Sunday, October 17, 2010
Getting There
The Guardian: Barack Obama fights to avert Republican avalanche
New York Times: Democrats Hold Out Some Hope
CNN: Can Democrats and Republicans work together after the election?
Monday, October 11, 2010
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Is America In Decline? Is It Rome Or FDR?
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe New Republic: Political Columnists Think America Is In Decline. Big Surprise.: Samuel P. Huntington noted that the theme of “America’s decline” had in fact been a constant in American culture and politics since at least the late 1950s. It had come, he wrote, in several distinct waves: in reaction to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik; to the Vietnam war; to the oil shock of 1973; to Soviet aggression in the late 1970s; and to the general unease that accompanied the end of the Cold War. Since Huntington wrote, we can add at least two more waves: in reaction to 9/11, and to the current “Great Recession.” ..... “By faith and honor, / Our madams mock at us, and plainly say / Our mettle is bred out and they will give / Their bodies to the lust of English youth / To new-store France with bastard warriors.”
There has been relentless talk that America is in decline. Just like the Roman Empire ended and the sun set on the British Empire as World War II concluded, America's number one position is now gone. That is the suggestion. That is one train of thought. (Another Trillion To Buy Real Estate?)
Another train of thought is that Barack Obama is like FDR. His Great Recession is like FDR's Great Depression was. Just like that big crisis, handled well, took America to new heights, Obama will handle this crisis well as well, and America will be taken to heights it has never seen before. (Father Of India Dot Com Craze Gives A Thumbs Up To America)
I belong to that second school of thought. I am a Barack Obama fan. I am an optimist. I have a realistic idea of where India and China stand today. China is still largely a Third World country. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are still Third World poor. And China does not have America's democracy or diversity.
But I am a cautious optimist. They say the proudest title to wear in a democracy is that of a citizen. The proudest hat during Obama 08 was that of a volunteer and I was wearing that hat. Barack Obama has done a good job so far, but he has not yet done everything that needs to be done. The unemployment level has to go down to five or six per cent on his watch, for example. And the political winds might blow in some unforeseen ways, he might lose the House next month. That might complicate matters for him.
The fundamental transformation has not happened. If America were to go back to the same old same old now, if America were to go back to being a country where only white men became president like the Tea Party wants, then yes, America is a power in decline. It is already a multi-polar world as it should be. Attitudes that get alarmed that China is pulling hundreds of millions out of poverty are attitudes that will ensure America's decline.
America could emerge stronger than ever out of this crisis, but that is not a certain outcome. The arc of history bends towards justice, but it does not bend on its own. There is work to be done. America could still see a second industrial revolution driven by clean tech.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Reshma Saujani Is Back
Image via WikipediaWell, she is. Last Friday I went to see the Facebook movie in Murray Hill. Before that I had made a firm decision to not go see the movie. (The Social Network: Before Seeing The Movie) I was going to express solidarity with Mark Zuckerberg. But I was to learn later the entire Facebook team went to see the movie around the same time I did. Fred Wilson and I call it mind meld. There have been three times so far when Fred Wilson and I have talked about the same thing the same day at our respective blogs independent of each other. (I Gave In: Facebook: The Movie, To Make Sense Of The Facebook Movie, Facebook Needs To Revamp Email Next, Facebook's Location Patent)
On my way back, at the train station, on the platform, as I lay sitting, waiting for the train, a Reshma 2010 staffer walked over to me, former Reshma 2010 staffer. Jay Ko. New York is a big city. It is rare to meet people you know when you are out and about town. Happens about once a year for me.
"She is resting," he said. Oh, okay. (ANTA Convention: Emotional Bath)
I never really turned that Google Alerts thing off. For days it was yet another publication breaking news that "the Indian American woman who ran for Congress lost." Okay, I got that. I was at the election returns watch party, and that was like two weeks ago. I snapped out of it within seconds. Or maybe minutes. Definitely by the following day. Carolyn Maloney is mediocre. That is my permanent impression.
Looks like Reshma Saujani's coming out event was some Punjabi dude running for City Council. At some level she never really woke up from the Obama 08 Democrat From Punjab episode. I took a personal hit when that happened. It just felt wrong. I was the only full timer Obama 08 volunteer in the city at the time. And I am Indian, watch out. (There Is An Albert Einstein On The Obama Campaign Staff) I sent out a missive and Barack Obama personally responded. He said that press release was "stupid" and the work of some lowly staffer.
