It’s Not Been Such A Merry Christmas For Some
I certainly hope that the title of this piece isn’t applicable to you and yours. But if one considers oneself a good person, much less a good Christian, are we not supposed to remember the less fortunate? And yet, there are so many signs that we have forgotten what Christmas represents:
How We Say Christmas
New York Times Editorial
December 25, 2006
What would you say if you had to explain Christmas to someone who knew nothing about it? A stranger might well wonder, don’t you always hope for peace on earth? Does good will really have a season? And if you genuinely love one another - truly hold one another in your hearts - wouldn’t simply saying it be far more eloquent than any other gift that you could give?
You would probably have something to say about the importance of family and the force of a holiday whose strongest emotions center upon children, and upon our memories of being children. And yet to really explain Christmas you would also have to try to answer the question that seems more pressing every year: how do those emotions and memories connect to the frenzied commercial machinery of the weeks that lead up to Christmas? What does all that retailing and wrapping paper have to do with peace on earth?
What matters is not just the disjunction between the majesty of those old hymns and the immodesty of this shopping season. It is that all those presents did not really catch the feeling we were looking for, did not say what we hoped to say.
Unfortunately, some say too much, demonstrating that they know nothing about Christmas:
Tis the Season for Republican So-Called Christians to Go Nuts
by A. Alexander, www.progressivedailybeacon.com
December 12th, 2006
Republican so-called Christians certainly do become extra angry this time of year, but who can blame them?
Christmas is the most wonderful time of year and oh-so full of wishes for joy, happiness, peace on earth, and goodwill toward all. Most of all, however, Christmas is the Holiday that, just beneath the surface, celebrates an incredibly beautiful Christ-like Liberalism of giving, sharing, loving, caring, and joy.
In short, the Holiday season is
the antithesis of the Conservative movement.
Once these Republican so-called Christians finish their incessant hissy-fitting and bemoaning of the fact that there just “isn’t enough Christ in Christmas,” they begin complaining to their FOX News audience about the fact that the damned homeless and poor, who are all too gleefully populating the frozen streets, need to get jobs and stop begging for food. Yes, indeed, there just “isn’t enough Christ in Christmas” - or is it that there just “isn’t enough Christ in” Republican so-called Christians? Maybe, when not bemoaning the apparent lack of Jesus in their Conservative Joyeux Noel, O’Reilly or Hannity might take a peek at the glaring lack of Christ in Republican “Christians?”
But the lack of Christ in Christmas really isn’t what sets off these Republican so-called Christians. No, what really grates their grill is the fact that beneath it all…beneath the vulgar sweatshop and slave labor profit-driven consumerism version of Christmas that they prefer, is a Christ-like Liberalism that they just can’t seem to terminate.
Yes, just beneath the surface of the yellow smiley face denoting a Wal-Mart “price-cut” — made possible through the exploitation of Third World labor — is the act of one person giving something to another and expecting nothing in return. Also, right behind all those “Black Friday” commercials screaming “half-off” sales, is an entire Season dedicated toward hoping for peace on earth. And, too, something in the spirit of the Season will motivate hundreds — if not thousands — to commit themselves to feeding the homeless or helping the poor. Who knows, maybe somewhere in America a homeless child will ask someone to give him their coat and the person giving will do that and, too, hand the child their cloak…or a toy…or a place to live?
And that is guaranteed to set off Republican so-called Christians - just watch as the likes of O’Reilly and Hannity implode, explode, kick, scream, whine, cry, pout, bitch, bemoan, and nearly come unglued. All because if they don’t, some child might think Christ was a Liberal who thought it was the peacemakers and not the warmongers that should be blessed. Or, heaven forbid, a child might think Christ wanted the meek and not the arrogant, wealthy, bombastic oil executives, talentless talking heads, and Australian-born media moguls to inherit the earth.
Which they are well on the way to achieving:
Wall St. Bonuses: So Much Money, Too Few Ferraris
By JENNY ANDERSON
December 25, 2006
In recent weeks, immense riches have been rained upon the top bankers and traders. After a year of record profits, investment houses like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley are awarding bonuses as high as $60 million. And a select group of hedge fund managers and private equity executives may be taking home even more.
The Chairman of Goldman Sachs reminded his employees (like he really meant this!) to maintain their proper priorities: Think of the company!
The morning Goldman Sachs announced record fourth-quarter and 2006 earnings, Lloyd C. Blankfein, chairman and chief executive, implored his employees - many whom would directly benefit from the bountiful earnings - to avoid excess. “As stewards of the firm’s reputation, I ask each of you to remember that our actions - inside and outside of the office - reflect on Goldman Sachs. Even a perception of arrogance hurts all of us,” he said in a voice mail sent to the entire firm.
