Political Theatre category archive

PoliticalProf wraps it up.

That’s it.

I’m a Southern boy. I can translate the code.

The Booman is not a Southern boy, but he translates it quite well in a long post over at his place. Essential to understanding the translation is putting the words of the code code words into context.

Here’s a couple of snippets from the Booman:

People who didn’t like the end of Jim Crow naturally resented the Federal Government for ending Jim Crow, and they developed an ideology to explain why what the government had done was wrong. It was unconstitutional. It violated people’s inalienable rights. Similar arguments were used to justify slavery and to oppose federal civil rights legislation. But the former arguments were made in overtly racist terms (during the Civil War era–ed.).

(snip)

Did anyone seriously think that these kinds of attitudes could be legislated out of existence? Or that a significant number of people wouldn’t resent the Federal Government for sending in enough troops to force the Southern people to break down segregation? Naturally, those attitudes persisted. But they persisted in less overtly racist ways. Ron Paul’s newsletters occasionally delved into the former style, but that’s more of a slip-up than a regular practice. People know better these days than to say white people are a superior race. The coded way to say that is to insist that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an unconstitutional overreach that actually made race relations worse.

Because, you know, under Jim Crow, race relations were just fine.

Aside:

I suspect that much of the appeal that Libertarianism and Ron Paul seem to have for some college-age males is the youngsters’ ignorance of Libertarianism’s lineage.

The rest of the appeal is likely Libertarianism’s glorification of selfishness: it legitimizes their desire to pursue any and every woman as they congratulate themselves for the Galtian purity and exemplary idealism that guides their so doing.

Shaun Mullen translates John Boehner.

Daniel Ruth considers the Republican field. A nugget:

In recent weeks, I’ve been obsessed with wondering how other Republican icons might react to this bunch of Bowery Boy dunces vying for votes.

Really now, can you remotely fathom Dwight Eisenhower, or Abraham Lincoln, or Barry Goldwater, or Teddy Roosevelt, or Bob Dole, or Ronald Reagan or even Richard Nixon sharing a debate dais with the current crop of GOP candidates and not thinking to themselves: “Holy Toledo! These people are certifiably full of twaddle.”

Read the rest.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

If you like World’s Dumbest, this is right up your alley.

Aside:

A news commentator in one of the snippets says that one of Mitt the Flip’s statements made him seem like Thurston Howell III.

This insults Thurston Howell III. Mitt the Flip has neither his humanity nor his sense of humor.

The Republican Party has become a deeply anti-democratic party.

The (Virginia–ed.) state Republican Party will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the March 6 presidential primary.

Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign will be barred from voting in the primary.

Words fail me.

Via Raw Story.

Test your knowledge.

Via Thoreau.

Thom Hartmann tells what happened when he said, “I’ll take the grope,” then explains what he thinks is motive for the kabuki.

Courtesy of the Miami Herald.

If you want to know the code, PoliticalProf is a good place to start. A nugget:

Code means using words that sound neutral but in fact have explicit racial or other discriminatory content. In the South, where I grew up just as segregation came to an end, and where Ron Paul grew up in the profoundly racist era of Jim Crow, code is the way polite people express racist attitudes and support policies that have racist effects. It is also a tool that can be used to encourage people who do not perceive of themselves as racists to support plans and programs that are nonetheless racist in their implementation—and were usually intended to be implemented to racist effect.

Via Contradict Me.

They never stop trying, do they?

Six decades after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down “separate but equal” schools for blacks and whites, segregation is growing because of charter schools, privately run public schools that educate 1.8 million U.S. children. While charter-school leaders say programs targeting ethnic groups enrich education, they are isolating low-achievers and damaging diversity, said Myron Orfield, a lawyer and demographer.

“It feels like the Deep South in the days of Jim Crow segregation,” said Orfield, who directs the University of Minnesota Law School’s Institute on Race & Poverty. “When you see an all-white school and an all-black school in the same neighborhood in this day and age, it’s shocking.”

After all, despite the proverb, familiarity breeds friendship, which militates against hate, and we can’t have that, now, can we?

The Booman suggests that you click on NewtGingrich.com. Several times.

You’ll be glad you did.

Go to the Booman’s place for his interpretation of what this means.

Joel Connelly, at SeattlePI dot com, considers the ramped teabaggery in the House of Representives. A snippet:

Bad actors make for bad actions, however, and Tea Party crazies on Capitol Hill will probably trigger another crisis at the end of February.

(snip)

The craziness now can even be viewed through a light bulb.

At a Seattle open-house last Saturday, Rep. Jay Inslee talked about how, five years ago, he worked with Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan on legislation to phase in energy-efficient light bulbs.

Of course, this made sense. Only 10 percent of the energy consumed by an old 100-watt incandescent bulb goes to create light. The rest is wasted heat. The industry is phasing in a more efficient product and have come to live with the phase-out of old pear-shaped bulbs.

Yet, Thomas Edison’s little-changed invention has become a cause celebre for dim bulbs of the Tea Party.

Read the rest.