#321 – Bob Barkley: Declaring for President.

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Bob throws his hat in the ring for 2012 (his bio is at the end of this post):
Declaration of Candidacy
I’m running! This is the declaration of my candidacy for the Presidency in 2012. I have no idea with what Party as I expect them to pick me rather than I picking them.
[If Palin or Bachmann could be anywhere within the realm of that possibility then I am certainly supremely qualified.]
However, I’m not going to do a book tour, even though I’ve written books. And Tina Fey couldn’t imitate me – ever. Also, I’m not offering non-absolutes like “change,” or “hope,” and I will pick my Veep very carefully but quite likely not from Alaska – nor Delaware either for that matter.
Yes, the devil is in the details and all of that. I have no illusions about having it all perfectly right – or even having it all covered. All my numbers and dates are open to review and adjustment as I learn more. Certainty is, after all, a sure sign of insanity it seems to me. But what I’ve outlined here is the beginning of what must happen to realize the better world I hope and dream that my children and grandchildren will at least begin to experience in their lifetimes.
So here’s what I stand for as of today:
1. Every US budget must account for both expenditures and revenue. Therefore, with no more than a five-year lag, anticipated revenue must cover the projected expenditures. And a really non-partisan panel of economists (as opposed to “politicians”), and including progressive who just might have Nobel prizes in their resumes, must advise the public and Congress as to whether this guideline is being met.
2. Tax rates must be set to cover the revenue required to meet the requirements of #1 above before any budget may be enacted.
3. Income taxes must apply to all income received in whatever form, and regardless of the source. If you have it this year and didn’t have it last year, it is subject to tax. The maximum rate, on annual incomes of $10 million or more will be 60% — and that percentage will reduce by 1% for each drop of $1 million in income until we reach current (before Bush’s cuts) rates. There will be no deductions for anyone at any level. Taxes will be applied only to those earning above the US government defined poverty level (once it is adjusted to a more realistic number from the current outdated figure). And these rates may be adjusted to coincide with #1 and #2 above. If that won’t produce enough revenue, we need to cut our spending expectations.
4. Usury (lending money at exorbitant rates) will be controlled according to the following guidelines. Borrowed money will be paid back at no more than 7.5% if repaid within one year of borrowing. In the second year any unpaid balance will be charged at no more than 10%. And thereafter, any unpaid amount will be charged at no more than 12½% until repaid in full. This shall apply to loans of less than $100,000 for any purpose. Home loans will be established as the market will bear but shall not exceed 8%.
5. The foreclosure fraud would be eliminated and home owners given priority over bankers.
6. The USA will move to a single payer health care system as follows. The Medicare eligibility age will be reduced three years every year. Those who select Medicare under age 65 shall pay the full premium until reaching age 65. Also, all youth attending school full-time, up to age 25, shall also be eligible to buy into Medicare and continue that coverage for life. Medicare shall have full bargaining power to negotiate with providers as to the cost of medical care and prescription drugs.
7. All federal elections shall be fully publicly financed, and active campaigning shall be limited to 4 months in duration. Office seekers who hold public office shall not be excused from attending to their elected duties while campaigning except for that four month period. No elected federal office holder shall serve in that office for longer than 12 years.
8. Universal voter registration will be established.
9. Anti-trust laws shall be strengthened and strictly enforced. Anti-trust provisions shall be instituted and strictly applied to the media and insurance in all its forms.
10. Each state shall be required to establish a chartered publicly run bank. (a la North Dakota). And a national infrastructure bank will be created.
11. The US military budget will be cut 50%, adjusted for inflation, over the next 10 years. The only delay in implementation thereof shall be the advent of a congressionally declared war against another nation (not just an innocuous concept such as “terrorism”).
12. The State Department budget shall be increased four-fold over the next 5 years.
13. The U.S. military and pentagon leadership shall be kept out of politics and action taken to keep retired military from retiring into positions lobbying for the defense industry.
14. No public monies shall be allocated directly or indirectly to any religion or religiously affiliated institution for any reason unless and until all religious entities pay taxes.
15. Public education shall not be subjected to any unfunded mandates. Teacher education shall be entirely at public expense and all licensed teachers benefiting there from will be required, subject to acceptable performance, to stay in the service of public education for not less than 10 years after completion of a mandatory 3-year internship.
16. The US President shall hold a minimum three-hour public session with Congress every 3 months in which all members of congress, alternating between Parties, may ask questions, and all media shall be required to carry the session live.
17. The current US debt shall be retired through funding increases and/or spending cuts in not longer than the next 10 years.
18. US corporations shall not have the rights of individual citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment, and their executives shall be personally and fully responsible and liable for the behavior of that corporation.
19. Public education shall be funded on a per-pupil basis and students will be free to attend any public educational institution of their choosing, subject to space alone, and with consideration for controlling random and untimely transfers that will destroy appropriate institutional planning. There shall be no curricular or staffing requirements for public schools and they shall be free to offer programs of their choosing and in the manner most appropriate thereto. Free public education shall be available to all citizens to age 21. Students reaching age 15 shall be allowed to withdraw and reenter school one time prior to reaching age 21.
20. There shall be on-going publicly funded longitudinal studies regarding the impact of each students educational experience on the formation of lifetime learning habits.
