Most People have forgotten that MoveOn started back in 98, around the time of the Clinton impeachment scandal. And about six months into it, my husband and I wrote a one sentence petition: Congress must immediately censure the President, and move on to pressing issues facing the nation. Because it just seemed like we were getting way too polarized. And it was not helpful. And you could love Clinton or hate Clinton, and agree that was the best thing to do. And we actually had 1000s and 1000s of Republicans sign that petition as well as Democrats. I am a mediator by Origin and inclination. So that, the origin of Move On was actually quite unifying. What happened was after a flash campaign, that communicated with millions of voters and got out to vote, and pundits agree that the impeachment was not popular, the House voted to impeach. And when the House voted to impeach, we just engaged hundreds of 1000s of people in politics many times for the first time in their lives. And good citizens work to elect people that represent their values more. That's when we got hooked in for a longer term engagement. And those people were, you know, that wasn't okay. And so at the point we got involved in elections, that is an adversarial process and Move On became very strongly associated with the Democrats at that point. I will also note that I live in Berkeley, I was born in Berkeley. And, being on the left comes kind of natural to me. But I've always wanted to have good relationships with people that have different viewpoints.
Well, actually, it was back in 2004, that I met Joseph McCormick. And I was very interested in helping with reuniting America. And that was an effort to get leaders on the right and left together to talk and I was particularly interested in why there was such a different viewpoint about climate change on the right and then left. And it gave me an opportunity to really make some friends with very different political backgrounds that I had. And I thought it was valuable. By 2008, or 2009, it was less possible to have a good conversation about climate change, with someone on the right. And my experience at MoveOn, persuaded me that grassroots engagement around allowing people at the community level to really connect is the foundation of a good democracy. So Living Room Conversations is a effort to make it possible for anyone that wants to have a good conversation to have a good conversation with people that they don't necessarily agree with. And it's they're structured in such a way that it's really a listening practice. And it's a great way to start to come into the space where you grow connection and understanding. And from there, good things can happen.
And I'm deeply concerned. When I started talking about Living Room Conversations, I was talking about how important it was for us to be able to work collaboratively. Because you need everyone's best ideas in the room and you need the agility that comes with being having good relationships and being able to talk something through and change things, things that are working, you stop doing. Things that are good, you do more of, and when you're in perpetual conflict, that doesn't happen.
I started talking about it as peacebuilding about four or five years ago Which is not not how I was originally thinking about this but people from outside this country people that do look at societies that fall apart are starting to look at us with concern. And that's deeply troubling.
When we start seeing other people as less than in some way, we are losing our capacity to be with each other. And, you know, respect the dignity of everybody that is at the core of this practice. And when you talk about the folks in the middle, I, I'm not sure I even call it the folks, the people in the middle there. People throughout the political spectrum, that hold that space that we have to be treating everyone with dignity. And I can be, you know, on the left and whatever I and still really care deeply for someone that has very different viewpoints. Since when have we not been able to do that?
Living Room Conversations are open source, you have over 100 conversation guides on a wide variety of topics. There are six people classically, sometimes they're four or five, don't encourage it to go much over six, because the intimacy is what makes it really gratifying. And when you talk about, oh, it's only six fifths full, you have to remember because these are self facilitated starts with a set of conversation agreements about respect, curiosity, taking turns, kind of what you learned in kindergarten, right? Everyone's very good at essay reading, oh, yeah, I could do that. We could have 10,000 or 100,000 conversations in the weekend if people chose to do it. So yes, they're small. But they're also massively scalable. And, you know, having had the MoveOn experience, I have seen viral moments. And what I hope to see at some point is people to say, 'Enough! This is not good. We are going to have to be in right relationship with other people around us. There's a documentary that came out last year called 'The Social Dilemma' that digs into how our media and way too many leaders are constantly tapping into our fear, our anger and our anxiety, because that's what gets shared most readily. And that is not good for us. And it's not good for our relationships. We have to intentionally own where we want to be with our relationships, and make this change.
