Happy Holidays to Bill O'Reilly and the other rabid Republicans ! On Dec 10, 4:53 am, mike 532 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The White Nationalist Behind Bill O'Reilly's War on Christmas > How a racist created the conservative movement's favorite holiday > season outrage -- and has O'Reilly dreaming of a pure, white > Christmas.http://www.alternet.org/story/111465/ > What would Christmas be without warnings of the secular crusade to > destroy it? Thanks to the fulminations of cable news cranks and > evangelical moralists, the War on Christmas has become an annual > outrage. The story typically goes as follows: secular elements have > intimidated stores into replacing the phrase “Merry Christmas” with > “Happy Holidays;” nativity scenes have been removed from public spaces > under threat of ACLU lawsuits; a decadent culture is moving ever > closer to eradicating Christian morality; and America slouches towards > Gomorrah. > > Judging from the panicked tone of movement conservatives, this year’s > War on Christmas campaign threatens the country’s moral fiber more > than ever. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger, > the secular Grinch has claimed the economy as its latest casualty. “A > nation whose people can't say 'Merry Christmas' is a nation capable of > ruining its own economy,” he fumed on November 20. Having laid off 20 > percent of its staff the day after Election Day, Christian right mega- > ministry Focus on the Family declared “Merry Tossmas” imploring its > supporters to toss out holiday season product catalogs that wish > shoppers “Happy Holidays.” (The 201 freshly unemployed staffers might > have more practical reasons to trash their catalogs.) > > “If you can get religion out,” Bill O’Reilly warned, “then you can > pass secular progressive programs, like legalization of narcotics, > euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage.” > > On December 2, Utah Republican state senator Chris Buttars sponsored > an urgent resolution demanding that stores greet shoppers with the > phrase, “Merry Christmas.” “I'm sick of the Christmas wars,” Buttars > proclaimed. “We're a Christian nation and ought to use the word.” > > The Christmas kulturkampf is a growth industry in a shrinking economy, > providing an effective boost for conservative fundraising and a > ratings bonanza for right-wing media. So who was the genius that > created it? To find the answer, a visit with the ghost of > conservatism’s past is in order. > > Back during the culture wars of the 1990s, Peter Brimelow, then a > Fortune magazine editor, grew incensed with the increasing use of the > phrase “Happy Holidays” by retailers like Amazon.com. “I just got real > interested in the issue,” Brimelow told The Daily Beast, “because I > noticed over the years there was this social shift taking place where > people no longer said ‘Merry Christmas.’” > > In his 1995 book, Alien Nation, Brimelow argued that the influx of > “weird aliens with dubious habits” from developing nations was eroding > America’s white Christian “ethnic core,” and in turn, sullying its > cultural underpinnings. The War on Christmas was, in his view, a > particularly pernicious iteration of the multicultural “struggle to > abolish America.” > > Brimelow went to his fellow Briton and Tory, John O’Sullivan, then > editor of the conservative movement’s flagship publication, National > Review, with a big idea. National Review should host “an annual > competition for the most egregious attempt to suppress Christmas.” > Though O’Sullivan liked Brimelow’s idea, he was replaced as editor on > Christmas Eve 1997 by Rich Lowry. > > With the exception of a 2001 column in which O’Sullivan blamed > “religious minorities” for the War on Christmas, the issue disappeared > from the pages of National Review. At the same time, the magazine > jettisoned O’Sullivan’s anti-immigration politics in favor of the Big > Tent conservatism preferred by younger writers like Jonah Goldberg and > Ramesh Ponurru. > > The shift at National Review forced Brimelow even further into the > political wilderness. Shunned by conservatives there rankled by his > unabashed racial resentment -- Goldberg belittled him in a 2002 column > as a “once respected conservative voice” -- Brimelow founded what > would become the internet’s leading anti-immigration web journal, > VDare.com, named for the first British child born in the Americas. > Brimelow’s new venture provided a forum to allies like Jared Taylor, a > white supremacist publisher, and Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary > psychology professor who has argued that Jews are genetically equipped > to out-compete Gentiles for resources and power. In 2003, four years > after VDare’s founding, the Southern Poverty Law Center classified the > journal as a “hate group.” > > 12Next page » --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
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