Political Theatre category archive

Werner Herzog’s Bear looks at the spread of new Fascism (he calls it “Fascism 2.0”) and is not optimistic. Here’s a bit:

Fascism 2.0 has adapted to our modern world. It knows to avoid flagrant fascist symbolism and to cling to respectability. It knows that once you deny something, i.e., “I was NOT flashing a white power symbol,” the media will automatically report the controversy and give up on finding the truth. Fascism 2.0 is kicking Jean Marie Le Pen out of the party, but still espousing all of the old ideas. Fascism 2.0 uses the fringe nasties like neo-Nazis and Klansmen to pretend that it does not hold the same essential beliefs, that those hated groups are the “real fascists,” not the Stephen Millers of the world (who so clearly are.) It knows not to reach for absolute dictatorship, but to leave just enough wiggle room to say “see, people here have freedoms.”

Please do read the rest.

Via Juanita Jean.

In Wingnut World, “civility” is defined as not opposing Wingnut World.

Because you want to talk doesn’t mean anyone has to listen.

Via Job’s Anger.

Shorter Shaun Mullen: You can bank on it.

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*With apologies to Mickey Spillane.

David’s primary source is here.

I was recently at a gathering which is aggressively a-political. In the years I’ve been associated with this group, politics has come up as many times as I have thumbs.

This time, one of the attendees started to talk to me about the mid-term elections (I think this person leans right, but I also know that he is not insane).

I cut him off, quickly, but not sharply, saying, “I don’t predict.”

But Shaun Mullen sometimes does.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Professors James Bailey and D. Christopher Keys explore why the idea of “running the government like a business” so regularly fails, often spectacularly. They cite three reasons; here’s one:

Second, unlike running a business, a model of leadership based on meeting the interests of a small list of stakeholders, policy leadership involves building a coalition of often competing interests while serving the needs of a large number of constituents.

We are watching today what happens when a President decides to appeal to just one group of stakeholders, the Red Hats, and it’s not pretty.

Afterthought:

The overriding factor that unites the reasons the authors cite is one often ignored by those who would “run the government like a business” and is quite simple. Government is not a business.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., explores an oxymoron.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Dr. Grant Hilary Brenner explores “The Three Core Traits of Conspiracy Theorists.”

Warning: He ain’t the best writer in the world, but this is still worth a read.

Shaun Mullen has the intelligence reports.