#130 – Dick Bernard: "the gods must be crazy"

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December 13, 2003, I arrived back from Haiti, all imbued with idealism, but pretty certain that Haiti’s democratically elected government would be deposed, though not sure how or by whom. I had met a lot of people who were standing by President Aristide, even though it was clear that his government was being starved out of existence, unable to really accomplish any of his goals for lack of resources. He and his government had been marked for extinction.
January 11, 2004, the St. Paul Pioneer Press printed a column of mine, which Common Dreams still archives, and which speaks for itself here.
As time went on, it became more and more clear to me that the United States, in alliance with Canada and France, was out to get rid of Haiti’s elected leader and his entire Lavalas party. This ultimately happened late at night February 29, 2004.
A week before the coup was accomplished in Haiti, distinguished Knight-Ridder senior military correspondent Joseph L. Galloway wrote a column appropriately headlined “If U.S. returns to Haiti, get the job done“. Essentially he endorsed the 1915 U.S. “solution” for Haiti, in which the U.S. Marines began their occupation and control of the country for 19 years “Good men and true, and they took and pacified the entire country with a loss of only three Marines killed and 18 wounded” was the essence of his story. He appeared to support the Bush administrations decision to restore democracy by (effectively) destroying the existing democracy (which he referred to as a dictatorship – interesting how words can ‘sing’.)
Haitians of course have a different spin on the reality of those 19 years from 1915-34, and all the years before and after, including the coup d’etat of February 29, 2004, and its fore- and after-effects. But who cares about that? Old news…. Most recently, Aristide’s Lavalas has been denied standing as a political party in upcoming elections for supposedly technical reasons.
The 2004 coup did not bring peace and prosperity to Haiti. Less than a month after President Aristide was safely out of the country, Haiti disappeared as news in the U.S.
In May, 2006, Mr. Galloway and I had a brief e-mail correspondence about the current situation in Haiti. He had just retired from Knight-Ridder, and said, after defending his earlier comments, that “I’ve been going to America’s wars for 41 years…from Vietnam 1965 to Iraq January, 2006. I am not going to study war anymore. Instead, I shall study peace.”
About Haiti, he said “what I said and meant [in the February 22, 2004, column] was that if we went in again we should be prepared to stay and help rebuild a nation and educate a new generation of Haitians to a different kind of politics and governance than they have endured for centuries now…nobody seems willing to invest what is needed to make Haiti something other than a nation of poor people ruled by a very tiny oligarchy.”
Truth be told, U.S. troops scarcely touched Haitian soil during and after the 2004 coup. Nation-destruction was accomplished by U.S. Aid to anti-government de-stabilization folks, while the legitimate Haitian government was economically starved to death.
After the coup, the United Nations, through “Peace-keeping” forces, became and remains the U.S. surrogate in Haiti. It is far too early to tell what changes in direction will come from the Obama administration after eight years of a Bush foreign policy. I have heard that there is now an immense embassy in Haiti, an enduring symbol of American pre-eminence in that still desperately poor country.
I bring this up, now, since most recently Mr. Galloway has argued against U.S. continuing engagement in Afghanistan (here). He is now extolled as a hero of sorts on the Left.
I would like to believe that his motives are pristine and sincere, that he ‘beat his sword into a plowshare” and “won’t study war no more”, but like the Kalahari Bushman who found an empty Coke bottle in the desert, and couldn’t conceive of what in the world it could mean, I’m not sure where (or if) what he says and what he means intersect. I feel like the Bushman and that Coke bottle on the desert floor: “the gods must be crazy”*.
What I see, now, as the “gods” are the “chattering class” – talking heads of all ideological stripes – who are attempting to establish their own version of reality. Left, Right, makes no difference whatsoever.
For now, Mr. Galloway is my sample worthy of study. And he’s not coming across as very real. He is highly respected, deservedly so. I’m hoping that he truly had a conversion of heart in 2006. (I tried to meet him in person in D.C. in May, 2006, but it was a close call…didn’t happen. I’ll hope to get this writing to him where he now resides.)
Meanwhile, I stand by my comments in my blog post on December 1, 2009. The ice is thickening here….
* – Some video clips from the 1980 film “The gods must be crazy” are available on YouTube, for anyone interested.

#128 – Dick Bernard: Health Care Reform. Death by a thousand cuts?

