International Relations – Page 9 – Thoughts Towards a Better World

#1021 – Dick Bernard: Memorial Day, 1946, and the residue of WWII

May 1, 2015/0 Comments/in International Relations, War /by dickbernard

This evening our friend Annelee Woodstrom speaks about growing up in Adolf Hitler’s Germany. I’ve heard her speak several times, and she is always thought provoking. She was 7 years old when Hitler came to power, and 18 when his dream of a 1,000 year “Third Reich” ended, after only 11 years, with the German people ruined as well.
Of course, megalomaniacs don’t seem to learn by the past mistakes of previous megalomaniacs, whether individuals or consortiums of individuals. They always think they have the system figured out: that they won’t make the same mistakes their predecessors made. So, the folks who birthed Project for a New American Century in the late 1990s, probably really believed their own fantasy, and the first project was presented on a silver platter by the 9-11-2001 terrorist attacks: the opportunity to take Saddam Hussein and Iraq in 2003.
We soon learned the reality of that fantasy, but, of course, after a few years of recovery, history can be re-manufactured, and rehabilitated, and so it goes. Some will always contend that Iraq was a success; as there remain here and there some neo-Nazis with similar fantasies.
So it goes.
Dream on. We should be wary of being duped by the might is right crowd. It never quite works out the way they fantasize.
I was five years old when WWII ended, finally, in September, 1945, with the surrender of Japan. I’m old enough to have memories, and there really are no specific memories of those first months of peace. Most likely the dominant emotion of my parents and those of their generation was relief that it was all over. I wrote about what adults felt in a commentary for the Minneapolis Star Tribune in August, 2005: Atomic Bomb 1945001.
In 1945, in tiny Eldridge ND, there was nothing for a five year old to notice. Young kids are limited by their very limited experience.
I know, now, that life was difficult for the adults at the time. Things like Ration Cards, Victory Gardens, relatives, neighbors and friends as casualties in War, made the dominant emotion, likely, similar to my grandmother’s “Hurrah, the old war is over!” in a letter to her Naval Officer son in the south Pacific, even though her exclamation came to celebrate, in a sense, the Atomic Bombs of August, 1945.
Her son, my Uncle Art, graduated from high school in May of 1945, and almost immediately went into the Army, though he never had to serve overseas. He trained at Ft. Carson, Colorado, and was in the Ski Troops, preparing for conflict in more Arctic regions; most likely they knew their training was basically “peacetime” service. Her son, Lt. George Busch, came home at the end of October.
My Dad was now Superintendent in Sykeston ND, and George’s teaching position at the high school there was held by George’s wife, Jean, until his return.
The War was over.
(click on all photos to enlarge them)

Sykeston High School 1958 by Dick Bernard

Then came Memorial Day, 1946.
Somehow frozen in my memory, indelible, was the lawn of the school pictured above. I remember that day, standing about where I stood to take that 1958 photo. I would have been six years old.
On the school grounds there were numerous crosses representing the servicemen lost in WWII from that community and surrounding area. There seemed many.
Between myself and the crosses, facing away from me, were several riflemen, giving the traditional farewell salute.
I don’t recall Taps – that would have required someone who played the trumpet. Years later, in that same space, my brother Frank played a perfect version of Taps, there, or so I understand.
War was over.
For little over a year there was no war, it is recorded. The United Nations was founded in October, 1945. People everywhere were sick of killing each other.
The peace didn’t last. It’s been more-or-less perpetual war ever since; more simmering than boiling, but the next explosion could be the final one for humankind if we don’t figure things out.
If there ever was a time for “power to the people” for Peace, it should be now.
Let us work, hard, together, for Peace.
POSTNOTE:
Fifty-five of us spent a powerful time with Annelee Woodstrom on Friday night. Here’s a couple of photos.

Annelee Woodstrom May 1, 2015

May 1, 2015.

