#113 – Dick Bernard: Being a face of hope

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Thursday we attended a luncheon for a group, Friends of the Orphans #mce_temp_url# .  The Town and Country Club in St. Paul was packed with persons, there to learn about helping bring hope to orphans in Haiti, Central and South America.
Our guest speaker was Fr. Rick Frechette of the Passionist Mission in Haiti.  Fr. Rick is one of those legendary folks who have walked the talk of ministry to the least among us for many years.  He has been a Catholic Priest for 30 years; most of those years he’s ministered to orphans, first in Central America; since 1987 he’s worked with and among the poor in desperately poor Haiti.

Fr. Rick Frechette, St. Paul, October 23, 2009

Fr. Rick Frechette, St. Paul, October 23, 2009


Fr. Frechette’s website is #mce_temp_url#.  At the website, he has a blog entitled Rainbows at Midnight (go to “Reflections” page; access to this blog is at the bottom of the page).  Do take a look.  There are 19 essays there; some powerful writing about the sacred among the tragic circumstances he sees every day in the slums of Port-au-Prince.
There were many lessons in the day, some for us as people with our own causes.  Without question we’ll contribute some $’s to this worthy cause…largely because we were asked to contribute.  There is power in the act of asking for something, particularly since there are endless appeals for this or that.  The face-to-face was important too.  The business of selling in the intensively competitive arena of justice is not an easy one.  Those “marketing” justice need to keep this in mind.
Also, because we were asked, we’ll do what we can to make others – people like you – aware of this fine program.
I do have a standing hope for all of the other assorted good causes I see out there: that they consciously and deliberately try to figure out ways to collaborate and work together.  In the ideal world, society would work together to alleviate the conditions that make Friends of the Orphans and similar programs essential both in the United States and in the World.
Living in an imperfect world, we need to engage and help as we can, and at the very least help those who are actively “on the court” do what they can do.  We need cooperation more than we need competition.
So, thanks, Hugh, for inviting us.  And thanks, Fr. Rick, for the inspiration of your commitment and your example.
We knew noon on October 23 would be a very worthwhile time spent.  It was more worthwhile than we had thought it would be.
As the mantra hopefully will continue to go: “together, we can!”
Postscript:  So long as we’re on Haiti, Margaret Trost of WhatIf? Foundation, the meals program at Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste’s Ste. Claire parish in Port-au-Prince, will be making several appearance in Northfield MN November 14-16, and will speak at both Sunday Masses at Minneapolis St. Joan of Arc on Sunday, Nov. 15.  Margaret has committed her life to changing the conditions of hunger in a desperately poor part of Haiti.  Her book on her program is “On that day everybody ate”.

#111 – Loren Halvorson: From Hidden Roots: The Genesis of Social Regeneration

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UPDATE February 18, 2010: R.I.P. Loren Halverson. Loren passed away February 15, 2010 at 82. Obituary and funeral arrangements.
Moderator:  This is a first for this blog – a book, online.  163 pages, eight chapters.  Do take a stroll through the chapters, in two parts, at the following web addresses:  #mce_temp_url# and #mce_temp_url#.  The book appears here with author Loren Halvorsons permission.  It is Lorens gift to humanity.  I ask that you consider sharing this book with others who you feel may value reading it.
I’ve known and respected Loren for the past eleven years.  I met him during a powerful three and one half day workshop* which I found very meaningful and life altering, and he, a fellow participant and senior to me, was one of many participants who inspired me to grow beyond my own status quo.
Out of the blue last Sunday came an e-mail from Loren.  I asked, and he gave, permission for me to pass along the contents of the e-mail.
“[Y]our note…came at a strange, or rather special moment in my life when I am undergoing radiation treatment for prostrate cancer that has been under control for ten years but now is spreading rapidly.  Ruth and I have decided to transform whatever time we have left from dread to delight by inviting long time friends and family to “third cups of tea”.  Already it has been a magnificent experience suggesting that life lurks in death, something I had formulated academically but not understood existentially until now.
I am also using this time to deposit courses I taught at Luther Seminary for thirty-two years in places where it might take root and produce fruits beyond anything I might have imagined.  Your note reminded that you might be just such a depository!  fortunately modern tools make this possible. A friend at the seminary (one of several Roman Catholic faculty we now have) has put things on line for me.  One is a course I taught the last ten years on base communities which arose not only out of my own field of ethics and society but out of years of living in an intentional community, the ARC.  [That material is at the referenced websites above.]”
Loren references “the ARC”.  ARC (Action, Reflection, Celebration) Retreat Center is  a wonderful place north of the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul #mce_temp_url#.  The dream of Ruth and Loren, ARC opened its doors in 1978.  I was privileged to participate in a retreat there in 2005.
As I write, I remember the summer of 1998 when Loren and I were in the workshop together.  During that year, Mitch Albom’s book “Tuesday’s with Morrie” was a run-away best seller.  I purchased the book as a gift for our instructor, and she deeply appreciated the gift.
It occurs to me that at the time I met Loren, he had not yet begun his walk with cancer; now, 11 years later, he is offering to others the same gift Morrie Schwartz offered to Mitch Albom.
I also remember a particular place that captured me at Loren and Ruth’s ARC Retreat Center in May, 2005.  It was a simple bridge across a creek, and it was for me a metaphor for life itself.
I’ll think of that bridge as Loren takes what he feels is his final walk through life.  He’s given a great gift, and he wants to share it with you, and you to share it with others.
Thanks, Loren.  And Peace.

