Political Theatre category archive

Via PoliticalProf.

Obviously not.

Otherwise, he could not have brought forth this stream of farcical drivel with a straight face.

Dick Destiny sees parallels between the rationale today’s multifront Great and Glorious Patriotic Wars and the groupthink that gaves us Viet Nam (and Laos, and Cambodia).

And we know how well that turned out.

But al Qaeda has been substituted for communism and the endless battleground has become the failed states of the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

In these places, the war can never end because all insurgencies and very little wars between bad people are viewed through a dark lens created on 9/11, one that colors the world much as the old Cold Warriors saw communism, a monolithic threat that can only be smashed by the immediate application of military power before it poses a threat to the homeland.

Read the rest. Then see your doctor for some Prozac.

Excerpt:

A few examples, back in October 2010, Major Garrett of “The National Journal” sat down with McConnell to talk about what Republicans would do if they took back Congress in the fall. McConnell didn`t Garrett he wanted compromise or a new tone or a renewed spirit of cooperation and partnership or any of the warm and fluffy things you tend to hear politicians say.

No, he told Garrett, quote, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Ouch.

So partisan, sure, but honest. If that would have been all you knew about the Republican Party, you could have predicted the last two years in Congress almost perfectly.

Those who would speak truth to power (and, more to the point, truth about the powerful) are frequently called “agitators” by those with the power.

The truth often causes persons to get agitated. That’s why the powerful don’t like it.

Writing at Asia Times, Nan Levinson explores the toll of war and America’s ambivalence to her own victims, the victims that are her own, the soldiers:

Theoretically, whole countries go to war, not just their soldiers, but not this time. Civilian sympathy for “the troops” may be just one more way for us to avoid a real reckoning with our past decade-plus of war, when the hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown up on the average American’s radar only if somebody screws up or noticeable numbers of Americans get killed. The veterans at the heart of this story – victims, heroes, it doesn’t matter – struggle to reconcile what they did in those countries with the “service” we keep thanking them for. We can see them as sick, with all the stigma, neediness, and expense that entails, or we can recognize them as human beings, confronting the morality of what they’ve done in our name and what they’ve seen and come to know – even as they try to move on.

Read the rest and remind yourself: It may be the old lie who lie, but it’s the young who die.

Via the Richmonder.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Via Kiko’s House.

Glenn Greenwald can be irritating. He tends to focus on single issues and miss the big picture.

Even more irritating, when it comes to those single issues that attract his focus, he is often right.

Today’s local rag syndicates a column by Marc Thiessen, Republican flack, in which he wonders

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s decision to side with the court’s liberal bloc and uphold Obamacare raises an important question for conservatives: Why are Republicans so awful at picking Supreme Court justices? Democrats have been virtually flawless in appointing reliable liberals to the court. Yet Republicans, more often than not, appoint justices who vote with the other side on critical decisions.

He wanders around for several hundred words trying find a political reason connected to Senate confirmation process, political pressure on sitting judges, and several other stray dogs of ideas.

He doesn’t get to the reason, one that even the most dogmatic and obtuse lawyer with enough brains to pass the bar might notice from time to time.

Contemporary conservative political positions are consistently on the wrong side of truth, justice, and the American way.

Indeed, they are founded on lies (climate change, “job creators”), perpetuate injustice (gut out the vote), and auction the American way to the highest bidder (to hell with the poor, tax cuts for the rich).

It is to laugh.

Via C&L.

D. Elfman offers a white person’s perspective on white privilege, telling how he was stopped by a policeman after someone resembling him was reported to have robbed a bank. A snippet:

Now let’s stop and consider this. The policeman has not drawn his firearm. He is well within the range I could throw a punch or kick, or stab with a concealed knife. He has not gotten backup before talking to me. He calls me “sir,” speaks in a conversational tone, adds a “please” to his request. This is what white privilege looks like.

While I’d have been within my rights to demand a search warrant, I opened the pouch and let him see that it contained only paper and electronics. See, I was perfectly aware that someone could reasonably look at that pouch and think it signaled that I was armed. I wore it like that anyway because it was convenient. This is what white privilege looks like.

The officer said, “Thanks, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have a bazooka or something in there.”This is what white privilege looks like.He went on to explain about the bank robber, (This is what white privilege looks like.)and would I be willing to give him my contact information and an accounting of myself so that I could be excluded from the list of possible suspects?

I was not arrested, I was not brought in for questioning.

Read the rest.

Via Contradict Me.

Almost too true to be funny.