Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/dick-bernard/page/8/)
Yesterday afternoon I went to a farewell gathering for Lois Swenson, a lady I hardly knew, but who I knew well through numerous intersecting ‘circles’ of relationships with others. Lois was unknown to me, but well known through others….
November 6, 2012, “we, the people” will select, by our vote, or by our non-vote, an entire assortment of representatives, from local to national level.
We’ll vote well-informed, or ill-informed on candidates and on issues. We will be solely responsible, as always, for our action (or inaction).
After the first week the conversation about the Affordable Health Care Act has (it seems) been politically narrowed down to this: “it’s a tax” (therefore it’s evil).
It is this because geniuses with words like Frank Luntz have determined that the word “tax” resonates negatively with people. It’s a ‘dog whistle’ word.
We always go to the Afton parade. It is nearby, and it is the only parade I know that you can watch twice – the units double back down the same street, and pass each other.
Today I went by myself. It was just too hot.
This is a major election year, and this day I was mostly aware of the politics of the parade.
I’m publishing this a few hours before the Big Release of the Supreme Court decision on what has come to be known as “Obamacare”.
I have no prediction.
All I know is the reality, learned at too young an age, about what it means to be desperately ill and uninsured.
Richard Lee Dechert (that’s as in French: pronounced d-share) passed away quietly at home on June 21. Years ago I heard a man eulogized as follows: “he lived before he died; he died before he was finished”. This would fit Lee Dechert who passed away June 21, 2012, in St. Paul.
I don’t consider myself a political junkie. I am liberal Democrat but I am not, nor have I ever been, heavily immersed in party decision making.
I’m writing this post before the polls close in Wisconsin. I haven’t heard any predictions, or talk of the turnout, or any such thing. So the post-mortem won’t be in this post. There’ll be plenty of those without me….
This afternoon I attended the first of three sessions called “Forming Our Conscience” in the Undercroft (church basement) of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. I was most positively impressed. There were 50 of us in the room – more than I expected.
I’m a Democrat (called DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) in Minnesota).
Today I attended the 4th Congressional District Convention as a voting delegate. This was my first 4th CD Convention. It was a simple matter of redistricting due to the 2010 Census. The previous ten years we lived at the same address, but in the 6th CD.