The Real Threat to Christmas That Fox News Is Blind to: The Religion of Shopping

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/real-threat-christmas-fox-news-blind-religion-shopping

Although fundamentalist fanatics have been working for decades to turn the United States into a “Christian nation,” they have not had much success along these lines.

One reason for their failure is that religious minorities and non-believers have resisted. And another is probably that a large number of Americans want to preserve religious tolerance and avoid theocracy. But it might also reflect the fact that the United States is now firmly in the grip of a different religion: shopping.

The frenzied participants were not starving, impoverished peasants or product-deprived refugees from communist nations but reasonably comfortable, middle-class Americans. Their desperation was not driven by hunger. They simply wanted … more!After all, in this “holiday season” the dominant activity does not seem to be traditional religious worship or prayer. The recently-concluded Black Friday provided the occasion not only for an orgy of consumer spending, but for ferocious action by screaming mobs of shoppers who engaged in mass riots in their desperate attempts to obtain a variety of products.

And now that the nation enters its Christmas shopping spree — conveniently begun in November, to allow plenty of time for the practice — there will undoubtedly be lots more commodity fetishism. The shopping malls are already alive with the Christmas music designed to encourage purchases, while visions of rising sales figures dance through the heads of happy store managers.

[Sherman A1]

1. Perhaps that is the true religion upon which their beliefs are based

Blessed are Discover, Visa & Master Card for they shall inherit the earth............

[ninjanurse]

2. don't risk the wrath of the sponsors

You'll never hear a word against materialism this season. I hate shopping, so I celebrate Solstice.

[DetlefK]

3. A joke I found in a comic:

A mad scientist to his colleague:
"I invented a machine that takes the commerce out of Christmas."
"Let's build more of those and sell them for a shit-ton of money!"

[customerserviceguy]

4. I dunno

I always seem to see plenty of coverage of that monstrosity known as Black Friday every year. This year, I even see the retailers adopting the term itself in their advertising, they didn't even acknowledge it by name a decade ago.

[SHRED]

5. toon:

[xchrom]

6. ...

[AgingAmerican]

7. Republican ideology has become a religious cult

where money has replaced god as the main object of adulation. They don't know where Jeebus ends and money worship begins, it's all the same thing to them.

[handmade34]

8. Rev Billy does it best

http://www.revbilly.com/chatter/blog/2012/28/the-shopture-is-underway

[relayerbob]

9. Blind to? They live for it. n/t

[Politicub]

10. The war on Christmas is Fox News' shark week

They arent blind to anying. Except opinion polls.

Fox produces fake news designed to keep their audience whipped into some kind of righteous frenzy. It doesn't matter how ridiculous the coverage is... fox viewers eat it up.

My neighbor watches Fox and he sounds like a raving lunatic. It truly creates it's own insular world, and the viewers have no clue how much they're being played.

[CrispyQ]

11. A cartoon from last Thanksgiving, after Occupy.