One Day No Hate on October 6th

I’ve been a little burnt out on politics recently. And why is that? Hate and anger have become a normal, tolerable part of political and partisan discourse. Slinging words such as “Nazi” are considered acceptable and perfectly justified. Folks crow about misusing the racist card, but I’ve never seen so many examples of racism and fear in my country before. Not to say my party is innocent of lobbing hateful verbiage at the other side. Keith Olbermann has been making me cringe recently, and I usually love me some Keith.

We are locked down in division, partisan hate and discourse are at an all time high and there seems very little hope of any forward momentum between parties.

And you know what? It exhausts me to even post about this. If you want to know more about my thoughts on our partisan woes, read them here. Because I’m not up to rehashing it any more than I already have right now. It plain old bums me out.

But it’s not as if I can just turn away from politics and standing up for what I believe in either.

Last weekend, Joanne Bamberger (aka Pundit Mom) lead a panel on politics and blogging at the Type A Mom Conference. Not surprisingly, the topic immediately turned to the negativity in current politics. People on both sides are angry and nothing is being achieved with the one upping, the name calling, the seething hate, the taunts that “you lie!”

Folks, nothing is getting done this way. Nothing. Not when there is so much disrespect for one another, not when you or I must prepare for personal assault if we dare offer up any slice of our political persuasions. Not if the space for discourse isn’t safe, isn’t open, isn’t respectful or isn’t mature enough to tolerate differences.

So while we all left our discussion with visions of “safe, bipartisan political spaces” dancing in our heads, the fabulous Down To Earth Mama let me know about Jane Devin’s effort coming up next week. What she proposes is this.

One day with no hate.

On October 6th, Jane suggests that we allow ourselves one day where we drop our pretenses, our built up prejudices, our grudges, our self-righteous “I’m better than you” crap. One day where we quiet down, breathe, look over to the other side and LISTEN. Maybe we can use it as an exercise to find common ground with those we feel so polarized from. Maybe we try the whole “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” thing. Maybe we can find some peace somewhere in the middle of this whole mess.

Because if we can’t accomplish ONE day of no hate, we’re in big trouble.

But if we can accomplish one day, maybe that means we can try out a few days without hate. Or a week. Or longer.

So let’s try one day. What do you say?

The twitter hashtag is #1Day0Hate . And go over to Down to Earth Mama for the code for the button I have pasted above and in my sidebar.

One day people. Can we do this?