#108 – Dick Bernard: August Wilson's Radio Golf

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Last night a friend invited us to attend a performance of August Wilson’s last play, Radio Golf, at St. Paul’s Penumbra Theatre #mce_temp_url#.  I have been an off and on patron of Penumbra since 1985, and with Radio Golf have now seen eight of the ten plays of acclaimed playwright August Wilson’s “20th Century Cycle”.  (The ten plays are listed at the end of this post.  Mr. Wilson, who passed away six months after the premiere of Radio Golf in 2005, earned international acclaim, including, among numerous awards, two Pulitzer Prizes.  He considered Penumbra his “home” theatre – where his writing was encouraged and his work was first performed in 1977.  He was born and grew up in Pittsburgh PA.)
Radio Golf has its final performances this coming weekend.  It is well worth the nearly three hours of intense (and sometimes humorous) performance by the stellar cast of four men and one woman.
Wilson’s 20th century cycle traces the African-American experience in the U.S., decade by decade.
Radio Golf takes on the 1990s.  The plays title makes a whole lot of sense once the play is experienced in person.
Radio Golf is set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, where August Wilson grew up.
Boiled to its essence, I saw Wilson portraying the tensions within the African-American community as a traditional sense of community competes with the contemporary American view of money and its ability to both control and corrupt.  The unlikely heroes and villains are all African-American.  At issue is Big Money coming in to redevelop a poor neighborhood.  Money interests trump Community interests.
The plays focus becomes a ramshackle, abandoned, house which we never see, but which comes alive as somebody’s home.
In this play, in my view, Community (with a capital C) is winning as the play ends.  The power structure has all the weapons and the means to do what it wants, but when all is said and done, a unified community puts the big-shots in their place.  The play ends without revealing a final resolution, and one hopes that the community can keep its focus.
I went to the play knowing nothing about what I was going to see.
For me, Radio Golf came alive in a unique way, since in April, 1998, my daughter and I were given a priceless tour of August Wilson’s growing up neighborhood in the Hill District of Pittsburgh.  Our guide for several hours was his sister Freda, and what a wonderful guide she was.
We saw, and indeed went inside, the tiny, empty and deteriorating flat where August Wilson grew up; the restaurant where he did his first serious writing (he loved to write in restaurants); and all of the neighborhood places and many people familiar to him, many of which appear as characters in his work.  Never in my wildest dreams back then would I have realized that eleven years later I would see his 1990s view of his home neighborhood and its future in Radio Golf.
I have many photos of those several hours in The Hill District in 1998, and reams more of memories of what we saw.  Below are a couple of the photos.
See Radio Golf if you can; it helps bring a small amount of hope in a hopeless time.

August Wilson boyhood home was in building at right in the photo, 1727 Bedford Avenue. Entrance was from back side of the building. Note in background the skyline of downtown Pittsburgh, a few blocks down the hill.

August Wilson boyhood home was in building at right in the photo, 1727 Bedford Avenue. Entrance was from back side of the building. Note in background the skyline of downtown Pittsburgh, a few blocks down the hill.


Eddie's Restaurant where August Wilson began his writing career. Dick Bernard, April, 1998

Eddie's Restaurant where August Wilson began his writing career. Dick Bernard, April, 1998


August Wilson’s 20th Century Cycle
1900s – Gem of the Ocean
1910s – Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
1920s – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
1930s – The Piano Lesson (Pulitzer prize 1990)
1940s – Seven Guitars
1950s – Fences (Pulitzer Prize 1987)
1960s – Two Trains Running
1970s – Jitney
1980s – King Hedley II
1990s – Radio Golf
(1727 Bedford Avenue is at #mce_temp_url#)
UPDATE October 18, 2009 4:10 p.m.
I used the miracle of mapquest and whitepages to nose around pieces of August Wilson’s neighborhood which I remember from 1998.  The aerial photo of the neighborhood reveals at least the possibility that the flat in which he grew up may still exist; Eddie’s is no longer listed as a business; it appears that his school across from the Mellon Center downtown has been taken down, and in general the area looks redeveloped.  One can celebrate or lament what some would see as progress; others as destruction.  Perhaps there is an element of both….

#107 – Dick Bernard: Abortion

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Almost 45 years ago – it was March, 1965 – my wife and I, and her doctor, were worried that she was pregnant with our second child.
This was not a selfish worry.  Barbara had very serious kidney disease, and it was getting worse and worse.  Pregnancy would kill her and, of course, the fetus.
It turned out she wasn’t pregnant.  Four months later she died waiting for a kidney transplant at a major University teaching Hospital.  Her end of life meant major surgeries and isolation and intensive care for the last two months she was alive.  We were a charity case.
But if she had been pregnant in March, 1965, there would have been the issue of terminating a pregnancy.  We were Catholics; the hospital was a Catholic hospital; I think the Doctor was Catholic.  Likely we would have had to look at other options, and then have to live with the guilt of, as anti-‘baby-killers’ like to say, killing an innocent unborn human life.

