A fairly new and thoroughly obnoxious Christmas tradition is for right-wing American Christian fundamentalists to detect some imagined slight and pronounce it part of the “War on Christmas,” with this year’s battle lines drawn around the Starbucks’ winter-themed cups, as Nat Parry observes.
By Nat Parry
Just as the commercial extravaganza of the Christmas season seems to begin earlier and earlier each year, with displays popping up in some places not long after Labor Day, so too does the annual absurdity known as “the War on Christmas.”
This year, we have an early taste of the asinine arguments to come with a contrived controversy over the choice that Starbucks has made for its holiday-themed coffee cup. Eschewing its typical designs incorporating iconic wintry images of reindeer and snowmen, the 2015 cup goes for a minimalist approach of a plain bright red design with the green Starbucks logo in the center.
Starbucks’ winter-themed cup.
With no pictures of Baby Jesus or even snowflakes, the red and green cup evidently is not “Christmassy” enough for some Christians, many of whom have taken to the Internet to vent their outrage. In a viral Facebook post that has received more than 10 million views, Joshua Feuerstein fumed: “Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus.”
He posted an accompanying video urging people to go into Starbucks and give their names as “Merry Christmas” so that unsuspecting baristas would be “tricked” into writing “Merry Christmas” on the cups.
Within days, both #RedCups and #MerryChristmasStarbucks were trending on social media sites (although to be fair, many of the posts were ridiculing those who have gotten so bent out of shape). One typical tweet read, “If you’re Christian & upset over Starbucks cups, your priorities are out of whack and you don’t have enough to do.”
While it is certainly true that in a world rocked by refugee crises, environmental catastrophes, global conflicts, poverty and growing wealth inequality, these Christian anti-Starbucks crusaders would probably do well to get their priorities straight, it should also be said that the very premise of this annual “War on Christmas” and the notion of Christmas as a Christian tradition ought to be fundamentally re-examined.
The Starbucks controversy is particularly bizarre because the icons that Starbucks has used on their cups in years past, such as snowflakes and ice skates, obviously have no religious significance to begin with, but what people should realize is that neither do most of the typical “Christmas” icons.
The fact is, what we consider traditional celebrations of Christmas actually have very little to do historically with Christianity. Acts, for example, such as bringing evergreen trees into homes and festooning them with decorations are pagan traditions that predate the birth of Christ by hundreds of years.
In actual reality, there has been a midwinter festival of one sort or another in Europe, Scandinavia and the Middle East for millennia, and it wasn’t until the Fourth Century, A.D., that the Church claimed this holiday as “Christmas,” arbitrarily selecting Dec. 25 as Jesus’s birthday.
In other words, religious significance was bestowed on a pre-existing celebration that had no real relation to the Christian faith. For what it’s worth, it is almost certain that Jesus was not born on this day, as it was the cold rainy season in Judea and not a time when shepherds generally tended to “watch their flocks by night” as described in scripture.
Rather than being a celebration of the savior’s birthday, the roots of the holiday are the pagan traditions of Winter Solstice (also known as Yule, or “Wheel,” which is what Christmas is still called in Scandinavia). In the northern countries, where days grow intolerably dark at this time of year, the seasons played a central role in the lives of ancient peoples, who therefore had a special reverence for the sun.
This is why its return was celebrated with such vigor, not only in Scandinavia but also in Britain, where the ancient Druids celebrated by cutting the mistletoe that grew on the oak tree and offering it as a blessing. Also taking place this time of year was the ancient festival of the Romans to celebrate the rebirth of the year, a time of general debauchery known as Saturnalia.
It was because of its known pagan origins that the holiday was banned by the Puritan-led English Parliament in 1647, which denounced it as “a popish festival with no biblical justification.” The holiday was also prohibited by the original English settlers of Massachusetts.
As the Puritan Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687, “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.”
For this reason, Christmas was forbidden by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681. It is ironic, to say the least, that it was the fundamentalist Christians of early America who waged the original “War on Christmas,” declaring the holiday blasphemous and lacking any biblical justification.
