Dick Bernard: The Down-Ballot Elections.

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What candidates and issues are on your Nov. 8 Minnesota ballot? Check here for specifics.
Last night, Oct. 25, I went to the local League of Women Voters “Meet the Candidates” Forum in Woodbury. The Forum was divided into two parts: 1) the six candidates for State Senate and House of Representatives; 2) the ten candidates for two Woodbury City Council seats.
I stayed for part one. I’m at the end stages of a bad cold, so left before part two.
The Monday Forum, and others, are available for viewing here.
Woodbury is a city of near 70,000, and Minnesota legislative districts are about 80,000 population. No candidate can be expected to marshal a campaign to knock on every door, or even a large fraction.
The Forums are an effort to give interested citizens a small amount of actual face-time with the candidates.
Candidates for State Legislature
In our case, the local league ran the one hour session expertly, tightly managed. All of the candidates were polite (five women, one man, for three positions).
I would guess that there were 100 of us in the room; nothing raucous from the audience, polite applause for all at the end. Audiences, real people, are important.
Each candidate could make an opening and closing statement, and all were asked to respond to 6 questions. The session was one hour: 10 times 6 = 60 minutes…and there’s opening and closing. That’s less than a minute per round per person.
It seems odd, but even that brief time can give one a sense of a candidates knowledge, demeanor and general feelings about the few issues raised.
But you also become aware of how complex the job of a state legislator is.
The people we send to St. Paul in January have to be quick studies, willing to work very hard, and have a great commitment to not only their constituents, but to the entire state and indeed our nation. There are no ‘easy’ questions in their positions. They run, willingly.
City Council, and other Down Ballot.
The candidates and issues “down ballot” are all very important. You don’t see TV ads or lawn signs about them. These are not glamorous jobs, and local politics can be very mean and nasty. If you’re in a dysfunctional town, you know it, and the town suffers. We seem fairly lucky here in Woodbury, but how to go about deciding between ten people for two positions?
As I mentioned, I did not stay for part two.
As I was leaving, a young woman approached me and introduced herself as one of the candidates for City Council. She gave me her card. She made a very positive first impression. The issues she raised with me resonated positively. She had no idea who I was.
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andrea-date003
Are others of the ten better than her? She earned a head start in my book!
Between now and when I vote, I’ll seek to find my two choices by asking people I know if they have specific recommendations for the City Council. These are people who pay more attention to local politics than I. As a matter of course I don’t vote for candidates I don’t know, (except incumbent judges which are a separate category).
Other offices/issues
My ballot shows one candidate for County Commissioner. An incumbent, the incumbent has always seemed to do a good job. Easy choice.
There are three candidates for Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor District 5 Washington County: My choice is George C. Weyer. I had no idea what this office was about until a chance meeting with Mr. Weyer some years ago. Check out the website (linked above).
Finally, there is a Constitutional Amendment on the Ballot which “removes legislators power to set their own salaries, and instead establish[es] an independent citizens-only council to prescribe salaries of lawmakers.“
It sounds so innocent and obvious. But I’ll very likely vote no. There are too many questions about what “independent citizen’s only” means. Too much potential for mischief to be made. The job of Legislator is very important, too important to be left to potential whim and caprice. Under our system, lawmakers should continue to make laws, one of which is their compensation. There are a great plenty of ‘checks and balances’ within their own membership to take care of problems.
Take your vote seriously November 8.

Dick Bernard: "The Times They are a-changing".

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From 1983-91, I lived and worked in Hibbing MN. My office was on the Main Street, 402 E Howard St, the Teske Building, and I lived in an apartment about three blocks away on 1st Ave.
Those days I often went by the boyhood home of Bobby Zimmerman, and since I worked for school teachers I was often in the Hibbing High School, a short walk for me, the high school from which Bobby Zimmerman had graduated in 1959. In the 1980s, as I recall, Bobby, (later aka “Bob Dylan“), was not yet on the list of Hibbing legends. Out at the overlook for the giant Hull-Rust-Mahoning mine, the main famous guy for Hibbing pictured in the gift shop was Gino Paulucci (you can probably look him up).
Hibbingites, then, would have been surprised – shocked – to know that within the last week, their Bobby Zimmerman, Bob Dylan, would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in the fall of 2016.
That is how Change seems to work….

Some old Stamps mark some leaders and times of change in the United States

Some old Stamps mark some leaders and times of change in the United States


Dylan wrote “Times they are a-changin” at the beginning of his career – 1964.
Those of us old enough to remember the 1960s and the 1970s know it wasn’t a sedate time for those who liked to remember the “good old days”. It was a time of Civil Rights and Human Rights; Vietnam and 18 year olds getting the right to vote (1971) and women getting maternity leave rather than having to quit their job when they were “showing”.
For kids, today, achievements like those are ancient history. A 50 year old African-American today would have been two when Martin Luther King was gunned down in Memphis in 1968.
Change had its costs.
We’re once again in the throes of change, but it’s different this time.
For near eight years now, an African-American man, Barack Obama, has been President of the United States, and his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, has become one of the true exemplars of American ideals. Yes, it took 145 years from the Emancipation Proclamation for such an occasion to happen, but it has happened, and there’s no turning back.
And it wasn’t easy.
Recently I found a note sent to me by a valued friend, which was written the day after Barack Obama was elected in November, 2008. It is rather remarkably awful. Here it is: letter-11-04-2008002.
Four years later, a day or so after the re-election in November, 2012, an anguished relative forwarded a column in Forbes magazine, about how, after President Obama was reelected, the entire American economy would collapse. I kept that one too: Misery Loves Company. It, too, speaks for itself.
Now we seem at the doorstep of, thankfully, electing the first woman President in American History, Hillary Clinton. [My formal endorsement of Hillary Clinton can be found at my blog for Sep 24, 2016]
It needn’t surprise that it’s taken so long to get around to actually elect a woman; after all it took women 57 more years to get the right to vote, than for the slaves to be emancipated in the United States (1920 vs 1863).
It’s an unpleasant fact, I believe, that it was easier for Barack Obama to become President, than it has been for a woman: Obama is a man…. But he, too, had to break down a huge barrier. It’s the same, now for Hillary Clinton.
While women Heads of Government have not been uncommon around the world (a listing here), thus far it has not happened here in the United States.
Within the last few days I received the first terrified prediction of what will happen if Hillary Clinton becomes President of the United States. (I choose not to share this one – you can guess. The same guy sent a dozen forwards of Alt-right stuff overnight. He’s committed.)
But “the times, they are a-changin”, and while no one can accurately predict the challenges for America’s first woman President (and there will be challenges, as there have been for all the predecessors), this country will be the better for the experience, and we can learn a lesson we’ve been reluctant to accept: that women are very worthy leaders too.
The election isn’t over yet.
Vote, and vote very well informed, November 8, 2016.
POSTNOTE: At the end of the the October 18 post, I shared this quote by James Fallows of the Atlantic:
“Probably the memorable quote for me is this one I saw yesterday, in the Atlantic, from James Fallows, as follows: “The very hardest thing about being president is that almost all of the choices you get to make are no-win, impossible decisions. Let civilians keep getting slaughtered in Syria? Or commit U.S. forces without being sure who they are fighting for and how they might “win”? Propose a “compromise” measure—on health insurance, gun control, taxes, a Supreme Court nominee, whatever—in hopes that you’ll win over some of the opposition? Or assume from the start that the opposition will oppose, and begin by asking for more than you can get? Choices that are easier or more obvious get made by someone else before they are anywhere close to the president’s desk.
These decisions are hardest when life-and-death stakes are high and time is short. In 2003, invade Iraq, or wait? In 2011, authorize the raid on bin Laden, or not? In 1962, when to confront the Soviets over their missiles in Cuba, and when to look for the possibility of compromise.
The more I’ve learned about politics and the presidency, the more I’ve been sobered by the combination of temperamental stability and intellectual rigor these decisions demand. Stability, not to be panicked or rushed or provoked. Rigor, to understand what more you need to know, but also to recognize when you must make a choice even with less information than you would like.”
When Bob Dylan wrote “the Times they are a-changin'” in 1964, he was just a kid.
Oh, what an anthem it has become.
All of us have had to endure change, which is quite often scary.
Most often, the one who takes the risk to change finds that life is better on the other side.
I always will remember a piece of prose I saw at a time of huge change in my own life, in 1982.
Here it is:
Leo Buscaglia quotation

