Texas uses "Merry Christmas Bill" to push theocratic agenda

By Michael J.W. Stickings

What the hell's the matter with Texas? It's not just that it's batshit crazy, or at least in the hands of batshit crazy Republicans, it's that the craziness is deeply anti-American:

Christmas may be seven months away, but Texas is ready for it.

State lawmakers there waged their own battle against the so-called War on Christmas on Friday, passing legislation, House Bill 308, that allows public school teachers to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah" and display Christmas trees, nativity scenes or menorahs. Winter displays must represent more than one religion or include secular symbols.

But while the legislation specifies that schools may not constitutionally favor one religion over another, the bill is named for only one religion -- Christmas.

And that tells you all you need to know.

They've given themselves some cover by attaching Judaism to Christianity, which fundamentalists do these days, and by requiring that at least one other religion be represented, but come on, we all know what's going on here. (And it's not the war on Christmas, which doesn't exist. That "war" is made up by conservatives using fake victimhood to push their agenda.)

It's right-wing Christians pushing theocracy -- the Constitution, the very idea of America, be damned.

A Christmas story

By Capt. Fogg 

I'd describe her as a sweet little old lady except for the nearness of our vintages, but she's barely five feet tall and fragile. We'd been talking about the Kindle e-book reader and she had asked if I'd read Bill O'Reilly's book on Lincoln. 

"Umm..." I said, stalling for time. 

I remember not long ago having shocked her, and the entire dinner table for that matter, by expressing distaste for Glenn Beck as a reliable source of information, and I really try to be polite to nice people but I went on: 

"Well, I'm not a big fan of his."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I think he tends to make things up or tell us things he gets from rumors and websites without verifying them, but I think that's true of Fox in general. I remember the first time I listened to him years ago, but maybe it was Hannity. I get them confused sometimes because I never watch Fox." 

The look of astonishment still had not faded. 

"But anyway, he was going on and on about how the PC liberals had banned Christmas lights in -- I think it was Muskegon, Michigan -- or wearing red and green clothing on Christmas -- and of course it was immediately checked by another network and it wasn't and of course it was a surprise to the mayor who had never heard of the whole thing -- and of course Fox never hinted that it had been caught in a lie."

Well here I go, I've lost another friend, I thought, but actually she was smiling.

"You know my son says the same thing about Fox: 'They make up stories, mom, don't watch them.'"

"He must be a brilliant guy if he agrees with me," I said, a bit relieved.

"He's got a Ph.D. in biochemistry."

"He sounds smart in spite of that."

"He is," said the proud mother, "but still, what I don't like is when they tell us we can't say Merry Christmas any more."

"But who ever told you that? That's what I mean. Nobody, and certainly not anyone in government has said that -- only Fox News! Merry Christmas! See, no black helicopters." 

**********

I try so hard to avoid such things. I'm much nicer in public than I am here, really, and I don't want to make people feel bad, but you know the day is only half over and I have already read in several places how those PC liberals won't let you say Merry Christmas and make you say Happy Holidays, which means you have to allow people other options, which means our Christianity is under attack and we're all victims of those PC liberals who hate Christmas. As I said, they're putting words in the mouths of their straw men and we're believing it, and it may be that the only people defending the right to celebrate whatever we want in our own way and the right not to be forced to celebrate are those damned PC liberals and their damned Bill of Rights.

So maybe Lyin' Bill and Insanity Hannity and the Fox Fiends have done their work well, or maybe the people who pull their strings are pulling other strings, I don't know, but if you want to wish me Eid Mubarak or happy Adam and Eve day (which in fact it is) or Krishna's birthday (if he has one), I'll wish you one too and I'll celebrate our secular laws that allow it and curse the bastards who equate that right with the fall of American values. 

Merry Christmas. 

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

It's a Tax!

