It's "The War on Christmas" Season Once Again...
By bluegal Thursday Nov 08, 2007 3:14pm
Just like holiday Christmas retailers, the spawn of BillO and Dobson like to rush the season. Talk2Action:
These days, the Religious Right doesn't even have the decency to wait until Thanksgiving to start whining about what terms people use to describe the December holidays.
Liberty Counsel, a Religious Right legal group associated with the late Jerry Falwell, issued an alert Oct. 30 vowing to slap retailers with either a "Friend" or "Foe" label this year based on whether the word "Christmas" appears in their ads, in catalogs and on Web sites.
Focus on the Family, in an effort to be hip and trendy, has a new video short out featuring Stuart Shepard, one of its faux reporters. The cheeky Shepard explains how this year he's celebrating "Tossmass" by discarding all of the catalogs that fail to use religiously correct terminology.
Not to be outdone, the folks at World Net Daily are hawking "Christmas Defense Kits" featuring a bumper sticker that reads, "This is America! And I'm going to say it: `Merry Christmas!'"
Login or Register to post comments.
First on the front lines against Xmas!!!
Unbelievable how weak the faith of so many xians is.
Why are reich-wingers so obsessed with "war"?
This is America and I'm going to say it: Out of Iraq Now!
Happy Hollidays!
A song for THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS courtesy of His Awesomeness Roy Zimmerman.
http://royzimmerman.com/lyrics/peacenick_toys.html
Peacenick: A holiday album that should play in everyone's home.
Actually the correct term is "Advent" which begins on December 2nd, four Sundays before Christmas. Christmas actually begins on December 25th and runs through January 6th, Three Kings Day, hence the 12 Days of Christmas.
Actually the holidays depress me anyway. I rooting against xmas this year.
Even Jesus himself said,
"Christmas! You're either with us or against us!!!"
WWJD?
Start labeling everyone into "friend" and "foe" of course.
That's what Jesus was all about.
Actually, we'll call it a preliminary first strike. Santa was known to be developing tidings of mass depression.
I'm disappointed that the Daily Show or Sam Seder didn't do month-long coverage of the War on Yom Kippur back in September.
If they didn't declare these insane wars, no one would notice them at all.
Dr. Matt @ 3:
Well, let me put it this way. If you look at a NASCAR event, or watch the military channel for more that 10 minutes a clear pattern emerges: Most of the advertisement is for male enhancement (whatever that is) or erectile dysfunction pills.
Draw your own conclusions, as the audiences of both are mostly right wing, conservative, white males...
Not this shit again.
The only thing more insane than the war on christmas asshats at foxnews are the atheist asshats who are embracing it.
Don't these people have any friends or family to think about?
To bible thumping christians who want to keep the name Christmas tree and not holiday tree.....Christmas tree are pagan!
Jeremiah 10:1-5 in the Bible says the following (NIV):
1 Hear what the LORD says to you, O house of Israel.
2 This is what the LORD says: "Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the sky,though the nations are terrified by them.
3 For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.
4 They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter.
Read the bible and drop the argument.
Mike @ 11:
At least there has been a real war on Yom Kippur.
THis is America and I'm going to say it : Fuck Bush
This has gotten to be like the annual return of the Swallows to Capistrano. Right on time, the religious wingnuts start complaining about being the persecuted majority.
Gas costs too much. I can't afford Christmas anymore no matter what you call it.
OK, folks, don't forget to pick up your copy of BILL O’REILLY’S TWELVE DAYS OF THE WAR ON XMAS
HAPPY HOLLIDAYS
There's a turkey a gobblin' out in the yard
Now he's gutted and stuffed and he's basted and charred
And your father is whistlin' and washin' the blood down the drain
Christmas is pain
There's a crowd on the hillside with hatchets and saws
With a keen disregard for the forestry laws
And they happily hum while the stumps slowly bleed in the rain
Christmas is pain...
(More of this great Bob Dylan-knockoff at the link;-)
With everything turning to sh*t for conservatives, I'm surprised they didn't start the War on Xmas in July.
When is the last time Focus on the Family or World Net Daily made a loud plea for people to rally forces to help poor people? Hungry people? People in prison? The cause of peace? Do Christians even know what the beatitudes are any more or are they too busy worrying about islamofascism?
