See important postnote #2 at the end of this post.

The ‘meat’ of this post is the link in the next line.  But see the postnotes as well.

This link, Peace Race (1) (3), opens to a very interesting 8-page commentary on a very noteworthy citizen initiative through the 1960s calling attention to, and mobilizing citizen action, about the Arms Race.  Author Jim Nelson, an active member of United Nations Association MN for over 50 years (1972 photo below), was and continues to be an outspoken advocate, and bears witness to the virtue of persistence. and the quest for peace in our world.  This article, published in 2024, speaks for itself, and I’m proud to present it here for your reflection, sharing and discussion.  Great work, Jim.

A key character in Peace Race is Hubert Humphrey, former Minneapolis mayor, U.S. Senator and Vice-President of the United States. through the late 1940s through the 1970s.  On Friday evening, Twin Cities Public Television airs a program on Humphrey, live streamed to where you live.  Details are below the photo.  This is a unique opportunity, and Jim’s article is a major contribution to understanding how Humphrey fit in to the politics of peace.

Also below, are links to other activities which highlight that we have a long way still to go towards a peaceful world, but actions like Jim and many others give reason for hope.  As Churchill so famously said:”never give in, never, never, never“.

Jim Nelson, United Nations Association State Fair Booth, 1972

Friday evening Sept 13 at 8 p.m. CDT, TPT Channel 2 in the Twin Cities will air a special on Mayor Humphrey of Minneapolis. This program will be live-streamed https://www.tpt.org/watch-live.  It will air again, though not live-stream, on TPT Life Channel  channel on Sep 19 at 8 p.m.  Here’s the TPT descriptor from their program magazine: Hubert Humphrey on TPT Sep 13 and 19 2024

*

POSTNOTES: other programs for anyone interested:

1. Middle East Peace Now is sponsoring a zoom program about Hamas, Saturday morning Sep 14

Date/Time
Date(s) – Saturday, September 14, 2024
10:00 am – 11:30 am

“What Hamas represents politically,
why most Arabs support it,
and how Israel-US should deal with it”
with Rami G. Khouri  

Saturday, September 14, 2024    MEPN Zoom Webinar
10:00am – 11:30am CT

3. Twin Cities Nonviolent for several years has sponsored programs related to nonviolence for twelve days, this year beginning on Sept 21 through October 5.  Here is this years Program.

*

4.  9-11-01.  Sunday evening CBS’ 60 Minutes gave a full hour reprise of it’s 2022 special honoring the fire fighters of New York for their heroism at the time of 9-11-01.  NYPD lost hundreds of its own in the aftermath of the attack.  The report brought tears to my eyes, as it always does and will.  I had basically finished the draft of this post before watching.

Those who knew me then, and now, know that there are two “me’s” when it comes to 9-11-01.  The first is the early weeks after the disaster itself,.  I was working on a Habitat for Humanity build in Minneapolis the week of, including  9-11, and only heard about it on a radio at the site during the day.  This was before cell phones, and obviously there was no TV either.  We didn’t know the towers collapsed until arriving home late in the afternoon.  The e-mail network which years later became the Outside the Walls blog, thence Thoughts Towards a Better World originated in late September, 2001 – it was sort of a group catharsis venture, which some readers would remember.

In early October my mood changed as the decision was made to bomb Afghanistan in response.  To get al Qaeda.  That and other actions were applauded by the general public.  Often at this space I’ve shown the news article that I kept at that point in time.  It is below.  In my opinion, retribution was not a worthwhile response.  It was a lonely time: I was in the 6%…..  But it was also became the entry point for me into the peace movement, of which I’m still a more informal part.

The debate will go on forever, I suppose, about 9-11-01 and what it means.  I’m not alone.  To remember is important.  To disagree is okay.  Our war on Afghanistan, then on Iraq, then back to Afghanistan, really has not ended, 23 years later.  When will we learn?