#1020 – Dick Bernard: An Hour with Governor General of Canada, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston

April 28, 2015/0 Comments/in International Relations /by dickbernard

A few days ago a short-notice invitation came to attend a Monday afternoon talk by Canada’s Governor General, David Johnston. His brief bio is here: Gov Gen’l David Johnston001. I RSVP’ed, and at 5 p.m. yesterday about 150 of us spent a most pleasant hour with the Gov. General in a small auditorium within the massive Northrop facility at the University of Minnesota.
(click to enlarge photos)

Canadian Gov General David Johnston, April 27, 2015

Gov. General Johnston, April 27, 2015

It was an hour very well spent.
Earlier in the day, a commentary by Mr. Johnston appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The commentary catches the same content as we heard in person from this prominent Canadian leader. Here’s a brochure available at the gathering: Canada-Minnesota002
What I like about these talks – what makes the extra miles and inconvenience of parking etc worthwhile – is that they provide an in-person view; something of an opportunity to “get the measure” of the person behind an official column representing a countries point of view.
My sense: the Canadians, and I have lots of Canadian cousins, are very well represented in the international arena by their Governor-General.
In my hearing, someone asked someone-who-seemed-to-know “to what American political office does Canada’s Governor-General compare?” The quick answer, to this likely oft-asked question is “The Governor-General is much like America’s President”.
Of course, there are sharp differences: the Gov-General is appointed by the Queen of England, for instance. But apparently he is the Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Armed Forces, and appoints the Cabinet.
Canada’s Parliament and House of Lords and Prime Minister are the political end of Canadian Government. It makes sense, historically. Early America rebelled against a King and opted for direct election of a President by the people. In today’s British Empire, the luck is that there is a reigning monarch who is beloved. I suppose the regime could change sometime in the future.
The Governor-General caught my attention early. He grew up in Sault Ste.-Marie and from six years old on was good friends with Lou Nanne of the old Minnesota North Stars. They remain good friends to this day.
He talks about running in the annual Terry Fox Run which I’ve been familiar with since almost its beginning: Dad and I and some friends went to our ancestral home country in Quebec in early summer 1982, the second full year of the run.
Johnston is a diplomat from common roots and public education, and his reverence for public education caught my attention as well. “Cherish our teachers”, he said. Those who labor in pre-Kindergarten to Grade One should be the highest paid professionals, he said.
He talked of a most interesting conversation with one of his international colleague leaders on the concept of inclusive vs extractive economic and political actions. I think (my apologies if I miss the mark) this link may come close to what he talked about yesterday.
Perhaps the main takeaway, most always when I hear/see somebody of Mr. Johnston’s stature, is that word “diplomat”, of which Mr. Johnston is a walking example. I haven’t thought much about that word, but a working definition might include the descriptor “smoothing rough edges”.
People in Mr. Johnston’s position are very well aware that one size does not fit all, and that many points of view must constantly be negotiated if the planet is to survive. They are practiced at working with, not against, opposing points of view to get a resolution to seemingly unsolvable problems.
My sincere thanks to the Canadian Consulate General, Minneapolis, to the Minnesota International Center (MIC), and the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota for this opportunity.
At the end of the program, MIC was presented a medal by Mr. Johnston for their long history of working towards international understanding. Here’s a photo:

MIC Staff received Award from Gov. General Johnston. Minneapolis Consul General Jamshed Merchant is at the podium,

Of course, a couple of RCMP Mounties accompanied the Gov. General. And who wouldn’t want a photo with a Mountie! I told them (they were from Flin Flon and The Pas, Manitoba) that their former colleague and my friend Jean-Marc Charron did virtually my entire French-Canadian genealogy in Montreal before he died in 1996. They are in great company.

Folks posing with RCMPs

#1013- Dick Bernard: Flossenburg

April 9, 2015/0 Comments/in History, International Relations, War /by dickbernard

