Joan Blades, MoveOn.org and MomsRising.org Co-Founder, discusses her new project, Living Room Conversations, tools for healing and collaboration following the recent divisive election season as well as strategies to change political dynamics.
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1:Method to the madness is next and you are listening to method to the madness, a weekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer, and today I'm interviewing Joan glades. Joan was the cofounder of move on.org and moms rising dot board. Her current passion [00:00:30] is to bring the right and left together in conversation to find common ground so our country can move forward following this divisive election. The project is called living room conversations. Welcome to the program. Joan. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:I remember you from move on.org and moms rising and you have a new passion living room conversations. Can you tell me what [00:01:00] that is? Absolutely. It's a opportunity to let people talk to each other across differences. Right? Left older, younger, you name it. Right now we're looking a lot at the right left issue. It's a very simple practice where two friends with different viewpoints each invite two friends to have a structured conversation. They've agreed to some ground rules, which are basically what you learned in kindergarten. Take turns, be respectful, be curious. Own your part of the conversation and then it, the structure is such [00:01:30] that the first couple of rounds are about who you are. Why do you join the conversation and some of your deeper values so that by the time you get to the topic you've chosen, you have a sense that these people you're sitting with are people you share values with in some ways and that they're good people.
Speaker 2:Can you find those differences when you live in a city like Berkeley? Well, once it's reasons I started, this was because I was born in Berkeley and I lived other places in my twenties but I came back, it became clear to me at a certain point that I really [00:02:00] needed to understand what considered potential or thinking, particularly when I was at move on back in 2004 I was part of a group called green uniting America and I had the opportunity to sit down with people, grassroots leaders on the right and really have a relationship and conversation and better understand where they were coming from. You know, my question was at that time, why aren't you concerned about climate change? And at that time we were able to in 2004 2005 and at that time we were able [00:02:30] to have a really thoughtful conversation about it and honestly the line to not harden the way they have since that time.
Speaker 2:By 2008 2009 I couldn't have those same conversations which said to me that, you know, we need to have that relationship first so that we can actually have a funny, you call it caused the hardening of the lines. You said 2008 2009 was it the crash? No, I would say it's the crash. So much as different topics get taken as partisan indicators [00:03:00] and you have to be true to that line. Warren more and I think we've become increasingly polarized over the last 10 years. A lot of people forgotten move on. Started midway in the impeachment scandal with Monica Lewinsky and Clinton and it was a common sense. Let's get back to business. One sentence, petition censure the president and get back to pressing issues facing the nation. And you could love Clinton or hate Clinton and agree that the best thing for the country is get [00:03:30] back to business because it was just increasing partisanship.
Speaker 2:So we had, you know, thousands of Republicans delivering their move on petition two at that time. But unfortunately two weeks after an election where we worked very hard to get all sorts of people out, we had the congress impeach, it wasn't the most popular thing to do. And then, you know, we'd gotten hundreds of thousands of people active in politics for the first time in their lives and it just didn't feel right to go home at that point because good [00:04:00] citizens yet is electing people that reflect your values. And that's actually how move on ended up becoming more than a flash campaign because our original intent was just we'll help everyone communicate with them, move on is still happening, move on is still a very healthy organization with wonderful leadership and it's, it's working on the progressive side in just a certain way. Whereas your living room conversations, you're inviting everyone to the conversation.
Speaker 2:Living Room conversations are me. [00:04:30] Add a whole set of partners from right to left agreeing that we need to have relationship, respectful relationship, have everybody's best ideas and you reach out to these people. I know one is a tea party person and did you personally reach out and say, I want to do this with you. One of my friends who was a conservative said, you know you should meet Mark Meckler who's the Co founder of tea party patriots. You're the CO founder. Move on. Wouldn't it be cool if you both had a living room conversation together? So this started no living [00:05:00] room conversations started with working with a group called changing the game to do a pilot project in test out what a simple conversation that would be massively reproducible would look like. As a founder. Move on. I really value grassroots engagement because when you get down to it, citizens are smart, they're caring, and if you give them a way to participate, they'll do so in a really valuable way.
