Excerpt: "This particular whopper is significant because it represents what O'Reilly and Fox News, among others, are doing to the national dialogue. They're burying it in doo-doo."
Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09. (photo: Perian Flaherty)
Bill O'Reilly Called Me a Communist?
24 April 12
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ill O'Reilly, the tumescent personality of Fox News, said on his Friday show "Robert Reich is a communist who secretly adores Karl Marx." (This came after Fox News' Neil Cavoto called me a "sanctimonious twit" for suggesting the rich should pay more in taxes.)
O'Reilly's accusation is odd, to say the least. If we were living in the 1950s, amid Senator Joe McCarthy's communist witch-hunts, the claim might have some bite and cause me injury. But these days it's hard to find a full-throated communist anywhere in the world.
O'Reilly's accusation isn't even logical. How can he know if I secretly adore Karl Marx, if it's a secret?
For the record, I'm not a communist and I don't secretly adore Karl Marx.
Ordinarily I don't bother repeating anything Bill O'Reilly says. But this particular whopper is significant because it represents what O'Reilly and Fox News, among others, are doing to the national dialogue.
They're burying it in doo-doo.
O'Reilly based his claim on an interview I did last week with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, in which I argued that because America's big corporations were now global we could no longer rely on them to make necessary investments in human capital or to lobby for public investments in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D. So, logically, government has to step in.
Since when does an argument for public investment in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D make someone a communist or a secret adorer of Karl Marx?
Obviously, O'Reilly has no interest in arguing anything. Ad hominem attacks are always the last refuges of intellectual boors lacking any logic or argument. (Whoops, I think I just stooped to name-calling. Sorry, Bill.)
Yet this is what's happening to all debate all over America: It's disappearing. All we're left with is a nasty residue.
In Washington, Democrats and Republicans no longer even talk. They just vent charges and counter-charges.
The 2012 election doesn't seem likely to clarify any issue. At this moment the candidates and their surrogates are debating the treatment of dogs.
Across the nation, conservatives right-wingers and liberal or progressive lefties have stopped debating their respective views, or even listening to anyone they disagree with. They just find broadcasters and bloggers who confirm their views.
We're even sorting by belief according to where we live. Today your neighbors are more likely to agree with your politics than disagree. We've settled into like-minded enclaves where we don't need to think because everyone we meet confirms what we assume we already know.
It's not that the nation is more polarized than it's been in the past. America has been through searing conflicts, some within the living memories of most of us. The communist witch-hunts of the 1950s were followed by the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, battles over womens' reproductive rights and gay marriage.
What makes America's current polarization remarkable isn't the severity of our disagreements but our utter lack of engagement debating them.
So many Americans are so angry and frustrated these days - vulnerable to loss of job and healthcare and home, without a shred of economic security - they're easy prey for demagogues offering simple answers and ready scapegoats. Take, for example, Bill O'Reilly and his colleagues at Fox News.
But people can only learn from others who disagree with them - or at least from witnessing debates between people who respectfully and civilly disagree. Without respect and civility, it's not a debate - it's just name-calling.
A democracy depends on public deliberation and debate. Without it, the members of a society have no means of understanding what they believe or why. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were notable not because they solved anything but because they helped Americans clarify where they agreed and disagreed on the wrenching issue of slavery.
Hence the danger today - when deliberation has stopped.
This morning I left a message on Bill O'Reilly's office phone asking him to invite me onto his show to debate whether public investments in education and infrastructure are needed.
What are the odds he'll invite me on?
Get #BeyondOutrage.
Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including "Locked in the Cabinet," "Reason," "Supercapitalism," "Aftershock," and his latest e-book, "Beyond Outrage." His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.
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It isn't so much that Trump may or may not be guilty of anything, as much as it is a concerted effort by the Dems and their allies to distract attention from their own criminality. By stridently pointig to the possibility of Trump misdeeds, they only solidify the disbelief in those of us who remember their own - which they take no responsibility for.
The Republicans have certainly sown the seeds of their own destruction, but the Democratic party is following them rapidly down the drain withh the same-old, same-old tactics of shifting blame onto anyone that will serve the purpose of distraction. That's not bad, though. It's always useful to know the enemies of Democracy for who they are.
You bring him up even when it makes no sense, and you always do so with a sneer. The problem is, even as you insult him, he is STILL the ONLY politician publicly calling for single payer health care, jobs, opioid treatment centers, etc. He's the one working his heart out to win back Obama-to-Trump flippers. He's the one talking to Independents and advocating for the 99%.
Your inappropriate and obsessive taunts for a good man, maybe one of the last good pols in DC, is very weird and a bit worrisome; instead of convincing anyone to distrust him, it only makes you look irrational, petty and unhinged.
Yes, it is a tad Utopian, but if criminals high and low were actually held accountable, taxpayer money would go where it is intended to go, so we could start to achieve real social progress.
An impossible goal, unless there would be an amnesty period, say 3 or 4 years, for both rich and poor pirates to clean up their/our acts via legal or gently nefarious means. Perhaps extend it a bit for the Pentagon and its missing 2.3 trillion dollars so we don't have a military junta...
why don't you stop excusing what the DNC did and demand accountability. there's no way this country will recover until the corruption is exposed and dealt with.
No clue as to his responsibilitie s, either.
1. We suspend Trump's activities as President - no policies, executive orders or any other significant activities on behalf of the U.S. - he's a liar and cannot be trusted - trust is basic to any president
2. With Mike Pence in the picture now, same for him - suspend him
3. We set up the apparatus to do either of the following:
- declare Hillary Clinton the winner of the Nov 8th election - fair and square
- hold an "election do-over"
We must show the world - and ourselves especially, that we are smart and strong enough to deal with any crisis that comes our way.
Not only did Hillary win the popular vote by 3 million voter, but you'd have to be deaf dumb and blind to not believe that Russia, plus Comey's bogus announcement 10 days prior to the elections, did not sway the incredibly few people in the 3 states that gave the electoral college to Trump - Wisconsin, Penn., Michigan.
Our democracy is at stake and these unprecedented activities by Trump and his cabal call for unprecedented action - the courage to do what is right-throw these bums out, bring in Hillary or do the election over again, giving the Repugs 30 days to choose their candidate and then another 30 days for both to campaign - period.
I don't think we will make it to 2018 with peace in our land. There are just too many guns in the hands of our citizens and our armed forces. Perhaps, the people we have killed since Vietnam and Cambodia to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen and Libya will come back to haunt us. What a fate, self destruction. I think we have a chance for peace but the door is closing fast. Leave it to the Republicans and we are doomed for sure. With the Democrats, even Hillary, we have a chance.
Fortunately, she is Green and also progressive and so she could not have been a dupe by Putin.
But as we can see from Le Pen - that is how it starts...
From Putin's point of view, she was a useful idiot. She helped progressives to think that both major parties are equally corrupt and so it doesn't matter who wins.
Nader caused Bush and his stupid wars and now Stein has helped cause the current mess. Progressives need to understand the actual function of elections. If you vote for a third party it means that you really don't care who wins.