#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.

#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

#36 – Dick Bernard: President Obama builds a wall behind U.S. (and everyone else)

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For previous posts mentioning President Obama, see Categories.
A reader comment follows this post
Today President Obama is at Normandy; yesterday at Buchenwald; Thursday at Cairo….
The analysis of the Presidents words is and will be unending, but one particular piece of analysis by a single “special interest” group, and some more general articles about what the speech meant have most caught my attention:
At Cairo, the President, glaringly,  seems to have not used the “T” word, not once.  This has caused great distress in certain circles in our country and elsewhere.  Symbolically, I felt, with his speech he seemed to deliberately end the War on T, the war on a word and the war on everybody, everywhere….
Also, in more than a few instances in that speech, he had made promises – commitments – such as closing Guantanamo, which are politically extremely difficult.  And he challenged others in other countries to figure out  how to solve their problems, with our help.
President Obama’s rhetoric is solutions driven, not problem centered.  Solutions by their nature require cooperation, working together towards a common goal.  They do not presume delegation to someone else or defending the status quo.
The more I think of his words during, and the symbolism of, this most important trip to Europe and the Middle East, the more I am convinced that his administration is consciously and deliberately building “a wall behind” all of us, to at minimum make it more difficult for each and every one of us to retreat back to the familiar, of what was, however dismal that past might have been.
For those whose reputation was made, and whose future relies, on the war on “T” , that “wall behind” has a certain meaning.
For those who railed against that mindset, the same “wall” is as certainly built behind them.  They can choose to take the risk of moving forward into an uncertain future, learning new ways of engagement; or to turn around and try to tear down that wall to go back to the comfort of what was.
Likely each of us can remember some time or circumstance when we built a “wall” of some kind behind us which forced us to go forward, doing something we didn’t want to do.  (Sometimes this is also referred to as “burning bridges behind us”).  This is a good time to reflect on what our “wall” (or “bridge”) might have been, and how we grew when forced to move forward rather than able to go back.
George Santayana was correct in his famous statement “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it“, but there are certainly equally persuasive arguments about the folly of becoming mired in the past and refusing to move on.   It is hard to move forward while always looking back.
We need to look forward, and personally own the future we’re all creating.  The future for ourselves and our fellow world citizens is a future that we build, together.  We depend on this forward looking and acting; even more so, the future of the generations which follow us depend on us.

#35 – Dick Bernard: President Obama speaks from Cairo

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Yesterday afternoon I made a spur of the moment visit to an administrator at a Minneapolis college.  I found his office.  Luckily he was in.  I knocked.  “Come in”, he said.  He was looking at his computer screen, watching a replay of the President Obama speech in Cairo from some hours earlier.
My visit to this college office was not to talk about Obama or the Middle East or such.  I did the business I planned to do, and departed.  We didn’t even mention the speech.  He and I have never talked politics.  I don’t know what his politics is. 
But one of my enduring memories of Obama’s speech in Cairo will definitely be walking into that office, and seeing Tom watching the President speak on his computer screen.  It will remind me of those iconic photographs of families sitting around their radio listening to President Roosevelt address the nation on some critical issue or another in the 1930s or 1940s.  Roosevelt, too, was a master of the art of communications with a distant public. 
My guess is that the scene I witnessed yesterday was repeated  in countless and varied settings here and around the world, particularly in the Muslim world.
As is predictable, every word, every facial expression, every single nuance of the Presidents long speech will be dissected, analyzed and interpreted for its meaning.   The interpreters will focus on their own particular favorite issue, whether he said the right or wrong thing about it, and then “spin” it to their particular preference.
It was an international speech, to the Muslim world in particular, and because of the miracle of technology it can be watched and re-watched over and over and over again.  What Obama said, yesterday, he knows he will be held to.  This was not a campaign speech; rather it was the leader of a powerful country speaking to the entire world. 
Personally, I think the key facets of this speech, yesterday in Cairo at about this time of day U.S. time, were its symbolic aspects:
A.  that it was specifically addressed to the Muslim world;
B.  that it was given in the Muslim world, in Cairo;
C. that it specifically acknowledged and honored the Muslim tradition and the people who are part of that major world religion;
D. that he chose specifically to publicly acknowledge the role of the United States in the overthrow of the elected government of Iran in 1953.
Yesterday, today and beyond there will be endless analysis of the Presidents speech. 
While there are endless and immense problems which no speech can pretend to solve, my own prediction is that President Obama’s speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009, is historically very significant, and can give impetus to a major shift in global relationships.  It provides a floor for new conversations; an opportunity to think in different ways.
He was speaking to world leaders, yes; but he was speaking even more to those ordinary people who in many settings throughout the Muslim world were watching his image on television and listening to his words, perhaps much like common Americans listened to Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II, and then went out and contributed to the necessary effort to accomplish the tasks at hand.
My hope is that all of us will use this speech as an opportunity to move forward, rather than to get mired in the “same old, same old” of focusing on what was or wasn’t said, and how precisely the administration follows through on the text, or not.  Certainly it is important to be vigilant, and to even be critical, but this speech was an entire “book”, more than simply a chapter or a few paragraphs.   
http://www.whitehouse.gov to access a video or transcript of the entire speech

#23 – Dick Bernard: President Obama at Notre Dame University May 17, 2009

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A beautiful Sunday afternoon was very tempting for a good long walk, but I knew that the long anticipated appearance of Barack Obama at Notre Dame was soon to begin, so I delayed the walk and watched the proceedings live on Notre Dame’s website, from the procession of graduates into the fieldhouse, to the remarks following President Obama’s speech.

