before anyone pulls out brickbats over my false assumptions, biases, or downright wrong things, as you see it, please: frame it with some effort at generosity.
I don't claim to be the holder of truth here. This post is about deliberative democracy, lost and re-found.

"The Great Crime of Rush and Beck et al is not their beliefs or their tawdry racism or even their threatening rhetoric. It's the success they've had at fossilizing our positions."

Add to that the endless mountains of money they are being paid to spew information that is oftentimes inaccurate, or totally false.
Great follow-up appeal Greg..More later....

Limbaugh and Beck are surfing an unfortunate tidal change in what we admire - money, fame, being right as proven by the number of angry people loudly agreeing. We must change what we admire.

I should go back and review your earlier posts, because these last two were sterling, Greg; this no less than the previous; and perhaps more so. I had a good friend who is staunch Republican and lost his friendship because he could not stand for my reason when he sent me a hateful email forward during the Presidential race about how a white man, if painted black, would suddenly turn (from white guy goodness) to robbing stores and drive by shootings. I wrote him back and told him how completely ugly and wrong headed that email was; and asked him to never send me anything like that again. He has never spoken to me since.

I really liked the man. He and I disagreed politically and philosophically on many issues, but we discussed things rationally and while not accepting of the others' view, we tolerated each others' opinions and maintained a good friendship in the balance. All that was lost because of an email.

When Obama won, I emailed him again (for a time I made many attempts to resurrect our friendship, to no avail) and asked if we might paint Obama white (?) if he would then and have better social qualities and be more acceptable. ...No response.

I miss my friend. He is a bigoted ass, yet I miss him. We had some really good moments. Pity politics and what it brings us to. If we lose our reason and tolerance and common sense, we are no better than brutes; and shouldn't be allowed to vote in the first place.

Excellent post.

You are so eloquent in your understanding and explication of the difference between Stalinism and Maoism (or the Khmer Rouge or the Peruvian Sendero Luminoso) and small "s" socialism.

"Compromise" has somehow come to have shameful connotations, such that stubbornness has evolved as the sine qua non of political discourse. So wooly headed reasining and plugging one's ears and going "la,la,la,la" passes for negotiation. There is a time to be steadfast and a time to concede some iota of need.

Compromise means "to promise mutually". "Promise" means " to "declare solemnly that one will take a particular course of action". So "Compromise" means to mutually agree to take a certain course of action. *sigh* I think politics could not occur without this.

Another word that has taken on some slimy connotations seems to be "diplomacy"...

...er...damn the typwriting...that should be "reasoning"...maybe I was thinking of raisins? Monkey food at it's best...

"conservatives, who got behind OSHA and the clean air act and the EPA and Headstart." I don't know any conservatives who favor any of those programs.

Your point is well taken and eloquently made. I fear the right is too fossilized for it to be possible to renew a real dialog, thanks to the likes of Rush and Beck. Maybe that will change if we try to engage in real dialog and not just rhetoric.

Gary: The money. Yep. The worst of the Right has a budget that the worst of the Left has never had. MAJOR difference. Great point.

Sandra: And a similar, excellent point: We have elevated $/Fame/Loudmouth into the stratosphere. Even Keith O -- love him for what he does and says -- is still the liberal effort to compete in this arena. Necessary I guess. But you hit it on the ugly inflated head, Sandra: "We must change what we admire."

My new mantra. And forgive me if I build around it (will t/h to u) for the final part 3 installment of this.

dyno: oh no! my worst nightmare realized! my writing will get people to read more of my writing!

he he.

I have similar experiences. I was partnered with a guy in Ohio for years, a Republican born-again Promisekeeper no less. he even came with his wife and stayed at our house. I loved him. But a few months before last year's elections he had a meltdown, ended our partnership suddenly and with irrevocable personal violation of our trust, including ripping off one of our clients. I am still flabbergasted. The inevitable Obama win broke his brain and heart.

But the uptick is, I learned I could maintain a good relationship across this gulf. It is real enough what divides us, but the "impossible" quality is historically recent and completely voluntary. I un-volunteer.

We can and must do better. It starts with identifying our shared values and imperatives and understandings, which will be what I attempt in part 3

Thanks

yek: wow, i love that: "to promise mutually". A wopnderful contribution, yek.


Cap'n: The EPA was created and supported by Nixon. See? we are getting somewhere. There is a hidden history, pre-1980, of moderate conservative social policies, and liberal patriotism and fiscal frugality that belies the 2-dimensional distortions promoted by both sides.

