#58 – Health Care Policy: Some Unpleasant Realities to consider

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This post is #2 of 13 on this topic: The others are at July 24, 27, 29, 30, 31, August 1. 2,5,6,7,10,15.  A final summary commentary is at October 9, 2009.
Note the index for previous commentaries, including #56, published on July 24, 2009.  #56 includes the “talking points” the Republicans in Congress will be taking home with them for town meetings in the upcoming recess.  It is important to understand these, and some counter arguments (included), to be well informed in this debate.
Today I am (I think) very well insured.  This has been true for many years.  (I say “I think” because one never knows for sure what surprises lurk in the fine print, not to be found until you find a specific coverage is excluded for some reason.)
I wasn’t so fortunate as  to be insured in my early adult life.  Following are two stories from my own experience.  I think they’re worth reading.
Story #1 – submitted recently as an op ed to a major newspaper, and as of today not printed.
Today the front-and-center issue is Health Care, tomorrow it will be something else.  At the end of the day, we the people will get what little we deserve for our short-sightedness.  Our legislators do our bidding: it’s called getting elected or re-elected.
We make unwise choices all the time, without considering the possibility that those choices may have dire consequences for ourselves or others we love.
Consider one real example: my own.
In mid-October, 1963, fresh out of the U.S. Army, I took a teaching job in Minnesota.  My young wife had just started her first teaching job in another district.  There was no such thing as group insurance in those days.  We were in our early twenties and healthy…we thought.  When the hospital/doctor insurance man came calling, I couldn’t afford the hospital plan, but I did get the doctor portion.  (Had I been “smart”, then, and gotten the hospital portion, it probably would have disqualified “pre-existing conditions”, just as today.)
Two weeks after I started teaching, my wife had to quit her teaching job for health reasons.  Four months later our son was born…two of those months my wife was in a hospital 70 miles away.  She was hospitalized for several weeks after the birth. From then on she was either almost totally disabled or hospitalized. [*]
By May of 1965 her only possibility for survival was a kidney transplant, and one of the few hospitals doing that procedure then was the University of Minnesota Hospital.  We had no insurance.  They finally admitted her.  I’ll never forget our wait for that decision at the hospital.
Two months later, July 26, 1965, she died in that hospital.  She didn’t live long enough to get the transplant.  At 25 I was widowed, parent of an infant, newly employed as a teacher in the twin cities, and owing the equivalent of almost four years wages primarily for medical expenses, not counting the charity of hospitals or clinics who never billed us for services they knew we could never afford.
In October, 1965, I made a list of debts and made an appointment with an attorney to file bankruptcy.  It was something I didn’t want to do.
I never filed bankruptcy.
After a long wait, North Dakota Public Welfare picked up two-thirds of the medical bills – the University of Minesota portion; and a local North Dakota Community Hospital forgave another portion.  I was able to survive.  I could make a long list of other institutions that saved me from financial disaster that two years.  I was a charity case.
If anything, I have tended to be over-insured since that long ago time.  I am one of the lucky ones who had access to insurance through a group plan during my work years and can now afford the necessary supplements to Medicare today.  (I hope I have the right coverage, which covers the right things, whenever….)
But I’ll never forget when reality slapped us in the face in two very hard years, 1963-65.
There is no excuse in this still prosperous (and very self-centered) society of ours to not fully cover every citizen, and to have our government be the provider.  After all, government is “we, the people”.
Those who think they’ve got this all figured out, and can cover every contingency by their own great planning, consider the possibility: you might be wrong.  Or that child or grandkid or cousin or nephew or friend of yours might need the benefit you said it wasn’t the governments responsibility to provide.
Those legislators we elected are in the end analysis going to do our bidding on health care and other issues.
Let’s encourage them to make wise, and not stupid, decisions.
* – Updated October 9, 2009: Four months before she died, we thought she might be pregnant – which would have certainly been a death sentence for she and the child.  Abortion would have been the only solution to save her.  She turned out not to be pregnant, but this close call has made me, an active Catholic, irrevocably “pro-choice”.

Story #2

In August, 1994, I was in Cebu City, Philippine Islands.  Cebu City was and is a major city of nearly a million population.
One day my wealthy host was taking me on a tour, and at one point he made a statement which I have never forgotten: “In the Philippines, if you’re rich you can get as high quality medical treatment as anyone in the United States.  If you’re poor, you die.”
He made the statement in a matter of fact way, and we didn’t pursue the topic.  Later we went to Catholic Mass.  Cebu City claims the Cross of Magellan, who arrived in there in 1565.  It is the seat of Philippine Christianity (Catholicism).  My host and his family were devout Catholics.
That evening, we guests were given a ride to a tourist attraction overlooking the Cebu City area.  It was dusk, and by the time we arrived at the overlook, it was dark.  Along the unlit road up the mountain were occasional fires, and gatherings of poor people, their homes and shops often in the ditches.  It gave dimension to the cityscape off in the distance, far below.
No one seemed to catch the irony of the moment: a wealthy family taking American visitors through the midst of abject poverty to a tourist attraction.
A few months earlier, back in the states, Harry and Louise, the darlings of the anti-Health reform folks in the United States, had teamed with the middle class to beat back health care reform, derisively called “Hillary care”.  Three months later, the Republicans overwhelmed the Democrats in the 1994 Congressional elections, remaining in control of the Congress for a dozen years, and getting control of the White House from 2001 through 2008.  Health related industries became a cash cow for the already wealthy.  What was bad in 1993 has likely become worse, overall.
The Health Care Reform initiatives that were passed in recent years further enriched the already  rich, and created renewed pleas for true reform of a massive and ailing industry.
Now the Republicans and the Health Industry are calling for not rushing into “reform” (“let’s do it right”) while at the same time doing everything in their power to obstruct and confuse and disrupt responsible attempts to make positive changes.  Immense amounts of money are tossed into efforts to confuse the middle class who’ll pay the price.
The contemporary version of Harry and Louise has been created for media use, and success will be measured by failure of reform, which will then be termed a success….  It’s how simple propaganda works.
The desperately poor we saw in Cebu City that night had nothing, and had no clout whatsoever.  If they were sick, they had no choice.  In good Catholic Cebu City, they either got well on their own, or they died.  The rich could fly to Manila, or on to Japan or San Francisco for top shelf medical procedures.  The poor died in the ditches.
We in the United States still have means to impact the system and prevent our descent into third world status.  But do we possess the will to fight off the profiteers and the big corporations who look on Health Care as a profit center?  I’m not at all sure we do.
We have more clout than those poor Filipinos.  But will we use it?
Its our choice: to believe the propaganda, and go with the flow…or to get engaged in fixing a broken system.
If you are the one percent of the population that is considered wealthy, or if you think you will be, then there’s perhaps not much to worry about.  Like the guy in the Philippines, you’ll get your care.  But if you’re a part of the other 99, including pretty prosperous, then you better be very concerned about what’s ahead, and get engaged.
Caveat emptor.
Update: July 26, 2009
After posting this item we went, as usual, to the 9:30 Mass at Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis.  This particular Sunday the celebrant was Fr. Greg Miller from St. John’s University, and the Gospel was the one about the Loaves and the Fishes, and Fr. Greg’s general topic was “hunger and thirst for justice”.  He talked on three themes, all from the previous weeks news:
The Professor Gates/Cambridge police affair and its message about continuing injustice in this country.
The need for Universal Health Care
The need, also, for Immigration Law reform
I suspect someone wrote the Archbishop complaining about Fr. Greg’s meddling in politics.  No matter.  A long-time pillar of the Catholic Church – one reason why I remain an active member – is its commitment to Justice (which is very different from Charity).

#57 – Dick Bernard: The Politics and Practice of Race

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The New York Times (NYT) “Breaking News Alert” came in at 3:03 PM ET on Friday, July 24, 2009.  The headline: “Obama Says He Regrets His Language on Gates Arrest“.
Anyone stopping by this internet space knows what the flap is about.
There is nothing so sacred to a political figure these days as “staying on message”.  President Obama could regret his final remarks at the news conference on Wednesday even if for no other reason than it deflected news from his main message on health care reform. 
Personally, I think President Obama’s statement and his anger and the defense of his friend were appropriate and right on, and I hope the statement in the NYT release that “Mr. Obama said he had talked to the arresting oficer and hoped the case could become “a teachable moment” to be used to improve relations between minorities and police officers” is a substantive statement.
I have no beef with police, generally.  They have a generally difficult job.  Having said that, police do screw up, and screw up very badly, and knee-jerk support of the police no matter what is uncalled for.  As for non-white “others” like Professor Gates,  generally they are not cut any slack.  If a mistake is made in their arrest, most often it comes to light long after the fact, if at all.  On the one hand, there seems a presumption of innocence for the police; on the other, a presumption of guilt for others, especially non-white.
This issue is considerably closer to my mind than it might otherwise be because last week I was involved in an intercultural conference whose venues included a rural ND Catholic Church basement, and a Community College on an Indian Reservation.  There were a number of times when I felt distinctly uncomfortable to be a white man, solely because of what I symbolized and represented.  (The feeling was embarrassment, and, perhaps, helplessness…what has happened, has happened.  I benefitted from being part of a privileged class, I learned its ways, and it is likely impossible to move completely past it.)
Involved in the conference were a number of people who were called “Africans”, because that’s what they were.  They were likely better educated than myself; they were there because French was their first language; they were all extraordinary people.  But when they came into the Church basement in rural North Dakota there was, among the assembled locals, well, you know:  “What do I say?”  “Who are they?”  That kind of thing.  (It evolved into a good discussion, and church lunches are always good!)
At the conference, at Turtle Mountain Community College http://www.turtle-mountain.cc.nd.us/, the focus was on intercultural relationships between French-Canadians, Metisse (in the old days, “half breeds”, “mixed blood”) and Native Americans (“Indians”, “natives”, “indigenous”), there was also tension: questions not asked; questions asked but not answered….  The steps to honest dialogue are slow and halting. 
The Metisse hero, Louis Riel, was hanged in Canada in 1885, and for years was a reviled symbol of a failed revolution; today he is a cultural icon in the same society that considered him a bitter enemy.  Apparently there is a Louis Riel Day in today’s Manitoba, much as there is a Martin Luther King Day in the U.S.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riel
The “Indians” on the Turtle Mountain Reservation have a casino, which brings good and bad to their society, and they have a confidence and assertiveness which can be uncomfortable.  It happens that way when attempts are made to level playing fields.  The assertive minority can be assumed to be  “uppity”.  For the dominant culture, uppity would be called confidence; and, of course, white males have been taught that  our “place” is superior.
I am confident that as a society we are moving away from the worst of the racist aspects that have so long identified us.   But we have a long, long, long way to go.  The incident in Cambridge, and President Obama’s response highlight this.
Change will not be easy – it never is.  I remember a long ago handout at a conference.  It was called the “Change Curve”, and it said that on the way to something better than the status quo “steady state”, the road is difficult.  In fact, in the early going things seem to be getting worse than better (think routine things like quitting smoking, or losing weight….).  Persistence brings good results, but it takes persistence.
Whatever happened in Cambridge MA in a residential neighborhood has become world news. 
To me, that occasion should be greeted as an opportunity to deepen and intensify the dialogue on race matters in this country.
Update: July 31, 2009
Yesterday, July 30, the President, the Professor, the Policeman and the Vice-President met at the White House.  The same day, the woman who had called 9-11, Lucy Whalen, made a public appearance.  The recording of her initial call has been released.  She never mentioned race in her call, which was a very calm, simple reporting of only facts that she could observe.  It remains to be seen if the incident will be viewed as an opportunity for dialogue, or as an opportunity to attack, divert attention from other issues, and divide Americans.   Now there is insistence that the lady also meet with the President; and complaints that she was not invited to the men-only meeting.  These do not seem to originate with the woman, who comes across as simply a citizen who was trying to do what was right.  Stay tuned.

#56 – Dick Bernard: Health Policy Sausage Making

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This post is the first of thirteen on the topic of Health Care and the need for its Reform.  The rest are at July 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, August 1, 2, 5,6,7,10,15.  More will likely be added.
Yesterday my coffee shop friend and I were discussing the issue of Health Care.  I mentioned a major (and, I felt, excellent) article I had read in the New Yorker, and when I went home I e-mailed it over to him. ( The article remains accessible at http://tinyurl.com/q5krj3.)
This morning he said he’d read the article and found it useful.  “Is the New Yorker liberal?”, he asked.  The question puzzled me.  I didn’t know, though I guessed it probably was.  The reason for the question came out: his spouse is a very liberal activist, and he didn’t know if she’d like the article.  Some conclusions at the end might not be exactly what she wanted to hear.
We went our separate ways.   But the short conversation between a liberal (me) and a (likely) moderate conservative (my friend) dramatized the huge dilemma faced by anyone hoping to tackle the health care mess in this country: the sides have been chosen, and unfortunately, they’re far more than simply two sides.  There are infinite special interests, biases and points of view, and the reluctance to negotiate towards a common ground makes potential resolution extremely messy.
The same day President Obama had his news conference on health care reform, I learned that my 7-year old grandson, a Minnesotan, had been injured and was hospitalized after being thrown from a horse he was riding in a distant state.  (He’s still hospitalized, we hope soon to be released.)
Parker is hospitalized in a large children’s hospital in a major U.S. city, but it is 500 miles from his own large city and large children’s hospital.
A neighbor – a nurse – wondered if that other state would have as good medical care as Parker could receive here.  Parker’s uncle, whose daily work is with a group of physicians here, told his colleagues what the physicians in the other state were doing, and they backed what their colleague doctors were doing at the other hospital.  It was as if there needed to be some local validation of the work by other people with the same qualifications elsewhere.
(We just returned from a trip to Canada.  It is odd how one feels a certain sense of relief when finally crossing the border back into the USA, and then into Minnesota, even if some kind of crisis would be as well handled, if not even better, if it happened in Manitoba.  It’s how we’re wired, I guess.)
Of course, Parker’s release from the hospital will only begin the adventure for his parents.  They have, I think, very good insurance, but then will come the matter of dealing with bills from what is almost viewed as a foreign land.   At least they have the insurance.  What if Parker had no insurance, or his parents had no money?  What then?
Meanwhile, back in the public debate, the sides are reacting basically as could easily be predicted months ago.
The medical  industry long ago announced a $100 million war chest to at least control the debate.  $100 million is not small change, and can and is being utilized in small and large and diverse ways to successfully disrupt and confuse the public: to bother our minds.
Entrepreneurs are positioning to cash in: medicine is lucrative if you can keep the “public” out of “public health”.
A singular Republican win in this debate will be planting the perception that the President lost, no matter the consequences to the public who elected them. (Their talking points back home, and some responses: http://tinyurl.com/n9qq23)
The 47,000,000 or so who are uninsured, and are the real victims of this charade, won’t be strong advocates in their own defense.  A great share of them are young children, and the bulk of the rest are probably poor, whether working or not.  They don’t have the luxury of doing all of the things that are required of a citizen lobbyist.  Their concern is survival from day to day.  Little details like falling off a horse in a distant state are pretty far from their minds.  Getting outstanding medical care if they did fall off that horse would be a very iffy proposition.
Meanwhile, the rabble that is all the rest of us, the middle class who will bear the consequences of bad policy or no reform at all, tends to run around in circles, unable, even, to agree amongst ourselves what might be necessary in some reform initiative.  For example, for years I have watched the attempt to resolve the issue of merging multiple insurance contracts into a state-wide single system for public school teachers.  It is the teachers with the supposedly better policies who have harpooned the efforts for greater efficiency.  Other well-meaning people have done and will continue to do the same.
If only we could get our act together and simply speak out to policy makers and shapers “from the heart”.  But that is tough to do.  Giving up is a common option for us.  We are lied to, regularly, by pious sounding people.  We tend to take our belief towards supporting our personal bias, whatever that is.  We don’t help ourselves in the process.
The President and his advisors know all about this sausage making process and are more than willing to play the game, and a game is exactly what it is – a dangerous game, granted, but a necessary game nonetheless.
How this conversation will actually end, I have no clue.
I am pretty certain, however, that one way or another, putting the issue on the table, and demanding debate, will result in some kind of substantive and important change that will positively impact on everyone.
President Obama knows what he is up against, and it is not pretty.  But he deserves acclaim for forcing the issue.  At some point, and in some substantive way, there will be something good resulting.
Write that letter, make that call…just do something!  Every day.

