#355 – Dick Bernard: The Public "Lambs to the Slaughter"

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Today’s Wall Street Journal had a very clear front page headline (click on photos to enlarge them).

Wall Street Journal page 1 April 4, 2011


The essentials are easily read: “Medicare”; “under the age of 55”; “cut government spending”….
The aim, of course, is not at all to “cut spending”. Rather, it is to cut government control of that spending, so as to facilitate making even more money at the hands of the helpless.
Here’s a simple example:
As it happened, today I was paying a bill to an Emergency Care facility. The essence of the bill is below.
It is a reasonable bill: the “You Now Owe” column showed $49.42.

(I had a bad sore throat, and I went to the neighborhood facility rather than wait till the next week and drive 20 miles to my primary care doctor. I had a simple throat culture to check for Strep and went home….)
The Bill is pretty self-explanatory. The apparent hourly rate for the procedure I had is $675.00 an hour (I was billed for 20 minutes). I’m on Medicare, and Medicare paid $19.61. More important, Medicare disallowed $155.97 of the bill, leaving me owing $49.42. In all, I’d estimate less than 10 minutes time with a nurse and then with a doctor during this visit. As anyone who’s visited a doctor’s office knows, waiting alone is most of the time spent.
I have no idea, of course, on what the $675 per hour figure is based. It could simply be a conjured up number. The fact of the matter is, however, that it is a number declared by the provider.
Another fact of the matter is that the entirety of that Government money at all levels is ultimately spent on all of the things government budgets are spent on: wages, materials, etc., etc. The vast majority of that spending ultimately goes to purchase something from the economy.
The issue is not the money; it is the control of the money. Apparently, in my case, the provider of the care would have preferred to ring up a tab of $225, but Medicare thought that was about $175 too much.
Without Medicare, the bill I had to pay would have been much, much higher.
Of course, the same business community that chafes at any controls on its ability to make money, has no qualms whatever in attempting to interfere with workers rights to organize and bargain. That’s just how business is…competition is good, so long as the winner is known.
So is how it goes with economics dominated by greed.
A few hours earlier, CBS’ 60 Minutes had an excellent segment on the war between banks and huge numbers of people whose homes are being repossessed. The segment is well worth watching. Succinctly, banks hired out the task of reconstructing missing documents to a firm that subcontracted out to another firm who had employees fraudulently sign paperwork for submission to Court. One person interviewed said his quota was 350 signatures an hour, for $10 an hour wages. The responsible banks refused requests for interviews, and blamed the subcontractor for their misdeeds. And these are people we trust?
Sooner than later – hopefully before it’s too late – common people, of which I am one, will realize in large enough numbers that they are being played for fools by big money and big business, and all that stands between them and disaster is a reasonably strong government which can effectively regulate the bandits among us who make a huge amount of money.

#354 – Dick Bernard: In support of a Lobbyist (and scarcely anyone else)

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In the previous days post, I related the apparently close professional relationship between a lobbyist and a legislator.
The post brought a couple of angry responses via personal e-mail. In not terribly delicate terms, one demanded to know the name of the lobbyist; the other described the behavior of the two parties to the conversation related at the meeting (I decline to name the lobbyist or his organization, and, of course, I don’t know the name of the lawmaker.)
I didn’t meet the lobbyist at the meeting in question, and I’d never heard of him before, and I know little about his organization except that, I found, it is very dependent on state and federal funding, both of which are drying up “as we speak” by the slash and burn mentality of the current crop of lawmakers.
I actually feel considerable empathy for the Lobbyist. His job is to get funding, and he has to walk an endless tightrope dependent on who happens to be in political power at the time.
Reprehensible as they can seem to be Lobbyists serve a useful role in government policy making. At minimum, they can make sense out of arcane issues, and thus help their cause move along.
There are abundant lobbying abuses, to be sure, but without lobbyists, citizen and otherwise, what appears to be bad policy making would be much, much worse.
I don’t have the empathy for the slash and burn lawmakers currently in control in both houses in Minnesota, and in the U.S. Congress.
By and large they ran against “Government” itself, and they were wildly successful in 2010. Of course, they have their own definition of “good” government (give goodies to Business, and spend lots on “Defense”), and “bad” (people related priorities), which opens them up to problems of their own making.
In a sense, when they chose to close ranks with the bunch that allies with the Tea Party philosophy, they much resembled someone who has fuel and matches and sends angry people out to burn down a building. Let’s call that building “Government”.
Naturally, some of the rabble take that invitation to heart, and set the blaze. Some are even democratically elected as “leaders”.
But then comes a problem: as with a literal fire, the flames do not discriminate among “good” and “bad” government. As the house catches on fire, none of the rooms are protected from damage. The risk is that the entire structure goes up in smoke, or at minimum is severely damaged. As an act of an arsonist has consequences, so does “throw the bums out” philosophy.
In my simple analogy, the people and party who exploited the angry voters now have a problem on their hands: to allow the blaze to rage on creates the risk of destroying even what they consider desirable.
To put on the adult hat and urge adult behavior of the mob, turns the angry mob against them, resulting in future election problems.
I believe there are more than a few legislators in this dilemma, currently. They know that they have unleashed insanity, and they’re terrified of the political consequences if they engage in some kind of alternative rhetoric. So they go home and lie to their constituents, hoping to dodge a later electoral backlash.
We are in for a rough slide.
(Of course, someone might say, sometimes fires are useful…after all, you can rebuild. But what if you, at the very same time you’re starting the fire, drop your insurance? And that’s what we’re doing, and have been doing, for some years.)
That leaves “we the people”.

