I touched upon some details in this blog post that can disconcert people. But there is a method to the madness. It is a political decision.
Reshma 2010 makes me wants to think of big issues like the mass rapes in Liberia. The Second Avenue subway line is too small an issue by my standards. I want to think about big issues. I want to think about global issues. I feel lucky to be in New York City. Global issues are local to New York City politics. I absolutely love that.
When the democracy movement was ongoing in Burma a few years back, I made a point to read up on the gory details. The regime was killing people in the streets, taking the bodies away, and burning them. I was hungry for all details to do with that.
The issue I think about a lot as I volunteer for Reshma 2010 is that of the global trafficking of women.
Frankly talking about small, unpleasant details from my personal story helps me retain the political boldness to learn up on the gory details of the ugly realities out there that might have political solutions.
Making The Blues Go Away
But my personal pain is real. And I have decided to work extra hard to make it go away, to manage it.
Rigorous socializing. Instead of spending all my time on the phone while in the office, I think I should spend some of my time just shooting the breeze, swapping stories, getting to know the staffers and interns. I have learned many of their names, but I have not gotten to know them well. That is not good.
Rigorous blogging. Blogging is workout for the mind.
The idea is not to make the memories go away, but to train yourself to the point the memories are still there, but they no longer bother you emotionally. The more ambitious thing to do is to turn it all into fuel.
I have thought in terms of writing a very raw 1,000 page autobiography and publishing it online myself. I might do that at some point.
By the time Obama 2008 was claiming the crown in May 2008, the Obama positivity was doing wonderful things for me personally already. I was looking at my 1989 from another angle. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. I never went to Harvard. That makes me one better in the out of the box thinking department.
I have a feeling Reshma 2010 might take me to that state as well. If it does, it is going to feel like reclaiming lost ground.
I was not living in the city at the time, I was about nine months away from moving in. I was in town for a few days, staying with someone in Chinatown.
I remember exactly where I was. I was at Grand Central near the newspaper store. I overheard two women excitedly talk about the guy. I am not much of a TV guy, so I had not watched any of the ongoing speeches at the Democratic Convention. These two white women looked comfortable about how he looked, but they were more excited about what he had said. Whoever this guy was, he was some sort of an arrival. I sensed that before I learned his name, before I saw his face. I immediately walked over to a newspaper stand. There he was pointing his finger into the crowd like in a famous JFK picture. I dropped the rest of my plans for the day and headed straight home. I looked up his speech online and I watched it. I did what I do when I come across a really good music video. I watched it again and again and again. The speech was nothing short of mesmerizing. (Go Outside: Cults)
For the next few days I went all over town taking pictures of anything and everything. The person I was staying with worked at Goldman Sachs. A high school classmate was at Citi. I did go to the many of the tourist spots, but for me it was not about that. The entire city was one big tourist spot for me. (The Al Qaeda, Internet, Globalization)
I would take hundreds of pictures, come back home, download, go back out, take hundreds more pictures. The MTA ran a major loss on my weekly metro pass for those few days. The following evening I got told that a few police officers showed up at the door, they were let in, they walked to the roof, then walked back down and went away.
Soon after Tom Ridge issued an alert. A few days later Bill Clinton went ahead and had a heart attack. John Kerry is the first presidential candidate in history not to have received a bounce from his convention.
Bill Clinton tried very hard to get Hillary to run in 2004, but she refused. That is when I knew she was never going to be president. To be fair to Hillary, I would say the same thing about Obama. If he had not run in 2008, he was just another Evan Bayh, just another pretty face. The world does not run on your schedule, it is the other way round. (Bush Is Anarchy, Hillary Is Monarchy)
There is a reason soccer players are no longer playing after a certain age. Bill Clinton played his last soccer game in 2004.
I love Barack Obama like a brother. We are both Deaniacs from 2004. My love for him is unconditional. Well, almost unconditional. He did need to win in 2008. But other than that he has not needed to do anything else for me.
The next time the police came four years later, it was still a three storey building. This time they did not go to the roof. They stopped on the third floor. Once they had me in their car, they asked, "Which way to the tunnel?" Was that supposed to have been an inside joke?
They both have engaged in unethical behavior. The House Ethics Committee has been too busy with Rangel, and so it has not had the time and resources to zero in on the fact that Maloney was raising Wall StPAC money the same time she was working on regulation efforts. Six other House members got caught in the net for similar behavior.
They are both old. They are both past retirement age. They have lost touch. Maloney has been there 18 years, Rangel has been there 80 years. That's enough. Now you are overstaying your welcome. It is time for a new generation to step in.
They have no new ideas. They offer no solutions. They are the problem. These are not exactly 21st century people.
