We are deep into War on Christmas season (following hard upon the War on Thanksgiving season), and have noted some encouraging portents
for the Jesus team. But as with the War in Vietnam, victory is in doubt
if the people's hearts aren't in it, and in contrast to last year, the tone of War on Christmas commentary is now largely taking a turn for the trivial, the temporizing, and the irrelevant.
Take, for example, RightPundits' WoC item, headlined, "The Christmas Atheists Are Back; Can't We All Just Get Along?"
Author Shannon Bell posits a population of "Christmas atheists" who
"don't believe in God but still celebrate the birth of his Son." Seems
like Bell and the Christmas atheists would have little enough to fight
about, but Bell weakly essays a challenge: "How does it affect your
life," says Bell, "if I, being a Christian, choose to celebrate
Christmas by first acknowledging that it's the birthday of Jesus
Christ; and second by putting up a Christmas tree and exchanging
presents with my family? Guess what? It doesn't."
Having thus disposed of those Christian atheists who would
forcibly remove her Christmas tree, Bell ends, "Can't Christmas
atheists and Christians wish each other 'Happy Holidays' or 'Merry
Christmas' without rupturing a blood vessel?"
This is what the War on Christmas is coming to: fights with atheists who celebrate Christmas. Luckily for our amusement, at least some of the brethren are better girded for battle:
normally devoted to upstate politics, offers "Why The Left Hates
Christmas." "Two thousand years ago," they assert, "the Christmas
Revolution began with the birth of Jesus." Jesus was not all about
loving thy neighbor, as the uninformed might think, but "the individual
interests and freedom to pursue life, liberty and prosperity." Back in
Pilgrim days these "proved harmonious in American communities," but
they are now "targeted for defeat by those who believe community
interests are more important than are individual interests."
It's Christmas as Ayn Rand might have approved of it: You give the
presents to yourself, not to parasites like your kids, who produce
nothing and probably believe in "witch doctors" like Santa Claus.
Pajamas Media's Barbara Curtis,
a "mother of 12," thought that when she and her family "moved from
California to Virginia in 2002 we could relax" about having Christ in
Christmas -- as who wouldn't? Yet she still has to fight to get
schoolteachers to include sacred music in the kids' holiday singalongs.
"Like deer caught in headlights," Curtis writes, "some seem unsure
which way to proceed." For example, one tells her they have Jingle
Bells and all that; "'But those aren't Christmas carols,' I said. 'What
about the birth of Jesus?' Deer in headlights."
Today, when approaching the deer, Curtis brings formal "guidelines"
from the Department of Education, and "with these in hand, I initiate a
conversation with whatever music teachers are new to us and explain why
sacred music is supposed to be included in music education." Now she is
"able to feel like the 'winter program' had meaning for my family too."
But she still wonders, "What if music teachers threw off the tyranny of
the unbalanced multicultural agenda and simply went back to teaching
kids to sing?" It's rather an empty question, as any school Curtis'
kids attend will receive instructions -- and maybe not only from her.
It would be interesting to hear what happened when some other equally
high-beamed parent insisted on "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" or "K-W-A-N-Z-A-A."
At American Daily Review, one Walid Shoebat
takes his fellow Jews to task for celebrating Hanukkah instead of the
Big C. "The Bible is the word of G-d not the Talmud or Mishna," he
proclaims. "The real reason liberal Jews celebrate Chanukah is because
it is close to the festival of Christmas and multicultural competition.
The date of Dec 25th is based on a pagan holiday. I do not say this to
disparage Christians but based on historical fact..." We're not sure what his argument is, really, but he ends, "Merry
Christmas, Happy Chanukah and Happy Holidays. I think I have covered my
self for the sake of political correctness." (Nice of him, but why did
he bother?)
Shoebat is gone one better by a Muslim defender of Christmas, Mahmoud El-Yousseph.
"I have noticed over the years that when it comes to celebrating the
birth of Jesus -- Peace Be Upon Him -- the frequent use of generic
greetings in public places," says El-Yousseph. "Although some may see
these as harmless, I however view this as an affront to all Christians,
and to me as well." Also an affront to El-Yousseph: "usury (high
interest rates charged on credit) stores open on Sunday, no prayer in
schools, marriages put asunder by man, homosexual 'marriages,'" etc.
This is probably a put-on (though these days, how do you tell?), but he's found at least one taker ("It is good to see that the politically correct attack on Christmas is obvious to those of other religions").
We expected much better. Maybe some of the blame should go to President
Obama. It's only his first War on Christmas, but he's already soaking
up a lot of the rightblogger outrage that normally goes to the ACLU and
secularist chain stores.
For example: "That devious Muslim, Barack Obama, is scheduling
his speeches to knock 'Charlie Brown's Christmas' off the air," says
Jay of John Sunol. There's also Obama's treasonous "Seasons' Greetings" card, his acorn-shaped Christmas cookies
("rubbing the President's affiliation with the controversial group
ACORN in everyone's faces as though they were punishing a puppy by
rubbing its nose in their sh*&"), the creche he did put in the White House but not fast enough to suit rightbloggers ("There was almost no room at the White House"), etc.
Not to mention the Obamas' Oprah interview, in which Michelle asks Barack "What are you gonna get me [for Christmas]?" which Manly's Republic
parses aggressively: "The first two sentences uttered by the Klingon
Princess sum up with elegant simplicity the mind of the Obama voter.
'What are you gonna get me?' I'm reminded of the various video and
audio clips of delerious Obamabots exclaiming how they were looking
forward to having their mortgages paid and their gas tanks filled; of
jubilant paupers whose squalid lives would be changed by free money
from 'Obama's stash' ..." Manly also observes that "the dominant half of
the Obama household isn't endowed with a penis."
There's also an Obama theme at Brouhaha,
which seeks to aid creatively challenged colleagues with a template for
a "perfect year end letter" to distant friends and family:
"Hello everyone! Kisses and hugs to you all! Our family had another
really great year and I want to share with you just how wonderful our
lives are. ... As for our son, name here,
he is really doing very well in school. ... Not everything is
picture-perfect though. I want my America back! I know its an
'Obama-nation' now but enough is enough. We are becoming a socialist
nation in the hands of these liberal do-gooding bleeding-hearts," etc.
You see the problem. Once your grandma, who's been heretofore sending you the e-mail staple "Twas the month before Christmas, When all through our land, Not a Christian was praying, Nor taking a stand," gets hold of Brouhaha's letter, she'll forget all about the War on Christmas and concentrate on the ongoing War on Obama for Christmas. And it's the folks who rely on outrage over un-Christmasy chain stores who'll suffer.
It's gotten so bad correspondents have had to go all the way to Israel
for breaking War on Christmas news. There a "Lobby for Jewish values"
is trying to keep Israeli hotels and restaurants from putting up Christmas decorations. "Jewish lobby: war on Christmas," cries Studiosus Theologiae. But they can't get up a minyan of denunciation, and outlets like Gawker and Matthew Yglesias are just making fun of it.
War on Christmas fans have to be worried. Even the Catholic Archbishop of New York has called for a War on Christmas "truce." Good Lord! Could we be looking at a Year Without a War on Christmas? Republican Congressmen are doing their part with a resolution
that "strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas,"
but it's hard to maintain interest when the people's minds are
elsewhere, and it appears the new Democratic Administration has
directed much of the anger normally devoted to atheists onto
themselves.
Sweet Jesu! Is there anything Obama isn't to blame for?
Roy Edroso's Rightbloggers: Exploring the right Wing Blogosphere appears courtesy of our sister paper in New York City, Village Voice.
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