The Bridge at ARC Retreat Center, May 21, 2005

The Bridge at ARC Retreat Center, May 21, 2005


Another view....

Another view....

#110 – Dick Bernard: $300,000,000,000

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For the last couple of weeks I’ve been subjected to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 30-second ad that solemnly (and scaringly) intones (and helpfully prints on the screen) that Health Care Reform will mean $300 billion in new health care taxes.
Oh, it’s so good to have a consumer advocate in the good ole C of C, just watching out for the little folks like you and me.
I have no means to assess whether or not the $300 billion ($1,000 per American) is accurate, or what “helpful” (to viewers) information that it leaves out, but my guess is that the $300 billion is not the extravagant expense the Chamber proclaims it to be.  The $300 billion, will, after all is said and done, be spent for goods and services…produced and provided by U.S. Chamber of Commerce companies.  No, that’s not the issue(s)
I think that the ad is on there for a major reason: The Chamber is terrorized by the possibility of competition which may cut into the far more than $300 billion which will be realized if the government is kept at bay.  “Get rid of the $300 billion, so we can rake in $400 billion from the rubes” might be a more accurate rendition.
The Chamber is also terrified of the possibility of government regulation – regulation by the people who are its customers.  Regulation is for other folks, not “free enterprise”.  Free Enterprise, after all, can regulate itself (note the Wall Street collapse, et al.)
So, the Chamber shamelessly enlists its victims to lobby in its behalf, asking us to reject $3 in favor of, say, $4.
It’s the good old “American Way”: there’s truly a sucker born every minute.
Want to see the ad?  Here’s the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website. #mce_temp_url# It’s right there, plus lots more.  (it’s in the health care section at the bottom of the page.)  You’re looking at the association of the biggest and most powerful businesses in the country.  (The local Junior Chamber of Commerces are another entity, not quite as rapacious, in my view.)
UPDATE: October 22, 2009
Joyce helpfully pointed out two websites that “fact check” such things as political advertising (which the Chamber of Commerce item is).  They are politfact.com/truth-o-meter and factcheck.org.  Go to the website, and you should be able to easily search references to the Chamber of Commerce and find information about the specific ad, which began to run this past summer.
The “facts” at these sites about the ad in question would not cause me to change any of the content in my post (above).  The intention of the ad is to mislead and ultimately convince the ordinary consumer of the ad to work for the cause of those who are far wealthier than the vast majority of Americans, and thus far more able to help fund the cost of Health Care Reform.  This is not an unusual strategy of the wealthy: they are numerically inferior, but have much more money at their disposal to influence others.
Harold Meyerson, in a column I noted in this mornings Minneapolis Star-Tribune, originally written for the Washington Post, makes essentially the same points I do, at least in my opinion #mce_temp_url#

