How About A National Dialogue (Quartet or a Sextet or even a Polyhedron “Dialogue” or something) in the U.S.A.?

Let’s you and I make music! We can do it! 

I’m soooo excited! Being, as I am, a person given to a dedication to “think global, act local” as a mantra, what could possibly elevate both the rational and visionary/mystical parts of my mind as high as they are these days? 

Allow me to tell you what did it!

The Nobel Peace Prize being given to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet! The name alone of the awardee sends shots of joy up and down my spine! Yippee!

Especially that this prize was awarded while New Horizons is almost totally immersed, 24/7, in our own local Coffee House Conversations Project, built on the same basic principles (at least as far as we understand); dialogue  and consensus as viable pathways to large-scale civic problem-solving. 

I tell you I got myself soooo excited by these delightful turns of events; the local and global – I found myself unable to sleep for too many nights; one stint was four out of ten nights. OMG!

Jack, my radio show co-host on our Possible Society In Motion Radio Show, and I took up the topic of “How About A National Dialogue Quartet In The U.S.A?” because of this wonderful Nobel Peace Prize on our last program. And, I think we made a good start at considering the possibilities and the obstacles for our country.

One of the most frustrating hindrances that Jack suggested is that Americans aren’t in enough trouble to take up a project such as this. Could this be enough to really deter us?

Now that’s a sad state of affairs if I ever heard one; we have to go to violence and a total governing chaos to try something, which to me – and a good number of others, seems so logical and almost simple, but not easy!

Nonetheless I think Jack and I had a worthwhile discussion on this topic on our show, opening the way for more on the same and beyond.  After all, our Possible Society In Motion Radio Show began as a dialogue forum for overcoming the polarization running through our society and politics. 

Isn’t this, a Nobel Peace Prize for a “National Dialogue Quartet,” a sign of a time, the one we are living in now, that we, even America, just might be able to accommodate happenings such as a real “national” dialogue that involves large-scale engagement in our country, ushering in dramatic social and political transformation?

I can see that happening – in my mind’s eye; the eye in me that learned, while I was blind, to see beyond the mundane.

Check out our discussion for yourself on podcast. Perhaps it will get your own self so excited that you won’t be able to keep from joining us for our next Coffee House Conversation by Conference Call, scheduled for Thursday, October 29, 7:00 p.m. General details here, specific ones to come on the New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project blog site.

In the meantime, I , will do my best to discuss here why you, too, should be as excited as I am about this wonderful international turn of events; a Nobel Peace Prize for people talking to one another enough to make a difference.

Yeah, Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet!

Bravo!