Leo Buscaglia quotation

Dick Bernard: The Election is Three Weeks from Today: "Trustworthy"? "Honesty"? and Down-Ballot

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My own strong endorsement of Hillary Clinton for President, since 2008, has long been “on the record”. The essential information is here, (note the brief section below the stamps.)
Minnesotans have been able to cast their ballots since late September. I guess I’m a traditionalist: I’ll likely join the line at our local polling place on election day.
“Trustworthy”
When I described my support for Hillary Clinton in 2008, I described her as competent, experienced, tough – a person able to tolerate and navigate the terrible brutality of contemporary American politics.
This year I added the words honest and trustworthy to my descriptor of her.
Back in the September 24 post, I invested a few paragraphs on the business of “honesty” as it related not only to Hillary Clinton, but to all of us.
I said nothing more about “trustworthy” on Sep 24.
I said nothing more because there was nothing more to say….
In my opinion, to declare someone can’t be trusted (is not trustworthy) is a cruel value judgement unless there has been a direct personal experience – some proof, personally experienced.
Tell me about the person who has said they never violated trust, and I would show you an example of a liar, at minimum, lying to themself. This is part of all of our lives, but not a fatal disability.
As it applies to Hillary Clinton, I offer a single example in defense of her as a person, as a leader.
One single time in my long life I have been within hand shake distance of a person who was actually President of the United States, and that was for an instant.
It was August, 1975, outside the Marriott Hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota, and President Gerald Ford was on the other side of the ropeline. My preoccupation was to take his picture, and I did:

President Gerald Ford August 19, 1975. Photo by Dick Bernard, top of Tom Bernards head just visible in foreground. Tom was 11.

President Gerald Ford August 19, 1975. Photo by Dick Bernard, top of Tom Bernards head just visible in foreground. Tom was 11.


Was I in a position to judge President Ford’s trustworthiness, then, or any time? Certainly not.
Could he judge my own trustworthiness? (Those secret service guys answer that question! Their job was to trust no one, and was one among them.)
So, hardly anybody “trusts” Hillary Clinton, it is constantly suggested: the polls say so. Left, right or middle makes not much difference. But all there are are in support of this are insinuations, accusations, unsupported beliefs based on fragments of what is called evidence, but really nothing of substance.
This is a triumph of labelling run totally amuck in our own United States. Even the business of reporting of “trust” adds to the narrative that she can’t be trusted. “Well, they say….”
We cannot run our lives this way. We cannot be slaves to labels, maliciously applied. And “maliciously applied” is a constant in American politics these days.
There is that Bible truism, “Do not judge, that you may not be judged” (MT 7:1).
It fits.
Down Ballot
The most important votes, in my opinion, are well informed votes for the people running for the many other offices appearing on the ballot three weeks from today.
We not only need to know who these candidates are, but what they stand for.
Is it too much to ask that at least we know a little bit about every one of these folks, their records (or lack of same), before we vote for or against them, or don’t vote at all because we don’t know anything about them?
VOTE, AND VOTE WELL INFORMED TUESDAY NOVEMBER 8.
Here’s a site to beginning accessing necessary information, wherever you live.
POSTNOTES: ICONIC IMAGES AND A QUOTE
1. There are two images which are imprinted on my brain:
A. Two and a half years ago, it was in late winter of March, 2014, in small town North Dakota, I was stopping in to see my Uncle’s tax man to take care of business relating to my Uncle. As I approached the door a forlorn looking man came out, apparently the recipient of some bad news inside.
I’d never seen him before, being a stranger in town; nonetheless he felt moved to announce that Hillary Clinton should be in prison, one would presume because she was the cause of his misery. The false story about Hillary was apparently already full-throated in the alt-universe, even though it had been years since Hillary was in the U.S. Senate, and at that time was one of 535 lawmakers. She had been given powers that she didn’t have by those who hated her, even then.
2. Earlier this year, Sen. Lindsay Graham had dropped out of competition for the Republican nomination for President, one of the earliest to throw in the towel among the 17 contenders. I saw him one day on television, when only Ted Cruz and Donald Trump remained in the running, and he very clearly had no time for either.
Even so, even in this time of woe, he felt obligated to first announce the apparently sacred Republican talking point, that Hillary Clinton was a liar. I’ll not forget it.
3. Probably the memorable quote for me is this one I saw yesterday, in the Atlantic, from James Fallows, as follows: “The very hardest thing about being president is that almost all of the choices you get to make are no-win, impossible decisions. Let civilians keep getting slaughtered in Syria? Or commit U.S. forces without being sure who they are fighting for and how they might “win”? Propose a “compromise” measure—on health insurance, gun control, taxes, a Supreme Court nominee, whatever—in hopes that you’ll win over some of the opposition? Or assume from the start that the opposition will oppose, and begin by asking for more than you can get? Choices that are easier or more obvious get made by someone else before they are anywhere close to the president’s desk.
These decisions are hardest when life-and-death stakes are high and time is short. In 2003, invade Iraq, or wait? In 2011, authorize the raid on bin Laden, or not? In 1962, when to confront the Soviets over their missiles in Cuba, and when to look for the possibility of compromise.
The more I’ve learned about politics and the presidency, the more I’ve been sobered by the combination of temperamental stability and intellectual rigor these decisions demand. Stability, not to be panicked or rushed or provoked. Rigor, to understand what more you need to know, but also to recognize when you must make a choice even with less information than you would like.”

#1168 – Dick Bernard: The Sunday Night Debate, two days later.

