#495 – Dick Bernard: Some scary things about the political theater in Iowa

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UPDATE Jan. 4: Many comments follow at end of this post.
Kurt Ullrich of Maquoketa, Iowa, in the December 31 Minneapolis Star Tribune, caught very well tomorrows Iowa Precinct Caucus vote. It is in this column, “Sliding through Iowa like so many trombones”. If we could stop reality with the illusion of Prof. Harold Hill and “76 Trombones” leading the big parade, it would be one thing. But Iowa is a place, half way through the first term of Tea Party power and the Corporation as Citizen, where we are seeing the first act of eleven months of political theater to the max.
I have no issue with Iowa or Iowans. There is a long tradition of early presidential preference polls there, Republican and Democrat. Many relatives of mine – good people – live in Iowa, as do people I grew up with who moved there. In more than a casual sense, part of my roots are in Iowa. I have good friends who grew up in Iowa; valued clergy members whose roots are in Iowa, on and on and on.
Iowa is unfortunate in that it mirrors the rest of us, everywhere. And the image that comes across, in this particular political season, is not flattering.
I’ve been watching it as it evolves.
Here’s a bit of what’s ahead in the next 10 months, if Iowa politics is any indicator:
1. Shameless political lying will be so pervasive, that the prudent person will believe nothing advertised either for or against anybody. All that should matter is the actual record, which is available, but will take some work to uncover. A relative of mine is inclined to justify sloppy voting by the mantra “they all lie”. It is not that simple. But there will be more bald-faced lying than ever in the coming months; and this includes those ubiquitous ‘forwards’ of carefully selected ‘facts’.
2. There will never have been an election so dominated by big and essentially undocumented money. This will translate into extraordinarily fine tuned and vicious media advertising designed to mislead and deceive. This will infect every corner of the media, from the internet through television, radio, newspapers…. The culprit: “On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions.” (The source of this quote is here.) We saw some practice with this in the 2010 election; but that was child’s play with what we’ll see this year. Money will scream loudly in the upcoming election.
Love it or hate it, if you plan to have any say, you’ll need to contribute money to candidates, groups, or causes that you support; and in addition, get involved to an extent you aren’t accustomed to.
3. There are far too many news sources, far too partisan, and far too little news. A person, regardless of ideology, can successfully insulate him or herself from any opinion other than the one he or she believes. This is dangerous. In any society there are legitimate differences of opinion. In the quaint old days, people had no choice but to engage directly with others of differing points of view, and out of this usually came some reasonable agreement. These days, the emphasis is on gaining and keeping control over both policy and process. This has never worked long term, and will not work now, but is a huge problem.
4. Finally (simply to keep this at reasonable length) is the matter of POLLS, omnipresent, and misleading. There is no question that polls are statistically valid, with a range of usually plus or minus 3 or 4%. A sample of 500-1000 people, even for a national sample, is all one needs. But the wild variations in polling results in Iowa, and the large number of people calling themselves “undecided” as caucus day looms, amplify the impact of the first three points above, and render meaningless each and every prediction about what will happen on Tuesday in the state of Iowa. Does anyone remember that my Congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, won the Straw Poll in Iowa a few months ago, and as of today is in single digits there?
Whether what actually happens in Iowa will make a difference remains to be seen.
Caveat emptor.
RELATED: here
UPDATE Jan 3, 2012: here
COMMENTS:
1. Bruce has posted a comment on-line (below). (The comments feature is open for use.) Here is the comment:
Indeed,gonzo money in politics is ruining our form of government. The Obama campaign coupled with its outside PACS will raise, I’ve read, about a billion bucks. The Republicans will be compelled to do the same. I wonder who the winner will feel beholding to.
My guess is that the deep pockets on Wall street and other places in our corporate world, don’t really care who wins as long as they have all the access money can buy.
2. from Madeline: I agree with your analysis. It’s scary.
3. from Mike: Caveat voter.
I agree, Dick, Don’t buy what the media is selling.
Iowa was important in 2008 as it was evidence that Obama could draw support in a largely Caucasian and rural state. Now nobody seems to have grabbed the Iowa Republican vote by enough to brag about, but somebody will brag about it, even if thy don’t.
4. from William: Dick, the obscene amounts of money spent on political campaigns is ruining our form of government. Pandering for money from contributors seems to dominate the actions of office holders from day one in office. Lobbyists know this game well and influence the political process to the detriment of our country. Along with this comes all the negative ads and distortions. The truly sad part is that the negative ads do have an impact. Look what happened to John Kerry with the Swift Boat ad in 2004.
5. John: I have spent way too much time following the Iowa political scene. I am fatigued, feel ripped off and will probably be glued to the V results tonight anyway.
IMO, the state of political discourse in the USA is f*cked!
6. From a good friend in Iowa: I went to all the meetings of our prospective Republican candidates, except John Huntsman. They all have great personalities and gave their view on how the U.S. should be run. Bachman even showed up in Forest City, (grandparents live here) went to see her, shook her hand & took a few pictures. She is nice looking & pleasing personality, her views are too restrictive- evangelical in nature. She is not a threat to being a president of the U.S. let alone a candidate. There is only one candidate that could beat Obama, that is Mitt Romney, if only people could get over his being a Mormon. Also, I am not sure that Obama needs to be beat. He is counting on the United Nations to do most of his dirty work if elected to a second term, which I am a little leery of.
The health care system in the United States needs to be tweaked to some degree, but not a decoupling from private enterprise. I told [my brother] that there are just to many people without insurance and no means to health care to ignore the issue in this election cycle. The people I am talking about had their boots taken away from them ( via the free trade agreements etc.) so there are no boot straps to pick themselves up with even if they wanted to.
