Does Hell Have A Kitchen?

Audio Transcript: Dean Conference Call

A few days back I found out from the DNC site about this event that was being organized all over the country, over a thousand of them. I looked for one in the city. I looked for one that had the most people signed up. And the best ones had three or four.

And then I stumbled out of an unplanned siesta, and I was confused. I thought I had already missed the DNC event, and so I was looking for the info on this hip hop event I was to go to, and instead I realized the hip hop event was the evening after, and I had not missed the DNC event, and the one in Hell's Kitchen had 32 people signed up. And I was like, wow. That is bigger than the biggest DFNYC crowd. And this was great that it was in a living room and not in a bar.

The DFNYC Mixer is two evenings later.

Abhishek Mistry with DFNYC lives in Hell's Kitchen. I knew it was somewhere along the Manhattan western seaboard, but I did not know exactly where. Going by the name you would think the neighborhood has to be pretty rundown. But the place is a stone throw away from Times Square, center of the known universe.

I walked up to the house. Up the short flight of stairs there were two love birds kissey kissey. I did not mean to interrupt but the damn place had no doorbell, or anything like that. I banged on the glass door, then on the window. It so happened I was at the wrong house. I was supposed to be at 411, this was 441. I apologized to the couple.

"Never mind. We were loitering anyway," the young woman said. I felt bad.

Inside there was a sign up sheet, and all this food and drinks. I don't like sweet stuff, most of the stuff looked sweet. But there was chips and salsa. Now we are talking, I thought. There was beer, but I stuck to Coke. A few rounds of coke.

Host Alisa Roost asked if someone could take notes. I volunteered. After the event I promised I would write it all up and email it to her. So here goes.

--- 50 state strategy
--- precinct leader, 50 more votes
--- less than 2,000 Dem voters
--- $5 per month to Dems
--- Dean, 87% gave less than $200
--- I am frustrated with the DLC
--- DNC plus the state parties
--- Reid, Durbin
--- last six months, half way
--- a permanent national grassroots organization
--- local candidates, plus grassroots
--- precinct, door, vote
--- corporate funded republicans
--- 7 + 6 battleground staes, 7 lost, 6 won
--- If there were 10 votes more per precinct, 3 more states would have gone Democratic
--- 55-45 they can't cheat, 51-49, they seem to be able to
--- If there were 50 more votes per precinct, 6 more states would have gone Democratic
--- Bush at a 36% approval rating
--- 2004 Senate races
--- pessimistic voters just stay home, they don't vote Democratic
--- 2004 Senate 9 + 2
--- 1o more votes per precinct, and we would have had 3 more Senate seats
--- 5o more and we would have had a majority in the Senate
--- people vote with people with whom they have relationships

--- Alisa Roost, Dean in Iowa, Illinois, DLC sucks
--- Owen, 7 years in India, anthropologist
--- Laura, musician, PA
--- Scott, from Chicago, 20006, Contract With America
--- Laura, started with the Kerry campaign, with the convention
--- Becka
--- Alisa, NY to CA to NY, very involved in the Kerry campaign, organized 2 fundraisers, $100,000 for the party, turn the White House blue
--- Amia, 4 years in DC, California, Virginia county, blue for the first time in 40 years
--- Jim, Midwest when it was still Democratic, John Kerry, PA
--- Ruth, Kerry, PA, Santorum is vulnerable, Spitzer is safe, Pataki is gone
--- Michael, with ATT, between jobs now
--- Larry, u.e.s.
--- Regi, 4th year medical student, Albert Einstein Medical School, Moveon.org
--- Kris, one year ago from DC
--- Melissa, work for mainstream media, NBC, former Deaniac, college in Philly, Boston
--- ____, became US citizen to vote against Reagan, worked on the Dukakis campaign but my husand does not mention that

