The War On Christmas

I try to stay focussed and ignore these side issues, like whatever Bill O'Reilly is talking about this week. But here is a good observation from Consortiumnews.com:

You have to hand it to political operatives who can turn the Christmas celebration of Jesus’s birth into a nasty wedge issue, transforming a traditional message of love, peace and tolerance into one of anger, conflict and resentment.

The success of the American Right in extracting a “war on Christmas” out of a few well-meaning gestures to non-Christians, such as using the greeting “Happy Holidays,” is a testament to the investment conservatives have made in media over three decades.

With their vertically integrated media apparatus – from newspapers and magazines, to TV and radio, to books and the Internet – the Right now can take a few scattered anecdotes on almost any topic and heat them up into a hot-button issue.

Incidentally, I picked up my Mum's Sunday tabloid paper yesterday and saw a big heading "I'M SORRY" Who could that be, I wondered? John Howard apologizing for the WMD lies? The Queensland government apologising for the state of our Health System? No, it was a school principal being forced to apologize for saying "Merry Christmas".

The US Conservative media machine has long tentacles. No surprise they run deep here in the Australian media, Rupert Murdoch's orginal stomping grounds. I think you could write a good long book about how US interests now permeate Australian media, society, politics and business. BushWorld, c'est nous.

PS: Sorry for the lack of posting recently - sick baby, sick Mum, tired Dad and a PC crash. Great fun.