#508 – Dick Bernard: Remembering Saul Alinsky

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

#493 – Dick Bernard: A compliment for the Post Office as the year ends.

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This afternoon I stopped at the Woodbury Post Office to mail several packets of material.
I’m a familiar face there, and I mentioned to the clerk that I was going to do a blog post about the post office this evening.
“Oh oh”, she said, expecting the worst. This time of year people in the delivery business don’t expect kudos. “Bad” sells better than “good” on the media and the internet….
She had no reason to worry.
I want relate a story about the cousin of the little guy pictured below (click to enlarge):

Gingerbread Man


I purchased some Gingerbread men at the November 27 Minnesota Orchestra performance of Hansel and Gretel. The program, of Engelbert Humperdincks classic, was superb. (Check YouTube for many samples of Hansel and Gretel.)
The evening was in celebration of the Centennial of the Orchestra’s Young People’s Concerts, as explained in the evenings program: MN Orchestra YPSCA001. The Gingerbread men (persons?) – the dessert for the evening – were a fund raiser of/for the Young People’s Symphony Concert Association (YPSCA).
Of course we sampled the men, but there were some left over. For sure, one was saved for our friend, Annelee, who grew up in Germany. We’d see her at Christmas time and hand deliver hers.
Another I decided to send to a friend in a distant state who I knew had, years ago, been a docent for the Orchestra.
The question was, how to get the little man to a home perhaps a thousand miles away….
I decided to try the U.S. mail.
My packaging was de minimis.
I had some empty photograph boxes from the local Proex, and put Gingerbread Man in one of them, and ‘cushioned’ it with similar boxes top and bottom. I wrapped the resulting ‘box’ with plain brown paper, addressed it, and took it to the local post office. Christmas mailing season was upon us, and I stood in line. When it was my turn, I gave the clerk the box, paid the postage and left. I simply sent it ‘priority mail’. No insurance, no special handling.
I was so sure it wouldn’t arrive ‘safely’ that I took the above photo and sent it to my friend, just in case it arrived in pieces. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
A couple of days ago came a note from far away: “The cookie was whole – no cracks or crumbles.”
Success. Thanks to the people of the United States Post Office.
Sure, in an enterprise as immense and as complicated as the Postal Service, or any other delivery service for that matter, there are occasional problems.
But as it has been for its entire history, our Post Office is one of the very best services we can hope to have.
Happy New Year! And thanks to all of you who serve the rest of us, when sometimes we aren’t at our best.
Related post, here.
UPDATE December 31, 2011: In the post office line about 12:30. There was quite a lot of business at the time (it ebbs and flows, not always predictably). One worker was on duty, two stations open, they were probably at lunch. A guy went up to the counter, saying he’d been in line “an hour”. I decided to check traffic flow, which seemed normal. At the time, I was 12th in line. A second worker appeared. Perhaps twice as many in line would fill the post office – the longest lines I normally see. It took 20 minutes for me to get to the counter for service – that was less than two minutes per customer ahead of me. Of course it seemed like longer, if that was one’s mindset. Most of the problems ahead of me were we customers, ill-prepared or whatever. I don’t see how the post office could make any modifications that would eliminate complaints, fair or otherwise. People do need to have lunch. Cutbacks are taking place, and more to come (someone behind me said “it’s going to get worse”). Interesting how our little ‘society’ in the line sees the postal world; and what we can learn about ourselves. I wonder how the postal workers see us….
UPDATE January 1, 2012: From Joyce, Dec. 31: The USPS has come in for a lot of criticism this year from the right wing – too many on the right are looking to privatize this vital national service. Considering the volume of mail the USPS has to process every day, the postal workers do a wonderful job!
Also from Joyce, Jan. 1: Your addendum reminds me of how subjective the passage of time can be, depending on the circumstances and one’s mood. Specifically, I had a new family practice resident at a delivery [of a baby] with me, and I had to resuscitate the baby with a bag and mask. Afterward, the resident and I debriefed together because he was obviously shaken; he marveled that I had been “bagging” the baby for at least 20 minutes, and I had to tell him that I was timing it, and the whole episode lasted no more than 20 seconds. He found that really hard to believe, but I had to point out that the second apgar score, which is done at 5 minutes, was 9 out of 10.

