The Twelve Ranters Of Christmas, Or The War On Christmas That Isn't

On The Twelfth Rant Of Christmas My Pastor Sent to me ...

Twelve Bill O'Reillys

Eleven Bryan Fischers

Ten Sean Hannitys

Nine Tony Perkins

Eight Harry Jacksons

Seven Rick Santorums

Six Cindy Jacobs

FIVE HUCK... A... BEEEEES

Four Pat Robertsons

Three Chuck Norrises

Two Rick Perrys

And ...a ...Limbaugh ...with.... Oxy... con... tiiiin

       "These secularists have no clue what it is. They are threatened by it. They can't leave well-enough alone, because it is other people's faith in God that scares them to death. I, for one -- and I hope you're one, too -- refuse to let these people succeed year after year, wearing away the joy and the wonder and the true meaning of this time of year and this marvelous holiday."

 - Rush Limbaugh

The annual "War on Christmas" is ...fizzling. Not because of vicious attacks from the "Secular Left", but from apathy within its own troops. To be sure, the "naughty" list (retailers who say "Happy Holidays") is still put out by the American Family Association, but some of it most stalwart supporters are, well, a bit tired: 

Bill O'Reilly: 

       "Every year I have to deal with assaults against Christmas That does not make me happy. I don’t want to do this. But I, personally? I’m fed up. The people who want to diminish the Christmas federal holiday are insulting me. And they’re insulting you, if you’re a Christian and believe in traditional America."

And the fatigue has given way to more skewed reason, more outlandish attempts to paint everyone, from Obama to poster-child retailer Chic-Fil-A as entities who want to destroy all that is Christmas. For example, Buster Wilson of the American Family Association insists that America's courts are condemning Christmas:

       "I don’t understand, ‘you’re not the majority anymore, this is not a Christian nation and you’ve guys have got to quit trying to cram everything down people’s throats,’ nobody’s trying to cram—look, it is the folks who don’t want us celebrating Christmas that are cramming that view down our throats and using the courts to do it."

The extreme sentiment is now that somehow Christmas is looked upon by non-"Christians" as ...evil:

Mike Huckabee:

        ".... I do believe that there are people who would be very happy if we never, ever said the word Christmas again."

Pat Robertson has become more placid in stating that atheists simply want to "steal" Christmas because they aren't happy and they don't want anyone else to be happy. (see below).

The Devil Is In The Desperation

Unable to separate "Happy Holidays" from its mass appeal, the people at FOX News and the whole of the Christian Right (or so it seems), has created a kind of pathetic hysteria (Gretchen Carlson of FOX asked a guest "Are we crazy for thinking there's a war on Christmas?") - a hysteria which people which the American public is finding to be, well, silly (see below). Even a "Muslim Obama will do away with Christmas" has fallen on deaf ears, and people are scoffing at Chick-fil-A's lack of "Christmas" in its advertising as any kind of apostasy. 

The Real Kabosh

Possibly the ultimate squelch to FOX's War On Christmas spirit was placed by Father Jonathan Morris on, of all places, FOX News:

       "If our Christmas is going to be all about getting upset at people trying to take away Christmas, isn’t that silly too?"

Of course it is, but naming any kind of Christian Right stance "silly" may be silly as well: the CR takes itself all too seriously and Father Morris's days as a commentator on FOX may be numbered.    Never take away The Christian Right's right to be persecuted. 

And Christmas is the perfect time to focus on persecution.

It's a wonder that the Right's media and talking heads haven't mentioned the latest attack in the War on Christmas: the Dalai Lama's proposal of a "Religionless Religion"

The Latest In The Current "Haters" War: JC Penney Causes Breast Cancer, Stern And O'Reilly Become Friends and Wall Street Doesn't Care!

 Ellen - "My haters are my motivators."

Update: One Million Moms fires back at Ellen for referring to them as "haters" and disclosing that they have only 40,000 friends on facebook.