But it seems that no one really listened any more than Blankfein really intended:
The 2006 bonus gold rush has re-energized some luxury markets. Miller Motorcars, in Greenwich, Conn., is fielding more requests for the $250,000 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano than it can possibly fill. One real estate broker laments a dearth of listings for two clients trying to spend $20 million on Manhattan properties. Financiers already comfortably settled in multimillion-dollar apartments and town houses are buying $5 million apartments for their children. Vacation homes, usually bought and sold in the spring, are now hot this winter, including ones in private resorts like the Yellowstone Club in Montana near Yellowstone National Park.
Economic Darwinism is very evident in the bonus distributions. Those less fit are on the verge of being culled from the herd:
Not everyone on Wall Street is getting multimillion-dollar bonuses. The average managing director - who stands at the top of Wall Street’s hierarchical food chain, but far from rock-star status - will be getting $1 million to $3 million, which will likely be stashed in savings as memories of the 2001 bear market remain fresh.
“I’m putting it in the bank because I know
next year I could be out of a job,”
said one managing director at a leading bank.
This is far from an uncommon unpleasant remembrance:
At cocktail parties, comparisons to 1999 abound. That year marked the height of the technology boom and the eve of a painful crash. “It feels a little bit like the top,” said another banker.
Some got just enough of a bonus to enjoy a little something for their annual effort:
For hedge fund traders and managers, markets were rough in the spring and summer, and some did not make gains until stocks rallied this fall. “It was a terrible year,” said one young hedge fund professional.
“I am going to the movies with my bonus. By myself.”
But that is OK with the Truly Deserving:
It’s a brisk Wednesday morning in the windy caverns of Wall Street and Sarah Clark’s toes are cold. Dressed in a purple flight attendant outfit, Ms. Clark, a 26-year-old model, is trying to entice recent bonus recipients at Goldman Sachs into using a charter plane service, handing out $1,000 discount coupons to people in front of the investment bank’s Broad Street headquarters. “Where am I going?” asks one man, heading toward the Goldman building. “It’s your own private jet,” says Ms. Clark with a smile. “You can go wherever you like.”
Ms. Clark wondered why there weren’t more people coming to work during the early hours. Then, at 7:30 a.m., a black Mercedes pulled up, depositing Mr. Blankfein in front of Ms. Clark. The night before, he had been awarded a $53.4 million bonus. She offered him a voucher. “How are you?” he said, smiling quickly but refusing the voucher. “I guess he didn’t want it,” she lamented.
Accept charity discounts when he could buy his own plane and pilot any time he wants to? That’s for the -* GASP! *- little people! The ones Leona Helmsley expects to pay all the taxes! Those who made a great deal of money globalizing the world earned their swag! It’s hard work selling globalization to the working class!
Still Flying High
New York Times Editorial
December 25, 2006
Globalization is tough to sell to average people. A large part of the problem is the disposition of the spoils of globalization. While liberalized trade has meant faster growth, lower inflation and huge profits, the benefits in this country have gone disproportionately to the wealthy.
America’s middle class is unquestionably suffering through an era of wage stagnation and job insecurity. [W]hat sticks in our minds is the television image of the father of three laid off when his factory moves offshore. That is an argument for a stronger safety net for workers cut loose in the upheaval of a changing economy, whether those changes are driven by technology or global competition.
The United States needs a more progressive tax system and the government must find a way to help businesses and individuals with out-of-control health care costs.
One of the most famous fictional poor and ailing souls is Charles Dickins’ Tiny Tim, who - while he still represents a quaint jolt of recognition to our consciences - isn’t quite what he used to be in our minds:
Alas for Tiny Tim, He Became a Christmas Cliche
By HARRIET McBRYDE JOHNSON
December 25, 2006
Harriet McBryde Johnson is the author of the memoir Too Late to Die Young and the novel Accidents of Nature.
“Alas for Tiny Tim,” Dickens wrote, “he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!” Alas! A little crutch! An iron frame! In our world, the crutch-and-brace kids were the athletic elite. They picked up the stuff we hard-core crips dropped.
Tiny Tim, like some of us, was ostensibly doomed. A Christmas Carol teaches that no one, not even a real scrooge like Scrooge, can resist the appeal of an ostensibly doomed child. People ate it up and still do. As heart-melting poster children come and go, Tiny Tim lives on.
Tiny Tim knew how to give an audience what it wanted. He was ancestor to all telethon poster children and the perfect model for our holiday-party behavior. He joins in festive singing - plaintively. He cries hurrah - feebly. He says, “God bless us every one!”
When a theater company in my neighborhood recently announced yet another production of A Christmas Carol, I decided it was time to reread the story. I found an awful lot to like. A Christmas Carol swings between warm and cold, soft and harsh, sensual and spooky. It panders to our prurient fascination with food. It also gives us dancing, singing, and the giddy exhilaration of sudden redemption.
What surprised me went a bit deeper:
the story bristles with condemnation
of wealth’s arrogance in the face of poverty.As the tale begins, Scrooge is not merely stingy and mean. He is a Social Darwinist. He believes in workhouses and prisons to meet the needs of the poor and in starvation to reduce the surplus population. While disability may make Tiny Tim’s life precarious, the story hints that privation is what would seal his doom.