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I have been following the Health Care Reform debate as carefully as any ordinary person reasonably can. I’ve written often about the topic in this space since about July 24 of this year (see the Index under categories.) There is a particular reason for this interest: when my first wife died of kidney disease at age 22 in 1965, we were basically uninsured, and without kindness of many local hospitals and doctors and, yes, public welfare, I would have begun my life as single parent of a year and a half year old son by going through bankruptcy. Ultimately the “crushing debt” of uninsured medical expenses was made manageable and my son and I could survive. (see July 26, 2009, post: Story #1).
Barbara’s two years of what turned out to be a terminal illness, and the time following for me, was not pleasant. One does not soon forget such a close call with catastrophe….
“As we speak”, through the magic of television, we are witnessing selective parts of the dirty business of making Law. Political Sausage Making has always been nasty business. Putting all of us within recliner-distance of somebody or other’s “spin” does not necessarily contribute to good policy. Just because the latest ad, or news conference, or talking head says it is so, doesn’t necessarily make it so. But we all make off-the-cuff, spur of our own moment, highly biased decisions on what we may know very little about. Hopefully there are adults somewhere, making some wise long-term decisions….
It seems consensus in the knowledgeable class (the medical community, for instance) that deep reform of Health Care is essential. This is not a “liberal” issue, and has not been a liberal issue for a long while. The status quo is an invitation to long-term disaster for people like ourselves.
As best as I can determine, when the 2009 Health Care Reform bill actually passes, however watered down it is, there will be, within it, a great number of positive, indeed essential, changes in public policy. They are found within those 2000+ pages that critics demand be read page by page (but which same people would never think of actually reading, much less trying to comprehend.)
The bill will squeak through with, likely, no Republican votes…or perhaps one or two. Whatever the Republican vote, it will be strictly a tactical one. We are guaranteed ten months of dishonest rhetoric that the bill is a disaster, the fault of Obama and the Democrats. There is everything, politically, to gain by defeat, or by enlisting outrage; ironically, outraged supporters have everything to lose from going back to the status quo that existed before the bills passage. but never mind that.
Too many people my age – the Medicare age – will lead the conservative charge against the evil of things like “public option”, forgetting what they take for granted – Medicare – our biggest “public option”, and forgetting that the same kind of sordid debate now happening took place when Medicare was passed in 1965. And forgetting that arguably the most efficient medical system America has devised, Veterans Administration Hospitals and Clinics, are entirely public. The critics of reform don’t want certain kinds of people – “those people” – to be publicly insured; or certain kinds of treatment available….
As a long-retired citizen, and union representative, I know that people like me are extremely vulnerable to the whims of private policy. We have excellent and affordable insurance – now. All it takes is a memo from somewhere to cancel what we have, or make it so expensive as to be unaffordable. This is not paranoia. The worst case examples are possible, and they can touch us quickly. That’s why strong government policy on public issues is essential.
Two particular examples (I have more) come to mind as I consider this issue:
1) Big Business, led by groups like U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the insurance industry and the profit sector generally, are the ones who have the truly big bucks to lobby against Reform. Their self interest is Profit, period. Ironically, their ‘base’ of support is the very people who will be most adversely affected by their whims and caprice. They are the ones who pay for those old and dishonest “Harry and Louise” and “crushing debt” ads. “Consumers” are, after all, the ones who generate “Profit”.
2) My supplementary insurance is through my wife’s company – she, too, is on Medicare. We have excellent insurance now. Recently the company has been urging people like us, and its active employees, to lobby against the Public Option. Less than a year ago, all of we retirees were summoned to an almost mandatory corporate meeting of retirees so we could be introduced to an array of – as I recall – 11 Private Options which we could elect if we wished. We stayed with the status quo, rather than deal with the vagaries of some new option which may be different than what we thought it was, or might turn out to be worse than what we had when we actually needed the insurance – an inevitability as one ages. Why lobby us about Private Options earlier this year, and lobby against Public Option now? The answer is pretty obvious to me.
Others with considerably less than the public interest at heart have their well-financed and finely tuned “oars” in the anti-reform and anti-public option “water” as well.
Caveat emptor. Keep the eye on the public interest.
Something will pass, likely soon. If it doesn’t, we will rue the day we celebrated failure.