I will be going to a caucus tonight and voice my opinions for a nominee.
7. From Jeff: Comment #5 is good [to this column in Minnpost] NOTE from Dick: Columnist Eric Black has many years ‘boots on the ground’ covering national politics. Note the column as well!
8. From Kathy: I am aghast at what the media is doing with this upcoming caucus…agree with your warnings…wonder how realistic it is to hope we can get the Move to Amend to reverse the Court ruling…seems absolutely critical to avoid a total break down of our system as we thought we knew it.
9. From Alan: I agree with it all. But the movie I think of is Blazing Saddles, with these words of consolation offered to the handsome new black sheriff – What did you expect? “Welcome, sonny”? “Make yourself at home”? “Marry my daughter”? You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the New West. You know… morons.
10. from Mary (one of on-line comments, evening Jan. 3): Watching the caucus process and seeing a lot of journalists rush to gin up excitement and high energy where there is none! Polls / charts / graphs are created to prove almost every opposing point…. thanks to ‘smart boards’ for giving non events a pie chart!!
25 down…75 to go!
You know there is money being spent but in truth there are also people working….that’s good, right??
Ever wonder why democracy is so hard to explain?
11. Wrapup. Dick 5:15 a.m. Jan. 4:
Romney by 8, or so says NYT in the news greeting me when I woke up. I watched very little of the analytical chatter last night. It will be endless today. Main takeaway for me, as always: It is/will be the people who actually show up to vote who in the end make the difference. Sure, there are lots and lots of problems, but it is those who show up who make the difference.
12. A friend from London who grew up in the Middle East writes: Is watching the Iowa election unfold as irrelevant (& captivating) as watching a sport one is not really interested in – especially since one is not Republican inclined? It does, as you suggest, mirror the electorate at large. However, wouldn’t time be better spent doing other things – including campaigning for one’s candidate?
I know very little about the candidates (perhaps more than many since according to research those who watch Fox news are even less informed than those who watch no news!) still this bit by Craig Sams in the Guardian today was surprising, is it all true? Is Paul then more liberal than many democrats!? Your coverage of the Iowa Republican primary (Report, 3 January) barely mentions Ron Paul or his policies, settling, like most of the US media, for describing him as “quirky” or “marginal”. Yet he is neck and neck with Mitt Romney and the reason why is not extreme conservatism but commonsense policies that appeal to many Americans and, I would suggest, to many Guardian readers. Ron Paul consistently opposed the Iraq war; opposes funding of Israeli and Arab military that is linked back to purchase of US armaments; opposed the raid on the Gaza flotilla and the demonisation of democratically elected Hamas; rejects sanctions against Iran; wants to end the US embargo against Cuba; sees the World Trade Organisation as a barrier to free trade and is
opposed to protectionism; called the 9/11 Commission report a “charade” that masked a failure of bureaucracy; would not have assassinated Bin Laden; seeks the abolition of the Federal Reserve; opposed Tony Blair receiving a Congressional Gold Medal of Honour; sponsored the Employee Ownership Act to encourage employee-owned corporations with tax-exempt status; opposes
internet controls; wants immunity for whistleblowers, including Julian Assange; opposes the death penalty; believes all polluters should pay; opposes subsidies to the gas and oil industry; favours legalisation of drugs
and treatment for abusers as with alcoholics.
13. from Greg: A first time reader of your blog, I compliment you for the effort and I agree with your point of view. I couldn’t figure out how to post a comment on your blog, but feel I must contribute one thought.
You state: “1. Shameless political lying will be so pervasive, that the prudent person will believe nothing…..”
While it may be true that no “prudent person” will believe the “shameless lying”, it is also true that a huge percentage of our voters are neither prudent nor informed (how else could you explain Sarah Palin?) And this election, because corporations are now persons, may well be decided by “shameless lying”.
Many years ago I read a book titled: The Social Construction of Reality. The thesis put forth is pretty simple: If you hear it often enough, it becomes your reality. By December 2012 our collective reality may well be shameless lies.
14. Online comment from Richard: As you know, because of decades of political inertia in the U.S. and other nations, and because of the inertia of our planet’s climate system in reacting to ongoing increases in human-generated greenhouse gases like CO2, our planet has already been locked into decades of global warming in which the polar ice caps and mountain snow packs will continue to melt; oceans will continue to rise, warm and acidify; seashores and islands will continue to flood; coral reefs will continue to die; storms, droughts, heat waves and other extreme weather events will continue to plague the Upper Midwest and other world regions; plant and animal species will continue to disappear; and a record world population will continue to expand from seven billion in 2012 and engage in wars and other conflicts to survive in a world of ravaged environments and depleted resources.
A few years ago when he addressed a University of Minnesota audience, polar explorer and ice cap researcher Will Steger warned that unless global warming is reversed by 2020, irreversible climate changes will occur. Because of ongoing increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, that deadline is now 2017. It will of course be breached.
Yet in the final days of the 2012 GOP Iowa precinct caucuses, that paramount issue was virtually ignored by the presidential contenders, the mainstream and other media who covered them, and the public at large. To my knowledge the U.S. GOP is the only major political party in the world that has adopted denial of human-induced global warming as an official policy. And in the Congress and many state legislatures including Minnesota’s, it has blocked or even rescinded legislation to limit global warming and adapt to its adverse impacts.
Dick, I don’t know if that paramount issue was ignored in the 2012 Iowa Democratic precinct caucuses; but if your blog is an example, it was clearly ignored by citizens who are apparently more progressive. As
“political theater,” that also hinders urgently needed actions to confront and cope with fatal global warming.

