#406 – Dick Bernard: Day 20 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 13 days till Default in Washington. Making Legislative Sausage in the dark or in the daylight?

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UPDATE: The ink was not even dry on this post when it was announced that the Special Session was concluded. Later update with the information about who voted how. The Governor has signed the bill into law, and the transition back to work is beginning. This story will continue.
Tuesday I predicted a special session convening on Thursday. A few hours later, the Special Session of the Minnesota convened, and apparently is in progress as I write in the very early a.m. of Wednesday, July 20.
Such is how predictions tend to fare.
There has been the predictable kinds of news about the compromise to open the doors of government. There is much almost Biblical “weeping and gnashing of teeth” from both ideological sides in Minnesota: who “won” or “lost”, and what it is they actually won or lost. Weeping about what legislative must-haves were left out of the omnibus bill to be voted on, without amendments.
Posturing abounds, except at the very highest leadership levels – the folks who knew something needed to get done, imperfect as it is.
Such is probably the only reasonable outcome this ’round’ from the insane polarization that has become Minnesota politics.
The same process is well under way in Washington, only worse. Even there, the rhetorical quiver is about empty of arrows; the adults in the room know that something has to be done, and that their political enemy needs to save face.
Perhaps we, the people, will learn something, finally, about the costs of polarization. I can hope, though it’s a long shot.
Of the many interesting questions raised in the last few days is the question of process: do the acknowledged behind-closed-door meetings to hammer out a deal violate at minimum the spirit of the open-meeting laws?
Personally, I think that the only way this particular conflict could settle was the way it was: getting people of unlike minds together without interference from this special interest or that.
I strongly support open meetings, but there is a time and a place….
Closed meetings of public bodies are still common, and they are essential.
Recently I blogged about watching the July 5 meeting of the Dubuque IA City Council on television. The end of the program, and the Minutes of the meeting, indicated that the Council was going into closed session per Iowa law. I don’t know what they were discussing there in the ‘dark’. It could have been a personnel matter, or some pending legal issue. The Law acknowledged that they could do that. Likely the resulting vote, if any was taken, would have to be public. The discussion could be private.
Even more recently, the question of open meeting was raised here in my own tiny Homeowners Association Community. My spouse is “mayor” (Association President) of this town of 96 dwellings (she is tired of the job, but has done outstanding work over the years, in my opinion).
Recently the Association has been attempting to conclude a protracted and major legal dispute over a contracting issue, and came to the point of ‘fish-or-cut-bait’: to settle on a certain amount or continue on to court.
An offer was made, and the Association Board met privately about particulars before informing the residents.
Could there be a closed meeting on this issue affecting the entire community?
Yes, said the high-priced lawyer from the Downtown Canyons of Minneapolis who represents our Association. He cited the appropriate chapter and verse of Minnesota Statutes.
There is a time and a place for everything and, unfortunately for the advocates of totally open government, the settlement phase of a rancorous dispute is not reasonably in the public square through dueling opinions.
(I still won’t predict the specific ultimate outcome of the vote at the Minnesota Legislature – who votes how – but I will predict that the “yes” vote may well exceed 75%, even though such a vote of near unanimity is all but impossible to achieve. Stay tuned.
I make no predictions about the even more ridiculous and rancorous situation in Washington, especially in the U. S. House of Representatives.)

#405 – Dick Bernard: Day 18 of the Minnesota Government Shutdown; Day 15 to Default of the U.S. Government. A Crucial Time.

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Demonstration at the State Capitol, St. Paul, June 30, 2011