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

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

Ed Wentzlaff, USS Arizona survivor, December 7, 2009

Ed Wentzlaff, USS Arizona survivor, December 7, 2009


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

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


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

#126 – Dick Bernard: Haiti, a look back, and forward

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Six years ago today – it was a Saturday in early afternoon – I first breathed Haitian tropical air, outside the airport at Port-au-Prince. For the next week, six of us were immersed in background sessions on Haitian policy and politics, present and past. By the time we left, on December 13, 2003, it was becoming quite obvious that the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide would soon fall. That happened February 29, 2004, in the middle of the night.
A couple of weeks after I arrived home I wrote my reflections on my experience in Port-au-Prince (here). I really wouldn’t change anything I said then, but my education about Haiti really didn’t begin until after those reflections had been written.
Rather than allowing the trip to be just an instant event, I decided to learn what I could about the geo-political relationship between Haiti and the United States. At first, it was simply curiosity; then it became interesting, then troubling.
My “college course” about Haiti and the United States began completely innocently, in January of 2004.
I had looked at the U.S. Department of State website, under Haiti, and noticed a brief news release announcing U.S. aid to Haiti – as I recall, it was for $50,000,000. I wrote a brief letter to the Haiti desk at the State Department just inquiring who in Haiti was getting that money. A couple of weeks later I got a surprise phone call at home…from the guy at the Haiti desk at State. He was polite, but I got no answer to my simple question.
Over the next two years I pursued that question about the $50,000,000. To this day I have received no dispositive answer. What became obvious, however, is that the funds were not intended to help Haiti, rather were designated to destabilize and ultimately remove the democratically elected government of the country. Even the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had its fingers in the drama of getting rid of Aristide and any vestiges of his Lavalas party. Some of the money, probably a lot, was part of the U.S. Department of Defense…no humanitarian focus in those days. (State referred me to USAID and DoD). The issue, quite certainly, was not democracy at all; it was power and control.
I don’t spend as much day-to-day time on Haiti these days as I did those first couple of years, though I continue to be very actively engaged in many ways. Haiti and Haitians are never far from my mind and heart. We travelled with Fonkoze in central Haiti in March, 2006, but since then most contact has been through people we have met or heard from. Some recent developments are actually quite positive and actually hopeful, it appears, including this recent story from Fonkoze; but on the other hand the U.S., France and their allies have dug a hole so deep for the Haitians, over Haiti’s entire (over 400 year) history, that it is hard to imagine any meaningful long-term progress, even when intentions are good. To be Haitian, in Haiti, is a continuing struggle. I’d rather have hope, than be hopeless.
Among the world’s 192 nations, Haiti remains among the most poverty stricken…a legacy of being almost literally a slave state, even though it has been a theoretically independent Republic since 1804.
In the process of my learning, I’ve become acquainted with a wide array of people and organizations which do great advocacy work such as the wonderful micro-finance organization Fonkoze; the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network; Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti; Sasha Kramer’s SOIL; Margaret Trost’s WhatIf? Foundation; Sopudep School; Partners in Health; Friends of the Orphans; Comprehensive Development Program; St. Joseph’s Home for Boys; Haiti Outreach; and on an on and on. For those who care about Haiti, there are people who care to become better acquainted with.
A couple of good books I’d recommend to get a sense of what was Haiti, and what actually happened in the 2004 coup, are Randall Robinson’s “An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President”, and “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment” by Peter Hallward.
Paul Farmers “Pathologies of Power”, and Margaret Trost’s “On That Day Everybody Ate” are also of interest.
Mesi to everyone who has contributed to my understanding of Haiti over the years. R.I.P. to Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste, Fr. Michael Graves and all of the many victims, physical and otherwise, of U.S. and allied United Nations misconduct over the many years of oppression.