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

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

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


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

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

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

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

#490 – Dick Bernard: Drones, Chapter two.

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UPDATE: All comments, including to this post, are found here. #9 is first comment received after publishing of this post.
In “The Drones”, published a week ago today, was one crucial paragraph: “However limited, there is room for conversation among people willing to listen to each other, and considering other points of view. But one can’t have such a conversation in separate rooms.”

One of the recipients of the post (I would describe all of the initial recipients as people passionate about peace and justice, including me) asked a reasonable question: “do you believe what you wrote, or are you just trying to get a reaction”. I replied honestly: “both”.
I keep thinking of two novels I’ve read.
The first is “Peace Like a River”, a 2001 best seller by Leif Enger.
The book is set in early 1960s Minnesota and North Dakota and much of it involves a chase by an FBI agent attempting to apprehend a possibly innocent teenager accused of murder.
The takeaway from this book which applies to the drone conversation is the huge change in technology in the last 50 years. If you don’t believe this, simply pick the year when you began high school and compare the ways and means you had of communicating, then.
In Peace Like a River, the FBI agent works with what he has to work with, and it’s very primitive by today’s standards.
Then, think of the ways anyone can communicate today, literally anywhere in the world.
By today’s standard, drones are no Buck Rogers sci-fi device, even compared with our own means of keeping track/keeping touch. We can lament the loss of anonymity, but it’s long gone.
The other book which came to mind was the 1962 novel “Bones of Plenty”, by Lois Phillips Hudson, set in rural North Dakota in 1934 – the year described by my Uncle Vince, then 9 years old, as the worst year he could remember during the Great Depression.
The takeaway from Bones of Plenty was how people dealt with issues in small towns (and large) in older days when communication was far more limited than in the early 1960s.

Among a book full of vivid written images, Hudson describes meetings in the town hall in the tiny community west of Jamestown which is epicenter of her book.
As today, not everyone in the 1930s thought alike, but unlike today, in small towns or large, or in the country, people really had no reasonable option, short of completely isolating themselves, than engaging in conversation (sometimes called ‘fights’) with people whose views they might not like. This applied to everyone, including politicians. This was before there was an effective means to deliver political rhetoric in soundbites to people in the isolation of their own homes. Most often communication was pretty raw and pretty real.

I’m old enough to sometimes have nostalgia for the old days. But one doesn’t need to think very long about the many problems back then.
Similarly, it would be nice if there were no need for drones, but given the alternative, killing a la the World Wars, ever more focused on civilians, I will take the lesser of the two evils.
Of course, drones, like today’s Dick Tracy wrist-radios which everyone has, have their own serious limitations as will become obvious with time. In our massive world, we will never control outcomes with small airplanes. We depend on reasonable relationships with host countries to have these airplanes on their land. We could be told to leave.
We are an ever larger and broader community with different and legitimate points of view. We are a world with artificial but no longer real borders. We’re stuck with each other.
Let’s talk. But “let’s talk” doesn’t presume going into the conversation with a “you can go to hell” pre-determined outcome as what seems to be happening in Washington D.C. at this very moment.
We can’t be a “you can go to hell” society and survive.
That’s why I continue to lobby for true dialogue – conversation without borders.

#488 – Dick Bernard: The Drones

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POSTNOTE Mar. 21, 2016: see posts on same topic here (12/20/2011), here (5/12/09) , here (5/23/13) and here (3/20/16, especially #6).
Earlier today [Dec. 13, 2011] I was at the annual meeting of an organization I’ve long been part of called the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers. One of the group rose to ask the speaker a question about the new proposal relating to drones in Thief River Falls MN. More information is here.
Back home, on the evening news, was the continuing story of the drone that went down in Iran, and whose wreckage is now in Iran’s custody. Much ado is made of this event.
Google “drone” and there are over 9,000,000 results. No doubt, it is a new and permanent and controversial feature of warfare.
Given the far more deadly alternatives – nuclear, invasions with wholesale and wanton killing, and similar – I’m not inclined to get very upset about the role of drones in the modern world. Without any doubt, they, like any other device, are subject to abuse, but over all, they could reduce substantially the indiscriminate killing of innocents that has always been the standard of warfare up through the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, wars especially deadly to civilians. Here’s a conservative estimate of Iraqi deaths (not even factoring in all their other huge losses in that ugly war) which has been catastrophic to the U.S as well.
Given the choice between use of drones and precise targeting or nuclear, or other ‘scorched earth’ invasions, there’s no question in my mind: drones are preferable.
Given my personal druthers, there would be no war. Period. But given the nature and history of humans, particularly those humans who seem to rise to the top of power pyramids, it seems unlikely that we will ever reach the nirvana of real and lasting peace.
The best we can do – and it is the best – is to continue working towards a more peaceful world, through peaceful means.
I’m accustomed to saying that I’m a military veteran myself, from a family full of military veterans. As I pointed out to a relative, recently, I’m a member of both the American Legion and Veterans for Peace, and I don’t see any contradiction, though my cause is that of the Veterans for Peace.
However limited, there is room for conversation among people willing to listen to each other, and considering other points of view. But one can’t have such a conversation in separate rooms.