Tom (not Tom) @ 18:
Well, this year the conservative cuckoos are early with their bullshit on Christmas, so we may have a dry winter.
Mr. Blade @ 15:
The O.T. also says we shouldn't eat pork.
CD @ 14:
Talk2Action is "more insane" than WorldNutDaily, FOF, and Falwell's goons? Interesting conclusion.
Neignvilleon @ 24:
Do all Christian adhere to the words of James Dobson and Focus on the Family or have you just stereotyped Christians?
Rusty Shackleford @ 27:
"Talk to Action is a platform for reporting on, learning about, and analyzing and discussing the religious right -- and what to do about it."
I doubt they have embraced the idea of a war on Christmas.
This year I'll be celebrating Chanuka (spelling?), Kwanza, and the return of the annual gift man from the moon! And all at the same time while saying Happy Holidays to everyone, and celebrate the birth of black Jesus because we all know he wasn't white!
Christmas is just too cookie cutter plain, ya know!
To combat the consumerists for Christ crowd, my bumper sticker reads, “All I want for Happy Holidays is my habeas corpus."
You know muslims never complain about Ramadan being underappreciated and Jews never complain about Passover, but Christians have to go nuts over a pagan holiday.
Lets not forget George W. Bush said that civil rights for gay people violate "religious rights".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7085158.stm
I don't hate Christians because there are certain sects that are very tolerate and most are very nice people, but some are very hateful despite having such power over the world. Muslim terrorism is a problem because they have been economically exploited in the past century. However, at my high school, Muslim students are generally more tolerate and accepting then many of the "devote" Christian Students. I know I can't make broad generalizations based on 2,700 students, but it seems the 80% Christian "minority" needs to lighten up.
Oh yeah, and Feliz Navidad!
WWJS @ 9:
WWJW?
Who would Jesus waterboard?
And please, quit hawking your made in China xmas junk already. Stores bedecked in xmas trees is bad enough but after being put on hold yesterday there was xmas music playing. unfriggin believable
Lynnianaa @ 30:
Hey, what about Christma-Hanu-Rama-Ka-Dona-Kwanzaa?
Yes, I'm really, REALLY promoting Roy Zimerman's album. Got a problem with that?
Duh! The War on Chrsitmas has started early because the X-mas troops are all over the place TWO WEEKS EARLY.
I was just out getting lunch and someone two feet away from me said, "Thank Goodness." What a bunch of secular propaganda. If that guy isn't trying to kill Jesus's birthday, then I'm a manipulated simpleton.
Jesus himself prefered Passover.
One cool thing, though -- miracle workers never get caught without a present for someone.
And then there was that camel. Parasite O'Reilly is trying to push his overloaded camel through the eye of the needle so hard, his head is buried in the camel's ass.
Oh wait! That's not a camel. It's just Roger Ailes.
CD @ 29:
The Talk2Action post was the source of the story. What "atheist asshats" were you referring to?
Rusty Shackleford @ 38:
Oh that explains why you thought I was writing about Talk2Action.
I forgot about that one. I'll add it, and Festivus, on my list of this year's season festivities.
It's the war invented by chickenhawks so they can say they have actually been in one:
"We fight the War on Christmas here so we don't have to fight them over there and possibly get dirty!"
Since everyone is starting the x-mas season so early I guess I'd better send out my greetings early, too:
BAH, HUMBUG!!!
CD @ 26:
I guess that God is either schizophrenic, a really bad writer with a massive case of ADD since the bible has some serious continuity problems. It is almost as if it was written by a bunch of failed writers who were pulling shit out of the thin air to fit their specific agendas at the time and place each specific book was written... oh, wait.
I don't understand why the religious right freaks out over the phrase "Happy Hollidays".
America is a capitalist Nation and ink costs money hence it is a lot cheaper to print "Happy Hollidays" than "Marry Christmas and a Happy New Year".
Further more not everyone celebrates Christmas but they do spend money thus it is a business savy move to make them feel included at a store.
