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.

Bigger is not better

What’s interesting about this David Brooks op-ed is that it sums up something that we should have known before going into Iraq — and is part of the argument made by Jonathan Schell in his book The Unconquerable World, which came out shortly after 9/11.

One of the points he makes, referring to the nonviolent revolutions in Eastern Europe, is that the nexus between political and military power is fraying, expecially when large states are forced to confront smaller, committed groups. Schell focused his argument on revolutions and the use of alternatives to violence — rightly, I think, linking that approach to the most successful topplings of despots (as in Eastern Europe).

I think, though, that the use of nontraditional or assymetrical warfare — while not to be condoned — fits within his thesis. The days of the big nation-state riding in and remaking smaller nations in its image are long gone (the history of the second half of the 20th century is all the proof we need).

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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No compromises!

So much for the notion of compromise:

Democratic congressional leaders on Friday offered their first major concessions in a fight with President Bush over a spending bill for Iraq, but the White House turned them down.

In a closed-door meeting with Bush’s top aides on Capitol Hill, Democrats said they’d strip billions of dollars in domestic spending out of a war spending that Bush opposed if the president would accept a timetable to pull combat troops out of Iraq. As part of the deal, Democrats said they would allow the president to waive compliance with a deadline for troop withdrawals.

But no agreement was struck.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Death penalty politics in the 14th

This post from Wally Edge offers some pretty interesting speculation on whether the Democrats might want to shield Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein from having her committee review a death penalty repeal bill. The notion is that the Democratic leadership would move the legislation to a different committee to spare her having to take a high-profile stance on a difficult issue in a district that includes Hamilton (considered a bulwark of death-penalty support) — and to keep from angering death penalty abolitionists.

Supporters of ending the death penalty are worried that Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein’s tenuous hold on her own competitive legislative district — past polling has shown support for the death penalty, especially in blue-collar Hamilton Township — and her fear of tough stands, might make her less likely to support their cause.

Amazing what an issue-based story can do for the political process (yes, I am patting the Post on the back).

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.