Political Theatre category archive

Writing at Asia Times, Nan Levinson explores the toll of war and America’s ambivalence to her own victims, the victims that are her own, the soldiers:

Theoretically, whole countries go to war, not just their soldiers, but not this time. Civilian sympathy for “the troops” may be just one more way for us to avoid a real reckoning with our past decade-plus of war, when the hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown up on the average American’s radar only if somebody screws up or noticeable numbers of Americans get killed. The veterans at the heart of this story – victims, heroes, it doesn’t matter – struggle to reconcile what they did in those countries with the “service” we keep thanking them for. We can see them as sick, with all the stigma, neediness, and expense that entails, or we can recognize them as human beings, confronting the morality of what they’ve done in our name and what they’ve seen and come to know – even as they try to move on.

Read the rest and remind yourself: It may be the old lie who lie, but it’s the young who die.

Via the Richmonder.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Via Kiko’s House.

Glenn Greenwald can be irritating. He tends to focus on single issues and miss the big picture.

Even more irritating, when it comes to those single issues that attract his focus, he is often right.

Today’s local rag syndicates a column by Marc Thiessen, Republican flack, in which he wonders

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s decision to side with the court’s liberal bloc and uphold Obamacare raises an important question for conservatives: Why are Republicans so awful at picking Supreme Court justices? Democrats have been virtually flawless in appointing reliable liberals to the court. Yet Republicans, more often than not, appoint justices who vote with the other side on critical decisions.

He wanders around for several hundred words trying find a political reason connected to Senate confirmation process, political pressure on sitting judges, and several other stray dogs of ideas.

He doesn’t get to the reason, one that even the most dogmatic and obtuse lawyer with enough brains to pass the bar might notice from time to time.

Contemporary conservative political positions are consistently on the wrong side of truth, justice, and the American way.

Indeed, they are founded on lies (climate change, “job creators”), perpetuate injustice (gut out the vote), and auction the American way to the highest bidder (to hell with the poor, tax cuts for the rich).

It is to laugh.

Via C&L.

D. Elfman offers a white person’s perspective on white privilege, telling how he was stopped by a policeman after someone resembling him was reported to have robbed a bank. A snippet:

Now let’s stop and consider this. The policeman has not drawn his firearm. He is well within the range I could throw a punch or kick, or stab with a concealed knife. He has not gotten backup before talking to me. He calls me “sir,” speaks in a conversational tone, adds a “please” to his request. This is what white privilege looks like.

While I’d have been within my rights to demand a search warrant, I opened the pouch and let him see that it contained only paper and electronics. See, I was perfectly aware that someone could reasonably look at that pouch and think it signaled that I was armed. I wore it like that anyway because it was convenient. This is what white privilege looks like.

The officer said, “Thanks, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have a bazooka or something in there.”This is what white privilege looks like.He went on to explain about the bank robber, (This is what white privilege looks like.)and would I be willing to give him my contact information and an accounting of myself so that I could be excluded from the list of possible suspects?

I was not arrested, I was not brought in for questioning.

Read the rest.

Via Contradict Me.

Almost too true to be funny.

If your Republican friends don’t know which movies to see this summer, Contradict Me has a list for their viewing pleasure.

Via PoliticalProf.

From George Smith, reacting to this post:

Someone should suggest a fun game to the press, drink a shot every time Mitt Romney lies. First reporter to be arrested for DUI while following the Romney tour bus, wins.

Do your homework.

Antisocial media.

Right-wing Super Pacs, the partisan groups seeking to evict Barack Obama from the White House through a massive injection of private cash, have begun to invest in social media and internet-based advertising in the hope of further amplifying their impact.

With the presidential election four months away, the Super Pacs are begin to turn their attention towards newer digital technologies that allow political campaigns to tightly target their messages to key voters in the swing states.

Facebook, Twitter and Google are all now employing dedicated teams to work directly with the Super Pacs in an attempt to help them build internet presence.

Two Too good to pass up from Bob Cesca’s Awesome BLog.

Dick Polman considers Mitt the Flip’s reaction to the Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s Driving while Brown law.

The list of things that Romney won’t talk about is ever lengthening – he won’t say what tax loopholes he would close, what federal agencies he would eliminate, whether he would repeal Obama’s directive that halts the deportation of illegal immigrants’ children, whether he’d support fair pay for women, and much more – and now we have a new one. He refuses to say whether he supports the Arizona ruling.

Much more at the link.

Mitt the Flip: There’s no there, there.

Afterthought:

One who can believe in anything, believes in nothing.

One who can believe in nothing has no soul.

Dick Destiny questions today’s meme that the Supreme Court’s upholding of the Affordable Care Act will somehow energize the right wing.

He seems to be in sort of a “for Pete’s sake get real” mood:

As extremists, they’re already as aggressive as possible.

Follow the link to find out what fire ants have to do with anything.

More here.