Props to Geraldo Rivera

[Colobo]

Regardless of what you think about the guy, what he did to O'Reilly tops what Letterman and others tried to do: O'Reilly simply lost it on air and showed his true colors to the nation. The man is a hateful bigot, just as Savage and the others he criticizes. So much for the "reasonable traditionalist" crap.

What Geraldo had the guts to tell that bastard in his face is the truth of the "anti-illegal immigration" movement in this country: they are a dangerous force that are projecting all their frustrations, insecurities and hatred on "illegals", which is a code word for Hispanics. This needs to be denounced: Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly, among many others like them, have huge audiences that they are trying to indoctrinate with racism and hatred- that can bring some serious negative consequences in the near future.

Instead of trashing Geraldo for being the jerk he usually is, let's congratulate him and demand the same thing from others that have the power to expose these hateful individuals!

[mudesi]

1. It was a ratings stunt

That's what I think.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

3. I was thinkng the same, except

Geraldo surely can't act. Sorta lends some credibility in a backasswards kinda way.

[Bucky]

47. Whattaya mean "Geraldo can't act"? My god, sir, have you never seen that Baywatch episode?

His performance as a shy beachcomber infatuated with a beautiful surfer girl (ironicaly portrayed by his real life wife--at the time) was postitively Olivier-esque!

[walldude]

4. No, I think it shows what would happen if O'Reilly

couldn't kill the mic when he doesn't like what he hears. He did the same thing with Franken at that book panel, when you back Billo into a corner if he can't kill your mic, he starts screaming. He's such a pussy. And so is Geraldo, why that guy still has a job after drawing troop movements in the dirt on international TV is beyond me.

[mzteris]

6. I don't think so.

They both looked pretty incensed.

And OReilly is a total idiot.

Geraldo may be a sensationalist journalist - but he looked pretty passionate about this.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. I don't think he is all that

sensational. :evilgrin:

[mzteris]

9. true.

I did like him, though, back during the whole Clinton thing. He was pro-Bill though he tried to present a balanced group.

[whistle]

2. O'Reilly's roid rage

http://www.shs.uwo.ca/publications/fitness/steroids.htm

[Cleita]

5. I know I am going to get flack for this but here it goes.

Before Geraldo became a talk show host of a sleazy tabloid show (even pre-Jerry Springer), he was actually a rather smart journalist. Then after that tabloid show folded, he regained some of my respect when he got a show that did have a journalistic point of view on MSNBC, and it was rather good and leaned left.

However, I think Chris Matthews with his hard hitting soft-balls to the right replaced him and eventually he went to whoring news for Fox. I guess when you need a job you need a job. Maybe he's finally fed up and will start fighting back to the other news whores. Although, I think he's probably repositioning himself, depending on how the wind blows.

The fact is that Geraldo can be a good journalist, but will he?

[H2O Man]

7. Sure.

He did good work years ago. He was associated with one of John & Yoko's benefit concerts in the early 1970s.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

10. There was a time...

When Geraldo's journalistic values were, shall we say, clearly progressive. He had a heart. A big one. He also had a newspaper in NJ, "The Two Rivers Times" that was known for fine, fine investigative reporting.

And then, he fell into the thrall of Roger Ailes, perhaps the most hated swine in TV news.

Geraldo is not getting any younger. He needs to get back to using what talents he has for doing what is right, and I think he knows what that is. What he did with the Willowbrook investigation stands, still, as one of the great investigative journalism efforts ever, for it made a real difference in the lives of those patients at that hospital.

Geraldo should still have it in him. The question is: does he have the courage, still? The idealism? Or has he become a eunich for a paycheck?

[The Count]

12. HE ACTUALLY LOST IT BEFORE meeting Ailes....Capone vault?

His talk show and Michael Jackson obsession? Can't blame those on Faux...They merely rescued him from the treasoncharges when he revealed our positions to the enemy in Iraq.

[WCGreen]

15. That was back in the early 80's wasn't it...

[The Count]

41. Yup. Faux didn't even exist then.

[butterfly77]

49. Yes, he needs a paycheck ...

with all of the ex-wives, and children he has...How many times has he been married is it five...

[Blue_In_AK]

11. I agree.

I used to really enjoy Geraldo back in the day.

