A worthy meditation on the things for which we ought to be thankful. The things we take for granted in a liberal society are often the things we forget or even sacrifice for lesser goods.
The Pilgrim feast was a one off event. The "First Thanksgiving" was perhaps the high point of Anglo/Native American relations because within three decades the colonists were mounting a full scale war on the Native Americans to protect and expand their "God given right to property."
I am not sure that Thanksgiving celebrates much more than a four day holiday, convenient for family travel and gatherings, and a bookend of the capitalist fantasy that ends with atheist Ayn Rand's favorite holiday--- Christmas. A month of irrational overindulgence and for many further enslavement to the their overlords of debt.
I am totally bi-polar: Hobbesian at one extreme and Lockean at the other. Spinoza is my lithium.
May the holidays bring us what we need and not what we deserve!
Maybe a little idealistic. The Pilgrims were only a small portion of the Puritans and others who arrived, in the "promised land," all sponsored by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a private enterprise that expected and would tolerate nothing less than rich returns on their investment. Success in the adventure, promoted by their own Oct. 7 attack upon them, decimated the Native American tribes who helped the colonists to survive, and set the stage for the genocide of all other Native Americans. The Puritans and their actions closely resemble the modern day Zionists.
It is amusing that the trope of the Pilgrims travelled to America to escape (religious) persecution.
In fact they left England and went to the Netherlands because they were not allowed to persecute those who did not believe as they did. They then left the Netherlands because they feared their children were becoming too liberal in their views and behaviour.
The original thanksgiving was, in fact, a celebration of an escape from a world the Pilgrims considered too liberal.
Current events appear to demonstrate that the current US political scene is a reversion to the original Pilgrim attitudes.
A worthy meditation on the things for which we ought to be thankful. The things we take for granted in a liberal society are often the things we forget or even sacrifice for lesser goods.
The Pilgrim feast was a one off event. The "First Thanksgiving" was perhaps the high point of Anglo/Native American relations because within three decades the colonists were mounting a full scale war on the Native Americans to protect and expand their "God given right to property."
I am not sure that Thanksgiving celebrates much more than a four day holiday, convenient for family travel and gatherings, and a bookend of the capitalist fantasy that ends with atheist Ayn Rand's favorite holiday--- Christmas. A month of irrational overindulgence and for many further enslavement to the their overlords of debt.
I am totally bi-polar: Hobbesian at one extreme and Lockean at the other. Spinoza is my lithium.
May the holidays bring us what we need and not what we deserve!
Maybe a little idealistic. The Pilgrims were only a small portion of the Puritans and others who arrived, in the "promised land," all sponsored by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a private enterprise that expected and would tolerate nothing less than rich returns on their investment. Success in the adventure, promoted by their own Oct. 7 attack upon them, decimated the Native American tribes who helped the colonists to survive, and set the stage for the genocide of all other Native Americans. The Puritans and their actions closely resemble the modern day Zionists.
@Arthur Melzer
Thank you for this balanced essay.
Thank you for a thought-provoking piece.
Let us all strive today to make life less nasty, poor, brutish, and short for the less fortunate among us.
It is amusing that the trope of the Pilgrims travelled to America to escape (religious) persecution.
In fact they left England and went to the Netherlands because they were not allowed to persecute those who did not believe as they did. They then left the Netherlands because they feared their children were becoming too liberal in their views and behaviour.
The original thanksgiving was, in fact, a celebration of an escape from a world the Pilgrims considered too liberal.
Current events appear to demonstrate that the current US political scene is a reversion to the original Pilgrim attitudes.
Thank you for an essay to be grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving!