The "Blame France First Crowd"

It's been many weeks since I updated this site, as my research and coursework has demanded more than 50 hours of my time per week, and I am still unable to finish all that I need to. Therefore, I can no longer maintain my weekly updates, but I will continue to update whenever I have the time.

This week, O'Reilly's column deals with France, and the protests of a new law that would allow French companies to fire employees without cause within the first two years on the job [link]. O'Reilly just flat out lies in his column this week by saying the opposite. He says that the proposal would only allow companies to fire employees "with cause," which is simply not true. For that, he has already earned a 100% Crap rating.

In this country, unless unions are involved, nearly all employment is essentially "at will." The company can fire you whenever they want without any reason. For every job that I have had, other than my union grocery bagging job when I was 15, the fine print on the application indicates that signing acknowledges that I understand that this is an "at will" position, and the employer can fire me at any time without cause.

O'Reilly claims that anyone who thinks we should do something about "income inequality" is just trying to restrict the freedom of companies to make a profit. He claims that a well compensated working class will only lead to economic ruin.

It is clear to me that the opposite is true. A stable working class only leads to a strong, stable economy. The reason that we tend to have a serious recession every ten years or so in this country is because our economy is dependent on the rich absorbing more and more wealth from the lower class. Every decade, when the workers have no more money to give, the economy slows until the workers can get back on their feet economically, only to be robbed of all they are worth again for another ten years. Imagine trying to squeeze all of the water out of a sponge. If you keep squeezing, eventually water will stop coming out. The only way to get the water flowing again is to let the sponge expand a little bit, and then squeeze it again.

The protests in France are a symptom of a much larger, worldwide problem. Riots are hardly limited to Europe. There have been similar riots in this country, like in Los Angeles in 1992, but we have been quick to try to blame them on other things. The Rodney King verdict was only the spark. It was much more about poverty.

The only reason that France has been a victim of the riots more than the US is because the French don't believe, like we do in this country, that a company should be able to do what ever it wants, at the expense of the workers, for the sake of profit. The same would be happening here if Americans weren't so complacent about being exploited.

Rating - 100% Crap

The Crap Factor - Week 4: 100%

O'Reilly came up with a pretty easy one this week, about the movie "Brokeback Mountain," and his statements are both comically ironic and deeply disturbing.

First, before moving on to the more important issue of O'Reilly's advocating of violence toward homosexuals, I will deal with the central issue of his column.

O'Reilly is very fond of trying to categorize large, extremely diverse groups of people as a single entity. He refers to "Hollywood" much in the same way that an ignorant, angst filled teenager refers to "the man." "Hollywood" is advocating tolerance toward homosexuals, and that since "Hollywood" is now in the "culture shaping business" (which he argues is demonstrated by the movie's nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture) then "it should admit it."

How exactly does "Hollywood" go about admitting it? How does a large, politically diverse industry, which produced such liberal gems as "The Passion of the Christ" and "Annapolis," go about admitting that their ultimate goal is the undermining of O'Reilly's hateful, intolerant society? Well, I guess that the secret Hollywood cabal of ultra-liberals could just hold a press conference to admit their goals. You know who I am referring to - the handful of conspirators who actually make all decisions about what movies will be released, what movies will win awards, and what social trends are to be advocated for.

"Hollywood" is an industry, and like all industries, it follows the trends of society. The movie "Brokeback Mountain" would never be made, much less receive the adulation is has, unless it reflected society. Society is increasingly realizing that homosexuals are an oppressed minority that deserve equal rights, in the same way that African Americans, Latinos, and women deserve equal rights.

Now, on to the good-old-fashioned violent intolerance.

He starts off his column by saying that his favorite western movie ever is "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," and praises the "macho" heros of the film. Then two paragraphs later, he mentions that there would undoubtedly be gunfire involved if his heros were to come upon the two leads in "Brokeback Mountain" in the tent where they first had sex.

I don't know how the advocating of violence in this way could possibly be considered acceptable. Had O'Reilly seen "Brokeback Mountain" he would know that the central tragedy of the film involves precisely the bigoted, violent, anti-homosexual attitudes that O'Reilly is advocating. This is what makes it worthy of an Academy Award for Best Picture, unlike movies like "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter" and "The Chronicles of Narnia," which were O'Reilly's suggestions for movies that actually deserve the best picture nomination, based entirely on the amount of money they made at the box office.

Alas, advocating violence toward homosexuals is not quite enough to deserve a 100% crap rating. Being a violent bigot is certainly enough to disqualify his opinions from possessing any merit, however, the focus of this blog is not O'Reilly's hateful, closed-minded opinions, but rather the lies and contradictions in his arguments. To deserve this week's 100% crap rating, he had to contradict himself in the way that only a true conservative can: by going on to say that it is wrong for gays to suffer, and that every American should be able to pursue happiness, including gays. He just finished essentially advocating the shooting of homosexuals, then four paragraphs later goes on to say that homosexuals deserve equal rights. This is 100% crap.

The Crap Factor - Week 3: 50% Crap

This week, O'Reilly is outraged by the New York Times refusing to print the Danish cartoon which has enraged Muslims throughout the world, but printing a picture of a work of art with the Virgin Mary covered in feces. He also references some other similar works of art which were reported on by the New York Times and others.

Once again, O'Reilly is comparing apples and oranges. In all of his examples, the "secular-progressive press" was the originator of the anti-Christian stories. They were reporting on local works of art. In the case of the Danish cartoon, the New York Times and others were not the originators, but were rather reporting on other newspapers.

Essentially, O'Reilly doesn't want there to be any religiously offensive material ever printed anywhere. The example he uses of the play "Corpus Christi," which, according to O'Reilly, "featured a gay Jesus who had sex with some Apostles," is clearly an artistic statement about the destructive views toward homosexuality by many Christians. While this may be offensive to some Christians, the Christian views toward homosexuality are much more offensive.

Clearly an editorial decision was made that the result of printing the cartoon would furthur contribute to the worldwide violence. If the cartoon were not so readily available, like for example, if if were a local work of art that had not already been printed by hundreds of newspapers throughout the world, I believe that the NYT would be more inclined to print it.

In a supposedly free press, newspapers have the right to print material which is likely to offend someone. I would even go so far as to say that it is a responsibility. It is equally a right for people to protest to show their opposition to it. Unfortunately, many of these protests have taken place in areas of the world that are not terribly familiar with the concept of peaceful demonstration, and have led to violence.

In summary, perhaps it was somewhat inconsistent for the New York Times to reprint photos of the Virgin Mary painting, while refusing to show the offending cartoon they were comparing it to. That is not an argument in favor of censorship of all offensive material, as O'Reilly suggests. O'Reilly's statements are very offensive to me, yet I don't argue that he shouldn't be able to print them. What would he propose? He says that the majority of the US is Christian, and these works of art are offensive to Christians, so newspapers should not be allowed to print them. I would be willing to bet that the majority of those Christians would not be infavor of the type of censorship that he suggests.

Crap Factor: 50% - is was a little hypocritial for the NY Times to print the offending anti-Christian piece, but not the offending anti-Muslim piece, but this is not an argument in favor of increased censorship.

The Crap Factor - Week 2: 85% Crap

This week, Bill O'Reilly's column deals pretty much with a single issue, a response to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who was critical of O'Reilly for his "War on Christmas" fiasco. According to O'Reilly, Kristof accused him of "ignoring 'real' stories like the suffering in Sudan." O'Reilly says that he wishes that he could go to Sudan to report on the suffering, but he doesn't have the time, since he has to produce "three hours of daily news analysis on TV and radio." He then goes on to criticize Kristof for not covering the 60 day prison sentence given to a child molestor in Vermont.

