Liberals must learn to stay on topic

  • John Santana<br>
  • Monday, March 3, 2008 11:32am

The print and TV reporters who attended the Wal-Mart crime stats news conference in Mill Creek on May 9 inadvertently saw what’s wrong with progressive politics in this country.

The focus of the news conference was to show how the company’s stores allegedly are more of a public safety threat than Target stores. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that dislike of the nation’s largest retailer was used as a platform for other issues.

A perfect example was the speech given by Jan Strout of the Seattle office of the National Organization for Women. She used the press conference to tie in everything from economic justice to gender discrimination and other issues. Consider the following example:

“Given that nearly one out of every two women in the U.S. has or will experience some form of violence in our lifetime, these horrific reports of rape, kidnappings, murder and other assaults mean even less opportunities for women to achieve our full equality with men.”

Strout then continued: “We also know that all forms of violence against women, including these crimes against consumers as well as Wal-Mart’s employees – the vast majority of whom are women – adds to the increasing social control of women that all forms of violence serves to achieve.”

I’m not a criminologist, but it’s safe to assume that a sex predator or someone stealing money to cook meth is not thinking about repressing women and gender equality issues when they commit their crime.

The other problem is the language Strout chose. Labeling crimes against women as something that increases “social control” is not going to reach the vast majority of people. That kind of rhetoric only appeals to the hardcore types who are already active in those kind of causes.

NOW should have an interest in the online report, but it must speak out about it in a manner that would be more palatable to the average person, regardless of a person’s political ideology.

Using an issue to push other items forward seems clever, but it dilutes the message. There are so many factions pulling at the strings of the Democratic Party and the liberal movement that no one can seem to come up with a coherent platform. It’s no surprise that many wonder just what the liberal movement in this country stands for.

Attend an anti-war rally and you’ll not only see signs opposing the war, but signs calling for President Bush’s impeachment, probably a “Free Tibet” and “Meat is Murder” bumper sticker or two, and whatever other issue members of the far left want to get into the public consciousness.

And liberals wonder why conservative pundits like Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter not only poke fun at them, but have a large audience as well?

John Santana is a writer and editor with The Enterprise Newspapers.

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