Thanksgiving Banned (?)

This another is a series of public service posts on holidays here in the United States. The first of these, Ban Halloween, sought to warn the public of the dangers on both sides of the problem to a bunch of costume wearing candy beggars. Today however, we take on a more serious issue, Thanksgiving.

Warning: Be aware that considerable irony and sarcasm will follow! 

Thanksgiving is the holiday traditionally celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. It commemorates three days of feasting by early colonists to this country who after nine weeks of voyaging from Plymouth, England ended up in Plymouth, Massachusetts (coincidence, I think not). Having barely survived their first winter in this new land, they chose to celebrate that following fall. It is, in fact a tradition never repeated by them after the original gathering in 1621. 


Of course basing a holiday on a celebration by old white people seems doomed on the face of it, especially when one considers the recent treatment of our Founding Fathers. Neither can I find any great need to celebrate the traditions of the same people who gave us the sham trials and witch burnings in Salem, MA only some 70 years later. If this were not enough, Thanksgiving was in fact considered a religious holiday, its original purpose allowing these colonists to thank GOD for bringing them through the previous winter. What's more, the religious nature of this celebration involved thanking only a Christian God; ignoring the practices of any other religion. 


How anyone can therefore consider having a national holiday with religious overtones that ignores the cultural and religious diversity that has become so dear to the ruling elite is simply beyond me? Consider if you will as well, that while neighboring Native Americans (the Waupanoag tribe) were the architects of this colony's survival and were invited to that original celebration; that these same Native Americans were, like most others in this country, later chased from their homes and the greater part of their lands by the very greedy colonists that they saved ... hardly something to commemorate with pride. 


If this typical treatment by a European, white, invading population were not enough to see this practice ended once and for all, consider if you will the treatment of Turkeys as the centerpiece of the menu on this so-called day of thanksgiving. Turkeys, for those of you who didn't know, were once very close to being the national symbol of the United States. They even found support in this effort by Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, the eagle being considered little more than a glorified vulture by this early patriot. While perhaps not the brightest of birds, the turkey nevertheless can offer a great display and a substance that it produces (tryptophan), induces the need to sleep in humans. (Come to think of it, turkeys seem a lot like politicians, don't they?) How then can any holiday be celebrated by the murder, butchering, and consumption of such a national icon (turkeys I mean, not politicians)? 


And they are not alone! Along with turkey, many families in this country will serve goose, duck, and even ham (another political reference?) at these celebratory meals. How can PETA stand idly by as thousands of our animal friends are disposed of (probably inhumanely) in the name of a holiday devoted to "thanks" in this country? Is this in fact how we choose to celebrate the bounty of Mother Nature? 


The only redeeming thing that this holiday may in fact offer is that it was created as a national holiday in 1863 by progressive political hero President Abraham Lincoln. Other than that, the only thing that it has going for it is its stimulation of a depressed airline industry as the largest travel holiday of the year, that it provides a platform for the non-stop watching of parades and football games on television (providing yet further opportunity for laziness and gluttony), and of course that it is followed by "Black Friday" the traditional opening day of Christmas consumerism. 


We must therefore ask ourselves; what in the end is the Thanksgiving holiday in this country about? It appears to this writer as nothing more than a celebration of racism, gluttony (not to mention obesity), and the murder of our fellow creatures on the planet. As such, it has no place in the caring, politically correct, and progressive society that we apparently long to become. And so I say to those of you choosing to celebrate tomorrow with family and friends, gathering around a table to once more give thanks in 2009 (a year that may have less reasons than many to do so):

"Save me one of those drumsticks, will ya?"

Happy Thanksgiving