Today I was at the postoffice, simply to drop off a couple of letters.  Two ladies were wanting to do some business there, but the doors were locked, and they seemed confused.  It was Monday, after all.  I made a mindless quip: blame Columbus.  I hadn’t thought of the quip till the situation came up.  But coming home just now I thought it wasn’t particularly funny.  It wasn’t even thought out….

I’m here solely because of colonizing by white Europeans, of whom Christopher Columbus was one of the first.  Genetically I’m 100% European stock, French and German (they group the two nationalities together in my ancestral tree).  My first French-Canadian forebears was in N. America before 1620, but when he came North America was already well populated with a large assortment of native peoples.

And the story continues from there.

But I’ll leave that aside for this day, for which Indigenous People’s day is gradually gaining more traction.

Today, an offering from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, here.

Tomorrow, a zoom offering from World Without Genocide, In commemoration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, “Genocide of the American Indians:  From 1492 to Today” will be held on Tuesday, October 12, 7:00-9:00 pm CT. Register here.

Personally, I’ve had a bit of a walk with this issue in the last several months, becoming acquainted with an ancient Metis cemetery at Pembina ND.  If you’re interested, you can read my account about it here.  I am grateful to Ed Jerome and Ruth Swan for their many years of advocacy about this sacred ground.

Our friend, Molly, likes to send around some favorite poems at seasons of the year.  Autumn began on September 22.  Here are her Fall selections – three pages: 2021 Fall poems.  Thank you, Molly.

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A week ago I was interviewed via Zoom as one of many participants in an international DNA project.  The interview was brief and in my recollection there were five questions.  One of them was “What’s identity for you?”  I asked for time to think about this one, and overnight came up with a pretty long list.  But the meat of my response to the question was also brief: “At 81 years, I think I can honesty say my preferred identity is to be part of the human race, which to me is all-inclusive.”

Anyone who walks the same planet as I do knows that we live in tribes now.  My ideal is probably seen as naive.  But I’ll stand my ground.  We’re in this walk to the future together, whoever we are, wherever we live.

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This post is the last for September, and like the previous five (see the archive), this relates to the post 9-11-01 world in which we live.

I title this post, simply, Peace and Justice.  If you have an interest in peace and justice for all, I want to strongly recommend the two initiatives which follow.  I know both persons over a lot of years; they have good ideas, they work hard and they deserve support.  I especially encourage your sharing this post and information with others.

The U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation:

I met Dr. Michael Knox in 2006 and have promoted his initiative since the beginning.  I’d encourage your purchase of the book, and becoming a founding member of the organization yourself.  This is a long term project.

The Peace Memorial Foundation website is here.  On July 17, 2021, the Tampa Bay Times published a column about the proposed US Peace Memorial. I joined the US Peace Memorial Foundation as a Founding Member in 2006 and served as Coordinator for MN for many years. The Foundation now has 427 Founding Members. They come from forty-five states (plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands). I’m proud to say that 10 percent (43) of these supporters live in Minnesota. All information about the initiative, how to donate, etc., are easily available at the website.  I’m proud to say that I was the 27th founding member of this Foundation, and the first from Minnesota.  

The 309 page book, which I purchased through Barnes and Noble is filled with useful information.  

Portraits of Peace by John Noltner.

I met John Noltner at a meeting of the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers about ten years ago.  He was in the process of reinventing himself – the near meltdown of the U.S. economy in 2008 forced a change in focus from previous work with major magazines and in the corporate world.  He has done amazing work – Portraits of Peace is his third book, just released.  Until it was interrupted by the pandemic, his series called “A Peace of My Mind” was in four exhibits traveling nationwide.  His website is well worth a visit.  The first panel gives information about the book.

I’ve had Portraits of Peace for only a few days, and chose to read a random selection of three chapters from the 31 chapters in the 201 page book.  Each chapter tells a story, many, perhaps most, with a single photograph, and in my opinion, each chapter would be worthy of a book club discussion group – one chapter at a time.  Each are gentle calls to action.  This is not a book for speed reading.  The selections are usually 5-10 pages, brimming with food for thought and personal reflection.  The subjects are ordinary people from all over the country, all representing the diversity that is America.     This book is readily available anywhere you like to buy books.

