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.
Some think that if Saujani can win at least 40 percent of the vote against Maloney, then it will unleash a flurry of interest in her kind of insurgent candidate: young, tech-friendly and no enemy of Wall Street.
Only two weeks back I did some momentum talk here, and I noted that Reshma 2010 moved from a 10:1 ratio trailing Maloney in mid May to a 3:1 or a possibly 2:1 ratio by mid July. That was remarkable. I also noted that the momentum was not a line graph but a curve graph. I have been proven right. Now Reshma 2010, barely two weeks later, stands at 60:40. The curve gets even steeper with every passing week. We got six full weeks.
With this new number, I can see a debate happening some time in August, or maybe even two. Maloney's political consultants are going to crunch these numbers and they are going to say, this race is competitive now, we can't afford to not debate, no longer. At 70-7, debating is a mistake, at 60-40, not debating is a mistake. This Reshma person can no longer be ignored.
Ask anyone on Wall Street to host a fundraiser for a Democrat in New York these days, expect a blank stare. Ask any Democrat to accept a donation from someone working for a bank, investment firm or hedge fund, and expect the same reaction....... They wonder if some Democrats really understand how easy it would be for them to move their firms to friendlier shores, knowing they (or at least the disproportionate 30 percent of the state’s tax revenues they produce) would be missed..... the financial industry has so far this cycle contributed $84.5 million to Democratic candidates, down from $241.7 million the last time around—a 65-percent drop-off largely from disenchanted New York donors. ...... wonders if the government realizes how transportable his business is, or how overly reliant the state is on Wall Street revenues. Because the financial services industry votes too ...... “I think maybe it’s gone too far, the demonizing.” ..... Andrew Cuomo managed to raise an impressive $23.6 million with the help of some very generous people on Wall Street ...... the complex relationship that exists between Wall Street and the Democrats. ...... Cuomo, like practically every elected official in New York, believes he has been successful in balancing his approach to Wall Street, and put some distance between his campaign and the anti-Wall Street mood of many of his fellow New York Democrats. ........ Bankers like to back winners, and in New York, the winners tend to be Democrats. ....... Washington and Wall Street both should temper their expectations of each other. ...... “There’s a reason for frustration on both sides,” Wylde said. “There hasn’t been as much rational dialogue, conversation. There’s tended to be more demonizing on both sides. A lot of the business community feels poorly served by Washington. On the other hand, Washington is suffering under the anger of the whole country that they allowed Wall Street to go too far.” .... Bloomberg’s warning of a mass exodus that would destroy the city and state
Wall Street has been reformed. That reform was so very necessary. It was not a perfect reform bill, but it was a good one. And we can build upon its success to enact further reforms, some of which Reshma has pointed out.
What has not been reformed yet is Congress. It was Congress that made Wall Street bad behavior possible. We take a step in the direction of reforming Congress when we ditch Maloney on September 14.
Despite all the demonization and the lies spread by the Maloney camp, Reshma Saujani has strong credentials when it comes to Wall Street. (Barack Obama: The NRA's Candidate)
She has not taken a dime in Wall Street PAC money. That makes Reshma 2010 like Obama 2008.
She has been for Wall Street Reform. After Obama signed the Wall Street Reform Bill, I read the statements by Maloney and Reshma. Maloney is like, and yes, I said hello to Barney, and I winked at Pelosi when I saw her pass down the hallway. Her entire statement is full of such name droppings. Whereas Reshma's statement praises the bill and calmly points out the weaknesses in the bill that will have to be looked into during next attempt. Reshma knows her patient, Maloney does not. Maloney is all fluff.
Reshma has exhibited remarkable integrity in not riding the Demonize Wall Street bandwagon. It would have been the easiest thing to do this year. This show of integrity will put her in a good place when it is time to mend the frayed relationship between Main Street and Wall Street.
When I was doing what I was doing for Nepal, I had the option to eat into my savings. I want to do for Iran what I did for Nepal. And I am looking for sponsors. I am looking for people and organizations that will fund my work.
