THE CORRUPTION OF THE AMERICAN CHILD

Dubplatestyle: yeah, it was this really bizarre special hosted by this uppity white twat from fox news.
Dubplatestyle: of course the attendant irony of fox showing something on the corruption of the american child was lost on them.
ethANP2 3: next on fox: the corruption of the american child
ethANP2 3: and after that: america's wackiest autoerotic facial dismemberments!!

I actually did see portions of this, as the sight of Bill O'Reilly on my television mesmerizes me with this unspeakable loathing. I must be getting older, though, because there was one fact revealed that genuinely shocked and offended me -- porn sites putting the names of popular toys in their meta tags is, well, just generally wrong.

O'Reilly's entire schtick is predicated on finding the absolute worst intellectual opponents possible, either people with a complete inability to express themselves properly or people whose views are completely unrepresentative of anyone else in the world, ever: most notably, the O'Reilly Factor seems to have a particular knack for finding the looniest and most marginal black people possible to represent "the black community." Nothing really changed with the "corruption" special: he puts on his concerned face and excerpts portions of interviews where he asks questions pointedly designed to focus on only one way of looking at issues, and the booker (or the editor) ensures that that the guests are unable to break out of the paradigm of moral opprobrium and actually approach the issues from another direction.

The special also reminded me of my biggest disappointment of recent years: despite wrestling being the whitest form of entertainment since Christian country, the first kid in a highly- public wrestling-related killing just had to be black. Thanks, kid.

Also I think discussion of the montage sequences is definitely in order, particularly with regard to musical selection and source material. I had to stop watching, because more than fifteen minutes of O'Reilly makes me violently ill -- but I was wondering: was there an "evil music" section? I got through wrestling, shock radio, internet porn, and movies (idiot Jack Valenti fucking crumbled and let O'Reilly score way too many points), and sort of wondered who was about to be called out for backwards Satanic messages and such. The montage editors seemed big on the nu-metal.

I think they let on near the end that at the beginning they had a non-rap music section - ICP were featured. But I missed that part too.

Russell Simmons held his own surprisingly well, for how one-sided O'Reilly's interview technique was. A lot better than Damon Dash. Unfortunately I think he stuck them on a major point, which is that hip-hop does take at the very least a conflicted stance on sex, violence, drugs, etc. Of course even if they had wanted to, the guests couldn't have started talking about that because O'Reilly would have 'won'.

Basically every segment came down to O'Reilly saying, you're corrupting children, and the spokesperson saying, only children with irresponsible parents. At the end he did a half-hearted bit about how parents should be taking that responsibility.

Oh yeah - and lots of O'Reilly's reasons behind why his targets ended up targeting children went like 'greedy corporate America has no compunctions about targeting our youth'. Which is good and all but does it really seem that wise to start being critical of greedy corporate America on TV? What else might we start thinking about? Hmmm...

I hope this isn't the start of more of this crap on network TV.

the shock here is not fox's filth, but that you people were watching fox - what were you thinking!?

I hope I wasn't mentioned...I prefer mine British. No offense to the yanks on this board or anything.

My dad loves Bill O'Reilly "He tells it like it is". That's how I know Bill O'Reilly is appealing to lightweight racists.

America is in a real conservative funk right now. In polls (let's pretend they are reliable)the people in this country are shown to be very scary (conservative). We have Bush as president, John Ashcroft in office, and so many other backwards politicians/general morons that Bill O'Reilly fits like a glove in this country.

Maybe I've been watching too much Dennis Miller Live lately. I had better stop. I'm going to make myself cry.

America is in a real conservative funk right now.

So it seems -- yet there's always hope.

I find it ironic that the fox network offers some of the must sexually suggestive and violent material offered for prime time viewing. Its like the pot calling the kettle black. Fox is guilty of participating in the Corruption of the American Child.

However, I agreed with the special and thought Mr. O'Rielly did an excellent job treating the subject.

oh google, you cad. ::eyelash flutter::

Doesn't the current conservative funk have a different feel to than the triumphant conservatism of the Reagan/Bush (first term) years? It's a more scared, reactionary, isolationist conservatism. Reminds me of what I've read about the Nixon years.

(maybe I was just too young under reagan to appreciate the scarier parts of it)

i did happen to watch this crappy special. i usually like fox, they have some of the best shows, but having Bill O'Rielly talk for a hour on this issue was a waste of fox's time. Bill O'Rielly is a joke and that special was a joke.

"Fox" and "news" in the same sentence is a joke

In 1963, the left has almost total control over the culture.Oliver Goldsmith said,"You write the laws for the land, Le tm write the music for the land and I will control the land...:"Starting with Bonnie and Clyde we have had murders portrayed as sympathetic victums, Greese championed selling out to peer pressure; Sex and The City, Friends etc..tells kids that sex is just a fun game and "if it feels good, do it.."..There is no God..no absoluts..so the number of children born to unwed mothers has gone from 5% to 40%..crime has risen 780%...the media does a great job of selling cars, junk food and immorality....

You make it all sound like it's a bad thing.

(On a level of seriousness, I first and foremost disavow any immediate connection between a 'lack' of God or overt religious behavior emphasizing the existence of one and the raising and inculcating of values and ethics in children -- that many who believe in God do in fact do an excellent job of this is not tantamount to saying it is required.)

Mr. Schlatter, are you sure you mean 1963 and not 1936? Our best statistics from the period would imply that crime rates are lower now than than they were during the 20s and early 30s, effective mass-media advertising took off well before the Depression, and one early sympathetic depiction of a murderer came with 1930's "Little Caesar." Unfortunately sex has always been fun, so we can't really blame that one on the 20s, or even all of those 19th-century European brothels.

On the post-1963 upside, I can eat at department store lunch counters and women can get decent jobs!

..no absoluts..

Life would be sad without Absolut, but then there's always Stolichnya or Grey Goose.

Or that Skyy stuff...if you're desperate.