Merry Friggin' War on Xmas!

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 8:29 AM on December 25, 2007.

A merry Christmas to all of our observant Christian readers. And a happy, boozy day off for everyone else; indulge in a bit of crass commercialism and enjoy some nice fatty foods.

I personally woke up at the crack of dawn this morning and padded downstairs in my jammies to see what Santa had brought me. Sadly, just like last year, it was some mass-media crap. (Why, Santa, why?)

The culprit this morning was a decidedly fluffy CNN offering, with some insightful analysis about the true meaning of the season.

First up, a segment with Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. For New Yorkers, the reverend is a legend, but for those who aren't in the know, Billy's a showman whose message is simple: he preaches that Americans should ease off the consumerism a bit. Buy a little less, use a little less, create a little less waste and run up a little less debt.

Billy's a character, no question, and low-hanging fruit for a bit of mainstream marginalization, but CNN really went above and beyond by putting together a remarkably nasty little hit-job.

It consisted of shots of Billy in Times Square literally screaming at harried tourists to stop shopping. That was fleshed out with a series of soundbytes from … brain-dead zombies people on the street expressing shock and disbelief that anyone would even think that American consumption may be excessive. The requisite random European right-winger saying 'it's nonsense; you yanks do industry and commerce better than anyone in the world' was a priceless touch. Meta message: the idea that the spirit of the holiday season might exist separate from the compulsion to run up a boatload of credit card debt in a frenzy of mindless consumerism is craaaaaazy.

Then, a program exploring pressing theological questions. CNN promised a rigorous debate:

CNN's Roland Martin hosts a holiday edition of "What Would Jesus Really Do?" as he takes a look at the presidential political landscape to ponder how Jesus Christ might respond.

Martin turns to a star panel of theologians and the Best Political Team in Television to apply the question to the war in Iraq, gay rights, immigration, abortion, healthcare, the economy and more.

Here's a very rough transcript (I hadn't had my coffee yet) of the segment I saw:

Martin: We have with us two esteemed guests, Blah Blah, from the Institute of Ineffectual Lefties of Faith, and Blah Blah, of the Center for Corporatist Religious Frontery, and the question, gentleman, is this: Social Security: would Jesus Privatize it?

They then cut to the simpering liberal, and, get this, a time-clock with exactly 20 seconds appeared on the screen. That's right, not only did they have to explore the theological evidence for how an Aramean Jew who wandered the desert 2,000 years ago would vote on Social Security privatization, but they each got just 20 seconds to make their respective cases.

Pasty-faced Milquetoast Liberal: Well, Roland, of course Jesus would have opposed Social Security privatization because … mumble mumble … loaves and fishes … something about the Catholic Church in the 16th century …

Martin: That's all -- time's up. You disagree?

Snarling, Religious Right Buffoon: Well, of course Jesus would favor privatizing Social Security because he said that you have to honor your family, so only widows and orphans -- you know, people without any families -- should get Social Security.

Martin: Well, at least we can all agree that both sides have done a horrible job addressing this pressing crisis …

Pasty-faced Milquetoast Liberal and Snarling, Religious Right Buffoon [in unison]: Well, yes, of course, a pox on both their houses.

That was all I could take from the "Best Political Team in Television" -- talk about setting a low bar! -- and I figured I'd seek relief in the sweet embrace of the alternative media. But that didn't help; all I found in that stocking was a lump of coal, courtesy of one John Ridley on the Huffington Post:

He was America's first born again president. He was deacon of a Baptist church that -- during his bid for presidency -- he had to sever his membership with because they would not allow blacks to become members.

Shades of Huckabee.

Shades of Romney.

But I'm talking about Jimmy Carter who was then, as he remains now, a hero of the liberal fringe. The far left has no problem with Carter's faith, and never feared that he would be more of a theologian than politician.

And yet…

Hmmm. What could be coming? I'm sure it won't be a tale of liberal hypocrisy.

Huckabee runs a Christmas-themed ad. The liberals see a floating cross, and believe that alone make [sic] the man unfit to be president. Instead, I think that makes some on the far left too paranoid to trust with a vote.

That's right. They're liberal and they liked Jimmy Carter -- take away their damn votes!

Seriously. They're few and far between, but I like an intellectually rigorous conservative argument as much as anyone. Yet for the life of me I can't figure out why they're running such unabashed wingnuttery over there at the Huffpo.

The floating cross as subliminal imagery of Christ? How about that huge Christ - mas(s) tree sitting over Hukabee's shoulder as actual imagery of Christ? You know, just like the tree that sits at the White House in Washington where all the government offices are shut down on Dec. 25 -- the day we celebrate as the birth of baby Jesus.

Yes, nothing says "actual imagery of Christ" more than the Christmas tree, that holy relic of ancient pre-Christian Germanic and Norse pagans -- an evergreen no less, the likes of which Jesus never set eyes upon -- that somehow got attached to the holiday about 1600 years after Christ died.

Oh, but "Christ-mas(s) tree" -- Ridley proved that "Christ" is right there in the phrase "Christmas tree"! … and there's one in Washington!

It's a devastatingly effective argument.

And yet, despite the fact the majority of us acknowledge Christmas in some way, in typically liberal fashion the fringe uses the censorship of political correctness to turn "Merry Christmas" in a verboten phrase.

I know a lot of liberals, and they are definitely worried about … well, all sorts of stuff -- war and occupation and the economic squeeze working families are feeling and climate change and health care and on and on, but I've still never met a liberal who gave a shit about whether people say 'merry Christmas.'