Speaker 2:And I think we lack the citizen voices that we really [00:05:30] need. If you look up this some time ago that you started this pilot 2011 and one of the people from changing the game, one of the conservative partners there became my partner founding Amanda, Catherine, Roman founding living room conversations because you really have to walk the walk doing this work. Tell me more about the goals of living room conversations. Well, the, the goal is to have good relationships with people with all sorts of belief systems so that we actually work together collaboratively [00:06:00] and collaborative. Problem solving is just infinitely better than adversarial problem solving. You need to go out to the congress and speak. Well, they haven't invited me. I mean just think about it. The issue of climate change is one where even if all the Republicans agreed, it was a huge problem at this point.
Speaker 2:I would not trust the congress to come up with a good plan because they do it through adversarial engagement. To do really good problem solving. You [00:06:30] need to use everyone's best ideas. You need to be agile. So you try what you think is the best plan possible. And when you see things that are working, you go deeper there and things that aren't working, you s you know, you cut those pieces and that kind of creativity and agility isn't possible when you're in an internal flight. And right now we're seeing an internal fight. Yes. And I just finished Arlie Hochschild book strangers in their own land and I couldn't help but think it by the end [00:07:00] of it, it seems like progresses are always reaching out, trying to figure out a way to communicate with those that have very different ideas. Do you think they feel the same way toward us?
Speaker 2:I don't see that same sort of reciprocity. It always seems like it's a progressive idea to say we need to talk. Well remember this is an organization that's half conservative than half progresses, right? Living Room conversations is not me. I'm one of many partners and I'm here in Berkeley. So, and honestly [00:07:30] I think on both sides there's been a great deal of rigidity that has been built in. And in fact, people want to fix it, the congress, and I want you to, but I believe Congress will be fixed and presidential elections will be fixed when we create a citizen foundation that has an expectation of respectful engagement in collaborative problem solving. So you started this pilot project, you're not still in the pilot phase. Wait [00:08:00] now. Okay. So tell me what some of your accomplishments have been since 2010 well, I think the most, one of the noteworthy conversations, especially for this locality is mark McClaren.
Speaker 2:I did cohost a conversation in 2013 on crony capitalism where he brought two of his friends and I had two of my friends and we had this amazing conversation and I invited one person from the press, Joe carefully of the San Francisco Chronicle. And the following week that conversation ended up [00:08:30] on the front page top of fold and the San Francisco Chronicle. And that conversation led us to realize that we were in complete agreement. And when I say we, we and our friends that there way too many people in prison, the war on drugs is not successful. And we have to start using evidence based practices in the criminal justice system. That led to mark and I speaking, writing, you know, op-eds I wrote with Grover Norquist and Matt Cafe [00:09:00] and I had the opportunity to initiate a convening in 2014 of leaders on the right and left inside and outside DC because do you see a tighter, too different from dcs ciders in many ways on the topic.
Speaker 2:And it ended up being the seed for a group called the Coalition for public safety, which is working on criminal justice issues where we're fundamentally in agreement with major organizations on the left and right. AFL CIO [00:09:30] and Grover Norquist group, you know, and it's funded by left and right. MacArthur Foundation, Koch brothers, Arnold Foundation Ford. This is meaningful. And if you recall, there was a time when someone in politics couldn't talk about reducing prison sentences, couldn't talk about all sorts of ways of improving criminal justice. That dynamic changed now. There's a whole huge amount of work to be done to improve the criminal justice system. [00:10:00] We've just created the opening where improvement can be made in the more real, like the recent election will hinder some of the progress you've made. It depends on how successful leaders on the right are in communicating with this administration that there's an opportunity to greatly improve our criminal justice system and our communities through having fair, better evidence based practices.
Speaker 2:It has concerned me deeply when I [00:10:30] started hearing the old line or don't language, but I hope that that was just something that was happening in the run up to the election and that in fact, because there is so much more understanding now of how dysfunctional our criminal justice system has been in certain ways, that improvement will continue. That's, you mentioned crony capitalism. Can you expand on that just a little bit? Where were the areas of agreement? Ah, there was agreement on left and right that if the banks are going to gamble with our money, they shouldn't be [00:11:00] insured when they lose it and get to keep it when they make money. Yeah, that's not a uh, kind of deal we think is good for us. Stupid regulations. Nobody likes them. I think there's a segment of America that's just really annoyed with stupid regulations, especially in in our lease book that she goes into pretty great depth about the both the state and the federal regulations, you know, bad regulation is we have, we're burdened by this. So yeah, if we could make it, [00:11:30] all of us collectively easier to get rid of that which is not good and improve that which needs improving. We're in such a stuck place if we, when we're in good relationship with each other, a huge amount of becomes possible.