As the ghosts show Scrooge the consequences of his actions, they also impeach him with his own philosophy. When Scrooge asks if Tiny Tim will live, the first part of the spirit’s response has become part of popular culture: “I see a … crutch without an owner, carefully preserved … if these shadows remain unaltered ….”
But the ghost goes on: “What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. … Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”
The ghost’s point is still worth making in our time, when some of the people who consume most of the world’s resources hold disabled lives cheap and begrudge the “too much” of the poor.
Through the ghost, Dickens cries for justice for millions.
But he lets that cry be overshadowed by the sweet melodrama of one ostensibly doomed child. In the end, the story’s overriding directive, cherished in today’s holiday hullabaloo, is to take time off work and celebrate with family, and from our abundance to toss some holiday merriment at the less fortunate.
The genius of most successful propaganda is to know what the audience wants and how far it will go. Perhaps, marked by his own family’s experience of the poorhouse, Dickens hoped Tiny Tim would inveigle holiday benefactors into making feel-good gestures and then returning to address the real needs.
Perhaps Dickens hoped charity
might prove a catalyst for something
beyond charity.But then and now, the season of giving is about the feel-good gesture. Holding a party at the Crippled Children’s School is so easy, so immediately satisfying. It is much harder, the prospect of reward often so remote, to seek justice for our sisters and brothers in the dust.
There are other unmet needs facing the little people, our brothers and sisters in the dust. Should it be the duty of a foreign nation, rather than our own domestic fortunate sons, to ease their plight?
Yes, oil from Venezuela
By Joseph P. Kennedy II
December 24, 2006
THERE’S BEEN a lot of controversy lately over whether Citizens Energy Corp. should distribute — and the poor should accept — discount heating oil from Venezuela while that country is under the leadership of President Hugo Chávez. Meanwhile, oil companies other than Citgo have declined to share their record profits with those who most struggle to keep pace with rising energy costs.
In spite of the fact that heating oil prices have doubled over the past few years, the federal fuel assistance program faces a one-third cut this year, from $3.1 billion to $2.1 billion. Washington earns windfall tax revenues from the rising prices of petroleum products, but not a cent goes to offset rising energy costs for the poor. Nor do the poor benefit from increased royalties on gas and oil taken from federal lands and waters — if, in fact, the energy companies pay the government at all.
Criticism of our program isn’t about cheap heating oil. It’s all about Hugo. While conservative interests in this country don’t like him, US businesses don’t mind his money and his marketplace.
Otherwise, why would General Motors and Ford sell more than 300,000 cars a year in Venezuela? Why would US insurance companies, banks, telecom firms, entertainment conglomerates, and consumer product manufacturers flock to our Latin American neighbor? Why would Chevron Texaco, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and other major corporations — including Vice President Cheney’s old firm, Halliburton — invest and earn billions every year off of petroleum exploration, production, refining, and transportation in the country?
Even though doing business with Venezuela has been very good for capitalists, the issue at hand is Chávez and his politics of socialism. The fact is that many of the bluest of our blue chip corporations may actually be wearing a shade of Hugo Chávez red beneath their suspenders — with one major difference: They’re fine with socializing the risks of capitalism, so long as they can privatize the profits. Before we accept the characterizations of him as a socialist threat to our way of life, we ought to look at our own country — ironically, a system of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.
Banks make billions on the gap between federal lending rates and what they charge consumers to borrow for homes, cars, small businesses, and personal needs. The government guarantees their deposits, so that if the banks fail, the taxpayer is left holding the bag.
Insurance companies charge consumers with premiums that go up and up, yet expect the government to cover their losses when they get hit — as we saw in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
Student loan corporations, working closely with colleges and universities, contribute to spiraling higher-education costs with loans guaranteed by the government.
As for the poor? They’re decidedly on their own.
But those who have no problem staying warm at night should not condemn others for accepting Venezuela’s oil. Rhetoric means little to an elderly woman who has to drag an old cot from her basement to sleep by the warmth of the open kitchen stove or give up food or medicine to pay her heating bill.
It’s as if the Most Fortunate view their struggle for opulent abundance as a war in which the little people are expected to suffer being casualties. Would that not be a violation of the meaning of Christmas? If so, it means WAR!:
Britain’s unholy war over Christmas
by Rob Blackhurst
December 22, 2006
Britain has imported America’s “culture wars,” in which Christmas becomes a pitched battle between Christians, secularists and minority faiths. Christmas has become the latest battleground in a series of skirmishes over whether Britain will remain a Christian society.
All this may be contributing to a mild resurgence in the Anglican brand of Christmas this year. The British finally seem to have taken to heart words attributed to an anonymous British elder statesman in the 19th century: “We must preserve the Church of England. It’s our only defense against real religion.”
It seems to be working! A BBC survey showed that fewer than half of British children aged from 7 to 11 know that Christmas marks the birth of Christ.
But I digress.
