April 8 – Margaret Thatcher’s Ideology Lives on; The Hapless American Jihadist Duped by the FBI; “How Conservatives Still Run America, Despite Losing Elections”

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Part 1	We begin with the death today of former British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher and analyze her influence in championing an ideology based on individual liberty and market-based reforms that has come to dominate Anglo-American policy debates today. Historian Daniel Stedman Jones, the author of “Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics” joins us.
Part 2	Then we examine the case of the American jihadist who fought with the Syrian rebels, Eric Harroun, who today appeared in Federal Court charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States. Robert Young Pelton, the publisher of Dangerous Magazine, who interviewed Harroun before his arrest by the FBI, joins us to discuss the strange story of a hard-drinking, womanizing American Army vet accused of consorting with Islamic fundamentalist Al Qaeda terrorists. Pelton has an article at Foreign Policy “A Weapon of Minor Destruction: How Eric Harroun, the American jihadist in Syria, was duped by the FBI into incriminating himself”.
Part 3	Then finally we speak with Amatai Etzioni, the Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University about his article at Salon.com “How Conservatives Still Run America, Despite Losing Elections”. We explore why the majority Democrats allow themselves to be bullied by the minority Republicans into compromising or caving. And the key role that conservative Democrats play in more often than not, joining Republicans in a majority conservative coalition.