MADRID (July 20, 2008) --  The two of us  have just completed taking part in a three-day Global Interfaith Dialogue initiated by the King of Saudi Arabia and sponsored by the World Muslim League.

Far beyond the frou-frou of shaking hands with two kings in a Spanish royal palace – Abdullah of Arabia and Juan Carlos of Spain, who acted as host -- the gathering was itself an important breakthrough in this work,  a clarification of how far there is yet to go, and a signal that even within the conference itself, the organizers were willing to begin correcting some shortcomings when the participants pointed them out.

Before the gathering, some skeptics wondered whether this would be all hype and PR, concocted to smooth over that aspect of Islam which has carried out terrorist violence against civilians.

They were wrong.  Several aspects of the event make clear that indeed something real and important is happening   -- especially important because it starts in Saudi Arabia, the spiritual heartland of Islam and till now  (despite the Saudis' world economic contacts)  in religious terms  one of its most inward-turned, isolated  communities.

I come from a family that practises the art of sarcasm. We all enjoy a sharp wit and zingy sarcastic retort, and none of us let our feelings get hurt because we understand the context. Hell, we ARE the context.

But when I began trying to socialize with others as a teen, it slowly dawned on me that things I would say would hurt other people's feelings when that wasn't my intention at all.

It's taken me a long time to learn the art of civility.

How can we talk about race, intelligently and from the gut, raw, with honesty, and with all the pain, wounds, anger, sadness, frustrations, and triumphs that come with it. When and how did the current level of discourse--which I can only characterize as circus-like--become mainstream?

To distract you from the latest 'leaked' McCain talking-point kerflufl.

I'm a movie lover.  Seriously.  I have three DVD wall cases full and other movies stashed by my kids, in their rooms and apartments.

Nowadays, after the onset of type II diabetes (= no more alcohol for me), and a decision to quit smoking cigarettes almost 10 years ago, I mostly stay home, play with my granddaughter and watch movies, read (a lot) and surf the web.  Yeesh, am I boring, or what?

I'd like to point your attention tonight to the question:  What was the most memorable or romantic scene or monologue you've ever read~watched~listened to?

Myself, I have a couple.  (Hat tip to the folks at www.imdb.com - The Internet Movie Database, without whom, none of this would be possible)

I'm someone who has written programming code -- crappy code, but stuff which made other stuff, that didn't exist before, suddenly exist.

I know that it's possible to create amazing, transformative software, over something like a long weekend of code-writing -- meaning 72 hours with only a few dream-laden hours of sleep within it.

So here's what I want, from those who can write this kind of code: the software tool that could change the way I, and we, understand the world.

I want, over the Web, to partner with a FOX-ite, a neocon, a willing Republican participant in an amazing Web event: the pairing of me, with another from the other side.

Hillary is still in the race it is true, but I think it is time that we Kossacks not let her continuing hopeless campaign dictate the discussion anymore.  It is time to focus all attention on McCain and to drive Clinton into irrelevance.

Call me stupid or like one blogger say something like this:

I could go on, but if you don't get it by now, you are too dense to continue living. You're doing a classic white privilege move here, Wargolem, by pointing at something that's obviously racist and using twisted logic in order to claim that people "really" shouldn't find it offensive.

Let's talk about it and try and figure out exactly what the problem is.  Is it me being stupid?  Or is an underlying problem the fact that we are so polarized in our positions that we can not even begin to discuss this?

 More below the fold.

I like to be pleasantly surprised, and this news item from the NYTimes Caucus blog did just that.

For African-Americans and other minority citizens, it is "totally authentic to be angry," declared Newt Gingrich, a former Republican House speaker. The "horrible institution" of segregation ruined the lives and crippled the future of African-Americans, not to mention Native Americans, he added.

Huh. OK, go on...

I sit down in my usual spot, a beige recliner in a cluttered and too-small living room. It lies too flat these days, due to the pressure put on it by my youngest daughter, who enjoys sitting behind me and leaning over my shoulders to read what I am composing; her added weight has done something to the chair's mechanics. She is not behind me right now.

On the couch across from me, my husband snores; we've returned from overindulging on an Easter brunch, and he's probably the smart one: I suspect we all could benefit from a nap.  This is my life. It is predictable. It is simple, middle class, suburban. I have been a part of this kind of existence throughout my fifty years; I know nothing else.

It is, for the most part, a fairly benign existence; compared to the struggle that many others have to go through, I have been very fortunate. I know this. But we are only capable of being the product of our lives' journeys: whether that product is an unquestioning acceptance of the status quo or a radical re-envisioning of our parents' morality, our worlds are shaped by who we are and who we have been. Mine has been stable, middle class, comfortable, educated, liberal, caring, and fulfilling. It has also been white.

What is racism?

I had a dream (last night, but it gets kind of confused, so here goes), but in it, I was asked a very tough question. Dreams are kind of funny, because they are so abstract, so all I could do was answer my question in the more pure and abstract terms possible.