By Capt. Fogg


The War on Christmas, like the 'Black Friday' sales, began early this year. Faced with the growing difficulty of explaining how paying the Bush Administrations bills makes Obama a spendthrift and how asking for a smaller stimulus package makes him more reckless than Bush while all the time being a communist, Mau-Mau, Fascist, do-nothing tyrant, the need for ever more idiotic distraction generates the need to elevate even more mole-hills to Himalayan proportions. So this year, it's no longer about how that Muslim Obama and those damned Jews and atheists are at war with Christmas, it's about how that damned tax-tyrant Obama is making us pay more for it ( and costing us jobs. ) Welcome to the new act in the Republican circus: the Christmas Tree Tax.

The Christmas Tree Promotion, Research and Information Order, which was first proposed during the administration of President George W. Bush in response to the yapping of agricultural lobbyist Christmas Tree Promotion Now, gave the President authority to add a 15 cent charge to every tree to be used to advertise and promote Christmas trees. The government will not use these funds, the Christmas tree growers will use the money collected from retailers to promote further sales with the intention, or excuse that increased sales will more than offset the cost. It's kind of a capitalist idea, Republican style -- you know, like the $80 million-a-year beef promotion order imposed during the Reagan administration, or the $8 million-a-year peanut promotion order imposed during the Bush administration. But we're not talking about St Ronald or St George, we're talking about that anti-colonial Kenyan/Indonesian killer of African Christians who hates Christmas and white people.

It's a TAX! scream the headlines and the banshee bloggers. How can we expect anyone to hear the whisper of "it's capitalism" from the rational rest of us? Obama Couldn’t Wait: His New Christmas Tree Tax, howls the headline at The Foundry, the blustery blog of the Heritage Foundation hammering out their daily dumps of hammered, beaten, twisted and red hot baloney. Will there be another headline informing us that the President reconsidered the Bush program and cancelled it?

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Season's greetings

By Capt. Fogg

If you thought there was a silly season in Florida, you're right. If you think the season is shorter than 52 weeks, then I would disagree, although a case can be made that as long as the legislature is in session, idiocy is in season.

But there are high points, special events worthy of special status, although which ones to celebrate differ from political faith to faith. I don't know how Florida's "smaller government" believers took the statement by one state representative against a bit of legislation forbidding anyone to participate in or watch for purposes of pleasure any sexual act including animals with the exception of the requirements of animal husbandry, but she seemed to understand that as allowing female humans to marry animals and she certainly opposed that, thank you very much.

It's hard to stand out as an idiot in a Florida crowd, but perhaps the following resolution, which was introduced last Christmas Eve by Sen. Gary Siplin, an Orlando Democrat, that would designate "Merry Christmas" as the official state greeting for December 25 will come close: 

WHEREAS, Christmas, a holiday of great significance to most Americans and many other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated annually by Christians throughout the United States and the world, and

WHEREAS, on December 25 of each calendar year, American Christians observe Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, and

WHEREAS, popular modern customs of the holiday include gift-giving, music, the exchange of greeting cards, a special meal, church celebrations, and the display of Christmas trees, lights, and nativity scenes, and

WHEREAS, many Christians and non-Christians throughout the United States and the rest of the world celebrate Christmas as a time to cherish and serve others, NOW, THEREFORE,

Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:

That “Merry Christmas” is recognized as the State of Florida’s official greeting for December 25. 

Can anyone make up stuff like this? I can't, and I wouldn't dare clog up the wheels of progress, if I'm still allowed to advocate it, with such Christmas fruitcake legislation while Florida is at the top of the unemployment and foreclosure heap. And yes, Siplin is a Democrat, and no, there's no false equivalence here. I report, you decide, and let the batshit fall where it may.

If it passes or does not, it's a gift to cynics that keeps on giving and it seems that every time the legislature meets it is indeed Christmas. Just don't ever call it a holiday.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Merry Mas!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

See what I did there? I took the "Christ" out of "Christmas" -- literally.

Because I'm a godless liberal waging war on Christmas, I have no choice but to take this step. And I'm not at all sorry to have to do it.

Simply, the right is right. Conservatives talk incessantly, belligerently, about this war on Christmas, and I've come to believe it.

