My old intro both places: Tech Entrepreneur. Advocating Inventor. Third World Guy. Netizen. Global Citizen. New Yorker. Googleable. Global South Advocate. Overall Nice Guy. Bossmanperson. Subway Comrade. Inspiration. Visionary. Troublemaker.
I am not right now a tech entrepreneur, thanks to my immigration mess. I fear I might get sued if I keep calling myself a tech entrepreneur. I have enemies in town. I will revisit that in about a year. For now tech blogging is my tech thing to do.
But my primary push is for Iran democracy. My immediate push is to do some fundraising for the work.
I want to do the Iran democracy thing while I wait to have the option to do the tech entrepreneur thing. I am very much in mood to do the tech entrepreneur thing. Tech blogging is a prelude to that. Learn from Fred Wilson the value of having a daily updated blog for someone who wants to stay active in tech.
My Iran democracy work is going to be social media intensive. I am presenting myself as a digital ninja/commando. It is as much politics as it is tech. I like the intensity of revolutionary work.
This is the crowd I am targeting to raise 150K plus: Prominent Iranian Americans. 100K pays for my work for 12-15 months. 50K is bonus upon task completion. Task completion is regime change leading to an interim government mandated with holding elections to a constituent assembly. If I raise more than 150K, the extra money I spend on the same cause in ways I choose.
These are turbulent times. But right now it is looking to me like this will not be like 1994, but rather like 1982, if that. The president will keep the Senate, and will keep the House, but he will end up with a thinner margin in the House.
These are not Clinton or Reagan times. These are FDR times. Parallels with 1994 and 1982 are out of place. America has been going through the birth pangs. Either it will emerge a stronger country than ever, a post-industrial society, a knowledge economy, in tune with the environment, or it will emerge as yesterday's power. We already live in a multi-polar world, but America is capable of having its best days lie ahead. That is where leadership comes in. Shanghai might have the tall buildings, and the shiny streets and the fast trains, but it does not have New York City's diversity. America is going to save itself when it finally does comprehensive immigration reform next year.
America's 13 trillion dollar debt is like the bulging waistlines of Americans. If America can lose weight, American can reign in the debt. The leader has to know and stand by what the right thing to do is. Polls and sometimes even election results don't give you the best message.
I want the president to be able to keep the House and the Senate.
When the American people stop thinking they vote Republican. The trick is to keep them thinking. The president needs to get very active in these final weeks. He has to explain. He has to become the professor again that he once was in Chicago.
The Republicans have not offered any new ideas. Their plank is that they are the party of no. Their message is, this guy Obama wants to take away your French fries. And some Americans are like, I am not sure I like the guy who will take away my French fries. Obama's tough job is to explain why French fries are making you fat. Fat is unhealthy.
Obama was not handed a normal, cyclical recession like Clinton and Reagan were. Obama was handed a generational recession, and that gives him the opportunity to be a transformational president. These bad times are an opportunity for greatness. And these November elections are important. He has to communicate directly with the American people.
Time
How Twitter Helped Resurrect Kanye West:the VMAs incident solidified a long-held suspicion: Kanye West was unlikable. Even President Obama called him a "jackass." .... "redeeming yourself through arrogance is like smoking with cancer" ..... the secret to Kanye's appeal is his ability to balance his egotism with humor, and in his fallow period he rediscovered that equilibrium through Twitter. ..... He drinks wine out of gold goblets and eats cereal out of a turquoise chalice...... He has now written more than 300 tweets, ranging from the insightful ("Don't you hate it when you say bye to someone then yall get on the elevator together and it's like, now what?? Awkwaaard") ...... he mused on Twitter, "Fur pillows are hard to actually sleep on."
