Sunday, December 11, 2005

Chieftain, My Chieftain III

Scrouge is getting upset.

Seems that some people have been boycotting some businesses of late. And Steve Henson, editor of the Pueblo Chieftain, thinks this is ‘unchristian’ of them….

The holiday spirit often is elusive during the holiday season.

Thoroughly wrong. And right off the get-go, too. First off, it’s not the ‘holiday’ spirit. And, after this comment you don’t mention the ‘holiday’ much, you focus on it as it is supposed to be. It’s the C-word, “Christmas”.

You may have read an article in Thursday’s Chieftain, dateline New York City, about numerous advocacy groups that are urging boycotts of various retailers.

Yes. I noticed that. And I was pleased to see it. Why? Well, because I’ve been boycotting Target since last year when they kicked the Salvation Army’s bell-ringers off their lot as a form of political correctness.

So this year they tried to take the logical next step, eh? I hadn’t noticed. As I had been spending my money elsewhere.

Why? Was it discovered that a retailer has a sweatshop hidden away in Hell’s Kitchen where thousands of illegal immigrants toil to make fake stuffed deer heads that sing “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”?

Or was it discovered that a retailer is forcing employees to falsely claim they are members of “F Troop’s” Heckawi American Indian tribe (as in, Where the heck . . .?) in order to keep the diversity police away?

So much stuff[ing]. Another straw man. Just another scare crow to put the scear [Note: The term comes from Confederate Cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest.] into people. And not worth the powder and shot to blow it away with.

No, nothing so dramatic. In fact, the advocacy groups are upset about what retailers are not doing. Specifically, they’re upset that the retailers are not doing enough to promote Christmas.

Not ‘enough Christmas’? I thought they had almost completely dropped it.

Oh. I get it. “Not enough” would, if you were an ‘attorney’ qualify as technically accurate, in a court of law. The term could be used interchangeably with “eliminating”as in ‘not enough’ sugar in the lemonade. If one put in a granule of sugar against a pound of lemons, there would be ‘some’ in there. Still and all, if it leaves a sour taste in your mouth, are you going to buy it?

Several groups are upset that some retailers such as Sears and Target have insufficiently used the word “Christmas” in ads and store signs.

Just ads and store signs? What about displays in the store? I have not been in a Sears store in several months. Not in a Target for over a year. I can’t speak to what they were doing in-house, but not having any reason to doubt the reports, I generally take people/organizations at face value until I have proof that they are ‘inaccurate’. And, considering the availability of information on the web, it’s getting easier every day to determine what is going on.

“When you take away ‘Christmas’ and replace it with a generic term like ‘holiday,’ you take away the very essence of what is being celebrated,” said the Mississippi-based American Family Association.

Hey! Didn’t you just do that? (See above).

OK. Point taken. There’s no denying that we’ve gone overboard being politically correct. If someone’s offended because they’re exposed to a “Merry Christmas” card, greeting, store sign or salutation, they might be a bit too thin-skinned.

Oh. And you agree with their point. And yet you seem to be chiding them about having a valid point.

Of course, if someone deliberately says “Merry Christmas” to infuriate a nonbeliever, that’s a different issue. But it’s unlikely that Target, Sears, for example, are attempting to alienate potential customers.

I greet people with the term “Merry Christmas” because I am bestowing a blessing upon them. Pardon me. It’s my Christian ethic. Something to do with blessing people instead of cursing them. However, as that old wag described it, about 2000 years ago, if you bless those who curse you, they’ll only hate you worse.

Granted, these boycotts will cause little harm to giant retailers. But suppose they were effective? Who ultimately would be hurt?

The victims would be the single mom making eight bucks an hour while watching misbehaved kids wipe out a clothing display that took her three days to prepare. It would hurt the retiree who’s bundled up in the cold, earning seven bucks an hour collecting carts that thoughtless shoppers have left stranded throughout the parking lot, just waiting to catch a slight breeze so they can roll into and dent a nearby car.

There’s an interesting thought, or two, in there.

First off, if such boycotts are so ineffective against large retailers, e.g., Sears Roebuck and Company and Target, how is it that both firms have publicly announced a change in their stance? Seems to me that someone doesn’t quite get the reality of the situation here.

Next, who is hurt? People tend to hurt themselves, Steve. If you work for a soulless organization you work there of your choice and you have no one to blame but yourself. And, as some English magistrate put it in a ruling back in the 17th Century when he wrote…

“They [corporations] cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.” — Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of England, 1628

All corporations are soulless.

The point being is that if you work for the devil, you’ll be like the devil, one way or another. But, hey! It’s a free country. You can work for whomever you please. It all depends upon your ethics. You want to work for an organization that hates what you cherish, that’s your prerogative. And you’re welcome to the consequences thereof.

If I were someone working for such an organization, I’d start looking for a new job. It’s not like you’re a galley slave.

