Political Theatre category archive

Thoreau has a suggestion for those who fear that the unrest in Egypt might lead to another Iran:

Here’s an idea: If Serious People are concerned that decades of grievances will boil over and lead to a radical theocracy, maybe Serious People shouldn’t send cash and weapons to the tyrants who give people decades’ worth of grievances.

Just musing to my ears . . . .

What to do with the children born as a result of the Protect the Progeny of Rapists bill.

What Mithras said.

Via Kiko’s House.

Calling out the Protect the Progeny of Rapists bill.

Also, Mr. Feastingonroadkill makes the point.

From Feastingonroadkill.

J. M. Ashby describes what teabaggery has done to one of the wealthiest counties on Long Island: In less than a year of teabaggery in the county government, the county’s finances are in such tatters that the state has taken them over.

That’s tea with a nasty aftertaste.

The saying is that the victors write the history books.

In the case of the American Civil War, this is debatable. The whole Kentucky Colonel gracious-plantation-living happy-darkies-singing-as-they-labored image was a most successful cover-up of the reality of the war and its causes, and the cover-up continues.

Harold Jackson comments in the Inky:

Some months ago, I was on an airplane leaving Killeen, Texas, home of Fort Hood, and heard two fellow passengers discussing the wars we are in. The women were very proud of their husband and son in the military. But the wife, almost in the same breath in which she declared they “are fighting for us,” admitted she didn’t know why our troops were still there.

The answer will be left to the writers of history. Let’s hope they do better than the numerous book writers who romanticized the Confederacy and made slavery seem like a benign institution in which the benevolence of good masters kept people who otherwise were incapable of fending for themselves from dying of starvation.

A recent article in the Anniston, Ala., Star noted that for decades after the Civil War, the United Daughters of the Confederacy had provided an approved list of textbooks for Alabama public schools. Students were taught that the Confederates had fought for a noble cause but lost. “The South lost the war, but they won the history,” Jacksonville State University professor Jennifer Gross told the Star, quoting a past teacher

(Warning: Mild innuendo and out the other.)

Ayn Rand loved her some medicare and social security. But she got it under her married name, so no doubt in her head it somehow didn’t count.

And that is objectively true, in a non-Randian sort of way, that is.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of this (in fact, I seldom agree completely with opinions I quote here; I select material because I believe it to be worthwhile, not because I believe it to be infallible), but I think it has underpinnings of truth.

From Seeing the Forest.

Or is that STFU? Never mind.

Funny or Die presents faces from last night’s kabuki performance.

Here’s one, captioned “Bachmann Getting Ready to Board the Crazy Train.”

Follow the link for the rest.

Marriott is phasing out the pay-per-view porn channels in its hotels. Pundits are speculating it has something to do with Mitt “Shape-Shifter” Romney’s desire to morph himself into something that gets votes.

In the political punditocracy, everything must be political, even when it isn’t, just as in the business punditocracy, everything must affect stock prices, even when it doesn’t.

It is really quite a stretch–indeed, it’s fanciful–to speculate that Romney’s aspirations have influenced Marriott’s hotel, er, amenities simply because Romney and the Marriott family are both LDS.

I believe Marriott’s public statement. Internet porn has won out over hotel porn and there ain’t no money in $10.00+ (or whatever it is these days) pay-per-view no more.

Marriott International said it will phase out adult-content video services from its 600,000 hotel rooms worldwide, causing some to speculate that the Bethesda hospitality giant is responding to interest groups that promote family values.

(snip)

A coalition of Christian organizations that includes Focus on the Family met with Marriott International officials in Washington in 2008 to press the hotel chain to stop offering pay-per-view adult movies.

Marriott did not take action following those meetings. On Monday, it said the recent decision was based on economics and technology. More guests can access adult content cheaply on their portable devices rather than pay for premium adult channels.

Few things illustrate the foundation of Sarah Palin’s compelling appeal to certain elements of the Republican Party better than the illustrations at this link.

Via Balloon Juice.

I’ll read about it later. That’s what newspapers are for.

Andy Borowitz reports that Republicans are getting ready for it.

Preparing for what most political insiders agree is their most important performance of the year, congressional Republicans have spent the past week rehearsing their grouchiest facial expressions for Tuesday’s State of the Union Address.

For seven grueling days, GOP congressmen have been behind closed doors, refining their best winces, grimaces, and other sourpuss mannerisms under the tutelage of Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio).

“Looking like you’ve just sucked on a lemon is harder than it seems,” said Mr. Boehner. “It doesn’t come naturally for everyone like it does for Mitch McConnell.”

Follow the link for the rest of the report.

What Steven D said.

In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Gordon Adams and Matthew Leatherman of the Stimson Center, a think tank named after Henry L. Stimson, attack five myths which make defense spending politically untouchable.

I do not agree with all of them, particularly their implication that soldiers and sailors might be overcompensated in both pay and health benefits, especially when the mercenary corps, led by such noble corporate citizens as Blackwater Xe (Oh! I forgot. Blackwater Xe’s founder is now a noble resident of Dubai) are so handsomely compensated.

Nevertheless, the untouchable nature of the defense budget needs examined. I suggest that the examination start with giving DoD back its historical name: Department of War.

A nugget from the article:

2. The larger the defense budget, the safer we are.

Excessive defense spending can make us less secure, not more. Countries feel threatened when rivals ramp up their defenses; this was true in the Cold War, and now it may happen with China. It’s how arms races are born. We spend more, inspiring competitors to do the same — without making anyone safer.

For example, Gates observed in May that no other country has a single ship comparable to our 11 aircraft carriers. Based on the perceived threat that this fleet poses, the Chinese are pursuing an anti-ship ballistic missile program. U.S. military officials have decried this “carrier-killer” effort, and in response we are diversifying our capabilities to strike China, including a new long-range bomber program, and modernizing our carrier fleet at a cost of about $10 billion per ship.

This country has remained secure in eras of declining defense budgets, such as the postwar period of the Eisenhower presidency and the early post-Cold War years. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton reduced active-duty forces by 700,000, Pentagon civilians by 300,000, defense procurement dollars by 53 percent and overall national defense spending by 28 percent — and we were still able to carry out one of the Pentagon’s top planning scenarios: occupying Iraq in 2003.

Will Bunch agrees with David Sirota in suggesting that it is because Spokane is in flyover country.