In today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune I read a most interesting column about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the noted German Lutheran Theologian and Pastor, who was part of the conspiracy to remove Adolf Hitler during the dark days of the Third Reich. He died by hanging 70 years ago today, April 9, 1945.
The first paragraph of the commentary noted “Bonhoeffer was hanged at the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany for participating in the conspiracy to kill Adolf Hitler.”
The mention “Flossenburg” especially peaked my interest.
For a dozen years, now, I have been privileged to have as a close friend, Annelee Woodstrom. Annelee grew up as Anneliese Solch in Mitterteich, Germany, near the Czech border.
Now 88, Annelee grew up in the time of the Third Reich, and speaks often of her memories then.
She was 18 when the war ended.
A vignette she always mentions in her talks was the time, very near the end of the war, when a group of POWs were marched past the family home. They were from Flossenburg, she said. Until then she didn’t even know there was a prison at Flossenburg, much less that it was a concentration camp, and she admits that fact may be hard to believe.
(Until this moment, when I looked it up, I didn’t know that Flossenburg was just 20 miles south of Mitterteich.)
It is simple to say, now, that “she must have known. That town was only 20 miles away.”
But if you factor in everything about the place and the time and the circumstances, there is little doubt that townspeople knew only what was told to them. Even today, with all of the means of communication we have access to, we are regularly deceived and misled. Think now of some town 20 miles from you, where you don’t know anyone. Even today, lots could go on in that town without your knowledge….
I sent the commentary along to Annelee this morning. Three weeks from Friday, in Minneapolis, Annelee Woodstrom will remember, among many other memories, the end of World War II as she experienced it in Germany (Adolf Hitler killed himself on April 30; VE Day came on May 6, 1945.)
Here is the flier for the event: World Law Day May 1 2015.
Reservations are requested.

#1010 – Dick Bernard: Death and Resurrection. Perhaps a real time for real hope for our future.

April 4, 2015/0 Comments/in International Relations, Peace & Justice, Politics, War /by dickbernard

Regardless of your faith tradition, or your particular beliefs, you know that tomorrow is Easter, and the basics of the Easter story.
Have a good day, tomorrow, today, and every day.
Happy Easter.
(click to enlarge)

Tuesday I wrote with a prediction about the negotiations involving the U.S., Iran, and several other countries: Russia, Britain, France, European Union.
Twice in that post,in slightly different ways, I predicted that: “there will be a deal, imperfect as such deals always are, which will look better and better as time goes on“.
By weeks end, the “resurrection” had come to pass. No one can deny that there has been a major and positive change in relationship, regardless of what happens going forward.
My prediction was informed by experience. Once parties – any parties – agree to negotiate (which begins simply by willing to even be seen in public together just to talk, on anything at all), relationships are bound to change, most certainly for the better. This applies to every such negotiations, from the most minor interpersonal dispute, to, as in this case, a very high stakes international effort to defuse and begin to reconfigure a long time history which goes back to at least 1953.
So, for me at least, the beginning of the end of the dispute went back to the first time there was an unofficial, but very public, meeting of a high Iranian official with a high United States official in New York at the time of a United Nations meeting. I don’t recall the exact date or people or circumstances, but at the time I knew it was more than a casual accidental brush in an elevator or such.
It was a beginning.
So, events this Easter week in the Iran negotiations were a beginning to something which, I feel, can be very good long-term. There is a very long way to go to a complete comprehensive deal (which makes the apostles of doom hopeful), but the change is permanent. There has been a breakthrough.
Of a multitude of opinions I have seen about the Iran negotiations, these two stand out thus far: here and here.
There was another similar “resurrection”, not long ago, with an official change in the U.S. position towards Cuba, a relationship broken almost as long as with Iran, going back to 1959.
The day after I posted about Iran, I took my grandson to an open rehearsal of the world-class Minnesota Orchestra. Ted loves music, and I thought this a good opportunity.
Some time ago, it was announced that the Minnesota Orchestra had been selected as the U.S. Orchestra who will perform in Cuba May 12 and 13.
As the preview for the next season of the Orchestra was being described, one announcement, the coming trip to Cuba, brought enthusiastic applause from the hundreds of us in the seats of Orchestra Hall.
There, too, people know that “times, they are a changin’ “, and with our individual efforts going forward, the positive changes can become permanent. (If you’re interested in Bob Dylan, let this tape roll on. Fascinating.)
Nothing will be perfect – it never is.
But it is certainly appearing that it can be made better, for all of us in the entire world.
Happy Easter.

Now, how about those nuclear powers (the U.S., Russia, Israel and all the rest) getting rid of those nuclear bombs…which we, after all, invented and perfected and still stockpile by the thousands.

