It Could Happen Here - Andrew’s Christmas Special Christmas Special Ft. Andrew

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

Andrew, Gare, and Mia debate the problematic nature of Santa Claus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast hello hello welcome to another episode of it could happen here with a twist um this is the holiday special um so you know buckle up you know santa might make an appearance um i just want to take a moment to discuss you know this whole idea um of christmas this practice this globally celebrated uh cultural festivity and um i guess some of the not to be stereotypically leftist but the issues i have with it um alongside um i think some of the uh best um and most

i think um hopeful elements within it i don't know about the rest of you. And by the way, I'm joined by Garrison and Christopher. I'm very excited. We get to finally talk about the issue that I've been wanting to talk about ever since we started the show.

How telling your kids that santa exists is actually child abuse this is very exciting i'm glad we can have this civil discussion to to to cover these these hard-hitting topics that are impacting us most in uh in 2022 i'm sure are you trying to say this is like a santa abolitionist or something yes i i i think the the fact that we condone lying to children in this way every christmas is i'm sorry but that's that's so politically unrealistic i don't know how you have a platform i can't i can't take that seriously um it teaches our kids not to trust us um it it start it is really an extension of the great man theory uh that santa this man, is the only one capable of delivering all these presents. I think it's quite…

Are you trying to say it's also a manifestation of patriarchy? That's right. It is quite problematic. You know those elves are not getting paid. You know that Santa has tried to bust unions at his workshop every year. I don't think those reindeer are treated very well um there is a whole a whole lot of issues here yeah it's a normalization of the surveillance state it that's right elf on the shelf classic yeah elf on the shelf came to rise after the

patriot act was introduced to condition american children into thinking it's okay to always be watched this is it's it's this is this is sick uh parents are culpable in promoting this myth um i think this needs to be addressed you know what i think you know i think i think you all need to be christmas billed i don't know about you but i love i love christmas i think um i think it's i think we need to take a christmas pill um you know of course the actual gift getting hasn't been the best you know especially once you get past a certain age it's like oh okay this is what it is then uh but you know the the unity and the joy and the excitement i mean what about that you know the color the food and the drink getting people together um catching up.

You know, it's celebrated in many different ways, religiously and non-religiously. And of course, it's not even celebrated at all in some places and with some people. And, you know, there are other religious observances and holidays around this time. You know, like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and whatever else. But, you know, I think a lot of us are most familiar with christmas and i think we're you know mostly familiar with the origins of christmas that's not the kind of episode we're getting into here um i think you know we all know about jesus and yule and saturnalia and all that fun stuff knows it about charles dickens and scrooge and

of course the um the diagram of um scrooge and cringe and you know whether or not those two concepts overlap but i want to look more to the sort of you know ideas of what Christmas is, what it means, and really how a lot of our society's issues come to the forefront around this time of year. The scourge of Scrooge is particularly apparent. For many, Christmas is basically capitalism on steroids, for one. And Santa helps to promote that from an early age as a propaganda tool of the capitalist as i'm sure that's right would um that's right thank you thank you andrew

great yeah great stuff well that's the episode everybody thanks for tuning in i hope you i hope you have a good holiday season oh wait i i think I think Andrew has more to say. Yeah, I think we're wrapping up a little bit early there. But we can talk about the fact that Santa really is a big fan of this ultimate, this GDP

growth sort of inducing, this pro-growthist, capitalist production for production's sake, consumption for production's sake, consumption for consumption's sake. Like the idea that Santa expects children to write and request something from him every single year, that he stakes an entire holiday upon his own business

and upon his own, you know, production. His whole industrial apparatus is centered around this one event um and i mean the sort of consumption we see around christmas season is like it ramps up you know online stores department stores malls just bursting with with people um looking to buy buy buy um all around the world in In America, at least 2019, so Americans spent over $1 trillion just on the Christmas season. I mean, it's just glorious excess, honestly. And of course, there's also the excessive,

you know, decorating and shopping and drinking and the issues that sort of arise with those things. And that sort of overindulgence is part of what's seriously harming the planet not to you know blame individuals and exclusively because you know obviously this sort of thing is encouraged by you know advertising and by entire industries that builds around around this this idea of consumerism but the holiday is basically, it's become this thing where the focal point

is to indulge, to splurge, to consume. And you see it in a lot of Christmas movies too. I mean, Christmas with the Kranks is one particularly iconic example. And with all this consumerism, it feels like we lose sight of the purpose of the gift-giving. I don't think we've lost our selfless

nature, but I think we've lost some of the heart within it. I think it's by design. Our natural tendency to care for the people in our lives is exploited. We're expected by the system to act super hyper-competitively in the spirit of capitalism, but now we have to be

super generous and caring around this time of year but just in a way that just so happens to profit countless anyways like yeah yeah be generous be caring and stuff buy this gift for you know your loved one and i will pocket the change and i don't think it has to be that way but the commercialization of what were once holy days is you know it tends to do that and of course with all these soup kitchens and canned food drives and red cross centers outside groceries pulling everything in for some donations um and by the way don't donate to red cross they're kind of problematic uh salvation army do. Do not donate to Salvation Army.

My bad. They both suck. I think I was confusing them. Red Cross just takes credit for anarchist projects in the relief of disasters and Salvation Army hates gay people. And also has shot anarchists.

A thing they don't talk about very much oh damn that should probably be an episode yeah there's another way of that uh but yeah yeah you know it's like all this stuff is happening and um it's like this sort of performance of, all of a sudden we care about, what's the name of that little kid from Christmas Carol? Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim, yeah.

