Why sing carols when you can whine?

The American Taliban is at it again. Or still---depending at how you look at it. These nut cases are insisting that their fundamentalist view of the world is the norm and that anything that deviates from their uninformed and ignorant view of the world is an attack on them.

Jerry Falwell, the fat fundamentalist from the aptly named town of Lynchburg, along with something called the Alliance Defense Fund, supposedly have 1,600 born-again lawyers on the ready to attack anyone who says “Happy Holiday” instead of Merry Christmas.

Falwell started another fund raising gimmick called “Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign”. Falwell says regarding “We’re kicking their butts, and they’re unhappy.” He argues “we’ve gone on the offense now.” I for one remember this rotund ball of fat preaching at my high school years ago. He was offensive then and is even more offensive now.

Basically these fanatics hate the idea that people are wished a “Happy Holidays” instead of a Merry Christmas. They seem to have the bizarre notion that Christmas is a Christian holiday. Everyone with any education, which leaves out the shock and awe forces of the US Taliban, knows that Christmas was a pagan holiday confiscated by Catholicism a few centuries back in order to make it easier for pagans to become Catholics.

Now the fundie crowd hates pagans and don’t consider Catholics to be Christians. Why they are so intent on protecting Christmas trees and the like, all pagan symbols, is absolutely bizarre. There is absolutely no evidence that anyone name Jesus was born on December 25th and historically the Christian church did not see December as his birth month at all. Many in the Orthodox churches still believe the birth of Christ was in January. Most historians think it was months later.

The fascist nut case from the fraudulent Fox News, Bill O’Reilly, has been pushing the idea that this “war on Christmas” is part of a campaign to “get Christianity and spirituality and Judaism out of the public square.” Now how a Christmas tree is related to Judaism doesn’t seem to come to O’Reilly’s mind. But this is the idiot that called for price controls on gasoline so he is clearly off the rails.

What does O’Reilly and crowd mean by the “public square”? They mean that they want their religious views supported with stolen money taken from taxpayers under the threat of force. He thinks that stealing money from people is part of the Judeo-Christian perspective provided you have the IRS beat people instead of doing it yourself. That’s not even good conservatism but then conservatives these days have gone bonkers under Franklin Delano Bush.


K. Hollyn Hollman of the Baptist Joint Commission for Religious Liberty hit the nail on the head saying: “I think it’s disingenuous to say that Christmas is threatened just because government is not promoting your view or your favorite way of promoting the holiday.”

What is funny is that a Fox News “poll” (it is not a poll at all) asked views of the station if there is a war on Christmas and more of O’Reilly’s own viewers said their is not such war than said there is. Even his own audience knows he got a few screws loose.

Joseph Conn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State says Falwell is trying to restore his tainted image. He was roundly criticized for saying the 9/11 attacks by fundamentalist Muslims was caused by “abortionists and the feminists and the gays.” Right Jerry! If you believe in resurrections you’ll believe anything.

Of course there is a very good reason to refer to this as the Holiday Season. Because it is nutballs! Because it is. It starts at Thanksgiving and ends with New Year’s Day. It includes New Year’s Eve and Hanukah as well. There are at least six such events during this period of a few weeks. So it is a holiday season unlike any other time of the year.

To refer to this as the Christmas season is not inaccurate but neither is it inaccurate to say it is a Holiday Season as well. I happen to like Christmas and not because of any of the rubbish the Christians have imposed on it.

It started as a celebration of the return of the sun with the Winter Solstice. And I will go to a Solstice party this year myself --- my first actually. I don’t mind taking time off in the middle of winter to lift one’s spirits. And as a blatantly commercial holiday it does a damn lot of good for the economy. It would be a disaster if we ever returned to the “true” meaning of Christmas and gave up the commercialism. Capitalism has done the world far more good than any organized religion. So celebrate the commercialism. That buying and selling feeds people. It provides homes and medical care and happiness to billions. The commercial aspect of Christmas does more good for the world in a few short weeks than all of Christianity combined for the entire year.

And no one is attacked for not being commercial. The capitalists don’t hold rallies to call for the jailing of sinners. They don’t attempt to pass legislation controlling the reproductive cycles of women, the reading material of people or engage in hate campaigns against homosexuals.

We need a lot more capitalists in the world and a lot less Christians. Everyone’s life would be improved if Jesus would just do what the nutters claim he intends to do --- rapture them out!

So Jesus, if you are listen, please take these nut cases to your bosom. They say you started this mess so you deserve them. But the rest of us are innocent victims of their lunacy.

PS: This just in. You can’t please the religious nutters no matter what. Whine and whine they do about how the word Christmas isn’t being used enough to satisfy them. In the backwater town of Sapulpa, Oklahoma Christians are up in arms over the Winterfest Christmas Parade whinging that having the name Christmas isn’t enough to satisfy them.

The Chamber of Commerce says they are not kicking Christ out! For someone’s sake it has the word Christmas right in the title. The baptized clueless ones of Sapulpa, say the Chamber is denying the Christian aspects of the season. The Chamber says they’ve never had complaints from the Taliban until this year. They attribute it to the campaign being put on by the Fox news channel in the US to hype claims that Christmas is under attack. Fox is owned by Rupert Murdock who, while making money exhibiting porn films in other countries, plays up to the Religious Right in the US. with his Fox channel which pretends to be a news service.

Reminds me of the fundamentalist nut case I met who was upset about a cartoon about Santa. He was upset that this denigrated a Christian symbol!!!