You can find the whole transcript here, but let me just quote one small part of this:
I don’t know if Bill O’Reilly is aware that everything he’s saying is easily debunked with about 20 minutes of Googling, but that’s not really the point. The real reason Bill O’Reilly peddles this stuff is because it gives a cheap, crack-like high to the old fearful white audience that watches Bill O’Reilly and gives Fox News its power—also known as the Republican base. These are the folks Bill O’Reilly is feeding when he laments not being able to criticize black culture.
Yup. Chris Hayes hits it right on the button. And if the hysteria since the election of Barack Obama hasn't been enough to demonstrate that racism is still alive and well in America, the response to George Zimmerman shooting an unarmed black teenager has confirmed it.
Well, Bill O'Reilly knows his audience. But whether Fox 'News' causes this kind of thing, or simply panders to the lowest impulses of our society - for money and political power - it's all pretty disgusting.
(Borrowed from Daily Kos)
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6 comments:
I wonder if everyone was the same color if we'd have as many people in jail, and such a fanatical ownership of guns? The conservative have such a fear of non-white people. Racism has become much less overt in our lifetimes, but it's also become much more subtle.
I think it's a fear of anyone who's different, Jim. Skin color is just such an obvious, if superficial, difference that it gets noticed particularly well.
But without that, we'd still have religious differences, gender differences, political differences, age differences, ethnic differences, you name it.
It's also the case that we have a long history, especially in America, with racial discrimination. The past isn't over. It lingers on in all of us. (I think it was Faulkner who said, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." It's probably no coincidence that he was a Southerner.)
WCG,
Where do you think ideological hatred fits into the equation? I've been having difficultly trying to find an angle to get at Jody P and his fellow right-wing minions in the LJS. There's just too much venom at the moment.
At times like this I fall back on a scene from "Star Trek" in an episode called "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." Spock's speech near the end of the clip nails it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag5lLm6EBN4
"We were once a people like yourselves: wildly emotional, often committed to irrationally opposing points of view, leading, of course, to death and destruction. Only the discipline of logic saved my planet from extinction."
And if we're not careful, this will be our fate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfeWBGxqEj0
Ideological hatred? The thing is, Jeff, I still remember the visceral dislike I had for George W. Bush - indeed, for pretty much the entire Bush Administration.
I got so I couldn't even listen to him speak, it would make me so mad.
Of course, I didn't feel that way at the start of his presidency. I didn't vote for him, and I didn't like the fact that the five Republicans on the Supreme Court had basically chosen our president for us, but I still wished him well. This was my country he was running, after all.
Bush really had to work at getting me to hate him. It wasn't just his political party or the color of his skin. Still, I guess I can understand the passion of these right-wingers (if not the reason for it).
In the ideological hatred department, I guess we're both guilty as charged. But at least we weren't the ones proposing "2nd Amendment remedies" to deal with those we disagree with.
Good point, Jeff. Very good point!
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