Interspirit.net
The Spirit of Democracy
Workbook on Transpartisan and Integral Politics
Draft Sketches and Notes
The Intersprit Foundation
November 2, 2008 – 7.100933
We believe we are experiencing the emergence across the USA and the world of a new “wisdom culture”, which is growing in strength and authenticity, and represents a powerful positive force for social transformation and cultural health.
This emerging new culture affects the psychology and understanding of individuals everywhere, and is now beginning to coalesce as a political force, gathering around several core concepts, including ”transpartisan” and “integral” approaches to politics and collective decision-making.
This document is an initial gathering of concepts and resources that could be brought together in a workbook on transpartisan and integral politics, introducing the major ideas in a form intended to support creative discussions and further development. The larger objective is the development of a national network process intended to bring these ideas into focus through the collaboration of many participants.
The basic elements:
1. What are the basic concepts, and how are they defined?
a. Transpartisan: what is transpartisan and how does it differ from bi-partisan or non-partisan?
b. Integral: what is the meaning of “integral politics”, and how can holistic thinking improve and refine our political decisions?
c. Civic spirit: how can we define and authenticate the role of spirit in the public square in the context of church/state separation?
2. Outline of our contemporary social landscape – what our problems have been, what solutions might be developed, how can we act together to convene a new political force?
3. How can we use collaborative methods to refine a shared and collective understanding of the basic concepts, so as to develop a general consensus on fundamentals that could support a strong and stable national network? How can we use internet technology to support the development of this understanding?
The basic problem to which we are responding is the fragmentation and contention in our political conversations (national, regional, local), tending to cause bad decisions and a loss of control on critical issues of concern to everyone. We are proposing a general solution including these basic elements:
1. Transpartisan – because partisan perspectives seriously limit our collective capacity to make wise decisions
2. Integral (holistic) – because we need to “connect the dots” and tie issues together, rather than consider them separately
3. Spiritual – because Americans have a deep instinctive desire to base their national governance on eternal principles, and have been struggling to find a way to do this in genuinely universal terms
Our larger objective is to convene a national network process that is intended to accomplish several objectives
1. Bring together individuals and organizations that are concerned about these issues, and want to work collaboratively with others to clarify these principles, and make them influential
2. Create a networking process that can support this collaboration, resulting in a strong consensus on essential points, and a framework that is capable of influencing the political process at every level
3. Develop an activist and outreach element of this process, intended to make contact with all elements of our national conversation (media outlets, writers, TV and print journalists, politicians, anyone who has influence on political thinking)
What we are not doing
1. We are not proposing specific positions on critical issues, such as global warming, or taxes, or immigration, or sustainable energy.
2. This project is about transforming the spirit of dialogue in our national conversation, not about specific positions or issues that might arise within this conversation.
3. We want to find ways to convene all voices, and introduce all critical information and insight into our collective deliberations.
Specific action points – what are we proposing to do?
We are inviting individuals and groups interested in these themes to
1. Come together to join a collaborative network project that works on defining and clarifying essential issues
2. Pick some aspect of this work, and enter the process – helping define it, helping detail it, helping consolidate and expand it
3. As the project grows in clarity and inclusion, play a role in the activist outreach to other points in the conversational grid, inviting those people to participate in the network, and helping them to influence their local and immediate environment
Larger inclusive vision: there is a broad movement in the world that is driving people towards increasingly global and holistic ways of thinking.
Universal ways of thinking
The “wisdom culture”
Self-governance and the national conversation
Our democracy is guided and influenced by our “national conversation”, as it occurs at multiple levels, including all electronic and print media, and potentially affecting every political decision at every level, national, regional, or local. We are suggesting that for many reasons, this conversation today is fragmented and polarized in wounding or dangerous ways, and
The primary objective and vision for this project – is to develop a social force that can influence the spirit and quality of the American national conversation as it affects our self-governance as a people.
Why is “Spirit of Democracy” the right name for this project? How does this concept include all the aspects we want to bring together?
1. This project has powerful and transformative implications for collective thinking, at all levels
2. It can be entirely understood as a “spiritual” process, directly affecting individual psychology at an intimately personal level, and radiating from there to become a social or collective force. Though this project is defined as political, it can be seen as the fruit and outcome of forces which are essentially spiritual, and having a transformative effect on individuals.
3. Part of this project involves defining the meaning of democracy. We are not only looking at what democracy has been throughout history – we are considering what democracy should be and can become. We are talking about realizing its full potential.
Realizing the full potential of democracy
1. What does this take?
2. What is limiting democracy today?
3. How does our work today transcend and extend beyond traditional assumptions on what democracy is or can be?
Guided by the Spirit of Oneness
This entire process is guided by an attunement with the principles and spirit of Oneness – oneness in the individual, in the society, and in the interconnectedness of all things. There is an underlying potential for harmony in all things, which is the essential general guiding principle
1. The principles of unity and diversity
2. Self-control and self-guidance
3. Om/harmonic as the guiding principle – all decisions guided by the integral spirit
4. “Iterative relaxation convergence”
5. Axial integration – an integral transcendent unity all things as the guiding ideal
6. A “sacred circle” at the core of this process, radiating out across levels, becoming increasingly “secular” (what does this mean – less adherence to critical core principles of spirit?)
One Circle – the Transcendental Vision
Does it make sense to say – that this entire business of “transpartisan politics” is really about calling the entire body politic into “one circle”?
Is it true – that “the law of the circle” fixes or heals every relational point in the circle process – and tends to harmonize or balance or sooth every discussion, every issue, every concern, every point of adjudication, where there tend to be divergent forces?
Developing a National Network
We are proposing the development of a national network of individuals and organizations who agree to work together
the objective of the network is to transform the spirit of the democratic process.
By this, we mean to influence the way people in society come together to make collective decisions that influence us all
1. work together within an evolving cocreative and collaborative model, to develop definitions and principles to be shared by participating organizations
2. participants in the network are free to adopt the rules and principles as they wish
3. this is a convergent process, with individuals and groups joining the process for many reasons, including
a. a sense that our collective processes can and should be guided by spirit
b. a sense that the existing ways of understanding the democratic process do not express the full potential for wise self-governance – that we are tending to make serious and very expensive mistakes
Design for the national network
Build a bridge between the council process in the tipi and the Congressional Caucus on Transpartisan and Integral Politics. The objective is – to incorporate all the intervening wisdom and insight available to build the connection between the tipi and the congress – showing why the tipi process is credible, and backing it up with all the insight of all the scholars and group process facilitators and shaman and priests and priestesses –
This process fully spans the American national conversation, and integrates all voices into one integral conversation concerning all aspects of our collective self-governance
Problems in our national democratic process
1. Extreme partisanism
2. Either/or thinking in badly formed alternatives
3. Demonization
4. Over-simplification
5. Fragmented thinking – inability to interconnect related aspects of a larger whole
6. Inability to include all aspects of a situation
The entire process is a network that can be understood as held together through a “sacred circle” process, where all people are free to join the network at any level they wish, honoring any relative degree of “sacredness” they choose
The Shift – and The Shift Network
The role of idealism and ideal network design
This transpartisan project is coming together from many levels, as people with hands-on experience in the daily affairs of business and governance interact. But some of us approach this work from a philosophical or ideal point of view, as scholars, designers, engineers, network-builders and architects of a new social order. For those of us who see this work from a design perspective, it does seem to make sense to create and evolve an ideal and even “perfect” design – if such a thing is possible – and some of us think it is. Just because we might be able to conceive a perfect ideal means that we fail if we cannot entire achieve or realize this ideal in our actual daily lives. The emergence of an ideal framework can be something we move towards, something we grow towards
Contributing forces
1. The role of universal spirit
a. “civic religion”
b. general universal virtues
c. universal spiritual principles common to all major religions and traditions
2. Integral/holistic thinking
3. Transpartisan politics
Emerging new model
1. Cocreativity instead of competition
2. Dialogue – “a conversation with a center, not sides”
3. Appreciative inquiry
4. Global/holistic thinking: we are all on the same team
Developing a collaborative process
1. Gather up the major ideas of “integral politics”, wherever they may be found – find all websites and books on these themes, and more or less gather up and include everything reviewed in these materials. Work with network participants to create a general loose consensus on what is included and essential
2. In a similar way, gather up everything on “transpartisan politics” – what does this mean?
Universal Spirit – the Authentication of the Circle Process
This is an important facet of this work – why does the “sacred circle” process represent an authentically universal approach to spirit, that is consistent with the basic truths of all major world religions and spiritual traditions?
Part of what we are doing is – showing how this works, and inviting interfaith and spiritual groups everywhere to contribute their understanding to this emerging central model
1. Church/state separation in the American tradition – what are the issues
a. We are essentially a spirit-led nation – we were founded by immigrants who came here to pursue their religious ideals in a context of freedom, and all our core national traditions reflect this
b. However, we have struggled with problems of sectarianism – there is no doubt that “religions” can be divisive and controversial
c. So, the development of some authentic way to define “universal spirit” is critically important. We need to show how this works, and how it can be authentically documented. We need to build collaboration and shared understanding/consensus on this concept.