So -- ye liberals, ye progressives, ye socialists, ye leftists of all stripes. To battle!

**********

Actually, back in the real world, there's no such war at all, just greater appreciation for difference and greater celebration of diversity.

And I do celebrate Christmas, just without the religion -- the way it can be in our modern liberal society, and, on those terms, I really like this time of the year, just as I did when I was growing up.

And it's been a nice, quiet day here at home. "Santa" came last night, the kids are happy, I've been watching the Diners, Drive-ins & Dives marathon on the Food Network, and now I'm just about to go make dinner.

So, yes, a Merry Christmas to you all, and Happy Holidays.

Whatever and however you celebrate, I hope you're having a lovely day.

Be safe and take care of one another.

**********

It'll be relatively quiet here at The Reaction over the next few days, but I'm sure we'll get some new posts up now and then, so keep checking back.

Talk to you later.

-- Michael

Barack Obama and the War on Christmas

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo from The Globe and Mail: "US President Barack Obama gives a high-five to a girl named Malia, like his daughter, after reading the book Twas the Night Before Christmas, to students at Long Branch Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia, during a surprise visit."

Christmas? Christmas?! 

What the hell is the president of the United States doing reading Christian propaganda to a group of easily-indoctrinated kids? Isn't he a Muslim? Or a Marxist? Or a godless liberal? Isn't he on our side?

How are we supposed to win this war if Obama himself is fighting for the theocrats?

And you conservatives out there, you've long suspected Obama of being a Khmer Rouge-style re-educator. How do you feel now that he's on your side? Happy?

You should be. Next thing you know Obama will go to church on Christmas and claim to be a man of faith.

Geez.

Murdering Christmas

By Capt. Fogg

Make no mistake about it, what the insurgents are calling the War on Christmas is nothing but an assault on our religious freedom and like a dog with a bone, or a teenager on the telephone, they will not stop of their own accord.

"There are people out there who are rewriting history and people who are buying into it because they never learned history:"

said the fellow next to me at the bar, a former teacher whose wife is a Glenn Beck devotee. We nodded together like bobble head dolls although I knew full well we were envisioning the same people on the opposite side of the game. He wasn't talking about the Fox people, the Fundamentalists, the sinister bastards rearranging the sets and props and actors on the stage of history to further their lust for power. The TV Christianists doing it under the pretext of educating the public that real history is fake history -- and at this time of year, although there are many distractions, their tawdry tableau is arranged to display the fiction of the Christian Fathers who intended that this country, the United States of America, be a "Christian nation" in the same fashion as medieval Europe.

I'm not in a position to say that we ever had an educational system that didn't serve as political indoctrination. I do remember being 'taught' that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, which institution was, as it was related, moribund already -- and of course General Custer was still being presented as a hero in my youth in the segregation era, but a long standing tradition of doing wrong is hardly an argument for continuing it, to anything but a reactionary mind.

"Can you imagine it? Some people are actually offended when I say Merry Christmas!"

said the man on TV. I turned on my new battery operated portable flat screen that I just bought as part of my home hurricane preparedness kit this morning and was reminded of the fact that if one can only get broadcast TV in this area, at least half of what you can receive are Jesus channels. Note that I didn't say Christian. There's a difference. Frankly, I've never encountered offense at these words, although I have seen the Pavlovian reaction: "well you can't say that any more." Yes you can.

"Can you imagine it, some schools are having 'Winter festivals!' What do they say? Merry cold weather? I don't like cold weather, I like CHRISSSSSSSSSTMAS!"

Indeed some people look carefully in your face to gauge any hidden reaction when they say the formula. Merry Christmas, for the next week is a test, a shibboleth, not a wish. "Are you one of us?"