Someone asked, “what do we do?”
The answer is, in my opinion, “do something other than gripe and complain and blame someone else for the problems”.
Sitting on our hands will only make the problem worse.
That’s how I see it.
A friend recently sent me a very simple and profound quote from a column in the Lincoln (NE) Journal Star, (Pickles by Brian Crane, 3/27/11). It speaks to our role:
“If it is to be, it is up to me.”

#350 – Dick Bernard: Part 18. The Scourge of Half-thought, and the danger….

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Today I was at the local copy place, making a photo copy of my mother’s first contract as a teacher. Busch Esther 1929 contra001.
At the next copier, a young woman was making large numbers of copies on colored paper. A somewhat older woman, though much younger than I, was with her.
We struck up a brief conversation. It turned out that the younger woman was a 4th grade teacher in a neighboring public school district. I gave her a copy of Mom’s 1929 contract. The other woman was the teacher’s mother. “Teaching is a really hard job“, the Mom said, referring to her daughter. Shortly into my Mom’s contract the great economic crash of 1929 occurred. I wonder….
Earlier I had sent around a commentary recently written by a veteran of many years in the trenches of public education, particularly teacher union work. I’d like the young woman to have this commentary as well, but likely will not ever hear from her or meet her again. But for the readers of this blog, here is Bob Barkley’s commentary. (Disclaimer: Bob Barkley is a good friend whose professional career mirrored mine, though at the national level and in another state.)
Later in the afternoon my wife and I watched 60 Minutes and saw a segment on the revision and treatment of a certain word – the “N” word – in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. The segment featured teachers and students at our local high school, one mile from our home. It was a surprise to say the least. And excellent. It was refreshing to see an example of real discussion and debate within the public school setting involving teachers and students.
Economically, most all of us live in almost heavenly economic conditions compared to Mom and those farmers she worked for in 1929-30.
But public policy, especially public education, is, and has for years become, a major ideologic battleground in the United States. It is a hard, uncertain, place to be.
At the moment, at least, the juggernaut that is the “Power” establishment seems to have the upper hand in setting in place regressive public policies under the many guises presented: “reform”, diminishing or destroying the impact of unions, controlling curriculum, bringing that young woman’s salary and benefits to heel, et al. The young lady has more to worry about than those colored sheets of paper she was working with.
I have come to observe an alarming degree of what seems to be half-thought by most everyone in society, most especially Power People – the ones who can do the most damage. (By “half thought” I mean an utter lack of thinking through anything beyond the short term “win” or “loss”.) There are endless examples. People see an issue only through their own lens, and at the moment. The long term is what happens now, this year, on our own terms. In fact, “half-thought” might be giving far more credit than deserved. We want exactly what we want, now. Too often, we want what we want required of others, too.
The young teacher I saw this afternoon is likely too tired and overwhelmed with doing what she is supposed to do in the classroom to pay much mind to things like attempts to destroy her rights to collective representation or due process for dismissal or anything like that. She’s too young to remember the struggle to get what she has. There are legions like her, too busy to think of anything beyond doing what they’re directed to do.
In the 60 Minutes segment, the issue being “debated”, between two obviously highly professional colleagues, could be decided, case closed, by implementation of state or federal Laws limiting or eliminating their options – closing off their debate. You win or you lose. Period.
There are winners and losers in the half-thought society I mention above. The winners prevail in getting the RIGHTS to decide. The losers are given the RESPONSIBILITY to do what is imposed on them. It is not healthy for winners or losers or our society.
I still quite often see a TV commercial for a particular alcoholic beverage which seems to touch this issue. It is apparently a play on a more famous quotation, “With great privilege comes great responsibility“. The commercials says: ‘With [enjoyment of this] great [alcoholic beverage] comes great responsibility.” In other words, get drunk with our product, but don’t blame us afterwards….
It would be good for the movers and shakers – those out to “win” at any cost – to pay very serious attention to the “responsibility” piece, the long and global view.
As for the rest, the victims of this Power-grab, I hope they get themselves organized and that they hang in there.
They, not the rich and powerful, are the salvation of this country of ours.
There’s will be a really, really difficult job. But if they lose, we will all lose.