Last Friday, JC Penney stock closed slightly lower than it's 52-week high (down .07 from $42). Of course, the market closed before the big disclosure of the day: JC Penney was keeping Ellen Degeneres as its spokesperson despite the strong request by the American Family Association and its homophobic offspring, One Million Moms to "fire" Degeneres. But it proved that Wall Street was unfazed by the OMM and  AFA threats to the retail giant.


Now, the AFA's ubiquitous fear-mongerer, Bryan Fischer, has countered that in its decision to keep Degeneres, JC Penney will encourage young women to become lesbians and thus, become more susceptible to breast cancer:

"Will America’s young women be just a bit more likely to experiment with lesbianism now that JCPenney is mainstreaming it? Too any objective observer, the answer must be yes. Is this a good thing? To any objective observer, the answer must be no. Research has indicated that lesbians suffer from increased levels of depression, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, breast cancer and vaginal diseases compared to heterosexual women. Thus what JCPenney has done, by increasing, even if ever so slightly, the chances that young women will experiment with this behavior will turn out to be a tragic thing for some. JCPenney will have to share some culpability for that." - American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer. (Via Right Wing Watch)

Twisted logic apparently runs in AFA genes, because on one of AFA's radio shows, hosts Buster Wilson and Fred Jackson had this to say about the controversy:

Wilson: we just don't believe that Ellen DeGeneres is wholesome, family. She is known, she made her name, by being the first real television star to come out in her homosexuality.
Jackson: You kind of mentioned it. What makes Ellen DeGeneres dangerous is that she's a nice person and, I haven't watched her program but apparently she does an interesting kind of funny program.

Ellen Degeneres is nice, therefore, she's dangerous. Makes perfect sense. The following is a list of Degeneres' "niceness put by one blogger:

DeGeneres raised over 10 million dollars for victims of hurricane Katrina. Sheparticipates in The Gentle Barn charity, the Small Change Campaign, Brad Pitt’s Make It Right campaign, food drives, AIDs awareness campaigns, children’s charities, the American Express Member’s Project, Breast Cancer, the Target Giving Competition and more.

Upon the announcement by J.C. Penney that it was sticking to its decision to keep Ellen as a spokesperson, OMM stepped up its campaign by stating that it would begin targeting stores individually, going directly to stores managers. It also had this to say about a supposed "haters":

In today's culture when an individual stasnds up for something they believe in and someone disagrees with them then they are referred to as a hater when in reality it is OMM's opponents who are hating us. Tolerance goes both ways. Apparently, OMM must be doing something right because scripture says that we will be persecuted for our Biblical beliefs (Matthew 5:11)

Monica Cole, Director, One Million Moms.com

After 5 days of silence on the matter, Degeneres herself addressed the issue in her monologue (after a celebratory nod to the Prop 8 decision): "My haters are my motivators." She also pointed out that One Million Moms has only 40,000 friends on facebook - hardly close to a figure of one million.*


And speaking of facebook, a group called "one million people who support Ellen for JC Penney" has garnered over 60,000 "likes" in 24 hours - more than OMM can seem to scare up.


UNLIKELY ALLIES


The controversy has made some unlikely allies: both Howard Stern and Bill O'Reilly of FOX News have come out in support of the JC Penney decision and against OMM. O'Reilly had some particularly "stern" words (sorry, couldn't resist it) for OMM comparing its campaign to McCarthyism and calling it a witch hunt. Degeneres herself thanked O'Reilly for the support.


The CEO of JC Penney, Ron Johnson, addressed the situation quite eloquently when he said that  Ellen stood for the very things JC Penney was founded upon "fairness" and the "Golden Rule." (click on the link - the video was not allowed to be embedded - by CBS).


The Culture War Defined


Although the JC Penney controversy is not a defining moment in the culture wars, it helps to highlight the frustration and the distress the Right is experiencing with other aspects: the recent Prop 8 decision was about equality for a certain part of America more than the subject of same-sex marriage. The phenomena of "It Gets Better" statements/videos is about hope in the face of bullying and religious intolerance more than prevention of teen suicides.