Barbara and Dick, sponsors at a Baptism, March, 1965

Barbara and Dick, sponsors at a Baptism, March, 1965

I think of our two years of health hell every time the debate over abortion, over “choice”, heats up.  It never ends, and I despair that it will ever be resolved.  The cement in which zealots feet are firmly planted hardens.  There is no room for dialogue.  Theirs is, they say, the “objective truth”.
I am terminally pro-choice, largely because of personal experience.  Pro-lifers would not have nice things to say about me, even though I am, in all the important ways, as, if not more, pro-life than they are.
Now one of the issues made to be in Health Care Reform is an absolute prohibition on funding for abortion.  It is a ‘kill the bill’ position.  It is dishonest, and it is insane.  Some would add birth control, sex ed, personal conscience, et al to the list.
There is less likelihood that Law will end Abortion, than there was that Prohibition would end Booze.  Still, the pious outrage continues.
Abortion is called death of an innocent human being, but to my knowledge, there has not yet been a single legislature courageous enough to pass a bill making abortion murder, with penalties for the person having the abortion.  After years of intense heat but little light, there is no “life in prison without parole” for having an abortion.  (Occasionally there may have been some legislators who actually introduced such bills.  If so, I’d like to see the evidence.)
I remain Catholic.  Barbara passed on 44 years ago.
People, doubtless caring and of good will, rail against women’s right to choose without caring to understand the dilemmas of a lack of a right to choose.
It is a (too many would say) a ‘divinely divisive’ political issue, and, apparently, a good ticket to heaven….
I’m in pretty solid company, I feel, including amongst practicing Catholics.  Most would agree with me that a woman should have the right to choose.  There is not now, nor will there ever be, an effective law or penalty against abortion or family planning because such a law would be fatally flawed, and the view is shared by only a minority of Americans.
Still, ‘life’ remains a potent political issue, and only by shining the spotlight on it will the other side of it ever be examined.
This is an attempt to shine such a light.
Postscript:  Barbara and my personal story is here.
UPDATE October 16, 2009
Two days after the above post I saw a commentary which seems to fit the general topic in an appropriate way.  Perhaps is still accessible here.

#106 – Dick Bernard: "Capitalism: A Love Story" part II

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Part I of this post appeared on October 3.
We went to Michael Moore’s new film, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, on Thursday afternoon.  Friday morning I sent out to my own mailing list a short message about the movie, succinctly, “See it.  Not only to learn, but to be a public witness to the reach of this film.”
In response to this e-mail, a friend wrote “Although I haven’t seen it and probably won’t, however great Michael Moore’s indictment of Capitalism might be, it [it] lacks some methodology for changing our political and economic system, it’s just another way the plutocratic dictatorship that runs our country lets us discontents and malcontents blow off steam and makes at least some of us feel we actually are accomplishing something.”
“Capitalism: A Love Story” lasts about two hours.
When we were in the theatre for the first afternoon showing, there were about 30 or so of us.  We were very attentive.  There was lots of silence when we left the film.
At the end of the film, the screen went dark, and Michael Moore gave the viewers a little advice.
You have to see the film, or find out from someone else who saw the movie, what the advice was.  That’s how important I think it is for you to actually see the movie in person, if at all possible.
And, yes, the film does mention the P word, as it appears in a bankers group report about the new “Plutonomy”.  The topic of we the “peasants” – a business term – comes up too.
I’m glad I saw the film.
See it.
Then do something about it.

