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Sunday, October 10, 5 to 7:30pm, Uptown Espresso, 2504 4th Ave. (4th & Wall)

CONVENING QUESTION: “How can we reach across barriers to build community resiliency in an economic crisis, and respond to excess corporate/government power?”

GOALS: 1) Get beyond conflict, avoid wasting energy fighting each other, 2) Catalyze a healthy conversation across the socioeconomic and political spectrum, 3) Come together to build a respectful, responsible “populist movement.”

VISION: Catalyze an informal network of networks that can cooperate to organize a city-wide network of informal, transpartisan citizen councils with links to official councils.

This past Wednesday night at a meeting of the Transpartisan Alliance at the Mosaic Coffee house in Seattle about 20 Seattle area citizens from the left, right, and center met for a two hour dialogue/debate We had no set agenda for the meeting. Topics were allowed to emerge from the group. (NOTE: this is a photo of a gathering between citizens and mayoral candidates last year in Ashland, OR that used a similar “fishbowl” process.)

The first thirty minutes were spent introducing each other and putting issues on the table. As people spoke, the topic they personally wanted to discuss was added to a list. We then had to frame the issues on the list in such a way that people could choose to be “for” or “against.” Finally we began a voting process to determine which was the “hottest topic” to spend the rest of the evening debating.

Here’s some topics that came up:

• Should we address homelessness and the downtown Seattle environment
• Should we have a National ID
• Should we restoring integrity to the jury and grand jury system
• Should we have a climate change policy
• Should we increase/decrease gun control
• Should we audit/end the Federal Reserve Bank
• Should we organize an unofficial parallel election
• Should we have government sponsored health insurance
• Should we find solutions to overpopulation
• Should we have federal mandates of vaccines
• Should we revoke corporate “personhood” (14th amendment protection)
• Should we address political polarization
• Should we address elite social control

It was interesting that within a politically diverse group (greens, libertarians, republicans, democrats) certain controversial topics like National ID, mandated vaccines, or elite social control did not create polarization. The topic that had the highest polarity was health care (not surprising given the larger national debate.)

We choose a unique hybrid dialogue/debate format called a “fishbowl” in order to more fully hear each other’s views. A group “for government sponsored health insurance” and one “against government sponsored health insurance” was formed. The first group arranged their chairs in a small circle (6 people) and talked about the reasons for “government sponsored health insurance” while the other group remained in an outer circle along with those who weren’t taking one side or the other. Then the groups switched and those that were against government sponsored health insurance (8 people) got in the “fishbowl.” After both “sides” stated their reasoning behind their positions each group returned to the middle to reflect what they had heard the other side say. It was a fascinating opportunity to determine if we were really listening to each other. The two groups returned to the full circle to talk about the process. Both sides, by and large, said they felt heard on their main points.

We then began a conversation about where we agreed and disagreed. The main difference between the group was the degree of trust that each group put into the government and insurance companies. But after listening to each other we also realized and acknowledged that the two groups shared many of the same concerns and needs. And there was much overlap in everyone’s frustration that both big government and big corporations are inefficient and disempowering to deal with.

We realized that we had different ideas on “how” to solve the health care issue but given more time we would possibly be able to come up with a more integrated, transpartisan solution. Also, we realized that much more time was needed just because of the complexity of the issue. At the end of the meeting it seemed that most of the group felt energized to continue to explore the topic in a way that all sides can be heard and included. In the “one word check-out” a word that came up several times was “more.” This was just a beginning but an important one: the potential of citizen empowernment through a transpartisan dialogue.

The Transpartisan Alliance will organize the next step to this dialogue/debate on health care on Wednesday, April 7, 6-9:30pm at the 2100 Building (Room B), 2100 24th Ave S. in Seattle. A whole day transpartisan health care dialogue/debate will follow in April or May.

This is a step in the right direction, but only a step. What this coalition is asking for is still just bi-partisan. Meaning, that it is a dailogue of, by, and for insiders. Everyone else — Libertarians, Greens, Independents, Constitutionists, etc. — are still just disempowered spectators. Transpartisanship on the other hand acknowledges the validity and value of a range of perspectives in generating innovative, out-of-the-box, win/win policy options.