During WWII the managers and union heads carpooled to work at US Steel and GM and Ford, etc. They shared info, solved practical problems, forged relationships. It is in part credited with the rapid escalation of war production that was the allies' secret weapon. We need to share the ride, right and left, and get some work done.

Greg, I miss the true conservatives who had a social conscience. When Ronald Reagan was governor of California, he had such freaky liberal ideas as letting the mentally ill out of the hospitals, and funding programs for low income university of California students.

I love the fossilization metaphor for a social phenomenon. It is the best thing that I've heard to describe the adamant, hard core, unreasonable nature of the Right (and parts of the left).

But fossils tend to be so immovable that they end up buried inside of hard concretions of sedimentary rock over time.

In other words, if it doesn't move, it can get buried. And rocks don't have the free and independent mobility to get themselves out of the way of things that eventually cover them up or break them down.

Great concepts and real reading. Rated.

This does, however, require communication from both parties; and an honesty, willing to listen, at least; and not just spout. Refusing to communicate and ending friendships (and ripping people off ) are the qualities of humans who have not yet attained the elegance of animals.

I will be back for this. What I've read, in the post and comments, speaks in a voice I can hear. For too long, the screaming from both sides has caused me to put cotton in my ears and find other things to do - not for lack of concern, but for lack of meaningful dialogue. Taking a side without HEARING something substantive is a luxury I, and perhaps we, can't afford.

zum: "if it doesn't move, it gets buried" That's great. Of course, I suddenly realize the whole evolution aspect might have doomed this dialogue for some on the right, so I will stay focused on the meaning of the metaphor, not the age-of-earth resonance . Despite the overwhelming evidence for evolution, for goodness' sake.

dyno: there it is, the rub and the nub: to diminish my former partner is shooting fish in a barrel, given what he did. I choose, i force myself to choose, to understand that fear is a powerful thing, and overwhelming thing, and can make the very best of go wrong. i gently chide you: he is not beneath the animals. He succumbed to an erroneous, mortal fear.

owl! I am so glad you came here and thank you for these kind supportive words.

I must go on family errands now, but trust me: I will be back and engage with all who comment here, today and as long as they are added. i love what is happening here. I love OS.

I framed it Greg and I hear you. Great, thought provoking pieces, both. I look forward to part 3.
detaR

I respectfully and cheerfully chide you back ;-) as it is my belief that we choose; and must choose; and if deliberative democracy is our intent, then we must engage; and it is necessary and important to behave ourselves; else we are less than we ought and need to be. Otherwise the journey itself becomes less a part of the process, and everyone can point to their own point of view as the end result, as if they have been full of wisdom throughout.

There is no benefit in bad behavior. One can learn from it, and profit from our errors and knee scrapes; but that is good behavior coming from the bad, as evolutionary growth. If someone is incapable of that, they are incapable also of the discretion required for deliberative democracy.

If that is the case, the process is broken from the start.

and then, we might as well be fossils.

kind of blue! glad you came and commented, here and on part 1

dyno: points taken, and very well-expressed.

I am still caught up in my personal feelings for him and his wife, and make perhaps more allowance than otherwise called for. But I agree: to deliberate together we must meet certain essential standards of civility and decent behavior.

I perhaps allow a bit more than you, but only contingently. I have seen people back off, back down, here on OS, if one but ignores the first few nasties, doesn't take the bait. And I have been in the wrong, and might be again, and hope I will not be permanently frozen out for it.

That said, there are a few OS'rs i have little hope for, on right and left. Careful and selective reads are required, moment by moment. This is tricky stuff, for mature minds.

"And it is, right now, Sooner. " Yes!
"We need each other." Absolutely yes!!
@ Greg's comment to Sandra: "Even Keith O -- love him for what he does and says -- is still the liberal effort to compete in this arena. Necessary I guess." Hmmmm. Necessary? Bear in mind that Fox News began when conservatives perceived (correctly, based on all polls of journalists) that journalists leaned left and thus (a judgment call this, but we can all think of examples of slanted reporting before Fox News, right?) skewed what they reported. That is, the creators of Fox News saw it as necessary. And then, profit motive here we come, they realized that this was a way to make money and turned news into sports-talk-radio-like cartoon talk. Does countering their cartoons with "good guy" cartoons elevate the discourse? Or does it contribute to fossilizing, too?