*

4.   Public television: I am a long-time contributor to TPT, for the last six years $1,000 per year as AMillionCopies.  If you would like to be a co-participant,  send me a check for any amount, made to TPT, post-dated to October 31, 2024, and I will add it to the 2024 contribution.  Every little bit helps.  Interested by don’t have my address?  Just ask.

POSTNOTE #2 3 p.m.: Shortly after I published this post, the breaking news was about the just released Congressional Report on the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.  That debate can go on with out me.  In the Sep 2 post, I included a recent column from John Rash in the Minnesota Star Tribune interviewing the American ambassador to Kabul, Minnesotan Ross Wilson, at the end of the Trump years, and beginning of Biden years, 2020-21.  He was a direct witness to particularly policy considerations in those difficult months.  You can read it here: John Rash 8 31 24 STrib Afghan.  It is an important addition to this conversation.

Re the “Debate”: I will likely watch it, but that is about all I’ll have to say about it here.

POSTNOTE #3 Sep. 11:  I did watch the entire debate and quite a bit of the post-debate discussion, and I’m glad I did.  Kamala Harris was pitch perfect.  Still won’t make the rest of the campaign any easier.

POSTNOTE Sep 23: Final post related to November 5 here (Sep 20, 2024)

Related: An excellent commentary from John Rash in Saturday Minnesota Star Tribune on “The facts on Afghanistan from a Minnesotan who was at the center of it all.”  Here is the article in pdf: John Rash 8 31 24 STrib Afghan.  Rash interviewed Minnesotan Ross Wilson, ambassador to Afghanistan in 2020-21 in the administrations of both Donald Trump and Joseph Biden.

Thoughts about Labor Day: Heather Cox Richardson

Minnesotans: You can see the names which will be on your 2024 ballot here.

*

Some personal thoughts before the election.

“Regardless of where you live, please visit and share this website: VOTE.GOV”.  Minnesotans, early voting begins September 20.  The MN website is here.  65 days to Election Day, November 5.   My own view on the upcoming election, here. 

Below there are two maps.  WHY THE MAPS?  People everywhere are a very diverse lot.  The United States is a particularly diverse country among the nations of the world.  Today and in the future we are part of world society.  Each of us has our own network – people we know who in turn have connections with many others.   Society is all of us.  The maps are simply reminders of these physical connections.

(Here’s a pdf of the above: US Map.)  Map is courtesy of John M Wolfson, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

I am particularly interested in the viewpoints of young people, who are a major voting constituency, but who traditionally haven’t gotten as politically engaged, or vote as much as others.  Still, they are ultimately the ones who will inherit whatever government, however constituted, carries forward for, and will affect them far longer, than it will me.

In our country, children are given a pass until age 18; at 18 they are adults, with all the rights and responsibilities of adults of any age.

There is an obvious major generation gap, between myself and the youngsters. (My youngest grandchild turns 18 on November 10 – the only one not yet voting age.).

For most of us, being 18 is almost out of sight in our rear view mirror.  I’ve spent some time thinking about how life was when I turned 18, May 4, 1958.  (Kids born in 2006 will begin to turn 18 on Nov. 5.  9-11-01 babies will be 23….)

On this Labor Day, I invite you to consider, for yourself, three questions.

1.  What were the political realities and ground rules when you became 18?
2. What are the political realities and ground rules for today’s 18 year olds.
3. What is your assessment of what that reality will be 18 years from now, or even more daunting, how about 66 years from now (the number of years I’ve been out of high school).

Obviously, you will have different answers than I.  I’m just encouraging some independent thought as you go into conversations about the consequences of this, or any, election in our democracy.  I will give a very brief overview on my own view of question one below the map.

Map: Geordie Bosanko, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>

66 years ago, May 4, 1958,  I lived in a tiny town in the center of North Dakota (see the blue dot on the map).  Today, and for many years, I’ve lived in the twin cities metropolitan area of Minnesota 14 miles from Wisconsin.  (the second blue dot on the map).