If we’re going to open up a dialogue, lets really open it. Why limit it to just the two in-the-box parties whose policy solutions will be still in the box? The real creative, innovative policy thinking in America will never come from the either one or even both of these teams. We need to open up the game.

Here’s what I’d suggest…

The Transpartisan Alliance — a neutral convener with proven credibility with all sides — host a Transpartisan National Policy Dialogue. This event, or series of events, is similar to a presidential debate, but not a debate, its a truly wide ranging policy dialogue (see definition by National Coalition of Dioalogue and Deliberation.)

This dialogue is facilitated by two professional mediators. In the past we have used Bill Ury of the Harvard Global Negotiation Project and Mark Gerzon, chief facilitator of the Bi-Partisan Congressional retreats. Participants, say twelve total, will include Republican and Democrat leaders, but also alternative leaders like Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader as well as prominent independents, constitutionist, Native America, African America and Hispanic leaders. In other words when you look at the “circle” of participants you see a true microcosm of America, including ones willing to raise taboo issues that rarely make their way into mainstream policy discussions (and yes they need to sit in a circle where everyone is equal, like a council. Here’s an example of what such a “fishbowl” looks like.)

The event is about three hours long and is broadcast on C-SPAN and other networks. It uses the same “ground rules for civil dialogue” as used at the 1997 and 1999 Bipartisan Congressional Retreats (page 158, Leading Through Conflict.) The facilitators don’t control like moderators at the Presidential Debates, yet they ask a couple of open ended questions like “what are the top challenges facing America?” or “why isn’t our political process working?” or “what needs to be done to restore meaningful government of, by and for ALL the people?” The facilitators then get out of the way and allow the conversation to flow from one person to the next, just like it would if they were sitting around a campfire.

What I’m talking about is not rocket science. As a transpartisan organizer I’ve actually done it several times with leaders like Al Gore and the heads of the Christian Coalition and MoveOn.org. What it takes is the ability to truly convene all sides, and then the willingness to treat every one as you’d like to be treated.

The below members of the Demand Question Time coalition know exactly what I’m talking about because they’ve experienced it or are familiar with the Reuniting America dialogues:

– Scott Heiferman, Founder and CEO, Meetup
– Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform
– Eli Pariser, President of MoveOn.org (he works for MoveOn founders who attended several retreats)
– Joe Trippi, former Campaign Manager, Howard Dean (has attended a transpartisan strategy session and I’ve had lunch with him to discuss transpartisan organizing.)

Response: upgrade the operating system by organizing a Citizens Assembly, an informal wisdom “branch of government”

Begin a process in advance of a shutdown of the operating system to create an unofficial, community wide, transpartisan Citizen Assembly. The sole role of the Assembly is to truly bring ALL SIDES together in an ongoing, creative & informal conversation. Its role is never to engage in politics-as-usual – i.e. supporting candidates, or advocating specific legislation. The result, given healthy ground rules and dialogue processes – i.e. Open Space, World Café, Conversation Café – will be innovative, out-of-the-box, win-win policy options that, let’s say, 80+ percent of the community can say “yes!” to. As a whole, its role is NEVER to lobby, advocate, or takes sides on issues that emerge. The Citizen Assembly’s role is to continually educate the community about creative public policy thinking. In this way, wisdom emerges from the bottom-up and policy thinking is adopted by official decision makers because it is attractive, not because it is forced upon them.

Outcomes

• Catalyze a shift in the political culture from destructive polarization to a more respectful, responsible and cooperative search for solutions.
• Authentic citizen empowerment where people a) see their role as responsible co-creators of solutions to complex public issues and b) become a valued resource, with a perspective that can widen outside of the traditional confines that often restrict policymakers.
• Serve as the hub of a multi-sector, community wide, unofficial, open source, open participation network-of-networks – transpartisan alliance — that becomes a unique, influential community resource (and institution) capable of informally reconciling the needs of all sides.

