Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

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tbieter
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Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by tbieter »

I was listening to a discussion of the several sexual harassment claims brought against O'Reilly and Fox News this morning, the guest being the attorney for three of the complaining women.

Toward the end of the show, the attorney pointed out that there were other male hosts on Fox, such as Tucker Carlson, against whom there were no complaints or criticism.

The discussion provoked two thoughts:

First, unlike Mr. Carlson, O'Reilly is no gentleman.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/cul ... leman.html

Second, institutionally, the Fox News culture is one of the sexual harassment of women, like the Catholic Church's culture involves the sexual abuse of young children and teenage boys.
bobevenson
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by bobevenson »

The thing that led to O'Reilly's downfall was paying off those dames.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Immanuel Can »

Second, institutionally, the Fox News culture is one of the sexual harassment of women,
I'm not a "Fox" fan, but I can't see that this is true. If you identify one person there who is doing something bad, like harassing people, that hardly justifies the word "culture". How do you come up with this "culture" business?
...like the Catholic Church's culture involves the sexual abuse of young children and teenage boys.
While I'm no fan of Catholicism, I think this is a fairly random assessment. While it is true that many "priests" have been guilty of abuse, and while the Catholic hierarchy has been complicit in covering it up, that seems somewhat different from saying that Catholicism has a "culture of" abuse. That would imply that it was inherent to being a Catholic, which seems too much to say. Or would you suppose otherwise?

Can you explain this idea of "culture of abuse"?
Dubious
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Dubious »

Immanuel Can wrote:Can you explain this idea of "culture of abuse"?
...a consistent vile habit practiced through the ages which, though not truly within the definition of culture, clandestinely becomes incorporated into one.
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Arising_uk
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Arising_uk »

Immanuel Can wrote:
Second, institutionally, the Fox News culture is one of the sexual harassment of women,
I'm not a "Fox" fan, but I can't see that this is true. If you identify one person there who is doing something bad, like harassing people, that hardly justifies the word "culture". How do you come up with this "culture" business? ...
I think he means Roger Ailes the founder and ex-CEO of Fox News who also resigned due to sexual-harassment cases.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/ ... llegations
Can you explain this idea of "culture of abuse"?
I think he means this,
'priests have been guilty of abuse, and ... the Catholic hierarchy ... complicit in covering it up'.

Given the scale of abuse that is being revealed in the Catholic Church I think a 'culture of abuse' is a fair description.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dubious wrote:
Immanuel Can wrote:Can you explain this idea of "culture of abuse"?
...a consistent vile habit practiced through the ages which, though not truly within the definition of culture, clandestinely becomes incorporated into one.
I'm not sure about your definition of "culture of abuse." What's so "clandestine" about a "habit practiced throughout the ages"? Anyway, I'm not sure Fox news is "ages" old. It seems to me it's rather recent, and has no particular "culture" I can detect, at least no "consistent" one.

I'm all for fighting "abuse," whatever you might mean by that, or "harassment," if you prefer...but I would have to confess that I'm really not sure what your definition of those things is, nor do I know how to locate something so vague as a whole "culture" that is dedicating to perpetuating it.

Now, I can find Bill O'Reilly. But this mysterious bogeyman, the "culture of abuse," I don't think we can locate that. And if we ever did, it's not clear how we'd fight a "culture" if it does not mean specific individuals like Bill O'Reilly or Bill Cosby or Bill Clinton...

