Filmfare Awards 2018

A New Cold War?

"The philosophical divide between the American and Chinese systems is becoming as great as the gap between American democracy and Soviet communism. ....... in this new era of precision-guided weaponry and potentially massive cyberattacks, the scope of nonnuclear warfare has widened considerably. Great-power war is now thinkable in a way that it wasn’t during the first Cold War...... It is precisely the fusion of military, trade, economic, and ideological tensions, combined with the destabilization wrought by the digital age—with its collapse of physical distance—that has created an unvirtuous cycle for relations between the United States and China."

Can AOC Get Young People To Vote?

Could AOC inspire the 18-28 crowd to vote in the same ratio as the 60-80 crowd? That is the question. Could AOC inspire that crowd to run for office in similar proportions? There are all kinds of offices to run for. There are numerous offices at the local level that do not ask you to quit your day time job.

AOC's challenge is not what committee assignment she can get herself in Congress. It is what she can inspire at the grassroots level nationally and globally. The digital natives have to come out in full force. The generation for whom climate change is existential has to take the lead on doing something about it.

I believe AOC has the option to take the Green New Deal idea to the Netroots Nation, and I don't mean the organization. I mean the digital native crowd who have never not known the Internet. Done right the Green New Deal becomes centerpiece legislation no matter which Democrat gets elected president in 2020. Senator Elizabeth Sanders has already endorsed it. And many say she is the frontrunner. She also leans towards the same end of the political spectrum as AOC.

AOC represents a paradigm shift in politics. America saw its greatest phase of prosperity when the top tax rate was indeed in the 70% range. And America was still called capitalism then. And back then, in the heat of the Cold War, pun intended, capitalism was not just an economic system, it was also a political ideology. It was life or death on the nuclear tip.

The Green New Deal will not get enacted over the next two years. So fighting for some kind of a congressional committee is a losing proposition. But that fight can be used to go to the netroots nation. See, the Congress is not responding, not at scale, not at speed. Get involved. Shape the 2020 agenda.

The Green New Deal is not one thing you do. Just like the New Deal after which it is named, it is sweeping. It is a fundamental realignment.

Yes! @esglaude has it exactly right on @AOC, @sunrisemvmt, and @justicedems proposal for a #GreenNewDeal.

"Since Reagan, we've had a policy landscape emphasizing deregulation, cutting corporate taxes, eroding the social safety net.

We are witnessing a shift in that landscape." pic.twitter.com/FCHMe1jb2Z

— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) January 8, 2019

This is not about let's create a Facebook group. This is not about, can we get more Twitter followers. New digital tools are needed. This is about building an actual organization with local chapters, and locally elected leadership. This is about a political organization that raises funds. Somebody is going to have to pay for AOC's travels. Let a PAC do that. This is about crowdsourcing the drafting of actual legislation. How do you get a million people (at least) to take part in the drafting of legislation? And it has to feel meaningful. I myself am not clear how. The Green New Deal will not be drafted by a committee Speaker Pelosi agrees to. The Green New Deal rough draft will be crafted by a million members of the netroots nation.

Building an organization .... I am thinking, how about Green New Deal Nation for a name? GNDN. The short form sounds right on the lips. It will have to create its own software. That is not a big challenge. Anyone can sign up. You sign up with your email address, phone number, name, and zip code. Basic stuff. It is both a website and a mobile app. Then the software organizes you by zip code, 10 people to a group. The 10 closest people to each other, geographically speaking, form the basic group. Anything larger and people run the danger of not getting heard. You insert your address, and that finds you the group closest to you. The group is a monthly house party. But even on the website and in the app, each individual has the option to start solo. There is a form you fill out where you say what are the political and economic goals that are most important to you. As that moves from one person to a 10 person group, the leader of the group brings it all together. It starts with a list of all that team members want. Then the team votes, so there is a priority list as a second step. And it keeps going up. 10-10-10-10 could keep happening. As a second step, 10 team leaders come together, if not in person, then virtually. And so on. That is a bottom-up thing that must happen.

And then there is a shopping mall concept. The top thinkers in the Green New Deal camp (and many might be academics) make the best case they can make to throw out ideas. The netroots goes shopping among those ideas. These are ideas that have been thought through in terms of technology, in terms of budget numbers, and so on.

You don't need 10 years to build a think tank. You need a split second.

The thing is, this is a cost-effective path. Most people might not have to go any further than their nearby house party. Let the average donation be a glorious $5. Skip the coffee. Donate instead.

This done for a year will make the Green New Deal the centerpiece legislation for any Democrat who might end up in the White House in 2020.

Once Green New Deal 1.0 has been drafted, going back and forth between the netroots and the leadership and the shopping mall of thought leaders, then the leadership has to take it back to the netroots. You participated in the crafting of it, now sell it to the population at large. Canvass. Vote.

And there you have it. Momentum.

That conversation is the democracy. Google is not just some small town library gone digital. People ask Google questions that were never even asked. And on any given day, one third of search queries on Google are new.

This digital conversation will be unprecedented. It just has not been done before.

When you yourself are drafting legislation, that leaves little room for apathy.

AOC is the natural leader of the GNDN.

Rep @AOC needs a GNDN, a brand new netroots organization. https://t.co/dwlfkZaIjP @_waleedshahid @SenWarren @SenKamalaHarris @SenSanders @justicedems @saikatc The 2020 agenda has to be captured. #2020 #GreenNewDeal #greennewdealnation pic.twitter.com/GRPZTj2Qhx

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) January 9, 2019