If fundamentalist Christians today were truly following their faith, they would not be up in arms over Starbucks’ marketing choices for selling coffee, but instead following in the footsteps of the Puritans shunning this holiday and focusing on any number of causes more closely in line with the teachings of Jesus say, for example, the recurring theme in the Bible to alleviate the suffering the poor.
If, however, modern Christians feel so adamant about the need to celebrate their savior’s birthday, they might consider choosing another day. If we take the word of the Bible at face value (as fundamentalist Christians generally insist that we must), we simply should not be marking the birth of Christ on December 25, as this is almost certainly not his birthday.
While there are few historical clues to go by in determining the actual date of Jesus’s birth, the most widely cited source is the Gospel of Luke’s reference to shepherds grazing their sheep in the fields. This has been widely interpreted to imply a birth during the springtime, summer or early fall.
So, why not declare a day in August to be Jesus’ birthday? This would be far less arbitrary than the Church’s Fourth Century decree designating Dec. 25 as the savior’s birthday, and with most schools in summer recess, it would fit in well with pre-existing holiday schedules. It would also be a day that Christians don’t have to share with anyone else, since there are so many competing traditions around the time of the Winter Solstice.
And most importantly, it would end the annual absurdities that we call the War on Christmas.
Nat Parry is the co-author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush. [This story originally appeared at Essential Opinion, https://essentialopinion.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/a-modest-proposal-to-end-the-war-on-christmas/.]
Pre-judged destined for Extinction
by the Bush Court,
which is his reward
for doing Americas dirty work.
US ENEMIES STRENGTHENED
BY OVERTHROW, CAPTURE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN
By: David T. Pyne
While the capture of Saddam Hussein last month was certainly an impressive victory for President Bush that has been a cause for much celebration for most Iraqis and for our troops, it will likely cause the Shiites to be emboldened to become increasingly more militant and may soon spark a general rebellion in the Shiite south of Iraq. In other words, the capture of Saddam may result in a gradual transfer of the leadership of the resistance from the Baathists to a potentially even more dangerous threat—the radical Shiites who are supported and in league with the mother of all terrorist states–the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is they who are the most radical of all Iraqi groups in addition to being predominantly Islamist and anti-American in outlook. In fact, the immediate past interim President of the Iraqi Governing Council, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, is the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the umbrella group for the radical Shiite organizations controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Saddam, himself a brutal, murderous dictator, has been a longtime opponent of these Islamist terrorist groups and ironically served as an important proxy for the US in furtherance of its war against Islamist terrorism in the 1980s when he invaded Iran with US support.
The Bush Administration and supporters of the current US war in Iraq have repeatedly attempted to forge an unfounded and unsubstantiated linkage of murderous secularist dictator Saddam Hussein to Islamist terrorists. This is the case despite the fact that last January, in a failed bid to appease the Bush Administration which was dead set on war with Iraq, Saddam ordered the assassination of the nefarious Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal who was responsible for the deaths of scores of Americans in the 1980s. In fact, with the sole exception of the death benefits which he sent to the families of PLO terrorist suicide bombers, Saddam’s Iraq has long served as a bulwark against the spread of Iranian and Al Queda-sponsored Islamist revolution throughout the Middle East. According to the January 14th edition of the Washington Times, CIA interrogators have already learned from the top al-Queda officials in custody that, before the U.S.-led invasion, Osama bin Laden had rejected requests from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Iraq. This is not surprising since Iraq was then led by a secularist dictator who bin Laden repeatedly referred to as “infidel” whom he wanted to see overthrown.
In fact, Saddam killed tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Islamist extremists during his 24-year reign over Iraq. During the 1980’s, he invaded the Islamic Republic of Iran, fighting an eight year long war against Islamist terrorism in an effort to depose the Shiite Islamist revolutionary leaders of Iran. In this war, Saddam was supported by the Reagan-Bush Administration. In fact, visionary conservative President Ronald Reagan vowed in a national security directive not to let Iraq lose the war. At that time, the United States saw Hussein’s government as an important ally and bulwark against the militant Shiite extremism seen in the 1979 revolution in Iran. Washington was worried that the Iranian example threatened to destabilize friendly monarchies in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan as it is currently doing with the assistance of its Al Queda proxy. The Reagan-Bush Administration sold military goods to Iraq, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological agents. It also undertook discreet diplomatic initiatives, such as the two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, to assure the Saddam Hussein government that the US was serious in wanting to establish closer relations with Baghdad despite their use of chemical weapons against Iran.