These new holy wars explain why, despite the fact that the vast majority of Britons will spend Christmas morning on the sofa rather than gracing a church pew (Average weekly attendance in Anglican churches has dwindled to between 1 percent and 4 percent of the population), most feel that the liberal freedoms upheld by the church are worth protecting. According to the last census, 71.6 percent of the population declared themselves to be Christian.
And how are these “Christians” fighting their war against those who are secularist or non-Christian?
The tabloids are full of trendy teachers that have banished the nativity play in favor of a multifaith “festival of light.” Journalists have been dispatched to find school canteens that have replaced the traditional fattened goose with halal chicken. The Christmas cards of Prince Charles, Prime Minister Tony Blair and his heir-apparent, Gordon Brown, have been scrutinized to see whether they offer anemic “Seasons Greetings” rather than a stout “Merry Christmas.”
It looks like these British versions of America’s “Christian” Republicans don’t know much about real war. You want them to know about Christmas and war? They should talk to this Iraqi Muslim man - he knows:
Keeping Christmas Alive on a Baghdad Street Corner
By Nancy Trejos, Washington Post
December 24, 2006
Nouri Dawoud has one of the most dangerous jobs in Baghdad. He sells Christmas trees.
For seven hours a day, he stands on the same street corner in a neighborhood where drive-by shootings and snipers are not uncommon. He caters to Christians, who are among the most targeted people in the city. On a good day, he attracts a crowd, a draw to any would-be suicide bomber.
On Monday, one week before Christmas, Dawoud was the only tree vendor on his street, which in times past had become Christmas tree row in early December. His colleagues, he said, were too afraid to join him. Christmas was once a holiday that Christians and a few Muslims in Iraq enjoyed. Now, they fear celebrating it. These days in Baghdad, buying a Christmas tree can lead to getting killed.
Yusef Zawet and his brother Assem used to sell natural trees on the sidewalk of their flower shop in Karrada. They imported them from Turkey, Iran and Syria. But the lack of security on the roads has made shipping trees, or anything else, too expensive. Last year, their driver was attacked on a road in Anbar province, west of Baghdad. The Lebanese-born Zawets, who fled Lebanon during its civil war for what was then the safety of Baghdad, lost $35,000 worth of plants.
“It’s a good thing they only took the truck and didn’t behead him,” Assem said. Now they keep artificial Christmas trees inside their shop.
Dawoud won’t settle for that. He has been planting the real thing at his farm north of Baghdad for 35 years. He’s got the weathered face to prove it, leathery skin under a patch of gray stubble.
On Monday, Dawoud sold three trees. On Tuesday, he sold 10. In years past, he said, he would sell 20 or 30 in one day.
He said he was starting to feel lonely at his corner, which faces a telecommunications center and is near restaurants that no one goes to anymore. For company, he had only two young brothers who sell cigarettes and orange soda from a kiosk. Kadhum Sayat, 15, tried to act as brave as Dawoud. The boy said he wanted to be buried in Najaf, a city sacred to Shiites, if anything happened to him at the corner. “We leave it up to God,” he said.
Dawoud was less worried about death. “No one is coming to ask about trees,” he said.
Then a man walked up. He picked out a tree, paid for it and left in a matter of minutes. He acted just like a thief, Dawoud said when he was gone. “When they steal, they look over their shoulders and hide,” he said. “That’s what they’re doing now when they buy trees.”
Dawoud is a Muslim, but he has lived among Christians in the mixed Karrada district for years. “We are brothers,” he said, expressing a tolerance that is increasingly rare in Baghdad.
And in the WASP countries, where attitudes toward those who don’t share the common religion are growing quite hostile.
[M]ilitant Islamic groups have waged a campaign against Christians… mostly for not being Muslim. The violence picked up following Pope Benedict XVI’s controversial citing this year of a 14th-century Byzantine emperor’s description of Islam as “evil and inhuman.” The violence has led many Christians to flee the country. Carlo Aziz, a monk at the Church of the Roman Catholic in Karrada, estimates that about 400,000 Christians remain.
The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 44 percent of Iraqis seeking asylum in Syria are Christians. In the first four months of this year, Iraqi Christians were also the largest group seeking asylum in Jordan, the agency said. Christians are moving out of Mosul, Baghdad and the southern city of Basra to the generally peaceful northern Kurdistan region, while others are migrating to Turkey, Sweden and Australia, the agency reported.
These folks managed to find an exit from the Iraqi Oil Crusade. Is this a sign that there just might be hope to rescue Christmas from those who don’t honor its true meaning? Which is … :
King of kings was born not to be served but to serve
By the Rev. Rob Cattalani
December 25, 2006
Cattalani is pastor of the Browncroft Community Church in Penfield, NY.
The story of Jesus’ birth is wrapped as much in irony as it is in beauty. Of course, this might well be the point that Luke the Gospel writer is making in his well-known account: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.” Born Gaius Octavian, the grandnephew and later adopted son and designated heir of Julius Caesar, Augustus was effectively the king of the world at this time. One ancient inscription reads: “Divine Augustus Caesar, son of god, imperator of land and sea, the benefactor and savior of the whole world.”