How Barack Obama Became Mr. Unpopular:When Obama arrived in office in January '09, his Gallup approval rating stood at 68%, a high for a newly elected leader not seen since John Kennedy in 1961. Today Obama's job approval has been hovering in the mid-40s ..... the President's party teeters on the brink of a broad setback in November, including the possible loss of both houses of Congress...... By a 10-point margin, people say they will vote for Republicans over Democrats in Congress, the largest such gap ever recorded by Gallup ..... Midterms are almost always bad for first-term Presidents, and worse in hard times...... In 2008, Newport notes, trust in the federal government was at a historic low, dropping to around 25%, where it still remains. Yet Obama has offered government as the primary solution to most of the nation's woes ..... roughly 1 in 3 of the President's 2008 supporters had serious questions about government spending solutions for the economy....... "We have a lot of government activism at a time when skepticism of government efficiency is at an all-time high." ....... For someone who so carefully read the political mood as a candidate, Obama has been unexpectedly passive at moments as President...... His appeals to the grass-roots army that he started, through online videos for Organizing for America, took on a formal, emotionless tone. He acted less like an action-oriented President than a Prime Minister overseeing some vast but balky legislative machinery. When challenged about his declining popularity, the President tended to deflect the blame — to the state of the economy, the ferocity of the news cycle and right-wing misinformation campaigns........ By the end of the summer, the disconnect had grown so severe that only 1 in 3 Americans in a Pew poll accurately identified him as a Christian, down from 51% in October 2008. At the same time, the base voters Obama had energized so well in '08 went back into hibernation. ....... many of the same groups Obama turned out for the first time in record numbers had suffered the most from the recession ..... at this point in their presidencies, both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton scored slightly lower approval ratings than Obama...... at this point in their presidencies, both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton scored slightly lower approval ratings than Obama. ...... Reagan was facing rising discontent at the midterm, driven by huge unemployment numbers that peaked at 10.8% at year's end. ..... won re-election by an enormous margin. ...... it is clear that Obama's brief window of one-party rule has closed...... "I think the next couple of years, we've got to focus on debt and deficits," Obama told NBC News after his summer vacation
Is Wisconsin's Paul Ryan Too Bold for the GOP?: At a time when most of his Republican colleagues are content to posture as the Party of No, Ryan is virtually alone in his determination to detail exactly what the U.S. must do to cut federal spending and make a dent in the nation's $13 trillion debt. In a very short time, he has become a hero to deficit hawks. Ryan, says former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is "one of three, maybe four, young Republicans who are going to change the face of the party." ...... In 2006 he wrote legislation that would give the President line-item veto power--a move lawmakers on both sides have long resisted. In 2007 he called for earmark transparency ...... Paul Krugman took a whack at Ryan's plan and declared it as hollow as a piñata. "Mr. Ryan isn't offering fresh food for thought," he wrote in the New York Times. "He's serving up leftovers from the 1990s drenched in flimflam sauce.".... Ryan is the most intellectually serious Republican at the moment ...... "The appetite is much stronger outside the Beltway than inside," he says. "The political class up here is in the old thinking, which is, This is such a political weapon, don't touch it, don't touch it, don't touch it, you'll die. Because they listen to the pollsters." ....... runs a grueling daily exercise class in Washington for members of Congress--think 200 push-ups.
Reshma has partially taken over my Facebook page. When I share a link from Sree's page, you know I have ulterior motives. (Recruited 60 For Reshma 2010)
Reshma so decidedly took over my Barackface blog in July. She is about to push Obama himself as the most prominent politician at this blog. (Reshma On Track To Taking Over This Blog)
It can be argued she has also sucked some major oxygen from my tech blog Netizen. That was supposed to be my primary blog. Not any more. As my activity level at Barackface has gone up, my activity level at Netizen has gone down. (Digital Dumbo 18: The Dumbo Loft) I no longer show up at Fred Wilson's blog every day. Sorry Fred.
Reshma took over much of my Sunday yesterday. I was at the Reshma 2010 headquarters making phone calls all afternoon. I even wrote my first few letters yesterday. When was the last time I wrote a letter? Cursive writing feels good.
Keep bugging Carolyn to engage in weekly debates. Every time she says no, cash that for media attention. In NYC, local and national media are not two things. Make it lose lose for Carolyn.
Don't concede Labor to Carolyn. Maloney lives in a mansion, a-l-l labor issues are abstract to her.
