On Losing Hope…Don’t….

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“When the going gets tough, the tough get going”
(Proverb, uncertain origin)

As the awful days of 2017 drag on, I am very tempted to give up. Why bother? There seems little reason to hope for any improvement in our increasingly awful status quo – a fate we freely chose last November. If you watch the news only a little, you know what I mean. Here’s a longer version of the most recent, Charlottesville. Scroll down to the quote from “Daily Stormer”, the modern voice of the Nazis.

from Carol: a two minute film from 1943

The reason for my malaise is our national leadership – our President – and a largely cowardly “win at all costs” far Right government leadership who considers people like me the enemy.

But becoming paralyzed is not good for this country. I march on.

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In my now long life, I have always emphasized personal optimism: that however bad things were, there was hope for a better future.

A friend once asked me how I came to this positive philosophy. The answer came to mind quite easily. Very early in my adult life, the short two year marriage of my wife and I ended with her death from kidney disease; and I was left with a 1 1/2 year old son, and truly insurmountable debts, mostly from medical costs.

Barbara was 22. We were in a strange place, surrounded by strangers. I was flat broke.

It was 1965, and survival was the essential; everything else was a luxury.

I didn’t give up, and with lots of help from some relatives and new friends and society in general (North Dakota Public Welfare in particular), things turned around, albeit slowly. I’ll never forget 1963-65.

Later perspective came from a career where my total job was attempting to help solve problems between people, not to make them worse.

It was a difficult job. Sometimes I feel I did okay; sometimes I was not so sure. But I gave a damn, and knew the difference between “win-win” versus “win-lose”. In “win-lose” everybody loses…. We have long been mired in “win-lose” in this country of ours.

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So, I seek optimism even in the worst of times.

A few days ago I did a blog about Al Gore’s new film on Climate Change: “Inconvenient Sequel Truth to Power“, and highlighted a long and what I felt was a very positive interview with Vice-President Gore on Fox News a week ago; and then noticed on the jacket of his 2006 “An Inconvenient Truth” the highlighted recommendation, from Roger Friedman of FOXNEWS.com. Fox News? Yes.

Yesterdays Minneapolis Star Tribune had an Opinion written by the newspapers publisher, billionaire businessman and former Minnesota legislator Glen Taylor. You can read it here.

I sent the column to a former work colleague, now in Michigan, who knew Taylor in the 1980s when he was an up and coming business man, and who, herself, successfully used “win-win” in contract negotiations. She read the column and said, “He is so correct in his observations. For one thing, this approach is less likely to produce unintended consequences that can hurt either party. Because the potential solutions are freely discussed, those potential problem areas are more likely to be seen and avoided before they happen.”

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“Win-Win” is not part of the current American environment.

But it is not time to quit. Just yesterday I was at a gathering where a current member of the U.S. Congress spoke, and he said that next week, August 21 to be precise, is when Trump has to make a crucial decision on CSR under the Affordable Care Act. “CSR”? More here about CSR and the implications of next week. Several times Cong. Walz said, yesterday, August 21 is very important. Express your opinion to your Congressperson and Senator.

Cong. Tim Walz, MN 1st District, at DFL Senior Caucus Picnic Aug. 13, 2017

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Finally, the matter of “news”, generally, and what can one believe these “fake news” days, especially from the President of the United States? There is truth out there, but it takes effort to find it, especially now. I think it is prudent to believe nothing this President says; only what he and his lieutenants do, have done, and will do, and not as reported by him, either.

Facts are complicated. A couple of days ago my long time friend Michael sent an article from a technical publication about the N. Korean ICBMs. The article, here, is difficult, and it is technical, but was reassuring in that it came from someone who I’ve known for years to be not only a PhD, but a straight talker. We all know people like Michael. Value them. Here is how Michael introduces the article: “if moral analysis does not move you, maybe technical aspects can. Ted Postol [and others have] a super essay in today’s Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about the latest NK missile launches of Hwasong 14, probably not quite ICBM missiles.”

N. Korea is a very dangerous situation, but consider the source for any information you see or hear about it. There are “facts” out there.

Here’s my Korea Peninsula region map, once again.

Personal adaptation of p. 104 of 7th Edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World

COMMENTS
from Fred: An excellent piece, Dick. In challenging times it is tempting to withdraw, hang on and hope for the best. We need to remember that the future is not linear; its unpredictably is about all we can safely predict. Of course, that can mean even more difficult days are in our future. You’ve reminded me that a pragmatic and persistent approach in working for positive change is a most worthwhile option.

Dick Bernard – An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power

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Minneapolis-St. Paul area: Here are the film showtimes for Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.

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We went to see Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power on Wednesday afternoon. Climate change is a topic that has long been of concern to me, and I have written about it before, here, and followed it quite actively since we saw Al Gore in person in St. Paul in 2005, and then saw the original An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warning in 2006.

What a difference ten years make; what a difference ten years has made….

First, the bad news: Out of the gate, the film as measured by box office, as Fox News proclaimed, “bombs at the box office”.

But there are other opinions “headlined” on the internet search I did on Thursday: here, and here. And if you take the time to view the Fox News piece above, it is a ten minute segment featuring Al Gore on Fox News just days ago.

What difference does ten years make? While acknowledging his own dark times, Mr. Gore points out the huge successes, not the least of which is the COP21 in Paris, where 193 nations signed on.

“Don’t judge the book by its cover”.

Wednesday, there was only a single theater in the Twin Cities showing the film – the Uptown at 28th and Hennepin. It is an “inconvenient” place to see a movie. We were going to see the film Sunday, but streets were blocked by the annual Uptown Art Fair which basically surrounds the theater. Even in the middle of a rainy day, parking was an issue. I was actually surprised that there were perhaps 50 of us in the Theater for the 2 p.m. show.

On the other hand…Inconvenient Sequel is a film of substance. If you care at all about the future in environmental terms, the film is much more than worth the time. See it in person if you can. My high spots: the story of Discovr (not misspelled); and crucial parts of the ‘back story’ about the Climate triumph at COP21 in Paris in 2015. Mr. Trump may feel he’s dissing President Obama when he refused to sign for the U.S. as the pact continues. Rather, I think, he is dissing us all, including American business.

While there is a long, long, long ways to go, the movement to build awareness of the climate change issue is very much alive and well, and change is possible.

Inconvenient Sequel, more than anything, gives a sense of empowerment to “we, the people”, going forward. The future rests with us.

Take the time to see the film, and spread the word.

POSTNOTE:

In 2006, I purchased ten copies of the DVD, An Inconvenient Truth. I still retain one. As I have related before, we saw Mr. Gore in person in St. Paul a year before the film came out, and we were in the front row of a packed Woodbury theatre a year later to see the first run, and my wife almost yelled, “that’s me!” when she saw herself on the big screen, going up to shake Al Gore’s hand. It’s still there, less than five minutes into the film.

(click to enlarge)

As I was scanning the cover jacket above, I noticed for the first time the quote at the bottom of the illustration, by Roger Friedman, FOXNEWS.com. In the above segment with Chris Wallace on Fox News a few days ago, Wallace says that it is the first time in 17 years that he’s interviewed Gore. He says in the recent interview, let’s not wait 17 years for the next visit….

