp, there’ll be some isolated tycoon out there on some remote ocean island seeing the calamity as an opportunity….

#442 – Dick Bernard: The Week that included the International Day of Peace September 18-24, 2011

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When I posted #441 on September 21, I was unsure whether or not the International Day of Peace would be of consequence or even noted.
Looking back a few days, there was a great plenty of notice about the Day of Peace, some very positive, some very negative, all very public.
The Thursday Minneapolis Star Tribune had a front page article on the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia…on the International Day of Peace. The entirety of page three of the paper related to President Obama’s address to the United Nations.
Former President George W. Bush was in St. Louis Park for a fundraiser on Peace Day, and a full third of page B3 of the newspaper – essentially the only coverage of the event – was of a protest against the Bush administrations sanction of torture.
In the “is the glass half full or half empty” analogy, I would give Peace a very strong showing this week, even though there is plenty of negative to emphasize.
The Presidents address to the UN was measured and instructive: taking the world as it is, and strongly encouraging, for example, direct negotiations between Palestine and Israel on long-term Peace. As such highly public events work, no doubt both Israeli and Palestinian leaders knew in advance what the President was going to say: this is the nature of diplomacy. Peace cannot be imposed on societies, as we’ve learned over and over again. Societies need to come to their own conclusion. We cannot impose, only facilitate or interfere with, agreement.
As to the tragic Troy Davis decision, I tried to articulate my position in a proposed letter to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, submitted today. I said:
“Regardless of Charles Lanes opinion on the correctness of Troy Davis’ execution on Sep 21, (ironically the International Day of Peace), state sanctioned punishment by death is a dying proposition…and it will be a well deserved death when it comes.
I am reminded of the distinction between two words: decide and choose. When one decides something, all other options are removed. The root for decide is shared with words like suicide, homicide, fratricide, and on and on. There is no turning back from a terminal decision, like a sentence to death. It feels good for awhile (our prisons are full of murderers); but does it help society to be a murderer itself?
Choice at least has room for redemption or correction.
Back in 1991, shortly before the famed Halloween Blizzard, I read about and attended a commemorative service in a Duluth church cemetery. Three black men with a carnival had been lynched in Duluth in 1920 for the alleged rape of a white woman. There was no corroborating evidence.
The men were buried in unmarked graves and on that late October day in ’91, a group of us gathered at their discovered graves to recognize their untimely and unjust end.
At the time of their lynching, one youngster in the lynching crowd in downtown Duluth apparently justified the action: “they was just niggers”.
We’ve advanced, but the primitive instinct of that youngster is alive and well and in our society.”
We’re a complicated world, and there were/are doubtless endless examples of good and evil on Wednesday, September 21, 2011, as on every other day of the week and every week preceding and to follow.
For the long haul, Gandhi said it best: “we must be the change we wish to see in the world”.
Gandhi, assassinated in 1948, never succeeded in his quest, but his messages are before us, every day. We MUST be the change….
Peace is a destination; the Road to Peace is one we must travel each day.
Think Peace, and work for it.

#430 – Dick Bernard: 9-11-01 to 9-11-11. Have we learned anything these last ten years?

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UPDATE September 12, 2011: There have been a large number of comments on this post. They are in a separate post for September 11, 2011, here. Additional comments will be added to this post, as received.
September 9, 2011
Dear Family and Friends:
One of the indelible memories of my life came on my 60th birthday, May 4, 2000. We spent the entire day at the horrific Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland. Entering one of the first buildings with the awful artifacts of the final solution – hair, shoes, suitcases… – was a sign with this quotation:
“Those who
cannot remember the past,
are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
We Americans – every one of us – have created what became the ten years after 9-11. We are well advised to remember Santayana’s admonition as our future begins with President Obama’s address to Congress a few hours ago.
Everyone has their own perspective.
Here’s how I remember the last ten years, and how I hope we work for a better future.
*
Here are two snapshots I took of the as-yet incomplete twin towers of the World Trade Center 39 years ago, in late June, 1972. (click to enlarge). (The Statue of Liberty photos later in this post were taken the same day.) This was my first and to date only visit to New York City. I remember the day vividly.