#345 – Dick Bernard – Part 15. Thank a public worker. Public workers, thank back….

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Early last evening we were having a light meal at a nearby hotel before hearing the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis. (Magnificent concert, as always.)
Our server, Mindy E., took my credit card to ring up the bill, and on return asked me “are you a teacher?” She had seen the imprint on the credit card; the teacher’s union for whom I worked for 27 years; and of which I was an active member for quite a number of years before that.

I told Mindy I was retired, had been a teacher years ago and spent much of my career representing public school teachers but no, I was not currently a teacher.
She said “I admire teachers. My brother is a teacher.” I asked where, and she mentioned some small place in Montana I’d never heard of. “We went to Montana State in Bozeman”, I seem to recall her saying.
The conversation was very short – she was busy and we were about to leave – but it is one of those messages that will live on for me.
It was a particularly heart-warming happening because a few hours earlier, in my town, I’d been to a listening session with our newly elected local legislator. There was the usual talk, heavily laced this particular day with how those Wisconsin public employees were bankrupting the State, and how we just had to get rid of those “bad” teachers. One of the 27 in the room was glad to darkly describe one of these – somebody from some long ago memory of one classroom event – interspersed with the usual “good old days” stuff about discipline and the like. She was a good storyteller, I’ll give her that.
It didn’t sound like there were many bad teachers employed in our district, but in some other towns there had to be these blights on the world who should be eliminated by some means or another. This brought up the problem with “teacher tenure”, which I pointed out was a misnomer…but I didn’t pursue since it would just create another unresolvable argument engaged in by people who probably don’t have a clue what the law is or how it works.(Here’s Minnesota’s).. All they know is that they’ve been told it’s bad.
I asked how you define a “bad teacher”, and nobody including the legislator was quite sure how you go about it. Perhaps there should be some kind of assessment of how students progress on test scores during the year, the new legislator offered. The legislator seemed to be working from talking points, and as I asked for some proof, she seemed happy to get rescued from the topic by other issues she was urging the audience to raise – fair enough.
The audience pitched in: issues like cutting health and human services; should the state help fund a new Vikings Stadium (the local NFL team); Racino (the latest version of legalized gambling in lieu of taxation); open bars on Sunday (apparently liquor store owners are against this, for some reason); an initiative to enhance carbon monoxide safety awareness brought by a citizen; how they could buy booze in grocery stores in California, why not here?; the problems and benefits of the Legacy Amendment (a constitutional amendment passed by Minnesota voters which dedicates a small percent to things like the arts, wetlands, etc.).
I was a bit depressed when left the meeting with the legislator, but nonetheless I was glad I’d come.
The restaurant servers comment made my day.
I’ve never been much for “vanity credit cards”, but that little conversation in Minneapolis has caused me to rethink this a bit.
As for getting to know your legislator, do it whether they’re from the friendly or unfriendly side. At the very least, they need your point of view, and speak up. Maybe somebody in the audience will be listening.
And the legislator wants to be reelected next time….
Last night I gave Mindy a good tip. Today I’m going to write her a note, and send it in a real stamped envelope. I know where she works….
POSTNOTE: The previous 14 posts on this topic begin with Part 1 at February 17.

#344 – Dick Bernard: Part 14. We're witnessing a deadly game in which we're the ultimate victims.