• Problems in contemporary politics
o Fragmentation of context
o Argumentative and destructive spirit
o Ambiguous and accusatory rhetoric
o Radicalism and dominance of single issues
o Failure to include all aspects of complex situations
o Failure to recognize interdependence of issues
o Lack of unified frame of reference
o Lack of good maps and shared understanding
• Issues relating to globalization and the transition towards a world civilization
o Porous and dissolving borders
o Maintaining robust local communities
o Legislating broad policies that can be insensisitve or blind to specific local issues
• Creating a politics of good relationships
o The ethics of democracy
▪ Mutual respect
▪ Taking the time to listen
▪ Co-creativity
▪ Building and maintaining trust
o Dialogue
o Appreciative Inquiry
o Circles and group process
• Creativity and collective genius
o In a context of mutual respect, diverse opinions and ideas can fuel a creative process
o Create an environment that encourages talented people to contribute their skills
• Principles of cooperation and co-creativity
o Teamwork in a competitive political environment
o Sharing the workload
o One nation, total diversity and local freedom, one frame of reference
• Unity and diversity - how the categories work
o It's not "either/or OR both/and" -- it's "either/or AND both/and"
o It's not bottom-up OR top-down -- it's bottom up AND top-down
o The logic of unity AND diversity -- and unity IN diversity -- can be defined in algebra, and in the logic of databases; we can and should talk about social organization with the same precision
• Universal spirit in a secular context
o Universal values "beyond ideology", common to all traditions
o Developing a coalition of spiritual and religious leaders who present a simple message of unity and trust, based on universal values
• Network technology and mapping
o "Network of Circles" -- a new politics of inclusion and connection
o GIS and mapping technology -- connecting the dots big time
(to be continued and expanded)
|Reflections on the Gold Lake Trans-Partisanship Retreat |
|December 5th, 2005 |
|Dan Wheeler, Boulder CO |
| |
|The City Club of Boulder recently had the great fortune of hearing reflections from conveners of the second conference on |
|“Democracy in America, A Trans-Partisan Leadership Retreat”. This retreat -- funded by the Fetzer Institute and organized by, |
|Joseph McCormick and Pat Spino, Co-founders of the Democracy in America Project -- brought together leaders from national |
|membership groups throughout the political spectrum with the intent of “building bridges of trust, respect and |
|communication”[1]. These dialogues voicing views of leaders and citizens occurred within a unique gathering of diverse |
|organizations including; Americans for Tax Reform, Christian Coalition, , Liberty Coalition, Muslim Public Affairs |
|Council, Sierra Club and others[2] (for participant list see note 2). Of particular concern to the organizers was the creation |
|of a container where “left and right could meet in a place of trust”[3]. |
| |
| In speaking to the essence of the retreat, Joseph McCormick, states in describing the event, “I use the words political |
|reconciliation, political re-union, political healing, ultimately to me it’s a healing energy…it’s about the reintegration of |
|all parts…the vision is to recreate, at least in microcosm (to start), health, wholeness and integrity within our political |
|spectrum.” From my experience as an audience member, when Joseph described the intent of the retreat as exampled in his words |
|above, there was a palpable energy in the room. I experienced this as a collective sigh and deep acknowledgment that this is |
|the type of profound work so urgently needed for health to emerge for all Americans within our political spectrum. With the |
|acknowledgment of the intent of the retreat as well as the background stories of Joseph, Pat and Michael as grounding, themes |
|began to emerge for me in capturing a feel of the atmosphere at Gold Lake—of the significance of this meeting in charting a |
|renewed, reinvigorated passion for Democracy in the United States. One of the visions of this retreat is to connect “networks |
|of networks” of organizations that support the similar intent of empowerment of the people—despite differences—and bring about a|
|“Chautauqua type movement/a We the People movement” that creates opportunities for people to dialogue about topics that matter |
|most in their lives. Another retreat vision is to bring collaborative decision-making processes regarding public policy issues |
|to all levels of our political spectrum. |
| |
|In looking beyond the divisive tendencies of a partisanship mentality, a transpartisanship approach “recognizes the existence |
|and validity of many viewpoints, and advocates a constructive discourse aimed at arriving at collaborative synthesis |
|solutions.”[4] In honoring the diversity of viewpoints within the retreat, the organizers sought to create the foundation for |
|true dialogue where personal and organizational agendas were set aside in the effort toward wholeness. In one example of this |
|intent Joseph describes the qualities of Yin and Yang, the balancing of the masculine and feminine which he and Democracy in |
|America Co-founder Pat Spino bring to the conversation of wholeness within the political spectrum. Joseph notes that the |
|awareness of how these qualities manifest in the political atmosphere is very important in honoring the contribution the left |
|and the right brings to the table and how important this awareness is in moving beyond a sense of separation in order for |
|reconciliation and healing to occur. |
| |
|Michael Ostrolenk, founder of the Liberty Coalition (), brought to the presentation his view on bringing|
|together the left and right in order to work on policy issues. He does this through developing personal relationships across |
|all party lines. Despite this being such a common sense approach, the retreat at Gold Lake seemed to epitomize the importance |
|of face to face relationship building. Other factors which significantly contributed to the container that was created were the|
|space itself in nature—the Gold Lake retreat center in winter and also the facilitation by Mark Gerzon and Bill Ury. As Michael|
|Ostrolenk reflects, the team created an “atmosphere where people could open their hearts up and talk to one another…and play |
|together.” |
| |
|In responding to an audience question about creating language that goes beyond partisan lines, Mark Gerzon reflects on the ideas|
|of partisanship and the divine and highlighted the presence of the sacred in the room during the retreat. He says in analogy to|
|the saying “where shame is, God is not, where God is, shame is not”, relating this to partisanship he posits, “Where |
|partisanship is, God is not, where God is, partisanship is not”. This analogy speaks to the opportunity for wholeness, where |
|the sacred is about creation, about the whole, where concepts of separation and partisanship are placed as assumptions to be |
|pondered. |
| |
|The emerging field of transpartisanship in the political spectrum holds a place of intent bringing greater unification to all |
|Americans despite our unique differences. These are the differences that make a democracy healthy. In closing the City Club |
|presentation, Mark Gerzon described the closing of the Gold Lake meeting saying the retreat ended with three prayers from three |
|participants; one in English, another in English and Hebrew and yet another in Arabic and English, showing how bringing the |
|sacred into community space and transpartisan politics, brings about greater possibilities for the whole. And finally there was|
|a closing reflection from Michael Ostrolenk—“And then we all danced together!” For further information and developments, stay |
|tuned to the Democracy in America Project website at: and . |
| |
|[pic] |
|[1] Quoted from the retreat participants handout |
|[2] John Rother, Director of Policy and Strategy, AARP, Robert Spanogle, National Adjutant, American Legion, Grover Norquist, |
|President, Americans for Tax Reform, Betsey Taylor, President, Center for a New American Dream, Roberta Combs, President, |
|Christian Coalition, Ana Micka, President, Citizens for Health, Dave Keating, Executive Director, Club for Growth, Chellie |
|Pingree, President, Common Cause, Joseph McCormick, Co-founder, Democracy in America Project, Pat Spino, Co-founder, Democracy |
|in America Project, Irma Herrera, Executive Director, Equal Rights Advocates, Tom Beech, President, Fetzer Institute, William |
|Ury, Director, Global Negotiation Project, Harvard Law School, Cheryl Graeve, Senior Director, Membership, League of Women |
|Voters, Michael Ostrolenk, Founder, Liberty Coalition, Mark Gerzon, President, Mediators Foundation, Scott Heiferman, |
|Co-founder, , Joan Blades, Co-founder, , Ahmed Younis, Director, Muslim Public Affairs Council, Brenda |
|Girton-Mitchelll, Assoc, General Secretary, National Council of Churches USA, Susan Hackley, Managing Director, Program on |
|Negotiation, Harvard Law School, Robert Fersh, Executive Director, Search for Common Ground USA, Maggie Fox, Deputy Executive |
|Director, Sierra Club, Drew Bond, President, , John Steiner, Transpartisan networker |
|[3] John Steiner states in his introduction of the event. |
|[4] As quoted from the “Draft Mapping of the Transpartisan Field” handout from the City Club presentation and available at |
| |
| |
| Purpose for Convening |
| |
| |
|Re-connect a broad spectrum group of Americans to the ideals, values, and principles that represent the "spirit of America" |
|Re-build trust, communication and respect across political divides through inclusive civic dialogue. |
|Experience living democracy where all voices matter. |
|Take personal responsibility for articulating "what we are for" (as opposed to "what we are against.") |
|Produce a transpartisan vision for America |
The Emerging Transpartisan Field in American Politics
Transpartisanship Defined
Transpartisanship represents an emerging field in political thought distinct from bipartisanship, which aims to negotiate between “right” and “left,” resulting in a dualistic perspective, and nonpartisanship, which tends to avoid political affiliation altogether. Rather, transpartisanship acknowledges the validity of truths across a range of political perspectives and seeks to synthesize them into an inclusive, pragmatic container beyond typical political dualities.In practice, transpartisan solutions emerge out of a new kind of public conversation that moves beyond polarization by applying proven methods of facilitated dialogue, deliberation and conflict resolution. In this way it is possible to achieve the ideal of a democratic republic by integrating the values of a democracy -- freedom, equality, and a regard for the common good, with the values of a republic -- order, responsibility and security.
The Transpartisan Field
Transpartisanship is increasingly being used to describe the collaborative efforts of citizens and leaders who seek to discover and implement the best possible policies regardless of political ideology. Transpartisanship practices and methods are currently being employed by all levels of government (national, state, and local), various citizen groups, nonprofit organizations, corporations, consulting and conflict-resolution firms, university programs and more. Together these efforts have generated a considerable body of work that is forming the Transpartisan field.
History of the Emerging Transpartisan Field
Like most modern schools of political or social thought it is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of Transpartisanship. The term was used as early as the late 1980’s when it appeared in an essay titled “Self-Reliant Defense: Without Bankruptcy or War,” by American scholars Gene Sharp and Bruce Jenkins of the Albert Einstein Institute. Sharp and Jenkins state: “whether the proposal is to add a civilian-based resistance component or to transform to a full civilian-based defense policy, the presentation, consideration, and decision should not be made on an ideological or partisan basis. Instead, civilian-based options in defense need to be presented and evaluated in a "Transpartisan" manner-not tied to any doctrinal outlook or narrow group.” This early use of the term Transpartisanship emphasized the selection of best practices regardless of specific political ideologies. The ideas behind Transpartisanship have quickly spread into other disciplines including politics, society, culture, economics etc.
Emerging Elements of the Transpartisanship Field
• Transpartisanship is a vibrant and evolving field; however there are a few key concepts that are especially characteristic:
• All systems are interdependent - All things are fundamentally interconnected influence one another, which in turn validates each individual component (or belief). Transpartisanship therefore honors each belief and strives to fully integrate it into the system, thus achieving equilibrium.
• All points of view are equally valuable - Every belief or view can be important in reaching collaborative decisions.
• Note: why is this true? How can this be true? Because everybody does have an authentic point of view, and information to contribute. If people don’t venture beyond the boundaries of what they authentically know and can speak about, their input is always valuable. Not everybody is an expert on brain surgery, but everybody has a brain and can talk about what a headache feels like.
• Optimal solutions are reached through honest and authentic dialogue - In order to arrive at practical and sustainable solutions all viewpoints can be shared openly and honestly.
• Disagreement can be an asset - Disagreements over an issue need not undermine consensus if all parties are willing to harness existing tension to find common ground. New alliances will naturally form and collaboration will often reveal previously unanticipated solutions that can satisfy all those involved.
• The public must take responsibility for being heard - Transpartisanship holds that good decisions are made by considering a wide range of opinions. Reintegrating the public at large into the conversation can enhance the range of opinions and lead to better decisions.
• Need to protect the sovereignty of the individual - While the role of the community is undoubtedly vital for reaching effective solutions, so too is the need to protect individuals from the dictates of the collective. Views and opinions may only be expressed honestly when the individual is free from coercion.
Note: Transpartisanship in currently an evolving field and therefore lacks a unitary definition or set of core values. The definition and values listed above should be seen as a guideline to begin the discourse over Transpartisanship, not a terminus.