Yes, some people are rewriting history, making up stories about Christmas being made illegal, Christians being persecuted; about big-box home improvement stores ignoring Christmas and acknowledging holidays of nefarious, un-American religions. They're good enough at the game and we're gleefully gullible enough that we can stand in the middle of an acre of Christmas trees in the Home Depot parking lot, arms laden with the Christmas junk just purchased inside, and believe that the undoubtedly MuslimJewishAtheist owners thereof are trying to take away your right to worship trees and reindeer and a jolly fat saint. Merry Christmas -- say it often - say it ugly.

And they're not going to stop. They're not going to go away. They're not going to shut up until enough of us shout them down and make what used to be a happy season into the war they, in their sinister, apocalyptic insanity, so devoutly wish for.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

All I want for Christmas is a silver bullet

By Capt. Fogg

Christmas in these new dark ages is like a full moon to werewolves and lunatics, and the USA is the new Transylvania. You can almost hear them howling at night. In the dark, ruined castle of the House of Representatives, the latest time-wasting assault on truth, the Constitution, freedom of religion, and the Founding Fathers is H. RES. 951, a resolution drafted by 19 House Republicans stating:

Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and
Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment of the Constitution, in prohibiting the establishment of religion, would not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;

(2) strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and

(3) expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions by those who celebrate Christmas.

The framers have been framed once again, it seems. Of course. there is no prohibition against "mentioning" religion, but there sure as Madison is one against promoting one religion over another and establishing support for any belief or ceremony or symbol is as prohibited as Jefferson could make it -- the ignorant passion of the lawless Republican denialists notwithstanding.

No, I'm not going into the open hostility the Constitution writers had toward organized religion and it's influence on Government, or the largely fraudulent claims that "liberals" hate Christmas and Christians and want to take away your Christmas tree. You either already know or you're one of the hairy palmed lycanthropoids too demented to listen. For my part however, any party that harbors such Visigoths (yes they were Christian) is illegitimate to the core, an enemy of religious freedom and unworthy to participate in government on any level.

Is it humorous that the only real effort to stamp out Christmas and its various and ever changing "traditions" was by the "pilgrim fathers" we just finished pretending were the founders of American democracy. It would almost be laughable if these worms weren't eating the heart out of liberty by trying to restore exactly the sort of government we fought a revolution to rid ourselves of.

We've got 15 more days of raging Republicans who are going to make up stories about stores not having Christmas trees, towns banning lights or private business owners not having the right to call Christmas a holiday -- or private citizens not having the right to celebrate it or not celebrate it when and how they please. We have at least two more weeks of support for tyranny and attacks on our freedom of speech, press and religion. It's more than just some Scrooge, more than just some Grinch stealing everyone's good time, it's the ancient evil of religious authority stealing our birthright and for me, the holiday I used to love is hardly worth it any more.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Just a baby

By Capt. Fogg

Why is Fox News so damned afraid of secular humanism? They're not, of course; they're afraid of failing ratings and growing irrelevance, so they tell me once again and right on schedule that I'm at war with my favorite holiday because I'm not at war with my freedom -- and yours. If you think that virtue is its own reward or that doing the right thing by others whether or not you're rewarded for it is by definition the right thing: in fact, if you believe in freedom of thought, perhaps you're at war with Christmas, too.

Last year, the American Humanist Association ran an ad asking "Why believe in a God?" They did it again this year with No God... No Problem signs on city buses and the point of the slogan Be Good for Goodness Sake although certainly not out of line with most religious teachings, can according to the slimy logic of Bill O'Reilly, not only be a direct slander against God, but worse, an attack on the poor, helpless, little baby Jesus.

How do you sell atheism by running down a baby?

asks lyin' Bill so glibly that he can hope that the right people won't notice that being a good person, having compassionate and kindly humanist values, isn't likely to run down anyone's baby.

Blindingly blond and botoxed Margaret Hoover and Gretchen Carlson grinned in frightening fashion during last Thursday's "Culture Warriors" episode although the 85-year-old O'Reilly couldn't seem to remember who was who. Perhaps the beauty pageant grins were as sewn on as they looked or perhaps the grotesque lengths Fox has gone to demonstrate the dangers of freedom simply amused them, but Grinning Gretchen opined that

This is a direct and deliberate smear against Christianity. Do you think they would do this ad in July?

