NithinCoca.com

On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks helped changed America by refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, launching the Montgomery bus boycott.

On September 17th, 2011, a group of frustrated citizens from all stripes of life took over a park on Wall Street, launching a protest that has now spread around the world, a call against the grotesque excesses of modern capitalism.

–

The civil rights movement, in my opinion, the greatest grassroots movement in American history. But it is amazingly, little understood by most Americans. Over the past several years, I’ve taken upon myself to read about the fascinating history. It at one makes me incredibly proud to be an American, and disgusted. The intense bravery, self-discipline, and determination of those of all colors, against the cruelties of segregation. The horrors they faced perpetuated by people in power, who used despicable tactics against fellow humans beings.

Yes, we all know about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, but how many Americans, especially of my generation, can name another civil rights hero? Two week ago we lost a great man when Reverand Fred Shuttleworth passed away – one of countless heroes of that generation. MLK didn’t do it alone, and it what amazes me the most – how so many people stood up against injustice, and how so many did it peacefully. It was a true movement. Not a perfect movement, by any means, but a true one.

The demands then were not for an excise task, but for a fundamental shift in how society treated a whole classes and races, a rethinking of human dignity. That movement, though it has accomplished a lot, is not over. It didn’t end with the Voting Rights Act.

We all like to think that we’d be on the right side of justice if put in those situations. But I truly wonder if I could match their bravery. Americans as a whole have a lot to learn from the civil rights movement, about both our potential for good, and our potential for evil.

–

One myth that has sustained is that of Rosa Parks. The story goes that she, one a spontaneous day, refused to give her seat, and the movement launched in response. The reality is that Rosa Parks was a leader, and that the campaign was planned well in advance, and she was the catalyst who choose to take action.

Movements don’t happen by chance – they take planning, preparation, and leadership. That is one thing we forget about the civil rights movement, which worked incredibly hard to organize in segregated communities throughout the South, where people had almost no access to information. By letting this myth survive, we diminish the hard work of thousands in this movement.

I first heard about Occupy Wall Street back in July. Adbusters, a magazine that I’ve been subscribed to, whenever I have a home, for nearly eighty years, has been posting articles on their blogs, and in the magazines, for months. Within particular circles were deep discussions about what form the movement should take – the chief inspiration being Tahrir Square in Egypt. Incremental change, the purview of President Obama’s 2008 election, wasn’t doing nearly enough when looking at the immediate problems facing humanity – climate change, inequality, and rampant capitalism. But how should such a movement be structured?

There were articles on protest tactics.

Civil disobedience vs. Violence

What does revolution mean in Canada?

I was skeptical, but hopeful. In 2006, I’d joined when Adbusters had organized local action groups, in Los Angeles, only to be dissolutioned by the lack of action by the group – we could never agree on a single tactic, and most people didn’t do their fair share of the work. Why would this movement be any different, I thought? So I read the articles – in-depth, and thoughtful – but did not head down to Wall Street on September 17th.

–

What makes a movement? When do social factors reach a point where action is inevitable, as it was in Birmingham that day in 1955. Have we reached a tipping point today? Is change near? I’m hopeful – a realistic idealist. Occupy Wall Street has made me realize that movements can still happen in today’s world. It has also made me realize how difficult the challenge will be.

The organizers knew exactly where to take their inspiration from. The final Adbusters blog post before the protest began – “Some inspiration from Martin Luther King, Jr. for this Saturday“. There is another lesson from the civil rights movement – setbacks will happen. You’ll lose patience, and want to turn to more radical tactics. There will be discord. People will infiltrate and try to divide you. The media will ignore you when you do good, and shower you with attention when you do bad, even if just for a moment.

But the odds we are facing, while great, pale in comparison to what southern blacks faced in the 1960′s. In their resolve, we can find strength. They faced down an entire unjust system, and brought about change.

Yes we can.

Ready for more of the McSame?

One reason that the Obama campaign is winning is because of their excellent rapid response system. It wasn’t always this way, in actuality, the campaign began their rapid response “War Room” in October. Not coincidentally, about then was when he began to rise in the polls in Iowa.

This is important. This will matter this fall.

So, today, the Clinton campaign stooped to, perhaps, its lowest level of the campaign, releasing a sleazy, disgusting, fear mongering ad. Take a look.

For comparison, here is one of the most despicable ads from the Rove-Bush team, the “wolves ad”

John Kerry never effectively responded to the unfair, fear mongering attacks on his patriotism, his character, and his campaign, and it cost him the campaign.

Today, Barack Obama showed that he has learned the lesson of 2004.