[DemReadingDU]

37. Me Too

definitely it was pre-fox days

[peacetalksforall]

31. MSNBC cleansed the network - Rivera, a little left - a little for the

underdog - gone. Donahue - definitely gone. No hesitations. MSNBC - clean and right to ultra right. They've been despicable ever since. Until Olberman. They still make me sick and I have no respect for them - that means MICROSOFT AND GE. Two compaines along with their prison-crime-scandal-celebrity-death-destruction-lie spreader network.

Back to the beginning - Rivera went overboard, ridiculously so, when he joined FOX - guess they told him what they wanted - what they were all about. A lot of stuff not good for mere citizens. With bimbos leading the way for the good of their owners and the WH partners.

[rug]

40. Before he was a TV reporter he was a lawyer for the Young Lords, nationalist but fairly radical.

"Rivera was born in New York City, New York to Cruz Rivera Rivera (later "Allen Cruz Rivera"), a Puerto Rican immigrant, and Lilly Friedman, a Jewish American.<1> He grew up in Long Island, New York. He is an alumnus of the University of Arizona, where he played lacrosse at midfield. From September 1961 to May 1963 he attended the State University of New York Maritime College, where he was a member of the rowing team. He received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1969 and later attended Columbia University. He was a lawyer for a New York Puerto Rican group, the Young Lords, and attracted the attention of a news producer when he was interviewed about the group's occupation of a Harlem church in 1970."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldo_Rivera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Lords

[lapislzi]

50. I followed Geraldo during the 70s

He was a local reporter and did good stories...was instrumental in exposing deplorable conditions in a NY mental hospital (which was later shut down, if memory serves); other stuff that built him a reputation as a solid investigative journalist.

I always feel a little sad when I see him now, like a college friend who went over to the other side and you don't know why; you only see the end result.

[MichiganVote]

13. Overpriced hack.

[Colobo]

14. He called it on O'Reilly, and that deserves credit

[ComerPerro]

16. isn't it crazy that Geraldo looked like the rational one? LOL

[LiberalHeart]

17. Trust me on this: you don't have to be a racist to be against illegal immigration.

[Colobo]

20. Of course not, but is very easy to use illegal immigration

as an excuse to promote hatred against Hispanics, which is exactly what is being done by Dobbs, O'
Reilly, Savage and others on the right.

[LiberalHeart]

25. I watch Dobbs fairly regularly and don't hear that in what he says.

He makes sense to me.

[Cleita]

27. Businesswise he's cool. Even Randi liked him until he

showed his flip side.

[MichaelHarris]

35. I look at it this way

whenever people rant and rave for more border control. When they say, "round um up" I ask, "Who, the illegals or the people hiring them?"

The above posters want reform? Then let them go after those that hire them. Of course we both know that won't happen, Republican's like cheap labor and the campaign contributions those companies provide. As for "liberals" wanting to round them up I have no answer. I just wish they could look beyond borders and see all people equally. What would I say to a liberal who wanted illegals rounded up? Maybe, "You should consider striving for better wages and working conditions here. That way some of the jobs can be filled with "citizens" while the remaining could be filled with fair-payed immigrants".

We can't have border reform without capitalism reform. If we don't prosecute those who hire illegally, pay illegally, and treat human beings like implements then we can't truly reform anything. Immigrants built this country, we should celebrate that, not turn our backs on it.

[Cleita]

45. You my friend have the solution. Of course it will fall on deaf

ears because it isn't the solution most Americans want. Left leaning Americans want no immigrants here competing for their jobs and right wing Americans like the cheap labor, especially the domestic and farm labor. So until we remove prejudice and greed from the equation there will be no meaningful solution.

This is a bit off topic but now I've heard the ultimate stupid idea in controlling the border. There is some kind of weed that grows on the border that interferes with surveillance equipment. Now the idiots who want to put up a wall also want to import a scale to feed on these plants. ARE THEY CRAZY!

For anyone who has had to deal with our own domestic scale killing our trees, you have to imagine that an imported scale would spread and have the same devastating results on our forests as the fruit fly epidemics in the past.