#105 – Dick Bernard: The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

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The Nobel Institute website: #mce_temp_url#
Twenty-four hours ago, President Barack Obama was awakened to hear an announcement that caught him by surprise: he had just been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
It did not surprise me to learn that Obama’s enemies on the radical right were up in arms about his receiving the honor.  It did surprise me that many leaders in the far left were similarly critical, though for a very different reason.  (Their general mantra: he hasn’t done enough, he better do more, or else….).
Are we all going crazy, when such a huge honor is made into a political liability, almost an albatross, by both ideological “wings”?
Only the Committee knows why Mr. Obama made the cut.  My candidate for “ground zero” in the Nobel Committee’s profound respect for the President’s accomplishments, and the radical right wings revulsion towards his award, goes back to a phrase in a speech he gave in Berlin, Germany, in July, 2008.
In that speech, Obama began with this: “…I come to speak not as a candidate but as a citizen; a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.”  In a single phrase, he tore down the wall of American exceptionalism; and by his subsequent actions, he has begun to “walk the talk”, and it shows in the profound change in how the United States is viewed by other citizens in other countries.
He spoke this risk-laden phrase during his run for the U.S. presidency, before he was officially nominated as the Democrats candidate, before the U.S. economy officially collapsed (September, 2008), and at what turned out to be the bitter end of the dangerous dreams of the right wings Project for a New American Century, whose belief was, effectively, that the U.S. ran the world, and was not part of it.  It was politically risky for him to utter that phrase at that time in his campaign.
So, long before nominations were closed in February, 2009, Barack Obama had, thankfully, dramatically changed the national and international conversation.  Whatever comes after is simply an addition to a huge accomplishment made even before he was elected in November, 2008.
Does the President deserve the Award?  Absolutely.  Today’s first “Letter of the Day” in the Minneapolis Star Tribune said it as well as any will say it: “The Nobel Peace Prize committee recognized that President Obama is changing America from world hegemonist to world citizen.”  Jim Stattmiller
I am particularly aware of then-candidate Obama’s speech in Berlin because I am on the Board of two organizations, one founded in 1982 by my friend Lynn Elling; and the second co-founded by Lynn in 1995.  The first organization is and has always been called “World Citizen”; the second is the Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg College in Minneapolis.
World Citizen’s focus is on peace sites, peace poles and peace education.  One would think that such a focus would be non-controversial, but not in the “America first, and only” of the neo-con years of George W. Bush, and the earlier ascendancy of the radical right-wing in this country.
World Citizen became a suspected and (in some people’s minds) almost subversive organization, to the extent that last summer we had to write a specific faq for our website to counter the right-wingers who railed against what we were and are trying to accomplish for teachers and school children.  We have no secrets.  Look first at faq #13, the last one, and then wander anywhere at the website for more information about what we do #mce_temp_url#
At the World Citizen site is a section about the aforementioned Nobel Peace Prize Festival, which has from the beginning been a sanctioned activity of the Nobel Institute in Oslo.
The Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg is specifically for school children.  Each year, the Laureate for the previous year is invited to attend.  Often they do.  President Obama is now on the queue for invitation for the 2011 Festival.
This past March our guest was Prof. Richard Alley of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) #mce_temp_url#, which co-won, with Al Gore, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.  Three videos of the last March event are at #mce_temp_url#.  One is of Alley’s entrancing talk to a gymnasium full of school kids.  The Director of the Nobel Institute attended and spoke at this event.
This coming March, our guest will be Martti Ahtissari, the 2008 Laureate.  He has apparently already confirmed his attendance at the March 5, 2010, Festival.  (Commercial announcement: please let school personnel and parents know about this event.)
March of 2008, the 2006 Laureate, Muhammad Yunus, joined us.  In 2006, the 2004 Laureate Wangari Maathai came, but ended up marooned in a Minneapolis hotel room because the event was cancelled due to a snow storm.  And in 2004, the 2002 Laureate, Jimmy Carter, spent several hours with school children here.
Next week, our committee meets to begin planning for the March 5, 2010 event.  I’m pretty sure the topic of President Obama will come up.  As stated, he’ll be the invitee to the 2011 Peace Prize Forum and Festival.
Congratulations, President Obama.
Postnote:  In posts #35 and 36, June 5 and 6, 2009, I comment about President Obama’s speech in Cairo, and its implications.  Simply go to the calendar at right, back to June, and click on the dates.

#104 – Dick Bernard: Health Care Reform. Lurching to a finish line.