Personally, I predict that the Minnesota Special Session will be towards the end of this week, probably on Thursday. Logically, the agreement between the Governor (Democrat) and the House and Senate Leadership (Republican) should pass. But this is not a logical time. At some early point approximately 200 Minnesota Senators and Representatives will take their vote. Until then, we’ll not know whose light is green (for) or red (against) the compromise.
Who are these folks deciding our collective fate? I went to the Minnesota Blue Book for 2011-2012 (free for the asking at the Secretary of State’s office).
The Minnesota State Legislature in 2011*.
MINNESOTA SENATE
Republican (IR)
23 – Freshman (first six months in office)
14 – Incumbent
37 – Total
62% of the Republican Senate majority are in their first year as lawmakers.
Democrat (DFL)
3 – Freshman
27 – Incumbent
30 – Total
MINNESOTA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Republican (IR)
30 – Freshman
45 – Incumbent
75 – Total
40% of House Republicans are Freshmen.
Democrat (DFL)
4 – Freshman
55 – Incumbent
59 – Total
* – These numbers show legislators listed in the book itself. I am aware of at least two Senators in the book who have left office, one due to death; the other to take another appointment. But the general data still stands.
53 of 112 Republican Legislators (47%) are Freshmen. It’s been indicated that some of these newcomers had never so much as even visited their State Capitol in which they now control the outcome of a $35.5 Billion budget affecting 5 million people.
There are doubtless plenty of people who think this new crop of lawmakers is just fine. “Good riddance to the old ‘tax and spenders’ “, they say. “Let’s run the state like a business….”

Ah yes, a business.
A short distance from where I type this post is the World Headquarters of 3M, one of Minnesota’s largest and most important multi-national corporations, over a century in business.

3M Headquarters from a nearby Maplewood MN neighborhood July 18, 2011


I wonder how 3M would fare if, all at once, most of its experienced top leadership was thrown out of office, and replaced by people who had a parochial view of 3M based on their own selfish interest.
My guess is that chaos would reign at that World Headquarters which I pass by several times each week.
While generalizations are always problematic, the ‘spontaneity’ that led to the 2010 election results, and what has happened since, would be intolerable and unacceptable in the corporate world.
A corporations goal is its collective success: if the corporation succeeds, everyone within it succeeds.
Our political system, on the contrary, State and National, increasingly appears as a system in mortal combat within itself: we have become a winner-take-all bunch destined to lose it all because of our attitude that only losers compromise.

Ironically, many of the newcomers set to shape up Minnesota and the U.S. were supported by Big Business PACs. Corporations are now, of course, “citizens”, with powerful rights and privileges thereof.
Now the controlling votes are in the hands of people vaulted into power by an unikely coalition of angry voters, and people who didn’t bother to vote at all in 2010.
It will be most interesting to see how the 89 DFL Legislators vote when the final agreement comes to the legislative table this week. The Governor has accepted some items which are as reprehensible to the Democrats, as some other items are to the Republicans.
A short distance behind is the even worse catastrophe facing the United States if it defaults on its debts.
Whatever the case, we’re stuck with the current status quo. We elected those deciding our fate.
It would be nice if the electorate learns a lesson from this crazy scenario.
I wish I could be more hopeful.
NOTE: I have written frequently on this topic at this space since June 23, 2011. Further posts will follow.

#404 – Dick Bernard: Day 17 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 16 Days till U.S. goes into Default. A crucial week ahead.