We recently saw the unmitigated and ridiculous statements the Right came out with concerning gays and gay sex (Gerbils, Cell Phones and Bats Up The Butt). The JC Penney controversy simply continues the trend.




* OMM seems to have trouble with numbers and figures: one of it contentions is that only 1.7% of the U.S. population is gay. Apparently all gay people go to at least twenty Pride events each year.

The REAL Sissy Boys And What They're Doing To America

So will the SBC apologize? Gimme a break!

Four days ago, Anderson Cooper360 and CNN ran a series which focused on the tip of a proverbial iceberg: "The Sissy Boy Experiment" brought out the frustration and the compassion of America's psyche. It also brought out the hypocrisy of "reparative therapists" and their supporters in the Christian Right.


So why isn't anyone saying "we're sorry"?


Because the REAL "sissy boys" the ones so cowardly, so unmanly, if you will,  never apologize. Where some people see apology as a sign of strength/courage in admitting an error or sin, others look upon it as a weakness: e.g. why did it take the Southern Baptist Convention over 150 years to apologize for slavery? Why did it take the Catholic church 1700 years for a pope to cry at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall?


Over the last several days, we've viewed the ultimate in cowardice in George "rentboy" Rekers on CNN (The Sissy Boy Experiment): his reaction to news of the suicide of former patient Kirk Murphy was, at best, disingenuous, and his sloughing off of any responsibility was weak and unprofessional. And on the 15th, we'll witness the disdain of the Southern Baptist Convention in being asked to apologize for the persecution and suffering heaped upon the LGBTQ community.


I've already written on the Christian Right's refusal to admit its past errors (Christian Crime Line), but its more current misdeeds need further exploration: the establishment of ex-gay organizations and ministries, the support of Dominionist historians, pseudo-scientists and fear-mongering against any collective not within its small but powerful sphere threaten to undo the diversity for which our country is so celebrated.


It is as if the Christian Right has taken up shock talk host Michael Savage's call to battle: "Diversity Equals Perversity!" One can certainly see in Bryan Fischer's bombastic rants a lethal kind of homogenization (not assimilation) that will not only kill compassion for one another, but will surely lead to actual bloodshed. The last part of The Sissy Boy Experiment focused on Joseph Nicolosi and his group NARTH (National Association for Reparative Therapy of Homosexuals). CNN missed a particular salient point in its interview with Nicolosi: he is no longer a member of the American Psychological Association, since his ethics and theories were discredited by fellow members. In fact, Nicolosi and professional anti-gay Paul Cameron look as if they are in a contest to see how many professional organizations they can be expelled from!


Real Life Persecution


Besides sponsoring reparative therapy and ex-gay organizations, the Southern Baptist roots to LGBT oppression go back to the first decades of the AIDS crisis: many people were summarily kicked out of their homes while they were sick and dying. The situation, after all, called for righteousness and Southern Baptists wanted the world to know that they were the most righteous group of all. This show of righteousness came after President Bailey Smith's infamous statement "God Almighty does not hear the prayers of a Jew" and the dictum that women must still be subservient to their husbands.*


Among the most common of sins within (as well as without) the Christian Right is the blatant sin of demonizing, but who among the CR will acknowledge it? Will Lou Engle apologize for the death of Ugandan homosexual activist David Kato? Will Scott Lively do the same? Will Tony Perkins apologize for the rash of gay teen suicides last year? Will Bryan Fischer? Will Rev. Keenan Roberts apologize for psychological damage caused by Hell Houses? Will Terry Jones apologize for the death of U.N. volunteers after he burned the Q'uran?