That's great. For those who are watching who aren't familiar, some of the topics that they have, and have by category. And there's, as John mentioned, over 100, the American Dream category, culture and society, education, the environment, faith, family, and community. And it goes on. There's a values connection in COVID conversations, conversations about talking about politics, talking about race, talking about all kinds of things. And for those who are concerned a little bit, there are conversation agreements that everyone has to agree to, to start the conversation. And just briefly, the key ones are: be curious and listen to understand, show respect and suspend judgment. Note any common ground as well as any differences, be authentic, and welcome that from others, be purposeful and to the point. So that's just a little bit more for somebody who doesn't know to hopefully invite them to go to your website, which is Joan?
livingroomconversations.org. Thank you. And there is a little button there where you can join. And if you do that, once a week, you'll get a note that tells you about new conversations, conversations that you can just join online. Upcoming trainings because some people like to have host training. We have some hosts that have been trained, and super skilled and like going into the tougher conversations. A lot of communities like having starting with some of the values conversations where they find a lot of common ground, and then they will choose things that are increasingly challenging, but really deep. There's an Evangelical community that was doing them monthly. And things got overheated on Facebook. And they chose to have the guns and responsibility conversation that month. And it was remarkable, because I got to kind of hear about one table because I had a, I had a connection. There were two men that were ready to die for the Second Amendment Right, right at this table, and a woman that had been traumatized, not once but multiple times, because of guns. And what happened was a conversation where they just really listened to each other, and came to appreciate why these men had such affection for guns, that was part of their connection to their fathers in their with their kids. And, yeah, how guns had impacted her life. And they came away with a lot more appreciation for how these different viewpoints were important to people. And they cared. And, they took it out into their lives.
We started around polarization. And very soon, we had some race conversations too. And when George Floyd was killed, those conversations multiplied. You know, we had probably have a couple dozen conversations that touch on different aspects of race. And with COVID, we have a whole set of conversations about values and connections. We were already having values, conversations. And sometimes I think for a polarized situation, in some ways, the values conversations are the best possible starting place. Because you don't need to start with something hot. You can start with a place where you just talk about your, your purpose, trust, forgiveness, hope, we have all those conversations and they they have led me to have a better understanding.
We have a lot of core shared values. We all want Purpose and Need purpose. Fairness is something almost everyone values and kindness. People want to be kind i I have been asked to write with others a conversation about love. Okay, you heard that it's going to very basic parts of humanity, forgiveness, your how, what is our relationship with forgiveness? What? What is forgiveness even? Do we want to? When is it appropriate? When is it not? There's a lot to unpack in the simple terms. And our own personal relationship with that trust, or forgiveness, or hope, kind of sets a foundation for ourselves to.
Last a year or so I've been seeing that leaders in all sorts of different positions are finding the conversations useful for achieving their ends. For you know, libraries, conversations are a great way for them to support the community, build the community create more connections in the community. And libraries have been redefining themselves, right? Faith communities, faith communities, the core values of faith communities are about human dignity. In fact, the language I think I like the most is we have to see the divinity in everyone.
And that's a place where sometimes the congregation is quite diverse. And they need to first make the connection with each other and then they can expand that to the larger community they're in and then some of them may choose to expand that to across the country because they see that the country also needs this kind of work. Clubs, Rotary, there's just when leaders take it and run with it. And when it becomes school systems, where it becomes embedded in other Organizations, I think that's the way it's going to really be able to help heal. And begin the process of getting us back into a place of good relationship and trust.
When I co hosted a conversation with a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, he and his friends and my friends, we had so much agreement around too many people in prison, the war on drugs is not a success. Gotta find evidence based practices, that we ended up being able to contribute both in a public way, but also that it was a seed for a group called the Coalition For Public Safety. That was kind of amazing!
Prior to the election, I worked with the Peace Alliance to promote a an agreement that had right-left pairs, condemning violence around the election. And, violence is local. So if you can create a local container that says we don't do this here, that's highly effective. And I think we need to do that. Create a lot of local containers of 'We all belong here.' And we are making this a community that is the kind of place that we all want to live. This that's the tool that I dream this is. And as our community as our smaller community becomes more and more healthy, than it will see how it's connected to the community adjacent and adjacent. That's my light at the end of the tunnel.