Bill O'Reilly vs. America
Earlier this week, I visited Owsley County Elementary School in Booneville, Kentucky with Cokie Roberts, Save the Children's board vice chair. Owsley County is the second poorest county in the nation, a particularly striking distinction in the midst of the worst economy in generations.
What's even more striking than the very visible presence of abject poverty is the unlikely presence of great possibility for the kids living there.
Cokie and I worked side by side with some very young children who participate in Save the Children's literacy and early childhood education programs.
Operating directly in the schools as a public/private partnership, Save the Children brings in teams of educators and other experts who work together with school employees to give children special reading and other cognitive help.
Serving 50,000 children in 69 of our country's poorest and most remote counties, our innovative programs are like R & D for the next iteration of American education.
Still, one of our biggest obstacles in taking these programs to the next level isn't resources but cynicism.
To promote a mid-February in-depth special about the children of Appalachia, like the those in Owsley County, the special's host, Diane Sawyer, appeared on the O'Reilly Factor.
O'Reilly did all he could to debunk Sawyer's sense of hope and optimism:
- "I submit to you that the culture in Appalachia harms the children almost beyond repair... There's really nothing we can do about it."
- "You know, I don't want to rebuild the infrastructure of Appalachia I want to leave it pristine, it's beautiful."
- "I don't want to sound hopeless about it, but I think it is hopeless. I don't think the government can do anything about it."
The facts prove Bill O'Reilly wrong. During the last school year, Save the Children's public-private partnership programs have helped improve reading skills by 54 percent. In Kentucky, the proportion of children participating in our programs who were reading at grade level increased by 42 percent and, in Mississippi, the increase was 75 percent.
But it's more than just facts that prove O'Reilly wrong; it's the spirit of the American people that does.
For our entire history, the notion of imagining an even better, more perfect America has driven us to go to the moon, elect an African-American president, conquer deadly diseases and defeat fascism and communism in Europe.
And it's why we need the American spirit of possibility -- rather than O'Reilly's fatalism -- to envelop every mountaintop and valley in Appalachia and across America so that we achieve that achievable dream of giving every American child an equal opportunity for success.
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It is the typical republican response. Govt can't do it right. They want education,like everything else, to be private sector run...They would take it over,greed would take them over and our kids would suffer. They did this with the financial market and healthcare. It amazes me that they still think unregulated free markets is the way to go....Pathetic.
I am for Capitolism and Obama is also. The difference is we realize that it must have reasonalbe regulations and oversight.
Can you imagine if we privatized social security the way Bush wanted to???? Wake up America. Rush and Bill and Sean are WRONG!!
oreilly didn't need to go to school and look how he turned out.
The only times that I hear anything that Bill Orally says is when "The Daily Show", "The Colbert Report" and "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" run his clips. I only want to hear Billo the Clown get heckled.
I read somewhere that the vast majority of O'Reilly's audience are white men over the age of 70.
Now that Rupert Murdoch appears to have grown a conscience, I wonder how much longer O'Reilly and Hannity can continue to spout their made up stories, ficticious talking points and self serving propaganda?
It cant' end too send for me AND, I'm happy to say, a growing number of others, too.
I am not so sure about Murdoch growing a conscience. The only thing that will change Murdoch is the bottom line. His 2 New York City based papers The New York Post and the WSJ are not performing as well as he would like and could possibly suffer like other newspapers around the country. If FOX NEWS starts to suffer in the cable news arena then Murdoch won't be so tolerant of his 2 highly paid thugs Hannity and O'Rielly.
OK - so Bill O'Reiily, Sean Haanity, etc. are the problem. Maybe Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, etc. were not listing when they were warned, again and again, that the whole mortgage mess would burst and when that happened, the wholle nation would go down. Your friend Barny stated is was "hallucinations" and Dowd called it "asinine." Any attempt to stop Freddie or Fannie from making loans was seen as anti-American.
Conservatives tried to regulate these loans, but were defeated by Democatic fiiibuster in the Senate in 2002 and 2004. True, GW and his ilk did not represent our ideals. In fact, they became Democrats. They spent and spent and spent. They acted like Democrats and expandeded the federal government.
We need to stop that expansion.