Transpartisan Citizen Empowerment
Published Friday, July 4, 2008
by Joseph McCormick
The consequence of political polarization, our "house divided," is citizen disempowerment. Disempowered citizens blame unaccountable government on "those liberals" or "those conservatives." Empowered citizens have skills to communicate and cooperate across political divides to hold government accountable.
In the course of my time spent building political bridges, I have discerned three sets of skills needed for true citizen empowerment – personal, inter-personal, and trans-personal. Personal citizen empowerment skills are developed when I look deeply at myself and examine my belief systems. I need to question my assumptions about "liberals" or "conservatives" or "greens” or “the government." I need to examine my tendency, for example, to feel victimized by power. I need to do my best to understand people who don't look at the world the same way I do. I need to learn to forgive others who I perceive as hurting my community, my country or the world. These are the results of personal development and personal transformation and it is my responsibility to do this work myself.
The next set of citizen empowerment skills are inter-personal. These are the skills of small group dialogue and deliberation. If you think of classical Greek democracy, it was rooted in dialogue. Dialogue builds relationship, it builds trust, it allows people to tell their personal stories, it breaks down stereotypes, it builds bridges across divides. It allows people to share their values, what's most important to them. In time as the dialogue continues from meeting to meeting, it allows a group made up of many different points of view to begin to address a problem, in creative, innovative ways, generating options no one thought of before. In other words, group wisdom emerges.
The last set of citizen empowerment skills are trans-personal. These are the skills of social networking that in time lead to the emergence of social movement. A Citizen Empowerment group in one community shares its thinking with a group in another community. Then groups in dozens, hundreds and eventually thousands of communities are sharing their experience and learning with each other. The network of networks begins to develop an identity, a sense of its growing influence, and a creative capacity to think and act together.
For a true citizen empowerment movement to emerge, all three of these skills must be developed and when they are, the movement becomes an institution, an institution of citizenship. It becomes an informal "fourth branch of government" that has a supportive relationship with the other three formal branches of government. As innovative options emerge out of the network of Citizen Empowerment groups, official decision-makers are presented with vastly higher quality policy choices. Leaders begin to look to "the fourth branch" for creative solutions to complex problems. Leaders begin to respect and listen to the people because the people are taking responsibility for governing themselves.
Are you ready to restore a healthy balance of power between government, corporations, and the American people?
If so, Apply Now to serve as a Delegate to the first ever American Citizen's Summit!
(Exhibitors click here. Sponsors click here.)
_________________________________________________________________
Dear Fellow Concerned American:
In honor of Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial, in February the Transpartisan Alliance - a network of networks building bridges among individuals and organizations from all political points of view - will convene the first ever Transpartisan National Convention. For four days political pioneers from all sides will come together in search of effective strategies for empowering a unified political voice that can restore a healthy balance of power in America.
The Problem...
Our partisan politcal system is broken. Everyday Americans are deeply frustrated. Politicians and advocacy groups are frustrated. Millions of people have tuned-out or dropped out in despair. Millions more watch the two-party power struggle from the sidelines with no effective way of making their voice heard.
"The transpartisan movement has begun to move America beyond the stale partisan rhetoric and fixed bayonets of past arguments. There are ways to rephrase questions and look anew at old challenges that unite Americans more than they divide us." Grover Norquist, conservative activist, President, Americans for Tax Reform
"We've wandered into a political region in which partisan conflict has become more intense than in almost any other period in American history. The transpartisan movement is beginning to foster so much communication across the partisan boundaries that the boundaries themselves are beginning to be much more porous." Al Gore, Former Vice President
Be part of the solution...
The American Citizen's Summit will begin to change all this. We will engage in a new type of political dialogue that respects and values all points of view. Together we will utilize tools that enable conservatives, liberals, independents and unaffiliated citizens to get along and communicate effectively. We will demonstrate that we can work together and cooperate for the good of us all.
What's in it for you?
• The chance to network with empowered citizens and leaders from all over the nation.
• The opportunity to honestly assess the state of our Union and the balance of power in America.
• The opportunity to speak truthfully and safely about what YOU think the real issues are.
• The opportunity to present your vision for where you want America to be in five years.
• The opportunity to co-create solutions that 80+ % of Americans can say "Yes!" to.
• Online tools to go home and convene a local Transpartisan Alliance group.
• A 12 week, small group discussion guide to practice and teach the skills you have learned.
• Online tools to connect your group to the emerging network of Transpartisan Alliance groups.
A Bonus for Delegates
From nationally recognised trainers and through high impact processes and exercises you'll learn...
• Highly effective ground rules for dialogue across divides.
• Over 20 values that build common ground.
• Tools for transforming conflict and power struggle between people and groups.
• Useful frameworks for understanding relationship between worldviews.
• And much, much more...
Re-ignite your passion for America
By the end of this event we will have reconnected with our purpose, mission, and promise as a nation. You will more clearly see your role as an empowered citizen and have new tools and skills for serving your family, community and country. Your life will be transformed as we begin the process of transforming the political life of our nation.
And we'll have fun doing it!
It will be a party of political parties. We'll experience great entertainment, share stories, and be creative as we generate solutions and inspire a new level of citizen leadership.
Delegates may be selected on a first come, first served basis, so...
What does Transpartisan mean to you?
Based on conversations I've had over the past few years here's the definition I like...transpartisanship acknowledges the validity of truths across a range of political perspectives and seeks to synthesize them into an inclusive, pragmatic whole beyond typical political dualities. In practice, transpartisan solutions emerge out of a new kind of public conversation that moves beyond polarization by applying proven methods of facilitated dialogue, deliberation and conflict resolution. In this way it is possible to achieve the ideal of a democratic republic by integrating the values of a democracy -- freedom, equality, and a regard for the common good, with the values of a republic -- order, responsibility and security.
- Joseph McCormick
About American Citizens’ Summit
Posted on October 25, 2008 by Joseph McCormick
ATTENTION:
Bridgebuilders, networkers, connectors, organizers, peacemakers, coaches and facilitators
Isn’t it time for a national townhall meeting to heal political wounds and search for transpartisan strategies for addressing America’s deepening crisis?
Dear Fellow Concerned American:
Amidst the current financial and foreseeable political turmoil, it’s time responsible citizens from all points of view convened to reasonably assess where we are as a nation, where we want to go and most importantly, how we want to get there.
In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial, in February the Transpartisan Alliance - a network of networks building bridges among individuals and organizations from all political points of view - will convene the first ever Transpartisan National Convention. The theme of the event is “A house divided against itself cannot stand” (A. Lincoln, Springfield, IL,1858).
For four days, citizens, leaders and experts from all sides will come together in search of effective strategies for empowering a unified political voice that can restore a healthy balance of power in America. We will engage in a new type of political dialogue that respects and values all points of view. Together we will utilize dialogue, deliberation and conflict resolution tools that enable conservatives, liberals, independents and unaffiliated citizens to communicate respectfully and effectively, and to re-build trust. We will demonstrate that Americans can work together and cooperate for the good of us all.
As a delegate you’ll receive…
• The chance to network with empowered citizens and leaders from all over the nation.
• The opportunity to honestly assess the state of our Union and the balance of power in America.
• The opportunity to speak truthfully and safely about what YOU think the real issues are.
• The opportunity to present your vision for where you want America to be in five years.
• The opportunity to co-create solutions that overwhelming majorities of Americans can say “Yes!” to.
• Online tools to go home and convene a local Transpartisan Alliance group.
• A 12 week, small group discussion guide to practice and teach the skills you have learned.
• Online tools to connect your group to the emerging network of Transpartisan Alliance groups.
From nationally recognized trainers and through high impact processes and exercises you’ll also learn…
• Highly effective ground rules for dialogue across divides.
• Over 20 values that build common ground.
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• And much, much more…
By the end of this event we will have reconnected with our purpose, mission, and promise as a nation. You will more clearly see your role as an empowered citizen and have new tools and skills for serving your family, community and country. You will be transformed as we begin the process of transforming the political life of our nation. And we’ll have fun doing it! It will be a party of political parties. We’ll have great entertainment, share stories, and be creative as we generate solutions and inspire a new level of citizen leadership.
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With gratitude and respect,
The Transpartisan Alliance Team
Hmmm. Thanks for this. I am just -- beginning to gather up and try to collect in one place -- all these critical and essential factors. At the moment, it feels like a big job, and I am moving pretty slow, if at all. One thing I am doing -- is poking around through all the resources on this "" web site, and saving everything to one directory, and pasting essential information into one document. This approach might emerge as something like the next step -- which, for me, feels like a big collaboratively-generated workbook that contains all these many many elements in a loose way, that can be clarified and simplified as this big broad collective vision takes better shape.
It's probably true -- that when I first saw this posting regarding a "tipi" a few days ago -- I couldn't quite assimilate it. It's not that I was critical -- I just didn't quite have the head-space to fit it into my understanding. So, maybe that is taking me some time.
But today, just moving slow, I started putting some of this stuff into an outline, and after I had done some of this, what I started putting up near the top -- was stuff on circles. So, when I came back here, and saw this posting again -- it felt like a key...
I've been looking into the "mystery of circles" for a couple of years, and have been exploring interfaith things for decades. And I started envisioning this "network of circles" concept a couple of years ago, and built a web-system to support it -- though it hasn't done much. But what I am seeing -- I am guessing this is coming together -- "Deep Spirit" and "The Shift Network", and "Integral Politics" and all this stuff -- coming together through a circle model....
So, your statement, Barry, begins with this phrase, "A circle of major movements is forming...."
That feels right to me. More than right....
That's what I've been seeing, too, I think, from a slightly different angle, perhaps. "A network of circles" -- all together forming one circle... and radiating out, somehow "across levels" to include everything and everybody -- including even those who might not yet be ready to "be in sacred circle..."
Circular bridges of relationships ... interconnecting all kinds of groups and processes, linked to one another through this "law of the circle" energy -- something about "center", something about listening and humility, something about receptivity. This is "all my relations......"
So maybe, as this energy continues to coalesce, we don't yet have all these bridges in place. The power to do this, in its fullest way -- just has not yet been released to any of us. We can feel it, we can sense it, in our inspired moments, we do what we can to act on it -- but still, it's a little too powerful, a little too potent, too awesome. It's not quite ready to happen in its fullest flower, not just yet -- or so it feels to me....
So, maybe this gathering out of the earth, honoring the first nations sources -- is something like a perfect place to consider these things. We don't see all the pieces yet, or how they come together -- but something in us knows that this form, this way, this path -- is right....
*
Just feeling into this -- I wonder about the emergence of an "electronic circle" as a kind of central nervous system for something like this.... Does that make sense? I think the reason I am feeling this -- is that this message -- about circle and tipi and core wisdom -- feels so authentic to me. Maybe it is some kind of trigger for me, who knows. That's what I've been feeling, I think -- a big electronic circle, following these core principles -- and taking on this big task, that is too big for anybody....