That minor quibble aside, I agree with much of what you say here. There is, in fact, a silent majority in this country, though it does not correspond one-to-one to the one Nixon wished to lead by the nose. It is the vast middle, which does not believe the extremists in either party or either ideology and is willing to take ideas from any side, as long as they will work--and maintain core American values, like freedom, justice, equal opportunity. What I think is most notable about FDR was his credo of "try something, and if it doesn't work, try something else." I think most people can rally around that.

I join those looking forward to Part 3!

It doesn't hurt to be a little childlike at times too... ;-) Children artfully and unconsciously show us what we have too long forgotten with our 'mature' minds; much like the Earth herself, which gives and gives; while we take and take.

...I am enjoying this exchange, as well as the posts themselves, and also look forward to part three.

AtHome: things are cooking now.

I think there are just-beyond-middle folks, even, who get worn out by the rantapalooza on cable, all sides. I know I do. I want to say Keith is different -- because I think he is, out of my bias AND for arguable reasons -- but that's not the topic.

And parsing the topic is THE subject of all this.

Thus: Keith is shouting back. And we can agree we could use more thoroughly percolated old-style grudging admiration. Shouting drowns it out.

Here's one, single, constructive step, that would shift the whole thing, and is conceivable*:

• Fox puts a real live Leftist on the schedule. 1 hr, no more no less. Hell, put in 20 mins of in-house debate, too. But they would be doing us, and themselves, a favor.

Bully pulpits attract bullies.

*perhaps when his worshipfulness Rupert retires? But you know, they give us Homer and House, too, so just maybe.

_
and now i leave for a few hours, but look forward to any new comment, and will respond to all. I have my work cut out for me, with part 3. There are dimensions showing up here that are changing my thinking a bit, here and there.

Oh frabjous joy.

BTW, the metaphor of fossilization is very, very apt. Extremists (political, religious, whatever) spout rhetoric, often not even realizing that they don't know what assumptions the rhetoric is based on - so even challenging their assumptions draws a blank look, at best. And so the beliefs become hardened. How to soften the shells?

"Bully pulpits attract bullies." Yes, alas, they can and do. Well, I like your idea. From your lips to Fox's ears?

No one prefers welfare to work, simply because no one can live on welfare. In a capitalist system jobs are not distributed based on merit, but on nepotism. Therefore, like any civilized society, those who have done well should carry those who do not have relatives. There is a lot of money to go around. This is not only conservative; it is the Christian thing to do.

Great argument and research. Very well written. I learned much.

Rated.

the right appeals to ignorance and fear, the left to reason and optimism, the right is driven by greed, the left by compassion, the right will kill if necessary to silence, the left will fight to defend another's right to be wrong

Stalin was not a leftist ideologue, but simply a murderous opportunist, Mao may have been a revolutionary, but he was also an authoritarian, there's no more perfect expression of a rightist article of faith than that all power comes from the barrel of a gun

compare Rush to Rachel, or Kristol to Moyers, there's no equivalence, moral or intellectual

maybe this makes me a fossil, but I'll continue to side with workers over bankers, pacifists over warmongers, human rights over property rights, if deliberative democracy is endangered or lost, it's because one side despises deliberation

I hope none of the above is taken as a rebuke to you Greg, whom I hold in the greatest respect, admiration, and I'd bet if I knew you more personally, affection as well

I agree with Roy.

I am also a very practical person and for me this discussion leads me to health care reform.

I think change occurs when you have all kinds, the people who are nice and polite, those who are inside cutting the deal and making the compromises but I think that those who are outside pounding on the doors and yelling on the megaphones and are just pissed off at the status quo are equally important.

There is a discussion on Kent Pitman's blog about Alan Grayson and his latest speech on health care reform. Kent mentions how Democrats have been a bit of over the top nice to the Republicans and yet there is no movement towards real reform. I think we should have been tougher sooner, I think our side is always more rational and that's fine but we need our extremists also

...hence my analogy and call for good behavior... Quite an interesting discussion, eh...? It takes all stripes to make the flag.

dyno: thanks

owl: or evolve? the problem is as Sandra says it: fossils "settle" for less. We must admire greater things in ourselves.

athome: does Fox even have ears?