What is a person but the sum of their hopes, fears and experiences?

If so, then what is a racist but someone whose fears have outweighed their hopes, and is no longer balanced by their experiences.

The United States of America needs to start having a HEALTHY dialogue about Race and what it means to be various races in this country. As it is, we only have dialogue (not necessarily HEALTHY dialogue either) when someone says something to offend a racial group (usually they are offending African Americans or Latinos). What seems to go unnoticed is the fact that these discussions that arise out of some perceived grievance don’t help alleviate the problems. In my opinion, they tend to exacerbate the problems, making any future healthy dialogue less feasible in the future. How are we, as Americans, supposed to begin eliminating some racial stereotypes when we can’t talk about it rationally?

More over the bump. . .

For those of you unfamiliar with Israeli politics, the Likud Party is the right-of-center political party headed by the infamous former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.  They are the party that helped found Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and indeed were so far to the right that even Ariel Sharon had to break with them over their insistence on keeping Gaza as a part of "Greater Israel".  I wrote a diary just two days ago lauding Barack Obama for insisting that being pro-Israel does not mean hewing to the pro-Likud line advocated by many in the American Jewish establishment.  Indeed, Glenn Greenwald demonstrates that pro-Likud and neo-con Jewish leaders do not represent most American Jews.

As a progressive Jew, I often find myself frustrated at the rhetoric coming from many in the Jewish establishment about what it means to be pro-Israel.  I consider myself pro-Israel and for me, protecting the peace, security, and rights of all humans- Israeli, Palestinian, or any other group, is paramount.  For me, then, being pro-Israel consists of advocating for safe and secure lives for Israelis and Palestinians and us all.  As a Jew, I appreciate the need for a safe haven for a historically persecuted minority as is the Jewish community.  Yet I also realize that within our people, there are those who would have us sacrifice the dignity and rights of others to achieve this goal.  I say unequivocally that we can and will promote the well-being of all people.  Obama speaks what flows through the minds of many Jews when he says we should not equate pro-Israel with being pro-Likud.

I  count myself among those who oppose not only military action against Iran but also economic sanctions and any other form of punishment of Iran and even propaganda-based approaches to attempting to reshape Iran in the image and likeness of the United States and Israel.  

Economic sanctions -- warfare by other means, have been approved by the US Congress in HR 1400. Orange County, California Republican Representative Ed Royce explained in an appearance on C-Span that the goal of HR 1400 is to completely destabilize the Iranian economy so that the Iranian people will riot and overthrow their government.

Against the pleas of Iranian scholar Dr. Haleh Esfandiari and Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, among others, propaganda-based approaches to destabilizing Iran were once again funded by action of the US Congress.

These are actions that a growing number of Americans are demanding NOT be taken against Iran.

What actions should the US be taking regarding Iran?

Apparently the good General held a town-hall meeting before a near-capacity audience up in Michigan. He touched on many issues, most of it pertaining to foreign policy. However, Clark has also been laying the groundwork for his vision of where America's economy should be heading as well as the need to develop a sensible, long-lasting energy policy.

Links for the speech:
http://www.themorningsun.com/...
http://www.ourmidland.com/...

Elise and Miss Laura asked for suggestions, a few weeks ago, about ways to increase communication across socio-economic classes.  I volunteered to share some of my own experience as someone who grew up in a working class home, and as an organizer.

We are trained to think of class as an economic issue. If your income falls above a certain cut-off, you are middle class; if it falls below, then you belong to the working class. In fact, I think this may be the wrong measure of class division.  A more accurate boundary may be our favored means of communication.

The middle and upper classes are often comfortable expressing themselves in writing, whereas the working classes tend to rely on the spoken word. And for this reason, if we are going to communicate across class barriers, we have to be willing to tell and listen to stories.  YouTube may be a better format for this dialogue than is dKos.

More below the jump:

A regional or perhaps global catastrophe is in the works based on misinformation (or many would say DISinformation) regarding Iran's atomic energy program. It upsets me that some of my favorite Democrats are operating based on that misinformation. The Bush administration is asserting at every turn that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. They have no basis for that accusation.

In April 2006, you tried to start an ongoing dialog with this netroots community, the start of a relationship that was admittedly quite rocky at the time. Although you had posted here before, beginning in 2005, your April posts are probably the most memorable, and, unfortunately, also among your last. As the comments in that first April post demonstrate, our trust in your leadership, in particular your willingness to take the fight to the Republicans, and even your ability to lead our party to a win in November was something many of us here had some doubts about. We had (and no doubt still have) a lot of bones to pick with Democratic leaders, and you were, at the time, probably among the most unpopular of our highest party leaders to post here. The stars were certainly not aligned for the most amicable of meetings at the time.

Yet, despite all that, you seemed willing to forge ahead with this new dialogue, and even promised to continue that dialog in your post of April 6, saying: