12/26/2011
War Against Christmas: Hard Pounding Now
Perhaps it is appropriate that at a Christmas where the most prominent movie release appears to be a celebration of the massacre of white men and their horses in World War 1, the War Against Christmas has become similar to the Western Front — heavy fortified entrenchments, sudden outbreaks of extreme violence, and very little overall movement.
The problem is that the forces of evil have made tremendous gains. The fact that they are holding these gains is not dramatic news, but it is a very objectionable fact. And every year that goes by the memory of what Christmas once was fades. As the Los Angeles Times said in 2006:
PERUSING 125 YEARS of Christmas editorials in the Los Angeles Times is a dizzying experience…journalistic sensibilities have shifted so radically…Up until the 1960s, many of these annual paeans read as if they were written by Christian pastors, and wouldn’t sound out of place if read aloud during a Sunday church sermon.Few things could signal the about-face more sharply than an editorial from 1989 that urges people to say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas,” so as not to cause offense to non-Christians." (VDARE.com emphasis) L.A. Times concedes: Christmas War Denial fallacious. See also War Against Christmas confirmed in MSM! December 22, 2009
Having just seen a true classic of MSM news management/suppression in the CBS Presidential Debate atrocity, it is not surprising to find a continuation of the MSM policy of very recent years of ignoring the Christmas controversy. Just to find simple overviews of the situation in this country one has to turn to the U.K. media — for instance
War on Christmas: Is the festival under attack? By Daniel Nasaw BBC News Magazine 23 December 2011
or The War on Christmas is real, and the atheist barbarians are winning it By Tim Stanley The Telegraph December 23rd, 2011
When action has flared up, though, it has been very brutal. It is difficult to surpass the vicious Christophobia documented by James Fulford in War On Christmas In Iowa: "Journalism" Professor Lectures Students, Boasts About It In The Atlantic. Or the totalitarian intolerance expressed in the banning of Congressmen even incidentally referring to Christmas in their franked mail which I discussed in Congressional Christmas Greetings Banned — Preparing For Gingrich Presidency? (A story not properly understood by the BBC correspondent cited above.)
Of course war-weariness is present, with corollary wishful thinking. I simply do not agree with the optimism implicit in Christmas making a strong comeback: Holidays are getting 'merry' again by Liz Essley The Washington Examiner 12/24/11
At the American Family Association, the annual list of companies deemed "naughty" for treating "Christmas" like a four-letter word is shrinking, a spokesman said."In [2006], the naughty list was probably 80 percent of the entire list. It was amazing," said list coordinator Randy Sharp.
This year, 14 companies were listed as "naughty," 60 were "nice" and eight were on the "marginal" list. "Naughty" companies included Gap, Office Depot, Victoria’s Secret and Barnes & Noble.
My impression is that the AFA’s threshold for “nice” is very low and that they have recently down-played the issue (try finding it on their website). I admit I am disappointed they have not taken up my 2009 suggestion War Against Christmas: Why not carry it to the Mall Owners?
Continuing the War theme, alarming things are happening at National Review, where Peter Brimelow started the War Against Christmas Competition in the mid ‘90s. Of course it was dropped when the Neocons took over — ten years ago there was no NR reference to Christmas at all! — and the controversy was explicitly renounced in 2006. This year there have been decent columns on Christmas suppression by Mark Steyn and Joshua Goldberg. (Although true editorial sentiment is shown in classifying all seasonal stories under “Holiday”. Why not “Christmastime”?)
What alarms me is no less than two (2) stories ominously bemoaning the fate of Egyptian Christians.
It reminds me ominously of another aspect of 2006:
NRO Remembers Christmas And Chooses A Gift: More War.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.