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The bizarre drama that is Wisconsin continues to play itself out.
It is a very high stakes and scary game, where an ideological fringe has, for the moment, managed to seize control of the government and is asserting its will. In the end the ultimate victims of this power play, the working middle class, will be the ones relied on to drive a stake through their own heart by allowing a highly financed, amoral and truly vicious political machine to demolish workers rights in favor of big business and the very wealthy.
Wisconsin is the test for all the rest of us.
I believe Wisconsin’s – and our – democracy is still strong enough to self-correct over time. But Wisconsin will be a very major test of the foolishness of our tendency as Americans to make our politics simply a spectator sport or, far worse, make politics into something that is beneath us, mostly because we do not wish to become engaged at any level.
Sometimes I wonder if we are our own worst enemies…that we loathe ourselves…that we don’t deserve fair treatment and good wages and working conditions. We seem to be easily taught to be passive.
There are far more than enough members of the working middle class to turn the tables on the big and very selfish Power interests, but will they? That is an open question. (The poor are unlikely to engage for good reason: their struggle is simply to survive. Their ranks are rapidly increasing.)
Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune carried an excellent Los Angeles Times column which does a good job of defining some of the issues.
Locally, Steve Berg in the on-line newspaper MinnPost had an equally excellent commentary.
But opinions are just opinions, and in the end analysis it has to be the people – every one of us – who will collectively decide whether they deserve better or worse. We can collectively engage, or choose to stay unengaged, saying “it’s their problem”, etc.

I get the notion that our entire society is victimized by its tendency to engage in what I might call “half thinking”; we are a society which has no vision beyond our own vision for our own moment in time. Cartoonists regularly describe us as Ma and Pa in our easy chairs watching TV and spouting off to each other…. The cartoonists have us nailed.
Watch the debate – or more, the lack of debate. Those of us who are doing okay cannot conceive of the possibility that things will not be okay. We think that somebody else’s government benefit, including his or her employment, is wasteful and should be eliminated; while forgetting that someone else thinks the same about our own benefits, regardless of where those benefits originate. We think things half-way through, or less.
I am constantly amazed at the short-sighted big business attitude, basically dictated by Wall Street these days, which focuses on making the quarterly (three months) “numbers”. Corporate leaders should not only know better, but they have huge organizations where there should be “vision” people who can identify long-term consequences of short term profit oriented benefits. Squeezing profits out of working people’s wages and benefits in the short term inevitably cuts into the corporations profits long term, and there are no alternative markets equal to even come close to the old United States consumer spending engine.
At this writing, it appears that the Republican majority in Wisconsin will “succeed” in the short term, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory for them, even if they stave off recall or election challenges. But everyone will suffer. It is risky business to begin a downward spiral, and that is what is now happening.
Caveat emptor. Get off the couch that is your comfort zone and get engaged.
Postnote: A couple of days ago a very level headed person I’m getting to know, an engineer by training, career corporate employee, quite well known and very actively engaged politically, sent me a note, as follows. In this case we were discussing public education, and he was talking about a report that was issued by a reform-minded special interest group 28 years ago. What he says applies to everything in our public sphere today:
“As you said, the intentions have been hijacked by groups who have a different agenda. Only a few people recognize the marketing, the propaganda and the massive attack on public awareness is an intentional strategy developed and funded by incredibly well-organized behind-the-scenes groups. Some of these initiative groups have no personal animosity to the people they damage, but they have no respect for humans either. I read an excellent blog post today. It covers Vallay Varro, the new director of MinnCAN, another shadow group. I agree with him, she has been bought.
We have been conditioned when to pay attention, and when to ignore. How else can we justify, based on a lie, invading a country [Iraq] uninvolved in 9/11, bombing their infrastructure back to the ’50’s and killing more than 100,000 of their innocent citizens? Then we go the church!
Most recently I happened onto the BBC documentary “The Century of the Self”.
I am [getting on in years], and this documentary opened my eyes to things that I suspected and feared, but never thought so true. We in America have been so distracted that our society depends on others making the important evaluations and decisions for us. Watch the video as soon as you can, maybe even twice (as I am doing) and extrapolate it to other mass manipulations done to us, known and unknown.”
NOTE: Part 1 of this uninterrupted series began with a post on February 17, 2011. While the issue is extremely important, other topics will become a more regular feature. Future posts on the topic of Wisconsin and public employment specifically will be labeled Part 15, etc.

