• TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    901·
    23 days ago

    I’ve been seeing Christmas shit in stores since before Halloween I don’t wanna hear any shit this year about the war on Christmas.

    If there’s a war on Christmas, it’s fucking winning.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
        12·
        23 days ago

        Indeed. The “Christmas” we know is not the same kind of Christmas that empowered the Christmas Truce of 1914. A shared celebration of common humanity and good will and forgiveness and love. Gifts exchanged from the heart, not out of commercial obligation.

        We must remember everything. EVERYTHING is co-opted and meddled and sold back to you mangled for a profit. It’s the same reason people associate Memorial Day, a day of rememberance for fallen warriors, with friggin mattresses and truck sales.

        Labor Day? Man that one’s also been blunted. (Gee I wonder why). Forget all the sacrifices of union workers and labor organization who were brutally assaulted by their bosses to win things like universal safety standards and days off and overtime…BUY A TRUCK, RIGHT?!

        So here we have it. Masses trampling each other after “Thanksgiving”, which is more about football and gluttony than sharing and companionship. Christmas as a prime directive to consume instead of celebrate the breaths we have left with people we love.

        Speaking of the Christmas Truce: The Christmas spirit could stop one of the most brutal conflicts in history if only for a moment…

        …but now it’s not enough to stop the working class from being coerced into work away from their families because the profits must flow eternal.

        Christmas was for everyone, because Christ is for everyone. These megachurch-flocking, immigrant spiting, flag-worshipping, suburban-nitpicking types don’t even know what a Christian is.

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
          5·
          23 days ago

          Holy shit Labor Day. A day the people who get paid the least labor extra hard because people who make decent money are off and spending. I had my first Labor Day ever off this year, and it’s because the day it fell on made the people at the corporation we contract for get a long weekend, so there was no work.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      15·
      23 days ago

      Ironically, I think the war on Christmas is the one co-opting Christmas.

      The moneyed are winning. The city-sized trash piles are winning.

      If Christmas was taken back from Wall Street, we’d be singing and bringing food to our neighbors and making peace with our rivals. Quarterly earnings would be gleefully, beautifully, “disappointing.”

    • ditty@lemm.eeEnglish
      148·
      23 days ago

      If there’s a war on Christmas, it’s Christmas is fucking winning.

      FTFY

        • okr765@lemmy.okr765.comEnglish
          61·
          23 days ago

          Gramatically correct but I was definitely confused at first as to what the “it” referred to (the “war on Christmas” or Christmas itself)

  • CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world
    783·
    23 days ago

    Not a Christian, but I celebrate Christmas. I always say merry Christmas. The way I see it is my saying “merry Christmas” is wishing someone good tidings during my holiday. If they get offended by me saying something intended as kind, then fuck them.

    If someone says “Happy Holidays” to me then maybe they don’t celebrate Christmas…and that’s just fine! I still recognize it as them being kind.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      8·
      23 days ago

      That’s how I see it. I’m a Christian, and people have blessed me in their own cultural traditions before, and I really appreciate it. I think it’s incredibly sweet even if we may not agree on all the specifics.

  • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
    623·
    23 days ago

    After decades in the US, I’m yet to meet a real Christian. Folks pretending to be Christian all conveniently forget that the rich can’t enter the kingdom of heaven, that they should sell their possessions, feed the poor, heal the sick, and meekly turn the other cheek.

    America has no Christians. Just cultists and charlatans.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      292·
      23 days ago

      After decades in the US, I’m yet to meet a real Christian.

      Nice to meet you! Haha. U.S Christian anarchist here. I’m absolutely not perfect obviously, but I understand exactly where you’re coming from. It hurts my heart every day.

      I am trying to figure out how to speak out against this “Amerikristian” cult in some kind of effective way. I think a lot of people simply don’t know any better because the propaganda has been so thorough. The churches preaching " Supply-Side Jesus " get funding from wealthy benefactors, guilt people into tax-free volunteer labor, and lure desperate followers.

      My church that, also wasn’t perfect, but was tiny and doing its best to spread the Gospel, closed up and got swallowed by the megachurch next door when the landlord raised their rent exponentially. Many others are the same.

      There’s no profit in actually helping your neighbor. (After all, many would argue that the ideal of profit maximizing, is in fact, theft.)

      Churches used to be incredibly pro-human. They were considered annoyingly leftist by the moneyed interests of the gilded age, hence why they were warped into the monsters we know now.