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On an ordinary week I get a lot of e-mails, from all ‘sides’. This is my choice. I want to know what’s going on. It’s simple to scan and delete.
Everybody has an opinion. The Obama haters are ramping up their hatred of the President of the United States; Many Minnesotans are second-guessing the elements of the tentative agreement to settle what I call the “strike” the Minnesota Legislature elected to force when they ended their regular legislative session in late May, as required by Statute, without coming to an agreement that the Governor could sign.
At the national level, it is clear, now, that the heavy-hitters who control the money (and in many ways, the government) are now very worried that a default on our debt is possible, and that it will be catastrophic if it happens. But the loose cannons, particularly Freshman radicals in Congress, have set their feet in cement, which is rapidly hardening. “No way”, they say.
This is a critical week ahead.
Rhetoric has to meet Reality or we’ll all be in deep trouble.
There’s still plenty of fantasy.
On one side are the citizen populists from the Party of Tea who govern like they’re sitting in the local coffee shops (men) or wherever women gather for similar conversations. These are gatherings of friends. There are seldom arguments of substance. We all sit in these gatherings at one time or another. You know how shallow these can be. Add substance or disagreement to the conversation, and you’re out of the group.
A guy I see quite frequently at my own hangout, where I’ll be shortly, joked a few days ago that the shutdown is just fine: there’s no need for government, really. (He also joked, at least at the beginning, about the horrendous oil spill in the Gulf a year or two ago.)
I know him well enough to know that he should know better. But his apparent hatred of government and reverence for the pre-eminence of business apparently clouds his common sense.
I gently called him on his comment. He didn’t like it….
On the other side – my side, the side I have most natural affinity towards – people are blasting Obama as a sellout; and our Governor Dayton as violating his campaign promises, insisting on their own pet top priorities as essential to any settlement.
Get over it.
Ancient legend is that Roman Emperor Nero fiddled as Rome burned.
Whether the history is accurate or not, the analogy is apt for us. Too many of “we, the people” have done and are doing the exact same thing, now, and our own ’empire’ is at grave risk of collapse.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand” said Abraham Lincoln, famously, on June 16, 1858.
Lincoln’s issue was the danger of division over the slavery issue. He lost his election to the U.S. Senate that year, and came back to be elected as President in 1860.
We have elected our “house divided”, and it is, really, a reflection of each and every one of us. We have brought this mess upon ourselves. We are a bunch of individuals with our own non-negotiable priorities, where even the thought of compromise is reprehensible.
In Minnesota, the necessary compromise was apparently reached this past weekend (I’ll know more in a few minutes when I read the paper), and there will be a short special session this week to get a deal finally done.
In Washington, it’s not so certain. I only hope that the cement under the Republicans feet has not hardened to the point that they cannot extricate themselves. Obama has far more than done his part to reach a settlement the country can live with. He’s gone far enough.
Economic catastrophe awaits if a deal isn’t concluded.
The next days will tell the tale.
(Note: this is a continuing series which began June 23, and will continue as long as the state and national situation remain unsettled.)

#403 – Dick Bernard: Day 15 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 20 days before Default Day in Washington. A Tentative Agreement

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A few hours ago Minnesota’s Governor Mark Dayton, and the leaders of the Republican House and Senate reached a tentative agreement on bringing Minnesota back from Shutdown. Predictably, as is always true in these situations, there is a great plenty of glumness, and anger. Here’s how it was described in the independent MinnPost on-line newspaper.
Now comes the tension of actually getting a deal done: passed by the House and Senate and signed by the Governor. It ain’t over till its over.
Art IV Sec. 12 of the Minnesota Constitution seems to be the crucial rule now in play: “A special session of the legislature may be called by the governor on extraordinary occasions.” The governor, and only the governor, can call the special session. The Legislature had 120 legislative days (the constitutional maximum) to reach an agreement that would be acceptable to the Governor. They chose unilateralism.
Games can obviously played in a special session, but those who play such games will have hell to pay from the electorate in a years time. The spotlight now shines on every single legislator.
Those of us who have ever been in difficult negotiations – I have – have “been there, done that” with what faced the Governor and House and Senate leaders after 13 days of Minnesota Government Shutdown.
The parties in the room do not have the luxury of second-guessing or arm-chair quarterbacking or winning total victory over the enemy. They are forced to face reality.
There is something of a rule of thumb in such situations: a good settlement is one that nobody likes. So the partisans on both sides are bemoaning this still tentative deal for diverse and opposing reasons.
Personally, I hope the deal gets passed. The longer this crisis goes on, the worse it will get, and the more difficult it will be to settle.
I did not initially support Mark Dayton when he ran for Governor in 2010. I preferred the endorsed candidate of the DFL party. But I will now say with absolutely no equivocation that Governor Dayton is proving himself to be an outstanding Governor.
I am not as impressed with we citizens. “We, the people” freely elected that this mess would happen in the way we voted (or did not vote at all*) in 2010. In effect, we chose this deal we do not like, and likely will not like, by electing who we did. We chose this craziness at both state and national levels. We citizens need to take a very hard look at ourselves, individually and collectively.
The new and often radical Republicans who ran and won in MN in 2010, often by infinitesimal margins, now have established a record in their votes in their first legislative session. (The special session doesn’t count, in my opinion). Now they will need to answer for what they did, not what they promised in campaign ads when running for office.
* – Citizens not voting at all, or voting in ignorance of possible consequences, is the big story of the 2010 elections, in my opinion. We’re paying the price for our collective laziness.
Just for comparison, here’s the vote for MN Governor in 2010, and the vote for President in 2008, both from the MN Secretary of State. They speak for themselves: Governor 2010; President 2008. Estimated total voters in 2008 were 2, 920,214; Registered voters as of May 2, 2011, were 3,099,862.
(Here at Outside the Walls are numerous other posts about the Shutdown, and Default. They begin at June 23 on this site. Behind every high-lited calendar date is a post. Hover your cursor over each date to see the topic of the day. This series will continue till at least August 2.)

