Political Theatre category archive

Roy Edroso dissects right-wing worship of Ayn Rand, prophetess of greed.

Chalmers Johnson considers the parallels between contemporary American foreign policy orthodoxy and the Domino Theory used to support the Viet Namese War, and tries to peer into the future. A nugget:

Let me begin by asking: What harm would befall the United States if we actually decided, against all odds, to close those hundreds and hundreds of bases, large and small, that we garrison around the world? What if we actually dismantled our empire, and came home? Would Genghis Khan-like hordes descend on us? Not likely. Neither a land nor a sea invasion of the US is even conceivable.

Would 9/11-type attacks accelerate? It seems far likelier to me that, as our overseas profile shrank, the possibility of such attacks would shrink with it.

Worth a read.

Report from the Field.

Some people understand civil liberties; if they are for some, but not for others, they are not liberties. From TPM (emphasis added):

The poll asked: “Do you support or oppose the proposal to build the Cordoba House, a 15 story Muslim Cultural Center in lower Manhattan 2 blocks from the site of the World Trade Center?” Here the top-line answer is 27% support to 63% opposed. As we’ve seen before, opposition is lower in New York City itself, where 36% support it and 56% are opposed.

A follow-up question asked: “Regardless of whether you personally support or oppose the proposal to build the Cordoba House, do you believe the developers of the Cordoba House have a Constitutional right to proceed with the construction of the mosque and Muslim cultural center or not?” Here the answer is 64% yes, to only 28% no. Indeed, the internals of the poll show that even a majority of people who didn’t support the center in the previous question still affirm the right of the organizers to construct it, by a 51%-42% margin within that sub-group.

Ted Olson, also via TPM.

(There is a graphic in it which illustrates how far the structure is from the World Trade Center site. In Manhattan, crossing a street can take you to a whole nother world. From the sidewalk in front of the Southgate Hotel at 7th and 31st, you cannot see the Empire State Building at 5th and 33rd.)

I also commend this column in the Denver Post to your attention; the writer attempts to look at the situation rationally and reasonably. I had a nit to pick with it, which is too small to mention here, emailed the author, and received a prompt and courteous response.

Also, listen to this.

Heh.

The parent company of the Fox News Channel has donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association and helped the GOP group more than double its fundraising in the second quarter of the year.

Hoo-Boy! This one’s a doozey.

“This is America, where speech, unlike religion, is completely protected . . . .”

Or, if you wish, anatomy of hysteria.

John Cole traces the history of the fuss over the Moslem community center planned for the site of the abandoned Burlington Coat Factory store in Lower Manhattan. Follow the link for the supporting evidence:

Basically, as with everything else with the modern GOP, fringe lunatics gin up a story, Murdoch pimps it, and then the rest of the Wurlitzer takes over. Loudmouth radio announcers, shameless politicians, wingnut bloggers, and unhinged lunatics unite to create a controversy out of nowhere.

This serves to use hatred and bigotry to distract us from the effects of Republicanism: Making the rich richer and the poor, poorer.

Excerpt (emphasis added):

A few years ago, we had a debate about privatizing Social Security. And I’d have thought that debate would’ve been put to rest once and for all by the financial crisis we’ve just experienced. I’d have thought, after being reminded how quickly the stock market can tumble, after seeing the wealth people worked a lifetime to earn wiped out in a matter of days, that no one would want to place bets with Social Security on Wall Street; that everyone would understand why we need to be prudent about investing the retirement money of tens of millions of Americans.

But some Republican leaders in Congress don’t seem to have learned any lessons from the past few years. They’re pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall. It’s right up there on their to-do list with repealing some of the Medicare benefits and reforms that are adding at least a dozen years to the fiscal health of Medicare – the single longest extension in history.

Republicans never learn. It’s part of their credo:

If it doesn’t work, do the same thing harder.

Hofstadter was correct (if you’ve not read the article, do so now).

The common thread of rightwingnuttery is fear.

Witness this (indirect) quotation from an organizer of the “Agenda 21” (see Note Below) conference in Valley Forge, which reveals far more than the speaker intended (emphasis added):

Every time the government enacts a law that deals with trade or land use or energy consumption, it plays into the Agenda 21 program.

In other words, everything a local, state, or federal government might do becomes evidence of conspiracy.

The right wing never fails to find fear, for, if it can’t find it, it makes it up. It seems to find gratification in quavering with fright.

Fearfulness is a self-fulfilling prophecy, the philosophy of cowardice. As I write this, it occurs to me that this explains conservative war mongering: those who are always looking for enemies, well, they always find them.

It is the politics of three-year-olds, the politics of monsters under the bed.

Note Below:

Agenda 21 is a fairly innocuous UN program, meaning that the members of the UN agreed to create it, signatories to which promise to promote a sustainable environment.

At Balloon Juice, Dennis G. takes aim at the “Myth of Southern Honor.”

I think he could have worded his thesis with more felicity, so I’ll deconstruct it as a preface. He’s referring to the idea that the Civil War was a struggle of honor for some sort of ideal on the part of the secessionists.

He is not arguing that individuals on either side may or may not have conducted themselves with personal honor (and in some case, as always in war, dishonor) in battle.

