An Old Political Adage – “Politics Ain't Beanbag”


Is this how Republicans defend their habitual use of “dirty tricks” and “personal destruction?” They like to talk tough because it puts their unethical and very hostile activities in perspective – it's not beanbag, it's war. Democrats tend to be idealistic and philosophical in their personalities and platform, while Republicans are usually from a business background, the military or are simply very wealthy. Democrats wear a white hat and Republicans more often a black one.

Democrats fight for the poor, the brown skinned, the right for free thought, the Middle Class and the poor, more jobs at better wages, and small business over billionaire owned corporations. And of course, they do want to win elections, too. The Democrats are usually supported by unions, lawyer groups, the ACLU, the SPLC, etc. Republicans fight for more and more money, unfair tactics like disenfranchising poor voters, hardline government laws that destroy civil rights, union busting, racist policing and favoring the wealthy at all times. I don't trust many of them not to advocate military/police based oppression of the US citizen if he becomes to troublesome to the central government.

Whoever is in power at any given time, there are incidents in the news proving that the adage is a true one. I found a case from 2013 on the Net just now in which Obama used the “beanbag” phrase against Congressional conservatives. I am very party oriented, but human rights and a good life are my strongest beliefs. That's why I'm a strong party member – the individual human in our society won't win their case except by the occasional Supreme Court decision in their favor, and pursuing a case through all those courts costs mega money. That's why marches, boycotts, union activity, and fighting to maintain the “social safety net” are all important tools for me.

I don't mind the wealthy having six or eight houses and a luxurious life as long as the Middle Class and the poor don't have to go without basic needs, a good education, some travel and pleasures, equal rights in a court of law, or forgo the upward ladder toward the top – in other words, the “American Dream.” Being poor is one thing; having to stay poor is another. I do fear and am appalled at the “permanent underclass” that we seem to be developing in the US nowadays. I'm at a point myself that I feel like saying to the conservatives that they aren't playing “beanbag,” and that they should start cooperating in the march toward a just and prosperous society that includes all classes of people.




http://www.thewire.com/politics/2012/01/what-newt-and-mitt-mean-when-they-say-aint-bean-bag/47184/

What Newt and Mitt Mean When They Say 'This Ain't Bean Bag'
Elspeth Reeve
JAN 9, 2012 6:52PM ET

What was Mitt Romney talking about at the primary debate Saturday when he scolded Newt Gingrich for complaining about negative ads, saying "this ain't bean bag"? If you are certain age, you might have instantly thought of hacky sack, the game all the cute skaters played in eighth grade. But that seemed like a very unlikely reference for Romney to make. Then, on Monday, Gingrich used the phrase too, when Real Clear Politics noted Romney protested that calling him a corporate raider was unfair. Gingrich responded that President Obama's reelection campaign is "going to raise a billion dollars. They're not raising it -- as the governor himself said in your quote, 'This ain't bean bag.' They aren't going to raise a billion dollars for fun." Okay, guys, from context clues we can tell "this ain't bean bag" is sort of a synonym for "quit your moaning." But what is "bean bag"? We offer a young person's PSA.

Teagan Goddard explains that the quote is a reference to newspaper columnist Finley Peter Dunne, who in 1895 created the character Mr. Dooley. Dooley, an Irish-American, said things like, "Sure, politics ain't bean-bag. ‘Tis a man’s game, an’ women, childer, cripples an’ prohybitionists ‘d do well to keep out iv it." But that only explains what bean bag isn't (politics). What is it?! Urban Dictionary provides a lot of potential definitions, most of them dirty. We thought: maybe it's cornhole? That's what those perverts in the Ohio Valley call bean bag toss. Further investigation showed the term got really popular in the 1910s, according to Google's N-grams viewer, and began to die with flappers. But we still don't understand what bean bag is. 

Sifting through newspaper archives reveals that playing bean bag is something sissy girls do. It was apparently a girls' sport, played in teams, highest scorer winning. "The two contests were as far apart as regards the playing of the national game as bean bag is from a football contest," the Manufacturers and Farmers Journal wrote about one good and one bad game of baseball on August 5, 1907. Lesson: bean bag is not like football.

The New York Times reported on April 28, 1914 that the Giants and the Phillies "did not care what they did with the ball at the Polo Grounds yesterday. They tossed it around like a lot of girls playing bean bag." Lesson: bean bag is not like good baseball. The Times really liked this line, because it reported on July 15, 1915 that a game between the Giants and the Pirates featured some "weird fielding," as "The whole infield tossed the ball around like girls playing bean-bag..." Lesson: bean bag is not like good fielding.

Finally, a report from the Youngstown Vindicator from August 4, 1910, offers the most revealing explanation: "Bean bag jump (the girls standing in a circle and jumping over a bean bag which a teacher swung at the end of a rope under their feet) Sara Hadette, South Side, First; Irene Quail, Baldwin Kindergarten, second." Sounds like Skip-it. 

Conclusion: Bean bag is something wimpy little girls do, not manly men in politics. We wish Michelle Bachmann were still in the race.





http://news.yahoo.com/politics-ain-39-t-beanbag-then-sport-investigation-195300252.html

If Politics Ain't Beanbag, Then What Sport Is It? An Investigation
The Atlantic
By Philip Bump
January 9, 2014 2:53 PM

"Politics," Gov. Chris Christie said during his two-hour press conference on Thursday, "ain't beanbag." Fine, we get it, we've heard this a million times. So what sport or game is politics?