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It is one month until election day. My personal position is here.
In this post I want to focus on an important, slightly noticed, aspect of Sunday nights debate.
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An outcome of civility in political conversation, 2016

An outcome of civility in political conversation, 2016


Sunday night I watched the entire debate from St. Louis. Yesterday, a long-time friend told of a Dad, who watched the debate with his son, whose class had been assigned to watch the debate. One can only imagine the class discussion on the day after the night before….
For me, there was one question that mattered Sunday night. It was the last question, from one of the citizens, and except for the moderators and whoever chose the questioner, it is likely that no one, including Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump, knew it was coming.
As best I recall, that last question was, basically, is there anything good you can say about your opponent?
Secretary Clinton complimented Mr. Trump on his kids. As a Dad with over 50 years experience, knowing the ups and downs of Dadsmanship, I thought that was a pretty neat compliment.
Mr. Trump complimented Secretary Clinton on her toughness (as I interpreted his response): “she doesn’t quit; she doesn’t give up…”. In his arena, power is everything, and she was ‘toe to toe’, not giving an inch. That, too, I thought was a pretty neat compliment.
So far, two days later, I have seen or heard no op eds about that final question. There have been mentions, but brief. Still, that moment on Sunday was a brave appeal for civility in the political conversation.
Politics has always been a competition of ideas. It is only in relatively recent years that it has become sanctioned brutality towards the opponent. “Character assassination” in all of its manifestations is rampant.
Back in 2004 I came across a particularly pertinent comment by then-U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey about the nature of politics. Sen. Humphrey used a pencil as metaphor, and you can read the short description on my website here. The quotation is the first paragraph; the rest of the writing is mine. The paragraph speaks for itself.
Vigorous debate has always been a part of politics. Sanctioned brutality and polarization are much more recent, and dangerous. Abraham Lincoln famously said “a house divided against itself cannot stand“. Last I heard, success comes from being together, not in a civil war, at every level.
It happened that right before the Sunday debate I was at a meeting with my local legislative candidate, JoAnn Ward, Minnesota House District $53A.
JoAnn (she’s third from left in the above photo) is seeking her third term; the first term as part of the majority party; the second as part of the minority.
From the beginning, she was aware of how dysfunctional government had become; where helping government work through bipartisan effort had become subordinate to partisan politics, each side distrusting of the other: the objective temporary power.
Early on, she decided to become a difference-maker, becoming active in a non-partisan national group called “National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD)“.
The picture that leads this post will be part of a major mailer to JoAnn’s constituents soon. As will the neat graphic which makes up the address side of the mailer (portion of the graphic pictured below).
From a political mailer on civility.

From a political mailer on civility.


Sunday night a citizen in St. Louis asked the question and became part of the solution.
Similarly, JoAnn Ward as a legislator is taking a leadership role in doing the same.
As citizens, we all have a role to play in changing the conversation.
What is yours?

#1167 – Dick Bernard: The gathering at the Band Shell. Some thoughts before the next political debate, and election day, 2016.

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Thursday morning, as I was leaving Valley City ND, I stopped in at the City Park to take the below photo. It was in this park, at this band shell, that I heard Gov. Nelson Rockefeller speak in June, 1960, as he was seeking the Republican nomination for President.
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Band Shell, City Park, Valley City ND Oct 6, 2016