#475 – Dick Bernard: The Occupy Movement (OWS), Move to Amend, and organizing generally: "There ain’t no power like the power of the people, like the power of the people, say WHAT?" "There ain’t no power…."

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Related post here.
Today is the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street (OWS). This writer urges that the movement build on its initial success by changing tactics.
Pre-Comment from William in east suburban St. Paul: “Dick, this OWS may be cathartic for the demonstrators but will not have any lasting effect unless it results in actual political activity at the caucus level in getting candidates for office that support their positions and getting out the vote (theirs and others ) in the 2012 elections. The same holds true for all of the rest of us of course!”
*
During a number of years of participating in protests and demonstrations, I always heard the phrase that heads this post. It was a common ‘call and response’ one, catchy, pertinent, easy to recite: “ain’t no power like the power of the people.”
The phrase carries a great deal of meaning. But I wonder if the people reciting it really catch what it really could mean if they were doing, as they were reciting, the phrase.
As best I can gather, OWS and the Tea Party have the active allegiance of similar numbers of the “99%”. Both groups are small relative to the total population. The Tea Party has a two year head start, but is flagging badly in the court of public opinion. The Tea Party has been co-opted by the very real “power” of the 1%ers. This is a crucial time for OWS.
In our society we are familiar with assorted manifestations of power. A very long list can be made.
Perhaps 25 years ago I heard them explained in a particularly useful way, and a few years ago I created the slide which is shown below. Of course, this is only a partial list: how about, for example, gaining power through the correct marriage?

The one I wish to focus on in the above list is the last one, which the speaker called “referent power” for some reason. It is one about the “power of the people”; the power of relationships within the 100% of humanity.
To give “ain’t no power” meaning, we really need to get into action, into what is called civic engagement, with and among people who may not share our precise view of reality.
I recently witnessed this kind of call to civic engagement action at the annual celebration of the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers Nov. 8. Perhaps 300 of us, mostly in the “graying age” and “birds of a feather”, were there to listen to a representative of the group Move to Amend, whose focus is on challenging corporate personhood and re-creating democracy. The evening was really generated by the actions of two brothers, Laird and Robin Monahan, who, the previous year, had walked across the United States in protest of the Supreme Court decision in January, 2010, which declared corporations as persons under the law.
Their walk only started their action.
Our speaker was there to encourage action and dialogue. He yielded part of his speaking time to a young representative of the Occupy Minneapolis group.
At the end of the evening, the Director of the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus, led his 150 person choir in song, and in between encouraged us, without becoming overtly political, to become aware of the issues facing the Gay Community. (The Gay Men’s Chorus is a phenomenal group (photo below, click to enlarge). Check out their website and let others know of their program.)
There were other examples of encouragement towards civic dialogue within this same meeting. It was a great night.
Personally, I think it is a good time for the Occupy folks to regroup and take their message to the people where they live. I think their visible presence these last two months has been incredibly effective, but it is back home with friends and neighbors and relatives that the real impact will be made. That is the “referent power” in the illustration. My friend, Jeff, said it well yesterday: “I think the OWS people in NY have taken the right view, its not the “place” , it’s the movement, so you “move on”….” William, at the beginning of this post, makes a similar point.

Twin Cities Gay men’s Chorus Nov. 8, 2011, at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church

Comments from some others who were there Nov. 8.
From Val in suburban St. Paul:
[Our speaker] took great pains in laying the groundwork for taking action…love of God and neighbor, purpose of church, and everyone’s role in working toward justice…justice as an expression of love. He could get all the gray haired grandmas willing to go to jail for the cause.
The ‘Move to Amend’ movement has a much broader scope than just un-doing the Supreme Court decision of 1/21/10. I was surprised by this – not bothered by it. I appreciated his knowledge and background info on the subject.
What better way to send folks out into the night than the voices of the 100+ male chorus.
Grateful I was able to attend,
Bob from suburban St. Paul:
I was there and found his presentation to be quite powerful and motivating. I also felt some pride that one of my fellow Greens was taking on the issue of corporate personhood. It has occured to me that we need a international political movement to take on the transnationals who are now in charge of the Global economy. The Green Party has a presence in 90 countries and is the fastest growing political community in the world, which could present a vehicle for challenging corporate dominance. The labor movement has not found the formula for addressing the ability of corporations to just keep moving their facilities to the cheapest labor sources.
“There ain’t no power like the power of the people, like the power of the people, say WHAT>” “There ain’t no power….”

