New York City's Progressive Galaxy

New York City's Progressive Galaxy

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

I forgave Dan Jacoby. He is a court clown. Lewis Cohen tries to be.

I am eager to give Heather Woodfield a fresh start to our political relationship as long as she agrees to sit on the Women's Revolution Committee. The only thing wrong about your trying to hook me up with an Asian is just like you can't imagine a dozen wise Indian men finding a man for you, my idea is two people hook up on their own or not, otherwise we Asians are all the rage. Heather knows a lot of nuts and bolts of politics, besides she is from Howard Dean's home state. Dean is all the rage.

Tracey Denton, social butterfly, tries to be extra respectful of people. I think because of her Republican family background she feels the need to be extra nice to the traditionally Democrats. I don't know if she lives in Europe these days or what, but if she does, she should never stop telecommuting into the NYC political scene. If I can telecommute from NYC to Nepal, she can telecommute from Brussels to NYC.

I am the other way round. I start with distrust for white guys. Some of them go on to earn my respect.

Abhishek Mistry is the smart Asian, it is not me. I disapprove of stereotypes.

Charles knows a ton about Indira Gandhi.

Leila Noor is like Barack, she is both. She has a great sense of empathy and a rather huge mailing list. She is more political than she makes out to be. She is friends with the next Mayor of the city, looks like. She is a focal point to many black politicians in the city, people like Hakeem and Karim.

Delilah Rothenberg is a white person absolutely, totally fascinated by Africa. How often does that happen?

Justin Krebs has extreme social intelligence: it is an extreme sport for him. He learns names like he were trying to acquire vocabulary for the SAT.

Negina Fersad is funny as hell, especially when she is talking about nuclear energy. She is Persian cute too. I told you, we Asians are all the rage. By the way, she also makes fun of her sex life.

Kristina Hoke is "one smart cookie." But I hear she retired. I hope she comes to sit on the Women's Revolution Committee, and brings Liz along. Ben needs a Jerry.

Lee Motayed is a cutie. I told you we Asians are all the rage.

Dan Berger has sharper emotional intelligence than Justin Krebs, but the dude is a Jihadi. He tries to invade your privacy with the passion of a Jihadi. Each attempt shrinks his space. And you don't get along with me by suggesting Rangel is a bigger deal than I am.

Mike Lupinachi has great killer instincts. He has good martial intelligence. He can shift through the terrain in a fight and come out intact.

David Pollak hovers over the entire scene like Santa, quietly understanding and appreciating everyone's impulses. People who fight each other all relate to him one on one. He takes in the unfolding scene like a Supreme Court Justice.

Me? I am ether. I am everywhere. It is called having a blog, it is called being a digital democrat. I am a Third World guy on a mission.

But ultimately it is the queen we all respond to. Things fall apart when the center can not hold. She is "clean. I frisked him." People are clay, she makes pots out of them.

Long live the progressive political religion. We are the New York Mafia, here to take over the world.


Trying To Become More Social

Naturally I am bubbley and excited socially. But the first two plus years into the city I did intense work for Nepal. It was urgent. The country was on fire. And the work ended up being amazing. Then I coasted along to do some good work for Obama.

All that 2.0 work cost me dearly socially. But now I am trying to become social. I am trying to meet and greet and get to know people. When you step out of the dark, you start with squinty eyes. Right now I got squinty eyes.

I don't ask for forgiveness. It is the other way round. I forgive you for not getting involved when I was doing urgent work for Nepal.

Blueprint For DL21C: Party Inside A Party

At a gay rights event on the Upper West a few months before he became state party chair, Dave Pollak suggested I do it and I produced this: Democratic Vision For The 21st Century. I emailed it to him the following morning.

DL21C is the top political organization in the city. It is just that Charlie Rangel is not in my political league, who the fuck is Dan Berger? (Madhesi Movement Victory In Nepal, Don't Forget Burma, Pay Attention To China, Yellow Rose, Eliot Spitzer Needs To Go Into Business With Me, Barack In Town With South Asians For Obama: March 27, The First Major Revolution Of The 21st Century Happened In Nepal) Don't you threaten me?

I think the DL21C Chair should gun for running for President Of The United States. If you can run the top political organization in the top progressive city in the country, the world, why can't you run a country? Maybe not now, but down the line. Barack will get his eight years, then it is an open field.

I carry 10,000 years of male guilt. I am ready for a woman president.