Memorializing Eternal War?

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UPDATE: August 14, 2012: This post was written July 23, 2009. Last month, James Skakoon visited the ND-Manitoba International Peace Garden, had the same general feelings I had, and when he came home searched the internet to see if he could find any opinions which were similar to his. He found my post, we got in correspondence with each other, and as a result, he submitted his own opinion, which was recently published in the Bismarck (ND) Tribune. You can read it here. (The text of this column is included at the end of this post.)
This is yet another reminder that results are possible: sometimes they just take a little while.
The original article follows:
See Updates at end of the original post.  Specific links, including contact information, are at the very end of the post.
A reader requested specific information on the location of the International Peace Garden.  Here is the link: http://www.peacegarden.com/maps.htm
international-peace-garden-day-pass-july-18-090021
The first 25 years of my life – 1940-65 – I was a resident of North Dakota.  During that time, or since, I had never visited the famed International Peace Garden, which forms part of the boundary between North Dakota and Manitoba.  (The story of the Peace Garden, which was dedicated in 1932,  is at http://www.peacegarden.com .)

International Peace Garden North Dakota-Manitoba July 18, 2009

International Peace Garden North Dakota-Manitoba July 18, 2009

July 17-18 I was at a conference at Belcourt, ND, and noted that the Peace Garden was only 35 miles or so away.  On July 18, a beautiful summer day, I decided to leave my conference early, drive up to the Peace Garden, and then head back to Winnipeg, where we were visiting relatives.
I found a most beautiful, serene and interesting place…with some dissonance.
The Peace Garden essentially consists of two parallel sidewalks, straddling the international border with beautiful gardens in between.  Off to the sides, on both sides of the borders, are scenic drives.  I had time to do the approximately one and one-half mile walk, from end to end.
About half way down the American side, off to my left, I saw a pile of what looked like construction debris.
Coming closer, I saw a plaque with the headline “Let Peace Prevail“ which described the rubble: “The International Peace Garden represents a unique and enduring symbol of the strength of our friendship as nations, our mutual respect and our shared desire for world peace.
“The events of September 11, 2001, failed to shake the foundation of our shared vision of peace and prosperity for all the word’s people.
“This cairn, composed of steel rescued from the devastation of the World Trade Center in New York , ensures the memory of this tragedy will not be lost and reminds us to cherish tolerance, understanding and freedom.
“Officially unveiled by the Honourable Gary Doer, Premier of Manitoba, September 11, 2002.”

Girders from the Twin Towers at International Peace Garden July 18, 2009

Girders from the Twin Towers at International Peace Garden July 18, 2009

It startled me to see this symbol of what seems to have become justification for Eternal Fear and War occupying this place of Peace, but there it was.  The park brochure, which I looked at later, announced that “in 2010, visitors will see the creation of our 911 Memorial Contemplative Garden sponsored by Rotary Clubs International….”
I continued my walk, reaching the halfway point at the Peace Chapel, near the Peace Tower and straddling the border.  The Chapel was dedicated in 1970 and is sponsored by the General Grand Chapter Order of the Eastern Star.  http://www.ndoes.org.
The walls of this simple and beautiful chapel include 56 quotations all on the most peaceful topics…but in each of the corners were displays of many front pages of international newspapers for September 12, 2001 all, of course, featuring the World Trade Center towers in flames.  To me, it was dissonance.

One of many worldwide newspaper front pages on display in the four corners of the Peace Chapel, primarily from September 12, 2001

One of many worldwide newspaper front pages on display in the four corners of the Peace Chapel, primarily from September 12, 2001

I am glad I went to the Peace Garden, and I do think that its basic message remains as it was when it was dedicated July 14, 1932: “To God in His Glory.  We two nations dedicate this Garden and pledge ourselves that as long as man shall live; we will not take up arms against one another.”  It is “enobling peace”, but its overemphasis on the 911 tragedy is troubling, especially since that tragedy was used almost immediately to justify a war against Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with 911, and the war left huge moral and financial consequences for ourselves and countless other innocents.  “Peace” and “War” became synonyms, in effect.
All the way back to Winnipeg I kept thinking of those 9-11 displays.  I am still considering the letter I plan to send to the assorted officials connected with the Memorial.  I think I will suggest that it is time for those newspapers to leave the Peace Chapel; and that I hope great care is taken to not let a message of fear and war creep into the 911 Memorial Contemplative Garden which likely will surround the twin towers debris.
The drive from the Memorial back to Winnipeg was long and peaceful.  Entering the Red River Valley west of Cavalier on highway 5 I spied a gigantic concrete structure a mile or two off the road.  I knew it was there – I’d seen it before: a visible symbol of an earlier era of fear and loathing, during the 1950s era of guided missiles aimed at the Soviet Union from numerous places in North Dakota.  I went up and took a look.
Here it is:  The story is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguard_Program.  Scroll down a bit for more on this particular site.

Cold War Relic (still used for something) off Highway 5 west of Cavalier ND July 18 2009

Cold War Relic (still used for something) off Highway 5 west of Cavalier ND July 18 2009

“Let Peace Prevail”?

 

