Political Theatre category archive

Secretary Scofflaw.

I find the DOD’s action particularly repulsive, as my father’s unit was captured during the run-up to the Battle of the Bulge and spent the rest of the war in German POW camps.

Like most soldiers who actually see combat, my father seldom alluded to his experiences during the war, much less actually talked about them, but I recall one time: As we watched the opening of The Great Escape on television, he said, almost to himself, “That’s exactly what it looked like.”

Paul Krugman marvels at the Republican Party’s embrace of cruelty, suggesting that comparing it to Ebeneezer Scrooge libels Scrooge. A snippet:

. . . while Dickens portrays Scrooge as a miser, he’s notably lacking in malice. True, he’s heartless until he’s visited by various ghosts. But his heartlessness consists merely of unwillingness to help those in need. He’s never shown taking pleasure in others’ suffering, or spending money to make the lives of the poor worse.

These are things you can’t say about the modern American right. In fact, many conservative politicians only pretend to be Scrooges, when they’re actually much worse — not mere misers, but actively cruel.

Follow the link for examples.

Read the transcript.

The editor of The Progressive Populist is–er–annoyed that news media refer to Donald Trump as a “populist.” A snippet:

There are clear differences between populism and fascism. Populism is a movement that rose in the late 1800s as a reaction to the rapid industrialization of the US during the Gilded Age. It called for the government to protect working people, farmers and small businesses against monied interests, particularly railroads and what were then called “trusts,” which we now know as corporations. The little guys needed protection against the plutocrats and oligarchs who own and control the corporations (and the government).

(snip)

Trump has demonstrated the Grand Oligarch Party’s tilt toward fascism, but the GOP has been moving in that direction since American plutocrats, who had been looking for an opportunity to overturn the New Deal since the end of World War II, put up Ronald Reagan to run for president in 1980.

Follow the link for the rest.

Via The Bob Cesca Show Blog.

Via Job’s Anger.

Ralph Bristol, a long-time host of a radio talk show with (he admits) a conservative bent, is concerned about dis coarse discourse.

Now, I know nothing about Bristol or how he conducted his show–not every conservative talker is a Rush Limbaugh or a Glenn Beck–but methinks he makes some good points. Here’s an excerpt:

Fewer and fewer Americans are getting their political and public policy news from fact-finding journalism that tries to tell the whole truth about political matters without regard for which political party or politician it benefits or harms in the process or how large an audience it pleases. The recent entry of social media and podcasting to compete for political news audiences has further divided the already fractured targeted audiences, requiring fewer and fewer pieces of the whole truth to attract the desired audience.

The product is an American population incapable of informed voting, let alone participating in deliberations regarding public policy issues that will determine the future security, prosperity and liberty of the U.S. and its citizens.