#108 – Dick Bernard: August Wilson's Radio Golf

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Last night a friend invited us to attend a performance of August Wilson’s last play, Radio Golf, at St. Paul’s Penumbra Theatre #mce_temp_url#.  I have been an off and on patron of Penumbra since 1985, and with Radio Golf have now seen eight of the ten plays of acclaimed playwright August Wilson’s “20th Century Cycle”.  (The ten plays are listed at the end of this post.  Mr. Wilson, who passed away six months after the premiere of Radio Golf in 2005, earned international acclaim, including, among numerous awards, two Pulitzer Prizes.  He considered Penumbra his “home” theatre – where his writing was encouraged and his work was first performed in 1977.  He was born and grew up in Pittsburgh PA.)
Radio Golf has its final performances this coming weekend.  It is well worth the nearly three hours of intense (and sometimes humorous) performance by the stellar cast of four men and one woman.
Wilson’s 20th century cycle traces the African-American experience in the U.S., decade by decade.
Radio Golf takes on the 1990s.  The plays title makes a whole lot of sense once the play is experienced in person.
Radio Golf is set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, where August Wilson grew up.
Boiled to its essence, I saw Wilson portraying the tensions within the African-American community as a traditional sense of community competes with the contemporary American view of money and its ability to both control and corrupt.  The unlikely heroes and villains are all African-American.  At issue is Big Money coming in to redevelop a poor neighborhood.  Money interests trump Community interests.
The plays focus becomes a ramshackle, abandoned, house which we never see, but which comes alive as somebody’s home.
In this play, in my view, Community (with a capital C) is winning as the play ends.  The power structure has all the weapons and the means to do what it wants, but when all is said and done, a unified community puts the big-shots in their place.  The play ends without revealing a final resolution, and one hopes that the community can keep its focus.
I went to the play knowing nothing about what I was going to see.
For me, Radio Golf came alive in a unique way, since in April, 1998, my daughter and I were given a priceless tour of August Wilson’s growing up neighborhood in the Hill District of Pittsburgh.  Our guide for several hours was his sister Freda, and what a wonderful guide she was.
We saw, and indeed went inside, the tiny, empty and deteriorating flat where August Wilson grew up; the restaurant where he did his first serious writing (he loved to write in restaurants); and all of the neighborhood places and many people familiar to him, many of which appear as characters in his work.  Never in my wildest dreams back then would I have realized that eleven years later I would see his 1990s view of his home neighborhood and its future in Radio Golf.
I have many photos of those several hours in The Hill District in 1998, and reams more of memories of what we saw.  Below are a couple of the photos.
See Radio Golf if you can; it helps bring a small amount of hope in a hopeless time.

August Wilson boyhood home was in building at right in the photo, 1727 Bedford Avenue. Entrance was from back side of the building. Note in background the skyline of downtown Pittsburgh, a few blocks down the hill.

August Wilson boyhood home was in building at right in the photo, 1727 Bedford Avenue. Entrance was from back side of the building. Note in background the skyline of downtown Pittsburgh, a few blocks down the hill.


Eddie's Restaurant where August Wilson began his writing career. Dick Bernard, April, 1998

Eddie's Restaurant where August Wilson began his writing career. Dick Bernard, April, 1998


August Wilson’s 20th Century Cycle
1900s – Gem of the Ocean
1910s – Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
1920s – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
1930s – The Piano Lesson (Pulitzer prize 1990)
1940s – Seven Guitars
1950s – Fences (Pulitzer Prize 1987)
1960s – Two Trains Running
1970s – Jitney
1980s – King Hedley II
1990s – Radio Golf
(1727 Bedford Avenue is at #mce_temp_url#)
UPDATE October 18, 2009 4:10 p.m.
I used the miracle of mapquest and whitepages to nose around pieces of August Wilson’s neighborhood which I remember from 1998.  The aerial photo of the neighborhood reveals at least the possibility that the flat in which he grew up may still exist; Eddie’s is no longer listed as a business; it appears that his school across from the Mellon Center downtown has been taken down, and in general the area looks redeveloped.  One can celebrate or lament what some would see as progress; others as destruction.  Perhaps there is an element of both….

#107 – Dick Bernard: Abortion

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Almost 45 years ago – it was March, 1965 – my wife and I, and her doctor, were worried that she was pregnant with our second child.
This was not a selfish worry.  Barbara had very serious kidney disease, and it was getting worse and worse.  Pregnancy would kill her and, of course, the fetus.
It turned out she wasn’t pregnant.  Four months later she died waiting for a kidney transplant at a major University teaching Hospital.  Her end of life meant major surgeries and isolation and intensive care for the last two months she was alive.  We were a charity case.
But if she had been pregnant in March, 1965, there would have been the issue of terminating a pregnancy.  We were Catholics; the hospital was a Catholic hospital; I think the Doctor was Catholic.  Likely we would have had to look at other options, and then have to live with the guilt of, as anti-‘baby-killers’ like to say, killing an innocent unborn human life.

