END OF SUMMER CAMP

Last week my neighbors, Mark and Kim, and I went to a rollicking town hall meeting on health care hosted by Rep. Jan Schakowsky – signs waving outside; inside tales of heart wrenching experiences, some booing, some debate over what was in “the bill”. I wondered who had the burden of proof here – audience members wagging pages copied from somewhere on the internet or the Congresswoman with the bill in her hand?

Like summer camp, that is behind us.

President Obama’s speech to Congress last night was an example out of John Gardner’s In Common Cause: “It is precisely in the political forum that free citizens can have their say, trade out their differences, and identify their shared purposes.” We may get more out of this process than health care reform. Through discourse and bargaining, rather than partisan bickering, we may come to a shared purpose and restore a sense of community and compassionate relations between people – the essence of public interest.

John Gardner was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare during Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. He was also President of the Carnegie Corporation and founder of Common Cause and Independent Sector, as well as founder of The White House Fellowship and The John Gardner Fellowship at Stanford and Berkeley.