Political Theatre category archive

R. Danielle Egan of St. Lawrence University comments in a column unrelated to the cartoon:

It started with a nagging feeling in my stomach as I watched media coverage of people screaming at so-called town-hall meetings that were purportedly about health-care policy. Seeing that some of those people came armed with handguns – and were allowed to join a public gathering where the president of the United States was speaking – didn’t help. And when South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson yelled “you lie!” at President Obama as he addressed a joint session of Congress, I reached my personal tipping point.

So I have decided it’s time that what I’ve been watching be called what I believe it is: racism.

To borrow a phrase from the previous post, recognizing racism isn’t rocket science either. Except for the racists, who, now that racism is no longer de mode, find all kinds of other rationales for their hate.

More Auth.

The Booman Tribune explains: Part One by StephenD. Part Two by the Booman.

The crazy isn’t new. It’s the Republican Mainstream.

I studied the right wing in college (no, no pinko professor assigned it to me–I had no idea what the political leanings of sociology professor were. I had one history professor that I could guess was pretty much against the Viet Namese War, but that didn’t make him a liberal; that simply made him same. By and large, the teachers kept their personal beliefs out of the classroom, contrary to the delusions of the wingnuts, who apparently fear knowledge as much as they fear anything.)

I chose it as a project because I was interested in it, having grown up in a area that had a KKK chapter. It was a small weak chapter (probably no more than four or five guys talking crap at the local gas station) that was all talk and never appeared in public and that everyone else, even the most bigoted everyone elses, mostly just laughed at, but it was there.

Aside: The reputed leader of the chapter had a very well-regarded restaurant. There was much informal anticipation of what he might do if some black folk finally tried to dine at his restaurant.

What he did was, he served them just like any other customers. Of course, the place where I grew up being what it was, the families had probably known each other for generations.

Compare:

Such is the life of Paris Hilton. For her 24th birthday 3 years ago she was reportedly offered $200,000 to spend her birthday celebration at PURE, a nightclub in Caesar’s Palace.

and

Ever wanted to ask Sarah Palin over dinner what she really thinks? Now’s your chance. But it’s going to cost you — more than $25,000.

Dinner for five with the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate is up for grabs on ebay. The last bid was more than $38,000 (yes that’s three zeroes) for a dinner whose value is being promoted as “priceless.”

No further comment.

This makes sense to me.

Let them hang themselves out to dry.

Alex Goodall dissects the secret messages of Mr. Obama’s speech to school kids. A nugget:

Those parents were right. When the president extolls them to work hard, the only patriotic response is to resist. Fail! And fail as well as you can.

Serious thought: The hoo-ha over this talk did not start because the talk was conceivably objectionable. Hell, Mr. Obama is too smart a politician to try to pull off the kind of crap he was being accused of (and I think he would never have conceived of what was attributed to him, because I think he is a good and decent man, however much I disagree with some of his strategic and policy decisions).

The hoo-ha over this talk followed this sequence:

1. Hate Obama and everything he stands for, even if you have no idea what he stands for.

2. Find something and twist it to justify the hate.

3. Rinse and repeat.

It is really very simple. Do you care about your fellow citizens?

Or do you not?

Transcript here.

At the 26 minute mark, he calls out the liars.

. . . and does other stuff.

In other news, the AARP tries to winnow the lies from the health care debate. I don’t always agree with their positions, but the analysis is pretty good.

Aside: If the government wants to use contractors, they should contract intelligence gathering to the AARP–the CIA has nothing on them. I got my first mailing from them the day I turned 50.

Act now.

Robert Reich: “They (the opponents–ed.) want to scare you.”

. . . or are you just bloggin’ and bitchin’?

From an email quoted on Andrew Sullivan’s blog:

All the right-wing e-mails my dad shares with me (because he’s right-wing, not as an advisory to me) point to a whole lot of people very frightened by having a black president but using language like “we don’t know who he IS.” If Obama were white and graduated from Harvard, edited the Law Review, worked on poverty reduction in Chicago, and then got elected to the Senate, he’d still be pegged as a liberal, but people (white people) would “know who he is.”

John Cole asks:

Who do you all think will be the first wingnut to find a hidden coded message in the text of the speech? The odds on favorite for that kind of lunacy would be Glenn Beck, but then again the one lunatic who pushed the “Republican car dealers is being punished!” nonsense would be a good bet, too, as would that clown who freaked out over dijon mustard. There is just so much quality amateur wingnuttery going on these days that there really is no safe bet anymore.

Image via Garp Garp.

Text below the Fold

Jim Henley considers health insurance as “social insurance.” The whole think is worth a look; I’ve omitted all but his definition of “social insurance” and his conclusion:

(“Social insurance” is defined as) . . . pooling risk of uncertain events over time, e.g. the risk of job loss. But it can also be precisely about pooling certainties. Everyone lucky is going to spend a fair amount of time healthy and some time sick and/or dying. (A minority of people will be unhealthy all their lives.) There is no uncertainty about whether you will need medical care at some point in your life. There is only uncertainty as to timing and magnitude.

(snip)

There are perfectly coherent ideological arguments against social insurance. If you believe all taxation is theft, that government is illegitimate, social insurance is a form of taxation, and a crime. If you believe that what’s good about “the American system of free enterprise” is that fear of catastrophe keeps people in line, then social insurance undermines social cohesion, and that’s bad. If you believe that “people make their own luck,” or that fortune is a sign of divine favor and misfortune the judgment of the Almighty, then social insurance rewards the undeserving. I don’t find these arguments compelling any more, but they exist and are viable positions.

There are also incoherent arguments against social insurance, the chief of which is the notion that any version of it must somehow be worse than the bizarre patchwork of subsidies, regulations, entry barriers and backstops that we have now. But these are arguments against doing social insurance, not refutations of the concept.

Via Oliver Willis.

Tom Levenson:

. . . insurance companies are not part of the health care system. They are part of the health care industry.

Bill Shein investigates the upcoming phase of the health care legislation or lack thereof.

Not all it’s cracked up to be.

See the scorecard at Kiko’s House.

Where were the protests when George W. Bush actually went to a school to read a book?

Oh. I forgot.

There weren’t any.

Addendum:

John Cole at Balloon Juice.

Addendum-dee-dum-dum:

Steve Benen via Noz. (See the comments at Noz’s place.)

. . . except for all those folks who did.

Dozens of protesters holding a rally in support of President Obama’s healthcare reform plan got into a shouting match with a smaller group of anti-reform demonstrators across the street. The conflict escalated as a member of the pro-Obama group and a member of the counter-demonstration confronted each other and a physical fight ensued, sheriff’s spokesman Eric Buschow said.

The bitee threw the first punch and, according to the story, claims he did so because he felt threatened.

The bitee has health coverage.

Medicare.

Field has commentary.