Organizing Strategy

Phase One: Citizen Leaders Council

Build trust, respect, and communication among 12 to 24 citizen leaders representing a true microcosm of the community – left, right, center, insiders, outsiders as well as representation from as many of the 12 sectors as possible. Citizen leaders decide to engage in transpartisan dialogue as a way of changing traditionally conflicted relationships because they feel they need to act and it is something they can do that will make a difference. Because they come from all sides, the Council has very high combined social capital – value of their relationships and networks – and are in a position to serve as an authentically neutral convener, as a community organizer.

Phase Two: Mapping –“What’s Important?”

Participants come together to talk—to map and name the elements of “what’s important” to them personally and the relationships responsible for dealing with “what’s important.” In early meetings, this talk can be diffuse, and participants vent their grievances and anger with each other and with the old operating system. This stage will end, at least for a time, when there are discernable clusters of topics of importance. Some participants will want to act on “what’s important” to them. The group may decide to alternate its meetings between taking action through awareness/education projects and dialogue to deepen relationships and uncover high leverage change strategies.

Phase Three: Uncovering Change Strategies

At meetings that focus on dialogue, in more disciplined talk, participants probe specific topics of importance to uncover high leverage change strategies. They ask questions like: What resources do we have? What are the obstacles to moving in this direction? What steps could overcome those obstacles? Who could take those steps? How could we sequence those steps so that they interact to generate momentum for change?

Phase Four – Engaging Wider Networks

At this point, the Council is a neutral, community-wide convener that has built trust among a core group of empowered citizen leaders, mapped what’s important to them, and uncovered some high leverage change strategies. They are now ready to begin engaging their networks in low overhead town hall meetings. The core inquiry of “what is important to you?” remains the same. At these venues, the Citizen Leaders Council can both present the thinking that has emerged in their sustained dialogue, as well as listen to and catalyze new creative thinking.

Phase Five – Attracting Citizen Assembly Early Adopters

As a part of town hall meeting program, the vision/possibility for a Citizen Assembly can be presented. Groups can self organize to discuss questions about it like: Who’s involved? Where does it meet? What is its role, function? What difference will it make? How will its voice be heard? How does it relate to official government? If the vision is truly compelling and has value for the community it will become a rallying point for further self-organizing.

In light of this and the desire for a number of groups from all sides who would like in the coming election year to consider themselves transpartisan, the leadership team of the Transpartisan Alliance has begun to define common standards and envision a self regulating process (i.e. give 1 to 5 stars next to their name) for holding organizations accountable for actually “being transpartisan” (which has everything to do with conduct, and nothing to do with content.)  The standards will likely be based on the following definition, principles and values:

Transpartisanship defined:

“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.”

Principles and Values:

- 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

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Andrew writes…

America IS united in a transpartisan manner, and I truly believe that the TPM is the manifestation of this–and my fear is that you may be confusing “unanimity of thought” with “transpartisan unity”.

What do I mean?  I mean that if you look at the polls, Americans are in great agreement about the following:

– government ought to be small;

– government power ought to be limited;

– government spending should be low;

– government involvement in individual lives should be as little as possible;

– government actions should be transparent, accountable, and free-from corruption.

This is what the TPM has come to represent.  It is why the TPM has higher approval ratings than either of the major political parties.  It was why vast numbers of independents have shifted away from support of the Democratic Party’s agenda towards the agenda put forth by the TPM.

The Tea Party movement is non-partisan, as it has people from a variety of different political parties active in it.

It is something both Grover and I talked about at the Transpartisan conference in Colorado in 2006:  the fact that America IS a center-right nation, whose individuals generally want to be left alone, to make their own choices in their lives.  Liberty is their core, unifying value.  It is why the movement has grown so rapidly, in the course of less than a year.  That it has been purely organic, bottom-up, and community-driven is why it has been far more effective than MoveOn.org, which is top-down, button-pushing at it its finest.  It is why I believe it is a mistake for you to place MoveOn.org as a comparative analog to the TPM… besides the fact that the TPM is multiple-organizations, MoveOn has been an instrument of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the TPM has existed outside of party, and while certain elected officials have embraced it, the movement itself has been skeptical of them.