One politician more than any other in this town is on excellent terms with Labor: John Liu. We need to go talk to John. I will come along if I have to. "John, you are going to be Mayor, sooner than most people realize. Reshma is going to be president. Right now she needs your help. She attended public schools all her life. Labor issues are not abstract to her like they are for Maloney. You were on Wall Street before you were in politics. Help now and we will remember when it is time for you to run for Mayor."
Landlines are only one part of the pie. Then there are cellphones, largely out of reach. And there is social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
The core of the organization needs to retweet everything tweeted by @reshma2010. We have to press that Like button on the Reshma 2010 Facebook page. We need to comment vigorously on articles shared by Reshma.
Raise as much money possible from the workers of Wall Street. Workers of Wall Street, unite! Unite behind Reshma. You need someone on the Hill who actually understands how Wall Street works. I happen to think Reshma's leadership - she is the national leader to the tech sector - to the tech sector and her leadership to Wall Street go hand in hand. You are trying to build a meritocracy in both those sectors.
Carolyn Maloney has decided she is not going to debate Reshma. (Debating Is "Stunt" In A Maloney Democracy) I wish Maloney all the false confidence in the world. She is relying on a poll her campaign conducted before Reshma did her months of field work.
The most talked about race in the state of New York is not going to have any debates if Maloney will have her way.
Of all the races in all the state, why does this one have people so passionate?
Obama won Iowa. The polls did not show that he will win, and they did not show his eventual margin. Why? Because the pollsters kept calling up "likely voters," their name for people who voted four years ago. But what Obama had done was build an army of new, first time voters on the ground. And so the pollsters were left in the dust. And, mind you, these were not pollsters hired by the Edwards campaign.
And you have Maloney basking in the glory of early, internal polling. I wish her a ton of false self confidence. If this race were such a shoo-in for Maloney, why is it the most talked about race in the state? It is such a talked about race because it is a competitive race.
But asking Maloney to do two debates a month to election day is like asking the mullahs in Iran to hold a reelection: not gonna happen. (Iran: The World Has Wasted A Year)
So what do you do? While at the Reshma 2010 party last night, I thought about this a whole lot, at the party and after the party. (Reshma 2010 Party Tonight)
I think the answer is social media. The answer is new media.
There were about 100 people at the party, in and out. Victory lies at the 1,000 mark. Once the circle of core supporters expands from 100 to 1,000, we win. Because all we need is 30,000 votes to win.
There was so much positive energy in the room last night. You could feel the tremendous momentum.
Already the candidate is doing an average of three events per day, events big and small. That is a tremendous pace.
Why do we want debates? So we can air our views, and we can get media coverage. We get on local TV. Are there other ways of achieving the same goals? I believe there are. Social media does better what traditional media does pretty good.
I was at the party last night, so I saw what happened. What if I was not there but wanted to know what happened? If the campaign were to post 100 pictures from the event at its Facebook page, if the campaign were to post a five minute video clip from the party at its YouTube channel, I might get a feel for what happened at the party last night. The audience for that video might only be 500 strong right now, but that is what social media is all about: media for all audience sizes. Small audiences matter, small audiences are intimate.
I say do events and be your own media, cover all events. There should be at least one photo from each event, posted at the campaign's Facebook page. Short video clips are great. They are free to produce. Long live the Flip camera.
And we have to produce full length videos of Reshma giving speeches on all major issues. We asked for but did not get two debates per month with Maloney. But we could easily do one major speech per week on our own.
I am all about taking attendance with the camera. When you capture a candidate speech on camera, it is important to capture all faces in the room. It is not just about the candidate, but also the crowd.
Upload the full speech, and upload a shorter video of highlights. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, one speech a week keeps Maloney away.
Another strategy would be to keep going on TV and keep challenging Maloney to do the debates.
Social media is not an imitation of old media. Social media is more. Social media is much more than saying, okay, we are going to be our own C-Span.
