A Good Discourse in the Nation, How we Begin Again

 The first requirement in healing our nation, is to stop labeling ourselves as us and them, because we are one people, even if divided by politics, by religion, by income, by education, by race, by values, by experience and by background.  We are still, a people, and the first thing we must see, is that what we want from this country, is for everyone to hear and for everyone to feel they've been heard.  When people don't feel like they matter, or like their lives matter, they stop listening.  When people don't feel important, they stop caring.  When they don't think anyone will hear them, they get angry.  

Dismissal of anyone, is just that, a dismissal, and it's something that builds walls, something we don't want, that makes more discontent more likely.  It makes reactionary policy also more likely, which is the least likely to satisfy for anyone.  We need to find a way to reconnect across the digital, intellectual, political, economic and personal divide that's been expanding as a result of the nationalizing of every race, the politicizing of every issue, that precludes ever granting the presumption of good faith to anyone who doesn't already agree with whatever outcome we desire.   

A house divided does not stand, and I would say, as a country, at this point, we're on our knees.   

It will take statesmanship, it will take courage, and it will take humility and it will take work, to begin the process of restoration in our national dialogue.  Rather than having individual channels that cater to what we prefer, we need to find the people who are working on the problem, and willing to discuss what they hope, what they know, and where they agree, and be committed to working to find as much as possible that can be done.  There is a lot of work to be done, and less of it completed when everyone is competing to show how whoever isn't doing what we're doing, is failing at humanity.  Whenever we see someone else as less than, we are failing at humanity.  We need to be aspiring to something better, and somehow putting love where little or none is.   

A good discourse allows for listening as much as talking, for giving and forgiving, as much as asking and receiving.  We need to pray for all of us, to have receptive hearts for each other, even those with whom we disagree...and whoever we can think of that we would ask the question, "Even them?" "Even these?" the answer is...and it's hard to recognize, because it would be oh  so much easier if it weren't, "Yes, even these."  

"But they are lepers.  They are sinners.  They are tax collectors."  my brain says in some format, and I'm sure everyone's does..."They did X" and "X" is horrible, and was horrible, and will always be horrible.  However Christ forgave the most horrible of acts from the most horrible of places, and we cannot be more merciful than Christ.  

So if we want a better discourse, a better reality than the one we can all point to, from the beginning of fallen and ordinary time, then we must ask for the peace the world cannot give, and give it to the world.  It will fall on those who hear it, it will return to us on those who do not.   Be the words "Peace be with you," and peace will be with your spirit, even in the hardest of times and you will have "a good discourse," if not with those around you, always with God and that will be sufficient.  

Let us go and make our visit.  

Batman? Really?

Once you've been compared to Jesus, Noah, God, Superman, Martin Luther King, to JFK, to David before the Goliath, to all good things in all times that ever existed in your first term, how do you then go for a second? How does one go about creating a sequel and making it 20% cooler?

You reboot.  First rule of reboot? Do not talk about the reboot. 

Written back in 2012...found it when doing research...the political part no longer applies, but the subsequent stuff does.


President Obama: Premiering for the first time as if you've never seen him before: I'm Batman!

But you can't be a hero without a villain so of course Romney is the evil villain BANE...cue the boos and throwing of lettuce and rotten oranges.  So what does that make all of us who aren't rooting for you? Henchmen? Flunkies and toadies? or just the duped citizens of Gotham?  Are the 99percenters protesting Wayne Tech?

It is an insult to Americans everywhere to think this sort of pandering heroworship/demonization not only should work, but should even be considered. This would be laughable except I'm so stinking tired of being told that any GOP who actually attempts to disagree with the DNC is selfish, lazy, cruel, bigoted, homophobic, xenophobic, ignorant, stubborn, hateful, racist, corrupt, demonic etc. etc. etc. and anyone who does not agree with this assessment is also ignorant, bitter, uninformed, unevolved...put your favorite insult here. 

Don't tell me it doesn't apply to me, it has been draped on everyone who disagrees with this administration or the Democratic party if they disagree about anything. And I ignored it for a long time...but at some point, you get tired of ignoring an insulting bully. The intent has been to silence dissent, discourage debate and make one ashamed of not being at the cool table with all the beautiful popular people. This nerd is annoyed. This nerd doesn't want to sit at their table, but she sure as hell doesn't want to spend the rest of her lunch period listening to insults.

Now I know plenty of lovely people in real life who disagree with my politics.  We talk, we engage over email, we have a few laughs when we're together and we don't always just talk that stuff because that would be terribly boring and mean we don't have lives.  They don't call me names.  They don't presume that I don't mean what I say or have reasonable reasons for my thinking.  I likewise think the same of them.  It is what civilized people do. 

However it is election season, and politicians running for office and their flunkies, view civil discourse as something for the flyover people, a tool used to sedate the masses, a mask of a smile and a glad hand to secure the vote and move on.  Treating one's political opposition with genuine regard is not something one does in earnest --or at least that's how it appears given their broad sweeping statements about all who do not go hand in glove with their agenda. 

To those who say, well, there's Rush and Hannity and Mark Levin and Ann Coulter, let us say we don't like the slinging of mud on our side either.  For me there is a frustration that a meeting of minds that happens in parking lots and playgrounds and over phone calls and coffee in the real world, doesn't seem to touch the political stripe class. It's time we recognized it's the cliquey kids in DC and those who only live inside that fish bowl of DC waters that view all things as an R and D first, while the rest of us (those not elected to office), who do not struggle to get along or understand each other.  We don't think something is profoundly wrong with the people of California or New York or Kansas or Texas.   We don't presume bad faith and we don't assume malicious intent or design.  We're Americans.

So this is a call out to all who specialize in talking so they can be heard to have spoken, have something to say, the media class and the political class that plays with the media. Think about why the other side might disagree and trust that we the public actually want to have skin in this game and be involved.  Don't dismiss our disagreements with insults. It's boring and frankly, shoddy thinking.  If all you have is insults and (frankly you've run out of insulting insults, so now it is just getting stupid) you must not either believe your argument will hold or trust that it is tolerable for someone to disagree. Surely you are smarter than this.

But in case you're not...

I propose we all purchase some of those air horns used at basketball games and blow them whenever you start dipping into the muck.  So if you want to be heard, you'll have to learn how to play nice.