Jesus, who was born during the taking of this census, would come to hold that very title as the promised Redeemer. Yet he did not come into the world as a royal figure and his entrance came with little fanfare. He was placed in a manger, a feeding trough for animals, with Mary his mother and Joseph sleeping nearby.
This contrast, which Luke seems to be highlighting, is not only central to the story of Jesus but to the greater revelation of God. We all know where the life story of Jesus is headed - to his self-sacrifice for the world some 30 years later. But why begin like this? Why Mary? Joseph, a carpenter?
Wouldn’t you expect something greater from God?
I think most people did and still do today. God, however, did not send his son into the world to make demands, but to demonstrate his love. As Jesus would later tell his disciples who struggled to grasp this idea of God, “I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.”
And to whom is this ransom to be paid?
The primary Christmas story: Mary vs. the empire
By James Carroll, Boston Globe
December 25, 2006
It is hard to imagine now, when Christmas is the ultimate feast of domesticity, but the sweet tale of the coming of this child was, in its origin, an act of political treason. The Christmas story began, in the scholar John Dominic Crossan’s word, as a “counterstory.” People who first gathered to tell it to one another, as a way of saying what the memory of Jesus had come to mean to them, were signing up for revolution.
The baby Jesus, after all, is explicitly identified as an antagonist to no one less than the emperor of Rome. “Now at this time Caesar Augustus issued a decree . . . ” (Luke 2:1) Augustus, claiming to be a god, was said to have been born of a human mother and a divine father. When a peasant woman from the opposite end of the social order is “found to be with child through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18), a direct rebuttal is being issued to the self-idolatrous emperor.
When the magi arrive to offer their gifts and bow, they are identifying the baby as a king, when the only king is Caesar. When angels sing of peace, they are defining the character of the kingdom that this child will initiate. Roman violence is challenged and rejected. When Herod, the emperor’s agent, fails in his attempt to murder the newborn, the theme is nevertheless being struck: Roman violence will pursue this child until it gets him. Mary is not afraid, but she is no fool. “A sword will pierce your soul,” a prophet tells her.
The birth of Jesus is the reversal of the imperial order.
The story of that birth is told and told again because the imperial order is always attempting a comeback, always needing to be challenged. Empire lives in the United States of America, and, despite assumptions of many Christian Americans, Christmas still rebukes the empire.
When economic inequity becomes so extreme as to turn the global social order into an effective state of permanent war, which side is God on? The shepherds tell us, and so do the kneeling kings.
Above all, Mary tells us. Pondering these things in her heart, Mary understands. Even within the nativity story, it falls to her to say what the events of Christmas actually mean. “My soul proclaims the greatness of God,” she begins. God “has routed the proud of heart. God has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things, the rich sent empty away” (Luke 1:46-53).
The implications of Mary’s statement for contemporary politics are obvious. Violence marks power as much as ever. Hunger and poverty among masses of people are inevitable byproducts of a market system that rewards the few.
Such a simple concept one would expect Christians to understand, much less non-Christians:
Another view of Christmas
by Jill Singer
December 25, 2006
I love Christmas. Some might think I have no right to because I am an atheist.
I am an atheist who is deeply concerned about the rapidly escalating intolerance of free thought and speech that is being fuelled by religious fundamentalism, whether we are talking about Australia, the US, Iraq, Indonesia or Saudi Arabia. My American family, also atheist, is becoming inured to the scorn and anger of pious, angry Christians. It seems we are all going to hell for believing in scientific reason and the potential for humans to triumph over adversity by a desire to help each other.
But for countless millions of non-believers across the world, today is still a very special day… a wonderful opportunity to celebrate things such as family, peace and goodwill to others, the essential spirit of Christmas. It’s just that we don’t believe in or feel the need to celebrate the supernatural.
If invited to place religious beliefs on a spectrum of social good versus evil, I would have to say that fundamentalist Islam poses the greatest current global threat to individual liberty, particularly to that of women. Yes, it frightens me.
It troubles me that the Western world is increasingly coming to value blind faith over reason. Of major concern is that Australians have recently witnessed their country tag along with the deadly and un-winnable war on Iraq, waged by a foolish and deceitful born-again Christian. If I pray for anything, it is that we can keep cool heads and warm hearts.
Doing so allows one to recognize that Christmas is for everyone:
An Exit Strategy for the War on Christmas
By Barbara Ehrenreich, AlterNet
December 9, 2006.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of 13 books, most recently Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream.
Let’s face it: Christmas is not the exclusive property of those who think God came to earth 2000 years ago as a baby in Bethlehem.
As a dedicated secular humanist, I must regretfully acknowledge that the War on Christmas has not been going well. Some would use the word “quagmire,” and urge a phased redeployment to other fronts, like Easter and Mardi Gras. Others argue that we simply need more boots on the ground, and that our allies, such as the ACLU, have not been fielding sufficient troops. I say we have only ourselves to blame, and that — however noble our intentions — we haven’t been putting up much of a fight.
