Post by rebeccatr116 on Dec 5, 2012 11:30:43 GMT -5
Santa and Jesus, exhausted and disheveled, cling to the edge of a cliff. Below them, a chasm of pure debauchery. Above them, Nancy Pelosi, wringing her hands with utter glee. They’ve done it, the liberals have finally done it. They’ve destroyed Christmas.
At least, that’s the image that Fox News would like to use when reporting on the ongoing ‘War on Christmas’. Every year, for the bleary month after Thanksgiving, Fox highlights stories that indicate an ‘attack’ on the holiday. And, evidently, the war has intensified, because in the past six days there have been more such stories than the entirety of last year. Most recently, Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee’s decision to refer to the tree in the statehouse as a ‘Holiday Tree’ as opposed to the ubiquitous ‘Christmas Tree’ resulted in a veritable explosion from pundit Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly, the host of the incredibly popular O’Reilly Factor, argued with the governor that there was a ‘tradition to the Christmas Tree that supersedes the governor of Rhode Island’, that Chafee was ‘imposing his views upon people’, and that ‘the atheists just want to burn down the holiday tree’. Early on, Chafee noted that this was nothing new for the state of Rhode Island; governors had been maintaining Holiday Trees in the statehouse since the 90s. This, then, prompts the question of why address this issue now, and not when the tradition began. That answer lies in Lincoln Chafee. He was a Republican senator for 9 years until he defected from the party in 2007 and became an Independent after being ridiculed so frequently for not walking lock-step with the GOP proper. His criticism hinged on his relative liberalism on social issues. Had Chafee been a politician 40 years ago, any attacks on his opinions within his own party would have come from fringe conservatives that did not carry immense sway. Today, the social-program-bolstering Dwight Eisenhower and pro-choice Gerald Ford would be nearly unelectable for national office. That is because, under the Reagan administration, the radical Religious Right (or, more accurately, Christian Right) took hold of the Republican Party.
The Religious Right was a vocal, if not well-regarded, minority within the GOP. However, in the early 80s, they seized the opportunity to exploit the fear of many Americans over the AIDs epidemic and various global conflicts to highlight a perceived moral degeneration of society, and their prerogatives soon overtook the agenda of the party. Formerly well-respected moderates were condemned, as were bipartisan initiatives. A mob mentality had overtaken the Republicans that has not yet been shaken, and marks the descent of dissent over the past 30 years.
This brings us back to Mr. Chafee. It is no coincidence that, despite years of Rhode Island Holiday Trees, the first governor O’Reilly condemns over the issue on national television is the former Republican. O’Reilly is showing the world what happens when you do not conform to the Party, when you embody everything that the Party purports to hate; you are berated, and mocked mid-interview through use of a cheesy, animated montage.
What sort of conflict is this war, exactly? As most people understand it, a war involves some sort of attack. Is the Holiday Tree an attack? It does not diminish Christmas, rather it acknowledges it as one of many celebrations in a united, inclusive nation, that can separate itself from a history of intolerance and progress forward, one Happy Holidays at a time. But, hey, maybe there’s some validity to the conservatives’ claims. I certainly know that, on December 25th, eating various delicious morsels, giving and receiving presents, and surrounded by my loving, predominantly liberal family, many of whom I only get to see for the occasion, I will only be thinking of how much I hate Christmas.
Word count: 620
Cited
video.foxnews.com/v/1998694369001/the-war-on-christmas-the-big-picture
usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-16-1528441747_x.htm
www.nytimes.com/1996/09/28/arts/rise-of-the-religious-right.html
At least, that’s the image that Fox News would like to use when reporting on the ongoing ‘War on Christmas’. Every year, for the bleary month after Thanksgiving, Fox highlights stories that indicate an ‘attack’ on the holiday. And, evidently, the war has intensified, because in the past six days there have been more such stories than the entirety of last year. Most recently, Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee’s decision to refer to the tree in the statehouse as a ‘Holiday Tree’ as opposed to the ubiquitous ‘Christmas Tree’ resulted in a veritable explosion from pundit Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly, the host of the incredibly popular O’Reilly Factor, argued with the governor that there was a ‘tradition to the Christmas Tree that supersedes the governor of Rhode Island’, that Chafee was ‘imposing his views upon people’, and that ‘the atheists just want to burn down the holiday tree’. Early on, Chafee noted that this was nothing new for the state of Rhode Island; governors had been maintaining Holiday Trees in the statehouse since the 90s. This, then, prompts the question of why address this issue now, and not when the tradition began. That answer lies in Lincoln Chafee. He was a Republican senator for 9 years until he defected from the party in 2007 and became an Independent after being ridiculed so frequently for not walking lock-step with the GOP proper. His criticism hinged on his relative liberalism on social issues. Had Chafee been a politician 40 years ago, any attacks on his opinions within his own party would have come from fringe conservatives that did not carry immense sway. Today, the social-program-bolstering Dwight Eisenhower and pro-choice Gerald Ford would be nearly unelectable for national office. That is because, under the Reagan administration, the radical Religious Right (or, more accurately, Christian Right) took hold of the Republican Party.
The Religious Right was a vocal, if not well-regarded, minority within the GOP. However, in the early 80s, they seized the opportunity to exploit the fear of many Americans over the AIDs epidemic and various global conflicts to highlight a perceived moral degeneration of society, and their prerogatives soon overtook the agenda of the party. Formerly well-respected moderates were condemned, as were bipartisan initiatives. A mob mentality had overtaken the Republicans that has not yet been shaken, and marks the descent of dissent over the past 30 years.
This brings us back to Mr. Chafee. It is no coincidence that, despite years of Rhode Island Holiday Trees, the first governor O’Reilly condemns over the issue on national television is the former Republican. O’Reilly is showing the world what happens when you do not conform to the Party, when you embody everything that the Party purports to hate; you are berated, and mocked mid-interview through use of a cheesy, animated montage.
What sort of conflict is this war, exactly? As most people understand it, a war involves some sort of attack. Is the Holiday Tree an attack? It does not diminish Christmas, rather it acknowledges it as one of many celebrations in a united, inclusive nation, that can separate itself from a history of intolerance and progress forward, one Happy Holidays at a time. But, hey, maybe there’s some validity to the conservatives’ claims. I certainly know that, on December 25th, eating various delicious morsels, giving and receiving presents, and surrounded by my loving, predominantly liberal family, many of whom I only get to see for the occasion, I will only be thinking of how much I hate Christmas.
Word count: 620
Cited
video.foxnews.com/v/1998694369001/the-war-on-christmas-the-big-picture
usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-16-1528441747_x.htm
www.nytimes.com/1996/09/28/arts/rise-of-the-religious-right.html