#125 – Dick Bernard: Blessed Debt

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Several Comments follow this post. To comment, send an e-mail to me. My e-mail address can be found on the “About” page. Short comments preferred.
A year ago, October, 2008, I worried that the American financial system, and thus my modest nest egg, was in meltdown. I have a 401(k) from work career days, and it was plummeting in value. I decided to get the floor of its rapidly diminishing principal insured by the well-respected midwest company that had managed the fund since my retirement in 2000. I also decided to leave the remaining money where it was, with the same company managing it, with no change in the general investment strategy. (This company says it applied for TARP (bailout) money, but never actually had to take any of it.)
Mine was a small drama, doubtless played out in millions of ways by millions of people in the fall of 2008. We weren’t the big bad Wall Street firms, but our nest eggs were rapidly going up in smoke, due to virtually no government oversight, and lots of greed by big players far away.
When I pulled the plug, and bought the insurance policy on the floor of my asset a year ago, its value had plummeted by well over 30% in a single twelve month period.
Today, twelve months later, its value is almost exactly the same as it was two years ago. It’s value is 133% of what it was a year earlier, and I did nothing but leave it where it was.
I am very surprised. I certainly don’t expect a similar dramatic change in the next twelve months; at the same time, I am quite a bit more comfortable that there will not be another total meltdown either IF we have learned our collective lesson.
I expect tens of millions of people have similar stories. We are a very wealthy country, after all.
My experience, plus the endless yapping about the horrendous “crushing” National Debt, which supposedly prohibits government-financed things like Health Care Reform, has caused me to start to look at what I would call our National Wealth – our collective net worth as a country, and indeed, developed world.
There are, granted, huge numbers of people in our country, let alone in the third world, who are destitute. Our wealth has come on their backs.
But if one does even a cursory study of the collective wealth of ordinary people like me, and those who are truly wealthy, we are awash in almost unbelievable wealth, and our National Debt is a very small percentage of that Wealth. If you don’t believe this, reader, do a quick mental assessment of your own personal wealth: what you would have if you liquidated everything you have which has any net value, like real estate, savings, the value of a retirement account like a 401(k), etc. And include in the value, other assets which you have which you possess but are in somebody else’s control: Medicare, your retirement fund, Social Security.
As I say, many don’t have these assets in abundance, but tens of millions, including myself, do. And I would not be considered “wealthy”, not by any stretch of that word.
If those of us with money had any kind of collective will at all, we could eliminate the debt, and live on pay as you go, easily.
So, why don’t we just eliminate the debt?
Greed helps secure the status quo: what’s mine is mine, after all. And if I had a burst of altruism and cashed out my stash, contributing everything to reduce the National Debt, my relatives and neighbors would think, with some good reason, that I was crazy. Likely they wouldn’t bail me out of my stupidity.
This is a societal problem, not an individual one to be solved by one individual at a time.
I think there is another logical and sinister factor in play. For the truly big economic players, Debt is a Blessing. You can multiply your money by charging interest on loans. “Credit” is as good as money in the bank for the lender, even considering bad debts. Think “I owe my soul to the company store” in older days parlance*.
Christmas shopping? “CHARGE or cash?” is what you hear at the cash register Cash is an undesirable option. Build up that debt.
It is the ultimate paradox: the very same business and industry that is investing hundreds of millions in ad campaigns to rage against “crushing debt” and the follies of reform (for political advantage), are the same ones lusting for even more debt (for ever more profit).
Cha Ching.
PS: I don’t know precisely what our National Wealth is. Lots of numbers are thrown around. I’ve been looking into this, and I’ve seen figures ranging as high as 24 Trillion dollars (24,000 Billion). October 19 at this space I wrote about the National Debt, then being reported as about 1 1/2 Trillion dollars (1,400 Billion), and on October 21, about the awful prospect, as conveyed by the Chamber of Commerce, that Health Care Reform might cost 300 Billion dollars.
Health Care Reform, et al, is chump change….
* – from the song Sixteen Tons, Merle Travis, 1946
COMMENTS:
