The Spectrum On Gender

When I drew up the spectrum on race (The Spectrum/Dialogue Concept Is Key To Power), I hoped one or more of the power women at DFNYC will perhaps chalk out one on gender. I waited and waited and waited. But perhaps either my blog is not that widely read, or the spectrum concept did not fly. So here is my first attempt.

(10) You are the Buddha of gender relations.

(9) You are capable of relating to women in their numerous roles as members of families, and workplaces, as friends, as activity partners. As soldiers, as astronauts, as CEOs, presidents and prime ministers. You do not inherit, create and sustain glass walls and ceilings that keep women away. You can recognize them when you see them and are vocal about them. You do not differentiate between women of different cultural/ethnic backgrounds, or women in different age groups. You are extremely comfortable around women. You value their opinions, you seek them out.

(8) The women in your family, workplace and friends circles are mostly liberated women who can feel your liberation. You empathize with women who are internalized sexists.

(7) You have a female boss and you are okay with the idea. She feels it too. You are not in a sexist marriage. You share in the domestic responsibilities. Your wife is an equal decision maker in all aspects that touch upon your marriage.

(6) You are well rehearsed in workplace issues as they affect women, and you can sing all the right tunes. When it comes to policy, you are a woman’s friend.

(5) You are pro-choice. You are okay with career women to an extent. You still can not imagine them as soldiers or as people in major leadership positions. You have never had a female boss. You don’t want one either.

(4) You are anti-choice. You think women belong at home, cooking food, raising children. Careers are not meant for them.

(3) You subscribe to all sorts of negative stereotypes about women so as to justify your thinking of them as lesser people. You practice strange, exclusive acts of male bonding.

(2) You practice hate speech against women. You routinely talk against them as a group, and put them down as a group.

(1) You commit hate crimes against women. You killed your wife. You are a rapist. You habitually beat up your wife/girlfriend. You beat up women.

Pan American Desi Caucus: Brown Is Beautiful

Madhesi Jagaran has been about the Madhesi identity in Nepal for me. Democracy For Nepal (DFN) has been political work to do with Nepal. Democracy Forum: Americana has been to do with Dean 2008. But on the American scene it is about the Desi identity, the larger South Asian identity. The idea would be to build a pan American Desi caucus.

Reinvent the Democratic Party: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.

It would be about immediate Desi pride and empowerment. But I think it would be more to do with the idea of spreading and strengthening democracy in South Asia. It would also be about helping America better celebrate its diversity.

Politics At The Speed Of Thought
Social Progress: Show Me The Money
Superpower Talk, Infrastructure Talk
DFNYC, 100,000 Strong, Scalable Organization
Pentagon, Hexagon
Blacks, Hispanics At The Core Of The Democrat Rainbow Coalition
The Spectrum/Dialogue Concept Is Key To Power

Nepal Message To Top Democrats

Video Clip

Mero Sansar: December 2 Protest Rally In Kathmandu (video)
Reinvent the Democratic Party: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Sign the Nepal Democracy petition

The Democratic Party is so totally out of power. The White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court. It has been a total sweep by the George W, Karl Rove machine at the federal level. They even have a lock at the state level. Although that tide might be turning.

They now got the Supreme Court for a generation. That is why we need to take over the Congress and the White House for a generation starting with the Congress in 2006. The goofy white males who founded the country referred to it as separation of powers. We progressives need a fundamental rethink. Like when Bill Clinton brought the Democratic Party out of the wilderness in 1992, and Tony Blair did it for Labor in Britain. But they can not be copied. Times have changed. New thoughts are needed.

Strong on defense is key. You can not cede the foreign policy debate to the Republicans and expect to win. The American voters are smarter than that. Strong on defense is first about understanding the War On Terror is the same magnitude as the Cold War. The Cold War was the same magnitude as World War II. Each time it has been about spreading democracy. First it was Japan, Germany, Italy, rest of western Europe. Then it was the Soviet bloc and Eastern Europe. Now it is the Arab world. A total spread of democracy in the Arab world is the only way to win the War On Terror. There is no other way. And we have to offer a progressive way of spreading democracy. The neocon way has been in Iraq. You go in with a false claim, and once you are in, after the original reason for going in no longer holds water, you stay in and invent new missions along the way. In the process, you spend 200 billion dollars, over 2100 American lives, and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and counting. That is the messy, neocon way. It is expensive, for one.

