DFNYC, 100,000 Strong, Scalable Organization

Money, Message, Organization
Does Hell Have A Kitchen?
2006: When DFA Could Really Grow
Blogging Is Scalable Media
The One Voice Concept
One Blog One LinkUp One Atom

If you can not register, you can not vote, at least not in this country. In Nepal, you don't have to register, you just show up at the booth. I think the system in Nepal is superior. Democracy is about having no barriers between the voter and the booth. Correct that. All that was before the king's coup of 2/1.

If you will not get a Blogger account, you can not participate in the one voice concept. It is like registering. But then universal blogging also makes possible two other things, among others: (1) scalable media, and (2) scalable organization.

I have talked about scalable media earlier: Blogging Is Scalable Media.

In this blog post I wish to touch upon the concept of a scalable organization.

Say we are serious about taking the Congress back in 2006 - I know I am - and we wish DFNYC to grow accordingly. What would be the best way to do it? What would be the best way to grow from 100 to 1,000 to 10,000 to 100,000? Is there a point where it becomes too much for the central leadership? With the traditional way of organizing you do reach that point pretty fast. With the scalable organization concept, you never hit that point. The smallest unit can keep splitting like amoeba endlessly and the organization stays healthy and vibrant like there were no bricks in the sink.

About 10 members form the basic unit. It could be a LinkUp, it could be a House Party group. As soon as they hit 20, they split into two. The idea is that the leader should get to know each member of the group very well, and members should get to know each other very well. This is more than collecting people for free, slave labor of phone banking and knocking doors. This is more than a political unit. This is a social unit. This is community building.

Face time for the unit is when you meet in person, once a month. Additional events are optional. Screen time is screen time. And blogging is key to it. All 10 members are members of one blog.

One Blog One LinkUp One Atom

From there you go vertical. You build a pyramid of 10. And at each level there is one monthly meeting for Face Time, and there is one common blog. The leader of a 5 deep organization might choose to attend meetings of only the two top layers. That would be a valid choice.

That is the framework for a scalable organization, scalable both horizontally and vertically. And all along the organization stays kind of structureless. There is no pyramid. Instead there is a cloud. And it is set up such that the best ideas could come up from absolutely anywhere.

How do the best ideas rise to the top? There are two obvious channels. One, the leader at one level takes it up one step, and so on. Two, the author of the idea takes it to the comments section of the person whose attention she seeks.

And the idea of blogging the echo chamber. Say DFNYC goes 100,000 strong. But then New York is already a progressive city. Don't you end up spending all your time converting the converted? Not if you blog the echo chamber, no, you don't.

100,000 progressives attending monthly meetings and vibrant in a cloud of blogs that are all connected to each other will impact the nation. You cross the city boundaries without physically bothering to.

Say at the top you have the 10 central leaders. In Nepal the communists would call it the Politburo. I don't mind if we come up with a different name. The clique? The den? The beauty of the scalable organization model is these 10 individuals do not have to work 1,000 times harder by the time the organization grows from 100 to 100,000. Because the organization is scalable. It is like Microsoft producing the first copy of Windows. The first copy is a lot of work. After that it is endless replication.

I really think I got something here.

And if each of those 100,000 individuals sign up to give $10 to the DNC each month through the Democracy Bonds program, that is $1 million for power purposes. If that can be replicated in the top 10 cities, that is $10 million. Looks like the organization is not only scalable, but also duplicable.

And once you really get this thing going, you make possible all sorts of organizing and community building. For example, I envision an Indian Caucus, as in Asian Indians, although the Native Americans get called that because when Columbus landed, it all looked so beautiful to him, he felt he was in India. Indians could reach out across geographical boundaries and create a separate semi virtual pyramid of 10. The same applies to other possible groups, and not just ethnic groups. Could be issue groups. Could be interest groups. It is upto the imagination of the members as to what groups.

What say you?