#402 – Dick Bernard: Day 14 of the Minnesota Shutdown, Day 19 to Default of the United States. A Chance Encounter With the City of Dubuque IA and a Glimpse of Hope

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The Family Reunion over on Saturday, I settled into my motel room in Dubuque IA. I had just given myself a mini-tour of this small Mississippi river city which I have visited a number of times over the years, and I felt impressed with what I saw. It seemed transformed from the generally drab place I remembered in the past to a quite attractive present.
Something in Dubuque seemed to be working okay.

On the Mississippi from riverfront Dubuque IA July 9, 2011


I was too tired to leave the motel room, and too awake to go to sleep so I turned on the television. I’m not a TV guy, but this was at least company. A stroll through the wasteland found me at HBO, where the selection of the moment was Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. The movie was a few minutes in, and I entered it where a wealthy broker was talking with a young broker in training about some investment deal apparently taking place someplace many times zones east of the Street. I wasn’t taking any notes – this was, after all, a movie – but the segment I had reached had a particular piece of dialogue which I generally remember: Broker to kid: “To me, $125 million is like a buck and a quarter.” He grabbed a handful of money, gave it to the kid and said something like “take this money and go out and stimulate the economy”. Next scene had the kid in a bar about to spend wildly, presumably on wine, women and song.
The movie didn’t interest me, so I started channel flipping and stopped for some reason at the local TV channel replay of the Dubuque City Council meeting of July 5, 2011.
I never watch this stuff at home, but for some reason the Mayor and Council drew me in, and I watched the entirety of the meeting till it went in closed session for some legal matters. It was fascinating. (The Minutes of the particular meeting can be accessed here. Select “View All” under City Council Meeting Minutes, and then select July 5, 2011). I entered when a citizen, unpracticed in public speaking but clear and eloquent in his own way, was complaining about enforcement of a local noise ordinance which resulted in some motorcyclists being ticketed. He was representing effectively a bunch of unseen bikers in the room with him, people who appreciated what he was doing in their behalf.
The Mayor and Council listened respectfully, and while they didn’t agree immediately with his request, they identified for he and the audience the process that would be followed to determine if some modification in policy could be made. I thought to myself: were I in his shoes, I would have felt I had been listened to, not dismissed. The situation must have been tense. The Mayor indicated he had had lunch with the bikers representatives earlier, to better understand the situation. Great move on his part: defusing the situation.
The meeting continued with the normal ‘this and that’ of city government. There was a fascinating report on an ongoing and obviously carefully planned program to work towards elimination of plastic bags in Dubuque stores. I got the impression that such a controversial plan had some potential for success.
It is said that the more local the government, the nastier and insane it can be: you can read examples of this most every day in community reporting because it is news. Quite certainly that Dubuque Mayor and Council could tell stories about their own city government. My whole career was working with people in organizations, and I have often said that if you have 100 people gathered anywhere, there are at least a couple who will cause a dilemma. Magnify this by thousands (towns and cities), millions (states), hundreds of millions (countries) and there’s plenty of differences to deal with.
But on this particular night, July 9, 2011, through the eyes of local community access television, I saw a city that seems to be working well. An hour or so earlier I’d seen the evidence as one simple tourist driving around the Mississippi River town.
And here I write, in a state that is shutdown due to paralysis at the State level (with a potential for settlement just announced 11 a.m. on Thu July 14); and in a country that is lurching towards catastrophe. What can I say? If they can get things done in Dubuque, why not on a larger scale?
Of course, there are answers to this question, but that’s for another time.

