Political Theatre category archive

In the Roanoke Times, John Winfrey tries to explicate the different strains of “Libertarianism.”

Here’s but two of the angles:

A true libertarian (that is, Ayn Randian–ed.) owes nothing to losers, certainly not safety nets or social programs. Losers are burdens — good riddance.

By contrast, the libertarian movement that controls Republicans in the House and Senate and most Republican states is heavily influenced by the Christian right. The cumbersome title “tea party libertarian Christian right” has become part of our public discourse on television, radio, newspapers and, of course, the Internet.

Nowhere does he get to the fundamental underlying truth of what passes for “Libertarianism” in the contemporary political landscape:

A “Libertarian” is a Republican who is ashamed to admit it.

Republicans skip the celebration of the 1963 March on Washington.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

James Perry wants to know (emphasis added):

Are Americans dumber than they used to be?

The question might better be, Are Republicans dumber than they used to be?

And the answer seems to be — the envelope, please — yes. Yes, they are.

That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of dumb Democrats. Of course there are, but it’s members of the Grand Old Party these days who are regressing by refusing to accept scientific fact.

(snip)

“It is politically effective, and socially acceptable, to deny scientific fact” today, the professor (Adam Frank, U. Rochester–ed.) says.

When a party embraces promoting dumb as a tactic, what does that say about its goals?

(Don’t answer that. You likely don’t want to know.)

Chartering a new course in education:

The founder and former CEO of Pennsylvania’s largest cyber-charter school has been charged with siphoning more than $8 million from the school through a network of companies, then scheming with his accountant to avoid income taxes.

When you turn a public trust into a private profit center, you ask for trouble.

Details of his trappings of wealth purchased with the public’s nickels at the link.

More on Republican efforts to gut public education in Philly.

Again, it’s not just in Philly, pholks.

Groklaw performed a major service to the community and the polity in reporting on and explaining the legal issues in the scurrilous SCO patent trolling suit.

Via Mr. Feastingonroadkill.

At SFGate, Paul Viviano, long-time foreign correspondent, cautions against taking twits as revealed–or revealing–truth.

There is “little doubt that (social media) provided a new means for ordinary people to connect with human rights advocates trying to amass support against police abuse, torture and the Mubarak government’s permanent emergency laws allowing people to be jailed without charge,” a New York Times reporter wrote Feb. 5, 2011, one week before Mubarak resigned. “Facebook and YouTube also offered a way for the discontented to organize and mobilize – and allowed secular-minded young people to seize the momentum from Egypt’s relatively neutered, organized opposition.”

For the older generation of Middle East correspondents, including me – I covered Egypt periodically for 30 years, half of them at The Chronicle – there was something glaringly amiss with this picture. Cairo isn’t Egypt, not by a long shot, and secular-minded young people with social networking accounts aren’t more than a tiny segment of the national population.

Facebook penetration in North America surpassed 50 percent of the total population in 2011. In Egypt, it stood at 5.6 percent.

Read the rest, and, the next time twits light up the sky, reach for several grains of salt.

Halford Ryan recites the Republican Beatitudes. Here’s two:

It is easier for a rich man to enter public office than for a poor man ever to enter public office.

Let the rich ask what the commonwealth can do for them; let the poor ask what they can do for the rich.

Consider the rest your memory verses for the week.

Joseph Margulies reflects on the place of religious belief in the Civil Rights Movement and the contradictions between the God of Love and the God of Shove. A nugget:

Likewise, today’s celebration of the civil rights era should not blind us to the reality of the times, when civil rights workers were threatened, beaten and killed by those who understood America’s civil religion in far darker terms. Chambers found himself on the receiving end of this violence; his home, office and car were all firebombed.

America’s civil religion will be with us always, but we must listen to the form it takes. Today, tens of millions of Americans merge an angry God with a chest-thumping nationalism to justify endless misadventures in the war on terror, thereby giving political cover for the apparently limitless expansion of the national security state.

Below the fold, because it autoplays.

But watch it. It’s delicious.

Read more »

Reg Henry thinks that Reine Pribus may be overlooking the benefits to the Republican Party of reducing the number of 2016 Republican debates.

That (possible TV films about Hillary Clinton*–ed.) has the Republican Party calling foul, always one of its strengths. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus threatens to have the GOP boycott candidate debates hosted by CNN and NBC if they go ahead with their plans to run shows assumed to be flattering to Mrs. Clinton.

This strikes me as a good idea. The world would be a better place — nay, the party itself would be a better place — if Republican debates were kept to a minimum.

________________

*Is anyone else besides me suffering Clinton fatigue?

The UK version; may be easily adapted for US use:

Via Mr. Feastingonroadkill.

Florida twits.

Speaking of Florida, has God averted His face therefrom?

Some would say, “Yea, verily.”

Moved below the fold because it autoplays.

Aside: Oddly enough, it did not autoplay on my workhorse laptop, which runs Slackware. the distro of iron. It is a well-behaved laptop.

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The rumor that there’s only one fruitcake . . . .

Via The Daily Banter.