Bill Shows His True Colors

This little piece of wonder was from FOX Nov. 6 election night coverage.

I always knew Bill O’Reilly was a nasty, arrogant man but I never realized how deeply that arrogance ran until I saw his reaction to Barack Obama's likely reelection to the presidency of the United States. His response to the Megyn Kelly’s almost child-like question of “how could this have happened?” doesn’t just border on misogyny and racism; it crosses the border, builds a house and starts a family. It is a stupid, hateful response delivered with that special touch of O’Reilly arrogance in which he tries to appear as a learned pundit while completely insulting his fellow citizens. It is an amazing moment made even more so not only by the blatancy of it, but by the fact that he was never called out by the Kelly or the station on the sheer bigotry of the statement.

He actually said, “The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama's way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?” And no one at FOX thought it might be a good idea to cut his mich.

You can’t really expect better from O’Reilly. This is a man so in love with himself that he actually believes his self-proclaimed publicity about his own grandeur. When it’s convenient, he fancies himself a journalist, a claim which might have at one time been true but is now a ship that has sailed so far from shore you can’t even see it. He is the bully who instinctually knows that if he blusters loudly and long enough, the other person will back down from sheer weariness. So talented a man is he for spreading bullshit he’s probably at this point able to completely convince himself that the crap he says is true. I have no doubt that in his mind, women and brown people did not vote for Obama because they felt more confidence in his vision than they did in that of his opponent’s. No, in the little mind of Bill O’Reilly, women and brown people voted for Obama because they want stuff and he promised to give them stuff (Rush Limbaugh, O’Reilly’s radio twin in assholishness, stated that the women and brown people “didn’t want to kill Santa”).

In other words, per these two creatures that have far too much influence over people, women and brown people are lazy children looking for a hand out. These modern day versions of Reagan’s mythical “welfare queens” want some of that free stuff that Obama has been promising (though for the life of me, I can’t figure out what free stuff they’re talking about. I’ve never heard him make any such promise). The racial makeup of America is changing, and in their minds, the numbers of white men, the bastions of the pure work ethic, are decreasing. So the numbers of the women and brown people (who I’m guessing per O’Reilly’s implication don’t understand hard work) were large enough to help Obama be victorious. And now the white men will be forced to give all their money to the government to support the women and brown people.

It is an amazingly racist claim that had I not actually heard it from the mouth of Bill himself, I would have thought was something made up in a political sketch on SNL. And it’s a rather hypocritical statement coming from a man who professes to be Christian. This good Catholic boy insulted great swaths of his fellow Americans by basically calling them freeloaders. Bill O’Reilly decries the war on Christmas while he declares war on his fellow tax paying, law abiding citizens. And here’s one of the problems with that: O’Reilly has a viewership made up primarily of morons who are willing to believe every idiotic claim he spews and are only too happy to accept the premise that nation is being taken down by the freeloading of the brown people.

Let’s just move the pieces representing race relations about ten squares back on the board.

Days after Barack Obama’s win, the GOP has offered a number of memes to explain how he was reelected. They range from changing demographics, to the timing of Hurricane Sandy, to (and this is rich) the claim that Obama’s camp was guilty of voter suppression. It will be interesting to see if O’Reilly vacillates on the reasons as his masters have been, or if he will stick with the “blame it on the freeloaders” theory he posited on election night.

I suspect, however, one reason (a real reason, not a reason made up out of fear and desperation) for Obama’s win could be that while President Obama was thanking his staff for a job well done; Mitt Romney was calling to cancel the credit cards of his campaign staff before they even made it home in their taxis. It’s the difference between a man expressing thoughtfulness and gratitude, and the cold mentality of a man who is able to transform the worth of a campaign staff into that of a load of fat that needs to be trimmed.

Newly reelected President Obama thanks his staff 

Attacking Capitalism?

So Bill O'Reilly sets up the the latest Republican talking point by accusing the president of going after Mitt Romney by "attacking capitalsim."

No Bill, as usual you're wrong (though I suspect you know that). The president isn't attacking capitalism. That's a fake meme that the right is trying to put out there to convince the low information voters who watch your network that President Obama has some socialistic agenda to bring down capitalism as we know it.