Twin Towers nearing completion late June, 1972 (see construction equipment on top of one of the towers)


New York City skyline from ferry enroute to Statue of Liberty late June, 1972


I also remember vividly 9-11-01: The death toll that day was approximately 3,000. Each of those people died tragically and needlessly. This doesn’t make them unusual. Thousands of others die tragically and needlessly every day, everywhere. How we have elected to hang onto the circumstances of the death of these 3000, and what it has done to us as a nation, is what makes this ten year commemoration unusual. (See NOTE FROM MADELINE SIMON at the end of this post).
The ten years since 9-11-01 are ten years we should all also remember vividly:
– We’ve been in two wars, now ten years old, with no end in sight;
the price of 9-11 has been dreadful;
over 100,000 dead in Iraq, 25,000 in Afghanistan; – hundreds of thousands of people displaced; plenty of anger against the United States by these people;
– over 6,000 U.S. dead in these wars;
– Over 3 trillion of our dollars ($3,000,000,000,000) spent, not counting huge and certain future costs even if the wars were to stop today;
– incalculable ruin to our national reputation – a reservoir of ill-will which will not be forgotten.
And the War continues….
In my opinion it need not have been this way:
Here’s my personal recollection written a few days after 9-11: September 17 and 24, 2001, a letter to family and friends reflecting on 9-11-01. (Entire letter here Post 9-11-01001.)
9-11-01 was my second day on the job as a volunteer on a Habitat for Humanity house in south Minneapolis. A large crew of us from Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis volunteered for one or more days during our two week commitment. Per previous plans, Cathy, my wife, and son-in-law John also joined that crew the week of 9-11. I was there the first week.

Habitat Home Stevens Ave S Minneapolis MN Sep 11, 2001


After 9-11 we were overrun with unexpected volunteers coming off the street to help – their way of dealing with grief, I suppose.
This urge to do something positive was a very normal immediate outcome of the shock of 9-11, as it is a normal response after any tragedy.
For many years I have kept a handout from a long-ago workshop I attended which explains the normal human response to crisis very well (click to enlarge). Note: the time period to recovery is described in months, not years:

OUR RESPONSE POST-9-11-01
Rather than normal and positive resolution of grief, and closure, after 9-11-01 we in the U.S. chose to go to war. It was and is a disastrous decision.
We Americans* almost unanimously supported war as a remedy. Afghanistan Oct 7 2001001
One wonders what would have happened had we chosen to respond as Norway did in the wake of their July 22, 2011, terrorist attack.

After 9-11 we were largely kept in the dark about specifics of war plans. Five months after 9-11, a column (2002001) I wrote for the Minneapolis Star Tribune (published April 20, 2002), does not even mention the word “Iraq”. Iraq was not on my radar screen then, and I was an engaged citizen then.
In April, 2002, the official roll-out of the Iraq War was nearly a year away.
But we now know the Bush administration focus had almost instantly shifted to Iraq after 9-11, even though Iraq, and no Iraqis, were involved in 9-11. We took the deadly fork in the national road which we still live with today.
At the same time we launched this war, we were encouraged to get on with life, to go shopping, and we happily obliged during the decade. Vice-President Richard Cheney famously noted that “deficits don’t matter….” (see 18th para beginning “In his own account…”).
War almost instantly became an opportunity to implement the dreams of the Project for a New American Century. Its principles are worth rereading, as are the names of its signatories. Most of its signatories likely still believe its false premise: America once and forever King of the World. Too many of us still have visions of a permanent American empire. (My opinion: We could not effectively conquer Iraq, a place similar in size and population to California. Our vision of world dominance was false then, and still is. It is rapidly killing us.)
In October, 2002, Congress issued what turned out to be a blank check to wage war on the national credit card. (You can see how the political parties voted on that resolution in 2002 at the preceding link.)
We, the people approved that action; indeed, it can fairly be said that we insisted on war. It was politically very dangerous for a politician to be against this War on “terrorists”. We the people bought the idea of war, and thus we own its consequences.
We’re still at war in Afghanistan, the place we attacked first, 10 years ago. Much of our national debt flows from war, not only unpaid for by any national sacrifice when it happened, but accompanied by huge and continuing tax cuts for everybody; and unfunded, large and politically popular Medicare improvements. To this day, we refuse to pay for that credit card debt of ours. As a nation we are still very deep in denial.
We effectively demand even more tax cuts and to slash our government (our state and national infrastructure) even further, rather than using our still great national wealth to work on reducing our debt. Going broke is a deliberate political strategy of the many current government leaders who follow Grover Norquist, whose anti-tax mantra has long been to starve government “until it can be drowned in the bathtub”. There is no negotiating with such an ideology.
We didn’t know it 9-11-01, but 2001-2011 became a highly radical Republican decade all the way up to the present moment where the avowed and very public aim of the Republican leadership is to make certain that President Obama fails to generate jobs for national recovery. “Give us another chance”, they seem to say. “See him fail.” The same characters in charge will bring the same results as in the past, I say. Watch their real response to the Presidents request last night over the next months to discern their priorities.
The Republican leadership of the last 20 or so years is not cut from the same Republican cloth as my father’s or grandfather’s generation, nor my own. The current Republican leadership bunch worships power and control for its own sake. (For a dozen years my own political “best friend” was a former Republican Governor until he passed away several years ago. He would not be welcome in today’s Republican party.)
Today’s Republican strategy is led by amoral radicals** whose sole interest is permanent majority and raw power, rather than the long-term health of this country.