Is there something about the name "Bill"? :shock:

:wink:
Skip
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Skip »

Fish do very often rot from the head.
If a certain kind of attitude - sexism, racism, privilege, secrecy, deceit, graft or whatever -
is inherent in an organization, then persons who think in that way will be both welcomed by and comfortable in that organization.
When/if the normal-for-the-organization activities of some member run afoul of the larger community, the organization will naturally
protect the perpetrator from retribution, not out of loyalty, but for the protection of the organization, which is very likely to
harbour other perpetrators of the same kind of activity - because nobody nobody in the organizations wants to be the next target of
community censure, or acknowledge how high in the organization the illegal/immoral/unapproved practice goes.
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Dubious »

Skip wrote:Fish do very often rot from the head.
If a certain kind of attitude - sexism, racism, privilege, secrecy, deceit, graft or whatever -
is inherent in an organization, then persons who think in that way will be both welcomed by and comfortable in that organization.
When/if the normal-for-the-organization activities of some member run afoul of the larger community, the organization will naturally
protect the perpetrator from retribution, not out of loyalty, but for the protection of the organization, which is very likely to
harbour other perpetrators of the same kind of activity - because nobody nobody in the organizations wants to be the next target of
community censure, or acknowledge how high in the organization the illegal/immoral/unapproved practice goes.
...exactly right; it explains a lot of the modus operandi of current and past organizations including those most trusted who have the greatest authority.
Dubious
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Dubious »

Immanuel Can wrote:
Dubious wrote:
Immanuel Can wrote:Can you explain this idea of "culture of abuse"?
...a consistent vile habit practiced through the ages which, though not truly within the definition of culture, clandestinely becomes incorporated into one.
I'm not sure about your definition of "culture of abuse." What's so "clandestine" about a "habit practiced throughout the ages"? Anyway, I'm not sure Fox news is "ages" old. It seems to me it's rather recent, and has no particular "culture" I can detect, at least no "consistent" one.

I'm all for fighting "abuse," whatever you might mean by that, or "harassment," if you prefer...but I would have to confess that I'm really not sure what your definition of those things is, nor do I know how to locate something so vague as a whole "culture" that is dedicating to perpetuating it.

Now, I can find Bill O'Reilly. But this mysterious bogeyman, the "culture of abuse," I don't think we can locate that. And if we ever did, it's not clear how we'd fight a "culture" if it does not mean specific individuals like Bill O'Reilly or Bill Cosby or Bill Clinton...

Is there something about the name "Bill"? :shock:

:wink:
My repsonse was specifically referring to the question Can you explain this idea of "culture of abuse". It does not refer to Fox news or any of the "Bills" listed including Buffalo Bill. One can write a whole encyclopedia on the culture of abuse throughout history. In the case of priests, cardinals, popes, it was done sub rosa. Do you seriously believe that the more egregious crimes of church officials made public during the last 50 years wasn't far more extreme in prior periods when people could do almost nothing about it?

The culture of abuse, which has never disappeared from history, isn't highlighted by specific individuals but by what happens inside and outside those cultures, the former done more clandestinely; the latter more openly.
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Skip »

Another irresponsible generalization:
Those who feel entitled to privilege are more likely to abuse it than those who come by it inadvertently.
Groups and hierarchies tend to be corrupt in direct proportion to the length of time they have enjoyed entrenched privilege.
The RC is pretty much the archetype for such entrenched privilege and sense of entitlement: when you've been that
invulnerable for that long, it's become a habit. Plus, you have an established, powerful support structure and your detractors have none.
European and Asian landed aristocracies and military elites behave in the same way, for the same reason.
Since the mid-nineteenth century, look to the industrialist class; trader and banking elites follow a bit later, dragging "democratic" political
establishments in their wake, or pushing it ahead as a shield (hard to tell; in any case, they affect law-making and enforcement)
The celebrity pantheon (entertainment and sport stars) start showing up around the middle of the 20th century.
Circa 2001, the spheres of make-believe and reality merge -
so you can no longer tell which self-entitled asshole belongs to which social structure - or even where one structure ends and another begins.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dubious wrote:Do you seriously believe that the more egregious crimes of church officials made public during the last 50 years wasn't far more extreme in prior periods when people could do almost nothing about it?
I don't recall having said that. But I still don't get this "culture of" thing. Abusers are responsible for what they do...they don't deserve to get off the hook by having us blame "culture." We can't lock up a "culture," or even really find it, or do much to prevent a "culture" from abusing or harassing. We can, however, deal with individuals who do these things.
The culture of abuse, which has never disappeared from history,...
Whose "culture" was this? It seems to me that abuse and harassment of all kinds are a cross-cultural phenomenon -- perhaps more pronounced in some situations than others. Islam's clearly implicated in a great deal of it; but clearly, so's Hollywood -- consider Roman Polanski, for example. Now, one of these is ultra conservative and religious, the other wildly liberal and promiscuous. And Jimmy Saville...he was part of the UK media elite...are the UK media a "culture of abuse"?