No, what the president is doing is criticizing scum like Mitt Romney (and a good portion of the GOP) who use capitalism (and a a fair amount of government loopholes--socialism is great when it benefits you) to destroy the society for heir own gain and thus help ruin capitalism for everyone. Most people on the left, including Obama, would probably tell you that they're all for capitalism as long as everyone gets a fair shot at it and the people aren't financially raped for the profit of a few. In the world Mitt would give us, the people would be raped, pillaged and plundered and they'd be expected to smile while the violation was going on.

Now Bill, I undersand that the concept of a fair shot is a hard concept to understand for someone who won't even give his guests a fair opportunity to respond to question he asks (unless, of course, the answers given follow the company line). But try to understand.

Creatures like Mitt Roney ask us to trust them even though trusting them before helped us get into this problem in the first place. Much like you, Bill, they throw around easy terms, a sort of verbal slight of heand, that point low information voters away from the facts, directing them instead to the lies you and your kind wish to spread to help get your pals elected. You'll be happy to put the journalistic integrity you claim to have (when it's convenient) on hold to help out the party. What's a little spin in the "no-spin zone"?

Remember how you accused Sandra Fluke of wanting the public to pay for her contraception when that wasn't the case at all. A journalist holding true to his ethics woudln't have stated that. But it fit so well with the party line, didn't it? After all, if you are able to direct the attention of the low informaiton voters toward the "Sandra Fluke is a free-loding whore" freak show that blow-hards on the right put on, then the low information voters won't see the truth: That a resonable woman wasn't looking for a hand out but was asking that the insurance she pays for include contraception in the package.

That's the sort of game you're playing with the president right now. If you can convince the people who have no desire to research the issues (and no comment sense to understand them if they did), then you can lead them like sheep to believe that one of the least socialist presidents we've had is a socialist (or a Nazi, or Communist, or Kenyan, or a Muslim or whatever else is convenient to get the voters to believe this week).

The true irony of this latest meme by the right...well, there are in some respects two examples of irony here. First is that the charge that the president is attacking capitalism is the best the right has to offer when it comes to the Bain ads put out by the president's campaign. The truth is out there in painful detail and it does not reflect well on Romney (look away from the video Low Information Voters. Look! The president is criticizing capitalism!).

But the biggest irony is, using this ad to accuse the president of being critical of capitalism is like...well, it's as crazy as accusing Newt Gringrich of criticizing capitalism when his camp first raised the specter of Bain while he was a candidate for the presidency. In fact, his camp posted a pretty biting YouTube video that was all the rage in an attempt to prove why he would be a better president than Mitt Romney (which is a bit like being asked to choose between arsenic or cyanide. They'll both kill you but each by varying degrees). Where was all that hand waving and gnashing of teeth then about Newt Gingrich's fiendish agenda to kill capitalism? It didn't jibe with the right's message (plus, there were so many other actual reasons to dislike Gingrich) so it was never brought up in that context. Accusing a GOPer of wanting to bring down capitalism by criticizing it? Perish the thought.

But we can accuse people on the left of that desire because, after all, using your logic, Bill, there's nothing people on the left long for more than to live in a gulag, work their asses off and eat stale bread to survive. And heck, how convenient because, thanks to Republican policies and greed nearly bankrupting this country the past few decades, that might actually be the fate of most people in America. Including the low information voters subscribing to the nonsense people like you spread.

Not All Jobs Are Careers

It doesn’t take a genius to understand the point that Hilary Rosen was making when she made her comments about Ann Romney not working a day in her life. The issue was jobs and women and the thought that Ann Romney could relate to women forced to have a job to survive is laughable. She might have worked at one time in her life, but she hasn’t had to worry about a job for a very long time.

But in typical fashion, the Republican strategists at FOX along with, no doubt, Mitt’s handlers decided to manufacture a controversy to divert the attention of idiots (hey every vote counts) from the main point by portraying Ann as a victim. It’s been done before. Every time the issue of women and the work place crops up a faux battle is created between working women and (at-one-time) housewives (what we’d now call Stay at Home Moms or SAHMS). Decades ago it was implied that women who worked looked down upon SAHMS so the stay at homes began to insist that, what was essentially their choice, be respected as a career (this is back when women with careers were fighting not to be vilified for choosing to have a career. Now most women need jobs and most would hardly call them dream careers).

So Ann Romney has become a tool in the battle to make the average person believe that the elitist Democrats are against God, motherhood and family. You know; everything wholesome in America. And of course professional big mouth and preternatural idiot Sarah Palin (who by the way had children, and one on the way, when she was running for VP) got on the band wagon, martialling her cadre of “momma grizzlies” or as I like to call them, “the fools who can’t see past her bs” and conducting interviews where she implied things that were never meant or for that matter said by Hilary Rosen. But then this is almost as natural as breathing for Sarah Palin.