Thanks, Mayor and Council of Dubuque IA for giving me some hope.
As for our state, the big news (till the aforementioned announcement) is the possibility of running out of beer. And as for our nation, my favorite blogger filed a most interesting compilation about the Washington D.C. scene. You can access his 3000 or so words here.

#401 – Dick Bernard: Day 13 of Minnesota Shutdown; Day 20 till Default in Washington D.C. A Letter and a Public Appearance

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We live in the lower-priced end of our suburb which pretty consistently ranks as one of the best places to live in the U.S. Monday we were at one of the busiest intersections in our town and saw a new sign next to a local liquor store:

In the Minneapolis paper today an interesting bulletin directly related to the Shutdown. This brought some on-line repartee between friends about beer riots ending the Shutdown, constructing an OK Corral for gunslingers, and on and on. Sometime you need to take a timeout for the sake of sanity.
In an understated way, at least to this point, we are well into the world of ‘crazy’ in Minnesota, with the situation in Washington and in neighboring Wisconsin not far behind. The voters – those who cast ballots, and those who didn’t bother to show up to vote in 2010 – have brought this on themselves.
But it is a hard sell to convince people that they are cause in this matter of political disaster. It is much easier to label “politicians”, or some amorphous “them”, or “liberals” or such as the problem. We will rue the day.
Quite by accident, this day, I scored a ‘twofer’.
A Letter to the Editor I had submitted a couple of weeks ago to the local paper will be published this day. It speaks of my local Senator and Representative, newly elected Freshmen Republicans, who have, best as I can tell at this point, been loyal supporters of the till-death without compromise shutdown ordained by their party leadership. Our Representative, a prim and pleasant suburban homemaker, distinguished herself mostly in this session by a liberalization of gun laws (probably without much personal enthusiasm, but it came out of her committee and I doubt she had much choice in whether to vote the issue up or down. I’ll think of her each time I see this gun shop in our high-class town.)
The war continues.
Earlier today I had the totally unexpected opportunity to be one of five speakers representing the DFL (Democratic Party) about the Minnesota shutdown at this point in time.
My remarks to four tv cameras and several journalists for public release are below and are not necessarily distinguished, but that isn’t what I noted about this exercise.
When given the opportunity I had to distill my thoughts into a very brief presentation (here DFLSCStatementJul132011), and in the process try to represent the totality of hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who in one way or another share my demographic (senior citizen) and political point of view (Democrat). Believe me it is not easy. Luckily, the timeline was so short that no one could or did look over my shoulder and insist on modifications or veto what I was going to say. It is me, trying to represent my demographic, which I think I know pretty well. I needed to try to distill how I saw the very large number of people I was representing. Afterwards I got some very sincere compliments. I got some silence, too, which probably meant ‘too soft’, or you shouldn’t have said THAT. Such is how it goes. (Update July 16: if interested in seeing my two seconds of fame, it’s here, about five minutes into Almanac on the local PBS affiliate.)
We are a bitterly polarized society, and unless we figure out how to work with rather than against each other our slide downhill is going to accelerate.
And, by the way, I have great respect for the President of the United States, and the Governor of Minnesota, trying to get people together in a most troubling time.

Dick Bernard in blue shirt at right at the State Capitol, July 13, 2011.

#400 – Dick Bernard: Day 12 of the Minnesota Shutdown; Day 21 to Default in Washington D.C. Whazzup in Minnesota?