Band Shell, City Park, Valley City ND Oct 6, 2016


I wrote about the event I witnessed that pleasant June day in 1960 at that Band Shell in November, 1996. You can read it below. At the end of the post I explain why I wrote the piece.
Today is a month before November 8, 2016, Election Day in the U.S. (My personal opinion, from Sep. 24, 2016, can be read here.) A follow-up comment following the October 9 debate in St. Louis is here.
*
Politics seems different now, brutal. It has always been hard-nosed, but it seems meaner and nastier today.
Friday of this week, the day after Valley City, I was having the “free breakfast” at a motel in Fargo, N.D. The TV was on droning as usual; and on came, a couple of times, an absolutely hideous political ad painting Hillary Clinton in the most unattractive way possible, doing as designers of these pieces do: picking the worst of the worst, and emphasizing it. Such advertising is said to work, which is sad, since there is no interest in any professional accuracy in articulating differences in philosophy, as we were treated to in June, 1960.
How deep are the depths of public political meanness? We don’t seem to have reached rock bottom yet, but we have to be close. And it doesn’t make for a healthy country.
*
Here’s June 4, 1960 remembered from the vantage point of the election of 1996, respectively 14 and 5 Presidential election cycles ago.
A REFLECTION BY AN AMERICAN PERSON (ONE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE)
by Dick Bernard
November 27, 1996
While observing the often sordid political campaign of ’96, I found myself revisiting in my mind a scene in the Valley City (ND) City Park in the summer of 1960.
I was, then, a 20-year-old college student, about a year from attaining the right to vote. I remember a beautiful sunshiny day, with many people gathered around the bandstand in this small partk, which was bordered on three sides by the beautiful Sheyenne River. This day a high school band was playing. We were waiting for a visit of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, then beginning to seek – unsuccessfully it turned out – his party’s nod for the 1960 Presidential race.
I recall that the governor came, was politely received by all in attendance, gave his speech, and left for his next stop. It was a thrilling day for me, being the first time I had actually seen in person a real national political figure.
My memory of that day carried forward for 36 years. I do not remember the content of the governor’s speech, nor the precise date. What I do remember was the civility and respectfulness of the occasion. It was one of those positive memories we all carry about certain events, with the passage of years perhaps revising the reality of the event.
In my mind, I contasted that gentle day in 1960 with the “slash and burn” disrespect-of-others-as-persons national spectacle presented from 1993 to 1996 by political leaders and their parties, including Ross Perot’s, as well as by many business and labor PAC’s, and others. I labelled may of this year’s actions “character assassination by pious hypocrites”. I think I was accurate.
But did my perception of that 1960 gathering match the reality With profound thanks to Rebecca Heise of the Barnes County (ND) Historical Society, I recently re-visited what really happened that day, June 4,1960″
“The June 3 Valley City Time-s Record reported that the governor, after speaking for about 10 minutes, would spend about 20 minutes shaking hands with North Dakotans following the speechmaking.” The governor and his party were accompanied by “a busload of newsmen and commentators….” and “[t]he Litchville high school band…present[ed] a concert…until the governor [arrived].
So far,so good…. Perception conformed with reality.
The June 5 Fargo Forum reported on Mr. Rockefeller’s speech: “Estimates of upwards of 1,200 persons cheered Rockefeller…in the Valley City park.”
“We, in a free land, often take for granted the many blessings we enjoy,” Rockefeller told the Valley City gathering.
“So it is wonderful to see so many here today to take part in this political rally,” he added.
“It’s too bad so many people say that politics is a dirty business, when in reality it is the life-blood of the American government. When they tell me that politics is a dirty business I tell them ‘who don’t you get into politics then and clean it up’?”
He said that freedom has never been challenged more than it is today.
“This was shown,” he added, “by the wrecking of the summit conference where insults were hurled at President Eisenhower who has dedicated his life, first as a military man, and now as President, working to help this nation through trying times.”
So…in the speech I heard the governor talk about “dirt” and “insults” as a part of the then-political process.
Did this mean that the 1996 campaigns were nothing more than “the same old, same old” of contemporary politics in 1960? I don’t think so.
As months went on in 1960: Governor Rockefeller lost the Republican nomination to Richard Nixon. John Kennedy won both the Democratic nod and the election (I was still not old enough to vote).
Political “dirt” in 1960, in my recollection, was pristine compared to today. John Kennedy’s peccadilloes, reported ad nauseum in recent years, apparently were widely known and considered as private matters by most everyone – press and opposition included – in 1960. If there was a personal “character issue” it never filtered down to the grass roots. Richard Nixon, who might have easily won a 1996-style “personal character” test in 1960, in 1974 resigned the U.S. presidency in disgrace.
Kennedy’s religion – Roman Catholic – was perhaps more exploited as an issue than any other in the 1960 election. TV was a campaign player in 1960 – witness Richard Nixon’s five o’clock shadow and its supposed effect on viewers in the first televised debate ever. But TV news then was not the instantaneous, full color business it is today. Rather, the medium used black and white film, and TV advertising and news were not developed to the extent they are now. A smaller percentage of Americans owned TV sets than now. There were no mute buttons or remotes to use to tune out junk either. But, in 1960, we were spared endless hours of sophomoric attack ads on the tube.
As an electorate, those who voted in 1960 had yet to deal with the harsh reality of President Kennedy’s assassination, the Vietnam War, and the battles on many fronts for assorted civil and human rights. Some would say we were naive, then.
In short, the environment Governor Rockefeller described that June day in Valley City was dramatically different from today, eevn though he used rhetoric still familiar to all of us.
Will we ever again approach the relatively innocent and naive days of 1960? I often wonder….
Tabloid journalism has infected today’s mainstream media – sometimes there seem to be too many newspeople and too little news. Many pundits and other media persons are so blatantly partisan – left and right – that their highly polished one-sided arguments merit little or no serious attention. Some have worked in Republican or Democrat administrations as speechwriters of spokespersons.
Much of contemporary talk radio is nothing more than “infotainment” – with credible “info” in very short supply.
Today’s television has in many ways become an Orwellian wasteland in the hand of those who seek to influence political decisions, including religious leaders, commentators and politicians of all persuasions. The airwaves are full of faux-sincerity. Messengers know how to use the medium; how to stay on message; and how to avoid answering touch questions without seeming to avoid those questions. The manipulation of the camera is so universal and so transparent that is it (hopefully) beginning to reduce TV’s impact as a credible medium.
Today ever more complex and advanced technology seems ascendant, with messages, opinions and rumors zapped instantaneously and worldwide via the Internet. Will this, too, suffer from fatal credibility problems when the novelty wears of and use of the medium has been sufficiently abused? What will be the next stage…?
I hope that 1996 was the nadir of sanctioned disrespect of candidates especially at the national level. I cannot see how we an go much lower than we descended in 1996, and still attract candidates who are capable of the immensely complex ob of leading this magnificent country, and who are willing to face the intense, unfair, daily and unremitting scrutiny of their personal lives, and then endless second guessing of their every decision. It is as if a microscope is used to find every flaw, no matter how small, and then each flaw is absurdly magnified.
I wonder what business would succeed if its officers and products were as constantly ridiculed and second-guessed as are political candidates and government these days. I wonder what business would succeed if if its leaders were a polar opposites in philosophy about the product line, and ruled by a “winner take all” credo in Board of Director votes. I suspect business, under current public policy tradition, would be rife with failure – customers would not buy its products. even if the products were highly desirable and essential.
Had Colin Powell run this year, he would have become fodder for the media and for his opposition, and i would not be surprised to learn some day that this was a major factor in his declining to run for public office. There are means, far easier and less humiliating than politics, for him to accumulate money, power and influence. We all – including the general – have “something to hide”. General Powell doubtless knew that in a campaign he would not have been treated deferentially like his predecessor general Dwight Eisenhower was treated in 1952.
How about “we, the [American] people”? Since I earned the right to vote in 1961, I have cast my informed vote, to my recollection, in every election. This makes me feel qualified to spout off to the 50% of the American citizens who did not even vote in November 1996 (and the 60 percent who did not vote in 1994.)
I have personally become sick and tired of the endless analysis of what the “American people” were saying when they voted this Nov. 5. Every imaginable “special interest” seems to have had its own spin” on what “we, the people” decided.
When I stood in line at the polls at 6:45 a.m. that chilly Tuesday, the 30 or so of us waiting to vote didn’t talk about the issues, or look like Republicans or Democrats, or treat each other disrespectfully. We were there as individuals – as “American persons” – to mark our ballots and fulfill our civic duty. I suspect mine was not an unusual polling place.
I admit ambivalence about those who did not vote. Perhaps it is best that they stayed away, if their source of political information was TV ads and the like. Having said that, those who succumbed to cynicism (a hope of those who strategically use negative advertising or rhetoric to encourage people to stay away from the polls) or whose views are so narrow that they could not find the perfect candidate to represent them, do not deserve the respect they seem to demand. They copped out and effectively gave up their right to be credible critics.
Are there any silver linings as this election season ends? I think there are many. More so than I’ve ever seen before, efforts are being made to once again develop an honest an credible political process.
Mr. Rockefeller in June, 1960, said it right: “It’s too bad so many people say that politics is a dirty business, when in reality it is the life-blood of American government. When they tell me that politics is a dirty business I tell them ‘why don’t you get into politics then and clean it up’?”
There is hope for our country’s political system – but only if we get actively involved beginning now. As citizens we need to constructively advise those committed people who are willing to represent us in all levels of government. We need to learn the issues, and develop constructive opinions about these issues. If we identify problems we need to also identify solutions.
This is our country – the richest, most powerful, complex and divers on earth. It needs us and we need it.”
POSTNOTE:
A single event, a last straw, finally motivated me to write about how I saw politics in the year 1996.
I was single, and working, and in those years generally watched CNN for “news”. Sometime in October, 1996, Newt Gingrich was on the tube, looked me straight in the eye (as one does on television), and lied through his teeth about something I knew something about.
It was then I decided to turn off the television, and for an extended period of time, at least months, probably more. I found out that I didn’t miss TV, and when I did begin again to watch it, much more sparsely than before, I noticed things, like the fact that advertising was emphasized far more than programming.
As a nation we tend to be addicted to images on iPhone and Television and the like. It is not healthy for our society.
Personally, I’m interested in how I saw politics in America in 1960, and 1996; and my hopes for the future.
I’ve made my own observations. The reader can as well.
We have work to do.

#1166 – Dick Bernard: The Presidential Debate, and a Look Back at some 1927 Debates in the United States… "And Nothing But The Truth"

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September 27: DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT, AND DO YOU HAVE COMMENTS ABOUT THE DEBATE? Let me know. We went to a house party in the area. There were 25 of us, “birds of a feather” I’d guess, all of us serious demeanor and very attentive. I felt Secretary Clinton did a very good job: Mr. Trump was as always; and the audience at Hofstra was relatively well behaved. Lester Holt did the best he could. I still am not sure of the substantive value of political debates as they are now staged. dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom.

Watching the Debate Sep. 26, 2016.

Watching the Debate Sep. 26, 2016.


September 26 Post:
Most likely we will be joining a group to watch the debate tonight. About the only preliminary reading I have done specifically about the debate is here. It speaks for itself.
The “debate” tonight will speak for itself as well.
It seems an appropriate time to recall an interesting round of debates in the year 1927 in the midwest and western United States. The debaters were young graduates of Cambridge University in England. The details follow, if you are interested. The circumstances are a serendipity kind of story.
(click to enlarge)
The itinerary of the Cambridge Union Society debate team, 1927

The itinerary of the Cambridge Union Society debate team, 1927


The teams that they debated against are on page two, here: 1927-debates002
My summary of debater Alan King-Hamiltons Diary of the Debate story is here: 1927-debates003
A photo of the three debaters and their Cambridge Union colleagues is here:
Cambridge Union Society with committee and two guest speakers 8 June, 1927. Debaters in America, Fall 1927: Alan King-Hamilton and H. L. Elvin, front 4&5th from left; H. M Foot, back, 4th from left. From King-Hamilton's book, "And Nothing But the Truth".

Cambridge Union Society with committee and two guest speakers 8 June, 1927. Debaters in America, Fall 1927: Alan King-Hamilton and H. L. Elvin, front 4&5th from left; H. M Foot, back, 4th from left. From King-Hamilton’s book, “And Nothing But the Truth”.