His War room released, in less than 12 hours, a brilliant rebuttal ad. Watch below, is it, in my opinion, one of the best ads of the campaign. It fights back, is positive, and, most importantly, direct.

What does this mean? It means that this fall, we could have a candidate that will not let the Republicans throw any answered punches. That will fight back with all the resources at his disposal to counter, to respond, and to win the election. But first, we need to nominate Barack Obama as our nominee.

Make Phone Call to March 4th States and let’s stand up against fear mongering, attack style politics.

As we get closer to November, I thought it would be useful to examine the devil in modern politics. The wedge issue. What role will it have this fall, and will it once again doom Democrats chances for the White House?

What is a wedge issue? It’s simple. It’s an social or cultural issue that is meant to galvanize those voters who, based solely on economic factors, would vote Democratic. The wedge issues peels off these voters to the Republican side, scraping and collecting the most vulnerable voters from the working class, traditional Democratic base.

In my opinion, it all started in 1968 with the man who invented modern Republican campaigning (yes, campaigning, not ideology), Richard Millhouse Nixon, in his second attempt to win the White House against Vice President Hubert H Humphrey. In what many consider to be the most important election of the second half of the 20th century, Richard Nixon was able to eek out a small margin of victory and change the course of American history. That is where I’ll begin.

1968 Former VP Richard Nixon (R) vs. VP Hubert H. Humphrey (D) vs. Gov. George Wallace (I)

Wedge Issue(s): Crime and Fear, Busing

Effective: Yes. It was close in the popular vote (.5% difference) but not in the electoral college (301-191). Using the images of the chaos at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Nixon’s campaigned to prove that Democrats could not keep America safe, whether at home, or abroad with the growing chaos in Vietnam. Nixon siphoned off many disgruntled, Democratic voters especially in suburban area, and kept Humphrey on the defense. Of course, this isn’t the only reason he won, numerous other factors played into this race. But Crime and Fear, and to a lesser extend, the growing controversy over busing, helped Nixon throughout America to win a decisive Electoral College victory.

(more…)

As we get closer to November, I thought it would be useful to examine the devil in modern politics. The wedge issue. What role will it have this fall, and will it once again doom Democrats chances for the White House?

What is a wedge issue? It’s simple. It’s an social or cultural issue that is meant to galvanize those voters who, based solely on economic factors, would vote Democratic. The wedge issues peels off these voters to the Republican side, scraping and collecting the most vulnerable voters from the working class, traditional Democratic base.

In my opinion, it all started in 1968 with the man who invented modern Republican campaigning (yes, campaigning, not ideology), Richard Millhouse Nixon, in his second attempt to win the White House against Vice President Hubert H Humphrey. In what many consider to be the most important election of the second half of the 20th century, Richard Nixon was able to eek out a small margin of victory and change the course of American history. That is where I’ll begin.

1968 Former VP Richard Nixon (R) vs. VP Hubert H. Humphrey (D) vs. Gov. George Wallace (I)

Wedge Issue(s): Crime and Fear, Busing

Effective: Yes. It was close in the popular vote (.5% difference) but not in the electoral college (301-191). Using the images of the chaos at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Nixon’s campaigned to prove that Democrats could not keep America safe, whether at home, or abroad with the growing chaos in Vietnam. Nixon siphoned off many disgruntled, Democratic voters especially in suburban area, and kept Humphrey on the defense. Of course, this isn’t the only reason he won, numerous other factors played into this race. But Crime and Fear, and to a lesser extend, the growing controversy over busing, helped Nixon throughout America to win a decisive Electoral College victory.

(more…)

Racial Rhetoric is taking front stage in the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Whether its surrogates opening their mouths too much, or a coordinated campaign is yet to be seen. Obama won Iowa and finished a close second in New Hampshire, two predominantly white states. Now, we’re off to Nevada, a diverse state with a large latino population, and South Carolina, where 50% of the electorate is African American.

On the other side, its all about Michigan. Kos and a few other prominent bloggers have started the “Democrats for Mitt.” Since Democrats have no one to vote for in Michigan (except Hillary) the idea is to get Democrats to crossover and “save” the Romney campaign, breathing life and helping further throw the GOP race in chaos. Sounds good to me, does that mean next, we aim for a Fred Thompson comeback in South Carolina?

On our side, its off to Nevada. New polls show a close race, but how reliable are polls these days? Exactly.

And a shout out to Chargers fans everywhere…bring on the Patriots!

The media narratives are out. The Clinton’s, once again the Comeback Kids, the race is thrown into disarray. With New Hampshire and Iowa finished, and we have no idea who will be the nominee on either side of the aisle, no clear frontrunner on either side.

