Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

#twowrongs — a Twitter essay of sorts on ‘The Donald’

I’ve been seeing a lot of this kind of reasoning on Facebook the last couple of days (I removed the name of the poster):

The point of this link and others is to call liberals out as hypocrites. “Carter did it,” this argument goes, so what do have to say about that?

My response is simple: so what? Carter was wrong. I have no problem saying that and many of my liberal friends feel as I do.

But the reality is this is part of a larger pattern used to deflect focus from what is on the table today.

Called out by a friend on this specific point on Facebook, so I offer this clarification (from my Facebook response):

Hyperbole on my part. Yes. It isn’t ethnic or religious cleansing, but the specific targeting of a religious or ethnic group with the intention of separating them in some way (physically, symbolically) from the general population would seem a first step in its direction — hence my calling it a continuum. You start by painting a group as a threat, then you use legal measures to control them in some way (which, at the very least, confers legal status on their separateness), then you expand those measures beyond control, and so on. I think Trump’s rhetoric falls at the beginning of that continuum.

To elaborate further: Banning entry of an individual religious or ethnic group by force of law or executive order is creating a separate legal class for that group, which then opens the doors for other things. Does this mean that a more explicit form of agitation and separate will waltz in through that door? No. A lot of other things would need to occur before something like that might follow. But opening the door does seem a dangerous first step.

This line of argument has been building up for a few days as I attempted to respond on Facebook to some of the memes and links that have been circulating, but the response to my posting of today’s Daily News cover ultimately led me to put it in writing (or tweets):

The Daily News in full crusader mode.

Posted by Hank Kalet on Tuesday, December 8, 2015

So, jump into the fray. What do you think. Answer in the comments, or feel free to join in the fun on Twitter or my Facebook page.

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No fly on the no-fly

There was a time when liberals were skeptical of the no-fly list. Back during the Bush administration, the Democrats were rightly critical. The list, as In These Times pointed out in 2002, shortly after its inception, is a dangerous tool that can be turned against political opponents as easily as it could be used to keep flyers safe.

And yet, Democrats have opted to make the no-fly list a focus of their current gun-control efforts.
Here’s what President Obama said during his Oval Office speech last night:

To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.

Democrats have been pushing this line for the past few weeks, including a failed effort in the Senate — and a level of hyperbole that ties a real need for regulation of firearms to an unaccountable leftover from the Bush administration. Here’s Nancy Pelosi:

“It is unconscionable that a suspected terrorist can enter a store and leave with the gun of his choice. We must close this terrorist gun loophole and act to strengthen our system of background checks.”

It sounds reasonable, right? After all, we know that everyone on the no-fly list is a threat. Or acknowledged threat. Or might be a threat. Except that’s not the case. Despite reforms, as the ACLU points out,

the standards for inclusion on the No Fly List are unconstitutionally vague, and innocent people are blacklisted without a fair process to correct government error. Our lawsuit seeks a meaningful opportunity for our clients to challenge their placement on the No Fly List because it is so error-prone and the consequences for their lives have been devastating.

The no-fly list is problematic on a lot of levels — there is a lack of transparency and due process, potential political interference, ethnic bias, etc. We should be having a discussion about whether it is even a useful tool, rather than expanding its use into other areas.
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Journalism quote of the day

This is a quotation from the summer that, in a shortened form, reappears in a more recent blog post from Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU. (I saw this today, posted to Facebook by journalist Marc Cooper.) I post this for my students:

(P)ower-seeking and truth-seeking are different behaviors, and this is what creates the distinction between politics and journalism. The work of the journalist cannot be done without a commitment to the act of reporting, which means gathering information, talking to people who know, trying to verify and clarify what actually happened and to portray the range of views as they emerge from events.

A primary commitment to reporting therefore distinguishes the work of the journalist. Declining to express a view does not. Refusing to vote does not. Pretending to be ideology-free or “objective” on everything does not. Getting attacked from both sides? Nope. But a commitment to reporting does.

As I constantly tell my students: It is about the reporting. It is only about the reporting. The reporting is what distinguishes the ideologue from the journalist.

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The Star-Ledger’s irony-free zone on Christie

I’m going to make this brief, because I think Tom Moran’s criticism of the Manchester Union-Leader endorsement of Gov. Chris Christie for president is very much on point, even if it reads like proselytizing from the recently converted.

He called the endorsement “a short love poem” that was “was written by people who took only a passing glance at his dismal record as governor in New Jersey.” Christie’s appeal, Moran says as a direct rebuke to the New Hampshire folks, has nothing to do with his actual record and has everything to do with his ability to sell himself, his ability to perform. Christie’s rhetoric, Moran points out, is rarely backed by actual governing. The governor bemoans a war on drugs that stigmatizes drug users, saying treatment should be the first line of defense, Moran says, which is a “home run’ on style points, even if “it turned out to be fluff.”

Christie has not increased funding for drug treatment; he has decreased it slightly. And the number of people admitted to treatment programs has dropped on his watch.

The endorsement is another good example. If you are from New Jersey, it was hard to read.

It said he “dealt admirably” with Sandy, despite the polls showing that 60 percent of those affected think he’s done a poor job.

It didn’t mention Bridgegate, or jobs, or the state’s sinking credit rating.

On pensions, I asked the editorial page editor, Grant Bosse, what he thought of Christie breaking his promise to deposit funds. “I don’t think we got into the weeds on pension reform.”

Moran makes the point, in critiquing the Union-Leader editorial, that

we have entered strange new territory this year. This contest is not about substance. It’s more about style, as if we were electing a star for a reality TV show.

Moran adds that, “as a performer, Christie is tough to beat.”

All of this is true but, as Moran himself writes, “if you are from New Jersey, this Moran column (there is an earlier one that makes the same points)  “was hard to read” unless you are willing to forget the Star-Ledger’s own endorsement missteps. I criticized the editorial at the time, pointing to its convoluted logic, to its willingness to overlook even as it details the problems with Christie’s record during his first term.
I don’t want to re-litigate the 2013 election or the endorsement. Moran later called the endoresement “regrettable,” and said they “blew this one,” though he also says the board probably had no choice — an incredibly defensive statement, a mea culpa that was very light on the culpa.

My point is that Moran’s criticism of the Union-Leader may be accurate, but also might be better turned inward. The Union-Leader likes the idea of Christie, but has no interest in understanding the real Christie; the Ledger, while purporting to know the real Christie, ultimately was willing to overlook all the baggage because a) he had the same position on education and pension reform as the paper and b) it refused to take opponent Barbara Buono seriously, even if it agreed with her on far more issues than it did with Christie.

That was then. The Union-Leader’s endorsement — light on facts, as it is — focuses primarily on one issue (in this case, terrorism), while calling into question the credentials of his opponents (freshmen Senators, business leaders lacking in public experience, etc.). That’s essentially the recipe used in 2013 by the Ledger editorial board when it backed Christie. Aside from the tone, I’m not sure there is a lot of difference.

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