You also have to ask, what after the Arab world? The answer is so obvious. China is one big landmass with no democracy. But it would be foolish to think in terms of a hot war with China,, utterly foolish, unthinkable.

There has to be a progressive way to spread democracy, and the goal has to be to proactively spread democracy all over the world, all the way until the spread is total. And I believe there is a ready laboratory in Nepal. Nepal is the answer to the progressives all over America. Our Iraq is Nepal. One of the poorest countries on the planet has a vibrant pro-democracy crowd busy like a beehive. Nepal has to be adopted by the Democrats in America. Extend total, moral support. Have all the prominent Democrats in the country issue statements of support. Pump in a million dollars through private sector effort. Provide logistical support. Draw media attention. Nepal needs to be hitting the world headlines and soon. The crowds are out in the streets.

Nepal is how you become strong on defense. Becoming strong on defense is how you snatch back national power. So get behind the democracy movement in Nepal.

We need to do for the Democrats what Newt Gingrich did for the Republicans in 1994. We need a clear 10 point program that all could rally around. That by summer. But Nepal can not wait. Nepal needs your attention now.

Democratic National Committee Chairperson Governor Howard Dean, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama, President Clinton, and all other prominent Democrats need to be issuing statements. Five minutes of your time could make all the difference back there in Nepal. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democrat of Vermont, and Senator Tom Daschle who have gone out of their way to extend their total support to the people of Nepal. Senators, thank you. You are now part of Nepal’s history books for what you have already done. We are so very grateful. And thanks are also due to other members of Congress from both parties who have extended their ears and their helping hands to the cause of democracy in Nepal. Thank you and please continue for the movement has now entered its most decisive phase.

The Spectrum/Dialogue Concept Is Key To Power
Obama Was In Town And I Missed It
Bill Clinton Had Icecream For Lunch
Jesse Jackson On Martin Luther King Boulevard
I Am Running For Dean 2008 Campaign Chair
Soaking In Howard Dean
Dean Was In Town Yesterday
To: The Good White People In The South
Dean-Hillary-Obama Ticket
Democracy For Nepal, DFN

Logistics To Bring Down The Regime
Every Sunday 11 AM Union Square
40 Reasons Why The Three Forces Should Come Ar0und To My Proposed Constitution
Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat, Vermont
Rajeev Goyal Talks Up Caste
US Congress Writes To Secretary Rice
Seven Party Forum In Jackson Heights
Timi Sadak Ma Utreko Dekheko Chhu (Poem)
What's Going On In Nepal
For The First Time In A Decade, Permanent Peace Feels Possible
Email From Madhav Kumar Nepal (Prime Minister in waiting)
To: DFNYC
September 16 Protest Rally
Bharat Mohan Adhikari Is In Town (Former Deputy Prime Minister, deposed in the 2/1 coup)
Power Woman Protest
Moriarty Going The Bloomfield Route
Alliance Gathering At Queens Bridge Park
Senator Leahy To US Congress On Nepal
Keith Bloomfield
2005 Young Republican National Convention (US) Resolution 1 On Nepal
Tom Daschle
The Road To The White House Goes Through Nepal
Getting Interviewed By A Cornell University Student
Op-Ed Piece Sent To The New York Times
Email From Arzu Rana Deuba (Deposed and jailed Prime Minister's wife)
Gagan Thapa Arrested, Deuba Re-Arrested
To: Benazir Bhutto
To: George Soros
Prime Minister-Elect Prasain: "You Have The Power!" (My high school roomie of three years)
Democracy: The Third Wave
Deputy Prime Minister Bharat Mohan Adhikari's Daughter Speaks Out