#1008 – Dick Bernard: The Negotiations With Iran: "Eve of Destruction" or "Dawn of Correction"?

March 31, 2015/0 Comments/in History, International Relations, Peace & Justice, Politics, War /by dickbernard

Last nights news had a rather dismal looking visual image: a rectangular table in Switzerland, around which were sitting many very serious and not at all confident looking men and women, attempting to come to some agreement about the general issue of nuclear and relationships between their own countries and Iran. The general story was that they weren’t at all sure they could come to a bargained agreement.
Of course, outside the room, were endless talking heads and written opinions about what was being done wrong, or should be done this way…or that…or whose fault it would be if things wouldn’t work out…. As is always true with unilateral arguments, these arguments always were airtight: there was no “other side of the story” to deal with.
Overnight, on another topic, came an interesting sentence from a friend to another discussion group about another much more mundane issue in the city of Minneapolis: “Compromise – something Americans are not very good at.” Indeed.
My predictions: there will be a deal, imperfect as such deals always are, which will look better and better as time goes on. Surrounding the deal will be those on all sides with vested interests to protect, but no “skin in the game” at the bargaining table, who will talk about “sellout”, and all the like. In the longer term, President Obama’s negotiations ability will be seen as a great strength, rather than a perceived weakness.
Many who know me, know I spent most of my working career involved in one sort of negotiations or another, from interpersonal disputes, to fairly large contracts between labor and management, to occasional labor strikes.
I’ve been there, done that.
There were quite frequent “deaths door” bargains where, near the end, the “sides” looked much like the parties mentioned earlier around the table in the Iran negotiations.
By the time this “deaths door” stage of negotiations was reached, everyone knew that their cherished non-negotiables most certainly had to be negotiated; that walking away was no longer a viable option.
They also knew that they would have to face their own particular “public”, who would complain vigorously about the results, and make assorted threats; and that the negotiators would have to say, “folks, this is the best we can do”.
The seasoned negotiators – the ones who’d done this thing two or three times or more – would know that, long term, the imperfect deal would look better and better; a building block for a better bargain next time, where both sides would actually win. That “win-lose”, which is actually “lose-lose”, was an undesirable option.
It is no particular secret that the Middle East is a jumbled up geopolitical mess at the moment, and has been for years. You don’t have to read far beyond the headlines to get that sense. There is a great plenty of blame to go around, abundantly including our own country and others past policies in the region. We like being in control. As stated earlier: “Compromise – something Americans are not very good at.”
As I observed so often in those smaller negotiations in which I was involved, it is necessary to go through the messiness to get to the brighter world existing from a negotiated settlement. But to get there you need to let go of many of your own cherished absolutes, and that is very hard to do. Better that the other side concede.
My prediction: there will be a negotiated agreement, and soon. It will be imperfect, but it will be a beginning.
Yesterday, when I was thinking of this post, after watching Charlie Rose’s interview of President Assad of Syria, and reading about places like Yemen, etc., I thought about Barry McGuire’s old song “The Eve of Destruction”. It’s pretty powerful.
I went to find out more about the song: about Barry McGuire, when it was written, etc., and stopped by the Wikipedia entry which revealed the song was a hit in 1965.
It was there, in the “people’s encyclopedia”, that I learned about another 1965 song, an answer to Eve of Destruction, called “Dawn of Correction” by a group called the Spokesmen.
I’d never heard of Dawn of Correction before, and listened to it, carefully. Very, very interesting point of view, also from 1965. Take a listen.
Directly related, from yesterday, here.

#1007 – Dick Bernard: Esperanto, a Language for All

March 29, 2015/0 Comments/in International Relations /by dickbernard

(click to enlarge photos)