I think the best example of liberal yuletide treachery this season was described in a post on the Captain's Quarters titled, ominously, "Oklahoma Cancels Christmas":

Oklahoma AG Drew Edmundson has decided to ban any mention of Christmas from the halls of Southwestern Oklahoma State University, by any state employee, in oral or written form. Mark Tapscott has the details:

Oklahoma attorney general Drew Edmondson drew national scorn earlier this year when he arrested Paul Jacob of the Sam Adams Alliance and two colleagues on trumped-up charges that they violated a discredited state law requiring all circulators of initiative petititons in Sooner Land to be residents.

Let me translate that: the Attorney General had the temerity to prosecute conservatives who were found breaking the law, and we'll keep that bug firmly up our asses until the day we die.

Now the Okie Napoleon is banning Christmas!

I am not making this up (in part because I am from Oklahoma and this guy is an embarrassment).

Part of the reason he's not making this up is that he's from Oklahoma and this guy is an embarrassment. If the writer lived, say, in neighboring Texas, would he feel free to just make shit up all the time? He doesn't say.

The Liberty Counsel explained the scope of the order:

John Misak, the Director of Human Resources, recently visited various university departments and employee groups and informed everyone that any decorations featuring the word 'Christmas' in any work or public areas of the university must be immediately removed. He also instructed everyone to discontinue the use of the term 'Christmas' in their speech while on the job. This censorship specifically includes exchanging greetings of 'Merry Christmas' among employees or with non-employees, whether initiated by a non-university employee or not.

Of course, as is so often the case, we were later treated to an "update" by the Captain…

… callers to the AG's office claims [sic] this isn't true, and they are wishing people a Merry Christmas when greeting callers. So I called there myself, and spoke with Emily Lang, spokesperson for the AG. Ms Lang confirms that they are greeting callers with "Merry Christmas" as a means of refuting this story. AG Edmundson did not issue this order, she insists; they are checking with assistant AGs to see if the advisory ever existed at all. At any rate, the AG does not believe state workers should refrain from Christmas greetings.

Ms. Lang wants people to know that they have a Christmas tree in the office, and hopes everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Of course she does.

The brave culture warriors at InDefenseOfAmerica put together a round-up of this year's petty Christmas outrages, and it's the usual hodge-podge of companies trying to appeal to customers of all faiths ("The Texas Gas Transmission Company - The company ended a four-decade-long tradition in Owensburg, Kentucky of displaying a large, lighted cross. The company's president, H. Dean Jones II, said the cross was a religious symbol and the company didn't want to alienate people of other faiths. [Grinch-o-Meter: 8]") and instances in which confused low-level functionaries at first banned this or that holiday tradition and then reversed themselves when people pointed out how stupidly they were behaving ("The Ohio Department of Natural Resources - Bureaucrats initially ordered all state parks to remove Nativity scenes because of one complaint. After being contacted by Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal defense organization, the ODNR changed its stance and decided to continue 'prior holiday traditions.' [Grinch-o-Meter: 6]").

The former are, of course, motivated more by extensive market research than by some covert desire to impose a dour, Godless Communist state on America.

Some among the latter group, one must suspect, are almost certainly inspired to launch their silly crack-downs on Christmas symbols because they fear the straw-liberals cooked up for them in the feverish minds of the Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys of the world, rather than the actions of any real-world seculo-fascists on the ACLU's payroll. As the astute observers at InDefenseOfAmerica noted:

During the Nov. 27 broadcast of The O'Reilly Factor, conservative talk radio host Mike Gallagher said he believed that the rise of conservative voices in the media, especially on talk radio and on Fox News Channel, has helped shift the tide in the War on Christmas.

Yes, or at least they created the tide, and continue to wallow in it.

Of course, even if these tales weren't such transparent BS, there's no evidence that the AG in Oklahoma -- Oklahoma! -- is any more liberal than the CEO of the Texas gas company that erected a "large lighted cross" in Kentucky every year for decades is likely to be. But, meh, them's just facts.

Let me wrap this up on a semi-serious note by repeating a point I've made in years past. The War on Christmas is funny as hell, but it's also a potentially dangerous narrative that bears watching as it develops from year to year. As Polly Toynbee points out on the front page, the war on Christmas is, in fact, a war on secularists; a tool with the potential to demonize what is already the most despised minority in the American political scene even further and marginalize their voices in the public discourse even more. It has scary overtones of eliminationist discourse, with a picture-perfect narrative of a wholesome, patriotic and religious body politic being eaten away from within by a treacherous, Godless cancer. Throw it into the larger culture war narratives -- with Muslims and Jews joining their verminous secular brethren to assail the most traditional of American institutions, and the potential is there for the narrative to do real harm.

And while I might be wrong, it appears to me that what was once seen clearly and almost universally as a gimmick to fire up a particularly dense segment of Fox News viewers and maybe sell a couple of books for John Gibson, is gaining some small bit of credence, bit-by-bit, each year it's trotted out. Take, for example, that screed about the "liberal fringe" hating the baby Jesus that's running on Huffpo as if it were a serious political commentary.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not worried about Blackwater picking me up and sending me to a re-education camp if I don't tell the guy at the deli to have a merry Christmas (he's Palestinian anyway). I'm just saying that it bears watching.

Tagged as: wingnuts, war on christmas, christo-fascism

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.