So far I have refrained from digging into the details of the unfolding Rangel drama. I have not had the interest. I have had better things to do with my time. I noticed there was talk of some kind of a vacation home in the Dominican Republic, but that was in Fall 2008. He finally stepped down from whatever committee he was chairing in the House. Good for him.
Before I look into the details of the more than a dozen allegations against him, to me the political aspect is obvious. If the Rangel drama is going to play out in full view like it looks like is going to, the Dems just made their job of keeping the House that much harder. It was already a tough task to begin with. Why is the New York congressional delegation so intent on depriving my president of a House? This is no uncalled for.
I thought this guy had already announced a year before that he was not going to seek another term in office, he said he was too old. Can't dispute that. But looks like he has changed his mind.
The best thing politically for him and especially the party would have been if he just stepped down from the office. What's the pain in stepping down from an office a few months early?
I don't understand this behavior on the part of pols like Maloney who don't seem much interested in keeping the House for the Dems. Either that or she has a huge political blind spot. Neither look good.
This ethics trial will rob the Dems of much oxygen. They could have been talking about issues instead.
I am in disbelief with the stupidity, the political stupidity.
People like Maloney who feel loyal to Rangel should have been the first to ask him to vacate the premises. Leave office, go into retirement.
Starting from September 15, Reshma 2010 is going to join the national effort to keep the House. But that task just got so much harder. And so now I think I am going to be forced to read up on some of the details. This feels so unnecessary.
If the Rangel drama becomes too much of a distraction, the president should completely cut loose of him. Rangel should not be allowed to take away from Obama's intent to keep the House.
"I think Charlie Rangel served a very long time and served his constituents very well. But these allegations are very troubling. He’s somebody who’s at the end of his career. Eighty years old. I’m sure that what he wants is to be able to end his career with dignity. And my hope is that it happens."
President Barack Obama • Saying that Charlie Rangel should retire and just go away. The House ethics subcommittee has recommended a reprimand for Rangel, which would be light compared to the censure and expulsion he could get. Still, though, Rangel won’t admit his guilt and as a result is making the situation much worse for himself.
I dropped by the Reshma 2010 headquarters earlier in the evening to make some phone calls. Usually I email at least one person in the office about a day before. This time my email went to Art. You are trying to make sure they have a phone for you, and on Sundays I get my own computer, on other days they print out names and phone numbers for me. Making phone calls is a workout experience. (Freehand Exercise: 1,000 Push-Ups, 1,000 Squats, 1,000 Crunches) You get better at it over time. People feel the excitement in your voice and they are more likely to say yes, I am voting for her.
Reshma looked like all dressed up and ready to go and I assumed she must have an event to attend somewhere. You should watch her make some of her phone calls. She really gets into the conversation. She can sound so fresh talking to each voter.
And so I am making all these phone calls after phone calls and an hour into the phone calls I notice a copy of VogueIndia on the desk. Somebody had just come in and I thought maybe they brought that along. What caught my attention was Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai were on the cover of the magazine. A dot com I was part of for a little while in 1999 a year later did an event in NYC, and Aishwarya was the featured person at that event. No, I was not in town at the time. Julia Roberts has called Aishwarya the most beautiful woman in the world. My regard for Abhishek goes via Amitabh Bachchan, my very favorite actor. (Brazil And Argentina: My Choices And Those Of My Favorite Actor) But Abhishek has done some great work in his own right. (Saavn's Great Business Model For Movies)
There is no American equivalent to the Gandhi family of India. There is no American equivalent to Amitabh, although Al Pacino comes close. In terms of what they mean to the Indian imagination.
Ends up Reshma is featured in the same issue of Vogue India, the issue for July. It is a great write up. I kept thinking, we need to scan these three pages and circulate them around.
Organized labor in this city has major business pounding the pavements for the winner of the Democratic primary, but organized labor has no business throwing its weight into the wrong hat for the Democratic primary.
Reshma Saujani is the daughter of political refugees. Talk about starting from scratch. She went to public schools all her life. The working class families of this city might be able to relate to that.
To Mansion Maloney, all labor issues are abstract.
I am a free marketeer because I believe in democracy. There can be no democracy without a free market economy. A healthy American economy is one where Main Street and Wall Street are no longer working at cross purposes. You need someone like Reshma Saujani who can claim allegiance to both sides to be able to bring about that healthy relationship. It is not one or the other. We need both. We need entrepreneurs and we need workers. We need Main Street and we need Wall Street. We need strong public schools so that it does not matter where your starting line in life is.
In Reshma Saujani families of organized labor have a living, breathing embodiment of someone they can talk about to their kids as an example of someone who has achieved regardless of what her starting point in life was.
In this city of immigrants, Reshma Saujani is the ultimate immigrant. And organized labor has to claim her candidacy as its own.