Uncomfortable Essays

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The document which makes up the title of this post is 48 pages and was written by Dick Bernard between September, 2008, and July, 2012. It speaks for itself, including, especially, the word “Uncomfortable”.
Uncomfortable Essays 2008-2012
It consists of 17 Essays on assorted topics which could generically be considered thoughts on more effective organizing for the peace and justice community.
An earlier 4-page document, initially written in the Fall of 2002, generally articulated the same ideas to the same general audience. It can be read here: MAPM organizing Dick B Recs Jan 2003
The organization to which the thoughts are addressed is the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP), founded in September, 1995, and still in existence. You can see more about MAP here.
The author of the Essays has been active in MAP since 2002, and was President of the Alliance for three years 2005 through 2007.

#342 – Dick Bernard: Part 12. Dropping in on Madison

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“Dropping in on Madison” was a no-brainer for me on Friday. I was enroute to Chicago, and the car would have steered itself towards the Capitol at the Hwy 151 exit. (Click on photos to enlarge them.)

Wisconsin State Capitol March 4, 2011


It was a gray afternoon, in the low 40s, when I parked near the Capitol about 1:30 p.m. Fifty miles down the road, into Illinois, the rain would begin.
All in all when I visited was a quiet time. A relative few protestors were on the sides of the building.
I had an open shot at some of the now-famous Ian’s Pizza, but passed on the opportunity…I’d just had lunch with Jermitt and Karen a few miles west at Portage (more on them in a following post).
I walked to the Capitol building past a large collection of news vehicles, ready to upload to the world news of happenings in Madison. Some nicely groomed guy, artificially front-lit, with the Capitol in the background, was preparing to do some report from the scene. Another reporter interviewed a solitary AFSCME worker. As I was leaving, some reporter and, probably his producer, were comparing notes on good places to eat in Madison. You can’t work all the time.
Such is how it is in the internet age of instant communications. The protesters know they need the media; the media knows they need protesters, the more unruly the better. Neither is much interested in “fair and balanced”. Somewhere out there is the audience, disconnected from the action by sometimes tens of thousands of miles, but with a front row seat nonetheless.
The next day, Michael Moore showed up at the Capitol while I was in Chicago, and without question he became a media event which I didn’t have the opportunity to see. Full disclosure: I’m a fan of Michael Moore, and he knows the rules of the contemporary communications game. I haven’t seen television since Friday, but I suspect the people in those mobile units, and behind the microphones and cameras got lots of audio and visual on Saturday, thanks to Michael Moore.
In my quite boring time by the Capitol, I became most captivated by a small gaggle of protestors. Their leader, with a bull horn, often supported by the group, was taunting the Governor who apparently was somewhere behind one of the windows in front of them. Everyone was very well behaved, though a bit raucous. Here’s my photo:

March 4, 2011, at the Wisconsin Capitol Building, approximately 2 p.m.


At one point a small roar came out of the assembled protesters. Apparently there was a sighting of someone inside a window of the Governors office. But that soon ended.
That scene defined as well as any the absurdity of such conflicts.
If by some wild chance the Governor had come out just to engage the group in civil conversation, the assembled group would have been dis-armed and probably not know what to do. Similarly, if that same Governor had said to the small group, “Come on up. Let’s talk,” there would have been a similar dilemma. Such is how it is in conflict mode.
When you’ve painted yourself into a corner, as the Governor and his legislature backers have, it is all but impossible to concede on any point, and a death struggle ensues.
Similarly, as the protesters are finding out already, the long haul on the line is very, very boring. Sooner or later you run out of speakers who can motivate; sooner or later the cameras and the people with the notepads and the microphones go on to the next crisis, and there you are, sitting by yourself on a damp, cold uninviting piece of pavement.
No question, I’m with the protestors in this crucial struggle to retain workers rights to organize and bargain. But the support comes with acknowledgment that being with them, even at a distance, requires some kind of formal commitment from me. Words like this are not enough.
Visit over, I headed for Chicago, and an unintended coffee at Wally’s Donuts the next morning…stay tuned.

#341 – Dick Bernard: Part 11. King of the Hill.