How this 1927 story came to be:
My father and I and four others traveled to Quebec in 1982, and on one day an English lady joined us for our days excursions. We were all staying at Laval University.
Over the years, Mary and I kept in touch by annual greeting cards. I knew little about her except that she was a dealer in old books.
In November 2001 my wife and I went on a trip to London, and I let Mary know we were coming. She volunteered to show us around. At this point, I didn’t know that her father, then still living, was Alan King-Hamilton, a retired judge of the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London.
I don’t recall the sequence, but we met Judge King-Hamilton in person, a most charming gentleman, well into his 90s; and she also showed us Middle Temple, of which her father was a long-time member.
We went into the library, and I was casually browsing, and noted the spine of a book, “And Nothing but the Truth“ by Judge Alan King-Hamilton QC, her father.
I picked the book up, flipped the pages, and the first stop was page 13 where in mid-page was a comment “Our debating tour took us right down the Middle West, from North Dakota….”
North Dakota! That was where I was from. That was where my Dad had planned to go to University in 1927, but had to revise his plans when his Dad’s employer, the flour mill, closed, and the bank that held all their savings also closed within a week of each other.
It all went from there. I received from Mary a book personally autographed by the Judge, and he also privileged me with the 45 page transcript of the diary of he and two colleagues 1927 tour of the midwest and west as part of the Fulbright (then called IIE) exchange program.
Out of the transcript I wrote the summary which you can read above.
There were elements of tonights debate back in 1927, but what was most striking to me is the formality of the competition.
The debaters needed to be completely versed in the affirmative and negative of six potential questions, and weren’t certain of what question they would be debating, whether affirmative or negative, until right before the debate began. Presumably, their competitors were under the same rules, though I’m sure there were temptations to fudge.
Enjoy, and thanks to Alan King-Hamilton and his daughter, Mary, who still lives in suburban London.

#1165 – Dick Bernard: Hillary Clinton, the 2016 United States Elections, with emphasis on the "s".

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UPDATE: Followup Posts to Sep 24:
27. Related post about the Sep. 26, 2016 Debate A look back at 1927 debates.
28. Oct 8, 2016: The Gathering at the Band Shell.
29. Oct. 11, 2016: The Sunday night debate, two days later.
30. Oct. 18, 2016: “Trustworthy”? “Honesty”?
31. Oct. 22, 2016: “The Times They are a-changing”
32. Oct. 26, 2016: “The Down-Ballot Elections”
33. Nov. 1, 2016: One Week to Election Day
34. Nov. 8, 2016: Election Day, 2016
35. Nov. 9, 2016: The U.S. Election
36. Nov. 10, 2016: After the Shock
37. Nov. 11, 2016: The 98th Armistice Day
Not yet registered to vote, or know someone who isn’t? Here’s the information for wherever you happen to live.
“It’s too bad so many people say that politics is a dirty business, when in reality it is the life-blood of the American government. When they tell me that politics is a dirty business I tell them ‘why don’t you get into politics then and clean it up’?”
(see more, including source, in Postnote 1.)
PRE-NOTE: I am only a single citizen, but I am one. Following are some of many thoughts.
I’d be honored if you passed this post along.
(About the “s”: There are many offices local, state and national, up for election Nov. 8, or other times. They have every bit as much significance as the office of President. Know your offices and the candidates for them and where those candidates stand, and vote well informed.)
SOME OLD, AND POLITICAL, STAMPS (see Postnote 2.)
(click to enlarge any photo)

Some old Stamps

Some old Stamps

MY PERSONAL ENDORSEMENTS. (More about my own philosophy in Postnote 3.)
clinton-kaine001
HILLARY CLINTON for President. I have been on record supporting Hillary Clinton since February, 2008, at the Minnesota Precinct Caucuses. Even then, she impressed me with her competence, her experience and the necessary toughness to take the abuse of contemporary American political campaigns. She is trustworthy, and she is honest, and she is respected. She has an extremely strong background and expertise for the demanding job of President of the United States.
My post about endorsing Hillary can be found at July 31, 2016, here.
More so than ever, the Democratic Party is the voice of moderation, of vision, the party of “WE” as distinguished from “ME”, recognizing we are a diverse nation, committed to Paul Wellstone‘s timeless adage “We all do better when we all do better”, rather than subject to a system which, in effect, reveres winners and despises losers.
hillary-2008001
GRIDLOCK
There is gridlock in Washington, and the blame is not 50-50.
The GOP leadership made it obvious with their very publicly professed intention, acted on when President Obama took office in January, 2009, and ever since, to do their utmost to make him fail, to not cooperate. They continue the practice to this day.
Obama came into office hoping to work together, but the GOP (and unfortunately many on the Left) interpreted a willingness to compromise as a sign of weakness, rather than the strength that it is.
President Obama has done a superb job given a complete lack of bipartisanship.
Hillary Clinton is respected by this opposition, and she should be, as a former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State, but her very strength as a leader terrifies them…
I believe in the value of a strong two party system in this country. Until moderate GOP leaders can once again assume leadership roles in their own party, the GOP will have its current radical right wing cast.
THE ‘TRUTH’ ISSUE AGAINST HILLARY CLINTON.
Labeling Hillary Clinton a liar was a deliberate strategy, but it has been called out, though most true believers won’t read or accept the obvious lie which led to this campaign.
Quite likely, we are a lying society (start with a look at yourself). Maybe it is true that everyone, everywhere, lies. Maybe it is part of the human condition. Any system which relies on negotiations or diplomacy to succeed, from a marriage onward, cannot be totally truthful. Anyone who has ever negotiated anything realizes that complete truth is not possible. Negotiations begins with differences. So, every comment about Truth has to be relative – compared to what?
I have written a great deal about how I saw the 2016 primary campaign (list at the end of this post). The post that most directly addressed the political “truth” issue is this one, “God for President” April 5, 2016. Especially note the Politifact chart about the truthiness of the then primary candidates for President at Dec. 11, 2015. It speaks for itself.
(A textbook study of “truth” as uttered by politicians generally can well be a study of the opinions publicly expressed by 2016 Republican Presidential candidates about each other and by and about themselves during the 2016 Primary and now Election season. The latest example is Sen. Ted Cruz who hated Donald Trump publicly and now has publicly embraced him. What is Cruz’s real opinion? This is only one of a great many “ends justify the means”.)
At minimum, judge the candidates and the parties similarly.
(See Comment 1 and 1A at end of this post.)
[Overnight Monday a.m.m came this commentary on the issue, related to the debates on Monday. It is long, but worth reading.)
“MISTAKES”
There is literally nothing that a person in high office can do which will satisfy everyone, and every decision can be criticized. I am particularly amused by people in influence, in opposition, who say they would have done this or that differently. Certainly. It is easy to say.
THE AGE DEAL
I am at least six years senior to both Presidential candidates, and I feel at the most productive time of my life.
The typical President is much younger (President Obama came into office at age 47, Abraham Lincoln at age 52, died at 55; JFK was 46 when he was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963). Advancing age does remind people of its encroachment. On the other hand, while I haven’t counted, my sense is that most of the memorials I’ve attended in recent years have been for people younger than myself. None of us live forever. And even at 76 I still gather huge wisdom from people older than myself. While it is impossible to have a scaled back political campaign – and it’s a young persons gig – once in office, there are many ways to manage work load without killing oneself by exhaustion.
Age is no more an issue than youth. Anyone of us, at any age, can get notice of a rude ending at any time. Each “season” of our lives has its strengths and its weaknesses.
THE RECORD OF THE TWO MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES:
If one is to fairly assess the records of the two parties, there are two time periods that need to be factored into the accounting (third or fourth or fifth parties are still only theoretical in American national politics. We are a two party system). A more fair assessment must include two time periods.
2001-2009 – The George W. Bush/Republican years.
2009-2016 – The Barack Obama years, dampened by Republican dominance in Congress.
There seems to be amnesia even amongst liberals about the catastrophic years of 2001-2009 when the choice of the then-Republican administration was to ride the wild horses of war and reckless domestic policy and false prosperity which led very nearly to a bankrupt country by this time in 2008. (It takes time to recover; oddly, the Democrats are blamed for the recovery moving too slowly…more honestly, work towards recovery has been sabotaged by obstruction at most every turn.)
THE POLLS; THE “DEBATES”
The endless polls, and their even more endless analysis, have only one purpose: to make “news” out of non-news. The dedication is to a horse-race, which enhances income for big media (and for endless solicitations from candidates or parties or causes of all sorts).
I think I can recall a single time being interviewed for a poll. It was quite a number of years ago. A typical national poll might interview something over 1,000 people (perhaps 20 of whom might be from my own state, whose population is over 5 million). They are, I suppose, “valid” within the normal range of error, but only for that particular sample for that particular day.
Theoretically, one could dispense with elections entirely…just do a poll…I hope it never comes to that, but every single poll is portrayed as an “election” in itself.
Then there are things like polls of polls….
They are useless.
I have little more confidence in “debates” as reflectors of any reality.
A FINAL THOUGHT: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF EVERY CITIZEN OF THIS DEMOCRACY.
Gov. Nelson Rockefeller said it well that pleasant June day in 1960 in Valley City ND (the quote leading this post).
My great-Uncle Art, who I never met, has a different message in the below letter written in Dubuque Iowa November 13, 1932. (click on the letter to enlarge it)