Ten years after 9-11, we’re still at it even though, for all intents and purposes, our country went bankrupt “going shopping” for everything we desired, getting big tax breaks and unpaid for benefit increases, and making war on credit***.
Now the narrative that I hear from the political radical right about our current national malaise is: “It’s all Obama’s fault, just give us another chance….”
This is insane.
So, what does this all mean? I removed from the title of this post these words: “A squandered decade.” But that is exactly what 2001-2011 has been: a squandered decade. And we continue the waste.
When will we Americans get a grip on reality?
Ten years ago we were caught unawares, and our emotions were easily manipulated and used.
Will the coming ten years be more of the same?
We are still “going shopping”.
Ten years from now, where will we be?
Are we going to continue down the same destructive road which has all but destroyed us; or will we commit to positive change? It is we citizens who will decide the future of our children and the generations to follow.
It is we as individuals who will be determining the answer to that question.

Same former Habitat house in South Minneapolis Sep 11, 2010. It continues to look the same in September, 2011, and to my knowledge remains occupied by the same Somali family for whom it was built ten years ago.


Statue of Liberty New York City harbor late June, 1972


Joni and Tom Bernard at Statue of Liberty, late June, 1972


NOTE FROM MADELINE SIMON received on August 8 prior to publication of this post, and included with her permission. Madeline is a long-time good friend, very active in Justice and social concerns issues with her Church. I met her through my involvement with the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers. She sent this item to persons she knows:
Last night, I happened to catch part of [PBS] Frontline, titled “Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero.” [NOTE: this is can be watched online here] Representatives, particularly clergy, from the three major religions all talked about the very real, scary dark side of religious zeal, equally lethal in their respective religions. One, who shared the podium at a 9/11 memorial service with clergy from other religious traditions became the receiver of hate mail from members of his own clergy. They were incensed that he would give any degree of validity to another religion and its followers, and he was asked to resign as a minister of their absolute truth faith.
One woman related that in an interview with Putin, he said that to the 9/11 hijackers, the people in the towers were “just dust.” In the Nazi era, Jews were considered less than human by some supposed Christians; in the U.S. pre-civil rights era, some Christians considered blacks less than human; and some Israeli Jews treat Palestinians similarly. Much evil has been done throughout history in the name of God, and it continues today.
No doubt that the extreme religious right in our country is dangerous, used and exceedingly well-funded by greedy corporate America who demand laissez faire–no government-by-the-people regulation of their excesses, and they should not be allowed to control government at any level. Our government, federal and local, are already dysfunctional, preferring to be insanely destructive rather than lose power in the interest of the common good.
We have much important work to do before the next election, none being so important as reminding the country of our common humanity, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and our interdependence, on each other and the well-being of our small planet. As Unitarian Universalists and a 501(c)(3) religious organization, we can’t advocate for or against candidates, but issues are fair game!!!
FOOTNOTES:
* – This commentary is written to “we, the people”. We are a society that likes to blame somebody else for our problems. The collective credit or blame lies with everyone of us, so long as we are fortunate enough to have a democracy (that is at risk).
** – “ends justify the means, politics is war, winning is all that matters” seems the dominant ethic. It is amazing, and very discouraging, to see the kind of racist, false and malicious information that is passed along, computer to computer, these days. Media advertising is as bad. It is far worse on the Republican side than on the Democrat. A recently retired 30-year GOP staff member in Washington recently wrote very candidly about this problem. You can read it here.
*** – even considering today’s relatively high unemployment, America is an immensely wealthy nation with far more than sufficient resources to recover from a problem we never should have gotten into. But to do so requires our political will, and the congressional leadership feels the problem is more beneficial to their interests than a solution.
There are many directly related posts, if you wish, beginning with June 27, 2011:
I will write a followup to this post, most likely on Monday, September 12, 2011
June 27, 2011: Killing the President, and many posts in the weeks that followed.
July 23, 2009: International Peace Garden