--- 2004 Governors races, lost 5 won 6
--- 100 more votes per precinct, and we would have won all but 2
--- grassroots activists, precinct volunteers, precinct captains
--- volunteer, recruit, host, run, attend, create
--- NY state party
--- buy Democracy bonds
--- writing letters to the Editor
--- helps shape their priorities, do write to the media, nydems.org
--- phone number of county chair
--- Robert Donovan, party machinery in Chicago
--- Moveon not organized enough, too top down
--- local Democratic clubs
--- storefront
--- FL, can vote for 2 weeks
--- Allentown, only an hour away
--- dropout activist, make it fun, build relationships, have fun
--- there is this other half of the country that needs to start reading, thinking
--- getting people registered to vote
--- the idea of getting out the vote
--- regardless of the candidate
--- Kerry won all three debates, but still lost
--- no clear stand on the environment
--- 3-5 friends in CA, switched to Bush, born again values
--- (1) don't only react, put them on defense, we control the dialogue, (2) election fatigue
--- overkill with Moveon
--- most important decision not made at the polling booth but by an opaque clique
--- get the Dems the spine, we got Dean, now we got the top and the bottom, we just need to get the middle, the in between
--- (1) relationship building, ice breaking, team building, get to know each other exercises as important as policy talk, (2) do events, blog events, that way NYC progressives impact the country, otherwise we preach to the converted (3) all progressive groups need to collaborate, okay to have separate groups, but need to create a synergy
--- invading a country not behind 9/11 was wrong
--- there is no universal insurance
--- Gulf Coast is under water
--- u.w.s. -- my best use of time will perhaps be going to PA, here in the Upper West Side 90% are already voting the right way
--- good organization not enough, what about the message?
--- off election year, energy goes down
--- Times Square, organize, as in here, meet a real Democrat, a NY Democrat, get your picture taken with me, for the tourists
--- New Deal, Great Society -- organization did it
--- We need a simple message
--- their was lower taxes, smaller government
--- Republicans registering Democratic votes and deliberately messing up the paperwork

--- conference call with Dean
--- 1000 kick off meetings -- a lot of enthusiasm
--- rebuild the Democratic Party
--- rebuild New Orleans
--- core Dems on this call
--- 4 steps (1) VA, NJ and many other local seats won, (2) November 7, 2006, (3) Governorships, MS, KY, (4) 2008, the big one.
--- 20 countries on this call
--- 47
--- bring in volunteers, then contact people who don't vote
--- making common cause with things we do agree on
--- Democracy bonds, $10, $20, that is $20 million a month for the party
--- a house party in Alaska
--- Indiana
--- this corrupt administration
--- Together America Can Do Better
--- strong on defense
--- strong public education
--- honesty in elections
--- tell the truth
--- Tom Delay, Bill Frist, Scooter Libby
--- November 7, Peloisi, Speaker, Reid, Majority Leader
--- Let's go get 'em
--- Texas is a Democratic state, people just have not seen the light yet
--- run it as locally as you can
--- don't be afraid to do things that need to be done

--- Dems have yet to articulate our message
--- stop watching Republicans implode, come up with your own message (caller)

--- balanced budget
--- jobs that stay in America, renewable energy jobs

--- we should never run away from the moral values debate
--- kids going to bed hungry is immoral
--- we are people who will happily give up our tax cuts for the needy, we are moral

--- electoral fraud
--- 2 bad ones in a row, Secretary of State, FL
--- OH, another targeted state
--- African Americans, have to stand in line 3 times longer to vote
--- restoration of Jim Crow
--- voting machines, a big problem
--- they can be reprogrammed easily
--- get rid of paperless voting machines

--- this president makes them feel smart
--- group pictures

--- mailing list, google group
--- 1000 lives lost to Katrina
--- people relate to him emotionally, to Bush
--- I have friends who are Christian
--- Who would you rather have a beer with, Kerry or Bush?
--- blue states contribute 70% of the country's wealth
--- indoctrinate, into the Bush Army
--- Can you imagine Bush at the Kennedy Center?
--- Muhammad Ali, near death
--- stem cell research

--- if there were over 1,000 events tonight, and each had only 20 people on average, that is 200,000 people, that is huge

I offered to clean up. Alisa said no thank you. She instead said if I wanted to take some of the food home. She offered the half empty 2 liter Coke bottle. I took it.