One might posit the idea that they will never apologize, so why should we be concerned? The problem, as some see it, is that our recent religious-political system has been getting away with saying and doing anything it pleases. It never monitors itself: if, for example, Jones had not gotten the attention of the whole world, we would not have witnessed such an outcry from the Right - especially from the Christian Right. Proper chastisement is for the enemy. In any case, Jones was not really chastised since most of the churches with a Fundamentalist bent merely whispered "he's not one of us!"


Media's "sissy boys" have also written/broadcast half-truths and misinformation with impunity: even though FOX News' credibility has slipped, it continues to advertise itself as "fair and balanced."** Watch the piece Think Progress put together about Bill O'Reilly and his demonization of immigrants. It's almost musical in its rhythm, picking its own "fair and balanced" way through O'Reilly's righteous indignation.


In politics, some of the biggest "sissy boys" are bullies:

Gov. Scott Walker abruptly reversed course today and demoted the son of a large campaign contributor [Jerry Deschane] to his former job with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing. The move comes one day after the Journal Sentinel reported that Brian Deschane, 27, had landed an $81,500-a-year job in Walker's administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. The promotion amounted to a raise of 26%. The younger Deschane has no college degree, little management experience and two drunken driving convictions.

No cure, but a push back!


So the country's REAL "sissy boys" are practically everywhere, getting away with bullying and demonizing minorities, women, gays, the poor, and anyone else not fitting into their narrow spectrum. But like all "sissy boys" they are extremely afraid of some things: the facts, experts, and activists armed with knowledge (and creativity). 


Once confronted with their sins, they will try to shirk accountability, but like kids fighting in a schoolyard, the bullies will quickly become sissies when pinned down by determined, constant, intelligent presentation of reality to the public. 


You have to make the "sissy boy" scream "Uncle!"


*Reiterated by Pat Robertson more than several times.
** Joe.My.God: "According to a former managing editor at Fox News, chairman Roger Ailes installed bullet-proof glass on his midtown Manhattan office windows because he feared assassination by gay activists." 

Ann Coulter's Brain Is Fried!!

We always knew that Ann Coulter's brain was fried, but now we know why: she think's radiation is good for you! That's right, it's good for you! This clip of her on Bill O'Reilly's show proves that she's still willing to say anything to get attention. Well, it worked, 'cause I'm giving it to her - in spades!


Remember, this is a woman who thinks that waterboarding is a harmless childhood prank ... and to jump-start her mornings, she has to pee on at least ten homeless people (fifteen,  if she's got a hang-over!).

The Disprince of Tides: Did Glenn Beck Almost Cause A Righteous Assassination?

 

For I was drench'd with ooze, and torn with briers, . . . And, all one rag, disprinced from head to heel. --Tennyson.

Yes, Tennyson's "disprinced" can certainly be taken as a metaphor for Glenn Beck in all his glory, so the pun was definitely intended by me. It's ironic, though, that Pat Conroy's novel, The Prince of Tides, also deals with dysfunctional people. The Sunday July 18th shoot-out on California's Interstate 580 showed just how much of an effect Glenn Beck has had on those who cannot cope with life.

Byron Williams of Groveland, CA was a convicted felon on parole who lived with his mother far from town. His mother, Janice, was a woman who kept a large stash of high-powered weapons because she thought  

(SF Weekly)that armed resistance against our government was inevitable -- but Williams allegedly made off with the stash because he felt that time was now.

Williams had been out of a job for two years since he was released from prison and felt ostracized from everyone - even by his own church. His mother repeatedly told the media that he had railed against

"the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items." And that he would sometimes scream at the TV because he watched a lot of news programs.

After he left his mother's house, a scene on California's I-580 near Oakland unfolded as it would have in any B-movie: CHP officers noticed the white Toyota pickup speeding erratically down the highway, followed and signalled for the driver to pull over. Williams, armed with a small arsenal and wearing body armor, ,proceeded to shoot at the officers. Eighteen minutes, 60 rounds, ten officers, and three serious bullet wounds later (a total of six rounds were fired into the body armor), Williams was subdued and taken to the hospital where he was reported in stable condition. 

