How Alec Baldwin Outted the Fox Blowhard
Bill O'Reilly's Fascism
By TOM GORMAN
Last year on a special broadcast, "O'Reilly versus
Hollywood" (Fox News Special, 6/7/02), Bill O'Reilly
purported to "take-on" the "phoniness" of
entertainers who are politically active. Of particular
pique to O'Reilly was a comment from actor Alec
Baldwin on a March episode of the now-defunct
Politically Incorrect. Responding to the idea that a
President Gore would have been less steadfast in
his response to terrorism than President Bush,
Baldwin said: "If you watched Fox [News] and all
those other fascists over there, that's exactly what
they would have had you believe." O'Reilly
complained to entertainment journalist Jeanne
Wolf (The O'Reilly Factor, 6/7/02) that "if you're
going to point fingers at people, and call them
names like Alec Baldwin said the Fox News
Channel are fascists, . . . you've got to back it up."
Two years ago, O'Reilly first offered his definition
of "fascism." "Clinton angered a lot of people out
West with these executive orders that took away a
lot of land that people wanted to develop . . . and
put it under the federal system. Now, to me, that
strikes-that's a little fascist, because . . . here is a
big monolith from Washington coming in, told the
local folks. . . . You can't go on this property and
use it for any kind of concern, because we're going
to take it" (The O'Reilly Factor, 1/22/01).
Earlier this month, O'Reilly gave an example of a
"fascist" organization--the American Civil Liberties
Union. Interesting here are not his accusations off
the ACLU defending unpopular clients; this is an
oft-repeated charge. Being that the ACLU's mission
is to defend principles regardless of the group
whose rights are being violated, O'Reilly's
accusation is hardly original. What does stand out
is his further definition of "fascism": "In Newton
County, Georgia, the ACLU threatened a school
board with litigation if it didn't remove the words
'Christmas holiday' from the school calendar. The
county caved and removed the words because it
couldn't afford to defend the lawsuit. This, ladies
and gentlemen, is fascism, that is, using the
threat of terror, which a lawsuit is, to promote
policy" (The O'Reilly Factor, 1/2/03). If lawsuits,
then, are terror, and "using the threat of terror" is
fascism, then, by O'Reilly's logic, the use of
lawsuits is fascism.
The Seventh Amendment to the United States
Constitution ensures that, "In suits at common
law, where the value in controversy shall exceed
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be
otherwise reexamined in any court of the United
States, than according to the rules of the common
law." "Suits at common law" are otherwise known
as "lawsuits." This is more colloquially referred to
as one's "right to his or her day in court." This
bedrock of American contract law--the ability to
seek redress in the judiciary for injury--is also one
of the foundations of capitalism. If individuals did
not have the opportunity to settle their grievances
through the rule of law, the only option left would
be violent force. Arguably, "might makes right"
comes closer to most people's definition of
fascism. Thus, we can deduce from O'Reilly's
"logic" that "fascism" encompasses both the rule of
law and the rule of force, a Hobson's choice
between two kinds of terrorism in Bill O'Reilly's
estimation
If the federal government administering federal
lands can be considered "a little fascist," or the
ACLU enforcing First Amendment protections
against state-sponsored religion is "fascism" and
the "use of terror," then O'Reilly's comments after
the September 11 attacks surely must qualify for
this rubric as well: "We should not target civilians.
But if [the Afghans] don't rise up against this
criminal government [the Taliban], they starve,
period," and, "What we can do is . . . say to those
people, 'Look, we don't want to do this. But either
you get rid of this guy yourself, or you're just
going to have to starve to death because we're not
going to let anybody in there'" (The O'Reilly Factor,
9/17/01).
The 1948 Genocide Convention (specifically, Article
II(c): "Deliberately inflicting on [a national] group
conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part," and
Article III(c): "Direct and public incitement to
commit genocide") was enacted in response to the
unambiguously fascist crimes of the Nazis. (Read
the full text of the Convention at
unhchr.ch.
Note that there is no exception to this law; even if
you do not like the government in a certain
country, or if you believe that the country "harbors
terrorists," genocide is still strictly forbidden.)
Considering the United States is a signatory to the
Genocide Convention, and that Article VI of the US
Constitution makes all treaties entered into by the
United States the "supreme law of the land,"
O'Reilly's call for starving the people of
Afghanistan certainly seems to be a "direct and
public incitement to commit genocide."
Thus it would appear that Alec Baldwin's
characterization seems quite accurate, if not for all
of Fox News, then certainly for Bill O'Reilly.
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