There is possibility out there. Go for it!

Semper Fi*

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Emblem of United States Marines


(click to enlarge any photos or illustrations)

Monday morning, 8:53 a.m., an odd e-mail from my daughter: “I have very few details and am “on call” today. Spencer is at his MEPS appointment this morning and will, at some point (likely Lester afternoon), swear in. I’ll do my best to keep you posted, but for sure this isn’t a “must attend” if you follow. Keep your phones close and if it works, great…if not, mark your calendars for July 9 which is his ship date!”

July 9 was last month. “MEPS”? “Lester”? We’ve all done rushed e-mails! (More later in this post).

I went on to my morning meeting where six of us were to discuss a film-in-progress about dialogue on how to help promote world peace and justice through suggesting positive changes in the United Nations.

Six people suggesting reforms to a 72 year old institution representing over 190 nations? The idea sounds preposterous, but I’ve been around long enough, and close enough, to know that bottom up ideas can and do make a difference. You just need to be patient, and never expect your name in “lights”. We are a global society, and if there is ever to be peace, it has to begin with all of us in each of our own small and larger ways. Indeed, world society is making positive progress.

Most of our Monday morning group had been at a small dinner the previous evening (below). Joseph Schwartzberg joined us on Saturday; Deb Metke couldn’t.

from left, David Lionel, Ron Glossop, Gail Hughes, Deb Metke, Nancy Dunlavy. Dick Bernard took the photo, and thus is the empty chair.

I stuck around till about 12:30 Monday afternoon, then excused myself.

There was a phone message from my daughter: “Spencer will be sworn in at 2 p.m. at Ft. Snelling. Come if you can.” “Sworn in”? “To what?” He’s just becoming a senior in high school. Once again, what was MEPS?… I called Cathy. “This is all I know. Do you want to come along?” “Sure.”

We were there in time. Seven others had come, on short notice, to be there for Spencer. Spencer was there to be sworn in as a Marine, with a report date of July 9, 2018. Three other young people were sworn in at the same time. MEPS turned out to be the Military Entrance Processing Station. As the blanks were filled in, it wasn’t a great surprise. Spencer, a great kid, has long had an interest in the possibility of military. This was his next step.

I was visibly emotional as he was sworn in. For me the emotion was simply recognizing another passage point for another of my grandkids, growing up. That he was enlisting in the military wasn’t a point of issue for me (a “peacenik”). The person swearing in he and three others, a 22 year veteran, a first class representative of the military, said only one percent of the U.S. population is in the uniformed services. I’d like for there to be no need for these folks. There is.

I’m a veteran myself, from a family full of military veterans, and while I see no good ever coming out of any war, and the young are always those sent off to fight, and die, there is sometimes a need. One can only hope that the current chain of command acts responsibly for Spencer and all of us. (In the entry to MEPS was pictured the Chain of Command as of August 7, 2017.)

August 7, 2017, MEPS, Ft. Snelling MN

Today I’ll be sending Spencer a copy of the orders to report for Army duty that I received back on January 10, 1962. Back then, they bused us to Ft. Carson Colorado. There were 18 of us. We didn’t know, then, that we were going into the Army at the early stages of what came to be known as the Vietnam era. Ten months later was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which I learned about through President Kennedy’s address to the nation on a small television in an Army barracks a few miles from Cheyenne Mountain, a possible ICBM target.

(I looked at the map of military posts in the United States in the reception room, and apparently Ft. Carson is no longer a full-fledged base.)

One can hope that the service will never have to “bulk up” again.

It’s our responsibility to do our part to end war.

Meanwhile, Congratulations, Spencer! And I’d encourage readers to become interested in and possibly involved in my organization, Citizens for Global Solutions MN, whose founders in 1947 were persons who had been deeply affected by WWII, and thought there was a better way than war and killing to solve problems. Some of us were among the ones meeting Monday morning (above).

Spencer, August 7, 2017

POSTNOTE: As Spencer begins his year preparing for active duty, here’s a graphic I gave him within the last couple of years:

(click to enlarge)
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And as he signed his enlistment papers, the most difficult current hot spot is the Korean Peninsula, where difficult decisions will hopefully be made very, very carefully. In our democracy, we are the ones who select these decision makers….

Personal adaptation of p. 104 of 7th Edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World

These are the kinds of things a grandfather thinks about, when his grandson is about to be a member of America’s military.

Congratulations, and all good wishes, Spence.

* – Semper Fidelis

#1280 – Dick Bernard: “Age of Anger, A History of the Present”

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Some weeks ago a long-time friend told me about the book, “Age of Anger…”, which I briefly introduced in this post on July 21st.

The book was my vacation project this past week. I found it to be highly informative, and highly recommend it for book club discussion, or simply for individual reflection on the nature of human beings, ourselves, our systems, nations…. Marie, the friend who had recommended the book to me, said the book was being passed around among her siblings in various parts of the country.

There are many reviews of the book. Here are some.

The book has a very large “cast of characters”. After reading, I took an informal “census” in the index, and found about 380 characters in all, most of them actors with influence roughly within the 200 years between 1700 and 1900 [See Postnote 3]. Many have immediately recognizable names. Most, like the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio who leads the book, are more obscure, but nonetheless very influential, influencing later tyrants. Most of the key characters are men. The frame seems the philosophical differences between Francois-Marie Aroust (nom de plume Voltaire, 1649-1722) and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).

Of the characters, only about 20 are women.

Tim McVeigh is in the spotlight in more recent history. ISIS makes the cut.

Before he is executed for his crime, McVeigh ends up as next door neighbor in a Colorado super-max prison to Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the architect of the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. After McVeigh’s execution, Yousef says “I have never [known] anyone in my life who has so similar a personality to my own as [McVeigh].” (p. 288) In 2001, Yousef’s uncle “completed what [Yousef] had started: the twin towers’ destruction. [That Uncle, Khalid Sheikh] Mohammed, is now known as the chief architect of the 9/11 attacks….” (p. 285)

The cast of Age of Anger seems to center on characters who came to be of influence in 1700s France, then England, then the U.S., with many other important players, mostly leaders in places like Russia, Germany, India, Turkey. As we know, “countries” are basically personified by larger than life individuals who for good or ill are installed and enabled by their subjects. Our own country, today, is an example.

Reading Age of Anger helped me to fill in blanks in my own knowledge of historical events. “Ressentement” (resentment) is an important and oft repeated word, as is Individualism.

My opinion, typically – perhaps a human trait – we blame somebody, say Hitler, for the resulting disaster that befalls us. But it always comes back down to all of us who, in various ways, enable and indeed encourage the leader behavior which ultimately does us in. This is especially true in societies like our own, where we freely choose our own leaders, by our action (or inaction – non-involvement).

As I read, I kept looking for my favorite commentator on human insanity: George Orwell in his classic, 1984. Near the end of the book came a quote about the “Proles” (ordinary people) on page 325 (see postnote). The Proles of all ages, ourselves, in my thinking, have always been the enablers, the kindling wood and the cannon fodder for the assorted pretenders to greatness, the folks like Napoleon, Hitler and all their similar ilk. We meet the enemy; and it is ourselves.

