My brother Terry was the one who spilled the beans to me when I was a youngster: there is no Santa Claus. He proved it to me by taking me around the house, before Christmas Day, and showing me where Santa (i.e. my parents) had stashed the gifts before the Big Day.
Yeah, he was an asshole, but what do you expect from the oldest child of four who like to lord over his fiefdom. He was bigger, stronger, and smarter than us… was the constant message from The Boss. (Happily, we all got over this and, seventy years later, we all love the guy.)
The question is: Why the Santa Claus myth in the first place? Why should a make-believe guy get the credit for delivering toys and goodies (paid for by the loving parents) to children? Wouldn’t the parent-child bond be stronger if the child appreciated the parents’ love? Why confuse things with a mystery? How does a young one properly thank Santa Claus for his generosity?
What kind of lesson is being taught? Sooner or later, the child learns that Santa Claus is a lie and that his parents are liars. Probably never again will that child absolutely trust his parents, which is a sad thing, as trust is hard-earned and precious.
Eventually, that child will also learn that the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are hoaxes, as well, perpetrated by their parents, who may try to gild the lily by insisting that they were only “white” lies (innocent, no-harm-intended, etc.)… not the “bad” kind.
What would Jesus say about this? He would probably quote the Ten Commandments on the subject: “Thou shalt not bear false witness” In other words, for Jews and Christians, untruthfulness is a sin, a bad thing whether it is white or black. Once one starts lying, where does one draw the line?
I’m not religious in any way so those moral rules allegedly passed down by God shouldn’t concern me. However, I think that honesty is, perhaps, the most valued attribute in a person: his loved ones can depend on him; his acquaintances can rely on his judgment; his business associates can trust him; and, his spouse will be comfortable in the knowledge that he will be faithful, “forsaking all others”.
Honesty seems to be a lost art in today’s society along with the concept of personal honor (valor, chivalry, honesty and compassion). It used to be said that reputation was one’s most valuable asset. That appears to have been replaced by “expediency”, which is defined as doing something that is convenient despite being improper or immoral. As those villainous socialists/communists once said, “The end justifies the means”.
Nowadays, expediency seems to be the guiding principle in business, politics, and everyday life. Intellectual theft in industry, disinformation in politics, and slander in social media are happening every second all around us… we are saturated with lies to the point that we think that everyone is lying about everything. That’s what drives the “conspiracy” nut jobs.
Ex-President Trump famously relied on lying to gain office, told fibs incessantly while in office, disparaged the news media for “fake news” (i.e. that which placed him in a bad light), told us not to worry about the coronavirus, fostered distrust in the electoral system, falsely claimed that the 2020 election was “stolen”, and then fanned the flames of insurrection by claiming that an enraged mob could reverse the election results by storming and vandalizing the Capitol.
Trump was a liar, everyone knew he was a liar, and, yet, a large percentage of the electorate was comfortable with his lying. How is this possible? Probably because, nowadays, all politicians are expected to be liars.
What a sad commentary on American society that is.
The latest poster child for dishonorable politicians is newly-elected Congressman George Santos of New York. The public is just now learning (after the campaign, of course) that virtually everything about this guy is fake, including his name, business experience, educational experience, life experiences, family history, and even his sexuality. He is a total fake, like Santa Claus,the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Paul Bunyan, and the Piltdown Man. One would think that his political party (Republican) would be totally ashamed of this phony but, no, he has been welcomed into the Republican congressional caucus with open arms. He represents a vote, after all, as the means justify the ends in Washington D.C.
There is no shame left in American politics.
This reality is showcased by the recent onslaught against “wokeness” by G.O.P. politicians, particularly in the South, and most specifically as practiced by Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida.
“Woke” is an African-American term which reflects personal awareness of social inequity in the United States. The fact that many Americans are discriminated against in their communities and by the criminal justice system cannot be argued. It is the ugly underbelly of “The Greatest Nation on Earth”.
The “anti-woke” faction of hard-line conservative Republicans don’t want to acknowledge this problem, don’t want individuals and businesses to recognize and act upon it, and want to penalize teachers for airing the subject in classrooms. They want to pretend, and they want American citizens to pretend, that there is no problem, hence no need to solve the problem.
Join with us, they demand, in lying about our history and our society, so we can get back to business as usual.
As philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who can’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” DeSantis and his like-minded Southern mob would prefer that all Americans scrub from their memory the shameful institution of slavery, the Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klan lynchings, racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement of Black voters (which continues to this day). Almost weekly, news reports describe efforts by Republican politicians to devise obstacles to Blacks voting in local elections.
“If we don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist” is the anti-woke philosophy.
This political concept appears to be applicable to religion (don’t acknowledge that the Nation is becoming less and less Christian), abortion (don’t acknowledge the need), gun violence (don’t acknowledge that gun availability prompts gun usage), and police brutality (“it’s a myth”).
The anti-woke campaign is not dissimilar to the Lost Cause propaganda campaign after the Civil War, where Southern die-hards cleverly flooded the Nation with propaganda about the cause of the war and the nobility of the traitors who fought against the Union. “Forget what you know… this is the real truth!” was the mantra. It worked: the ex-slaves were vilified, Jim Crow laws and redlining became acceptable, and Confederate generals had statues placed in public squares and military bases named in their honor.
We wonder now how this ever happened, how we came to glorify the oppressors and demonize their victims.
There is no mystery why Republican politicians like Governors DeSantis of Florida and Abbott of Texas are pushing the anti-woke narrative: they cannot seek the G.O.P. presidential nomination unless they can capture the Trump vote. Thus, they need to “out-Trump” the ex-President, coming up with radical ideas and publicity stunts (like flying illegal immigrants to New York) that can capture the imagination of hard-line conservative voters.
The problem that they have is that the majority of American voters are not Republican and they are “woke” to varying degrees on a variety of subjects, the same ones tha.t the G.O.P. doesn’t want people talking about.
The next couple of years are going to be entertaining, for sure, as the circus act in Washington D.C. goes into high gear, with all manner of committees studying all manner of non-problems to distract voters from the fact that these elected officials are not doing anything productive.
In this Land of Make Believe, the most valuable currency is the ability to tell a good lie and distract constituents from the real issues in their districts and States. The last thing that these charlatans want is for their audience to “wake up and smell the coffee”.