There is no peace in the Middle East because Israel is the only democracy around there. When a democracy tries to talk to a neighborhood of non democracies, you get The Mother Of All Culture Clashes. .... Israel today feels an existential threat from Iran's possible nuclear weapons. That threat is primarily political. Russia still had all the nuclear weapons, but once the Cold War ended, America was no longer feeling the threat from those weapons, Europe was not feeling the threat. Israel is not going to feel an existential threat from an Iran that is a democracy...... It is like in the movie The Matrix. You sit in front of your computer, your terminal, and you transport yourself to the theaters of action. You observe and study the reality, the ever changing reality, in all theaters of action, and you propose action plans everywhere you can. You have no institutional authority, noone elected you, you are not doling out money, and so you have to be extra, extra right, extra convincing before people will do your bidding, before people, the key players, will listen to you to do what needs to get done.
I ended up giving a name to the method: nonviolent militancy. Not only are you strictly nonviolent, you are almost all digital. The battles take place on the screen for a big part. But the method is not the message. Unless you have a very high level of political consciousness, unless you have super political instincts, unless your political knowledge is robust, unless you are a disrupter in the best tradition of entrepreneurs, unless you have a firm commitment to the basic principles that underly any democracy movement, you can't do what I did for Nepal. My political credentials were outstanding, and so the technology behind the digital tools I ended up using came to be of service to me. The medium is not the message. On the other hand without the digital medium my work would not have been possible. The Internet allowed me the utter fearlessness that I exhibited at all junctures because it allowed me to be in the safety of New York City without many of the disadvantages of distance.
There are a few steps that the democracy movement in Iran needs to take, the most important is to shift the goal post. The goal can not be to get the existing regime to hold the presidential election all over again. The goal has to be regime change. The goal can not be to take the brutality lying down. The goal has to be to document every act of brutality to bring the perpetrators to justice once a new, interim government takes over power. The goal can not be to keep coming out into the streets. A democracy movement is supposed to last a few weeks at most, not months and years. You shut the country down completely until the regime gives way to an interim government with the mandate to hold elections to a constituent assembly within a year of taking over power.
I have done this before, I can do this again. I did this for Nepal in 2006. ..... There is a concrete mathematical theory called the butterfly effect. A butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon forest could be the reason a cyclone hit Bangladesh. What happened in Nepal in April 2006 was a political cyclone. I was the butterfly flapping my wings in New York City. In April 2006, over a period of 19 days, about eight million people out of the country's 27 million came out into the streets to shut the country down completely to force a dictator out. ..... Iran is a low hanging fruit. The hardest part of a democracy movement is getting people to come out into the streets. Well, that has been happening in Iran. This world is connected enough by now that one Digital Ninja/Commando based out of New York City could make that fundamental difference. ..... I ask for 100K and 15 months. That would be enough time. If I succeed, you get to put in another 2.5K each for a 50K bonus to me. This 5K you might put into this is the equivalent of 5 million you might put into Kiva. Democracy is the ultimate fishing net you can give to a people.
Before that I wanted the debates to happen because I wanted the world - District 14 - to see my wonderful, wonderful candidate. (Debating Is "Stunt" In A Maloney Democracy) My interests were political, and yes I had my preferred candidate. I was not hiding that.
Debates get you media attention, some name recognition, there are follow up articles in newspapers, there is buzz in social media.
It was also about democracy. I am a veteran of the democracy movement in Nepal. I appreciate democracy like many people living in democracies don't.
Debating is so very fundamental to democracy. Debates are a democracy's lifeblood. That's what happens in Congress, the ultimate temple of democracy. Members debate. No debate means no democracy. It is as if Carolyn Maloney wants to be declared dictator for life, the Kim Jong-Il of the East Side.
But at the clean tech event I realized the need for Carolyn Maloney, Reshma Saujani debates had much more concrete implications for the future of this city and this country and this world. This goes way beyond the politics of one congressional race.
Unless competing politicians like Carolyn Maloney and Reshma Saujani debate specifically about esoteric topics like clean tech and bio tech and nano tech, the electorate is not going to be part of conversations they so need to be part of if the jobs of tomorrow are ever going to be created. China is already eating America's clean tech lunch. If Maloney has her way, America never ever even gets to the lunch table. This so far has not been a choice between lunch and a late lunch. So far it has been a choice between a late lunch and no lunch at all. Thanks to Maloney the no lunch side has been winning so far in District 14 of New York.
We need Maloney out of there if we are going to be able to dream up the jobs, companies and industries of tomorrow.
Companies From The Clean Tech Event
Rentricity Inc.
MJ Beck Consulting
Sollega
The New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy (NYC`ACRE)
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