Barbara and Dick, sponsors at a Baptism, March, 1965

Barbara and Dick, sponsors at a Baptism, March, 1965

I think of our two years of health hell every time the debate over abortion, over “choice”, heats up.  It never ends, and I despair that it will ever be resolved.  The cement in which zealots feet are firmly planted hardens.  There is no room for dialogue.  Theirs is, they say, the “objective truth”.
I am terminally pro-choice, largely because of personal experience.  Pro-lifers would not have nice things to say about me, even though I am, in all the important ways, as, if not more, pro-life than they are.
Now one of the issues made to be in Health Care Reform is an absolute prohibition on funding for abortion.  It is a ‘kill the bill’ position.  It is dishonest, and it is insane.  Some would add birth control, sex ed, personal conscience, et al to the list.
There is less likelihood that Law will end Abortion, than there was that Prohibition would end Booze.  Still, the pious outrage continues.
Abortion is called death of an innocent human being, but to my knowledge, there has not yet been a single legislature courageous enough to pass a bill making abortion murder, with penalties for the person having the abortion.  After years of intense heat but little light, there is no “life in prison without parole” for having an abortion.  (Occasionally there may have been some legislators who actually introduced such bills.  If so, I’d like to see the evidence.)
I remain Catholic.  Barbara passed on 44 years ago.
People, doubtless caring and of good will, rail against women’s right to choose without caring to understand the dilemmas of a lack of a right to choose.
It is a (too many would say) a ‘divinely divisive’ political issue, and, apparently, a good ticket to heaven….
I’m in pretty solid company, I feel, including amongst practicing Catholics.  Most would agree with me that a woman should have the right to choose.  There is not now, nor will there ever be, an effective law or penalty against abortion or family planning because such a law would be fatally flawed, and the view is shared by only a minority of Americans.
Still, ‘life’ remains a potent political issue, and only by shining the spotlight on it will the other side of it ever be examined.
This is an attempt to shine such a light.
Postscript:  Barbara and my personal story is here.
UPDATE October 16, 2009
Two days after the above post I saw a commentary which seems to fit the general topic in an appropriate way.  Perhaps is still accessible here.