The apologies were quickly forthcoming. Rozen apologized. Michelle Obama piped up with an apology. The president apologized (calling motherhood the hardest job in the world, which is probably news to those picking fruit in the fields, cleaning hotel rooms or on their feet waitressing all day). Basically, as usual, the Democrats let the Republicans drive the narrative. To be fair, the Republicans have been honing their skills at message manipulation and reality distortion for decades. Reagan was a savant at it. And now Republicans have a number of media outlets, the big one being FOX, to help spread the lies. But it seems to me rather than apologize for something that didn’t warrant an apology, the better course would be to grab back the narrative and control the direction.

For example, where’s my apology. As a working woman who has to get up every morning and face a day constrained by the dictates of a job and a boss, I would like both Ann and Mitt Romney to apologize to me for thinking that Ann could possibly relate to my circumstances and the circumstances of other working women (including my mom who, to help support her family, had to work the third shift packing staples so that she could be available during the day should it be necessary for the kids. She lost out on a lot of sleep, but perhaps Ann might think it was worth it for my mom to pursue her dream in all night factory staple packaging). Do you think Ann, or for that matter any SAHM could relate to that?

There are really two issues here. That a SAHM’s choice could compare to a woman needing a job and that Ann Romney could relate to either of them.

Perhaps though a defining of the terms would help.

Parenthood is a choice. Procreation, while it can lead to the continuation of the species, has no bearing on the survival of an individual (and in fact there are some individuals out there who shouldn’t procreate at all). That’s not to say that it’s devoid of effort. Raising any life form successfully involves varying degrees of effort and sacrifice. But this effort is none the less a consequence of what essentially is a choice. For example, if someone chooses to own a horse, she is going to have to clean the stable (or if you’re Ann Romney with a  dressage horse, you pay someone else to clean the stable). No one forced her to own a horse so she can’t really whine about the consequence of that choice. I might wish to own a horse too, but not being in the position to deal with the consequence, I choose not to own the horse. And if I did own a horse, I certainly wouldn’t expect laurels for my caring of the horse.

Or to put it another way, Ann Romney and other SAHMs chose to stay at home and raise their kids (a choice many mothers can’t make now). This is their dream. I would love to stay at home and write. That’s my dream. I would work very hard and be very proud of what I produced. Unfortunately, I haven’t married into a situation where someone can support me financially to pursue my dream so I have to have a job to survive. Nor do I get tax breaks or credits for producing what I yearn to produce. One reason this post is so late after Rosen and Romney’s comments came out is because finding time to do anything but the jobs I hold working the hours I do is very difficult. Even posting on a blog. And it might be tough for Ann to understand the survival part since she seems to think that every job a woman has is actually a career they can choose to do. That isn’t the case, and if she was as in touch with women’s issues as her husband and his pals think, then she’d get that. And she’d understand what Rosen was driving at when she made her comments.

So perhaps she and the other mama grizzlies out there can’t comprehend that for many women there is no choice (and there really is no career). A woman with a job is faced with certain realities not faced by SAHMs who are, essentially, their own bosses, difficult at times as the work may be. A woman with a job has to be somewhere in the morning, stay there for eight, nine, 12 hours a day depending on the schedule pulling a cart for someone else. They are at the mercy of that job. Then she comes home and has to deal with all the household and life duties a SAHM can deal with during the day because…well she stays at home and has the freedom of movement to do so (that’s why I don’t agree with ‘homemaker” being stated as a job either. We are all homemakers. The success in our homemaking depends on the time we have to do it; time that is in short supply if one has to work outside the house).

While a stay at home mom might have to juggle her schedule somewhat around the school schedule of the children to do a task outside the house (renew her license, car repairs, shopping) it doesn't require her taking time off from work (and losing pay) to do so.

If a SAHM is sick, (and yes, I know mothers will scoff at this) the house is able to function for a short time without her while she rests up a little.

A person who works (i.e. has an outside job), provided they get paid sick time, has to risk the wrath of her boss’ displeasure and the sick day being recorded on her record if she chooses to stay home and rest. This can influence future reviews, raises and even her keeping the job when corporate beheading is done to save money (Like the beheadings that went on after Mitt and Bain Capital bought out companies).

