Political Theatre category archive

Werner Herzog’s Bear expects an interesting year. He is not optimistic.

The American government is facing even worse gridlock at the top, while right wing revolutionaries are aggressively using state and local institutions to advance their radical agenda. There is so much disgust and anger with the status quo, and those feelings are being answered by people who want to not only preserve it, but advance it even more. . . . At the same time, corporate earnings have never been higher, while the middle class is being squeezed out of existence and economic class warfare is being perpetuated on the working class. This is all happening in a political climate where even supposed liberals are too chickenshit to propose any changes aimed at improving economic equality. Something has to give. In 2015, something will give. Change will come, or the heavy boot of reaction will come down harder than we’ve seen since the days of J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO.

Read the disquieting rest.

Death panels, Republican style:

A federal judge Wednesday declared Florida’s healthcare system for needy and disabled children to be in violation of several federal laws, handing a stunning victory to doctors and children’s advocates who have fought for almost a decade to force the state to pay pediatricians enough money to ensure impoverished children can receive adequate care.

In his 153-page ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan said lawmakers had for years set the state’s Medicaid budget at an artificially low level, causing pediatricians and other specialists for children to opt out of the insurance program for the needy. In some areas of the state, parents had to travel long distances to see specialists.

The low spending plans, which forced Medicaid providers for needy children to be paid far below what private insurers would spend — and well below what doctors were paid in the Medicare program for a more powerful group, elders — amounted to rationing of care, the order said.

The state of Florida says the ruling is in error, this never happened, no one saw a thing, it was that other state over there, and, besides, it was a long time ago.

Here’s a bit of what Dick Polman had to say about this:

Meet the Press is frequently lumped under the general heading of “liberal media,” but we’d be wise to ditch that canard and call the show what it is, a product of the “corporate media.” It’s a safe, centrist environ for people in power (and people who once had it), opining without fear of being seriously fact-checked, for a TV audience comprised mostly of affluent insiders who are coveted by corporate advertisers. That’s really the “balance” of which Todd speaks. It’s just one more reason why citizens outside the Washington bubble are so cynical.

Foxy twits.

Ari Cohen:

In response to all the police are good/police are bad business lately, I’ve noticed a lot of people saying things like, “You have no right to comment on this; you’ve never been a police officer.”

I noticed the same thing when people wrote about soldiers and war around Veterans Day. And Memorial Day.

And when I wrote some critical pieces about Israel over the summer, I was told I shouldn’t say anything because I didn’t live there.

Basically what I’m saying is that this is a popular move to end a discussion.

It’s an old tactic: When you got nothing, change the subject.

Follow the link for the rest of his post.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Kenneth Worthy tries to understand Republican denial of climate change. He finds a confluence of authoritarianism, short-term economic self-interest, and social dominance.

The U.S. Republican party stands alone in the developed, industrialized world as the only major political party to fail to acknowledge that global climate change is real, is damaging (not just to nature but to people and the economy), and requires us to change the way we do business. Not that other U.S. politicians have rallied vigorously enough to lead the nation to significantly reduce fossil-fuel and other emissions that cause climate change. But the Republican party, with all of its denial that the problem even exists, presents perhaps the greatest obstacle to action against climate change, particularly now that they will control both houses.

Despite an annoying overuse of jargon and acronyms, it’s worth a read.

Debra J. Saunders, writing at SFGate.com, has qualms and the resurfacing of Carly Fiorina as “Presidential hopeful.”

So maybe it isn’t totally crazy that Fiorina is running for president even if she’s never won an election. But it is totally crazy that Fiorina is running for the White House when, according to federal election reports, her 2010 campaign still owes $486,418 to creditors. Who wants a deadbeat for president?

Christmas carols for a contemporary citizenry.

Hate-full twits.

History matters.

Daniel Ruth considers the prospect of yet another Bush whacking on the polity:

Nothing shakes up the political landscape more than the exciting arrival of a new, bold, spirited, youthful fresh face. And then there is Jeb Bush, 61, the Eddie Haskell of the Republican Party. Why that’s a lovely dress you’re wearing, Mrs. Koch.

Do read the rest. It just gets better.

Via Juanita Jean.

After a brief allusion to Sony’s The Interview,* Jon Stewart gets to Gitmo.

Via Raw Story.

__________________

*”Artistic integrity” and all that to the side, I can’t get worked up over Sony’s and movie houses’ chickening out of showing The Interview, perhaps because I suspect that that movie is just another steaming pile of Hollywood cow patties. I reckon I should be outraged on principle, but, as Hollywood has neither principles nor integrity, why should I waste mine on them?

Hadley Freeman points at that, as regards the US Presidency, family matters.

Should Hillary Clinton win the next election and get two terms, followed by Jeb Bush for the next two terms – a scenario that is far from impossible – the American presidency would have been controlled by two monarchies for 44 years, with a brief Obama interlude. Rather knocks the House of Stuart (1707-1714) to a cocked hat or, that is, a cocked crown. . . .

Any suggestion that the American political system is democratic is so outdated it has taken on the quality of an ancient myth. Outliers – such as Barack Obama, for one – are the exception, and the norm is dynastic families.

Follow the link for the rest.

Meanwhile, Yves Smith wonders

Jeb Bush: The Forrest Gump of Financial Improprieties?