The problem I see is that when you confuse such unity with “unanimity”, you miss a fundamental concept:  liberty and anti-liberty cannot be reconciled.  When you enlarge government, you do so at the expense of liberty.  The founders of the republic recognized as such when they wrote the 9th and 10th Amendments in the Bill of Rights: we surrender liberties in the name of government powers, and all that is not surrendered is retained.  And in that way, there is a true “win-lose” aspect to the fundamental issues the nation currently grapples with.

Take the “individual mandate” for instance:  left, right, and center are united in opposition to this.  It is not only a bailout for big insurance, it is also unconstitutional as well.  Congress has no power to compel an individual to purchase a particular product in the marketplace, and all recognize how such an action destroys an individual’s freedom in a particularly heavy-handed manner.

My point is, if you’re looking at a model for Transpartisan Unity, it’s already out there.  You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

America is united.  And, as is the tradition in American history, it is united in opposition to tyranny from a government grown too large, out of control and out of touch.

Yours in liberty,

Andrew Langer

As a transpartisan organizer that has spent the last six years convening transpartisan leadership retreats with leaders of national groups and as the organizer of the first American Citizens Summit, a prototype event for a “conference of conferences”, here’s my bold, but practical, vision:

In early 2011 during the “armistice” period – armistice means “cessation of hostilities” – I can imagine a national political convention, a conference of conferences taking place in a central part of the country, like St. Louis. It will be co-sponsored and attended by national political parties – in reality, in my experience, mainly third parties will buy-in, R and D leaders have been very defensive about this idea in the past – as well as members of groups like Netroots Nation, Freedom Works, League of Women Voters, American for Tax Reform, MoveOn.org, Campaign for Liberty, etc.  It will also be co-sponsored by facilitator/mediator groups like the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation and the Common Bond Institute (conveners of the “Engaging the Other Conferences.”)

It will be several days long, probably five or six. The first day and a half will be to allow groups who regularly convene anyhow, to meet by themselves. Presuming we plan a large enough convention center, each of these groups can conduct their own private agenda undisturbed by the other groups meeting in adjacent spaces. Later in the day of day two, all groups can begin to meet in a large plenary. I imagine a large room set in a world café format (tables of four or five). The program for the night is simply a handful of powerful small group dialogue questions like “What is the true state of our Union?” and “What is the role of the citizen – beyond voting — in navigating our nations future?”

The way world café works is that after each twenty minute conversation, people get up and go to a different table. Therefore, after a couple “rounds” of conversation the people are mixing together all around the room. At the end people randomly share with the room, from their seat, their experience and what they heard in their various conversations. The effect is that all these separate groups that came into the event with their own separate agenda’s begin to develop relationships with individuals from the other groups. The intent of this first plenary session is simply to acknowledge that we’re all Americans, we’re all in the same boat, and that maybe cooperation between groups from all sides may make sense in the face of a crisis.

I can imagine the next day being an inquiry into values.  “What’s most important to you as an individual and as a citizen?”  We can spend time allowing people to throw out words discuss them in small groups and then collect them and vote on them using wireless keypad voting (something we have done numerous times with great affect in the past — see list from Feb ‘09 Citizens Summit).  Once people see that we’re all Americans and that we share a lot of the same values, then we need to have some tools to deal with the areas where we disagree, often very strongly.

In this case, maybe for a whole afternoon (day three) we can hear from professional trainers about dialogue and conflict resolution tools like: listening to be heard, speaking to be understood, managing emotional triggers, the art of inquiry, and techniques for managing judgemnet.  This session, based on experience, builds a great deal of trust and gives participants the sense that we can safely and effectively deal with our differences.  The conversation from this point forward becomes grounded in an acknowledgement of common bonds.