The end result always, for even the most charismatic ideologues, regardless of ideology, seems constant and universal: defeat, often disaster. It is often the angry, dispossessed and impressionable young who are enlisted to do the dirty work in wars or whatever – look at the composition of our military, of gangs….

The Age of Anger is very well worth your time.

For me, I find myself thinking about how the book challenges me to do what I can to change for the better the tiny portion of the world in which I live. Our America – my America – seems to have had an exceptionally good and exceptionally long run. But the storm clouds, literal and figurative, are gathering.

Where do we fit in all of this.

POSTNOTE: p. 325 of Age of Anger: “So long as they [the Proles] continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern… Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.”

In my recollection, Orwell leaves to our imagination the end of his story (published in 1949), which is set in England, but pretty clearly modelled on a totalitarian society.

Then, while technology was improving, no one could really imagine the presence days means of communication and thought and action control of ourselves, unless we take command of our own lives.

Absent our own actions, as individuals, our world will not end well.

Where do you fit in as the solution to our problems?

POSTNOTE 2: After publishing this post I read the Opinion section of today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune. This commentary by firefighter Peter Leschak seems pertinent to the conversation.

POSTNOTE 3: As I read, my own ancestry (French, English, Irish, German) came unexpectedly into more focus. My French-Canadian ancestors, all of them, arrived in what is now Quebec between 1618 and 1757, mostly missing the continental impact of the Enlightenment in France and England. As to the German ancestry, I knew for a long time of the German revulsion towards France, largely due to Napoleons adventure. My great-grandfathers brother, Herman Heinrich Busch, born 1852 in Westphalia, migrated to the U.S. in early 1870s, wrote back to the old country Feb. 14, 1924, about remembrances of his grandmother of Napoleon’s occupation of what is now Germany. He said, in part: “France’s history has always been full of war and revolution for the last three hundred years and Germany was always the oppressed, if they will ever become peaceful.” (p. 279 of Pioneers, The Busch and Berning Families of LaMoure County ND.). I knew Great-Grandfather Busch, first to come across, had migrated to the United States about 1870, the story was, for health reasons and to escape war. He was about 22, and his handwriting and text was extraordinarily fine and literate, though he was a farm kid. Age of Anger identifies 1870 as the formation of the Second Reich by Kaiser Wilhelm II (The First Reich is commonly considered the time of the Holy Roman Empire 800-1806). Part of the early Second Reich involved Germany’s temporary subjugation of France…. One chapter of history ends, and another begins.

Dick Bernard: The I-35W Bridge Collapse, Minneapolis MN, August 1, 2007

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We head to “the lake” today for our annual week at Breezy Point north of Brainerd MN. We have the same week each year. My computer takes a vacation, too. Likely, tonight, the local Elvis impersonator (he’s very good) will do his gig by the dock, and we’ll have an enjoyable time.

Ten years ago, August 1, we were at the same resort, watching the news, and up came an announcement of the I-35W Bridge collapse in Minneapolis. We first had to figure out what bridge it was – it’s not a normal route. In my computer photo file – the index says “Apple iPhone 6:38:13 pm” – someone, apparently at the Guthrie theater not far away, had taken a photo of whatever was happening just down the street, later sending it to me. I have a guess. See text below. In due time, the scope of the tragedy became known: 13 dead, 145 injured. The bridge took years to rebuild; there were lawsuits and financial settlements, and talk about our crumbling national infrastructure.

Thursday of this week I crossed the replacement bridge twice, to and from a 5 p.m. meeting at St. Anthony Main. The significance of ten years ago at this very spot didn’t even cross my mind. Life goes on, memories are short. So long as we avoid the personal potholes of life, we can, in our affluent society, largely ignore our responsibility for the greater reality around us. My opinion: our neglect of our infrastructure (which in my definition includes our inability to even work out differences of opinion amongst ourselves) is our slow-moving and continuing 9-11-01 – a disaster in progress.

(click to enlarge)

Photo of I-35E Bridge Collapse August 1, 2007 via iPhone, quite likely from the Guthrie Theater.

Back on August 1, 2007, I had an e-mail list – no blog – and there were a flurry of comments, from which I reprint two, below. A month later, when the area was reopened for people like myself who wanted to see the scene, I went down and took a few photos, three of which follow.

Here’s from Jody, August 1, 2007, 11:57 p.m.: Tonight, I took my kids to Minneapolis to see the musical 1776 at the new Guthrie Theater. I called it an early birthday present to myself, and their gift to me was to go happily from start to finish.

I decided not to take I-35W. It seemed, I don’t know, like the wrong road to take, though it would be my normal way into town. We took an alternate route and got off the highway at about 6:08. There had not been too much traffic and we were very early for the show. The road we were on, Chicago Avenue, went right downtown and suddenly, as best as I can describe — it was chaos. The fire truck that came by first just about pushed the SUV out of his way to get by. Emergency vehicles were coming at us from three directions. I hardly knew where to be — on the right, off the road, stopped — it was just bedlam. I finally got into the parking ramp where it felt safe. My adrenaline was rushing; it was pretty clear something was wrong. Some emergency vehicles had boats.

The Guthrie overlooks the Mississippi River. We joined an ever-growing crowd at the window. The theater has a long beautiful seating area, comfortable chairs, great view — and there we could see the bridge in the river. We could see the smoke from the burning tractor trailer. Emergency vehicles. People. And there was shock. Horror. Cell phones not working. Huge number of bystanders crowded the banks of the river from all angles to watch.

7:30 show time. The seats were not filled. We waited. The show started late which isn’t typical, I hear. We had front row seats, but the mood was subdued. We made an effort to become involved with the production, which was truly wonderful. Part of me felt guilty that I was sitting there. Why hadn’t we gone down to help — although I’m sure our help wasn’t what they needed.

I am only home twenty minutes and trying to catch up with what happened from the television vantage point.

We talked on the way home about the fact that while if I had taken 35W, we would have gotten off the exit before the bridge — but the family joke is that when I have both kids in the car I get to talking and miss my exit (one famous trip to the airport turned into a long trip).

We’ve had calls and emails from friends all over the place, so I thought I’d write. And now eat some ice cream.

I-35 Bridge scene Sep 2, 2007


(click to enlarge this photo, and you will see a black building closeby to downtown Minneapolis. That is the Guthrie Theater, and the vantage point from there would be very similar to the photo you see at the beginning of the post.)

from Mary, Aug. 2, 2007, 4:34 p.m.: My cousin Lois __ survived the 35 bridge crash. She is my mom’s sister’s oldest girl and we attended her [family] reunion together on July 22nd.

After work, most routes were congested and she tried 35 going north and found it stop and go, She was not able to get off because drivers would not yield to her signal. Fortunately, She had driven (inched) to nearly the north side and her maroon older sedan dropped 60 feet with the failing bridge, landed hovering on the frontage road. She walked out of the scene with a truck driver to the Lutheran Center and was taken to U hospital and treated for spine injury. She chose to go home and is recuperating in Arden Hills.

She is grateful she did not drop into the water and she notes her car has had national press coverage. I saw it in the NYTimes slide series. Sadly, her perception was that the car next to her did not make it. She welcomes prayers during this tragic time.