Portion of letter from my Aunt Lucina's Uncle Art, Nov. 13, 1932

Portion of letter from my Aunt Lucina’s Uncle Art, Nov. 13, 1932

I don’t know what the impediments were to Uncle Art’s voting in 1932. He was obviously literate, and he’d lived in the United States for a great many years at the time of the 1932 election. He was a working man, with a job as a custodian at a college.
1932 happened to be the first election of the Great Depression, the election that brought Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the Presidency.
I know for a fact that in 1933, in that same town of Dubuque, Iowa, Uncle Art’s brother-in-law lost his job in a factory which closed, and almost the entire family was forced to pick up stakes and move back to a farm in North Dakota where, it was reasoned, at least they could have a garden and not starve. The 1930s was a very rough row for them to hoe.
But, for whatever reason, Uncle Art, then perhaps at least 45 years old, decided not to vote.
Show up and vote well informed, November 8. There is plenty of time left. In many states voting is already proceeding. Once again, for registration procedures by state: here.
POSTNOTE 1: Gov. Nelson Rockefeller
The quote at the beginning of this post was by then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, then campaigning for the 1960 Republican Presidential nomination. I saw him speak in person that day, and later wrote about it, including the Fargo Forum article including the quote from his speech, which you can see on page two, here: 1996 Political Campaign001
POSTNOTE 2: The Stamps
I continue to go through the remnants of my Aunt and Uncles long lives, and not long ago looked through some old stamps they had kept in a freezer bag, possibly an idea for an album which never materialized. The small bag rapidly became a tiny treasure trove, including stamps like those in the collage above. There is a theme to this: the long road from the founding of our country (1789) to Emancipation of the Slaves (1863) to Suffrage for Women (1920) to the entire Civil Rights movement (1960s) to today. Note especially, Frances Willard, Sojourner Truth, and Mary McLeod Bethune. This is one of those pictures with well over 1,000 words of meaning, and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton represent the change that their forbears made possible through years and years of effort.
None of us much likes change, I’d guess. Change is risky. But usually on the other end is something better if we follow through.
POSTNOTE 3: Myself, personally.
I pay a great deal of attention to politics, and am reasonably active, and bill myself in the blog as a moderate pragmatic Democrat. I have rarely voted Republican.
On the other hand, I often self-describe myself as a “Dwight Eisenhower Republican”, and my best political friend for a long while was conservative progressive business and civic leader and former legislator and Governor Elmer L. Andersen, a lifelong Republican.
The moderate progressive Republicans have been banished from their own party, and this is a battle remaining to be fought within the Republican party.
*
The below photo: Gerald Ford was the most unintended of Presidents. He moved from Speaker of the House of Representatives to Vice President when Spiro Agnew resigned (1973); then Ford succeeded Richard Nixon who resigned from the Presidency in 1974. This picture was taken in 1975. This is a reminder that the Presidency is not always a simple matter. It matters who occupies every office.

President Gerald Ford August 19, 1975. Photo by Dick Bernard, top of Tom Bernards head just visible in foreground. Tom was 11.

President Gerald Ford August 19, 1975. Photo by Dick Bernard, top of Tom Bernards head just visible in foreground. Tom was 11.

PRIOR POSTS ON ELECTION 2016:
1. June 6, 2015: A Visit to the Commons
2. January 27, 2016: Iowa and What Follows: Revisiting 1984
3. February 3, 2016: The Iowa Primaries and Ourselves
4. February 11, 2016: The New Hampshire Primary…and us.
5. February 13, 2016: Hillary and Bernie (or is it Bernie and Hillary?)
6. March 1, 2016: One View of Minnesota Precinct Caucus on Super Tuesday Mar. 1, 2016
7. March 9, 2016: The Michigan Primary Election
8. April 5, 2016: God for President (or in the alternative….)
9. April 19, 2016: A Culture of Sanctioned Disrespect
10. April 26, 2016: Attending a Political Convention: Does this make me, or us “Party Hacks”?
11. May 3, 2016:: A Political Conversation on the Day of the Indiana Primary.
12. May 11, 2016: West Virginia, and on we go.
13. June 23, 2016: “Politics”, “Politicians”, and “Bureaucrats”
14. July 2, 2016: Dealing with Un-reason
15. July 6, 2016: The State Department E-mails, and a Personal Reflection Back.
16. July 16, 2016: The 2008 Republican Convention. Remembering Peace Island and Other Things.
17. July 19, 2016: The First Night of the RNC 2016
18. July 31, 2016: Why I’m Supporting Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.
19. August 3, 2016: The Newspaper; Government by Twitter.
20. August 9, 2016: The Minnesota Primary Election.
21. August 10, 2016: The Danger of Dog Whistle Politics.
22. August 18, 2016: Changing the Political Conversation: Two Remarkable Events
23. August 26, 2016: The “Swiftboating” of Hillary Clinton: the e-mails and Clinton Global Initiative and whatever else is next.
24. September 1, 2016: Peter Barus on Politics
25. September 13, 2016: U.S. President Candidates Respond to Science Questions.
COMMENTS:
1. from Carl: Disagree-Not everyone lies. Some do and get away with it and others not! Poor Martha Stewart!
1A. Response from Dick: I thought a long time about making the statement to which Carl objects (“everyone lies”). There are endless examples. On a recent evening I was giving a good friend, a retired professor, a ride home and we were talking about diplomacy, which is part of a Secretary of State’s duty. The very nature of negotiations, which diplomacy always is, presumes that neither side is completely truthful. It would be a fool who would presume otherwise.
Along the other end of the spectrum are the so-called “white lies” (“you’re looking very nice today”, when what you mean is not that at all. You’re just trying to be polite.)
In the old Catholic school days, the Nuns taught us about lies of omission (leaving important facts out), or commission (just telling a whopper).
We all lie, including selective accusations about who lies more….
Just an hour or two ago I was on a walk, and ran into a friend, walking in the other direction. We stopped to chat, as people do, and in the process shared some data about someone we both know – useful and new data for both of us, which would be helpful to our mutual friend. If pressed, would I acknowledge there was such a conversation? No, I wouldn’t. Would I be lying? Probably. Things like this happen all of the time, and can, as we know, be set up by someone with malicious intentions towards the other. Such set-ups are staples of dirty politics.
2. from Norm: Right on, Dick, and very well done!
I can remember that highly non-partisan statesman*, Sen. McConnell stating upon the election of President Obama that his/their/GOP job was to make sure that Obama was a one-term president, something that he/they obviously failed miserably at, his thirteen jowls not with standing.
Just another pompous, self-righteous dumb bottom who some how had risen to a position of power in the US Senate.
And, yes, there are too damn many folks on both sides of the aisle who cannot compromise on important issues and, further, who think that any compromising by them and/or the elected officials that they supported is the worst kind of behavior. That includes a hell of a lot of Democrats to be honest about this who get carried away in thinking that whatever position that they hold on an important issue of the day is pure, black and white and should not be modified or changed in anyway.
(Hell, I can remember one avid Obama supporter throwing up her hands in disgust at a DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) event about three months after the 2008 election claiming that Obama had not done everything let alone anything that the had promised that he would do during the campaign!)
“We may not win on this but by god, we know that we have done the right thing and have made the right fight!”
Nothing may get done as a result, of course but SOB, those folks might say, “”at least the other side didn’t win either so…lets hold hands and get into a group hug while singing kumbya and doggone it all, we will feel good about what we have “accomplished!””
The only difference with the other side in the same situation is that they will say that failing to compromise on an important issue from which they would benefit from compromising is that they talked to God and she told them not to compromise.
They wouldn’t do the group hug and singing kumbya while holding hands thing as that is just a little too personal for those folks.Emoji
Nice job once again, Dick.
* Really, Norm!