I walked to the train station with Regi. He was at Cambridge University for one year. He had his stint at Hunter College. He is now at the Albert Einstein Medical School. He did not know Howard Dean earned his medical degree there. Regi is black. And angry. Right before we went underground, he went on a refreshing tirade against the Supreme Court.

"Why are we stuck with one Supreme Court judge for 50 years? Why don't they get more like 8 years? This constitution was written when people like me were picking cotton. I guess you can say Stalin and Saddam killed their own people. Here we do have rights, but that is why it is so important to protect them from these judges."

Even in New York the white progressives would get a failing grade from me on race. The number one reason is that they freeze when they have to discuss it. So I am glad Regi talked. I like that. (The Spectrum/Dialogue Concept Is Key To Power)

My parting thought: Where does it say in the Bible that a DNC Chair can not run for president? If a Senator or a Governor can, so can a DNC Chair.

The train stopped and all New Yorkers out of a sense of decency vacated the train so I could sit and think in peace. Then I realized that was not so. The train had hit its last stop and was resting. I was on the wrong train.

New Yorkers move around town underground like packets of data on the internet.

Pentagon, Hexagon

The Pentagon masterminds the physical wars the US wages.

I propose a Hexagon, a physical building, perhaps not as large, as an appendage to the US State Department structure, preferably in New York City somewhere, perhaps in Queens.

JFK took the country to the moon. Howard Dean dedicates himself to the idea of a total spread of democracy the progressive way. And the Hexagon is at the center of it.

This is about waging a war with communications technology. This is about spreading democracy the grassroots way. This is about the immigrants in New York City taking the lead for their respective countries. NYC, the capital city.

And there has to be a deadline: 2020. By then every single country on the planet is a democracy. This is a mission, but it has to be seen as a project.

This is about applying the principle of one person, one vote, one voice, the principle of total, transparent democracy.

This is the only way to win the War On Terror.

Democracies do not go to war with each other. This is the best antidote to the possibilities of war.

2008 is when America becomes a democracy. 2020 is when the world becomes a democracy.

Sometimes projects get completed before the deadline.

The Israeli Wall Is Wrong, Hillary

“This [wall] is not against the Palestinian people. This is against terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help prevent terror. They have to change their attitudes about terrorism, starting with the Palestinian Authority and going through Palestinian society.”

- Hillary Clinton

Middle East peace talk reminds me of the free trade talk in US politics, only the Mid-East is much more emotionally charged. (Takes Two Arms And Two Legs To Swim) Israeli-Palestinian peace will take perhaps a half dozen arms and legs moving in concert. What brings me honing in on this topic is if there is a visible fault line between the West and the Global South, this is it.

I remember a news photograph from the early 80s when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister of India. Arafat visited and he got a red carpet treatment like he were a head of state.

The wall in Berlin was wrong, this wall is even more so.

I am principally opposed to violence. My prescription is the progressive way of spreading democracy until the spread is total. But that is down the line. What about now?

Ariel Sharon is no Gandhi. This is a violent man who Bush lovingly refers to as a "bulldog."

Israel claims it is scared the powerless Palestinians might push them into the sea and wipe Israel off the map. But it refuses to see Palestine is not on the map.

When Arafat was the duly elected president of the Palestinians, Sharon refused to do business with him. That is not unlike questioning Martin Luther King's legitimacy to speak on behalf of the black people of America. You despise the people so much, you have to wage a singular attack on its leadership, and that is all you have to do to hurt the self-esteem of that people. That is Sharon's track record.

Israel fights with its army, one of the very best in the world. The Palestinians don't have a state, let alone a standing army, so they fight with sticks and stones. At the extreme end they have suicide bombers. I know this is a hot issue. But it has to be addressed. Violence is the surface of a very real political problem. Violence is the symptom, not the disease. Those like Sharon who refuse to seek a political solution make that violence possible.