News10 ABC - Groveland, CA:

"He's ruined his life because now he is going back to prison and he's ruined mine because he is my only son," [Janice] Williams said.

The Righteous Assassination Defense

There were two targets that Byron Williams had in mind when he said that he wanted to "cause a revolution": the ACLU and the Tides Foundation. The ACLU, of course, is widely known and is one of the "demon-spawns" of the Right wingnuts everywhere. The Tides Foundation, however, is less notable and has not been focused upon by the mainstream media.

Except Glenn Beck.

wikipedia:

Several political observers have suggested that recent Fox News coverage of the Tides foundation may have provided some of the motive for the attacks. In particular, Glenn Beck mentioned the Tides Foundation in 29 separate episodes of his show, referring to it as "a socialist conspiracy" which was "assembling an army." Other pundits observed that, aside from holding similar political views, there was no evidence that the shooter was acting as a result of watching Beck's show.

But let's tally things up: Fox News targeted the Tides Foundation 31 times since 2009: twice by Sean Hannity and 29 times by Beck. No other news channel carried anything about the Tides Foundation. Even Beck said that "nobody knew about the Tides Foundation" until he started mentioning it on his programs - both TV and radio. 

It may be time for the righteous assassination defense to kick in.

"The deluge of 'Tiller is a Nazi, mass murderer, baby killer' verbiage by Mr. O'Reilly surely can drive one into a state of what we in the legal profession call 'righteous assassination.'" 

In a variation of the "twinky defense" (taken by Dan White, the San Francisco supervisor who shot and killed both Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone), "righteous assassination" is a defense that claims the defendant was so inundated with a particular ideology that he had very little will to halt his actions. The portrayal of Dr. Tiller by Bill O'Reilly as "Tiller the baby killer" made national headlines simply because Scott Roederer's defense team focused on that particular kind of media coverage and made it part of his motivation.

The Tides Foundation

Described by police as "heavily armed," and equipped with body armor, a rifle, a handgun, and a shotgun, Williams told relatives that he aimed to "start a revolution" by destroying the left-wing Tides Foundation, which he believed was "a socialist conspiracy."on.

A look at the Tides Foundation, doesn't reveal anything remotely sinister. It supports:

• Apollo Alliance
• Center for Genetics and Society
• Citizendium Foundation
• Traction
• Women, Food and Agriculture Network

The one which Beck has taken particular umbrage with is the Apollo Alliance which helps environmental efforts and was instrumental in passage of the economic recovery bill. Whatever links to socialism it might have would be a bit of a stretch to guess.

Then there's The Story of Stuff, a rather predictable polemic, intended to teach children where all the things that big business and advertising hawk (and we buy) wind up - polluting the earth. 

Libertarian and politically conservative critics have described the documentary as misleading and politically liberal; one Montana school board opposed the screening of the film in a biology classroom in a 4–3 vote. The subsequent public outcry against this decision led to a rewrite of the school board's policy and an award for the teacher who screened the film.

Glenn Beck, host of the Glenn Beck TV program, characterized the video as an "anti-capitalist tale that unfortunately has virtually no facts correct."

The video has been seen by over 7 million people in 228 countries since 2009. All the facts cited can be viewed here and the original annotated script (with references) can be read here. Yes, it can be seen as an anti-capitalist viewpoint, but it does explicitly get to the heart of the matter: what the average person can do to eliminate all that waste. 

So, from a school video about waste production and a program to that helps environmental groups, Glenn Beck has formed an immutable opinion that the Tides Foundation is part of a radical "socialist" agenda and is in a nasty conspiracy to take away our freedoms. How he came up with the statement that the Foundation is amassing an army, I suppose we'll never know.

from Media Matters:

[Beck] We've also seen it in the classroom. We've shown it to you night after night, kids are being taught to sing about how Obama is wonderful and how everyone is equal in his sight. Kids are being taught that capitalism is evil and flawed through "The Story of Stuff." It's a video made by the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation.