#427 – Dick Bernard: I breathe union

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Labor Day, I was caught in the magnetic pull of the Minnesota State Fair. It was the last day of the great Minnesota get-together, and I went on a whim. It was my second visit in the Fair’s 12-day run. I have rarely if ever missed a Fair in 46 years in Minnesota.
I’m one of those creatures of habit at the Fair. The Education Building is most always the first stop. And the first stop there is the Education Minnesota – state teachers union – location, which has been at the same prominent place for many years. (Until 1998, it was called “MEA” – the Minnesota Education Association booth.) The two state teacher unions merged in 1998, now also part of AFL-CIO, and so it goes.
I worked for NEA affiliate MEA/Education Minnesota for 27 years, and I know the history very well. The state fair booth is very popular – a must stop for many – because of the free calendars it gives away. Labor Day I happened by the location when the line was not too long, and got my picture taken (here it is, this year: EdMinnCalendar2011002.)
There was a time in the early 1980s when MEA was considering giving up the space because it was expensive and of uncertain value. When the free calendar idea was first tried in the late 1990s, that too was a risky financial proposition. But both traditions continue.
Today, I would venture a guess that nobody at Education Minnesota considers dropping either. The space is a positive magnet for thousands of visitors.
These days, of course, “union” is used as an epithet by those who feel labor should not organize.
I spent well over 30 years active in the organized public school teacher movement. Most of that time my employer was called “Association”; at the end of my career, it was called “Union” (there is no operative distinction between the two words, nor in what we did and do, which was to represent the interests of hard-working people who cared deeply about their profession, their occupation.)
What pains me most, now, is that some of the anti-Union, anti-Obama hate mail that comes my way through those disgusting ‘forwards’ comes from people who have directly benefited by the efforts of Unions over the years, including my own. To borrow the words of Diercks Bentley’s popular country-western song: “what are they thinkin’?”

The tycoons who are bankrolling the bust government, bust the union gig have to be laughing up a storm. Best that we learn exactly who the enemy really is, and it is NOT the unions.
A shadowy segment of the fat cats is the bunch committed to use the middle class to destroy the Middle Class.
No, I can’t prove that, though the above referenced link is pretty strong evidence of who is bankrolling what these days.
During the recent extremely expensive Wisconsin Recall election across the river from me, one of the most common ads against the Democrat challenger Shelly Moore was her fire-breathing comment “We breathe union“. She was made to appear as a thug when in reality she was a laid off teacher and local teacher union leader. Of course, her comment was only part of what she actually said (Scroll to the last paragraph of the article. The videos are no longer on line.) The anti-Moore ad was not a locally produced Mom and Pop anti-union ad.
So, did Moore say what she was quoted as saying? Yes. Was her quote fairly used? No. It was intended to mislead and to incite anger against Unions.
I applaud Shelly Moore for her comment.
And, yes, I breathe union, and have breathed union since I first became actively involved about 1968.
And we in the body politic had best pay very close attention to who we are listening to and who we are supporting in coming days and months towards election 2012.

#426 – Dick Bernard: Labor Day 2011 and "The Help"

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We went to the film, The Help, Sunday afternoon. It was time very well spent.
There are many reviews: Go to IMDB for many of them and other information about The Help. If you haven’t seen the film, consider taking it in, either in the theater, or by other means.
The Help is about Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963, and about relationships, such as they were between Negro domestics and the families they worked for.
Sitting behind us in the Grandview Theater in St. Paul were two women who commented back and forth from time to time.
During the film, one of them said to the other, “that’s the way it was“. She apparently was from 1963 Mississippi, or perhaps even Jackson, the setting for the film. They sat there through the film credits at the end so I saw them as we exited: two older white women, my age.
1963 was a watershed year in the Civil Rights movement, captured best by Martin Luther King Jr in his book “Why We Can’t Wait“, published in early 1964, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This book is an excellent companion for the movie. It is a book I go back to frequently.

