For this post I had no message, and no agenda. I just thought it was funny.

December 26, 2006 12:21 AM

So This Is (a Conservative) Christmas via the nobody'd-mistake-him-for-a-liberal Glenn Beck. Breaking news: Groups Turn Profit Defending Christmas. And the almost-50-years-young rebuttal to anyone who believes that the spiritual holiday of Christmas is cheapened by commercial entities that do NOT specifically invoke the name: Stan Freberg's Green Chri$tma$
posted by wendell (32 comments total)

Yeah, I know. This will not wendell.
posted by wendell at 12:22 AM on December 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

Does this count as eponysterical? It's more like gendraciously, but wendell is close.
posted by allen.spaulding at 12:32 AM on December 26, 2006

Oh wait, I thought this was the same Dan Riehl post. I get my nutsos confused. Ignore me.
posted by allen.spaulding at 12:34 AM on December 26, 2006

this post is much better, as there is no forced rhyme
and the one that was yanked made me want to drop dime
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 12:42 AM on December 26, 2006

Just for the record, I am not grinding an axe. I am merely beating my plowshare into a sword.
posted by wendell at 12:55 AM on December 26, 2006

From Glenn Beck's home page - a most hateful read. I can't believe CNN gives this guy a podium, especially after this. John Lennon is spinning in his grave.

From the first link:

So This Is (a Conservative) Christmas

So this is Christmas
Conservatives cry
Cause children are happy
And we want them to die

War mongering Christmas
We all had some fun
Bombing all the A-rabs
And starving their young

Conservative Christmas
Drive my SUV
Right over the homeless
Speed bump them with glee

Conservative Christmas
What a happy day
‘Cause we just stole 4 million
From your 401k’s

An intolerant Christmas
On the colored we spit
And beat them for crimes that
They did not commit

Conservative Christmas
Have a happy new year
Unless you’re a red man
Black, yellow or queer

There’s a new Christmas anthem
On this holiday
For all those who hate us
No matter what we say

A Conservative Christmas
Have a great holiday
Unless of course you’re a liberal
Or a conservative gay

A Conservative Christmas
And a write off next year
Pray for a bull market
And go kill a deer

We’re war mongers
Love no longer
White race stronger
Blah Blah Blah Blahhhhh
posted by wsg at 1:05 AM on December 26, 2006

Can we start ignoring these people and their "Hurrrrr hurrr let me rile up dem darn librulz!! Watch 'em flail, hurrrr!" stupidity?
posted by slater at 2:16 AM on December 26, 2006

I am tired of ignoring hate mongers who make money spewing hate and fostering divisiveness. Better that people who are sick of stuff like this stop ignoring it and start calling cnn and advertisers to say this divisive garbage should not be given a forum on anything purporting to be a responsible news station.
posted by madamjujujive at 2:58 AM on December 26, 2006

> I am tired of ignoring hate mongers who make money spewing hate and fostering divisiveness.

1. What's wrong with tribal spacing mechanisms? All the other kinds of monkeys do it, you don't believe in Darwin?

2. What exactly have you done to become more like the sort of sinners you hate, in the interest of understanding them and coming to love them? Anything at all? Or are you maintaining your apartheid purity and separateness from those nasties? You'll have to give that up, you know, if you really oppose divisiveness and it isn't, as I think, just self-congratulatory talk.
posted by jfuller at 4:13 AM on December 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

The evil-eye ego image at page top of the first link is sooo Colbert.
posted by crispynubbins at 4:39 AM on December 26, 2006

No, wait. The eye coupled with the microphone is less Colbert and more Borg. This guy is creepy.
posted by crispynubbins at 4:41 AM on December 26, 2006

Wait a minute...are the lyrics wsg posted the real lyrics? (sorry...I just can't bring myself to add any traffic hits to Beck's website...I think the guy is utter slime)
If they are, they seem to hit me as more satire of conservative values, rather than a pro-conservative tune.
Sort of a "This is what you guys have come to stand for" rant.

I mean...I could see them doing these same lyrics on SNL and getting big laughs.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:25 AM on December 26, 2006

I still can never tell if Glenn Beck is serious, or if he is just some kind of elaborate troll.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 5:48 AM on December 26, 2006

obviously a lot of people got a sledgehammer for christmas and now they're seeing everything around them as a pile of rocks
posted by pyramid termite at 5:55 AM on December 26, 2006

Thorzdad, I don't see how you could read that any other way. It's gotta be parody. I mean, how much more obvious can you get?

This is 'ha ha ha, look what the stupid lib'ruls think we do'. Even if they did such things, they'd never use such baldfaced language to describe it. It would be buried in spin, not out in the open.

Liberals actually falling for it will amuse that crowd very, very much.
posted by Malor at 5:59 AM on December 26, 2006

"start calling cnn and advertisers to say this divisive garbage..."

How about just... don't watch? Don't pay for cable. That's what I do, or rather... don't. I used to be an avid television watcher, but now it's just gathering dust. I use it to watch DVDs or to see what I want to see. FOX is supposedly conservative news and CNN is supposedly liberal. Before I left commercial television, I couldn't tell the difference. It's like Pepsi and Coke. If there is a difference? I can't taste it. Or maybe, Coke is tart Pepsi. Pepsi is syrupy Coke. Sometimes. You certainly can't tell by looking at them outside of the brightly colored "drink me or i'll hurt you" containers.

Both news channels are commercial. They want you to stay tuned in to watch the commercials, and everything is geared to keeping you glued to the set. As well they should. They need to make money. No harm in wanting to make money. No harm in me not contributing to how they make money. I just don't participate. I don't watch. It's called choice, and I'm down with it.