Check back for more topics on current issues beginning in early October.

Today I was driving in a nearby quiet neighborhood.  I was meeting another car in a street narrowed to one lane by two vehicles parked on opposite sides.  The occupant of one, a young man, was sort of a traffic cop, though that wasn’t necessary.  But it was a nice touch.  But mostly I noticed the young mans pick-up which had a very large Gadsden flag mounted at the edge of the truck bed.  These days that coiled snake yellow flag seems favored by people who fancy themselves rebels (my opinion).

For those who like to think that we’re back on the right track in this country, I beg to differ.  The Gadsden Guy was only the most recent piece of evidence that trouble is not that far beneath the surface, and the trouble will likely come from within our own citizens including friends, neighbors and relatives.

Much of the inciting we see every day in the American commons of internet or television especially.  Role models are governors and state legislators saying “go to hell” on things like masking, etc.  Or people who disrupt school board meetings, on and on.  Why used to be rare has become common.

We’re a big country with lots of people, and there are brilliant and diabolical organizers out there who are willing and able to make trouble, and who have plenty of money to work with, and willing minions at the local level.  And of course there’s the tribal leader who’s modus operandi is to get revenge and enlists angry people in assorted ways most of us probably don’t see.

Many of us have friends and relatives who are police and military, former and present, some who were or still are open and even outspoken support of anti-government, though they are part of this same government.  We tend to close our eyes to this: this a free country, after all.

But the rubber has hit the road.  Selective enforcement of the law: in the case of January 6, a slow response to a crisis because the people in the chain of command who had to authorize action, delayed response.  We were accustomed to a usual and customary role of our law keepers, and their chain of command.  And we still are.  But the deviations from normal in the recent – and not so recent – past have been significant.

Timothy McVeigh, who murdered hundreds in Oklahoma City in 1995,  was a Boy Scout and from the military, we must remember.  Today’s militia groups include in their membership people with lots of military experience, with nothing good on their minds.  Perhaps we are fortunate to have witnessed the graphic demonstration of this on Jan. 6, first hand; and witnessing ever since the efforts made by some to disrupt and upset any investigation or punishment of those involved.  I wonder what the guy with the Gadsden Flag was saying?

This has been evolving for years.

Just this week I was going through a box of papers, and came across something I knew I had, somewhere, but couldn’t find.  There it was, something I wrote back in the fall of 2001, including three pages from a U.S. News and World Report from September, 2000.  Here it is: 9 11 2001 Three vignettes.  Look especially at pages 3 and 4, keeping in mind that this is from 20 years ago.  It is worth a look as the 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001, approaches.

I have no idea what if anything will happen from this point on.  Nobody does.  But you can bet that preparations are being made, just in case.  We can no longer be naive.  There is doubtless planning taking place.

Each of us is either part of the solution, or of the problem.  Where do you stand?

POSTNOTE: My reflections 20 years after 9-11-2001 on the anniversary day, Saturday 9-11-2021.  (9-11 was a Tuesday in 2000.)

Individual citizens, like myself, and you, will decide whether this experiment called the United States of America will succeed or fail.  January 6 was the first and very major wakeup call about a genuine crisis attacking our democracy.  The assault continues.  We sit idly by, and we invite disaster.

Related posts: August 30 and September 6.

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This morning, as every morning, I delivered the Sports section of our paper across the driveway to our neighbor, then off for coffee.

We live in a town home, and share a driveway with three other families.  Rick, whose home adjoins ours, was in the doorway of his garage.  He’s often out early, the same time as I, and we’re casual friends.  Good folks, good neighbors, both ways.  This day Rick wanted to talk, and said he was reading a book about how America is destroying itself from within by Mark Levin.  It puzzled me.  First time in all the years I’ve known him that a political topic has ever come up.  I know the family politics – polar opposite of ours – and I said I didn’t know of the book, nor Mark Levin;  that what he posed would probably take a very long conversation.  We went on with our respective day.