Does O'Reilly have any idea what is going on in Darfur? He is spending all of his time focusing on a bad decision by a judge that has already been overturned. While he is wasting time on self-congratulation, hundreds of women and girls are being raped, often in public, by the Janjawid militia as an intimidation tactic, without any punishment at all for the perpetrators [link]. Even if his coverage had something to do with the 60 day sentence being overturned, does he really think that three hours a day of patting himself on the back about this one rape case is more important to cover than hundreds of rapes, and a system of government which allows them to go completely unpunished?

The only part of his column this week that is not crap is that his criticisms of the media could possibly be justified, except that he is 100 times worse for exactly the same reasons. As I have been saying for a while now, the media will only cover stories which they think are popular enough to generate ratings and therefore increase advertising revenue. Maybe the other national news stations didn't cover the story because it didn't look to be profitable, but profitability is precisely the reason O'Reilly is covering it. If he had any interest at all in bringing to light the lack of justice in rape cases, then of course hundreds of rapes with absolutely no justice for the perpetrators would rank much higher than a single case, but suffering in Darfur is not something that attracts a lot of viewers.

Rating:
85% crap - I would rate his Crap Factor this week considerably lower if his central point, an essentially valid criticism of the news media, didn't apply to him a hundred times more than to those he criticises.

The Crap Factor - Week 1: 64% Crap

Today I received my first issue of Bill O'Reilly's weekly newsletter "The Spin Stops Here." It was actually quite difficult to find the content. After sifting through two independent commercial advertisements, ads for the O'Reilly factor television and radio shows, ads for "Premium Membership," an ad for "Bill O'Reilly for Kids," an ad for Bill O'Reilly T-Shirts, and self-congratulatory statements claiming to have single-handedly forced a judge to change his sentence for a child molester, I eventually found a link to his actual column. Here are his statements, and my responses:

1. Liberalism is not gaining traction in North America, evidenced by polls which show Americans support the nomination of Judge Alito by a "wide margin."

My response:
What does he consider to be a "wide margin?" According to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup 54% of Americans support Alito, with a +/- 3% margin of error [link]. The "wide margin" for that poll is barely larger than the margin of error. These results were identical to the Washington Post-ABC News Poll [link].
Result: 100 % Crap - His statement is simply untrue.


2. Liberalism is not gaining traction in North America, evidenced by Canada elected a conservative prime minister.

My response:
While it is true that Canada's party did gain 25 seats in this election, O'Reilly neglects to mention the corruption scandals which have plagued the liberal party, or the fact that the New Democratic Party, Canada's socialist party, gained 10 seats. He also neglects to mention that the conservative party is still far from a majority, with only 124 out of 307 seats.
Result: 40% Crap - His statement was true, although misleading.

3. The president's "terror warrior" poll numbers indicate that liberalism is not gaining traction in North America.

My Response:
What the heck are the president's "terror warrior" poll numbers? Apparently that is a phrase that he made up, but I assume he means Bush's approval rating regarding terrorism. According to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, a whopping 52% of Americans approve of the way Bush is handling terrorism, with a +/-3% margin of error [link]. Based on that, it can't even be said with any certainty that even a majority of Americans approve of the way that Bush is handling terrorism.
Result: 100% Crap - His statement was simply not true. He needs to learn what they mean by margin of error.


4. Liberalism could not be gaining traction in North America because 51% of Americans would not vote for Hillary Clinton for president.
My Response:
In that poll [link], the most popular Democratic and Republican candidates were Hillary Clinton and Condoleza Rice. 16% said they would definitely vote for Hillary Clinton, compared to 14% for Condoleza Rice, and the total number of people who would at least consider voting for Clinton was 48%, compared to 52% for Condoleza Rice, which is within the +/- 4% margin of error for the poll. Additionally, 48% said they would definitely not vote for Condoleza Rice, which is within the margin of error for Clinton's 51%.
Result: 100% Crap - His statement is untrue because the leading conservative candidate has virtually the same numbers.

5. The New York Times op-ed columnists Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and Frank Rich published 148 "anti-Bush" op-ed pieces in the last 13 months, representing 47% of their work.