ScienceDebate.org: Released today: U.S. President Candidates Respond to Science Questions.

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NOTE: Set aside adequate time to really closely review this link, released today: U.S. Presidential Candidates Answer ScienceDebate 2016 Questions.
ScienceDebate.org has, since before the 2012 Presidential Election, been advocating for candidates for public office to answer specific questions related to Science and public policy.
The above link is a major and long overdue and very positive development, where several of the candidates for U.S. President publicly answer pertinent questions prior to the 2016 election.
A related post about ScienceDebate co-founder Shawn Otto’s new book, “The War on Science”, on the treatment of science in the public policy debate, past and present, is here.

#1163 – Dick Bernard: 9-11-16, and the dark days of 2001-2009

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Friday, my wife and I and our 87 year old neighbor Don, went to the local theatre to be among the first to see the new movie, Sully, the incredible story of the emergency landing of an airliner in the Hudson River off NYC in January, 2009. “How can you take a 90 second event and turn it into a 90 minute movie?” my friend asked.
Very, very easily. Take in the film. The basic true story is here.
*
Of course (I’m certain), the movie was timed to be released on the eve of the 15th anniversary of 9-11-01, even though the near-disaster actually happened in January, 2009.
I have feelings about 9-11-01. At the end of this post, I share a few personal links from that period in time. I will always have doubts about certain and substantial parts of the official narrative about what happened that awful day, though that labels me as a “conspiracy theorist” I suppose. So be it.
*
But what occurs to me this day in 2016 came to mind a few days ago when I found a cardboard envelope in a box, whose contents included this certificate (8 1/2×11 in original size).
Notice the signature on the certificate (Donald Rumsfeld) and the date of the form printed in the lower left corner (July 1, 2001). (Click to enlarge).
cold-war-certificate-001
The full contents of the envelope can be viewed here: cold-war-cert-packet003
Of course, people like myself had no idea why the article appeared in the newspaper, or how this particular project came to be.
It is obvious from the documents themselves that the free certificate was publicized no later than sometime in 1999; and the certificate itself wasn’t mailed until some time in 2001 to my then mailing address…. The original website about the certificate seems no longer accessible, but there is a wikipedia entry about it.
When I revisited the envelope I remembered a working group of powerful people called the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) formed in the late 1990s.
The group as then constituted no longer officially exists, but had (my opinion) huge influence on America’s disastrous response to 9-11-01 (which continues to this day).
Many members of this select group, including Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard B. Cheney, strategized to establish permanent U.S. dominance in the world, and had very high level positions in the administration of George W. Bush, 2001-2009. PNAC was no benign committee of friends meeting for coffee every Saturday. To cement the notion that to have peace you must be stronger than the enemy…there has to be an enemy. If not a hot war, then a cold war will have to do. Keep things unsettled and people will follow some dominant leader more easily.
Their Cold War ended in December, 1991, as you’ll note, which likely was cause for concern. 9-11-01 became the magic elixir for a permanent war with an enemy….
(I happen to be a long-time member of the American Legion also – the Cuban Missile Crisis and the beginning of the Vietnam era were part of my tour of duty in the Army – and much more recently, the Legion magazine
updated talk about the Cold War, here: America at War001.)
My opinion: there remains a desperate and powerful need by powerful entities to sustain an enemy for the U.S. to fight against and, so goes the story, “win”, to borrow a phrase and “make America great again”. As we learned in the years after 9-11-01, dominance has a huge and unsustainable cost. But the idea still lives on.
The mood of the people of this country is for peace – it is simple common sense – but peacemakers have to do much more than simply demonstrate against war to have it come to pass, in a sustainable fashion.
*
Yes, 9-11-01 was very impactful for me. Here are three personal reflections: 1) chez-nous-wtc-2001002; 2) here; and 3) here: Post 9-11-01001.
I have never been comfortable with the official explanations about many aspects of 9-11-01 and what came after. It is not enough to be ridiculed into silence. Eight years ago my friend Dr. Michael Andregg spent a year doing what I consider a scholarly piece of work about some troubling aspects he saw with 9-11-01. You can watch it online in Rethinking 9-11 at the website, Ground Zero Minnesota. Dr. Andregg made this film for those who are open to critical thinking about an extremely important issue. I watched it again, online, in the last couple of days. It is about 54 minutes, and very well done. Take a look.
Let’s make 9-11-01 a day for peace, not for endless and never to be won war. Humanity deserves better.
(click to enlarge. Photos: Dick Bernard, late June, 1972)

World Trade Center Towers late June 1972, New York City

World Trade Center Towers late June 1972, New York City


Twin Towers from Statue of Liberty, late June, 1972. (one tower was newly opened, the other nearly completed)

Twin Towers from Statue of Liberty, late June, 1972. (one tower was newly opened, the other nearly completed)


Here, thanks to a long ago handout at a workshop I took in the early 70s, is a more normal reaction sequence to a crisis. As you’ll note, it is useful to allow 9-11-01 to live on and on and on. It is not healthy.
(click to enlarge)
Handout from a circa 1972 workshop.

Handout from a circa 1972 workshop.

#1160 – Peter Barus on politics; plus, an opportunity to view the entire 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Forum.