Back home some time later I google’d “Mark Levin destroying itself from within”.  Levin’s a long-time conservative commentator, and there was a book with a similar thrust that he authored in 2005.  That book is my best guess what Rick was talking about.  (2005 was 16 years ago, the first year of George Bush’s second term, and we were full tilt into the Iraq War at the time.)  If you’re curious, google it.

The previous evening had come an e-mail from a relative, a retired PhD in political science in Montreal.  At the end of his e-mail he said “I’m reading a lot about the state of democracy in the States.  Fascinating but scary.”  The e-mail came at 8:29 p.m.

At 7:36 had come another e-mail from a good friend about the Supreme Court non-decision on the new Texas abortion law:  “How did only 80,000 Nazi officers control Germany, a country of 60 million? By identifying “the enemies” and asking citizens to report their fellows to the Gestapo or other Nazi group for persecution and/or death. Turn citizen against citizen. Divide and conquer.”

If you follow the news at all, you can probably gather the drift.  Vigilantes are being empowered.  To those who say “good”, be very careful what you pray for.

The non-decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Texas case on Wednesday is the immediate most recent cause, but the rainstorm has become a flood of epic proportions particularly since a certain person lost the 2020 election by over 7 million votes.  But the raining on democracy itself began long before, consciously and deliberately, by operatives wishing to take permanent control of this government, supposedly “of the people, by the people and for the people“.

Heather Cox Richardson catches the essence of some of the critical political history here.  It’s not a long read, but a good one.  She’s not the first I’ve heard, recently, talk about “dog catches car” – it’s more fun to chase the car, than to catch it.  What do you do when you win?  I would suspect the Taliban has that quandary in Afghanistan ‘as we speak’.  So did the Nazis, when their “1,000 year Reich” began to unravel only 10 years into their regime.  Be careful what you pray for.  Yes the victims can also be the perpetrators.

But this is a deadly serious matter and we are well advised to take our heads out of the sand.  If we give a damn, we get to work.  It’s our gig, not someone else’s.  One person, one action at a time.

Personally, I’m struggling with how best to address another e-mail I got from a relative last Sunday.  This one was one of those insane “forwards” which ends “Author unknown”.  It is the laundry list of the radical right fears and hates.  Here is the forward in its entirety: Ken anon letter Aug 28 2021.    The handwritten comments are mine.  I apologize for the brevity.  It would take many pages to do justice in a response.  I expect to add somewhat more detail to my response to this, perhaps this weekend.  Check back.  [Sep 5.  See postnote.]

As for the “author unknown”, I’ve watched this evolve over the years in the misinformation industry.  In the naive old days, which are really fairly recent, they would attach a real name to a quotation even if the person named was not responsible for the quote, which may or may not have been true.  The most recent example that comes to mind was a quote by Abraham Lincoln I saw in a North Dakota church bulletin a couple of years ago.  Unfortunately, there are people keep close tabs on Lincoln’s quotations, and it was an easy search to find out that Lincoln never said what was attributed to him in the bulletin.

The Priest apologized to me, and said he got a sheet including such quotes from parishioners he trusted…just how this works.  He was conned by his own flock.  Did he learn his lesson?  He’s in another state.  I don’t know.

If you look at the Ken letter, and I recommend that you do, what you have by this prolific and infamous author, “anon”, is a listing of things that a certain group of people fear or hate.

Caveat emptor.

Some ideas for a long weekend:

1. Last Monday I had the opportunity to watch, for the first time, the film Hunger Games (2012).  It is worth your time.  It is fiction, but it is thought provoking.  It was a very successful series of books and movie.
2. You probably know the name “Julian Assange“.  Whatever your personal feelings about him, an organization in which I’m active is offering a particular opportunity between now and September 16.  All details are here.  Scroll down.  Preregistration is required if you wish to join the program; the films are available on line and on your own.  Watch before the conversation.

COMMENTS:

from Jane:    Every woman has a right to choose whether or not to give birth.  And every woman also has a right to choose whether or not to get an experimental injection that is proving to be more dangerous in many instances than COV$D itself.

response from Dick: I decided to ask Center for Disease Control (CDC) about this first.  Here.  Then I went to the link provided by Jane, which is here.

from Marion: Thanks, Dick. I read the link. Most of it either new to me or lost to my 94-year-old memory.

