Showing posts with label John Liu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Liu. Show all posts

Thursday, October 11, 2012

John Liu Could Be Mayor

Jupiter And Obama
Bobby Will Run In 2016
Nitish Is My Lula
John Liu And Being Asian American
John Liu: Mayor Of NYC: 2013
John Liu: Victory
New York City


My friend John Liu, the New York City Comptroller, the most senior Democrat in the city, could get elected Mayor next year. He stands a strong chance. About 10% of Americans are black, about 10% of New Yorkers are Asian American. And John Liu is not half white. And to be Mayor of New York City is to hold the second most important political office in America.

It would be a historic win if John wins. John F Kennedy, the first Catholic to get elected president, had brothers called Bobby and Teddy, so does John Liu. That John broke a barrier. This John is about to.

We as a community have to do the best we can to make it happen. For one, this guy loves the Nepali community. He has shown up for our events when there were no potential voters or donors in the room. And he knew, it is not like we duped him into thinking otherwise.

When John Liu ran for Comptroller, he got more votes than did Mayor Bloomberg, and John is not even a billionaire. He was not an incumbent Mayor. Tells me if he had run for Mayor instead of Comptroller he would have beat Bloomberg. The Democrats should have nominated John Liu instead of Bill Thompson to run against Bloomberg. Bloomberg would have been defeated, if that was the idea.

Last year John Liu was leading in the polls. Then a Chinese soldier in the US Army succumbed to racism, committed suicide. John Liu organized protest events, made some noise. And he got targeted. The FBI created a slight stink around him and drove down his poll numbers. It was a deliberate institutional attack. It was racist.

Goes on to show it is harder being an Asian American in this city than it is to be a gay woman who is friends with a Mayor who is not from her party, or a white guy married to a black woman, or a black guy who ran for Mayor and lost. Those would be the other top three contenders for the throne, Christine Quinn, the City Council Speaker, Bill De Blasio, the Public Advocate, and Bill Thompson, the former Comptroller.


I was Barack Obama’s first full time volunteer in New York City and I have the scars to show for it. They had me disappear the same day Barack beat Hillary and they let me out a few days after Barack beat McCain. They had me in for six months; they had Mandela in for 27 years. The racism he faced was about 50 times stronger.

I was born in Bihar. People in this city are not going to teach me the rough and tumbles of politics. Of the 200,000 Nepalis in America I was the only full timer to have worked for Nepal’s democracy movement in 2005-2006. In April 2006, over a period of 19 days, about eight million people out of the country's 27 million came out into the streets to shut the country down completely to force a dictator out. If you can deal with a dictator, you can deal with racism.

In 1996 I showed up in Bible Belt Deep South Kentucky for college and ran for Freshman Class President and got fewer votes than anyone else. Within five months of that I had myself elected Student Body President at the top liberal arts college in the South, a college record, the first time a freshman had done so. Before I came to America, too young to legally run for office, I was Vice General Secretary to a party whose General Secretary was Hridayesh Tripathy and Rajendra Mahto was a Central Committee member, junior to me. Both Tripathy and Mahto are cabinet ministers in Nepal today. They have been for years. Tripathy first became cabinet minister over a decade ago.

I am political and I am rooting for John Liu. How about you?

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Friday, August 28, 2009

A DaMaJaMaKha Panel


(article sent to USNepalOnline)

I am honored to be a panelist for the United Nepalese Democratic Forum
event Sunday, August 30, at 11:30 AM at Yak in Jackson Heights. My
good friend Tek Gurung, the UNDF president, is hosting it. I have been
to many Nepali events in NYC the past four years. This might be the
first panel that has a DaMaJaMaKha presentation, as in Dalit, Madhesi,
Janajati, Mahila and Khas, and that is no small achievement. I can't
wait to show up and participate.

The topic for the discussion is New Constitution and Fundamental
Issues of Nepal. I think the number one issue is obviously federalism,
and there is the not so small matter of army formation.

On the army formation, I think it is for the parliament to discuss and
shape a Security Sector Reform bill. That bill will decide if Nepal
should have an army, if yes, how big, what should be the gender and
ethnic composition of that Nepal Army, how that composition has to be
achieved, and how to smoothen the transition of the leftover soldiers
from both the NA and the PLA into the private sector of the economy.
The US did that on a much larger scale after World War II.

On federalism it is a good thing that we have already decided we are
going for it. Now we have to work to decide on a map for it, and we
have to decide on the power distribution between the center and the
states.

I am for a eight state federalism: Tharuwan, Madhesh, Khasan, Magarat,
Tamuwan, Tamasaling, Newa and Kirat. Rapti to Mechi would be one state
Madhesh. That demarcation comes from the original Maoist map. After
the first Madhesi revolution, the Maoists decided to punish the
Madhesis by sending Chitwan off to a Pahadi state, and breaking up the
rest of the Madhesh into three sub states. That is not going to fly.

As for power distribution, there are a few key items on the agenda.
One, should we or should we not have a directly elected president? I
think we should. If no candidate gets at least 50% of the votes, a
second round election would be held between the top two candidates. We
need that arrangement for political stability, for a robust
federalism, and for a clear separation of powers between the three
branches of government. All budgets and bills will still have to be
passed by the parliament.

As for directly elected members to the parliament, half of those will
have to be from the Terai. So if we have 250 such MPs, 125 would be
from the Terai. And then there would be the indirect, proportional
election part to ensure a proportionate DaMaJaMa participation. This
is about one person, one vote. That is what democracy is about.

Writing a new constitution is not really that complicated. We have to
get it done and move on to the larger task of an economic revolution
for Nepal that will last a few decades. The country can be
fundamentally transformed for the better in 20 years.



(with John Liu, candidate for NYC Comptroller)

(at India Day Parade 2009, the largest Indian event outside India)

(at a Bill Thompson event, Bombay Palace, K Lounge)

(with Bill Thompson, first black NYC Comptroller, candidate for NYC Mayor)


(Madhesi Picnic, August 2009)

(an email from Madhav Nepal a few days before he became Prime Minister)



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