I'm way behind and will be for days, so I thought a shameless plug in order.
Some of you will think this is just politically motivated left wing BS, some of you will think it's just more religious right-wing hate mongering (also politically motivated)
(plug at the end)
"To move away from the bifurcating politics of liberal and conservative, Left and Right, would be an enormously positive change and would open up a new "politics of solutions." Right now, Washington responds to a problem or crisis in two ways. First, politicians try to make us afraid of the problem, and, second, they look for somebody to blame for it. Then they watch to see whose political spin succeeded, either in the next poll or the next election. But they seldom get around to actually solving the problem. The media make everything worse by assuming that every political issue has only two sides instead of multiple angles to view and solve the problem. Addicted to conflict as their methodology, the media always seem to want to pitch a fight between polarized views instead of convening a public discussion to find serious answers.
The answer is to put values at the center of political discourse and, in every public debate, ask what kind of country and people we really want to be. We would find new agreements across old political boundaries and new common ground among people who agree on values and are ready to challenge the special interests on all sides who are obstructing the solutions most Americans would support. Ideologies have failed us; values can unite us, especially around our most common democratic visions. "
http://sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0502&article=050210
Some of you will think this is just politically motivated left wing BS, some of you will think it's just more religious right-wing hate mongering (also politically motivated)
(plug at the end)
"To move away from the bifurcating politics of liberal and conservative, Left and Right, would be an enormously positive change and would open up a new "politics of solutions." Right now, Washington responds to a problem or crisis in two ways. First, politicians try to make us afraid of the problem, and, second, they look for somebody to blame for it. Then they watch to see whose political spin succeeded, either in the next poll or the next election. But they seldom get around to actually solving the problem. The media make everything worse by assuming that every political issue has only two sides instead of multiple angles to view and solve the problem. Addicted to conflict as their methodology, the media always seem to want to pitch a fight between polarized views instead of convening a public discussion to find serious answers.
The answer is to put values at the center of political discourse and, in every public debate, ask what kind of country and people we really want to be. We would find new agreements across old political boundaries and new common ground among people who agree on values and are ready to challenge the special interests on all sides who are obstructing the solutions most Americans would support. Ideologies have failed us; values can unite us, especially around our most common democratic visions. "
http://sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0502&article=050210