Choose Love Instead of Red or Blue

Andrew W.K., Village Voice journalist, self-proclaimed party man, and advice columnist, has knocked one out of the cosmic park with his response to a son frustrated with his father’s politics.

The commenters dive right back into the fray nearly ignoring the article, but I know from experience that if you give a little in a personal conversation with someone, you can move beyond the us vs. them anger that dominates the media.

Andrew states in his article the opinion that I’ve been carrying since this Congressional term began, that there is no triumph of one side available here, only the hope for a new way to engage in a dialog of joint solution-making that makes all sides feel heard (or feel human, to use Andrew’s word). Read his advice column post here: Ask Andrew W.K.: My Dad Is a Right-Wing Asshole.

The idea of visualizing peaceful coexistence is a mainstay of Yoko Ono’s work; a tweet this week proposed a practice to help make it so:

Go from one room to another opening and closing each door. Do it very slowly. Imagine opening and closing people’s minds when you do this.

-@yokoono on twitter

And there’s a group that came out of Occupy Wall Street called Occupy Love, who are advocating a “third way” to avoid one side just becoming the other in a ping pong  of misunderstanding and, well, un-love. One slogan in the blog is “We are the 100%.” Here’s the trailer to their movie, directed by Velcrow Ripper.