 

It was a truly remarkable afternoon: grist for an entire semester course condensed into less than two hours of time.

 

I would diminish the event by trying to summarize it.  The most gifted commentators and film editors will similarly diminish it.  It has to be watched. 

 

Those who wish can likely view, or view for a second time, the entire proceedings at the Notre Dame website http://www.nd.edu/.  To get the entire perspective, you really need to watch the proceedings, including the opening prayer, and the student valedictory by a remarkable student, E. Brennan Bollman.

 

For those unable to see it all, it included a history lesson or two or three: the President noted (to no applause – doubtless because it caught a young audience unawares) that today was the 55th anniversary of Brown vs Board of Education, the landmark civil rights case.  And at the end of his speech, the President was presented a photo of former Notre Dame President Theodore Hesburgh with Martin Luther King in Chicago in 1965.  Hesburgh was one of the giants of the civil rights era.  He was at the commencement, nearing his 92nd birthday. 

 

As a lifelong Catholic I could feel pride at the long history of my Church as a champion of social justice.  At points in my life I benefitted from that role.  As a person who brushed up close against the possibility of abortion during my first wife’s last months on earth in the spring and summer of 1965, and is unalterably pro-choice because of my personal experience, I listened closely for, and heard, acknowledgement of the difficulties inherent in adopting absolute right and wrong positions.  But I heard respect for differing opinions from both Obama and the University of Our Lady (Notre Dame).

 

Obama used the Abortion word on the Notre Dame stage, and handled the sensitive matter in a sensitive way.  But he was no less classy than the Notre Dame officials. 

 

There was one – or was it several – very loud hecklers early in the speech.  An overwhelming student led chant drowned them out. 

 

I was distracted early on by a grim looking professor like figure behind President Obama on the stage.  This guy had on all the robes, but when others applauded, he stood stone-like.  I finally decided that he was probably Secret Service.  Maybe someone will expand on that presumption of mine.

 

Knowing a little about such things work, my guess is that all of the VIPS, Obama, the President of Notre Dame, Father Hesburgh and others, knew before a single word was uttered what at minimum the gist of each others talk would be.  This was not a time or a place for surprises.

 

Going in everyone doubtless knew that this wasn’t a serious issue within the Catholic Church.  Only about 20% of the Bishops united in opposition to Obama’s appearance; over 60% of Catholics approved.  In my own Catholic Church, this morning, there was not a single word verbally or in print about the conflict, nor did the local diocesan paper in its most recent edition carry a single word about it (though I suspect the local Archbishop was among the 20% who were against Obama’s appearance).* 

 

And to the best of my knowledge Rome was silent.   Its silence spoke volumes.

 

For those who value Hostility around a controversial and difficult issue, today was not a good day.  For those who are interested in Healing, today was a solid start.

 

I went for my walk.  And saw a little kid with his Mom, wearing a Notre Dame tee-shirt.  A good omen.

 

One day later – May 18, 2009

 

* I went back to the Archdiocesan paper and found I was in error on this sentence.  Indeed the Archbishop’s column mentioned the event without mentioning either the speaker or the institution, but one had to be a very diligent reader of the weekly newspaper and interested in the event to figure out what the Archbishop was talking about.  The meat of the column was buried in the inside back page of the newspaper.  Such placement was likely intentional.  The entire column is accessible here http://tinyurl.com/ovhszz. 

 

In his column, the Archbishop appears to acknowledge the need to dialogue “with those who disagree” with the Church’s stand.  The continuing dilemma is how there can be “dialogue” with someone who not only claims the truth but claims that the official position of the Church is the only correct one and says that “[t]here can be no compromise”.  Dialogue does not presume closed minds in a conversation, or “lines drawn in the sand”.  But no openness to other points of view is conveyed whatsoever. The Archbishop who wrote the column for his newspaper has chosen, apparently deliberately, to hide his position from all but those who most likely fervently agree with him.  He can demonstrate that he took a hard position on the issue, without much risk that anyone will notice.