Take me, for example. I had big plans for the season: I was going to spray paint the local church creche with atheist graffiti, sue my town over the lights on Main Street, let termites loose on the mega-tree at Rockefeller Center, and start rumors about an E. Coli infestation of the nation’s fruitcake supply. But here it is, December already, and I’ve done nothing to rate a mention on Bill O’Reilly’s show or even a mild rebuke from the Pope, who, apparently oblivious to the anti-Christmas threat, spent last week cozying up with Muslims in Turkey.
Let’s face it: Christmas is not the exclusive property of those who think God came to earth 2000 years ago as a baby in Bethlehem.
I caught the Christmas bug from my parents, who were militant atheists of the Richard Dawkins ilk. I celebrated it with my first husband, the son of Jewish atheists. True, we tried Chanukah too one year, but it bombed with the kids. What’s a little Chanukah gelt compared to a floor-full of presents?
My second husband, who had been inadvertently converted to atheism by the nuns at Catholic school, was the worst. We fought over whether to measure the extent of our excess by the volume of presents under the tree or their weight as determined by the bathroom scale. Then there’s the annual fight over the tree: Can it be multi-colored and gaudy, as I prefer, or all-white, as certain puritanical in-laws insist?
How Christian is Christmas anyway?
The tree and the wreathes descend from pagan, tree-worshipping, Druidism. The December date for the holiday probably comes from the Roman Saturnalia, a pre-existing blow-out featuring feasting and role-inversion (masters had to wait on slaves.) Even if you fixate on Jesus, he was a pretty ecumenical guy — a Jew who invented Christianity and is also much honored by Muslims. And who would be grinch-like enough not to welcome a baby whose mission was to bring world peace? Hell, I’m such a baby freak I think any baby, anywhere, any time, should be a cause for major celebration.
At the post office last week, where I was stocking up on stamps for cards, I struggled over the seasonal options: Chanukah, Kwanza, Eid (the post-Ramadan Muslim holiday), or a traditional Virgin and Child. How will the pretty Virgin and baby go over with my Wiccan friends? “You should get a sheet of each,” the postmistress helpfully suggested, “More and more people are doing that.” So I did, and I now declare the war is over — the War on Christmas anyway.
But not participating isn’t an answer for everyone. This religious person thinks that Christmas needs to be de-secularized:
To truly honor Christmas, end its status as an official holiday
By Mary Jane Wilkie
December 01, 2006
Mary Jane Wilkie directs the Sunday School at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown, N.J.
I’m not a fanatic atheist or a self-righteous secular humanist. I’m a practicing Christian. But I think Christmas should be stricken from the list of legal holidays in America.
Returning Dec. 25 to ordinary status would let
Christmas be observed for the right reasons.Ending Christmas as a legal holiday would help eliminate the seasonal frenzy. Who hasn’t crossed paths with parents crazed by desire to procure the right gift to win their child’s affection? I can hear the cries of merchants: “The economy would collapse!” “My company would go out of business!” But an economy built on stimulation of desire for the useless items I see for sale each year should review its underpinnings. We all have more desires than needs, and most Americans have more “stuff” than we could use in a lifetime. Gifts should be the sign of special attentiveness toward another person, an observation of what that person needs in a deep emotional sense. This is a rare occurrence in most Christmas gift-giving.
As a former teacher, I can attest that schools would benefit enormously from making Dec. 25 just another day of the week. The long holiday interruption, coming on the heels of Thanksgiving, makes it hard to maintain continuity in classroom activities. The weeks between Thanksgiving and start of Christmas break are weighed down with so many holiday obligations that scant progress is made with the curriculum.
The demise of the office Christmas party would hurt no one. Often, a few eggnog-drunk employees engage in naughty activities, or make ill-considered remarks about or to the boss. Party defenders call it an event to thank workers, but there is nothing to prevent employers from granting year-end bonuses, or celebrating a firm’s progress in ways less fraught with temptations.
Lastly, and most important to me personally, is that ending Christmas as a legal holiday would force those of us who are Christians to identify ourselves as such. All Christians - practicing or nominal - would be faced with the decision to take Dec. 24 and 25 as personal days.
How many would honor their faith
and respect their traditions by doing so?In a nation where people routinely declare their adherence to separation of church and state, a national Christmas holiday is hypocrisy. Returning Dec. 25 to ordinary status - as it was before 1870, when Congress made it a federal holiday … would restore the integrity of how Christians honor the birth of Jesus Christ.
Unburdened of the glitter and tinsel, the piped-in sugary music at the malls, the frenzied shopping, Christmas could breathe again, become what it was intended to be, and observed in a spirit of devotion by those of us who believe in Jesus, our Christ.
Such a movement is already underway in Scotland:
Christmas future: a normal working day for us all?