Maloney, over the years, has voted the way organized labor would expect a Democrat to vote. But that makes her a checkbox Democrat. That does not make her a leader. Reshma Saujani is a Democrat. She too is going to vote like a Democrat on issues of particular interest to labor. But she is a leader. She is going to come up with the new thoughts for a new century. Organized labor needs to change with the times and stay relevant.
Carolyn Maloney is planning on a mission to the moon. That is the Maloney campaign's stated reason to not show up at Baruch College on August 26. And while she is at it, she is also going to navigate the Grand Canyon.
She might as well bow out of the race. Baruch College, if I remember it right, has held presidential debates in the past. This is only a Democratic primary for one of many congressional seats in the city. The two candidates should be honored Baruch College invited them over, and my candidate is.
Baruch College has the upper hand here. All it has to do is stay steadfast with its plans to hold the debate and Maloney is going to have no option but to show up. Baruch College needs to go ahead with all the preparations. This debate is going to happen. My candidate will debate an empty podium if necessary. That is Reshma Saujani's commitment to the people in this city, and the people in District 14. That is Reshma Saujani's commitment to the democratic process.
Slavery was ended because Lincoln showed up for his debates. Debating is no small matter. A high unemployment rate will be ended through debating. High unemployment is not even in the same league as slavery, and I don't want to make light of that historic wrong, but ask the students graduating from colleges today if they would like the unemployment rate to climb down from near 10% to a more bearable 5%.
What is Carolyn Maloney scared of? If she is scared of Reshma Saujani's smarts, she has every reason to be. A woman who wrote a book saying rumors of our progress have been greatly exaggerated should plan a graceful exit from the stage and look forward to a comfortable retirement that the working class families of this city can not so much as imagine. Maloney should make way for Reshma Saujani who is going to make some real progress on behalf of women. By the way, I have not been part of that rumor mill. I never thought women made much progress over the past 18 years.
Somebody has written saying Carolyn Maloney has a drinking problem, and she can't speak coherent sentences, and so she does not feel like she can appear in public. What do we have here? A Boris Yeltsin reigning over us?
I predicted only a few days back here at this blog that now I see a debate taking place some time in August. (Standing At 40-60 Now) My prediction has come true. Thank you Baruch College.
Those of you who have been reading my blog know I have long predicted a Reshma victory. Sorry, but for that you are going to have to wait until September 14. (September 1-14: The Niagara Falls Part)
But the best news happens after that. Reshma is going to be one of the reasons Dems keep the House. (Keeping The House And The Senate)
For the debate preparation I am going to watch as much of Maloney as possible on YouTube. I am not looking forward to it. But it has to be done.
I did not make phone calls for Barack. That is a remarkable thing to say from a guy who was one of Barack's earliest, staunchest supporters in the city, perhaps the country.
I made no phone calls for Barack. Well, not entirely true. Once when they opened up the downtown Manhattan office, I went for a show of support and to get to know the new guy Rudy. And Obama's sister Maya was to show; she gave me the look one Indian gives to another, her name is Indian. (Maya Soetoro-Ng) After she left, and we were just lingering around someone suggested I make phone calls, so I went through the motions for half an hour. People were watching. Then I said how it had been a wonderful experience and I left.
I absolutely refused to sit on committees. I absolutely stayed away from event planning. The primary thing I was doing was I was sucking all emerging details of Obama 08 nationally like a sponge. I was mentally preparing myself to inject in at the pivot points, which I did a few times. I was doing strategic thinking.
Obama 08 was personal therapy. If you had gone to the high school I went to, if you went to the college I went to, you wanted the personal therapy that was Obama 08. I was doing it as much for me as I was for Barack.
I underestimated Barack's positivity message until he started winning race after race after race and I then declared myself a student of his new kind of politics.
I use movie metaphors a lot. It is because my mind works visually. Somebody once asked me, if you speak so many languages, which is the language you think in? I was perplexed. I don't think in languages.
I identify with the Jason Bourne character. In his case, there is amnesia. That is not true for me. But I have had to drop two major institutions from my life like stones into sea water. He kept the skills, the knowledge, but lost memory. He became an operative. There is a one man army element to his ways that I relate to. I am an extremely political person who is not a politician. I can not be a politician. I don't think I much want to either.
Finally I thought I had found a landmass that I could claim: New York City. But the worst experience of my life happened here. I still feel a little disoriented from that experience, emotionally. Charlie Rangel was personally involved in my mess. That made a senior white police officer so happy he declared a "ceasefire" in Harlem for a day. These people never expected to see me ever again, one way or the other. And yet here I am. Africans at college used to ask me jokingly, "You are not black, you are not white, what are you?" Rangel asked the same question, but in a sinister way. I have always thought of Rangel as a third rate political mind, but never underestimate the ferocity of the dumb people.
