Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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This is the Christmas season, a favorite time of year.
This, however, is not a Christmas column. There is little of good cheer within it and it is full of naughty people who don’t even pretend to be nice.
But, in the spirit of the holiday, I will try to find something hopeful, something to cling to, in a world seemingly gone nuts!
Since this is still a family newspaper, I will try to be respectful of what should be family values. And even though almost everybody — even those who claim never to use such words but every once in a while just can’t help themselves — has heard or said it before, I write today about the F-word.
I will try not to spell it out even though everyone knows what I am talking about.
We live in a society that has been ever-decreasing in its civility for quite some time, so much so that most people have come to expect very little in terms of respect and understanding from their neighbors and fellow citizens. Instead, they expect the worst and, unfortunately, are rarely disappointed.
Witness our “peaceful” protest marches that invariably call for the murder of the “other” and which support the beheading and burning of babies and raping of women — all in the name of peace and understanding! The truth is that those with the signs and the slogans, for the most part, haven’t a clue that they are also victims — of the unseen hands of those who manipulate through social media and maul the fabric of society in their own quest for chaos in what should be a civilized world.
But I digress. I was talking about two little words that have a big meaning —FU.
They have long ago become the universal language of the streets — and the cars that drive upon them. While Mom and Dad used to teach their children to “use their words,” they have taught by example succeeding generations that they only need to use one finger to express themselves. FU.
That action used to end with a return similar greeting from the other driver. Now it often results in some kind of bloodshed.
Those two words are no longer confined to critical expressions of driving ability. They now find themselves being used with regularity in matters of commerce as well as in much of our political expression. Where they used to be used sparingly and only for exceptional matters that needed rhetorical punch, they are now part of our everyday vocabulary and often precede an actual punch.
Two most recent examples of how low Americans have stooped in their public discourse come from icons (I use that word in its most negative expression) of business and politics.
In the political realm, as is always the case, private thoughts always find their way into the public mainstream courtesy of some very good news reporting.
This past week — not that we needed it confirmed but in today’s world ,where facts don’t exist because only opinion matters, we actually do need confirmation — it was revealed that the Donald Trump-Kevin McCarthy love affair is, well, more pedestrian than we were led to believe.
As in, the language of pedestrians is sprinkled liberally through their most private conversations.
I know it is hard to believe but when McCarthy repeatedly tells Trump to “FU” and then sprinkles him with joyful language once the TV cameras are turned on, he is acting. Making it up. Lying to the public for the sake of some perceived personal benefit that never ever gets reciprocated from the lord of the three-ring circus.
And, yet, the hits keep on coming. FU is their expression of choice it appears.
And take a look at the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. The multi-, multibillionaire of X née Twitter fame, when confronted with his own antisemitism and his outsized ability to give voice to every hater on the planet, doubles down and continues to encourage those who rape, pillage, burn and murder to have their way and their voice on his platform. And when his advertisers — the people and companies that support his business with their advertising dollars even though a man of his immense wealth couldn’t care less about their money — pull their support from his hatemongering mess of a social media platform, what does he say in return?
“F-em” is his response. That’s the plural of FU. When has anyone in their right mind (even a prolifically talented and creative mind like Musk’s) ever bit the hands that have been feeding their business in such a public way and with no regard for the consequences?
The simple truth is bullies don’t care, and billionaire bullies care even less.
But, I said earlier that there is some hope — maybe.
Just like alcoholics and drug addicts have to hit rock bottom before most of them realize that their only way out is to get with the program, so, too, do Americans have to hit the bottom of the barrel of public discourse before we realize the great and often irreparable harm we do to our democracy when the best and only response we can utter is FU.
When we understand that we have to use our words, our ability to reason, our common humanity in order to meet the great challenges of our day, that’s when we can start to get better as a nation.
Right now we are still in the single finger stage of our development. The good news is that our newest generation of Americans understands that ignoring the facts, cursing at the moon and each other, and yelling loud enough to drown out the truth is not a sustainable recipe for this democracy.
And that knowledge, that understanding, that hope for tomorrow makes this a Christmas column, after all.
And for those who want to continue to yell and hate and ignore the facts and live in an alternative universe — one detached from the reality in which most people have to live — I have just two words for you.
This is where I quote Kevin McCarthy and Elon Musk.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun
