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.

Grassroots Democrats fight back

There has been some interesting analysis of Tuesay’s results and a lot of wasted language, as well.

What strikes me most about Tuesday is not the lack of impact that the Obama endorsements had, or that Rand Paul’s win confirms the Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party. What is most interesting — and least remarked upon (at least in the MSM) — is that Tuesday’s results may just signal a resurgence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Joe Sestak, a moderately liberal Democrat, absolutely creams the former Republican Arlen Specter — Sestak, a candidate who was unabashedly for health care reform and has been leading the push to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” who favors card-check and a strong bank regulations; Specter was none of this, plus he carries a long history of what I view as unprincipled toadying to the GOP leadership. Remember, Specter — who had his good moments, to be sure — was always viewed as a pro-choice Republican, but when it came to voting on pro-life judges, his pro-choice stance rarely mattered. He was rhetorically moderate, but party-line on the votes and Demcorats would have been foolish to allow him to keep his seat.

Blanche Lincoln is in a runoff, thanks to her obstructionism on health care — a final straw position that cut her off from the party’s grassroots and left her hanging. She may still pull this out — the runoff is next month, I believe — but the message has been sent.

And then there is Rand Paul. The son of Texas Congressman and libertarian hero Ron Paul, young Dr. Paul won the GOP nomination for Senate in Kentucky over a candidate handpicked by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Paul, who is bat-sh*t crazy on so many issues, is also the kind of ally that progressives could use on issues like civil liberties, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Federal Reserve reform. He opposes both wars (maybe not for the right reasons, but he offers an opening), which could be key as we move forward with a Democratic admininistration that has bought into the conventional wisdom about why we fight.

Let’s be clear: None of these candidates are hard-core progressives, and there are no guarantees that any of them will survive their November races.

I mentioned the strong analysis — David Sirota on his radio show yesterday (via podcast) was spot-on, as was Cenk Uygur on the Young Turks. And then there was the nonsense — much of what the cable newsies were saying about the results was little more than fluff or conventional noodling focused on November.

That just misses the point completely.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

So long, Arlen

Arlen Specter deserves this loss. Joe Sestak is no FDR, but he is closer to the traditional Democrat of old than the Senate’s top party-switcher. And it may show that Democrats — or at least the Democratic grassroots — is ready to shake off the cobwebs.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

First try at a villanelle

Here is a new poem — an experiment in form, my first villanelle.

Anyone care to comment?

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Voucher hypocrisy

Bret Schundler jumps into the voucher hypocrisy pool, dismissing stats that contradict his claims and call into question his proposals.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Is this blackmail?

I got this from a non-reader who apparently reads my column. (Yes, that is as contradictory and convoluted as it sounds.) I thought I’d share:

Being tempted to re-subscribe to the Packet, I checked on line today to see if Hank Kalet is still writing his tedious, unoriginal and redundant column. Alas, it is still there and – as always – there was nothing I would not find on the New York Times’ op-ed page. Truly, can anyone possibly care to hear his opinion of a law passed by Arizonans to deal with Arizona problems?

A deal: I’ll re-subscribe when you focus exclusively on local issues, which seems to be the mandate of publications like the Packet, Press, Post, et al.

Keep in mind that the column this week used the Arizona immigration law to get at something larger and included comments from Princeton’s Maria Juega, of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which seems pretty local to me.

In any case, I’ve noticed a trend over time: People never complain about the editorial page unless they disagree. But instead of responding to the argument made by a particular editorial or column, they complain that it doesn’t belong in the paper in the first place.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.