From TPM:

On his radio show on September 24, 2009, Beck elaborated: "The President sees these groups as the vehicle to achieve his goals, because the Founders didn't address redistribution of wealth in the Constitution." But Tides, Beck said, is "behind it all," and "while they do legitimate things, they are also involved in the nasty of the nastiest."

29 episodes denegrating the Tides Foundation. Virtually no mention of the Tides Foundation in other media. One unemployed man on parole living in a fairly remote area with his mother. A mother who keeps a small arsenal of guns and ammunition, believing in a future call-to-arms. The man puts on body armor and subsequently arms himself. The man's targets are the ACLU and the little-known Tides Foundation.

Looks like righteous assassination to me.

The Madman and The Little Flower: Glenn Beck Unwittingly Mimics The FATHER OF HATE RADIO!

"I AM NOT A KOOK!"

It's strange that Glen Beck doesn't know anything about the man he's mimicking. It's expected that almost any Christian you meet will not, when questioned, know anything about the history of his own religion, but when a man comes this close to aping a famous personage, you have to wonder whether he's telling the truth or whether he's too stupid to see the resemblance.

The first time I became aware of the comparison of Glen Beck to Father Charles Coughlin was yesterday. Yes, I'll admit that if I had heard Beck more often, the thought would have come sooner, but listening to strange and faulty reasoning makes my head ache. And seeing it on the TV screen accompanied by strange chalkboard charts (and sometimes even stranger guests) makes my stomach gurgle. The eerie comparison was brought about by an article in Crooks and Liars by David Neiwert.

...One of Glenn Beck's favorite claims about the Tea Party movement -- and the surge of right-wing populism that he's leading -- is that it isn't about parties, it's about being American. And being American, of course, means being conservative.

"...you know, we're really at a one-party system at this point. We needed to identify ourselves as one or the other, even though it didn't really make a difference. And that label was much more important than the real label we all should have been wearing, and that is, American.

Progressives have put their agenda now into hyperdrive, and it is so crystal clear that their final goal is anything but American.

Sometime in his broadcasting career, Glen Beck decided that the best way to get people to listen to him was to hammer at the prime concepts: "us vs them" "good vs evil" "traditional values vs progressive change" "blue collar vs white collar" and, of course, "American vs. foreigner" (i.e. illegal immigrant) Also along the way: he decided that there was no direct link between his polemics and the actions of his listeners. He washed his hands of all their transgressions. It's time to look at what Beck is getting himself into: the throes of "righteous assassination": Bill O'Reilly had a sense of it after the murder of Dr. Tiller:

Huffington Post:

"It's a variation of a Twinkie Defense," said legal expert Jonathan Turley. "They will attempt to connect Mr. Roeder's heavy intake of Bill O'Reilly combined with a talk-radio hate-speak rush to prove that Roeder did not have the capacity to make a rational decision when he shot Dr. Tiller. "The deluge of 'Tiller is a Nazi, mass murderer, baby killer' verbiage by Mr. O'Reilly surely can drive one into a state of what we in the legal profession call 'righteous assassination.'"

Those in the psychology community support the defense.

"Just the fact Mr. O'Reilly has an audience at all gives credence to the point that the so-called Folks™ who watch Bill O'Reilly have a decreasing ability to determine the difference between fact and fiction," said Dr. Hal Densky. "It's a brainwashing of sorts, though with O'Reilly it's more of a complete lobotomy."

The hatred fostered by Father Charles Coughlin of Royal Oak, MI in the 30's may have been incendiary to the point of righteous assassination. We may never know. Because a man with a clerical collar would never be linked to a Jew's death, or a Communist's murder no matter how influential and bigoted his broadcasts.

Ah, that was such an innocent, trusting time, wasn't it?