Speaker 2:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to method to the madness, a weekly public show on k
Speaker 1:a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. Today I'm interviewing Joan blades. [00:12:00] Her new project is living room conversations designed to build relationships and foster collaborative problem solving locally and nationally
Speaker 2:to climate change as an issue of agreement. To me, that's such an important issue and one that affects everyone regardless. The climate change topic is a really deep one because it has many, [00:12:30] I have numerous conservative partners and they come from different perspectives. One of my partners is a techno optimist. He thinks the market and you know man, you know our traditional creativity is gonna solve this problem. One of my partners, Jacob in Utah is a Mormon and has not considered climate change a huge issue, but because we're in closer, you know, we love each other. He's a wonderful human being and [00:13:00] he's come to understand that climate change is the progressive and time story. And you can relate to a group that has an end time story and he's, he's right. It is our progressive end time story. It is one of them for sure.
Speaker 2:But it's also because, and I can say to him, Jacob, even if there's only a 20% chance that we are destroying the future for our children and their children and the planet, that's unacceptable. I don't let my children play Russian [00:13:30] roulette. And plus, it's not necessarily when you say story that implies that it's sort of this, I don't know, a story when in fact, no, the, the Bible is real. I mean it's really effecting, you know, the Bible is the story that means the most to Jacob. That is not a diminishment that at all. It's a, it's a very respectful understanding of where I'm coming from. That it is my end time story. You [00:14:00] know, that's the deep story that Arlie talks about, right? Yeah. And he, he cares more about climate change now because he cares about me. Do they not see the, the effects of like for instance in Charlie's book that people who are experiencing the effects of, uh, whether it's chemicals in the aquifer or more high cancer rates, why can't they connect the dots?
Speaker 2:Whether it's climate change thinking Arlene's cation, they do [00:14:30] connect dots. I think they see environmental pollution. But I think climate change is big enough that if your world and our world is, the community we live in sees it as nature's natural way of going through changes, it's very possible to see things that way. You know, if there's science behind what we're doing, we know that people make their decisions first [00:15:00] with their emotions and then their reason justifies it. So being in relationship makes all the difference in the world to how you hear someone. And if you live in a community that believes climate change is not a primary threat and you know the deficit is then all your instincts and their pretty primal are going to send you there. And in fact, if I send one of my conservative friends off to talk about climate and they talk about climate and the way I talk about [00:15:30] they are at risk of being shunned and on a primal level that is death.
Speaker 2:You're shunned, you're out of the pack, you die. And that's the way it, it feels. So it's, it's not, let's talk about this divide just a little bit more because to me it's always been a socioeconomic problem. I feel like the, the coasts and major cities, people have jobs and slowly but surely these jobs and high paying jobs have evaporated from these regions that have become red [00:16:00] states. Why isn't anybody just coming out and saying it's a socioeconomic issue. You know? If you are feeling like you're less than your relatives on the coast because you can't afford to send your kid to a college that they can because your job isn't good enough. To me it's just, it's kind of the 99% again, the 1% who have everything and you know, I think some people are saying or telling the economic story and I think it's many stories.
Speaker 2:There [00:16:30] are many threads to this and the more I've been engaged with diverse people across the political spectrum, the more I've seen that there isn't a right, there's a lot of different positions around the country and very different ways of looking at things that are not progressive. You know, sometimes we use the term trans partisan because bi-partisan doesn't begin to describe it. It's way too linear, [00:17:00] but it's all over the map in terms of where people's beliefs are. And the reality is when you have a conversation with someone, you're not going to transform their beliefs in a single conversation. What you are hopefully going to do is create some relationship, which opens them up to thinking about things differently. It's, it's about opening hearts honestly. And once we care about each other then many things become possible. [00:17:30] How many of these living room conversations are going on right now around the country?