For those who don't know what scale is, it's hard shelled insects that clump onto a tree branch in colonies and suck the tree dry until it dies. Unless you know what they look like you would have no idea that they aren't part of the tree until you scrape them off and they start moving. They are very creepy.

[Cleita]

22. Illegal anything should be frowned upon.

So when our unelected leaders in high office flaunt the Constitution in our face, because in their minds we are stupid, why isn't there the same outcry?

I guess it's easier to blame some poor slob living in a leanto under the freeway, than some thieving jerk in his high security mansion.

[lonestarnot]

18. Who the fuck would tune in to bildo.

[BuyingThyme]

19. Malloy's about to play the audio.

NovaMRadio.com

[citizen snips]

21. Advocating border control is not racism.

I like Lou Dobbs but you can make a good case with O'Reilly and Savage.

[Cleita]

23. Border control, physically is impossible, so we need other

ways of controlling whom enter this country. However, those who scream about it the loudest are those who benefit from it the most. Appealing to your racism, your classism and your fears of losing your good job is what they do.

[citizen snips]

24. Saudi Arabia was able to shut down their border

to keep out masses amount of Iraqi refugees.

[Cleita]

26. Do you have a source for that statement?

I haven't heard about it. Maybe the Iragis didn't want to go there. I know I wouldn't want to.

[citizen snips]

28. ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/01/wirq01.xml

[Cleita]

29. Thank you for the link.

They haven't built it yet, but I don't think it's going to keep out any maurading tribe who is pissed off with them from crossing into their country, if they really want to.

[Cleita]

30. Thank you for the link.

They haven't built it yet, but I don't think it's going to keep out any maurading tribe who is pissed off with them from crossing into their country, if they really want to.

[citizen snips]

32. It will take a couple of years to build.

I can agree that it will not be 100% effective.

[ProudDad]

34. Then why did you try to make us think

the Saudi's had successfully shut their border? :shrug:

[depakid]

33. Completely different situation

Advocating closing the border is not only xenophobic- but absurd and doomed to be a wasteful failure.

The only thing that's going to slow down undocumented immigration is:

1. To improve conditions in Mexico and Central America (repealing NAFTA would be a start- though education and population control would also help). and

2. Ensuring that access to substandard employment in the US is severely limited, if not curtailed.

Obviously, agricultural workers ill still be required- but that'll require open borders along with some sort of Braceros type of program.

[Cleita]

44. The bracero program created an underpaid underclass, so

it was a failure. It was better though than what is happening to those people today, where they are hunted down by la migra everytime a white politician wants to score political points at their expense.

[depakid]

48. The anology would be

something akin to the situation that was in place before Clinton's ill advised Operation Gatekeeper- which made border crossing much more difficult.

In a classic instance of "the law of unintended consequences," tightening the border substantially increased undocumented immigration (by this I mean permanent residence) because formerly season workers- or those who came for temporary employment found it MUCH more difficult and risky to return home to their families and then come back for work.

Faced with the choice of being cut off from their income or being cut off from their families, they ended up staying all year round- and then sent for their families and extended families!

People- and especially policymakers need to accept that to some extent, the free flow of labor across the border is a necessity (although to the same extent people and policy makers should recognize that the unfetter flow of capital- via NAFTA has been an abject failure).

[shance]

36. Major Kudos to Geraldo for both Katrina and tonight. He gets it.

I was so impressed at his eloquence and as I said in another thread, conviction.

I loved the fact that he didn't back down.

He was strong and forthright.

So rare these days.

[underpants]

38. He also forced the complete overhaul of our mental retardation hospital system

He did a investigative report on the conditions in NY state that had far reaching effects throughout the country.

[Caro]

39. It is possible to be anti-illegal immigration ...

... without being anti-Hispanic.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

[Cleita]

46. Sure you could be anti-illegal Irish or Canadian or any other

number of other nationalities who enter our country illegally and take jobs here. However, there seems not to have been the same outrage against these immigrants as the brown Spanish speaking ones. Just saying.

[uppityperson]

42. Indeed. I don't care if it was a "stunt", Geraldo came up a bit in my estimation.

[ellacott]

43. I thought Geraldo quit MSNBC

because they wiuldn't send him to Iraq.

It's true that he used to be a good investigative reporter. To me, he caught a little caught up when he had his talk show and went downhill from there.