Israel can not claim to be a democracy if it can not allow a universal application of the one person, one vote principle to all people living inside of Israel, Jewish and Arab alike. In the US when the blacks were denied voting rights, they called it a civil rights issue. Palestinians are also human, just like the African Americans.

I have personally seen the anti-Catholicism and the anti-semitism in the US South. The Jews in New York City are a voting bloc of sorts like the Hispanics. The Pat Robertsons of the world whose followers are at the forefront of the anti-semitism in the US South suddenly profess to be Israel's best friends on world stage. That is curious, don't you think?

Where does that put the hapless people of the Global South? Are they that much lesser?

Israel is a legitimate state and it will exist into eternity. The Jews have a horrific history as a victimized people. And I am sorry that is the way it has been. Anti-semitism is still alive in the West, although it has subsided much.

But when you look at the plight of the Palestinians, it does not escape me that the psychology of child abuse might be at play. Person A gets abused as a child, and ends up a child abuser. That cycle has to be broken. Palestine has to be liberated.

As I said earlier, Middle East peace will only be achieved when many things go right at once. It is a master challenge of coordination. And I am not about to blame all the ills on any one person, let alone Senator Hillary who was the first person in the Clinton administration to have come out for a Palestinian state, and who I am a huge fan of.

There has to be a major regional drive to spread democracy the progressive way, Palestine has to become a state, Jerusalem has to be shared, and Israel has to feel safe, and Israel has to end up a democracy.

And the wall gets in the way. The wall is Sharon's way of saying he does not intend to do the political work that will bring peace. The wall is wrong. Sharon is a guy who thinks of the Palestinians as lesser people.

The Jews and the Arabs in America will have to take the lead here. When they go on TV, they start bickering, and they justify the violence back there. That is sad. The Jewish voting bloc in America will have to think in terms of a long term peace for Israel, not the short term flexing of political muscle in US politics that they are used to.

Howard Dean Is No Pacifist

Dean was the loudest, and the only anti-war candidate in 2004. The image has stuck and for good reason. But his stand has also been slightly misunderstood.

1. We knew all along it was not Saddam but Osama that was behind 9/11. But a majority of Republicans before the Iraq invasion believed otherwise, because they had bought into the W-Cheney propaganda. In a very recent speech W alluded to the "innocent lives lost on 9/11" when he meant to boost support for the Iraq war effort. That is fundamentally misleading. And he apparently has not changed course.
   
2. Not long after Baghdad was seized, it became obvious there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that Saddam was supposed to have had. Looks like Saddam was pulling a W also on his neighbors. As in, don't have it, but talk like you do, they will stay away from you.
   
3. W complained on the campaign trail in 2000 about the few cruise missiles that Clinton fired into Iraq after a Saddam plot to assassinate his father while on a visit to Kuwait was found out and foiled. As in, Clinton's response was not enough. Clinton should have done more. The son was angry. Immediately after he got into the White House he made it clear he wanted to do something about Saddam. "He tried to kill my daddy!"
   
4. On W's watch both North Korea and Iran have acquired nuclear weapons, or Iran is very close to it. So maybe he is not awfully concerned about the spread of WMDs. And if he is, he does not have the ability, the skill to do the job.
   
5. Osama is very much alive and very much active. (3 Bomb Blasts Each: London, Delhi, Jordan)
6. Colin Powell's presentation at the UN was cooked. Who cooked it?
   
7. The intelligence the US Congress looked at was tampered with. Who did the tampering?
   
8. Tomland Ridge pulled a security stunt to make sure Kerry did not get a boost after his damn convention in 2004. How irresponsible is that? (Bloomberg: No Mr. Security)
9. George W and Dick Cheney are both roundabout draft dodgers. You have to look at their brave talk in that light.
   
10. The effort in Iraq has cost $200 billion, 2000 American lives, and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.
    
11. Iraq today exports terrorists to the entire region.
    

War is an option, that is why there is a military. But war always has to be the weapon of the very last resort. The very last resort, the utmost last resort. W's war was waged like a weapon of first resort, it was done in such a hurry. The accusation that there was a deliberate misleading of intelligence is serious.

