Sunday, December 11, 2005

Brutally Honest Rant - 12/07/05

Just a quick reminder... the last column for 2005 will be posted tonight, and the last rant for 2005 will be up this week. The Brutally Honest website will be relocating to its new server in January. Please check the Blog site for all updates and year-end ramblings.
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Brutally Honest Rant: ‘Tis The Season To Be Pompous
Audio Transcripts
12/07/05

[Start Program]

(Computer – This week’s program has been made possible thanks to…)
(Music intro – "Real American Remix 2" – by David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

We’ve got a problem here, boys and girls. A serious, SERIOUS, Yuletide problem.

There is a brand new WAR in America today… yet another fabricated war called the "War on Christmas"… and if you’ve never heard of this fabricated WAR before, then you obviously haven’t been watching Fox News or been listening to any of the conservative talking heads. These guys can’t seem to just SHUT UP about it!

And what is this so-called "War on Christmas" all about? Well it’s all about not saying "Merry Christmas" and instead saying "Happy Holidays". That’s it! These people don’t want you to say "Happy Holidays". They will get IN YOUR FACE if you say those two words, and they will get out of your face the minute you say "Merry Christmas", or until you beat them senseless and get hauled off to jail, whichever comes first.

If they hear a store put up a sign with the word "Holiday" in it instead of "Christmas", they wage an unholy crusade against that store to change their signs. They will not tolerate hearing of a "Holiday tree" or a "Holiday wreath" or of "Holiday carols" or a "Holiday celebration". Either it’s CHRISTMAS or it’s nothing at all.

Now mind you these are the same people who USED to scream that "JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESUS is the REEEEEEEEEEEAAAAASONNNNNNN for the SEAAAAAAAASONNNNNNNN!" Obviously that tactic didn’t work. The rest of us accepted their little ramblings and just wrote them off.

Of course, that was before 9/11… and before a wave of arrogant self-righteousness swept this country.

Now we have people like Jerry Falwell coming up with a Nixonian enemy’s list of organizations and businesses that he declares to be – in his own words - "grinches trying to steal Christmas". You remember Jerry Falwell, don’t you? He’s the egotistical dickhead who stuck his fat face in front of the cameras after 9/11 and blamed the terrorist attacks on the ACLU!

And then of course we have the Reverend Donald Wildmon… you remember this geriatric don’t you? He’s the one calling for boycotts all of the time. He calls companies that use the word "holiday" instead of "Christmas" as "offenders". That’s right folks, Reverend Wildmon has appointed himself to be the Christian Police in America, no different and no better than the religious police in Saudi Arabia, and if you don’t say "Christmas" during the HOLIDAY season, then you’ve VIOLATED HIS LAW.

Of course there’s always Bill O’Reilly… a TABLOID commentator who got his start doing TABLOID journalism and unfortunately his daily dosage of Limburger communication became just abrasive enough to make a name for himself. He’s the one who jumped in on this "War on Christmas" crap and put a name to our pain. What’s the matter Bill… are you still upset because someone wrote you off your "calling list" and made you look like a fool?

By the way, Bill… just what is the name of the party that your BOSS, Rupert Murdock, is throwing at the Fox News Building? He’s not calling it a "Christmas" party is it? What’s he calling it, Bill? He is calling it the News Corporation HOLIDAY party. Is that why you’ve got your Jesus Underoos in a bunch? You and John Gibson and Sean Hannity? Are you upset because YOUR BOSS didn’t call it a CHRISTMAS party? Are you upset because your boss isn’t playing the same reindeer games and falling in line with Jerry Falwell’s agenda?

Then there’s William Donohue of the Catholic League, who got his Jesus Underoos in a bunch because the Bush Junior White House sent out their annual cards to 1.4 million friends and supporters wishing them a "happy holiday season". Those three words so annoyed Mr. Donohue that he issued the following statement… quote: "This clearly demonstrates that the Bush Administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture."

Yeah, like that jerkoff would EVER know what the "worst elements in our culture" are! Let me ask you something, Mister Donohue… has the Roman Catholic Church finished atoning for their denial of and systematic concealment of pedophile priests? No? Well then until they do, Mister Donohue, why don’t you and your Catholic League figure out how to keep Father O’Gropper away from the boy’s choir and stop trying to piggyback on Jerry Falwell’s phony egotistical crusade! To borrow from a man that you CLAIM to worship, the Roman Catholics have more than just a PLANK in their eyes, they have the whole frigging FORREST, and they need to remove that FORREST from their eyes before they can EVEN THINK about trying to remove the splinter in their neighbor’s eye.

