THE DEMOCRTS ARE NOW THE REAL "CONSERVATVES", AND THE GOP ARE THE RADICAL "WING- NUTS"

Dictionary Definition: CONSERVATIVE: Favoring traditional views and values; restrained; moderate; cautious. Sure doesn´t sound like any current Republican I know today.

…This American diplomat & politician of the 1950´s had the GOP figured out years ago.

Over the last few years I have recently come to the same conclusion that a late, well know American diplomat and politician had come to as far back as 1952.

The realization that I came to is that the Democratic Party has changed significantly and they have become the actual "conservative party", while the Republican Party has become the politically disconnected "Radical Party".

Here I thought I had come to a special realization that needed to be passed on to my readers. However, in my research I came across a part of a speech made by a former Governor of Illinois and UN Ambassador named Adlai Stevenson. Mr. Stevenson was a Democrat that had run for and lost twice for US President in 1952 and 1956. He was also the Ambassador to the United Nations in the Kennedy administration and he had heroically gone head-to-head with the powerful UN Ambassador from the then Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

However, in relation to my recent realization, here is what Mr. Stevenson stated in a 1952 speech when he was running for the US Presidency:

"The strange alchemy of time has somehow converted the Democrats into the truly conservative party in the country, the party dedicated to ´conserving all that is best and building solidly and safely on these foundations´. The Republicans, by contrast, are behaving like the radical party, the party of the reckless and embittered, bent on dismantling institutions [such as Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, Civil Rights, etc.] which have been built solidly into our social fabric."

Mr. Stevenson was very prescient, especially when considering the past bizarre eight years under the Bush / Cheney Administration. And let's not forget all the "right-wing, wing-nuts" that are showing up on FOX and all over right-wing talk radio. I would suspect that metaphorically speaking, over the previous past years of GOP rule, Mr. Stevenson was regularly, "turning over in his grave".

As a good example, just look at what the Republicans have tried to destroy over the past 30 years.

President Ronald Reagan went after the Unions with his initial efforts against the air traffic controllers PATCO union. Since then, unionization in the US has gone from a high of 30+%, to the current 13% level of all American workers.

Past Republican Congresses have shot-down national health care from Democratic presidents as far back as Truman, Kennedy and Clinton, and even including their own president, Richard Nixon´s once feeble attempt at a national health care program.

The previously removed and tainted house speaker, Newt Gingrich, had also tried to strangle Medicare out of existence, all the while the Republicans were voting against bills for social programs or civil rights including the Voting Rights Act.

Then, in 2004, President Bush II attempted to privatize Social Security, which would have been the first move by the GOP for eventually phasing out the whole program.

Usually, when the liberals and the progressives clash with the radical Republicans, the liberals try to enfranchise all American citizens. Republicans on the other hand, try to block citizens from voting. These are not just casual comments, these are documented facts. Progressives usually support the concept of due process, while the GOP usually insists that (at least when they are in power), they can do just as they please and "the hell with due process".

Democracy survives by having honest debate, not the lies, innuendo and the false statements we have been hearing from the GOP over the past 30 years. This "dishonesty" is not only just wrong, it is a serious threat to the survival of a nation that makes its political decisions based on receiving truthful information for making informed decisions.

As an example, important decisions, such as invading a nation that has not threatened the US is an example of why the American public should not have been given "cherry-picked" information for supporting the invasion of a sovereign nation. This is regardless of how much the US president hated the sovereign country´s leader and the war in Iraq was just another example of the Republican "radicalism".

Now when did this aforementioned change to "conservatism" occur within the Democratic Party?

This all started when the Democrats stopped being the "liberal" party to being "liberal conservatives". And this all started when, as the Nobel Prize winner, Paul Krugman said; " When the Republican Party was taken over by a radical new force in American politics that is now known as "Movement Conservatism." This so called "movement" began with the GOP´s infamous "Southern Strategy" which was for converting the southern state populations into Republicans. All this began just after the Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Prior to this signing, most of the American southern states had always voted Democratic.

This new "movement" really took off when Ronald Reagan became president. It then reached its highest point in the 2004 election after which it began its accelerated decline.

After Bush had won in 2004, (in an election that is still today considered by many to have been stolen), the American public started to see just where the Republicans were headed. This realization occurred as reality when Bush tried to dismantle the Social Security system. This is the "Crown Jewel" of FDR´s New Deal institutions. (And since the market crash of 2008, everyone now sees how bad Bush and the GOP´s idea of privatizing Social Security would have been.)

This effort by Bush and the GOP signaled to the country just how much the "far right" and the "religious southern conservatives" had taken over the Republican Party. It was also at this time that the country seriously realized the problems with many of the Bush and the Republican´s political moves. This included the approving of "warrantless wire tapping" and the removal of "Habeas Corpus". These were examples of just how far the Republicans had decided to ignore the concept of America´s need for the whole truth and for trashing the basics of real "due process".

Since that period in time, the problems with the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the Republican Party then surfaced. Subsequent to that, a host of highly publicized problems started popping up with other prominent Republican politicians. They included issues with: Mark Foley, David Vitter, Ted Stevens, Scooter Lobby, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Ed Schrock, Helen Chenowith, Bob Allen, Larry Craig, Mark Sanford, John Ensign, Alberto Gonzales and now former Vice President Dick Cheney is once again being grilled for his involvement in the outing of the CIA Agent, Valerie Plame.

And since the Tea Party "wing-nuts" surfaced and the GOP health care plan has been declared a "non-plan", written by health care lobbyists, it´s no wonder that only "one-out-of-5 American voters" currently identify themselves as being a Republican.

Yes, in reality and for the short-term, the Republicans should rename their party as the "Minority Radical Party". They would only be considered a "conservative party" if the definition of the word "conservative" were changed to mean: "untruthful, deceitful, liar and radical".

The letters G.O.P. use to mean; "Grand Old Party". Today they could actually stand for a; "Great Outstanding Problem". At least that´s the way it is looking today.

Copyright: G.Ater 2009

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