The right thinks the “war on Christmas” meme works so well that it gets trotted out now for just about everything. Today U.S. Senator John Kyl, R-Arizona, whined that plans by the Democratic majority to work through the holidays is somehow disrespectful of Christmas:
“It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out without doing — frankly, without disrespecting the institution and without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff.”
News flash for Sen. Kyl: millions of Americans will be working through the holidays this year in jobs far harder than anything facing you and your colleagues. Are their employers not respectful of Christmas? Or of their employees’ families? And maybe our terribly (boo-hoo) overworked senators wouldn’t have to work through Christmas if some of them stopped obstructing work on just about every bill. Just sayin’.
UPDATE: Now Senate Republicans are refusing to support a budget bill for 2011 that would keep the federal government open after this Saturday. Why? The bill includes earmarks for pet projects senators have in their own states. Says Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas:
“Part of the reason we’re doing this is to raise the attention of the American people and let them know what’s happening so they can express their outrage.”
But Sen. Cornyn is having trouble explaining why he put some of his own earmarks into the bill he’s now complaining about. Hmmm…
Look, the problem in Congress right now isn’t a “war on Christmas” or disrespect for Christian holidays. The real problems are a war on common sense and a lack of respect for voters. Congress isn’t getting its work done because too many of its members are grandstanding and obstructing progress on just about everything.
1. There is a war on Christmas and has been for several decades, waged by many who delight in iconic iconoclasticism.
2. The Puritans outlawed Christmas as instigated by the Romans in their takeover of the Christian church under Constantine so as to make those faithful to Roman pagans who took after the Roman Sun God, Sol Invictus easier to “convert”
3. The custom of gift giving and celebration goes back to ancient times before the was time, and as such was too much fun for the Puritans to stomach.
4. Christmas celebration with said gift giving and big dinners is a cornerstone of the American economy. “Deck the halls with advertising. ‘Tis the season for merchandising” … a song by Stan Freberg back in the Sixties.
6. It is the loneliest part of the year if one is found away from home, or home is far away. For most, it is a break from the rat race and things that go bump in the night.
7
I’m working every day except for the four days right across Christmas. What are they complaining about? I’m the one paying the huge bills they run up!!! It just makes you wanna:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbOovr3Gm04&feature=related
amen
I’d like to see the old blue laws come back. People in retail often have no steady day they have off. When I was in retail management I once worked every day for 10-16 hours from before Thanksgiving to after Christmas, except those 2 days. No overtime since I was management. (Almost everyone was in management, ploy to keep costs down)
Why can’t the religious right push to keep the Lord’s Day holy? Do they lack respect for that? Isn’t that one of the 10 Commandements?
Well, all I know is that if I see them working on the Sabbath, I shall have to stone them. Them’s the rules.
The Commercial Right outranks the Religious Right, or at least funds it. With so many people off on Sunday, there is nothing to do except sober up.
Any business that wants to take a holy day off can do so without a “Blue” Sunday, Monday or any other day of the week. Some do, as is their right to do so. Some workers like a day other than Sunday or Saturday off as most non-retail business takes the weekend off. Like doctor’s offices.
This “war on Christmas” falsehood perpetrated by conservative activists, has been a hoax for years. What they see as a war is really a gradual opening of American consciousness to more than a single religious ideology.
Up through the ‘fifties, Christians had the show all to themselves: we all sang their songs, shared in their often self-indulgent public prayers, watched their popculture bishops on tv, and celebrated their make-believe holidays. The presumption of the correctness of their beliefs resulted in a cultural condescension and arrogance which smothered much of the western world for hundreds of years. The Elizabethan era was a sort of golden age of legally-enforced church attendance, and for a few centuries the rule was to not ask questions lest one be socially shunned.
It’s pretty well known now that all the things we like about Christmas–the decoration of trees, the exchanging of gifts, forgiveness of grievances, actually are rooted in prechristian religions, chiefly the Roman feast of Saturnalia, one of several popular solstice celebrations. When the early church was unable to supress these popular events, they gave up fighting them and adopted them as their own.
Today, we say “happy holidays” because several celebrations occur in the time-period, not just Christmas. Fundamentalists who are upset because they’re not dominating society the way they were accustomed see these changes as a war. Perhaps it is, since the war between cultural knowledge and entrenched religious pretension has never abated, and perhaps never will.
Actually the Sabbath is from Friday evening at sunset to Saturday evening at sunset. Jesus is actually a Sun god, and that’s why his day is on Sunday. Jesus’ birth is celebrated on December 25th as a metaphor for the rebirth of the sun at the winter sostice. So who is actually keeping the ten commandments?
These overpaid whining corporate shills disgust me. They bitch about having to work through the holidays (Oh Boo-Hoo, my heart goes out to them) yet are fine with keeping our young men & women in uniform in harm’s way over the holidays. (Fighting two UNFUNDED wars no less). They ought to be ashamed of themselves!!! Of course, that would assume they actually HAVE shame and the capacity to feel it. I’ve seen no evidence that they do.
Fact is if the president was a Republican, they’d have no trouble at all working through the holidays. They’re only raising a big stink because the president is a Democrat and a racial minority. Take some Beano jerks, grow up and get on with the business of government.
And PASS THE FREAKIN’ START TREATY for cryin’ out loud. Honestly, this gang is SO anti-Obama they’re willing to put our national security at risk just for the sake of denying Obama a little victory. That is downright treasonous!
I like Eric’s idea to stone them.
“Actually the Sabbath is from Friday evening at sunset to Saturday evening at sunset”‘
Dude, ‘Sabbath is…forever, man.
Tommy Iomi is god! ( Uh, there’s a lot of ’em in that pantheon so, small “g”. )
If I were to propose a Fruitcake Summit, do you suppose we might top it out with a cherry?