This blog is cross-posted at StewartAcuff.com
I was happy, fortunate, and blessed to be on the great Thom Hartmann tv show on RT America. Thom is the most progressive, smart, and thoughtful tv and radio host on the air in America. CLICK HERE to watch the segment now!
Our panel included two right-wingers and me. One was so right-wing, he was to the right of the NRA! We did the now typical debate and dance about new gun regulations. Per usual, the right-wingers were totally foolish and even silly about any gun regulations, lying about the 2nd Amendment, and claiming the Constitution prevents any sensible gun regulations including outlawing 30 round magazines and mandatory background checks.
But what was really interesting was Thom’s facilitation of whether the just deceased Margaret Thatcher could be nominated in today’s American Republican Party, or whether she wasn’t far enough to the right.
As Thom said, Thatcher – the famous Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and political soul mate of Ronald Reagan – supported the National Health Service and raised taxes.
The two right-wingers on the panel fumbled and blustered around without answering the question at all.
My response was that Thatcher and Reagan were conservatives, traditional and as Thom said “thoughtful and slow moving” conservatives. And I made the point that the American Republican Party of today is not a conservative party. It is a radical right-wing party, that George Bush differed with Reagan on major policies, that today’s Republican Party has been taken over by science deniers – in fact both of the right-wingers on the panel denied global climate change and one said he didn’t know anyone who believed in climate change.
In my opinion, the Republican Party has been taken over by a really bizarre mix of teabaggers and secessionists who long for the re-emergence of the Confederacy. They’re racists and very weird oligarchs like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson.
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Stewart Acuff is the former organizing Director of the AFL-CIO. Acuff has also written two books: Playing Bigger Than You Are: A Life in Organizing, and Getting America Back to Work.
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