Michelle Bachelet: Yet Another Woman

This Is What I Am Talking About

• Michelle Bachelet: a break with Chile’s male-dominated politics ... Chile’s northern neighbour, Peru, faces a presidential election in April 2006 that may become a confrontation between two female candidates: the lawyer and Christian Democratic opposition candidate Lourdes Flores versus businesswoman Jeanette Enmanuel of the ruling Peru Posible party...... Across the Andes, in Argentina, Cristina Fernández, a leftwing Peronist senator and wife of President Néstor Kirchner, has become the most popular politician in the country, to the point of being named Reina Cristina in the local press. Fernández shares a similar political background with Bachelet, and they are close friends.
• Michelle Bachelet - [ Translate this page ]
• Sitio Oficial de Michelle Bachelet - [ Translate this page ]
• Chile's Michelle Bachelet Poised for Presidency

Lampson, Mistry, Dance-a-thon, LinkUp

Lampson

Nick Lampson is running against Tom DeLay in 2006. He was in town. I went to his fundraiser last week. There were all these white men in formal attire. I was in my jeans and totally enjoyed working the room.

"Excuse me, it was nice meeting you, but I got to work the room."

And I took my jacket off, and a colorful shirt came up for air.

There was this one woman, maybe there were two, otherwise it was a white male crowd.

I struck a conversation with this lawyer who had offices in both DC and NYC. I teased him he had turned lawyering into a franchise concept. I ended up saying I was new in town, six months.

"That's new. Where did you move from?"

"Indiana."

"That's a step up."

"It sure is. Indiana was too white for me. I appreciate the diversity in this city."

He looked like he wished he had a tan.

There was this one guy, amazingly happy, cheerful, almost bubbley, who was running for Congress from somewhere near Westchester. He said he used to work on Charlie Rangel's team and had his "blessings." He was part of DL21C. The founder of that group was in the room, and was pointed out to me.

I asked the candidate guy if he knew Jimmy.

"Jimmy?"

"Yeah. He is running for the State Senate from somewhere in Long Island."

"No."

What a stupid thing to have asked. It is like when Colin Powell joined the army, and he would meet white folks who would know this one black guy, and Powell would get asked if he knew that guy.

Met this one guy from Texas. He got real comfortable and he related this story of having hired this woman for real cheap. "We are totally overworking her." Was that supposed to have been a male bonding moment! Beats me.

Lampson gave a great speech. He gave a brief talk spot on "foreign students." I think he might have noticed my colorful shirt.

Nick Lampson for District 22
Nick Lampson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mistry

I showed up for Abhishek Mistry's Research and Advocacy meeting. Quite a lot of the talk there goes over my head, but I show up anyway. I might build an Indian caucus some day.

There was this Jewish guy who showed up. He gave a talk on something called a dollar van. And then he gave a very alternate view on the Taliban. It was refreshing what he had to show. He had some UNDP charts he showed to make his point. Some people rudely interrupted his presentation. I did not like that. After the program ended, he told me he had an uncle who had lead the UNDP in Nepal at one point in time. I was like, no wonder I liked you, I must have known there was something to you. If we had more Jews talk good about Arabs here in America like he did, that could lead to peace back there.

One woman, and one guy took turns going after what it looked to me like India. What is the reference to calling centers and outsourcing? I geared up to respond. Mistry must have noticed. He said discussion on that topic was over. But I went to meet both afterwards. She claimed her ire was up on the multi-national corporations. He talked China and Walmart.

Abhishek Mistry

Dance-a-thon

It was between a fundraiser for Nepal by the NYU Rajeev Goyal and this AIDS Dance-a-thon fundraiser that Merle was egging me to go to. Merle had showed up for the Nepal rally on September 16. So there were these two non-Nepali Nepalis pulling me. I donated $15 online to Rajeev's effort, and showed up for the dance. Cost me $75, not something someone in my income bracket can afford. But swiping a credit card can feel painless, and the event was loud and fun, though not as much fun as hip hop. But overall great.

And I ended up the only DFNYC person there. The number one group had raised $16,000.

At the entrance thing, the lady who checked in asked if I needed a pink wrist band if I wanted to drink so I don't have to show my ID. I have taken to combing my hair recently. When I do that, I look younger. But that young?

AIDS is a big deal in Africa, it is a big deal in NYC.

The crowd was huge. The place was next to the New Yorker hotel.

