Russell Brand Takes Second Swing At Fox News Host Bill O'Reilly

Russell Brand Steps Up Offensive Against Bill O'Reilly

Russell Brand looks determined to get into another long war with a Fox News anchor, as he delivered a second stinging attack on Bill O'Reilly just a few days after the first.

O'Reilly, the network's most notorious right-wing host (which saying something, coming from a crowded field) was accused by Brand of supporting "the exploitation and oppression" of people in Ferguson, Missouri, where people are protesting the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by police.

But O'Reilly did not take the bait, and if he is aware of Brand's videos, he has not been moved to reply.

This is in marked contrast to Sean Hannity, who reacted badly when Brand said he looked like a Ken doll, calling Brand a "D List actor".

In the latest installment of his The Trews video series, Brand criticises O'Reilly's self-congratulatory commentary on Middle East terrorist group Islamic State.

Brand lectures Bill O'Reilly on what Solzhenitsyn would have said about the terrorists of Islamic State

In his segment, O'Reilly replays a clip from two months ago in which he warned IS, then known as ISIS, were a grave danger to the West.

Brand says: "Why is cutting back to himself in exactly the same clothes, in the exactly the same mood, saying exactly the same thing only two months ago?

"He's trying to come across like he's Marty McFly. A couple of months ago it was pretty obvious ISIS were a dubious outfit. It's like he wants us to say: 'How do you do it Bill?'"

When O'Reilly upbraids Barack Obama for not seeing the world "in terms of good and evil", Brand says: "No one should.

"It's much more complicated than that. As I've said before the great Russian writer Solzhenitsyn said 'The line between good and evil does not run through nations, cultures, religions or creeds but through every human heart'.

'I'm capable of being cruel and making mistakes, as is Bill, as is Barack Obama.

"We have to tend towards the compassionate altruistic beautiful side of ourselves and hope that creates bonds and invisible mythical coalitions between each other."

The actor added that IS were the product of "cultural imperialism and corporate greed", saying: "It's always the people at the end of the line that get blamed. I'm not saying ISIS aren't horrible.

"We're not idiots. We don't need to have a conversation 'is beheading bad? Yes/no' We've had that conversation. Beheading is bad.

"It's always people at the end of the line - the people that smash a window, that pick up a brick, the people that are the consequence of this cultural imperialism and corporate corruption.

"If you want to this stuff to end, get the head of serpent stop going down these hopeless, pathetic tendrils.

"Of course, you need to stop those executions and brutality but don't them people in charge - the people that benefit from it financially."

O'Reilly said: "Hopefully all the chaos will wake up Americans who are asleep just as they were before 9/11."

Brand accused O'Reilly of using "the 9/11 bomb" which he called the "supercard" in the "top trumps of right-wing arguments".

He added: "The Trews is an attempt to give us the right information Bill, in spite of what he tells us, is the opposite of that.

"Bill O'Reilly's message is the same as Rupert Murdoch's, the same as Fox News' and the establishment's, 'things are ok the way we are, we will stay in charge'."

Will O'Reilly follow Hannity and respond to Brand's claims? Watch this space.

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