Bill O'reilly’s debate with Cornel West and Tavis Smiley

It’s no secret that in America, like most capitalist nations the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Sadly, we must also acknowledge that the motto of American politicians has long been we the politicians by the people for the corporations.There isn’t much study needed to find these statement to be true, just a 2 minute drive from where the constitution was written will be sufficient evidence. In Bill O'reilly’s debate with Cornel West and Tavis Smiley the very topics of poverty, racism and corruption are fully drawn out in a eye opening 8 minute canvas.

If I may play the devil’s advocate, Bill O Riley picked an amazing strategy to continue to mislead his audience by stating 3 facts that can be misleading with a crooked perspective. He first stated “46 million Americans live below the poverty line. That is 15% of the population,” from whitehouse.gov. This statistic couldn’t have been more appropriate for a debate on poverty. He then followed by “In 2010, $560 billion, 16% of the entire federal budget, was spent on the poor. That's up 5,400% since 1970.” This could also be great data but he concluded his introduction by stating “here is a stat that may provide some perspective on poverty, 9% of Americans have some kind of substance dependence. Most of those people cannot earn a living. So lets do the some math 15% poor 9% addicted maybe poverty is not exclusively an economic problem.”

I’m sure to an ignorant overconservative audience member or a Goldman Sach’s executive, this confirmed everything they have been fed by the biased right media or put at ease whatever is left of their guilty conscious. Within 30 seconds Bill O Riley made those in poverty due to their own mistakes representatives of the entire population under poverty. Thus causing Smiley and West to start the debate on an uphill incline. O Riley didn’t only paint poverty an outcome of drug users, but he made horrible policies, corruption, and a system designed to keep the poor on a hamster wheel until the age of 65 a distant second cause of poverty.

Through out the entire debate he rebundled Smiley’s and West’s points not by intellectual thoughts but by engaging them in a shouting match, making rehtorical misleading points, and even pretending to mistake “right” for “lied.” I’m sure West and Smiley came on air with the intentions of addressing the issue of poverty to in my opinion the people that desperately needed it the most(O Riley’s audience) but instead were filibustered through 8 minutes of BS.