Political Theatre category archive

Inspired by Richard Mourdoch, the “rape is a gift from God” candidate, Tony Norman riffs on the God revered of the wingnutosphere. A nugget:

If this god were to speak from its pyramid-shaped throne on the back of a dollar bill, it would say the following:

“I am the god of the 1 percent. You shall have no other gods before me. I help those who help themselves and visit poverty over many generations to those who would redistribute the wealth that I have freely given to those who luxuriate without guilt in my love. I reward the spirit of material excess because I hate poverty and the poor who have rejected my ways.

“I am a vulgar god who never tires of the misery perpetuated by those who exploit the resources of the planet for tax breaks and personal gain. The smoke of belching coal plants and runoff from hydraulic fracturing pleases me. Let those who refuse to rape the earth that I have made in six days be accursed.

Voting is not a right. It’s a duty.

Joseph Stiglitz. An excerpt:

I can tell you, when I travel to most other countries, they . . . are very scared of a Romney presidency.

Via Dick Destiny.

And Dennis G. at Balloon Juice sums up the Republican campaign in a picture.

Via Delaware Liberal.

Turning it back, that is. Eugene Robinson:

When Republicans vow to “take back our country,” they never say from whom. But we can guess.

Issues of race, power and privilege are less explicit this year than in 2008, but in some ways they are even stronger.

Four years ago, we asked ourselves whether the nation would ever elect a black president. The question was front and center. Every time we see the president and his family walk across the White House lawn to board Marine One, we’re reminded of the answer.

The intensity of the opposition to Obama has less to do with who he is than with the changes in American society he not only represents but incarnates. Citing his race as a factor in the way some of his opponents have bitterly resisted his policies immediately draws an outraged cry: “You’re saying that just because I oppose Obama, I’m a racist.” No, I’m not saying that at all.

Follow the link to find out what he is saying.

This one is not as funny as her usual bits, but is more disturbing. The undercurrent of racism in one of the interviews–well, just watch it. It’s slightly longer than two minutes.

At Bloomberg, Stephen L. Carter ruminates on “principles.”

I can’t say that I agree with all his conclusions or examples, but I do think it’s worth a read. Here are two snippets:

When politicians and their supporters refer to “principles,” they usually don’t mean it in the sense that Aristotle or my father did. “I’ll preserve Social Security” or “I’ll never raise taxes” aren’t statements about fundamental beliefs. At best, they are examples of conclusions to which one might reason from fundamental beliefs. Probably, however, they aren’t even that — they are simply lines that have tested well with focus groups.

(snip)

Too much of life nowadays revolves around the notion that self-interest is a principle. It isn’t. It’s just an animal instinct — a useful one, to be sure, in the functioning of markets, but a dangerous one to unleash on an entire society. When we fret about the epidemic of academic cheating, for example, what we are really seeing is the predictable result of the abandonment of principle by we adults who are supposed to be setting an example.

President Obama on Ayn Rand, via TPM (emphasis added):

Have you ever read Ayn Rand?

Sure.

What do you think Paul Ryan’s obsession with her work would mean if he were vice president?

Well, you’d have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him. Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we’re only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we’re considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that’s a pretty narrow vision. It’s not one that, I think, describes what’s best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a “you’re on your own” society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.

This is consistent with the comment I heard from a lady who said that, when she was in college, she learned quickly to avoid dating men who were reading Ayn Rand.

Via Bartcop.

Via Mother Jones.

Via Bartcop.

As usual, in Onion there is truth.

Via The Commander Guy.

Jay Bookman wonders why Mitt the Flip has suddenly decided to trumpet the navy and reaches a conclusion:

In Romney’s view, the fact that 4 percent of the world’s population controls a mere 50 percent of the world’s naval firepower, almost five times the amount of the second-ranked power, leaves that 4 percent dangerously vulnerable.

. . . Why is Romney stressing naval expansion in his campaign remarks? Take a look at the map of swing states. Virginia is critical to his election hopes. Virginia is also home to Newport News Shipbuilding, which with 21,000 employees is a major contractor with the U.S. Navy.

Leonard J. Pitts, Jr., considers the undercurrents of Mitt the Flip’s binders full of women and finds himself transported back in time:

A pattern takes shape here. Between Romney’s binders full of women, and Rush Limbaugh branding a woman a “slut” because she thinks contraception should be part of her health insurance package, between Rep. Todd Akin’s belief that the uterus somehow filters out unwanted sperm and Rep. Allen West’s chastisement of an opponent’s failure to act like a “lady,” it becomes increasingly obvious some socially conservative men are stuck in a time warp. Akin, West and Limbaugh hunker down like Davy Crockett at the Alamo, behind modes of sexist condescension that were getting old when the Beatles broke up. Romney tries to show he “gets it” by disinterring a trope from the era of Jheri curls and Max Headroom.

When’s the last time any of these boys had a date?

In the world outside their time bubble, women run states and nations, fight fires and litigate cases, perform surgeries and grab rebounds. And yes, they still tend boo-boos and fix meals, too.

Back in time is, natch, where these folks want to be, back in the Never Never Land that never existed of Leave It to Beaver* (never mind that Barbara Billingsley was a working mother).

______________________

*I couldn’t stand that show, probably because my brother liked it.

Helen Philpot quantifies Mitt’s lies, then concludes

Too bad we don’t have Sarah Palin this year. She wore her crazy on her sleeve, but Romney is actually pretty good at misleading voters. Don’t let him mislead you. He may look Presidential while his is lying, but do we really want to make this about looks? If we did that we would have to include the wives and Michelle Obama is a knock out.

Read the rest.

Bizarre, in a quite Randian way.

Jon Stewart asks the question:

. . . setting aside that the President didn’t actually do any of these things, why did the President do these things?

Via TPM.

At Philly dot com, Ronnie Polaneczky explains why she was unable to write a cutesy-poo column about the debates and women in binders:

What Romney has had from birth, and what he takes for granted, is a level of well-being that 99 percent of Americans will never know. His wealth has allowed him to put miles of distance between himself and the potential for disaster. And his stunning lack of empathy blinds him to those who aren’t so fortunate.

He and his ilk will never lose sleep at night worrying how to pay the heating bill.

(snip)

Romney and his campmates believe that this brand of well-being is attainable for anyone who will just work hard enough for it.

Except then there would be no schoolteachers, who work hard – but at middling wages. Ditto for cops, and soldiers, and firefighters, and medics, and office workers, and cashiers, and waiters, and social workers, and bus drivers, and lab techs, and just about every kind of worker whose sweat contributes to and supports a greater whole called America.

We can’t all run Bain Capital. If we did, who would tend to Romney’s houses? Bus the tables at his fundraisers? Clean out the stalls where his wife keeps her horses? Or fix the tires on her Cadillacs when they go flat?

What Romney has done, by dishonoring the 47 percent – and forgetting the 99 percent – is dishonor work that he himself would never do. And in doing so, he dishonors those who do it.

Read the rest.