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NOTE: This series began on February 17, 2011, and at the beginning I had no plans to continue it to its current extent. I can envision at least one more post before I conclude this thread. Please check back.
When I was a kid in North Dakota, winter offered new and different opportunities for play.
One of these occurred when a snowplow (or a blizzard) created a neat and brand new snow hill.
The town gang of kids would gather and vie to see who could get to the top of the hill and stay there longest.
It was always a futile exercise. Somebody would reach the top and the rest would be out to throw him off his perch. In the end there might be a succession of temporary winners, all destined to lose.
That’s the metaphor which comes to mind with the temporary ascendancy of the Tea Party mentality in Washington and in many state houses. “We won, and we’ll do what we want.” Of course, this is a fool’s declaration.
Winner’s can easily set themselves up to lose the next round. Gov Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans, with the active support of the very rich, have seized the hill but now have to contend with the vexatious task of staying on top. Already there are some things they didn’t anticipate; and there are other things ahead that they likely weren’t expecting either.
Staying on top of the hill permanently is impossible.
While generalizations are always dangerous, I’ve noted that the political conversation in this country very much follows what I’d call the lawyer and litigation model. I respect the profession of law. But the system is set up for one party to win, and the other to lose. Law is an adversary system. Yes, negotiating differences might be tried, but legal bargaining is basically a game of secrets.
Some enlightened lawyers – still a tiny percentage of the whole – have established an entirely new branch of law which leads for open and honest adjudication of differences of even the most contentious divorces. But the general political rule at this moment in our history is not resolution. It is what we see in Wisconsin and other places. One party considers itself to have “won”, and is wasting no time to do all the winning that it can. Given our immense and complex society, sooner or later it will lose, and perhaps lose more convincingly than it won in the first place. Then the abuse cycle begins anew as the battered minority seeks to get revenge.
Abraham Lincoln so famously said at another time and in another situation: “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
That speech, June 16, 1858, was prophetic.
There needs to be a national conversation, in millions of bits and pieces. In times like this, however, national conversations seem wimpy and useless, as they doubtless did when the clouds of Civil War faced the U.S. in Lincoln’s day.
I opt to try.
A place to begin thinking about this business of rational conversation is a new book, “The Art of Convening” by Craig and Patricia Neal and Cynthia Wold.
The book is newly published. Check it out, read it, and try out its principles in your own settings. The Minneapolis’ group website is http://heartlandcircle.com.
In the situation we are in, the only solution is for us to be “on the court”, and not in the stands as, simply, “spectators”. By chance, researching this piece, I came across a quote that seems to fit our current national disruption and divide: “technique without compassion is a menace. Compassion without technique is a mess. Karl Llewellyn.” Seems to sum it up for me….

Patricia and Craig Neal and Cynthia Wold March 2, 2011, St. Paul MN

#340 – Dick Bernard: Part 10. America: "The Land of the [Me]…."

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Earlier this week I was writing some letters and having an afternoon cup of coffee at my local hangout.
The place was quite busy, as usual, and behind me I heard some chatter among three women who were having an animated visit. They appeared to be financially comfortable. They were obviously of the age where Social Security was part of their life.
Talk got around to the pending possibility of a U.S. government shut down on March 4 – the ladies were certainly aware of this. But the banter was jocular…they’d have their Social Security check before then. As for anybody else? Not the ladies problem.
There was no sense, whatsoever, that what was going on in Washington D.C. was of any concern to them.
It was a “What! Me worry?” Alfred E. Neumann, MAD Magazine moment.
Given the inclination, I could list dozens of diverse similar situations, just from my own personal observations in daily life. Conversations had, or overheard, or read about, or seen on television.
We are a self-absorbed society, and it will be our ruin if we don’t expand our definition of community beyond ourselves and our immediate family and associations.
Far too many people define society by their single-focus, often their single issue(s).
People are casual or cavalier about things like voting, whether their vote is informed or not.
We have all of the power granted by being a democracy, but too many of us seem short on a sense of responsibility.
By nature I consider myself an optimist. But my optimism is tested frequently.
Most Americans are, I think, thoughtful and reasonable citizens, well aware that their world includes people with differing needs, capacities and identities, not to mention locations. We are a nation of basically good people.
But as anyone who studies politics knows, a tiny percentage of the potential voters are the primary focus of those orchestrating campaigns. Campaign organizations take people where they’re at, and are not bothered in the least by people who vote uninformed or don’t even bother to vote…in fact, such voters (or non-voters) are nurtured to provide the tiny edge needed to win an election. That small percent who are born to hate, or fear, or cannot be bothered with thinking things through, are major assets in political campaigns.
The face of our democracy is those three lackadaisical women I overheard earlier this week, concerned only with getting their social security check before the government shut down. Let everyone else fend for themselves, the future be damned.
To paraphrase Pogo: “we have met the future, and it is us.”

