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Letter and email campaign to boycott products of sponsors of Bill Bennett's radio program.
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The Lynching of Bill Bennett
Who is Bill Bennett?
Bennett served as Reagan's chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1981-1985, and as Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988. He was “drug czar” for President Bush from 1989 to 1990.
A caller to Bennett's radio show had argued that had there not been 45 million abortions since Roe v. Wade, there might be enough young workers today to prevent Social Security from heading for insolvency.
Bennett cautioned his caller against relying on economic arguments to settle moral issues. Noting that the bestseller "Freakonomics" tied legalized abortion to the drop in the number of young males and falling crime, Bennett, in rebuttal, tossed out this:
"If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and our crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."
Of more interest is the lynch-mob reaction to Bennett's remarks. Rep. Melvin Watt, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, declared:
"These kinds of outrageous comments will continue unless there are economic consequences to those who make them. I therefore call on all radio station owners who carry Bill Bennett's show to immediately terminate the show, and if they fail to do so, I call on his sponsors and advertisers to withdraw their advertising dollars."
Boycotting Pier 1 Imports, Inc., and NAPA Auto Parts.
Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (NYSE:PIR) reported that sales for the five-week period ended October 1, 2005 aggregated 2,166,000, a decline of 7.7% from 5,602,000 last year, and comparable store sales declined 10.6%. Year-to-date sales of ,006,467,000 were down 5.0% from ,059,900,000 last year, and comparable store sales declined 9.9%.
Marvin J. Girouard, Pier 1's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "September's comp store sales were in-line with our expectations. Customer traffic remained below last year for the month, average ticket sales were higher and conversion rates were slightly below the year-ago period.