While the holiday season (ewww, I said a dirty word) is behind us, Bill O'Reilly just can't quit his Christmas crusade. His weekly column offers advice on which countries are best for those nasty "secular progressives" who "want to diminish the birth of Jesus in the public square." (Meanwhile, Bill has no problem with the crass commercialization of his main man's b'day!) The article is classic Bill O'Reilly bullshit, laden with projections, inaccuracies, and not so thinly veiled attacks against those who don't subscribe to his rigidly archaic views. But the pièce de résistance is some unintended irony at the end of the article where O'Reilly, the prince of personal destruction, wishes for peace. As the "Church Lady" would say, "now isn't that special."
Bill starts off with the claim that "far left bloggers are still bemoaning the fact that Newsweek Magazine proclaimed folks who respect the traditions of the Christmas holiday "won" the battle against secular-progressives who want to diminish the birth of Jesus in the public square." Bill doesn't identify who these "far left bloggers" are.
Reality Check - The Newsweek article says nothing about a "win" by those who "respect tradition." Rather, it reports that the so called War on Christmas "cultural flashpoint" has slid "into oblivion" except for - wait for it - Bill O'Reilly. They do note that some "Christian soliders" say that "their side won" and that "the battle over the December holidays gradually became the stuff of social-media memes, Onion parodies, and Daily Show takedown."
Bill then provided some travel tips for those who hate the Baby Jesus. He claimed that North Korea threatened bad consequences if Christmas lights were lit within view of the border. After stating that North Korea is a place where Christians can be "tortured or executed," he added, "that sounds like Rhode Island right now."
Reality Check - according to the source which Bill used to claim that those who worship Jesus are tortured and killed, "dozens, if not hundreds, of Christian missionaries operate inside the country." According to Fox News, North Korea objected to South Korea's lighting of a Christmas tree tower - not lights along the border. And despite Bill's "joke" about RI, no churches have been closed and no clergy have been frog marched off to gulags. Christmas was celebrated in a state founded on religious tolerance, a concept alien to the theocracy loving Fox media mullah. And note to Bill - there were plenty of Cheches and Christmas trees at the RI State House.
Bill recommended that the evil Christmas haters go to Saudi Arabia where "several dozen Christmas trees imported from Holland were seized by Saudi authorities, hacked to pieces, and then sent back to the Netherlands." This little nugget is from a 2004 AP article which reports that the above statement was told to customers of a florist - so anecdotal? Maybe!
As a devout and macho Catholic blowhard, who sees himself as kicking ass, Bill projected his religious machismo onto his Catholic homie, the Pope. In recommending Cuba as a secularist destination, he wrote that, in Cuba, there had been a ban on Christmas "until the Pope told them to knock it off." O'Reilly claimed "most Cubans are Christians."
Reality Check - There is no evidence to suggest that Castro was taking orders from the Pope. Rather, in advance of a Papal visit, Castro lifted the ban on religious celebration of Christmas. Bill is wrong about the religious affiliation of Cubans as 60% of the population were baptized Catholic but only 5% actively practice the religion.
Bill concludes his "satire" with this comment: "As Yoko Ono is fond of saying, let's give peace a chance (and, by extension, drop the whining about Christmas)."
Excuse me?! It's not secularists who are forbidding folks to say Merry Christmas, it's Bill O'Reilly's goon squad who are mandating it! It's Bill O'Reilly and his American Taliban pals who don't respect the diverse views of those who do have a problem with what are, in some cases, unconstitutional intrusions of Christianity into the public square. Bill O'Reilly has spent how many years complaining about a non-existent War on Christmas - so who's doing the whining? And rather than whine about holiday trees and atheist billboards, maybe Bill should listen to the words of the RI head of the Council of Churches (heretic Protestant, I know), Rev. Donald Anderson, who said that “with all of the poverty, hunger and injustice that surround us, do we really believe that Jesus would have us spend all this time and energy around what we call a tree? Do we truly think that the Jesus of the Gospels cares what we call a tree?” (Obviously Bill thinks so)
Bill O'Reilly giving peace a chance - As If!!!!!