Some background and history from the troops:
http://wikiality.com/War_On_Christmas
Dr. Who @ 43:
flame bait much?
curtilingus @ 8:
I'm with you, I hate the Hollidays and as far as I am concerned they can fight it out. BUT keep your religion out of politics, otherwise you are just like the people in the Middle East. I'm sure you can't see that, but its true.
Did you know Dec. 25 is not Jesus's birthday? Someone just picked that date so get a grip.
This is a perfect example of what's wrong in America - all the time and energy wasted on crap like this. Don't they know there's a war goin' on? Sheesh. I guess it's simple things for simple minds, and the righties have to keep the venom at fever pitch or else they can't function.
Mammon worship, how Christian of them. :roll:
The funny thing is the Bible denounced Christmas trees in homes and near altars. They were called asherahs and could be either a decorated pole or a tree.
The current tannenbaums are basically representations of the ancient Nordic tree Ydraggsil, which was their version of the axis mundi, with a Christianized dusting for justification.
JD @ 48:
Well said.
Even in the 1940's and the 1950's they were often wishing people, "Seasons Greetings." I've seen reproduction of Batman cover art with that greeting.
Given where we're at as a nation and culture and where we seem to be heading economically... I could give a flying fuck less about Christmas or any of these upcoming retail holidays....or what the friggin wingnuts want to bitch and moan about calling them..... JD
Rose @ 47:
Dec. 25th is also the birthday of Barbara Mandrell.
So wish people a Merry Mandrell.
don't waste your time on this crap... i don't care if this is off topic - but, please - everyone go to href="http://www.democracynow.org"> and watch or listen to dennis kucinich on todays show - he was awesome and had some scary info.
It is nice that these upstanding citizens are willing to stand up and defend Christmas. It is the only holiday in December and should be treated as such.
I always look forward to the War on Christmas. I hate Christmas!!!!! BRING IT ON
Mr. Anon @ 56:
Oh man that's Colbert level sarcasm.
*thumbs up*
My bumper sticker says,
Keep Christmas in church and at home and not in stores where it is reduced to a mindless, meaningless, empty ritual devoid of sanctity and value.
Too much?
Many of the people (B'nai Brith) who are screamin' about "Christmas" being displayed in public places and insisting on secularism are the same folks who are financially supporting a "Religious" or "Jewish" State in Israel. The duplicity irritates the hell out of me.
Calm
Stan @ 59:
Could you just say "Christmas doesn't come from stores"?
They throw that word "war" around pretty loosely and extremely disrespectfully when you consider that America has two very real wars raging right now, where people are dying and being maimed and mutilated. How many deaths have occurred in this "war" on Christmas? How many people have been banned from their churches and their community Christmas gatherings? How many are having to meet in secret so that they will not be imprisoned or killed? My God, why hasn't Bill O'Reilly had to defend himself against the people waging the war on Christmas? Has he been thrown in jail, or tortured so that he will quit claiming there is a war on Christmas? How many veterans returning from the war on Christmas are in homeless shelters?
This is stupid. But what is most discouraging is the number of stupid people who will believe this shit, even when their own eyes and own experiences tell them it is a lie. But these are the people who feel they have to shut their eyes and wave their hands in the air to worship God, like their God is some invisible cosmic hold up man. When will the stupidity end?
The "Merry Tossmas" video was actually pretty funny. It feels good to
throw awayrecycle all those catalogs. I don't bother to check whether they say "holiday" or "christmas"--I just toss 'em!Shouldn't Christmas be a uniter, not a divider?
Squeaky Wheels @ 64:
Seriously.
OK, I'm gonna take a chance here, because this has been on my mind all day, and I have yet to see an open thread opportunity... Speaking about off topic, and I don't want to be alarmist... but.. Does anyone have any idea what actual direction this comet thing that suddenly and pretty mysteriously suddenly flared up and got brighter is heading in?? Any astronomers out there can set the record straight on that?.. Reason being that the papers today discribe it as looking like the end of a dirty q-tip and the photo shown certainly looks like that.. No real tail visable.. Now I am not a scientist by any stretch nor do I star gaze, but here's the thing... If you hold a q-tip up and look at it straight on... what direction is that q-tip pointed in??? So, like I said, don't want to be alarmist and I really dislike going off topic but basically is this thing going away from us or heading in our direction??? Anyone know anything about this???? Thanks JD
"Not to be outdone, the folks at World Net Daily are hawking “Christmas Defense Kits” featuring a bumper sticker that reads, “This is America! And I’m going to say it: `Merry Christmas!’”