So let me take a few of the media narratives and throw in some facts. You know, the basic elements of TRUTH and Reporting?

Crossposted at Dailykos

1) The Pollsters Messed Up Completely

LiveScience.com has a great article on what actually happened with the polls. The mainstream media (MSM) wants to show a different narrative, though, that Clinton came back from impossible odds. That Obama lost his support at the last minute. But let’s look at the pre-Iowa and post-Iowa numbers from Real Clear Politics.

Pre-Iowa (Jan 1-2)
Clinton: 34.4
Obama: 26.3
Edwards: 19.2

Post Iowa (Jan 4-5)
Obama: 38.3
Clinton: 30.0
Edwards: 18.3

The Pollsters got two of the three right – Obama’s total, and Edwards total. They failed miserably in getting Clinton’s total correct, understating her support by a large 9%, far outside the MOE. It looks as if most of the undecideds turned to her in the last day, and exit polls agree.

2) Post-Iowa: Clinton Surged, Obama Didn’t

Obama DID surge. Look above at his pre-Iowa poll numbers. He finished with 37%, a healthy 11 point bump from Iowa. The story is Clinton ALSO getting a bump, moving up 5 points after Iowa, and Edwards receiving absolutely no bump from his 2nd place finish. I turn to fladem’s great analysis of post-Iowa bumps. Clinton recieved the typical second place bump of about 5 points, and Obama got a slightly below average first place bump of 11 points. If you notice, Fladem’s projected NH results based on if Obama came in first in Iowa, Clinton 2nd, and Edwards 3rd closely matches what actually occurred.

Clinton refused to concede second place to Edwards, and with the media acquiscence, stole the mantle of second place from Edwards. Edwards attempts to built momentum and make it a two person race failed, and he faltered into third far behind the top two finishers.

3) Edwards is Toast

It is true that Edwards recieved almost no momentum from Iowa, and as a result, he’s getting almost no media coverage now. But we’ve heard this story before. New Hampshire has a history of voting against Southerners. Look at Clinton in 1992, or just across the ballet, at Huckabee and Thompson. Yet Huckabee isn’t considered dead after finished WORSE than Edwards. I expect Edwards to regroup and come back strong in South Carolina, which he won in 2004, perhaps once again upending Clinton for second place.

Conclusion

All day yesterday, I had a bad feeling about New Hampshire. And I was right. However, I think this is a good think for Barack Obama. I think we became complacent, not working hard to beat Clinton’s field operation as we worked hard and throughly in Iowa. Now, we won’t take anything for granted, you can guarantee that, and our volunteers, field staff, and political team will be relentless until we wrap up the nomination. An interesting side effect of this is that now, Nevada matters. And that is a good thing for the Democratic Party, that a Western state with a large Latino population will matter, and I for one cannot wait to see if we can Barack the Caucus one more time.

The format is a bit dull. Not a single person has confronted anyone else, unless you consider Joe Biden joking about Bill Richardson being color blind a “confrontation”, or Barack Obama telling Hillary (in jest) that “I’m looking forward to having you advise me in my administration.”

From right to left, according to PBS’s stage placements. Do you think they purposely put Barack and Hillary on opposite sides?

Hillary Clinton: Mediocre. Hasn’t said anything that stands out, hasn’t rebutted anything that Edwards or Obama have said, and I honestly can’t remember anything that was much of a soundbite. On the plus side, not attacking Obama does hep her put some distance on the disgraceful drugs comment from her NH Co-chair yesterday.

John Edwards: He has been creating some mighty rhetoric, creating a sense of urgency. He has been speaking about battling the Corporations, the special interests. He has spent a lifetime winning these fights? What about that fight against George W. Bush when you were Kerry’s VP nominee? And, as someone who watches these things a lot, Edwards repeats himself more than anyone else, except perhaps Richardson.

Chris Dodd: The dud. Even on the 30 second personal statement he didn’t look rehearsed. He looks tired, and like he is balding (anyone else notice that?). Joe Biden has certainly taken the rug from underneath him, he can’t even make the experience argument anymore, and he doesn’t answer the question – why am I running for President? What happened to the Constitution?

Joe Biden: He had the answer of the night when the moderator accused him, basically, of being racially insensitive. He’s having a great performance, especially towards to the end of the debate, but he does at times sound like a policy work, and tends to get into Senate-speak.

Barack Obama: He sounds prepared. Less “umm”‘s, and less hesitation than in previous experiences. One of his best performances because he looks and sounds Presidential, up to par with Biden and Clinton, but his rhetoric isn’t as fiery as Edwards.