Reshma has a Punjabi roommate.
The Prime Minister of India is a Punjabi. Barack shall soon meet.
I am in America because Nepal is not safe. America is safe, or so I thought. Bobby Kennedy was no longer campaigning in June. (Competing With Hillary Now)
Politics was not safe, I thought, and so I decided I was going to pour myself into tech entrepreneurship. 2009 was my tech year. (The Dumbfuck Immigration Laws) I was a regular at the Science House MeetUp, not to say the NY Tech MeetUp, which is where I met the Science House people in the first place. Late in 2009 the FBI started sniffing around the Science House. A few months later they were still sniffing around. And I lost it. I am thinking, not now, not when my guy is in the White House. (Obama's Got Momentum: He Could Defy History In November)
Tech was not safe either. What to do?
Only later I read somewhere that Carolyn Maloney's husband had died in Nepal late in 2009. And I am thinking, fuck.
Maloney has been of no interest to me in the five years I have been in the city; until Reshma 2010. She was a mere blip on the screen. She was mediocre. She filled a slot. She was part of the landscape. Hakeem Jeffries, on the other hand. (Hakeem Jeffries: Principled Compromise, Hakeem Jeffries Debate, New York Times: Hakeem Jeffries)
Nepal has a Shangrila image, and rightly so, it has been the most popular destination among Peace Corps volunteers for half a century, but that is only half the story. Nepal is also the poorest country outside of Africa. It only a few years back ended a decade long civil war. Nepal saw the rise of the number one ultra left group in the post Cold War era. Compared to the Maoists of Nepal, the Shining Path of Peru was not much. One of the drug routes goes through Nepal. High level people in the country's army get involved for the money.
I have walked in every part of New York City, and at all hours of day and night.
I am a nonviolent person, always have been. I am a political person, always have been. But nonviolent militancy is still nonviolent. (To: The Ayatollah, Newt Gingrich: Monkeyface)
I am too politically gifted to be wowed by a Barack Obama, even when it is my firm judgment he is going to go down in history as a great president. (I Touched Obama: Babel, Barack) I might not have felt the same intimacy if he had been a pastor or a pilot, but politics I know.
A few days back I read a piece where Osama Bin Laden was seeing a connection between global warming and the recent unusual floods in Pakistan. No politician in Pakistan saw that connection, not that I heard of. When random fires erupted all over Greece a few years back, they arrested all sorts of arsonists with records. They did not know to blame global warming. And I am thinking Bin Laden is a smart guy, just like I thought. He is that other butterfly effect dude on the planet.
And here you have two blog posts from Reshma Saujani. The question I have asked - before ever meeting - is what if she is too racist and too sexist by my extremely high standards? Internalized racism and sexism are still racism and sexism.
Reshma Saujani: Want to Break the Glass Ceiling? Give Young Women a Running Start: the outcome of the 2010 midterms could lead to the biggest reduction of female representation in Congress in over three decades...... Women make up 17 percent of the members of Congress, ranking the United States 68th internationally in women’s political representation ...... in the 20th century, twelve of the nineteen presidents were thirty-five years or younger when they were elected to their first office. ...... nurture and mentor young female candidates who lose their first local, state or federal race and empower them not to get discouraged and to continue to strive for elected office. ..... What progressives cannot do is let Sarah Palin’s Mama Grizzlies define what the female politician looks and sounds like in the 21st century. This country is hungry for female leadership, and as women continue to be the majority of voters, we must take the opportunity to paint our nation pink.Sarah Palin: Palin 2012: Rogue
Reshma Saujani: Bullhorn: Democrats Need to Fire Up the Fed-Up: we need more candidates running insurgent campaigns to engage communities who feel they do not have a voice. ..... the turnout of the South Asian community in the 14th district primary reached historic proportions. On election day, I saw crowds of Bangladeshi Americans come out and vote who have never participated in a primary election before. Young South Asian girls surrounded me holding my campaign materials, telling me that they too can run for higher office. ...... dropout factory schools ...... The ironic outcome of America electing the first black President is that it energized the right but not the left. ..... For many of us who were moved by President Obama’s historic campaign, we are fired up and ready to go – but the question is, where are we headed?Reshma Saujani: Blogger
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Finally A Small Jobs Program
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeNew York Times: White House Plans Job Training Partnership: help better align community college curriculums with the demands of local companies. .... The new White House initiative, Skills for America’s Future, will try to foster more of these programs, and to certify a list of best practices for public-private retraining partnerships..... As yet there are no plans to request government money to support these effortsI have long maintained that the US government has to do for job creation what it did for bank bailouts and what it did with the stimulus bill. It needs to do something big. I don't know if this step is big enough, it probably is not, but it is a step in the right direction.