Social media allows you to turn your organization into a jellyfish. I am using that metaphor to hint at transparency. There are things that are private, but then there are things that are not private. The private strategy session that decided on the new office space was not something that needed to stay private. A three minute video from that session would have been great. You do that for your core 1,000 supporters. You are not on the staff, you were not even in the office that day, but we want you to feel included.
How much of the internal operations can you video blog like that?
I am for uploading five minutes of video every single day. The whole exercise is free.
And then there are the giants: Facebook and Twitter. Most everyone on the East Side who will vote on September 14 is on Facebook. I am guessing that to be the case. The campaign Facebook page has to be taken to new heights.
For every event the candidate does, at least one photo with a brief description has to end up on the Facebook page. It should be super easy for our core supporters to follow the campaign, and the Facebook stream is perhaps the best way. The accompanying staffer, also armed with a Droid X, can perhaps take care of the social media part of events.
Post video clips on Facebook.
And this is key: retweeting and pressing that Like button. All staffers and interns need to do that. East tweet by the campaign has to start with 30 retweets right away. Each Facebook update has to be liked by 30 people within the hour. And for key articles shared by Reshma on Facebook, there have to be 30 comments by the end of the day. I don't know how you do this. Do you send out an internal email each time? But I do know this has to be done.
It has to feel like there is a lot of activity. And you soon enough get the snowball effect. This is not about faking it, this is about engaging the core of the organization.
And then there is going out there. Take the NYDailyNews.com for example. It is not like they push six Reshma articles per day. It is one every few weeks. But those articles generate a lot of comments. Well, we can make sure at least 30 of those comments come from Reshma supporters. And if we can do that, more supporters will come out of the woodworks. This digital engagement is important because it is free, and it is real. These are real people. Many more people read the comments than leave them. That is an interested crowd.
Maloney's perceived advantages from dodging debates can be neutralized through a thorough use of social media. If she opts for just one debate early in September, we have to turn that into a slam dunk. And we can do that if we make extensive use of social media in the weeks before that.
If a tree fell deep in the forest, and nobody heard it fall, did the tree fall? Social media is about making sure people hear the tree fall. One photo per event, I would think, is the absolute minimum. The goal has to be to capture every face that shows up for every event. This is as much about covering the candidate as the crowd.
The idea is to produce short, compelling video clips for the Facebook stream every other day, so compelling people go ahead and press the Share button. If we are not going to get the free media from debating, we have to fill up the gap by becoming our own media. New media is better media.
2009 has been my year for Netizen. That has been my active blog this year. But one of the things I want to do going into 2010 is jack up my activities with my other two blogsBarackface (this blog) and Democracy For Nepal. Part of the reason is I wish to seriously consider blogging (Twitter included) as my secondary career. Tech entrepreneurship my primary career, blogging my secondary career (John Chow), and politics my baseball. And I would like to monetize all three blogs.
I wish to follow the Obama presidency more closely in 2010 than I have in 2009. I think the office of the US presidency fascinates me. It is the ultimate executive office. But I also find myself wanting to follow Bobby Jindal and John Liu in the news. It is so easy to do with Google News. I guess there is an element of Blac (Black Latino Asian Coalition) Male identification in there. So be it.
Netizen will continue to be my primary and most active blog. That is my primary passion. JyotiConnect Inc. distills it for me. My fascination with politics and technology, my impatience with the legislative process, my wanting to find that one big cause for the Global South, all that come together in wanting to get more of the planet's people online. It is a my people thing.
I hope to put out one or two blog posts each week here at Barackface.
And I am so excited I will be there for John Liu's inauguration on January 1.
At some level it makes me very happy to see what is happening in Iran. At another level, it makes my blood boil with anger at the waste I fear I might end up seeing by the time the storm is over. Because I witnessed the waste when the people in Burma similarly poured out into the streets. They were let down. For all their blood, toil and tears, they were let down. It is very hard to create a political storm like this one, but once it dies down without result, it does not come back for a long, long time.
What's white people got to do with it? You might ask. Many of them seem to be alert and on the right side of history. Many of them are tweeting on behalf of the people in the Tehran streets. Many have turned their Twitter avatars green in solidarity. How is that dumb? How is that white? How is that something to get angry about?
