Political Theatre category archive

Afterthought:

One would have expected a gekko to support a newt, simply out of family loyalty.

Security screeners at Kennedy Airport violated procedures this fall when they asked two elderly women to show them medical devices concealed beneath their clothing, senior Homeland Security officials acknowledged in correspondence made public this week.

The women were 85 and 88. The devices were a colostomy bag and a back brace.

Management promises to retrain everyone.

As the veteran of over three decades in the training biz, I would not consider this a “training” issue.

This is an “arrogance of unlimited power” issue.

Less than three and a half minutes. Watch it.

In the Chicago Tribune, Paul Begala argues that Mitt the Flip illustrates in micro Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. After pointing out that the “fittest” does not mean the strongest, but rather the most adaptable, he supports his thesis with examples:

First he was a liberal: he voted for Paul Tsongas in the Democratic primary for president, spoke emotionally of a relative who died from an illegal abortion and vowed to be more pro-gay rights than Teddy Kennedy. Then he was a moderate: as Massachusetts governor he signed Romney-care, which included a health insurance mandate — the moderate alternative to nationalized health care.

Now Mittbot 3.0 is a conservative . . . .

(snip)

That, friends, is what I call adaptable. Romney is a political shape-shifter who will renege (sic) on any promise, abandon any pledge, betray any principle to please his audience.

He goes on to point to Mitt’s one constant: His allegiance to the bankster creed that money means virtue and that any way of amassing money is therefore a virtuous way.

The only constants I see in the Flipper are ambition and entitlement.

He believes he should be President because he believes he should be President because he believes he should be President . . . .

Follow the link for the rest.

On the Media looks at the invasion of the skybots:

The Federal Aviation Administration is preparing to announce new regulations for small camera-equipped drones, versions of which you can already buy at your local mall. Lots of people are eager to hear the FAA’s decision, from energy execs and environmentalists to police and protesters. Brooke talks to Matt Waite, founder of U. Nebraska’s Drone Journalism Lab, about some of the “cool” and “creepy” ramifications of drone technology. Also, check out this blog post for some cool examples of journalistic drones in action.

Follow the link to listen.

Via Atrios.

Flops with the Flipper.

Putting Ron Paul’s newsletters in the color mirror: A little word substitution makes the hate more noticeable, does it not?

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

January 16, 2012 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Political Theatre | Bookmark this post

At the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, MIT professor John Tirman wonders why dead civilians in far-away places with strange sounding names become nonentities in American wars. He identifies several factors, which I have extracted below.

Why the American silence on our wars’ main victims?

• A large role is played by what cultural historian Richard Slotkin calls our “frontier myth”–by which righteous violence is used to subdue or annihilate the savages of whatever land we’re trying to conquer
• The frontier myth is also steeped in racism, which is deeply embedded in American culture’s derogatory depictions of the enemy. Such belittling makes it all the easier to put foreigners at risk of violence.
• More than 30 years ago, social psychologists developed the “just world” theory, which argues that humans naturally assume that the world should be orderly and rational. When our “just world” is disrupted, we tend to explain it away as an aberration.

Follow the link for background on his reasoning and a fuller explanation of each one.

Rick Perry, independent son of the West, continues his attempts to have the evul fedrul guvmint pull his chestnuts out of the fire. Having had his case thrown out of court once, he’s returning to the fedrul trough:

On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney ruled that Perry, Newt Gingrich and other candidates who failed to make the cut waited too long to pursue their legal challenges, which were brought as ballot printing was getting underway and the mailing of absentee ballots was about to commence.

However, Gibney said Perry and the other candidates would like (sic; probably meant “likely”–ed.) have prevailed on their claim that a Virginia requirement that ballot petition circulators be Virginia residents violates the Constitution.

In a motion filed at 7 A.M. Sunday with the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, Perry’s legal team argues that it would have been too speculative for them to file suit before Perry failed to make the 10,000 signature threshold last month. Perry asks that his name be place on the March 6 ballot or, at a minimum, that the printing of ballots be suspended until his lawsuit can be resolved.

It appears that, in Texas, the grapes are not only bigger, they are also more sour.

Afterthought:

I doubt the Virginia voting laws represent any kind of ideal. Remember that the place is currently run by Republicans, who are hostile to voting, and has a history, as do other Jim Crow states, of restricting suffrage.

Nevertheless, I must delight in watching Wild Wild Westman running to the Feds for help.

Via Balloon Juice.

Meghan Daum sees parallels between the Haredim of Israel, who have lately been in the news for tormenting school girls for not meeting their dress code, and Little Ricky. She muses about why the punditocracy continues to take Little Ricky seriously, then ascribes it to the mythic power in Republican circles of our own ultra-orthodox Christian sects.

Why does Santorum persist with his rhetoric? Well, in fairness, he’s a conservative (and an intensely literal-minded) Catholic, and he seems to believe most of it personally, even if hardly anyone else does. But zealots in Israel believe it’s OK to spit at schoolgirls, even if hardly anyone else does. In both cases, the problem is what happens to democratic principles when such personal beliefs intersect public policy.

In the U.S., we too often grant the noisiest, most threatening zealots too much power to set the agenda. We’re complicit in creating the illusion that religious fundamentalism is so rabid and so monolithic that we must appease it in order to keep it from turning against us.

Sincerity is not ipso facto a virtue, though some would have it so.

A sincere whack job is still a whack job.

The Mitt Romney Blues.

Listen here.

Shaun Mullen considers the task facing journalists, at least the ones willing to commit actual journalism:

If I was still directing campaign coverage, which as an editor I did in too many presidential elections to count, I would call one of my stand-up meetings (they go much quicker when people aren’t sitting) and announce that:

“It’s time to find out what Mitt Romney would do as president.”

The reaction would be a room full of pained faces because Romney has been on every side of every issue of consequence since his failed 2008 run and he least of all knows what he would do as president.