John DePetro is spreading holiday lies again this year.
Yesterday he falsely claimed a “flash mob” he organized last year did not interrupt the Children’s Choir when they began singing “O’ Christmas Tree” to drown out the kids who were singing “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas.”
Video, taken at the scene, proves otherwise.
Also keep in mind that DePetro is accused of propositioning a co-worker who later sued him for sexual harassment on the way to this rally to defend Christmas.
DePetro also maintains that Gov. Carcieri always maintained it to be a Christmas Tree, which is another distortion of reality. Politifact covered this already. DePetro, even after the Poltifact story, went on Fox News and repeated the falsehood. This morning, the Providence Journal even runs a picture of a holiday ornament Carcieri had made that does not use the word Christmas.
It’s okay for WPRO to broadcast his unpopular and often disturbing opinions if they feel that is in the best interest of their business. It is not okay for the federally-licensed radio station to sanction obvious lies over the public airwaves.
Meanwhile, his national counterpart Bill O’Reilly is now on the holiday tree beat too. Last night, he too was misrepresenting the situation in Rhode Island.
What’s happening here is we have a governor who is trying to be inclusive, and DePetro and O’Reilly don’t like that.
Roger Williams went through a great deal of trouble to make sure religion was not part of the government of RI. This country is not a theocracy. I think that having the tree, and calling it a holiday tree is fine. People who need to spread hate and lies in the name of Jesus, or any other deity, is just an a**h***. It is just a shame that this is spread by the media in the name of profit. He should be fired and his followers should be ashamed of themselves.
Calling it a Holiday Tree at the State House and then a Christmas Tree at home is just dumb. Just don’t put it up next year and we won’t have to suffer through this battle of reality versus political correctness. Dump the ‘holiday candles’ lighting too.
I respectfully disagree. That is exactly what should happen – call a public display on government property erected and maintained by public funds a generic Holiday Tree, and call whatever display you erect at home with your own money whatever you want to call it. Religion is a personal matter, not a public issue and certainly not one into which any government should intrude.
Watchemoket
I think you’re missing my point. Just as is a rose, a Christmas Tree by any other name is still a Christmas Tree. If it offends the masses then remove the tree. I don’t care if the tree is there or not but this game of charades is silly. I don’t understand how changing the name matters. Doesn’t it insult the intelligence? Was Vietnam a war or a police action? I’m no Depetro fan but he and the Governor share the blame for this fiasco. Call it what is or get rid of it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree is a good read on the origins and traditions of the tree. One interesting nugget – the first tree in the Vatican wasn’t put up until 1982.
The most important thing to me in response to is can it be anything but a Christmas tree is this: when Europeans pagans converted to Christianity they brought the tradition of the tree from their Scandinavian traditions.
Anyway, I like the tree, froma traditionalist standpoint, and have no trouble with the Gov calling it a “Holiday Tree” in the interest of inclusion, he is not stopping anyone else from calling it what they like (also pretty inclusive btw).
What’s funny is that this is clearly a case of the religious rights’ call for political correctness. Recall that the term means “the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult certain groups of people.”
Is that not exactly what the angry right is suggesting, that politicians avoid the use of language like “happy holidays” or risk offending the fringe? The left may have concerns regarding seperation of church and state, but I’ve never heard anyone claim to be offended by the word “Christmas.”
Cultural civil war is obnoxious.
But still not as bad as the other kind.
I watched, before it was too late to stop myself, a man pull
a ragdoll dead little child out of the rubble of a proxy war in Syria.
Spain. Guernica.
Wars of energy, hot money, wiseguys,
very little honor.
and children from Central Falls, West Warwick, Pawtucket, and Cranston, who come home to..what??
Hatred, division, civil schism, weakness,
ultimate takeover of our freedoms
from the outside. In a trickle or a tidal wave.
Couldn’t happen? Already did, to a shocking extent.
*****
Come on, Caretakers, the time is here.
The time is now.
Heal the republic.
Heal your state.
Heal your town.
Heal yourself.
No World War III.
No terrible lack of imagination.
Hold on to your need to orient yourself
in the sun and the blue and the green.
Push back in the cultural civil
in a way that will
preserve your innocence, your conscience, your honor,
and your desire to be of use.