In this post, I will touch upon mainly on organization.

2016 will surely be a broadband election, likely a wireless broadband election. Media as we know it today will not be there. Anyone running for president will have to be their own media for a big part.

DL21C has to become a completely digital organization. Every event has to be videoblogged. And it is okay, actually desirable to have more than one video blogger in attendance. This is key. This might be the single biggest step the DL21C could take at this stage. It is so easy to do, hosting is free. Anyone can purchase a video camera for a few hundred bucks. Many people already own one.

Then the DL21C also has to move to videoblog many of its internal meetings. Ordinary members should be able to see how events are planned. You got to open things up.

New York City is a very special place. When you organize a political event here, you can assume there is a national, global audience for it. All the fancy guests you bring, but if you don't videoblog the events, I am like, what a waste.

The Facebook page for the organization is impressive: Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century. There are almost 600 members. It is amazing to me how many of them are women. But so few of them show up for events. At some point these women will come out of the closet. That also goes on to show traditionally excluded groups of people find the digital tools of involvement very appealing. It is egalitarian to go digital.

If there had been online video for all past DL21C events, can you imagine what that would have meant? Granted online video did not exist in 1993 or even 2003, but just a thought.

DL21C organizes great events, but it can not stick to only organizing events. There is an urgent need for an online think tank. And this would be almost entirely online. You would use Blogger, word processing for the internet age. Here, the key thing would be to employ the spectrum concept.

Health Care As A Spectrum
The Spectrum Concept: Wide Applications
The Spectrum On Gender
The Spectrum/Dialogue Concept Is Key To Power

You build a spectrum on all policy issues: education, health, you name it. The spectrum idea is that if you can rope in people from 5 to 10, you got a majority. The idea is to try and build a permanent progressive majority. People at the cutting edge can do all the cutting edge work they want to do, but those who run for office take people from 5 to 10 on each spectrum along with them.

This think tank would be run by the DL21C central chapter in New York City, but it will be peopled by members across the country. There would be a special effort to dig into the top academic institutions across the country.

You build a robust, local template, and then you work to set up a chapter each in the largest city in each state. All the top elected officials in the state should think it an honor to show up for a DL21C event. And the entire time you are building this huge online video library of their appearances.

Money, Message, Organization

Organization would be the 50 plus DL21C chapters across the country. Message would be the think tank. Money will be raised online aplenty. Look at my boy Barack, he seems to be doing just fine. In my personal capacity, I take my company public. Right now I am busy assembling my tech team in Mumbai, NYC's sister city.

We go take the White House. We start by lifting the DL21C ban on me. I should be able to go to all DL21C events I might want to go to. I would like to start with the event on April 1. Mr. Pollak, Chairman, Sir, can you help?

Tuesday, April 1

7:00 pm

Superdelegates: A Foolish or Smart Solution to the Democratic Nomination Battle?
Location TBD

Please RSVP!

My take on the situation: A Model Primary Season.





Visits on previous 'day': 437.

Don't Forget Burma, Pay Attention To China

Anti-China Protests Escalate in Nepal Voice of America

This Will Also Go To Waste

This uprising in Tibet and elsewhere is also on schedule to going to waste for lack of political clarity. Political leadership is lacking. The uprising in Burma went to waste last year.

Street Action: Where The Action Is

People come out in the streets, and next thing you know the White House is paying attention, the Prime Minister of Britain is paying attention. A few weeks later when the streets go empty, those people then move on to other things, whatever is now in the headlines.

Street action is the dog that wags the tail.

Tibetan Diaspora Is Not Acting Right

I am a Buddhist. I think the world of His Holiness. He is better than the Pope. He is better than any mullah or pastor on earth. He is better than Jeremiah Wright, no offense to Barack. But he is a spiritual leader, he is a religious leader. He is not a political leader. His remark that Mao treated him "like a son" tells me all I need to know about him politically.

The Tibetan diaspora has to enact the church and state separation. The political leadership has to be elected every four years or so. The political leadership can not be someone born to it.

This uprising has not been the handiwork of the Tibetan diaspora. This has been homegrown and spontaneous. But it is true the diaspora is working in close coordination.

Seek Allies

Tibet's number one potential ally is Taiwan. If Tibet and Taiwan can together come around to a common goal of a federal, multi-party China of state funded parties, the rest of China will follow them.