In 1958, I had to register for the military draft.  I think this applied only to males, and it was no nonsense.  Voting age was 21.  I was not old enough to vote in the 1960 presidential election; and the first election where I was eligible to vote for President was 1964, when I was 24.

Things like communications methods and mobility generally were very primitive compared with today.  The Interstate Highway system had just been authorized, and the first stretch of 1-94 in North Dakota was the stretch between Valley City and Jamestown completed in the summer of 1958.

Sputnik, in the Fall of 1957, heightened the sense of national insecurity.  About a month before Sputnik, September, 1957, I saw Louis Armstrong and his band in person in performance in nearby Carrington ND.  Needless to say it was a unique experience. Nuclear was an element of schools in 1957-58, even the tiny ones.   Even conceptually, things like “national”, “international”, even “state”, were more vague than today.  We weren’t nearly as aware as we’re forced to be, now.

There was not even a thought about school shootings.  Drugs really hadn’t graduated from alcohol and cigarettes.  On and on.

Go back another 66 years to 1894, what would we see?  1828?  1766?  Ahead to 2090..?.

Your turn.  Our future is on the ballot two months from now.  2090 is not abstract.

POSTNOTE:  There have been three other posts this past week: State Fair, The Forgotten Tribe, and School.  Do check them out.

VOTE, and know well who you’re voting for, and why.  Whatever you do, you’re stuck with the results.

I plan to spend less time on “politics” at this space over the next two months.  Every conceivable issue has been hashed and rehashed for all of the candidates for national office.  Most of the national candidates have been well known public figures for years.  Most everything else is local.  I plan to continue to write about whatever comes to mind, as usual.  Check back once in awhile.

COMMENTS (more below):

from Lois: Hi Dick – Amen to your decision about discussion/facts/opinions of political items in the next two months in your blog.  I think we all have political fatigue.  Your reminder of on our first opportunity to vote brings to mind what Kennedy said in his Inaugural Address – “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”.   More than any other words, this has been the most meaningful for me over 60 years of anything relating to elections.  From city government to federal, we all need to participate in some way.    Thank you for all your interesting chats.   Lois

from Brian:

A longtime friend of mine alerted me to the following very long article about the Mendota Tribe in the August 18, 2024 St. Paul Pioneer Press.  I prefer to simply let the article speak for itself.  The locus of this tribe, Mendota Mdewakonton Dakota Tribal Community, is not far from where I live, in the vicinity of Fort Snelling and Mendota MN.  My familiarity with them basically centers on occasional events in Mendota MN.  Here is the map reference, which is near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and historic Ft. Snelling.

Here are two links to the same article.

The Forgotten Tribe, as published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press August 18, 2024.

If the above link is no longer available, here is my cut and paste pdf of the actual article: Mendota Tribe Pion Press 8 18 24 (3)

Lawrence Taliaferro’s hand’drawn map of Fort Snelling and vicinity, 1835. Public domain. Minnesota Historical Society

“Do Something.”  This phrase says it all about the next 70 or so days.

Mn Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. V. P. Kamala Harris in support of candidate MN Lt Gov incumbent Peggy Flanagan, Minneapolis October 22, 2022.  Both Peggy and Tim won reelection in Nov. 2022. (Snapshot by Dick Bernard)

NOTE to non-voters, independents et al at end of this post.

First: 1) Voting information for any state: VOTE.GOV  2) A brief and very interesting history of political conventions comes from Heather Cox Richardson for August 22, 2024; and her August 24 post discusses the just completed Democratic Convention.  3) here’s a self-assessment sheet to help remind you of what offices you can vote for this year: Office Holders: Candidates.  (Except President/Vice-President, your list, will be unique based on where you live).  4) My post on Tim Walz, most recently updated August 23.  This will be my ‘file cabinet’ on Tim.  Read the third (“filing cabinet”) paragraph.  5) My long-time friend in England, made an interesting comment to my August 18, 2024 post, with his views about the American and English political systems,  I set it aside as a post of its own on August 19, and made it into a brief dialogue you may find of interest.  It is presented with his permission.