A little more on this theme, on this vision....
I found this .pdf, talking about this process --
And it says
"We are a traveling creative vortex convening a single world leadership community capable of healing and evolving "the new world order".
"We will guide institutional transformation by generating an online world consensus using best practices, radical transparency, conflict resolution, a new world calendar and comprehensive planning and organized prayer rituals from myriad cultures.
"We will draw from one gathering to enhance the next, always connecting community and growing an entourage of change agents, healers, political strategists and friends.
"We pray, love, learn, think, design, merge, support, research, teach, organize and inspire."
I just want to say -- that something in me really resonates to this. This is not just "a" circle -- it's kind of like "the" circle -- if that doesn't sound too pretentious. Now, yes, it is true, that I have this wild instinct for "one circle" and "the circle shall be unbroken". And yes, this is out there. But my instinct is -- this is right.
And what I want to say -- feels something like -- for all these people, who are coming into this process, for all their different reasons, some with primarily a political background, yet still with strong feelings that something needs to be harmonized and integrated -- it feels like this "tipi-circle" concept -- is very seminal -- and very relevant to their concerns...
What I think I want to say is -- we could start anywhere with this "integral" stuff. But -- this is the right place to start. This is where the power is. This is where the law of guidance is. This is how we can hold it together. This is why something fabulously complex -- could have integrity across a thousand levels, in a million separate venues...
It works for me, I think -- because I don't want to start from some kind of "secular" vision -- even if very idealistic and communitarian. I want to be absolutely connected to the core creative energies of existence, and I feel that all these emerging processes and concepts can emerge in an integral and whole way if this integrity is maintained.
So -- this "traveling creative vortex" -- is, from a strictly local point of view -- just "one example" of a universal form. But the idea is -- the idea that is forming is -- because this template is truly universal, it can appear spontaneously, with just the slightest encouragement and guidance, almost anywhere...
It IS the most ancient and eternal principle of self-guidance for societies...
It's totally organic and natural, anyone can understand it, its law and internal form are perfect and immaculate...
So, what I am seeing here -- is thousands of points like this -- each one a circle, and all these circles in a circle...
With everything known about political philosophy and group psychology and cocreativity and "decision optimization" caught up within this process, as aspects of it....
Everything everybody wants to do here, it seems to me -- is contained within this model.
This approach can support endless collaborative cocreativity. And it can all be "harmonically entrained" through an integral circle network process, that dots the landscape of our society, of our nation -- of our world...
So yes, of course -- this is incredibly idealistic. It's more than that. It's perfect. So, why let that be a hangup? This model, this form, this process -- is coalescing. Its true breadth of authentic inclusion is being defined with greater clarity. This will continue to happen.
And more than even this -- the entire process is beginning to emerge as an action agenda. This is "something we can do". It emerges from our instincts, and engages everything moving through our breath...
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| |HOME SIGN PLEDGE FURTHER ACTION RESOURCES LINKS | | |
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| | |Resources | | |
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| | |To learn about moral psychology and the causes of moral conflict and self-righteousness: | | |
| | |Read summaries of the talks given at the conference on "Beyond Moralistic Politics," which launched this project and website. | | |
| | |Read Ch. 4 of "The Happiness Hypothesis," on hypocrisy and the "myth of pure evil." | | |
| | |Read this short review of the current state of research in moral psychology, by Jonathan Haidt. | | |
| | |Read this review article on ideology, by John Jost. | | |
| | |Read this book on the foundational metaphors and cognitive frames that underlie and guide political thought (Moral Politics: How liberals | | |
| | |and conservatives think, by George Lakoff.) | | |
| | |Read this book on how different visions of human nature underlie the worldviews and political beliefs of liberals and conservatives: A | | |
| | |conflict of visions: The ideological origins of political struggles. By Thomas Sowell. | | |
| | |Read this paper on the "bias blind spot" -- our inabllity to see our own biases, by Emily Pronin, Tom Gilovich, and Lee Ross. | | |
| | |To learn about the rise in partisan rancor since the 1980s and its causes: | | |
| | |Read this paper which reviews the evidence on what really caused the polarization of political elites in the USA in recent decades. | | |
| | |Hetherington, M. (in press) Putting Polarisation in Perspective. British Journal of Political Science. | | |
| | |Read this article: Reconcilable Differences, by Ronald Brownstein, in The Atlantic, September 2008. From the article: "Hyper-partisanship” | | |
| | |is how the Republican strategist Ken Mehlman aptly describes the current political environment. Its price is a paralyzing inability to | | |
| | |confront the most difficult problems facing the nation: health care, global warming, energy independence, immigration, entitlement reform, | | |
| | |and the path forward in Iraq. On these controversial issues, meaningful progress is virtually impossible without bipartisan support. Indeed,| | |
| | |the three most ambitious domestic-policy initiatives of the past 15 years—Clinton’s attempt to provide universal health care, in 1993; Newt | | |
| | |Gingrich’s effort to remake the federal budget, in 1995; and Bush’s drive to redesign Social Security around private investment accounts, in| | |
| | |2005—all failed for the same reason: in each case, the authors were unable to attract any meaningful support for their ideas outside their | | |
| | |own coalition, in the country or in Congress. | | |
| | |To learn about civility and its importance for democracy: : | | |
| | |Read this book: Civility: Manners, morals, and the etiquette of democracy, by Stephen L. Carter. | | |
| | |Read the report of this exepriment, demonstrating that exposure to uncivil news/talk programs decreases viewers' trust in government and | | |
| | |polticians, and harms the democratic process. (Mutz, C., & Reeves, B. (2005). The new videomalaise: Effects of televised inciviliyt on | | |
| | |political trust. American Political Science Review, 99) | | |
| | |To help liberals understand (and be civil to) conservatives: | | |
| | |Read this paper on the psychological foundations of morality and ideology, by Jon Haidt and Jesse Graham. | | |
| | |Read Ch. 9 of The Happiness Hypothesis, on the psychological dimension of divinity, which tries to explain what many religious people find | | |
| | |objectionable about a purely secular culture. | | |
| | |Read this book on the moral world of a "religious right" community, interpreted by a sympathetic sociologist (Spirit and Flesh, by James | | |
| | |Ault). | | |
| | |Read this article on the lack of ideological diversity in psychology, and why the exclusion of conservatives harms the scientific and | | |
| | |pro-social missions of psychology: Redding, R.E. (2001). Sociopolitical diversity in psychology: The case for pluralism. American | | |
| | |Psychologist, 56(3), 205-215. | | |
| | |Read this essay: What Makes People Vote Republican, by Jonathan Haidt, on . | | |
| | |To help conservatives understand (and be civil to) liberals: | | |
| | |Read this book on how diverse modern societies can keep some of the richness of traditional ways and identities while avoiding the ugliness | | |
| | |of identity politics. (Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers. by Anthony Appiah). | | |
| | |[we need more here: what essays can transmit the essential insights and compassion of liberalism in a way that conservatives will "get" and | | |
| | |not be turned off by? Please send suggestions to haidt at virginia.edu] | | |
| | | | | |
| | |Resources for teachers and public speakers who want to promote civil politics: | | |
| | |Show this video of Stephen Carter giving a lecture titled: "Beyond the shouting: Civil politics for a sound America. | | |
| | |Show this video of Jonathan Haidt giving a lecture titled "Morality 2012, when liberals will understand conservatives and most other | | |
| | |people." | | |
| | |Website of the Penn Conference on Civility and American Politics | | |
| | | | | |
| | |Miscellaneous resources and essays: | | |
| | |Rod Dreher (2007), Playing the anti-science card [This is a good essay to help scientists overcome self-righteousness and see that even in | | |
| | |scientific debates, moralism often plays a blinding role.] | | |
| | |Do you have a suggestion for an essay or other resource on the Web that can promote understanding and civil politics? Please email it to | | |
| | |haidt at virginia.edu. | | |
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Obama and McCain both say they want to usher in a new, less divisive brand of politics. Which of them has the better chance? Is bipartisanship still possible?
by Ronald Brownstein
Reconcilable Differences
Illustration by Richard Thompson
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American voters nearly always elect a president who responds to the flaws they have found in his predecessor. Jimmy Carter was more honest than Richard Nixon; Ronald Reagan tougher than Carter; George H.W. Bush “kinder and gentler” than Reagan; Bill Clinton more in touch than Bush; George W. Bush more morally upright in his personal life than Clinton. In November, whether most voters pull the lever for John McCain or for Barack Obama, they’re likely to get a president who’s more competent than Bush. What’s less certain—but equally important—is whether they’ll get one who can be the uniter that Bush promised to be, rather than the divider he has been.
The public’s exasperation with the escalating partisan conflict and diminishing achievement in Washington roars through this year’s polls; discontent with the performance of both the president and Congress is at a record level. Both Obama and McCain have responded by centering their respective campaigns on a promise to reach across party lines and narrow the country’s partisan and ideological divisions. Each says he intends to be the president of all of America, not half of it. And each says he is committed to treating his opponent and his opponent’s party with respect. Through the long primary season, I often heard from voters convinced that an Obama-McCain race would avoid the sniping that drives most modern campaigns and set a respectful tone that could help the winner govern after November. “An Obama-McCain debate would be healthy for the world,” Patsy Petit, a McCain supporter, insisted to me just before the New Hampshire primary last January.
In many ways, the first stages of the Obama-McCain race have offered little to justify this optimism. Every day produces a drumbeat of attacks from each side against the other. As a political commentator, I get 20 or 30 e-mails a day from the two campaigns and their surrogates—all hoping to find their way into my coverage of the race. Respect and reconciliation are not the words they conjure.
On the morning after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in June, for example, the Republican National Committee had by 9:10 a.m. distributed three e-mails criticizing him, including two with the subject lines “Obama’s Weak Finish” and “Obama’s Pander Pivot.” The McCain campaign had piled on with a release denouncing Obama’s views on Iran. By 10 a.m., the Democratic National Committee had issued two releases jabbing McCain over his ties to President Bush, and the McCain campaign had announced a conference call (with, among others, independent Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000) to press the attack on Obama’s posture toward Iran. By 11:17 a.m., the Obama campaign had fired back with a release attacking Lieberman over his votes on Iran. And so it went throughout the day; the e-mails pinged back and forth like volleys in a tennis match. By the time of the day’s last release (from the RNC at 10:58 p.m.), the RNC and the McCain campaign had sent about two dozen more salvos criticizing Obama (nine linking Obama to fund-raiser Tony Rezko, who’d just been convicted on corruption charges); and the Obama campaign, the DNC, and groups affiliated with the Democrats had posted about a dozen more releases criticizing McCain (including a flurry accusing him of “outright deception,” “misstatements and distortions,” and a “willingness to mislead the American people”). “This ain’t going to be no civil campaign,” says Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and one of McCain’s closest Senate allies. “I mean, come on—a lot’s at stake.”