Display of a 1960s Minuteman Missile LaMoure ND August 17 2009

Display of a 1960s Minuteman Missile LaMoure ND August 17 2009

Update August 5, 2009:
On July 23, I wrote the CEO of the International Peace Garden, Mr. Doug Hevenor (text below).  I copied the ND Governor, Manitoba Premier, Grand Secretary of the ND Order of the Eastern Star and the President of Rotary International.
On August 5, Mr. Hevenor graciously responded to my letter.  I will post his response here if/when I have his permission.
A few days ago, Madeline Simon posted as follows: “Having looked at the Peace Garden website and checking out the “What to See” item and the listing for the 9/11 memorial, I found that the winners of the competition for a design were listed with this statement:
“On November 26, 2002, their design, with the message of recall, reflect, remember, understand, forgive, and grow selected as the first place winner.”
Thus far, the first three of these are directly reflected as the titles of the three interdependent chambers titled Recall, Reflect, and Remember, and they appear to be soliciting funds for the project.” (emphasis added)
On July 30, Bob Heberle said this: “Loved and agreed with your disappointment with the Peace Garden between ND and Canada.  The use of 9/11 is appalling and irritates me too.  It’s the very subtle way of totally misdirecting our thoughts and energies.  It is not too dissimilar to the change of the original meaning of Armistice Day by converting it to Veterans Day.  This was done in 1954 by President Eisenhower at the insistence of many military lobbyists.  It is easy to see how by simply adding the word, “veterans” where “Armistice” once was so easily manipulates the thought and changes the idea of honoring perpetual peace to honoring war.  After all, soldiers are for the most part considered warriors.  With all due respect to the honored warriors of native American tradition, Veteran’s Day now promotes glorification of war.
This is why our local, now national,  Veterans for Peace group encourages us to salute November 11 as Armistice Day and ring bells eleven times in honor of the peace pledges of the world that were orginally honored.  We do not encourage the firing of rifles nor fly overs for obvious reasons.
So, for me to turn the Peace Garden into a memorial for 9/11, changes entirely the notion of peace to reminders to avenge.
Relevant portions of letter to International Peace Garden and other officials from Dick Bernard, July 23, 2009:
“The Peace Garden is a beautiful place, but I am concerned about the emphasis on and symbolism of 9-11-01 at the Peace Gardens.
I have no concern whatsoever about 9-11 as a reminder of a departure from Peace.  Indeed, when I developed my own website in March, 2002, the peace and justice section of the website featured two snapshots I had taken of the Twin Towers in June, 1972…I write about 9-11 there: www.chez-nous.net/tree_radio.html .
I am no stranger to the power of symbols.  My uncle Frank, my Dad’s brother, eternally rests aboard one of those symbols: the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.  The Arizona was his home for the last six years of his too-short life.  Each December 7 I see his home blow up.
My concern with the Peace Gardens I saw [July 18] is the distinctly negative symbolism that 9-11-01 has come to represent after 2002.  It has been and still is used as a reminder to fear and despise others, rather than as a symbol of Peace.
Of course, I am only one person, with a very limited ability to influence decisions.  But I hope those of you receiving this letter will pay more than casual attention to my concern.
*
More specific info on who manages the International Peace Garden and about the 9-11 project at:
http://www.peacegarden.com/gardeninfo.htm
http://www.peacegarden.com/allpdf/911%20recall.pdf
Mailing address for letters Mr. Doug Hevenor, CEO, International Peace Garden, 10939 Highway 281, Dunseith ND 58329.
October 9, 2009: Relevant portion of letter sent to all 16 members of the Board of the International Peace Garden.
“,,,The matter of the Peace Garden focus on 9-11-01 is never far from my mind.
I think the seeming continuing emphasis on the terroristic aspect of 9-11 is inappropriate at this stage in our history (if it ever was appropriate), and sends a message contrary to the very mission of the International Peace Garden.  9-11 has come to be a symbol of war and enmity more than of peace and reconciliation.  It is most especially inappropriate at a place of peace, as the Peace Garden is supposed to be.
At the absolute minimum, I would ask that the website reference #mce_temp_url# be cleaned up and expanded to include all aspects of the proposed memorial*.  But I’d like the efforts to go beyond just that.
I am very well aware that actions such as implanting girders from the World Trade Center complex are, once taken, often difficult to impossible to reverse, for all sorts of reasons, good and not so good.  It is easier to dismiss solitary objections like mine, than to seriously look at their possible validity.
About all I can do is to call attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Dick Bernard
* – This page at the website gives only passing, almost invisible, mention to the other three components of the 9-11 Memorial at the Peace Garden: UNDERSTAND, FORGIVE and GROW.  They are mentioned in the letter, but given no emphasis whatever, compared with the other words.
Crisis Sequence handout also sent to the Board.  This is a handout from some long ago workshop I attended, and it well identifies how human beings normally react to major crises (like the World Trade Center attack) – it’s a matter of months, not years.  I prefer to use the original somewhat ragged copy, rather than reconstruct it.  Succinctly,  a continuing crisis needs to be nurtured, and that is what I think has happened with 9-11.  The words are not visible below, but in the heading, and the line, where the two words are circled, these are the words, from left to right:
Phase: – Impact – Recoil-Turmoil – Adjustment – Reconstruction
Time Period: – Hours – Days – Weeks – Months
The other lines:
Time Perspective: – Present – Past – Future
Emotions – Fight-Flight – Rage-Anxiety-Guilt-Depression – Hope
Thought: – Disorientation/Distractibility – Ambiguity/Uncertainty – Problem-Solving
Direction: – Search for lost object – Detachment – Search for new object – Re-attachment
Search Behavior: Reminiscence – Perplexed Scanning – Exploration – Testing

Crisis Sequence circa 1972

Crisis Sequence circa 1972

James Skakoon column in August 13, 2012 Bismarck Tribune (direct link is at beginning of this post):
The International Peace Garden lies in the Turtle Mountains between Manitoba and North Dakota. Its long central garden parallels the border, with one half in Canada, one half in the United States.
Approaching the Peace Garden from north or south, one can drive unimpeded into the garden grounds. Returning to either country, however, requires re-entering through Customs at the border crossings. This suggests that the International Peace Garden sits outside any national boundaries and is thus devoid of political and national conflict.
I recently visited the International Peace Garden. Although I had been there many times before, it has been some 40 years since my last visit. My expectations, however, had not changed. I expected a pleasant, beautiful, calming place where I could experience positive thoughts of peace and good will.
My expectations were quickly dashed upon seeing a gruesome memorial to 9/11 within the International Peace Garden. The memorial is centered around a mass of 10 damaged, twisted girders salvaged from the World Trade Center rubble. I was appalled to see something so incongruously out of place in a space dedicated to peace. The sight of these girders is hardly calming and not at all peaceful.
To be fair, the Carillon Bell Tower at the Peace Garden is dedicated to war veterans, perhaps suggesting a precedent for other memorials on the garden grounds. It was erected by the North Dakota Veterans Organization in 1976 as a bicentennial project. Also to be fair, an attempt has been made by the Peace Garden to make something positive, if not quite suggesting peace, out of its 9/11 memorial. For example, the headline on a placard at the display reads, “Let Peace Prevail.”
The winning entry of a student design competition for the area around the girders offered a message of “recall, reflect, remember, understand, forgive, and grow.”
This compassionate entry is the theme for the final display areas around the girders. But neither these elements, nor anything else about the memorial are likely to change our automatic emotional reaction to 9/11, and a memorial to veterans such as the Carillon Bell Tower is unlikely to evoke a similar reaction.
September 11th and its aftermath represent religious zealotry, terrorism, revenge, destruction, political strife, military and civilian casualties, hatred, and war. And yes, heroism, service, bravery, and loss as well. One peace-like word, cooperation, applies to the Western world’s response to 9/11 (although it was largely one nation imposing its political will on others). Then again, this cooperation led most prominently to waging a war.
At a Sept. 10, 2003, ceremony at the Peace Garden remembering the terrorist attacks, Kent Conrad, a U.S. senator from North Dakota, said of 9/11, “It was a day that roused a mighty nation to anger, and to action.“
None of this relates to peace, at least not now or in the foreseeable future.
I have no untoward contempt for memorials to human tragedies, wars, and other catastrophes. In Berlin, I visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Holocaust Memorial). I cried. I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. I cried there, too.
I visited Wounded Knee, S.D., the site of an 1890 massacre of Native Americans by U. S. Cavalry. I cried again.
These memorials are either in their original locations or in spaces dedicated to and evoking their purpose. The same is true of every other memorial I have visited or can think of. Removed from its immediate context, the Peace Garden’s 9/11 memorial poignantly accomplishes its mission.
The articles of incorporation for the International Peace Garden, which was dedicated in 1932, state the purpose as “Creation and maintenance of [a] garden or gardens…as a memorial to the peace that has existed between the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada.” The inscription on the stone cairn at the entrance to the Garden pledges eternal peace between Canada and the United States: “…as long as man shall live we shall not take up arms against each other.”
A June 3, 2002, Manitoba government press release quoted then Manitoba Premier Gary Doer as saying, “The International Peace Garden is a magnificent and unique site and I can think of no place more appropriate or fitting for a memorial of this kind.”
Although Doer surely intended a purely positive comment for the 9/11 memorial effort, perhaps he should have examined the garden’s purpose beforehand. Everyone is allowed his or her opinion; some are quite different.
When I explained about the 9/11 memorial on the Peace Garden grounds to a friend, he replied, “9/11 doesn’t have to be everywhere.”
What 9/11 has to do with peace is beyond me. Visitors to the International Peace Garden should not have to be reminded of terrorism, hatred and war. This memorial does not belong there.
(James G. Skakoon is an engineer, inventor, and author. He was born and raised in North Dakota and now lives in St. Paul.)

