Ok, maybe I'd buy that a Senator is part of the "power structure" but Bill O'Reilly? Sounds like a delusion of grandeur on his part...

I haven't known a great many white supremicists all that well - I don't tend to, ahem, name them among my friends. But I have known a few. Each of them seem to have some exceedingly debilitating self-esteem issues. It seems to me one of the motivations of buying into such group heirarchical structure myths is a lack of belief in one's own self. And so they imbue this group with some sense of superiority or superpower and then draw the lines of the group to include themselves in it.

Bill O'Reilly doesn't like himself, so he says "White, rich, Christian neocons are cool and I hang with them." I'd feel bad for him if he wasn't on television lying to people.

Ok, maybe I'd buy that a Senator is part of the "power structure" but Bill O'Reilly? Sounds like a delusion of grandeur on his part...

I haven't known a great many white supremicists all that well - I don't tend to, ahem, name them among my friends. But I have known a few. Each of them seem to have some exceedingly debilitating self-esteem issues. It seems to me one of the motivations of buying into such group heirarchical structure myths is a lack of belief in one's own self. And so they imbue this group with some sense of superiority or superpower and then draw the lines of the group to include themselves in it.

Bill O'Reilly doesn't like himself, so he says "White, rich, Christian neocons are cool and I hang with them." I'd feel bad for him if he wasn't on television lying to people.

I truly cannot believe that he actually LITERALLY came out on national television and said that the white, christian male power structure needs to be protected. WHAT A BIGOT. Does he actually think that was an agreeable thing to say on television? So much for being "politically correct" - double meaning intended!

I truly cannot believe that he actually LITERALLY came out on national television and said that the white, christian male power structure needs to be protected. WHAT A BIGOT. Does he actually think that was an agreeable thing to say on television? So much for being "politically correct" - double meaning intended!

Wow. It's pretty rare that someone will actually come out and SAY that they want to defend the White, Christian, Male Power Structure. Usually they dance around it in terms of "culture" and "national security" and "morals."

But yes, Bill O'Reilley is right. I definitely DO want to break down the white, christian, male power structure. Bill O'Reilley is right? Damn, I never thought that I would say THOSE words . . .

Ugh. Of course he does.

okay, i was totally disgusted by both o'reilly AND mccain. but hey, at least o'reilly is being honest about his agenda. better the devil you know, right?

and i agree with cara - that power structure is *exactly* what i want to dismantle. at least o'reilly knows that the christian while male power structure is on its way out. (i'm feeling overly optimistic today, but hey, at least he feels somewhat threatened. what an ass.)

I'm so happy I'm beside myself. Bill O'Rielly admits that his agenda includes protecting the "white, christian, male power structure." This is the answer to every conservative attempt to make their policies seem palatable.

Wow, I really felt like I was in one of their closed-door douchebag meetings.

Thanks Bill, you're a dick.

I would swear this was satire if John McCain hadn't posted it proudly on his own Web site.

Unbelievable. Not that they said it, but that they even recognized it of themselves.

Hmmm.

Anyone else considering switching affiliations for the primary and voting for Giuliani? I mean, I'd much rather risk losing to Giuliani than losing to one of the crazies (i.e., McCain or Romney). Fuck but that's a frightening thought.

On another note, Al Franken has some hilariously awesome O'Reilly anecdotes in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right (which, btw, is like the best book title EVER). Franken totally hates that dude, which kinda gives me warm Franken fuzzies.

I agree with the comment one of the girls before me wrote about the "white christian male structure" being pretty much already desolved and I agree that Bill O'reilly should have thought it thru before saying something so meaningless as that.

I am in a position where I cannot agree with any bills supporting deportation of immigrants, or encarcellation or punishments for them. I think that many, many immigrants wether they are coming from south, west or east, they have all contributed in some point to the productivity of the US Economy. But, one thing has not been mentioned about a significant percentage of those 12 million illegal immigrants residing in the US; many of them are also young, proactive students and young adults that want to obtain an education in the only country where education can be valid anywhere in the world. The government has only concerned themselves with the fact that immigrants come to work and take away "their jobs". Instead, they should open up and try to find opportunities for those of us who need legalization not only because we want to live the American Dream, but because part of our American Dream is having an education. No one can take that aways from us and I dont think we should be called criminals because we wish for equality.

I agree with the comment one of the girls before me wrote about the "white christian male structure" being pretty much already desolved and I agree that Bill O'reilly should have thought it thru before saying something so meaningless as that.