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One of the e-mails in my in-box on return from the family reunion in Iowa was this, from someone I’ve known for many years, who lives in a state far away from Minnesota: “I see the belt tightening as a positive but think I might not be in the majority…did you blog on this yet?? I was listening to Pawlenty this morning, more impressed with him than Bachmann.”
To this, I responded as follows: “Pawlenty is a very major cause of the current Minnesota problem.”
I had noticed that, in next door neighbor Iowa, the local Dubuque paper had no coverage (at least none I could find) of the Minnesota situation. Unique as we are, we aren’t on Iowa’s interest radar, apparently.
At coffee this morning, a good friend was commenting about his fairly new neighbor, who has been laid off by the state due to the shutdown. Later in the morning came an out of office reply from someone on a family list of mine: “Due to the shutdown of state government, I am away from work indefinitely. I will return to work when the Legislative funding for the continued operation of the Minnesota Department of _________ is enacted into law. For more information, please monitor news reports or see our website at www._____.state.mn.us.” I don’t know this individual personally, so I didn’t know who she worked for, until the e-mail.
These are the stories, one by one. So goes ‘death by a thousand cuts’…one neighbor, one relative, one working here, one there. That is what the shutdown looks like.
Overnight came this online newspaper article about the “non-essential” State Historical Society library by my good friend and former work colleague Judy Berglund, outlining another one of the cuts due to the inability to settle the issues. I’ve used the History Center Library many times over the years. I’m a dues paying member of the History Center, but it’s still closed.
Of course, these days of message control, it is not hard to assess blame, and assess it convincingly.
But it is hard to find credible sources of information…that are accepted as credible.
In the same in-box with three days worth of e-mails came this editorial from the Winona MN newspaper. Winona is a Mississippi River small city, and I drove by it both coming and going to Dubuque. I don’t know the papers political slant, or that of Winona itself. The fact that it was written locally did impress me. Not only do they get what’s going on, but they’re willing to take a stand on it, publicly, in their town.
Then, yesterday afternoon came a new video from the Governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton. It was apparently just freshly released as it had only 100 views. Here is the video, about three minutes and worth watching, especially if not from Minnesota. Dayton comes from wealth: think Dayton’s Department Stores, later Dayton-Hudson; later Marshall-Fields, then Macy’s too, and Target stores. Depending on point of view, he’s ridiculed; or as a highly principled and committed Governor. I subscribe to the latter view of our Governor.
I don’t know where this will all end up.
What I do know from a long career in negotiations is that “compromise” does not mean that one side must cave in. One side demanding and refusing to budge, is not compromise.
I hope Gov. Dayton sticks with important principles for us all.

#398 – Dick Bernard: Day 8 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 25 days to D-Day in Washington D.C. Going to a Family Reunion

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At 7 a.m. I leave home in my trusty 2003 Toyota Corolla, enroute to a family reunion in the Dubuque Iowa area. I’ve decided to do the trip on the slower but much more scenic and interesting Mississippi River Road. Weather is supposed to be good, and this is always a beautiful trip. I’ll be traveling alone, which gives lots of thought time. I never travel with computer, so there will be a hiatus at this space. I return Sunday night.
I’ve done this route before, several times in fact. The Mississippi was rolling long before there were humans around this place, and its done its work carving and molding the beautiful countryside for eons before there were towns and roads and such.
Human encroachment, in the way the history of our planet is mentioned, hardly merits a nanosecond, if that. But in that nanosecond we’ve unalterably changed the landscape and the resources which feed our voracious appetite for things like the gasoline that will make it possible for me to make this trip in relative comfort.
My people have been in the Mississippi Valley since, most likely, the 1700s (the French-Canadian side); and the 1840s (the southwest Wisconsin German side). Some of them were already there, farming, when the Grand Excursion of 1854 gave well to do tourists their first view of the upper Mississippi Valley, ending at later to be St. Paul and Minneapolis and the settlement floodgates began to open. It was not until the late 1860s that railroad would actually reach the new twin cities of, then, St. Paul and St. Anthony/Minneapolis.
As I drive, I’ll likely be shielded from the current hubbub and insanity in Washington and St. Paul. I have a few favorite CDs along to keep me company, from Mozart to folks songs. Life is too short to seek out the local radio stations which too often feature national talk radio.
In Viroqua, if I’m lucky, I’ll have coffee with a good friend who went to prison during the white hot times of Vietnam War protesting in 1970, but that may be the only contact with politics as such. Family reunions are no place to get into arguments about national policy. In fact, I won’t invite these encroachments. Just me. Life is a bit too short. There are other times to do that.
Most likely, typical for me, I’ll catch up on the news through the local newspapers in places like LaCrosse, Prairie du Chien, Dubuque…. It is always interesting to get the local perspective, at least such as it is printed in the local journals. Also, typically, I won’t watch much television. I don’t do that at home, either, but even less on the road.
(Click on photos to enlarge them. The entire set, from early 1900s postcards, can be seen here.)