Our guest for the movie was Cathy’s long-time friend, “Annette”, who I wrote about in December, 2009.
Back then, 21 months ago, she’d just been fired from her job in a bank for what turned out to be no reason other than the new manager wanted somebody else.
There was no need for a justifiable reason, as those domestics so well knew in 1963.
Annette is Black, single, in her 50s, probably 30-years or more an American citizen, raised in one of those tiny Caribbean resort islands.
Her family was not a family of domestics, but nonetheless knew their place and their roles back home. She is a neat person.
She said she enjoyed the movie, but she was uncharacteristically quiet.
I didn’t know till afterward that she’s unemployed again.
After over a year of unemployment which included knee replacement surgery, she finally found a job at the Twin Cities International Airport. It was a long bus ride, then eight hours on her feet in one of those food concessions in a concourse. It was scarcely above minimum wage. She had hoped to make 12 weeks, but she finally quit the job after only 10 weeks, last Friday. Her legs just couldn’t tolerate the punishment of standing all day.
So, she spends Labor Day joining the ranks of the unemployed again.
Annette won’t be out on any picket lines today or ever. It’s not her nature, and besides she can’t physically do it. She may end up going back to the island where she at least has family, she said.
“Good riddance”, some might say.
Meanwhile, our country lurches into a permanent election season, candidates braying about this or that as they seek office in 2012.
Ours, like increasing numbers of American families, has long-term unemployed among our own members.
Unless there is serious action, there will doubtless be more as the months go on.
Finally, in “The Help”, the domestic workers get mad as hell, unite, and their cultured and genteel overseers get their due.
But The Help is only a movie about a novel.
Rather than expecting today’s unemployed to advocate for themselves, or go out and get a job that doesn’t exist, we need to do the heavy lifting, politically.
In the long run, those without means will exact their revenge: our economy will get weaker and weaker because there is less and less money to spend. None of us will escape.
We don’t need this to happen. It’s in our court.
END NOTE: The film caused me to seek out an old Reader’s Digest article I knew I had saved, written by Mary Hatwood Futrell, daughter of a “domestic”, and then President of the over 2 million member National Education Association. The article is here: FutrellRdrsDigJul1989001
POSTNOTES:
If nothing else, this film should encourage reflection and discussion.
1. My personal knowledge of “Negroes” did not begin until Army days in 1962-63. I grew up in North Dakota before the military bases, and the race-of-choice was “Indians” who were restricted to Reservations and hardly respected. By chance, at the time of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech in Washington D.C., I was in an Army division on maneuvers in rural South Carolina. It was there, for the first time, that I saw first hand the separate and unequal division of the races in the south. It was an eye-opening experience to say the very least.
2. The film has also caused me to reflect on growing up in a public school teachers family in the rural midwest in 1940s and 1950s. Succinctly, in those ‘good old days’, teachers were treated with scarce more public respect than the domestics in the film. The significant difference, of course, was that racial animus wasn’t part of the equation. Public School teachers, before collective bargaining, were Public Servants (caps intended) – officially and publicly respected, but dismissed at will. Their travails were very small compared with the plight of the Indians and Negroes, but they were travails nonetheless.