In order to answer that question, we should revisit what "beanbag" itself is, a topic The Wire addressed in January 2012. (At that point, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney were not playing beanbag in the Republican primaries.) Beanbag, it turns out, is a game that kids, mostly girls, played in the late 19th century. So when politicians say politics isn't beanbag, they're saying that it is not a game for wimpy Victorian-era girls in petticoats. It is, rather, a rough-and-tumble sport for tough guys like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

Perhaps, then:

Politics is rugby.

There are few sports tougher than rugby. Burly guys throwing each other around in the struggle to carry or kick the ball past the goal line. (At this point I will admit that I don't really know much about rugby beyond that.) Players get covered in mud — like in politics — and they represent teams that gradually rack up more and more points — also like in politics. Bones are broken; fortunes lost.

RELATED: The Four Key Questions Chris Christie Didn't Answer at His Press Conference
Except that, you know, politicians aren't really all that tough. They love to pretend that they are, snarling about how they're going to punish their enemies and hear the lamentations of their constituents and so on. But winning a procedural vote while sitting in a high-backed chair is is a lot more beanbag than beanball.

So maybe:

Politics is football.

There you go. Some padding, some clearly defined rules, lots of refs. You still get to push people around, but then the whistle blows and, if you need to, you can head to the sideline for some Gatorade. And, unlike rugby, you can draw a crowd. The final contest each year (it is called the "Super Bowl") draws a massive audience, heavily laced with corporate sponsors. That sounds a bit like politics, no?

Well, except that we might be taking the "team" thing a little far. Politicians suit up in red and blue uniforms because it gets them into the game, but, as Romney and Gingrich showed, they also spend a lot of time fighting between themselves. It's as though the New York Giants lined up for the snap, and center Jim Cordle turned around and knocked Eli Manning right on his back (which he probably should have).

Since it's more often a one-to-one thing:

Politics is Olympic boxing.
 
Big padded helmets, big cushy gloves, but lots of opportunities to throw punches. Still a real opportunity to land blows. And at the end of the day, you're doing it for the greater glory of your country.

Although, politicians, with the exception of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, don't actually know anything about boxing. I get that the "beanbag" thing is supposed to be a metaphor, but there exist games and sports that are actually closer analogues to the world of politics, the deliberate, bloodless back-and-forth that sees incremental shifts in power and completely reversible damage. Like:

Politics is chess.

Checkmates, black-and-white, pawns. That sounds about right.

Strategy, foresight, intellect. That doesn't.

So maybe not chess. Something a little simpler, more reliant on chance.

Politics is Sorry!
 
Remember Sorry? In Sorry, you draw a card that tells you how far to move, offering the occasional chance to knock your opponents back to their starting places. Sometimes, you'll draw a "Sorry!" card, which lets you — like the unfeeling finger of God — simply pluck an opponent off the board. You're supposed to then offer a false apology — "sorry!" — which also seems fitting. Nearly everything is out of your control, but the things that are act primarily as ways of screwing over your opponents. Pretty on-the-nose. And it is fun to say "Politics is Sorry."

Except. Except that it also requires four players, ideally. It's not the one-to-one match-up we predicated this whole thing on. And, frankly, it's a little too wholesome. Perhaps, then:

Politics is cornhole.

Cornhole, you coastal elites (like me) might not know, is a game in which two or more drunk Ohio State guys go out behind the Sigma Alpha Mu house and try and throw a little sack through a hole cut in a board. It involves:

One-on-one competition or teams
Beer
Talking smack
Keeping track of the points you score
Psychological warfare
Wholesome real-America values

And there is zero percent chance you get hurt, unless you do it to yourself or get in an actual fistfight. Perfect.

But since "cornhole" as a term is still not widely known in the broader world, we just use the shorthand for those little sacks you toss. So:

Politics is beanbag.

Please inform any elected officials in your vicinity.

This article was originally published athttp://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/01/so-if-politics-aint-beanbag-then-what-it-investigation/356864/





http://www.talkleft.com/story/2012/3/7/153641/3685/otherpolitics/From-The-Politics-Ain-t-Beanbag-File

From The Politics Ain't Beanbag File
By Big Tent Democrat, Section Other Politics 
Posted on Wed Mar 07, 2012 at 02:36:41 PM ES

Kevin Drum considers whether fight from progressives might work:

If this is right, it's bad news for Bob, who's consistently argued against the Foxification of the left and for a tough but fundamentally factual approach to fighting the modern right. But Suzy is suggesting that although the key to success in Virginia was partly better organization, it was mostly about using more incendiary language. Likewise, in the case of Rush, the key to success had nothing to do with his odious point of view. It was all because we could highlight a single word — slut — that enraged people.

I don't know if this is correct. I'm just tossing it out for comment. But politics has always been about emotion, not cool logic, and maybe these two recent examples suggest that liberals are rediscovering that lesson. We'll see.

We'll see? We've SEEN. (To be fair, Kevin is asking whether Dems will remember this.) Fighting Dems and Fighting Progressives -standing up from a crouched posture, has always worked best. Kevin might want to revisit the debate on the "American Taliban".

Speaking for me only