As I listened, today, my thoughts went back to a little article I’d seen before in the college newspaper I was privileged to edit. The article was one of those that could be used for filler, and appeared in the opinion page, May 24, 1961. This was four months after Dwight Eisenhower’s famous farewell address including his concerns about the Military-Industrial Complex, and John F. Kennedy took office as President of the United States.
Here’s the article in its entirety (click to enlarge it.) Fifty years later, it remains current.

Valley City (ND) State Teachers College "Viking News" May 24, 1961


Sitting at the same table with me today was John Noltner, whose new and excellent book “A peace of my mind: exploring the meaning of peace one story at a time” includes interviews and photos of 55 people.
I particularly noticed the pages (42-43) featuring former Minnesota Governor Al Quie (1979-83). Mr. Noltner added comments as follows: “Al doesn’t believe that we can ever achieve world peace because of our competing political, economic, and belief systems. He believes the broke human condition will prevent us from achieving total peace. But Al believes in working towards inner peace and peace within communities….”
We may never reach the destination of the ideal of peace, but one person at a time we can help the process along.
Directly related post here.
[Mar. 21, 2016: There was a followup blog post on this topic Dec. 20, 2011 [here. See postnote at beginning of this post for more related links.]
UPDATE December 14, 2011
1. Please note additional comments added on-line (see the end of this post for access to these comments). As of this Dec 20 there are two comments, both from Bruce in Twin Cities.

