Political Theatre category archive

. . . as I was couple of posts ago, Chancey Devega has noticed a new one in the deck.

In trying to frame the narrative surrounding Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s supposed actions in relation to the Boston Marathon bombing, the public and the mainstream media–both on the Left and the Right–are grappling with how Chechens are (or are not) in fact “white.”

Given that race does not exist except in the minds of those who see it (“race” based on skin color was dreamed up by Europeans along about the same time as chattel slavery and colonial expansion, by a quite marvelous and no doubt unrelated coincidence) and that it was the Caucuses that put the cacca in Caucasian, this seems to be a particularly stupid attempt to gin up a kerfuffle.

Follow the link for Devega’s comments, then check out his other post on the topic.

In which the Delaware River becomes the Delawhere-did-it-go River.

Timothy Lavin argues that more precise news reporting might lead to a better understanding of the news. A nugget (emphasis added).

George Orwell illuminated something important about how bad policy can be both the cause and the effect of sloppy writing. Language, he wrote, “becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

I bring this up apropos of the gun-control plan the Senate has been considering. You might think, reading this morning’s news, that the Senate had voted on this plan and then “defeated” or “rejected” it. The Hill, for instance, wrote: “It failed by a vote of 54 to 46, with five Democrats voting against it. Only four Republicans supported it.” Reading that, you wouldn’t suspect that 54 senators actually supported passing the measure in question, which they did. Or that the proposal was actually blocked by a filibuster.

Newshound explains the “silent filibuster.”

Warning: The slideshow may not work in all browsers (like my Opera, for example, which, despite the warning, is as modern as it comes). You can watch it in a “supported browser”* at the original location.

______________________

*Really lame, Newshound. Really really lame.

Thom wonders why the fear of big guvmint and offers a theory. An excerpt:

Billionaires and big transnational corporations don’t want big government because when government stops funding the commons, things like schools, hospitals, water, power systems, then the billionaires can grab those natural monopolies and squeeze more and more money out of the working people.

Susie outlines how Republican hostility to safety regulations led to the explosion in Waco.

Just read it.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Stanton Peele offers a taxonomy for classifying the cackling that resounds after an event such as the Boston bombing.

Here’s an example; follow the link for the rest (emphasis in the original).

Vamping. “Vamping” is the term for the circumlocutions speakers use when they have nothing to say.* You can always tell when media people are doggie paddling — they say the same things over and over again, report there is no new information but that when any appears they will surely let us know (thanks!), and use as many words to say nothing as possible. Thus, the single phrase that best indicates you are participating in a kabuki theater media exercise is “at this point in time,” as in, “We don’t know that at this point in time,” when “We don’t know that at this point,” “We don’t know that yet,” or — most succinctly — “We don’t know” would all suffice.

Aside:

The latest rumor in the press is that an arrest is near. A caution: Get some grains of salt and remember Richard Jewell.

Republicans in Maine have forestalled an attempt to ban persons under 18 from tanning salons because parental freedom.

Under that reasoning, I should have been free to give my kids plastic bags and tell them to go play in the street.

David Farmer also disapproves. A nugget:

A February 2012 report found that of 300 tanning salons contacted nationally, 90 percent state that indoor tanning did not pose a health risk, while more than half of salons denied that indoor tanning would increase the risk of skin cancer.

In fact, nearly 80 percent of salons said that indoor tanning is beneficial to health, and some said it would prevent cancer.

At least one salon said: “It’s got to be safe, or else they wouldn’t let us do it.”

We shouldn’t let them do it.

The science is shocking.

A study released last fall by the University of California-San Francisco estimated that indoor tanning is responsible for more than 170,000 new cases of skin cancer a year just in the United States.

At Asia Times, Chung Min Lee tries to figure out what’s with North Korea. A nugget:

Kim has walked into a self-made trap; namely, that he has to show his people and his generals that he really deserves to be the Young Marshal who can lead his nation to new heights. By rattling his sabers and almost daring South Korea, the United States, China, and Japan to take him on, he feels that he can earn his military stripes, even though he spent his teenage years at an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland and has lived as a de facto deity, unlike the absolute majority of his countrymen who have lived in fear and hunger.

But as Carl von Clausewitz reminds us, “any complex activity, if it is to be carried out with any degree of virtuosity, calls for appropriate gifts of intellect and temperament. If they are outstanding and reveal themselves in exceptional achievements, their possessor is called a ‘genius’.” Clausewitz’s dictums were written nearly 200 years ago, but they’re as relevant as ever because Kim doesn’t have the intellect or the temperament of being a true genius. This is the first lesson that we should draw from North Korea’s unprecedented antics and bellicosity.

Read the rest.

Warning: Language.

I’ve said it before, but it holds, especially this month:

The next time you hear someone bemoaning “The Lost Cause,” remember just what cause was lost.

cassandra_m has a thought:

. . . this makes sense to me. If we are focused like a laser beam on compensating *teachers* for effectiveness (and for effectiveness over factors they can’t always control), why not compensate legislators the same way? What do you think?

Pay for performance for pols.

The legislative payroll budget drops to zero!

I say, “Go for it.”

In the Roanoke Times, Tom Arcaro has a thoughtful piece on the purpose of education.

Buried in it is a statement that helps explain why technocrats and wingnuts seem so determined to rip the charter from public education and give it over to profiteers for-profit charter schools (emphasis added).

The blind algorithm of capitalism, extolled in its virtues by neoliberals both domestic and international, creates the kinds of systems that will keep it moving forward. Eisenhower understood that the military-industrial complex was a natural outgrowth of a maturing capitalism, and the same phenomena have occurred to produce the education-industrial complex.

Are these two ends of higher education — to serve democracy or serve the economic system — mutually exclusive? No, not literally, but I have never in my three decades teaching in higher education had a parent ask how majoring in sociology will make his daughter a better global citizen.

Institutions of education “create the public” more than just teach it.

. . . and an informed polity is inimical to conservative dogma.

Read the rest.

Read Harvard’s story on the fluoride study that Mr. Ticker refers to. Not surprisingly, it’s somewhat over-stated in the video.

After all, why should he be any more accurate than the networks (and he at least admits he’s a parody, something Meet the Press has not yet fessed up to).

There’s a lot of “maybe” and “perhaps” in this report, but, given the history of draconian tactics by the MPAA and the RIAA, they are likely to be likelies.

I outgrew “April Fools Day” a long time ago, once I realized the most “practical jokes” manifest an undercurrent of cruelty.

Others clearly still relish the cruelty. All you need to do to see this is watch an episode of AFV. Scattered amongst the babies and kittens and puppies, you will see a sadistic need to humiliate others.

Dick Polman offers a list of Republican outreach April Foolery, more fool than April.

His examples illustrate that “undercurrent of cruelty” which I recognized so long ago.

I give you the Republican Party, the party of childish nastiness, the party for those who don’t want to grow up.