#105 – Dick Bernard: The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

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The Nobel Institute website: #mce_temp_url#
Twenty-four hours ago, President Barack Obama was awakened to hear an announcement that caught him by surprise: he had just been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
It did not surprise me to learn that Obama’s enemies on the radical right were up in arms about his receiving the honor.  It did surprise me that many leaders in the far left were similarly critical, though for a very different reason.  (Their general mantra: he hasn’t done enough, he better do more, or else….).
Are we all going crazy, when such a huge honor is made into a political liability, almost an albatross, by both ideological “wings”?
Only the Committee knows why Mr. Obama made the cut.  My candidate for “ground zero” in the Nobel Committee’s profound respect for the President’s accomplishments, and the radical right wings revulsion towards his award, goes back to a phrase in a speech he gave in Berlin, Germany, in July, 2008.
In that speech, Obama began with this: “…I come to speak not as a candidate but as a citizen; a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.”  In a single phrase, he tore down the wall of American exceptionalism; and by his subsequent actions, he has begun to “walk the talk”, and it shows in the profound change in how the United States is viewed by other citizens in other countries.
He spoke this risk-laden phrase during his run for the U.S. presidency, before he was officially nominated as the Democrats candidate, before the U.S. economy officially collapsed (September, 2008), and at what turned out to be the bitter end of the dangerous dreams of the right wings Project for a New American Century, whose belief was, effectively, that the U.S. ran the world, and was not part of it.  It was politically risky for him to utter that phrase at that time in his campaign.
So, long before nominations were closed in February, 2009, Barack Obama had, thankfully, dramatically changed the national and international conversation.  Whatever comes after is simply an addition to a huge accomplishment made even before he was elected in November, 2008.
Does the President deserve the Award?  Absolutely.  Today’s first “Letter of the Day” in the Minneapolis Star Tribune said it as well as any will say it: “The Nobel Peace Prize committee recognized that President Obama is changing America from world hegemonist to world citizen.”  Jim Stattmiller
I am particularly aware of then-candidate Obama’s speech in Berlin because I am on the Board of two organizations, one founded in 1982 by my friend Lynn Elling; and the second co-founded by Lynn in 1995.  The first organization is and has always been called “World Citizen”; the second is the Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg College in Minneapolis.
World Citizen’s focus is on peace sites, peace poles and peace education.  One would think that such a focus would be non-controversial, but not in the “America first, and only” of the neo-con years of George W. Bush, and the earlier ascendancy of the radical right-wing in this country.
World Citizen became a suspected and (in some people’s minds) almost subversive organization, to the extent that last summer we had to write a specific faq for our website to counter the right-wingers who railed against what we were and are trying to accomplish for teachers and school children.  We have no secrets.  Look first at faq #13, the last one, and then wander anywhere at the website for more information about what we do #mce_temp_url#
At the World Citizen site is a section about the aforementioned Nobel Peace Prize Festival, which has from the beginning been a sanctioned activity of the Nobel Institute in Oslo.
The Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg is specifically for school children.  Each year, the Laureate for the previous year is invited to attend.  Often they do.  President Obama is now on the queue for invitation for the 2011 Festival.
This past March our guest was Prof. Richard Alley of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) #mce_temp_url#, which co-won, with Al Gore, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.  Three videos of the last March event are at #mce_temp_url#.  One is of Alley’s entrancing talk to a gymnasium full of school kids.  The Director of the Nobel Institute attended and spoke at this event.
This coming March, our guest will be Martti Ahtissari, the 2008 Laureate.  He has apparently already confirmed his attendance at the March 5, 2010, Festival.  (Commercial announcement: please let school personnel and parents know about this event.)
March of 2008, the 2006 Laureate, Muhammad Yunus, joined us.  In 2006, the 2004 Laureate Wangari Maathai came, but ended up marooned in a Minneapolis hotel room because the event was cancelled due to a snow storm.  And in 2004, the 2002 Laureate, Jimmy Carter, spent several hours with school children here.
Next week, our committee meets to begin planning for the March 5, 2010 event.  I’m pretty sure the topic of President Obama will come up.  As stated, he’ll be the invitee to the 2011 Peace Prize Forum and Festival.
Congratulations, President Obama.
Postnote:  In posts #35 and 36, June 5 and 6, 2009, I comment about President Obama’s speech in Cairo, and its implications.  Simply go to the calendar at right, back to June, and click on the dates.

#104 – Dick Bernard: Health Care Reform. Lurching to a finish line.