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UPDATE OCTOBER 13, 2009:  It is my understanding that yesterday the insurance industry rolled out its really big guns and demanded that Health Care Reform legislation require everyone to buy insurance (thus further enriching the insurance companies which are a big part of the problem to begin with.  This shameless move is presumably motivated by a need – expressed by Wall Street – for even more profits at public (our) expense.  The “rest of the story”, revealed by the authors of the “research”, was that the industry left out crucial information in its release to Congress and the public that refuted its propaganda….
Original, October 9, 2009: At some point, probably sooner than later, the issue of Health Care Reform will finally come to a final vote in the U.S. House and Senate, and the resulting legislation sent to the President for his signature or veto.  All that remains is the exact wording after endless information (and an immense amount of misinformation) dispensed over the last many months.
The legislation we will see will be a significant improvement over what currently exists, but will fall far short of where we should be.  The new bill will probably protect the interests of those who don’t really have our interests at heart, specifically the insurance and for profit-medical sectors, but that will be the best that can be done, for now.
The ultimate goal of the minority political party, I have become convinced, is to pass as bad (for we citizens) a bill as possible so that the majority political party can be blamed for the results, and the President forced to either sign that bill or veto it, and then, however he decides, he and the majority party will be blamed for the less-than-perfect results in the 2010 elections.
Perversely, the ultimate legislative objective for some is failure for “we, the people”: failure which can then be politically exploited.  Intentionally defective public policy makes for great politics…and it’s very good for big business.
Unfortunately, “we, the people”, will get what many of us lobbied for (and against), when we railed against true reform because it was “socialism”**, or worried that it would benefit “illegals”, or would assure abortions*** paid on demand, and on and on and on – based on endless pieces of misinformation (lies) passed on to us from those whose motivation was considerably less than pure.
We will get what we deserve.  One can hope we’ll learn from our mistake, but that is not terribly likely.  “We the people” would rather exclude certain others, than include all.
I have followed this health care reform “debate” very carefully for many months now, and written about it frequently in this blog (beginning with July 24, 2009).  My personal story, from 1963-65, is at #mce_temp_url# (see #1).
Perhaps the best summary comment I’ve seen on the reality of the need for universal health insurance was published in the New York Times on October 4, in Roger Cohen’s column “The Public Imperative”.
In his column, Cohen said this: “I’m grateful to the wise Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic for pointing out that Friedrich Hayek, whose suspicion of the state was visceral, had this to say in [his book] “The Road to Serfdom”.
“Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the states helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.”
Hayek accepted and endorsed the notion of nationalized health care….
Andrew Sullivan is not a “liberal”.  Friedrich Hayek* most certainly wasn’t.  Hayek is almost a deity among conservative libertarians.
I read the 50th anniversary edition of “Road to Serfdom” six years ago.  Conservative economist (and apparent Hayek disciple) Milton Friedman wrote the introduction to the book.  I had been steered to Hayek’s book by an avowed neo-con friend, got it, and read the volume cover to cover.  As I told my friend, later, Hayek said many things I, as a liberal, could generally agree with.  I high-lited 52 specific sections of Hayek’s reasoning that intrigued me, an anti-war liberal.    (One of the 52 was the above quotation.)  The conversation with my neo-con friend ended….
So, now we’re at the brink of passing as defective a Health Care Reform bill as possible so that it can be used as an election issue in the coming year.  That is how public policy has come to be debated in this country.  As I say,we deserve what we get.
As for me, there’s plenty of reasons why I could say it’s a waste of my time to care much about this issue:  personally, we have excellent health and pharmaceutical insurance (at least at the moment), for ten years we’ve had the best long-term care insurance available (so we’re told), we have the correct cards (Medicare and Medicare supplement) so that we’re not turned away at the door of a clinic or a hospital.  And free flu shots….
On that latter point, I got my flu shot last week.  There was, indeed, no charge.
But how about that illegal who is capable of receiving and communicating that disease which we are all fearing this season?  What about him or her?  In our infinite wisdom, some of us don’t want that illegal to get that flu shot, or even try, or take the precautions necessary to stay well.  “Send them back where they came from” comes the chorus.  But not even that will protect us in this global society of ours.  By choosing who qualifies for health, we’re putting ourselves at risk.
Wherever you are in this debate, think this issue through, and do something constructive.  The key word is constructive.  Refuse to accept the lies about death panels, or getting rid of or damaging Medicare (which is a “socialist” program, by the way), or that reform will trigger a wholesale rush to abortions #mce_temp_url#, or on and on and on….  Health Care Reform is about the future of our society.
Everybody should be covered, automatically, no questions asked.
* * * * *
* Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian who spent most of his adult life in England, wrote “Road to Serfdom” in 1944, during, but nearing the the end of, WWII.  He seems to have been railing primarily against the evils of National Socialism (Nazis) and to a lesser degree Communists, so it is of little surprise to me that currently an attempt is made to tar people like me, as well as Democrats and President Obama, as Nazis, Communists, fascists, allies of Hitler and Stalin, and to tar the concept of “socialism” with the same broad brush….
Ironically, contemporary American Capitalism, in which big business dominates government policy (the Military-Industrial (and Congressional) complex that President Eisenhower so feared as he left office in January 1961 #mce_temp_url#, see section IV ) seems about as close to a parallel of WWII era German and Soviet Union government-business-industry alliance as we have ever seen in this country.  Contemporary American Capitalism is an excellent parallel for the radical socialism Hayek feared.  Capitalism essentially has taken over American socialism and replaced the public good with the primary value of profit.
Here’s what the 50th anniversary edition of “The Road to Serfdom” says about the author:  “F. A. Hayek (1899-1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, was a pioneer in monetary theory and the principal proponent of libertarianism in the twentieth century.  He taught at the University of London, the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg (Germany).”
* * – Some of the many kinds of “socialism” we Americans not only accept, but demand:
Social Security
Medicare/Medicaid
State Children’s health Insurance programs
Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
U.S. Postal Service
Roads and Highways
Regulation of Air Travel by FAA
U.S. Railway System
Public subways and metro systems
Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
Rest areas along major highways
Sidewalks
All Government-funded local/state projects
Public Water and Sewer Services
Public and State Universities and Colleges
Public Primary and Secondary Schools
Sesame Street
Publicly Funded anti-Drug Use Education for Children
Public Museums
Libraries
Public parks and Beaches
State and National Parks
Public Zoos
Unemployment Insurance
Municpal Garbage and Recycling Services
Treatment at any Hospital of Clinic that has ever received government funds (virtually all of them)
Medical Service and Medications created or derived from any government grant or research funding (pretty much all of them).
Innovations resulting from government programs like National Aeronautics and Space Administration
The publicly accessible internet.
Any program relating to foodstuffs, meats, produce and Crops: including regulation, research, product safety and the like.
Government buildings like the U.S. Capitol, Smithsonian, that are open to the public
Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson Memorials; Arlington and military cemeteries.
The Grand Canyon and National Parks
All government funds for any military purpose, including all expenditures for war (Defense budget is a huge share – probably over half – of the federal budget)
Without “socialist” programs the U.S. as we know it would collapse.  Public health insurance for all is no more “socialist” than public education or Medicare.
*** – Some personal reflections on abortion.  #mce_temp_url#