Re — Len T’s use of “a bunch of ten dollar words to convey a two cent idea”:
The charge is valid, but the price is vastly inflated. :)
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Congrats on using a bunch of ten dollar words to convey a two cent ideas. Nothing but assertions you fail to back up and ad hominem attacks. You might’ve used the words correctly in a grammatical sense, but you definitely do not show an understanding their definitions. There is nothing inaccurate about this piece, and in fact all, in sharp contrast to Bill O’Reilly, the author offers facts and research to back up her claims and debunk most of Bill’s white- Christian- male victim-hood paranoid rant. It is hilarious, for all the complaining about a culture of victimization Bill there has done over the years, he sure strives hard these days twisting facts and attempting to will his paranoid delusions into reality in order to portray himself and his brethren as victims under constant attack by godless heathens. There are no projections in the piece, nor is anything written inaccurate. This is an attack piece however, but the author is not the one holding “rigidly delusional views”…that would be Mr. O’Reilly in his command post in the Fox (Faux) News bunker battened down for the non-existent “War on Christmas”. Fox News: “We distort, you coincide!”- and it seems Len T, you do so extremely well…to a “T”. Eventually, sanity will prevail and all propaganda and narratives for and about this “war” will have been exhausted and Fox News will have to look for another way to frighten white Christian America to drum up ratings and the profits that follow. The author’s “unbalanced diatribe” is fine, it follows the Fox News school of journalism quite well, “I learned it from watching you!”, reporting without distinguishing fact from opinion. I’ve looked in the mirror, long and hard- something Fox News viewers are seemingly incapable of doing- and recognized the man staring back at me as a man sick of the BS this country has to endure because of men like Mr. O’Reilly and his network, and one who is sick of the division it causes and propagates through its propaganda. What do you see in that mirror Len? What is it that puts you above people like the author and I? Do blind respect and the ability to garble paranoid nonsense make you a superior breed of being? Perhaps, if I guess correctly and you are a Fox News viewer, it is your unwavering obtuse hypocrisy and denial in the face of reality, truth and fact (so far gone are people like you that you’ve forgotten what constitutes a “fact”…and hence your attack on this author and the words you used- and you only attacked the author here, not one substantive word made, let alone backed up, about the piece) that have swelled your head with a faux-patriotism that leads you to believe that you’re a “real American”, Hulk Hogan’s old entrance music blasting through your ears as you dress for work each day? Whatever it is, one thing is for certain: Your mind has been rattled and beaten into submission and all ability of rational critical thinking has long since vanished thanks to folks like Mr. O’Reilly and the “news” network he represents…a network that thrives on profit through promoting, among other disgusting things, conspiracy theories and the “birther” movement through extremely thinly veiled encouragement and suggestion, while bitching about a fantasy of a dreg filled society that will bring harm to its’ watchers and doesn’t accept the notion of personal responsibility…all while never accepting any themselves.
Next time you come to a party, you might at least want to bring a bottle of wine (facts and rational counterpoints) for the host, and not just a few slices of cheese (ad hominem attacks), it is the polite thing to do.
Yes, this is a rant…it’s early in the morning and I’m on my second cup of coffee after forcing myself to stay up and work all night.
I have yet to see any of his other posts and posits…but now I have this sense of dread that is going to force me to look at them…
Yet, despite that he has yet to show us where we have made mistakes… he’s advocating that we reflect on Matthew 7;3, as well “take a vacation.”
You know what else is in Matthew 7, Len? “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” -Matthew 7;1. Two verses above your quote. Since this is probably the most misunderstood verse of the bible, allow me to explain: Christ had no problem with judgement based on evidence and proven assertions of the person’s character. But he had a huge problem with just walking in and thinking you know somebody, or framing your judgment on one side of a case, with no adherence to the other.
Go read our reporting on Fox News’ smear campaign against RI Governor Lincoln Chafee- his intentions with all this are crystal clear in context.
Does that mean BullO is going to call for Al Qaeda to attack RI like he once did for San Francisco?
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This is a last refuge of a visibly desperate man.
Stewie goes all Bill O’Reilly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGZtaoWT96E