I drove to work under the bridge for 3 years choosing slow life. Last week I walked to my work at Ted Mann Hall a few blocks from there. To avoid the pollution of slow moving freeways, I use alternative routes often.

I welcome the wake-up call to invest in our infrastructure, protect our people and reevaluate transportation-work viability.

(The photo below is of the north side of the bridge, roughly where Lois would have been. The photo above shows a road going under the collapsed bridge which would have been Mary’s usual route.)

Collapsed I-35W Bridge, Minneapolis, Sep 2, 2007

Looking at the destroyed bridge, Sep. 2, 1007, from the parallel bridge just downstream.

POSTSCRIPT. There is a continuing tsunami of national news swirling around the current administration and Congress. A good summary of the last few days is here. I agree with the George Will “snip” which is included in this summary: “Trump is something the nation did not know it needed: a feeble president whose manner can cure the nation’s excessive fixation with the presidency.” Every one of us has shirked our duties for far too long, expecting – and blaming – the President, whoever that might happen to be, for every thing, real or imagined. Ideologically I’m not a George Will type, though his opinion is well worth a read.

Donald Trump at Six Months: “An Eye for an Eye”

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I follow politics pretty carefully.

Not everyone likes “politics”…if that includes you, be forewarned: this is about politics.

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There are political images which stick with me, among which are these two:
First, the below sign I saw in Rochester MN, “down the block” from Mayo Clinic, a few days before Nov. 8, 2016. The sign speaks for itself. I’ve used it before in this space.

About the same time, CBS news had one of those visuals – an interview outside a long-closed steel mill in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The subject: a guy in Trump get-up – t-shirt and hat – declaring that Trump would get he and others jobs back in the long closed mill in the background.

This guy was a true believer in Trump as savior.

(click to enlarge)

Sign in Rochester MN Nov. 3, 2016

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I am a “Democrat”, a little more active than most, I would say. I know what the word “Democrat” means as it plays out in debates among political friends. We are an inclusive bunch who bring meaning to Paul Wellstone’s oft-repeated mantra: “we all do better, when we all do better”. I don’t apologize for being a “liberal”, or “Democrat”. Because we are people, we bring meaning to the famous Will Rogers quote: “I’m not a member of any organized political party…I’m a Democrat.“ We have differences of opinion on lots of things. Such differences can be a liability for us; but its better than living in a regimented dictatorship.

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There is not much to add after Trumps first six months in office as President of the United States.

His statements on Tuesday, after the latest failure to repeal “Obamacare” in the U.S. Senate, reminded me of something I heard over a year ago, during the early campaign time. You can read it here: Trumps comment about his favorite Bible verse: “An eye for an eye”.

Trump will do anything to win; and he despises losers.

But as President of the United States, he is in way over his head and has not a clue how a reasonable political system works, to benefit and protect everyone. Whether his incompetence is a blessing or a curse depends on point of view. “The Swamp” is ever darker and more murky in his first months. He needs to be called on abuse of power.

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Reprehensible as it is, I can almost understand Trumps attempts to destroy people like myself – people called “liberals”, “Democrats”, “the opposition”. It is how Trump does business. This man seems to have no moral boundaries other than the exercise of raw power to win by any means necessary. Wednesday he publicly and pretty clearly threatened the Republican Senator Dean Heller of Nevada about playing ball with his regime’s agenda to kill Obamacare or else.

Heller has been reading the political tea leaves in his own state about general support for what is derisively called “Obamacare”, which the Republicans through various and sundry means have been trying to kill since its enactment in 2010. Heller was seated perfectly for an on-camera real-time tongue lashing by Trump, like would happen on “The Apprentice”, I suppose.

Publicly Heller laughed off Trumps public demand; privately, he and everyone else knows how political death – that of he and others – is achieved in this media and big money obsessed time in our history.

Trumps sole objective is winning, for himself alone. Period. This has been publicly known long before he descended the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy in March 2016.

Trump is not alone. The Republican far right wing, which controls the Republican party, and thus effectively controls the country at this point in time, has the same general objective as Trump. They quite certainly despise Trump, but are terrified of him. And he has been useful to their own agenda to control policy. But six months in – one eighth of his first term – their own chickens are coming home to roost. Still, long term damage is being done and it will impact us all unless we, as individuals, get more active.

The fearful and angry base – about one in four Americans – which elected Trump Nov. 8, 2016 based on his own endlessly repeated false promises to them, will find out soon enough that he did not give a damn about them. Repealing “Obamacare” and other similar initiatives from the current Republican leadership, national and state, “evangelical Christian” or otherwise, has nothing to do with anything other than raw exercise of power.

“Caveat Emptor” – “let the buyer beware”.

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There is much more to say. I’ll close with just a couple of recent comments from other sources that speak to me a bit on this 21st day of July, 2017:

My friend Bob, a few years senior to me, had this letter printed not long ago in the Columbus (OH) Dispatch. I share this with Bob’s permission. His letter basically reflects my views, though as we all know, respectful differences of opinions make for a viable society, or family, or church, or most anything….

Bob is an old hand at managing very large and very complex political (people) systems. He preceded this letter with this comment to me: “Here’s a letter the editor I had printed a couple of weeks ago – I softened its contents in order to improve the chances of it being printed.” That’s a word to the wise about how to have impact.

Bob’s letter:

“Keep the faith; U.S. will recover.

Thanks to The Dispatch, along with many other media outlets, for giving us the real news about our fake president.

I hold out much hope that eventually the majority will wake up and take appropriate action to return our great nation into the hands of those who still believe in the common good.

Right now the Democrats are in disarray and have lost their direction, while the Republicans are a general disgrace. We must gather the true and honest traditional conservatives and the open and realistic progressives to make our country great again and recover it from the hands of those in control.

As I reflect upon our nation’s history during this week of our Fourth of July remembrances, I hold out great fear and great hope. We will either slip further under our present fake leadership or get real and recover.

Thanks again to The Dispatch for pushing us toward the “get real and recover” option.”

My response to Bob: I don’t see the Democrats – my party – “in disarray” based on my own personal experience within the party. “Democrats” are truly a coat with many colors. We all have our opinions. I have, also, often said that my political hero – really mentor – was progressive Republican Minnesota Governor Elmer L. Andersen. He and others like him were a credit to political society…and they have been banished from today’s Republican power structure.

What is your opinion? You have a lot to lose by being silent with your own constituency (we all have a constituency) at this crucial juncture in our American history.

*

AGE OF ANGER, A HISTORY OF THE PRESENT: Some weeks ago my friend, Marie, mentioned a book being passed around in her circles. I ordered the book, “Age of Anger, A History of the Present” by Pankaj Mishra (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017). I picked it up at the book store a couple of days ago, and it will be my primary vacation read the first week of August. Here’s the Preface, and the Quotation which leads the first Chapter – gives you an idea of what’s to be covered. It sounds like an interesting read.

Pankaj Mishra: “I started thinking about this book in 2014 after Indian voters, including my own friends and relatives, elected Hindu supremacists to power, and Islamic State became a magnet for young men and women in Western democracies. I finished writing it during the week in 2016 in which Britain voted to leave the European Union It went to the printers in the week that Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Each of these earthquakes revealed fault lines that I felt had been barely noticed over the years, running through inner lives as well as nations, communities and families. The pages that follow try to make sense of bewildering, and often painful, experiences by re-examining a divided modern world, this time from the perspective of those who came late to it, and felt, as many people do now, left, or pushed, behind.”

and the quotation leading the Prologue in the same book:

“Everywhere, people are awaiting a messiah, and the air is laden with the promises of large and small prophets…we all share the same fate: we carry within us more love, and above all more longing than today’s society is able to satisfy. We have all ripened for something, and there is no one to harvest the fruit…” Karl Mannheim (1922)

As I say, this is my vacation read. Stay tuned.

*

Get engaged. It is the only thing you can, and you must, do.

POSTSCRIPT: More about the issue, overnight: Just Above Sunset “Ten Times Harder”

COMMENTS:
Note comment from Dave at the end of the blog itself (below the other comments).

from Anonymous: The Peter Principle is a concept in management theory formulated by Laurence J. Peter. It states that the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate’s performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and “managers rise to the level of their incompetence.”

The Peter Principle is a special case of a ubiquitous observation: Anything that works will be used in progressively more challenging applications until it fails. This is the “generalized Peter Principle”. Peter noted that there is a strong temptation for people to use what has worked before, even when this might not be appropriate for the current situation. Wikipedia

from Sandy: I totally agree with everyone you wrote about Trump and your other friends too! It is just sickening what he is doing and has done. It is incredible to me that the poor people that voted for him are so clueless and uneducated that they actually believe that he will “make America Great agiain” It is painful to watch everyday and what has been going on and frankly no one in Washington seems to be doing a good job. It is a total mess for sure! Thanks for you highlights and insights!

from Norm: Right on, Dick!

Trump is clearly in over his head albeit with the sole purpose of winning through the power of his office and particularly to undue as much of what President Obama set in play as he can. His main mission in life at the moment appears to be to eliminate any and all legislative and executive office references to Obama.

It is not unusual for a new president of a different party to come in and change some of the things put into play by his or her predecessor, of course. On the other hand, they generally have ideological or other reasons for doing that. Just wanting to eliminate it because Obama put it into play is rather odd to say the least and consistent with your description of the tower man who is streaking slowly towards puberty as everything being all about him.

I wonder how many mirrors he now has in the White House and all of his other residences to look at himself every time he wants to do so? I wonder if some of them even have an message that plays when he steps in front of them that tells him how great he is?

Of course, his promise of bringing back all of the well paying jobs in the extraction industries that existed in the 60′ and 70’s or so was pure B.S…and he knew it…as did many of his avid supporters…”but at least he will try” I heard from many of those folks.

I ran into a fellow a few months ago while waiting for an appointment who was wearing a Viet Nam Veteran cap. Being a veteran myself of the VNW era, I asked him where and when he had served. He told me and then he quickly and rather enthusiastically made it clear that he was a Trump supporter and that he wanted him to bring things back to the 60’s when he apparently was doing better than he apparently was when I talked to him.

That was the first time that I had actually had someone tell me that he hoped Trump would bring things back to the way that they were in the 60’s, i.e. the “good old days” as I am sure that the thought that he remembered them to be.

To be fair, he said that he had worked in heavy construction for most of his post military service life and his body had eventually broken down requiring lots of medical care…and he felt kind of left out of things…just the kind of folks that Trump appealed to in his campaign.

I am afraid that the avid Trump supporter that I talked to that day last March is going to be disappointed with what the tower man delivers to him including the possible losing of his coverage for medical care.

Nice job, Dick.

from Bob: I think this piece sums up what we’re dealing with:

NYT – Declaration of Disruption – Peter Wehner – JULY 4, 2017
ONE of the essential, if often unstated, job requirements of an American president is to provide stability, order and predictability in a world that tends toward chaos, disarray and entropy. When our political leaders ignore this — and certainly when they delight in disruption — the consequences can be severe. Stability is easy to take for granted, but impossible to live without.

Projecting clear convictions is important for preventing adversaries from misreading America’s intentions and will. Our allies also depend on our predictability and reassuring steadiness. Their actions in trade and economics, in alliances with other nations and in the military sphere are often influenced by how much they believe they can rely on American support.

Order and stability in the executive branch are also linked to the health of our system of government. Chaos in the West Wing can be crippling, as White House aides — in a constant state of uncertainty, distrustful of colleagues, fearful that they might be excoriated or fired — find it nearly impossible to do their jobs. This emanates throughout the entire federal government. Devoid of steadfast leadership, executive agencies easily become dysfunctional themselves.

Worse yet, if key pillars of our system, like our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, are denigrated by the president, they can be destabilized, and Americans’ trust in them can be undermined. Without a reliable chief executive, Congress, an inherently unruly institution, will also find it difficult to do its job, since our constitutional system relies on its various branches to constantly engage with one another in governing.

But that’s hardly the whole of it. Particularly in this social media era, a president who thrives on disruption and chaos is impossible to escape. Every shocking statement and act is given intense coverage. As a result, the president is omnipresent, the subject of endless coast-to-coast conversations among family and friends, never far from our thoughts. As Andrew Sullivan has observed, “A free society means being free of those who rule over you — to do the things you care about, your passions, your pastimes, your loves — to exult in that blessed space where politics doesn’t intervene.”

A presidency characterized by pandemonium invades and infects that space, leaving people unsettled and on edge. And this, in turn, leads to greater polarization, to feelings of alienation and anger, to unrest and even to violence.

A spirit of instability in government will cause Americans to lose confidence in our public institutions. When citizens lose that basic faith in their government, it leads to corrosive cynicism and the acceptance of conspiracy theories.

Movements and individuals once considered fringe become mainstream, while previously responsible figures decamp to the fever swamps. One result is that the informal and unwritten rules of political and human interaction, which are at the core of civilization, are undone. There is such a thing as democratic etiquette; when it is lost, the common assumptions that allow for compromise and progress erode.

In short, chaotic leadership can inflict real trauma on political and civic culture.

All of which brings us to Donald Trump, arguably the most disruptive and transgressive president in American history. He thrives on creating turbulence in every conceivable sphere. The blast radius of his tumultuous acts and chaotic temperament is vast.

Mr. Trump acts as if order is easy to achieve and needs to be overturned while disruption and disorder are what we need. But the opposite is true. “Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour,” Edmund Burke wrote, “than prudence, deliberation and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”

Mr. Trump and his supporters don’t seem to agree, or don’t seem to care. And here’s the truly worrisome thing: The disruption is only going to increase, both because he’s facing criticism that seems to trigger him psychologically and because his theory of management involves the cultivation of chaos. He has shown throughout his life a defiant refusal to be disciplined. His disordered personality thrives on mayhem and upheaval, on vicious personal attacks and ceaseless conflict. As we’re seeing, his malignant character is emboldening some, while it’s causing others — the Republican leadership comes to mind — to briefly speak out (at best) before returning to silence and acquiescence. The effect on the rest of us? We cannot help losing our capacity to be shocked and alarmed.

We have as president the closest thing to a nihilist in our history — a man who believes in little or nothing, who has the impulse to burn down rather than to build up. When the president eventually faces a genuine crisis, his ignorance and inflammatory instincts will make everything worse.