#102 – Dick Bernard: The Curse of Competition

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UPDATE:  Note book recommendation from Bob Barkley in comments section.
About a year ago I wrote an Uncomfortable Essay for the Peace and Justice community entitiled “The Curse of Cooperation“.  It remains on the web at #mce_temp_url#.  Scroll down to Essay #5 for November 22, 2008.
“Featured” in part at the Essay was the before and after of a football game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers.  The Vikings had won that game.
Monday night, October 5, 2009, those same Vikings and Packers played again, again in Minneapolis.  The Vikings won again.  This time the Game was featured as the game of the week in the NFL – show-cased on Monday night.  It was front page in the Tuesday edition of both Minneapolis and St. Paul papers.
There was a substantive difference between the 2008 and 2009 games.    This year, Brett Favre, long-time NFL star for the Green Bay Packers and then a year or so with the New York Jets, was coaxed out of retirement to play for the Vikings.  There has been great joy in Viking-ville.  At the moment the Vikes are 4-0,  and the eternal dream of a Super Bowl has once again been ignited in the hearts of Vikings fans everywhere, hopefully enroute to  a title they have never won.  Favre has been anointed as the Savior.  (No question, he is a great player.  Monday night he accomplished a goal never reached by any other NFL quarterback: he can some day retire and say that he has defeated every National Football League team at least once in his career.)
There are many contests left to the Big Game, Super Bowl XLIV.  But as everyone knows, while skill, and a “star”, helps a lot, it is no guarantee of success; it is only one element of the possibility of success.  When the Day comes, two of 32 teams will remain in the competition; only one will survive, and its players will get the sacred Super Bowl Ring, and be Kings for a Day.  But we dream on.
Competition is elevated to one of the cardinal virtues in our society.  Winners are extolled; losers….  Perhaps we humans are hard-wired to be competitors.  In our society, competition is carried to absurd (and, in my opinion, destructive) lengths.
When Super Bowl Sunday ends in Miami, February 7, 2010, there will be one winner…and 31 losers.  Every year it is the same.  Every September hope will spring eternal again and the cycle will continue.  The losers will try to reorganize to become the winners for the next round.  But, the next round, there will again be only one winner.
One can dream that there might be a replacement ethic in which working for success for all is a primary virtue.  But I doubt I’ll ever see it.  We want winners, not success for all, and this translates into sustained competition in all areas of our lives, from the time we are old enough to recognize that one or us is stronger, or weaker, than the other.
The winner always becomes a target; there are always far more losers….
It doesn’t seem like much of a recipe for success to me.