The tension between each candidate’s desire to hold the high ground and the extraordinary pressure to go negative—especially as Election Day looms—will be one of the central dynamics in this fall’s campaign. Over the past decade, unconstrained partisanship has debilitated Washington and prevented the federal government from addressing the country’s most pressing problems. This election offers a real possibility—the first in many years—for a de-escalation of the partisan arms race. But this possibility will recede if the presidential campaign turns as toxic as the last two.
From the final years of Bill Clinton’s presidency through Bush’s two bruising terms, American politics has been polarized as sharply as at any point in the past century. Party-line voting in Congress hasn’t been so prevalent since the days of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. In the history of modern polling, Republican and Democratic voters have never held such disparate views of a president’s job performance as they do of Bush’s.
“Hyper-partisanship” is how the Republican strategist Ken Mehlman aptly describes the current political environment. Its price is a paralyzing inability to confront the most difficult problems facing the nation: health care, global warming, energy independence, immigration, entitlement reform, and the path forward in Iraq. On these controversial issues, meaningful progress is virtually impossible without bipartisan support. Indeed, the three most ambitious domestic-policy initiatives of the past 15 years—Clinton’s attempt to provide universal health care, in 1993; Newt Gingrich’s effort to remake the federal budget, in 1995; and Bush’s drive to redesign Social Security around private investment accounts, in 2005—all failed for the same reason: in each case, the authors were unable to attract any meaningful support for their ideas outside their own coalition, in the country or in Congress.
Party-line legislation fails when the stakes are highest, because neither party is comfortable making big, difficult changes without at least some political-risk-sharing from the other side. And of course some bipartisan support is usually necessary to garner the 60 Senate votes required to break a filibuster. What’s more, legislation that is passed on a party-line basis typically contains a structural flaw—it cannot incorporate ideas that divide the majority party’s coalition, which means that many policy tools are left out because they are ideologically impure. As a result, we are asked, for example, to choose between energy legislation that either focuses almost solely on new drilling or tilts overwhelmingly toward conservation and subsidizing renewable energy. This is like trying to cut a piece of paper with one scissor blade. Politically and substantively, progress is typically unlikely without both.
Deep structural changes in American politics have brought us to this impasse. They include revisions in congressional rules that have made it easier for the party leadership to impose discipline on their members; the proliferation of interest groups of left and right; the resurgence of overtly partisan forms of media; and a generation-long ideological “sorting-out” of voters (driven largely by the increased prominence of cultural and foreign-policy issues) that has made each party’s electoral coalition much more homogeneous.
But especially in recent years, hyper-partisanship has also been driven and reinforced by the modern presidential campaign. Presidential elections are meant to be tough; they exist to sharpen and clarify differences. But the ever-extending duration of the campaign and the 24/7 intensity of the media coverage that surrounds it systematically encourage distortion and denigration. In theory, the longer campaign and intensified coverage might provide the candidates and the press with a greater chance to carefully explain the differences between the contenders. In practice, the need to break through the constant chatter and drive the daily media narrative—the imperative to win each news cycle—encourages the campaigns to portray policy disagreements as character flaws and to reduce the candidates’ differences to garish stereotypes (Plutocrat! Socialist! Warmonger! Appeaser!). Every campaign press secretary knows that a candidate can attract more media attention with a 30-second attack on his rival than with a 30-minute explanation of his own policies.
Months of this sniping tend to harden the country’s divisions and diminish the eventual winner’s ability to govern. Any goodwill that either nominee evokes among the supporters of the other at the start of the campaign is now reliably extinguished by the end. That dynamic was especially pronounced in 2000 and 2004, when the country was divided almost exactly in half between Bush and his Democratic opponents, Al Gore and John Kerry. The brutal tone and tenor of each of those campaigns—the Swift Boat accusations on one side, or the charges that Bush had knowingly lied to push America into war with Iraq on the other—left many (possibly most) Gore and Kerry supporters utterly disdainful of Bush, and vice versa. After each election, Bush took the oath of office with nearly half the country alienated from him. Bush compounded his problems with a uniquely polarizing style of governing, but Gore or Kerry, had either man won, undoubtedly would have entered office on an equally narrow ledge—facing as much suspicion and resistance from red America as Bush did from the voters in the Democratic coalition.
This year’s campaign has followed many of the peevish conventions of its recent predecessors. Seemingly anything said by anyone connected to either side can spark a firefight that rages across the Internet and the broadcast airwaves for a few hours, only to be succeeded by another eruption 24 hours later. Bloggers of left and right, belligerent talk-radio hosts, and wall-to-wall TV pundits (present company included) have amplified the daily campaign quarrels into an unrelenting background buzz of apparently unstinting conflict. The interest groups and commentators associated with each party have worked tirelessly to inflame their audiences against the other candidate. So, for instance, Arianna Huffington, the born-again liberal commentator, found a particularly contemptuous metaphor for the common liberal argument that McCain had sold his soul to conservatives. “Sure, she’s a whore,” Huffington wrote of McCain, “but she wears an abstinence promise ring and feels totally guilty when she stuffs the money in her bra, so she’s not like all the other whores.” Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh, the popular talk-radio host, was describing Obama as “a socialist,” “a fraud,” and an emasculated weakling. “He can’t take a punch, he’s weak, and he whines,” Limbaugh declared this spring. “I’m sure some women find that attractive because they would look at him as a little boy and would want to protect him … But it embarrasses me as a man.”
The candidates themselves have consistently jabbed at each other too, though with a notable difference in tone. Especially early in the campaign, Obama was more persistent in criticizing McCain than vice versa. But Obama’s language about his opponent generally has been restrained. He often calls McCain a “genuine American hero,” and his attacks—most often linking McCain with Bush—are seldom personal.
That’s emphatically not the case when McCain talks about Obama. McCain seems incapable of masking feelings about his younger opponent that border on disdain. He often says that Obama, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has “no experience on national-security issues.” In the spring, while pressing Obama to visit Iraq with him, McCain said he would use such a trip to “educate” his rival. In late May, when Obama voted for a bipartisan Senate proposal to increase benefits for veterans and insinuated that McCain had engaged in “partisan posturing” by opposing the bill as too expensive, McCain responded with a blistering two-page statement that said Obama possessed “less than zero understanding” of the issue. The statement accused Obama of “exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions”—“as he always does.” McCain then insisted that he would not accept criticism on an issue relating to veterans “from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform.” It was like responding to a spitball with a cruise missile.
McCain allies such as Rick Davis, the campaign manager, insist that the senator respects Obama and that his sharp tone merely reflects his competitive nature. But John Weaver, who served as chief political strategist in McCain’s 2000 campaign and again early in the 2008 campaign before being forced out in a power struggle with Davis, says McCain “does lack respect” for Obama, largely from the conviction that “he’s not ready, he’s green.” Weaver, like other observers, thought McCain’s attitudes about Obama stood in contrast with his personal respect for Hillary Clinton. “All campaigns reflect the personality of the candidate,” Weaver said. “The problem [our campaign] had in 2000 is, we made emotional decisions. Got wrapped up in the bubble. That’s a reflection of John. He at times makes emotional decisions, and when he does, they are almost always a mistake. That’s what you see right now. You’ve got to resist this decision-making in a bubble, being angry at Obama, or personalizing it … That’s a danger.”
Weaver believes that McCain can win the election only by running an elevated campaign, though he acknowledges, “I am a minority in my party and peer group.” And if McCain “does win in a campaign in which they’ve had to basically destroy Obama in order for him to eke out a narrow victory and then he goes and faces a Congress that is going to be back in pre-Reagan numbers for the Democrats, it is going to be impossible to govern. I know it’s in John to run [an elevated] campaign,” Weaver says, “because I know he’s running to govern, but is he going to be able to do that? Or are the darker forces going to prevail?”
Predictably, the daily fusillade from each side has divided and hardened public opinion about McCain and Obama. When the election year began, each man generated unusually positive reactions outside his own party, according to surveys by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. But by spring, both men had seen their favorability ratings decline substantially among independents and voters in the opposite party.
That trend would seem to doom this election to the same trajectory as the previous two, with the eventual winner facing crippling hostility from almost half the country when he assumes office. But that may not be inevitable. For all the conflict they have endured and provoked, Obama and McCain are striking enough offsetting notes to make it difficult for each to demonize the other. Each frequently makes a point of reminding audiences about the shared values that connect Americans; McCain even delivered an entire speech this spring arguing that the relationship between two of his home state’s legendary legislators, the late Mo Udall and the late Barry Goldwater—the former a liberal Democrat, the latter a conservative Republican—should reassure Americans that we “have so much more that unites us than divides us.” McCain and Obama have each pledged, if elected, to consider officials from the other party when naming the Cabinet. “I am certain that there will be bipartisan representation in his Cabinet,” David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, says flatly.
Each candidate also has already appeared before audiences that his party often shuns (for example, Obama spoke at an AIDS conference organized by evangelical megachurch leader Rick Warren in 2006, and McCain visited Selma, Alabama, and the decaying blue-collar Democratic stronghold of Youngstown, Ohio, this spring). Each is promising to run more of a national campaign than his predecessors did, and each is contesting states his party has often conceded. And each has quickly and consistently rebuked supporters who criticize the opponent in excessively personal terms (such as the liberal talk-show host who called McCain a “warmonger” and the conservative who stressed Obama’s middle name of “Hussein” when introducing McCain at a rally).
Because both men are balancing their daily criticisms of the other with these inclusive signals, each may succeed more than Bush did at keeping a foot in the door to those who ultimately prefer the other candidate. That would allow either to emerge from this election with the opportunity to build broader coalitions than Bush has done or than Bill Clinton managed to do after 1997. The next question is whether either man would seize that opportunity.
To reach agreements that attract support beyond their own party, politicians usually must make concessions that antagonize interests within it. In the Senate, McCain has often passed that test, partnering with Democrats on several intensely controversial issues, including the “patient’s bill of rights,” campaign-finance reform, preserving the filibuster for judicial appointments, comprehensive immigration reform that included a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and global warming. In each of those fights, he accepted severe criticism from conservatives in and out of Congress as the price of building legislative alliances with Democrats. “McCain has demonstrated the fact that he’ll charge ahead and he’ll stay with it, even if he is taking lots of incoming,” says Frank Sharry, the former director of the National Immigration Forum, a generally liberal group that supported the reform legislation. “He takes risks to produce breakthroughs on big issues.”