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UPDATE OCTOBER 13, 2009:  It is my understanding that yesterday the insurance industry rolled out its really big guns and demanded that Health Care Reform legislation require everyone to buy insurance (thus further enriching the insurance companies which are a big part of the problem to begin with.  This shameless move is presumably motivated by a need – expressed by Wall Street – for even more profits at public (our) expense.  The “rest of the story”, revealed by the authors of the “research”, was that the industry left out crucial information in its release to Congress and the public that refuted its propaganda….
Original, October 9, 2009: At some point, probably sooner than later, the issue of Health Care Reform will finally come to a final vote in the U.S. House and Senate, and the resulting legislation sent to the President for his signature or veto.  All that remains is the exact wording after endless information (and an immense amount of misinformation) dispensed over the last many months.
The legislation we will see will be a significant improvement over what currently exists, but will fall far short of where we should be.  The new bill will probably protect the interests of those who don’t really have our interests at heart, specifically the insurance and for profit-medical sectors, but that will be the best that can be done, for now.
The ultimate goal of the minority political party, I have become convinced, is to pass as bad (for we citizens) a bill as possible so that the majority political party can be blamed for the results, and the President forced to either sign that bill or veto it, and then, however he decides, he and the majority party will be blamed for the less-than-perfect results in the 2010 elections.
Perversely, the ultimate legislative objective for some is failure for “we, the people”: failure which can then be politically exploited.  Intentionally defective public policy makes for great politics…and it’s very good for big business.
Unfortunately, “we, the people”, will get what many of us lobbied for (and against), when we railed against true reform because it was “socialism”**, or worried that it would benefit “illegals”, or would assure abortions*** paid on demand, and on and on and on – based on endless pieces of misinformation (lies) passed on to us from those whose motivation was considerably less than pure.
We will get what we deserve.  One can hope we’ll learn from our mistake, but that is not terribly likely.  “We the people” would rather exclude certain others, than include all.
I have followed this health care reform “debate” very carefully for many months now, and written about it frequently in this blog (beginning with July 24, 2009).  My personal story, from 1963-65, is at #mce_temp_url# (see #1).
Perhaps the best summary comment I’ve seen on the reality of the need for universal health insurance was published in the New York Times on October 4, in Roger Cohen’s column “The Public Imperative”.
In his column, Cohen said this: “I’m grateful to the wise Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic for pointing out that Friedrich Hayek, whose suspicion of the state was visceral, had this to say in [his book] “The Road to Serfdom”.
“Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the states helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.”
Hayek accepted and endorsed the notion of nationalized health care….
Andrew Sullivan is not a “liberal”.  Friedrich Hayek* most certainly wasn’t.  Hayek is almost a deity among conservative libertarians.
I read the 50th anniversary edition of “Road to Serfdom” six years ago.  Conservative economist (and apparent Hayek disciple) Milton Friedman wrote the introduction to the book.  I had been steered to Hayek’s book by an avowed neo-con friend, got it, and read the volume cover to cover.  As I told my friend, later, Hayek said many things I, as a liberal, could generally agree with.  I high-lited 52 specific sections of Hayek’s reasoning that intrigued me, an anti-war liberal.    (One of the 52 was the above quotation.)  The conversation with my neo-con friend ended….
So, now we’re at the brink of passing as defective a Health Care Reform bill as possible so that it can be used as an election issue in the coming year.  That is how public policy has come to be debated in this country.  As I say,we deserve what we get.
As for me, there’s plenty of reasons why I could say it’s a waste of my time to care much about this issue:  personally, we have excellent health and pharmaceutical insurance (at least at the moment), for ten years we’ve had the best long-term care insurance available (so we’re told), we have the correct cards (Medicare and Medicare supplement) so that we’re not turned away at the door of a clinic or a hospital.  And free flu shots….
On that latter point, I got my flu shot last week.  There was, indeed, no charge.
But how about that illegal who is capable of receiving and communicating that disease which we are all fearing this season?  What about him or her?  In our infinite wisdom, some of us don’t want that illegal to get that flu shot, or even try, or take the precautions necessary to stay well.  “Send them back where they came from” comes the chorus.  But not even that will protect us in this global society of ours.  By choosing who qualifies for health, we’re putting ourselves at risk.
Wherever you are in this debate, think this issue through, and do something constructive.  The key word is constructive.  Refuse to accept the lies about death panels, or getting rid of or damaging Medicare (which is a “socialist” program, by the way), or that reform will trigger a wholesale rush to abortions #mce_temp_url#, or on and on and on….  Health Care Reform is about the future of our society.
Everybody should be covered, automatically, no questions asked.
* * * * *
* Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian who spent most of his adult life in England, wrote “Road to Serfdom” in 1944, during, but nearing the the end of, WWII.  He seems to have been railing primarily against the evils of National Socialism (Nazis) and to a lesser degree Communists, so it is of little surprise to me that currently an attempt is made to tar people like me, as well as Democrats and President Obama, as Nazis, Communists, fascists, allies of Hitler and Stalin, and to tar the concept of “socialism” with the same broad brush….
Ironically, contemporary American Capitalism, in which big business dominates government policy (the Military-Industrial (and Congressional) complex that President Eisenhower so feared as he left office in January 1961 #mce_temp_url#, see section IV ) seems about as close to a parallel of WWII era German and Soviet Union government-business-industry alliance as we have ever seen in this country.  Contemporary American Capitalism is an excellent parallel for the radical socialism Hayek feared.  Capitalism essentially has taken over American socialism and replaced the public good with the primary value of profit.
Here’s what the 50th anniversary edition of “The Road to Serfdom” says about the author:  “F. A. Hayek (1899-1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, was a pioneer in monetary theory and the principal proponent of libertarianism in the twentieth century.  He taught at the University of London, the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg (Germany).”
* * – Some of the many kinds of “socialism” we Americans not only accept, but demand:
Social Security
Medicare/Medicaid
State Children’s health Insurance programs
Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
U.S. Postal Service
Roads and Highways
Regulation of Air Travel by FAA
U.S. Railway System
Public subways and metro systems
Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
Rest areas along major highways
Sidewalks
All Government-funded local/state projects
Public Water and Sewer Services
Public and State Universities and Colleges
Public Primary and Secondary Schools
Sesame Street
Publicly Funded anti-Drug Use Education for Children
Public Museums
Libraries
Public parks and Beaches
State and National Parks
Public Zoos
Unemployment Insurance
Municpal Garbage and Recycling Services
Treatment at any Hospital of Clinic that has ever received government funds (virtually all of them)
Medical Service and Medications created or derived from any government grant or research funding (pretty much all of them).
Innovations resulting from government programs like National Aeronautics and Space Administration
The publicly accessible internet.
Any program relating to foodstuffs, meats, produce and Crops: including regulation, research, product safety and the like.
Government buildings like the U.S. Capitol, Smithsonian, that are open to the public
Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson Memorials; Arlington and military cemeteries.
The Grand Canyon and National Parks
All government funds for any military purpose, including all expenditures for war (Defense budget is a huge share – probably over half – of the federal budget)
Without “socialist” programs the U.S. as we know it would collapse.  Public health insurance for all is no more “socialist” than public education or Medicare.
*** – Some personal reflections on abortion.  #mce_temp_url#

