Merry Christmas, ya bunch’a heathens

Harper sent around his Christmas greeting.  When I received it by e-mail, there was a line in bold, but on the PMO website, there's  no bold.

(as appears in the e-mail):

“But for now, this is the season to count our blessings. For Christians, the greatest of these is Christmas itself, the birth of Jesus Christ.

“But for Canadians of all backgrounds, it is our shared ownership of the most fortunate of all lands, our Canada, with its deep traditions of freedom, tolerance and generosity. This Canadian birthright draws to our shores people of all faiths, who in coming, strengthen it all the more.

Generosity...sure, and didn't harper show that generosity today? 

At least 10 Greater Toronto immigrant service agencies have been told by Citizenship and Immigration Canada that their program funding will not be renewed next year, with up to 35 others across Ontario also facing “significant” cuts.

 Those agencies provide a wide range of services, many of them for women and children.  Services include language training, job search, job training, locating housing, adapting to Canadian culture, and important cultural training explaining that christians and secular societies aren't hated-filled baby-eaters.  In other words, they try to break through and educate people who may carry racial hatred from their own cultures.

Hoskins noted the majority of the defunded organizations are ethnocultural agencies serving specific ethnic communities.  “Their specialties can’t be replaced,” Hoskins said. “They are upset at what they called the ‘blunt’ and ‘brutal’ manner the news was delivered to them, in a letter, two weeks before the holiday. None understands the justification and rationale behind it.”

Here is the list of GTA agencies losing federal funding:

Northwood Neighbourhood Services;  Elspeth Heyward Centre for Women; Tropicana Community Serives; Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre; Community Action Resource Centre;  South Asian Women's Centre;     Eritrean Canadian Community Centre of Toronto;     Ethiopian Association in the Greater Toronto Area and Surrounding Regions ;  Afghan Association of Ontario ;  Bloor Information and Life Centre   

Here are a few photos from some of their websites:

Are we seeing a pattern to the cuts?

Kenney, the Minister of Curry-in-a-Hurry was heard on CBC news later explaining that The cuts to GTA are because immigrants just aren't moving to TO anymore, so fairness dictates money should be spent elsewhere in Canada.  Well, that's a lot of horse-shit.  The cuts are all across Canada, not just the GTA, and people running the centres are saying TO is still getting a lot of immigrants not just directly, but from other provinces as well.

Mean, elitist government.

But hell, they need to make those cuts for this (emphasis mine):

Nothing is final, but the new headquarters is envisioned as a veritable puzzle palace for Canadian cryptographers. Part of the inspiration comes from high-tech companies, who have found that good things happen when staff are forced to work together – and when they play as hard as they work.

 But that only applies to real Canadians.  You know, white, male, christian conservatives.  And spies.  "Cause spies are so fucking cool.

The war on christmas has been over for a long time

And the christians lost.

It was a bloodless war waged by various groups over centuries, but the final capitulation of any claim christians could have over the holiday took place with the rise of capitalism and the christians’ enthusiastic embracing of the new lords of the holiday.

As people whose sole goal is to accumulate as much money as possible began to recognize the market value of christmas, a very aggressive campaign to take it prisoner began and has never let up.  Sure, the conquerors allow christians to practice their mythology.  Hell, they don’t even mind sticking a few christian images on their goods – if it helps their sales.  But there are certain things that the victors don’t allow.

(picture)

The money men will not let their carefully designed icon be upstaged by the christian one.  Really, a dude in plain, white robes preaching against materialism and greed is hardly going to boost sales in malls, no matter how many children he invites to sit on his lap.  These kids don’t want to wait until they die for their reward, they want it now, dammit, and it better not be some vague feeling of peace and serenity.

The money men will not allow only one superstitious group to claim christmas at the exclusion of all others.  No, no.  All are welcome to celebrate, even the damned atheists.  In fact, all are encouraged to do so,  all are pressured to do so.  Equally.  There is no hell in the new christmas under the conquerors’ regime.  Except, of course, when bills come due.  The money men have not only conquered christmas, they redefined it, expanded it, gave it new, nifty slogans which are all-inclusive.  Happy Holidays!  Happy Holiday Season!

And you christians who get all offended when some people prefer the Happy Holidays slogan , it isn’t strictly your religious celebration anymore.  You are equally complicit in that since you enthusiastically participate in the fevered shopping, in putting up non-christian icons, in turning the entire season into something that has little to do with your religion.

But what’s that saying christians like so much?  An eye for an eye?  What goes around comes around?  You reap what you sow?  It’s not like it was your festival to begin with.

So lighten up.  Practice your superstition all you want, but drop the outrage.  The war was over long ago, and you gladly surrendered.

How to gut your own argument, Christian style.

Use science and history to make it sound like your point has validity, then completely contradict yourself.

Let Charles Moore show you how it's done:

It might surprise some non-Christians to learn that Christmas as we know it wasn't always universally revered among devout Christians. It wasn't celebrated at all by the very early Church. Birthday observances in general were shunned as trappings of paganism.

Actually, Mr. Moore, most of us non-Christians do know that Christianity simply ripped of an assortment of rituals from other superstitious beliefs to rally Christians to their newer, more expensive, just as ridiculous seasonal cluster-fuck of magical items and supernatural icons.  I think it's more likely Christians who would be surprised to learn that very thing, since they think Christmas is a shiny, new celebration that no other religion had previously practiced under some other name.

Moore goes on to describe in a fair bit of detail how the Christian celebration of Christmas committed these thefts, who they stole from, and why.  Pretty accurate, historically.  Good so far.

Then he tries to make his point, which he fails to realize he has already defeated:

However, it is still the one time of year that Jesus Christ is thought and spoken of in somewhat reverential tones in popular culture, and that base is something devout Christians ought to build on, not retreat from.

...More than any other time of year, Christian images, language and principles achieve some serious traction in the public square at Christmastime, despite radical secular separationist attempts to eliminate them.

Christians: reclaim your holiday; and a Merry Christmas to all!

But Moore, didn’t you just tell us that nearly everything attributed to how Christians celebrate Christmas is stolen, or made up by conquerors wishing to keep a hold on the damn pagans, and in fact based on much older superstitious beliefs centered around that particular date?