I had a VERY interesting weekend talking public policy, thanks to MacNeil/Lehrer!

[calimary]

Too much catch-up to do yesterday to post about this but I wanted to share it with you. It made me as proud as when I got a random call from the Gallup pollsters and wound up giving (decidedly LIBERAL) opinions that represented tens of thousands.

We got a call seeking participation in a MacNeil/Lehrer-sponsored conference called "What's Next California?" There were 400 of us. They originally aimed for 300 but made exceptions. My husband was approached but he said they should use me instead because I was a lot more into these things and I'd had this news broadcasting experience for years and that "she retired, but she never stopped talking"! They recruited me!

So all these people from all over California were assembled at a hotel complex in the South Bay for the weekend, with Judy Woodruff moderating the large plenary sessions. We were broken up into a coupla dozen discussion groups - tasked with kicking around issues regarding the structure of state government, the initiative process, and taxes. We were chosen to reflect the population of the state of California. My group had people from Oakland to Oceanside, males, females, blacks, Hispanics, a student, and a gay guy. There was a self-identified libertarian guy (Boomer-age, Anglo) and a self-identified tea party guy (twentysomething, Anglo). I found myself sitting across the table from several conservatives and obvious Pox News afficionados - one of them even parroted the talking points ("we have a spending problem!" - counter-acted by the gay guy who pointed out that we also have a revenue problem). Each discussion group was also tasked with coming up with one or two questions to ask the panels of experts in the larger plenary sessions at intervals throughout the weekend. The answers from these experts were always insufficient, and a lot of good questions didn't get asked, but some did.

REALLY fascinating. I found MYSELF tasked with trying to behave and be well-mannered and cordial in the presence of teabaggers and libertarians and even just the plain garden-variety conservatives. I think I must have done a good job because we all remained on speaking terms and everybody was hugging by the end - and honestly so.

It was interesting also, when some of these cons were confronted by living, breathing, intelligent, engaged human beings on the other end of the spectrum, who truly and genuinely NEEDED the kinds of government services that the cheapskate contingent we all have to trip over all the time would begrudge them because it costs their precious tax money. Two of the women, one of whom worked in Sacramento in government services, had a special-needs child whose programs she COULD NOT AFFORD as a single mom without state aid. Another woman, who was handicapped, kept reminding all of us (and I was THRILLED that she did) of the big corporations that weasel out of ALL tax-paying year after year after year, and the intrinsic unfairness of that while the rest of us are scratching the dirt for a living. I think it made an impact with some of the more conservative people in our group when they were reminded (and I reminded everybody myself) that "Hey, these things are NOT luxuries, okay? If that lady doesn't get the program help she needs for her kid now, what happens without that aid, when her child is grown and the needs are even greater - and they could have been mitigated if we'd dealt with it when the kid was still young."

I think the liberals in the group, myself included, helped put a human face on the serious and legitimate NEEDS we have here in California, and hell, all over the country, that you CANNOT simply dismiss under the troglodyte viewpoint of "Taxes BAAAAAAAAAD!" Several people in our group, and lots of others in other groups, had heard about that stupid-ass greedy grover norquist pledge that his group is trying to force all republi-CONS to sign, vowing they will not raise taxes. Others who hadn't heard about it were stunned, and rather disgusted, when it was brought up to them for the first time. I remember raising one point about - "can we take a moment to examine WHAT OUR TAXES PAY FOR?" For example, how about the roads that are in such a mess now that I'd be forced to pay far more to take my car in for repeated wheel alignments and unnecessary tire wear than the few dollars more I'd pay in taxes to keep the frickin' roads in decent shape - not just for me but for EVERYBODY driving on them. Actually got a grunt of grudging acknowledgment from one of them at the libertarian end of the table. Guess stuff like that had never occurred to them before. I tried to address The Big Disconnect that we all are saddled with because of 40 years of anti-tax propaganda that's completely fucked our state.