The bridge at Dubuque in the early 1900s - a postcard rendition


Julien Hotel, Dubuque, 1908 - postcard


1933 on the Mississippi at Davenport IA - a postcard


I’ll deliver a couple volumes of my family history to the Dubuque Public Library later today. The most recent one I just had printed a few days ago: 475 pages largely of letters and postcards written from Wisconsin farm to North Dakota farm between 1905-13 or so. A story and pictures introducing the postcard section of the book is here. The longer, and in my view more fascinating, section of the book is over 100 handwritten letters found in a container at the old deserted farm house in 2000, Mostly they were sister-to-sister, talking about ordinary rural life near Dubuque from April, 1905, to June, 1906. They are literate and they are fascinating, from a time when people actually put pencil to paper.

Dubuque Carnegie Library in 1910 - from a postcard


In the course of these letters came the first telephone to the rural folk of Grant County Wisconsin. A description of an encounter of a horse carriage with an unexpected automobile is hilarious. The letters were oft-written by candlelight in the farmhouses of that day and occasionally brought news of tragedies too, such as the distraught young housewife in rural Kieler WI who in 1905 killed her four young children, ages 1 to 4, with a butcher knife, and then used the same instrument to kill herself. I’ll see if I can find their common grave – the name is Klaas – which is supposed to be in the churchyard at Kieler, near where a relative of mine lives. Oh, the stories.
Back at this space on Monday.
Have a great weekend.
NOTE: This is part of a continuing series of commentaries on the political problems we’re now facing in this state and nation. The first was published on June 23. Each hi-lited date on the calendar at upper right has a column behind it. By placing the cursor on the date, you can read the title of the particular column.

#397 – Dick Bernard: Day 7 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 26 days to D-Day in Washington D.C. "Compromise?"

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NOTE: This is part of a continuing series which began June 23. Point your cursor at any hi-lited date on the calendar and you will see the title of that days post.

I am a creature of habit. And much of my ‘habit’ involves gathering information, much of that political information.
It was said that Harry Truman, even in retirement, religiously read five newspapers every day. Most of his life was pre-television. I probably don’t come near to matching him in the information end, but I strive to keep up on the various ‘sides’ of issues of the day. It is an exhausting and very confusing task.
That being said, we are in insane times. I hope we survive.
From my personal perspective, two apparently wildly disparate views of the universe jumped out within the last day:
Yesterday, on the internet came a report on the cost of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan released by the Eisenhower Study Groups at Brown University. The Executive Summary is here. The headline says it all: “225,000 Killed, $3.2 – 4 Trillion”.
On the other pole is one letter in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune which the writer obviously wanted to be public information:
“I don’t care if my government is Democrat or Republican. I don’t care if it’s run by the Independence, Green, Patriot or Freedom parties. I want a government that will serve me with the things that will protect me and my freedom:
1. I want them to govern with as little of my money as they can.
2. I want my government workers to work hard at keeping their jobs, not rely on a union that will keep them no matter how bad a worker they are. They should earn the job.
3. I want the teachers to be the best teachers they can be, without relying on a union boss to keep their jobs for them. They should earn the right to keep the job.
4. I want my government to mind its own business around the world. Let those people be. Let them figure out how to govern themselves. You know — just like we did.

