The Demagogue who Stole Christmas
I usually don’t give people like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly much thought because they’re so meaningless. They’re show-business people whose job is to entertain, and getting really upset at them is like getting really bent out of shape over Jessica Simpson’s music, or clothes. It’s pop-culture fluff. It’s always concerning, the propagation and dissemination of hate and ignorance, but, again, that’s entertainment. Pan e circum. Bread and circuses.
So it just feels really sad to me, this attempt to further exploit and betray Christmas that Bill O’Reilly has launched. Everything is political right now in the United States. The ideological battle lines that were drawn after the 2000 election have crept into every facet of our lives. Remember the brief but fervent claim that the Penguins in the documentary March of the Penguins embodied conservative values? Now, in an attempt to boost ratings, and in the process increase sales from his own gift shop, O’Reilly launched his “War on Christmas” campaign. The result being that the phrase “merry Christmas” has become hostile, political. A form of verbal violence. I’ve seen signs on stores, and heard people saying “Merry Christmas. And I mean Merry Christmas.” Subtext being: “Merry Christmas and fuck you if you aren’t one of us.” Subtext also being: “I am right-wing. Are you?” A person can’t say merry Christmas, or not say merry Christmas, without it being a political hate statement.
All this under the guise of saving Christmas. Bill O’Reilly doesn’t give a fuck about Christmas. It’s a tool to sell his show. His job is to entertain and if this works? Great. Bill O’Reilly no more believes in what he says that Jay Leno is heart-felt and passionate in the contents of his monologues. And the fact that he would try to gut the parts of the holiday that are still sincere and good and true – and they’re there, amidst all the commercialism and nonsense – under the guise of protecting it is just so sad. I know it’ll pass in a couple years, so no big deal in the grand scheme, just sad.
Yes, we have inadvertently made Christmas the holiest of holidays to our culture’s true God – Consumption. Yes, you can fixate on this element and practically burst into flame at the irony and hypocrisy and crassness of it all, but it isn’t necessary to do this. There is also something really cool about the amalgam of holidays that have converged into what we now call Christmas. All the various pagan rituals with the vague Christian twists make it such a neat patchwork celebration of our most noble human components: Hope; perseverance; a belief in something better. In darkest part of the year we light lights against the bleakness. We create feasts amid stark fields. We celebrate forgiveness and compassion during the time of year it is easiest and most biologically logical to forget others and survive, and as a traditional time of reflection – the turning of a year - arrives. And, yes, we give gifts to remind ourselves of the value of giving, and to remind ourselves about the people close to us. That’s good stuff.
And the “inclusion” attempts are really more divisive. Hanukkah is a minor holiday, and its insulting and ignorant to play it up, and remember it for your two Jewish friends, but then not even be able to name the season in which Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur takes place. Kwanzaa, was a nice idea, but defeats it’s own purpose. It was invented in 1966 by a college professor as a reaction to the Watts riots as a new holiday that could unite the black community. Which it doesn’t, but even if it did, it’s so manufactured, and so flagrantly a “black” holiday with only murky African connections, that it would only create another cultural divide.
Anyway, O’Reilly will have a great Christmas, I’m sure, because his ratings are up and he probably made a lot of money using his show to sell his stuff, and a lot of people will have a good Christmas because they get their Orwellian Minute of Hate and they get to spread anger while feeling self-righteous. But this will pass, like all the other human weaknesses ebb and flow. Like all the bad things that spring up during this holiday and swirl around our noble truths which remain a constant, like a star guiding us.
So it just feels really sad to me, this attempt to further exploit and betray Christmas that Bill O’Reilly has launched. Everything is political right now in the United States. The ideological battle lines that were drawn after the 2000 election have crept into every facet of our lives. Remember the brief but fervent claim that the Penguins in the documentary March of the Penguins embodied conservative values? Now, in an attempt to boost ratings, and in the process increase sales from his own gift shop, O’Reilly launched his “War on Christmas” campaign. The result being that the phrase “merry Christmas” has become hostile, political. A form of verbal violence. I’ve seen signs on stores, and heard people saying “Merry Christmas. And I mean Merry Christmas.” Subtext being: “Merry Christmas and fuck you if you aren’t one of us.” Subtext also being: “I am right-wing. Are you?” A person can’t say merry Christmas, or not say merry Christmas, without it being a political hate statement.
All this under the guise of saving Christmas. Bill O’Reilly doesn’t give a fuck about Christmas. It’s a tool to sell his show. His job is to entertain and if this works? Great. Bill O’Reilly no more believes in what he says that Jay Leno is heart-felt and passionate in the contents of his monologues. And the fact that he would try to gut the parts of the holiday that are still sincere and good and true – and they’re there, amidst all the commercialism and nonsense – under the guise of protecting it is just so sad. I know it’ll pass in a couple years, so no big deal in the grand scheme, just sad.
Yes, we have inadvertently made Christmas the holiest of holidays to our culture’s true God – Consumption. Yes, you can fixate on this element and practically burst into flame at the irony and hypocrisy and crassness of it all, but it isn’t necessary to do this. There is also something really cool about the amalgam of holidays that have converged into what we now call Christmas. All the various pagan rituals with the vague Christian twists make it such a neat patchwork celebration of our most noble human components: Hope; perseverance; a belief in something better. In darkest part of the year we light lights against the bleakness. We create feasts amid stark fields. We celebrate forgiveness and compassion during the time of year it is easiest and most biologically logical to forget others and survive, and as a traditional time of reflection – the turning of a year - arrives. And, yes, we give gifts to remind ourselves of the value of giving, and to remind ourselves about the people close to us. That’s good stuff.
And the “inclusion” attempts are really more divisive. Hanukkah is a minor holiday, and its insulting and ignorant to play it up, and remember it for your two Jewish friends, but then not even be able to name the season in which Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur takes place. Kwanzaa, was a nice idea, but defeats it’s own purpose. It was invented in 1966 by a college professor as a reaction to the Watts riots as a new holiday that could unite the black community. Which it doesn’t, but even if it did, it’s so manufactured, and so flagrantly a “black” holiday with only murky African connections, that it would only create another cultural divide.
Anyway, O’Reilly will have a great Christmas, I’m sure, because his ratings are up and he probably made a lot of money using his show to sell his stuff, and a lot of people will have a good Christmas because they get their Orwellian Minute of Hate and they get to spread anger while feeling self-righteous. But this will pass, like all the other human weaknesses ebb and flow. Like all the bad things that spring up during this holiday and swirl around our noble truths which remain a constant, like a star guiding us.
posted by MacLymont at 9:43 AM
1 Comments:
Ooo, baby... when you talk like this... mmm... you make me so wet. Yum.
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