I am for nonviolence, but as I watched the Burma protests die down in 2007, one thought that I started having was what if the world were to bomb the dictator's artificial city deep in the woods where all his minions live and work? Would that boost the morale of the street protesters to hold on and keep lunging along?
After Benazir died, I asked, why did she not have a security apparatus befitting a head of state? The world never got Bin Laden, but Bin Laden got Benazir. What a shame. They wore her death like a trophy.
You have to feel sorry for the dumbness of the white people and their governments, and their media, and their NGOs, and their social media, and their masses. In a democracy the people are directly and indirectly responsible for all of them.
Dumb white people will think nothing about pouring a trillion dollars into a dumb war, trillions into a housing bubble even if that might bring them a mega recession, but when it comes down to pouring 10 million into a nonviolent movement for democracy somewhere, they will be like, oh no, we can't be interfering in other countries' internal matters.
A nonviolent movement like the one that is underway in Iran is science, it is not alchemy. It does not happen randomly and equally randomly go away. It can be brought about at will. It can be actively helped to reach a grand conclusion. Or it can be watched to death, all the street efforts in vain.
This is precisely the time for the governments of the world to speak up. Governments that talked down daily a country's regime that it suspected of having nuclear weapon ambitions are silent today. Whispers count for silence.
Powers that think nothing of giving 10 billion dollars to the Pakistani army to create three million refugees in a matter of weeks will not pour a billion into a mass movement that just might succeed in establishing a full-fledged democracy in the heart of the Arab world in a way that will make the dictators in Egypt and Saudi Arabia wet in their pants.
An election from scratch has been the starting demand, the minimal demand. But now the demand has to shift. The movement has to ask for the installation of an interim government that will hold elections to a constituent assembly within a year of taking power to give Iran a new constitution.
Everyone who is tweeting for Iran needs to chime in a dollar. Movements need money. They need money to pay for the medical costs of those injured in the streets. They need money to organize better. They need money to launch brand new political parties. You can create a large, national political party in a matter of months.
What Iran has to ask for is an interim government and a new constitution.
Why should white people be concerned about the fate of democracy in Iran? Because a total spread of democracy in the Arab world is the only way to conclude the War On Terror. There is no other way. And street protests are the best way to do it, the only way actually.
Kirsten Gillibrand Is A Good Choice This is not happening. I think this is a major league technical error. I once pressed a button somewhere and everyone in my Yahoo mail contacts list ended up getting an invite to link with me on LinkedIn. One email back read, I would really like to get back in touch with you, but I really don't know I want to do LinkedIn and Facebook.
Or this is a group account, and another DL21Cer is playing a prank on the honorable Ms. Caputo by quietly adding my name to the guest list. Which one?
Or Ms. Caputo is worried about the future political fallouts from pressing two bogus charges against me, bogus as determined by the New York City authorities: I hired no lawyer. That is going to become really problematic after I win the Nobel Peace Prize next year. Here is a recent email from the guy who only a few days back became Prime Minister of Nepal:
But the two women running for office in New York are named Brooke Ellison and Jessica Lappin. I am honored to be Facebook friends with both, and to have an active Facebook friendship with one of them. Brooke is my favorite New York politician. She makes my day every time she says something to me.
I am a Third World guy. I am not an Indiana person. I ran away from Indiana. And I still think Dan Berger is a major league asshole, a lowly staffer to a lowly Congressman (as measured by the standards of world history). I mean, who gives a fuck about Charlie Rangel? I don't. Nobody seemed to have heard of him down there in Alabama. I asked a whole bunch of black guys.
My life for most of this year has been at the Netizen blog, not the Barackface blog. Barackface was last year, or at least the first half when I was on the surface. I am a tech startup guy, I am not a politician. And no, this is not a career change. Internet access is the voting right for this 21st century. I am Third World (that is the nigger version). I am Global South (that is the Afro Americo version).
This invite has opened up a can of worms for me.
