VDARE.com: 12/10/09 - VDARE.COM 2009 War On Christmas Competition Commences—We Didn't Start The Fire (but We'll Put It Out)!

By James Fulford on December 10, 2009 at 1:00am

WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS COMPETITION 2009: [blog] [I] [2] [3] [4] [5] - See also: War Against Christmas 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999

VDARE.COM 2009 War On Christmas Competition Commences—We Didn't Start The Fire (but We'll Put It Out)!

VDARE.COM has been going on for almost ten years, and I've been with it since the year 2000. 

I wrote in 2005:

"Did I ever tell you readers how I got this job? No? Well gather round, and I'll tell you.

"In the year 2000, which some say was part of the last century, I was reading VDARE.com, and I saw the world famous VDARE.com Christmas competition.

"I hunted around systematically for egregious examples, and won!

"And not only did I win, but Brimelow offered me a job, including actual money, which I needed at the time. Financially I was where Tiny Tim was, in A Christmas Carol. Now, more like Bob Cratchit. [Help Keep VDare.com Going!!]"

[The Shop Of Ghosts, December 24, 2005]

You can read the whole of G. K. Chesterton's short story The Shop Of Ghosts at the link. The point of Chesterton's story is that Christmas is dying—and will never die. The point of the Tiny Tim reference is that I depend on VDARE.com for my livelihood, and when you're thinking about donating, you're thinking about supporting me, among others.

Just today, Time Magazine, which I recently used as an example of the kind of MSM publication that can't be bothered to provide email addresses and links, [email them] published  this:

"Since the 1990s, a right-wing website has held an annual competition for the most egregious example of secularization. (Villains include the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which christened its year-end party "A Celebration of Holiday Traditions.")" [Brief History: The War on Christmas, By Alex Altman, Time.com, December 21, 2009]

That's us, of course. See How the HUD Stole Christmas, by Peter Brimelow, December 25, 1999. This is a deliberate attempt to avoid communicating—all Alex Altman wants you to know about what's on our website is what he tells you, so s/he doesn't even tell you VDARE.com's name.

S/he did basically the same story last year, in which s/he did mention VDARE.com—with the obligatory reference to the fact that the SPLC says it hates us, so we're a hate group.

Typically, in the 2008 story, s/he called Peter Brimelow "the leading proponent of the War on Christmas".

This is just insane.

We didn't start the War On Christmas! We are not fighting against Christmas, we are fighting for it—in the face of official and corporate opposition, which goes all the way to the Supreme Court and the White House.

A lot of publicity has been given to the War On Christmas in recent years, and other organizations have been taking up the cudgels, notably William Donohue's Catholic League.

But when you read about it in the MainStream Media, you mostly see War On Christmas Denial. See for example, Yes, Virginia (And Michelle Goldberg), There Is A War Against Christmas, by Tom Piatak, replying to Michelle Goldberg's How the secular humanist grinch didn't steal Christmas, subtitled ""The right-wing crusade against the liberal "war on Christmas" is great for rallying the troops. Too bad the war doesn't exist..."

Just this year, courtesy of the Catholic League (which didn't provide the links—once again, that's what donors are paying me for):

You can thank the Freedom From Religion Foundation for that last one, they filed a suit. [PDF]

The Obama's feckless social secretary, Desirée Rogers, said that the Obamas almost decided not to display an eighteenth century Neapolitan crèche that's been displayed in the East Room every year since 1967:

"The lunch conversation inevitably turned to whether the White House would display its crèche, customarily placed in a prominent spot in the East Room. Ms. Rogers, this participant said, replied that the Obamas did not intend to put the manger scene on display—a remark that drew an audible gasp from the tight-knit social secretary sisterhood. (A White House official confirmed that there had been internal discussions about making Christmas more inclusive and whether to display the crèche.)"[The Spotlight's Bright Glare, By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NYT, December 4, 2009]

Here's what Washington Post blogger Susan Jacoby wrote about this:

The "war on Christmas" flap is getting old

Q: Should the White House, whose residents serve all Americans, display a crèche or a menorah or any strictly religious symbols during the holidays?

Who cares? With 40 million Americans having trouble putting food on the table and 10 percent out of work, there are more important things to worry about than whether the president, following the tradition of his predecessors, is disregarding the separation of church and state by displaying a crèche in the White House. For the record, the White house should not have a crèche, a menorah, or any other specifically religious symbol on its grounds. But it's not high on my indignation list. If that makes me a lukewarm atheist, so be it. This annual battle over Christmas is becoming as tiresome as that awful, ubiquitous ditty, "It's the most wonderful time of the year...."

Right. She wants to ban Christmas in the White House, but not hear about the "annual battle over Christmas." Jacoby, as a member of the Irreligious Left, is always worrying about the Religious Right, calling Sarah Palin a "right-wing religious extremist," saying it's "unconstitutional" for the federal government to give money to the Salvation Army, and insisting that Obamacare is a "moral imperative."

As for her question "Who cares?"—the people who are insulted care, especially the 96 percent of Americans who celebrate Christmas. Jacoby went on:

"Another subject I'm tired of is Desiree Rogers, whose alleged nonfeasance in the matter of the White House party crashers hardly seems worth the torrent of ink and cable news venom that have been expended on her. But if she actually did tell a reporter at any point that the Obamas were planning a 'nonreligious Christmas', she'd better take a crash course from Miss Manners. If Rogers had kept her mouth shut, and the Obamas were actually planning to keep religious symbols out of the public White House rooms, it's entirely possible that no one would have noticed. [Emphasis added.](OK, the ever-vigilant religious Right might have noticed.) Now, because of the social secretary's loose lips, it's a story that the Obamas are displaying the usual crèche. Desiree, you're not in Chicago anymore."

That's an amazing thing for anyone connected with the Washington Post to say—that if a government functionary can avoid being honest with the press, then the Obama Administration could get away with something.

It's amazing when you consider that this is the paper whose proudest boast is that its investigative reporting brought down President Nixon in the middle of the Vietnam War (leading to the loss of that war.)

And here's Susan Jacoby wondering how the Obamas can keep secrets.

Well, it's obvious that despite the people who say there's "No War On Christmas"—four of them in Google news as I write—that the war continues.

We didn't start it, but we won't give up the fight.

And we're kicking off our War Against Christmas Competition once more. It generally closes around Epiphany, or Twelfth Night. We'd like our readers to report things that they seen in the news, and things that don't get printed.

Email christmas@vdare.com.  The prize is a bottle of champagne, which we can just barely afford, or a signed copy of Alien Nation.

Speaking of what we can just barely afford, please remember that WE NEED YOUR HELP. If you go to the donation page, then don't have to win the WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS COMPETITION to get a prize—you automatically get a copy of Steve Sailer's book with donations of $200 or more.