#413 – Dick Bernard: V-Day. The Wisconsin Recall Elections

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5:30 a.m. August 9, 2011: Shortly, the polls open in Wisconsin, 15 miles or so from where I sit in eastern Minnesota. One of the people up for recall is the incumbent Republican Senator from just across the border so we have seen, at least, the TV ads. There is huge amount of outside money in these races.
The issues are unique to Wisconsin, but impact on us all.
Recalls are very difficult to win, especially when there are a lot of them at the same time.
Whatever results are announced later today will have meaning, and the meaning will be attached to them and heavily publicized by this or that political interest.
It will be an interesting evening tonight.
8:15 p.m. CDT. Apparently a huge turnout, but no predictions as of this point in time. Huge turnout means a huge amount of concern and a huge amount of on-the-ground organizing.
Stay tuned.
More, later.
5:15 a.m. CDT August 10. I have yet to read anything about yesterday’s election, but it appears that only two Wisconsin Senate seats turned Democrat from Republican in yesterday’s Recall election. Three were needed to retake control of the Wisconsin State Senate. Two more Senate Recall elections are next week, both seats held by Democrats. The Wisconsin Senate will remain Republican.
Everyone with an interest in politics will have an opinion.
Here’s mine, as a retired union organizer.
The outcome in Wisconsin does not surprise me.
It is no cause for celebration by the Republicans (though that is how it probably will be ‘spun’ – and everything is ‘spun’ these days).
There may even be a bit of collective wisdom at work across the border: recalls are a very unusual and rarely used process, and here were nine of them taking place at once in a single state. People all have their own reasons for voting, or not voting at all, so I won’t try to divine those notions. But what happened could well reflect a certain amount of common sense, as in “we made a mistake in November, 2010, but we’re not ready to compound our mistake by making another impulsive decision.” On the other hand, there have been formidable organizing efforts, and those are very helpful for future change.
People in Wisconsin probably didn’t really know the issues and the implications of sloppy political participation in the Fall of 2010. They do, now.
It’s just a thought.
As a Minnesotan, I didn’t “invest” much in the Wisconsin race. I sent $50 to the teacher’s union back in March, and I recall giving $24 to the Wisconsin Democratic party about the same time. Both were simple expressions of support in recognition of difficult times.
I didn’t drive the half hour to Wisconsin to help in organizing. From the beginning I saw Wisconsin as a local (state) issue best resolved by the residents of that state. I still feel that way.
I didn’t predict the outcome. (I didn’t notice many reporters predicting the outcome, though the turnout was heavy.)
In my judgment, Gov. Scott Walker and the new Republican majority did a huge amount of damage to working people in their first six months in office, particularly to public unions. But they did all of their damage before the elections were held, and even if all of the six recalls had been successful, and the two next week had failed, only the control of the Wisconsin Senate would have been changed. There were no challenges in the Republican House, and, of course, Gov. Walker is not open to challenge until January, 2012.
So, the status quo remains…or does it?
If there is such a thing as a warning shot across the bow of a political party in control of everything, yesterday’s results in nearby Wisconsin were such a warning: a very near miss.
The Republicans will make ‘victory’ talk. But there was little to feel victorious about yesterday.
Their future, in particular those who embrace the Tea Party philosophy, is very much in doubt…and they have already done most of the damage that they can do.
4:10 p.m. CDT August 10, 2011: Random thoughts through today. The Democrats “loss” to the Republicans in Wisconsin yesterday create far greater problems for the Republicans, and many opportunities for Democrats. There are many ‘for instances’, most of which are missed by the major media and by those licking their wounds after having their heart set on a clean ‘win’.
In the first place, through the rest of the Wisconsin biennium, the Republicans can not blame the Democrats for obstruction in the Senate. The Republicans control both houses and the governorship. Whatever record they generate from here on will, along with what they accomplished in the first eight months, be the record that they have to run on, and they’ll have to run in front of a much more informed and engaged population than in 2010.
In addition, the spotlight has been turned on the wealthy interests who bank-rolled the Republican success, the true interests of those rich and powerful folks and big business, and on the assorted ways in which these interests manipulated and used the common folks in groups like the Tea Party. It is all a bit like the Wizard of Oz being exposed for the fraud that he was.
So, rather than bemoaning the outcome, the best advice is to use this as a learning opportunity, and use the coming year to rebuild a true democracy in our states and nation. It can be done.

