Fox host Bill O’Reilly knows a thing or two about boundaries.
As he told his TV audience Monday night, some “far-left” radicals crossed the line on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a blog post about how some Republican politicians turned the attacks into a “wedge issue,” and referred to George W. Bush and Rudolph Giuliani as “fake heroes.”
O’Reilly’s reaction: Krugman is “insulting his country on the anniversary of 9/11. That is truly despicable.”
O’Reilly had a little left in tank, so he went after former Times reporter Chris Hedges for writing this:
Our brutality and triumphalism, the byproducts of nationalism and our infantile pride, revived the jihadist movement…. We descended to its barbarity. We became terrorists, too.
O’Reilly got down to his point:
The reason I am even pointing out the rantings of these far-left loons is that some of their more moderate confederates do not condemn the statements. I mean, the New York Times actually pays Krugman to spout this stuff. Yeah, we have freedom of speech, but there’s also a responsibility in the journalistic and political communities, is there not?
Sure, let’s talk about media figures using responsible rhetoric. Let’s start with Bill O’Reilly’s call for brutal attacks on a number of countries right after 9/11:
Fox News Channel‘s Bill O’Reilly, the channel’s most popular host, declared on his September 17 broadcast that if the Afghan government did not extradite Osama bin Laden to the U.S., “the U.S. should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble–the airport, the power plants, their water facilities and the roads.” O’Reilly went on to say:
This is a very primitive country. And taking out their ability to exist day to day will not be hard. Remember, the people of any country are ultimately responsible for the government they have. The Germans were responsible for Hitler. The Afghans are responsible for the Taliban. We should not target civilians. But if they don’t rise up against this criminal government, they starve, period.
O’Reilly added that in Iraq, “their infrastructure must be destroyed and the population made to endure yet another round of intense pain…. Maybe then the people there will finally overthrow Saddam.” If Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi does not relinquish power and go into exile, “we bomb his oil facilities, all of them. And we mine the harbor in Tripoli. Nothing goes in, nothing goes out. We also destroy all the airports in Libya. Let them eat sand.”
Lucky for O’Reilly, there are few sanctions in corporate media–at Fox or anywhere else–for that kind of bloodthirsty rhetoric.
The irony, like the blood, drips from every word, doesn’t it?
If a country’s population is responsible for the terror visited upon other nations by its government, then Americans deserve to starve for the US’ transgressions as well, don’t we?
Of course, O’Reilly doesn’t mind Americans starving.
As long as they do it outside his gated community.
@ FAIR:
Free speech must be protected in a participatory democracy such as America used to be before the super-rich gained control of it, but media hate-mongers such as Bill O’Reilly should not be attracting enough viewers to make such programming profitable. Those who make a point never to watch Fox News could go a step further and boycott Fox News sponsors, but how would they know who these sponsors are? Why not post Fox retail sponsors along with your frequent examples of the outrageous propaganda they support?
Are we all going to sit around collecting injustices for the rest of our days, hoping someone else will somehow do something about the curious disappearance of the American democracy?
“The tenth anniversary of 9/11 was predictably exploited by the US ruling elite and the media in another attempt to wear down the critical faculties of the American people and justify the crimes carried out over the past decade in their name.”
“…Within hours of the attacks, the World Socialist Web Site warned in a statement posted September 12, 2001 that the political establishment would seize on them â┚¬Ã…“to justify and legitimize the resort to war in pursuit of the geopolitical and economic interests of the ruling elite.â┚¬Ã‚ This assessment has been fully confirmed.”
“This year’s commemorations were lent a sinister character by the prominent participation of George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Both are so personally responsible for the crimes and horrors that followed 9/11 that they cannot leave US soil for fear of being arrested on war crimes charges.”
“…The liquidation of the Soviet Union in December 1991 had opened up an enormous opportunity for the USâ┚¬”Âproclaimed the world’s sole â┚¬Ã…“superpowerâ┚¬Ã‚Ââ┚¬”Âto assert global hegemony. Restraints on US militarism imposed by the Cold War had been shattered, and predominant layers of the American ruling elite came to see the use of America’s unchallenged military superiority as a suitable means of offsetting the protracted decline in the global economic position of the United States.