Peter Barus: Good thinking. Money is all debt, as you probably know. In the early days, at least in the “West,” it was invented by gold smiths. There is an article floating around out there about how money is created by writing loans, out of nothing. The Fed lends “money” to the banks in the form of “bonds” against – well, nothing at all, really, and the banks lend ten times that amount, and the banks they lend to add their multiplier, and so on, and poof! The economy is born.
So, you might consider expanding and elaborating on your idea about debt being a blessing for the rich. It is, in fact, all they’ve really got.
Here is a pithy remark that I think comes from Brazil: “When s-it becomes of value, the poor will be born without a-sholes.”
Bruce Fisher: The basis for our financial system is money. And do you remember how money is created? It is loaned into existence (http://www.chrismartenson.com/crash course). The national debt is both a liability and an asset. it is a liability that we owe ourselves. Our financial system needs debt to create wealth. The national debt is, as you’ve mentioned, a small percentage of our national wealth. We could use our wealth as leverage to wipe out poverty and all other social ills that foster fear and insecurity that promote cruelty, isolation, disconnection that end in war and killing. You’re right, we have significant national wealth but it should be used to wipe out social ills not the national debt.
Bob Barkley: I’m with you about this issue of debt. It’s an evil that will choke and gag us all before it’s over. And here’s a little piece I wrote earlier in 2009 about this matter of debt.
Debt is playing a huge role in both our international affairs and here at home. We have generated tremendous national debt in other countries, sometimes dishonestly, so as to increase their dependency on the U.S. as a way of filtering U.S. foreign aid dollars right back to huge U.S. corporations. It’s an orchestrate and deceitful method of subsidizing these countries. In fact, Bush’s infamous “coalition of the willing” was seemingly made up largely of such beholden countries.
And we have an internal debt problem as well. At the same time that we have made bankruptcy filing more difficult, we have escalated the number and types of ways that individuals can increase their debt. We have charge cards with exaggerated debt ceilings, huge interest rates, and a person can hold many cards. Then we have no-down-payment home purchases where all you’re buying is debt – not a home. Added to this we have all sorts of efforts to encourage extension mortgages. So guess what has happened? Families in increasing numbers have charged themselves to the max and have now gone to their last possible place to get cash – extended mortgages. Foreclosures are occurring at an alarming rate.
But now this house of cards has finally collapsed. It was inevitable, and unfortunately it was also necessary. The charade must end.
All of this has further expanded the gap between the haves (the “economic royalists” if you will) and have-nots on every conceivable level. Anyone who doesn’t think we have become a class society, both here and abroad, simply isn’t paying attention. Where are the religious folks on this one – the return of usury in every corner of our existence?
Jim Fuller: A very quick and partial reply: You, like almost everyone else, think the worst is over and there will not be another such meltdown. I beg to differ. The chances of another and more complete worldwide economic collapse is not only possible, it is probable, though I won’t guess as to timing.
The high-rolling banks have all but retired from what used to be their primary business – lending to individuals and businesses. They aren’t doing it, and despite all the crap they’ve told government, they have no intention of doing it. Since the wall between commercial banking and investment houses was torn down by Bill Clinton, they have grown steadily away from what we think of as traditional banking. Playing the markets is their primary game now, and almost their sole source of wealth.
And they are again playing dangerous, extremely high-risk money games. There already have been several “instruments” invented to replace the phony mortgage packages, and the big boys are batting them around like crazy. And, inevitably, those, too, will collapse at some point because there is no underpinning of items with actual value. Government is doing no more now than it did before to stop these games.
And the next collapse must be more complete than the last one; governments won’t have the cash this time to do the massive bailouts that would be required. The assets, including taxable people, simply no longer are there.
Dick Bernard, to Jim: I, too, am a pessimist about the future. If I’m lucky, I won’t bear the consequences my grandkids will. I’m writing about the present debate. My 7-year old granddaughter, whose birthday party I’ll be attending this afternoon, will not see the promising future I could look forward to at her age, in 1947 – unless we as a society wake up really quickly.
Re Bill Clinton’s culpability, fair enough, but it might be helpful to point out that the 1999 law to which you likely refer had to be promoted and passed by the Republican House and Senate of the time. Some Republican Senator from Texas comes to mind…. Sen. Phil Gramm, wasn’t it?