POSTNOTE Sep. 5, from Dick: I don’t see any reasonable way to confront “Ken anon” (above).  It would be evidence against feelings, and if feelings dominate, evidence will make no difference whatsoever to either the author (who will always be unknown) and the person who sent it to me in the first place.   So, I’ll just let it be.  I did rescan the pdf, in particular high-lighting words and phrases which seem most relevant to the sender.

President Biden’s remarks on leaving Afghanistan August 31, 2021.  Here’s some commentary about it: Just Above Sunset: Some Explaining.

More About 9-11:  post of September 6, 2021

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I’ll click ‘publish’ on this when August 31 begins in Afghanistan, 9 hours before Minnesota.  The intention of this post is strictly to encourage each reader to assess his/her personal feelings about the 20 years – a generation – since 9-11-2001; then to also personally reflect on how he/she commits to approach the 20 years upcoming.

Previous recent posts relating in whole or part to Afghanistan: August 16, 19, 26, 28 2021.  Access through archive section at right.

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Remembering 9-11-01, some thoughts from 20 years ago:

5th grade student, Lester’s, art, early October 2001 suburban Minneapolis MN.   This flag is prominent in my home office.  Somewhere here at home I have over 30 pieces of writing by elementary students after 9-11-01, a common cathartic technique.

Personal communications as saved by myself between September 10 and 24, 2001, appear here (12 pages): Sep 10 to 24 2001.  Except for the first two pages from Sep 10, 2001, I only include content that specifically relates to 9-11.  At that time, my normal e-mail traffic was a family letter I tried to do every two weeks.  9-11 quickly erupted into a communications frenzy – people needed to talk.  Some years ago I printed out the first 100 days of such dialogue, which filled two business envelope boxes.  These were donated to, and accepted by, the Minnesota Historical Society for posterity.

Referring to specific pages in the attachment: page 3) The three photos referenced can be seen here (scroll down, this space also includes my comments from a year after 9-11-01; 4) my sister Mary Ann’s comments.  She was at the WTC 4 days before 9-11; 5-7) first person survivor from the towers written immediately after escaping; 8) from a church bulletin, note comment about bullying; 11) “perhaps the most important…”; 12) note the Priests comments in a church homily the Sunday after 9-11.

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My grandson, Spencer, is an active duty Marine, though not in Afghanistan.  He was one and a half on 9-11-01, recently turning 21.  Those Marines killed at Kabul were largely in his cohort.  When he was in high school I prepared a simple page on the human cost of war to the United States.  The data is of 2016, and he and his teacher found it of interest.  It is here: War Deaths U.S.002

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Just Above Sunset for August 30 f you wish a good collection of opinions about the carnage at the Kabul airport.  If nothing else, read the last sentence.

Joyce sends on “Innocence and Folly” from The Weekly Sift.

COMMENTS: Check end of post for more.

from Mary: May as well ‘weigh in’!  Somehow I can not quite understand why this Afghan exit had to become such a big deal…don’t folks know how to fade out of the picture?  I will give some of the dubious credit  for the lumps to the 24 hour news cycles and the Monday Morning experts.  Human Rights aside – maybe they should not be – but we can not think that we can fix everything!!  We were uninvited and unwelcome and long ago outlived our usefulness in fixing this tribal society – there is and always will be plenty to do in the USA should Americans want to accept a real challenge…we live in a world of health care and infrastructure and education challenge and shady slimy stuff getting in the way of too many political decisions.   Afghanistan – Another sad example of the futility of revenge.

Dick in response:  I have been noticing over the last few years in particular a conscious and deliberate effort to make the United States a “tribal” society too.  Take your pick: urban/rural; race; women/men; religion…division has been useful to some operatives; not to a United country, and we will pay the price.

from Jermitt: Powerful read!  There is no way to leave a country after “losing the war”, without criticism and perhaps bloodshed.  Yes, perhaps a mass evacuation may have started earlier, but who would have forecasted the folding of the Afghan military.  No one.  I believe Biden had only one reasonable option and he did what was best for all the allies and the U.S.