And there could be one blog for all city and town groups in one state, then one blog with 50 members for the 50 states. The existing sites, be it DFA, DFA Link, even the DFNYC site, are like a skeleton. This concept adds flesh to the skeleton. The two don't go counter to each other. And Blogger is free and so easy to use, it goes with the democracy theme. We have to be constantly thinking about the average person.

Money, Message, Organization

Money

Dean's got a great idea. The Democratic Party should seek to be funded solely by small contributions. That is the best way to get money out of politics short term.

$10 a month by a million people is $10 million for the party. Two million people is twice as much. We do have that many core supporters. They just are not roped in and organized yet.

Message

One word: progressive.
One phrase: People Power.

Message is something you work on constantly. What will sound great today will have become out of date in five years. The basic theme will still be democracy, but the presentation will have to change.

This is not a top down mechanism. For the message part, the organization is a cloud. The best ideas could come from anywhere. That is one phase of it, when you are still trying to figure things out. But once you have figured it out, there has to be discipline. We will have to have talking points. We will have to learn to stay on message. We will need a rapid response mechanism. (The One Voice Concept)

I wrote my first draft of a proposed 10 point program. (2006: When DFA Could Really Grow) Everyone is welcome to write down their own 10 point program. By the time we are ready to go out to take back the Congress, there should be only one draft left, the final draft of a 10 point program.

Here is my first draft of a five point program.

1. Balance the budget by having the top 5% pay 40, 39, 38, 37 and 36 per cent respectively.
   
2. A clear exit strategy for Iraq such that US troops get phased out and Iraqi troops step in. Proactively spread democracy the progressive way to win the War On Terror.
   
3. Universal health insurance for all children. And health care reform to introduce the market forces in the health care sector. You measure that by the adoption of information technology by the sector in all aspects of its operations. Bring the costs down for everybody.
   
4. Universal, quality, well funded public education, replete with testing but not limited to it or by it. Federally funded scholarships for the top students in all public schools to be able to attend private schools. Expand college financial aid. Collaborate with the private sector to make textbooks available online for free, ad-based. Collaborate with the private sector to introduce ad-based, free, universal wireless broadband.
   
5. Campaign finance reform, electoral reform. End voter intimidation and fraud.
   

Organization

This is key. Money and message flow out of a sound organization. I think we need to be thinking something akin to corporate mergers. I wonder if it is not time to merge DFA into DNC. As someone said last night, we have the top, and we have the bottom, now let's go get the middle.

But even if we don't merge, we need to work in synergy. There is this thing at the DFNYC site that I really dig. People can list events. And it all gets displayed in a chronological order. There has to be this one place online where all progressive events get listed. Hosts can decide if they should be open or closed or whatever. I think last night's meeting was great.

Do events, blog events. I can not emphasize this enough, especially for New York City Dems. Turn it into one big reality show, because there is an audience out there. Otherwise we spend too much of our time preaching to the converted. Like I say, blog the echo chamber and it is no echo chamber no more.

Organization is an ongoing challenge. We will perfect it as we go along.

The "I" Word: Monica And Saddam

Bill Clinton is Pele, someone like him comes along one in a generation perhaps. The guy is good. He was a scholarship student at Georgetown, at Oxford, at Yale Law School. He was a lower middle class person from Arkansas. He persevered.

Ken Starr came after him like a bad dream. Ken Starr destroyed lives. If you were Bill Clinton's friend in Arkansas Ken Starr was going to come after you. Scores got bankrupted, many went to jail because they would not give false testimony to lend credibility to Ken Starr's false stories and charges. Clinton got hounded. His wife got threatened with jail time.

A less lucky Martha Stewart did serve time. She got accused of a wrongdoing that she was never charged with. Instead the prosecutors claimed she lied at one point during her defense. One young white boy from Wall Street testified against her claiming he feared for his life. Martha Stewart is a gutsy, talented, rare, successful woman who got run down by a small bunch of insignificant white boy prosecutors who could not come up with an original thought even if they tried over a lifetime.

Michael Jackson was another person who was recently hounded by prosecutors. The more false details you can make up along the way, the longer the story lives. At the end of the day you are proven not guilty, but the prosecutors get to violate your privacy left, right and center in the mean time. And the crowd gets entertained.

Clinton will tell you of an Arakansas bias. Why did Dukakis not pick him in 1988? Martha is a woman, Michael in black.

Ken Starr was an ideologue. He would stop at nothing. He had limitless supplies of money from the taxpayers. He was going witch hunting. To the crowd it was entertainment. The plot seemed to have endless twists and turns. He hounded Clinton's friends and family with the passion of a Third World dictator. It was rule of law gone berserk.

And Monica happened. Something had to give in. It concluded in impeachment hearings.

Saddam tried to get Bush Sr. killed. Bush Jr. did not like it. I would not either if I were him.

And the Iraq War happened. Only this time you are looking at $200 billion, 2000 American lives, and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, a nuclear North Korea, and a near nuclear Iran. Who tampered with the intelligence? Was stuff cooked? Was the country deliberately misled in the runup to the war?

Time to say the "I" word?

Howard Dean Is No Pacifist
3 Bomb Blasts Each: London, Delhi, Jordan
Bloomberg: No Mr. Security

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.

3 Bomb Blasts Each: London, Delhi, Jordan

Delhi Bomb Blasts

The Al Qaeda fights a war of asymmetry. And it likes to leave its signature at the crime scene. There is talk the work in London was a few disenchanted homegrown youths, that the work in Delhi was just a few Kashmiri separatists. I for one don't buy into those explanations.

The pattern is too obviuos. Three blasts in close coordination to each other.

And they like the element of surprise. London was unexpected. Delhi was unexpected. Jordan was not exactly considered a target country.

The bad news seems to be the Al Qaeda is very much alive. That is what I read.

Saddam was a jerk and I am glad he is gone. And I am all about spreading democracy. But with $200 billion you could spread democracy into literally every country on the planet, if you do it the progressive way.

But America did not go into Iraq for democracy or for Saddam. America went in to fight the War on Terror. If so, why is the Al Qaeda still so strong?

When bird flu surfaces, you throw smallpox medicine at it, because that is all you have in the stocks. That is what Bush did. He waged his War On Terror like the Al Qaeda were a standing army. Big mistake.

The Al Qaeda is not a standing army. And it prefers to fight the war of fundamental asymmetry.
The number one emphasis should be to infiltrate the Al Qaeda. Human intelligence will do the work. Fancy satellites can not do it. Perhaps throw in a few thousand Arab-looking, Arab-speaking spies amidst their ranks. Penetrate.

Getting Osama is still key. Bush talks like it does not matter if Osama is still at large or not. The point is not only is he still at large, but that guy seems to be able to strike with eery regularity. Bush sounds too eager to congratulate himself on a victory he never achieved.

But all military counter strikes will do no good if there is no fundamental strategy to ensure a total spread of democracy in the Arab world. There is a reason why most of the 9/11 strikers were from the Saudi Arabia. Democracy is so totally absent in that country, all its oil wealth does not seem to be able to channel its people's energies to productive use.

And after the Arab world, China inevitably crops up on the map. There I think the best strategy might be to (1) engage China to the max economically and diplomatically, and (2) try and arrange a soft landing for the Chinese Communist Party such that they remain the largest party within a multi-party framework. But there is no avoiding China. If you bungle, you are looking at the threat of a possible hot war. That is a huge no-no.

America fought World War II against the fascists and the Nazis and democracy got spread in Europe and Japan. America fought the Cold War and democracy got spread in the Russia and that bloc. Now the War on Terror is about spreading democracy in the Arab world.

You can wait until you get hit. Or you can proactively spread democracy, wage a non stop war with communications technology and minimize casualties.

The Al Qaeda is very much at work. That is the bad news. The worse news is Bush and his cronies do not comprehend the virus, and are not even attempting to come up with a new antibiotic. They talk tough but deliver not.