#124 – Dick Bernard: The Ice on the Pond

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In a couple of hours President Obama will deliver an important address on Afghanistan at The U.S. Military Academy at West Point NY. As is usual with these kinds of addresses, every body on every side knows everything about what is going to be said tonight, and is already, and will continue, to interpret what the address means from their viewpoint.
“The White House” knows this going in, and also knows essentially what the basically quiet “American people” are waiting to hear, and also what its long term objective is, and the President will deliver a carefully crafted and coherent message. In fact, the site of the speech, West Point, is part of the essential message: “we support our brave men and women who serve our country”. And it will be a genuine message.
I’ll watch the speech, and I’m interested in the words, but, truth be told, I’m far more interested in what is not so visible, in fact, what is not visible at all to most of us. It is what is below “the ice on the pond”.
In my neck of the woods, I have just begun to see the first ice forming on the ponds on my walking route. At this moment, it is still coming and going – the temperature has not been reliably below freezing*. Likely, permanent winter ice will happen soon and remain until sometime late in April, 2010. For about five months, we will not see water, other than the frozen shell which hides it.
Most of we citizens engage in a frustrating exercise of only watching the political “ice” from the shore. That is all we do (or are allowed to do). Only certain people are allowed out on that ice, to drill holes to ascertain how thick the ice is, etc. These people are political and media insiders, all with agendas of their own; often competing agendas. They shout out competing stories of what they see below the ice.
We spectators on the shore can see the ice. But we know little else, other than what we are told.
From my perspective, there is a lot of positive stuff going on below the apparently thickening of the ice in the war in Afghanistan (and in other arenas as well). The Obama administration is about making positive change.
Contrary to most of what I hear, I feel there are fresh ideas – fresh water – circulating under the visible ice. Every now and then little pieces of evidence surface, but I can sense that a change in direction is happening, slowly but surely.
I’ll listen to the Presidents words an hour or so from now. But mostly I’ll be watching for the usually subtle and quiet messages in the much longer term.
Positive change is happening. It just isn’t happening as fast as we would like. I’ll do what I can to help direct that change. That’s all I can do.
* – And speaking of change: I had a rule of thumb for years, here, that the first permanent snow of winter came in Thanksgiving week. This November, for the first time in memory, there was no measurable snow in this metropolitan area for the entire month. Evidence of climate change, or just nice fall weather?

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

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

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

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

#115 – Dick Bernard: Learning about South Asia from a South Asian….

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Last week I was invited to one of those events that have hard and fast ground rules.  In this one, a prominent speaker speaks; the condition the listeners are asked to accept is to not breach confidentiality.  In some senses it is a very reasonable rule: a person would like some reasonable chance to be somewhat open and honest without inordinate concern of being misquoted, or quoted at all for that matter.  For the individuals privy to the information, the time can be very well spent.  Such sessions help to inform ones opinion.  These happen all the time, everywhere.
The downside is pretty obvious: only a tiny few have the opportunity to hear the insights.  At this particular gathering I was one of 22 enjoying a country club breakfast and informed comment.   (Five were women.)
Our speaker was eminently qualified: formerly (and at separate times) a very high military, and also an elected, official in his major south Asian country.  He was very well informed about south Asia, and very interesting as well.  But I’m not about to violate the rules, and tell you what his opinion was, or even what the questions were, save for the one I asked.
The questions were thoughtful, as were the answers.  In the eternal chess game that is international geopolitics there is never a black and white situation.  Behind the rhetoric is a never easy reality.
I had an opportunity to ask my question, and since it’s my question, I can bring it up, here, and then answer it myself without betraying the speakers response….
I observed that a recent poll – “our peculiar way of doing referendums on public opinion” – suggested that a distressingly large percentage of Americans, regardless of party preference, seem okay with bombing Iran.  What did our speaker think of that, I asked.  He addressed the question very well, but, as I say, I won’t tell you what his answer was.
But I can tell you what my answer – my reason for asking the question – is.
South Asia is a pretty big piece of geography.  The big countries are Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.  There are several smaller entities, and of course Russia and China are generally in the neighborhood as well.
When I got home I checked my trusty almanac.  Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan together have about one-third the land area, and one-third the population of the United States.  Toss Pakistan and India into the kettle and you’re up to a U.S. size territory with four times our population.
And here we sit at home, saying “bomb, bomb Iran” when we couldn’t manage our splendid little war in the smallest of the three “hot” countries listed above.  It’s as if we look on war as some video game; that somebody out in Fargo can bomb, bomb Afghanistan with a drone, and get the bad guys to wise up and come out of their caves with their hands up.  It worked for the John Wayne crowd….
Collectively we seem not to have a clue.
I thought my time was very well spent at the session.  I only wish everybody would have the chance.  One of the big problems in our society is that there is an anointed group of “big boys” (they’re usually still boys) who play the global chess.  They are upstream from the folks I was sitting with last week, but they, too, discuss and debate theories and ideas and gain perspective.  The lucky citizen elects leaders who’ll be willing to listen; the unlucky elects leaders who only tell.  We’ve had both types in recent years.  There is a big difference.
At about the same time I was having my coffee and eggs, reports were on about President Obama saluting the caskets of the fallen as they came back from Afghanistan, and Secretary of State Clinton having frank conversations in Pakistan with journalists and students and the government.  I thought both Obama and Clinton were class acts.
To the bombs and bullets crowd, Obama and Clinton are wimpy; to the peace types, they’re war mongers.
We take what we can, and work for better.
Thank you, source who cannot be named, for the invitation!  And thanks, too, speaker who is anonymous.   You did a great job!