I'll be sure to send one of these to all my Jewish friends.
O'Reilly: Torture a nun for Christmas.
Hi, folks, Bill O'Reilly, with a message for your Holiday Season. As you know, we are at war with Catholo-fascists and this Holiday Season is no Furlough. I think that means anal sex. But anyhow, don't let the liberal neighbor who borrowed your lawn edger and then said it was broken but I saw him using it last week, spoil today's program, I mean your Holidays.
At FOX, we always know when it's the Holidays because Roger Ailes can't digest the eggnog, so he farts every five minutes. But that's not what I wanted to tell you. What you need to know is that this Holiday Season we will be torturing a nun every time someone uses the word 'Christmas.' Look, folks, Protestants do NOT celebrate Mass, not Christmas or any other Mass. It's Unamerican. What, are you going to allow the Pope to run your religion?
Happy Holidays, and let's not hear any more of the 'Papocatholocryptoromanapocalyptofakejesusism' best wishes this Holiday Season. And if you're having "High Holy Days," my staff wiill call the DEA. So don't try it. Every time you say 'Merry Christmas,' you Catholofascists, FOX Security will torture a nun.
You have been warned. Stay tuned, naked nuns being tortured after the break...
If people want to celebrate any holiday, fine. If they don't want to celebrate one, fine.
Why does it matter to BillO and his kind WTF we celebrate? You can't dictate how someone celebrates anything or any day.
Last Saturday when I went to the grocery they already had all the Christmas shit out to sell. Decorations and toys and such. They even had the fu*king Christmas candy out which will be almost two months old at Christmas.
Exactly my thought. And the people here at C&L are falling for the right's obivious cry for attention on this subject. Let the religious psychos cry, bitch, and bellow all they want. Being ignored is the last thing they want (hasn't anyone figured this out yet).
And no one should really give a flying f*ck what anyone else calls the season holiday. Just for one day out of the year, everyone needs to drop the asshole act and be nice to their fellow man/woman.
Lynnianaa @ 70:
Ya know what? Good for them. For me, however, I like the inclusionary feel of Happy Holidays. I don't always know who's jewish around me or I forget. I don't know who's christian and not. Perhaps it's just my lazy way wishing joy and a humble thanks to everyone around me the last few weeks of the year.
I just want everyone to be happy.
This means, however, I expect the companies I frequent with my money to do the same. I'm looking at you Target. I don't like seeing Merry Christmas less Hanuka or Kwanza (has Kwanza run it's course? - I never quite got with that.) when I'm shopping or in public places. I don't want to be associated with anything that makes people feel other or less than.
When individuals wish me Merry Christmas I find my common response is, "how do you know I'm not jewish?"
I don't want everyone to be just like me or pretend to be just like me - that would be excruciatingly boring!
www.theskinofmyteeth.com
David B.
Liberty Council, Focus on the Family, and WorldNetDaily have clearly one agenda: establishment of a state religion.
Be touched by his noodley appendage during this festive season.
Reminds me, as I'm overseas, I'd better get my Xmas cards started, so I can wish everyone happy holidays, in time for the big shindig.
Back when we all, or some of us, looked forward to the sights and sounds of Christmas for 11 months, that made it more fun and gave us all more Christmas spirit. Now that Christmas seems to begin at the end of October, by the time Christmas actually arrives, well, we are just about tired of it.
BTW don't forget Zappadan is right around the corner. Maybe if we have a war on Zappadan we'll sell a few more t-shirts (to benefit Electronic Frontier Foundation, not me).
personally, i will be glad when this whole christian fad is over--
Please say NO to all catalogues. Canada's boreal forest is being chopped down to make consumer catalogues. It is one of our few protections against global warming, along with the Amazon rainforest and Russia's boreal forest.
Squeaky Wheels @ 64:
It could be if the christians would STOP ATTACKING FOLKS.