This needs to be a 50 billion dollar program, not a zero dollar program.
BBC: It's election time again for Obama: At his best he is an electrifying speaker..... wielding power in this country is even harder than winning it. .... This country's election cycles are starting to interlock and overlap...... The media is turning into a psychotic toddler that cannot rest until the obsession of the moment has been assuaged, and then cannot remember it five minutes later. ..... Every day this bruising spin cycle picks up the issue of the moment like a tornado ripping a barn up off the prairie. .... America wants a president who is good in a crisis until there is a crisis ...... Obscure procedural rules dating back to the days when senators used to arrive at Capitol Hill on horseback, are used to block the appointments of relatively minor officials..... a built-in bias towards centrism and pragmatism.
Israel, India, Palestine, Kashmir: Parallels
Image via WikipediaNew York Times: Pankaj Mishra: Games India Isn’t Ready to Play: “as hard as we try to build a new India ... old India still has the power to humiliate and embarrass us.” ...... Since June, a mass insurrection, resembling the Palestinian intifada, has raged in the Indian-held Valley of Kashmir. .... The contrast to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, in which the Chinese government largely overcame controversy and staked a claim to a dominant place in the world order, is all too depressingly clear..... Beijing faces no political problems as severe as the many insurgencies in central India and Kashmir, or tragedies as great as the waves of suicides of tens of thousands of overburdened farmers over the last two decades ..... the private wealth of the 49 Indians on the Forbes list is nearly 31 percent of India’s gross domestic product ..... there are more poor people in just eight Indian states than in all the 26 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, with the large state of Madhya Pradesh comparable in intensity of deprivation to war-ravaged Congo. ..... the four million Muslims of Kashmir, who every day suffer the brutalities of what’s arguably the world’s largest military occupation ... a minority kept under perpetual siege by a paranoid nation-state.
America is the world's oldest democracy, India its largest, and so the two should see common gorund. Israel is the Middle East's lone democracy. And India is that other democracy across a few states in between, and so Israel and India should see common ground.
Those are valid lines of reasonings, except Israel fails miserably in Palestine as India does in Kashmir. And Israel and India are democracies. Palestine and Kashmir are fault lines that are important to understand and act upon if we are to make progress in terms of spreading democracy across the Arab world.
Muslims in India are like African Americans in America. They are that other people lagging in all socio-economic indicators. There are a few high profile Muslim Indians, but that does not change the fact that the Muslim masses in India lag behind, and often get demonized by the Hindu majority. The periodic Hindu-Muslim riots that flare up are not even fights. There are too many Hindus. They got too much. They control too much. They have too many allies. The Hindus are the state.
Democracies should be capable of introspection and frank debate. Democracies should be able to deal with social wrongs. In that both Israel and India stand challenged.
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Health Care For FDR, Iran For Lincoln
Image via WikipediaLong before the first primary vote was cast, Barack said, for him it was not if he can get elected president, the issue was, once he got elected, could he become a great president. That's my guy. Well, after health care reform, he has hit FDR levels. Destiny put the Great Recession in his lap. That was a recipe for greatness. You need a big crisis to become a great president. But there is a difference between FDR and Lincoln. FDR is Mars, Lincoln is Jupiter. You need an issue like slavery to hit Lincoln heights. The closest thing to slavery we have today are the women in the Arab world and what the mullahs do to them on a daily basis. The black slaves back in the days did not have to walk around with their heads covered.
That is where Iran comes in. Iran is Barack's chance to attempt Lincoln heights.
The question is not if the mullahs in Iran will go, of course they will go. Of course the democracy movement in Iran will succeed. The question is, can we turn success in Iran into a 1989 moment for the Arab world at large? I want the Saudi king out. I want Mubarak out. I want democracy in Jordan. I want democracy in Syria.
I think it is possible if all us play our roles, those of us who are members of the global netroots/grassroots, those who in power in the democracies of the world, the diaspora of those countries. We all have to pitch in and do all we can for the masses in those countries.
The hunger to be free resides in every heart, in every soul. There is a plant in every seed, but the seed does not become a plant on its own. It needs that right environment. We have to creat that environment.