Thoth: Excellent points. While I am sure there ARE some who have settled into the dole -- there have always been such among us -- your point is right and the myth is wrong. Getting assistance is a shock to the system and most want out of it. And THERE'S a point I always want to make to the hyenas who laugh at largesse: "There is a lot of money to go around."

Want to be strict with it? fine. Limit the time you can receive it? ok. Set terms for job search or training? beautiful. But to deny it in America? Shame. Deep, abiding shame.

Roy: Becasue i am of the left and embrace many of y/our progressive declarations, you and I , personally, have much common ground.

But not everything, and for some of this I agree but understand exceptions to them. And this is what I am at, in these three pieces: to identify the unifying ideas, the protocols, the mens, for reconcile instead of the endless reckoning that everyone wants to inflict on each other.

You offer real meat here:

-- the right is in thrall to ignorance and fear purveyors, yes. But not everyone of the right, toiling outside the media lights, is just about fear and ignorance. The left currently embraces reason, but not everyone of the left is reasonable or even respects science and the method of it.

-- Optimism is the clearest difference, and the most salient feature of Obama and is Great Attempt. I think there are many on the right who who close with optimism if they felt they would be heard for their cautions, exceptions, and even fears, without being demonized and dismissed. The left has been burned so much by Faux Nukes Network they are in no mood to listen. But we must ALL listen, grudgingly at least, for us to reunite the two 50%'s.

Stalinist abandoned socialism per se, and paid but lip service to the language and ideals, used but its operational shape for his structure and methods of state terror. You nail this.

But the Mao corollary you use is both deeply resonant with me -- and yet uncomfortable. To me, as a leftist who knows union history, who isn't fooled by the right-re-write of reality (the bizzaro-world concept that Nazi = Gene McCarthy).

Mao WAS a real socialist, and proves for all time that all systems can be poisoned by power, inhumanity, bureaucratic oppression and murder.

It makes sense to me that Mao was in essential ways an Authoritarian monster, and close kin to all such. That to me is his rightwing and fascist connection. But we must confront realistically how he espoused and deployed meta-socialism and small agrarian communal reforms alike. Painstaking attention to familiar left tropes STILL define Chinese state language.

The neat answer? I dunno. But smart thinkers who loathe communism will not go away, they force us to admit: all systems fail without lovingkindness and practical access to power.

And there's this: Nixon and W didn't "ruin" deliberative democracy. Mao doesn't "ruin" small "s" socialism ideas.

We disarm rational thinkers on the right only by being direct and honest about the realities on the ground. Grit teeth, admit, then work on it.

All that said gunbarrel = facist mentality, yep.

-- Rush/Rachel, Kristol/Moyers: absolutely no doubt about it, our side wins those pair-ups, twice before breakfast with one eye open. And I find no fault with the choices, at all.

But what about Rush vs Behind Blue Eyes, here on OS (o man, did I just say that?)

Chomsky vs Andrew Sullivan?

Al Sharpton vs Michelle Bachman?

-- Your list, my take:

workers over bankers: me too, always and forever, at least until bankers (are forced to) become honest workers. ha.

pacifist over warmongers: with you, Roy, since I was 12. What's so funny about peace love and understanding? But: I will man the barricades, and take the fight to them, to defend American democracy or to stop a new Hitler. I perfectly understand the right when it sheds no tear for the loss of Saddam and any suchlike. If they could apply it evenly to tinpot, CIA-befriended strongmen, and US-friendly monsters across the board, my respect for their steely defense of our values would grow. But I do not doubt, per se, that the tyrants they CAN identify offend them. Case-by-case.

human rights over property rights: strong agreement but not absolute: the "minor" distinction, lost iin the din, that small-scale property rights ARE a human right. Guatemala farmers, 1954, one of the blackest nights in US history, The right should have been all over the defense of hardscrabble entrepreneurs.

-- one of the primary purposes of this trio of posts is to address head-on how we restore deliberative democracy, to wrest it back from the Fox anti-deliberationists and the European leftist know-it-alls, one brother-in-law Bob and crazy aunt Tilly at a time. With love and forebearance, and calm attention to reality.

Go ahead, be affectionate!

Thanks Roy. Your quixote-esque play post, is still, to me, one of the most literary and lyrical things OS has ever seen.

Ariana: practically speaking, we need those who push and dare to be rude, obnoxious, even. To de-ossify us, even if they are wrong.

But the budget Fox has, the media role it has donned, is a bete noir of a different ilk, and redefines our relationship.