As president, would McCain take as many risks as he did in the Senate to assemble inclusive coalitions? Many Democrats, noting McCain’s concessions to conservatives in this campaign, believe the answer is no. His high-profile bipartisan partnerships (which multiplied after he returned to the Senate, disillusioned and angry, in the wake of his 2000 presidential-primary defeat by Bush) always coexisted with an overall record that placed him in concert with conservatives, and in collision with Democrats, on most issues. On his way to the GOP nomination, McCain moved demonstrably to the right; his 2008 campaign agenda includes conservative priorities certain to provoke intense Democratic opposition, such as extending Bush’s tax cuts and overriding state regulation of health insurance. And McCain has taken an uncompromising position on Iraq, insisting that he will maintain American troops there until the country achieves stability.
Tom Daschle, the Democrats’ former Senate leader from South Dakota and a senior Obama adviser, knows McCain well enough to have engaged in talks with him in 2001 meant to encourage McCain to leave the GOP and join the Democratic caucus as an independent. Daschle says the complexity of McCain’s record and the volatility of his personality make it difficult to predict whether McCain would govern as a uniter or a divider. “There are sort of two John McCains,” Daschle said. “There is the conciliatory deal maker and pragmatist that he can be. There is the hard-core, hard-line ideologue that he can be as well. If the latter becomes the dominant McCain [in the White House], I think that much of what we’ve experienced in these last eight years will be repeated. If he decides to use the most pragmatic approach, then I think there are tremendous opportunities to work together.”
The likelihood that Democrats will control both chambers of Congress in 2009—and almost certainly by increased margins—would shape McCain’s choices. It would mean he could get legislation passed only by reaching agreement with the Democrats in the congressional majority, the same equation that faced Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and for the final six years of his presidency, Ronald Reagan. That would encourage conciliation and deal-making, especially on issues such as climate change, immigration, and conceivably health care, where McCain has shown some willingness to break with his party’s orthodoxy. Of course, it might also provoke McCain’s more combative side on spending, taxes, and above all, the Iraq War.
McCain is a politician of stormy personal passions, and a McCain presidency would likely offer a roller coaster of cooperation and conflict. He probably would replace the permanent warfare between Bush and the Democratic Congress with hairpin turns in mood from day to day, if not hour to hour. He could treat a Democratic Congress as a legislative partner or an electoral foil—or, most likely, as some of both.
Obama as president would face a very different situation. An Obama victory almost certainly would enlarge the Democratic House and Senate majorities and diminish the already attenuated ranks of Republican moderates who might be open to working with him. In that scenario, both the gain of Democrats and the loss of centrist Republicans would increase demands for Obama to pass his program by maximizing unity among Democrats and minimizing outreach to Republicans. The bigger the victory, the stronger the pressure to marginalize GOP legislators and push uncompromising policies.
In such an environment, would Obama still fulfill his campaign promises “to bring together Republicans and Democrats” to solve problems? Some allies are confident: Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a conservative Democrat who endorsed Obama early this year, says that Obama’s commitment to dialogue with rogue nations abroad reveals something about the approach he would take at home. “You see in Obama somebody who is willing to take heat and criticism for wanting to talk to our enemies,” Nelson said. “If he has that approach, you know very well that he is willing to talk to the other side” in Congress. Sharry, the former head of the National Immigration Forum, believes the senator from Illinois would bring to the presidency the same unusual combination of qualities that Ronald Reagan did: the ability to mobilize the public for change and the willingness to cut deals with both parties in Congress to achieve it.
But in Washington, Obama has been much more cautious than his rhetoric suggests about working with Republicans or challenging Democrats to reach bipartisan agreements. Since arriving in the Senate, in 2005, he has voted with a majority of Senate Democrats almost 97 percent of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly. (McCain has voted with a majority of Republicans 85 percent of the time since entering the Senate, in 1987.) And although Obama has sometimes worked with Republican senators to pass legislation, he’s done so primarily on relatively noncontroversial issues, such as a bill to post government contracts online.
Even in his presidential-campaign proposals, Obama has stepped carefully. He has ruffled some feathers by emphasizing personal responsibility in the African American community, and in July he infuriated the liberal “netroots” by voting for a congressional deal that provided legal immunity to telecommunications companies that had cooperated with Bush’s program of warrantless wiretapping after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But little of his agenda departs from conventional Democratic preferences. Initially he declared that to stabilize Social Security, “everything should be on the table,” including benefit cuts, but he’d renounced that position by last September. He has similarly diluted his earlier support for merit pay for teachers. He pointedly refused to join Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in crossing organized labor to propose requiring individuals to buy health insurance—though such a requirement is probably the key to a deal with the health-insurance industry for universal coverage. Lindsey Graham, like other Republicans, sees all this as evidence that Obama is unwilling to take the heat from allies that’s required to reach consensus with opponents on difficult questions. “Nothing changes up here unless you make somebody [on your side] mad,” says Graham, who has done just that on an array of issues. “I can’t think of a time when he’s made anybody mad.”
Still, if Obama wins, he will also face significant incentives to try to work cooperatively with Republicans and the interests they represent. If Democrats gain more House and Senate seats in November, many are likely to come from Republican-leaning territory. The approaches Obama would need to take to keep conservative Democrats loyal on energy, health care, or spending might not differ much from those he’d take to attract the first few moderate Republicans.
David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, agrees that big Democratic gains would pose “a challenge to the goal of bipartisanship,” but he predicts that a President Obama would resist pressure for a purely partisan governing strategy. “If there’s an enhanced Democratic majority, I think that he’s going … to urge a special sense of responsibility to try and forge coalitions around these answers, not because we won’t be able to force our will in many cases, but because, ultimately, effective governance requires it in the long term,” Axelrod said. “I think he would be a mediating force against those who suggest that we should simply overrun the other side on issue after issue.”
Axelrod isn’t speaking from altruism. He recognizes that a President Obama might quickly alienate many votersif Washington were to remain a war zone in 2009. So does Daschle: “Barack has put so much into this notion that we ought to be reducing the polarization, reducing the confrontation—for him not to make it a central part of his administration would be a big mistake.” Obama would need to look back only as far as Bill Clinton’s first two years to see the risks in reverting to a more partisan strategy. Clinton ran in 1992, much as Obama and McCain are running this year, on a pledge to transcend “brain-dead politics in both parties.” Instead, Clinton’s first two years were convulsed by ferocious conflict between the parties. That was partly because congressional Republicans, convinced that George H. W. Bush’s deviations from the conservative faith had triggered his defeat, pursued a militantly obstructionist strategy against Clinton on many issues. But Clinton compounded his problem with an initial agenda that oscillated between ideas that advanced his promise of a fresh “third way” and others that stamped him as the champion of a more partisan and conventionally liberal approach (such as his numbingly complex and overly bureaucratic health-care plan). Democratic congressional leaders, confident that their large majorities would enable them to pass Clinton’s program on a partisan basis, added to his difficulties by persuading him to delay or downplay centrist initiatives, including campaign-finance and welfare reform, that divided their members. That diminished Clinton’s credibility as a reformer, another central element of his 1992 message. The bill for these miscalculations came due in the 1994 election, when Clinton’s turns toward the left inspired a huge conservative turnout, and the image of ineffectiveness and conflict in the capital alienated the center. The result was a Republican landslide that swept the GOP to control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in four decades.
A president who chooses compromise will inevitably confront obstruction from many people in the other party and discontent from the most-ideological elements in his own. Those are formidable obstacles to a more inclusive and productive politics. But Bush’s failure has highlighted the fact that, ultimately, presidents who divide rarely conquer, and it has created an enormous opportunity for his successor to reshape the contours of American politics. Today the American political system is more polarized than the American people; a president who can deliver pragmatic legislation on big issues might cement the allegiance of the millions of voters who are disenchanted with Washington’s failures and not tightly bound to either party. The opportunity to build a lasting majority would be greater for Obama than for McCain, because of the damage Bush has done to the GOP’s image. But either man could strengthen his party by redefining it as more flexible, inclusive, and practical than it is seen to be today. More important, he could remind Americans, as Theodore Roosevelt once put it, that their “common interests are as broad as the continent.” And that could be the key to progress on all of the problems—from health care and energy to the economy and national security—that will await the next president in January 2009.
An Interfaith Day of Prayer
Saturday, November 24, 2001, 10 AM to 4 PM
sharing our prayers,
celebrating our common ground
at La Casa de Maria Retreat and Conference Centers - Ladera Campus
801 Ladera Lane -- Santa Barbara, CA 93108 -- (805) 565-9062
[pic]
Across the boundaries of culture and tradition that may have separated us, people of faith can share surprisingly deep common ground. As a prayerful life develops, universal themes often emerge. Among these are gratitude, connectedness, reassurance, adoration, mercy, forgiveness, blessing and surrender. These shared themes can become paths for people of different faiths to reach out to one another in peace, since no one group or culture can now build a peaceful world or even a peaceful community by itself.
As religions continue to clash around the world, and people of different faiths encounter one another ever more frequently, people of good heart in every tradition are challenged to transform these encounters from fear and condescension to respect and appreciation. We will explore deep listening as one possible key to that transformation.
We invite you to join us in learning how our sisters and brothers in many traditions pray (Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Native American, Christian and others) and we will share the prayers that guide our lives. Each sincere and compassionate prayer invites all who hear it to pray, in their own ways, more sincerely and more compassionately, and thus we will open ourselves to receive the grace that can come to us through every human heart. The focus will be on faith as you live it in the middle of life's many struggles, rather than on formal theology, and on blessing what you find that is good rather than judging what might appear to be lacking. We hope to create together an experience of shared meaning and shared blessing that each participant can take back to her or his community.
The "Guiding Lights" of this gathering will include, among others,
Sensei Robert Joshin Althouse, Zen Peacemaker Order,
Fr. Virgil Cordano, OFM, pastor emeritus of Saint Barbara Parish,
Fariba Enteshari, scholar and teacher of Rumi's poetry,
Richard D. Hecht, Professor of Religious Studies (UCSB),
Gene Knudsen Hoffman, Quaker writer and peace activist,
Farah Michelle Kimball, scholar of the Koran and
Director of the International Peace Project,
Brice Taylor, teacher of the Bahá'í Faith,
Father Constantine Zozos,
Pastor of Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church.
In preparation for this retreat, please review the following list of questions and give some thought (and perhaps make some notes) regarding any of the questions that speak to you. (At the retreat you may share as much or as little as feels comfortable to you.)
How did your prayer life begin?
What changes have you noticed in your lifetime of prayer up to now?
What prayers have been the most sustaining to you in times of trouble?
What prayers have brought you closest to other people?
What are the central prayers of your tradition?
What prayers of your own composition would you like to share with others?
How do you understand the process of praying? (can be many leveled)
How do you pray for your own children and the children of the world?
How do you pray for the web of life on Planet Earth?
