Thom Hartmann was talking about political violence on his show on Thursday. A poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University showed 44 percent of Republicans believed political revolution would be necessary. Hartmann remarked: “Do you think that the Republicans are gonna mount an armed revolution? Didn't they try that in 1860 or '61?”
Then he talked terrorism. Hartmann argued that Christianity and Islam each contains a "small cult" of persons prone to violent terrorism. One isn’t more dangerous than the other. Then he identified the real terrorists: companies that sell tobacco, coal, oil, and....fast food:
The people who are really killing us are the tobacco industry, the fast-food industry, the oil industry, the coal industry. You can't even fish in the waters of the United States anymore without getting mercury in your food and damaging your children's and grandchildren['s] neurological systems.
We are -- we're being killed by, by crazed capitalists and, and -- well, I'd say more than anything else by crazed capitalists. People who would rather make a buck and have 500,000 people a year die from tobacco than go find a decent way to make a living. These are the real terrorists in the United States.
It's not immigrants or Muslims we need to worry about – it's the anti-government extreme right that are currently espousing conspiracy theories and stockpiling weapons. They are the real threat to our nation and to our democracy. Considering that Republicans have actively worked to fight against liberty in the areas of voting rights, women's reproductive health, and economic security, it appears the only so-called liberty they worry about is the Second Amendment.
This poll essentially says that 44 percent of Republicans are willing to mount an armed insurgency against our government to protect the gun-show loophole, which allows criminals and terrorists to buy guns. This shows how conspiracy theories, like FEMA camps and the gun confiscation, really do have dangerous results. Responsible leaders in the Republican party must start working to change this, and quiet the anti-government rhetoric in their party. And right-wing talking heads need to be held accountable for the dangerous conspiracy theories they spout.
Earlier: CNSNews.com on the poll
