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It's an unexpectedly powerful thing, this return of the White Season's Greeting. It's the Political Correctness Whipping Boy of the Second Coming of bu$h, isn't it?
To my partial disgust, I find "Merry Christmas" appealing. It takes me back to childhood, when white people ruled the world by Divine Right, Manifest Destiny, ad nauseum. "Leave It To Beaver" was the truth, as far as I knew. People of Other Colors and Different Beliefs might have had their celebrations, but it was the White Man's world and the holiday was Christmas. That's what was celebrated, that's what was marketed. And I was just a kid in rural Arkansas. What the hell did I know of the world, except what I saw around me? And what I saw around me was white and Baptist.
Goddess help me, but I have never quite been comfortable with "Season's Greetings" and/or "Happy Holidays." I don't even remember when these phrases began to replace MC on the TV and in the stores, but it aggravated my intolerance for Newspeak. Why won't those TV people call it what it is? was always my unspoken thought.
Of course, I knew that the "Happy Holidays" thing was simply an acknowledgement that there are other cultures' celebrations that need to be acknowledged and respected (unless one is Wiccan or Pagan). But I have also known since I was seven years old that Christmas is WAY more about Santa Claus than it is about that Jesus fellow. St. Nick got the majority of face time; Baby Jesus was an afterthought.
The sudden reappearance of "Merry Christmas" (perpetrated by the bootlicking, bu$h-serving media) is, at once, a comforting and evil thing. Damned if that phrase is not trying to turn the clock back to Ozzie and Harriet--and damned if it's not soothing and reassuring to my inner child!
Maybe what I began to think when I was twelve will see me through this new crisis: Fuck Christmas. It's a scam to get you to spend money on people who will be mean to you the rest of the year.
Damned if DU ain't as good as shrink and a whole lot cheaper!
Merry Whatever, :evilgrin: dbt
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