The Vernacularist

Raphael Lemkin

I recently went to a lecture at the New York Public Library.  It was actually more like a conversation between Samatha Power and Kati Marton, two authors of books about genocide. Samantha is the author of A Problem from Hell:  American in the Age of Genocide, which I have been meaning to read since it came out but people keep giving me books to read.  I just haven't had the discipline to read it yet.  I think it's partly because the Darfur crisis weighs on my mind in a very present way.  Reading that book will make the Darfur genocide that much more preventable and tragic. Kati, a former journalist covering the UN, recently published a book  called The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World.   I don't think I'll get to that, but it certainly sounds passionate.

The authors wandered between stories within their books and contemplations about the current state of international diplomacy, the UN and America's diminshed reputation in diplomatic circles.  Samantha argued that America has lost two fundamental characteristics under Pres. Bush: competence and legitimacy. Regardless of what you think about Pres. Clinton's lack of action about Rwanda, Samantha thought we still had a moral authority within international diplomatic circles. I think it's clear that returning to our post-Clinton standing would be a gift.

I never heard of Raphael Lemkin before the event, but we have him to thank for coining the term "genocide." He tried to persuade his family to flee Poland, however he lost 49 relatives in Holocaust.  During the Holocaust, he called this crime "barbarity" and "vandalism." Unfortunately, he found the most eloquent and exacting word in 1943, too late to turn up the spotlight any brighter. Years after WWII, he wondered whether having a better name for the crimes described by the Holocaust would have amplified his families' fears and encouraged them to flee like he did.

I am struck by the power of a single, well constructed, proportionately evocative word. It's a reminder of the complexity and nuance we give to a single word. This blog is inspired by the word "vernacular," my favorite word, for just this reason. Samantha and Kati provided me a reminder on the power of persuation. After all the number crunching I've done the last couple months, I needed some etymological inspiration.

Can you say Speaker Pelosi?

It's so freakin satisfying to see the Democratic party showing their strength across the country.  I was trying to study all night, but couldn't tear myself away from CNN site and ABC News site.  I was kinda worried that turnout wouldn't be high enough. Or polling was skewed.  Or someone was going to plug in one of these election machines and an entire state would blackout. Basically, if it could happen, it would.

Funny enough, I've been content watching from the sidelines at business school.  Overall, I've gotten tired of the he said, she said. The ads. The long hours with no money and little recognition.   And then after all of that, on election night, my heart is still beating hard.  I'm still jumping from website to television to blog for the latest information. I have friends on races across the country and they have all been sending imcredibly positive emails about the thousands of phone calls they have made or all the doors they have knocked on by 11am.  Really inspiring stuff to a guy who has become a little jaded and little tired of the reliable ups and downs of an election cycle

Thank you America for taking this election seriously.  Thank you to all the people who volunteer on campaigns.  Thank you to donors who might not have all the time, but sacrifice all the same.

I'm gonna go to sleep and dream of some Democrat in the House doing accounting and financial planning with a pencil in his/her ear and an abaccus.

I know, that's kinda weird.  But with business school and politics on the brain, you get weird combinations.

Save Darfur rally

Thousands here. Beautiful day.

Organizing to Stop Genocide

Today, I spent the morning training college students on how to create effective and sustainable anti-genocide community groups. From all over the country, these 200 college student gave up a weekend to learn more about the massacres in Sudan, practice the basic skills necessary to create a lasting community group, and network with each other.  During the summer, these students have pledged to recruit locally-based individuals, meet as a group, identify leaders, and create an action calendar.  Ideally, the student will leave a fuctioning community group after the summer that will build awareness about anti-genocide events and actions.

The students are also in DC to participate tomorrow in the Rally To Stop Genocide, sponsored by over 100 organizations who make up the Save Darfur Collalition.  They are expecting 25,000 in DC and tens of thousands more across the country.

I spent 2 hours this morning faciliating a training for 18 college students that was organized by the Genocide Intervention Network (GI-Net). In my group, there were 17 women and 1 man.  This ratio held across the training groups. I wasn't surprised by this, just disappointed. Why would any red blooded American male want to trade watching the NFL draft with building skills to create lasting social change and prevent genocide?  As my Grandfather would say, "Take a long walk off a short pier."

For the students, GI-Net prepared a great summer action kit to give easy, step-by-step instructions for students to follow during the summer: Recruit, Meet, Take Action.  Facilitators received a very good agenda that did the following well:

• Articulated the goals of each section to focus the discussion early
• Offered suggested times for each activity
• Balanced activities between the full group, small groups and one-on-one practice sections
• Suggested questions for the facilitators to use if groups hit stumbling blocks

It was clear that GI-Net put a lot of time into the action kit and agenda.  Not only was the organization of the kit consitent with how a student would need to manage this community-building process, but also the research was fairly robust, something usually lacking in action kits.  There were pages of useful quotes from notable leaders and intellectuals, talking points that framed the issue, and frequently asked questions about Darfur. Here are my favorite talking points:

1. 3 years ago the government of Sudan armed a militie and together they kill, rape and displace innocent civilians in the Darfur region.  As many as 400,000 people are dead from the violence and 2.5 million people are displaced.
2. Darfur is "Rawanda in Slow Motion." We have the opportunity to redeem ourselves for the failures in 1994.
3. Congress and President Bush both declared the crisis "genocide."
4. Have you seen "Hotel Rwanda"? What will you say to your children and grandchildren after "Hotel Darfur"?

These students were so engaged with the content during the training that they recognized when the larger next steps weren't clear.  That showed me that they were focused on learning something, rather than just going through the motions.  There was also a general desire to describe specific anti-genocide  actions, something the action kit was a lacking. 

However, the kit was designed to guide the students to form community groups that will answer this action question from themselves. Commiment comes from ownership of the plan, so I understand why the kit was light on planning actions. Also, GI-Net is going to send Starter Kits to communities that actually meet and this will have more action ideas as well as buttons and bumper stickers.

Getting a refresher on community organizing was very satisfying because it's not something I've spent much time doing.  My strength is facilitating, not actually community organizing. Even during my days working and volunteering in the 2004 election, I only did a little organizing.  It's not ofter you get to practice how to talk effectively to people.  Ahhhhh, I'm wicked amp'd for tomorrow's rally.

A sign from something

Two BREAKING news stories that appear to have no connection, but on second glance, have a very disturbing parallel:

1. Jesus Told Judas to Betray Him
2. Bush Told Libby to Leak Intelligence

But wait, could Pres. Bush be the messiah?  No, that can't be because then the Jews were right about Jesus not being the son of God.  Uh...I'm feeling dizzy with a touch of nausea. ( I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.)

I have to go to the bathroom.

Tom DeLay CUTS and RUNS because he is GUILTY

Tom DeLay just left his reelection race because he is knows his ethics problems are more than just politics. This must mean he knows he will be found guilty on some of the charges. I want to make something very clear, Tom DeLay is cutting and running. He knows his unable to face the voters and a jury of his peers would find him guilty.

He is a coward who can't stand by his own actions to leave it up to the voters.  Next to campaign finance reform, getting Tom DeLay out of Congress could be the best thing for a more transparent government.

Will jail time be next?  Only time knows.  Till then, we should all thank Chris Bell for filing the first ethics complaint against Tom DeLay.  Bell's principles stand up more for Texas than anything else.  I'm proud to say that EchoDitto assisted his campaign and that he will be the next governor of Texas.

Ah...it's good to be alive to see this day come to the one of the most corrupt U.S. politicians in history.

Open Letter to Matthews

My friends Matt and John are fed up with Hardball host Chris Matthews right-wing bias and doing something about it. On January 20, they launched an open letter to Chris Matthews:

Chris Matthews has repeatedly compared Americans who are concerned about the war in Iraq to Osama bin Laden. We are asking companies to refrain from advertising on Matthews' MSNBC TV show Hardball until he publicly apologizes and promises to stop his right-wing bias.

Through the blog, you can send a letter to the companies that advertise on Hardball ask them to pull their advertising until Matthews changes his ways. A part of me is concerned that this is only fueling the meme that somehow there is some basis for comparing Democrats to Osama.  Of course, there is no basis and it's revolting. However, this action is important for more long-term goals: letting the media know that Democrats, liberals and progressives are going to always hold them accountable so that the overwhelming conservative media basis in the mainstream media does not persist.  The conservative movement was built over decades of leaving no rock un-turned, no news source un-lambasted (except the ones that laundered their lies), no established scientific fact unchallenged. We are on to you and we are building

Ann Coulter Embarasses Herself

I'll let ThinkProgress, the blog for The Center for American Progress, explain it. It just goes to show you that Ann Coulter is primarily a vicious political animal with no credibility or integrity.

Ann Coulter just called out MoveOn on Hannity & Colmes:

MoveOn.com is down protesting outside the White House. How about putting together some evacuee bags? How about actually helping out? Speaking of that, I think I’d like to hear a breakdown at the end of this, how much churches are contributing versus… MoveOn.com?

Last Thursday, as tens of thousands of families found themselves newly homeless, MoveOn launched an emergency national housing drive called HurricaneHousing.org. In just one week, over 235,000 beds have been offered to Katrina victims through the site.

ThinkProgress to Ann Coulter: How about you stop embarassing yourself on live national television?

Hey Ann, are you going take that large foot out of your mouth and apologize to MoveOn.org?

Happy Blogosphere Day

SwingStateProject sums it up:

A long time ago, even though it happened one year ago today, there was an event that proved to the whole world the united blogosphere's ability to deploy resources immediately into a single congressional district.

Today is Blogosphere Day. As was announced in October of 2004 and covered by the National Journal last week.

Today is Blogosphere Day and it needs to happen again.

Two weeks from today, there is a special election in Ohio's second congressional district. The Republican is caught in a late-breaking scandal that has made irrelevant all assumptions about the race.

The election will be a big day for Paul Hackett. If he wins, he goes to Washington. If he loses, he goes back to Iraq.

Understandly, Hackett is campaigning as if his life depended upon it...with only two weeks to go.

Go donate here and show your support.

Walking the world!

Today, we participated in a walk for the World Food Programme. There were walks organized in 86 countries and all 24 timezones across the world. Pretty inspiring, when you stop and think about it. This particular global day of action was to bring greater attention to the plight of child hunger and the fact that the solutions are right in front of us.

At FightHunger.Org, you can take a look at pictures from all the events across the world as well as learn more about the issue. You really should click on "Play" on the homepage and watch the slideshow. Seeing all the people from across the world participating in the event gives me a much needed sense of global community.

Everyday I work on advocacy issues, but it is rare to feel like an actor on a global scale. Today's news announced that the G8 countries are going to cancel $40 billion of debt held by the poorest countries, many found in Africa.

This announcement, coupled with the walk, reminds me that every day provides another chance for the lives of millions of people to be dramatically improved. "Tomorrow" is a powerful, motivating force that can help even the most cynical, jaded among us cautiously optimistic.

I am neither cynical or jaded, but I can use something to keep my engines revved just like anyone else. Today's events turns my focus to the potential for tomorrow rather than replaying the disappointments of yesterday.