Once a paid CIA assassin back in the late 1950’s which he spent killing Communists (for which he was briefly imprisoned) and assassinating Iraq’s Marxist strongman, General Qasim, Saddam had done America’s dirty work for many years. Saddam also spent a considerable time in an Iraqi prison for killing his Communist brother-in-law. After spending decades fighting the Communists, in 1980 he initiated a pre-emptive war against the Islamic Republic of Iran and subsequently killed tens of thousand Shiite extremists and potential terrorists. With this scoundrel gone, Iraq is now ripe for takeover by Shiite extremists supported by the mother of all terrorist states, Iran, who seek to transform previously secular Iraq into an Islamist Republic modeled on Iran. Such a takeover would present a far greater threat to the US than Saddam ever did and would represent a stunning defeat in America’s just war against Islamic terrorists. It may be the case that the imposition of democracy by the US would be too dangerous in Iraq. Perhaps it would better serve the U.S. national security interest to set up a “benevolent autocracy” consisting of non-Baathist Sunnis and moderate, more secularist Shiites to lead Iraq and stand guard against a takeover of the country by radical Islamist, terror-supporting Shiites by democratic or other means.
Watching Fox News the morning the capture of Saddam was first announced, I noticed that one of the video takes being showed repeatedly was of a group of Iraqis waving about two dozen red flags, which I immediately recognized as the flags of Iraq’s Communist party complete with hammers and sickles. These pictures also appeared on the front page of the December 15th edition of the Washington Times alongside the headline, “‘A hopeful day has arrived’ in Iraq.” Only the Israeli newspaper, Haaratz managed to note the fact that these much showcased red flag waivers were not those of Iraqi patriots, but those of Iraqi Communists.
In this repeatedly showcased video footage, members of the Iraqi Communist party, long persecuted, banned and killed by Saddam who was a lifelong opponent of the Communists, brandished copies of the Iraqi Communist Party daily proclaiming Saddam’s capture. The Communist party newspaper was the first newspaper to be legalized by CPA head and US proconsul for Iraq, Paul Bremer, in one of a long series of blunders on his part, for which he should have long ago been fired. I found this footage highly symbolic of the fact that those that are likely to benefit the most from the capture of Saddam are extremist groups such as the Iraqi Communist Party and the radical Shiite Islamist organizations that ultimately are likely to prove substantially more threatening to the US than Saddam ever was. CPA head, Paul Bremer inexplicably decided to grant the Iraqi Communists a seat on Iraq’s 24 member Governing Council in opposition to U.S. interests to ban or at least marginalize them. Bremer, who had been rumored to be on his way out by some sources, seems to have succeeded in saving his job for the interim thanks to the success of this operation, however, given that the resistance will sharpen once again very soon, his days are probably still numbered.
Reliable data on Iraqi Communist Party membership is unavailable. One 1984 estimate was 2,000 members, but other foreign sources indicated a considerably larger ICP membership. Because it has been a clandestine party fighting for the overthrow of the Baathist regime, the ICP’s true membership strength may never be known, especially because it has directed its organizational efforts through the Kurdish Democratic National Front (DNF).
The capture of Saddam, who was reportedly so busy hiding had no opportunity to direct resistance attacks, will likely result in a spike in resistance attacks following a brief downturn as its mostly Baathist leaders retaliate for his capture and show that they plan to continue the fight. Fox News has repeatedly referred to the cancer-stricken Al Douri as being in charge of the Baath-led resistance despite the fact that multiple analysts have expressed their belief that he has been too sick to do so. Subsequent reports, which may have been planted by the coalition to discourage resistance fighters, indicating that Al Douri may have turned himself in to coalition authorities proved false.