I’m sorry folks, but the sheer ARROGANCE of these so-called "men of God" just piss me off! We’re not talking PRIDE here, we’re talking sheer, naked, elitist, egotistical, self-righteous, self-important, self-centered ARROGANCE. And the only difference between these people and the Osama bin PigBastards of our world is a bomb and a gun.

And I’m sure that some of you are wondering, just as I once did, what all of this "War on Christmas" horsecrap is REALLY all about! I mean, you would think that these people would be absolutely DELIGHTED in having stores stop using Christmas for their own SECULAR ends.

What has been the biggest complaint about Christmas? The commercialism! Christmas is, after all, both a religious AND a secular celebration, and the religious people have for the LONGEST time been bitching and crying about the fact that the SECULAR side has been getting all of the attention… with Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman and blockbuster store sales with mad rushes for the next "gimme" gift.

So when the business world stops saying "Christmas" and starts using the generic "holiday" terminology, you’d think that our holy rollers would be overjoyed! I mean, they’ve always wanted the commercialism out of the season, right? Well here you go!

But then it occurred to me that the real reason why they’re getting their crosses bent out of shape… is because these greedy pricks want it ALL!

They want the whole damned thing! They want the business profits. They want the attention. They want the visions of sugar plums dancing in the heads of little kids. They want the whole thing wrapped up in a big bright red ribbon so they can tell the rest of the world that THIS is all the HUGE success story of CHRISTIANITY!

And the timing is right, because not only is the biggest sales season, but it’s also the time when people of all ages turn to religion. They go to church… in some cases this is the ONLY time they do short of a marriage or a funeral. So here they have the most captive audience… people who don’t care about religion for any other time except right now. And they don’t like hearing about THEIR religious beliefs being taken away from them, even though that’s not REALLY the story here.

Let’s get brutally honest here… this fraudulent "War on Christmas" is nothing more than a POWER-GRAB. Falwell and his gang of self-righteous flimflam artists are busy purging the SECULAR side of the season so they can claim that this is a 100% GOVERNMENT-ENDORSED RELIGIOUS celebration! It’s all part of their continued indoctrination to get people to believe that America has always been and should be a CHRISTIAN theocracy.

And what makes this fraud even more deceptive is that they are fraudulently claiming to be the VICTIMS in this situation, when they are truthfully the instigators and organizers of this media grinching of the season.

So let’s just get this out of the way… If you get your cross bent out of shape because someone says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", then YOU’RE the one with the problem, and you need to seek therapy… or at the very least down large quantities of some spiced-up eggnog and give yourself a figgy pudding enema.

The whole Christmas season is an amalgamation of secular and religious items. Decorating trees, kissing under the mistletoe, exchanging presents… those are all Germanic, Celtic, and Norse traditions. PAGAN traditions. Think about it. There were no pine trees in Bethlehem… and have you ever heard of a mistletoe falafel?

If you want a purely RELGIOUS Christmas, then that’s fine. You’re more than welcome to have a purely religious Christmas celebration in your own home. Ditch the tree, forget about gift giving, go to church, and spend Christmas Eve or Christmas day helping the homeless… go visit prisoners… work at a soup kitchen. In short, BE the very Christians that you think you should be and stop worrying about whether or not other people share that vision.

(Computer – holiday mix)
(Fade Music In – "Mythodea" by Vangelis)

While we’re on this so-called "War on Christmas", I want to mention the REAL efforts to actually ban Christmas. Christmas was actually banned in England back in 1642 because it was deemed to be too "decadent". It was also banned in Boston for 22 years starting in 1659, with violators having to pay a five-shilling fine.

Now who were these real-life predecessors of Ebeneezer Scrooge? Were these party-pooper businessmen? Atheists? Deists? Liberal predecessors to the ACLU? Nope, nope, nope, and HELL NO. These were PURITANS… ultra-conservative fundamentalists who felt that the Christian religion shouldn’t be corrupted by the PAGAN traditions. How about that? The predecessors to today’s fundamentalists… who waged a REAL "War on Christmas".

And by the way, did you know that for almost a whole century, it was actually UN-AMERICAN to celebrate Christmas? From the end of the American Revolution until it was recognized as a federal holiday in 1870, it was actually socially BAD to celebrate Christmas… because it was considered to be too much of a British tradition. Imagine that!

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)

(Computer – Quickie Ending)
(Computer – "End of Recording")

[End of program]
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