21. There shall be international fair-trade. However, there will be a 20% tariff on all imports and additional tariffs shall be applied where it is established that there are significantly different standards for wages, human rights, safety, and environmental concerns between trading countries. Read Hamilton – the US is fundamentally a protectionist nation first.
22. Through public monitoring, public corporations shall establish executive compensation programs where the maximum benefits shall not exceed 50 times that of the lowest paid fulltime worker in said corporation. The current US minimum wage of $7.25, assuming a 40-hour work week and fully paid vacation and sick leave, produces an annual wage of $15,080. Thus, a CEO would be entitled to at least $754,000. Corporations exceeding this guideline would be taxed proportionately.
23. Ownership of firearms, for sporting purposes only, shall be allowed and be subject to full public record. Guns shall be prohibited from any public building or institution. Concealed carry laws shall be outlawed.
24. The US shall reduce its international military bases to no more than 100, and no more than 2 in any single country, by 2020 – including Iraq and Afghanistan. And there will be no more than 1000 military personnel staffing any one of them.
25. Financial support for Israel will be gradually reduced and shifted to the Palestinians until a two-state resolution is implemented.
26. There will be a Government Efficiency Tsar who’s responsibility it will be to oversee coordination and cooperation between agencies. Said agencies will be expected and encouraged to operate in ways that cause them to vigorously pursue their missions while also saving money rather than seeking ways to spend it in order to selfishly grow their budget allocations.
27. All unauthorized immigrants shall be required to apply for citizenship within one year and shall be required to have regular employment (or maintain full-time student status) and to attend and pass English language proficiency classes. Any employer who employs non-citizens who have not complied with this provision shall be subject to criminal prosecution and penalties. Any unauthorized immigrant who is found guilty of any illegality shall be sent back to the country of their origin.
28. There shall be a public investment to assure that all students attend school absent anxiety over proper nourishment, receive appropriate early childhood educational experiences, and have access to appropriate health monitoring and care.
29. Most currently illegal drugs, such as marijuana, shall be legalized and controlled as appropriate – much as cigarettes and alcohol.
30. Capital punishment shall be ceased. Incarceration shall be limited to violent crimes. For non-violent crimes, other non-incarceration penalties shall be applied.
31. All citizens prior to age 30 shall provide the country a minimum of two years public service of their choice, including but not limited to military service.
32. Social security shall be funded by a tax an all earned income, and the SS fund shall be unavailable for any purposes other than paying benefits. And an early retirement option will be created therein.
33. Marriage shall be a religious ritual only and subject only to the creed of the marrying party’s religious choices alone. Civil unions shall be the legal equivalent, be state managed, and open to any and all citizens.
34. Population growth shall be a public concern with suitable investment, training, and controls.
35. Poverty is an unacceptable plight in the US. There will be every effort and investment to assure that poverty is gradually and regularly reduced. And included in such an effort shall be realistic upgrading of social security, workers compensation, and other such programs to bring them in line with the current cost of living.
36. U.S. nuclear weapons shall be reduced gradually by the year 2025, regardless of any treaties, to a level of no more than any other nation.
37. Elected officials must be excluded from becoming lobbyists for at least 5 years after leaving office.
38. The Senate shall be returned to its intended majority rule status by eliminating the unconstitutional Rule 22. The Senate was designed to fit a republic and to limit absolute democracy – arguably to allow for reasonable protections to the minority, but its rules have evolved to almost entirely block democracy.
39. Environmentally, those countries that have polluted the most, such as the USA and China, should have less right to pollute in the future. This would have the added benefit of shifting billions of dollars from the wealthy nations to the poorer ones.
40. Unionization shall be encouraged with the caveat that unions shall be expected to play a full partnership role along with their industry management in setting industry direction and policy and accept fully the consequences of poor company performance and reap equitably the benefits of company successes.
The role of a president is to establish a vision and set direction. It is not for them to compromise but to lead. If Congress chooses to compromise, so be it – but the veto power will be used as need be.
In summary, and at the risk of negating my pledge not to espouse non-absolutes:
I seek a world where peace and love abound.
I seek a world where tolerance excels but is also transformed into understanding and engagement.
I seek a world where greed is replaced by sharing and empathy for those less fortunate.
I seek a world where “politicians” are replaced with “public servants.”
I seek a world where the earth is honored rather than exploited.
I seek a world where all accept that we are a true community that accepts that we belong together.
Now let’s “get it done!” I seek your endorsements – and money (since I have only a little — which may be my greatest attribute as a candidate).
But before leaving I offer two quotes that give me pause. First, Kurt Vonnegut said in 2004: “There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.” And in 1029 H. L. Mencken said of who might get elected: “…all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre – the man who can most easily (and) adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Anyway, I think Mencken’s prediction already came true at least once since he pronounced it, so maybe I can reverse the trend. Somebody has to.
Robert Barkley, Jr., is the retired Executive Director of the Ohio Education Association. He is the author of Quality in Education: A Primer for Collaborative Visionary Educational Leaders and Leadership In Education: A Handbook for School Superintendents and Teacher Union Presidents and Progressive Thoughts from a Liberal Mind: Essays on Creating a More Perfect World (unpublished). He resides in Worthington, Ohio where he studies and writes on education