Since the time I met him a dozen years ago, my friend, Dr. Joe Schwartzberg, always worked into his programs his Affirmation of Human Oneness, which he first wrote in 1976. As I got to know him, I came to learn that he’d been working to have the Affirmation, in English, translated into as many major world languages as possible.
He’s now at 41 languages.
In 2010 Dr. Schwartzberg gave me the translations and allowed me to prepare a small imperfect book of them and publish them on the internet in time for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. You can find the resulting booklet here.
One language in the booklet especially intrigued me as I had never heard of it. It is Esperanto*, and you can find it in the above booklet in its alphabetical place, following English, and preceding Farsi (Persian).
To me, at the time, Esperanto appeared to be something like Spanish.
Life moved on, until March 12, 2015, when I was invited to attend a small dinner with Prof. Ron Glossop, in Minneapolis for an event. I’d met Prof. Glossop in another context, and hardly knew him, and in the course of conversation, asked him why he was in town.
Prof. Glossop was presenting a workshop on Esperanto the next day at the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Language (CSCTFL). An activist for world citizenship, Prof. Glossop said he learned Esperanto because he wanted to be a world citizen, and now largely because of Esperanto and getting to know Esperantists throughout the world, he felt like a world citizen.
I asked, would he mind if I “crashed the party” the next day, and attend his session. Come on over, he replied.
So I went, and it was a fascinating hour and the language made sense to me.
I have no gift in languages, so simplest to just introduce Dr. Glossop by photo, and include (with his permission) his handouts on Esperanto001, and include the official website of Esperanto-USA, and an 8 minute and fascinating recommended video describing Esperanto, in English, including some verbal Esperanto.
Dr. Glossop’s contact information can be found at the first page of the handout, should you have questions or an interest.

* – Prof. Glossop told me he was the one who authored the translation which appears in the booklet.

#1005 – Dick Bernard: Photos of Positive People, and a Call to Act.

March 24, 2015/0 Comments/in Community, Education, History, International Relations, Minnesota, Native American, Nature, Peace & Justice /by dickbernard

(click to enlarge)

Park Rapids MN Mar 14, 2015

There are lots of good things going on in the world, every day, every where.
This fact is easy to miss in a contemporary media environment that incessantly emphasizes bad news. But all one needs to do is to look around, listen, and get engaged.
Here’s a little photo gallery, with small captions, from just one recent week, taken at a League of Women Voters Saturday afternoon workshop in Park Rapids MN, and at a meeting about overpopulation of the planet in Minneapolis. Most of the speakers were ordinary folks, just like the rest of us. But this gave particular power to their presentations, in my opinion.
And at the end, a recent article I spied in last Sunday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune about Climate Change, and something I wrote about the same topic 10 ten years ago.
The March 14 workshop in Park Rapids was about Sustainable Agriculture, and the citizen speakers well informed, and interesting. (In the end, my opinion, it is always ordinary citizens who will make the difference…and time and time again, I hear the “expert” speakers affirm that the essential folks towards positive change are the folks we’ve never heard of.

Sally Shearer, Park Rapids MN, Mar 14, 2015

Sally Shearer talked about the history of Minnesota agriculture, beginning, of course, with the indigenous people. She especially referenced a particularly interesting older book, Helping People Help Themselves, by Roland H. Abraham, about the history of agricultural extension,

Ed Poitras, Mar 14, 2015

Ed Poitras talked about this experience, as a boy in WWII, with Victory Gardens in his home state of Massachusetts. For those of us of a certain age, we remember gardening, cooking, canning, raising chickens, and the like. These are lost arts which may well again become essentials.

Anne Morgan, Mar. 14, 2015

Anne Morgan gave us a primer on garden seeds.

Les Hiltz, Mar 14, 2015

Les Hiltz talked about bees and beekeeping. Bees are crucial to sustinability.

Winona Laduke, Mar 14, 2015

Winona Laduke was the most high profile speaker, and she spoke with feeling and intelligence and intensity about the land and the traditional ways.
March 19 in Minneapolis, David Paxson gave a jam-packed session on the issue of global overpopulation. His website is worth a visit.

David Paxson, Mar 19, 2015

Finally, in the March 22, Minneapolis Star Tribune, in the Science section, I found an article about Al Gore and the issue of Climate. The article (pp 4&5), and some of my “history” with Mr. Gore (pp 1, 2 & 3), can be read here: Al Gore, 2005, 06, 2015002
In my opinion, Mr. Gore is a visionary, well worth paying attention to.
For me, personally, the solution ends up with those who are in the seats, listening.
Others better informed and in one way or another more “important” than us, may, in fact, know more than we do. But in the end it is every individual setting out to make a little difference, who will make the big and essential long term difference.
It is what we – not they – do that will make the difference.