#114 – Dick Bernard: Iraq revisited October, 2009

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“Iraq” is one of those words-never-uttered-in-polite-conversation these days.  Even in the protest community, out-of-Afghanistan is more in as the issue du jour.
Iraq does come up, but only indirectly, and not by name: there is worry about our horrible national debt…but not much focus on where much of that national debt came from: almost a trillion dollars in off-the-budget money spent on our now eight year “War on a Word” (See #mce_temp_url#).   To focus on that would be bad form…we must look forward, one would protest.
Ho-hum or not, we went, last night, to hear Sami Rasouli and his son,Tariq, talk about Iraq.  Sami is well known in my area; I know Sami, though not well.  He’s Iraqi, left Najaf for the broader world back in 1976; ultimately settling in the U.S. in 1986.  He became a successful restaurateur here, an American in all the conventional ways.
2003 was the time of the shift in attitude for Sami.  He went back to Iraq for a family matter, intending to stay only a short time.  His visits lengthened; he sold his restaurant; he committed what life he has left to rehabilitation of Iraq and relationships between Iraqis and the U.S. which has essentially destroyed their country.  On his most recent trip, now ending, he brought 15 Iraqis to see in person his part of the U.S.  The city of Minneapolis has recently become a sister city of his hometown, Najaf.  He founded a group called the Muslim Peacemaker Team, modelled on and assisted by Christian Peacemaker Team.  His internet place is #mce_temp_url#.  Do visit.

Sami Rasouli October 27, 2009

Sami Rasouli October 27, 2009


Last night, his 20 year old son, Tariq, spoke first.  Sami said, later, that he never thought that Tariq would even have an interest in going to Iraq, a country he had no direct relationship with – much like a person of German ancestry has no direct relationship with Germany.
Nonetheless, Tariq went to Iraq.  About the first thing he said was this: “Iraq is a third world country because of the U.S.”  It’s a rather jarring indictment, but true.   From an historical seat of civilization in the Middle East, Iraq has joined the Third World…and we did it to them, and would rather not notice….  Even during the worst times of Saddam, times were far better than now or the past several years of war.
Tariq showed a few minutes of video that he took in Iraq, the seeds of a documentary, then his Dad took the podium.  I’ve heard Sami speak before.  He spoke with conviction and passion.  He is well informed.
There have been immense casualties of war in Iraq; the 1991 Gulf War and the current nearly 8 year conflagration have essentially destroyed the country.  There is a website that attempts, diligently, to track the body count.  It is #mce_temp_url#.  It tracks only violent civilian deaths since 2003.  In all, since 1991, it is estimated that well over 1,000,000 Iraqis have died from the cumulative effects of the assorted wars and sanctions against Iraq by the U.S. and its supposed “coalition of the willing”.
But the disaster is much, much greater:  depleted uranium, from weapons of war, kills quietly and persistently and will continue to kill on into the far distant future, even if not used directly.  It is in the sandstorms, and in the water, and in the vegetables….
Potable water is in short supply, leading to epidemics of diseases like hepatitis, and premature death of children; electricity is scarce.  What was the middle class has largely left, and slow to return.
Sami talked about the three wars that have cemented Iraqi ideas about Americans like you and I.  I have mentioned two.  The first Iraqi image of America was, he said, “John Wayne movies”.  We are a society that celebrates and exports violent images.
He said something else well worth pondering: in his view, 5% of the population are inclined to peacemaking; 5% endorse the war philosophy; the other 90% tend to gravitate towards whoever has the power.  I believe he’s generally correct in his assessment.
The inclination is to follow the War crowd – the one’s who were in charge.  The consequence of our forever-wars is certain for humanity, and it is not for our good, whether we temporarily “win” or not.  We are paying the price now; we are only beginning to pay the total bill – that’s for our grandchildren (we seem to say).
It’s a tough struggle to commit to peace, but only we can do it….
For a rather stark comparison of what we spend on War as opposed to what this money could be used for, check out the downloadable postcards at #mce_temp_url#
Iraqi Art October 2009

Iraqi Art October 2009


PS:  A striking comment I remember hearing a number of years ago was via a person who was selling Iraqi art, a sample of which is above.  A visitor was admiring the work and said, “I didn’t know that Iraqis did art”, as if they were somewhat less than regular people.