There is this scene in my favorite movie Heat. The Al Pacino character says he can't share his experiences of witnessing a crime scene, because he needs to preserve that angst, because that keeps him sharp where he needs to be. Someone like me tries to burn the bad experiences in life like it were fuel. You try to burn those memories to try and further sharpen your instincts. But even Jason Bourne tried so hard to reclaim his humanity, and I am no Jason Bourne, I just like the Bourne movies. I have watched them countless times.
What hurts, hurts.
I have thought in terms of getting some counseling, but I have not been excited about the idea. A counselor is not going to have the vocabulary. I am going to have to teach him a new language before he could talk to me. That is not an enticing thought. I have tried writing. It helps, just a little. But not much. I think I might talk.
It is like I have four or five bullet wounds on my left arm. The bullets are still there. The only solace is I know the bullets, I know when I got hit, I have almost a picture perfect memory of getting hit, as if I can replay the movies in slow motion.
1989 was a departure point. 1997 was a departure point. 2008 was a departure point. There have been smaller departure points in between. They stand out like bullets. They sting still. The six months from June to November 2008 were horror. The thing that I had always valued the most, the thing for which I took some major career hits when not exactly having other rosy options, my freedom, they took it away. It was the most unimagined experience, the most unexpected. Before that Nepal was a political laboratory to me, after that America has been a political laboratory to me.
I spend enormous amounts of time online. I think I am searching for a country.
The anti-India sentiment in Kathmandu is too strong, it did not give me space to claim my Indian identity. The British college counselor asked another Britisher in my presence: "Don't you miss it when we used to rule over India?"
Some day I would like to colonize Britain. And Uganda too. Isn't that where Rangel is from?
I have always wanted to become a member of the Indian community in this country, but so far I have not known how. In Richmond, KY, you saw an Indian across the street, and you waved, and they waved back. I tried the same thing in Philly where I was for summer of 1999, and Indians would look at me weird. Do we know each other?
A poet can look at the same leaf and come up with a different thought. When I was gungho about my startup that the Rangel crowd robbed me of, I had started to think, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, I never went to Harvard. That makes me one better in the out of the box thinking department. I was thinking of Obama 08 as my personal therapy. Instead it got me cooked, quite literally.
I made very, very few phone calls for Barack. I knocked on extremely few doors for Barack. I got caught, and so I had to do it. As long as the phone calls are being made, and the doors are being knocked upon, I don't have to be the one doing it. That was my attitude.
I have knocked on hundreds of doors for Reshma. I have made hundreds of phone calls for Reshma. The news is not that I have made more phone calls for Reshma than for Obama. The real news is that I have made more phone calls for Reshma than the total number of phone calls I have made in my entire life before that, period. I have not been much of a phone person. For the longest time I did not have a phone. You could also argue for the longest time I have not owned a plane. I have made very few air trips. My first air trip once in America was during the June-November 2008 period; I got reminded I like the views at ground level so much better. Even today I don't have much of a phone. It is a prepaid that has four minutes on it. People will be like, I called you earlier. I am sure you did. I am sure the phone was ringing on my desk. In case you have not noticed, I don't carry my desk around with me. I am a big screen web guy.
I am going to take those bullets out like Rambo. I have to do it myself. They can't stay there forever, festering.
So yesterday I am at the Reshma 2010 headquarters, and a few hours into the show Reshma gets up, walks around and asks the crowd, "Does anyone want coffee?" Next thing you know the entire place has emptied out. I ask the last person out, what's going on? He says, oh, we are all going for coffee. That is the Reshma charisma for you. I did not like the eery silence in the aftermath. But I kept making call after call, because when in motion, I don't feel the pain. When I am calling, when I am blogging, when I am surfing the web, when I am walking, when I am riding the train, I don't feel the pain. It is not even pain most of the time. It is like this lingering bad smell that sometimes give you the headache. You look for the exit and you are out. You get into motion.
I remain someone in pain. I have to figure out a way to work my way through it. My preferred method would be to try and burn all that pain for fuel. But I am not sure that is entirely possible.
Reshma has partially taken over my Facebook page. When I share a link from Sree's page, you know I have ulterior motives. (Recruited 60 For Reshma 2010)
Reshma so decidedly took over my Barackface blog in July. She is about to push Obama himself as the most prominent politician at this blog. (Reshma On Track To Taking Over This Blog)
It can be argued she has also sucked some major oxygen from my tech blog Netizen. That was supposed to be my primary blog. Not any more. As my activity level at Barackface has gone up, my activity level at Netizen has gone down. (Digital Dumbo 18: The Dumbo Loft) I no longer show up at Fred Wilson's blog every day. Sorry Fred.
Reshma took over much of my Sunday yesterday. I was at the Reshma 2010 headquarters making phone calls all afternoon. I even wrote my first few letters yesterday. When was the last time I wrote a letter? Cursive writing feels good.
Image via Wikipedia