Well, St. Swithyn's day seems hardly worth the effort and after all, December is in some vague and fact-free fashion "the most sacred month" Easter notwithstanding. There's little of ritually sacred nature in July that needs to be forced down the throats of heretics, while December contains other holidays of other religions and the birthdays, of Horus, Mithra, Constantine's favorite Sol Invictus, and other Jesus predecessors -- but never mind. She managed to sneak in the proposition that not being Christian, not loudly professing faith that Jesus was born coincidentally on the same day as the Roman and Persian gods he replaced and not in April as their Gospels state, is an attack on our established State Religion.

Do you think they would do it against Allah on Ramadan? I don't think so! No.

said Lyin' Bill in turn and nicely adding the subliminal hint that the growing secularism of the Western world is actually to be laid at the feet of our Islamic President.

Why does the American Humanist Society want us to be 'good for goodness sake'? Why do they loathe the baby Jesus? He's just a baby.

What a marvelous way to heap fallacy upon fiction upon fraud and turn it into a call to battle. Is it really offensive to anyone's religion to recommend that in doing good unto others, one should not do it for reasons of prestige or self elevation - or that being a good person without doing it from fear of a vengeful son of a god is not really good?

Allowing people to believe or doubt or disbelieve anything they like can only be offensive to a religion that seeks only to convert and control and not to improve mankind. That's just the kind of religion and perhaps the kind of politics O'Reilly and his attendant familiars would be advocating if they really were advocating anything rather than fabricating reasons for rage in those whose mental capabilities don't extend to debunking a train of logic leading from "we don't have to believe in your god to be good" to "Why do they loathe the baby Jesus? He's just a baby."

The real questions, of course, are about why the two-bit Torquemada clones at Fox News loathe people who aren't fundamentalist Christian Conservatives, why lying and bearing false witness in the service of a myth is not loathsome while freedom of thought is an offense to the "baby Jesus."

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

'Tis the season

By Capt. Fogg

Yes, they're still pushing the "Obama is a Muslim" thing and one of the reasons must be that a central theme of the last presidential contest was that he was not only "the most liberal senator in American History," but a Marxist, a concept that is getting harder and harder to pin on our rather deliberate, frustratingly centrist and sometimes rather too conservative president. After all, an absurd claim is harder to counter and outrageous fabrications draw followings in inverse proportion to evidentiary support.

Legalizing "drugs" or prostitution is out of the question as a spur to the economy said President Obama to a student in Allentown, Pennsylvania yesterday. Regardless of his reasons for the statement, it's not the opinion of a "far left socialist radical" trying to make us just like European Socialists. Better to rave about conspiracies to pass a Kenyan off as a native born American because the evidence is, that Obama is at best a centrist on social issues like allowing gays to serve in the military and no more of a Marxist than anyone at Goldman Sachs.

If only the knuckle draggers behind the Muslim libel wouldn't try to give evidence for it! The idiot mayor of some two-bit suburb of Memphis is blogging that the President's speech on Tuesday announcing 30,000 extra troops to fight Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan deliberately was scheduled to preempt that night's broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas , with its "Christian message" because as a Muslim, he hates our holiday "traditions." After all, Jesus himself watched the program as a child, didn't he? That's not of course, even contorted logic, it's bullshit. I would love to ask Mayor Russell Wiseman if Franklin Roosevelt was a closet Shinto supporter for choosing the Christmas season to ask Congress to declare war on Japan.

Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation [sic] about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'....

said the ironically named Wiseman. Sorry, Russ, the answer is none of your damned business and none of the government's business as concerns what any of us think about God, Christmas, Charlie Brown, the Son of God or the Son of Sam. The question is whether we consider you as a traitor for giving aid and comfort to the Taliban by calling Obama one of them, or for misrepresenting the Constitution and advocating that we replace it with your infantile and ignorant beliefs.

If this is conservative thought in America, then all our asylums are filled with Republicans.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)