On day four and five is when we can get into “the issues.”  Very often people want to begin discussing policy immediately and in my experience that’s a mistake. Trust, respect and communication has to be created.  By this time in the conference I can imagine we use a self-organizing process called open space technology (free market conservatives call this process “spontaneous order”) that allows any individual to convene a breaklout session on any topic/theme of their choice.  When this happens and there are very different groups represented, its amazing the crosspollinization that takes place.  Throughout the day I can imagine Greens and Libertarians co-hosting sessions on local control and localization.  I can imagine MoveOn.org members and Tea Partiers co-hosting sessions on the role of government.  Because there is no-one “in charge” dictating the agenda and people are free to come and go from sessions at will.  The conversations tend to be much more creative and imaginative and much less adversarial, the natural tendency when people are in a relaxed, open environment where they feel safe is to be innovative.

What this country needs right now is creative innovative thinking.  The adversarial “game” is tearing us apart. At a deeper level, our current political “operating system” cannot deal with complexity.  The system is defaulting in the face multiple, interlocking crises, i.e. economic, environmental, national security and health.  Neuroscientists have found that people who are skilled at “managing chaos” are people who engage not only their left brain – reason, logic, analysis – but also their right brain – intuition, creativity, imagination.  Government is primarily a left brain institution. From my point of view, what we need is a parallel, integrated left-right brain “institution of citizenship” where people can relax, open up and get creative about the challenges facing us (this new “institution” can take many forms from local house parties, library dialogues, town halls, citizen assemblies, all the way up to this annual national conference of conferences.)

As a conservative and an organizer who wandered into the dialogue and deliberation community five years or so ago, I feel that as governments at all levels become overwhelmed and unable to respond to complexity, naturally citizens will need to self-organize and begin to respond on their own.  This can go well or it can go badly.  My intention is that we anticipate the “gathering complexity storm” and begin to organize events like this transpartisan conference of conferences.  We need a healthy alternative process for generating win-win policy options that work for liberals, conservatives, greens, independents, libertarians, and those who don’t identify with any side.

I have the greatest confidence that we as Americans can do this.  We have always been incredibly adaptive in times of need.  These times are calling for innovation in our political process.  I see us rising to the occasion.

The other day I did a radio interview on KONK in the Florida Keys with political comedian Steve Bhaerman (aka Swami Beyond Ananda). With me coming from from the conservative point of view and Steve coming from a liberal perspective we both are seeing the need for a “transpartisan grassroots up-wising” to re-engage the citizens of America in a search for innovative, win-win policy solutions that 80% plus of us can say “Yes!” to.

Here’s the radio show. I think its both hilarious and insightful…hope you do too…

Invitations for the evening went to all sides and was promoted on Alan Autry’s conservative radio show, but to be honest those who showed up tended to be more progressive.  Ideally participation is approximately a third progressive, a third conservative, and a third independent or unaligned.

The room was set up as a world cafe format, and after an introduction to the national organizing work of the Transpartisan Alliance and setting of ground rules for civil dialogue, participants began to talk among themselves.  They told stories to each other about “what experience most shaped their political point of view.”  They then told a story about a time when they were deeply emotionally triggered by a political conversation, person or issue.  They then were asked to step into the other point of view and tell the story, in the first person, through the other’s eyes.  It was at about this point in the evening that most folks realised that we all have stories…liberal, conservatives, greens, independents, even those who choose not to participate.

After this opportunity to get to know each other as people rather than labels or  positions, participants had a chance to brainstorm as a group about “The Transpartisan Possibility in Fresno.”  What would transpartisan dialogue aimed a building bridges of cooperation look like here?  Would it be a series of trust building house parties among formal and informal community leaders?  Would it have to focus on an issue like water or economic development to get people involved? Would a core group of citizen leaders form a neutral convening body that could organize town halls where all sides felt welcome, trusted the integrity of the process and were comfortable their particular agenda would be honored.

Tuesday night’s town hall was the next step in an unfolding process that began with a house party among a dozen or so folks on labor day week end.  Fresno based core team member of the Transpartisan Alliance, Debilyn Molineaux, is committed to keeping the conversation moving forward.  If you’re intrigued, inspired to learn more or just want to play with this new approach to creating win-win solutions for Fresno, contact Debilyn at debilynm@transpartisan.net, or 559-213-8463?