“In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who as Carter’s national security adviser had been the principal architect of the CIA-backed war by the Islamist mujahideen against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan, outlined the strategic imperative of US imperialism becoming the dominant power in Eurasia and preventing the emergence of any regional rival. In his book The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski cautioned that the â┚¬Ã…“democratic instinctsâ┚¬Ã‚ of the American people were an impediment to the aggressive use of US military force to that end. This problem could be overcome, he counseled, only under â┚¬Ã…“conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being…â┚¬Ã‚Â
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/sep2011/pers-s12.shtml
upon reading the headline – I thought it was something about “truthers” – but this has been effectently scrubbed from any media.
And who pays Billo the Clown to spout all his hatred and lies day in and day out? What a hypocrit!
Thank you Karl Radek for the post. WSWS has very intelligent people writing for them . The news IS always well researched and presented. I have never found anything amiss .
Bill was wrong to question anyones take on journalistic reality.The more in the pool the better.We in the public should hear all sides,and praise be to those who print those different perspectives
Thanks, Jorge–simply, perfectly said.
And will the people of the United States be judged by the government WE have, according to O’Reilly’s lights? Or have we already been judged?
The victims of the twin towers are all innocents. They are as innocent as the 800 men, women & children immolated when the US bombed one bomb-shelter (out of many) in Baghdad during the first gulf war, for which Gen. Schwartzkopf “apologised”. Oh yeah! That’s why war should not be entered into as some kind of a national pumping-up exercise. It’s pumped us down the last 10 years!
Will we take proper care to attend to the needs of the troops who come home? The forty-thousand seriously wounded and the HUNDREDS of thousands whose wounds are not yet glaringly obvious? I certainly hope so, because the Vietnam vets were treated abysmally. One guy I went to law school with in ’79 was there to become an attorney so he could fight for his own and his severely affected young sons’ ailments caused by his exposure to Agent Orange (a weapon of mass destruction) in the Mekong Delta. Unfortunately he passed before the DOD admitted culpability. I know not what happened to his child.
What uniform did O’Reilly wear?
NEW SATIRIC VIRAL VID~9/11~KRUGMAN NAILED THE “SHAME”
~CUT to the CLICK: bit.ly/nTrSLg
POETIC JUSTICE?
THE SECOND SUCCUMBING
(Apologies to W.B. Yeats / The Second Coming}
Turning and Spinning in the Widening Mire
The Congress cannot hear the Precedent;
Things fall apart; the Party cannot hold;
Sheer Conarchy is loosed upon Democracy,
The freedom-gouging tide is loosed, and everywhere
The Standing of America is downed;
The best convictions are too polite, while the worst
Are full of obtuse intensity;
Surely some Reason is at hand.
Yet there instead, the Patriot â┚¬Ã…“Actâ┚¬Ã‚Â!
The â┚¬Ã…“Patriotâ┚¬Ã‚ Act!
Hardly are those words out
When an Orwelled image out of Posse Comitatus
Troubles my sight:
Somewhere in the martial curfews of this seminal Treachery
A shape with Oz-lion body and the head of a borne-again fool:
An â┚¬Ã‹Å“Aye’ blank and clueless as the GOP itself
Is moving its leaky Trojan Agenda, but who knew?
While overhearing guffaws & careless cheering
from the belly of the beast, that all about it now should
gather threats of patriotic fillibuster, lighting & passing torchfire.
â┚¬Ã‚¦Wounded cowardice drops again; but indignant courage
finds unexpected stride, in the edifying irony
that a Sitting President was on his Game after all,
as if afloat, fishing! entirely untorn,
glued from National Nightmare to â┚¬Ã…“My Pet Goat.â┚¬Ã‚Â
And what Hellbent Vision Thing,
its Truthless Power come round at last,
$louches towards Liberty to be Borne?