      (Highly recommend Behind the Bastards: “How the Rich Ate Christianity”)

      Christians are still here. Gently rebuking misinformation and trying to free hearts and souls from this wretched machine. It’s hard to tell whom to trust. Like in the days of the “Early Christians” of old.

      A leftist Christian is often a target of persecution, both from American cultists, and others with kneejerk hatred for Christians perpetuated by those cultusts.

      We aren’t as loud. We’re drowned out. We’re not wearing stupid red caps or hating on people, we’re trying so hard to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We’re trying to save God’s planet and people from greed and destruction.

      We’re trying to explain why swearing oaths to an idol of stars and stripes is at odds with Jesus. Why the State is inherently an instrument of evil, especially when it wields and prints bibles it’s too wicked to understand.

      Why a God of incomprehensible love weeps when we call for blood and justify killing, displaying the ludicrous arrogance of pretending we have no sins ourselves and “they deserve it.”

      “Narrow is the path.” (Matthew 7:14) But we’re still here. Don’t lose heart. Love is the greatest act of defiance against “The principalities, and powers, and rulers of this dark world.” (Ephesians 6:12)

      We believe in a God that is greater than oppressive states, borders, violence, markets, or politics, or greed.

      That said, I sincerely wish you and anyone reading this a Merry Christmas with all the love in my heart.

      • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
        9·
        23 days ago

        Let me just say: respect. People like you restore my faith in humanity. Although I’m an atheist, I have an affinity for the teachings of Jesus. He wanted us to be the best versions of ourselves, and it upsets me to see his memory dragged through the muck of these for-profit cults.

      • dethedrus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        6·
        23 days ago

        Great call on the BtB episodes on ‘Muscular Christianity’.

        Also the welding of bits of evangelicism, Catholic anti-abortion tenets and the republican party in the 60s in their episodes on Phylis Schlafly is both eye opening and horrifying. She’s one of the greatest political operatives of the modern era, and we’re paying the price for it.

  • cmoney@lemmy.world
    331·
    23 days ago

    The largest most powerful religion on planet Earth is being persecuted 😂

  • Thorry84@feddit.nl
    9·
    23 days ago

    Meanwhile modern day xmas has very little to nothing to do with anything Christian. I’m sure there were a lot of Nordmann fir trees in Jerusalem.

  • EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    8·
    23 days ago

    I haven’t heard any of the boomers around me complain about that in a long time.

    If anyone says “happy holidays” they just say “Merry Christmas” and leave it at that.

  • gnomesaiyan@lemmy.world
    8·
    23 days ago

    The closest I get is the Winter Solstice, because I’d rather celebrate the planet’s cycle around the Sun, you know, a fact of nature.

    I don’t subscribe to blatant consumerism in the guise of “holiday spirit”. You know, when the retailers go from the red into the black (loss to profit), and the consumers from the black into the red. Then you hope your tax returns fill the gap so you can survive. Positive feedback loop. I’m calling shenanigans.

    And the depressive-nostalgic music. The decorations. The hypocritical “cheer” people spread that they can’t be bothered with the rest of the year, like they needed a reason to be nice. What in the Disney Channel fuck. It’s like saying you can only tell someone you love them on Valentine’s Day. Y’all motherfuckers are crazy.

    Okay, rant over. Feel free to downvote, I’ll gladly eat it. Happy Fucking Holidays!

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      4·
      23 days ago

      I think all those things used to be legitimate before the marketing departments seized it and took it over. Seriously! I mentioned elsewhere the Christmas Truce of 1914. SOMEWHERE that spirit of good will was there. (Before “goodwill” was yet another retailer brand.)

      You’re right to call shenanigans. If we weren’t so lured by shiny baubles, everyone besides food and ERs would be closing up shop for like a week every year because nobody bought anything.

      There are marked occasions where we are encouraged to hit the brakes, hug our people, remember what’s important. It’s all drowned out by “SALE SALE SALE SALE”.

      I think those songs and everything are so depressive because we KNOW it’s fake. It’s all plastic. It’s all illusion. It’s a forced song and dance trying to weaponize our nostalgia and our hearts and sentiment for profit (What in the Disney Channel indeed). And we see the disgusting, vapid gestures for what they are.

      I sincerely hope you do have a happy holiday. Buying nothing, hugging your cat, fixing something for a neighbor, helping the unhoused, calling your folks, whatever.

      Rebellion begins with us.