Lynnianaa @ 70:
So... let people call it what they want, and stop with this campaign, and forget about issuing “Christmas Defense Kits” .
It's interesting that the article starts with a reference to Halloween.The first war on a holiday, largely successful, was one instigated by the Religious Right to remove Halloween from the classroom on the grounds that it encouraged Devil worship. The religious origin long forgotten, it was simply a chance to come to school in costume and read scary stories when I was growing up in the 50's and early 60's. It's disappearance in schools was the RR first success during it's initial ascendancy in the Regan days. I guess religious holidays like people aren't all created equally.
Happy Holidays and a Merry New Year....Now will that guy up there in the
sky(NOT referring to Santa), please do some Worldly Good and bring Peace,
Bring our troops Home, and put a stop to the starvation around the World.
Come on BIG GUY, you can do it, can't you???
I'm giving small amounts of money to charity in people's name this year. Food banks for my brother and sister in law, Pasado's Safe Haven (animal rescue) for my sis. You can buy livestock for families in 3rd world countries in the name of friends and family as well. I personally have enough and need nothing else. But I have to stifle a lot of 'WANT' for unnecessary shit.
I never get a tree, and I never do decorations. Fuck Xmas, and Fuck FOX 'News' and its intendant evil spawn. Happy fucking debt making Holidays, Sheep.
miss_kitty @ 83:
Does miss kitty need to be scratched behind the ears? ;)
allllllright Fox.....
let's watch two hotties making out when Bush invades Iran.
I will get the popcorn.
No Hanukkah? No Sikh holidays? No Kwanza? It has to be Christmas?
Seems kinda racist and anti semitic to me.
CD @ 28:
Personally, I don't think so. But silence is complicity, and I've heard all too few voices complaining about these Dominionist slimeballs highjacking Christianity in the public mind. Until that happens, I really, really have to work at finding sympathy for the average Christian, even those I love, when it comes to them feeling unfairly lumped in with the bat$#!+ likes of Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson. Understand that I mostly have very happy memories of Sunday School, and that going back to the tiny church where my parents were married and my sister and I were baptized feels like a homecoming, and not just because my relatives still attend. So I'm hardly anti-Christian. I'm just sick of these @$$hats playing the persecution card every time someone doesn't feed their insecurities by worshiping the same idols they have set up. And the fact that they sugar over their hate-mongering, theocratic agenda in such sanctimonious names pisses me off even more. But the fact that honest, peace-loving Christians can't grow a pair and organize enough to toss these bullies off the bus before they drive it off the cliff pisses me off the most.
So assuming that you're actually a Christian and not just playing Devil's Advocate (no irony intended), here's a question for you: What have you done to take back God and Jesus from those who have cast Them in their own hate-filled, capitalist image? Because until you do, you're going down in the same battered ship, PR-wise.
cubiclegrrl @ 87:
I've been at every major War Protest in the County for the last Year.
I've posted dozens of vids on Youtube.
And believe it or not I'm writing a book.
I have a simple proposition to all of us that believe we have no place to pull all of this mess together and demand action. There are many great websites that allow us to get together and voice our concerns, but I don't see that too many have really listened to our complaints. Well, I know we can change that. What if we decided to start not only a blogging site similiar to this and other decent sites, but took it a step further. Working in unison, we could actually create an action calander, come together, and demand that our grievences be herd and addressed. I know, it sounds complicated and off base, but what has been happening is nothing short of sheer stupidity. Just a thought, hell, I will lead the way,just get in touch with me. Its time to take back the airwaves and our government, which it is ours, not theirs for the raping. Thanks.
Great deal, CD--and kudos to you. Consider me impressed--and genuinely happy to someone else who doesn't shy away from standing up to the megalomaniacs who put the "bully" in "bully pulpit". Hope that you'll share the book title when it comes out.
The "War on Christmas" -isn't that the one where Bill O'Reilly earned his purple heart?
Seriously, there is no "War on Christmas".
If anything, there's a "War on Halloween"
Didn't millionaire evangelist Pat Robertson (a man with essentially no hope of squeezing his fat head through the eye of the needle) just declare no Christian ought to celebrate Halloween 'cause it's E-V-I-L?