SIVACRACY.NET

I have been pondering the familiarity of the rhetorical move to create this imaginary "attack on Christmas." Many liberal bloggers do a great job dismissing it as ridiculous. Charles Pierce even goes so far as to present evidence of Christmas practice remaining alive and well in the deepest blue corners of this great nation.

Something troubles me, though. We should not need anyone to demonstrate the absurdity of the claim. All you have to do is look out your window in America. Go ahead. Take a minute to look out the window. See! There is Christmas. Now turn on your television. See! More Christmas. Some of it is profoundly religious. Ain't nothing wrong with that. It's downright beautiful. Peace, goodwill to mankind, charity, single mothers raising long-haired babies. Real Christmas is a liberal's dream. And it's everywhere.

But see, evidence and argumentation don't seem to matter because someone is crying. Conservatives have been come the biggest crybabies in history. And the "attack on Christmas" whining is just the latest version of this.

While I am worried that they waste all of our time and energy with these absurd assertions and responses, I am more worried about what is underneath these conservative complaints.

Look around. White male Christian conservatives run everything: big industry, big government; big farms; big media; big lies. Yet we hear nothing but whining out of their mouthpieces. Poor conservatives. They can't get into the faculty lounges. They can't get their ideas taken seriously by major media. Green-tea-drinking Volvo drivers are in secretly in charge. That ideal vision of a heterosexual, male-dominated nuclear family is under attack by people who kind of want to live under different arrangements.

We know these cries are lies. We have written many books, articles, and blog entries debunking the crybaby claims of conservatives. But still they see themselves as voiceless victims.

Remember when conservatives used to attack liberals for pleading victimization on behalf of their constituents? Seems so long ago. Of course, there is ample historical (and present) documentation of widespread oppression of women, gays, African Americans, immigrants, Jews, union organizers, and just about every other group in the liberal pantheon. So at least our side was being true to our values and the truth.

How do we impeach this victimization rhetoric? We have to do better than swat at f(lies) with heavy facts. Why can't these conservative guys just slap high-fives and move on to cutting down old-growth forests with glee? Why must they always complain?

What troubles me most is how such victimization rhetoric echoes Dreyfus-era European anti-Semitism. Getting nowhere by demonizing Jews per se, they have just pasted the attributions of the imaginary Jewish conspiracy on all other non-Christian, book readin', tea sippin', public-school supportin' cosmopolitan liberals.

What's fascinating about hearing overt anti-Semites like O'Reilly and Buchanan play this crybaby victim game is that they are either incapable or unwilling to use the code. They won't follow the script dictated by Richard Viguerie or Grover Norquist. They just go ahead and attack Jews by name rather than by working at the level of the general "rootless cosmopolitan conspiracy." Compare and contrast how Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh attack the "liberal" to how O'Reilly and Buchanan do. They are all doing the same work, generating indignation that distracts Americans from real threats (Wal-Mart, Archer Daniels Midland, Osama Bin Laden) and lets them scream about the imaginary threats (Madonna, Kofi Annan). But O'Reilly and Buchanan come right out and say it. Coulter and Limbaugh are following the party line.

We need a better strategy than the reality-based one we employ so well. The new strategy should not replace the facts of the matter. But it should frame our defenses in such a way that it reveals the true nature of these cries of victimization.

There is more at work here than Bill O'Reilly pushing for holiday rantings and ratings. There is more at stake here than Christmas carolers and secular public schools. We are facing true hatred and evil at work in this country. It's time we started calling it by name and challenging its perpetrators to defend themselves.