5. Don’t force policy on me that I don’t need. Health care? Ha. Fifty-five million U.S. citizens will not have health coverage. Boo-hoo. They don’t have it now and they get care for free. Nothing will change that.
And, finally: Stand for the flag, salute the flag. Know the national anthem; it won’t hurt you. And, America … do it in English.”
JUDITH SCHNARR, MINNEAPOLIS
I don’t know said Judith Schnarr, but it is pretty obvious that in her view of the world, it’s all about ME, including no Union to protect her interests, which apparently she doesn’t feel need protecting. She’s got her act all together, thank you very much.
The Eisenhower Study Group report, on the other hand, has much more of a WE vision. It matters to us, and to others, what we do….
There’s something else revealed in Ms Schnarr’s commentary: in essence, what’s mine is mine, and I can tell you what you deserve as well. Don’t tell me what to do, but I’ll certainly tell you. She reminds me of that guy in the Red Corvette in the Afton Parade on July 4. The guy with the angry look, and the “Don’t Tread on Me” banners. No kiddies looked for candy from his car, that’s for certain.
There’s just a single letter difference between those two very little words: ME versus WE.
I get the strong impression that this is the battleground between the parties in this state, and in Washington D.C.
How a balance will be found between the two poles is unknown. “Compromise” does not happen when one party or both are stuck firmly in cement.
If the road ahead is “my way or the highway” there’s a long very rough trip ahead, and we spectators are sitting in the bus that will sooner than later break down. By then, it will be too late….

#396 – Dick Bernard: Day Six of the Minnesota Shutdown; 27 days to August 2 in Washington. Messing with our minds?

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Related commentaries begin with #387 and #389, thence continuing through this post. This series will likely continue, almost daily, through August 2, 2011.
Down deep, most of us really want to believe that “they” (the politicians or parties we habitually vote for, or the religious or other powerful leaders we truly respect or resonate with) are really honest good people. It’s those other ones who aren’t…or so we convince ourselves.
What if our generalization isn’t true?
A quote I have always remembered – well enough to easily google it successfully last evening – was from the New York Times Magazine October 17, 2004.
The article was Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush by Ron Suskind.
Well down in the article, in the paragraph which begins “The aide said…“, is this quote: “…”We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality…we’ll act again, creating other new realities….” What the aide was really saying was “we’re creating our own truth”.
Six years later, in the late summer of 2008, this new reality came home to roost, and America itself virtually collapsed. We’re still paying the price.
While the “aide” is nowhere revealed by name (it is common to have such anonymous ‘background’ interviews), what is said bears the paw prints of none other than Karl Rove, a high-level White House aide to Bush who for many years has been expert in the trade of diversion, disrupt and confuse tactics in contemporary politics. As this “aide” says, Rove specializes, still, in “creating new realities”. It has worked spectacularly well. But it is a false reality.
Rove no longer has a White House office, but he is in a far more central and dangerous (in my opinion) position in the contemporary game of playing politics with peoples lives, and indeed the life of our very society. While likely supposedly independent of the Republican political operation he is backed by very big money and will be extraordinarily central to the entire Republican campaign in 2012, which has begun already with the pending chaos in Washington DC, the government shutdown in my own state, and the problems in neighboring Wisconsin and other states.
While such can never be proven, if there’s a dirty trick out there, odds are it will come from within Rove’s playbook for manipulating opinion.
I don’t underestimate Rove’s capacity for deviousness. Since I first started having an active interest in how Rove operates – it was July, 1999, when he co-starred with George W. Bush, Joe Albaugh and Karen Hughes in long profiles in the Washington Post long preceding the official 2000 political season – I’ve watched for evidence of his almost trade-marked dirty tricks, performed by he and his abundant disciples.
His has always been an amoral world. Politics is considered psychological warfare. I would suppose Rove goes to church somewhere, sometime – certainly a Christian one – and I am quite sure he can disconnect his “professional” life from his personal. After all, if a carnie huckster can flim flam a rube out of a few dollars, why not a larger scale flim flam with a much larger number of rubes who can be made to believe almost anything.
There is a big problem with mythical realities as opposed to more genuine ones: mythical realities don’t exist other than in the minds of those who believe in them, and when the dream turns out to be bogus, its too late to do anything about it.
We are so awash in political lies that it is prudent to take at face value nothing which emanates in the political sphere that purports to be true. The false reality is slowly built, insinuation by insinuation; dirty trick by dirty trick. If your official source of political information is television ads, or talk radio, there is little chance of getting some kind of objective truth.
I don’t possess a magic wand for dealing with this problem, except to recommend being very skeptical. The coming year and a half we will be awash in huge amounts of money expended by shadowy PACs on convincingly put together lies about those they favor, and those they wish to destroy.
In the end, we’ll be the beneficiary, or the victim, of decisions we make.
It’s in our court.