#368 – Dick Bernard: Reprising National Teacher Day Commentary May 3, 2011

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Between the May 3 post on National Teacher Day and May 7 came the latest issue of Newsweek which included a non-affirming message for wealthy folks seeking to impose change on public schools. Their experiment seems to have been less than a noble success, but don’t expect this to be widely reported.
I am one of the legion of lonely bloggers who toil in the vague shadows of major media. We tend to be belittled and dismissed. As the number on this post indicates, I am no longer an amateur; I just don’t have name recognition.
But when my post on Teacher Day went into circulation I got some most interesting responses, including one from Mary Ellen Weller in Madison WI which deserves its own space and attention on this blog. You can find it here. She seeks dialog, and I hope she receives some responses to her thoughtful writing.
My post got the usual array of responses, from “bravo” to (paraphrased) “the sooner unions disappear from the face of the earth, the better off we’ll be”. The kudos outnumbered the brickbats.
But there were three comments from separate individuals who had no idea of each others existence who more or less in the same language said the same thing, and that got me to thinking.
The three were all women, two from Minnesota, one from Oregon. The two Minnesotans were retired after long careers in education. The third did not relate her background.
Each of the three specifically commented on what their mothers, all three career teachers, had told them somewhere along the line of growing up.
The general thread was this (paraphrased): “it’s very hard work, don’t expect anything other than the satisfaction of doing good for your students”. One said she didn’t think her mother would favor unions, but she wasn’t sure how she’d respond were she around to see what was happening in Wisconsin at this time in history.
I’m Catholic and went my first six years to Catholic Schools, taught by Nuns, and frankly the comments reminded me of the Nuns extraordinarily difficult mission: to work very hard, with no rights, and many expectations. (I have good memories of my education, both in Catholic and Public School. The Catholic Church is not exactly overrun with Nuns these days…the remaining orders of Nuns know the value of their mission, be it colleges or hospitals or whatever. The individual Nuns retain the vows of poverty, etc., but many orders are not poor.)
Thinking about those three Moms: were they in today’s environment, would they not be inclined to protest. Would they accept their lot in life as a public servant? I don’t know.
My own teaching career began back in those good old days before teachers got rights and contracts and all the rest. It was indeed a powerless time.
For me the times changed in the late 1960s when teacher anger coalesced and boiled over and some degree of parity began to be demanded. This was a hugely troubling time for most lawmakers, school board members and school administrators who were accustomed to having their own way, and now had to, at minimum, be somewhat accountable for their own actions, and recognize something called teacher rights.
I began on union staff in March, 1972, which coincided, exactly, with the beginning of the bargaining of the first teacher contract under Minnesota’s Public Employment Labor Relations Act (PELRA). Those were heady and difficult times when both sides made ample and sometimes serious mistakes as they learned new relationships and new roles.
It occurs to me that when that first contract was negotiated, only a tiny number of today’s teachers had even begun their teaching career, and large numbers who started their careers after 1972 have already retired.
Many, perhaps most, of today’s teachers don’t realize what those three female teachers endured in the days before rights.
I wonder how today’s teachers will respond to the current attacks.
It is a serious question.

#365 – Dick Bernard: A Troubling National Teacher Day, May 3, 2011

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Since May 3, 1985, National Teacher Day in the United States has been observed on the first Tuesday in May. About 1944 an Arkansas teacher first had the idea of a National Teacher Day, and in 1953 the first such day was observed.
May 3, 1985, I was Minnesota Education Association field staff (some would say “teacher union rep”, which I was), on Minnesota’s Iron Range. Home base was Hibbing; my area was from Ely to Deer River and beyond. I don’t recall the specifics of that Teacher Day, except that it was a time of pride to be a public school teacher. I would work for teachers for the next 14 National Teachers Days. They were always good days….
While international events may have scuttled my (and other) submissions on the value of teachers this date, here’s what I sent to the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Sunday:
“Today [May 3) is National Teacher Day in the United States; and this week is Teacher Appreciation Week.
Take the time today or this week to thank a teacher, or two, or more.
First on my own list are my parents who were public school teachers for a total of 71 years between 1929 and 1971. I was a student in their public school classrooms from 8th grade through high school graduation. Thank you, Mom and Dad.
But my parents were only two among many teachers, remembered and not, who made a huge difference in my life, in small and large ways over many years.
To college Prof. George Kennedy, who finally had it with me when I was being lazy and not doing my best in my college Geography major, thank you for getting angry at me. I remember….
To Mr. H, who was, yes, somewhat odd, but was always there and did his best with we “scholars” in high school: thank you. He taught me a great deal about accepting differences, just by being different, himself.
The list could go on and on.
These are harsh days for our teachers.
Today, more than ever, thank them.”
As noted above, this May 3 is not a very kind and gentle time for America’s teachers (which includes school administrators), and particularly for their and other public unions. One hardly needs a PhD to see the success of a campaign to demonize a great profession and the unions which represent public workers. The architects of the movement to enshrine as symbols of “teaching” the always-anonymous persons called “bad” or “ineffective”, and their unions, have been successful, probably beyond their wildest dreams. This campaign to denigrate began years ago.
There are big long term dangers to labeling groups based on actions of the few, but in the short term negative labeling does work….
The amateur “experts” are legion: from the guy I’d never seen before, who recently and loudly declared that teaching was too lowly an occupation to need a license (he noticed the headline of an editorial I was reading); to a freshman legislator wringing her hands in a public meeting about the problem of “bad” teachers – a topic about which she quite obviously knew nothing, beyond the script she was holding while reading.
Then there’s a good and respected friend who spends much of his time in the company of ‘movers and shakers’ of this major city and has apparently come to think, sincerely, that things like unions, seniority, salary schedules, contracts and due process protections are destroying good education by protecting “bad” teachers who should be replaced by fresh young faces unblemished by union things.
I’ve about heard it all.
(The amateur experts take their cue, of course, from the ‘movers and shakers’ who by and large control information. As stated so well by Connecticut Superintendent Gary Chesley in an Education Week commentary accessible below, there is “a national search for a scapegoat…teachers and the tenure laws present a fertile target for bombast and demagoguery.”)
There are, of course, big gaps in the information provided, like the specific names and circumstances of these supposedly “bad” and “ineffective” people who supposedly represent teaching. Revealing the names is apparently a risk (and responsibility) no one wishes to take. But that’s not relevant. If you can make an anonymous and supposedly defective teacher the symbol of an entire profession, why not? Indeed, creating a caricature – a cartoon – is even better than a fact.
There are other conjured issues: a friend who trusts me asked about teacher pensions, pretty obviously resenting the fact that teachers even receive pensions. Luckily I had an informed answer (which I don’t think he liked): Pensions Public001
But, this is National Teacher Day: If one can get past the negative, there is a huge amount of good out there, not hard to find. I saw it Thursday night at my Kindergarten granddaughters spring music concert for family and friends (click on photo to enlarge).