#320 – Dick Bernard: Las Madres: Mothers of the Disappeared

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Sunday we were privileged to attend a photo exhibition and talks telling the story of the Las Madres, Argentine Mothers who lost children during Argentina’s “dirty war” 1976-83.
The event was presented by the Twin Cities organization World Without Genocide, a group worth learning more about.
At the Sunday gathering, the photographer Sylvia Horwitz gave a powerful commentary on her equally powerful photographs. Her story began, ironically, with a 2003 trip to Argentina to learn the Tango.
During that trip she learned of Las Madres, and later returned to document the continuing demonstrations to keep alive the memories of horrendous atrocities against basic human rights during the dictatorship of 1976-83 in Argentina. The photo exhibit continues at the Basilica undercroft through March 5. It is very well worth the visit.

Sylvia Horwitz Jan. 23, 2011. Las Madres photos in background.


Also speaking at the Sunday gathering was a twin cities teacher who survived the awful detention and torture. Her journey to near-annihilation began very innocently, as an idealistic young person leaving fliers on a bus bench. She was noticed by the wrong person, detained and tortured, and in the end was very lucky to survive. Most of the detained weren’t: they simply disappeared.
Among the materials I picked up was a commentary from the Nov. 27, 2010, issue of The Economist on the architect of this “dirty war”, Emilio Massera, who died November 8, 2010, at the age of 85. The description of Massera’s self-delusion – “cleansing the country”, as described in the commentary – is chilling; as is his fascination with the manipulation of language to wield power.
Like tyrants of any age, Massera felt he could learn from the mistakes of tyrants who came before.
In Nazi Germany, for instance, detailed records were kept of everything.
In Massera’s Argentina, there were no records, and thus it is virtually impossible to reconstruct the atrocities, determine what happened to the victims, or establish evidence to convict the perpetrators.
The memory of the atrocities lives quietly on, even in minds of persons who have no particular background or interest in Argentina.
Saturday morning, a friend of mine leaves for Buenos Aires in the first leg of a cruise around the Horn of South America. In conversation, he and some friends were wondering about how safe it was to go to Argentina.
That is the legacy of 1976-83 living on.
At the end of the program, a friend of mine, a retired attorney, reflected on what we had just heard and seen. What happened in Argentina in those lost years, he said, could as easily happen here, and has happened elsewhere.
One needs to be vigilant.

Greg Halbert reflecting on photos of three of the Las Madres. There are many more such photos in the exhibit.

#319 – Dick Bernard: "Watching" the State of the Union

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I “watched” the State of the Union address in its entirety last night. The word is in quotes, because, while I sat in front of the TV, I mostly watched with my eyes closed.
In other words, I listened, like one would be forced to listen in pre-television and instant analysis days which in historical terms are really very recent.
I didn’t stick around for the responses of Reps Ryan and Bachmann. In historical terms, such responses are really very recent.
I have my own e-mailing list, and when I awoke this morning sent out the four overnight analyses received on internet, the first from the President himself, and advised readers that from this point out I’d send out only their own personal commentaries. The punditry and political ‘blab’ will be interminable and predictable. Talking heads, talking.
Nothing is left to chance in today’s management of news and images. Every single person sitting in the House Chamber last night knew that they were potentially on-camera every second. Their focus was likely not really listening either. Rather it was to have the appropriate stage-look: enthusiastic, bored, angry…. “You lie” was out this year, and good riddance. Rep. Gabby Giffords empty chair spoke volumes without saying a thing.
Personally, I thought the speech was very good, but that’s simply personal opinion. I’m a strong supporter of this President.

The President’s “Sputnik” comment really resonated with me: I was a Senior in high school when Sputnik launched in October, 1957, and in those years we occasionally watched Communism blink over Capitalism in the clear night sky of North Dakota: in those years, the newspaper published where and when to watch for the blink as Sputnik tumbled, reflecting light from the sun. I wish I would have kept one of those Fargo Forums including a tracking map.
I hadn’t cleared my Freshman year in college when Castro took over Cuba in 1959, and I was a Junior in college when John F. Kennedy was elected U.S. President in 1960; and in the Army during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962. I saw the transition from then history to newer history, ‘boots on the ground’.
All of that was then. Back then, the war was over ideology; today, I believe, the War is over how or whether the generations which follow mine will survive or thrive. 1957-58, even with the much-played Red Menace of the Soviet Union, was a really simple time compared to today. We couldn’t imagine, then, even the possibility of running out of things, like oil; or other things, like the internet which has already been so much a force for good…and, yes, evil.
Now the debate begins about the future.
Frankly, I have zero interest in what the pundits say, or who the politicians blame.
I will focus on two quotations, one of Margaret Mead, the other of Gandhi, which “frame” the home page of my website which acknowledges the contributions of two of my personal heroes, Lynn Elling and Prof. Joe Schwartzberg.
Our future is NOT a spectator sport.
Either we’re on the Court helping to constructively fashion the solutions for our future in small or large ways, or we have no right to complain about the results.