Not only that, the US went into Iraq without a clear strategy in mind. Some in the W administration talk of perhaps being there for a decade. That sounds like a stay strategy.

Go in in a hurry and stay forever. That is not a smart war strategy.

Troops sent out to war by a country have to be supported. But W is not asking for that. He is asking that his critics be silenced, their patriotism be questioned. Is misleading a country into war patriotic? Is not having a clear exit strategy so as to minimize casualties patriotic? Is the idea of snuffing democratic debate and questioning a legitimate inquiry into the most important act by this president patriotic?

It is important for the country to get to the bottom of this so as to better tackle the challenge that the War On Terror is.

Dean was totally behind the US going into Afghanistan, because that was Osama country, and he was behind 9/11. Iraq became a diversion that let Osama slip into god knows where.

Dean is not saying all wars are wrong, he is saying some wars are necessary. But he is saying a war has to be the weapon of last resort, because through a war you put your troops in harm's way. People are going to die. So you better have a very good reason to get into it in the first place. Once you do send the troops in, support them. And Dean supports the troops in Iraq today. He just does not support W. Big difference. And he is concerned the likes of W and Cheney can be so callous about the countdown to war.

Saddam was a bad guy, but that was not the stated reason for the war.

Democracy is a good thing to spread, but that was not the stated reason for the war.

So what went so wrong? Why was the intelligence presented to the Congress so off the mark? So far there seems not to have been a trace of WMD stuff in Iraq.

More importantly, what is the nature of the War On Terror? Is acting like the Al Qaeda is a standing army the best way to wage this war? Is the Al Qaeda weaker today?

Blacks, Hispanics At The Core Of The Democrat Rainbow Coalition

Blacks vote for Democrats in this country like all of them were their cousins. The Democratic Party does not have a more staunch group of supporters. And hence I imagine a high tech boom in Harlem, among other things.

But Bush managed to dent into the Hispanic vote with his mangled Spanish, and that was not good. A Hispanic co-passenger in a bus in Florida once told me when she was at high school her teacher used Bush' Spanish talk as an example of how n-o-t to speak Spanish. Go figure.

But, seriously. There has to be an all-out effort to court the Hispanic vote.

1. Apply the spentrum/dialogue concept on gay marriage rather than the litmus test concept. (The Spectrum/Dialogue Concept Is Key To Power)
2. Articulate progressive family values.
   
3. Offer progressive, cuttinge edge immigration policy. There can be no room inside the Democratic Party for any hostility to immigrants. And such hostility among the Republicans has to be exposed and fought.
   
4. Bi-lingualism.
   
5. Quality public education, universal health insurance for all children on US soil.
   
6. Increases in college financial aid.
   
7. Mainstream issues of jobs and wages. Create jobs. Increase the minimum wage. Introduce micro credit in the most destitute neighborhoods, and urban renewal programs, and economic empowerment zones.
   
8. In a city like New York, non-citizens should be allowed to vote. No taxation without representation.
   
9. A major emphasis on US-Mexico relations.
   
10. Help with institution buliding in the young democracies in Latin America.
    
11. Fight voter intimidation of the ethnic minorities with the passion of a civil rights movement.
    
12. Tough on hate crimes. Tough on hate speech.
13. Howard Dean should take a crash course in Spanish. You don't have to get fluent, but you do have to be able to meet and greet. I will do it with you.
    
14. Deaniacs, let it be a fashion statement. Let's all of us learn at least some Spanish.
    

These are just some of the early stage thoughts. I am sure there are many more. And even these need to be cultivated.