#409 – Dick Bernard: 4 days to Default of the U.S. A highly recommended book to read (or re-read): The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein.

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RELATED, the post for August 1, 2011, here.
For some years we’ve had week 30 at a time-share in the Breezy Point complex on Pelican Lake in north central Minnesota. It is ordinarily a quiet and relaxing week, away from computer and the normal hubbub of life. Excepting 2007, when the evening news on August 1 brought us news of the collapse of the I-35W Bridge into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, one can escape.
Relaxation was not as much an option this year.
We left home with the stark newspaper headlines on July 23 (click on photo to enlarge).

July 23, 2011 Minneapolis Star Tribune


The entire week was dominated by the not-funny circus in Washington D.C. which is near impossible to miss. We read about it in the daily paper, and saw the play-by-play on TV news.
I made one excellent choice this vacation week:

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein


I had purchased Shock Doctrine a long while ago – it was published in 2007 long before the name “Barack Obama” was much known outside of Illinois. I thought I knew what it was about, and it languished among the many unread books I own…until this week when I read every one of its heavily foot-noted 587 pages “up at the lake”.
The book covers LOTS of ground – at least 24 countries* in all, including the U.S. (Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 2005). Succinctly it is the life history of a particularly vicious brand of unfettered free market capitalism.
I read it with the background noise of the looming Default of the U.S. on our debts; the recently ended Shutdown of Minnesota due to a budget impasse; the pending recall elections in neighboring Wisconsin….
The more I read, the more I became convinced that what is happening right now in our own country is directly out of the Disaster Capitalism playbook. Given the experience in the other situations outlined, beginning with Chile (Allende/Pinochet) in 1973, there is no good end for the vast majority of Americans IF the current campaign in Disaster Capitalism succeeds here.
There are many reviews of this book, which was a New York Times bestseller, and it no doubt remains in print. I was particularly taken by this review by Paul B. Farrell, Dow Jones Business News, certainly not a left wing publication: “To more fully grasp this new economy, you must read what may be the most important book on economics in the twenty-first century…The Shock Doctrine is one of the best economic books of the twenty-first century because it reveals in one place the confluence of cultural forces, the restructuring of a world economy as growing populations fight over depleting natural resources, and the drifting away of America from representative democracy to a government controlled by multiple, competing, well-finances, and shadowy special interests.”
Make no mistake, the cabal described in this book is real and still very powerful and United States based. Disaster Capitalism’s fingerprints are all over the present day political shenanigans in the United States, though the original architect is dead (2006), its major proponents are no longer in office and exposed, and the long-term results of its efforts have been proven to be destructive to the societies it has successfully infected.
But Disaster Capitalism’s power can be blunted by persons of good will who use Shock Doctrine to shine a light on a campaign whose only beneficiaries are the already super wealthy.
Do purchase the book. And help spread the word.
* – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Maldives, Nepal, Nicaragua, Poland, Salvador, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Thailand, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Uruguay,