All of a sudden we care about Tiny Tim. In a system that literally requires an impoverished base of people. You know, poverty is certainly this virtue that we look to help to amelioriorate we care for you know we we want to uplift the tiny tims we want to warm the hearts of the scrooge mcducks of the world rest of the year it's just like oh well you know this underclass is a petrol underclass needs to exist i think the extension of our tendency towards mutual aid throughout the year and across bonds of kin and non-kin alike is something that we should pursue. To prefigure a gift economy, not just around a particular season, but year-round, I think that is a worthwhile exercise to look into. but year-round. I think that is a worthwhile exercise to look into. And of course, I think, you know, ideally we would want to see, I guess, you could call this my Christmas wish,

a readjustment to this sort of consumption around this time of year, to one that is done with a sort of a degrowth mindset, that is cognizant of you know local conditions the one that seeks to reduce food miles localize the production consumption so that's i guess wish number one christmas wish number one let's um let's make a gift economy rather than a capitalist gift consumption day and of course i think our next christmas wish on this topic would be a wish for work abolition you know with all that consumption happening around this time of year it really does a number on the service and manufacturing and delivery and so on and so forth workers around the world you know work sucks in general but it extra sucks Around this time of year With sweatshop labor

With retail hell around this season It's really the opposite of peace on earth For a good chunk of the working class You could call it The season for overworking And it's not just for Gare's Token oppressed group

The elves There are other workers that are being exploited that we should probably be championing yeah we talked about this in uh a couple of the china episodes that i did but one of the big reasons for the the sort of huge like worker uprisings in china in the last few weeks was that basically a bunch of people got locked into a factory because Foxconn and Apple were trying to hit their Christmas production targets. And people started fighting the cops because they were like, this actually sucks.

I don't want to be stuck in here being lied to about how much I'm going to get paid so that these companies can have their christmas sales i mean yeah definitely i think it's completely fair to say that the worker elves are very mistreated um but with the exception i think of specifically the elf on the shelf elves i don't think those count as workers the other shelf elves are cops they only function as snitches for the surveillance state so yes the elf workers are are mistreated um and should unionize and and should should deserve way more support and possibly even the abolition of of work but the elf on the shelf elves are not workers i think that's a, that's an important distinction. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like that, that class street is more than anything. Exactly. Yeah. Very blatantly. So yeah. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

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on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast it really is you know the season for wolf awaken you know, the season for Wolf Awakened. You know, with all this. It's very interesting that that's really what triggered the protests in China. I mean, I would love to see celebrations and festivals of giving in any sort of anarchic society. But it isn't fair, nor is it right, that these festivities are built on the exploitation of others? I mean, what kind of celebration is it to be had when people are suffering in such a capacity to produce that sort of celebration?

And speaking of suffering, I think there are a lot of people who suffer through family around this time of year and I think some people actually appreciate having to work through the holidays because it means they don't have to deal with said family and I mean family is a big focus and the sort of culture of Christmas but you know unlike the greeting cards and the billboards and stuff not everyone's family is picture perfect and holidays often open a lot of wounds and heightened dread for a lot of people um good people continue to hit people um and a lot of toxicity and intoxication is brought under one roof um during christmas bigotry, abuse, that sort of thing. It's not a fun time for some people.

And so I think it's important in this season and in general to let go of this sort of patriarchal and restricting designation of family in favor of something that is more subject to choice, to agency, to consent, to more expanded forms of kinship, bringing people together who care for and enjoy and want to share each other's company, creating new traditions, to build new bonds of solidarity and care.

I think opportunities like these, seasons like these, enable us to demonstrate the veracity of the liberation that can be had in our projects. And I think it's something that a lot of people need around this season because mental health woes seem to worsen around this time of year. The often toxic culture of Christmas can be fairly bad for people's mental health you know with loneliness and depression and suicide and the struggle to care for your basic needs let alone enjoy the season it takes a big toll on people's well-being i know it's easy to say or just go to therapy and whatever um but with the inaccessibility of therapy and with the fact that, you know, therapy is not necessarily a salve for material conditions, there needs to be a social safety net in place.

There must be healing in community and not just in isolation. And so I think this season is another opportunity for us to reflect on that and to you know try to avail ourselves to those who um we fear might be suffering at this time and if you yourself are suffering and it's trying to reach out and sort of engage in that sort of mutual mutual aid and mutual support i think there's a lot that we can reframe and reconsider surrounding christmas i mean for a season of kindness and giving it unfortunately hurts a lot of people um but that can change you know through solidarity through generosity through kinship solidarity organizing the bottom up extension of the principle of mutuality into everyday life, redirecting our generosity around this time

from giving to the pockets of billionaires to giving to the people, to display our capacity for well-doing, to think locally, to think DIY, to think meaningful rather than to just, oh, add another thing to the Amazon cart. And of course, not just physically giving gifts, but also being generous with our time and our love

and our care because we do need each other, not just in this time, but in general. I think Bread Santa had some entertaining suggestions for this season too. Bread Santa, of course, being Peter Kropotkin, he figured that we should all pose as santa claus perhaps there as a subversion of what he represents as a capitalist but all pose as santa claus or as saint nicholas and to infiltrate the stores and give away the toys um and one postcard, Kropotkin wrote,

that on the night before Christmas, we'll all be about. While the people are sleeping, we'll realize our clout. We'll expropriate goods from the stores because that's fair and distribute them widely to those who need care. So yeah.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all and to all a good fight for freedom. You can of course find me on YouTube at Andrew Azam on twitter.com slash and underscore St. Drew. And if you want, you can support me on patreon.com slash St. Drew. That's it for me for this year. It could happen here. See you all next year. Great.

Destroyist icon Santa Claus. Merry Christmas. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow Brass. Thanks for listening. terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app,

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