Republican voters and politicians rallied around Mr. Trump in 2016, believing he was anti-establishment when in fact he was anti-order. He turns out to be an institutional arsonist. It is an irony of American history that the Republican Party, which has historically valued order and institutions, has become the conduit of chaos.

#1275 – Dick Bernard: Upcoming “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”

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Mean weather coming through. Woodbury MN, about 9 a.m. June 11, 2017

Two weeks from today, July 28, is the opening, in selected cities nationwide, of “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power“, the followup to the 2006 film by Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth.

The general opening nationwide is August 3, 2017.

Whenever the Twin Cities is one of those places that plays “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”, we’ll be in the audience.

Details on show times and places will be available here.

Of course, I have not seen the 2017 film – it is not yet released. Someone who has both seen the new film, and heard Al Gore talk about it, is this person, Hani Nam, from Los Angeles, May 2017.

My wife and I saw Al Gore speak about the issue of climate change in person in 2005 – a dozen years ago! – then saw the film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, at the time of its release one year later, in June, 2006. Here is what I wrote then: Inconvenient Truth 2005, 2006001.

June 16, 2011, five years after the release of An Inconvenient Truth, I attended a talk by a respected local authority on Climate Change, Prof. John Abraham. In the q&a session following the talk, I asked the Professor for his perceptions of the accuracy of the film. You can read his answer at the post I did then, here. Prof. Abrahams comments speak for themselves.

Dec. 14, 2015, I applauded the COP agreements on Climate Change in Paris, here.

It is hardly a secret where we are at this moment in history…indeed, the preview clip of An Inconvenient Sequel hi-lites the problem going forward.

When an “Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” plays in your area, make a point to not only attend, but to get active.

The solution – the Power – is in every single one of us.

PERSONAL POSTNOTE:

As a society, we seem to have become addicted to denial of reality, because we can to a certain extent deny reality. Most of us have the money to turn up the air conditioning, or turn up the heat, or in other ways to avoid the natural realities of bad weather, as I was able to avoid the bad weather coming through on June 11 (the photo which leads this post). I was in my car, and could turn around when it appeared it was foolish to continue into the rapidly approaching storm. I am also aware, however, that my personal environment, in a heavily populated city, is always potentially at risk. Cynically, best the tree fall on somebody elses house, or someone else lose power for an entire day (as happened about 24 hours ago in other suburbs of my metropolitan area.)

But everyone of us, everywhere, is in the same kettle, it is called earth. We have the same home….

There is one simple distinction which we all need to learn, and that is the distinction between WEATHER and CLIMATE, here provided by the National Weather Service: “Weather – The state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc. Weather refers to these conditions at a given point in time (e.g., today’s high temperature), whereas Climate refers to the “average” weather conditions for an area over a long period of time (e.g., the average high temperature for today’s date).”

Weather is that nasty cloud which leads this post. Climate is the much broader and longer term patterns of weather which do not respect human borders, and are the focus of the science of climate change.

In my opinion, an unfortunate semantic mistake was made early on when the conversation focused on the term “global warming”, true in a climate sense, but easily ridiculed by reference to oddities of daily weather. Ridicule does not change reality…it does make conversation and resolution more difficult.

Humans with adequate financial resources can basically and temporarily deny the impacts of climate change. For everyone else, including plants and animals, who live within the reality of heat, cold, wet, dry, the potential for surviving change is less certain.

We advanced humans are effectively cooking our childrens future, and that of other living things as well.

One of the best presentations I personally witnessed was this eight minute presentation by a climate scientist to children at the Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg College in 2009. Prof Alley and his colleague scientists were co winners of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Here are two websites: IPCC and NOAA

Dick Bernard: The Korean Peninsula and Poland, very briefly…

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Book recommendation from Marie: A book you might be reading is: Age of Anger A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra.

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Hubris always ends badly*.

This date the great meeting with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump occurs in Hamburg. The only U.S. representative with Trump will be Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State. Yesterday, Trump gave a major speech to an invited audience in Poland. In the same time period North Korea successfully launched an ICBM which signalled its capacity of delivering a nuclear warhead as far as Alaska.

I’m an old geography major, old enough to have had my college degree a year before I was sitting in an Army barracks in Oct 22, 1962, watching President Kennedy tell we Americans about the Cuban Missile Crisis where Russia was said to be delivering ICBMs whose range was as far as Cheyenne Mountain, below which I was sitting near Colorado Springs Colorado.

It seems a good time for a tiny briefing about Poland and Korea….

KOREA.

(click to enlarge)

Personal adaptation of p. 104 of 7th Edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World

Note especially the red rectangle at center in the map. That rectangle is about 125 miles wide, giving an idea of the scale of the map. Note Seoul, and Pyongyang, and Tokyo and Hiroshima, all hi-lited in yellow, as well as the 38th parallel, the demarcation between the two countries** since the end of what has come to be known as the Korean War (though it was never a declared war).

The Korean peninsula is not a place for a “loose cannon” on any side…. Note the CIA Fact Book about both North Korea and South Korea. For comparison, Minnesota has a population of about 5 1/2 million; N. Korea about 25 million, S. Korea about 51 million. In land area, N. Korea is slightly larger than the state of Virginia; slightly smaller than the state of Mississippi; S. Korea is a bit smaller than Pennsylvania, a bit larger than Indiana.

Google Maps notes that you can’t get from Seoul to Pyonyang by road. Still the map is interesting. And a guided missile is a very short trip away from both in the area of the 38th parallel. Tokyo and the rest of Japan are not that far away, either. Here’s the Japan briefing book from the CIA.

POLAND.

If there was ever a place for a white nationalist to give a speech, it would be Poland. Here’s the CIA Factbook on Poland. Poland has not been treated kindly by history: Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin….

I have been to Auschwitz, Krakow, Czestochowa and Gdansk (2000 and 2003).

My grandmother was in 8th grade in about 1896 when she learned the geography of Europe. Here is the map from her textbook which shows Europe as it existed then. Most interesting to me is that this map, from a standard text for American Catholic Schools at the time, does not even name Warsaw, already a major city**.

(click to enlarge)

As we learned when we visited Auschwitz in 2000, Auschwitz (Oswiecim in Polish times) was basically a prison camp for 140-150,000 Poles, about half of whom died; adjoining Birkenau was the extermination camp for the Jews. Nearby was a third forced labor camp, Monowitz, part of the I. G. Farben Buna factory (from the book “Auschwitz, Voices from the Ground” purchased at Auschwitz, May, 2000).

Pope John Paul II, the “Polish Pope”, born in 1920, grew up in nearby Wadowice, Poland, and thus felt the full impact of both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union. His world view was likely shaped by his experiences.

I remember, from the time of our visit, that perhaps 10% of Poles fell as victims of WWII; as well as virtually all of the Polish Jews. (Note here.) Of all countries, Poland was among the most devastated by WWII.

On the other hand, our dear friend, Annelee, who grew up in Hitler Germany, lost her Dad to the war. He was a conscript who refused to become a Nazi, though he would have benefited from such a move. They are not sure where or when he died, though it was likely in Russia. They lived in terror of being taken over by the Russians after the war (they weren’t).