#54 – Dick Bernard: "The Eagle has Landed", and Walter Cronkite

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Forty years ago today my attention was riveted on a man setting foot on the moon.  Six years earlier, November 22, 1963, a television news anchor named Walter Cronkite helped us through the agony of one of the darkest moments in my lifetime: the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  Somehow it seems almost fitting that the anniversary of the moon landing (July 20) and the death of the broadcast icon (July 17) came within days of each other. 
Recollection of these separate events brought attention to the past, and to inevitability of time passing, and with it, change.
I was a young school teacher the day President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas.  My even younger wife had a few weeks earlier left her own teaching position due to what turned out, less than two years later, to be a terminal illness.  November 22, 1963, she was pregnant with our first child.  
November 22, 1963, we lived in an upstairs apartment in a house near my school, and a short time before that sad day we had purchased (on credit) a 9″ black and white television.  At $10 a month, the television payment stretched our meager budget, but it was at least a window to the outside world for my wife.
That time in history is well documented and I would not pretend to add to any accounts about the person, Walter Cronkite, or the event on which he reported that day, the assassination of a President.
In those years, long before cable, internet, and hundreds of television channels, most country folks lucky enough to have television, perhaps had access to one or two channels whose signal came from very high transmission towers many miles away.  What we saw, then, would not pass anyones muster for quality in this day and age.  I know we received CBS, and thus heard and saw Walter Cronkite’s reporting  on the unfolding events during that dreadful time in our nation’s history.
Cronkite died last week at 92.  Shortly before November 22, 1963, he had celebrated his 47th birthday.  He seemed like a pretty old guy to me, then.  Our first child, Tom, was born February 26, 1964.  At his last birthday Tom turned 45, nearly Cronkite’s then-age.  Time flies…one notices….
July 20, 1969, is another day vivid in my memory.  I was enroute home from a visit with my parents in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and following the moon landing on the car radio.  Sometime in mid-afternoon, along U.S. Highway 2 between Grand Forks and Bemidji MN, I pulled over along the highway at the exact time the actual drama of the moon landing took place.  It was a powerful moment.  I had only the announcer and my imagination to help me live that moment.
Back home in suburban Minneapolis a few hours later, I watched Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon: “that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.  I did my best to take a photograph of the television screen when Armstrong was on the moon.  Somewhere I have a copy of that photograph, in what passed for color in those days.   The image I saw that night has been replayed numerous times this day.
Those events in 1963 and 1969 were only two of the innumerable memorable events of the 1960s.  It was in many ways a tumultuous decade, but even more significantly it was a relatively carefree and simple time.  The seniors in the high school classes of 1964 were the first high school graduates of the post-war “baby boom”. 
With all the problems of the decade, people had a sense of optimism about the future.  1984, the year portrayed in George Orwell’s novel of the same name, was 15 years in the distant future when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.  Today, that same year is 25 years in the past and we have come too close to experiencing some of the prophesies of that story.
Next year ends the first decade of the 21st century.
How will future generations remember us?  How optimistic about the future can todays youngsters be?

Two 1960s postage stamps

Two 1960s postage stamps

#53 – Bob Barkley: Fact vs Theory

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I play golf at a private club where those I play with, quite predictably, are predominately conservative to right-wingers.  And I am the vocal counter agent to all of their views.  Many of them would be surprised, however, at how many of the silent ones come up to me privately and encourage me not to let up.  They needn’t worry. I won’t!

 

Nevertheless, in a recent exchange the subject of global warming came up.  And the gentleman who raised the issue said – using it as a parallel example to another we had been debating – that “it’s sorta like all that Al Gore stuff on global warming where half the scientists believe one way and half believe the other way.”  Then he added, apparently to astonish me, “And the earth’s temperature is actually lowering!”

 

I responded with, “I think Gore is supported by considerably more than half.  And I believe the earth’s temperature is actually declining precisely because of global warming.”  This last statement threw him completely, but it was time to tee off and we left it at that. He ended up, I think, more astonished at me than me at him.

 

But I decided to do a little homework when I got home. And it brought me to the point of a better understanding of the whole area of fact versus theory.

 

Most of what we argue about these days is based upon theory, although we take our positions as though we know the “facts.”  As it turns out, global warming is a very good example of just that.

Wikipedia tells us: “A theory, in the scientific sense of the word, is an analytic structure designed to explain a set of empirical observations. A scientific theory does two things: 1) it identifies this set of distinct observations as a class of phenomena, and 2) makes assertions about the underlying reality that brings about or affects this class.”

“In the scientific or empirical tradition, the term ‘theory’ is reserved for ideas which meet baseline requirements about the kinds of empirical observations made, the methods of classification used, and the consistency of the theory in its application among members of the class to which it pertains. These requirements vary across different scientific fields of knowledge, but in general theories are expected to be functional and parsimonious: i.e. a theory should be the simplest possible tool that can be used to effectively address the given class of phenomena.”

 

Given that definition, I would have to conclude that global warming may be approaching classification as a theory, but may not be fully there.  For example, the “simplest possible tool” for explaining global warming may yet be the normal cycles that have occurred over the eons of the earth’s existence.  For the sake of argument, let’s just assume that all that is true.  It means that no matter how convincing all the global warming arguments may be, we are still left to believe what we find most appealing, and that may be a long way from “fact.”

 

Fact, on the other hand, is defined in the dictionary as, “1. Knowledge or information based on real occurrences, 2. Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed, 3. A real occurrence, 4. A thing that has been done.”

 

Well, global warming is “based on real occurrences,” and it “can be demonstrated to exist.”

 

But I have to conclude that global warming is certainly more theory than fact.  So where does that leave us?  Where it leaves me is that we need to lighten up a little and quit trying to take absolute positions on things that are at best still marginal theory.  After all, not too long ago, in the long existence of this earth, most people were convinced beyond doubt that this place was flat. [And Thomas L Freidman still thinks it is.]

 

Here’s what I learned so far on global warming. There are petitions, garnered by the pros and cons alike, signed by thousands. To quote a Yahoo Answers response I got, “There is a very large majority of scientists whom support the idea of global warming and anthropogenic climate change in general. Hundreds of surveys and studies and meta-surveys have long since confirmed that this is occurring and that mankind has contributed to the concern.”
”However, there is a minority viewpoint held by several dozen climate scientists who feel – for various reasons – that the climate is not changing or that the change is not primarily human-caused, however, personally speaking, I find that a lot of the scientists – appear to have been “compromised” at some point.”

 

There is a lot more, and it certainly appears that there is better scientific consensus on global warming than on many other current debates.  But the skeptics remain, although it seems they are gradually falling away. Most scientists do agree that man is contributing to this phenomenon, although many are not as alarmed as some.  Then, as always, there’s the corporate interest at play – as the quote just above suggests when using the word “compromised.”  As one guy says, “Follow the money.”  The Exxon/Mobils of the world spend untold millions on pooh-poohing the whole thing while the so-called green industries are advocating that global warming will kill us all in a few months.  We are being spun to death on this issue like many others.