#103 – Bob Barkley: The Evils of Commerce

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Everything that is discovered – whether an idea or a scene – that can earn a buck will be exploited and then ruined.  That is the way of commerce in the unregulated capitalistic scheme of things.  Only the people, through their government, can control this.  And when the commercial interests themselves control the government, hope is lost. We are getting very close to that point.
Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary defines commerce thusly: “A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.” I suspect the “E” in this formula is we the people.
It is extremely hard to be objective about a system that for the most part has served many of us quite well – and still does in many instances.  It is hard to have significant investments that are doing well and at the same time criticize that which seems to be working in one’s self-interest.
But failure to do so means being blind to the inevitable collapse of a system of greed and collusion amongst commercial interests.  As 18th century’s Scotsman Adam Smith observed, in reflecting upon the evils of monopolies, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or some contrivance to raise prices.” Then he added, “The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce (that arises from the merchant class) ought always to be listened to with great precaution.” Amen! As in health care maybe?
It is not that profit is wrong or that hard work and innovation should go un-rewarded.  It is that the “general welfare” (Check our Constitution’s Preamble.) and the nation’s founders all too familiar term, ‘the common good,’ are being ignored in such an unconstrained system.
As Scotsman Adam Smith apparently felt from his study of the Greeks, wisdom was the avoidance of excess in all things. Thus, it can be concluded that wise government does indeed guard against excesses – whether it be in poverty or profit.
All of the above paints many of us with a broad brush.  It implies that those who have invested their lives in the financial system, the insurance system, the health care system (At least in the US.), and in many well-intentioned (at least initially) endeavors are somehow evil.  That is not the case, but it speaks to the blinders our current system places on most of us.  We seek employment and well-being and for the most part no one chastises those in such businesses. But it’s the system stupid, as they say, and it is a system that must be roped in – soon and strongly – for I am convinced that it cannot prevail much longer and shouldn’t.
Most of us are in denial on this topic.  In Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be, author Walter Truett Anderson tells us, “Faced with information, the believer becomes either a constructivist or a fundamentalist; the former takes stories lightly, changes them, or abandons them entirely when it becomes necessary; the latter deals with troublesome information through psychological denial and/or political repression.” I believe we’re seeing both at play all the time regarding today’s commercial capitalist system. Anderson goes on to point out that all explanations of reality are tainted by this psychology.  In my words, we see what we wish to see and hear what we wish to hear based largely upon how it makes us feel about ourselves.
In that context, our ability to be rational requires that we step outside our context and look down on the picture.  It requires that we go to 20,000 feet and ponder what is beneath us – absent our direct relationship to it.  That is when the truth is both easier to see and to bear. And when I attempt to do that, the picture relative to our commercial system is not pretty – and yet it controls us ever more in our unrestrained ‘crapitalistic’ society.