A democracy movement is both art and science.
Criminals Do Not Get To Organize Political Parties
Image via WikipediaAfter the regime in Iran is gone, an interim government will come into power. That interim government will hold elections to a constituent assembly. Iranians will have the right to organize political parties to contest such elections. That would include people who are currently part of the Iran state structure. But that would not include criminals. People in power directly and indirectly responsible for unleashing brutality upon peaceful protesters are criminals. They have to be tried either in the International Criminal Court or by the interim government domestically.
Criminals don't have the right to vote, let alone the right to organize political parties.
Khomeini is a war criminal. He unleashed war weapons upon peaceful Iranian demonstrators. Khomeini has a right to not accept the demands of peaceful protesters, but he has no right to deal violently with peaceful protesters. But he did, and he is a criminal. That bearded, disheveled dude in Iran is a criminal. He is going to be in handcuffs sooner rather than later.
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Global Netroots/Grassroots Has To Fill In For The President
Image via WikipediaThe presidency of the US is the most powerful political office that was ever designed in the history of humanity, but it also comes with severe constraints. But if you believe in rule of law and the basics of democracy, if you believe in the need of a US president to primarily answer to the American electorate, then those constraints are welcome constraints. I did not volunteer for Obama 08 envisioning a Genghis Khan in the White House. The netroots/grassroots that put Obama in the White House has to realize its enormous power when it comes to the green revolution in Iran. If that netroots/grassroots can put "a skinny kid with a funny name" into the White House, that netroots/grassroots can get rid of clowns like Khameini and Ahmadinejad. That netroots/grassroots is sufficient upon itself to bring down autocracy after autocracy.
I am for harnessing the power of the global netroots/grassroots for the cause of democracy. All the political work that needs to be done, all the money that needs to be raised, all the exposure that the green movement needs, all that can be provided by the global netroots/grassroots. We are not at the mercy of politicians in power, or at the mercy of old media. We have what it takes.
If the global netroots/grassroots will do all it can do for the cause of democracy in Iran, somebody like the President Of The United States could make just the right moves at just the right times to tilt victory our way. I can't imagine the guy being for the other side. But we the netroots/grassroots do have to exhibit governance literacy, power literacy to be able to tap into the powers of our guy who is the top guy on the planet when it comes to political power.
Image via WikipediaHe is on our side, he is with us, but he has the constraints of a political office. There are options he has. There are options he does not have. We the netroots/grassroots do not have those constraints. There are things we can do that he can't. There are things he can do that we can't. We have to do the things that we can do to make it possible for him to do the things that he can for the cause of democracy in Iran.
We need to work it for the top guy. But the power was and remains at the grassroots and the netroots.
The Shah Is For Secular Democracy, Not Monarchy
Image via WikipediaNational Post: Bringing Democracy To Iran: At 50, Mr. Pahlavi dismisses talk of restoring the monarchy in Iran and says his life is now dedicated to creating a non-violent, democratic revolution there.The Shah of Iran could not make it clearer. He is for a secular democracy in Iran. He is not for restoring monarchy in Iran. We similarly have to reach out to Iranian groups that might have picked up weapons against the current regime in Tehran in the past. If the Shah can ditch monarchy, these groups can ditch violence.
We have to build a broad coalition of Iranian groups for the cause of democracy in Iran.
In The News
BBC: Iranian Court Bans Two Leading Opposition Parties: Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organisation .... Both supported opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi ..... In recent weeks, Iranian security forces have stepped up attacks on opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi and Mr Mousavi, with attacks on their homes and offices..... Scores remain in prison.
New York Observer: Malcolm Gladwell Compares Twitter Activism To Civil Rights: he's wrong to imply that a network of weak ties can't accomplish serious change. One could argue, for example, that social media played a crucial role in electing our first black president, a historic moment in our nation's struggle for equality.
Foreign Policy: Obama's Freedom Agenda: The freedom section of President Obama's address to the United Nations General Assembly .... the most extensive, fulsome, and compelling defense of human rights and democracy of his presidency, and it strategically placed political freedom in the context of economic freedom and development. ...... s a number of nations that are in tyranny's crucible, and whose citizens may find the possibility of freedom within their grasp. Sometimes this grasp can be aided by presidential attention or even a few strategic gestures that tip the scales...... and perhaps even recapture some of the charismatic appeal that has since his inauguration been strangely absent.
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