According to Garrett Jones, a retired Army Colonel and former case officer with the CIA in the Middle East, “the circumstances of Hussein’s capture strongly indicated that he had little or nothing to do with the insurgency. There was not even a pretense of a command-and-control apparatus around Hussein, and his reported mental condition suggests he was in no condition to track, much less direct, a nationwide resistance movement.” He concludes by saying that this “strongly suggests the clearly coordinated attacks against multinational forces are being directed and coordinated by an outside organization, such as Al Queda.”
Many analysts worry that the resistance has been acting separately from Saddam and may be sufficiently well-financed and organized for the long haul. Even CPA head Paul Bremer has predicted an increase in attacks in coming months. US military analysts predicted several weeks before Saddam’s capture that the US had approximately six months to defeat the insurgency before it mushroomed into a more broad based nationwide rebellion. This prediction is probably still accurate. The history of guerilla warfare suggests that the chances of the resistance succeeding in exacting casualties so numerous as to force a US withdrawal from Iraq are quite good.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”
David T. Pyne, Esq. is a national security expert who serves as President of the Center for the National Security Interest, a national security think-tank based in Arlington, VA. Mr. Pyne is a licensed attorney and former United States Army Officer. He holds an MA in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. Mr. Pyne also serves as Acting President of the Virginia Republican Assembly. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.
We invite you to visit his website: Center for the National Security Interest
David T. Pyne can be reached at: [email protected]
Published in the January 16, 2004 issue of Ether Zone.
Copyright © 1997 – 2004 Ether Zone.
http://www.etherzone.com/2004/pyne011604.shtml
Dosamuno’s link
One Nation Under god
>> Added by Apostate Mohamed on August 26, 2012 <<
"the enemy of my enemy is my friend… ."
http://atheistuniverse.net/photo/one-nation-under-god?xg_source=activity
We witness, in this refugee crisis, another amalgamation/assimilation of diverse cultures.
Is this a form of evolution or of dissolution/distillation of People Groups?
Are Western Ethnic States being subsumed by “foreign ethnicities�
(The decline of European command & control of The World?)
Majority humanity on earth are people of color, yet
European birthed Cruel Colonial Authority
maintains political, military and economic control over vast billions of Human Lives.
With that, they’ve Never shown any law abiding compunction to honor Life
over the accumulation of wealth – even at the cost of Lives.
and so it goes, to the victor goes the spoils (of Conquest).
Five Hundred Years beyond
Magellan’s circumnavigation established
European Authority (superiority) over the earth
and there has never been essential peace.
“The heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked, who can know it?â€
Time Marches On…
.
We need the Spirit of Christ in our hearts.
Dosamuno, in a pro/con debate on the holiday season, which persona would represent the greater evil/fraud, Jesus Christ or Santa Clause?
I offer this. During the ” tis the season to be jolly” – in December of the year 2003, ten days before xmas, Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a hole in the ground by US soldiers, Americans wildly cheered. Bells chimed and the deceived nation declared a sort-of, ‘ding dong the witch is dead’ — led by media hype and back slapping Bush-ites. Do you remember the giddiness?
SADDAM- THE ANTI-SANTA
saddam/symbol
mugshot -triple mugshot
the captured wild man
little man/defeated
the perp walk performed
before eyes of the world
in humiliating garments-
dark, and with lice!!!
symbol of evil and of evils power
the black-bearded santa, the Anti-Santa
placarded despicable, and dark!
in this time of Saint Nicholas!
the anti-santa lifted
from be-neath
as opposed to
the Bright santa
dropping in from above.
not in a reindeer sleigh,
the dark santa rode low
in the back seat of a taxi
as the beggarly peasant.
symbol of ultimate Anti-American,
Pre-judged destined for Extinction
by the Bush Court,
which is his reward
for doing Americas dirty work.
Saddam Hussein, the Anti-Santa.
When was Jesus born? No one knows. In fact, scholars are not sure if he existed.
The December 25th date was agreed upon toward the end of the third century.
Here’s what The Encyclopedia Britannica offers about the origin of Christmas:
“The reason why Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25 remains uncertain, but most probably the reason is that early Christians wished the date to coincide with the pagan Roman festival marking the ‘birthday of the unconquered sun’ (natalis solis invicti); this festival celebrated the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen and the sun begins to climb higher in the sky. ”
Happy Natalis Solis Invicti.
