FOX vs. Amsterdam 1:1
UPDATE: a followup on this item can be found here.
Amsterdam as “a cesspool of drugs, corruption, prostitution and crime”, or just a friendly city where people have an open mind and where abuse of drugs is far less a problem than it is in the US? The battle is on, after Elian Wils (28) and Robbert Nieuwenhuijs (26), both from Amsterdam, made a video in which they tried to get some nuance into the recent bold statements about their city by FoxNews anchor Bill O’Reilly.
“It felt really bad to see my city being attacked like that”, Nieuwenhuijs said to Het Parool. So he took O’Reilly’s most striking statements and shot some footage to prove the opposite. He combined it with statistics to show what the capital of the Netherlands really looks like, as compared to the US. For example: Percentage of the population that has ever used cannabis (USA: 40.3%, Netherlands 22.6%), homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants (USA: 5.6, Netherlands 1.2) and the amount of overdose related deaths per million (USA: 38, Netherlands 2.4)
But of course, Bill Reilly wouldn’t be Bill Reilly if he wouldn’t have found a way to fuel the fire some more. His conclusion about this “very cute propaganda video” is that it stresses the dutch naivity: all the international organised crime comes to the Netherlands because of the dutch permissiveness and lack of enforcement around drugs, O’Reilly states. ”Amsterdam is a Disney World for those people.”
Nieuwenhuijs’ numbers don’t impress him a bit. “The way they do statistics in the Netherlands is different.” And to silence the remaining people in doubt, O’Reilly finishes his item about Amsterdam with a punchline that has the power to end every debate: ”I don’t even care what’s happening in the Netherlands. All I’m saying: this is coming here, to the United States.”
Americans better be warned.
Dutch public tv has broadcasted (starting at 06´18´´) an item about the battle between Wils/Nieuwenhuijs and O’Reilly on august 21.
UPDATE: Nieuwenhuijs and Wils have announced that they will produce a new video shortly. It will consist of interviews with American tourists visiting Amsterdam. As soon as it is available, it will be published on True/Slant.
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Sheesh, after Michael Savage, I wonder if it’s becoming a badge of honor among American conservative commentators to be banned in a European country.
Haha, really looks like it. Shall I offer him a guided tour?
In response to another comment. See in context »It always puzzled me typical reaction, when Amsterdam is mentioned in conversation. People usually start snickering and giggling like 15 year-olds.
I am not Dutch and I was in Amsterdam only once: It will always stay a city of Rembrandt’s “Nigth Watch”, Van Gogh’s Museum, canals (“grachts”) and as the place where Anne Frank wrote her diary.
Go, Amsterdam!
[...] statements. The FOX anchor replied almost immediately with a new item on his FOX news show. See True/Slant for both [...]
[...] to”, “Disneyworld for those People”, a.k.a. Amsterdam, is hitting back. The battle between two young Dutch film makers and Bill O’reilly (FoxNews) continues. A new video shows [...]
I made an ‘Amsterdam is a cesspool’ t-shirt.
hope you like it. Plz vote for it.
http://6dollarshirts.com/submit_a_design.php?view=submission&id=1254053679
[...] it was the Amsterdam Tourisme & Congres Bureau (ATCB) that organised the response to Bill O’Reilly’s criticism on Amsterdam. The Fox News anchorman had called the Dutch capital “a cesspool of drugs, [...]