By Jenifer Johnston
Members of the Scottish Parliament [MSP] were asked to consider questions before voting on Labour MSP Karen Whitefield’s bill proposing that department stores close on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day to protect shop workers from over-eager retailers who might want 365 days of trading a year. Whitefield said she had no plans to extend her mission to protect Christmas to other industries such as hospitality or entertainment. She also argued that if shops are widely open when they are normally closed, then public services have to be on duty as well.
The Catholic Church did not put a formal submission to the parliament on this issue, but “generally agrees with the principles of the bill”. The Church of Scotland, however, made an appeal for support for the legislation. Morag Milne, convener of the Kirk’s church and society council, believes there is a point to be made about corrosion of family life in this legislation. She says: “It is an unhappy situation where you have to legislate to protect special days and make sure people have time with their families, but that’s where things are at. It comes within a wider debate on family life.”
Professor Gill Hogg, an expert in retail strategy and shopping behaviour, at the University of Strathclyde, thinks a slide towards Christmas being “just another day” could start with the high street being open. Hogg, who personally views a ban on department stores opening on December 25 as “wonderful”, points out that we are also in a weak retail climate where sales are starting “earlier and earlier”. If the option to open on December 25 became available, she says, some retailers could be tempted to use it to launch their seasonal sales, and customers might find themselves “drifting there” without thinking about it.
Despite Hogg’s concerns, Christmas hasn’t always been special in Scotland. Until the 1960s December 25 was a working day for many Scots, and even today the TUC estimate that more than 100,000 people work on Christmas Day in Scotland.
Despite campaigning by business and tourism leaders, who believe a ban on Christmas and New Year opening would damage Scotland’s growing reputation as a festive destination, MSPs backed the proposals by 99 to four.
“It is pretty difficult to have sympathy with these huge companies who are worried about the loss of revenue over a couple of days of trading. I think that is pretty hard to stomach when you see how much is spent in advance. To imagine it’s a substantial loss is difficult,” said Milne.
Of the retailers contacted by the Sunday Herald who would be affected by a ban, none showed any enthusiasm for opening on Christmas Day.
Supermarkets did, however show an interest in having a choice about New Year’s Day.
They weren’t alone:
A spokeswoman for Debenhams defended the company’s decision to open 10 stores, from Inverness to Ayr, for seven hours on January 1, 2007, but refused to provide an employee to be interviewed about how they feel about working on New Year’s Day. She said: “Debenhams opens on January 1 due to customer demand. This is a voluntary working day for all staff and we never have a problem getting enough people to work on this day.” These claims were confirmed by sources who told the Sunday Herald that there are often too many staff willing to work on January 1, and that in years past Debenhams has been quiet on New Year’s Day, despite the lure of the sales.
Some people still want the time off more than the money:
The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW), the shop workers’ union that worked closely with Whitefield to bring forward her bill, insists their 36,000 Scottish members are in favour of the legislation. David Williams, political officer for USDAW, says the “snowball effect” will be amplified in years to come if Whitefield’s bill fails next year. “There is a larger community under threat that makes us want to push forward with this, it will have a big knock-on effect.
“Our members learned their lesson over Sunday trading. When that started there were promises of extra money, but that was eroded over time. They are promising treble time to work on New Year’s Day for 2007 but that cannot be sustained. It’s unaffordable. And retail workers will pay the price for it.”
One USDAW member, Barry Robertson from Armadale, is looking forward to the “hectic” festive season being over and spending a first Christmas with his wife and baby son as a family. “If employers pushed the New Year’s Day opening, there would be an outcry in Scotland. We aren’t robots. There is a class issue going on here: the Tories didn’t support the bill. But it’s the workers who are on the receiving end of that. I’d like to know if those MSPs who voted against the bill would be willing to come and work in parliament at Christmas time.”
Another of them is Jackie Martin, who says: “There’s no amount of money you could pay me to work either day. I want to be able to protect those days as a special time that I know I will spend with my family. It really annoys me that we don’t have that protection already.”
But Scrooge is conducting business now, and he still thinks that December the 25th is still a poor reason to pick a (business)man’s pocket! Are there no salaries? No bonuses?
I guess soon for some there won’t be:
The vanishing holiday bonus
By Marilyn Gardner, The Christian Science Monitor
November 27, 2006
As Christmas approached two years ago, Valerie Bent was looking forward to the sizable semiannual bonus she and her colleagues always received at the investor relations firm where she was a vice president. Although their salaries ranked far below industry standards, the company paid out 90 percent of its profits to its staff as a bonus. But this time Ms. Bent and other employees received a shock: Despite the most profitable six-month period in the company’s 30-year history, and contrary to everyone’s expectations, managers reneged on the bonus. “The company elected to take that money and open plush offices in West Los Angeles and New York,” she says.
“We were left with zero.”
[Not so little as these former employees: SonyBMG is set to announce a dismantling of its Sony Urban Music division that will hand pink slips to a large number of employees just in time for the holidays…]
“We’re seeing the holiday bonuses disappear,” says Brian Drum, president of Drum Associates in New York. “Thirty-five years ago, when I first dealt with a lot of companies that used to pay the so-called Christmas bonus, it was a gift.