Screw Christmas.
In fact, scholars are not sure if he existed.
From what I’ve heard, “scholars” aren’t in agreement that Hitler was anything but a nice guy.
That slavery wasn’t best of all possible systems for all concerned.
That more carbon dioxide in the air won’t be just great for the plants, and quite harmless in all other ways.
Cheap and disingenuous.
You can, usually do, produce more honest, more intelligent responses.
As idiot neighbors light up their lawns with images from the American Pantheon ranging from Rudolph, Frosty, The Seven Dwarves, and Santa; to the Blessed Whore and her Holy Bastard, I recall these words:
It was a very different world in ancient times. Gods filled the ancient skies and demons lurked in a shadowy underworld, their awesome activities controlling human affairs. It was an age of superstition, which Webster defines as a belief resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, or a false conception of causation.
It was an age in which miracles were viewed as common occurrences rather than breaches of the natural law, because in those days there was no natural law to breach. Science had not yet come into its own and placed boundaries on human imaginings. And it was in this milieu that the coming of a man god, Christ, was announced, and in time, accepted.
Of course, Christ had followed a long succession of manÂ-gods in the ancient world, many of whom were said to have performed prodigies, and who shared with Christ the tradition of a virgin birth, a divine nature, a resurrection, and an ascension. And so it appears that the miracles surrounding Christ, including his divine nature, were very likely modeled on the miracles of more ancient cultures and are therefore mythical.
(Tom Flynn)
Perhaps the last word on the ascension of Jesus belongs to Joseph Campbell, who in a lecture once noted that had Jesus ascended at the speed of light, he would not have cleared our own galaxy by the year 2000.
Dosamuno. You are surely a Four Star General in the war against Christ.
Hostility & antagonism abound in your rhetoric.
With Joseph Cambell as theoretician/mentor, your statements are sharp and with a tinge of Aynonistic objectivism.
Thus, the question, ‘IS THIS NOT THE PREVAILING VIEW’???? — in America?
From where We Dictate Prevailing Views —
“We create reality” neocons-libertarians- new centurions – the wheel behind the wheel/automatons. You tend to live in another universal mentality.
world-wide, people are completely in love with the idea of a time of peace.
Jesus presents that. He is our hearts’ desire. The very idea of Him is peace.
Ayn — Campbell Viola-Chello string duo.
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/a-fire-in-the-mind-the-life-of-joseph-campbell
Besides their continuing forcing of their extreme ideas on others, these “Christians” seem never to care about the waste of using throwaway cups at all.
The only thing the Zionists who obviously lord over US like about Jesus is the ka-ching of cash registers,at Christmas,
Yes,there is a war on the precepts of Christianity,as the alleged Christian moonie loonie wackos,at the guidance of their Ziowhores,spit on Him,and his message of inclusion and peace.
Interesting article. A more complete discussion of the topic can be found in Gerry Bowler’s book THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CHRISTMAS. Could make an excellent fully informed Christmas/Holiday gift. Quite secular. Not at all “religious.”
Nice enjoyable reading, possibly even for ranting atheists everywhere. Never found on this site, of course.
A tall steaming red cup filled with hot coffee,tea or hot chocolate on a wintry morning can’t be anything but love.
Exactly! Way too many modern ‘Christians’ believe the scribblings of Ayn Rand outweigh the socialist nonsense in the Sermon on the Mount. Selfishness is good, and Jesus would bomb the very same people as Bush Jr. and Obama.
The character Jesus was a raging psychopath. He cursed fig trees, caused the death of a herd of pigs, dissed his mother, and declared that he did not bring a message of peace, but rather one of war.
Here’s Jesus in his own words–or rather in the words attributed to him by the novelists who scribbled the Gospels. Why would anyone worship this asshole or celebrate his birthday?
Mark 11:13-14 (KJV)
13. And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.
14. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.
Mark 14:3-7 (NKJV)
3. And being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at the table, a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and poured it on His head.
