What Would Jesus Buy

Happy Thanksgiving!

I thought I'd pass this along to everyone out there who I know is trying to cut back on holiday spending:

About a year ago, I came across a documentary called "Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping" about a performance artist who went around Times Square in New York trying to get people to curb their materialism and maybe not shop so much, especially at stores that commit (or are implicit in) atrocities in countries where they make their products. It was a decidedly low-budget production, and obviously a labor of love for the filmmaker, but it was moving in a "look at what we've become -- and now let's do something about it" kind of way.

Well I was surfing the net just now, and I ran across Reverend Billy's second movie, which is coming out this Christmas. It looks like Rev. Billy is gaining momentum this time, because he has locked arms with Morgan Spurlock, the guy who made "Super Size Me" - in which the fillmaker/director/star eats only at McDonald's for 30 days straight - and the TV-show "30 Days", in which he attempts many other ill-advisable feats for the same span of time, such as living on minimum wage.

It's on a limited run, so we haven't gone to see it yet, but if their previous work is any indication, it looks like it should be a refreshing documentary that attempts to break the spell of the now-traditional holiday frenzy by (satirically) invoking the spirit of the man who the holiday is ostensibly all about.

It's called "What Would Jesus Buy?", and it sounds like the perfect antidote to an age when the leader of the free world is a man who told us all that the most important sacrifice we could make in the months following 9-11 was to "Go shopping."  Seriously.  Does everyone remember that?  Of course he's moved on to sacrificing our moral high ground and our civil liberties since then, but that's a subject for another post.

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John Gibson invents the War on Christmas

You do?  Ohmigosh!  Me, too!

Well, just in case you thought it was over, Fox News's John Gibson and his friends in government and media are, in their own screeching, whining, artificially insinuating way, now celebrating the first anniversary of the  disingenuous invention of the "War on Christmas."

I, for one, find it hilariously (or maddeningly, depending on my somewhat bipolar moods) appropriate that the very team that, in government, was so successful at fabricating a real war on fake pretenses four years ago -- is now, in the media, one-upping themselves by fabricating a fake one on fake pretenses.

Oooh, but they just love their war, don't they?

They must've already gotten bored with the last one.  Or, one might imagine, the execs at Fox News just weren't happy with the reviews it was getting.

I discovered a blog today that has a very timely rant against all the hijacking and artificial grandstanding that this once-innocent holiday is now being forced to endure.  It's at The Smirking Chimp -- feel free to go and read it there -- or just read my excerpt here, which I have added emphasis to (in my way) for your enjoyment (or mine, I lose track sometimes):

... of course they invented this so-called war.  Corporations aren't attacking Christmas when they ask employees to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."  They're just saying that all Americans, including those who don't celebrate Christmas in their beliefs, are welcome to patronize their store.  The fanatical media mavens, always looking for a new phony cause, invented the "War on Christmas."

... There's never been a war on Christmas.

Until now.

I'm declaring one.  This is the opening salvo of my official war on Christmas.  Oh, not the real Christmas, mind you. Depending on what you believe, Christmas can be either a) the time to remember when God came to Earth in human form and sacrificed himself for us, or b) a holiday that combined a number of ancient solstice festivals and resurrection stories that each reflected elemental aspects of the human spirit.

I have no problem with Christmas in either form.  Either way, it's a beautiful synthesis of what it means to be alive, of the way that human beings can learn to love both the creation and the Creator.  ... Christmas was designed to remind us of the One who refused to hate minorities, the One who found a lesson in the behavior of the Samaritan ( [who was] from a despised sect of outsiders), who saved the prostitute's life, who said that the country's religious leaders didn't have a monopoly on the truth.

His Christmas, that Christmas, is a time to love those who are different, to accept them and learn from them - not a time to fan the flames of hatred to increase ratings or get more support for the Republican agenda.  In the real spirit of Christmas, atheists and Muslims would be as welcome at the table - and on television - as the most devout Christian. That was His example.

... I'm also declaring war against the corporate-sponsored Christmas, the Credit Card Christmas, the debt-amplifying and soul-killing Christmas.  It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven, we are told.  So why are we being lectured on Christmas by rich men?  And why are Christians still following wealthy and politically-connected preachers, two thousand years after Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple?

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Story.peace.wreath.ap

(File this under "George Orwell turns in his grave".)

Oh.  My.

There's a story up on the Fox News site about a Colorado resident who is being fined by her local homeowner's association for putting up a Christmas wreath in the shape of a peace-sign.

The homeowner, one Lisa Jensen -- who was at one time on the very housing board that's fining her -- , is quite admirably refusing to pay the fine, stating simply: "Now that it has come to this, I feel I can't get bullied.  What if they don't like my Santa Claus?"

It's actually quite a funny story -- until you get to the last line, where the chairman of the board orders his board members to order Ms. Jensen to remove the wreath, and they all refuse -- which at first made me think "Decentralized power.  Ain't it great?"  But the kicker is that the chairman then proceeded to fire all five of them !

Why do I get the feeling that the entire country is due for, I don't know, a big civics refresher-course or something?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems pretty empirically true that a peace sign is not designed to incite anybody to anything other than goodwill towards his fellow man, and should be, you know, maybe protected under free speech.

Or something.

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