3/21/2008 - All Level Tantric Yoga with Kristina Li,Free Lecture: Citizen Empowerment: The Power of Political Reconciliation with Joseph McCormick

Free Lecture: Citizen Empowerment: The Power of Political Reconciliation with Joseph McCormick, Co-founder, Reuniting America

Free admission, everyone welcome

Note: This lecture is an introduction to Joseph's presentation on Tuesday, April 1, 7:00pm at RVML. See: http://www.rvml.org/calendar/wc04012008.htm

Presentation Description:

The consequence of political polarization, our "house divided," is citizen disempowerment. Disempowered citizens blame unaccountable government on "those liberals" or "those conservatives." Empowered citizens take responsibility for our situation and develop skills to communicate and cooperate across political divides to hold government accountable. In the course of his time spent building political bridges, Joseph McCormick, co-founder, Reuniting America has discerned three sets of skills needed for true citizen empowerment: personal, inter-personal, and trans-personal. Personal citizen empowerment skills are developed when we look deeply at ourselves and examine our values and belief systems. Inter-personal skills are the skills of small group dialogue and deliberation. Trans-personal skills are the skills of social networking that lead to the emergence of social movement. Participants will receive guidelines for convening and facilitating living-room size transpartisan Citizen Empowerment groups, CE groups. They will also be exposed to state-of-the-art social networking tools for networking these groups from community to community. They will also be exposed to a practical vision for annual, regional, transpartisan Citizen Summits and an annual, national Transpartisan Citizen Summit that draw delegates from the network of local CE groups.

This presentation is based on the work of Reuniting America, an organization that has been convening national leaders from across the political spectrum in transpartisan gatherings for the past four years. RA has convened seven private, multi-day, professionally facilitated retreat dialogues among top leaders from groups as diverse as Common Cause, Christian Coalition, Americans for Tax Reform, American Conservative Union, American Legion, AARP, MoveOn.org, League of Women Voters and others (see 5 min. video: http://reunitingamerica.org/perspectives/reuniting-america-short-edit).

The goal of these gatherings has been to build trust and deepen relationships in order to identify and support collaborative action on issues of national concern.

Presenter's Biography:

Joseph McCormick, co-founder, Reuniting America, seeks to bridge political divisions by helping to re-connect us -- in our civic practice -- to the unifying principles accepted by all Americans. From his experience of over a decade in Republican politics and through hours of dialogue with leaders, experts and average people about the state of our democratic republic, he recognizes the most destructive force in our country today is Americans taking sides against Americans. He has chosen to become politically un-affiliated and is now committed to respecting all points of views as having a vital contribution to the whole. He is a former officer in the U.S. Army Rangers, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and has a degree in Public and Private Management from Yale University.

More Information: Contact Joseph McCormick at (541) 535-5080

Website: http://www.ReunitingAmerica.org

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RENT RVML's LECTURE HALL: The 1,000 Sq.ft. presentation area is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible with full audio-visual capabilities available. Eighty folding chairs can be arranged in different configurations for meetings, lectures, and gatherings. -$15.00 per hour. More info: http://www.rvml.org/contact.shtml