The danger I fear there is that the "culture" language provides an excuse to people like Saville as simply another victim of a "bad culture." But I would say he was a wicked man, and that he personally needs to answer for all he did. I imagine most of his victims would agree, and probably wouldn't be content with "cultural reform" measures instead of assigned guilt.

I guess I'm just trying to pin down who you're indicting. I'm not saying you're wrong to accuse certain people; I just think the "culture" language is counterproductive. It obscures the guilty and makes abuse impossible to locate and address.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Immanuel Can »

Skip wrote:Another irresponsible generalization...you can no longer tell which self-entitled asshole belongs to which social structure - or even where one structure ends and another begins.
I guess you've put it much more concisely -- and more viscerally -- than I have, Skip. But that's essentially what I'm arguing too.
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Skip »

Nevertheless, these entitlements don't happen by individual whim, or randomly.
They are endemic to systems of relatively over- and under-protected strata; they do manifest as a droit de seigneur among the wealthy, the powerful and the celebrated...
... as so very aptly and infamously enunciated by the current poster-boy of overlapping spheres of privilege....
As long as that structure is in place, there is very little "we", whoever that may include, can do about it,
and a culture of abuse remains a consistent subset of the culture at large,
which is not about a specific religious or artistic tradition, but about the intrinsic assumption of hierarchies of closed privileged groups...
mascularchies of every kind: priesthood, military and police officers; land barons, robber barons, politicians, entertainers, athletes, heroes, idols -
the men who are permitted and take for granted that little extra reward of their specialness
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

Post by Immanuel Can »

Skip wrote:Nevertheless, these entitlements don't happen by individual whim, or randomly.
They are endemic to systems of relatively over- and under-protected strata; they do manifest as a droit de seigneur among the wealthy, the powerful and the celebrated...
But your description equally suits the poor, the weak and the uncelebrated. Having lived in the Developing World (which is actually not "developing" very well right now, nor guaranteed to do so, alas), I can tell you that the instances of abuse are very widespread. Prostitution of children, for example, is much more common in poverty situations, and is far easier to detect and prevent in the Developed World. So if anything, you'd have to say that Developing World cultures are the "abuse cultures." At least, if you're operating by statistical frequency or by extremity of cases.

We may resent that the perverted among the elites, like Jimmy Saville, Bill Cosby or Bill Clinton, are protected from justice, and rightly so: but if we count cases, then the problem is far worse in less-monitored situations.
As long as that structure is in place, there is very little "we", whoever that may include, can do about it,
Not so. In the Developed World, perverts are detectable and punishable, in many (but not all) cases. If an abuse situation becomes known, then our culture has means to respond to it, from incarceration down to public exposure and censure...too mild at the near end, to be sure; but far better than doing nothing (which is exactly how things go in the Developing World).
and a culture of abuse remains a consistent subset of the culture at large,
which is not about a specific religious or artistic tradition, but about the intrinsic assumption of hierarchies of closed privileged groups...
I think this isn't actually true, for the reasons I give above. Our "culture," or any particular culture that does not actually sponsor abuse, is not the problem; the existence of any perverts and abusers anywhere is the problem.

To blame the vague concept of a "culture" said to be guilty of creating them is to let them escape the spotlight of justice and the fact of their personal responsibility for the evil they have done.
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Post by henry quirk »

Bill O's downfall has way more to do with his popularity and the popularity of FOX than with his supposed harassing behavior.

If FOX were small potatoes, if Bill O just a blip (or if he were a big commie on MSNBC) not a soul would give two shits if he hit on the ladies.
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