Father Charles Coughlin was a parish priest for the church The Shrine of the Little Flower, titled after St. Theresa of Liseux, a meek, mild, 19th century Carmelite nun.

I was only about ten when, traveling from Chicago to Quebec on vacation, my folks and I stopped at The Shrine of the Little Flower. The only memory I have of it, is that it was a large church that gave me a strange feeling: I'd never seen an altar placed in the middle of an enormous octagon. The church sat over 3,000 and, looking back, was really the country's first megachurch. And had its own radio evangelist, talking not about God, but about politics.

Wikipedia on Father Coughlin:

His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners, and his listening audience was estimated to rise at times to as much as a third of the nation.

On November 20, 1938, two weeks after Kristallnacht, when Jews across Germany were attacked and killed, and Jewish businesses, homes and synagogues burned, Coughlin said "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted."

And:

"There can be no doubt that the Russian Revolution ... was launched and fomented by distinctively Jewish influence."

Coughlin was an isolationist who admired Hitler in his nationalism and hatred of the Jews. His rhetoric prompted Joseph P. Kennedy - as early as 1933 - "to warn Roosevelt that he was an out and out demagogue." His isolationism made him sound a bit like Rush Limbaugh: "Less care for internationalism and more concern for national prosperity." It was even intimated in reports from the FBI that Coughlin received indirect funding from Nazi Germany during the mid 30s. Coughlin published a magazine titled "Social Justice" and started his own political party, the Union Party. What contributed to his downfall, however, was his direct association with a militant hate group called Christian Front:

From Goliath Business News:

In October 1943, the New York newspaper PM declared that bands of Irish Catholic youths, inspired by the Coughlinite Christian Front, had for over a year waged an "organized campaign of terrorism" against Jews in Boston's Dorchester district and in neighboring Roxbury and Mattapan. They had violently assaulted Jews in the streets and parks, often inflicting serious injuries with blackjacks and brass knuckles, and had desecrated synagogues and vandalized Jewish stores and homes.

wikipedia:

Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman and Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) in a successful effort to get the Vatican to silence Coughlin in 1936.

His voice continued to be heard through his publication, Social Justice. It was finally on May 1, 1942...

...the Archbishop of Detroit, Most Rev. Edward Mooney, ordered Coughlin to stop his political activities and confine himself to his duties as a parish priest, warning that he would be defrocked if he refused. Coughlin complied and remained the pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower until retiring in 1966.

In the response Glen Beck gives to being compared to Coughlin, Beck challenges his listeners if they actually know who Coughlin was, states that he is different because Coughlin was a "kook" while he, Beck, is a reasoning person. And that even though he admits to be an off-the-wall entertainer, he's not crazy.

Many people would beg to differ on that point. Also, if Coughlin did indeed have the ear of a full one-third of the populace, don't you think it odd that Beck would not have ever heard of Father Charles Coughlin,"The Father of Hate Radio."

Beck has neither listened to nor read a truly nuanced account of his bloviating, his distortions, his lies and his attacks on just about everyone who's not Glen Beck. His vanity prohibits the possibility that he can be compared to a priest who should have learned to keep his mouth shut. His whole rant against the comparison to Coughlin can be (and should be) listened to because he doesn't see how he could possibly be compared to the Father of Hate Radio, Father Charles Coughlin.

It's interesting to not that even the "kookiest" of the "kooks" looks upon him as anything but a greedy misanthrope who has no idea of the ramifications of his rhetoric.

Just the other day, "Dr." James David Manning, (he of the "Long-legged-MacDaddy-Barak Hussein-Obama" diatribe) said that "housewives fall for Glen Beck the same way they do for Oprah Winfrey" and that Saturday's event in Westbury, NY - a dual book signing with Bill O'Reilly ("all that stinkin' group") - is an attempt to profit "from the ignorance of the American people." He goes on to say that because billionaire Al-Walid Bin Talal is now the largest single shareholder of Rupert Murdoch's corporate Fox News, both Beck and O'Reilly are now "on the Islamic payroll."

