I really don’t like how O’Reilly seems to be suggesting that the recent protest in Washington, D.C. against the war is only the haven of the very liberal, as he seems to have done in yesterday’s talking points. For those who don’t like to read, I’ll cover a couple important points:

To seemingly make his point that only far left people protest, he needs to point out that the protest was financed by “United for Peace and Justice,” which he describes as made up of “primarily far left Americans.” Ok, so what? I doubt UPJ (as I’ll call them here) was personally brainwashing all the protesters into far left “antics.” They only provided the money and the venue, and the time. If people want to protest, they’ll do it by their own convictions, not UPJ’s.

Next he shares interviews with celebrities from the event, such as Sean Penn, Jane Fonda, Tim Robbins, and Susan Sarandon, as if they’re the only voices speaking for everybody. Many of these people do have very liberal views, but so what? I don’t consider myself very liberal, and I hate the handling of this war. If you believe O’Reilly, so does he. So, why the heck must he put a bad name on one of this country’s ways of free speech by associating it only with those who consider themselves very liberal?

I think it’s because of the fact that protests already have a bad rap. The last major protest that I know of hasn’t happened since Vietnam. What goes with that era, besides war? Hippes. Since Vietnam, protests always seems to have been associated with those who consider themselves very liberal. Are those people more politically active than others? I don’t know, but I’d say Congress is pretty well diverse in ideology. But, that’s an accepted way of promoting political change. People seem to associate protests with events that get out of control and require police intervention in the end. I think that’s a load of bull. Conservatives protest all the time. I’m sure you’ve heard about counter-protests to all these war protests, those people who are saying the opposite of whatever the main group of protesters are saying. So, protests are NOT the haven of the far left. They are simply another form of our great free speech. I’d get into the idea of speaking out during war time, but I covered that last entry.

So, if you want to reply, reply with your views on this issue. Do protests really only contain the very liberal? I doubt it, regardless of what people like O’Reilly would have us believe. Still, maybe I’m mistaken, it happens. But, I don’t think so. Here’s what I’d like to see. Any person who doesn’t consider themselves very liberal responding to this, if they had a chance to participate. Why did you participate if you got the chance? We’ll see what happens.