#318 – Dick Bernard: The President's State of the Union Address…and the Carnival of our National Insanity

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Tonight President Obama gives his State of the Union before a joint session of Congress.
That this will happen is no surprise: it is an annual event with a long, long history in our country.
This year, beyond any in my own memory, this one is preceded, will be attended and followed by, numerous ‘clowns and jesters’, all attempting to influence, disrupt and confuse, though there will be an atmosphere of (I hope) at least fake civility in the chamber itself.
We seem to have descended into the pit that happens when a community of priorities – what is good for society at large – is replaced with millions of first and non-negotiable personal priorities. (We live in a homeowners association of 96 owners living in 24 buildings. As an owner, we can’t decide how to modify our 1/96th share of common property. Sometimes it seems that every citizen of this nation of over 300,000,000 thinks they have the pre-eminent right to whatever it is they demand….)
As an Army veteran myself, I always used to scoff at the Army Recruiting Slogan, an “Army of One“, where the recruiting pitch was the inference that you could be in the Army and do what you wanted to do. For me, any illusions about freedom and independence in Army life ended when I stepped off the bus at Fort Carson, Colorado 49 years ago this month…. (I didn’t have those fantasies, then, and I doubt any of my colleagues did either. We were “in the Army now”, and that meant peeling potatoes, and buzz cuts, and on and on.)
So, back to the street theatre of the Presidents address tonight.
It is impossible to escape the boatload of top priorities – absolute non-negotiables – conveyed by everyone who has even the tiniest notion of shared priorities (that number seems to be decreasing, to our peril).
Rather than focusing on how we can be better as a society, there is this constituency demanding this top priority in the State of the Union; that constituency demanding exactly the opposite; a passel of folks whose goal is to be sure that the President is a failure, so that they can then ride to “success” in two years, and on and on and on. Afterwards there will be the relatively recent tradition of the opposing parties response, and, of course, the President’s party response as well. This year, my more-or-less “congresswoman” will give the Tea Party response (I put her title in quotes, since she is our Congresswoman by name only. She was elected here, yes. But by her actions, which I experience, she could care less about the 6th Congressional District of Minnesota. She’s got bigger fish to fry.)
The President and his advisors know all of this, of course.
Tonight will happen, and those who think the President laid out a good agenda will canonize him; the ones who want him to fail will demonize him; most will care not a whit….
There were times when we more or less reached national unity, and they were times of crisis, as Pearl Harbor, or the Kennedy assassination, where we came together as a nation.
But times seem to be too good now, and they fog over a very rocky road ahead. While the focus will be on 9% unemployment tonight, we know, today, that there is 91% employment in this country. It is pretty hard to get those 91% riled up to help out those who too many think are ‘shiftless and lazy’ (unless, of course, the unemployed persons are in your own family, as we experience ourselves, today.)
Politics and policy are not a spectator sport, with winners and losers.
Luckily, we are still one country.
I hope we act like that is the case.

#311 – Dick Bernard: Tucson: Seeking sanity in civic conversation. We are Participants, not simply Spectators.

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Post directly related to the following: here
It’s nearing a week since the horrific massacre in Tucson.
Most everyone has weighed in – predictably one way, or the other, cleverly supporting their own bias by carefully groomed and manicured statements.
What is clear to me is this: it will be impossible to establish direct cause and effect between the actions of a mentally ill killer, and the political and media and fringe political establishments as the Tea Party. Equally, it will be impossible to convincingly deny the indirect impact that their actions have in contributing to this single piece of evidence of national insanity. We change our national behavior, or we will continue to kill ourselves in all senses of that word “kill”.
As the last few days have passed, several recurrent thoughts – memories, really – come to mind:
On Halloween evening 2000, a week before the 2000 election, my wife and I were in Washington D.C. and had an opportunity to see the U.S. House of Representatives in an unusual evening session. There were only a few of us in the Gallery that evening, and below us were two clumps of legislators, one to our left, the other to our right. Presumably, they were Republicans and Democrats, divided as if by a wall. No one seemed to be paying attention to the speakers. Most were standing.
At some point a man appeared in the Gallery and identified himself as one of the Congressmen. He was a Republican, and he was from somewhere in Illinois, and he apologized for his colleagues behavior down below. There was no particular drama occurring below, but the way in which business was being conducted clearly bothered him. I don’t remember his name. What was happening had likely been troubling to him for some time.
Six years later, in May of 2006, we were back in Washington, and this time we visited Ford’s Theatre, as well as the museum in the lower level of the Theatre. There were many interesting artifacts in this museum, just below where Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated 141 years earlier, but one particularly caught my eye – a political campaign poster from the 1860 campaign. Actually, what attracted my eye was the caption on the poster (click on the photo to enlarge it).