Mar 19, 2014, Minneapolis

#1003 – Dick Bernard: A Remarkable Evening Remembering the Vietnam War

March 20, 2015/0 Comments/in History, International Relations, Peace & Justice, War /by dickbernard

UPDATE Mar 27, 2014: Bill Sorem filmed the entire event which is available on his vimeo site here. The entire program is about 90 minutes, featuring solely the seven speakers.
*
Tonight I was at a remarkable story-telling session in St. Paul. More later on that. There will be a continuation of the conversation on Thursday, April 9, at Plymouth Congregational Church, 1900 Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis MN. Several pages of handouts from tonight, including the the agenda for tonight, and for April 9, can be read here: Vietnam War Recalled001
(click on drawing to enlarge it)

photo copy of Padre Johnson sketch from 1968, used with permission of the artist. See Postnote 4.

Personal background:
In mid-November, 1982, I was in Washington D.C. for a meeting of a volunteer board of which I was a member.
On Saturday, Nov 13, a member reported to us that she’d seen many veterans of the Vietnam War the previous evening, and they were in town for the dedication of the just completed Vietnam Memorial on the National Mall. Emotions were intense, she reported.
Sunday, Nov 14, 1982, I had several hours between the end of our meeting, and my flight back to Minneapolis from D.C.’s National Airport, and I decided to stop by this new monument. The visit to the wall was an intense one for me as well. I described my experience a couple of weeks later: Vietnam Mem DC 1982001 (See Postnote 1)
I’m a Vietnam era Army Infantry veteran, 1962-63. None of us in Basic Training at Ft. Carson CO ever left stateside; we were simply folded into a newly reactivated Infantry Division which, it turned out, was being prepared for later deployment to Vietnam. At that time, I recall my platoon sergeant wanted an assignment to Saigon. It was considered “good duty”. Later my two younger brothers were Air Force officers who both served in Vietnam, circa 1968 and 1971, one as an F-105 pilot; the other, navigator on military transport planes, some in and out of Vietnam airstrips.
It occurred to me that day at the Memorial that I had never welcomed my brothers home after their tours ended, so I wrote both of them letters in the plane enroute home. Ten or so years earlier they just came back, that’s all.
In more recent years I learned my former Army Company had been decimated in a 1968 ambush in Vietnam. My source was a colleague from the same company, from Sauk Rapids MN, who’d learned this from another veteran who’d later been in the same Company. As I recall, the vet said to my Army friend: “I’ll tell you this story once; never ask me about it again”. (See Postnotes 2 and 3)
Tonights gathering (see page two here, and photo below: Vietnam War Recalled001)
My words are superfluous to the intensity of the messages conveyed by seven speakers in 90 minutes tonight. Below is a picture of the printed agenda. Click to enlarge. I noted someone filming the talks. Hopefully the evening will be translated into an on-line presentation for others to see. Every presentation was powerful.
(click to enlarge)