It's why I like MMORPGs. I get to make up my own stories and entertain myself on my time. On my dime. No commercial interruptions... unless you're not paying for Anarchy Online. God, that was annoying.

"I mean...I could see them doing these same lyrics on SNL and getting big laughs."

Is that before or after Bill Murray left? Cuz... damn! SNL hasn't been remotely funny since it turned into The Murphy and Piscopo Show, and that kinda laughter wasn't really the good kinda laughing.
posted by ZachsMind at 6:05 AM on December 26, 2006

Green Christmas was staged as a musical drama by WGBH in Boston, and broadcast for several years at Xmas. That ended some years ago, about the time that PBS started running all those commercials sponsor messages.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:25 AM on December 26, 2006

I saw a clip on FOX the other day in which Bill O'Riley--who has prospered by getting people to despise each other about Christmas---was strutting about in the Green Zone in Iraq, being photographed while handing out to soldiers his latest book against the "sec-progs."

At the end of the clip, O'Riley was led to the grand dome at the center of the Baghdad palace now occupied by the American military leadership in Iraq. In the enormous marble-paved central atrium the Americans had set up a huge Christmas tree. O'Riley was led to a long folding table in front of the tree, where he took his seat in order to began handing out and autographing copies of his book about the rise of the Anti-God, anti-Bush, anti-Christmas sec-progs. With the tree rising behind him, he smiled and uncapped his pen.
posted by washburn at 7:51 AM on December 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

I wasn't familiar with Beck, so I took it as a straight parody. I guess I need to add a pinch of jackassery to that impression.

However, that second link was already familiar to me. And it makes me roll my eyes in exasperated disgust. So goodie for the religious warmongers who have found a way to make money by promoting War-- so very American!

I think it is a bit more important to judge businesses on their deeds-- not their words. WalMart may be falling all over themselves to bombard their shoppers with "Merry Christmas" but that is meaningless when you note that the profiteers are the Scroogiest McScrooges that ever screwged. Walton's heirs all make the top 10 list of Richest Americans yet their cheritable contributions are almost zero. Bravo! And as to the corporate treatment of workers...Bob Cratchit would have been shocked.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:20 AM on December 26, 2006

So it's a preemptive parody of what Librul parody would be? If so, that's a Rosemary-Woods-Stretch of hyperbole.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:59 AM on December 26, 2006

It's always interesting to see what people think other people think about them.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:01 AM on December 26, 2006

For those who missed it, here's the story of Freeberg's own tenure in advertising, including his parody of the Lark cigarette ads.
posted by Smart Dalek at 10:31 AM on December 26, 2006

What would Mithras do?
posted by wobh at 10:49 AM on December 26, 2006

I guess I wasn't that familiar with Glenn Beck before reading this - I instantly assumed he was a liberal with a childish sense of humor.

"But that... that's what Conservatives do..."
posted by Baby_Balrog at 1:02 PM on December 26, 2006

Maybe Yoko will sue his ass for copyright infringement. That'd be great.
posted by wsg at 1:24 PM on December 26, 2006

Are you people kidding? I have no idea who this Beck guy is (amen, ZachsMind), but those lyrics are obviously a parody.

If you think that song is in earnest, it's time to close your computer and talk to some actual people.
posted by roll truck roll at 4:04 PM on December 26, 2006

Sure, it's obviously pre-emptive parody to us. But how long before this makes the anonymously attributed forwarded-email rounds as a prime example of nasty liberal humor and Snopes has to step in to prove otherwise? I wouldn't be surprised to see this crap in my inbox any day now.
posted by dgbellak at 5:07 PM on December 26, 2006

Oh he's serious. Watch the show. It's not the reverse-Colbert you want to believe it is.
posted by First Post at 5:48 PM on December 26, 2006

This song supposedly "lampoons liberal ideas about conservatives by literally using the absurd to illustrate the absurd, with hilarious results."

But coming from the guy that asked the first-ever Muslim congressman to "...prove to me that you are not working with our enemies" or thought that the Apocalypse would begin on August 22, you really can't tell if he's being serious or not.

CNN, I know you're trying to shed that liberal media shroud but couldn't you have found a conservative commentator that isn't a total nutbar? Between this guy and Nancy Grace CNN's Headline News Channel is plum full of crazy.
posted by Tenuki at 7:10 PM on December 26, 2006

For anyone who is offended that cashiers say "Happy Holidays" and not "Merry Christmas" - for one, some of us are filthy Jews. For two, you're lucky that we're saying anything happy at all and not "For the love of fuck get out of here as fast as humanly possible and please, please, SHUT UP."
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:02 PM on December 26, 2006

You are lucky, grapefruitmoon, that you don't live in the Bible Belt where people take this shit seriously. Today the Raleigh paper had 4 letters to the editor whining about the lack of "Merry Christmas" in the newspaper and in advertisements.

One letter writer was:

offended that it (the word Christmas) was part of a headline about, of all things, trash! ["Don't trash it: What to do with Christmas remnants"]. Is that what you think of the day?

posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:12 AM on December 27, 2006

CNN, I know you're trying to shed that liberal media shroud but couldn't you have found a conservative commentator that isn't a total nutbar?

There's this guy, but he's not neocon enough, and he doesn't really do soundbites. I disagreed with him a lot, but Firing Line was one of the better shows out there -- way better than today's typical shouting matches-- and it was good to be able to point to it when the neocons started saying snarky things about public TV.
posted by pax digita at 10:02 AM on December 27, 2006