Chanakya Said

As I mentioned in the child soldier’s post, YouTube has tremendous potential to serve the public good.  check out this cnn article.  this can be a great catalyst for viral mobilization.

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A few months back, I had the fortune of reading a petite but powerful novel by Uzodinma Iweala called Beasts of No Nation. In the midst of civil war in an unnamed West African country, Iweala’s young protagonist, Agu, is torn away from his family and reared as a soldier under the menacing authority of a sodomizing warlord. At an age when most kids in the U.S. are taking spelling tests and trading Pokemon cards, Agu is being trained as a merciless killer in every way: kidnapping, mutilating bodies, razing villages, the works - all under the direction of a commander that rapes him over and over and over again.

To a Westerner who’s never been to Africa, Agu’s pidgin English may sound comical, but the message of the story should set off alarm bells - there are literally millions of children like Agu around the world, and most of them are undocumented in human rights reports on military recruitment. Based on a 1999 UN report:

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers believes that more than 120,000 children under 18 years of age are currently participating in armed conflicts across Africa. Some of these children are no more than 7 or 8 years of age. The countries most affected by this problem are: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda. Furthermore, Ethiopian government forces engaged in an armed conflict against Eritrea, and the clans in Somalia, have both included an unknown, though probably not substantial, number of under-18s in their ranks. In internal armed conflicts in the Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal, on the other hand, there has been little or no recorded use of under-18s by government or armed opposition forces, and there are almost certainly no under-15s participating in hostilities in these three situations.

And that’s just in Africa! In Indonesia, Burma, Cambodia, and Central Asia, there are countless numbers of children caught in the daily landmines of war.

As an advocate of the “web 2.0″ era, where users contribute rich content across the web, I think there is tremendous potential to improve the international documentation of child soldiers. Global Voices Online’s model of international blogging could offer new identification methods, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers has the mission to work for this cause, and Witness has the filmmaking experience to mobilize people through powerful narratives. Obviously, there is no easy, cookie-cutter way to assist child soldiers, but improving international access to information and resources is an important step. If Witness could transform into YouTube, think about how it would transform documentation of human rights abuse and mobilization of campaigns.

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Jim Collins’ bestseller Built To Last investigated the success of the most durable companies across industries - HP, Motorola, 3M, and Nordstrom, among others. While the values of each company vary, all of the successful ones share a common ingredient. Their employees are hired on the basis of a connection to the company’s core values, and innovation within departments is guided by those values.

This tenet of long-term corporate success may shed light on the pendulum phenomenon of political majorities. Joe Barton (R-TX) and John Boehner (R-OH) commented:

“Within the living memory of all of us, Republicans were on track to become a permanent majority,” [Barton] said in a statement. “Now, some say the train has outrun the tracks, that Republicans seemed to care more about the smoke and fire in the engine than who was in the cars and where we were taking them.”

[Boehner said,] “Our voters stopped thinking of us as the party of principle because we lost our commitment to, and confidence in, our core principles,” he said. “As I see it, our chief challenge will be to find new ways to articulate these core principles in ways that reflect both the values Americans hold dear and the practical challenges they face.”

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The core principles of any candidate must include responsiveness to the needs of the particular district/state. Ultimately, if a candidate can maintain integrity and popularity close to home, they’re far more likely to weather the national storm. The other alternative is to push a contentious referendum on the ballot, as many have done, to mobilize like-minded voters. Yet almost inevitably, officials in the majority party shift from local to national agendas as elections fade into the past, and toe the party line far more often than the line of their own constituents.

To state the obvious, the Republican Party does not have a cohesive ideology. There’s little chance of bridging the principles of conservatives and moderates, especially when it comes to God and gays. As a party, they’re more likely to win in the future on a “limited government,” “fiscally responsible” platform.

In the meantime, Democrats need to plow ahead with a centrist, populist platform, which should satisfy the base and keep the evangelicals at bay. That’s not what I want, but it is critical to maintaining a majority.

That said, majorities intrinsically insulate parties from constituencies, which is the overarching reason that they’re not built to last.

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At the tender age of 25, my boy Jay’s claimed a seat in the Ohio House. Before he was a candidate, he was my freshman year roommate, a member of the student body, and a master of Engineering Analysis (which he would keep me up about until 4 in the morning). One thing’s for sure - Jay is a fierce competitor and persistent, in the best of ways. I salute him and wish him the best in office.

Kudos, sir! This article likens his early bid for office to Sherrod Brown’s, another Ohio man you may have heard about last night.

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In a world where the uber-repressed have a chance to wear their colors, I imagine that conservatives would thrive. Free of the attack dogs, Foley could hit on congressional pages along the campaign trail, Santorum could wear stiletto heels while decrying Islamic fascism, and Frist could resume his role as a compassionate surgeon by disconnecting the life support of any terminally ill patient that requested a DNR. In other words, conservatives could be honest with themselves.

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The man who accepted R.J. Reynolds’ offer to fly him to his arraignment is on his way out, and unlike in his early days, he couldn’t prop up a candidate to carry the hammer. Even his best attempt at gerrymandering couldn’t stave off this landslide. Texas 22 goes blue!

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he’s also stealing a large portion of the conservative vote from Burns

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Rahm Emanuel and Howard Dean deserve a lot of credit. they carved strong candidates out of relative unknowns and brought the 50-state strategy to life. well done

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