Agenda, March 20, 2015

Postnote 1: As I was preparing this post, I thought it would be simple to find a link that described the history of the Memorial. In the end, I had to use this Wikipedia entry as a source. Scroll down to find the early history of the Memorial and the controversy surrounding it. At this 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War (April 30, 1975), active attempts are being made to re-invent the Vietnam War as being something other than the disaster that it was. History is never safe, which is why the stories told tonight are so important.
Postnote 2: Some years ago I learned that someone had placed online a website remembering the history of the Infantry Battalion of which my Infantry Company was part. You can access it here, including some photographs I took as a young GI at Ft. Carson CO.
Postnote 3: On Monday evening, March 16, 2015, I was checking into the motel in LaMoure ND. The clerk at the desk, a Mom who I’ve gotten to know in the course of many visits to the town, felt a need to talk this particular evening. Just a short while earlier her Dad had died, at 65. He’d had a very rough life, spending most of his recent years on 120% disability from the Veterans Administration for severe exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. It was falling to her to clean up final affairs for her Dad, and it was not easy.
When I got home I wrote a note of support and condolence to her.
It only occurred to me tonight, writing this piece, that she, and my friend from Army days, were from the same town, Sauk Rapids MN.
Postnote 4: Artist Ray (Padre) Johnson is a great friend, and was a medic in Vietnam during some of the deadliest combat in 1967-68. You can read more about the drawing he did here. The section about the drawing is below the photo of the hearse….
COMMENT Mar 27 from Dick Bernard to Chante Wolf’s presentation: I’ve known and respected Chante for years; heard her speak in person on March 20, and just watched her and the others just now.
I can only speak to my own experience in an Army Infantry Company 1962-63.
In those days, our units were 100% male. I really don’t recall even seeing women. I was engaged at the time, and never “went to town” (Colorado Springs) so never experienced the more raw side of life there.
We were young men, then, and doubtless thought the same as young men of any generation. In my particular units, anyway, I don’t recall the raw sexual commentary even in the drill cadences. We lived in barracks, perhaps 20 to a floor, with zero privacy, one bed next to the other with a bathroom down the hall.
Had there been females in the unit, I have no doubt that the behavior we would have witnessed would have been the same as Chante experienced. But I can speak only from my own personal experience.
I did a quick google search to see if there was more information on the topic. All I can do is add the page of links, fyi.

#1002 – Dick Bernard: Netanyahu's "victory" in the 2015 Israel Election, reflecting back on a 1996 Trip to Israel.

March 18, 2015/0 Comments/in International Relations, Politics /by dickbernard

UPDATE Mar 19: A useful analogy of Vietnam in 1975 to Israel today can be read here, entitled, “The End of Purposeful Ambiguity”. It’s long, but sometimes a bit of reading is worthwhile…. If nothing else, read the first paragraphs, and the last.
(click to enlarge)

Certificate received at end of Jan. 1996 Scripture Study Tour in Israel.

Twenty years ago, sometime in 1995, I heard through a friend that a tour group was being organized to visit Israel.
It sounded interesting; I went to an introductory meeting, paid the deposit, and on January 5-16, 1996, well over 30 of us, from several midwest states, spent an unforgettable nine days taking “A Musical and Scripture Study Tour Through the Land of the Bible”. Our leaders were a popular Catholic theologian, a Lutheran minister whose Dad had been artist for Billy Graham Ministries, and one of the three premiere composers of contemporary Christian music. Among the tour group were perhaps 20 choir members from assorted church choirs around the U.S.
The group I had been lucky enough to find out about, and now tag along with, was extraordinarily talented, as I learned each time the choir sang in any of the holy places we visited.
Our tour was also, I learned early on, primarily put together by the leader who I would now call a “Zionist Christian”. Page four of the 93 page program booklet we carried with us throughout the tour was clear enough: “In 1964, before there were any occupied territories, the Arab states created the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) for the specific purpose of destroying the Jewish state. The PLO leadership declared themselves to be “the sole representatives” of Palestinian Arabs, and their terrorism intimidated Arab moderates by killing all who dared challenge their authority….” The statement was doubtlessly carefully written and reviewed before printing.
There is nothing like certainty to make one’s case. They’re bad, we’re good….
We were under the guidance of good friends in Israel. Everything was spectacular.
But this was no ordinary tour. It came right after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli at a Peace Rally in Israel (Nov. 4, 1995). We visited Rabin’s grave when we arrived in Jerusalem. We left for home just days before the election of Yasir Arafat as PLO President (January 20, 1996). Indeed, our group was allowed to visit the famous Mosque of the Golden Dome on the site of the original Temple. I recall no tense times during our visit.
In mid-1996 Binjamin Netanyahu barely won his first election; I don’t recall his name being mentioned during our tour.
Some years later came the Separation Barrier (aka Wall of Separation).
And now we have had the 2015 election in Israel.
Of all the memorable things from the travel to Israel, I remember Saturday morning, January 13, 1996.
That morning we attended Shabbat Services at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem.
The Rabbi who spoke that morning certainly knew in general who we were, guests at that service, and quite soon launched into a very passionate oration about power politics in Israel. It seemed pretty clearly directed at us.
Of course, all I have is vivid memory, but in essence this is what he said: the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel had devised a strategy for taking and keeping control of the political stucture in Israel. It was very simple. Encourage large ultra-orthodox families, and ultimately the population game would be won.
The Reform Jews, who typically had smaller families, and who provide lots of support to Israel from particularly the United States, would ultimately be, at least in a power sense, on the sidelines.
The Rabbi was obviously very angry about this developing reality which has, of course, played out: more people, more power.
So, why the “victory” in parentheses in the title?
Such strategies as described above are always temporary. The Palestinians have a growing population as well, and they are Israelis, though, it seems, they are second class.
Sooner or later the truth will out.
The Reform Jews in the United States need to come to grips with their own cause in the matter which is an increasingly dangerous Israel. Self-defense can backfire….
A FOOTNOTE: Ehud Olmert, then Mayor of Jerusalem and the person who signed our certificate of Pilgrimage in the Year of King David, himself was a significant power actor in Israel.
COMMENTS:
from Jeff P:
Extremists continue to proliferate on all sides and this will not help.
Israel started out as a secular idea… the first Zionists were completely secular, even the 1947-1948 wars and starting of Israel was Secular, and is probably why there was such strong USA support by Jews here. (Of course the empty land they wanted and took over, much like the empty land of America after 1492, was of course inhabited quite nicely by others).
It was not till after the 1967 Yom Kippur war when the Arab world realized how Israel was the major military power in the region and the Palestinians truly became a cause celebre. And it was at that time that religious Zionism came to the forefront.
I am reading Karen Armstrong’s “Fields of Blood”… highly recommended.