Ground Rules
For online or face-to-face dialogue about areas where we are seeking to create understanding, it is helpful to mutually agree to ground rules for civility:
• Open-mindedness: listen to and respect all points of view
• Acceptance: suspend judgment as best you can
• Curiosity: seek to understand rather than persuade
• Discovery: question old assumptions, look for new insights
• Sincerity: speak for yourself about what has personal heart and meaning to you
• Brevity: go for honesty and depth, but don't go on and on
The Transpartisan Alliance is an informal network of networks facilitating cooperation among individuals and organizations from all political points of view. Its mission is to empower a unified political voice capable of restoring a healthy balance of power between government, corporations and the American people. It is founded in values and principles agreed to by all Americans — unity, equality, liberty, dignity and self governance.
The Transpartisan Alliance will serve as the convener of the annual (winter/spring) transpartisan American Citizens’ Summit. The annual American Citizens’ Summit is a four day Transpartisan National Convention that applies tools of dialogue, deliberation and conflict resolution to facilitating strategic alignment among individuals and groups from across the political spectrum. The members of the convention are fully empowered to determine the issues on which to engage. The responsibility of the Transpartisan Alliance is simply to create a safe, welcoming, sincerely neutral space for authentic dialogue.
This year we can accommodate up to 1500 Delegates allocated as follows:
• 200 Leadership Delegates: leaders of membership organizations, political opinion leaders, civic engagement/empowerment leaders, authors and experts on political empowerment. Register Here — accepted on a first come first served basis.
• 650 Affiliated Delegates: affiliated members/organizers,activists from a range of national membership organizations. Register here — up to 50 per organization accepted on a first come first served basis.
• 650 At Large Delegates: unaffiliated Americans who are concerned with the state of our democratic republic and want to participate. Must complete Unaffiliated Delegate Application.
Transpartisan Values
• Unity
• Equality
• Freedom/Liberty
• Self-governance
Transpartisan behaviors
• Respect other points of view
• Value other points of view
• Open-minded to others
• Listen well to others
• Suspend judgment of others
• Build bridges with others
• Give others benefit of doubt
• Value cooperation
Transpartisan Core Concepts
1. All systems are interdependent, all things fundamentally interconnected. Transpartisanship honors each belief, striving fully to integrate it into the system, and thus achieve equilibrium.
2. All points of view are equally valuable. Each perspective is vital in reaching collaborative decisions and optimal solutions.
3. Optimal solutions are reached through honest and authentic dialogue. In order to arrive at practical and sustainable solutions all viewpoints must be shared openly and honestly.
4. Disagreement can be an asset. Disagreements over an issue need not undermine consensus if all parties are willing to harness any existing tension to find common ground. New alliances will naturally form and collaboration will often reveal previously unanticipated solutions that can satisfy all those involved.
5. Citizenship includes the responsibility for being heard. Transpartisanship holds that good decisions are made by considering a wide range of opinions. Reintegrating the American public into congressional conversation can enhance the range of opinions and lead to better decisions.
6. Agreement must be made to protect the sovereignty of the individual. While the role of the community is undoubtedly vital for reaching effective solutions, so too is the need to protect individuals from the dictates of the collective. Views and opinions may only be expressed honestly when the individual is free from coercion.
Dear Fellow Concerned American:
Amidst the current financial and foreseeable political turmoil, it's time responsible citizens from all points of view convened to reasonably assess where we are as a nation, where we want to go and most importantly, how we want to get there.
In honor of Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial, in February the Transpartisan Alliance - a network of networks building bridges among individuals and organizations from all political points of view - will convene the first ever Transpartisan National Convention. The theme of the event is "A house divided against itself cannot stand" (A. Lincoln, Springfield, IL,1858).
For four days, citizens, leaders and experts from all sides will come together in search of effective strategies for empowering a unified political voice that can restore a healthy balance of power in America. We will engage in a new type of political dialogue that respects and values all points of view. Together we will utilize dialogue, deliberation and conflict resolution tools that enable conservatives, liberals, independents and unaffiliated citizens to communicate respectfully and effectively, and to re-build trust. We will demonstrate that Americans can work together and cooperate for the good of us all.
As a delegate you'll receive...
• The chance to network with empowered citizens and leaders from all over the nation.
• The opportunity to honestly assess the state of our Union and the balance of power in America.
• The opportunity to speak truthfully and safely about what YOU think the real issues are.
• The opportunity to present your vision for where you want America to be in five years.
• The opportunity to co-create solutions that overwhelming majorities of Americans can say "Yes!" to.
• Online tools to go home and convene a local Transpartisan Alliance group.
• A 12 week, small group discussion guide to practice and teach the skills you have learned.
• Online tools to connect your group to the emerging network of Transpartisan Alliance groups.
From nationally recognized trainers and through high impact processes and exercises you'll also learn...
• Highly effective ground rules for dialogue across divides.
• Over 20 values that build common ground.
• Tools for transforming conflict and power struggle between people and groups.
• Useful frameworks for understanding relationship between worldviews.
• And much, much more...
By the end of this event we will have reconnected with our purpose, mission, and promise as a nation. You will more clearly see your role as an empowered citizen and have new tools and skills for serving your family, community and country. You will be transformed as we begin the process of transforming the political life of our nation. And we'll have fun doing it! It will be a party of political parties. We'll have great entertainment, share stories, and be creative as we generate solutions and inspire a new level of citizen leadership.
On a first come first served basis we can accommodate up to 1500 Delegates -- 500 who tend to favor Democrats/progressives, 500 tending to favor Republicans/conservatives, 500 tending to be Independent/third party/unaffiliated -- allocated as follows:
-- 200 Leadership Delegates: leaders of membership organizations, political opinion leaders, civic engagement/empowerment leaders, authors and experts on political empowerment.
-- 650 Affiliated Delegates: up to 50 affiliated members/organizers/activists per organization from a range of national membership organizations.
-- 650 At Large Delegates: unaffiliated Americans who are concerned with the state of our democratic republic and want to be part of the solution.
To take advantage of the $395 earlybird discount through midnight November 30 for all delegate categories. Register here.
With gratitude and respect,
The Transpartisan Alliance Team
About Transpartisan Alliance
See: Transpartisan Board of Advisors
Description
The Transpartisan Alliance is an informal network of networks facilitating cooperation among individuals and organizations from all political points of view.
Mission
To empower a unified political voice capable of restoring a healthy balance of power between government, corporations and the American people.
Values
Principles agreed to by all Americans -- unity, equality, liberty, dignity and self governance.
Program
The Transpartisan Alliance will serve as the convener of the annual (winter/spring) transpartisan American Citizens' Summit. The annual American Citizens' Summit is a four day Transpartisan National Convention that applies tools of dialogue, deliberation and conflict resolution to facilitating strategic alignment among individuals and groups from across the political spectrum. The members of the convention are fully empowered to determine the issues on which to engage. The responsibility of the Transpartisan Alliance is simply to create a safe, welcoming, sincerely neutral, well facilitated space for authentic dialogue.
The Transpartisan Alliance will also serve as the convener of the annual (summer/fall) Conference on Democracy in America. The annual Conference on Democracy in America is a three day, transpartisan leadership retreat intended to facilitate strategic alignment and cooperation among leaders and experts from across the political spectrum. The participants in the conference are fully empowered to determine the issues on which to engage. The responsibility of the Transpartisan Alliance is simply to create a safe, welcoming, sincerely neutral space for authentic dialogue.
Background
The Transpartisan Alliance emerges from the work of the Democracy in America Project and Reuniting America. For the past four years these political bridge builders have been convening leaders of groups as different as the Christian Coalition and , the Sierra Club and Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform and Code Pink Women for Peace (see list of participants in previous transpartisan leadership retreats held between 2004 and 2007). We’ve found that when a safe, welcoming environment with clear ground rules for building trust, respect and communication is created, unexpected cooperation happens. It’s time now to begin engaging everyday citizens in this emerging, political empowerment movement.
|Ideals and values shared by all Americans. |
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|“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these|
|are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men [the people], deriving their just powers from the |
|consent of the governed…” |
| Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 |
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| “E Pluribus Unum” -- From Many, One” |
| The Great Seal of The United States, June 20, 1782 |
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|“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the |
|general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” |
| Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, September 17, 1787 |
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| “The Bill of Rights” |
| Amendments I through X to the Constitution of the United States, |
| March 4, 1789 |
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|“…that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” |
| Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19,1863 |
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Purpose for Convening
Re-connect a broad spectrum group of Americans to the ideals, values, and principles that represent the "spirit of America"
• Re-build trust, communication and respect across political divides through inclusive civic dialogue.
• Experience living democracy where all voices matter.
• Take personal responsibility for articulating "what we are for" (as opposed to "what we are against.")
• Produce a transpartisan vision for America
Founders of the Democracy in America Project
Joseph McCormick, co-founder of the Democracy in America Project, seeks to bridge political divisions by helping to re-connect us -- in our civic practice -- to the unifying principles accepted by all Americans. From his experience of over a decade in Republican politics and through dozens of interviews with experts and average people about the state of democracy in America, he recognizes the most destructive force in our country today is Americans taking sides against Americans. He has chosen to become politically un-affiliated and is now committed to respecting all points of views as having a vital contribution to the whole. He is a former officer in the U.S. Army Rangers, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and has a degree in Public and Private Management from Yale University. My story...
