Great idea.
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dr. Ernie Prabhakar Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 3:45 PM To: Radical Centrist Discussions Subject: [RC] Fwd: Left-right citizens meet in healthy dialogue/debate onhealth care Some very nice work out of Seattle... 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 chance 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. Would love to see more centrist-sponsored fora for getting at the root of disagreements. -- Ernie P. Begin forwarded message: <http://network.transpartisan.net/> Transpartisan Alliance A message to all members of Transpartisan Alliance By Joseph McCormick and Franca Baroni <http://transpartisan.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/fishbowl.jpg> This past Wednesday night at a meeting of the Transpartisan Alliance <http://transpartisan.net/> 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. 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 chance 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 empowerment 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. Visit Transpartisan Alliance at: http://network.transpartisan.net/?xg_source=msg_mes_network To control which emails you receive on Transpartisan Alliance, click <http://network.transpartisan.net/profiles/profile/emailSettings?xg_source=m sg_mes_network> here <http://network.transpartisan.net/xn_resources/widgets/index/gfx/spacer.gif? msgtype=broadcast>
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