“Today, as companies are becoming larger and consolidated, they are giving because it’s performance-related.” Tying rewards to the performance of the company serves to motivate workers, employment specialists say. Nowhere is that more evident than on Wall Street. Bonuses are reaching the stratosphere, rising an estimated 10 to 15 percent this year over 2005. Those rewards can average $1.7 million for managing directors of Wall Street banks. For top-tier bankers, they can swell to $20 million or more.
In a 2005 survey by Hewitt Associates, 59 percent of companies said they would not award holiday bonuses. But more than three-quarters of firms offer performance-based bonuses that must be re-earned each year. Many companies have also changed their fiscal year so it no longer coincides with the calendar year and the holiday season. Some end their year on Nov. 30. for others, it’s March 31. “It kind of takes you away from paying a bonus,” Drum says.
John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, finds that, increasingly, employees have an edge because of the tight labor pool. Noting that this has been a good year for performance, he says, “We expect more companies will be sharing more of that with their employees.” Even so, he adds, “Companies are much more careful today about keeping the bonuses in a reasonable frame. There’s some caution out there, because the economy is slowing. Next year might not be as strong.”
Still, Bob Kustka, president of CHR Partners, a human resources consulting firm in Norwell, Mass., expects changes: “Bonuses are going to come back into vogue in the next few years as the war for talent heats up,” he says. “The new workers entering the workforce, the millennials, will be harder to keep. They don’t have the same level of loyalty [that] previous generations had. Therefore organizations will be looking for innovative ways to keep those workers.” Already he sees gaps in accounting, engineering, and nursing.
Mr. Kustka notes another factor that could strengthen bonuses: the need to redistribute profits. “A lot of people are critical that CEO pay has risen between 300 percent and 400 percent. How do you justify that, when the average worker over the past 20 years has seen a decline in earning power and CEOs have seen immense growth in their earning power?”
Among 1,500 small businesses, 39 percent plan to give employees holiday bonuses this year, according to Constant Contact, an e-mail marketing service for small businesses. That is up 2 percent from last year. “For small businesses, cash flow and cash management are more difficult issues,” says Gail Goodman, CEO of Constant Contact. “It is harder to see out to the future and understand where cash will be next quarter and next year. It takes more confidence for a small business to pay a bonus.”
Whatever a company’s size, employees are frustrated by a “lack of clarity about how one qualifies for that bonus,” says Bill Kuntz, vice president of Princeton One, an outplacement firm. “They want to be treated fairly and have clear expectations.”
For Bent, her canceled bonus proved to be fortuitous. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says. Stunned by the company’s action, she took the next week off and began setting up a business of her own, realizing a long-held dream. Then she quit her job, making it clear to her bosses that the failure to receive a bonus was the reason. “I decided to move on,” she says. Today she is CEO of Big Feet Pajama Co. in Las Vegas. [L]osing an expected bonus left her determined to treat her own small staff well. Last year, to reward them for their hard work in starting up the company, she sent them to Italy. This year she plans “something special” again, though for now her exact plans remain a secret.
But Ms. Bent is an exception to the rule. Based on the massive bonuses delivered to the stock brokers and the miniscule amounts which a lucky few still get, there is another country a few years ahead of us in the process that we can look to for an idea of where America is headed:
A Widening Gap Erodes Argentina’s Egalitarian Image
By LARRY ROHTER
December 25, 2006
Five years after the collapse that ushered in the worst economic crisis in its modern history, Argentina has largely recovered. Since 2003, the economy here has grown faster than any other in South America, expanding on average by more than 8 percent annually. But another problem has come with that revival, vexing Argentines and challenging their image of themselves and their society. The fruits of the rapid expansion of commerce, construction, corporate profits and exports are not being shared by all, and as a result, economic and social inequality have intensified.
“There is a sense of frustration, of being deceived,” said Agustin Salvia, a sociologist at the Catholic University of Argentina. “The feeling is that there was a promise, a contract, and it has been violated.”
Historically, this has been a country that prided itself on its egalitarianism. Argentines scorned what they saw as the individualistic dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself character of American capitalism and the chasm between rich and poor in nearby countries like Brazil, Chile and Peru. If there was a model Argentines admired, it was France’s manifesto of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity.’
But the reality on which that vision is based has eroded as a result of the wrenching transformation of Argentina’s economy and society since the start of the 1990s - and especially since the crisis that erupted in December 2001. The economic crisis, which built through the 1990s, peaked when the government froze bank accounts and declared its largest foreign debt default ever. The peso’s value collapsed, millions of Argentines lost part or all of their savings and the economy contracted by more than 11 percent the next year. At the crisis’s peak, nearly 60 percent of Argentines had incomes below the poverty line.
Are we to see 60% of Americans’ incomes reach a point below the poverty line? We may be headed there before too much longer - we just haven’t yet had our credit cut off by the Chinese.
Is that their Christmas present to us? A delay of the inevitable?