I am in a position where I cannot agree with any bills supporting deportation of immigrants, or encarcellation or punishments for them. I think that many, many immigrants wether they are coming from south, west or east, they have all contributed in some point to the productivity of the US Economy. But, one thing has not been mentioned about a significant percentage of those 12 million illegal immigrants residing in the US; many of them are also young, proactive students and young adults that want to obtain an education in the only country where education can be valid anywhere in the world. The government has only concerned themselves with the fact that immigrants come to work and take away "their jobs". Instead, they should open up and try to find opportunities for those of us who need legalization not only because we want to live the American Dream, but because part of our American Dream is having an education. No one can take that aways from us and I dont think we should be called criminals because we wish for equality.

I agree with the comment one of the girls before me wrote about the "white christian male structure" being pretty much already desolved and I agree that Bill O'reilly should have thought it thru before saying something so meaningless as that.

I am in a position where I cannot agree with any bills supporting deportation of immigrants, or encarcellation or punishments for them. I think that many, many immigrants wether they are coming from south, west or east, they have all contributed in some point to the productivity of the US Economy. But, one thing has not been mentioned about a significant percentage of those 12 million illegal immigrants residing in the US; many of them are also young, proactive students and young adults that want to obtain an education in the only country where education can be valid anywhere in the world. The government has only concerned themselves with the fact that immigrants come to work and take away "their jobs". Instead, they should open up and try to find opportunities for those of us who need legalization not only because we want to live the American Dream, but because part of our American Dream is having an education. No one can take that aways from us and I dont think we should be called criminals because we wish for equality.

Well, at least he (they) finally admitted what we've all known all along.

And LF, have you seen Franken's documentary Al Franken: God Spoke. It's great as well and addresses Bill O'Liley and Ann Coulter, got some great scenes of Franken talking about what actually happened and taking on Sean Hannity on Air America.

I'm not sure I understand how more illegal immigrants is going to change the political power structure to a one party Democratic system because last time I checked ILLEGAL ALIENS CAN'T VOTE.

I mean, political views aside, that just doesn't make any sense.

i forgot to mention this before, but did anyone else hear mccain refer to the capture of immigrants as "catch and release?"

gah.

Anyone else considering switching affiliations for the primary and voting for Giuliani?

Heh, the thought has briefly crossed my mind. I'm not a fan, but his presence among the other Republicans is kind of interesting. Plus as Democratic as I am, I'll still give credit where it's due; I do respect the guy for not completely pussying out on reproductive rights during the debates.

Law Fairy, you're making me all nostalgic for the O'Franken Factor on Air America.
Air America just isn't the same without him, Jerry Springer, & Sam Seder in the mornings.
I know I say this about every two days, but "Threat to the white, male power structure" needs to be a shirt.

Law Fairy - I read that book at least twice a year. In fact, during especially stressful times during college, my roommate and I would read out loud the dialogue in the chapter "I Challenge Rich Lowry To A Fight" and it would make the world seem right again. Seriously. One of my favorite books in the whole wide world.

The darkies are coming! The darkies are coming!!! AHHHHHHH! What's a good whitey to do?!?

Wow, he really said "white Christian male power structure." That's almost funny!

But honestly, what else could McCain do but nod? Get in an argument and lose his crazy O'Reilly watching nutbag vote? I mean honestly, if I was on live tv trying to get votes, I'd probably just smile and nod too if someone start spouting out something that nuts...

I must be interpreting the conversation differently from everyone else that has posted so far. He said that the New York Times is for the current immigration bill because it would dismantle the white christian male power structure. He then went on to say how that is a bad reason to support amnesty for illegal aliens.

I don't see any protection of the power structure in there.

Allison:
"Bill O'Reilly doesn't like himself, so he says "White, rich, Christian neocons are cool and I hang with them." I'd feel bad for him if he wasn't on television lying to people."

First of all, he never said what you quoted him as saying. That's slander. Second, if you are going to accuse someone of lying, have some evidence.

JaviitaVi:
"No one can take that aways from us and I dont think we should be called criminals because we wish for equality."

Wishing for equality did not make anyone criminal. Crossing the border without permission is a crime.

I have been wrong before. If anyone can give me a quote where Bill O'Reilly is protecting the white, christian, male power structure, I would interested to see it.

i was going to comment on the fact that bill o'reilly even looks straight up batshit effing insane, but then i got to dave's defense of the blowhard and my head imploded.

luckily my headless body can still type.

he said the bit about the white christian male power structure and i burst out laughing. he talks about the liberal urge to destroy it as tho its something we're trying to keep a deeply hidden secret, like its some sort of "aha! gotcha!" thing, when, im pretty sure thats one of the basic purposes of most progressive movements.

I have to agree with O'Reilly on this one. I'm simply terrified of black female atheists in power. They'd take money out of the pockets of decent, hardworking military contractors and blow it on frivolous and certainly evil education and health care programs.

Also, I know it's considered impolite to namecall on web forums, but Dave is a tool and possibly a douchebag.