Additional Comments
2. From Jeff in Twin Cities: Voice of reason, not that it will gain you any friends amongst the hard core.
3. From friend in England: Dear Mr Bernard,
50 years ago!? You are absolutely right, absolutely still relevant.
In that article as well as in the blog are the questions that exert minds and consciences for whom these capacities are still sufficiently active.
We obviously do not live in a perfect world, perhaps not even the best possible the way things are going! Does that mean compromise? Maybe not but it does mean answers must be nuanced & moderated. The need to prevent (inhuman) utopias! I increasingly believe that Camus got two important things right – and you allude to them in the blog.
The first is that Sisyphus will have to keep rolling that rock uphill as it slides down; but, he added, one has to imagine Sisyphus happy! Indeed all we can do is push for reasonableness & peace but without despair although as early as 2500 years ago, Heraclitus was dejected at the foolishness of men and urged them to think differently (laterally?): “donkeys prefer garbage to gold!”.
The other point Camus wrote about was that we should neither be executioners nor victims. I assume then a peaceful fight for peace & justice is the only alternative left. One thing that bothered you 50 years ago & still troubles you today is hypocrisy. Unfortunately in so many spheres of life it seems to be on the increase.
Kierkegaard titled one of his shorter works: “Purity of Heart is to Will one Thing” referring to James 1:8 “A double minded man [is] unstable in all his ways”. At times the instability that the double minded have inflicted upon the world becomes clear. May God grant us if not many pure of heart then at least many who are trying to be just that – and may he place them in positions of power: political, financial, & even military -till that last becomes irrelevant …
4. From John N. in suburban Twin Cities:
I enjoyed your post and I agree with the notion that we are getting better at limiting our civilian casualties in war, when compared to decades and generations gone by. But I guess what concerns me most about the use of drones and remote warfare in general is how sanitized it can become.
I recognize the desire to preserve the lives of our soldiers. I remember though, even as a youth, when some others around me were fascinated with the technology of fighter jets and guided missiles…how I had trouble
embracing their enthusiasm, knowing what that technology was used for.
When we get so enamored with the technology of warfare, and when that warfare can be conducted from the safe and comfortable surroundings of a base, far removed from the battlefield, I believe there is the potential to lose touch with the actual damage that is being done. I worry that it becomes too easy to use those remote weapons when our own exposure is so limited in the process.
That being said, I do believe there are good uses for this technology, and used well, it can actually serve to make violent conflict less costly to civilians…but we must always remain aware of the power we are unleashing
and make certain that we understand fully the human cost of the technology we employ.
5. From John B. in Twin Cities:
A Story: There was a farmer who had rat in his barn who alluded his capture. Finally, after days of trying, he lured the rodent into live trap. He removed the rat, dipped him in a can of gasoline and just before he threw the animal as far as he could, he set lighted match to the rodent. Seconds later the burning rat ran back into the barn causing the barn to go up in flames. (Moral of the story: The burning rat used the farmer’s anger against the farmer. Some clever folks will figure out a way to reprogram our drones, turn them against us.)
6. From Bob H:
December 15, 2011
Dear Dick, Frankly I was stunned and saddened to read your Blog #488 article defending the current U.S. use of drones on al Qaeda. But I appreciate your inviting a reaction.
Because you proudly proclaim association with the Catholic/Christian faith, I just have to ask, hellooo, what part of “Thou shalt not kill” do you not understand? While I do NOT proclaim any special theological claim in spite of my graduating with a minor in philosophy from a Catholic college, it would be hard to believe that Jesus would not support that commandment. One has to ask, “Whom would Jesus bomb?”
Drones indiscriminately kill civilians. They do not have eyes that see around corners or into buildings. The “Just war theory” has been dismissed by reputable theologians since we went from lances, maces, hot oil and saber killings! Even Pope John Paul II condemned George W.’s attack on Iraq and said, “this war would be a defeat for humanity could not be morally or legally justified” because of the indiscriminate and disproportionate inevitable killing of civilians by modern day weapons!
You state, “”drones are preferable.” When did you slip to the “Dark Side” in your take on killing? What is a “preferable” way to kill or assassinate?
And your referencing yourself as being a member of Veterans For Peace stuns me too, when you say, “though my cause is that of the Veterans for Peace.” Our “Statement of Purpose” states that we will work to “increase awareness of the costs of war, restrain government from intervening in the internal affairs of other nations,…” What part of the world and “other nations” do you see us using drones on?
I see no excuse for legitimizing drone use on sovereign nations where I assume you accepted our VFP “Statement of Purpose” for membership. And suggesting that it is OK to murder in certain circumstances seems to be a bit like saying it is OK to just kill a little.
You probably do not remember or did not read my article that appeared in our Veterans For Peace newsletter several years ago excoriating our country’s use of drones in far-flung sovereign nations. I wrote how the flip side of that, like foreign nations doing similar attacks on us on our country, would help us recognize the inevitable tragedy in their deployment.
The article below which is included in this quarter’s VFP newsletter also states my feelings about drone use, particularly in a country we are not at war with, Pakistan. I am sorry to see you have apparently been weaned from a conscience of “Thou shalt not kill’” into one that would give your stamp of approval of their “preferable” use to obliterate innocent children even though they man kill fewer people!
Your rationale sadly seems strikingly similar to the Germans in their rush to support Hitler in the 30’s. It is, as I have explained to you a long while ago, the shame of my German ancestral link which has for over 40 years prompted and sustained my work for true peace. I regularly remind myself of Edmund Burke’s “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to remain silent.”
You are a good man. I just pray that you will join with MLK and those other non-violent supporters we admire in truly accepting the criminality of drone use and reconsider your position. They clearly do NOT, as you so properly write, promote your pledge “ to continue working towards a more peaceful world, through peaceful means.”
Peace, brother.
Here’s the article referred to earlier in Bob’s post: Heberle VFP Drones001
7. Grace, in St. Paul, on Dec. 18:
I so agree with “We desperately need to sit in other circles than just our own and truly engage with people of other points of view*.” Social science agrees with you too. Conformity is 32% even when the answer is obviously wrong, given that everyone else agrees on the wrong answer. However add just ONE courageous voice to that group and dynamics change drastically. Interestingly my experience is that one simple voice may even be more persuasive than a large minority if the person speaks well and shows respect. People who are not afraid are more open to listen.
* – Dick Bernard: I had made a followup invitation for comments from my own list, and in part had said as follows:
The peace and justice movement is at a critical fork in the road today; indeed seems to have taken one fork to the exclusion of the other. My belief is that continuing the old ways is in the long run an unproductive and indeed damaging strategy.
My campaign is for engagement with those of differing opinions, and openness to perhaps even modify or change opinions based on those conversations.
There is a place for idealism; but we live in a real world that isn’t going to go away. We need to truly engage with the entire community.
That is not a new campaign for me. 29 times in the first nearing three years of this [Outside the Walls] blog I have mentioned in one way or another the importance of “dialogue”, including in the very first blog post in March, 2009.
We desperately need to sit in other circles than just our own and truly engage with people of other points of view.
It is, it seems to me, the only possible viable choice to continuing to achieve incremental change – and we have achieved a great deal of positive change. There doesn’t seem to be much acceptance of that fact.
8. from a friend who’s a Historian, Dec 17, responding to a note from me on this topic:
Your last lines [in my note to him] reflect my opinions completely.
What I said to the friend: Long and short, in my opinion, the peace and justice community could accomplish a great deal by engaging with the community around it, rather than simply protesting against, constantly, the assorted injustices it correctly identifies.
But it won’t….
9. from Joe S, good friend and professor emeritus:
I was, quite frankly, shocked by your essay on drones, but have not had a chance before now to respond. Happily Bob H. did a better job than I would have in his communication of December 15. I agree with him completely as far as he went; but I would go a step further and state, with conviction, that our use of drone bombing is not only immoral, but also politically stupid. It will surely prove immensely counterproductive and is already doing so in Pakistan and elsewhere. Given the number of innocent people we annihilate — “collateral damage” to use the current euphemism — we are creating new terrorists (including many terrorists in waiting) faster than we can dispatch the old ones. And, short of creating committed terrorists, we are creating enemies (many of whom will willingly support terrorists) at an even faster rate. Sooner or later we will surely pay dearly for doing so. Put yourself in the position of a parent, who has just lost an innocent child to a drone attack and imagine your own response. What makes you think that to save American lives it is okay to snuff out the lives of others?
The biggest logical flaw in your whole argument is revealed in the following sentence: “Similarly, it would be nice if there were no need for drones, but given the alternative, killing a la the World Wars, ever more focused on civilians, I will take the lesser of the two evils.” By what reasoning do you believe that there were only two alternatives? Is not pursuing the path of peace also an alternative? Had even a small fraction of the 1.2 trillion dollars we’ve spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq been allocated to building schools, clinics, and other productive facilities in developing countries, we’d now be way ahead of where we presently are in the eyes of the world. Similarly, if we devoted comparable sums to upgrading the quality of life in our own country, we would have become the model for the rest of the world that we (falsely) proclaim to be. And even isolationism, which I personally eschew, would, in my view, be a preferable alternative to the one you espouse.
Finally, your approach undermines the rule of law. It supports the doctrine that “might makes right.” Flawed though it is, the UN, not the US, should be assume the role of the global cop (and should be strengthened accordingly) and the International Criminal Court, aided by regional courts should become the chief dispensers of justice.