1864 Presidential Campaign Poster


Fast forward to the fall of 2008. We had received the November, 2008, issue of Smithsonian Magazine, and there was a fascinating article by Harold Holzer (Election Day 1860) about the 1860 Presidential election which brought Abraham Lincoln into office. At page 51 I saw this quote “…more than four million white males began registering their choices for the presidency.”
In 1860, the U.S. population was a bit over 31 million. Roughly one of eight Americans were participants in that election. Today we are a country with ten times the 1860 population: well over 300,000,000.
In 1860, unless you were a white man, probably educated and property owner to boot, you did not participate in the U.S. elections. It was a white man’s world, then, and duels and physical violence were almost a part of the political tradition and lore. For purposes of apportioning representatives to Congress, slaves counted as 3/5 of a person. Women did not receive the franchise until 1920. During the Civil War, slaves were emancipated, but only by proclamation, and it was 100 years before their descendants would, grudgingly, be allowed to engage fully as citizens. .
In those days of old, there was political violence, but it was personal and mostly in person. By 1864 telegraph could spread the word, and there were newspapers which some could read. It was unlike today when messages can suggest violence without actually saying so out loud and reach everyone 24 hours a day. The un-hinged can pick up suggestions to do evil things, without anyone worrying about being blamed for putting them up to the evil.
I feel this backdrop is a useful framework of reference for personally considering the blatantly suggestive violent talk in today’s heated political conversations.
What is surprising is that the politicians who are most high profile in this current debate are prominent women politicians, and they are high profile because they had no problem suggesting violent methods to take charge of government. Suggestions of violent means to overtake the government are red meat for their core base.
I think sanity can prevail in the coming months and years, and that change is possible, but only if individuals in sundry ways make absolutely clear to their elected representatives, and their political parties, that the violent suggestions and talk must stop, and ‘winner take all’ politics is destroying us all – including the temporary winners.
Several years ago I attended a workshop conducted by a Catholic Priest and a Rabbi on the Ten Commandments. It was a most interesting and useful workshop.
One of the lessons which stuck was about the Jewish interpretation of murder…in the Jewish view, one important kind of murder was what we would now call character assassination.
Were this to prevail in our society today, political campaigns as we presently see them would basically cease to exist – character assassination is a staple.
My bottom line: The caption on the 1864 campaign poster says it all: politics has been and is a spectator sport. Today, we simply watch it at home, 24 hours a day, if we wish. Our passive reaction to political violence, particularly daily character assassination, is killing us all.
Perhaps there’s hope for change in the political conversation, but only if we make it so. But we will have to make it so – no one else can do it for us.
UPDATE JANUARY 15, 2011:
I’ve decided to add in the contents of an e-mail received today, from someone identified only as JoJo (see comment from Jeff, following JoJo’s). It is an interesting commentary: (I am Statistics-challenged….)
Boston, MA
January 14th, 2011
8:09 pm
Was the Violence in Tucson Unrelated to Politics and Political Rhetoric?
I’m a professional statistician (and a political moderate). How likely is it that the recent violence in Tucson had nothing to do with politics and excessive political rhetoric in the media and among some politicians, alleged to be mostly coming from the right end of the political spectrum?
Assuming the violence had nothing to do with politics and political rhetoric:
The probability that this happened by chance alone in arguably the state having the most contentious political discourse (Arizona) = approximately 1/50 = 0.02 (because there are 50 states and Arizona is roughly average in size and population).
The probability that this happened by chance to a liberal/centrist Democratic congressperson (Ms. Gabrielle Giffords) as opposed to a Republican congressperson =1/2 = 0.5. (One of the other victims, Judge John Roll, was a Republican who received threats last year because he made a controversial ruling in favor of illegal Mexican immigrants, but was apparently not an intended target in Tucson).
What is the probability of this happening at this point in time in Arizona when the political atmosphere is so heated because of the recently passed healthcare law and the illegal immigrant problem? This is very difficult to assign, but erring on the side of being mid-range to high, I’ll say 0.5.
The probability of all three of these things happening at the same time by chance, assuming they are independent = 0.02 X 0.5 X 0.5 = 0.005, i.e., half of one percent. (The convention in the behavioral sciences for tentatively rejecting a hypothesis is that the probability of the observed event, assuming that hypothesis is true, is less than or equal to 0.05).
This is admittedly a crude estimation, based on assumptions (e.g., that beyond the political issues, it was rhetoric per se that was operative), incomplete evidence, and possibly omitting important considerations (e.g., the legal availability of guns in Arizona, previous violent politically related threats and actions against Giffords and Roll, the florid insanity of the perpetrator, etc.), which could make the estimate go up or down. This doesn’t prove anything with certainty, and even something with a low probability can still be true.
Assuming the violence in Tucson had nothing to do with politics or excessive political rhetoric, the probability of this happening for purely unrelated reasons and/or chance alone, and that therefore we need do nothing about toning down political rhetoric on both sides of the spectrum, is less than one percent by this estimation process. In making decisions we should also weigh the costs of errors in both directions, e.g., unnecessarily inhibiting freedom of speech vs. inciting more violent incidents against innocents.
Decide for yourself.
My intent is not to support any extreme unsubstantiated position that blames the Tucson tragedy entirely on partisan political rhetoric on one side or the other, but any claim that the one had nothing at all to do with the other, seems to me suspect based on what we know now. As President Obama suggested in his speech in Tucson, given the seemingly deranged mind of the perpetrator, we may never know for sure the reasons that led to these events, and not recriminations, but perhaps a voluntary, precautionary return to civility by all sides would seem to be wise.
From Jeff: It [above] was in a comment to an opinionator piece in the NYT [New York Times] today. I found it interesting as well.
Rachel Maddow [MSNBC] had stats last week on gun related murders by state … the top 5 states of gun ownership have the top 5 murder rates by gunshot, the bottom 5 states for gun ownership have the 5 lowest rates
Of murder by gunshot.
UPDATE Jan. 16, 2011:
from Mary B. – In my job, I had to give the Tennesen warnings [http://www.ipad.state.mn.us/docs/tw.pdf] during certain interviews about areas that might involve criminal violations.
I also educated my clients about terroristic threats given or received.
In my civilian role, I end up still educating people about the law regarding terroristic threats, and I wonder if others do the same.
Or do we just dismiss violent words as part of the culture…and threats as blowing off steam. Or are we cynical about the laws being implemented.(a lot of energy and money goes for implementing anti-terrorism strategies)
I would remind the speakers of vitriolic thoughts that the witnesses were also injured by words – not just the intended victim.
I sense currently our American people are like domestic emotional abuse victims who identify with the bully for survival, in an emotionally damaging public interchange.
I could use support for my stance which does not seem congruent with common culture. We seem awash in nastiness that I am not yet numbed by.
Also-where is the conversation about the fragmentation of our health care system in this Tucson horrifying scenario…..
Mary
Later, Mary added this:
As a public sector social worker, I was in a professional role to assess risk and defuse and de-escalate varied situations – adult and student threats of various types, from playground stuff to very serious issues,like gang threats, weapons in school(both staff and students) kidnapping, suicide, trafficking, etc. Most situations varied in the levels of support or involvement from co-workers or administration. I was asked to do home visits when students were suspended for weapons.
In the space of my career It became more and more difficult to find or bring resources to students and families in need of health and mental health services. Many slip through the ever widening cracks.
I am proud to have had no one under my direct guard physically injured except myself in 30 years of social service. I have attempted to intervene and been thwarted with students who later were murdered or murdered. I have also prevented violence, quietly, with teamwork at its best. Children who have not had voices snuffed or blotted by media want a safer world and contributed greatly to this teamwork. I wish we did not need them to see truth and danger related, but it is related.