#1001 – Dick Bernard: When Stupidity Triumphs

March 13, 2015/0 Comments/in International Relations, Politics /by dickbernard

On Halloween night, 2000 – it was a Tuesday – my wife and I were in Washington DC, and managed to get a pass to see an evening session of the U.S. House of Representatives.
No cameras were allowed, so I have no photos. Down on the floor were two small gaggles of congresspeople, gathered on the left and on the right side of the House. A couple of people were giving speeches about, as I recall, ergonomics legislation.
Nobody on the floor gave any appearance of listening to the speakers.
What we witnessed in person was so strange that a Congressman, my memory recalls he was from Illinois in the Alton area, came up to the gallery where we were sitting and literally apologized for his colleagues behavior to those few of us who were sitting watching the spectacle below. To my recollection, he wasn’t running for reelection.
Soon came a vote, and red and green lights appeared on the tally board “stage left”. There were, it appeared, far more votes tallied, than there were people on the floor. Apparently the rules were that persons who had earlier checked in were able to vote from their offices or somewhere, present, though absent.
Afterwards I asked my then-Congressman if I could get a copy of the Congressional Record for that date. He sent it, and I still have it: the only such document in our home.

Some things, especially unpleasant, are worth remembering. Opportunities to learn come (hopefully) from bad experiences.
Exactly a week later, came Election 2000, the election of the “hanging chads”, where the U. S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled that George W. Bush beat Al Gore. A key popular vote was Florida’s. Note especially the Ralph Nader vote in 2000 in Florida. It is one my progressive friends like to forget.
That election was over 14 years ago, now, and in between the consequences have been lost in the “memory hole” of our national and collective repressed memory: Afghanistan, the Iraq War, which spawned ISIS; the very near collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008, and so forth.
Yes, some things, especially unpleasant, are worth remembering….
But we seem never to learn.
Witness the bizarre actions of 47 U.S. Senators just a few days ago. The closest analogy is some juvenile petition circulated around without a thought as to consequences. There are, by now, boat loads full of analysis about this petition. Here and here are two which I find most interesting.
And these signers are the most powerful and astute political people in the United States? They have instant access to all of the expertise this country offers, and this is the result?
There is no way to walk back the stupidity of this action, except by waiting for it to be forgotten by the people who elected them. The U. S. Senate dining room – I’ve been there once, in 1985, for lunch – is apparent haven for far more dim bulbs than just myself.

1985

Of course, the question needs to be asked: how do these idiots get in these offices in the first place?
We are a democracy, after all.
Think about that as the posturing for 2016 intensifies.
We are the ones who are responsible for our own fate, how, whether, for whom, we finally vote (including not voting at all).