 

Two days later – May 19, 2009

 

Out of curiosity I decided to look at the several issues of the Archdiocesan newspaper which were published the last several weeks before the speech.  I picked up a sense of editorial meetings concerning “what shall we say about this?” with an answer “as little as possible”, from the small amount of newsprint devoted to the Obama appearance.  The most interesting, and perhaps most revealing, article was a short one on April 16, where it was reported that the local South Bend Bishop “advised Catholics to not attend [the] demonstrations”.  Whatever the real intent was, my own perception was that, even by early April, the powers-that-be knew that the general church membership was not with them regarding Obama’s visit to Notre Dame, and the advisory was a clever PR creation to provide a cover story.  But that is just my individual perception.  I have learned over the years that it is useful to have a healthy skepticism about official versions of events and their meaning.

 

Four days later – May 21, 2009

 

The Archdiocesan newspaper carried two front page “below the fold” stories about the events at Notre Dame.  They were equal in length: one focusing on Obama’s remarks; the other on the protests.  On page 6 was a half-page “Guest Editoria” “It’s not only Obama who needs to examine conscience” which, first, acknowledged what every Catholic knows: that the church is not a monolith where everyone thinks alike; but nonetheless contended that genuine Catholics must follow the official Church teaching. 

#1 – Dick Bernard: P&J#1940: Reflecting on "fear itself"

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This is the first posting on this blog.  The title “P&J#1940” holds meaning for me.  P&J#1 entered the internet world in late September, 2001; P&J#1940 was published March 25, 2009, and is a significant one for me. 

 

1940 is a significant number in my life. It is the year I was born in rural North Dakota, between the ending of the Great Depression and the U.S. entrance into WWII.  A friend says I’m part of the “Silent Generation” – too young for the Greatest Generation; too old for the Baby Boom Generation (1946-47 forward).

 

As I write this, March 24, 2009, the political and policy environment is flooded with conflicting messages.  Some see disaster ahead; some see hope; “experts” are in vocal disagreement with each other.  Many of the people I see every day seem oblivious to the dangers, deep in denial: As MAD magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman always said (and so far as I know, still says), there seems to remain a dominant attitude: “What, me worry?” 

 

It is not at all certain that anyone really knows for sure about where we’re headed.  We’re stuck with a likely harsh reality, disguised only by the fog of finely honed media spin from all sides.  Humans being humans, we tend to pick the piece of spin that fit our own bias.  Today that is very easy (and dangerous) to do.

 

I am not tempted to become like that hermit I met while on Army maneuvers in the Tarryall section of the Colorado Rockies in the spring of 1962.  He had lived in relative isolation, apparently for years, no car, no road, no electricity, trudging to the nearest town once a month to bring back provisions, among which was the previous months Denver Post, which he read one issue per day.  He was “current”, but always a month behind on the news, but living in the past was just fine with him.  I see him and his one-room mountain shack as I write.  It is tempting.  After all, there is that old saying, that old myth, that “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”.

 

That hermit lived in a different time.

 

In the din of today, it is very hard to be hopeful, much less to know what to do to keep hope alive in ourselves, much less others.

 

But it is self-defeating to give up, to succumb to fear itself; or, even worse, to think that this is going to be easy.  So I’ll take in what I can, and impact however I can, however useless my effort sometimes seems to be.

*

In recent months especially I have often thought of what my birth in rural ND in 1940 meant to me, then, and how it applies to me now.

 

From the moment I was born I was immersed in the background experiences of two families set back but not defeated by the reality of the Dirty Thirties.  Somehow they hung on and survived to raise me, the oldest son, and the oldest grandson – the first to be born into the families of my grandparents after the bad years.

 

One and one half years after I was born, six months after I had “met” my Dad’s brother, my Uncle Frank, in person for the first time, he went down with his ship, the USS Arizona, at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.  From then till September, 1945, WWII dominated everyone’s existence, including youngsters like myself, not old enough to comprehend all that was going on, but experiencing directly the effects.

 

In short, I may have been in a “silent” generation, but I was thoroughly marinated in others experiences in the years both preceding and following my birth.

 

Each of us have our own stories…and some of those stories match the reality of today – including times and events seemingly without hope, including conflicting opinions (including in our own minds) about how to cope. 

 

Several times in my own life I’ve had to muddle through things without a “map”.  It is part of life.

 

“Life” is what our country, including the so-called “experts”, is going through right now, and will be for, likely, a very long time. 

 

So, I choose to carry on trying to impact in whatever small way I can, wherever I can.

 

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In the early months of 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke the immortal phrase “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrfirstinaugural.html.

 

In his own way, President Obama is doing what he can, in whatever ways he can, in the spirit of FDR, to keep our spirits up, in an environment that could turn out to be even worse than the Great Depression; and in the process he is having to make decisions for the country with no certainty that the decisions will be correct.  Somehow we need to walk beside him, with him, in his shoes.  Be critical, sure, but keep it in its proper perspective. 

 

We need to remember, though, that the President is only one among over 300,000,000 of us.  We owe our continuing efforts to ourselves, and to everyone else with whom we share this country and this planet, and to those who come after us.

 

We all can do something positive.

 

We must be realistic.  We must not give up.