*

Late in her speech to the Democratic Convention on Thursday, August 22, 2024, Kamala Harris accepted the nomination for election as President of the United States.

I am a person who respects process.  Until VP Harris accepted the offer, she wasn’t officially the nominee.  Now it’s official, and Gov. Tim Walz is her running mate.

No surprise to anyone who knows me, my vote is Democrat.  Democrat in my lifetime has always been the party for the people. This year in particular the slate is exceptional.

I don’t consider myself to have ever been a true passionate activist.  In the “scrum” of the population, I think I would be in the moderate left.  The graphic at the end of this post, which I’ve used often since I drew it in the 1980s, catches me well.  This year I attended and participated in all of the local political events, from school board to primary election to being set to serve as an election judge if needed Nov. 5.  I’ve always been ‘on the court’.

I have often said that the sometimes  ragged appearance of the Democratic Party is much more a positive than a negative.  It is not easy to be a ‘big tent’, accepting differing points of view sometimes completely at odds with each other, sometimes with the party itself..  We are an extraordinarily diverse country, and Democrats welcome debate, and work for peaceful resolution.

We resist efforts to restrict access to or interference with the secret ballot to select our representatives.

This election is the first time I’ve ever suggested voting  straight ticket Democrat for all offices.

My opinion: there is no longer a Republican Party worthy of the name, and until the formerly Grand Old Party is taken back by more reasonable folks, it is a mistake to vote for anyone under the label “R”.  I have these specific concerns:

1. An almost absolute lack of respect for truth and the rule of law.  DJT campaigns for election after being found guilty of numerous felonies, under indictment for numerous other infractions.
2.  Specifically, anyone who voted in any way to deny or reject the 2020 election results, or supported election denial, does not deserve support.  See page 5 of this NPR article from Jan. 7, 2021: Election Deniers Jan 7 2021 NPR0001.  Also, here.  There were over 120 of these folks.  Two of these were in my own state, one of the two is deceased, the other (Fischbach) remains on the ballot.  Here is some data on state legislatures.  At minimum, get on-record the comment of your candidate on the issue of denial of legitimacy of 2020 election and on laws restricting access to voting.  If any of these candidates are on any ballot, they should be publicly confronted.
3. The Nuclear Bomb in our midst in this election is Project 2025, which the radical right wing rolled out very publicly some time ago, and which they are seeking to temporarily distance ithemselves from, even though the project remains the blueprint for a hoped-for future of authoritarian control of the United States.  There is a great deal of information available about this immense and dangerous to democracy proposal, deadly to all, including its supporters.  The Kamala Harris website has a summary well worth your time.  An organization of which I’m a long-time member, the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, has developed a well done flier, which I share with their permission: STOP PROJECT 2025

Finally, a few days ago I did a post featuring a comment from a long-time friend in England about the two political systems, English and American.  It is simply a conversation, but I think worth your time.  You can read it here.

The end of this story is in all of our hands; the evidence will be after November 5, 2024.

We, the people, own the result, November 5, whatever that turns out to be, for our nation, our state, our community.  It is the people we elect who will make – or not – a better world for all of us.

I urge a well-informed vote for all of the offices on every ballot.

NOTE TO NON-VOTERS: in 2020 over 81 million citizens voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for President/V.P.; over 74 million for the opposing candidate. Some voted for issues and candidates that had no chance at all to prevail.  Over 75 million eligible voters didn’t vote at all, and 2024 was the highest total vote in history.

We’ve all heard the reasons why people don’t vote.  No need to recite them.

A truth: in a democracy like ours, in fact, every one votes, whether or not they show up to mark a ballot.  Effectively non-voters of any type, including those who truly vote ‘independent’ for some candidate who has zero chance of winning, are giving their proxy to the two parties whose candidates names show up on virtually every ballot for every office in this nation.  They forfeit their right to participate, and are rolling the dice that the candidates elected are somewhat more inclined to their position, than the opponent.  Their non-vote is accepted….  But it never makes any sense for the absent voter.