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NOTE from Dick Bernard: Peter commented after last weeks post on Swiftboating Hillary Clinton. His always perceptive remarks are below. He writes from Vermont. His previous posts can be found here.
In addition, recently I received the link to all of the plenary session talks at the outstanding 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Forum in Minneapolis. The Forum was outstanding, and I was privileged to attend it. At minimum take a look. The Forum was especially great this year.
PETER BARUS:
In the political discourse effectiveness is measured against what we’re after in the first place. Are we seeking to support a candidate by defending their “narrative” (meaning, the carefully focus-grouped, workshopped and spin-doctored story saturating the corporate media channels)? That’s defending the story, not the candidate. Are we seeking to hold a candidate’s actions and words up to the light of proven fact? Usually we test for consistency of word and deed, and leave fact out of it. Are we hoping for some break in the timeworn, corrupt and entrenched “system” that might finally, for once in all of history, provide for an actual election that is actually free and fair? And results in the elevation of an incorruptible and honest leader? Well, we do almost universally profess to be in favor of exactly that.
The candidates know this terrain very, very well. Bernie Sanders (my Senator) knew from the start that he would fail to be nominated, much less elected: he knows how things are done in America. But it was a kind of reverse-Reagan action: he hoped to shift the center to make an election include values and voices that are always marginalized. Clinton is of course a master of the Way of Washington, and has achieved real and incontestable stature the old fashioned way: she is more “pragmatic” (ruthless and cunning) than all the other aspirants to the Oval Office dare to be. Saving only the Republican Nominee. As for that celebrated personality, his expertise is in fighting by his own rules: on his turf, with him as referee.
In a fight, the first thing is to choose the ground. The Republican did this years ago, and has owned it completely. We may think it is a stupid choice, an insane choice, an immoral choice; but it is the ground on which the candidate stands and hurls his challenges. And it is going to be very tricky for the Democrat to fight him on some other battlefield than the one where he is already fighting. Consider that to hold a debate, the venue will have to be TV, and that’s the ground the Republican has staked out. Clinton’s ground, of international relationships, deep personal understandings with and of world leaders in their political contexts, the management of continual wars around the globe, and the staunch backing of Wall Street – all that is already on TV, and out of her hands. Her ground is part of his ground. Welcome to my world. Said the spider to the fly.
The second thing in a fight is never box a boxer, or wrestle a wrestler. Somebody is going to have to fight a Reality TV host. On Reality TV. That’s two fundamental principles of warfare that he has, and she doesn’t, going in.
The real assets in this campaign are not the money, or the power-brokers, or the smoke-filled rooms. Not the people you insult, or those abandoned by the American Dream, or disparaged for loving Jesus, or too proud to take a government handout. No Minorities or Special Interests matter here. Nor the battle-scars of the top diplomatic office in the United States Government. And most certainly not your “gender”: Lucretia Borgia? Imelda Marcos? Maggie Thatcher for heaven’s sake? What’s sex got to do with it?
No, none of that. What really matters now is attention. Human attention, focused not on the candidate, but on that candidate’s pointing finger, moment by moment. What do they point at? Is it the moon? A reflection? Which candidate will garner the highest ratings while giving us the finger? We will hear all about the type of fake nails on hers, and the exceptional length and girth of his.
There is this funny thing about the human brain. What it perceives it also acts from. This happens before the intellect is engaged. All the intellect can do, after attention has been seized, is rationalize the accompanying behaviors. And there are two basic reactions to the Reality TV candidate’s performances: apathy or outrage. And both of these human responses stoke the fires of his campaign. Outrage for or against, it doesn’t matter at all, the campaign balloons. See, it’s not a “for or against” switch: it’s an On/Off switch. And the light goes on either way while we’re frantically fighting over who gets to flip the switch.
Meanwhile, one candidate trumpets ever more crazy bigotry and xenophobia, and outright lies about economics and his penis; and the other candidate, already trapped in the same discursive space with the opponent’s genital dimensions, sounds like a teacher from a junior high school civics class, going hoarse trying to yell above the noise of excited teenagers as the bell goes off. “DO. YOUR. HOMEWORK! THERE. WILL. BE. A. TEST!”
Whichever candidate’s chosen ground becomes the scene of the big showdown, the real issues will not get any airtime. Instead, one candidate will throw any reasonable discussion into chaos, and the other will flounder helplessly grasping at straws to regain some fraction of public attention. That fraction will hear defensiveness and righteous disdain. And that triumphant, derisive laughter. And the pundits will analyze each nuance of foreign policy, the cost of a wall on the Mexican border, and and whether Clinton killed Bin Laden to silence him about their relationship. But most of the viewers will have passed out by then, after the cathartic relief of seeing the Strict Father put the Nurturant Parent in her place.
Never mind that the former Secretary of State has conducted war after war in precisely that way, sowing chaos. With the Air Force, the Marines, the Army, the Navy, the FBI, the NSA, and the CIA, and organizations that fund aspiring dictators, like the International Republican Institute, and the National Democratic Institute. Pragmatic, utilitarian (non-partisan) tools of State. And her opponent has no experience whatsoever with actual invasions, airstrikes or drone-killings; he just uses metaphorical weapons, like the Big Lie, the verbal sucker-punch, the innuendo, the question-as-fact, the straw-man, the begged question, the categorical denial, the stonewall. And of course, mockery and derision. Tools of Reality TV.
It’s happening on TV. The President is elected on TV. We’re in the domain of attention, remember. In this campaign, a shooting war might get attention, except what’s new about a war? War is just background white-noise now, to most Americans. If it comes up at all it will be to blame the former Secretary for losing it. Whereas a good one-line chant like “lock ‘er up!” will cut to the bone.
But. There is hope. We are not just stimulus-response machines. Your attention please: it is your attention. You can direct it elsewhere. Your attention is yours alone to give. Don’t let them snatch it away. Make them work for it, at least. Take ownership of your attention. Talk with people who are like you, and not like you, face to face. Ask questions, and listen to the answers. We could, theoretically at least, elect a President in an election, and not Reality TV.
Then when those politicians point at something, you can tell whether that’s the moon they’re pointing at, or just the reflection in a mud-puddle.
COMMENTS:
from SAK, in England: Thanks Mr Bernard,
Mr Barus’ comments about choosing the ground for a fight brought to mind part of the reason the UK voted to leave the European Union. The nationalist far right politician Nigel Farage chose the ground to fight on, the same ground Mr Trump has chosen: immigration. The EU means free movement of EU citizens among the member states – it does not mean borders open to all & sundry as the poster Mr Farage hung on his bus seems to imply [hordes of apparent non-natives coming into somewhere]. Furthermore the UK is nowhere near “Breaking Point” as far as welcoming European citizens who wish to live and work there. It seems truth is the first casualty not only of war but of political campaigns as well.
POSTNOTE: Pertinent and timely: Today’s Just Above Sunset, “Under the Volcano“
SECOND POSTNOTE, a column in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune, the headline says it all: Threats replace political dialogue at State Fair. The exact same example the writer uses in her article was used by some guy I had never seen before out in small town North Dakota in March, 2014, commenting on Hillary Clinton outside a building. At that time, 2 1/2 years ago, Hillary Clinton had not been a politician since being appointed Secretary of State in 2009, and when she was a politician, she was simply one of 535 members of the United States Congress. Hatred without benefit of fact is still easily transmitted. The guy who accosted the woman in the op ed would have been a good candidate for the ruffians who enabled the Third Reich in the early days.