Namecalling must mean you have nothing constructive to add to the conversation.

First of all, he never said what you quoted him as saying. That's slander.

If Bill were an average citizen, possibly. But he isn't -- he's a public figure. Therefore, in order for it to be slander there would have to have been malicious intent on the part of the person slandering. Besides such intent being practically impossible to prove, I don't think Allison's comment was malicious so much as annoyed, cynical, and colloquial in that it was clearly meant to be an assessment of his real meaning, rather than a direct quotation of his words.

Second, if you are going to accuse someone of lying, have some evidence.

Dave, try reading the Al Franken book some of us here have mentioned. There's plenty of proof in there.

"I'm not sure I understand how more illegal immigrants is going to change the political power structure to a one party Democratic system because last time I checked ILLEGAL ALIENS CAN'T VOTE." - Rachel

What he was saying was the NY Times (that bastion of evil), basically wants to give immediate US citizenship to 12 million Mexicans who are here illegally; and give citizenship to their extended family also. If that happened, according to him, all those immigrants would exercise their newfound right to vote in elections and pull the lever marked Democrat and the GOP would be out of power forever.

I don't think he was trying to say anything sinister. It was just the paranoid white male in him. I could be naive on this one, but I don't think it is so much the fear of others gaining access to "power and privilege" as it is this fear that it is going to be explicitly taken away from white males (who don't realize they have handed it to themselves for thousands of year) and just given to others. Then there are the racists who use that fear to argue against an intelligent immigration policy. Instead, they would just keep them all out.

"i was going to comment on the fact that bill o'reilly even looks straight up batshit effing insane, but then i got to dave's defense of the blowhard and my head imploded.luckily my headless body can still type."

Heh. Heheheehe. I just laughed so hard I almost peed myself. And I scared the shit out of the cat. So thanks for that jessilikewhoa. Ha. I'd add something constructive to the discussion but there doesn't really seem to be a need. :)

"Anyone else considering switching affiliations for the primary and voting for Giuliani?"

No, for Fred Thompson, the "Law & Order" prez. Sam Waterston can be Atty. Gen. Dick Wolf will be in change of his message. No more crime!

I must be interpreting the conversation differently from everyone else that has posted so far. He said that the New York Times is for the current immigration bill because it would dismantle the white christian male power structure. He then went on to say how that is a bad reason to support amnesty for illegal aliens. I don't see any protection of the power structure in there...

O'Reilly says in the above video:
...but do you understand what the New York Times wants and the far left want? They want to break down the White, Christian, male power structure, which you are a part and so am I and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say you gotta cap it with a number.

The argument against power structure reorganization as a rationale for immigration is absent. I am not sure how you inferred that. Maybe "...Pat Buchanan is right" means "that is a bad reason to support amnesty for illegal aliens" to Dave.

O'Reilly cites the existence of a power structure, posits that the Times and the left want to undermine it through immigration, and opines that therefore, immigration should be capped. That is a pretty clearly defense of the power structure. Pretty straightforward.

As an aside, the argument that pro-immigration attitudes are based on a desire to subvert the power structure is arguably misguided.

I hope jessilikewhoa's head is better soon.

What's bizarro to me is McCain's response to the whole we-need-to-maintain-the-power-structure-against-attack-so-no-more-Hispanic-immigrants line of reasoning. His comment on that is basically: Well, we do need more farm workers.

What's bizarro to me about this whole debate is that, had O'Reilly done any research on the actual demographics of the growing Hispanic (for lack of a better word) immigrant population (not that I'm expecting any intellectual curiosity/honesty out of BillO), he would know that the immigrants from south of the border come from Catholic countries. Bill may disagree, but last I checked, Catholic = Christian. Second, the population that has been coming into the country for the last 60 years has been overwhelmingly male; figures range from 70 to 95 percent, depending on who you ask.

Dismantling the "white, male Christian power structure," indeed. The operative word there for you and all who think like you, Bill, is "white." And you know it.

Another thing that just occurred to me: It seems to me that there is a disconnect in American political understanding of how people from Latin American countries think politically, and where they fall on our political spectrum. We understand pretty well (particularly here at Feministing, which I'm happy to see) that when Latin Americans are in their own countries, they operate on a much more ideologically and religiously conservative spectrum than we do in America. Think of all the countries we've covered here, not least of which is the CURRENT Mexico abortion debate, that have huge debates about the role that the Catholic church and Catholic sensibilities should play in mainstream Latin American politics.