#307 – Dick Bernard: Jackie, reflecting at a moment 50 years later

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January 2 I was going through a box of old papers and came across a somewhat ragged green high school folder kept by my first wife, Barbara.
Leafing through the contents I came across an envelope whose cover and contents need no embellishment (click on the photo to enlarge it).

I don’t know the history of this little card: Barbara died in 1965 and her fatal illness preoccupied our two years together.
I was a college senior during JFK’s first year in office, and it was in 1961 that Barbara graduated from Valley City (ND) High School.
The card, with raised lettering, was certainly not a unique personally signed note from the First Lady; on the other hand, I highly doubt such a message went to every high school graduate in the land that particular year. There is a story, exactly what I’m not sure, but there is a story….
It is now 50 years from that hopeful time of 1961.
Those were not necessarily the best of times. John Kennedy barely won election, facing bitterness from many quarters – politics has always been a sordid affair. During JFK’s term, In October, 1962, I was in the Army during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was one month out of the Army, teaching school, when JFK was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963, etc.
But those brief Kennedy years were times of hope and of optimism and of a certain civility in the political conversation. Not long ago a speaker reminded us that Kennedy’s Peace Corps was the Kennedy administration followup on an idea of MN Sen. Hubert Humphrey…. I have good memories of President Eisenhower.
Fast forward fifty years:
Yesterday began the terms of a new Congress, and a new State legislature in Minnesota.
It is hard to see a repeat of those hopeful “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country“.
But one can hope.
But if there is to be hope, it needs to be accompanied by individual and group action. At the website built as a tribute to two friends, Lynn Elling and Joe Schwartzberg, who chose to make a difference in their world, are two quotes, of Margaret Mead and Gandhi, which merit reflection. Take a look…they’re easily found at the beginning and the end of the page.
Happy New Year!

#305 – Dick Bernard: "Happy New Year"?

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Last night, New Years Eve, we had the final Christmas gathering of a few family members who’d missed the earlier get-together. When they left for home, the 2010 Christmas season was officially concluded, and New Years Eve was winding down to the New Year. I suppose it was about the stroke of midnight in Iceland, perhaps, when my day ended. Cathy was on the phone with a friend. That is how the season is for we older people.
Happy New Year.
One of the guests last night was a 46 year old. His 11 year old son was out of town with his former wife. This family member is unemployed with no prospects other than an hourly part-time job with no benefits which he now has. I would guess that in the statistics he counts as one of the 10% or so who are unemployed as this New Year begins since he qualifies for unemployment, and likely for the extension which passed in the cliff-hanger of last minute legislation in Congress. He is a worker, like most of us, identifying himself through his job. After a month or two unemployment last spring, until about Thanksgiving time he had a temporary full-time job with benefits, but one day he was let go for some unexplained reason. Reasons don’t need to be given, and besides there was no due process protection. I gathered the job was a very stressful one for him so perhaps in one sense it was a small loss.
Christmas Day my wife invited a lady friend, in her 50s, who’s unmarried and now unemployed for over a year, to attend Christmas Day Mass with us. She, too, will benefit from the unemployment extension. Through the friend we see the difficult realities of unemployment. She’s had a knee replacement so can’t do a job that requires long-term standing. She is too poor to afford or keep up an automobile, so any job she gets needs to be accessible by bus. She recently interviewed for a job which, if she had gotten it, would have required a bus trip with five transfers each way. Last Wednesday Cathy took her to a work force office which is not on any bus line, and a very expensive cab ride. She is actively looking for full time job.
Through these two folks, I see the reality of unemployment in this country. The male is obviously emotionally down – what should have been a festive occasion for him was not. He went home by himself last night. The female seems more at peace with her situation, though I know that she wants to work and she has a long history of doing good work. It is easy to say to both of them, “buck up, and keep on looking – good things will happen”. It is not quite so easy in their shoes.
Both want to work, but there are barriers.
It has occurred to me that this unemployment is a difficult issue for our country to gets its emotions around. If there is 10% unemployment, that means there is 90% employment, and most of the employed people are making more or less what they think is a fair wage and have some kinds of benefits. Similarly, retirees like we are generally are not poor; many are, in fact, very well off due to pensions, investments, and social security and medicare. Unemployment is not our problem, unless we happen to have it within our own family – as my wife and I do.
On the other hand, American big business is flush with wealth, profit obsessed, and a major news report earlier this week suggested that a major dent in the unemployment could have been made if that business had hired domestically in this country, rather than opting for cheaper job markets overseas. American business has little if any loyalty to its own countries citizens. In too many ways they are considered a cost to be controlled, rather than a benefit. The corporate ethic has loyalty only to the bottom line….
For business and the already wealthy, I think the “piper will be paid” down the road. It is the poor, and the increasingly stretched middle class, who produce, by buying goods and services, the profit margins lusted after by companies and the rich. The continuation of the tax reductions for the wealthiest Americans further increases the national deficit, and the extra money they retain is normally not part of the national income stream: it is saved, often in off-shore tax shelters, whereas the poor and the middle class keep the money in circulation.
It is not easy to convince the already well off that spreading the wealth is helpful to them, too.
They may have to learn the hard lesson, along with the rest of us.

