Dear reader – as you look this over keep in mind that politically I’m so far to the left I fall off the planet every once in a while. Socialist, feminist, rabid environmentalist – all that sort of thing. But in thinking about the recent flap at NPR, I’m really hoping we can do better than the usual knee-jerks on all sides.

In case you missed it, some right-wing activists posing as potential donors got NPR’s leading fundraiser into a conversation about the Tea Party movement. With a hidden camera rolling along, the fundraiser said all sort of nasty things about them: gun carrying racists, xenophobes, and so forth. With NPR’s federal support under attack from Republicans, the footage has proved to be just the fodder they want to push first the House, and now the Senate, to end funding.

Let’s take the obvious responses first. The fundraiser is not the institution, and an awful lot of other people supported by the government have disdain for sectors of the electorate who pay the taxes that line their pockets. We can imagine, for example, what some of the churches supported by Bush’s “faith based initiatives” thought of Planned Parenthood and radical lesbians, or what a lot of Midwestern farmers think of Greenpeace and PETA.

Also, it is not hard to see the Right’s concerted attack on NPR as one more blow against anyone who will stand against the power of capital. Unions are being busted; the government has been the object of ideological attack for decades. Major media outlets that are at least a little critical of corporate recklessness, dishonest, and pollution are hard to find, an important resource, and something corporate America would duly love to kill off.

That said however, let’s look at the immediate subject: liberals and the Tea Party folks. Keep in mind what I said above about my politics – I think they are wrong about most, if not all things. And that includes their take on religion as well as on politics.

But here’s another perspective for me and for all the liberal and radicals who get so upset by Sarah Palin and her legions of immigrant-hating, abortion-outlawing, environmentalism-bashing, government-support-denying, aggressive foreign policy types.

First I want to say that the Tea Party movement is good for America: not because they are right, but because they care. Here are people without much direct interest in the policies they support, taking the time and energy to enter into the democratic process. And to enter it not just by individual voting – which is, after all, barely one step above total passivity; but by meeting together, holding caucuses, writing proclamations, arguing about policies, and working for candidates. They have taken their concern and their commitment to the public square, out of the bars, TV dominated living rooms, texting, and internet addiction. For that they deserve our respect.

And the second thing I want to say is that just because I see in the Tea Party more than just racist morons, but civically concerned citizens, my response, and the one that I’d like to see liberal and progressive leaders make, is: Let’s talk. Not debate and score points and sound bites. But let’s really talk about where we are coming from and what has shaped us as moral, political, and spiritual beings. What we hope for and what scares the hell out of us. Years ago someone in Boston brought together three leaders of the pro-choice movement with three pro-life activists, to talk in just the way I’m suggesting here. They didn’t ‘convince’ each other. But they became friends, developed some understanding, and were able to make some human contact across the divide.

I’d like to do the same thing in this context.

Finally, although I doubt too many Tea Party folks are reading this, I have a suggestion for them as well. If the NPR guy, who was no fool, after all, thinks the Tea Party, is a bunch of racists, maybe you guys have to ask yourselves to what extent racism is an element of your movement. Maybe what he said was a wild, partisan exaggeration. But it still could have some truth in it. And thus perhaps it’s your responsibility to look as hard as you can to find that truth and act on it, not lapse into programmed “outrage” and “offense” that not even you believe.

Appreciating the good, even if it comes with stuff we don’t like. Trying to find the truth even if it’s buried in falsehood. Learning to communicate across the divide.

Wouldn’t that make a nice change in American political life?