Kindergarten program at Lincoln Center elementary So. St. Paul MN April 28, 2011


I saw it Sunday morning at Church when a wonderful A Cappella high school choir (directed by a teacher) from a northern Minnesota city performed for us after services.
There was an excellent column in Sunday’s New York Times.
There is infinite room for true dialogue IF people are at all interested. There are ideas out there just begging for conversation. But dialogue and ideas require openness to other points of view; the possibility of other conclusions.
But the overall official mantra I feel this National Teacher Day 2011 is distinctly vicious and negative.
It’s time for teachers and administrators to buck up and go to work where they live, delivering an alternative (and more honest) message about teachers and teaching and public schools.

Mom, then Esther Busch and in first grade, front left, in 1915 at Henrietta School, rural Berlin ND. She and her sister Lucina, front row right, both became career public school teachers. Their teacher is Miss Gates.


Dad, Henry Bernard, with his first class at Allandale School near Grand Forks ND, 1929.


Teacher Mary Garvey with her 30 students in rural St. Paul MN ca 1939

#361 – Dick Bernard: Atlas Shrugged Part I

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I went to Atlas Shrugged on Monday afternoon at a local theatre.
My only certain prediction: Part III of this apparent three part made-for-the-theater movie will be released just in time to attempt to influence the 2012 election.
This is a hard-edged propaganda film.
It is pretty hard to make ruthless Capitalist Captains of Industry into heroic looking figures, but the film takes a shot at this (unsuccessfully, I felt).
I’d recommend people go see the film for themselves, so I don’t plan to give away much of the ‘story’, except to say that when one woman walked out about an hour in, I was tempted to follow her out the door. But I elected to stay it through. I’m glad I did.
There was no applause at the end from the dozen or so of us remaining.
Other than a waitress, I don’t recall seeing any workers in the film, except that it is clear that workers are slugs, except for a few superstars who are held in check by totally worthless unions whose henchmen (people like I was for an entire career, always men) are anti-progress disheveled gangster types imposing stupid work and safety rules.
Of course, Government itself is obstructive and evil and represented by nefarious types wanting to take us back to the good old days of collective farms. (If they thought it would work, the film producers would probably have used Communist terms like Commissar and the like. Even they must have thought that was a bit much. But they have some pretty good synonyms in both words and images.)
There is a certain audience – I think very limited in size – who will gobble up every word and nuance of this made-for-a-movie novel. They would be people like I sometimes see at my coffee shop, like the two guys after a Bible Study last week who are working stiffs but were complaining about how they dislike unions because they, the complainers, are superior to the shiftless rank and file and particularly union stewards.
While I know there is a tiny element of truth in their complaint, I can’t imagine even these guys taking much of a shine to the Capitalist King-Pins who are the obvious ‘stars’ of this movie.
(A favorite scene of mine is when one of the Tycoons is approached by his “tree-hugger” relative and asked for a handout for some cause or other. It is a Mr. Hard and Mr. Soft scene. In an instant the Capitalist offers $100,000 – one gathers it is a mere pittance for him – tax deductible of course. Tree-hugger demurs, saying that the ‘progressives’ – the word is intentional – he’s working with in Washington wouldn’t want the money to be identified with this specific Capitalist. Couldn’t it be sent another way? The story line is not completed in the film.)
To a certain kind of audience this will play well.
As for Ayn Rand (Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum), whose book “Atlas Shrugged” (1957) brings this to the silver screen, it’s worth learning a little bit about her, too. She had the misfortune of being 12 years old in St. Petersburg (later Petrograd, later Leningrad, now St. Petersburg again) when the Bolshevik Revolution upset her families applecart in 1917. The Revolution began in her home town. She came to the U.S. in 1925.
I’ve been to St. Petersburg (2003, two weeks after President George W. Bush made a visit), and I wondered to myself how things might have turned out differently had young Alisa really gotten to know why the Revolution got its legs in 1917. Revolutions aren’t child’s play, after all. They’re very risky business.
It doesn’t take long at the obscenely rich Peterhof or Catherine Palace outside St. Petersburg to get a sense of the kind of life the peasant class was forced to live in Czarist Russia. We spent several hours in both Palaces.
The run-up to revolution doesn’t seem to register, much, in Rand’s personal narrative. Her bourgeois family was a petty beneficiary of the Czars….
My thoughts went back to leaving Peterhof Palace in June, 2003. We were boarding the bus after several hours in the opulence of the Palace. Across the parking lot came two old hags – elderly women in rags, begging.
I couldn’t bear to take a photograph of them, but the image is burned in my mind…. Talk about compare and contrast.
See Atlas Shrugged Part I. See for yourself.