#301 – Dick Bernard: At the Post Office, Wishing a Merry Christmas; at home, a Happy New Year ahead?

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Wednesday, December 15, we attended Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis…
Friday morning December 17 I was at the Post Office early, the better to beat the rush.
Even given the good timing, there were still a dozen or more of us in line, with one postal worker on station (two stations vacant).
We were a quiet bunch, and I struck up a conversation with the guy behind me, who identified himself as working in a lab for a major corporation. Nice guy.
The small talk drifted to snow removal after the blizzard the previous weekend. Minneapolis and St. Paul were still not dug out. I commented that the cities were already suffering budget problems due to the amounts of snow thus far, and it could really be a problem later.
The guy responded with the mantra: “there isn’t a revenue problem, there’s a spending problem” and dragged in the entire state and federal budget. We didn’t go further. My guess, though, is that he knew about as much about the complexities of the state and federal budgets as I knew about his lab job: nothing. As a taxpayer, he had a right to complain, whether or not his complaint made sense, or if he any data to go on beyond somebody’s talking points.
The line continued to move at a normal rate (I’m a regular there. I know).
A woman a few folks behind me loudly complained to the postal worker behind the counter about those other counters with no postal workers behind them. Get workers out here – now. The obvious inference was that there were supposed to be people out there but they were likely gold-bricking on company time. She, the customer, was in a hurry and didn’t want to wait.
The counter lady likely had heard this complaint before. “They’re back helping sort mail for the route carriers“, she said, quietly.
The rest of us just continued quietly waiting our turn. As I’ve come to expect over many times in the line, my/our wait was perhaps 15-20 minutes max. It SEEMS longer if you think about it. Left to its own devices, the line moves at a regular pace.
The next day found me back at the post office once again. This time I was in another line waiting for the automated postal device where you can process your own items and pay by credit card.
This time the lady at the front of the line offered, grumpily, that she didn’t like the grumpy people at the counters so she came to the machine. I know this post office well. The lady was grumpier than the grumpiest counter person on his or her last nerve facing an unreasonable customer. I’ve watched postal workers at work. I know.
It takes all kinds. If there’s a grumpy quotient, it’s more likely some unreasonable customer demanding service that cannot be instantly provided.
A couple days later, back at the post office one more time: the postal worker helping me was a bit upset. Apparently, not long before I’d joined the queue, someone in line had collapsed and, he thought, had possibly died. He was concerned about this unknown woman – he guessed she was in her mid-30s. He just didn’t know. [UPDATE Dec. 24: the woman did die.]
I suppose in the three postal visits I describe I was in the company of 30-40 of my fellow citizens in my town.
A couple of the folks were downright unreasonable, but the rest were just people, understanding that we were all in a small community and that service took time, and that even the post office might be trying to do things right.
Even with all the ample insanity that passes for public political conversation these days maybe, not so deep down, as a whole we are okay as a society. But we’re too timid.
To have a Happy New Year we need to get far more engaged in the politics that determines what kind of society we are going to be part of.
In the New Year we’ll have a chance to witness in our government, state and national, the ascendance of the politics of anger. Watch out.
Happy New Year.
… In the Guthrie audience with us was my wife’s son and 6th grade grandson. Her son is basically unemployed, working a part-time job which is by no stretch adequate.
I’ve seen A Christmas Carol before, at the Guthrie.
This year I tended to see our American society as akin to good old Ebenezer Scrooge. While we suffer from high unemployment, 90% of the work force is employed; most retired people like myself are doing very well indeed (you don’t go to the Guthrie for nothing these days). Compared to the so-called Third World, even our poor citizens are well off financially.
Still there is a Scrooge-like tendency that we have: while we consider ourselves a very generous people, we are very stingy when it comes to letting loose of what we consider to be ‘our’ goodies.
The next day, my wife asked my grandson what part of the performance he liked the best. “Christmas Present“, he said without hesitation.
Perhaps we should pay a bit more attention to “Christmas Future”, which is what caught Ebenezer Scrooge’s attention….

