Some people say that Richard Lugar lost his Senate seat because he worked with Democrats. No wonder Congressional approval is at an all time low. Winning for politicians too often means failing the citizens they are employed to serve. Think budget crisis. Think immigration reform. Even judicial nominations have been radically politicized. Most of us agree that D.C. dynamics have got to change for the U.S. to solve the real challenges we confront and to retain our leadership role in the world.
Political leaders and the media are failing us on so many levels. Although you'd never know it from viewing the daily partisan fight on cable TV, all Americans have a great deal in common. But our understanding of politics, economics, science and even basic facts is increasingly disparate. We cannot afford to continue on this path. A healthy democracy requires an educated electorate that shares basic truths and values -- or at least is willing to sit down and listen to one another with an open mind, with mutual respect and civility.
There is hope. Quietly, and without fanfare, groups and individuals are reaching out to each other. I've been involved with one such effort, called "Living Room Conversations." In the format of a Living Room Conversation, one self-identified "conservative" and one self-identified "progressive" co-host each invite two friends of similar political ideologies to join a structured conversation. They learn about each other and talk about an issue of their choice. Six people, friends and friends of friends, that's all it takes.
Having seen these conversations in action, I believe that people of good will with different viewpoints can build a foundation for changing our path. We can rediscover a shared vision of a future that is good for us all, remember that we can respect and like neighbors who hold different views, and even start identifying shared solutions to the enormous challenges we face.
Diverse groups are now preparing to encourage Living Room Conversations among their members about issues like healthy food, climate and energy, civility, and money in politics. It's hard to anticipate results, but trial conversations about energy found agreement across partisan lines on conserving energy and growing our renewable energy. Conversations about money in politics revealed consensus on the need for transparency. If the insights from hundreds and even thousands of conversations are shared, we could help give good leaders the "transpartisan" foundation they need to make good policy.
Obviously, initiatives like these are unabashedly optimistic and will even be called starry-eyed and naive. And yes, there are all sorts of barriers to success. Our communities have become so insulated that many people no longer have friends with different political affiliations. And people who do have friends with different views are reluctant to talk about potentially divisive issues. The good news is that pilot conversations have happened, were all successful, and led to new insights as well as interest in further conversations for most participants. In fact, people of different political stripes typically discover that they like each other, are relieved to be able to discuss topics that have become taboo, and often find common ground.
While the traditional media loves fights, the new and emerging social media loves connections. We can leverage the wisdom and creativity of crowds to find win-win solutions to our common problems. We can scale our efforts to tens of thousands of conversations, giving individuals the power to begin to reweave the social fabric of our communities.
Joan Blades is co-founder of MoveOn.org. and MomsRising.org. She recently co-authored The Custom-Fit Workplace:Choose When Where and How to Work and Boost Your Bottom Line winner of a Nautilus book award http://
On unifying through community-based interactions, this is definitely a growing movement. Recently, Coffee Party USA redefined their mission statement as "Connecting communities to reclaim our government for the People." Today, the game is rigged in favor of those empowered to control the national dialog; specifically, large corporations and über-wealthy individuals who use Super PACs to buy the 1% media who, as mentioned earlier, is only interested in making money. It's truly a match made in hell.
The only thing they can't control is the internet and its virtually limitless social media outlets. But we must remember the lessons of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate companion, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) that would have granted the government the power to take down any website they wanted. And remember (with joy!) the counter-offensive launched by Wikipedia and other industry giants in the form of an “Internet Blackout” that shut these bills down? Go team internet!
So yes! Let's band together in a grass roots movement and vote out all who would look to pedal influence and control the conversation. Also, let’s vow to turn off our television and use the vast resources of the internet to BECOME the media that NO ONE can control.
If we want to have honest, respectful dialogue we really must stop using conversation enders.
We are no longer anchored to a place by family ties. Have webcam will travel. You can talk to your nearest and dearest in San Francisco while sitting on your couch in Mobile--never getting wet or having to run into people you don't agree with.
California and Texas might as well be in different galaxies for all they have in common culturally. A poster on another site called it "voluntary self-Balkanization."
I think Paul Starobin has a much better plan in his article "Divided We Stand" published in the Wall Street Journal June 13, 2009. He suggests the US has simply become too big to govern either efficiently or effectively. Smaller more cohesive nations are running rings around us economically speaking, and we need to peacefully divide into ideologically similar regions for the purpose of governing everything except defense, foreign relations and certain treasury functions.
Readers interested in figuring out why there is so much disagreement and rancor might find interesting a book that examines the underlying psychological, anthropological and historical reasons that Americans seem so divided -- "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. Understanding why we are so prone to violent political and religious disagreement may provide clues to help improve the quality and the chance of success of Ms. Blades initiative.
With today's ability to move anywhere and tune in on the web or airwaves to only that with which we agree 24/7 I don't see any possibility of us all just getting along even though we are stuck here together on this planet and in the nation--as currently constituted.
The answer is not sitting around the fire singing "kumbayah". It is constructively dividing in order to move forward. Good fences make good neighbors. Frankly, I would be far happier in an independent region where I knew my taxes would be low, business would be encouraged and fecklessness would be punished.
It is like telling an American they now have to accept and obey the entire panoply of culture--from religion, to politics, to child-rearing, to education, to cooking--of Outer Mongolia. We no longer meet at enough points to build any kind of bridge. As with constantly fighting siblings, the best we can hope for is that separation will at least keep the house quiet.
We gotta get organized folks , but what we really need are "leaders" who can creat the "narrative" that will unite the various splintered "special interest groups" of fragmented society.
You would think the Right had alienated and pissed off enough various people to form a Coherent and Cohesive Left, but it ain't happened yet. Mainly because we don't all agree on a basic Narrative the way the Old Left did pre-WWII.