– Artist General / copyright 2007 Michael Masley
Bill O’Reilly is such a idiot that I can’t believe anyone listens to the hate this guys spews. He got his start on “Inside Edition”. I can’t believe anybody takes this guy seriously.
It would almost be funny if it weren’t such a sick joke and that so many Americans lack the critical thinking skills to see through the bs of FOX “News”. By the Bill, both Paul Krugman and Chris Hedges both have Pulitzer Prizes aside from having writing many essiential books and Hedges having spent nearly two decades as a war correspondent. Aside from the fact that Murdock and Ailes pay you 20X what both Krugman and Hedges make combined, I don’t see a Pulitzer in the cards for you anytime soon. Do you?
John McMurtry summarizes the mindset of the far-right (O’Reilly), and the neo-conservatives in particular in his essay in the great book, “9/11 and American Empire”- Intellectuals Speak Out” (Olive Branch Press, 2006).
1) America is the moving line of goodness and freedom in the world; therefore
2) All who oppose America are the enemy and evil; therefore
3) The free and the good of America must triumph over the evil enemy to protect the world; therefore
4) America must always be supreme in its armed force and willing to use it; therefore
5) America’s commander- in- chief must achieve what God’s might requires; therefore
6) America and its President can never commit war crimes against others.
the point is that krugman was not “insulting his country on the anniversary of 9/11.
he was correctly pointing out that bu$hco and his neocon buddies hijacked a tragedy to push an unnecessary war…. billo’s bullshit; now THAT is truly despicable.
the wingnut wurlitzer’s coordinated attack on paul was predictable and pathetic…
Everybody who wrote blogs above please write one more time.Take a paragraph to say how fantastic America is.I know it is not in you but fake it ok?
Alright stop the gnashing of teeth…….You true side is showing.
Why doesn’t someone bomb Bill O’Reilly? His big mouth is more offensive than a thousand camels’ farts.
OK, I’ll take you up on that – the only thing “fantastic” about the U.S. is its war machine. 1 in 6 live in poverty according to the artificially low statistics of the government. What USED to be fantastic was America’s middle class. They used to live nearly as well as the rich in many countries and their combined buying power fueled all sorts of enterprises. Then 30 years ago we had the Reagan revolution. For 3 decades we’ve been fed the pap that greed was good. Grab yours and to hell with everyone else. For the last 30 years there has been an unrelenting attack on the middle class by the corporations and the wealthy who own them. Wages have been stagnant since the mid-70’s but the wealthy continue to concentrate more and more wealth in their hands at the expense of everyone else. Now the industries that once created the wealth of America are gone, and so are the jobs. “Official” statistics say that the unemployment rate is 9+ %, but the real rate is over 20 and rising. Michael e. and ideologues like him will tell you that all we need is more of the same – which, incidentally we’re getting in slightly watered down form under Obama – and all will be well. Chances are that we’ve already passed the point of no return. Even if we had a return to governmental sanity, highly dubious given the current anti-intellectual climate, chances are it’s just too late. Several European countries have higher standards of living than the U.S. and that list will grow longer with each passing year. The U.S. will rank first in only 1) number of persons incarcerated; 2)size of military establishment; 3)percentage of poor among developed countries; 4) percentage actually unemployed; and 5) number of morons running for office.
michael e:
You appear to be to trolling this site relentlessly. Here are some of my observations:
1) You seem quite aware that most most FAIR visitors disagree with you on almost everything, yet you continue to post comments (not “blogs”) here. This is an indication of trollish behavior.
2) Your inablility to put spaces after commas and periods, but not before either of them, even though it is a known convention and has drawn several responses from FAIR commenters. This is another indication of trollish behavior as it appears you like to take the discussion off-topic (otherwise you would stop).
3) Your latest gem-of-an-addition:
“Take a paragraph to say how fantastic America is.I know it is not in you but fake it ok?”