The myth of which he speaks is one of those used by the monied classes to sell secession to the mass of voters (the other two were “States’ rights” and inherent racial superiority as cloaks for defining a class of persons as property in perpetuity).

I am not sure that I agree with the part I’ve emphasized in the excerpt below, but, for all practical purposes, he’s so correct as to nevermind:

There are many myths about the Confederacy, but one of the biggest is that it was a political movement built around honor. It wasn’t. It was a movement built around protecting a system of stolen labor and the ‘rights’ of a selective few to grossly profit from that system. Selling ideas of honor, states rights and outright racism was how a small group of 19th century Southern Oligarchs built an army to fight for injustice. Ever since their defeat these Confederates and their idealogical descendants have worked hard to spin their treasonous racist enterprise into an honorable ‘lost cause’ and in recent decades they have completely captured the Republican Party and the modern conservative movement.

Republicans used the odious Southern strategy to capture the bigot vote.

Now the bigot vote has captured the Republican Party.

Image via Kiko’s House.

Via Shaun Mullen.

Annette John-Hall delivers a does of reality:

Still, what makes me most tired these days is having to listen to the constant bickering and anger – from Congress, pundits, and everyday people who’d rather rage than resolve.

Death to Obamacare! they shout.

Tell that to the parents who can keep their kids on their health-insurance policies until they’re 27 – a relief for me and my twentysomething daughter, who’s working but doesn’t have insurance. Or the millions of people who’ve stood in line for hours to get medical care at traveling clinics throughout the country, most of whom work but can’t afford insurance.

He’s antibusiness! the white collars whine.

Tell that to GM and Chrysler and their workers, rescued by government intervention.

He’s anti-middle class. Can’t identify with regular folk.

Tell that to the credit-card companies and overdraft sharks whose game of gouging people like you and me has been quashed. Or tell it to the already cash-strapped parents and their college-student children who see a president who pushed through school-loan reform.

And for his effort?

He’s “the worst president in history,” says Republican congressional candidate Ben Quayle, spawn of former stellar VP Dan Quayle. You know, most remembered for adding the letter e to the end of potato.

The sad fact is that for all the good Obama’s done, he’s been lambasted for everything and not given credit for anything.

An endless cycle of negativity on the hamster wheel.

John Cole adds some perspective.

Via TPM.

The San Jose Mercury-News editorializes:

It would be tragic if the embrace of hatred, delusion and fear turn out to be the lasting American legacy of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

These destructive emotions have mushroomed of late, particularly among politicians unashamed of stoking the flames of bigotry for political gain. The ground zero mosque debate is the most obvious example, but The New York Times reported last week that many proposed mosques in less symbolic locations across the country are facing the same kind of opposition.

Read the whole thing.

Plus ca change:

The US and Vietnam are conducting joint naval exercises in the South China Sea, a sign of increasing military ties between the two former enemies.

The week-long activities focus mainly on non-combatant exercises and are part of the 15th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Washington and Hanoi.

There is a rather bizarre letter to the editor in today’s local rag which says, that the teabaggers are not racist, but that

. . . It’s the media that have portrayed the tea party as racist. If there are two signs out of thousands that are rude and inappropriate, you can bet that those will be the ones that make the headlines.*

So that showing pictures of actual teabaggers indulging in teabaggery is the problem, rather than the teabaggery itself.

I won’t bother to Google around for the evidence, but it’s a damned sight more than one or two signs. Steven D has already assembled a sampling of it in his recent post at the Booman Tribune. (And, no, I don’t agree with the topic of Steven D’s post–it would be a pointless and likely counter-productive gesture. I’m just pointing to the pictures and videos because I’m too lazy to look for others, but you’ve all seen them.)

A characteristic I have observed in racists–all but the fringiest of the fringe–since I first started to become aware is this:

They do not admit to anyone, not even themselves, that they are racists, for to do so knocks them off the moral pedestal to which they elevate themselves and thereby robs them of their credibility. They create instead elaborate rationales to prove to themselves and to others that the policies and beliefs informed by racism are morally correct.

To pick a common one that I saw the other day (and that I grew up with):

“The Civil War was not an attempt to free the slaves. It was about economic systems.”

This is spin.

Folks who say this do so to imply that slavery had nothing to do with the inception of the Civil War.

The CIvil War was about slavery, but to admit that undermines the moral arguments of those who idolize the Old South and what in my youth was referred to as “Our Way of Life” (TM).

The CIvil War, in political short term, was about Southern resistance to any limit on the spread of slavery into the western territories. Limiting the spread of slavery was the “moderate” political solution of the day for those who opposed the institution. No “responsible” politician could figure out how to end slavery without also destroying the monied class of the South, for the monied class of the South counted in its wealth the retail value of its slaves. And the monied class of the South, recognizing their peril, fought back.

The teabagger who wrote that letter may not be a racist.

But to pretend that teabaggery does not attract a significant portion of support from those who are afraid of having a scary black man in the White House denies the evidence of things seen.

__________________

*I chose to omit the link to the letter. This is not about who wrote the letter. It is about magickal thinking.

Bob Cesca on Republican discourse.

But you don’t have to:

Via TPM.