#483 – Dick Bernard: Political Communication, awash in lies of every sort.

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In the very recent past an incident at University of California at Davis (UCD) went viral. A policeman was filmed from many angles pepper-spraying students doing a sit-in on campus in support of the Occupy movement.
I have a good friend who has lived in Davis for over 30 years and he presumably knows his relatively small local community well. In university in the late 1960s he was an excellent journalist and photographer during the Vietnam Wars days of rage. He is very media savvy to this day. I decided to ask him for his report on the situation three days after it happened. He said this:
“Reporting live from the streets of Davis – the scene is – – – – –
Nothing – nothing at all.
All of the action is in the center of the campus; which is about a quarter mile in any direction from any vehicular traffic.
The “angry mob” of about 500 is maybe 1 percent of the total student/faculty in residence; and I see not a whit of any discussion or even acknowledgement of [this?] by anyone I’ve talked to over the past several days.
Obviously, the town newspaper smells Pulitzer; and their website/blog/twitter feed is in overdrive – which fits with the total wired generation of students; each, it seems, started filming 10 seconds before the pepper started.
What IS acknowledged and youtubed (but not virally; and NOT getting any other play at all), is that the students were warned multiple times over several hours after several days; both written and verbal; to move or they would be sprayed.
I’m frankly far less disgusted by the pepper spray than the mainstream media seems to be. Given the history of civil disobedience between protestors and police over the decades, pepper spray is far less violent and injury producing than dragging; clubbing or other more serious options. Should it have been done, though? Most definitely not. Best tactic would have been to ignore.
Remember this: Hype is driven by the loudest screams, and with internet and texting readily available to the masses, any rumor or partial truth can really run rampant.
RE the chancellor – she is likely gone, along with the officers and the police chief. There is no way to avoid that.”
A while earlier, right after I’d heard of Occupy Wall Street in New York City for the first time, I wrote a signed commentary* on the topic for the local newspaper: “You’d be forgiven if you haven’t heard of it”, I said about the by the then-evolving viral protest in behalf of the 99% of us who aren’t wealthy. Zuccotti Park was the parent of the UCD gathering. Zuccotti Park had gone unpublicized by major media for nearly the first two weeks of its existence.
My column was published in the October 12 edition of the paper, and my local legislator – who’d have no love for OWS – wrote me a dismissive e-mail pointing out that she did know about the protest…and the Minneapolis one as well. What she didn’t know is that I had submitted my newspaper commentary two weeks earlier, on September 30, and for whatever reason the paper had chosen not to print it. I thought they’d trash-canned my comment, and in any event I had no opportunity to edit my work. That was their prerogative.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, and quite willingly, I receive on a continuing basis the ubiquitous pieces of garbage I’ve come to call “forwards”, anti-Obama, anti-liberal, anti-“other”, religiously sent on by disciples of the right. (Similar kinds of items, with a completely different ideological slant, of course, come much less frequently from the left as well). I check all of these out. Mostly they are false or so completely doctored by their originators as to not even resemble the truth. They never carry pride of authorship – the actual name of person or group which started them on their lying way across the nation – and they are forwarded on by those who apparently don’t do even minimal fact checking or, worse, don’t care. “I’ll believe what I want to believe.”
Somehow I hope we’ll survive this onslaught of untruth – though over the next months hundreds of millions of dollars will be devoted to spinning information fairy tales on TV, radio, the internet and other means.
Caveat Emptor.
* – the commentary submitted Sep 30, 2011:
Nothing much startles me any more, but this clip from a nationally known blogger got my attention on Friday: “Wall Street folks sipping champagne from a balcony as they watch the protesters walk by….”
Indeed, there it was, video from someone at Occupy Wall Street. People on balconies overlooking the protests, sipping drinks of one sort or another, including one raising a wine glass as if to toast the protestors below a la Marie Antoinette.
Protest on Wall Street? You’d be forgiven if you haven’t heard of it. The morning paper had not a word about it. The national media has given it almost no attention, though there have been smatterings of coverage lately. What attention has been given tends towards blaming the protesters, or dismissing their efforts.
Wall Street Rules.
The occupy Wall Street protests matter, even if they don’t rise above the horizon out here due to media inattention.
We in Woodbury live in a prosperous town in a still prosperous state and still extraordinarily wealthy country.
It is too easy to ignore unemployment and underemployment. Most of our families and most of our streets do not have those scruffly leeches on the system that we love to imagine and tsk tsk about. “They should just get a job”, we say, even if there isn’t a job to get, even a menial one.
In the short term, an economic crisis here or elsewhere is simply another opportunity for the Captains of Wall Street and the Corporate World. “Buy low, sell high”.
I grew up with many rural sayings – country wisdom. One that comes to mind for all of us is “the chickens will come home to roost”.
Those worthless wretches who are left with no job, high debt, at best job insecurity (often temporary, no security with no benefits), cannot fuel our capitalist economy which depends on people with money to spend.
They’re the (yes) unfortunate collateral damage, unfortunate, but just part of the game.
They’re also the death of our society that depends on consumption.
As the watering hole dries up, Wall Street and the fat cats among us will continue to prosper for awhile. Bad times are good times for the big bucks folks.
The politicians riding the slick horse of defending the rich against supposed class warfare, may benefit in the short run. They seem to think so, given their abundant anti-government rhetoric.
But, as they used to say, ultimately “the chickens will come home to roost”, and the poor and the dispossessed will get their revenge without once having to hold a protest sign.
It’s time that we “wake up and”, as another saying goes, “smell the coffee”.