#99 – Dick Bernard: "Capitalism: a Love Story"

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(As you see this film, I’d like your comments to add, here.)
October 8, 2009:  We saw “Capitalism: A Love Story”, this afternoon.  It is well worth the time, and it’s messages will be conveyed in a later post.  Even if you think that Capitalism is all there is, this film will cause you to wonder….
October 3, 2009: We were planning to go to Michael Moore’s latest film, “Capitalism: a Love Story“, today, but scheduling problems (even retired people have scheduling problems!) interfered.
So, we don’t have bragging rights to having seen the film on its first day of release, or even the second.   The people who watched the film in over 1,000 theaters across the country can see it first.  There’ll be plenty of time.  Maybe early next week….
I’m a creature of Capitalism. Everyone of us in the U.S. are.  Even those who loathe Capitalism and live in the U.S. are in Capitalism’s clutches.  It surrounds us; it’s what we grew up with; it’s likely what we’ll die with, perhaps not a normal death.
(As I was writing the previous paragraph, an e-mail came in from Michael Moore’s mailing list, captioned “A Great Opening Night – – Do Not Put Off Seeing “Capitalism: A Love Story“.  Michael Moore’s take at #mce_temp_url#)
Capitalism is and has always been great for the serious Capitalists, the people who make the financial killing from business as usual.
What has always been a source of curiosity for me is why the foot-soldiers in behalf of Capitalism are ultimately its intended victims: the middle class types (like me) who are exhorted to spend what they don’t have on things that they don’t need to put cash in the hands of the people who will lay them off on a moments notice to help prop up a sagging profit and loss statement.
There are many ways that this nefarious goal is accomplished:  fear and loathing is an obvious one.  People, at Capitalism’s encouragement, rail on against the evils of “socialism” without even knowing what it is, except as defined by the Capitalist.  (We are a surprisingly “socialist” nation as it is…and we value the many socialist elements of our daily life.  Yet we’re supposed to despise socialism…and almost by rote, we do.)
Most working people are in effect “chained” to a corporate work station.  They are free to leave, yes, but terrified to do so, especially at this down time in the economy.  Capitalism generally abhors things like labor unions, and convinces the people who might benefit by labor unions to rail against them.
Or it can be seen at really great events, like Sunday’s Twin Cities Marathon, where the corporate face is very, very positive, and tens of thousands of people participate, and watch, an outstanding event largely run by volunteers (and, of course, the runners are “volunteers” as well.)  In the end analysis, though, it is the corporate sponsors, and the winners in the competition, who get the payoff.  Everyone else simply contributes to the corporate greater good.
The stories go on and on.
But, yes, we are all part of Capitalism.
In the end, I think that Capitalism will succeed only in killing itself*, in a final, slow but certain, act of self-immolation.  It won’t take a movie like 2012 to do us in.  We literally can’t survive living in as unbalanced a way as we currently continue to live.  It’s only a matter of time.  The only unknown is how much time….
By the time the Capitalists figure this out it will be too late.
Watch Michael Moore’s film, get in a lather (including against him, if you like – but the film is highly rated), and go to work for deep change.  You won’t get rid of Capitalism, but you can help get it reformed.
* – an older story: a friend of mine, a history buff, recalled reading an apparently true account of an old-time Capitalist venture that went severely awry.  Seems a group of European businessmen, in business to make money, saw an opportunity to make a bundle by selling armaments to a neighboring country.  They struck a deal, made their pile…and their country was promptly overrun by their newly well armed enemy.
I’d name the countries, but won’t.  Most any self-respecting Capitalist would do the same stupid thing if opportunity knocked….
Update October 6, 2009:  We’ll likely go to the film tomorrow.  In the interim, I’ll simply add some comments that have come to mind since my initial scribblings, above.
In the U.S. we’re immersed in Capitalism.  It’s ubiquitous, impossible to avoid.  Sunday I was over at the Twin Cities Marathon – first at the starting line at the Metrodome; then at the Finish Line (no, not as a runner!).
Everything about the marathon was a commercial event, from major sponsors, frequently named, company names on all products dispensed, probable tax write-offs for their “contributions” to the community.  Such events are marketing bonanzas for the corporate world.
But when I think of Capitalists, as a group, I mostly think of the really fat cats that make the really, really big bucks off the rest of the population.  These folks used to be called by terms like “Robber Baron”, “Captain of Industry” and the like.  In the present day you can see them in local, regional, national and international folks who are extremely wealthy (or appear to be so, till they’re busted for fraud, as has happened to some big operators in my area recently.)
These truly “rich” folks, as defined by almost anyone, are today’s Capitalists.  They are only the most recent in a long, long line of people whose god is money, and who exercise power against all the rest of us.
Most of them are probably “good” people.  But if it comes to accumulating power and money (synonymous terms, in my opinion), they can be pretty ruthless.