* “Hubris”? Some time back I was giving a ride to my friend, Joe, a retired distinguished international emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota. The car conversation got around to Napoleon and Hitler’s misguided attempts to control all of Europe and Asia, attempts which failed. “Hubris” is how my friend defined their actions. In a different sort of way, yet very similar, Donald Trump is trying to translate a slogan into action: “Make America Great Again”, but I think the world leaders are a bit wiser now. This won’t stop the macho coffee conversations about “kicking ____’s ass” (fill in the blank with whomever or whatever the target of choice might be.

There has never been a good time for hubris. Most certainly not now, when we are a global society, with the capacity to destroy ourselves.

It is time for cooler heads everywhere to prevail, one person, one conversation at a time.

Back to you.

Comments welcome to Dick_BernardATmsnDOTcom.

Another map from the same 1896 text. Click to enlarge. Note that Moscow is not even mentioned.

** – Note comment from anonymous below.

COMMENTS
from Jeff: Old maps are interesting. My German grandparents on my mothers maternal side emigrated from Pomerania, which was then part of Germany, is now part of Poland. I think it was originally East Prussia , which eventually became Germany under Bismarck. A majority of the people in Pomerania were German , some had Polish surnames but were Germans. The maps of Asia are more interesting… Iraq doesn’t exist as it was part of both the Ottoman empire and Persia. Syria didn’t exist, and look where the Ottoman empire extended around Arabia encompassing Israel, Palestine, Jordan the Gulf emirates, parts of Saudi Arabia. Vietnam was a colony of France, India, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore a part of the British Empire…..

Response from Dick: Indeed. Most of us have only the thinnest veneer of knowledge about the world as it was or is, even our own country. It makes for problems…and opportunities for people who benefit from simplistic notions of superiority or such. One of my vivid memories from the trip to Poland was at the Krakow Cathedral in early May, which I think was Constitution Day or such in Poland. There was a Mass there, and after Mass, one of the people we met was an ancient man (WWII vintage) wearing very, very proudly his Polish Army uniform. I should dig out the slide. It was just an old Army uniform, festooned with whatever decorations he had received ‘back in the day’.

“Tribes” are useful, and sometimes important, but more often than not dangerous. A friend gave me a CD by a superb Irish Tenor, including assorted songs, mostly of lament. One which sticks especially is “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, about an Aussie who encounters the Turks (the Ottomans) at Sulva Bay in Gallipoli is WWI. Listen to it here.

A year or so ago we went to the Russia Museum in Minneapolis to see the exhibit on WWI from the Russian perspective. One caption I remember quite vividly. Apparently, the Kaiser and the Czar were first cousins, the German and the Russian rulers. And apparently WWI really started with some argument over something or other. This was before the assassination….

from Jeff: Actually the Kaiser, the Czar, and the King of England were all cousins… It wasn’t that long ago either.

from Fred: Very well put. Excellent idea to use a little geography and cartography to assist the uninitiated.

from Terrance: I have been amazed over the past 25 years since the fall of the Soviet Union how little we learned from the Catholic textbooks about how many people from various little nations, religions and ethnic backgrounds were forced into the USSR. If they weren’t Catholic, they were dismissed in our Geography classes as irrelevant.

** from Anonymous: I read your blog about Poland and Korea and agree with you that we Americans need to be better informed about both. But may I offer a few critical comments?

You stated that “the 38th parallel, [was]the demarcation between the two countries since the end of what has come to be known as the Korean War.” That is not correct. The 38th parallel was the the boundary from the end of WWII until the start of the Korean War. The de facto boundary since that war has been the cease-fire line at the time of the truce which ending the fighting (in 1953). That line was to the north of the 38th parallel in its eastern sector and to the south in the western sector. (In 1980 I crossed it to visit a national park in what passed from North to South Korea in 1953.

The blog was interesting.

from Norm: Great observations and commentary, Dick.

I am not an old geography major albeit old I am. On the other hand, I am and have always been a geography buff going way back to my early introduction to them in National Geographic. I have always loved maps of areas ranging from those of a township to a state to the nation and to the world, whatever their purpose but mainly that show geographical features and political boundaries although the latter change frequently in boundaries, name and existence.

I served nearly four years as a USAF photo radar intelligence officer which was later categorized by the folks in the public sector when describing my work history as that of a cartographer which it essentially was in many cases.

I have always been intrigued as well by how natural geographic features such as rivers, mountains, large lakes and so on can affect the politics of things. For example, the folks on the leeward side of the mountain range having different political views and customs let alone cultures than those on the windward side of the range or on the other side of the river or large lake or whatever.

That is just very interesting to me, Dick.

“Respect the Board, Please”

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June 11, 2017, about 11 a.m. at southwest corner of the space formerly occupied by the Scaffold.

Today, as I have for 16 years, I’ll go to my local Caribou Coffee, spend my usual 1 1/2 hours, sip a single cup of coffee, and come home to begin the rest of my day.

This coffee place is a busy, very civilized place. I imagine that it reflects this suburban community of over 60,000 quite well. The people I see every day, from my own neighborhood, to the post office, to other places, reflect civility and respect for each other. In point of fact, I travel around more than most in this metropolitan area of more than 3,000,000 people, and the usual experience is the same: civility and respect.

We are basically good people in this country of ours.

*

In the coffee shop there is a blackboard where people can and do write things. Occasionally I’d see someone draw something there, or post a few words. Personally, I’ve not lifted a piece of chalk….

A couple of Saturdays back, I came in to see a simple declaration on the Board, then the next day, a response below it:

(click to enlarge)

Public messages at coffee, June 24, 2017

The unknown authors were not known to me, nor perhaps to others. In fact, the sign seemed not to be noticed.

A bad cold side-tracked me from my favorite haunt for several days, and when I came back the sign had been erased, replaced with the simple phrase that titles this post, accompanied by a chalked smily face. Perhaps something had happened in my absence. There were no other comments on the now blank board, a frozen conversation as it were.

Yesterday, I watched an artistic employee draw a commercial for the featured coffee at the space. It isn’t the same.

*

We are, basically, a civil society with, most recently, a very mean and very visible edge to it, particularly in the very public and belligerent political discourse. The few “shouted” words on the blackboard dramatize the downside of our current situation in this country of ours.

Each one of us has a responsibility to change that conversation in the many simple ways available to do us. This is not a big deal. I notice a lot of genuine politeness among strangers recently, that I had not been seeing. That is a very good thing.

In and of itself, the three word complaint on the Board at Caribou was no big deal.

But it was not viewed as innocuous, and someone (not I) complained about it.

In a very small way it brought to the surface the rather ugly tenor of that public conversation we confront daily in the newspaper, the internet and the media itself: a single dimensional view.

We are better than what caused “Respect the Board, Please” to be written.

Have a good 4th of July.

POSTNOTE: The flag and flower appear in an earlier post which many have read: Here, scroll down to comment 24. The flag and flower are gone now…most recently I was back to the site this past Sunday. It is another place I will be watching.

Dick Bernard: Far too many days, and they’ve only just begun….

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“Make America Great Again” April 21, 2017

Sidenote to begin: A piece of junk mail today from Brave New Films, with a preview link to the film: “40 people, 50 Questions”. Take the 7 1/2 minutes.