There was an elderly woman there who was terribly conservative and when discussions of Proposition 13 came up, she said "it worked great." And that got nods of agreement around the table among the homeowners. Then I saw nobody was speaking up for the other side and I said I disagreed that it "worked great" for everybody, since the schools basically got their legs kicked out from under them. And it seemed nobody had considered that so much. The women at the liberal side of the table all agreed enthusiastically.

It seemed to help that we were all trying to be adults and we had some really intelligent, articulate people in our group, and that when we were face-to-face with the opposing view, especially when some (like the women at the liberal end of the table who needed services that WERE NOT LUXURIES) were able to bring different points to the table than you'd ever hear on Pox Noise. I think it helped everybody, but perhaps the conservatives more than the liberals - because conservatives NEVER hear from the other side to any extent, especially if the only places they get their news and opinions from are biased outfits like Pox Noise. The other side is just NEVER presented to them, and all they think of, on our side, are maligned and demeaned and made-to-seem-stupid cartoons like "tree-huggers" and ESPECIALLY "welfare queens" and other assorted forms of "lazy moochers."

I think pretty much everyone was enlightened, except perhaps the elderly lady who was REALLY set in her thinking and quite outspoken about it. There was a panel discussion after the main banquet on Saturday night, in which Judy Woodruff hosted a handful of guests who brought ethnic experiences to the table, including a woman of Asian extraction who was a tech blogger from Northern California whose husband was African-American. There was also a Hispanic advocacy executive from Northern California who got some of the elders in the audience pretty riled up with a Nazi reference in his comments about the prejudices he'd experienced (and the human sources of that prejudice he'd experienced). Some of them took tremendous and quite vocal umbrage and a couple of them got up and walked out. And some of them took further umbrage when the Asian-American woman spoke of the dirty looks she'd get while out in public with her black husband. Quite a bit of harrumphing, especially when another older man got up and denounced the rudeness in the audience and how he thought it was "unconscionable". Some of us applauded that one. He also said he hoped that this would be the last generation to behave that way when conflicting opinions are being given a voice. Some of us applauded that one, too. But our little old lady started grumbling loudly, turning around to us visibly outraged and insisting we all get up at that very moment and start singing "God Bless America" like she was about to do. She didn't - since none of the rest of us felt like jumping to our feet to co-opt the evening's discussion with our little musical flash-mob stunt. Even the conservative guy with whom I struck up kind of a comradeship all weekend kinda sunk down in his seat and balked at her exhortations.

Wild weekend. We all learned that California was actually NOT the most heavily-taxed state. It's New York by quite a bit (14.5% versus 11.7% for California, against a national average of 11.0%). We also learned how Corrections and Rehabilitation took up 7% of Governor Brown's most recent budget for spending for 2011-2012 (well, as recent as the stats they had for the publication of our study guide, anyway). And I brought up how - maybe we could cut from there if we could just legalize marijuana and tax it. Legalizing marijuana came up a lot, mentioned at least twice in our own group and it was brought up again in one of the plenary sessions. In our group, when I made that particular point, there wasn't even a grunt of objection - from ANY side of the table. Truly, everybody in our group agreed on that one, and rather vehemently, too.

And one kid I met, during one of several breaks we had in the schedule, was a charming wild child with a fancy mohawk haircut he had given himself, and I talked up the band to him a little. He showed me a doodle he'd drawn during one of his group sessions and I really liked it. I gave him a CD and a wristband and sticker from the band. Next time I saw him, he'd drawn a rather elaborate doodle for me which I'm keeping and I may try to figure out how to use it for the band in some way. I hugged the tea party kid in our group, by the end, and told him quite honestly that if all the tea party people (I avoided using "teabaggers" just for congeniality purposes) were as friendly and open-minded as he was, then maybe we'd all have a lot more to talk about and be able to find common ground. That seemed to be the underlying purpose of the conference: how to find common ground among many conflicting and strongly-held belief systems. We managed pretty well, although I don't know if any minds were changed. They might, however, have been expanded a little.

