12/22/2009
This year a remarkable numbers of exiles on the hardscrabble fringes of the MSM seem to be trying (rather pathetically) to advertise they are too! real journalists by writing utterly fact-deprived and essentially dishonest articles denying that there is a War Against Christmas — for instance here and here. It seems to be (so to speak) a catechism.
Of course, the VDARE.com Christmas Competition archives are a comprehensive refutation of this. And as I noted when this tactic was fairly new in 2006, The Los Angeles Times was honest enough to document the truth in Christmas, now and then December 24, 2006
PERUSING 125 YEARS of Christmas editorials in the Los Angeles Times is a dizzying experience, not so much because there are so many to read as because journalistic sensibilities have shifted so radically since the 19th century. 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.
(A smoking gun!) Another MSM admission that there has indeed been a war on Christmas has appeared this year: More than a century of war on Christmas By Jonathan Zimmerman, The Philadelphia Inquirer Mon. Dec 21 2009. Zimmerman is a History Professor at New York University, and as such probably has a visceral problem with actually denying facts. Instead he inverts them:
Once upon a time, in the good old days, Americans celebrated Christmas in their public schools. They sang hymns, hung stockings, and decorated trees. And nobody complained. There’s just one problem with this bleak winter’s tale: It’s not true.
He proceeds to lovingly recount the 1906 rebellion in the New York Public School system
when Jewish families in New York City staged a one-day boycott of public schools. The reason? School Christmas celebrations
(This event appears to be gaining mythical status on a par with the Plymouth Plantation/Squanto/Thanksgiving stories.) Zimmerman has the professionalism to record that, even then, some Jews doubted the wisdom of this war:
One Jewish school official urged Jews to ignore "agitators" and listen to "the more intelligent Jews of this city," who regarded Christmas rituals as harmless. "I have no objection to Christmas trees, holly, mistletoe, and similar decorations," he added.
But he notes that the aggressors won
The following year, New York barred hymns and other "religious content" from holiday celebrations in the schools.
History, of course requires not only candid recognition of facts, but also the application of accurate perspective. Here Zimmerman merits an F. Possibly the events in particular school districts abruptly converted from totally Christian to majority Jewish by the late 19th Century immigration flood could be argued to foreshadow the future to some degree. But the fact is that in the overwhelming majority of America’s school districts (to say nothing of her public places and shops), and until very recently, as Zimmerman himself says says in his opening sentence, people did indeed celebrate
… Christmas in their public schools. They sang hymns, hung stockings, and decorated trees. And nobody complained
Furthermore the retreat from that happy situation is emphatically not because the majority in those communities wanted it.
Point out to Professor Zimmerman he is misrepresenting the facts (please be polite).
A good fact-rich discussion of the Christmas repression process, with special reference to the Eastern European experience, is The War on Christmas: It’s a Commie Thing By Matt Barber Canada Free PressMonday, December 21, 2009 (Although not everyone will agree with Barber’s causation chain).
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.