Link: http://www.ipforum.org/display.cfm?id=6&Sub=15

One of the more interesting results of not paying any significant attention to the mainstream TV, radio and news media these days (I'll start paying more attention when they stop repeating lies as fact, and remember how to ask probing questions and not let people off the hook until they get proper answers) is that issues have a habit of sneaking up on you until one day you find yourself saying "Whoah! Where did that come from?".
Such the case with the War on Christmas. I didn't even know that there was a War on Christmas. It seems to be one of the best-entrenched execuses that currently exists for naked commercialism, needless indulgence and the necessity to spend whole days in a living room with folks who you normally wouldn't want to be within a thousand miles of.
But, I digress. According to a number of people, there is a sinister conspiracy that has been hatched by all sorts of evil people (for "evil people" substitute several classic groups of hate-figures, including "liberals", "atheists", and "secular Jews"). This conspiracy seeks to downgrade and even abolish Christmas.
Hum.
For the moment let us leave aside the rather inconvenient facts that Christmas came into being partly via the appropriation of a Pagan festival, and that nobody has any compelling evidence that Jesus was actually born on 25th December anyway.
What is this all about?
Apparently one major piece of evidence that points to a conspiracy is that schools are apparently asking teachers to wish people "Happy Holidays".
Now, the last time I looked, Christmas has been an excuse for countries to hand out public holidays just about everywhere. So that statement is factually correct in every respect.
It is also a fact that a significant percentage of the population belongs to religious groupings that do not attach any special religious significance to Christmas. Jewish people orient their year around other events such as Passover. They have their own festival name for Christmas - Hannukah. I get "Happy Hannukah" cards from Jewish friends most years.
Folks, this alleged conspiracy is just like every other conspiracy theory I have come across. It is short on facts and evidence, very long on conjecture, and completely out of touch with reality. In short, this is mostly complete hogwash, and a waste of frigging time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, somebody parodied the issue in this weblog entry.
However, what is more sinister about the whole issue is that bigots seem to be hijacking the issue to stir up obnoxious hatreds. This article here explains how Bill O'Reilly's delighfully tolerant response to a Jewish caller ("move to Israel") is actually only one example of how the issue is being used as an excuse to denigrate and demonize other people whose belief systems are supposedly, well, different.
Here's another article explaining why this is a pile of cack.
People need to start spending a lot less time worrying about shallow, logically defective nonsense like this "conspiracy", and a lot more time paying attention to more important matters. What about worrying about something important for a change, like the renewal of the Patriot Act, or the continuing budget deficit, or the misconceived conflict in Iraq?