Listening has always been a difficult chore at dailykos. I presaged some of this
yesterday:
Third, I've been thinkng a lot about our "thing" and hope it is a subject we can return to in a constructive fashion. On the plane from San Juan to NY last night I was watching Tweety interviewing Moyers, and Moyers was talking about the need to listen to the people and to what is on their mind. And I noticed Tweety, who is now for the most part nothing but a Beltway fool, start to listen to Moyers and ask interesting questions - i.e - who is the public voice of Labor? Who is the Labor leader we ever see talking about trade? And it made me think of A Gilas Girl and our discussions about Movements vs. Parties, and how all of us need to start listening to each other again, whether we are right or wrong, whether they are right or wrong, because we need to know what is on each other's mind and what ideas and arguments they have. It will make our own thoughts s lot stronger (credit to pyrrho, who I saw doing just that with someone I need to listen to as well.) I am writing a detailed piece on this idea for tomorrow. I hope you folks will read it.
Getting heard has been important to most of us. For many, they felt that not only had the politicial process not listened to them, but the Democratic Party has stopped listening to them.
What follow is a very personal take on what has happened to our listening skills here. It is about dailykos.
Howard Dean spoke to and for many kossacks in 2002 and 2003. And he appeared to listen to what a lot of folks who gravitated to dailykos were saying. People who felt that no one had listened or were listening. For them dailykos was part of the phenomenon of people and places were they discovered that many others felt as they did.
That was not how I came to dailykos. For me it was the Iraq Debacle first. And I have always been engaged in the political system. I believed and believe in the Democratic Party. But I was bewildered by the Iraq War. I didn't understnad what everyone was talking about. The war never made any sense to me. It felt a Twilight Zone episode to me, and still does, the period of the runup to the war I mean. I still have not heard one single cogent argument from a Democrat to explain to me how what was done in Iraq made ANY sense. This is not a peacenik issue - just a commnon sense issue. No one in my Party was making any sense. So I was looking to see if anyone agreed with me. And I found dailykos, where most everyone agreed with me. I read a lot and didn't post then. Through the summer of 2003.
By then I realized that Bush was a real threat to the country from, if nothing else, his sheer incompetence. We needed to beat him. I settled on General Clark as that hope and the Democratic Party remained my vehicle for change.
At that time, there were specific political differences on reaching the common goal, beating Bush, at dailykos. Dean was considered the right choice by most. Clark by some. A few others liked other candidates. But Kerry won, and we rallied beind the Kerry standard.
And we weren't listening to each other. Not really. We were cheering each other on, rooting for our candidates, etc., but we weren't listening.
But I read a few people who broke through to me, in different ways.
I'll continue this on the flip.
One was Kid Oakland. I wrote about how he effected me in a diary called "Mystery Train" in the archives.. Kid O brought me away from the words and got me closr to the flesh, so to speak. It was important and I miss his voice now. I know he writes on occasion here but it was a religious habit for me to read him every night.
Another was A Gilas Girl. More than anybody else, A Gilas Girl compelled me to listen to ideas and expressions that I knew I rejected, to thinking I knew I thought was incorrect.
Let's take what I believe is the most fundamental fault line in the thinking of A Gilas Girl and my thinking when is comes to politics. She can speak for herself but I do not think I would be wrong to say that A Gilas Girl does not see political parties as the main forces for change. Instead she has argued for movement - seeing political parties as almost incidental. I really think that movement change as AGG discusses requires Party movement, from within. That the Party must become the movement force. I don't discount, indeed I embrace the role of independent movement organizations. Anyway, that is a fasciinating and necessary discussion we need to have but my point is I listened to AGG, and tried to absorb and learn from the experience - one that both of us knew would change neither of our minds.
Why is that important? I mentioned this in my post yesterday - the exercise of listening and trying to understand what the other person is getting at, why they are getting at that, how they are getting at that, how you might persuade them that you might be right, how their arguments affect yours, all of this happens when you listen.
I was never a great listener. But I used to be better, In my opinion, Markos was a better listener before too. I think he has less time, more going on, etc., so he has a better excuse than me, but this is not about excuses. He needs to work to listen better also.
Who have I not been listening to and who has not been listening to me? This is dangerous ground but I want to be open and honest here, because I accept that I have been missing out because I have not listened, but I think they have been missing out too, because they have not listened to me and others.
A Gilas Girl has been away, at least for me. She's been back more. So I have not listened to her because she was not here. I'm listening to her again.
Who have I been actively not listening to? The group of folks who have spent a lot of time thinking ill of Democrats. There were folks I respect but I let our strong disagreement on tactics lead me to the mistake of shutting down the process of listening altogether with them. Don't get me wrong, I think they have done the same to me and people like me. There is no high ground here. But these are smart folks who feel the way they do for a reason. I should be trying to understand why. I should be listening to how they have reached their opinions and conclusions. I have not. I stopped listening.
Pyrrho talks to everybody and he had an especially interesting discussion with marisacat and madman at LSF that I paid close attention to. Oh, no one was kind about me there, but that's not a problem. I probably deserved a fair amount of it. But I listened to what they were thinking and why and how they came to the conclusions they reached. I had not done that in a while.
Markos, it seems to me, has not been listening on some things as well. I think we get wrapped up in our mindsets and in our short term goals and in our own frames and we start speaking and talking about things in different languages.
And that's happened here.
But it is happening to all of us. To those who find the most fault with Markos, with dailykos and with me. To discuss NARAL, for instance, is impossible, in my opinion, because criticism of NARAL in any form is not brooked by some. This is a form of not listening too.
Eugene has talked about the need to be able to think of the same things in different ways. And he is right about that. But it seems to me Eugene is talking about the need to listen so that we can understand that there ARE different ways of looking at something and we need to here about these different ways of thinking.
Finally, let me be honest, for a few days I was thinking during the recent brouhaha that, you know, maybe it is time for some folks to move on. I think now, no I am sure now, that that is wrong. We need to hear from every voice raised in good faith, even if it is in only in the middle of an argument. Why are they saying what they are saying? how are they saying it? Is there anything that they say that causes you to reflect on your position?
But, understand, such a cacophony of voices will create some turmoil and tumult. We should try to be as civil as possible. But civility should not be a club to rein in passion.
As long as we are listening, even when we are fighting, that is better than not listening at all. If dailykos has suffered, it is not that there is more yelling - frankly whoever says that wasn't here during the primaries I think - it is that we are listening to each other less.