#102 – Dick Bernard: The Curse of Competition

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UPDATE:  Note book recommendation from Bob Barkley in comments section.
About a year ago I wrote an Uncomfortable Essay for the Peace and Justice community entitiled “The Curse of Cooperation“.  It remains on the web at #mce_temp_url#.  Scroll down to Essay #5 for November 22, 2008.
“Featured” in part at the Essay was the before and after of a football game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers.  The Vikings had won that game.
Monday night, October 5, 2009, those same Vikings and Packers played again, again in Minneapolis.  The Vikings won again.  This time the Game was featured as the game of the week in the NFL – show-cased on Monday night.  It was front page in the Tuesday edition of both Minneapolis and St. Paul papers.
There was a substantive difference between the 2008 and 2009 games.    This year, Brett Favre, long-time NFL star for the Green Bay Packers and then a year or so with the New York Jets, was coaxed out of retirement to play for the Vikings.  There has been great joy in Viking-ville.  At the moment the Vikes are 4-0,  and the eternal dream of a Super Bowl has once again been ignited in the hearts of Vikings fans everywhere, hopefully enroute to  a title they have never won.  Favre has been anointed as the Savior.  (No question, he is a great player.  Monday night he accomplished a goal never reached by any other NFL quarterback: he can some day retire and say that he has defeated every National Football League team at least once in his career.)
There are many contests left to the Big Game, Super Bowl XLIV.  But as everyone knows, while skill, and a “star”, helps a lot, it is no guarantee of success; it is only one element of the possibility of success.  When the Day comes, two of 32 teams will remain in the competition; only one will survive, and its players will get the sacred Super Bowl Ring, and be Kings for a Day.  But we dream on.
Competition is elevated to one of the cardinal virtues in our society.  Winners are extolled; losers….  Perhaps we humans are hard-wired to be competitors.  In our society, competition is carried to absurd (and, in my opinion, destructive) lengths.
When Super Bowl Sunday ends in Miami, February 7, 2010, there will be one winner…and 31 losers.  Every year it is the same.  Every September hope will spring eternal again and the cycle will continue.  The losers will try to reorganize to become the winners for the next round.  But, the next round, there will again be only one winner.
One can dream that there might be a replacement ethic in which working for success for all is a primary virtue.  But I doubt I’ll ever see it.  We want winners, not success for all, and this translates into sustained competition in all areas of our lives, from the time we are old enough to recognize that one or us is stronger, or weaker, than the other.
The winner always becomes a target; there are always far more losers….
It doesn’t seem like much of a recipe for success to me.

#101 – Dick Bernard: Running for TJ; and building a base.

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My nephew, TJ Hedeen, died during liver transplant surgery on April 15, 2008.  He was 36.  He had a congenital liver defect.  He was a great guy, and left behind his wife, Mickey, and two stepsons, Bryant and Brace.

TJ, Bryant and Brace

TJ, Bryant and Brace


TJ’s death touched us all, but few as much as my son-in-law John Hagebock, a little older than TJ, who resolved to not  let TJ’s death be in vain.
John decided to make his contribution by drawing attention to organ donation programs, specifically Life Source.  #mce_temp_url# His first action was running the Twin Cities marathon on October 3, 2008.  It was his first marathon, and he finished the race.
John nearing the finish in the Twin Cities Marathon Oct 5, 2008

John nearing the finish in the Twin Cities Marathon Oct 5, 2008


The 2008 race was John’s warm-up.  He decided to do a reprise in 2009, but to up the ante a bit.  He began to quietly promote participation for TJ in the 2009 run, October 3.
By race day John had fresh running shirts advertising Life Source, and six more runners to “share the colors”.  He again ran the marathon; the other recruits were willing to do the ten mile segment.  Two of the six ended up injured, and couldn’t compete, but the other four finished the course.
John was a bit disappointed that he had only four new people on the course this year, but I’m really proud of what he accomplished.
He plans to do the same next year.
I suggested to him that a worthy objective would be to work with his new team to convince each of them to recruit two more runners for next year, and thus start a tradition of growth.
His program is off to a great start.
Congratulations, John.  Good running!  Good work!
There were doubtless many others in the thousands of runners who similarly were engaged in using the run as motivation for doing good for others.   Congratulations to them, as well.  They gave additional meaning to the race as well.
Again to readers, if you’re not familiar with organ donation programs, here’s a good chance to learn: #mce_temp_url#
Starting line Twin Cities 10 mile October 3, 2009

Starting line Twin Cities 10 mile October 3, 2009