Political Theatre category archive

I remember the Saturday Night Massacre (if you don’t, follow the link to understand the rest of this). I was watching television with my parents.

I had followed the Watergate story from its beginnings. I had long since realized that the Nixon administration was corrupt and power-mad.

As the news unfolded, my father disappeared from the living room.

My father was not a particularly politically liberal person, not at all, but he was morally straight and valued honesty, integrity, kindness, and decency.

As my brother said recently, talking of some fairly obnoxious persons of his acquaintance who are fond of describing themselves as “good Christians” (they aren’t–they are selfish, spiteful, and vindictive*), “Daddy was the most Christian person I have ever known, and he would have been the last person to call himself a ‘good Christian.'”

I realized later that he was calling Western Union, sending telegrams to his elected representatives incongruously assembled to inform them that he was done with Richard Nixon and his entourage.

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*I don’t know anything about their politics, but “selfish, spiteful, and vindictive” screams “religious right.”

Atrios sums up sequestration dressage:

Again we’re at that point when Congress has taken itself hostage and is threatening to shoot the country.

The challenge is issued at about the one-and-a-half minute mark.

Aside:

First Son was quite the wrestling fan back in the days of Rowdy Roddy Piper. For his birthday one year I took him to the Spectrum for a WWF meet. They do put on quite the show.

Me, I don’t think pro wrestling has been the same since Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson retired. There hasn’t been anyone since like Ripper and the Swede.

Via C&L, which has background on the feud with the Beckster. (My money is on WWE. Higher IQ.)

Robyn Blumner has issues with Republican ideas on schools. A nugget:

But his (Marco Rubio–ed.) performance illustrates a point that Republicans don’t seem to get: A new face doesn’t improve bankrupt ideas.

One of those ideas is the undermining of public schools. Under the guise of helping lower-income parents, Rubio is offering the Educational Opportunities Act to move students from public to private schools, most of which are church-affiliated, at taxpayer expense. To get around church-state separation problems his plan would give taxpayers dollar-for-dollar federal tax credits for “donating” money to designated scholarship funds that would pay for private school education. Some would call that money laundering.

This is a tea partier’s dream come true. It starves the federal treasury of tax revenue, funnels children into religious indoctrination, erodes support for public schools by having parents abandon them and, perhaps sweetest of all, harms all those progressives who have chosen to be public school teachers as well as their unions.

Harold Jackson remembers growing up black in Birmingham, Alabama, during the demonstrations, and has this moment of deja vu (emphasis added).

Hundreds of teenagers and younger children filed out of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church where they were greeted by Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor and his storm troopers, who treated adult and child alike. The marchers were beaten and knocked from their feet by powerful water cannons operated by city firefighters and then taken to jail.

The resulting bad publicity after the world press reported the story in articles, photographs, and film was too much for a city that once had hopes of competing with Atlanta to become the commerce center of the South. City officials signed what Connor called the “lyingest, face-saving” document he had ever seen – an agreement to remove “Whites Only” signs, integrate lunch counters, and hire black clerks at department stores.

Those modest gains were too much for segregationists who, like some people today when it comes to gun control, saw any concession as the first step down the slippery slope to total surrender. The agreement was signed May 10, 1963. That night, bombs were set off at the home of King’s brother, A.D. King, and at the black-owned Gaston Motel, where King had stayed during the Birmingham campaign.

Read the rest, especially if you are too young to remember those days.

Afterthought:

You do realize, of course, that there is significant overlap between the populations of the “segregationists” (as they were known then) and the gun nuts.

Then throw them away:

Unfortunately, war veterans in the United States are more likely to become homeless than any other group. A January 2009 survey in USA Today reported that 16% of war veterans end up homeless. Furthermore, they are 50% more likely to become homeless than Americans who have not fought in a war. In addition, individuals belonging to a minority group such as African-Americans or Hispanics are more likely to end up homeless as well.

Emad Burnat — the director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “5 Broken Cameras” — landed in Los Angeles yesterday ahead of Sunday’s awards ceremony to a less than pleasant welcome. Rather than the easy transit he had experienced during his previous five visits to the U.S., customs officials detained him, his wife, and six-year old son in a small room in Los Angeles International Airport and couldn’t believe that he was in town to attend the prestigious event.

Apparently, La Migra didn’t think a Palestinian was capable of earning an Oscar nomination.

Michael Moore publicized the situation and eventually facilitated the director’s release.

Moore at the link.

Excerpt:

The Bible never talked about science!

In worst taste than usual.

I recommend skipping the first two and a half minutes and going directly to the bit on the Pennsylvania Lottery (which can be generalized to the country-wide Republican efforts to sell off public assets for short-term gain).

I wonder how much of this includes layoffs in anticipation of the Republican sequestration? They are already in the news here.

