Monday, October 21, 2013

Do You Miss Civil Discourse About Important Topics?

I got this email today.  Looks like I missed the first two discussions, but the next one is tomorrow (Tuesday) evening at Loussac from 6pm-7:30pm.


Let’s Talk Anchorage
Dialogues in Democracy

Join a conversation on “What is the Role of Government?” this Tuesday, October 22, from 6:00 to 7:30 in the Ann Stevens room at the Loussac Library. Engage in a respectful, facilitated conversation, share your knowledge and learn what others think.



“Dialogues in Democracy” is a program of “Let’s Talk Anchorage”, a collaboration between the Anchorage Public Library and Alaska Common Ground. It will convene a community conversation each Tuesday night until the end of November.  The list of topics is as follows:

1.    October 8: Violence in America
2.    October 15: UAA Conversation Salon – Information is not Knowledge: How Media Influences our Reality [1 and 2 already happened.]
3.    October 22: What is the Role of Government?
4.    October 29: Educating for Democracy
5.    November 5: Library will be closed. No dialogue on this date.
6.    November 12: UAA Conversation Salon – Information is not Knowledge: How Media Influences our Reality
7.    November 19: Inequality for All – A discussion of the film
8.    November 26: What is a good society?

4 comments:

  1. Pleased to see Alaska Common Ground doing this. Worked with them on ON's dialogue project on same sex marriage and it opened a needed way forward for me, if not the community, on the subject.

    What I learned from that time with intentional conversation, was that all too often, participants self-select toward "following the rules". You might say, "Isn't that the point?"

    Well, no. It's always about expanding the participants -- to teach the agreed tools to ever-larger body politic. I only hope that the welcome is widely cast and is there for all, regardless of readiness to engage the process. It is a way of talking that will be different. It requires listening.

    It's all good. I very much welcome the work in a community such as Anchorage.

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  2. It seems to be interesting, I wish I cound take part.

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  3. I see one of the topics is a discussion of the movie: "Inequality for All". I don't know if it has been available anywhere here? Saw Robert Reich speak about it, and it looks good.

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  4. It's good to see three long time visitors commenting on the same post. I might do a post on the evening. There were five relatively liberal, let's respect each other types, and a lady who thought the government shutdown was a great idea. She was surprised there were people who thought that government did some good at all. Then she left to testify against repealing Ordinance 37 (the labor law.)

    They mentioned the film. They were going to get it at a non-profit showing rate, but that was still steep. They got connected with the Bear Tooth whose planning to show it, but they have to wait until after it's been first run (not necessarily in Anchorage.)

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