When someone who's considered the most outlandish clown of the Christian Right dishes him as an outlandish, but greedy, clown it's about time that Glen Beck should look at himself in the mirror and ask "Where am I going.?"

But he won't.

There Is NO War On Christmas! Jesus Told Me So!

Actually, He said:

"Huh? What War On Christmas?
Are Limbaugh And O'Reilly At It AGAIN?"

I decorated the Christmas tree tonight. Like a cartoon character, I got tangled in lights, needed a new power strip, and had to race to Walgreens to get more white lights. As with most American households, I wanted my Christmas tree to look perfect: it was not going to look as if it had swallowed all the colored lights first. I was organized and resourceful last year, so there were no real surprises when I opened all of the other Christmas Crud boxes. It had me feeling a little gypped, to tell you the truth. What's Christmas like without sifting through bad ornaments to look for good ones? Moreover, what's Christmas like without all of the beautiful, tacky, cheap, glitzy, poignant, crass decorations we've acquired through the years?

Christmas trees and their decorations can be the mirrors of our true selves: we prominently display the best ornaments in the front while we place the crappy ones (or, just not as beautiful) in the back. I remember one particular ornament that never made it to the front: a flat, brown teddy bear dressed as a nurse. And it was sticking its red tongue out. It took a change of partners for me to get rid of the strange thing. But that's the thing about Christmas - the sentiment is so strong that you never throw out even the worst, most threadbare, tarnished, half-broken ornaments. Why?

Because at Christmastime, even the battered and ugly ornaments seem to have souls.

Today I read another article about the "War On Christmas" instigated by the sacred cows of the Christian Right. Is saying "Merry Christmas" so important that today's right-wing talk show bloviators and pulpit pimps have taken to ostracizing those who say "Happy Holidays?" Over the years, the concept of Christmas has transcended the birthday celebration of a religious icon. Perhaps that's why the Christian Right is furious over the inclusion of everyone into the "season of giving": the ideology of "Peace On Earth, Good Will Towards Men" has overshadowed the babe in the manger and they feel slighted. After all, they are a self-righteously arrogant lot that keeps reminding us that they have cornered the market on goodness ("It's the Christian thing to do!").

And they certainly don't want other holidays to be mixed in with theirs! "Why, saying 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas' is downright sacrilegious! It's positively un-American! Christmas is a Christians Only holiday! Exclusivity is our right!

But who knew that such an exclusive holiday would become a worldwide peacekeeper (if only for one day)? Who knew that one day out of the year would garner hosts of goodwill and, most important of all, compassion? Can't the Christian Right be a bit more generous with one of their core philosophies? Then again, they seem to be a people fixated with their own persecution: "War on Christmas" "War against Marriage" "War against the Unborn." But who's going to tell them that there is no "War" except for the one they themselves are waging against inclusion?

Are they the only ones who discard old, unwanted Christmas tree decorations?

Yes, there is a war: on inclusion, on open-mindedness, on universal acceptance. Today's family values include more people in the family than any Christian Right family reunion picnic. "Extended" families are just that: strongly bonded extensions of the core, whatever that core may be. And today's Christmas recognizes the love between individuals more than ever before. That, of course, makes the Christian Right seethe in rage. To them, the meaning of Christmas is only about their ideals and the way they want to see those ideals performed.

So if The Christian Right is involved in a war, the only war it is fighting is the "War on Universal Love."

Thanks for reading.

Dan Vojir

PS:
For all my friends and readers I have a small, homemade Holiday gift created with the help of my late love of gardening. It's a series of photos I pasted together for several of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker melodies. The last one is performed for you by the San Francisco Faerie Portal. It depicts how the faeries magically celebrate Christmas Eve.

All the flowers of our home
and the faeries of the portal wish you all
the Happiest of Holidays!