Speaker 2:Do you have certain regions? And you know, that's a great question. And since it's an open source project that's very lightly funded, we know about hundreds that have happened, but I know they've happened in east Africa and you know, I gave a talk in San Francisco a few years ago and came back the following year. I'm in the elevator with someone's, Oh our church. They really, it made a big difference. [00:18:00] It was really great. Again, my car tells me more, tell me, never got back to me. So the reality is when you create something that's just available to people, you don't have the data, don't have the data, but you know, are used to be that churches kind of provided that living room conversation. At least when I was growing up in the Midwest, people would come together for one reason or another, not necessarily a churchy stuff and talk. And it seems like there was a lot [00:18:30] more flexibility with people than there is today.
Speaker 2:Do you think some of the social fabric being gone now, like the churches and the organizations that are no longer has had an effect on this? I think it's had a huge effect and I also think we've homogenized, um, [inaudible] that homogenized. I live in Berkeley, we have very little exposure to conservatives and they in turn are homogenized. Yeah. Because we're all more comfortable now and it's become impolite [00:19:00] to talk politics in many, many situations because politics have become so heated. And honestly when I see people talk politics very often they're just doing the talking points and you know that cartoon with the dog listening to the master and the master saying thing, the dog seeing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Until we have relationship. Those talking points are like Baba, when's the last time you saw someone win an argument like that? You don't win arguments [00:19:30] and debates.
Speaker 2:You may say you win debates, but in terms of true persuasion, true persuasion happens when you care about each other and you really want to understand and when that understanding happens, then you've got some room for creative engagement and when, when solutions are possible. Well, what are some of the topics that you're looking forward to this next year to take to some of these conversations? You've [00:20:00] talked about the three that you mentioned earlier. We certainly have the post election conversation, but we have 50 conversations up. Uh, one of the things I'm very excited about is all sides for schools and all sides for schools. Mike Conservative partner, John started all sides. That's a news resource that gives you news from left right and center side-by-side. Same topics. Sometimes that's, that's actually just a new service. And what happened is organically it started being pulled into schools and then [00:20:30] we had a living room conversation here in Berkeley a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2:A Serena Weatherspoon was a cohost and it was a voter non-voter living room conversation because in 2014 in California, under 10% of 18 to 24 year olds voted under 10% that's like what's going on? So she had a conversation with tears. Then she wrote this wonderful blog about it that basically said, look, you know, I surprised we were actually in complete agreement. It's really questionable whether [00:21:00] voting is worthwhile. And school taught us more about the great Gatsby than how to vote. So you know, some tell on the seat point. Yeah. And they went to Berkeley high right here you have, you know, just half of them said that's not even worth it. And Half said, oh, I guess I should add, even though it was really questionable. This is a conversation a couple of years ago and she wrote about that and John and I were talking to each other. God, that's terrible.
Speaker 2:Because you know, schools are the place where [00:21:30] we're supposedly paying for them to have an educated electorate. 18 to 24 year olds should be the most likely to vote, not the least likely to vote. What's going on. Something they look forward to doing. Yeah, and when he said all sides was getting pulled into schools and they were starting to work on a critical thinking curriculum, I said, you know, that's great. The other piece of that is we know that having relationship makes all the difference between whether people really listen to each other or not. [00:22:00] And schools teach debate, but they don't teach collaboration necessarily and how to really be great listeners. So the power of relationship. So what we decided to do is create this head, heart piece for the all sides and that's all sites for school. So it includes and relationships matter, living room conversation.