If the person doesn't get sick time, then she has to figure out how she's going to afford losing a day's pay to care for the illness that could get worse if she doesn't get some rest. That person, you think is so selfish because she came to work with a cold--it could be that she can't afford not to. This also goes back to accomplishing tasks that can only be done during the day while the person is working. How many working women actually use their vacations to do things they can’t normally do because they’re working eight or more hours a day? Plus working moms often have to adjust their schedules to account for days off school for their children.

Then there’s the stress that most working women and men have that they may not have a job for much longer. A cloud they live under now thanks in large part to what Mitt Romney and his party has done to this country the past decade or so.

SAHMs are very rarely fired from their careers. They are generally assured them for life (which can be a good or a bad thing depending on the situation). Sometimes a divorce occurs and then the SAHM may have to go out and find a job and realize how different an animal that situation is from what she had as a SAHM.

That is what is necessary to remember in all this. For women, motherhood is a choice. Survival isn’t. And many who might want to choose to devote all their time to their children (or whatever passion they might have) are unable to because of the climate we’re living in now. A climate that has been made more difficult thanks in large part to Ann’s husband and the folks he’s shilling for.

Responsibility and the Pill

It’s claimed by those standing against contraception that advocates of birth control promote irresponsibility. The fact is, it’s the other way around.

Let’s not even discuss unmarried sex. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, speaking of it just muddies the waters. And let's not bring into the debate the fact that many women use the Pill to help with medical conditions such as endometriosis. For the sake of the point, let’s keep the discussion to the bonds of holy matrimony. A young couple gets married, perhaps with dreams of one day starting a family but wanting to spend a few years becoming acquainted with their union. Making it strong physically, financially and emotionally. Even antiquated religious institutions recognize the fact that the act of sex can strengthen the relationship between husband and wife. But if this couple were to partake in it without contraception they run the risk of having children they’re not prepared for. Certainly, there are other forms of control. Prophylactics. The rhythm method. But let’s be honest: The Pill makes it a lot easier.

So essentially, the anticontraception crowd is offering this couple two options: Stay celibate for the amount of time you want to work on strengthening your union or procreate irresponsibly. Run the risk of popping the children out whether they’re prepared for them or not. What a sinful thing to preach.

To this crowd preaching irresponsibility, even if a couple is married, to have sex without the possibility of procreation is a sin. Which instantly damns a good portion of marriages because one or both partners are infertile. Woman past the age of menopause should no longer yearn for the closeness so put the Viagra  away you old codgers. Unless you want a younger wife who can provide fertile ground in which to sow your seed. And of course ditching the old wife is a sin, unless the Pope grants special dispensation.

And perhaps the couple is the sort who feels that it’s better to stop at two or three children so that they can afford to raise them above the poverty line. Perhaps send them to good schools so the children could have better futures. Au contraire. The morality brigade insists that those who want to be close as couples have to run the risk of having more kids than they may not be able to afford. Run the risk of putting more and dangerous stress on a woman’s aging body. Run the risk of damage to the baby. All because, according to some, contraception is a sin in the eyes of God. A god that the couple may not even believe in.

Now I’ve concentrated on those writhing in the bonds of matrimony to show just how sick the mentality of these anticontraceptionites is. Even two people in a legal, sanctified union have to choose between the physical expression of their love or popping out litters of children that they may not be able to care for.

Which is why I say, those preaching this attitude are preaching the height of irresponsibility.

But let’s back away from those who marry and remember just for a moment that we live in a country where there’s a separation of church and state (and Catholics, you’d better be glad we do since there was a time in the beginning of this country where you could have been hung for stepping foot into a Protestant town).

The holy books of the Bible, retold, rewritten, copied, edited over the centuries say many things about many things. Some of the "wisdom" is stolen from other cultures, some is contradiction, some pretty questionable morally as well. It may be one person’s moral law, but it is not the law of this land. A person having sex, married or not, has no bearing upon the lives of other people unless said person is careless enough to produce a child that she or he can’t afford and expects the tax prayer to do so. But that’s done all the time by married people whose careless procreation harms society.

So in essence, who is the more irresponsible here? The person married or single who want to have sex and takes steps (uses contraception) to avoid unwanted procreation; or the institutions who insist that contraception is a sin and instead encourage people to produce children they’re not ready for who will be a drain on society.

Perhaps irresponsibility, like morality, is in the eye of the beholder. But those who labor under the misguided and extremist notion the contraception is a sin have a lot to learn when it comes to the concept of responsibility.