 

It seems that a new study on this topic comes out almost weekly.  But from it all, I believe man’s contribution to global warming is real and substantial.  I believe that “theory” holds more water than any countervailing one.  That said, while action is justified and necessary, panic may not be.

 

We are a long way from “fact” in much of this.  We need to pay attention, react, but not over-react.  We need to share information but not preach.  We need to rid ourselves of reliance on fossil fuels no matter global warming or not.  This phenomenon may not be killing the earth, but it is killing many of us on it.

 

And then there’s this from Phil Chapman writing in “The Australian.” Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer who was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut. “All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinders and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead,” he writes. Then he adds, “It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers, government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of civilisation may be at stake.”

 

And on top of all this out comes a new study telling us that there is a large gap between what scientists think and what ordinary citizens think. One article covering the release of this Pew Research Center survey states, “And while almost all of the scientists surveyed accept that human beings evolved by natural processes and that human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming, general public is far less sure.” It adds, “Only about half of the public agrees that people are behind climate change, and 11 percent does not believe there is any warming at all.” Further, it concludes, “The report said 85 percent of science association members surveyed said public ignorance of science was a major problem. And by large margins they deride as only “fair” or “poor” the coverage of science by newspapers and television”

 

So I suspect from that we must assume that most of us are arguing over things we really know very little about whether it be fact or theory. Apparently we believe what we wish to believe – what makes most sense to us and what we’re most comfortable believing.  But often it’s not fact, and often not even real theory that we seem to argue about so vociferously.  It’s all mere supposition.

 

Supposition: “A guess: a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence,” or, “a hypothesis that is taken for granted.”  I guess we should all begin our arguments with the phrase, “I suppose…” and let it go at that.  And then maybe we should also lighten up, but certainly listen.

 

Now, back to improving my golf game – where I have all too many theories at play all at once.

 

#52 – Dick Bernard/Carol Ashley: Views on Economic Stimulus

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UPDATE:  Carol Ashley joined this conversation July 11 (her substantial contribution follows the initial post.)  This will be held open till July 21, 2009. 
Dick Bernard: This is the first blog post I have specifically posted in Draft form.  I solicit specific, brief,  comments to my regular e-mail address.  When this paragraph is removed, the Draft will be in more or less final form.
Among the kettle-full of national and international issues roiling about this past week, discussion was stirring about the Stimulus.  The usual suspects were saying the usual things about whether Round One was working or not, and whether or how a Round Two should be.  Apparently the President is not in favor of a Round Two, at least not at this time.
All I can say is that I am glad I am not having to make these decisions.
It appears that, after the major crisis of 2008, that ordinary Americans are both saving more and spending less.  Fewer people are earning any income, and those who are earning an income are not making as much as they were before.  Times are tight.  It doesn’t take a lot of looking to see that we’re not as flush as we were.  Some think we’ll never recover; that the worst is ahead of us.  Some would welcome such a failure, for differing reasons.  Opinions are a dime a dozen.
Lately I have been wondering if, perhaps, we Americans are, right now, our own worst enemies.  We are a nation whose prosperity was built on consumption.  We can argue whether that is good or bad, but that is how capitalism thrived.  And we are a capitalist society.
If my observation is a bit correct, rather than waiting for the government to print more money that we don’t have, perhaps a reasonable solution to propose is that we loosen our own individual pursestrings, and spend a little more of what we have, including our savings, to help stimulate the economy, particularly for those who really need the money the most.  I’m not advocating randomly throwing money on the street, but finding ways to help people who will truly put the money in circulation, and help the economy recover.
We are not, even now, an impoverished nation: A single dollar per person would generate $300,000,000 in circulation; a little over $3 per person would generate one billion.  Before long, there would be serious additional money in circulation.  And if we did the seeding reasonably carefully, it would be spent to help others who need it.  I once heard that a dollar spent multiplies by seven times if in circulation.  $1=$7.  It really isn’t funny math.  Some folks would make the multiplier a different number than 7, but economists would agree that there is a multiplying effect when money is actually in circulation.
Of course, my idea of spending to prosperity isn’t new.  I remember well the proposition of George W. Bush adminstration after 9-11: we Americans were admonished to go shopping.
The difference I see between his proposition, then, and mine, now, is a pretty stark one: were we to dig deep enough, the motivation for his proposal was to maintain and even build profits for business, using money we didn’t have (credit) to do that.  We have seen, and we are experiencing directly,  the results of that foolhardy policy.
In my case, I am proposing using money that is actually in existence to help people with real needs either stay on their feet, or get back on their feet.
Saving is great: I’m all for it.  Spending is okay, too.  I think we can help build our own recovery…and change the direction of our nation in the process.
Your thoughts?
Carol Ashley: I like your idea, but not because I think it would stimulate the economy. Helping others out with whatever we have that’s extra is a good idea because it is compassionate and there are so many people in need. In terms of the economy, I think we as Americans need to rethink how we live…as many are. We need to focus on what we need and not on what we want. We need to think about a more equitable society. The talk of stimulus is just a way of thinking in the same old ways that have, in part, brought us to this impasse. (And I do think it is an impasse.)
We need to create jobs that focus on real needs. Renewable energy is a good start because we need at least some energy, even if we all devote ourselves to conservation of energy. I expect that large companies will be the ones to do this because that is how our society is and larger companies are the only ones who could afford to do it. That is sad because we need to focus on smaller businesses that won’t be too big to fail.
There are lots of other things that we could do that are unrealistic to suggest because they just won’t happen because our country is too split and too selfish.
And now, as an aside I turn to something I’ve been hit with recently.
I confess that I am a Baby Boomer. I don’t do that easily. You see, I’ve always had the Boomers connected in my mind with the 60’s social justice issues. That’s in spite of stories my nephew has told me, in spite of what I’ve seen and heard from others of my generation, in spite of hearing us referred to as the Me Generation.
It wasn’t until I read more of The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe that I realized just how selfish my generation is. Of course there are exceptions. But I think my generation has had a lot to do with the current attitudes and the resultant crisis we are in. All the way from the good values of the 60’s to this! Of course, I now realize that many young people in the 60’s were in just for the ride, the excitement, the rebellion against authority. Perhaps they each had good reason and good cause. Perhaps most came to accept the broader values that came to the front at that time. But after the riots, after the end of the Vietnam war, and after a bit more equality for women, the Boomers really turned and stayed inward.
The focus turned to self-actualization, personal growth. I saw in the Charismatic movement of the 60’s and 70’s the focus on personal “spiritual growth.” The message was that if they saw a problem in your life, the answer was that you either didn’t have enough faith or the devil was in your life. If you were poor, sick or otherwise suffering, it was your fault. I saw the same thing from the New Age Movement. Many of the New Agers I have met through the years had originally turned from traditional churches to the Charismatic Movement and then became New Agers. The common theme I heard was that Christians were too judgmental, but I heard the very same judgment from them. If you were poor, sick or otherwise suffering it was your karma, you had not grown beyond that. It was your fault.
The one thing that bothered me as I followed that Boomer movement was the lack of compassion, the lack of any sense that we lived in a society that did have effects on people and a lack of any regard for science.
I do think a distrust of authority wasn’t all bad. I don’t think self-actualization is all bad. But anything can be taken to an extreme. It’s not good to throw out the baby with the bathwater, pardon the old cliché.
And now back to your suggestion. I think it is a good one, again not because of a need to stimulate the economy, but to take things into our hands to create a better society where we can help others out. I would like to see us use extra money we may have to start cooperative businesses that provide needs as well as provide jobs for people who have lost theirs. I think this would need to be done community by community.
What do you think?
Carol