#338 – Dick Bernard: Part 8. Public Servants bearing the burden….

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Before the 2011 MN Legislature had convened, and the new MN Governor sworn in, the news concerned the burden of a $6 billion deficit in the MN state budget.
At the time I did some simple arithmetic, dividing $6 Billion by 5 Million residents of the State of Minnesota. The result was $1,200 deficit per person: large, but by no means insurmountable. The $6B was an artificial mountain constructed to get Minnesotans in an almost desperate budget cutting mood.
Like people in most states, Minnesota’s residents have collectively huge personal savings accounts and we could easily balance the books with a one time very small additional tax sacrifice. But government itself is under attack by elements who have nearly taken over that very government. The desired remedy is shrinking, not restoration, of the role of government in our society. Or if not that, transfer of the burden of paying for government from those who can easily afford the bill, to those who are struggling….
Not long thereafter came Wisconsin. As the information flow has fleshed out the facts in Wisconsin, it appears that an average teacher, just for example, will have to give up about 10% of his/ her previously negotiated pension benefit – a benefit negotiated in lieu of wages – to “help” Wisconsin. A reasonable average take back from the public employee appears to be roughly $5,000. There is no comparable giveback expected of others in Wisconsin, a state roughly the population of its next door neighbor Minnesota, but with a smaller deficit. The take back will be permanent; future ability to bargain severely restricted at best.
Only time will tell how this Wisconsin conflict will be resolved.
As the Issue came to be clear – Pensions for Public Workers – I got to thinking about an advertisement that I had been seeing on television during, it seemed, the entire month of February, long before Wisconsin erupted onto the national or even state screen.
The ad was one placed by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
It was a simple ad, showing an abandoned chicken coop, with the narrator stating that the founder of AARP, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, had founded the organization after finding a retired teacher living in a converted chicken coop.
The AARP website was not helpful in filling in the blanks about the ad. Wikipedia was a bit more helpful with an entry about Dr. Andrus.
Dr. Andrus founded her group, initially called the National Retired Teachers Association, in 1947. It seemed that she perhaps discovered that poor teacher around that time somewhere in either California or Illinois. Such was how it all began for AARP which, since its naming in 1958, has since become an immense insurance business in itself. I haven’t seen the ad the last few days. Perhaps the term of the buy has ended; or, perhaps, the ad was pulled…it wasn’t helpful to the anti-teacher mood in Wisconsin.
Until relatively recent history, the public was not kind to public employees. In tough times public employees were first to suffer; In good times, last to benefit.
In the old days, teachers, just for a single example, got a small wage and nothing else.
They were called “public servants” (see February 17 and 18) with scant more legal status than migrant workers.
Basically teaching was ‘women’s work’. Then the teacher married some man who provided decent income and status for the former school marm.
But there are only so many eligible bachelors wandering around to marry poor public workers, etc., and as time went on teachers got a bit uppity, and school boards in various places began to see – not always the result of pressure – that their professional employees deserved more than just minimal wages and annual uncertainty about jobs. Salary schedules were established unilaterally by management, and state’s implemented and then improved pension plans for their teachers and others, to keep them out of the chicken coop on retirement.
It is the old “public servant” attitude – to keep public employees in their proper subservient place – that makes it possible for Gov. Scott Walker and his abundant ilk to act dismissively towards these employees who are really essential to the American “good life”.
There is something even more offensive about today’s “public employees”. They are unusually strongly unionized, a direct outgrowth of yesterday’s oppression. As Henrik Hertzberg so well describes in a March 7, 2011, New Yorker piece, public employees are the last bastion of a declining organized labor movement. Their destruction or at minimum gross diminishment is a goal of the oligarchs who now control the Republican party and the American media conversation.
This is a case where, hopefully, “success” in beating down the public employees will truly be a failure…for everyone who works for a living.
The last chapter has not been written.
Part 1 in this series is found here, with the remaining posts subsequent. There will be further posts.