The right is correct that most journalists leaned left, once upon a time. Slightly, but true nonetheless. But it was not, and is still not, the point. If Fox "journalists" played the game fair, did their homework, reported things straight, we wouldn't have the current problem. Dirty tricks, pantomiming neutral, ethical journalism has brought us to phony culture war.

So we see the value of having our "own" version, Keith O, yes? But this is stopgap. We must help America get bored with it, see thru it. Fox must lose its sheen of gaudy correctitude.

I am thrilled when i hear Grayson, because he is smart and brave and uses facts. And he has a knack, a weird charisma. But I am also waiting for him to err, expecting it. Self-righteous is a Christmas orange, and mold comes quickly. The best change is painstaking, forged in a dull heat, by steady, experienced hands.

I stop short of embracing extremists on the left, because din undoes us. I also feel passionately that congress must belly up and pass the public option and stop fretting about the right's coy posturing

dyno: i have always considered myself a stripe #7 kind of guy ;)

Gloriosky, Greg: Did you just write your #3? There's as much to chew on and relish in your comment-di-tutti-comments as in the original post.

Since I don't know where to begin, I'll begin here: I wish I didn't feel compelled to, see the need to, be on a "side." Especially "our side." I've always favored being the outsider. And usually, that state of being has been strictly in the eye of the beholder, a poor judge of anything on the inside.

Sometimes being an outsider has meant taking what appeared to many to be extreme action (breaking into my draft boards, but not and never breaking heads) during Vietnam. Wild youth, coupled with wild problem-solving schemes.

Other times -- most times since those very tough days -- it's meant being underground, or at least unpredictable, when it came to answering the question "which side are you on boy?" I like to keep people guessing. Sometimes because I'm guessing myself.

I've never asked or paid attention to what strike me as the frivolous and nearly identical identifiers "Democrat" or "Republican." I'm as comfortable with some conservative ideas as I am uncomfortable with some liberal ones. In the immortal words of Clarence "Frogman" Henry, " I ain't got no home." And I've always been fine with that.

The most thoughtful anti-war advocate I know is an 82-year-old World War II vet, a guy who has worked with his hands all his life, a Republican, who decided to return a cache of letters and postcards he took from the bloody beach at Iwo Jima and saw to their return to a dead soldier's family more than 50 years later. He saw it done, and as only one result, that Japanese soldier's grand-niece is teaching a course to Japanese high school students who hadn't the slightest idea -- until now --of the horrors their elders suffered and perpetrated during WWII.

My point? Some of my best friends . . . no. My point, I guess, is that I often find it woeful that it still seems necessary for us to parse each others beliefs, affiliations, religions and see how each of us fits with the other. I wish we could get beyond the point where, because "the Right" has a Rush, "we" must have a Keith. We're not there yet and may never arrive, and more's the pity.

I think you've said as much in many of your comments, Greg, and others have both echoed and expanded on similar themes. I acknowledge the need for action and for compromise, for actions that match words, for civility and patience and attentiveness to all. Your bottom line has long been "lovingkindness" and it's a powerful way of approaching a polarized and hate-filled world.

May we all walk it like you've so skillfully talked it.

Jeremiah:

you honor me with such a close read and such kind words.

We have such work to do to get control of our financial system. It sucks that we also have to to un-do the contamination of our ideals as well.

It isn't that Keith makes heated arguments, for me. It's that he sometimes adds to the contamination. I get why. I just don't like it.

I call it "Right At Any Cost". Doesn't matter if the facts don't support it, just keep saying it louder. Doesn't matter if it has no basis in reality, just say it louder.
We get what we deserve when we allow people who want "Right At Any Cost" to assume positions of leadership. Sandra said, "We must change what we admire" - BAM! Bullseye.

She is one sharp lady, and you, Mr. Correll, are one sharp fella.

Thumbed.

Amen, Brother!! !!!!
And I really like Sandra's comment. Thoreau lamented that we, as a society, strive for respect rather than for that which is respectable.

We must to come together as humans before we destroy the last of ourselves

Bill S

Exactly: Loud brays. Sandra is a laser beam: we admire loud, gimcrack pseudo-intellects with paddle-wheel argumentation -- round and round -- over deep turbine thinking with orderly wakes. We must stop worshiping self-satisfaction.

thanks

John: I knew Sandra's gem in my bones, at a glance. And i don't want to get all panicky here, but you are right: the clock is ticking.