Sorry this is long. But there was so much to talk about!

[LiberalAndProud]

1. I enjoyed reading this very much.

What a wonderful experience for all of you. If there was only one in your group her proved intransigent, then there is still hope that we can find a way. Many kudos to you, calimary.

[calimary]

2. Thanks! Yeah, and it wasn't just me. What was more convincing, I think,

were the women at the "liberal" side of the table - whose personal stories were compelling enough to get not only attention but, I think, respect, even from the conservatives. At the very least, I think, people who'd been encouraged for so many years to embrace the knee-jerk "Taxes BAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!" meme were given reason to pause and think about that a little, and maybe not embrace it so reactively.

[LiberalAndProud]

3. What is encouraging about this is that you were given a venue to have a dialogue.

I think that's what bothers me most about our current political climate. We've lost the ability to talk with each other. We are so polarized and consumed by hate of the "other". I am certain that this is by design.

[calimary]

6. Oh yeah, and I was VERY aware of how often I run off at the mouth about the CONS.

I didn't say "teabagger" or "CONservative assholes" or "morans" or "dumb-fucks" or "tearacists" ONCE, ALL weekend! I tried very hard not to be a provocateur. There was a very strong overriding consciousness about being well-behaved and respectful throughout, and that this was OPINION-driven.

We all agreed, at least in our group, that having a chance to kick these ideas around together face-to-face and try to understand where everybody else was coming from on a person-to-person basis, was really great. For example, in fairness to the other side (at least in my group), one could not respect the plight of the Libertarian, who said he had to take out a bank loan every year to pay the property taxes on his house, and if he didn't, he'd lose his house - even WITH Prop 13. It put a human face on folks like him, too. But the little old lady - bless her heart, she was pretty ferociously dug-in. But then she starts talking about how she used to work for Danny Kaye back in the day and he insisted she stop everything so he could make her a milk shake or some such thing, and you sorta forget yerself...

And we had some amazing things in common. I was stunned to find out that one of the most articulate and even-handed among the men also knew the drummer in my son's band - because his sons had been in Scouts with him. Small world, 'eh?

[LiberalAndProud]

10. Danny Kaye made her milkshakes?

I adored him when I was a kid. He made me laugh. I forgive her already.

[calimary]

4. They told us this is going to be a special on PBS sometime in September, but no one was

sure of the exact date. Should be interesting! I doubt you'll see me anywhere because others in our group were chosen to read the questions we'd devised to the experts during the larger plenary sessions. Maybe in the crowd somewhere. All the group sessions had small cameras set up in them, but I don't know how much of that will be used from any one group. And as I said, there were about 24 individual discussion groups. Ours was Group 8.

[cate94]

5. K & R

Sounds like you did a great job and brought up valid points for the other side to consider. Perhaps now they will think about what goods and services their taxes buy for all of us.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[calimary]

8. You're welcome! It was quite amazing. And I have several email addresses to add

to the band's fan base, now, too.

And one very outspoken woman had a daughter who'd served for eight years in Iraq, as a Marine. She was tough as nails in her outspokenness, until she spoke of her daughter, and started to cry. Just really something.

And our moderator was a doll. Very sweet and appreciative, but she kept us on point and on schedule. She was a slim, pretty, petite blonde with long hair. None of the moderators were allowed to share any personal information about themselves til the end, if at all. We spent all weekend trying to figure out what kind of accent she had. Come to find out she was from Istanbul - none of us would have guessed that one. And she also told me, quietly, in an aside, "AND, I'm a Muslim" - almost apologetically. I shrugged and said "so? It really doesn't matter." And she smiled very broadly. We hugged and I gave her a CD and wristband from our band.

[lunatica]

7. It's great to hear a true story about people actually talking to each other

It seems everyone who went was interested in being there. Except the old lady with that hair across her ass.

[calimary]

9. She was interested in being there, too. She was something else!