Dick Morris: "The biggest reason for Bush's victory was that he finally cracked the Democratic stranglehold on the Hispanic vote. While Gore won 65 percent of the Latino community, holding Bush to a mere 35 percent, Kerry only carried the Hispanic vote by 55-45, paving the way for the Bush victory. Since Hispanics cast 12 percent of the vote in 2004, their 10-point movement to the GOP gave the president an additional 1.2 percent of the national vote. Take a similar amount away from Kerry, and the Latinos gave Bush a 2.4 percent edge in the general election balloting. Since Bush beat Kerry by only 3.1 percent, how important was the Hispanic vote? Vital and crucial. There are two reasons for Bush’s success among Hispanics. The most important seems to be his emphasis on social values issues, particularly his opposition to gay marriage. ...... Bush worked very hard to win the Hispanic votes. He reversed traditional Republican positions opposing the interests of Latinos. He endorsed bilingual education, reversing decades of Republican agitation for English-only policies. He opposed benefit cuts to documented aliens and rejected out of hand the contention that the children of undocumented workers should be denied public education. He even embraced a version of amnesty that permitted illegal immigrants to gain lawful status and eventual citizenship. Bush may have begun to crack the unholy triple alliance of blacks, Hispanics and single women that anchors the political base of the Democratic Party. These three groups accounted for 54 percent of John Kerry’s vote on Tuesday even though they cast only about one-third of the total vote in the election. Bush still lost blacks by 89-11. He lost single women by 64-36 (while carrying married women by 9 points), but his gains among Hispanics permitted him to win the election anyway."

The Hispanic Vote Elects Bush
PUERTO RICO HERALD: Many Hispanic Voters Skeptical On Bush's Promise
Kerry Has Strong Advantage Among Latino Voters (washingtonpost.com)
Hispanic vote key to Bush win
NPR : Kerry Woos Hispanic Vote; Bush Up Next
VDARE.com: 11/10/04 - Bush Didn't Win 44% of Hispanic Vote - The ...
VDARE.com: 12/09/04 - NRO Rebunks Bush’s Hispanic Share Myth
Richard Nadler on Hispanic Vote & Election 2004 on National Review ...
CNN.com - Kerry, Bush, court Hispanic voters - May 5, 2004
Bush, Kerry try to swing Hispanic vote in their direction - 04/13/04

2006: When DFA Could Really Grow

Dean has the national name recognition that not even John Edwards has. Dean is no vanilla Democrat, unlike the likes of Kerry and Edwards, neither of which are in any position to lead the charge: Edwards is thoroughly out of power, Kerry is in the Senate. Dean is the only Democrat who could lead the charge for 2006. DNC Chairs are not usually known to lead a congressional effort, but these are challenging times. Budget deficits have gone amok. The War On Terror seems to be going nowhere. (3 Bomb Blasts Each: London, Delhi, Jordan) The Democrats are absolutely, totally out of power. And Dean can do better than Gingrich did for his party precisely because Dean will not be running for House Majority Leader or for Senate Majority Leader. Dean is it, there is no other.

Howard Dean should lead the effort for the Democrats to regain control of both the House and the Senate and a majority of the Governorships. One leader, one 10 point program. It is key that all Democrats running for Congress in 2006 come around to one agreed upon 10 point program. As to what shape and form that will be can be discussed. But once it has been decided upon, that is the party manifesto.

Money, message and organization.

Dean has come up with this wonderful idea, that 2 million Democrats across the country sign up to automatically give $20 a month to the party, kind of like paying one of your smaller utility bills, or something like that. This has to be implemented full force.

The message is the 10 point program.

And Dean can bring something to the fight noone else can. Lord, thy name is DFA. Yes, Democracy For America. DFA needs to approach the 2006 elections like it were the presidential election. 2006 is the real thing, but it is also the dress rehearsal for 2008. With the Supreme Court having gone conservative for a generation, the Democrats need to be taking and keeping the White House and the Congress for a generation. The founding white men called it balance of power.

2006 is a kickass opportunity for the DFA. We really could expand. 2008 is the year when America the republic becomes America the democracy. 2008 will be more like 1776 than any year in between. This is a gigantic opportunity. This is going to be historic. And DFA needs to kick into gear in 2006. The future is now.

Expansion is about applying the one-person-one-vote-one-voice concept. Everything you need at the grassroots to launch and grow your DFA chapter, you already have it. This is to be a bottom up approach.

