Political Theatre category archive

In Scotland.

Of course, if he did that here and if and only if he were a wingnut, he’d be hailed as an outspoken hero.

Leonard Pitts, Jr. Read the whole thing:

We are conditioned to think of terror wrought by Islamic fundamentalists as something strange and alien and other. It is the violence of men with long beards who jabber in weird languages and kill for mysterious reasons while worshipping God in ways that seem outlandish to middle-American sensibilities. And whatever quirk of nature or deficiency of humanity it is that allows them to do what they do, is, we think, unique. There is, we are pleased to believe, a hard, immutable line between us and Them.

Then you consider Hutaree and its alleged plan to kill in the name of God, and the idea of some innate, saving difference between us and those bearded others in other places begins to feel like a fiction we conjured to help us sleep at night.

(snip)

Why does their Jesus need the help of men in camo fatigues with guns and bombs? In this, he is much like the Allah for whom certain Muslims blow up marketplaces and crowded buses. Muslim and American terrorists, it seems, both apparently serve a puny and impotent God who can’t do anything without their help.

I do not find this surprising. From the ACLU.

We’ve told you about the ACLU lawsuit on behalf of Constance McMillen, the Mississippi student whose school canceled the prom rather than let her attend with her girlfriend. Last month, a federal judge in Mississippi ruled that the school violated Constance’s First Amendment rights. However, the judge was satisfied by the school’s promise that Constance would be welcome at a private prom, so he did not force the school to put its own prom back on.

What happened next is shocking.

Last Friday, Constance went to a private dance that was billed as the school prom. The event—attended by Constance, her date and five other students—was essentially a decoy event. According to news reports, virtually all of the other students went to a parent-sponsored prom to which Constance was not invited.

No, it’s not shocking. It’s typical.

All seriousness aside, this was just cruel.

They were not even willing to stand up for their bigotry. They tried to pretend it away through some kind of shell-game trick.

This is where hate groups have a moral edge. At least they are honest about hating. That’s better than the carpet-chewing pseudo-morality of the hypocrites.

Act now.

Aside:

When I was a young ‘un, the girls all danced with each other anyway.

So what’s the big?

Republican foreign policy in a nutshell.

An ex-skinhead speaks Wednesday for Peace Week at Old Dominion University:

After hearing his preschool-age son utter a racial slur while watching Saturday morning cartoons, (T. J.) Leyden began a re-examination of his life, which led him to renounce the skinhead world and put in five years of work with the Task Force Against Hate at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Leyden thinks there is a direct link between the election of the nation’s first African American president and the recent proliferation of hate groups. Another factor, he says, is the sour economy.

(snip)

Moreover, Leyden said, he is enough of an optimist to believe that humans are evolving as moral beings.

More on Peace Week here.

Or not.

Via TPM.

Weatherman:Climatologist::Stretcher Bearer:Doctor.

Here and here.

The issue isn’t whether the Earth undergoes periodic natural climate changes. It certainly has and will continue to.

The issue is whether adding large amounts of extra, artificially created (that is, man-made) carbon dioxide to the atmosphere has significantly altered the periodic natural climate change. Any argument that distracts from this question is a herring of the brightest red.

If we have to use coal–and it appears we shall have to for some time–we shouldn’t kid ourselves: Clean coal ain’t.

Via Article IX.

Mithras elucidates.

Kook-kook-ka-choo, from the Virginian-Pilot (which could be considered liberal only by Virginia standards, which means it’s almost moderate):

Respectfully submitted this 3rd day of April 2010, come now the plaintiffs, the taxpayers of Virginia, and move this Honorable Court for an order restraining and enjoining the defendant, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, from intentionally and negligently turning his office into a public nuisance.

Read the whole thing. Lots of chuckles around the seriousness.

More at the Slant.

Good ruling:

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush.

Only a bandaid, and a bandaid that will tear off when the first hurricane comes up the coast.

it’s been a long time since a hurricane came full force up the east coast. Folks forget what they can do.

President Barack Obama’s nod this morning toward opening up the East Coast for offshore drilling heaps significant new focus on Virginia and the triangular tract that has already been approved for exploration.

Addendum:

Mad Kane:

Liberal Drilling? Chill, Obama, Chill!
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Obama’s pronouncement ain’t thrilling.
He plans to expand off-shore drilling.
As a gal from the left
I am Mad and bereft.
Tell me, what has Obama been swilling?

Addendum-dee-dum-dum:

Mithras takes the long view. And again.

Worth considering.

Gerald Kolman points out the fallacy of Senator Cosmo Brown’s claim that evil librul elitist Rachel Maddow is planning to run for the Senate in Massachusetts.

It can’t be true, he says, for he’s been asked to run himself as the exemplar of the evil librul elitist conspiracy.

Follow the link for the expose.

Remember how in old movies the bad guys would meet with each other in their hide out to plan their next heist and get into a fight with a rival gang?

Well.

The second time around, 220-207.

They passed the Senate Bill.

Next step: Signing.

TPM:

But lately, it’s begun to appear that the Tea Partiers — at least as defined by the media — aren’t so much a new force of previously apolitical regular folks, stirred from their apathy by an expansion of government and Rick Santelli’s famous rant. Rather, they’re essentially conservative Republican base voters, who were demoralized by the failures of the Bush years and have been re-energized by Democratic control of Washington. And they’re part of a strain of the conservative movement that has long been driven by cultural resentment and racial paranoia.

Follow the link for the analysis.

Even the NeverEnding Story came to an end. In fact, it was about an hour and a half long, as contrasted to half a century.

Senate Republicans succeeded early Thursday in forcing a change in a measure altering President Barack Obama’s newly enacted health care overhaul, meaning the bill will have to return to the House for final congressional approval.

(snip)

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said Republicans consulting with the Senate parliamentarian had found “two minor provisions” that violate Congress’ budget rules. The provisions deal with Pell grants for low-income students.

This story will come to an end also. Then, as with the other NeverEnding Story, there will be sequels. That’s part of why the Republicans fought so hard. They know that, as with social security and medicare, trying to make it go away (remember privatizing social security) is a no win.

The House Democrats will not back down now, not even if, as Shaun Mullen suggests, Joe the Plumber (what ever happened to him, anyhow?) gets the call.

Marshall McCluhan would chuckle: the media becomes the message.

Via Atrios.

A while ago, I posted that all politics is economics.

And it is. To quote Deep Throat (the Watergate one, not the other one), “Follow the money.”

TeacherKen points out that, in addition, all politics is personal.

Read it.

The Booman analyses Republican opposition to health care reform. A nugget:

The Republicans didn’t have a mainstream alternative on health care because Obama proposed a plan that, aside from the public option, was indistinguishable from what their ‘wonks’ came up with the last time Washington tried to reform our health system. Even when Obama agreed to drop the public option, no Republicans could be persuaded to vote for his bill. So, their opposition was purely political in nature, and grounded in their belief that granting subsidies to people to buy health care and expanding Medicaid will make the Democrats more popular and expand their permanent base.

Calling your own analysts’ plans ‘socialist’ and a ‘monstrosity’ is dishonest. And it strikes me as a real problem that the Republicans have poisoned their own base’s minds about the nature of the health care reforms. They can’t walk this back now and govern responsibly without being seen as sell-outs and commie-appeasers.

A quibble. I’m not sure that any party has a “permanent base.”

Read more »