Former Republican Chair , Now Screaming Progressive

[pberq]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0103-34.htm

Published on Tuesday, January 3, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
My Mother: Former Chair of the Local Republican Party, Now Screaming Progressive
by Missy Comley Beattie

<snip>
Kentucky is the Bluegrass State. It’s where I was born and lived until leaving for college. My mother was Chair of the local Republican Party at a time when Republicans were scarce there. Now the state is glaringly, blindingly red.


<snip>
And, then, at some point, Mother began to study the policies of the parties. Gradually, she came to the realization that progressive politics reflected her beliefs—that social programs for the poor benefited everyone. She decided that her religious convictions also turned her away from the “right” and into the light:

We have to take care of our poor. The Republican Party cuts taxes for the wealthy and either under-funds or eliminates government organizations that help the poor and middle class. Also, the Civil Rights Movement was a huge wakeup for me.

<snip>

After 9/11 when Americans were thirsty for revenge, both of my parents were dismayed that the president continued to build a case against Iraq. My mother had just read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the Unites States, a book she recommends to all who want to be knowledgeable about the roots of terrorism. It’s her hope that Americans will engage in the reality of our tyrannical foreign policy. “Our image was damaged before the presidency of George Bush,” she says. “But he’s accomplished its destruction.”

(more at link. . .)

[acmejack]

1. Your mother is open minded enough to read Zinn.

Unfortunately, most Cons would never read him.