Hank Kalet

Empowering the grassroots

This is an interesting proposal, long overdue and in keeping with the democratic reforms made by the party in its candidate selection process over the years. The superdelegates have been defended as a way of resolving close races, but they really are nothing more than a hedge for the party insiders to ensure that the party’s grassroots cannot take over the process.

The fear is that the Democrats could have a repeat of the 1972 primaries, the first in which the primaries actually mattered, and nominate a new George McGovern. That fear, of course, is overblown and ignores the historical record — as I wrote in 2004 and David Sirota wrote in his book Uprising. Nixon won that election for a lot of reasons, but not because McGovern was some kind of crazed lefty. He won because he was an incumbent that ran a smart race against a fractured Democratic Party and a candidate that made more than his share of mistakes. The Democratic establishment was as much to blame for what happened as the McGovern campaign.

The Democrats, as the 2008 election showed, are at their strongest when the grassroots is empowered and engaged. Altering the rules makes sense for the party.

The year in music 2009, A to Z

Once again, I offer my review of the year in music, alphabetically:

A: Art Brut releases a great third disc (Art Brut v. Satan); Arctic Monkeys misfire a bit (with Humbug).

B: Another Beatles resurgence – as if they ever went away- driven by Rock Band and the release of the American version of their catalogue.

C: Elvis Costello goes folk/country on his latest (Secret, Profane and Sugarcane) and turns talk-show host for the cooler-than-cool “Spectacle.”

D: Disappointment, as in “Bruce Springsteen releases a disappointing disc” – and so do Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Jay-Z, the Monsters of Folk, Weezer, the Flaming Lips among the many.

E: Easy listening tops the charts (Susan Boyle?!?!?) – and nauseates me in the process.

F: Franz Ferdinand has an excellent disco adventure on Tonight.

G: Girl power – Ida Maria and the Screaming Females (from New Brunswick) were among the female punkers and hardrockers to issue outstanding discs.

H: The Heavy’s The House that Dirt Built, is edgy, fuzz-drenched and, well, heavy.

I: “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black-Eyed Peas ranks as one of their best singles – even if the use of “Mazel tov” seems, well, a bit odd.

J: David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain lead a reconstituted New York Dolls through a continued resurgence with Cause I Said So.

K: Kings of Leon’s Only By the Night is better than its hype, even if Art Brut has a little fun during their shows at the band’s expense. (The disc came out in 2008, but bumrushed the charts in 2009.)

L: Lily Allen’s It’s Not Me, It’s You is one of the best things to cross the Atlantic.

M: The Millers, Buddy and Judy, put out the year’s best county disc, Written in Chalk.

N: Nellie McKay shows off her infatuation with Doris Day on Normal as Blueberry Pie.

O: Offspring – as in Roseanne Cash (great disc of covers, The List), Justin Townes Earle and Dhani Harrison (Thenewno2).

P: P!nk releases the best divorce album (Funhouse) since Springsteen’s Brilliant Disguise (another 2008 disc that got most of its play in 2009).

Q: Alicia Keys proves she’s the queen of modern R&B – apologies to Mary J. Blige – with another fabulous disc (The Element of Freedom), perhaps her most consistent.

R: Rihanna surprises with an album (Rated R) of depth and emotion, nothing like the light weight dance/pop she’s known for.

S: Michael Franti and Spearhead release All Rebel Rockers, among the best albums of the year.

T: 21st Century Breakdown proves that Green Day’s expansive view of pop-punk first demonstrated on American Idiot (one of the decade’s best) was no fluke.

U: U2’s No Line on the Horizon is better than its predecessor, the exceptional How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

V: Townes Van Zandt returns with Steve Earle’s impressive reinterpretation of his catalogue, Townes.

W: What was Bob Dylan thinking? A Christmas disc? With strings and a choir? In all seriousness? At least it was for charity.

X: Ex-members of Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar – Tweedy (Wilco’s Wilco (The Album)) puts out maybe the best album of the year, while Farrar (Son Volt’s American Central Dust) easily makes the top 10.

Y: Yeah Yeah Yeahs join Franz Ferdinand on the disco dance floor to great results on It’s Blitz!

Z: The soundtrack to the History Channel’s program, “The People Speak,” a dramatization of Howard Zinn’s important “A People’s History of the United States,” is political and poetic and powerful.

Out of the bubble

I’ve spent the last few days in a self-imposed bubble, taking advantage of some days off to work on some poetry, watch some movies (I recommend Syriana, which I watched on DVR today, and Sherlock Holmes, which is a real thrill ride — though Holmes purists might disagree), and play with the dogs.

I also have studiously avoided the news because too much of it is focused on year-end wrap ups that do little more than regurgitate stories that we’ve read before.

I’ll hit the blog with some thoughts tomorrow — my annual musical wrap (what was it I was saying?), some thoughts on health care and more.

Right now, however, I’m going to bed.

Time for Senate reform

This piece by Ezra Klein is spot on — and very eloquently says what I’ve been saying for a half dozen years: Reform the Senate.

Loose lips and hyperbole

I missed this story on Thursday, but it is worth posting today because it shows the dangers the healthcare reform bill poses in its current form.

If, as the Times reports, the impact will be limited, leaving the vast majority of people to deal with an only modestly changed market:

Now that the Senate has caught up with the House by passing a sweeping health care bill, lawmakers are on the verge of extending coverage to the tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance.

But what about the roughly 160 million workers and their dependents who already have health insurance through an employer? For many people, the result of the long, angry health care debate in Washington may be little more than more of the same.

As President Obama once promised, “If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.”

That may be true even if you don’t like your health plan. And no one seems to agree on whether the legislation will do much to reduce workers’ continually rising out-of-pocket costs.

Again, I am not arguing that the bill should be killed — I remain ambivalent, convinced that a better bill could have been crafted had progressive Senators and the president stood up to Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and the moderates and stopped reifying them, but also concerned with the political damage defeating the bill could cause.

What I think needs to happen is that bill supporters need to be honest. Stop painting the bill with such overheated language and just tell the public what it likely will do and how that is good for all. There is too great a danger that the hyperbole will backfire, that the millions who are unaffected by reforms, who find themselves at the mercy of the industry, will turn their back or worse — buy into the BS arguments coming from the GOP.