The first time NYPD took me away for a night, two of the questions on the way were, is that your car, and where is the tunnel? I have been through so many 9/11 generated humiliations, this was not the first time, I was yawning. The day 9/11 happened, I happened to be in a small town in KY. The locals called the cops on ME! 9/11 did not make this country racist. This country was racist way before 9/11, like way before.
And then the little nonprofit motherfucker Justin Krebs did what he did. A few days back I also had a Drinking Liberally invite to show up for his organization's sixth birthday party. I thought I had unsubscribed from their mailing list.
NYPD and the immigration people could work in close coordination on everything except that on April 22 recently the court clerk said they sent my immigration letter last year to "Indiana!" NYPD forgot to tell the immigration people that I was, well, in New York! NYPD, New York Police Department. Hello.
The six months felt like a death sentence. Once I got into a really bad road accident upstate in April 2002. Road ice in April, can you imagine? I realized the difference between life and death was three seconds, 1001, 1002, 1003. I counted. Another time I missed a major 100 vehicle pileup on the interstate in Atlanta by only a few hours: dense fog. I was a few hours too early. Another time I missed a bridge collapse in Oklahoma by a few hours. I was a few hours too late. One fine morning - like 1 AM - a bunch of Texas police officers rained bullets about 10 feet from me. I was not holding a wallet, but they later said they thought the gun was inside the vehicle. I once drove overnight through a hurricane: I followed it up along the East Coast.
Summary.
She did like me, a few different times, including on day one. Day one was special, but the little nonprofit motherfucker had to mess up.
Finally in early 2008 especially after the Zipper bar event I was like, it is not like I don't like you back, but we have to talk. Day one was the only day one there ever was going to be.
But she has to act protective of a lowly Congressional staffer and a little nonprofit motherfucker. (Mideast Peace: Tech Industry Style) At the Texas event I decided, okay, so your latest is that you don't like me, I respect that. I have seen these pendulum swings a few times.
This was no Harvard bond. Mike Luchipuchinachi never went to Harvard. Dumb white guys including those that might have gone to Harvard love doing the border patrol thing: color line border patrol.
But showing up for DL21C events was my right. I thought and still think DL21C would be honored to have me. You can not like a guy, and then not like a guy, and then that be a reason he can't show up for public political events.
By January this year even that logic got boring. Barack was already in. The presidential politics is all I care about. I still don't get excited about local races. And I had things to take care of.
I like doing creative, innovative work. My attention had shifted.
This was a broad experience in race and gender. That is what it boils down to. A sexist pig, racist bitch thing. A racist, sexist pig thing.
But this invite did remind me of a Senator Kirsten article I recently read on the Huffington Post and commented on there.
I am not really angry about the six months. I have had a technical attitude since I got out in November. There were legal details that needed taken care of. The two city charges were soon gone. Then the immigration thing had to be taken care of.
I don't think this invite is real. So I am not going. The last thing I want is to show up for a DL21C event and then get told I am not welcome, to be shown the door. Also, political events like this one don't excite me all that much. At some level it is scary how they can do the exact same thing over and over again. The format is so concrete. It scares my innovative mind.
That makes me think of another detail. At one point in late 2007, early 2008 my attitude was, so what do you want? You like me? You don't like me? Or do you just want me to join DL21C? I don't see the point. I don't get the impression DL21C wants to do anything more than it is doing already. You don't need me to join DL21C. But if you do, here is what I would like to suggest. I had a whole bunch of digital stuff to suggest. I guess that was like Steve Wozniak taking his prototype to the HP people. They were absolutely not interested.
It makes no sense for me to show up for DL21C events unless things are normal between Ms. Caputo and me one on one, outside of DL21C. Right now I don't think it is. So I will stay put with my tech startup work. Fuck politics.
Twitter anyone?
But I have to be honest, there is a political animal part of me that keeps going back to Godfather I and Godfather III where the Marlon Brando and Al Pacino characters are opposed to retaliating after attempts on their lives. Instead they want to do business with the strong opponents, strong enough to have made attempts on their lives.
"That is not what I wanted!" says Al disapproving of the retaliation.
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