Jobless claims increased by 20,000 to 362,000 in the week ended Feb. 16, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. The median forecast of 48 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for an increase to 355,000. The number of applications in three states and the District of Columbia was estimated because of the holiday-shortened week, a Labor Department spokesman said as the data was released.

(snip)

The less-volatile four-week average climbed to 360,750 from 352,750. The average at the end of October, before the typical swings related to the year-end holidays set in, was 367,250.

Last week corresponded to the period the Labor Department will survey businesses to calculate the payroll data for February. The average last week was little changed from January’s 360,000 for the comparable period.

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits rose by 11,000 to 3.15 million in the week ended Feb. 9. The continuing claims figure doesn’t include Americans receiving extended unemployment benefits under federal programs.

Those patriotic Republicans love their America* so much that they are willing to take food out of the mouths of Americans in proof of that love. What a bunch of guys!

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*Their America, the one from 1859, that is.

Kavips diagnoses what’s wrong with the schools. A nugget:

On this link, there is a test question that hit the schools in New York State and the questions regarding that story.

Simply put, if you don’t take the time to do this test, ( 5 minutes) you should not have any say in education.

Once you see this, you cannot have any qualms as to why our children are failing….

• It is not the teachers.
• It is not the principals.
• It is not the school boards.
• It is the test.

In Virginia, these tests are referred to as the SOLs.

I don’t think that’s an accident.

Follow the link for the rest of the argument and the sample question referred to above.

The Tampa Bay Times reviews the political odyssey of “Doc” Dockery, once a mainstay of the Florida Republican Party.

Actually, he didn’t odyssey–he’s pretty much the guy he always was. It’s his party that has run off the rails.

A nugget:

“Look at what happened in the presidential primary. It was embarrassing. … It was very difficult to sit there and think this is my party and this is what I’m a part of when some of these folks were talking — like the Texas governor (Rick Perry), like Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum — pretty much all of them except (Jon) Huntsman,” said Dockery, a top supporter of then-longshot Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Martinez in the 1980s, who in the 1990s helped lead the “Eight is Enough” campaign for legislative term limits.

“And this thing about 47 percent? We want to exclude 47 percent of the people who are citizens and eligible to vote in this country? (Mitt) Romney was representing much of the thought of the Republican Party when he said that, and I don’t think that way,” said Dockery, who changed his party registration about two years ago but said he will switch back to the GOP if he wants to weigh in on a primary.

Read it. If you are clinging to some notion based on the Republican Party of the past, it’s time to give it up and realize that today’s Republican Party is nuts.

Alex Runner sees similarities between Downton Abbey’s Lord Grantham and certain modern pols. A nugget:

Like many politicians today, Lord Grantham is big on sweeping statements and seemingly innocuous prejudices. In his case, the Irish are a backward people; Catholics are heathens; always bet on royal blood. Simple-minded beliefs that hold his worldview together – even if each one is opposed by actual evidence. Know anyone who sounds like this in 21st-century American political theater?

I’ll give you a few hints: All teachers are greedy; people on food stamps are lazy; many Muslims are terrorists; undocumented immigrants are criminals; sustainability advocates are tree-hugging sissies.

Full disclosure:

I have not seen an episode of Downton Abbey, though I have heard Julian Fellowes interviewed about it and have been unable to escape the constant tote-bagging wankery about it.

I have no intention of seeing it.

As near as I can tell, it’s Gone with the Wind with received pronunciation.

If I want fantasy, I can reread Lord of the Rings.

Like cowboys in a bad western, the flacks are branding the bull (emphasis added):

But behind the scenes is a relentless, methodical effort to build the Rubio brand, aided by a team of strategists and media handlers positioning the 41-year-old Floridian for an expected presidential run.

They include members of Rubio’s Senate staff and presidential campaign veterans who work for the political committee Rubio formed ostensibly to help elect other conservatives.

Instead, the Reclaim America PAC has focused on consultants and building a national fundraising network. Last year, his PAC spent more than $1.7 million, with the vast majority going toward staff and fundraising, and about $110,000 going to other candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

An argument can be made that one of the elements in our decline is the belief that appearance is all that matters, that the “brand” is everything.

Honest to Pete, you can’t make this stuff up.

The Republican Party has become a vile and disgusting thing which pleasures itself at the expense of the nation.

It’s two minutes. Watch it.

Via TPM.

Via C&L.

Sanford, New York, tells its citizens to keep quiet and just take it.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday by the National Resources Defense Council and Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy claims the Broome County town of Sanford is violating residents’ First Amendment rights to free speech.

The board in the small town in eastern Broome passed a resolution in September saying there had already been hours of public comment for and against gas drilling and no further discussion would be allowed.