Political Theatre category archive

Contradict Me offers a handy tool for classifying bigots.

This is one of my favorites, one seen frequently in the wild over the past two weeks:

The Enlightened- This bigot calls for peace. The problem is, their call for peace is only directed at the victim of hate. Rarely, if ever, is this “Call for peace” directed at the person who has caused the pain. They are anti-retaliation but not so much anti-attack. This bigot will talk of Ghandi or quote “An eye for an eye…” They’ll say, “Whatever the hate fueled person did was bad BUT…” All the while stepping directly on the hurt person and remaining completely silent in the face of the person who has caused the harm. They will often go on a faux peace rant, end it with an incorrect use of Nameste and be completely shocked that everyone doesn’t immediately fall at their feet and start singing We are the World.

This is the one that, after some bigoted massacre or other, can be recognized by its plaintive cry:

Now is not the time to politicize.
Now is not the time to politicize.
Now is not the time to politicize.

Follow the link for the rest. I expect that you will recognize them all.

Mike Papantonio and Ed Schultz consider what happens when Senator Harry Reid talks like Fox News, complete with “Some people say . . .” and “The word on the street is . . . .”

They also wonder whether there’s a there there:

If there is a there there, it’s the only there that’s there over there in Mitt world.

Following the Milwaukee massacre, the press has discovered the seamy underground of white power punk (as an SPLC supporter, I was already aware of it and other manifestations of the mongers of extreme hate).

Psychology Today blogger Anthony Lemieux, who has studied that music, considers the message in the music and its use in recruiting haters. A nugget:

A couple of years ago, one of my former students did a detailed research study examining the lyrical themes in White Supremacist music and in short found a series of reliable and recurrent themes. Those mentioned here are just a small (but representative) sample of what we found. But it is important to note that emphasizing the need for ‘awakening’ is one of the themes that is particularly important in the context of violence, because violence is positioned as the means by which the masses can be shocked from their collective complacency. Not only are the perceived problems and threats that Whites face attributed to racial and religious minorities, but the solution to those problems is purported to be through the embracing of eliminationist themes and justification of violence.

Profit is an important measurement of business.

What happens when it mutates from measurement to idol?

Excerpt:

I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he has done to anyone, and furthermore I do not think he cares.

Via the Booman.

The Van-Choc-Straw of Republican candidates:

Via BartCop.

Via BartCop.

Dick Polman considers Congressman Mike Kelly’s (R—Kraft-Ebbing) recent statement that having birth control covered by insurance is analogous to 9/11 and wonders why Republicans are so scared of lady bits.

A snippet:

I’ll leave it to the social historians to explain why conservatives are so threatened by female sexuality, by the idea of women having sex for non-procreative purposes – witness Rush Limbaugh, calling the unmarried Sandra Fluke “a slut” – or even by the prospect of strapped-for-cash women getting birth control coverage so that they can control their ovarian cysts. I’ll simply say that it takes a special rhetorical talent to liken women to the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center.

Here.

Via Contradict Me.

This is all you need to know about Republican tax policy.

I seldom read Thomas Friedman.

His are generally substance-less, but important-sounding multi-syllabic fulminations which make the reader glow with a sense up superior knowldege while contributing little to public discourse and much to carbon dioxide build-up (except perhaps for his inadvertently contributing to time management the concept of the Friedman Unit).

He is the David Brooks of the vaguely slightly to the left of David Brooks crowd.

Nevertheless, as my old boss used to say, even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes.

I’ll make this quick. I have one question and one observation about Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel. The question is this: Since the whole trip was not about learning anything but about how to satisfy the political whims of the right-wing, super pro-Bibi Netanyahu, American Jewish casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, why didn’t they just do the whole thing in Las Vegas? I mean, it was all about money anyway — how much Romney would abase himself by saying whatever the Israeli right wanted to hear and how big a jackpot of donations Adelson would shower on the Romney campaign in return. Really, Vegas would have been so much more appropriate than Jerusalem. They could have constructed a plastic Wailing Wall and saved so much on gas.

And he wonders about the writers:

But by what hands? Old and bitter hands, I am guessing. Call it the Revenge of the Conservative Codgers. Not that they are all that old. The rot appears to set in at about age 50. GOP? As an elderly but perceptive reader suggested to me, it might stand for Grumpy Old Party.

Judging by my correspondence, I conclude that the worst of the email swappers resent that life as they knew it has changed — a president born in Kenya, can you imagine? Why, yes, these folks can imagine. They are susceptible to any implausible suggestion that lobs into their inbox.

They are prepared to swallow anything that echoes their prejudices, no matter how foolish. They are a Fifth Column sending the equivalent of political pornography to each other.

Via Sampler, an image site (some images NSFW).

Via Contradict Me.

The innerwebs alert me that, in Newsweek, Michael Tomasky asks, “Is Romney a wimp?”

And the Commander Guy answers.

Via C&L.

Der Speigel considers the Mittsteps in Europe:

In the end, Mitt Romney tried to find something positive to say about his European adventure. He said an important lesson he had learned is that “rejection of one kind or another is going to be an important part of everyone’s life.”

The remark didn’t come after the Republican presidential candidate’s snafu-filled European tour over the past week. He made it after spending two years as a missionary for the Mormon Church in France in the 1960s, according to his biographers Michael Kranish and Scott Helman . . . .

Fast forward to last week in Europe, and things haven’t really gone any better for Romney. His visits to Britain, Israel or Poland didn’t go very well. The result has again been rejection of one kind or another. And the candidate has only himself to blame for this gaffe-filled tour.