#51 – Dick Bernard: Death: Michael (Jackson), Robert (McNamara), Sarah (Palin)

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Yesterday while I was donating blood, I asked the nurse if she had watched any of the Michael Jackson memorial or other goings on surrounding his death.  Mostly, she was non-commital, but her response was pretty succinct and wise.  There are two things certain in our lives, she said: we are born, and we die.  This led to a little sidetrip for the two of us into another reality: unless someone really truly plans their death, none of us know when or how our end will come.  All we know for sure is that there is a temporal end.  We agreed that is good that we don’t know the details about our dying….
Of course, nobody knows what’s on the other side of life.  There is endless speculation, and opposing absolute certainties, expressed about that too.
About all that matters, some of which is within our control, happens between the beginning and the end.  In this middle is where we make our mark, whether for good or ill or not at all (by taking a pass from working for change we feel is important.) 
Michael Jackson (51) and Robert McNamara (93) walked into the unknown in recent days.  Sarah Palin walked into another kind of potential – and horrible (for her) – death.  Political death.  All of them are celebrities; all of them are more a window into who we are as a people, than personalities unto themselves.
Of the three, certainly Michael Jackson got the most attention.  Probably Sarah Palin came in second; Robert S. McNamara third.  Full disclosure: I never followed Michael Jackson, and saw only snips of the service yesterday; I have gained a certain amount of respect for McNamara, solely because he seems to be the rare individual, especially a powerful one, who’s willing to expose the possibility that some of his decisions were flat out wrong.  Palin?  I think that when the dust settles – I give it a year – she’ll have made a few million, and be yesterday’s news. 
There are millions of other deaths too, of course; some make the papers, most don’t.  But these three dominated recent news.  I don’t pretend to have anything other than my own opinion, and I’ll take them in order, very briefly.
Michael Jackson was immensely talented and ultimately a victim of our societies slavish devotion to celebrity.  He reached the pinnacle, and what did it get him in the end?  Our celebrities become our targets.  He’s dead now, and his riches (or his debt) is of no personal concern to him.  People will make a mint off of his memory and fight over the remnants of his economic carcass, like so many vultures.  What was good or bad about him will be flogged mercilessly for as long as it will attract attention. 
Robert S. McNamara was brilliant and loyal and what did it get him in the end?  He took a huge cut in pay to leave a high-paying corporate job with Ford Motor Company to become Secretary of Defense in early President John F Kennedy times.  In a temporal and governmental sense he was powerful, and trusted.  He thought he knew what he was doing; his certainty(and that of others) ended in disaster.  He rose and fell during my early adult life.  I will mostly remember his documentary, “The Fog of War”, as well as a commentary of his, published in August, 2003, entitled “We must minimize cruelties of war” (reprinted at the end of this post.)  At the end, his certainty was replaced by his doubt.  He will be judged on his certainty.  “As I speak”, there’s teams of people attempting to rewrite the history of Vietnam, so that it seems like a necessity and even a success.  I wonder what McNamara would say. 
Sarah Palin ?  In a physical sense, she is very much alive.  But I can’t escape the thought that when she resigned from the Alaska Governorship this past weekend, she effectively committed political suicide, one of the more horrible deaths: yesterday’s darling, tomorrow’s irrelevancy.  Oh, initially she’ll make a ton of money inspiring her base, but even they will tire of her, sooner than later.  And she won’t have the Michael Jackson legacy to bank on.
So it goes…life and death, in all their many forms.
There is something to be said for lacking fame, and not being well known.  Best that we do what we can in our relative anonymity.  In the end, what little we seem to do can make as much or more difference, than that of the celebrities and those seemingly more “powerful”.  It just doesn’t seem so.
FOOTNOTE:
Robert S. McNamara: “We must minimize cruelties of war” as printed in the St. Petersburg FL Times, August 8, 2003.  Many thanks to Eugenie Fellows, who sent me this article years ago.
On the night of March 9, 1945, when the lead crews of the 21st Bomber Command returned from the first firebombing mission over Tokyo, Gen. Curtis LeMay was waiting for them in his headquarters on Guam.  I was in Guam on temporary duty from Air Force headquarters in Washington, and LeMay had asked me to join him for the after mission reports that evening.
LeMay was just as tough as his reputation.  In many ways, he appeared to be brutal, but he was also the ablest commander of any I met during my three years of service with the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II.
That night, he’d sent out 334 B-29 bombers, seeking to inflict, as he put it, the maximum target destruction for the minimum loss of American lives.  World War II was entering its final months, and the United States was beginning the last, devastating push for an unconditional Japanese surrender.
On that one night alone, LeMay’s bombers burned to death 83,793 Japanese civilians and injured 40,918 more.  The planes dropped firebombs and flew lower than they had in the past and therefore were more accurate and more destructive.
That night’s raid was only the first of 67.  Night after night – 66 more times – crews were sent out over the skies of Japan.  Of course we didn’t burn to death 83,000 people every night, but over a period of months American bombs inflicted extraordinary damage on a host of Japanese cities – 900,000 killed, 1.3 million injured, more than half the populaiton displaced.
The country was devastated.  The degree of killing was extraordinary.  Radio Tokyo compared the raids to the burning of Rome in the year 64.
LeMay was convinced that it was the right thing to do, and he told his superiors (from whom he had not asked for authority to conduct the March 9 raid), “If you want me to burn the rest of Japan, I can do that.”
LeMay’s position on war was clear: If you’re going to fight, you should fight to win.
In the years afterward, he was quoted as saying, “If you’re going to use military force, then you ought to use overwhelming military force.”  He also said: “All war is immoral, and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”
Looking back almost 60 years later – and after serving as secretary of Defense for seven years during one of the hottest periods of the Cold War, including the Cuban missile crisis – I have to say that I disagree.
War may or may not be immoral, but it should be fought within a clearly defined set of rules.
One other thing LeMay said, and I heard him say it myself: “If we lose the war, we’ll be tried as war criminals.”  We would have been.  But what makes one’s conduct immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?
The “just war” theory first expounded by the great Catholic thinkers (I am a Protestant), argues that the application of military power should be proportional to the cause to which you’re applying it.  A prosecutor would have argued that burning to death 83,000 civilians in a single night and following up with 66 additional raids was not proportional to our war aims.
War will not be eliminated in the foreseeable future, if ever.  But we can – and we must – eliminate some of the violence and cruelty and excess that go along with it.
That is why the United States so badly needs to participate in the International Court for Crimes Against Humanity, which was recently established in The Hague.  President Clinton signed that treaty on New Year’s Eve 2000, just before leaving office, but in May, 2002, President Bush announced that the United States did not intend to become a party to the treaty.
The Bush administration believes, and many agree, that the court could become a vehicle for frivolous or unfair prosecutions of American military personnel.  Although that is a cause for concern, I believe we should join the court immediately while we continue to negotiate further protection against such cases.
If LeMay were alive, he would tell me I was out of my mind.  He’d say the proportionality rule is ridiculous.  He’d say that if you don’t kill enough of the enemy, it just means more of your own troops will die.
But I believe that the human race desperately needs an agreed-upon system of jurisprudence that tells us what conduct by political and military leaders is right and what is wrong, both in conflict within nations and in conflict across national borders.
Is it legal to incinerate 83,000 people in a single night to achieve your war aims?  Was Hiroshima legal?  Was the use of Agent Orange – which occurred while I was secretary of Defense – a violation of international law?
These questions are critical.  Our country needs to be involved, along with the International Court for Crimes Against Humanity, in the search for answers.

#49 – Dick Bernard: "A million [tea bag fax] copies…."