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

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

the Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, Nov. 22, 2011


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

Dinner group November 22, 2011


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


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

#478 – Dick Bernard: The Greatest Generation, the Boomers, Millenials and all that.

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Sunday afternoon, after the Vikings lost, I watched the endless rerun about the coming end of the world on the History Channel. For those who’ve missed it, the end is scheduled for December 21, 2012. All that is certain is the date: exactly what, or who goes where, is open for endless debate.
Idle speculation about our future is foolish, in my opinion. Best to do the best we can with whatever time we have left. (We may have only ten minutes, but what good does it do to worry about that?)
But ‘officially’, apparently, we still have 13 months. And the Mayans and Nostradamus and Merlin and the others could be wrong, or their writings misinterpreted. Till we check out, we’ll be part of the solution, or part of the problem. There’s no neutral zone, in my opinion. It’s not “their” fault.
Earlier Sunday, I read a very interesting analysis of the assorted generations stake in our future. The piece was written by Lori Sturdevant, a long-time and highly respected columnist on politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. She has earned her accolades.
Here is her take on the data about the assortment (baby boomers, millenials, etc.) It is a recommended read.
Here’s my very brief response to her writing:
It’s not easy to challenge the opinions and labels of pollsters. We live in a time of polling and the Pew Research data cited by Ms Sturdevant can be seen here, along with endless other pieces of interesting data.
I’d challenge only a bit Pew’s categories.
I was born in 1940, my oldest child in 1964, and for a long while I’ve known I was in the Silent Generation, which Pew for some reason classifies as the folks born between 1928-45 (Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Ed in Sturdevant’s telling).
I’d start the Silent Generation a bit later, perhaps 1937. The folks born before 1937 were old enough to have living memories of the bad times of the Great Depression, and the oldest were old enough to have vivid memories of, and some even old enough, to be drafted into World War II before it ended in 1945.
We silents were too young to have much of a direct memory of the era experienced by what Tom Brokaw called “the Greatest Generation”, but our entire early living experience was with and around people immersed in that era. We couldn’t avoid WWII or the Depression, even if we didn’t comprehend exactly what they were. But all that is unnecessary argument.
But the very interesting analysis of Pew, further analyzed by Lori Sturdevant, is well worth your time, before you wander into the political minefield of Turkey Day.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving (research does show that the vast majority of us do have more than adequate resources to have a happy day on Thursday.) Enjoy. But as the ubiquitous disclaimer on beer, wine and spirits ads suggests: “with great privilege comes great responsibility”)
Related here and here.

#477 – Dick Bernard: Grover Norquist

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Tonights edition of 60 Minutes on CBS had a segment about anti-tax guru Grover Norquist. The segment is accessible here. It is well worth watching.
Norquist is an immensely powerful non-elected actor in national tax policy. He claims to represent the consensus of anti-tax Americans, and his record shows in the the composition of the current Congress.
He is not invincible. A few months ago he was challenged on the true membership numbers of his organization. (The members of his group are undisclosed). He felt a need one evening last spring to claim that he had 100,000 members around the United States – a likely highly inflated claim. I watched him make the claim in an on-air interview.
In a population of over 300,000,000, his claimed membership figure (100,000) translates into one member per 3,000 population, and most likely most of these ‘members’ are highly funded organizations not required to reveal their participation. Nonetheless, they exercise an immense amount of undeserved power, and are not invincible.
Grover Norquist and his organization are, in my opinion, demonstrating the universal paradox of reaching a pinnacle of Power: the more Powerful they appear to be, the more Vulnerable (and thus powerless) they truly are. They know this, but at the end they fight mightily to not show this vulnerability.
Norquist just turned 55 years of age; at his end, an aged appearing Hitler had just turned 56. Napoleon Bonaparte died at 52. Ridiculous comparisons? Perhaps.
But think a bit more about this. Norquist in a sense earned his power. He is in no control of his fate.
There are numerous internet sources about Norquist and his organization.
It is worth taking the time to learn something about him and his history.
He’s “king on a hill”, and he has nowhere to go but down….
But we can’t cower in a corner to push he and his powerful allies off the pinnacle. That takes hard and individual work.
Related here and here.