Heck. I did it myself, two years ago. I quit working for a Fortune 500 corporation because what I saw them doing was egregious and vile. So I gave two weeks notice. And I’ve never looked back.
You’re reminding me of the Clinton administration’s Secretary of Labor Reich, and all of his fear mongering of how people were supposed to be afraid of the economy and of losing their jobs. Be good. Be quiet. Obey your bosses. Stay where you are. Be afraid.

Please don’t tell me you’re a graduate of the Goebbels’ School of Journalism…..

How does it promote the Christmas spirit to engage in a campaign that ultimately would most hurt those struggling to make ends meet?

‘Ultimately’? There’s a word for you. And where do you decide what is the ‘ultimate’ result?

I guess the boycott of South Africa for it’s apartheid policies was wrong. I guess the boycotts of racist stores in the deep south of the 1960s were wrong. Why? Well, because the poor blacks who worked in said stores were ‘hurt’.

It infuriates me to read about such groups who believe they have a lock on what’s right and wrong, then urge punitive action against anyone who would dare disagree with them.

I guess we’ll have to ask the NAACP or maybe the Black Muslims to come give you a lesson in the utility of boycotts.

Where’s the Christmas spirit in that thinking? If Jesus Christ stood for one thing, it was his insistence that we have no right to judge, that we are to love and to forgive.

Yes. Where is the Christian ethic in this? I guess the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was completely out of line and, in death, has received his just reward for thinking of the greater good over the lesser.

On the other hand, I look forward to hearing the Chieftain decry the efforts to boycott anything that has anything to do with Israel; products, investment opportunities, etc., etc., etc. Especially the university instigated boycotts of that country.

On the third hand, if the Chieftain says nothing, then I get the distinct impression that we’re talking about rampant political correctness here; decrying the Christian boycott of Target and Sears while supporting the boycott of racists or Jews.

Remember how we were taught to hate the sin and love the sinner? Today, it’s become hate the sin and the sinner - and display plenty of banners and T-shirts telling the world about how wonderful it is that you’re sharing your wisdom with them.

I love the sinner, Steve. That’s why I’m writing you about this matter. My love goes to the point that I’ll suffer the slings our outrageous fortune in order to help others learn.

And contrary to your claim, we still love you. That’s in spite of your comment at the D60 School Board Candidates panel, earlier this year, where you threatened to call in the police with their side-arms, if you thought people were being ‘inconsiderate’ in their comportment. I bit my electronic ‘tongue’ on that one, hoping it was a faux pas. However, in light of this diatribe, I regret my lack of courage then. I’ll try to be more courageous in the future.

It isn’t the duty of retailers to promote Christianity, or the holiday season for that matter. It’s their duty to make money, which leads to jobs and some sort of decent life for their employees.

Retailers can do what they want, as long as they aren’t taking government money to do it. It’s a free country. However, your one-sided approach to the exercise of the freedoms we enjoy here seems somewhat hypocritical. On the one hand you say people, i.e., retailers, can do what they want. On the other hand, i.e.,Christians, you say they shouldn’t.

Groups such as the American Family Association would be better served helping promote true Christian ideals. Rather than attack, they should strive to help.

Do what real Christians do this time of year - and year round. Gather food and clothes for the needy, donate money to worthy causes, be kind to other people.

Christians continue to do what Christ called them to do. That includes gathering food, clothing and other needful things for needy people.

We just don’t do it at Target and Sears.

Now, excuse me, I need to go to Sears and Target and do my part to offset the boycotts.

I was wondering about this. Do you, or someone you ‘care for’, own stock in those companies?

And one other thing. I’m not particularly impressed with the Chieftain putting an obvious editorial in the regular news section, as if it were a matter of fact and not of mere opinion. I seem to recall that some other major entity in the old ‘deadwood’ media got in some hot water of misplacing an editorial as if it were news like that earlier this year. One would think that others might get a clue from that experience.

No one is forcing the stores to say “merry Christmas,” but no one is forcing Christians to shop there, either. Out of love, Christians are informing the stores of the reason they are not shopping there so that the stores understand it is not because they have not stocked enough copies of the “Playboy” calendar, or whatever.

Furthermore, they are merely trying to keep the spirit truly and correctly identified as the “Christmas spirit”, not some generic let’s-include-everybody-and-the-birthday-of-the-horse-they-rode-in-on spirit. Other groups are praised for trying to maintain a positive identity and stores are quick to cater to them. Why not Christians?

Steve Henson is The Pueblo Chieftain’s managing editor. He can be reached at 544-0006, ext. 410; or online at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

If you don’t agree with Steve, I’d recommend you open a line of communication with him and express yourself. After all, over on Tell It to the Chieftain, they seem to want to hear from you. You can tell it to them yourself….

By mail: Send to Letters to the Editor, Pueblo Chieftain, P.O. Box 4040, Pueblo, CO 81003.

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