4. But there were some who were indignant among themselves, and said, “Why was this fragrant oil wasted? 5. For it might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.†And they criticized her sharply.
6. But Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a good work for Me.
7. For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good; but Me you do not have always.
Matthew 8:28-34 (KJV)
28. And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.
29. And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?
30. And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding.
31. So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.
32. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.
33. And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told every thing, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils.
34. And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.
Matthew 10: 34-35 (KJV)
34. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
35. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
Matthew 13:41-42 (KJV)
41. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42. And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Luke 12:49-53 (KJV)
49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!
51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
Luke 14:26 (KJV)
26. If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Luke 19:27 (KJV)
27. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
Luke 22:36 (KJV)
36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
John 2:4 (KJV)
4. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.
John 15:6 (KJV)
6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
He cursed fig trees,
I can recall times I’ve “cursed” poison ivy and thorn bushes. Perhaps I’m a raging psychopath myself.
Why would anyone worship this asshole or celebrate his birthday?
You know, back in the days of the Codpiece Commander, I wondered the very same thing myself.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/56/156052912_230ef38bce.jpg
1. “I can recall times I’ve “cursed†poison ivy and thorn bushes. Perhaps I’m a raging psychopath myself.”
Right. I’ve cursed leaves that have caused accidents while I was riding my bicycle. However no one has started a religion based on your life–or mine; and no one has nicknamed you “The Prince of Peace”.
2. “The Codpiece Commander” indeed.
The problem with “W” is that he existed.
Jesus is just a fairy tale.
Codpiece Commander — that’s a riot of laughter!
thanx Zachary Smith.
Being so Willing to sacrifice our lives waging Nuclear War
Is manufacturing of consent in Auction of Human Life.
=.
Objectivism is the philosophy of rational individualism founded by Ayn Rand (1905-1982). In novels such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged , Rand dramatized her ideal man,
the producer who lives by his own effort
and does not give or receive the undeserved,
who honors achievement and rejects envy.
IS THIS NOT THE PREVAILING VIEW????
See Also: {AKA – neoliberalism}
The Flood of Refugees into Europe: “The New Slave Tradeâ€
By Peter Koenig
Global Research, November 08, 2015
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-flood-of-refugees-into-europe-the-new-slave-trade/5487345
Is this a p.6 type of
commentary
as a brief “Timeout”?
For conjecture over
non-critical
news as “Controversy”?
The US Navy tested
a rocket
for “message in a bottle”
Our ‘Social Media’
published
trending narrative
Cone-shaped object
rivetted
above Los Angeles
In the Night Sky
capturing
public attention
Is this implant of
StarWars
for Christmas?
Or “premonition” of
missile attack
f/ China or Russia?
“mystery lights” as New and improved October Surprise
Upgraded to Bombs Bursting In Air Gave Proof in the Night
that many lives will be lost in “our Country tis of thee”
Being so Willing to sacrifice our lives waging Nuclear War
Is manufacturing of consent in Auction of Human Life.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-mystery-lights-20151110-story.html
…and here
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-secrecy-missile-launch-la-20151109-story.html
A benefit of celebrating Christmas in Spring or Fall would be no more holiday travel in the dead of winter, with attendant worries over cancellations due to snow or ice storms.
I marvel at how somehow someway Starbucks brings attention to itself and of course to its coffee. How many books of fiction have you read where the coffee selected by the hero is Starbucks. Funny how that happens. Eduard Bernays would have a chuckle, probably whispering to himself “Gotcha, Nate.”
So are you saying, then, that you think that the people at Starbucks responsible for the new design of the cups knew in advance that the Religious Right would raise a stink over this particular design as part of their phony war on Christmas (or thought it was very likely)?
And that they thus deliberately implemented that design just so the Religious Right would raise a stink, and Starbucks would get favorable publicity for pissing off the Religious Right?
On second thought maybe you might have a point. Perhaps Joshua Feuerstein was being paid by Starbucks to post his obnoxious video to bring favorable publicity to Starbucks (i.e. being attacked by somebody obnoxious).
Is there evidence?
Looking at the video again it does seem that Joshua Feuerstein might very well be putting on an act, a performance.
And if so, for whom?