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Early July 4 I received a long, rambling e-mail whose focus was Tea Bags, specifically, the need to send a million Tea Bag faxes to the U.S. Congress to protest taxes.
The e-mail came with an Orange, California PO Box address and included the disclaimer that because it included a postal address, it could not be considered spam.   
“Our nation could be gone by the end of the year” was its basic message.  Congress needed to be inundated with this Tea Bag fax.
It had another message too:   for only $20.09, a participant could have his/her fax sent to all 535 members of Congress (100 Senators, 435 Representatives.)  Full retail value of such a service was $57.00 so: in Minnesota parlance, the buyer was getting “a heckuva deal”.   Of course, you could sign up and pledge $25 a month to have someone else be vigilant in your behalf on the issue of the day, week or month.
“A million copies” is not a foreign concept to me.
Two years ago, I heard an elderly gentleman lead a group of us in singing Ed McCurdy’s ca 1950 song, “Last Night I had the Strangest Dream“, in which the phrase “a million copies made” is an integral phrase. 
I was so taken by the gentleman, and the song, which John Denver popularized in the 1960s and early 1970s, that I created my own website, http://www.amillioncopies.info to memorialize the initiative John Denver and the gentleman, Lynn Elling, were advancing.  (You can hear John Denver sing the song, in 1971, at the website.  It is an inspiring song, about peace.)
But that’s not the point of this post.
In 1950, “a million copies” was serious business.  Not only was the U.S. population much lower, but making and distributing “a million copies” was no small feat, for reasons which don’t need enumeration here.
Of course, today, if by some wild chance “a million copies” could be achieved, it would be a serious accomplishment too, but how serious?
“A million”, today, is .003% (one-third of one percent) of the U.S. population.  The technology is obviously accessible to send hundreds, thousands, of e-faxes which (in my opinion) simply dilutes the impact of such an initiative. 
The same goes for things like on-line petitions and the like.  They are in some ways useful, particularly for fund-raising, but were I the person receiving them, they wouldn’t have much impact on me.
Making an impact, politically, is a “contact sport”, a matter of personal engagement.  There is no passive, easy, way to make a difference.  It takes time and effort: letters to the editor; visiting with friends and neighbors, etc., etc.  It is a slow process, which means that it is frustrating.
But without engagement of others, it doesn’t work.
I would predict that the e-Fax folks will reach their goal of 1 million faxes.  Even if they don’t, it is a certainty that they will claim they did. 
Now, if their million individuals sent fresh tea bags as part of a real letter, that would make a difference….  That won’t happen.
On June 15, 2009, I did a blog-post on Lobbying, to which I received this response from Coleen Rowley: “It’s fine to write directly to elected representatives but it’s not enough – one must also publish open letters to them, or op-eds or letters to the editor.  They count for a lot more than private communications…no one has the big money to compete in that [big money] arena…so you have to try everything else available to reach the public.”
By no means am I perfect at this trade of words.  But I have learned the value of practice.   And I think most of us are better at this than we give ourselves credit for…we just talk ourselves out of trying.

#48 – Dick Bernard: the 4th of July

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For several years now, we’ve gone to the annual 4th of July Parade in nearby Afton MN.  Afton is a tiny place on the St. Croix River, part of Minnesota’s eastern border, and mostly known for its big Marina and as  an artsy place.  Yesterday we were there.
On the 4th of July Aftons population increases dramatically for the noon-time Parade, which is the only one I know of which goes to the end of Main Street, then doubles back.  The spectators can thus see the parade twice; the participants in the Parade can actually “watch” it themselves as the units return on the other side of the street.
The latter fact would have been approved by my Grandpa Bernard who had a 1901 Oldsmobile (it’s still a working automobile in California), and was often asked to drive it in the local July 4th parade in his town of Grafton ND.  He rarely took the bait for this since, he would complain, “I can’t watch the parade, only the back-side of the unit in front of me“.  Those days – he died in 1957 – there weren’t means of recording the parades for replay back home on cable television or otherwise.  You saw it in real time, or you missed it. 

Grandpa Bernard (in the suit) in his 1901 Oldsmobile, Grafton ND July 4 parade, sometime in late 1940s or early 1950s

Grandpa Bernard (in the suit) in his 1901 Oldsmobile, Grafton ND July 4 parade, sometime in late 1940s or early 1950s


I have sometimes walked in parades, usually for political candidates, so I understand Grandpa’s complaint. 
I like parades.
Yesterday’s, though, for some reason seemed a bit flatter than usual.  There were fewer units and less enthusiasm. 
As is usual, the parade was headed by a couple of old (my age) military veterans carrying the U.S. flag.  People, including myself, stood, doffed their hats, and applauded either the veterans, or the flag, or both. 
Following behind was a gigantic Armored Personnel Carrier, and behind, and included with, it a troop of Boy Scouts.  It was a rather odd combination, I felt, but I’m used to odd combinations.
Back home, afterwards, the cacophony, and dissonance, of the internet brought endless competing views of what July 4 means, or should.  Some enterprising bunch was selling robo-faxes at a steal, to send fax’ed tea bags to every member of Congress (it’s worth a blog entry of its own, to follow tomorrow): an anti-tax protest on the 4th of July.  A patriotic piece came around that caused me to check on the urban legends website, and indeed, the piece was part fact, and part fancy, with no effort to separate myth from real.
On the other side, came an appeal to do more Peace vigils in the coming months.  Etc.
The President weighed in with a brief statement of the signicance of the day with the concluding sentences “It is a day to celebrate all that America is.  And today is a time to aspire toward all we can still become.” with an ending “P.S — Our nation’s birthday is also an ideal time to consider serving in your local community.  You can find many great ideas for service opportunities near you at http://www.serve.gov. “
Last night  there were the annual fireworks in a nearby park.  A particularly loud crescendo of the traditional “bombs bursting in air” woke me from a sound sleep.
I think, wouldn’t it be nice if some day in this country, the Parade would be headed by some kind of group carrying a World Peace flag, and people were applauding them.  
To hear John Denver sing “Last Night I had a Strangest Dream” go to http://www.amillioncopies.info.  Click on Denver’s image at the left of the home page.  And wander around in the website for a bit….
UPDATE 5:20 p.m. Sunday, July 5, 2009
Immediately after clicking ‘publish’ on the above, I went in to my Church, Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis, for the usual Sunday Mass.  Basilica is a very large and very diverse Parish, at the edge of downtown on downtowns historically premier street, Hennepin Avenue.  Typically Basilica has lots of visitors; it is conservative and it is liberal, rich and poor.  On a typical Sunday, a fair number of homeless show up for coffee and donuts.
Basilica is also a Peace Site, and a year ago made a formal commitment to Peace as a key part of its Centennial celebration.
Today I saw that commitment before and during the service.  A large “Peace” sign welcomes people to the church (see photos from Basilica calendars at the end of this article.)
In today’s service, the opening song was Sibelius’ “This is My Song” from Finlandia: (“But other hearts in other lands are beating, with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”)  In the sermon, a key part of the message was recollection of a young man at a July 4 celebration who carried a sign “God Bless the whole world.  No exceptions“.  The intercessions included prayers for Peace and for those in service to this country of ours; the recessional was America the Beautiful, and the Postlude was Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever.
I had nothing to do with how today’s service was put together.  But I liked it, a lot.
In short, Basilica seems to cover all the bases towards a better world.  Basilica is a formal Peace Site, #419 at http://www.peacesites.org/sites/map

Art Work on 2007 Basilica of St. Mary annual calendar. Note Peace sign in lower left.

Art Work on 2007 Basilica of St. Mary annual calendar. Note Peace sign in lower left.

 

Peace Pole featured on Basilica of St. Mary calendar for September, 2009

Peace Pole featured on Basilica of St. Mary calendar for September, 2009