#98 – Dick Bernard: Chicago loses its bid for the Olympics

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Updated at end of original post.
11:45 a.m. Friday, October 2, 2009
The bulletin came in about 10:30 a.m. CDT that Chicago was dumped from consideration for the Olympic games.  It was the first of the four candidates to be thrown out of consideration for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.  Tokyo was next to go; at this writing Rio de Janeiro and Madrid remain in consideration.
President and Michelle Obama were with the delegation making the pitch for Chicago.  The right wing noise machine was outraged that the President would leave his office to go to Europe to lobby for the event.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune editorialized, this morning, that “Chicago, Obama go for the gold.  2010 bid worth presidential prestige“.  #mce_temp_url#
Now the bid is gone.
I had no particular opinion on the Olympics matter.
The first Star Tribune bulletin on the rejection pointed to, among other things, the discomfort the International Olympic Committee had with the previous two U.S. Olympics: the bribery scandal at Salt Lake City 2002, and the violence at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.  Last I looked, the reference is still there, buried towards the bottom of the second story.
Here’s the Star Tribune update, which I assume is updated (changed) regularly.  The one I’m posting was up at 11:52 a.m.  #mce_temp_url#
I will await the right wing talking points, which will appear shortly.  My prediction: they’ll say Obama is a loser, and/or that it’s just another reason to distrust Europe.
Stay tuned.
Saturday October 3 3:45 p.m.
Oddly, Obam’s “losing bid” made the front page of the Saturday, Minneapolis Star Tribune, carrying an article by Peter Baker and Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times.  The “Obama as loser” piece seems to have been the item for the right wing to celebrate, even though it would seem far more odd (and more subject to criticism) if Obama had not joined the delegation from his home city.  A “win” of the games would be very good for the local (as in “Made in the USA”) economy which we so revere.  So it goes….
There were doubtless many reasons for the International Olympic Committee’s vote.  One of the major ones, likely, is that the games in Rio de Janeiro will be the first ever in South America.
Three readers commented on the initial post:
Jeff: “They can try again for 2020…that is what happens.
Its all a big money making operation for all concerned.
Long ago [the games] lost its amateur hip hip hooray jolly good fair play and may the best man/woman win ethos…anyway.”
Will: “Read [the October 2, 2009] editorial in the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune.#mce_temp_url# .  I interpret it as their first [move] toward gaining public funding not only for the Minnesota Vikings’ proposed new stadium, a $1 billion dollar scam, $700 million of which would be paid by us taxpayers, but that the structure also would be used for a Summer Olympics bid, all the stronger now that Chicago has been rejected.  And of course it would be located in sacrosanct downtown Minneapolis.  The Olympics are not all that they are cracked up to be for the host community: hear maverick sportswriter Dave Ziron on October 2 “Democracy Now!” #mce_temp_url# for the seamy side of the Games.  In its steadily descending social spiral, Minnesota must now lead the world in publicly-funded stadiums.  Some distinction.”
Connie:  “I have a brief observation:  when the word came to my office that Chicago lost the bid (my office is in the Chicago area and is surrounded by quite a few conservatives), my head turned and these people stood up with faces that I swear had slight smiles on them.  I think they were glad and not because they didn’t want the Olympics in Chicago where most all of them are from, but because Obama had not been able to close the deal.  I just muttered something like “Oh, that’s too bad.   There could have been a lot of work and jobs generated here and elsewhere if Chicago got the games.”  Things quieted down a bit and that was that.  Just a sad personal comment.”