My Response:
What percentage of Bill O'Reilly's work would you guess is anti-anti-Bush? My guess would be well over 50%. Additionally, there's a reason their work is published in the Op-Ed section. It is opinion, and they don't claim for it to be anything else, unlike Mr. O'Reilly, who's "No Spin Zone," where he pretends that his opinions are spin-free news.
Result: 70% Crap - His response may be factually correct, I could not verify it, but regardless, his statement is mostly crap for pretending his opinions are news, and for saying that people who don't agree with him have no place even in the opinion section. Note: I was tempted to give him a 90% crap rating on this statement, as I believe 90% of his supposed news is really anti-anti-Bush opinion.


6. Ted Kennedy's attacks on Samuel Alito made his wife cry.

My Response:
Samuel Alito's wife did not start crying during Kennedy's questioning of him, but rather when Senator Lindsey Graham asked him if he was a closeted bigot [link], presumably in response to Kennedy's questions regarding Alito's affiliation with the organization Concerned Alumni of Princeton.
Result: 50% Crap - We don't know why she cried, but it is a fact that the tears were a direct response to the question by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.


7. Americans remain uneasy about terrorism.

My Response:
I can't argue with that, although I do think that this is largely a result of Bush's policies. That's just my opinion, however, so I won't hold that against him here.
Result: 0% Crap


8. Democrats poll far below Republicans on terrorism.

My response:
This is true, but this article is about liberalism, not about Democrats, which I would hardly equate with liberalism. Additionally, according to a CBS News poll, when asked whether the Democratic party or the Republican party would do a better job of writing laws to find terrorists without violating the average person's rights, 42% chose the Democrats and only 33% chose the Republicans [link].
Result: 20% Crap - His statement is true, although again misleading.

9. Democrats don't put forward concrete solutions to vexing problems:
a. How would they respond if Iran "continues to develop nukes?"
b. How would they deal with Iraq?

My Response:
Iran can't "continue to develop nukes" because they haven't been developing nukes. They removed the seals on IAEA equipment for nuclear research which they claim is related only to energy production, and not nuclear weapons, but the point is that they just did this last month. Admittably, it is true that the Democrats often don't put forward a clear and concise agenda, but the problem with O'Reilly's arguments is that he is comparing the Bush administration, a single entity, to the entire Democratic party. Of course there is more unity among a single entity than there is among the many Democratic senators and congressmen. Each Democratic candidate had his/her own beliefs. It is only valid to compare specific Democrats with specific Republicans, or to compare the two parties as a whole. For some concrete solutions to vexing problems, I refer you to Senator Obama's statements on Iraq [link].
Result: 60% crap - He has a point about a lack of unity for the Democratic party, but he is still trying to compare apples and oranges.


10. The "left-wing media" hurts Democrats by "making celebrities of loons like Cindy Sheehan and Harry Belafonte."

My Response:
Of course I know who Cindy Sheehan is, but I had to look up Harry Belafonte. Apparently, the reason O'Reilly thinks he is a "loon" is because he is an activist who opposes Bush and supports Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez. I have great respect and admiration for Cindy Sheehan, and I refer her detractors to this Rolling Stone interview [link]. As for Harry Belafonte, the fact that he supports Chavez definitely makes me like him. On to his main point, if it were in fact true that the media made celebrities out of them, how does this hurt the Democrats? They are not Democrats. O'Reilly apparently implies that independent-thinking individuals think that Sheehan and Belafonte are loons, and that these independent-thinking people don't like the Democrats because they don't call them loons. Well, I can't speak for all independently-thinking people, but I would guess that the radical idea that they are "loons" is fairly limited outside of O'Reilly, and his followers who would rather let O'Reilly do their thinking for them.
Result: 100% Crap

Average for the week: 64%
I predicted 90%, so Letterman was much closer with his 60% guess.

Note: This post was originally published on my main blog

First Post

David Letterman accused Bill O'Reilly of being about 60% crap. My guess is that number is a bit low, so I have signed up for his weekly email newsletter, and each week I will assess the amount of crap contained in each of his arguments.