EmeraldHope
The Living Force
I wrote a short article on Thanksgiving that I am going to Facebook. Thought I would share.
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As an American citizen, I have been giving much thought to the fast approaching Thanksgiving holiday. For the majority of my fellow Americans, this will be a day of feasting and watching football. Overstuffed on turkey, dressing, and an array of gluten and sugar laden delights, they will fall into a stupor and spend their long four day weekend in a state of opiate induced bliss.
If they happen to question what it is that they are indeed thankful for, most responses will fall into the same tired categories of family, job, friends, food, and drink. I ask that my fellow Americans go a little bit deeper. While the prior are indeed worthy of thankfulness, as a citizen of Empire, perhaps what one should be asking is, “Am I thankful that my bounty and standard of living comes at the price of much human suffering”?
This American holiday is loosely based on a feast held by the Pilgrims in 1621. They had fallen on hardships but survived with the help of Sqanto, a Wampanoag Indian. He taught them how to farm,fish the waters, and hunt the lands. There was a three day feast of Thanksgiving which followed a plentiful harvest that year. The Indians and the Pilgrims feasted together. American children are taught this story in elementary school. What they are not taught, however, is to see the irony that we as a culture then committed genocide on the Indians, which we still do to this day. We also failed to hold up any of our agreements or treaties with them in an honest manner. I wonder how the Indians view “Thanksgiving” here in America?
Perhaps what we should really be giving thanks for is that we were on the side of the aggressor and took the land from another people, after being shown kindness by same. We could be just as thankful that we are not Palestinians this season, being targeted by Israel for our land in a similar manner. Perhaps we can also be thankful that we are the aggressors into the other countries that we invade, so that our custom of “Thanksgiving” is not disturbed by war, death, strife, and assimilation by a foreign tyrant. We can also be thankful that we are the recipients of cheap goods gained from mass human rights violations, as we head into our Black Friday shopping frenzy. We can be thankful that we are not part of the world majority that lives on an average of two dollars per day. We must be really “special” to be able to be so thankful.
I cannot help but wonder how thankful the rest of the world will be when the same forces that raped, pillaged, and bombed them, turn their focus on us. One only has to open their eyes just a little to see that this has already happened, and the clock is ticking. Happy Thanksgiving.
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