Posted on 11/18/2001 10:30:03 AM PST by Mark
Sunday, November 18, 2001
Liberals have become their own enemy
Chris Weinkopf
Columnist
AS president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women in 1995, Tammy Bruce saw the O.J. Simpson saga as the perfect opportunity to draw attention to the problem of domestic violence. It was a local story commanding national attention, the trial of a wife-beater accused of a double homicide. She set up an information hotline, staged rallies and made the rounds on the talk show circuit.
For that, she was made the target of a national NOW smear campaign that effectively ended her activist career.
As Bruce soon discovered, NOW, although nominally an organization that works on behalf of women, is primarily an agent of what she calls "the new thought police." Concerned more with enforcing an ideological orthodoxy than advancing the status of women, NOW's national leadership had no interest in taking on Simpson -- even if he did kill his wife -- for fear of offending its allies in the "civil rights" community.
Feminism, long the beneficiary and champion of political correctness, had become its victim.
In her new book, "The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds," Bruce describes how groups like NOW exist not so much to participate in a national debate, but to squelch it.
The left, she observes, is the casualty of its own success. It has effectively won control of the nation's most important cultural institutions -- the establishment media, entertainment and academia. ("If you have any doubt about who controls our culture today," Bruce writes, "consider that Larry Flynt thrives while Dr. Laura Schlessinger struggles.") But power corrupts, and it has corrupted "liberalism" into a totalitarianism that is no longer at all liberal in the traditional sense of the word.
That's a strong charge, but Bruce -- "an openly gay, gun-owning, pro-death penalty, liberal, voted-for-Reagan feminist" -- marshals plenty of evidence to support it.
There's the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which took a few of Dr. Laura's statements grossly out of context and used them to quash her TV program.
There are the speech codes on college campuses throughout the country that limit what students and faculty may say and where they may say it. There's Jesse Jackson's shakedown of corporate America, in which he threatens to brand companies with the "racist" label unless they yield to his wishes, which usually include a sizable transfer of wealth to one of his friends, family members or organizations.
Then there are the double standards.
The feminist establishment gave O.J. a pass on domestic violence, just as it turned a blind eye to charges of sexual harassment -- and worse -- against Bill Clinton. This, after using far flimsier and less serious allegations as a pretext to declare war on Clarence Thomas and Bob Packwood. And for all the noise that GLAAD made about Dr. Laura, it let off rapper Eminem, who rhapsodizes about killing homosexuals, with a slap on the wrist.
As Bruce points out, it's all about power. O.J. Simpson had the support of radical black activists. The Clinton administration had recently authorized the transfer of $543,636 to the cash-starved California NOW, ostensibly for tobacco control. GLAAD's major corporate sponsor is Absolut vodka, which is distributed by Seagram, parent company of Eminem's record label.
Bruce lists these examples and many, many more. From her personal experiences and from her observation of local and national events, she portrays a left that uses the McCarthyite tactics of blacklisting, bullying, censorship and social intimidation to stifle dissenting thoughts and words. Anyone who has felt the need to suppress his or her beliefs -- especially on matters of race, religion, or a variety of social issues -- at a cocktail party or in the workplace has experienced the chilling effect of the new thought police.
Bruce is not the first or even the most eloquent writer to critique this social phenomenon, but she is the first to expose it from the inside. During her six-year stint with NOW, she saw the thought police in action, and she experienced the brutality with which it cracked down on one of its members who was unwilling to toe the line.
What's most amazing about Bruce's story is that it never needed to happen. She was NOW's L.A. chapter president and an accomplished public-relations professional at the age of 27, with a bright future in "progressive" politics ahead of her. Rather than exposing the new thought police, she could easily have continued to do its bidding, and she no doubt would have been rewarded with the perquisites of power for her efforts.
But Bruce did something unusual in today's political arena: She followed her conscience. She chose principle over power, open debate over mind control, authentic diversity over the superficial, color-coded kind. Even those of us who would find much to disagree about with her politics find much to admire about her character.
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Chris Weinkopf is an editorial writer and columnist for the Daily News. Write to him by e-mail at
chris.weinkopf@dailynews.com.
And the classroom of kids from Stossel's environment investigation screams, "No! You're lying!"
Let's hope so.
When I saw that disgusting display I was thinking "just like modern day Hitler youth."
New Butt Order® (NBO)
But oh no, it was a vast right wing conspiracy all right! Bull! The right would have dreamed to find dirt like that, heck, even the right was embarassed by those people coming forward and then caved in in congress.
Goes to tell you about the blind hatred of the liberals who never check out their facts.
When the networks called the race early in Florida, the democrats quit double punching ballots.
Democrats didn't invalidate enough Bush votes to steal the election. The liberals did it to themselves. Let's give credit where credit is due....
What the hell is this?!
Half-a-million taxpayer dollars given to an organization that works against the taxpayer's interest, in order to fund a totally specious project.
It's how liberals in federal government fund their own political supporters. Which, in turn, generates campaign contributions that are, in effect, taxpayer dollars. What is John McVain's view of this activity, I wonder...???
Cash STARVED NOW-- Starved, don't you get it? It was a crisis! Besides tobacco is evil, as are conservatives.(/sarcasm)
Libs will deny previous positions, convincing themselves that the Dark Side is fluid and ever-changing. They have no core values.
Amen.
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