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The “repeal and replace” of “Obamacare” is on hold in the Senate.

Last night for the first time in a long while I watched no news at all, and didn’t read the paper this morning. It helps to have a bad cold, but I didn’t miss the parade of spinmeisters.

The summary as best I can understand such things:
1) Repealing Obamacare will make things much, much worse for tens of millions of Americans in terms of access to and affordability of health care. The victims are far beyond just the poor, about to be tossed over a cliff.
2) the tradeoff is massive tax cuts for wealthy people who already have far more than enough.

The Republican “talking points”, nor Trump, who’s a case unto himself, won’t mention either of these; but these are the desired results.

Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware). Obamacare, with all its faults (which were massaged and exacerbated from the beginning by the Republican leadership), was a great gift to every citizen of this land.

*

Repealing Obamacare, lowering taxes on the rich, and abundant other schemes, will negatively impact every single one of us, including the rich, even if we keep our own coverage.

How about people who depend on us? Within our own very modest family “fortune” – our inheritance to our heirs, as it were – there goes their inheritance when someone or other, perhaps within family, but not necessarily exclusively, unexpectedly comes on hard times and asks for financial help. I don’t think that we are yet at a place in our society where we’d let someone just die in the street. But….

Short term thinking can have long term results.

*

“The rich”?

More money in Scrooge McDuck‘s money bin? (I always liked Scrooge McD cavorting in a bin of investments that seemed full of quarters, when a quarter was a lot of money to a poor kid) helps no one unless it is in circulation to millions who can’t afford to save, and spend every nickel and beyond, maxing out credit cards (if lucky enough to have them) to survive.

Trump is positioned to get even richer, because his primary clientele is the already very rich. You can only make so much with “Make America Great Again” hats (which I have seen only once in public since the election. See beginning of this post.)

*

What can an ordinary person do? I hear very good things about the group “Indivisible“. Check in there if you want to do something to help. There are many other options.

The solution is by each and every one of us, one action at a time.

*

Watching a wreck in progress.

We’re not even 150 days into this administration – about 10% – and its difficult to imagine anything other than a catastrophic long term outcome, including with a President Pence, or President Ryan with their own predatory agendas for their narrow special interest… Oh, there will be some who wish for this, but they are not anywhere near the majority of the people of this country. They will learn that Freedom isn’t Free.

From the moment Donald J. Trump descended the gold escalator at the Trump Tower (June 16, 2016), we have known what we were in for; we had ample opportunity to adjust and correct our impressions of this serial liar, for whom the bald-faced lie has long been a part of his winning formula. He won because he reflected every single voters worst instincts, one negative message at a time.

The strategy has worked so far. We did elect him, and it is our responsibility.

*

In the rational world, if we come across a serial liar in our own circles, we come to believe nothing that the person says.

In the surreal world of American politics, where “we, the people” elected Donald Trump and others, we seem to like the deer in the headlights drama and are transfixed by the performance. Sooner than later it will be too late, and our collective carcasses will have been field dressed and stored. Unlike the deader-than-doornail deer, we’ll be thawed out in time for the next election in about a year and a half. And so it goes.

By then it will be too late, unless we are the “boots on the ground” through groups like Indivisible and the like.

*

The working press was faced with a quandary when Trump took office. Nobody likes to call a liar, a liar, most certainly not the media.

The problem began with a simple reality: every politician, and every one of us, shades the truth. It is a survival skill; it is expected. We tell “white lies” about each other all the time. The totally honest office holder or Diplomat would not survive if completely transparent. Lying in appropriate circumstances is a necessary survival skill, acknowledged and respected by all parties.

Now we have Donald Trump, the totally dishonest “lyin’ King” for whom the constant and continuous lie is a crucial job skill. He is a hideous role model for our young.

A couple of days ago the New York Times took the issue on. You can read the analysis here.

The same day, appeared an important article in Lawfare, here. entitled “Reading and Taking Seriously the President’s Tweets on Tapes”. The gist of the article is that Trump can reach 107,000,000 Americans on Twitter – that is one third of all of us, about half of adult Americans. And the legal community is now monitoring all tweets of the President for their construction, since not all of the Presidents Tweets are apparently composed by the President. You can read the article yourself.

So, government by Twitter has seemed to replace government by information, and we make judgements based on 144 characters scribed by someone for whom the truth is being irrelevant.

*

And a last word on lying, from Mitch McConnell, Bipartisanship in the 21st Century. This from a speech three years ago. The only consistency is inconsistency.

If you’re still with me, today’s Just Above Sunset was once again a very good compilation.

COMMENTS:
from Florence: I’m having a hard time being public about my deep feelings about our Republican President. Every day I feel sick that he was elected. Every day I make at least five contacts to elected/government officials with the support and encouragement of our local Indivisible Group. Recently I named for myself the three categories of concerns that I’ll try to be more focused on: Women’s issues (yes, health care is one of them!), Environment, and Voting (including redistricting, a major factor that is mostly over-looked by most voting citizens.)

In my community I’m a small minority, but I know that nearly everyone could easily describe three things that they’ve done to show that they really do care about someone/thing other than themselves. We can have common ground, but still look very differently at the what I’d call the “big picture”. It’s frustrating.

Thanks for sharing your perspective through outsidethewalls.

from Just Above Sunset, overnight: here.

from Don: Dick, I just read your latest piece, and enjoyed it. Fortunately, too much is true, The world does seem to tip upside down.

from Christina: You’ve put a face on all of the rhetoric being thrown around! Thanks. Comments? A couple of quotes: Paul Wellstone- “We all do better when we all do better!”
I’m not sure exactly how this one goes or to whom it is attributed but “The measure of a society is how they treat their most vulnerable.” [Editor: I think this paraphrases a quote by Hubert Humphrey in 1976.

from Mary: Nice comments…..I love it when there are positive anecdotals and we have all been enriched by these family stories! Good day, everyone.

from Dick, responding to Mary: Mary is a sibling of mine, and was responding to an added note I had added to a family letter which included this post. I said this: “Here’s my wonderful poster child for medicaid. (Attached photo from June 25). Heather is Down Syndrome, 41, living with an implanted heart pacemaker since she was four years old. One of those medicaid leeches I suppose (and medical miracles). I have more such stories, just in my own larger family. We all have our stories. When you get down to the real world, it is more difficult to pretend that everybody [else doesn’t] matter. Medicaid is the heart and soul of a either for anything. In their inimitable ways, they enrich lives…Do get involved.” At left is daughter, and sister of Heather, Joni.

Joni and Heather June 25, 2017

from Annelee: 1947—An insurance salesman came to our home: I heard Kenny say. “We don’t need health insurance.” I agreed. Why would we buy health insurance when every one is covered anyway?
I was shocked into reality when I needed to be hospitalized during a difficult pregnancy and the admittance nurse asked, “Kenney, SINCE YOU HAVE NO INSURANCE, how will you pay?’ [Annelee grew up in Germany, where everyone had health insurance as an entitlement]

from John: Nice posting, Dick, My mother depended on Medicaid in the last years of her life for assisted living. This is a fight for all who care about human needs more than a tax cut for the rich.