Pat Spino has made community-building a core focus of her life. Becoming a mother of three led her to look deeply into fundamental questions of life – family, health and education. She has found that healthy community - and by extension, healthy society - is made of individuals who take responsibility for themselves and have learned to trust and respect the interdependent nature of life. She spent 25 years as a midwife, is the co-founder of the Democracy in America Project, and has worked in numerous small, family and community centered businesses.
| | |
| |Advisors |
| |Participants in First Conference on Democracy in America, June 11-13, 2004 |
| |and Second Conference on Democracy in America, December 1-4, 2005 |
| | |
| |John |
| |Rother |
| | Director of Policy and Strategy |
| | AARP |
| | |
| |Joe |
| |Goldman |
| | Senior Associate |
| | America Speaks |
| | |
| |Shirley |
| |Wilcher |
| | Interim Exec. Director |
| | American Assoc. for Affirmative Action |
| | |
| |David |
| |Keene |
| | Chairman |
| | American Conservative Union |
| | |
| |Robert |
| |Spanogle |
| | National Adjutant |
| | American Legion |
| | |
| |Grover |
| |Norquist |
| | President |
| | Americans for Tax Reform |
| | |
| |Lawry |
| |Chickering |
| | Author |
| | Beyond Left and Right |
| | |
| |Donna |
| |Wiesner |
| | CEO |
| | BrainTrain |
| | |
| |Betsy |
| |Taylor |
| | Former President |
| | Center for a New American Dream |
| | |
| |Roberta |
| |Combs |
| | President |
| | Christian Coalition |
| | |
| |Bill |
| |Thompson |
| | Former National Field Director |
| | Christian Coalition |
| | |
| |Ana |
| |Micka |
| | President |
| | Citizens for Health |
| | |
| |Dave |
| |Keating |
| | Executive Director |
| | Club for Growth |
| | |
| |Chellie |
| |Pingree |
| | President |
| | Common Cause |
| | |
| |Ginny |
| |Sloan |
| | Founder |
| | Constitution Project |
| | |
| |Vicki |
| |Robin |
| | Co-founder |
| | Conversation Cafe |
| | |
| |Carl |
| |Fillichio |
| | Vice President |
| | Council for Excellence in Government |
| | |
| |Michael |
| |Toms |
| | Author, Radio Host |
| | Deep Dialogues for Deep Democracy |
| | |
| |Ethan |
| |Leib |
| | Author, Asst. Professor of Law |
| | Deliberative Democracy in America, UC Hastings |
| | |
| |Joseph |
| |McCormick |
| | Co-Founder |
| | Democracy in America Project |
| | |
| |Pat |
| |Spino |
| | Co-Founder |
| | Democracy in America Project |
| | |
| |Irma |
| |Herrera |
| | Executive Director |
| | Equal Rights Advocates |
| | |
| |Tom |
| |Beech |
| | President |
| | Fetzer Institute |
| | |
| |Barbara |
| |Hubbard |
| | Founder |
| | Foundation for Conscious Evolution |
| | |
| |Susan |
| |Partnow |
| | Executive Director |
| | Global Citizens Journey |
| | |
| |William |
| |Ury |
| | Director |
| | Global Negotiation Project Harvard Law School |
| | |
| |Cheryl |
| |Graeve |
| | Senior Director Membership |
| | League of Woman Voters |
| | |
| |Marian |
| |Moore |
| | Convener |
| | Lets Talk America |
| | |
| |Michael |
| |Ostrolenk |
| | Founder |
| | Liberty Coalition |
| | |
| |Mark |
| |Gerzon |
| | President |
| | Mediators Foundation |
| | |
| |Scott |
| |Heiferman |
| | Co-Founder |
| | |
| | |
| |Joan |
| |Blades |
| | Co-Founder |
| | |
| | |
| |Ahmed |
| |Younis |
| | Director |
| | Muslim Public Affairs Council |
| | |
| |John |
| |Steiner |
| | Co-founder |
| | National Commons |
| | |
| |Brenda |
| |Girton-Mitchell |
| | Assoc. General Secretary |
| | National Council of Churches USA |
| | |
| |Gary |
| |Aldrich |
| | Founder |
| | Patrick Henry Center |
| | |
| |Bob |
| |Barr |
| | Chairman |
| | Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances Coalition |
| | |
| |Susan |
| |Hackley |
| | Managing Director |
| | Program on Negotiation Harvard Law School |
| | |
| |Laura |
| |Chasin |
| | Co-Founder |
| | Public Conversations Project |
| | |
| |Mark |
| |Satin |
| | Author |
| | Radical Middle |
| | |
| |Robert |
| |Fersh |
| | Executive Director |
| | Search for Common Ground USA |
| | |
| |Maggie |
| |Fox |
| | Deputy Executive Director |
| | Sierra Club |
| | |
| |Tom |
| |Atlee |
| | Author |
| | Tao of Democracy |
| | |
| |Drew |
| |Bond |
| | Former President |
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| |Julie |
| |Ristau |
| | Director |
| | Utne Institute |
| | |
| |Leif |
| |Utne |
| | Associate Editor |
| | Utne Magazine |
| | |
| |Jeff |
| |Peters |
| | Co-Founder |
| | We the People |
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Our story...
By natural law a “house divided” tends toward dis-integration. A political system built on one part seeking to dominate the other part lacks integrity, lacks health. Health is wholeness, balance, the harmonious integration of all parts. This is as true of the health of a political system, and therefore a nation, as it is of the health of a body, a mind, or a spirit. Only within our wholeness – individually or collectively – do we discover our inherent wisdom and talents, the cure to our ills.
I arrived at this simple insight through a deep personal crisis that began as my political career ended. Over the period of a decade I had come to know the divided political battlefield well. I had done everything from working as an assistant to the Political Director on Bush-Quayle ’92 where I helped coordinate a national field campaign, to winning a hard fought nomination for Congress that earned me the general election support of my party’s leadership and a broad range of conservative interest groups. Real politics, although few politicians will admit it, is about one thing – power. The path to power is in beating “the other.” I saw my role in politics as doing everything I could to ensure my part(y) beat the other part(y). I found myself quite willing to compromise my personal integrity to win.
After losing my race in 1998 my life spun out of control. My wife left, I found myself in a power struggle with my partners for control of my business, and my sister who more or less raised me began a losing battle with cancer. By 2001 I had walked away from or watched the collapse of everything I had carefully built – my political career, my business, home, marriage. I had lost my identity. I ended up living alone in a mountain cabin in Floyd, Virginia, disillusioned, powerless, rolling the essential questions of life over and over in my mind: Who am I? Why am I here? The answers, even now, are unclear, but during this time I experienced a shift from living my life as if I knew who I was and why I was here, to living my life as more of an inquiry into these questions. This inquiry took on the form of a journey toward personal integrity, that is, reconciliation of the various sides of myself.
With the help of my new friend, Pat Spino – a respected member of the Floyd “alternative community” – I had begun to reconcile my deep inner wounds. By early 2003 I was feeling more whole and ready to take up my old passion for politics, but this time in a more balanced way. Pat had introduced me to the other side, those I referred to as ”hippies” or “liberals.” She had spent twenty-five years raising a family, serving as a midwife, and nurturing close personal relationships in this tight knit rural Virginia community. She modeled for me a willingness to treat others as equals and to accept them as they are. In this community people mutually supported and respected each other and honored creative self-expression. These were new ways of being for me, but I found these “liberal” values – freedom, creativity, openness, a respect for the earth – not to clash with, but to compliment my old “conservative” values – order, responsibility, discipline, and hard work. They seemed to me to have a yin/yang relationship.
Pat and I founded the Democracy in America Project (DIAP) in the spring of 2003. The first step was an inquiry into the “state of our democracy.” We decided to retrace the route of Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835 author of Democracy in America. We sent out 50 interview requests and got 11 experts and public figures from across the political spectrum to talk to us on camera about the state of freedom, equality, unity, and government by the people in post-9/11 America. We asked a professional videographer, Terrel Broussard, to join us. We raised a little money and set out in my jeep to interview Ralph Nader, author Noam Chomsky, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, President of the ACLU Nadine Strossen, President of the NEA Reg Weaver, Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman, Chairman of the American Conservative Union Dave Keene, former Reagan Political Director Lyn Nofziger, Ross Perot, and UVa National Security Law Professor John Norton Moore among others. The theme that emerged was: in a democracy it is up to “We the People” to secure the values we all, left to right, hold dear.
The obvious question became, “where were We the People?” The Democratic Party wasn’t We the People. Nor was the Republican Party, nor the Greens, or Libertarians. No part was We the People. We the People was all of us, a unified whole that included, respected, and valued all American points of view. The next obvious question for me was, “how do you create We the People?” (I have never been one to sit back and blame and complain that “somebody should do something!” I took this realization personally, as though it were my personal responsibility to help catalyze this non-existent entity into existence.)
In the fall of 2003, Pat and I traveled to Ashland, Oregon to document an “educated experiment in democracy” organized by Jim Rough, author Society’s Breakthrough and Tom Atlee, author The Tao of Democracy. The experiment was to create a symbolic We the People from a small group of randomly selected voters who met for two days in facilitated dialogue and then presented a “declaration” of their will to a community meeting. It was an amazing beginning, if for no other reason that it pointed to the fact that dialogue and deliberation were the soil out of which healthy democracy grows.
On Christmas Day 2003 after reading an inspiring article by Carolyn Lukensmeyer of America Speaks, David Wick (a friend of Carolyn’s) Pat and I decided to plan a three day national civic dialogue for later that year called a We the People National Convention. A month later Pat and I traveled to Juanita Brown’s house (founder, World Café – another friend of David Wick’s) in the bay area for the launching of Lets Talk America (LTA), a national effort to stimulate widespread community dialogue to help “bridge the divide.” We decided LTA and DIAP had the same vision of political reconciliation through dialogue, only different forms.
“First Conference on Democracy in America”
As a necessary first step toward creating a credible national civic dialogue that included participants from the left, right and center, we needed national advisors and hopefully the cooperation of national membership organizations from across the spectrum to promote it to their members. In June 2004 LTA and DIAP co-sponsored the first Conference on Democracy in America, facilitated by Mark Gerzon (chief facilitator, Congressional Bi-Partisan Retreats), hosted by the Fetzer Institute at their beautiful Seasons retreat center. The event was a ground breaking demonstration of cross spectrum dialogue among a small group of national opinion leaders showing how "democratic" values and "republican" values can indeed be balanced and integrated given a respectful, trust-building process. The advisory board was formed and a remarkable “Declaration for Dialogue” was signed, but in the end, owing to it being an election year, an insufficient number of membership organization leaders participated for it to be a real seed event for the envisioned national civic dialogue. We put the national civic dialogue plans on hold.
“Second Conference on Democracy in America”
Following the brutal election of 2004 I was contacted by Joan Blades, co-founder, (who I had asked, but declined to attend the June event) about helping to facilitate a dialogue “with some conservatives.” In January of this year I went to the bay area and went for a walk in the park with Joan to talk about what she had in mind and the format for the dialogue. At that time, knowing she was a trained mediator herself, I gave her a copy of Bill Ury’s book The Third Side (Mark Gerzon introduced me to Bill during a previous trip to Boulder, CO.) A month or so later she contacted me again saying she had read the book and thought she wanted to help with a left-right membership organization leadership conference.
That May, Pat and I went to visit Joan again and I asked MoveOn to consider co-sponsoring a Second Conference on Democracy in America. The next week I went to Washington to meet with Dave Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU) to ask him the same thing. Once I got these two to agree my plan was to approach Grover Norquist, President of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). Dave, Joan and I entered a two-month email dialogue about the purpose of this next conference, issues of mutual concern to be addressed, and ground rules. In August, Roberta Combs, President of the Christian Coalition decided to co-sponsor the Second Conference along with . From there the conference organization became easier.
Moving forward...
There are now plans for issue based Third and Fourth Conferences on Democracy in America in 2006, both among a trans-partisan set of national leaders. We are also organizing a conference in spring 2006 called "Listening to America: Catalyzing Trans-Partisan Citizen Engagement at Scale" among 24 experts on large scale citizen engagement combined with a trans-partisan group of leaders and membership directors of national citizen networks.
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