you're right, but unfortunately most people are retarded.
if you say you think kids should get healthcare you're a marxist etc. etc.
support the troops, but still vote for people who consistently ignore the needs of veterans. etc.
support the war when it's about WMD, but if they find no WMD, then pretend you haven't been lied to.

etc.

That's a really good article NetRunner. I particularly like this part...

"Someone calling the wall by the wrong color would make me willing to declare war." With practice one can learn to experience these feelings and impulses without translating them into action. By experiencing without reacting, a person can begin to see clearly that the unexamined impulse to react is an habitual and compulsive forward drive--arising variously from emotions of fear, anger, insecurity, or even existential panic--rather than from the carefully considered thought we imagined. And one begins to see the likelihood that the impulsive reaction would create only more battling for reality and further polarization. When one labors under the illusion that their very existence is determined by thoughts and words, the survival instinct can propel forceful and desperate action based on the silliest of disagreements.

Awarding NetRunner with one star point for this contribution to Sift Talk - declared quality by schmawy.

I do that better in person.

'Round here, I have trouble when I'm the guy who just painted the wall white, and someone comes along and says "you fools who go around painting walls black are the reason this country is broken."

While writing my portion of this, I couldn't help but wonder if part of the polarizing effect is coming from the internet, where human interaction is reduced, and where once there was truth and falsehood, we now have a marketplace of ideas.

Everyone can now self-filter information so that only information that reinforces your beliefs makes it to your eyes and ears.

I worry about doing that to myself, but reading Redstate makes me sick, and the "mainstream media" seems obsessed with trivialities, and has an obvious aversion to doing any real truth seeking.

I'd love a conservative equivalent to Stewart and Colbert, but there is no such animal.

However, I end up coming back to what someone once said to me about Fox "fact doesn't need the be balanced with fiction".

I might have doubts about the source of my facts sometimes, but not too much.

Netrunner, you are biting off way more than I would ever try to. It might sound absurd, but it seems that geomoo's post on DailyKos isn't particulary concerned about 'facts' at all (Incidentally, I haven't even finished reading that article because it keeps spinning me off into separate Google searches, that's the problem with not knowing anything). If the conclusion of the article is anything like it's opening, then it isn't about facts at all. It seems to be about two concepts that result in these 'separate realities', where facts have lost meanings.

The article seems to assert that thought is flawed and is often just emotional response disguised as "thinking", and as a result "listening" isn't actually practiced. In an effort to counteract these short circuits, The article introduces Bohm's Principles":

"[A]ny method of conversation that claims to be based on the "principles of dialogue as established by David Bohm" can be considered to be a form of Bohm Dialogue. Those principles of "Bohm Dialogue" are:

1. The group agrees that no group-level decisions will be made in the conversation. "...In the dialogue group we are not going to decide what to do about anything. This is crucial. Otherwise we are not free. We must have an empty space where we are not obliged to anything, nor to come to any conclusions, nor to say anything or not say anything. It's open and free" (Bohm, "On Dialogue", p.18-19.)"

2. Each individual agrees to suspend judgement in the conversation. (Specifically, if the individual hears an idea he doesn't like, he does not attack that idea.) "...people in any group will bring to it assumptions, and as the group continues meeting, those assumptions will come up. What is called for is to suspend those assumptions, so that you neither carry them out nor suppress them. You don't believe them, nor do you disbelieve them; you don't judge them as good or bad...(Bohm, "On Dialogue", p. 22.)"

3. As these individuals "suspend judgement" they also simultaneously are as honest and transparent as possible. (Specifically, if the individual has a "good idea" that he might otherwise hold back from the group because it is too controversial, he will share that idea in this conversation.)

4. Individuals in the conversation try to build on other individuals' ideas in the conversation. (The group often comes up with ideas that are far beyond what any of the individuals thought possible before the conversation began.)

Usually, the goal of the various incarnations of "Bohm Dialogue" is to get the whole-group to have a better understanding of itself. In other words, Bohm Dialogue is used to inform all of the participants about the current state of the group they are in."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/8/194945/7976/80/531805

My wife and I both observed that a certain manner of speaking could have a profound effect on the listening. The group might be droning along about ideas. I might find myself reacting with boredom or anger or a mental critique. Then a participant would begin speaking from the heart, offering a specific example of the universal experience of being human.

Nothing like blockquotes to bring a discussion to a halt. Booooriiiing. I am the Threadkilla.

Actually, MGS4 is the threadkiller.

I am biting off a lot, but I've been in a very adversarial mode about this election for a while now, and it's just not healthy.

I'd love to set the adversarial nature aside, but the past 8 years has shown me that's just going to lead to the end (or at least massive diminishment) of everything I believe in.

Bohm dialogue was kind've secondary to me -- interesting in its own right to be sure, but it doesn't seem like it could help the overall goal. I do see elements of it in how Obama has handled campaign attacks, but it's not really suited for the situation we have now.

It's definitely a good way to remain friends with people who're on the other side of the divide, especially when it comes to focusing on the shared experience of being human.

I was more focused on that wonderful quote that highlights the key issue I see. Democrats may win the presidency, a filibuster-proof majority of the senate, and rebalance the supreme court to our favor, but if the Republican/conservative people insist on staying in their alternate reality, it's just going to make the division worse.

Obama seems to have a way of piercing that bubble, but there's still a media empire out there dedicated to creating and sustaining the alternate reality.

I think media reform is probably one of the most important things to focus on if we do wrest control away from the neocons.

Personally, I'd love to see people who speak to the press charged with perjury for lying to the press. Let them say "no comment" if they want, but no more of this standing in front of cameras and flatly denying the facts at hand. If they want to do that, they can release a YouTube on their website.

I also think there's need for independent watchdog groups that have official standing as media regulators would be a good idea. Something like mediamatters.org, only with some restrictions on the political affiliations of who works there.

In short, truthiness needs to die for us to truly get back on track.