...And you're listing so far starboard, you just might fall in, sport.
before you type, do not just spout out GOP/Fox News talking points, do your research. Barney Frank is actually an advocate of low-income RENTAL housing. He actually fought against sub-prime mortgages. You are quick to lay the whole mortgage crisis on Fannie and Freddie when it was in fact your beloved private sector that caused the mess. Mortgage brokers artificially inflated the market knowing they would make millions from it. Mortgages were packaged together and sold off with people counting on the fact that the housing market would continue to prosper. You are quick to turn the blame on the federal government when it was the private sector that caused the problem. Yes, the federal government failed to regulate, but that is the fault of many, not just a few. "Facts are stubborn things." Stop watching fox news for a second and pick up an accredited news source.
Bill is a hopeless human being.
You are half right.
"The culture in Appalachia harms children almost beyond repair"--What a bunch of bunk. I am from the Appalachian culture, having lived first in the once beautiful mountains of southeastern Ky until age 18, and now living in northeastern Ky. I say the once beautiful mountains because now they have been ravaged by strip miners who took all the good the land had to offer, and then left streams and waterways filled with soot and ash. They did it by refusing to enact laws to protect the environment and failing to enforce the few laws that were there. The culture of Appalachia is one of roots music, arts, and storytelling. I managed to get a public education with excellent teachers, an education that allowed me to take honors classes in college, and go beyond that. If you show the worst of any place, that is all that people will believe. It would be nice if someone would show the best of Appalachia.
It is typical of conservatives to write off segments of the population; they have a history of it concerning the inner cities and minorities. Yet they all go to church and hear the Gospel tell them "whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto Me". Amazing hypocrisy.
I kinda wonder why did Diane Sawyer even bother appearing on Bill O'Reilly in the first place....
that's so corporate media DRIVEL and NOT journalism.
Bill has a real can-do attitude when he wants to accomplish something negative like boycotting France, ambushing judges and journalists, or trying to get professors fired.
But accomplishing something positive is beyond him. He only likes problems where he can label someone a villain and he the hero.
Appalachian poverty is too complex a problem for Bill to simply shout at, so he deems it unsolvable. And since it's a national problem in which Bill can't be a star player, he doesn't think other people should bother with it.
I think your comments sum up OReilly perfectly!!
Doesn't Appalachia overwhelmingly and consistently vote gop? Way to alienate your audience there, Billo.
O'Reilly is a fatalist. He wants people to attain a low educational status so they will watch his program and be fooled by his propaganda. O'Reilly has no interest in an educated public. With an educated, informed public, Fox News and NewsCorp go out of business.
All you need to know about the educational system in Kentucky can be learned by looking at that state's US Senators, McConnell and Bunning. I guess you can fool the people all the time if they are ignorant enough.
Excuse me, but the people in Kentucky are not ignorant. Look at the US Senators and Representatives from some other states--Sam Brownback, Jim DeMint, Johnny Isakson, Richard Shelby and John McCain just to name a few. For some reason the media do-gooders always come to Kentucky and show the poorest, most uneducated people on their TV shows. Why doesn't someone go to the slums of any other state, see what they find, then check out their Senators and Representatives. I am sick of people talking about ignorant Kentuckians, especially people who have never set foot in the state. I have lived in Kentucky my entire life and I have never met anyone like the people portrayed in Sawyer's documentary.
Kentucky is like almost every other state in the Union -pockets of real poverty and ignorance with areas of progressiveness. As far as our Senators go, they are an embarrassment, but the commonwealth of KY is hardly alone in that either. If President Obama can turn this economy around it will help turn my state blue.
O’Reilly and his likes only care about the multi million dollar salaries they receive. Bill, let me tell you something--I would gladly accept your annual salary taxed at 95% because it would be more than enough money for my family!!!!
o'reilly, saying these things is really pathetic...all children come in to this world with almost limitless potential given they receive the love, encouragement, and resources necessary enough to help them achieve their dreams. sure, its common to rip on the appalachian 'backwoods' folk, but in truth they are just people like anywhere else. during my time in kentucky, i was amazed at how nice the people were. it seemed like they were warmer and more receiving than most i have met in new york city, although I guess thats no surprise. i guess this shocks me even more since these people are your bread and butter! how can you bite the hand that feeds you? bill, you barely resemble a human.
when we finally depose fox news and put the neocons in jail, i want to start a museum with wax heads of all the neocons so we can teach our children about the egregious errors of the past. wait, even better, we'll simply add another wing to the museum of natural history in new york city and place you and your ilk on a failed branch poking out from the human evolutionary tree. somebody please tell me o'reilly hasn't fathered any children or has been barred from adoption? also, lets pass an amendment so he can't clone himself or reproduce in the future, or even freeze his sperm.
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