#357 – Dick Bernard: Lurching towards catastrophe

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My opinion: some kind of agreement will be cobbled together to avoid a partial government shutdown tomorrow. That won’t solve the problem, only delay what seems inevitable: the gradual but inexorable slide of the U.S. to at minimum mediocrity. As a society we are “doing stupid”, as a Forrest Gump might say. You don’t translate coffee klatch conversations among people of like minds into good policy for a complex country. But that seems to be what we’re about.
Actually the game plan of the radicals who pretend to be Republicans is very, very simple. It plays out over and over and over again.
1. Refuse to compromise, and when you do compromise, deny that you compromised at all.
2. Substitute belief for reason, and wrap your belief in the label “truth”. Scoff at Science. (My favorite in this regard comes from my own Catholic Church which has devised something that they call “objective truth” which is truth so purified that there can be no legitimate alternative realities. “We have said it; thus it is so”. Of course, it is only the Church’s opinion about the “truth”, but nonetheless it is portrayed as the genuine, real truth.)
3. If something goes right, take credit for it, even if you had nothing to do with it; if it goes wrong, blame the opposition.
4. Demonize the opposition; canonize your heroes….
5. Never, never, never get off message.
And on and on and on. When it comes to propaganda, one only needs your own core principles and the gall to attempt to impose them ruthlessly. I have such a tip sheet, used against myself and my organization almost 40 years ago. It is a single typewritten sheet, one side, double space. You don’t need 300 pages of explanation to lie. You just need the gall.
Just today came two items, separately, which seem to fit this conversation. An e-mail came from a retired friend who lives in Madison WI and has been involved in the protests there. I knew she lived there, but not that she’d been involved in the demonstrations.
An hour or two earlier, in today’s U.S. mail, came five pages from William L. Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” captioned “THE SERFDOM OF LABOR”. (See it here: Shirer 3rd Reich001 ) The person who sent this to me is a retired teacher who grew up in Nazi Germany (born 1926), lived through the war in Germany, and came to the U.S. in 1947. She says this section of Shirer’s book perfectly describes what happened in the pre-War Nazi Germany she lived in, and she sees the same happening here with the assorted moves to kill union influence through assorted means.
Of course, the “rule”, now, is to never ever compare what is happening here to what happened in Nazi Germany. Take it from our German friend. Take what is happening here very, very seriously. It can indeed happen here. It is only a slight modification of the modus operandi that kept the Nazis in power till their country was destroyed.
There is a famous descriptor of we rubes which goes: “There is a sucker born every minute“. Too often, in this media age, this is true. We are so easily manipulated in working against our own interests.
We are in control of our own destiny only if we do the requisite hard workl.
And where we start is to begin to question the politicians who we freely elect, particularly those who represent us in Congress and State Legislatures – they are the ones closest to us.