And yet Bill O'Reilly, and white male (Protestant) Christian conservatives like him, have spread the rhetoric that, when people from Latin American countries come to OUR country, all of their political sensibilities will suddenly change. When they cross the border, there is a sudden and abrupt disconnect in our thinking -- when they come here, their histories will be left behind, and they will want social programs enacted, they will want to have free health care, they will want welfare expanded, they will want to legalize abortion (!), and that in general they will want to do what Bill is suggesting here, "dismantle the white, Christian male power structure" of which BillO is a part.

This is not supported by any of the facts about the countries from which these people come, and where they are LIKELY to fall within our political spectrum of liberal vs. conservative. I actually have a sneaking suspicion that this viewpoint is due more to racist fears, specifically to associating Hispanics with the Democratic-poor-black-demographic idea that gets tossed around in the political rhetoric in this country. It's about the conservative perception of skin color = politics, not about what these people's politics in our country IF they were allowed to vote, which is a long shot anyway.

(Sorry for the essay, guys, had to get that out. Prizes to anyone who read the whole thing!)

Oh, yes. Well, it seems the notion is that people who move across our southern border are likely to be so utterly simple-minded that they will be easily misused to promote the society-crushing agendas of crazed liberals. It's unspoken, but the assumption is there.

What people who are against any immigration never take into account is this: The group of immigrants that came over here uninvited that did the most horrific things on this land were White Christians. Maybe that's why guys like Bill-O and old man McCain are so afraid. They think the brown people are going to come here, take away their land, enslave them, and rape their wives and children.

And the fact that people are only talking about protecting the southern border proves that they're racist. The US isn't a line. We have plenty of borders. What about the people who fly in pretending they're on vacation and never leave?

Peepers: Ha! Spot-on on that one. Not to mention that, like blacks, they're lazy work-haters and breed like bunnies -- not cause they're Catholic, but cause they're too dumb to use birth control. Not to mention that they're trying to breed us out of our own country. I heard that from Good Ol' Lou Dobbs. That guy's always looking out for us sensible white folk!

Does anyone else see the irony in their immigration plan? Their argument goes something like this: "We cannot let illegals from Mexico drain our economy. Therefore, rather than letting them work---and, god forbid, letting them become citizens and pay taxes---we must prevent them from becoming a drain on our society by imprisoning them." Where are the proud parents of the seven year old that thought this up?

The real problem is that study after study has come to the conclusion that, without the labor of illegal immigrants from south of the border, the economies of the Southwestern states would completely collapse. California and Texas, at least, I know for sure, are included in that number. "Anti-immigration/border policy" is just a political hot-button topic that doesn't really *mean* anything at all. It's racism, pure and simple, backed up by bullshit pseudo-logical political rhetoric -- the politicians' way of creating what they think we want to see, by feeding our baser impulses.

What kind of prize do I get for reading the entire post?

It seems to me that people are oversimplifying this into a race argument. Sure, there is that element in the anti-immigration side, but it doesn't emcompass the whole argument. And I think money plays a much bigger role than race here.

To the person who said the welfare and health care argument doesn't fly because they don't have that where they come from, it is an issue. There are activists who want to extend programs for the poor to illegals, who are poor and can't afford health care. And why not? They do a lot of work for very little money here. It sounds exactly like the humane (and christian) thing to do. The argument against it is about who is going to pay for it. It's about money. We take advantage of the cheap labor, and don't want higher taxes to pay for health insurance of the person we are paying a low wage to.

On the Mexican vs Canadian border issue, is there an issue of Canadians sneaking across the border and taking low wage jobs, sending the money back to Canada, living here below the poverty line, and remaining undocumented? Canada is a developed country and has socialized medicine. They aren't necessarily trying to come here. The Mexicans are. It isn't racist to admit that fact.

There is a problem in this country with (low wage) illegals and the health care system. Our economy would be greatly hurt without their low labor costs. But the strain on health costs (because they can't pay for insurance and have to go to clinics or the emergentcy room, which they again can't pay for), makes health care more expensive for the rest of us. I have thought of dropping my insurance because it is getting so expensive.

While I am not generally in favor of more taxes (because I don't have much money to begin with), the fact is that we are going to have to pay more somewhere, be it in taxes or labor costs. And I honestly believe that issue in the single most important force againt this issue.

I think that investment in infrastructure in Mexico would go a long way toward reducing the influx of illegals crossing here. Our sudden need for corn and the jobs that it creates there has already reduced the number of people coming here. I magine if we invested in busines and education there. Then we might actually want them to come here.

I think I have gone on long enough. I didn't intend this as a defense of O'Reilly. This was more on immigration policy than what he said in the clip.

Law Fairy: Hmmm.

"Anyone else considering switching affiliations for the primary and voting for Giuliani? I mean, I'd much rather risk losing to Giuliani than losing to one of the crazies (i.e., McCain or Romney). Fuck but that's a frightening thought."

Please don't do this if you live in a swing state.