#97 – Dick Bernard: Killing a civil society

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On the afternoon of November 4, 1995 – it was a Saturday – I was on the way to afternoon Mass at my then-Parish, St. Peter Claver in St. Paul MN.  Nearing the church, an announcement came over the car radio: Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had been shot.  I passed the word along to the Parish Priest Kevin McDonough, who blanched, and as I recall, I was allowed to announce to the congregation what I had just heard on the radio.
At the time of the announcement we weren’t certain of any details, including who had shot the Nobel Prize winner, or even if he had died.  By the time Mass was concluded we knew Rabin had been assassinated, and soon learned that his killer was a radical right-wing Israeli Jew, at the far fringe of those incensed that Rabin was working for a durable peace with Palestine.
As it happened, two and a half months later I was with a group that visited Rabin’s still-fresh grave in Jerusalem.  I still see it all.
This vignette comes to mind because of a September 29, 2009, column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.  The NYT column headline is “Where did “we” go“, and opens recalling Friedman’s visit with Rabin in Jerusalem shortly before the assassination.  He says, early on, “extreme right-wing settlers…were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin…They questioned his authority.  They accused him of treason.  They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shoulted death threats at rallies.  His political opponents winked at it all.”
Of course, the story ended with a righteous crazed zealot killing Rabin.  A single murderer, but endless accomplices who in effect encouraged the insane act.
Friedman goes on at length in his column to raise the parallels he sees in today’s United States of America.
We see hate speech being legitimized in our country, and outlandish behavior being sanctioned as simple political free speech.  All of this is duly reported (if not encouraged) by news media, legitimate and not so legitimate.  And unlike in Rabin’s day, the means of technology for disseminating hate and outrageous and deliberate lies is much more sophisticated than it was only 14 years ago.
One can only wonder what Rabin and others could have accomplished in Israel/Palestine had he lived.
The merchants of hate won, and everyone (including the hate merchants) lost.
If you can, read Friedman’s column.  For a limited time it is available on the web. Here’s the link: #mce_temp_url#
If you’re one who’s amused by, or admires, the politics of hate and deceit, get over it.  If you despise this kind of behavior, call ’em out whenever you witness it.
Change needs to happen person-to-person.

#96 – Dick Bernard: "…above average"?

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Likely since Garrison Keillor’s fertile imagination invented Lake Wobegon in the 1970s, he’s had the mantra: “where all the women are strong, the men are good looking and the children are above-average.”
On has to wonder where those “above average” children end up….
Today’s paper reveals that my local Congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, is to be Miss November on a national conservative groups 2010 calendar.  Presumably plenty of people will pay $25 for the calendar.  I won’t be among them.
Cong. Bachmann  has a talent for getting her pretty face on television…and now calendars…and for getting soundbites quoted, and being an on-air guest on all manner of right-wing talk shows.  But beyond that gift, I often wonder what is behind the facade, and the latest honor she receives has caused me to remember some other sound bites from previous conversations.
For instance:
More than once I heard a guy who frequently testified on this or that matter before U.S. Congressional Committees note how little collective brainpower he witnessed on the other side of the table.   There was very little there, there, he observed.  Of course he flattered the people with the good hair-do’s and mellifluous voices – that was his job – but beneath the facade he saw little or nothing.
In an unguarded moment, once, a veteran and highly respected Catholic Priest made essentially the same comment about the collective Catholic hierarchy (those who are Bishops and on up the ladder).   They are not intellectual giants, he suggested; rather, they have figured out how to move up the hierarchical ladder.
And more than once I’ve heard retirees or other refugees from major corporations comment on the relative lack of ability the big-shots far up their food chain possess – at least in so far as monitoring major corporate decision making is concerned.  Their ability was to achieve the pinnacle of power, by whatever means necessary.  But their vision rarely was beyond the next quarter profit and loss statement.  We saw plenty of evidence of this stupidity during the last 12 months (and, unfortunately, seeming to continue) in the virtual collapse of the U.S. economic and industrial titans.  Even after the bail-out, disturbing reports suggest they haven’t learned anything of value.
So, where did these “above average” children Garrison Keillor go, or have they never existed?
That we’re led by too many bumble-heads is pretty obvious (Rep. Bachmann is also a new bobble-head figure).
If we the public end up in a disaster, which is again likely, be it economic, climate, or the like, it is because we seem to insist on mediocrity in our leaders.  We actually vote for these dunces, or if we don’t vote for them, we defer to them because they seem more powerful than we are.
We vote for people to represent us who look or sound good but often are know-nothings; then once they are elected, we go back into our hole and assume no responsibility for keeping them informed or honest.
Too many of us dismiss science or a rational look at future consequences of our actions, preferring to believe fantasies.  (Scientists have known for years of the problems ahead with climate change, but until Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, there was hardly a public listening…and of course the bobble-heads then ridiculed Al Gore, and continue with their fantasy views of a future filled with climate and weather like we’ve always known…or dismissing the future as someone elses problem.)
We buy stuff we don’t need based on fantasy of advertising…like lemmings to the ocean and certain death, we believe the pitches and the clever word and image-smithing.
We seem to delight in cleverly told lies which manipulate us; and we celebrate division and conflict, when such values are more negative than positive.
We cannot eliminate stupidity in our elected, religious and corporate leaders.
But the big majority of us who are average and above-average can certainly do a great deal to temper the stupidity which surrounds us.
To accomplish this goal, however, takes much more than complaining about it.
What have YOU done, lately?
What will YOU do, today, tomorrow, next week?