No candidate, no party is perfect, particularly in a society such as ours with so many diverse opinions on multitudes of issues.  At minimum, speak with the voice you have on a ballot in each and every election in your community.  Whether you vote my way or not is not as important to me, as your actual vote.  See you at the polls.

POSTNOTE:  I am a citizen who’s paid attention to politics from the grass roots perspective.  I’ve written often about political topics here.  If you are interested, and wonder what I’ve been thinking over the years at time of recent Presidential elections, here are some posts archived at this site which I think are most pertinent.  (use Archive tool at right): Hillary Clinton July 31, 2016, including link to my thoughts about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008; about Donald Trump July 19, 2016;   about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris August 20, 2020; about Why I’m a Democrat August 1, 2020; about the “T’s” (what was left of the former Republicans August 2, 2020.

Political Scrum 2024

POSTNOTE: Many years ago, my friend Joyce passed along a link received from her daughter in California.  It was Just Above Sunset, and it’s proprietor was a retired middle management person who grew up in suburban Pittsburgh, and retired in Los Angeles.   Several years ago, Alan retired from his volunteer passion of distilling the national news for people like me.  Often I referred to his work here. Recently Just Above Sunset appeared in my inbox again.  This time another highly skilled retiree out east, Doug, started sharing his work under Just Above Sunset heading.  His blog, Weekly Sift, I’ve come to find as useful as the old Just Above Sunset.

The most recent three posts from the Weekly Sift are offered and worth your time, if you wish.  It is easy to subscribe to this post, and of course easy to manage.  Following are the links to the three,  Take a look at least at one of them; note the authors bio.  August 26; August 26 (2); August 26 (3),   These are three separate posts on the same day.  You can subscribe.  It is worth it.

I will continue to write as things occur to me, but will likely back off from distinctly political stuff.  Doesn’t mean I’m not interested.  Right now the objective is best to clarify your own beliefs and work to get out the vote Nov. 5.  No election is routine.  This one especially.  Early voting in many places, including Minnesota, starts about Sep. 20.

I was at State Fair today and will likely post about that tomorrow.  I have another post in the works about “The Forgotten Tribe”, probably this week, and perhaps for Labor Day a piece on teaching, especially given Tim Walz status.

Have a good week.

“Regardless of where you live, please visit and share this website: VOTE.GOV”.

The following is my personal thoughts about politics, generally, formed over many years of observation and involvement.  This is just a summary, only intended to assist as a thought-starter for anyone who reads what follows.

Anyone who knows me knows my politics.  In this post, before the Democratic Convention next week, I want to take a short look at my personal view of us, collectively, as U.S., as in all of us.

Following the Convention, which ends Aug. 22, I’ll write more specifically about the next 2 1/2 months.

When it comes to voting, every one of us is as powerful as anyone else.  We each have one vote, period.  We each have the opportunity to get involved or not.  At the end of the day, we get exactly who we elect to represent us.  When we complain about the politics or the politicians, we are complaining about ourselves, collectively.

In the last Presidential election, 81,284,666 persons voted for Joe Biden; 74,284,666 for Donald Trump; a few for an assortment of others.  That’s the good news.  About one third of those eligible  to vote in 2020 did not vote at all….  These non-voters ‘voted’ by their absence, possibly against their own interests.  Generally, fewer vote in off-year elections.

We have about three months to get up to speed and get registered (if we’re not), learn the positions we will be filling in the election, and particularly who the candidates are (ALL of them on your ballot, whatever the office) and what they stand for.

Another number interests me.  There are said to be about 1,000 billionaires in this country of over 345,000,000.  Each of them each have only a single vote, too, just like the rest of us.  If they all were collected in my town of 83,000, they couldn’t win a single election.  They don’t have any more power than I do, or you.  Nor do they all think alike.