#296 – Dick Bernard: the Metrodome vs the Blizzard (it lost)

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UPDATE JANUARY 13: Minneapolis Star Tribune front page article, etc.
Enroute to church this morning I passed within blocks, as always, the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis. It usually stands out when viewed from Interstate 94, but today it was hard to pick it out: overnight the roof collapsed from the weight of the snow from yesterday’s blizzard. The absence of a roof made it hard to see.
At church, my fellow-usher friend commented that the Dome was just expressing its feelings, let-down that today’s game had been postponed. If so, it must now be downright depressed. The game has been moved to Detroit tomorrow night. That’ll show the Grand Dame of the Twin Cities.
I don’t know how the Dome is insured against such calamities. There are often clauses which in one way or another consider “acts of God”, of which weather is one of the obvious ones.
So, why did God pick on the Dome? (It’s a fair question, because people are constantly suggesting God’s intercession, a preference or disgust for this or that; that God’ll get you, or got you, because you weren’t listening.)
Perhaps, I thought, God was cutting Bret Favre some slack, allowing him one more day to heal so that his game-starting streak could remain intact. Maybe the intent was to lobby the Minnesota legislature: you folks need to give those Vikings new digs…or maybe it was the opposite “so, you want a new stadium without a roof. See what will happen?” (As I write, Chicago and New England are having a snowball fight in their game.)
Full disclosure: I have very little investment in professional sports, interest or otherwise. Till yesterday, when the Giants were stranded in Kansas City, unable to get to Minneapolis, I didn’t even realize there was a game here. Still, pro sports is a roost-ruler in this and many other markets.
Pro-sports is a big business, that is all that it is.
The Metrodome, unsightly and elderly as it is, has been a very functional place since its completion 28 years ago, in 1982. There is an interesting history of the structure here. It was completed on time, and under budget – something unheard of even then. I took a ten year old to a game early in the first season at the Dome. I recall the night vividly: there were four home runs in the first inning. What a start.
Now it is in tatters, till stitched back together.
Those with an interest in a new stadium – or not – are already talking about how to ‘spin’ this spectacular incident earlier today. Talking points are being developed ‘as we speak’.

#293 – Dick Bernard: Continuing the tax cuts

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For the record, some time ago, before the November elections, I wrote my U.S. Senators arguing in favor of letting the tax cuts expire for everyone at the end of 2010 – including my own.
My wife and I are small fish in the economic pond that is the U.S., but even for ourselves I demonstrated by actual numbers that the net effect of those ill-considered tax cuts earlier in this decade had quite a dramatic impact on our personal tax bill. I said that these were tax savings we neither needed nor could the country afford them. We were destroying our grandkids futures, I argued.
I think of this two page letter to my elected representatives in the wake of yesterday’s announcement of agreement in principal between President Obama and the Republicans and the resulting rhetorical tsunami particularly from the left (with whom I am most often in agreement).
The most well reasoned opinion I’ve seen about the compromise is this one from a west coast blogger I have come to like. It speaks for itself.
But Outside the Walls is my blog, and how is it that I think the President of the United States did what he had to do in dealing with a very tough reality?
I spent most of my working life as a teacher’s union representative, charged with making some sense out of the abundant nonsense that litters every one of our lives: trying to help resolve petty and profound disagreements between individuals and groups of individuals and labor and management.
In such a setting you learn rapidly – and then live within – the reality that nothing is ever as simple as it most often is portrayed by the advocates from one side or the other. Even the stark line between ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’ blurs.
As I read and listened yesterday I kept thinking of a specific situation that occurred in about 1996 in the very town in which I now live.
It was a bitterly cold January, and the local union here – actually two competing unions which were finally cooperating – was at death’s door heading to a Strike.
In fact, everything was in place for the strike: picket signs, captains, schedules, etc. The strike was to happen at 7 a.m. the next morning.
The State Mediator called the parties together for one more attempt to reach agreement, and anyone who’s ever negotiated knows the scenario: labor and management were in separate rooms in an unpleasant place, sitting with stale donuts and old coffee, considering a mutual reality. If we didn’t settle below our sacred rock bottom bottom line, one side would be out on the streets, and both sides would have to figure out how to save face later.
I said that there were two competing unions in this scenario. I was representative for the smaller of the two. My local President wanted a strike in the worst way.
The night wore on and nobody was budging. The mediator was going back and forth.
Finally came the moment of truth: somewhere around midnight or after the Mediator called out our chief negotiator, as well as managements, and let them know the lay of the land, which was pretty dismal. Essentially, he said ‘you folks figure it out, or its your problem’.
Time went on interminably, and then the chief negotiator, representing the majority union, came in the room and asked me to join him.
The reality struck home. This was what we were going to get. Period. Were we going to strike for the difference? No. I supported settling.
The bargaining team sitting in the room agreed; my local President did not. He was very angry. He’d had a large stake in having that long overdue strike.
It was a stormy, snowy night, and the telephone tree went into effect well after midnight: no pickets in the morning. The 20 miles solitary drive home was very lonely.
A short while later we held a meeting to ratify or reject the agreement. Several hundred teachers came and heard the presentation, and voted in secret ballot. In my recollection, the contract we thought was so deficient was overwhelmingly ratified.
My local President – the one who wanted the strike – held me responsible for selling out and had nothing to do with me for the remainder of his term of office.
Life went on. He retired, and a couple of years later he called and asked me a question about something or other.
It was his way of saying “it’s okay. Life goes on”. And it did.
President Obama did what he had to do. It’s not the best, but the best that is attainable.