Use Blogger to the max. Solo blogs, Linkup blogs, group blogs. Expand your personal network as much as possible within the DFA. Get invited to blogs with like minded themes. Definitely have more than one blog, many more. Every level of your organization should have a blog of its own. That is your 24/7 virtual office, kind of. Use audio, and video as well. This is what they call the new media. 2008 is to be the first new media election in history. Prepare.

DFNYC TV, DFNYC Wiki
Blogging Is Scalable Media
The One Voice Concept
Don't Need To Wait Till 2008
One Blog One LinkUp One Atom
More On Organization
An Email From Headquarters
DFA Organization Framework
DFNYC Research And Advocacy Group
The Three Pillars

Not long ago I wrote my first draft of the 10 point program. (Ferrer Gets Aggressive At A Ferrer Fundraiser) I still think it is a decent framework. But it needs a lot of work put into it.

1. Balance the budget.
2. Have an exit strategy for Iraq.
   
3. Proactively spread democracy to win the War on Terror.
   
4. Tax cuts for the middle class.
5. Raise taxes on the top 1%.
   
6. No pension for George W.
   
7. Enhance quality of public education.
8. Health care reform: introduce market forces into the sector so it gets into a position to take a lead on adopting information technology. Universal insurance coverage for all children.
   
9. Focus on universal wireless broadband like they built the interstate highways a few decades back.
   
10. Campaign finance reform, electoral reform.

Team, let's expand.

# of members: 9706

# of new members today : 29

# of groups: 561

The Spectrum/Dialogue Concept Is Key To Power

Of all the concepts I have been cultivating at this blog, the spectrum/dialogue concept might be the most important. Progressives lose power because we don't handle the business of social change skillfully. Conservatives have it easy: they just fall back into past patterns. We have to constantly be digging new ground.

The litmus test concept does not serve well. Either you are good or bad. Either you are racist or not racist, sexist or not sexist, homophobic or not homophobic. This concept is in vogue. And it ends up hurting us electorally. The concept does not speak to the richness of social change. Social change is not a multiple choice question for most people. Most people feel like wherever they stand on race and gender is where the center of the known universe is, and no further conversation is necessary.

So what is the spectrum/dialogue concept? I have touched upon it, but I have not had a chance to elaborate on it. And I don't think I am quite yet ready to truly elaborate it, but I will try and offer a glimpse.

Let me build the first draft of a spectrum on race.

(10) You are the Buddha of race relations. You have attained enlightenment. You have an intimate knowledge of the entire spectrum. But you are safely ensconced at 10. You have a deep knowledge of cultural diversity, and race relations history. You have seen where it all came from, you know where it is going. You are the ultimate. You literally have zero racism in your heart and mind. You can really see individuals for who they are. You have an in-depth knowledge of the collective identities of individuals from all sorts of backgrounds. You are it. People like you are rare. Maybe you are the only one. Cultural and racial diversity to you is like the physical universe to Einstein. Your heart and mind soars with it.

(9) You are more numerous than the 10s. You are near enlightenment. You have taken care of the heart part. But you still have a lot of work to do at the level of the mind. You do not have an iota of hate or discomfort that can be called racial. But your knowledge has some major gaps. You might never become a 10, but you are never going to stop working towards it either.

(8) You are totally cool with diversity. You are so cool, it is not even an issue. Some of your closest bosom bodies just so happen to be from different backgrounds. You are so politically correct, you don't really work it, it just comes to you. You live in a town or city with a liberal reputation. You just naturally gravitated. Discussions on race relations to you are no different from discussions on social security or medicare. You don't fear the Chinese and the Indians. You have family members who are from other backgrounds, and they get bored when you try to discuss race. They are not white, but they are not into it. They would rather discuss movies and sports, even the news. But there is a lot you don't know. You do speak a second language. But you have not been to every country on the planet, for one. You are a political progressive, way out there, but that does not mean you have a rich knowledge of the backgrounds of all those people you don't dislike or don't hate. Genuine cultural differences in attitudes sometimes catch you off guard, and you get thrown off balance.

(7) Dating people from other backgrounds is no big deal to you. But your closest friends just so happen to be white because well, at college, most people just so happened to be white. It was statistical.