Surely, they have boat loads of money with which to manipulate and deceive, but for this to work they need people who believe the ‘advertising’.  They gain power only by our forfeiture of our own individual power to make a difference.

Those who know me in the political context know that for a lot of years now I have said the future lies with the action (or inaction) of three groups: young people, women, and persons of color.  At my age, “young” is my kids age or younger – around 60 or less.  Each of the groups mentioned need to  be very visible to get their justified seats at the table of power at all levels of society.   At the same time, there are millions of people like me, older white folks, who support this change.  But each of us also only have one vote….

There are new challenges.  Unlike any other generation in my lifetime, there is a generation gap in how persons communicate with each other.  It is folly for me to suggest that I can effectively speak to or for the groups mentioned above for differing reasons.  I come from a different era.  I retired near 25 years ago.  But it is foolish for the new generation to pretend that we don’t matter; as it is for us to pretend that only we elders matter.

We are not all alike, no matter how small the unit you’re considering: whether as a single person, family member, spouse, parent, part of a neighborhood and town, county, state, nation or world.  When each of us vote, my hope is that we each will vote for the leaders at all levels  who really genuinely care about what I would call the “We”, all of US.

In the late 1980s I wanted to illustrate how I saw the political orientation of U.S. citizens.  Below is the rough illustration I came up with, which seems to be consistent with other opinions I’ve seen over the years.  I’ve used it often.  The only change I’ve made on this one are the hi-lite in three places below.

Here’s the illustration in pdf; Political Scrum 2024.

It has been my observation that the media we rely on generally focuses on conflict, most obviously found at the farthest fringes of left and right.  This is not to be critical of either extreme left or extreme right.  We seem to like conflict.  At the same time, fringes are just that: fringes.  The vast majority of us are somewhere in the messy middle, and we all depend on cooperation to thrive.  Obviously, this is just a personal opinion.  You can judge it through your own personal situation.

Like the illustration, this country of ours is a remarkable “mess” of people generally successfully living in community together.  We are all different in our own unique ways.  Somehow or other, up to this point in our history, we have managed to not only survive but to thrive.  It is up to us to keep it that way.

I have much more to say.  This is a start.  More to come after the convention.  Comments welcome.

POSTNOTE Saturday afternoon: As it happens, less than 24 hours ago I got a letter from President Biden that illustrates the conundrum of living in the most powerful nation in a diverse society and world.  The letter is here, one page, and speaks for itself: Pres Biden re Gaza Aug 12 2024.  This particular letter was especially unusual.  It was on genuine stationery and came first class mail.  It was printed August 12, mailed August 13 and received August 16.  In my day-to-day world I don’t expect to hear from any President or for that matter any government official about anything.  In this particular situation I had written the President about a current international issue.  You have to read the letter to see what it says.

I pdf’ed the letter and sent it to two good friends, on opposite sides of the issue, both Americans, neither directly involved in the conflict.  The first responded after I published this post, but hasn’t seen this post yet.

I will say no more about that.  The President, indeed any government official at any level, is constantly faced with making decisions which are unpopular with someone.  There is not a single decision, I would guess, that will not be considered wrong to someone.  President Truman faced this with the atomic bomb in 1945, when he became President just months after FDR was inaugurated for a 4th term, and a month before the Germans surrendered.  Best I recall, he was an old-time vice-president, with no portfolio of consequence, and little knowledge of the atomic bomb being developed.  But at the time he became President, the decision about the bomb was left in his lap.  And depending on one’s point of view, the decision was correct or not….

In the case of yesterday’s President’s letter, it is not known, but very possible, that neither antagonist (who don’t know each other personally) will not like its contents.  It’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

Take a look, and apply it to your own non-negotiable priority for the next administration.

We sink or swim together….

COMMENTS (more at end):

from Fred:  I haven’t said it before, but I do like your hand-crafted graph of the electorate.