What does this have to do with anything? It is completely off-topic, and ends with an ad hominem attack on previous commenters
“Alright stop the gnashing of teethâ┚¬Ã‚¦Ãƒ¢Ã¢”š¬Ã‚¦.You true side is showing.”
More ad hominem drivel to derail the conversation.
I realize the content here makes you squeamish because it contradicts your entire wolrd view, but I don’t think it’s healthy for you. Please simply stop visiting, you simply come across as an illiterate, uneducated old person.
Chris Hedges has it backwards. Our nation was terrorist long before the “Blowback.”
Tinker you get an F.You did not understand the homework.
Noname
Uneducated?College ,med school,residency and specialization might say otherwise. Im educated in some of the same schools as your president.Though how he got in with his grades we will never know..That I slam out run on sentences like verbal diarrhea really has no bearing on content.And what of content?In the last election “we”on the right stayed silent in many ways.We made it ok for you to shout us down.In a way we deserved t.A horrible imitation of a conservative was in office.We paid the price.But now the shoe is on the other ass cheek.Last time we allowed this farce to carry the most unqualified man ever to the white house.so now when we hear nonsense we speak up.We simply say there is another way to look at this.And believe me-I start every blog n the subject.The rest is answering Liberal personal attacks.It is what you do best.
If you want to see a war on America ,or at least a “class” war just read THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION MORNING BELL 9/19/11.Obamas war on job creators…….Or read Lindsey graham’s words on the subject.Reminds me of my child .NO no no no means no!Are we(tea party) not speaking English?What don’t you understand?NO NEW TAXES ON ANYONE!!!!!!
Obama derangement troll is Obama derangement trolling.
If anybody knows about “class war” it’s the Heritage Foundation….they’ve been waging it on the rest of us on behalf of their monied backers for the last three decades……
Or, read Lindsey Graham’s words on the subject. Reminds me of my child: juvenile, simplistic, uninformed.
Dick forget the messenger(I do everytime i read a FAIR article).Of course I don’t expect you to like a constitutional conservative press that daily deconstructs liberal lies.I am a little surprised you see Lindsey Graham as juvenile,simplistic,and uninformed “like your children”. Hey you have a right to how you feel about Lindsey ,but as for your kids……Try to get them into a good charter school.I can recommend some, and it is never too late to turn things around.
But what of the story.Do you think they have a point?
If anybody knows how to generate lies, it’s the Heritage Foundationâ┚¬Ã‚¦.they’ve been doing it behalf of their monied backers for the last three decadesâ┚¬Ã‚¦Ãƒ¢Ã¢”š¬Ã‚¦
As Paul Krugman explained, “Whenever there’s something the G.O.P. doesn’t like Heritage can be counted on to produce a report, based on no economic model anyone else recognizes, claiming that this policy would cause huge job losses. Correspondingly, whenever there’s something Republicans want, like tax cuts for the wealthy or for corporations, Heritage can be counted on to claim that this policy would yield immense economic benefits. “
#1 in children living in poverty, # 1 in infant mortality, #1 in people without health insurance, #1 in defense spending…. there’s a connection to these numbers…
We’re also #1 in health care spending per person and #1 in health care spending as a percentage of GDP….we’re #37 in medical outcomes…..can’t win them all.
USA! USA! USA!
Dick…The problem is -is if anybody knows how to generate lies, it is your president!He has been doing it on behalf of his backers for all his public life.Whenever there is something the DNC does not like, you can count on him (and FAIR )to produce a report.Correspondingly whenever theres something the Dems want like redistribution of other peoples wealth your president can be counted on to claim his policy would yield immense economic benefits.For me In a choice between the constitution and Obama I will take the former.
He will be out soon
Obama derangement troll is Obma derangment trolling….
T.Rollb’Gone Says:
What more is there to say except see ya at the polls.Looser buys the beer
Um, did you mean ‘loser’? Your spell checker didn’t catch that one. What school was it that you went to?
Never spell check.To many bloody O’s he said upon eating cheerios. :)