(6) You sing all the right tunes on policy. But you are not sure if America should some day stop being the superpower. At some level you have that discomfort. You feel a little insecure when you look at the economic growth rate numbers for China. But black folks are cool. You like rap.

(5) You vote Democratic, but you are borderline or race. It is not like there are major policy stands you take that make people suspicious. It is in your social choices and attitudes and in your blatant ignorance. You hang out with the 4s and the 6s. You feel like you are truly the center of the universe on race. Those lefty loonies drive you nuts. If they had their way, all the white women would marry all the black men they could find, and there would be no women left. But you are a big fan of FDR, the Kennedys, MLK, the whole stock of them. You say you are liberal on social issues. You are even for affirmative action.

(4) You make it a point to tell people you are not a racist. The generation before you might have been, but times have changed, and you have too. You even have a few black friends. And you tell people that is so. But if there was ever an ideologue against affirmative action, that is you. You are ahead of the curve on that one. You are so anti-racism, that you are anti-affirmative action, you tell people. Physical segregation is over and you are glad it is over, but you practice social segregation, only you don't have the vocabulary for it. You are Republican, but then so is Colin Powell, you tell people.

(3) You think hate crimes are illegal, and hate speech is indecent. And you don't have the time for it anyways. But you have really weird ideas about what people from other backgrounds are like. You think Africans live in the trees, and the Chinese are out to take over the world, that is why there is Walmart. If there is a stereotype out there, you subscribe to it. You don't necessarily avoid people from other backgrounds, but when you do and ask them questions so as to learn more about them, they are really amused every single time. They can't believe the words that come out of your mouth. And you learned about the Eskimos from comic books a long time ago.

(2) You don't commit hate crimes, because you don't like the idea of jail time. But you just can't stand them. What you can not in terms of hate crimes, you compensate for in the form of hate speech. You don't socialize with the "other." You don't like it when anyone you know socializes with the "other." And you make yourself heard.

(1) You commit hate crimes. You think of committing hate crimes. You speak hate words in every other sentence. You blame the "other" for all your private and not so private shortcomings. When you are in the presence of the "other," you might as well be on another planet. And it does not feel exotic to you. You cringe. You dislike. You hate. You give money to hate groups. You attend secret meetings. You maintain hate websites. You are probably a Nazi. You dislike people from other backgrounds so much you also, by extension, dislike women in general. You avoid sunlight. You have few friends, all of whom are also at this end of the spectrum. You fear the white race might go extinct. And if it were not for your various nefarious efforts, it just might. You are on a historic mission. This is a do or die struggle for very survival. You hope future generations will appreciate your efforts even though you don't feel awfully popular among the current breed of folks. You think the federal government is a conspiracy.

What are the lessons to draw? It is not black and white, it is an entire spectrum. A few people might jump from 4 to 7, but most people will only go up one ladder at a time. That really helps manage change. And every 10 years or so, the spectrum will look different. And there is no one diagram for the spectrum. You could write down your version of what you think the spectrum is. Or you could modify my version. It is all open source.

For electoral reasons, you draw it in a way that if you get all the people from 5-10 to vote for you, you win a majority. That is key to near permanent power.

Once you get the basics right, you can then think of ways to accelerate the upward mobility of the population. And there is a lot of room for innovation and creativity there. Like a lot.

What is the dialogue concept? It is not easy to get people to talk about race. Just to get them talking is a challenge. But get to it. That is how you decide where they fall on the spectrum. That is the first part.

The second part is I am proposing dialogue is the best, most productive way to help people move up the ladder. This is not about convincing people, or pushing them. This is about plugging them, this is about helping them help themselves.

Is dialogue the only way? No. Is dialogue the best way? No. Sometimes you just have to draw the boundaries, and uninvite people from your personal space. If you want them out of your face, you want them out of your face.

Dialogue is not recommended in the case of hate crimes. You call the police.

I hope someone draws the first draft of the spectrum on gender. And perhaps a spectrum on internalized racism and sexism.