Deck the Halls with boughs of holly…

 And the rich certainly will this time round with another election in the bag and a government that they hope will give them five more years to carry on exploiting and oppressing working people at home and abroad.

We are, supposedly, celebrating the birth of the founder of Christianity – which for the rich largely consists of rocking around the Christmas tree snorting coke and drinking themselves silly for days on end. They’ll leave Jesus of Nazareth to the tame clergy who reserve their most pious platitudes for the supposed birthday of the ‘Prince of Peace’ in December.

In his Christmas message Archbishop Justin Welby speaks about his concern over the country’s direction, saying that tolerance for minority groups has decreased and homelessness has increased. The head of the Church of England says, quite rightly, that the state of vulnerable people has worsened over the last nine years. But what’s he done about it?

A few weeks ago Archbishop Welby went out of his way to endorse publicly the ludicrous anti-Corbyn rant from the Chief Rabbi, another Pharisee. Now he obliquely tells us to forgive the scandal-ridden Prince Andrew, saying that “everybody makes mistakes, everybody is human” and that the royal family are a “gift to this country”.

Forgiveness is a Christian virtue and Jesus of Nazareth told us to love our enemies. But the Nazarene also drove the money-changers out of the Temple and said “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” in acts that the Established Church would rather not dwell upon these days.

Meanwhile the Palestinian Arabs, the inhabitants of the “Holy Land” under brutal Israeli occupation or living a precarious existence in refugee camps throughout the Middle East, are largely forgotten by these apologists for Zionism in clerical garb.

These people will tell us this is the “season of goodwill”, but little of it will be shown to the poor and down-trodden by the powers that be that these pious charlatans support.

It’s not surprising that Jesus seldom gets mentioned, even by those who claim to worship him. The spirit of Christmas has long been reduced to exchanging gifts and cards, gluttony and drinking.

For some of us Christmas is, indeed, a welcome break from the drudgery of work. It’s a chance to put one’s feet up, eat and drink and enjoy the life the rich enjoy in their mansions every day of their worthless lives. For others, the homeless, unemployed and destitute victims of the capitalist crisis, it’s just another day of despair. The festive clichés of the politicians and the princes of the church are meaningless to them.

Their Christmas message is one of oppression, extortion and exploitation. Ours is for peace and socialism. Peace because only the oppressors and exploiters want war. Socialism because it is essential to eliminate exploitation, unemployment, poverty, economic crisis and war. Socialism will end this rotten system once and for all. Let’s get to work!