LinkUp

Showing up for a LinkUp can feel such a disconnect. I do Nepal work round the clock, it feels like, and it is a movement, and there are real possibilities of loss of lives, and then you show up for a LinkUp, and it is such an anticlimax. It is winter, it is a political off season. I don't have time right now, at least not much for US politics, but I have a few ideas I would like to cultivate.

I might do some video blogging to reach a potential national audience with my ideas. The DFNYC framework is not the best venue for it. And there is this group that if it gels, I might try and experiment with some ideas in that small group setting: Does Hell Have A Kitchen?

Looks like the next month or two will be real slow with DFNYC. And the next two months are going to see some major action in Nepal.

DFNYC

DFNYC Socializing Is Circle 3 For Me

Social Concentric Circles

People have their own ways of seeing things. I have drawn this diagram that throws light on my idea of social reality.

Privacy is important. To me. It is very important.

At some level I am a loner. I have to spend a lot of time on my own. I have to read and write and listen to music. On my own. I have to surf the web, on my own. I am more like an artist than a politician that way. Or maybe I am a different kind of political worker than the stereotype allows for. My emphasis is not on shaking many hands. Although meeting people is sheer joy. But I think I am selective. I do it for the joy of it, not to please people. So I skip when I decide to skip.

And if you are someone I meet in circle 3, I am not going to pretend I am meeting you in circle 2. Circle 1 is out of bounds. Like Amitabh Bachchan once said when asked about his marriage, "And why am I discussing that with the world?" Some people can talk about their private life, or at least parts of it, like they were talking about the weather. I can't. That's just me.

This is important to me to explain. Because some people in circle 3 wrongly assume getting "close" means you try and invade the guy's privacy. There is this urge to force open the circle perimeter. You lose your space in my circle 3 that way. You move to the "wedge," or you move to a further, outer circle, or you plain disappear.

As DFNYC expands, and Dean 2008 takes off, most people I will be meeting will be in the outer circles. Circles 5, 6 and 7.

At some level, this is about honesty. It is also about being effective. It is also wisdom, I think. The detachment this model offers is also emotionally healthy.

This is not to say you are cold to the people in the outer circles. It means you don't pretend to be closer than you are. And you actually relate better, because you know the rules of the game are different in the outer circles. You communicate more effectively. You relate more effectively. You suffer from fewer illusions.

A Few Diagrams

Mumzee's Kitchen

I just bumped into this blog: Mumzee's Kitchen. More specifically its latest blog entry that was posted at another site: Howard Dean And The Demo Money Problem.

She has some great stuff to say. And she is not exactly under 30. Here are some samplers.

..... there were many of us "small people" who were willing to dig into our very shallow pockets to donate whatever we could spare ..... The progressives among us became understandably gun-shy. We are holding our fire and keeping our little bits of money in our pockets until we are sure that it will be used on behalf of those policies which we espouse ..... The great majority of us who are at the bottom of the human food chain have had enough of the same old "kiss the rich and screw the poor" choices that we have had for the last 24 years! We are sick and tired of being required to choose "the lesser of two evils" on election day, of holding our noses as we mark our ballots. We want to support someone who can think constructively, who will restore our democracy to "one man, one vote, and actually count the votes", who will stop spending our grandchildren's money on a needless and un-winnable war, and who will concentrate on rebuilding our national economy with real jobs by restoring our neglected super-structure and salvaging whatever is left of our damaged society ...... We need a candidate with guts, who will speak truth to power, a real barn-burning ass-kicker who is not afraid to tell the American people the truth about the liars and manipulators who have held our very existence in their hands for much too long ...... We hear our corporations complaining that the pension plans for long-term employees are crippling them financially. There is an answer to that problem and they should be made to understand what that answer is. The cap should come off the Social Security contributions to allow that program to grow as it once did and that pension expense would no longer be necessary. When they cry about the cost of maintaining employee health insurance, they should be reminded that universal health insurance, with an administrative expense of only the 2% cost of administering Medicare would relieve them of that responsibility. Those who complain about the taxes that would be necessary to pay for these programs should be presented with facts and figures on what they currently pay for private insurance compared to the taxes necessary to fund universal health care and learn that their own financial situation would actually improve ......

Some of the points on retirement and health insurance are great pointers. Got to crunch a few numbers.

Lee Metcalf Is A Naderite