Speaker 2:Now there's also the not school version, but for the school. Well, I'm really glad to hear that you're kind of targeting [00:22:30] a younger demographic. You're targeting everybody and you don't want to IX glued that group faith communities because yeah, the episcopal diocese of El Camino reality invited me to come for their spring convening and from that we now have a faith community living room conversations partner because she started using now multiple folks started using living room conversations in their congregations but she started using it deeply [00:23:00] and did some beautiful blogs about it and we realized that really every major faith, tradition, love thy neighbor is a key part of the tradition and what a gift for faith communities to take this role on. And so some are, and we are hoping this year because this year and next year because if anything is going to show us that we need to change our relationship with our neighbors and I'm saying neighbor in the very broad sense, [00:23:30] all those states where we're thinking we're really isolated from, we've got to break down those boundaries in three and a half years when we have a presidential election, I want to have both candidates be that my conservative friends would accept and be okay with so much more interest they would have for me the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's because, because we're in with lationships with each other, we'd be demanding [00:24:00] of media that they treat people running for office with more respect. We faded miserable thing running for office. A lot of people I would like to run for office won't because it's not a place they want to be. You don't. When we care about each other, then we want us all to get to a place where we can, you know, be proud together of a precedent. I read a recent New Yorker online article about Silicon Valley's empathy vacuum. [00:24:30] It was by Om Malik. And I think that he touched on a lot of the things that you're talking about. He says that Silicon Valley's biggest failing is not poor marketing of its products or follow through on the promises, but rather the distinct lack of empathy for those whose lives are disturbed by its technological wizardry.
Speaker 2:He encourages and empathy, um, for this industry and says that Silicon Valley could even become [00:25:00] a bigger villain in the popular imagination, much like the east coast counterpart Wall Street. I think this goes along with what you're saying and it may be a little idealistic. Yeah. I think we need to get a little idealistic here and really we're talking so seriously. The reality of these conversations is yes, you're a little nervous going into it, but it's actually a great experience because you meet these people that are lovely, and when you [00:25:30] live in a bubble with people that all agree with you, what happens is it amplifies your anxieties. It amplifies the divide. It amplifies the divide. And all of a sudden you find that these people that you've thought were so other aren't, they're kind, they're intelligent and they have some really different viewpoints that are challenging but holding the tension of our differences, that's a practice we can do.
Speaker 2:I want to talk a little bit about your background. [00:26:00] You had a background in technology originally, is that correct? I was originally an attorney mediator. So mediation is my starting passion. All that makes sense. And technology just kind of happened cause less than I've had. You went from that to uh, a very, I call it political career. Well actually it went from that, uh, to Wes who is my husband. We played soccer together. He's technologically very adept and [00:26:30] he had a small company and we were best known for flying toasters and a game show called, you don't know Jack. So, but that was how we supported ourselves, which was really good. And I was the person that if I could read the, anyone could understand it. You know, I did everything in the company, but nothing technology wise other than if I could understand it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. All right. This will work. And when did you start to move into to move on? Oh, move on with this total fluke, [00:27:00] six months into the impeachment scandal west and I are, you know, and I don't like polarization, I'm against it. And we're sitting in a restaurant on Solano Avenue hearing another crowd of people talking about, you know, how the impeachments just going on and on and we wrote our one sentence petition. Congress must immediately center the precedent and move on to pressing issues facing the nation. Sent it to under 100 of our friends and family. And within a week we had 100,000 people sign that [00:27:30] in 98 that was unheard of. And that's when I started learning about politics and communicating with leadership. And it's been an education. And I see you have an event coming up at Berkeley's historic Hillside Club, a u n Arlie Hochschild.
Speaker 2:We'll be in conversation December 8th at 7:30 PM and that's here in Berkeley at 2186 Cedar Street. What are you going to be talking about? Harley Hook child and I are going to be [00:28:00] speaking about talking to strangers and she'll probably be talking about her new book which was nominated for National Book Award. Yes. And The New York Times bestseller now. Yeah. Strangers in their own land and, and you'll be talking about living room conversations. Yes. We're having a conversation about our adventures with people that have very different views than us and how really wonderful it is having those conversations. It makes our lives richer. Yes it does. Is there a website or how can people get Ahold of you? [00:28:30] Living Room conversations.org that's everything you need to do a living room conversation and 50 topics already. We're putting up more on how to get started and yeah, the whole concept is this is so simple and it's really about tapping your host and guests norms and re being reminded and reminding people of, you know, how we're supposed to act together is powerful and break bread together and people have a great time. [00:29:00] Well, Joe and I want to have you on this show in a couple of years and we'll see how, how this has gone. That would be really interesting. Thank you for coming on. You're welcome.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:That was Joan blades, founder of living room conversations, and you've been listening to method to the madness or weekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley, celebrating the bay area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts [00:29:30] on iTunes university. Tune in next Friday at noon. [inaudible].
Speaker 4:Okay.
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