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

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

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

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

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

#473 – Dick Bernard: Occupy Wall Street – Minneapolis (OWS) and the Tea Party

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As I write, 6:30 p.m. on November 14, a big rally of Occupy Wall Street is apparently taking place in downtown Minneapolis. I say “apparently” because I don’t know for sure if, or how, plans may have changed due to posturing by local government, and response by the OWS folks to that.
That will be part of the news tomorrow IF the news media choose to cover the event*.
I’m one of those gluttons for punishment, accepting into my e-mail in-box anti-Obama hate mail, Tea Party, right and left wing commentaries. It tends to get overwhelming at times, but it is good to see what the assorted folks are dispensing as their particular reality.
Both OWS and Tea Party claim support of the “99%” of the country who are not wealthy. My support is strongly with the OWS folks, though I couldn’t see sufficient reason to travel to Minneapolis this evening.
Occupy Wall Street is the more recent visitor to the news. It began with an unpublicized protest in Zuccotti Park in New York City in September. It took a couple of weeks to get any news notice. OWSs apparent website – “unofficial” it emphasizes – is here.
It has since spread nation-wide, and at this writing seems to be enjoying positive momentum.
So far, OWS appears to have managed to resist the pitfall of many spontaneous movements to be co-opted by the traditional Power structure (see ** here). It is my hope that OWS retains its present character, which enhances its potential for long term success.
The Tea Party, on the other hand, was almost without any question born as a creature of power: angry people were considered a tool by the very people against whom their anger was directed.
If not that, the “Tea Party” was quickly taken over by the radical right wing power structure. Its populist members seem to despise government generally (except those very limited functions that apply directly to them, personally: Medicare, Guns, etc.) and have in a short time gained an immense amount of power (a function of being a part of the traditional power structure)…but have not used that power wisely. (Below are some common elements of Power. Relationship Power (“power to the people”, shall I say) is seldom used in our society, including by those who could most successfully leverage it. Rather, we stick with the old traditions that kept kings and the like in control of their subjects. It strikes me as an odd reality.)

For all intents and purposes the Tea Party partisans control Congress, which in turn has an approval rating which remains at about 9%, lower than any time in history. Like Occupy Wall Street it is somewhat difficult to identify exactly who the Tea Party is; it is not as difficult to identify where it gets its power, and its not from the people at large. Long time right-wing Republican politician Dick Armey was early and visibly involved in Tea Party activities, as were others like present day Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.
Amongst my flood of e-mails recently, have come a couple of recent commentaries that have helped me, at least, become informed about these polar opposite movements. Neither article is written by a partisan for either, and if you have any interest, the two commentaries are worth the time to read:
1. A recent commentary, here, describes the Tea Party as it currently exists in the United States**. Writer Eric Black is a retired and highly respected writer on politics who spent most of his career with the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
2. A second commentary describes the deep, seemingly unbridgeable, gulf between what are considered the Left and the Right in this country. You can read it here.
I remain fascinated with the ‘relationship’ between the ideological poles which seem so very similar in so many ways (here).
At the same time, as noted in the article in #2, the poles are very different: on the right side there seems an obsession with the absolute rights of the individual, including the right to control others; on the left seems an equal but opposite obsession emphasizing what I would call larger community ideals – “we’re all in this together”.
Whatever….
In the end analysis, in the fall of 2012, the deciding votes will not be those who occupy the poles, but rather those in the silent middle of the ideological landscape.
Those at the poles are best advised to consider the moderate middle in all of their actions.
UPDATE Nov. 15 a.m.:
* – There was relatively little news about the demonstration. Here is the account on page two of the Nov. 15 Minneapolis Star Tribune.
** – A ‘takeaway’ for me on reading this article was the relatively tiny actual membership in active Tea Party groups. 200,000 in the United States would translate into one member per app. 1500 population in the U.S. Their political clout has obviously been much, much greater than their relative strength in terms of membership.
From Lee, in St. Paul:
The recently approved and implemented Hennepin County Board Building Use policy regarding OccupyMN demonstrations at the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis is not in fact
“aimed at shutting down the occupation” as its supporters claim. That’s overblown rhetoric.*
I’ve followed this issue because the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in Minneapolis by OccupyMN could possibly become another 2008 Republican National Convention “train wreck” that diverts media and public attention from important “peace and justice” issues to preventable law-enforcement issues. Unfortunately, “train wreck” damage is already occurring with Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in other cities.
As I told one OccupyMN organizer whom we well know, the 2008 RNC civil court decisions on where and when protesters could march and demonstrate near the Convention site (the Xcel Energy Center) in downtown St. Paul, and the upheld criminal court convictions of protesters for illegal trespass and other law violations clearly reinforced the fact that “free speech” rights aren’t necessarily the same as occupancy rights on public or private property–especially when there’s probable cause to believe that occupation is violating city and county codes or even state laws that protect public health, safety and free access to government or private property.**
Moreover, the mounting law enforcement costs of securing the Government Center (reportedly about $200,000) are apparently diverting funds from other public needs at a time when county and city budgets are very tight and state aid to local governments has been sharply reduced.
Yes, OccupyMN demonstrations should continue and deliver their vital messages, but in ways that respect the rule of law and budget priorities. One unnecessary and costly Minnesota “train wreck” is more than enough.
Richard Lee Dechert
*See “Board Approves Changes to Building Use Policy” here
**See “The ‘RNC 8’ ‘criminalizing dissent’ conspiracy: A blatant case of ends-justify-the-means anarchy” here.