Imagining A Federal, Multi-Party China Of State Funded Parties

Make Use Of The Olympics

Let 2008 be that year when China wakes up to itself as the world wakes up to China. Strike when the iron is hot, or when the world is paying attention.





In The News

Bush calls Hu to urge Tibet talks BBC News The anti-China protests began on 10 March ..... The Tibetan government-in-exile says about 140 people have been killed ..... the delay in Mr Bush's response is a measure of how delicate relations are between the US and China - two countries whose huge economies are deeply interlinked. ...... French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also called for dialogue over Tibet - adding he had not ruled out boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games being held in China in August. ..... Bush will attend the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
European Leaders Press China Over Tibet New York Times
Nepal Police Break Up Tibetan Protest Voice of America Police in Nepal armed with batons dispersed a protest Tuesday by Tibetan refugees and monks in front of the Chinese Embassy.

Pitt And Jolie Related To Obama And Clinton? San Francisco Chronicle, USA Brad Pitt can trace his family tree back to Barack Obama and Angelina Jolie can follow hers to Hillary Clinton ..... Obama is a distant cousin of Pitt ..... Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, as are Clinton and Jolie, twice removed.

Obama Warms to Wrapping Up Contest New York Times and has been adding more superdelegates to his column at a faster clip than she has .... Clinton, meanwhile, has indicated that she is willing to slug it out for the nomination through the summer ...... Nor did he get much writing done, as he had said he had hoped; instead he said he enjoyed reading a book, Philip Roth’s latest novel, “Exit Ghost.”

Barack Obama talks about his church, the Rev. Wright and his mom Los Angeles Times, USA Wright gave at least three sermons a week for 30 years ..... she was "not a believer."

Obama took the risk to confront race relations in America San Francisco Chronicle
Obama bounces back - speech seemed to help San Francisco Chronicle
Clinton stokes Obama pastor row amid Bosnia embarrasment AFP
Clinton criticizes Obama over his pastor's inflammatory words Boston Globe
Clinton Would Have Left Obama's Pastor The Associated Press
The GOP attack plan for Hillary Clinton Salon former GOP Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, shooting pumpkins in his backyard to prove Vince Foster was murdered by White House hit men. Or the $50 million Whitewater investigation, which dragged the country through six years of political turmoil ..... former Sen. Trent Lott, musing publicly that "maybe lightning will strike" Clinton before she could be sworn in to the Senate in 2001. ...... Republicans are digging deep into Obama's past now, ready to chip away at any warm feelings about him voters may still retain after a bruising primary. ....... McCain's campaign will call her a liberal and paint her support for ending the war in Iraq as a surrender to terrorists (the same strategy they'd use against Obama)


I Will Take Brad Pitt Over Dick Cheney Any Day

Pitt And Jolie Related To Obama And Clinton? San Francisco Chronicle, USA Brad Pitt can trace his family tree back to Barack Obama and Angelina Jolie can follow hers to Hillary Clinton ..... Obama is a distant cousin of Pitt ..... Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, as are Clinton and Jolie, twice removed.

Somebody - has to be some Republican, a Hillary Republican - somewhere along the way revealed Barack is a distant cousin of Dick Cheney and we have been suffering since. We lost New Hampshire, we did not do as well in New York City as I thought we might. People don't like Dick Cheney around here.

This contest was supposed to be over in January. Then I thought we might wrap it up on February 5. Did not happen. Then I thought March 4. Did not happen. I am blaming Dick Cheney. Otherwise we have had the money, the message, the man. What else do we need?

We lost Ohio. Who do you think is responsible? Two whisper campaigns did us in. One that Barack is a Muslim, another that he is a Dick Cheney cousin. The Muslim thing you can discount, especially now that everyone knows he has had a Christian pastor for over 20 years. But how do you make Dick Cheney go away? It is not true that Barack is a Muslim. But it is true that Dick Cheney is a distant cousin of Barack. That is not a notion you can hope to dispel.

So far I have kind of kept a distance from Barack, otherwise I have a feeling he might be my cousin too through his sister Maya. I mean, I did like the idea of being related to Barack, but I was wary of his Dick Cheney baggage. If Barack is my distant cousin, is Dick Cheney also my distant cousin. I can't stand the thought. I am not for that much mingling of the races. That would be a little too much for me.

But now I am kind of warming up to Barack after this Brad Pitt revelation. I would not mind having Brad Pitt in the family. I think he is a decent guy. What do you think?